Army

oppenheim

 

River Crossing in Oppenheim, Germany

 

oppenheim2

 

My life is a novel and many people say: ” He your life is so crazy, why don`t you write it down?”, but a don`t think that anybody would be interested! But o.k. my life started on March 2nd 1956 in an elevator, in New York,  in a hospital, on the way down to the delivery room during a thunderstorm, this is no joke, this is the truth!!!! This happened because my mom didn`t want to spend money for an ambulance or a taxi, whan it was time for me to come, so she walked all the way from 22nd St. to the Beth Israel Hospital wich is in the 1st Av. 16th. St. and just made it into the elevator. No I`m not jewish, my parents were  friends of the head physician, and so they got the birth cheaper, my mom was very economical!!  I was an ugly baby, I had red hair all over my body and my skin was at least two sizes to big, so there is not one picture of me, until I was 4 month old and lost that urang-utan look!!!! My mother Henny and my dad Paul were both born in Germany, dad near Leipzig, mom in Bremerhaven. Dad left Germany 1919 after world war1 and joined the US-Navy, were he became a chief engeneer on a trooptransporter and met my mother after world war2, she was working as a manager in the seamans club in Bremerhaven. 1952 they married and they moved to New York, were I was born. As crazy as my life started, it went on. I grew up in Hackensack New Jersey, were my dad had a job as janitor in a building complex with 168 appartments. This house and the 2 hectare big “garden”  was my playground. More then half of the garden was a real jungle and I loved  climbing trees……. and falling down into poison ivy, jumping out of a 3rd floor window into a stack of boxes and….. losing 2 front teeth, and so on. 1964 my dad retired and my mom wanted to go back to Germany and so I got on board of the United States. I already told you how terrible the passage was I was 8 years old and we had rough weather the hole trip, so I couldn`t go outside. Nosy as I was I explored the hole ship, twice they found me in the mashine-room and once a visited the captain, but he wasn`t realy amused. My mom was sea-sick and ower tiny cabin smelled like a four weeks old dead fisch and my dad was complaining all the time. And when we finaly reached Germany it was so dam cold, I wanted to go back immediately! I hated Germany, the food, the people, but most of all my 4 sisters, and my relatives, the youngest sister was 20 years older than me, her own son 1 month younger than me and I`m sure if murder weren`t punishable, she would have killed me!!!! My family realy hated me, I was that spoiled rich girl from the USA and so I decided to do what ever I wanted, wich caused a lot of trouble, my motto: sex, drugs and heavy metal, wich means fast cars. 1975 after I finished my training as an office clerk, I started working for the US-Army in Bremerhaven as a motor-vehicle-dispatcher, my job, cars all day long, crazy maneuver all over Europe, the best ones were in the Netherlands, coffeshop just around the corner, one week totaly stoned!!! 14 years I worked there and I don`t regret a day! My life went so on, one hair raising disaster folllowed an other, I drove 166 stock-car-races and broke my neck, my shoulder twice und my nasal bone, I married twice and got devorced, I had 28 different jobs and moved 30 times, I have a daughter without a farther, I have more debts then I can ever pay back in my life, I had 22 operations trying to scew my bod together and now…….. I`m an almost 60 year old, retired Lady, sick with a very low income, that lives together with her cat Merlin, in a 31sqm appartment in a tiny village 9 kilometers outside of Frankfurt-Oder and that is dreaming of going back to Bremerhaven every day!!! So this is the short version of my life, if you have any questions, just ask!!!!!
Yours
Susie