There is fly on my roast

I guess it is the title that got you, Ha! But I won't keep you in suspense, for long. It is Saturday and it follows another bad night that knocked the juice out of me. There is not much left to do anything useful with this day. I got up at four this morning and read. By about seven, I decided I should start the day. There was eggs and bacon and stewed tomatoes for breakfast and I even made a small pot of coffee, which I appear to have forsaken during the past weeks (?) since Kaarin left. Then I went back to reading. From Jane Austin I propagated to Agatha Christie. Her first book was a turn- down. 'Secret Adversary' is a kiddy tale about a couple of brash, but supposedly smart youngsters bringing a bunch of criminals to heel. Well, perhaps I am getting ossified by now and I don't like brash kids who think they are smarter than we are and eventually turn out to actually be just that. Knowing what we know, i. e. experience demands a bit of respect, and deserves it, does it not?
Well the next Agatha was the Mysterious affair of Styles and that is much better. My old friend Hercule Poirot is making his reappearance, though he is now apparently sidelined because of 'the war' and he is found in a small town in England. Somewhere near London, of course, but the only role London plays is to be the scene of the final trial and the main characters 'taking a house there' a la Jane Austin's nobility and Mr. Poirot finally cornering the real culprit whose identity surprises everybody. Nice plot, nicely told.
But I am stingy: when it comes to electronic books, I don't want to pay a penny and right off the bat I have no line on more Agatha. So my next one is F. Dostoyevsky, The Grand Inquisitor. Nice switch, is it not? Inquisitors are also looking out to bring culprits to court, and to make them face their well deserved punishment. Only they act within a very different environment than Agatha does. Less worldly, I guess.
Anyway, by the time I finished the Mysterious Affair I got hungry and cooked a late lunch / early dinner. I coated a top round with Grey Poupon Mustard, sprinkled some salt over it and covered it with a sweet onion slice - the wide part that you get when you slice large flat onions. I got my grill to between 400 to 450 degrees, dumped a fist full of apple wood chips into the bottom pan and put the roast on the perforated veggie sheet. Setting the timer for 50 minutes, I then sliced the rest of the onion into about quarter inch slices, sprinkled a little salt and drizzled some sesame oil and soy sauce and about ten minutes before the roast was supposed to come off the fire I put them on the grill next to it. On the kitchen stove, I did a pan of Rösti. If you do 't know what that is, but are truly curious, you must ask me ( schwizerbueb@gmail.com ). You can also google that, but they tell you how it really is done, not the bachelor-type easy and quick way.
When the roast was finished and had sat its time on the cutting board I sliced a couple of slices and served them with the Rösti and onions and a glass of Paisano. Wonderful! There are no overwhelming or exciting tastes. Everything germanically constrained, mild, subdued, whatever. But the whole combination of flavors came through so satisfyingly, I am now on my third glass of Paisano.
What is Paisano? Well it is a Gallo jug wine and has been around as long as I can remember. In the 'early' days, i. e. early 1960, they called it Chianti. Perhaps the emerging laws of the European Union put a halt to the naming of products that have a territorial  claim, such as Chianti (Tuscany), Camembert (France) etc. In any case, Gallo's Chianti disappeared and Paisano came in and it is the most satisfying jug wine I know. Did you know that it won the first price ate the Boston Wine Exhibition back in the late 1990’s? The judges, all gold tressed and certified wine critics, selected it among all entries on the basis of what came from unlabeled bottles. It must have been a riot! The cheapest of all wines on site being judged the best.
I'm getting carried away. The fly? Oh yes, the roast had a streak of fat and I cut it out and set it it aside. That's where I saw the fly. There is only one in the house. It is a true house fly.

The Sitterdings

Here is, in most drawn out development, the answer to Iivo's question: "Where do we come from?"
From early times, some information was preserved about our family, but much also was lost over years, and during wars, and during the continuous migration of the patriarchs in every one of the generations. This gleaning in a devastated field of records continues until my own memory became strong enough to retain vistas of life as I passed through it, and able to retain 'fireside talks' within our family and circle of friends.

The prehistoric time, of course starts this story. It is necessary for a family to know its own foundation. Whether we admit it or not, the lives of our forebears, their experiences, good and bad, reflect forward into our own lives and recognizing the source of what we are about now, very often has a calming effect on how we take the daily fires, or it may act as a supporting call in making our best effort in this race to the finish, with real or imaginary goals.
The rest of this collection of memories is my life which is, or was, more or less my job. You will find much that may not interest you, but which made my life so exciting that I still sometime gasp in recognition of what happened. While I was working, much of my dinner table talk covered the excitements of my day, until Tiiu finally declared she had heard enough of it and wanted to hear something else. I tried. and here I sometimes try again. My life and my job took me to many places in our western world and presented me with many wonderful glens to revel in, as well as hurdles to overcome. In comparison to other lives, it may have little meaning, but this was my life.

Prehistory

Historic times
May I present

I. I was born in Frankfurt on the Main, or, as it is written Frankfurt a/M. My first major move was from the maternity ward in Frankfurt to our family home in Oberursel. That was in 1934.

II. In 1938, we moved to Stuttgart. There, things got a bit confusing, because the family headquarter remained there, but the kids were removed to Switzerland.

III. Switzerland, first trip, in 1939. Kinderheim (children's home) Sonnenhalde, Unteraegeri, Canton Zug.

IV. Switzerland second trip, 1940. Kinderheim Bosshardt, Unteraegeri, Canton Zug.

VI. Our Mother obtained a permanent exit permit from the Germans in 1942. We rented a house in Oberaegeri, Canton Zug.

VII. 1943, new Home in Oberaegeri.

VII. Our father's place of business is bombed out in 1944 and he obtains a permanent exit visa from the Germans. The family is reunited in Oberaegeri.

VIII. 1944, Our father takes a new job in Rueschlikon near Zurich. We move to the neighboring town of Thalwil, Canton Zurich.

IX. 1946 Our father changes his job and we move to Geneva.

X. In the same year of 1946, we return to a suburb of Zurich in temporary housing.

XI. 1947, we find permanent housing in Kilchberg, Zurich.

XII. 1950, we move to Bern.

XIII. 1954, I leave Bern to go to college in Zurich. My Sister gets married and moves to Canada, My parents move back to Zurich. We take an apartment in Witikon.

XIV. 1958, Spring, I complete my college studies and take a job in Ravensburg, Germany.

XV. 1958, Fall, I get a call to join a company in Baden, near Zurich. I follow the call.

XVI. 1961, I emigrate to the USA. I land in Manhattan on April 28.

XVII. 1966 I change jobs and being married by now, we move to Somerville, New Jersey.

XVIII. 1968 Job change without moving the family, which now also includes our firstborn son.

XIX. 1971, we, move to Switzerland to a new job in St. Gallen. Now we travel with our son and our daughter.

XX. 1974, we return to the USA without change of employer. We settle in Altavista, VA. Our children complete high school and go off to college.

XXI. 1986, I loose my job in the course of a hostile take-over attempt directed at my employer. I purchase White Rock and become a merchant.

XXII. 1989, I accept a job offer in Vermont. We move to Whitingham, VT.

XXIII. 1992 I find a better job in Danvers, MA. We purchase a home in Groveland.

XXIV. I retire in 2002.

XXV. 2006, we sell our house in Groveland and purchase a new one in Goldsboro, NC.

This is where we are now. Our son lives with his family in Virginia Beach, VA, and our daughter currently in Sneads Ferry, NC, but in the process of relocating to Quantico, VA
XXVI. 2010 My sister Louise dies
XXVI. 2012 My Tiiu dies
XXVII My grandson Philip enters college

Traffic

Up to just a couple of years ago, we lived in the Northeast. I always considered the Yankees the worst drivers in the world. Recently, we moved to the South and I am beginning to change my mind.

What the Yankees are doing behind the wheel is simply in line with what they are doing all the time: fighting for the time they need to do the things they must do. They have so many important things to do, they can't waste their time driving around. The tricks they perform with their cars are the equivalent to extreme sports. Of course, some time they loose and spend more time than they were able to save during the past years of driving.

Before we moved here, we came visiting. Often, we observed tricks performed on the road by drivers in cars with local license plates and my wife would point it out to me, saying that 'down here' the drivers are just the same as 'up there. I always replied that these are not really locals; they are displaced persons from the Northeast.

I am sure that there are many displaced Yankees in my new neighborhood, but while driving here for over two years I have become aware of some nuances in style that makes the southern driver uniquely individual.

For instance: it is often more expedient to drive in the right lane, because no other car uses it. Cars shoot out of a side road and immediately head for the left lane and stay there, give or break. If traffic slows down, or stops, long lines form up in the left lane and one can cruise up to the light and gain the pole position without fighting for it.

If you drive legal speed (well, legal plus five, for example) you never need to pass anybody. Even tractors and combines are usually faster than you and pass you in the left lane. That, of course, does not cover tractor trailers. Very often, you find them banned from the left lane and then they come thundering down on you from behind and you almost have to hit the brakes because the air they push ahead of them will move you faster than legal speed. Of course, these truckers are on a mission and cannot waste any time. So I sometimes move into the left lane to let them pass. It is easier for me to switch lanes that it is for them. They give me a short blast with their horn as a thank-you.

Locals also will often put themselves in your slip stream so you can't see anything in your rear-view mirror but their hood with a part of their grill underneath. But they don't call this tail gating, which is illegal. Dow here, they call it drafting. That, of course, is a method of driving behind another car, close up, not to gain more speed but to save some gas. They do that on NASCAR tracks. Even there, they sometimes miss the exact position of the bumper of the car in front of them and this usually results in a spectacular blow-out. But that's just for fun. After a blow-out on a public road, everybody has time to hang around for hours to see what develops. Of course, there is also no place to go, with all the lanes clogged with spectators.

This latter part is not in any way specific to the South. They do it up there the same way. With the exception of driving in the left lane while the right lane(s) are empty. Of course, in the Northeast there is no space to choose from in any lane. You have to take what you can get. You also can't choose your speed up there. If you try to be slower than the general traffic, you simply get pushed off the road. There is no point to try to be faster. There is simply no room to pass.

It is interesting to observe that police cars follow the same rule: use the left lane for driving, stay off the right lane. Of course, given the opportunity, police cars are also much faster than other cars, even if they have no blinking lights going to indicate that they are on a mission.

Talking about those blinking lights: recently I witnessed three patrol cars coming up behind me with lights flashing and cleaning out the left lane and passing everybody and once they got past the clot on the road they coolly switched their lights off and cruised in peace up to the next slower clot. They did not drive at a speed as if they had to catch up with some 'incident'.

Of course, all that talk about 'left lane' applies to highways with at least two lanes coming and two lanes going. But I know you understood that. Driving on two-lane country roads is almost like driving in Vermont. Vermont allows crossing the solid yellow line (even if it double) to pass another slower vehicle, if the oncoming lane is free. Here, using the left lane, even on a simple two-lane country road with a double yellow line in the middle appears to be viewed as a constitutional right. That's one of the reasons why I mentioned 'extreme sports' before. Sometimes, cars lock horns that way. You can read about that in the paper almost every week.

When we settled here, we had to go through the whole rigmarole of administrative procedures. Including a drivers test. It does feel funny to take a drivers test with the questions asked by someone who got old enough to start driving legally just last month. But we did it and passed with flying colors including questions about the meaning of road signs that are shown only in shape -- no color, no text. I am wondering if perhaps the authorities are contemplating improving their maintenance budget by abandoning maintenance of the road signs. Everybody takes these test, which also include a detailed list of laws of the road. But these laws, down here, are offered more like suggestions. They cannot be mandatory, because one may forget these rules immediately after the tests. About 90% of the testees do just that. That leads to some very interesting situations on the road.

That testing is unique down here. Up there, you show your license you got in the State where you came from and you get your new local license. They only take a new picture and ask you if you want to use your social security number or a State provided easy-pick ID number. I think driver-testing up there is not done because driving there is a fight for survival. If you survive, you have ample proof that you can drive with sufficient skill. It would be impossible for any driver school to train you in the situations you will encounter on the road. Well, if the money were available to set up a trainer, like what pilots use before they take a real airplane off the ground?

Down here, driving is not so much a matter of skill, but a matter of luck. I've seen the mail delivery man aiming at my front, driving down on his left lane to meet me on my right lane on a country road. He was off with his timing though. He missed me.

Another thing that binds the Yankees with the Southerners is the use of direction signals. Neither group of drivers uses them. Possibly, when they bought the car, the salesman forgot to tell them where the switch is and what it is used for. The same thing with the switch used to dim the headlights at night. Sometimes, at night, a car will move up on my right shoulder with the headlights up and glaring the living daylight out of my eyes. Once he reaches that position just behind and to the left, he won't pass. Sometimes I can manipulate the left rear-view mirror to throw the light back at him. Then he passes, at last.

About direction signals: one time I drove behind a UPS truck to work. Fate wanted it that he made every turn that I had to make and even drove to the same business building. He never used a blinker to signal any of his turns and two of the three brake lights did not function. We parked in the same paring lot and met in the elevator. I said "Do you know that your blinkers don't work in the rear?". He looked at me as if I had asked him about the molecular weight of Hydrogen. He clearly did not know what I was talking about. Then I said "Do you know that two out of your three brake lights don't work?". "Oh, he said, "they take care of that at the garage." This was early morning, mind you, he must have just come from the garage.

I slowly came up to the idea that I don't need to be first, up front of the pack. As a matter of fact, I found that if I get ahead of one pack, I simply drive up behind another. Somebody else will always be in front and fighting to change that is pointless. So I drive coolly down the right lane at legal speed plus five, or so. I don't even wonder what names some other drivers call me, but I can guess fairly close by the gestures some of them make. Then I feel bad. Clearly, my driving has a negative effect on the national economy. Just think what those people behind me could achieve, while I'm trundling along, comfortably, with normal blood pressure.

Have a safe and happy cruise, y'all.