Something I just remembered happened...
After the war when Austria was occupied by the allies, my family had some British soldiers staying in their house. My grandmother asked one of the soldiers what he did before the war, and he replied that he was a painter. How lucky! They needed someone to paint the kitchen, which this chap was then hired to do. Of course even without the language difference, a word like "painter" has many subtly different meanings, and while my Oma expected a nice clean white, she instead got a full-length dragon mural, complete with flames. It being the forties, this was probably a mural of St George slaying the dragon, or something similar, but when my mum told me the story as a kid I always imagined an illustration from one of Martin's D&D books, complete with half-dressed barbarian lady. I still can't figure out why they didn't keep it. It was around that time that the Americans started sending food aid, which consisted entirely of powdered milk. At the time, every Austrian had a cow, and the ones who didn't had cows. An abundant supply of fresh milk was just about the only food they had (except for the Saint Barnard in the butcher shop window--ew ew ew!) and the well-intentioned American aid all went to white-washing houses. I wonder if it's difficult to whitewash over a dragon mural?
On a marginally related topic, apparently the amount of cheese in our diets is a huge concern because no one's ever eaten so much cheese before and scientists are unsure of what the effects might be. Clearly they never studied Austrians. I think it's safe to say that our cheese-saturated children will all have short legs, beer bellies, and suspiciously rosy cheeks.
I sure do love family stories. Someone tell me one of your family stories! Or convince me to tell you another of mine (or not). I have lots of good ones involving barefooted orphans warming feet in cow manure and harlot girlfriends throwing kettles of boiling water on priests. If only I could draw, they'd make a great series of picture books.
On a marginally related topic, apparently the amount of cheese in our diets is a huge concern because no one's ever eaten so much cheese before and scientists are unsure of what the effects might be. Clearly they never studied Austrians. I think it's safe to say that our cheese-saturated children will all have short legs, beer bellies, and suspiciously rosy cheeks.
I sure do love family stories. Someone tell me one of your family stories! Or convince me to tell you another of mine (or not). I have lots of good ones involving barefooted orphans warming feet in cow manure and harlot girlfriends throwing kettles of boiling water on priests. If only I could draw, they'd make a great series of picture books.