Always Chasing Rainbows?

Another song we sang at the concert on Sunday was "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows."

This one wasn't one we rehearsed to perform, but a sing-along with the audience. I didn't even know we were going to sing it until three days before because I'd been gone to South America for three weeks. Here again, the words tripped me up.

I'm always chasing rainbows,
Watching clouds drifting by,
My dreams are just like all my schemes,
Ending in the sky.

Some fellows look and find the sunshine,
I always look and find the rain.
Some fellows make a winning sometime,
I never even make a gain, believe me,
I'm always chasing rainbows,
I'm watching for a little bluebird in vain.

Was Leif always chasing rainbows? In a way, I guess you could say that. He was chasing love and I know he had other dreams, at least until the end. He had schemes, and the always hoped things would work out, until the end. When did he stop hoping? I'll never know. When did he believe that "I never even make a gain"? It must have seemed that way to him the way his adult life seemed to go.

The photo was his kindergarten school portrait. To me he looks kind of scared and sad in this picture. It was never one I liked. Now I see the vulnerability there, the uncertainty. He may have always had it and learned to hide it well with his bravado and size.

Tonight there was a beautiful full moon. I thought of him again, about his love of the stars and science fiction, and his love of technology and gadgets, of his need for real love . . .

of the rainbows he chased, of the gains that never came his way.

Why does fortune favor some and not others?
--------------------

Photo of Leif was taken in the fall of 1980 at Camp Zama, Japan when he was 5 years old.

Garretson Family - Katterbach, Germany - November 1978

In the fall of 1978, some agency at the Katterbach army community was offering family portraits so that military families could send them home for Christmas. My recollection is that we discovered it when we were over there for something else and it was only available that day, so we had one taken even though were weren't exactly dressed for a family portrait. It turned out pretty nice even so.

Peter Anthony was going to have his tenth birthday a month after this was taken, and he was in the fourth grade at the Rusam Volksschule in Sachsen bei Ansbach.

Leif was three years old and would be four in two months. He was attending the German Kindergarten in Sachsen.

Peter W. was Chief of Justice (or Chief of Criminal Law, another name for the same position) for the 1st Armored Division in Ansbach and a major in the Judge Advocate Generals Corp.

Katterbach had a military housing area, a commissary, a heliport, a nondenominational chapel and various other services. It was just across some farm fields about 3/4 of a mile from our village of Sachsen and it was where we went for grocery shopping and a few American activities like Boy Scout events. Of course we knew some of the people who lived in the housing area.

When we moved to Sachsen from Fuerth, there were no quarters available there, and that's how we ended up living "on the economy" in Sachsen and sending the boys to the local German schools. We could have sent Peter A. to the American school, but at that time it would have meant that he would have had to ride a bus for an hour to an hour-and-a-half each way and we thought that was cruel and unusual punishment and chose the German school instead.

I doubt that Leif would remember Katterbach at all because we were seldom there and rarely for anything memorable to a preschool child, and Peter A. has few memories of his childhood, though in his case, Katterbach was signficant. He was an altar boy at the chapel and he brought the two communities together in song when he got the Sachsen Kinderchor (children's choir, in which he was a soloist) to sing at the Katterbach chapel at Christmas time.

Peter A. did know some boys in Katterbach because he was in an American Cub Scout den with boys from that community, but as far as I know, that was about the only time he saw them. His friends were from his school in Sachsen.

Leif had friends in Sachsen, both American and German, that he enjoyed playing with, but he didn't know anyone in Katterbach or go over there to play.

The year this was taken was a good one for us. We enjoyed our neighbors and activities in Sachsen, were very pleased with the boys' schools, did a lot of local traveling and Volksmarching, and loved living in "Hanni's house" at the top of the hill with the orchard around us. I'd love to go back to that time with my boys and Peter, sit in the kitchen on the "Eckbank" (corner bench, a kind of breakfast nook set) and make something with them, or look out over the valley from the balcony on the second floor. It would be so good to go back to a time when I had both my beautiful, smart little boys with me and the future looked bright and full of hope for both of them.

Leif & Peter A. - First Day of School - September 1978 - Sachsen Bei Ansbach, Germany - Age 3 1/2

When we moved from Fuerth to Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany in the summer of 1978, we decided to send the boys to the local German schools. Their school schedule is very different from the American one, and Peter A. actually went to the last few weeks of third grade there, even though he had finished third grade at the American school in Fuerth.

In the fall, Leif started going to the Kindergarten, which I've already written about, and Peter A. started fourth grade.

This photo was taken hastily the morning of their first day, as they were heading out the front door of our house at Am Roemer 9. You can see that in early September it was already chilly in the morning, and unfortunately, the sun was right in their eyes so they are squinting and aren't particularly happy with me for making them stand there for a photo. I wish I had a better one but at this point, I'm just glad I have one at all.

Both boys have their "Rucksacks" on their backs. Backpacks for kid this young had not yet caught on in American schools, but German students needed to bring things to and from school every day and a Rucksack was a necessity. The style of their school backpacks and pencil cases was also different from the American ones.

They had to take a snack with them each day, and that was one of the things that went into the Rucksack, along with books and "Hefte" (composition books) for Peter Anthony, who also had his pencil case and items such as a drawing compass.

Peter knew where he was going since he had already spent a few weeks at his school, the Rusam Volkschule, and we had taken Leif to see the Kindergarten when we enrolled him and had a tour. He had been in a Montessori preschool in Fuerth, so it wasn't his first school experience, but it was the first time he would be immersed all alone in a German-speaking environment where he would be the only American, English-speaking child. I wonder what he thought about that first day.

Peter Anthony was almost ten years old and Leif was three, going on four in four months.

Leif and Frau Buhr - Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany - September 1978 - Age 3 and a half

When we moved to the village of Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany, we enrolled Leif in the German Kindergarten. In Germany, a Kindergarten is a preschool, not an elementary school class for five-year-olds. Sachsen had a beautiful Kindergarten with several classrooms. It was very modern and had a lot of wonderful curriculum materials and toys as well as a nice playground. Each child had a cubby for his or her her things, and each was required to have their own toothbrush, toothpaste and soap. Before a snack or a meal  they all went to the bathrooms to wash their hands, and afterwards they went there to brush their teeth, so a lot of good habits were taught, too.

Leif's teacher the first year he was enrolled there was Frau Buhr and he loved her dearly. I think you can see that in this photo. In her right hand she is holding a tiny bouquet of some little wildflower that Leif picked for her.

I don't know why Leif took to some people so much and not others, but the two women I remember him being emotionally attached to as a small boy were my sister Lannay and Frau Buhr. He was very affectionate to both of them.

When Leif started in at the Kindergarten that fall of 1978, he was the only American child in the school and the only non-German-speaking child. However, in a mere couple of months he had learned German so well just from being immersed in it that you would have thought he was a native speaker. I imagine that one reason he loved Frau Buhr so much was because during that period when he was unable to understand what was going on around him, she was warm and kind to him.

He had a good year that year but the next year at some point Frau Buhr went on maternity leave and Leif was very unhappy that she was gone. He didn't take to the new teacher who came to take her place. Her manner was quite different than Frau Buhr's and Leif did not respond well. It was a harder time for him and he got into trouble for losing his temper and throwing a toy, which hit another child. He was mortified, partly because of the scolding he got, but equally, if not more so, by what he had done.

The Kindergarten was about a mile and a half from our house. Going there it was downhill almost the entire way and coming back it was uphill. I walked him to school many days but later we had a car pool with a couple of other mothers of boys who lived up on the hill in our neighborhood. Leif had a couple of German boys from our hilltop area that were his playmates, and an American girl who lived about a block away.

I don't know whether Frau Buhr knew how much Leif loved her, but I suspect that all of her students felt the same way about her.

Leif's Fourth Home - Am Roemer 9, Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany - Summer 1978 to Summer 1980

The summer of 1978, when Leif was three-and-a-half years old, we moved from the Kalb Army Housing Area to a brand new house in the German village of Sachsen bei Ansbach. It was built by one of the village residents, Hans Volland, and we moved in when it wasn't quite finished. Herr Volland had added many lovely details, from a Rococco ceiling in the living room to a marble entryway and stairwell. My mother said that the house looked like "a little cracker box" from the outside, but it was very spacious and beautiful on the inside. It was a terrific place to live, and a great improvement over the apartment we lived in in Fuerth. We had seven plum and two apple trees in the yard, a stone patio, and space for a lovely flower garden.

The house was in a new area of the village on top of a hill with a great view of the valley and surrounding towns. Leif loved climbing the trees. We also enjoyed hiking in the woods, picking berries there, skiing down the hill, and so much more. Peter A. and Leif went to the local German schools; Leif in the kindergarten where he loved his teacher, Frau Buhr.

During the two years we lived there, we traveled to many places in Germany and Italy, and enjoyed visits from my sister, Lannay, our friends the Fackrells, and Peter W's German cousin Wolfgang and his family.

These photos don't really do the house justice, since it looks rather bare, but you can't see the trees around it, or the front yard. They are:
1. Leif on the bulldozer which was in the driveway to construct it when we moved in late summer of 1978.
2. The front of Am Romer 9, Sachsen bei Ansbach, with our 1973 Ford Pinto, August 1978.
3. The front of Am Romer 9 showing the driveway down into the garage under the house, 1978.
4. Jerri's flower garden in the back yard at Am Roemer 9, Sachsen bei Ansbach, August 1979.
5. Peter W., Peter A. and Leif hiking in the snow in the Sachsen woods in January 1979. Leif was four years old.
6. Leif at Sachsen Kindergarten, December 6, 1978.

More of Leif's Childhood Art

Leif was far more interested in drawing weapons and space ships than people or animals as a child, and I can't recall that he ever drew or painted anything that one might have called a landscape or a still like. He didn't photograph them, either.

However, in his Kindergarten Art Portfolio, he did have three "animal" drawings. The top one here is a spotted dog, and it is much more like what other children his age might have drawn, with little idea of anatomy or real shape. However, the second one of the Dachshund is quite sophisticated and impressed the art teacher. His ability to define the dog's shape with the vertical lines and make it look as though it weren't stiff like the first one but active was remarkable for his age. I don't think he ever did anything like it again, though.

The third crayon drawing is an owl with a graduation cap. I believe he got the idea for this drawing from the "Little Professor" math teaching electronic "game" he had. He never drew anything remotely like this again, either.

I don't think I have any drawings or art creations of Leif's between kindergarten and junior high. The top photo is of a soft sculpture he made in one of his junior high art classes. It is Zaphod Beeblebrox from Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," a science fiction book he read on his brother's recommendation. He loved it, did a book report about it, and read the rest of the "trilogy" that had four books (absurd, as the books also were). I think his sculpture of Zaphod was quite good and I still have it.

Leif's Kindergarten Art - Spring 1981 - Age 6

Leif had a lot of art talent, but he didn't pursue it. As I've written before, as a child he was immensely frustrated when he couldn't make his drawings look like they did in his head, or build models perfectly. He did a lot of drawing in elementary school, but less and less of it as he got into the later years of elementary school and junior high school. He started drawing again when he was in college and after the army while working on developing cyberpunk games with his friend Jason but other than that, he didn't spend time sketching or drawing.

When he was in kindergarten, his teacher and the art teacher thought he had a great deal of ability in art. Not only could he draw much better than most kindergarteners, he could portray motion and action, something extremely rare in young children's art, which is generally quite static. His kindergarten teacher at Sagamihara Elementary School, Mrs. Snell, collected about a dozen of his drawings for a portfolio which was displayed at a school open house. I kept it all these years until we were moving to Florida. It was done on large sheets of coarse manila paper which had begun to oxidize badly. Leif seemed to have no interest in it. I had thought I'd save it for him and for his children, but it wasn't going to last a lot longer and there wasn't anyone to give it to, so I scanned the drawings and very reluctantly discarded them. I'm so glad I have the scans.

In one of my posts in June 2008 I posted one of the drawings, of the Spaceship Enterprise from Star Trek. If you want to see it, look for the "drawings" keyword in the list at the bottom right.

These drawings had captions on them which Leif dictated to Mrs. Snell. I think they are too small to read here, but I'll put a list of them in order below. They are quite sophisticated for a six-year-old.

1. A secret gun I designed. You can click on a part and make it a laser. The view finder is really a finder, but push a button under the trigger and the finder shoots. The locking button is another trigger to shoot. The gun is now being charged with lasers!
2. Colonial Vipers (green) are exploding Cylons (black). Ion cannon shooting.
3. My own designs after the USA Enterprise space shuttles.
4. Some ships are disintegrated. Red lines are explosions.
5. A space cruiser and armed scout ships. The cruiser has a magnetic field.
6. Space cruiser (blue) exploding another space cruiser (red/black) and two asteroids.
7. Space shuttle -- my own ship. Smaller than the Enterprise. The cockpit holds nine people. It has three rockets but the big storage tank for fuel is smaller.
8. UFO

Leif - Enterprise Drawing - Kindergarten

Unlike some kids, Leif's interests were remarkably consistent throughout his life, although he didn't always express or pursue them in the same ways. One of his enduring passions was space ships, which of course went along with his passion for science fiction. He was a young child when the Star Wars and Star Trek movies were coming out, and they affected both him and his brother deeply.

Leif had a great deal of artistic talent and mightily impressed his kindergarten teacher with a series of drawings of space ships in motion and in battles and space guns firing. She had him make a portfolio of them for display.

His talent was particularly noteworthy because most children at the age of 5 or 6 are drawing very simple figures, often stick figures, and don't have any idea how to show motion or draw complex objects.

This drawing is one he made of the Space Ship Enterprise, and he drew it from memory when he was only five years old, which is even more impressive. We were living in Japan at that time and he was also influenced by the Japanese children's shows on TV, which were not broadcast in English, so he had to pay close attention to the graphics. He loved playing with his Japanese toys, which were incredible sci fi toys that transformed from robots into everything from planes to trucks.

Leif drew often, expressing ideas about space ships and space weapons, until he was in about six grade when he became more or less obsessed with radio controlled cars and also got very interested in music and playing electric guitars. He pretty much dropped drawing until he was in college and playing CyberPunk with his friends.

He took an art course in college to fulfill an arts requirement for his liberal arts degree and again showed some remarkable talent with the things he produced for the class, but didn't have the interest to pursue it further.

I treasure these drawings and will post a few more . . . the antecedents of the copper penny space ship I posted yesterday.