My Parents
My mother, who passed away last Sunday at the age of 90, and my father, who died in 2006, at a carnival ball in 1962
My father lost both feet in the Second World War when he was 17. After the war, he finished school and started studying law. He managed all this by getting around in a lever-operated wheelchair. One day, as he was struggling up the steep Schweizerberg in his home town of Memmingen, a young girl approached him and asked if she could help him. That's how my father met my mother.
But this young girl also found out that it was likewise possible for double transtibial amputees to walk with the help of prostheses. However, the way there was somewhat lengthy and arduous, since, for example, post amputations on both sides were also necessary. So my mother had to do a lot of convincing and also overcome resistance from her future in-laws, who saw only torment in such measures.
But torment or not - the result of these measures proved them both right, my mother for her persuasion and my father for letting himself be persuaded. There is a photo from that time in which my father can be seen proudly riding a bicycle, and another in which he is standing proudly on a ladder. But the most important thing is - and now we come to the photo I am showing you here: when the owner of the Memmingen dance school heard about these achievements, he said that someone who could walk could also learn to dance, and he offered to give the young man dancing lessons free of charge. That's how my father learned to dance.
Years later, in the early 1970s, when I was listening to the song "Don't Bogart That Joint" from the film Easy Rider on the stereo in our living room, my father heard a standard dance rhythm he was familiar with, grabbed my mother and started pushing her around the floor to this reefer song. The memory of this scene is so funny and beautiful that it makes me shed warm, comforting tears.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N0IjBgyFoE
My Parents
My mother, who passed away last Sunday at the age of 90, and my father, who died in 2006, at a carnival ball in 1962
My father lost both feet in the Second World War when he was 17. After the war, he finished school and started studying law. He managed all this by getting around in a lever-operated wheelchair. One day, as he was struggling up the steep Schweizerberg in his home town of Memmingen, a young girl approached him and asked if she could help him. That's how my father met my mother.
But this young girl also found out that it was likewise possible for double transtibial amputees to walk with the help of prostheses. However, the way there was somewhat lengthy and arduous, since, for example, post amputations on both sides were also necessary. So my mother had to do a lot of convincing and also overcome resistance from her future in-laws, who saw only torment in such measures.
But torment or not - the result of these measures proved them both right, my mother for her persuasion and my father for letting himself be persuaded. There is a photo from that time in which my father can be seen proudly riding a bicycle, and another in which he is standing proudly on a ladder. But the most important thing is - and now we come to the photo I am showing you here: when the owner of the Memmingen dance school heard about these achievements, he said that someone who could walk could also learn to dance, and he offered to give the young man dancing lessons free of charge. That's how my father learned to dance.
Years later, in the early 1970s, when I was listening to the song "Don't Bogart That Joint" from the film Easy Rider on the stereo in our living room, my father heard a standard dance rhythm he was familiar with, grabbed my mother and started pushing her around the floor to this reefer song. The memory of this scene is so funny and beautiful that it makes me shed warm, comforting tears.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N0IjBgyFoE