Life or just existence E-Book

Wagner Eduard

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

You can see it however you want. Whether this is a fulfilled life or not is up to you as a reader. Of course I made a lot of mistakes, but I can't really blame other people for them, mostly just myself.

Leseprobe

Life or just existence

Foreword

You can look at it any way you want: Are these memoirs or is it just a sequence of events in my life? I would like to note that at the time when I experienced this, I was of the opinion that this was right. I hardly had any advice from relatives or friends as to whether this was right or not. But it was always a question whether I would have taken them into account. Of course, in the course of the following pages there are always places where I am on the edge of legality. But since these were some time ago and I personally stand by what I did or didn't do back then, I don't see any problems if these episodes arise. Whether this is a fulfilled or happy life is not up to me, but to the reader, but I will draw a summary of it in the end.

December 1959 Parents' home

At the end of 1959 I saw the light of day in Vienna, was there, but can hardly remember it. Came as the second-born, my brother was already 6 years old at the time in a Danube Swabian family. To explain my ancestry: My parents were expelled from today's Serbia by partisans at the end of the 2nd World War by force of arms and under threat to their lives. Since they belonged to the group of ethnic Germans (Danube Swabians), their mother tongue was also German, which means that they could also speak Serbo-Croatian. Their ancestors were settled by Prince Eugene in what was then Yugoslavia in order to strengthen the infrastructure there, which they also succeeded. In the turmoil of the 2nd World War, they were then driven out from both the north and south by partisans with the threat of their lives. Up to this point in time, they had achieved prosperity and prestige, where there was no hostility between Yugoslavs living there and the German-speaking population. My parents (12 and 12 years old) were welcomed. 14 years old) and their family in 1944 with the words: What are you doing there? Why do you speak German so well? Sneak home. It was just the reception of "foreigners" at that time. You can't imagine it today. Had a carefree childhood, at least until I was 10 years old. My father pursued his trade, which he had already learned in Serbia, and my mother was, as was still so common at that time, a housewife. As far as my parents' means allowed, I got everything that was possible, from toys to bicycles and the like. In the summer, I went to a guesthouse in southern Lower Austria for two to three weeks every year with my brother and my mother on a summer vacation. My father, since he had to work during the week for financial reasons, came to us on Friday with the moped and stayed until Sunday. It should be noted that he did not get his car driver's license until 1972. The reason for this was that he had already started selling newspapers and of course that was not so easy with a moped. At that time, I also met a family who lived near the guesthouse. There were two daughters in it, one was five years younger and the other one year older.

September 1966 Schule

Beginning of my school career. In elementary school, I was in an all-boys class. A graduate of the former Pädag introduced herself as a teacher. She was about 25 years old and a beautiful woman, as far as I could tell at that age. I can still remember an anecdote that shocked me quite a bit at the time. At the beginning of my school days, I came to my mother and told her the following: You, Mom, the teacher has painted her fingers bright red. How can you do something like that? The background was that teacher Ulrike had only painted her fingernails, which was not yet an everyday occurrence for me at that time. I think my mother turned to the side at the time and probably had to smile, then explained to me what it was all about. Well, I graduated from elementary school with quite passable grades except painting and drawing. But I also had respect for the "Mrs. Teacher", who punished offenses with "standing in the corner". The way to school, at that time everything was still on foot, was always a challenge, because there were always one, two or three schoolmates with whom you could wrestle around on the sidewalk.

September 1970 Gymnasium

After I kept dreaming of the dream job of "doctor" at this age and my elementary school report was corresponding, my parents enrolled me in high school in the neighboring district. In 1969, my father had returned his trade license for the repair of soda water bottles, because on the one hand it was no longer profitable and he subsequently turned to a new job, namely the sale of daily newspapers. That is, he sold the largest newspaper in our country as a colporteur in the evening until about 11 p.m. on a stand. Since this was halfway lucrative, my mother also began to sell newspapers in all weathers. This has saved them a lot of money over the years, and both of us, i.e. my brother and I, well-being have not been neglected. Well, now I was in the first grade of the humanistic grammar school. On Mondays there was always mathematics and English one after the other. Well, that went halfway for a while, but after some time I got sick and my parents wrote me a confirmation that I was sick. But since this paper was not taken from me by the teaching staff, I kept it. Now I became more and more disgusted with Monday with English and mathematics, so I had the idea to make one or the other Monday "blue" and not go to school. I then produced the confirmation that I was sick myself with the signature of my parents. Since it was mostly the same diseases and the signature was no longer the best, it came as it had to come. All of a sudden, my parents received a summons that they would like to come to school. Of course, they were asked about my missing days and the resulting grades and they were accordingly surprised or disappointed in me. The consequence of this was that I was condemned by school to a "Katzer" (4 hours of writing punishment alone at school). As far as I know, punishment of this kind no longer exists today. In the end, the school year finally ended with two fives. This means that I had to repeat the 1st grade, as it was still prescribed at that time.

September 1971 Internate

After this drastic event, the family council met in the form of my parents and my seventeen-year-old brother. First of all, it should be said that my father spent a few years in a German-speaking boarding school in Serbia during his school days. So it was discussed which school I should go to. Since at the age of 11 I had no idea or only limited what was in store for me, I had to accept the decision of the family council. But since I was Protestant from birth, my registration at Catholic boarding schools, such as Schulbrüder in Strebersdorf, was not accepted. This decision meant that I was sent to a boarding school in the 13th district, where a humanistic grammar school was also attached. I struggled with this decision on the part of my parents for a very long time, because I was more or less locked up there from Sunday evening to Saturday noon. If I had "committed" something during the week, there was of course no exit on the weekend. Fortunately, this was rarely the case in the 13th district. One thing was interesting in this house, because the head of this institution was the grandson of Adalbert Stifter (he had the same name). This director was an avid pipe smoker, where the smoke could be smelled throughout the building and increasing intensity, we knew that danger was imminent. I spent 3 years at the Himmelhof, which was the name of the boarding school there. After that, I moved to the boarding school of the same name in the 2nd district with the same educator Franz. There, however, the customs were the same as in the 13th district. This means that if there were misdemeanours on my part during the week, I was involuntarily allowed to spend the weekend writing punishment at the boarding school. Since the supervision there was not very great and of course I have also gotten older, there were often weekends at the boarding school. At that time, I also made the acquaintance of cigarettes at the age of 13, which then also brought me forced stays in the home. This friendship with nicotine has remained with me to this day. The whole thing went reasonably well until the 4th grade and then we got a Carinthian teacher in biology who had just finished her studies. She was of course a challenge for us students aged 14 – 15 in terms of puberty, because she was a pretty woman with a corresponding figure. So I let myself be carried away by a statement during the class, which earned me the worst grade in conduct. In addition, I also collected the worst grades in various subjects, so that I had to repeat the 4th grade. This had succeeded and so, since this was no longer taught in the house, I had to go to the neighboring district to the 5th grade of the humanistic grammar school. Since I still had the desire to become a doctor, I expected myself to learn ancient Greek, as I also liked the Latin language very much with quite passable grades. It was interesting at the time that I ended up in a mixed class for the first time, but only 6 girls and the rest were boys. In the first semester I still had some eagerness when it came to learning, but since I didn't like ancient Greek at all, the grades looked accordingly. Only this subject alone did not stop and so I would have had to repeat the class, but that was no longer possible at that time. So my parents, since I was now 17 years old, decided that I would start an apprenticeship. When I was about 16 years old, at that time still in boarding school, I was approached by Ernst, who was a son of a friend of my mother's, whether I would like to go dancing every Friday evening. Of course, this was a difficult undertaking at the boarding school, as such an exit from there was not necessarily the rule. In the end, I was finally allowed to go out on Friday from 6 to 10 p.m. The folk dancing took place in the home of the Danube Swabians in the 3rd district. When I first went there, I found about 30 young men and women, and I was one of the youngest. A native Danube Swabian introduced himself to me as the leader, who rehearsed the folk dances with us. But since I was a pronounced anti-talent when it came to dancing, this man also had his difficulties to teach me that. I can still remember an episode where the leader took my thigh in his hand because I didn't understand the sequence of an alternating step. This has probably not changed to this day. On these evenings we rehearsed folk dances with 8 to 10 couples, which we then performed in the ball season in January and February. Over time, a group of peers developed who went bowling twice a week in Vienna's Prater. That means training once a week and the championship on Friday. Since we had a sponsor, a shipping company, it was not too expensive for us. Around 1982, 7 men and women sailed with this company on a 10-man sailing ship from Split to Dubrovnik in the summer. Every day that week we headed for an island, took a break and then drove on. It was a wonderful experience