Fairy Lake, Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada in summer 1969

On a day road trip in our 1965 Volkswagen Type 2 (T1c) Model 231 Kombi from Duncan to Port Renfrew by way of Shawnigan Lake, the main branch logging road through Koksilah, with the famous suspension bridge that could support fully-loaded logging trucks, father at full speed down one end of the bridge, through its natural dip, and mit Schwung up the other side, and the Harris Creek Main. Here we are enjoying lunch with the Rachel family (their second son Andrew ? just visible at the start of this film roll), my mother Doris Scharnberg, myself Stephan Alexander Scharnberg (a few months shy of my seventh birthday), my brother Felix Hayo Scharnberg, and my sister Anya Maureen Scharnberg (our youngest sister Alison Oona Scharnberg joining the family just over a year later). Fairy Lake picnic site and campground near Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada in summer 1969.

[1959 Kodak Retina IIIS (Type 027) rangefinder 35-mm roll film camera, s/n 86125, with Schneider-Kreuznach Retina-Xenon 50-mm f/1.9 Synchro Compur lens, s/n 6841319]  

© Copyright photographs by Uwe Kündrunar Scharnberg, 1962 / Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, June 2011

more of Uwe Kündrunar Scharnberg, 1929–1937

My father, Uwe Kündrunar Scharnberg, was a student of Anthroposophy, a co-worker in Camphill, a biodynamic gardener, and a tree planter.

He was born at 11:40 in the evening of March 10, 1929 in the Schwedenschanze, a thatched roof hut near the Lower Saxon village of Höhbeck-Brünkendorf, Landkreis Lüchow-Dannenberg, Niedersachsen, Germany. Later this hut was renovated and updated into a café-establishment, in operation for many years until recent renovations and again enlarged, becoming a boutique hotel about 2007 or 2008.

Uwe’s parents were Moritz Johann Heinrich Scharnberg and Othilie Rott.

My father lived with his mother in a number of locations “all over the place” as he recently told me. These included Niedersachsen, Ribnitz-Damgarten in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern near the Baltic coast, and later in Hamburg. As a result, it was difficult for him to make and keep friends. This and his quiet, shy, and humble Piscean nature were a challenge to friendships throughout his life.

At three years old, Uwe was sent by train from Ribnitz-Damgarten to Ober-Beerbach, Hessen, southeast of Darmstadt, via Frankfurt am Main, alone with a sign on a string, showing name, address, and destination, around his neck. This was somewhat common practice in those days and through World War Two. Fellow travellers and train conductors could escort the child to his or her next train. In Darmstadt he was met by his Uncle Hans, husband of his first godmother, Cläre Dähke. The Dähke’s were involved in the Christian Community (Die Christengemeinschaft) in Frankfurt am Main and Darmstadt.

Also, Uwe went on a trip with his mother to East Prussia (Ostpreußen). 

He commenced school at age seven, only completing seven years plus one year Berufsschule (apprenticeship school). The Second World War interferred with the education of many German children. In those days the school year started at Easter.

Uwe was not often with his father. His mother was nicknamed “Schimmel” by her friends. She was born in Barmen in the Wuppertal. His father was known by family and friends as “Hein”.

My father, Uwe Kündrunar Scharnberg, 1929–1937

Schwedenschanze, near Höhbeck-Brünkendorf, Landkreis Lüchow-Dannenberg, Niedersachsen, Deutschland in March 1929.

My paternal grandparents were Wandervögel (Wandering Birds), the hippies of Germany in the 1920s. Othilie Rott with son Uwe Kündrunar Scharnberg, Moritz Johann Heinrich Scharnberg, and Freidi Heinrichsdorff (grandfather’s daughter out-of-wedlock from a relationship with Martha Heinrichsdorff), at the Schwedenschanze in March 1929.

Othilie Rott with son Uwe Kündrunar Scharnberg in the Schwedenschanze in March 1929.

Othilie „Schimmel“ Rott, Uwe Kündrunar Scharnberg, and Moritz Johann Heinrich „Hein“ Scharnberg, at the Schwedenschanze on October 26, 1930.

Uwe with his mother in Hamburg in Easter 1931. Photograph by Julius Groß, Friedenstr. 63, Berlin (renowned photographer of the Wandervögel movement).

© Copyright photographs, Uwe Kündrunar Scharnberg, 1929–2010/Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, April 2010

Before I was conceived and born

My parents, Uwe Kündrunar Scharnberg and Doris Scharnberg, visiting friends in Victoria, Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada at Christmas 1961. My parents lived on Pandora St. near Vancouver St. in Victoria at the time. They were newly married two months earlier in a civil ceremony in Victoria.

[1959 Kodak Retina IIIS (Type 027) rangefinder 35-mm roll film camera, s/n 86125, with Schneider-Kreuznach Retina-Xenon 50-mm f/1.9 Synchro Compur lens, s/n 6841319]

© Copyright photograph by Uwe Kündrunar Scharnberg, December 1961 / Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, June 2011

Confirmation classes, 1976–1977

Every Saturday for two years, 1976 and 1977, I forced myself to awake at 4:00 am, eat a breakfast of oven-heated overnight porridge, and then father or mother would drive me from just south of Duncan to downtown Nanaimo for the six-o’clock CP Rail ferry, the MV Princess of Vancouver, arriving at the looming black steel arch dock and ramp, situated several blocks west of the former site of CPR Pier D that burned down on July 27, 1938 and was never replaced, west of the Convention Centre, Canada Place with its famous sails construction and cruise ship berths, and the Seabus terminal near the north foot of Granville Street. I walked up to West Hastings and over to Granville, boarding one of the beloved, classic CCF (Canadian Car & Foundry) Brill model T-44, T-48, or T-48A trolley buses, operated by BC Hydro, stepping down near Woodland Drive, usually at Commercial, for the few blocks south to The Christian Community’s house on Frances Street.

Here we participated in our Confirmation classes, led with warmth and intelligence by Rev. Werner Hegg. The others in the group were Marius Krack, Andrew Rachel, Anna Driehuyzen, Celina Gold, Florette Snijders, and a Shields’ daughter. I alone would be invited for lunch prepared with love by Alsten Hegg, many of the in-season vegetables from their small garden plot behind the early-1900s three-storey house—my favourite, the swiss chard in a bechamel sauce and the grated carrot salad with organic Thompson raisins. Sometimes I stayed overnight for the Sunday service, and on these occasions at times even riding the bus back to White Rock with Marius, to return with the Krack’s the following morning.

On the more frequent occasions that I returned home the same day, I would often stop at Famous Foods on East Hastings for one or more items that mother needed, or further along at Woodward’s with its famous red neon sign, the rotating W. I then continued on a trolley for the Greyhound bus depot occupying a full block bound by Georgia, Dunsmuir, Beatty, and Hamilton. From here I rode the coach for a late afternoon or early evening BC Ferry sailing, Horseshoe Bay–Departure Bay. The route was code-shared between PSL (Pacific Stage Lines) and VICL (Vancouver Island Coach Lines). Father or mother would await my return at the bus depot at the edge of downtown Nanaimo, close by the CP Rail ferry dock. 

My Cameras

There are four cameras I have owned and used over the years. 

In the summer of 1975, a couple of months before my thirteenth birthday, I purchased a Rolleiflex 4x4 Baby Rolleiflex “Sport”, Model 4RF 430, TLR camera at a local garage sale. I have no record of its serial number. They were produced between June 1938 and February 1941, serial numbers from approximately 622.000 to 733.000. It was black, came in its well-worn brown leather case with strap, but no accessories and no manual. This model had a Zeiss Jena Tessar 60-mm f/2.8 taking lens, a Heidoscop Anastigmat 60-mm f/2.8 finder lens, a Compur Rapid, 1–1/500 sec., T & B, shutter, and used 4x4 film, Type 127 (A8). Film transportation was done by a winding lever with a red window for the first exposure, on the back of the camera, and a counter window for exposures 2 to 12. A single lever under the taking lens both cocked and released the shutter. The back displayed a depth of field scale and exposure guide. It had a blank film pressure plate and a sports hood with a pop-up magnifier. My camera was obviously well used with care as everything still functioned just fine. Just the removable plug over the red window was missing. I believe I paid $5.00 for it at the time, likely quite a bit for a pre-teen with no allowance, saving money from collecting pop and beer bottles in roadside ditches and delivering The Times Colonist newspaper in a local trailer park. I purchased it from a former Koksilah Elementary school principal. It taught me the basics of photography. I took many photographs with this camera, mostly of airplanes at the local annual Duncan Fly-In at the Duncan Airstrip off Langtry Road, up the hill from our house on Koksilah Road, south of Duncan, Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada, and on most of the events with the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, 744 Cowichan Squadron, such as gliding at Nanaimo Airport at Cassidy, Vancouver Island, B.C., summer camp for Basic Training at CFB Penhold near Red Deer, Alberta, and a few field trips to NAS (Naval Air Station) Whidbey Island near Oak Harbor, Washington, USA and the Boeing 747 factory at Paine Field, Everett, Washington. I can not remember what happened to this camera.

In about 1978 or 1979 I had an Agfamatic 100 viewfinder camera given to me by my maternal grandmother, Ottilie Dapprich, who immigrated to Canada from Westdeutschland in 1977. I commonly used Agfa Agfacolor Special CNS 126 20 DIN/80 ASA 20-exposure colour negative film. I used it primarily for photgraphs of airplanes at the local annual Duncan Fly-In. Only a handful of the aviation photographs from the Baby Rolleiflex and the Agfamatic have survived. I can not remember what happened to most of these photos.

Sometime before graduating Grade 12 in June 1981, I started using my father’s Kodak Retina IIIS, rather heavy and very solid. I eventually inherited the 1959 Kodak Retina IIIS  rangefinder 35-mm camera, s/n 86125 (my father bought it new from the factory in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Westdeutschland where his sister Raphaela worked for a couple of years assembling these cameras). I still have the Retina in my possession to this day. It is due for an extensive cleaning and servicing. It still takes pictures but has become somewhat stiff in its use. It sports a Schneider-Kreuznach Retina-Xenon 50-mm f/1.9 Synchro-Compur lens, s/n 6841319, and still has its original brown leather case, albeit the strap broke in the 1980s in Switzerland and was replaced with a wider generic aftermarket cloth strap. I also have the original manual in German, in well-used condition, but my father did not purchase any other lenses for it nor any accessories. The camera fell when the original strap broke, about four feet onto a dusty hiking trail in the Vaudois mountains. As a result, the lens received a dent at the rim, but no internal damage. I still took many good photographs with it until I purchased the Nikon FE2 in August 1985, from the proceeds of the 1968 Chevrolet Nova four-door sedan my parents had sold on my behalf the previous year.

On a four-week visit home from Camphill Perceval in St-Prex, Vaud, Switzerland, to my hometown of Duncan, I purchased a 1984 Nikon FE2 SLR 35-mm camera, s/n 1816483, with a Nikkor AI 50-mm f/1.8 lens, s/n 2336591, and a 52-mm polarizing filter, and added a Tamron AE 80–210-mm f/3.8~4 CF Tele-Macro Compact Zoom (Model 103A) Adaptall-2 lens with a 62-mm polarizing filter, and a camera bag, all three items I no longer have, and a shutter cable and tripod, both of which I still use. Its previous owner was a local professional photographer who rarely used the camera. It came, rather oddly, with a manual in French, which I still also have and can read, as I am fluent in French. It has never had a repair, only a couple of cleanings, in its 26 years. But now, since a few weeks ago, the A (automatic) setting no longer functions. All other functions are still good. It will need to be repaired for the first time in its life.

Pitt River Panorama

Pitt River Panorama, Pitt Meadows, B.C., Canada sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 am, Saturday, December 4, 2010.

© Copyright photograph by Viktoria Iakovleva, December 2010

Britannia Writers Group

We had our annual Britannia Writers Group Christmas party, 10:30 am to about 1:30 pm, Saturday, December 18, 2010 at Karyn’s condo. Six of us were present and one fellow scribe was down with the cold or flu. We discussed business, shared what our latest reads and movie viewings were, talked about our writing and continuing education, all the while enjoying good coffee and baked goods, followed later by a delicious potluck lunch, accompanied by a bottle of rare-to-find Swiss white wine, a Chasselas bottled by swisswines (the Swiss do not export much of their reds and whites, mostly consuming them within their country), all interlaced with much humour and laughter. As I have said another time, Karyn has an awesome view of downtown Vancouver and the North Shore mountains.

To repeat more or less what I posted a previous time: We are not only creative writers, but we inspire each other and encourage one another to write. Between the seven of us, we have our pens and fingers in oral story telling, short stories, poetry, articles, novels, travel writing, and blogs. Some of us are aiming at getting published. But we all write because we enjoy it for what it is.

Our journey together started when we participated in an eight-week creative writing course, September to December 2005, offered through the Vancouver School Board. We had a wonderful teacher, Anne Rayvals.

© Copyright photograph by Britannia Writers Group, December 2010

Lake Cowichan and Honeymoon Bay, 1962–1966

At first we lived in a converted bunkhouse on Neva Road in Lake Cowichan. Father planted my birth tree, a Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), out front, still standing to this day at about 60 feet tall. Aunt Michaela, with firstborn Jessica, ten days younger than me, lived with us for four months, with us at Christmas 1962 halfway through her stay. Then her husband, John McHugh, returned (she had left him in Gleichen, Alberta) and they moved in to the bunkhouse next door.

In summer 1963, Rev. Richard Lewis, a priest of The Christian Community (Die Christengemeinschaft) from Los Angeles, accompanied Dr. Lauenstein from Westdeutschland on a North American tour. On that visit, he christened me in Lake Cowichan, Marius Krack in Port Alberni, and the Rachel’s second son Andrew in their new house on Cooper Road in Richmond.

When our cousins were still very young—Gabriel is about my brother’s age—they and their mother moved to Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Westdeutschland, immediately following Christmas 1963. In time, the children lived with a foster family—Quakers, I believe—and attended a Waldorf school. Our paternal grandmother Othilie Rott had the children removed from their mother because of parenting concerns.

In summer 1965, we moved to March Road in Honeymoon Bay, a few houses from what is now the Gordon Bay Provincial Park gate. Neighbours were the Corrigal’s, who still live there today, and an Italian family, the Nardino’s, who in later years moved to Duncan after the older son died in a car accident on the Honeymoon Bay–Lake Cowichan road. 

In the 1980s, Hayo located our Aunt living on the streets of Stuttgart with die Penner, (homeless men, many sent west by the communist East German authorities), dealing with psychological issues. In the last little while, her son has heard that she is now off the streets, living in an apartment in that city.

John McHugh was a Blackfoot Indian from the Sitsika Nation, Gleichen, Alberta. He remained in Duncan, having three children with Dora Wilson of the Cowichan Tribe, part of the Coast Salish. We went to school, Koksilah Elementary, with some of these children. Uncle John took his own life in 1970, putting a pistol to his head. He had struggled with alcoholism for years. As a child he lived in a residential school. I wonder what he saw and experienced there. He is buried in the cemetery of St. Ann’s Roman Catholic Church on Tzouhalem Road.

Jessica lives in Calgary. Gabriel lives in Jacksonville, Florida, USA, working for a former Albertan computer contractor bought out by an American company. He is talented and hardworking in his career. 

My first childhood memory has to do with Christmas. It was Advent. I found some substantial bricks of Marzipan tucked behind shoes on the floor of my parents’ bedroom closet, ate most of one, threw up, and was scolded. I can not stomach nor tolerate Marzipan’s stink or taste to this day. The same goes for Amaretto but I do enjoy raw almonds. 

I also remember walking in the deep snow drifts on the road in front of our flat-roofed house. And a Chinese man selling fresh fruit and produce off the back of his truck. Mother and I would meet him out on the dusty gravel road to buy. We had a baby sitter, Mrs. Arnold—we have heard in the last few years, well into her nineties, living in Victoria. (Now I hear, she passed away sometime autumn 2006). In the late 1960s she was a maid in Mrs. Rose Kennedy’s household—JFK’s mother. And at some point I realized I had a brother—Felix Hayo, born April 1964. I do not recall of any jealousy, and none was witnessed, toward my sibling. A sister, Anya Maureen, came to us in October 1965.

Sometimes we would drop in on the March farm at the start of our road. I still remember quite well sitting on their porch eating apples from their heritage orchard trees.

Charles March, better known as Charlie, born in Duncan in December 1898, was the son of Henry March, pioneer farmer of the oldest farm in the area (1887–1967). In 1932, he married Miss Alison H. Pollock of Cambridge, England. Their daughter Susan married a Bolton and they farmed on Gabriola Island, where we would visit too in our later Duncan years. I remember Mr. Bolton having a Cessna 185 Skywagon near his barn, but I never got the opportunity to fly in that airplane. My youngest sister, Alison Oona, born in September 1970, was named after Mrs. March. 

Father worked as tree planter and crew foreman for BCFP (British Columbia Forest Products), covering several regions of the lower third or half of Vancouver Island—Koksilah Division beyond Shawnigan Lake all the way to Fairy Lake and around Port Renfrew, Jordan River, China Creek, up around Lake Cowichan and Caycuse, Mesachie Lake, Meade Creek, Nitinat, Parksville, in particular around Englishman River and the Falls, the Kennedy Lake area including some firefighting in the 1960s, Ucluelet, and Tofino. Once they were sent firefighting at Pitt Lake in 1957—paid twice the going rate, flown in by Beaver floatplane from Port Renfrew. He and his crew flew up the central British Columbia coast in the late 1960s and early 1970s from Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island to Knight Inlet on the central B.C. Coast with the 1944 Grumman G-21A Goose, c/n B-101, CF-VFU, FIFT (Forest Industries Flying Tankers Ltd.), Sproat Lake, Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada, based at Sproat Lake near Port Alberni, Vancouver Island, B.C.; powered by two 450-hp Pratt & Whitney R-985-AN-14B Wasp Junior supercharged nine-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines with constant-speed three-blade Hartzell propellers; crew of two (pilot and co-pilot), eight passengers, amphibious transport; built by The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, Bethpage, Long Island, New York, USA; built as JRF-5 Goose (Model G-38), BuNo 84806 USN, powered by two 450-hp Pratt & Whitney R-985-AN-6 Wasp Junior supercharged nine-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines with constant-speed two-blade Hamilton Standard propellers, in November 1944; US Navy surplus in 1945; converted to G-21A Goose; N62899; imported in 1967; CF-VFU, FIFT, Sproat Lake, Vancouver Island, B.C. on April 7, 1967, cancelled on February 6, 2002; used to transport timber companies’ personnel; as my father was a treeplanting foreman with BCFP (British Columbia Forest Products), he and his crew flew on this aircraft up the central British Columbia coast in the late 1960s and early 1970s from Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island to Knight Inlet; engines upgraded, fitted with retractable floats and long-range fuel tanks in the wing centre section for a six-hour endurance; registration updated to C-FVFU; also used for forest patrols, support, and spotter, lead-in aircraft for their Martin JRM-3 Mars water bombers from 1980 to 1988; fitted with the extended dorsal fin; over 15,000 airframe hours; C-FVFU, C-Tec Ltd., Saint John, N.B. on February 6, 2002, cancelled on July 5, 2005; visited Groningen Airport Eelde (GRQ), Eelde, Drenthe, Netherlands on November 9, 2001 en route to Austria and Croatia; refurbished at Salzburg Airport (SZG), Salzburg, Austria in March 2002; C-FVFU, Aline, European Coastal Airlines, Zagreb, Croatia, leased.

Father holds the unofficial world record for most trees planted by any one person. This has never been recognized in any official way because, for some reason, Guinness Book of World Records could not or would not create a new category for this feat. But father did get recognized for his accomplishments in an ad campaign by Mead Paper. Father once took the time and effort to make calculations and estimations.

Another early memory is of the annual All Sooke’s Day logger fest, summer 1965(?). A black and white exists of me in short-sleeve summer shirt, tartan kilt, long dark-blond curls, smiling, standing in the dry gravel and rock bed portion of the Sooke River, eating fresh salmon barbecued and served by the local natives. Salmon is my favourite seafood ever since.

My favourite teacher

“I hear you are skilled at calligraphy. Could you make me a sign for above the classroom door?” 

“What would you like me to write?”

“Specifically, ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here’.”

This famous quote originated with the 1814 English translation of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, by the Reverend H.F. Cary. It is the supposed inscription at the entrance to Hell.

And so, I was introduced to Mr. Peter Wilson, soon to be my favourite teacher in twelve years of public education.

It was September 1978, sometime in the first or second week of the first semester of Grade 10. I was attending Cowichan Senior Secondary a year early. Due to a spike in high school enrolment for a few years, any Junior Secondary student entering Grade 10 in the small city and nearby rural neighbourhoods of Duncan in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, living west of the Island Highway, Highway 1, the Trans-Canada, were re-directed to “Cow High”. Students living east of the highway continued another year at Quamichan Junior Secondary.

My best and favourite subjects were English, History, Western Civilization, Journalism, Band, and Art. I took Western Civilization 10, 11, and 12. 

Mr. Wilson was a humourous and eccentric, yet strict, demanding teacher who knew his profession and subject well. He played music cassettes of classical music and opera at elevated volumes on his ghetto blaster. He was from the north of England, somewhere in West Yorkshire or Lancashire, I believe. He had served in the British Army, stationed somewhere in the north of Germany in the 1950s, I believe, driving lorries. He played on the Army soccer (football) team and toured many churches, cathedrals, museums, town, villages, and historic sites of Germany and other Western European countries.

I remember an incident sometime near the end of the school year, my Grade 10. He directed the unit’s speakers out the second storey window of his west wing classroom, at the dusty, gravel parking lot of muscle cars, their stereos cranking out Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Rush, and the likes of my generation. Music I enjoyed too, although classical and opera have always been my preferences since childhood. 

Maybe surprisingly, Mr. Wilson won that round, and others too. He used a good portable stereo sound system brought from home. He was well-respected by most students, and likely by his peers, too. 

From the first day we watched hours of documentary videos, working our way through the complete BBC television series of Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, and the companion book Civilisation: A Personal View. Our class had many lively discussions of these and a vast field of related subject matter. We wrote furiously, churning out essays and the occasional lengthy assignment. I remember researching and completing thirty typed pages on Johann Sebastian Bach. Alas, none of my work has survived. 

The sign, about 6 x 20 inches on white card stock, neatly scribed in black ink and calligraphy nib, sat above the north door of the classroom for many years, still reported to be there by my youngest sister and others in the early 1990s when he retired to go into the video rental trade, opening a video store up near Duncan Elementary on Government Street. He rented the usual Hollywood fare but had a niche market in foreign movies. He always asked after me when my mother rented something there.

I graduated in June 1981 and beat a path for Continental Europe, fleeing “Drunken Duncan, armpit of the Island”, not attending my graduation ceremony nor the prom. I think of Duncan kindlier these days. 

To this day I am still reminded quite frequently how deeply he influenced my life choices and my tastes and attitudes toward civilizations and cultures, particularily Europe.

Ainsworth Hot Springs, summer 1966

We were either on our way to the famous Ainsworth Hot Springs, Kootenay Lake, in the British Columbia Kootenays, or, had already carefully immersed our toes, then legs, and slowly up to our necks, in the steamed heat. I can not clearly recall.

I remember the place seemed creepy and of some dark, fear-inducing nooks and crannies. In those days the place was not developed to the degree they say it is today. Bricked or cement turquoise archways marked the openings of the caves.

The main road was dusty gravel. It was hot, the skies a cloudless blue. Even then at not quite four years old I already pondered the skies, the clouds, the vast expanse beyond.

Father was driving our 1965 VW Type 2 (T1c) Model 231 (cargo doors right, left hand drive) Kombi purchased new the previous summer at Volkswagen Pacific in Vancouver, VIN 235 xxx xxx, strangely enough, with Model 221 Standard Microbus colour scheme of exterior body colours, L289 (17) blue white above waistline, L512 (38) velvet green below waistline, upholstery in mesh grey (83), sporting 14-inch wheels, front signals in amber, basic interior of just a back bench immediately fore of the engine compartment, no middle bench, no interior headliner or side panels, no carpet, just interior hardboard panels in the front cab section, covering the doors, roof, and behind the nose.

Anya was still a baby, tucked into her wicker basket on the back bench. Hayo and I sat, often cross-legged, in the rear over the 53-hp 1493-cc (1500) four-cylinder, horizontally-opposed, air-cooled engine, engine number code starting with H and followed by seven digits, with Solex 30 PICT-1 carburetor. I remember feeling the vibrations of the motor through the gears. My brother was very curious. He still is. I dreamily watched him play with the inside of the rear hatch latch. It eventually popped open. Bye-bye, brother. Dust swirled behind the bus, my brother small in the distance. I nonchalantly said, in German: “Oh, oh. Hayo fell out.” My mother was very upset. Father pulled over and turned around. 

Hayo was found with no more than dust and a few light marks on his person. He said he saw a clown on the road. He talked of this several times in the following days. He still remembers to this day.

Memories

I recently found these remnants of a letter and a card, written both sides, in one of my boxes of memories. I am somewhat embarrassed by my arrogant twenty-two-year-old self in the scrap of letter (top image). Note that I was rather partial to the French beer, Kronenbourg, at the time. My brother, Felix Hayo Scharnberg, was in an apprenticeship in Weßling, Oberbayern, Westdeutschland, as cabinet maker, finishing carpenter, and building staircases (middle image; front of card). Almut Weigandt (bottom image; back of card, in her neat hand) was a co-worker and friend at Fondation Perceval (Camphill) in Saint-Prex, Vaud, Switzerland. She was a wonderful, beautiful, intelligent young woman from Kassel in West Germany. This friendship faded with time and distance.

© Copyright letter and card, Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, September 1984/Almut Weigandt, September 1984

Theodor Schüz

Mittagsgebet bei der Ernte von Theodor Christoph Schüz, 1861, Öl auf Leinwand, 172 x 108 cm, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland.

I saw this painting in the Staatsgalerie, summer 1984 as best as I can remember, with a former girlfriend, Claudia Hageböck of Allensbach, Baden-Württemberg, near Konstanz on the Bodensee (Lake Constance).

This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Seattle, Washington, USA

Approaching the famous New Westminster railway bridge from Sapperton at 7:19 am, Tuesday, March 9, 2010.

Downriver view on the Fraser toward downtown New Westminster. Note the SkyTrain bridge mid-horizon.

Interior of our coach, car 8, Amtrak 513 Cascades, at about 7:21 am.

The White Rock pier at 7:52 am.

In the Pioneer Square neighbourhood at 11:47 am.

At 11:50 am.

At 11:51 am.

A back alley in the Pioneer Square area at 12:55 pm.

At 1:22 pm.

At 1:24 pm.

Looking south from the Macy’s department store bridge at 3:24 pm.

The next day, Wednesday, March 10, 2010, shortly after 11:00 am.

Roosevelt Hotel at 11:16 am.

At 12:14 pm.

Entrance to Chinatown shortly before 4:00 pm.

At about 5:30 pm.

King Station tower.

King Station, the departure point of our return to Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

Amtrak 513 Cascades scheduled to depart the Pacific Central Station in Vancouver at 6:40 am. We left at 6:52 am. Scheduled to arrive at 11:05 am, we pulled in to King Station at 11:24 am, Tuesday, March 9, 2010.

Immediately following our arrival in Seattle, we walked down to nearby Pioneer Square, the original core of Seattle. Came upon Dave Speidel’s Underground Tour, walking through three locations in a span of about 90 minutes after a humorous twenty-minute introduction by our guide, Dave.

Over and down to Pike Place Market. Uptown business and retail area.

We stayed at the Best Western Loyal Inn. I had reserved a room for $74.90 USD plus tax, back in Vancouver when I also purchased our train tickets on-line. Room 329 clean and tidy. We checked in at 5:00 pm.

Walked along Battery and Bell Avenues, looking for a restaurant to dine, peering in at several locations, including Italian and Mexican. We walked a couple of doors past the Mexican, then hearing jazz, peered through a large front window. After a short discussion, we entered a vintage interior. I immediately thought of the Café Deux Soleils on Commercial in Vancouver. A large, deep room with a high ceiling exposing pipes and wiring. Bar along the left at the back half, individual groups of tables near the front window, long rows of tables perpendicular to the left wall, long rows running to the back, soon truncated by a raised platform from the right wall to the centre of the establishment. Here sat a big band, sixteen members were playing.

A $5.00 cover charge. The group was the Emerald City Jazz Orchestra. The establishment is Tula’s, 2214 2nd Avenue, just east of Bell St., in Belltown. We arrived about 8:15 pm, enjoying half of the first set (started at 7:30 pm), and all the second set until shortly after 10:00 pm. Excellent!

Sipping a glass of red Merlot, I was reminded of the Café des Philosophes in a gully of the back side of Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland; and high school band class, Grades 10 to 12, particularily Drew Whittaker, trombonist in the CSSHS band (Cowichan Senior Secondary High School).

The sixteen-piece big band orchestra were front row, left to right: black Yamaha grand piano facing the back, lead tenor sax, two alto saxes (first of these was Trevor Ranney), tenor sax, bass sax (Dave Alexander) (right next to where we sat); middle row: three trombones, bass trombone; back row: drums/percussion, four trumpets (second last the band leader, the last a young player named Chad).

We each had two glasses of a California Merlot in the course of the evening, my wife dined on the Eggplant Parmesan, I had the Gnocchi with wild mushrooms in pesto sauce.

© Copyright photographs by Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, March 2010