WORDS & ROADS

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

2012-01-19T21:05:00.000-08:00

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]

more of Uwe Kündrunar Scharnberg, 1929–1937

2011-07-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-04T08:58:00.000-07:00

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).

Before I was conceived and born

2011-06-07T22:47:00.000-07:00

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]

Confirmation classes, 1976–1977

2011-01-28T16:19:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-24T20:18:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-19T18:22:00.000-08:00

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

Britannia Writers Group

2011-01-17T20:20:00.000-08:00

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.

Lake Cowichan and Honeymoon Bay, 1962–1966

2010-11-26T23:13:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-24T17:06:00.000-08:00

“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

2010-09-24T00:55:00.000-07:00

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

2010-05-26T22:08:00.000-07:00

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.

Theodor Schüz

2010-04-26T17:33:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-30T19:36:00.000-07:00

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.

Albrecht Dürer

2010-02-22T16:25:00.000-08:00

Junger Hase (Young Hare) by Albrecht Dürer, 1502, gouache, watercolour on paper, 25.1 x 22.6 cm, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, Austria

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

The above is one of the first paintings I was aware of in early childhood. It was featured in an art book I received for my fourth or fifth birthday. Yes, I tended to receive presents and gifts well beyond my years. Although I did play with Hotwheels and Lego a little later, the late 1960s and the early 1970s, I usually wanted things such as books, calendars, and art cards.

Self-Portrait at 28 by Albrecht Dürer, 1500
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Briefmarkenbeschreibung/Stamp description: Berliner Serie Bedeutende Deutsche/Series of Berlin stamps of distinguished Germans. Graphics by Michel und Kieser. Ausgabepreis: 10 Pfennig. Erstausgabetag/First Day of Issue: 15. Juni 1961. Michel-Katalog-Nr: 202 (Berlin)

This stamp is in the public domain in Germany because it was released by Deutsche Bundespost on behalf of the Federal Minister of Post and Telecommunication and thus is an official work according to German copyright law (§ 5 Abs. 1 UrhG).

I had this stamp, and its siblings in the same series, in my extensive collection of predominantly German stamps from WW I, the Weimar Republic and the Depression, Nazi Germany, and the Post-War era of East and West Germany. I sold my collection to my brother at the end of high school in 1981, adding the proceeds to my fun money for my trip to West Germany in summer 1981.

Adam and Eve by Albrecht Dürer, 1507, given by Christina of Sweden to King Philip IV in 1654, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Lamentation for Christ by Albrecht Dürer, 1500–1503, oil on panel, 151 x 121 cm), Alte Pinakothek, München, Bayern, Deutschland
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Betende Hände (Praying Hands) by Albrecht Dürer
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Melancholia I by Albrecht Dürer, 1514, engraving
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

John Everett Millais

2010-01-20T16:00:00.000-08:00

The North-West Passage by John Everett Millais, 1874, oil on canvas, 69½ x 87½ in, Tate Gallery, London, UK

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

The north-west passage was the sea route round the north of the American continent which was thought to provide a passage to China and the East. Several arctic expeditions had tried and failed to find it. Millais painted this picture in 1874 just when another English expedition was preparing to set off on the same voyage. When the picture was shown at the Royal Academy in 1874 it was accompanied by the lines ‘It might be done, and England should do it’. This patriotic message is underlined by the presence of the Union Flag draped over a screen.

From the display caption July 2007, Tate Collection, Tate Gallery, London

The Vale of Rest by John Everett Millais, 1858, partially repainted 1862, oil on canvas, 40½ x 68 in, Tate Gallery, London, UK. Presented by Sir Henry Tate, 1894.

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

In this painting Millais consciously set out to create a mood, rather than tell a particular story. The subject is mortality, set appropriately in a graveyard. The title and subtitle, Where the weary find repose, both come from a song from Mendelssohn’s Sechs Lieder (Six Songs). Millais heard his brother William singing the song and felt it suited the picture perfectly. The work evokes the mysticism of religion, showing two nuns, one digging a grave, the other, whose rosary has a skull attached to it, looking wistfully towards the viewer. Above the distant belfry is a coffin-shaped cloud: in Scottish folklore a premonition of death.

From the display caption September 2004, Tate Collection, Tate Gallery, London

Ophelia by John Everett Millais, 1852, oil on canvas, 76 x 112 cm, Tate Gallery, London, UK

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

Easily my favourite Pre-Raphaelite painting and another Brotherhood painter I admire.

The Eve of Saint Agnes by John Everett Millais, 1863, oil on canvas, HM The Queen—The Royal Collection, purchased by HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Also captioned as Madeleine undressing on Wikipedia.
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

The title comes from the day (or evening) before the feast of Saint Agnes (or St. Agnes’ Eve). St. Agnes, the patron saint of virgins, died a martyr in fourth century Rome. The eve falls on January 20; the feast day on the 21. The divinations referred to by Keats in this poem are referred to by John Aubrey in his Miscellanies (1696) as being associated with St. Agnes’ night. “The Eve of St. Agnes” is a long poem (42 stanzas) by John Keats, written in 1819 and published in 1820. It is widely considered to be amongst his finest poems and was influential in 19th century literature.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

St. Agnes’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,

And silent was the flock in woolly fold:

Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told

His rosary, and while his frosted breath,

Like pious incense from a censer old,

Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,

Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.

John Keats, first stanza of “The Eve of St. Agnes”

A Dream of the Past—Sir Isumbras at the Ford by John Everett Millais, 1857, oil on canvas, 49 x 67 in, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Merseyside, UK

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

William Holman Hunt

2010-01-19T16:07:00.000-08:00

The Awakening Conscience by William Holman Hunt, 1853, oil on canvas, 76 x 56 cm, Tate Gallery, London, UK

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

The above is one of my all-time favourite canvases. I love the expression on the young woman’s face. She is beautiful.

The Light of the World by William Holman Hunt, 1851, oil on canvas, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK

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

The Shadow of Death by William Holman Hunt, 1871, oil on canvas, 214.2 x 168.2 cm, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

The Hireling Shepherd by William Holman Hunt, 1851, oil on canvas, Manchester City Galleries, Manchester, UK
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is an art movement I much admire. I consider many of its artists among my favourites, and many of their masterpieces are paintings I like immensely. I have not yet visited the UK besides transitting between flights at Heathrow or refuelling at Prestwick, Scotland. Some day I plan to visit the Tate and others such as the Manchester.

My son

2010-01-18T21:20:00.001-08:00

Cohen arriving home at YSJ (Saint John Airport) after a month of visiting in Vancouver, summer 2009.

A friend of my son commented on this photo, “Cohen, you look epic.” My son, Cohen Isaac Scharnberg (O’Connor), and I are close since his birth. When he was 9½ years old, March 2002, his mother moved back to her hometown of Saint John, New Brunswick, taking him and his older sister with her, with my reluctant blessing, this after a year of much thought and seeking some legal advice on my part. We talk every weekend and I fly him out to the West Coast every summer. Except for the first, the photographs, in no particular order from 2008 and 2009, are taken by I-don’t-know-which family members and friends, so I’ll attribute them to him. Cohen has a droll sense of humour. He and his friends are typical teens in some ways, yet unique and independent-minded in other ways. They stay out of trouble. Saint John is one of those cities where many people still leave car and house doors unlocked, and crime is rather low in comparison to the big urban sprawls of Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, and the like. People in New Brunswick, like the other Maritimers, are a friendly lot. I have visited there a couple of times. The city has much history behind her. The province is beautiful summer or winter, the two seasons I have visited her. To visitors from out-of-province, they kindly say, “You’re from away.”

Into the mists ...

2010-01-18T15:37:00.000-08:00

Saturday, January 16, 2010.

Lake Geneva from Saint-Prex

2010-01-15T16:42:00.000-08:00

Der Genfersee von Saint-Prex aus (Lac Léman vu de Saint-Prex) (Lake Geneva from Saint-Prex) by Ferdinand Hodler, 1901, oil on canvas, 72 x 107 cm, sold to an anonymous bidder at Sotheby’s Zurich, Tuesday, June 5, 2007. It set a new record price for the artist at sFr. 10.9 million (about $8.9 million US that year).

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

This pastoral, idyllic view of the lake and the French Alps was painted from a meadow, the area now home to farms, houses, and vineyards. I would love to know the precise location of this view, then find the coordinates on a map. I had an almost identical view from my bedroom in Maison Blanchefleur in the third year (1986–1987) of my three years studies as a Special Educator in Curative Education, a witness to the sunrises from Valais and the Rhône valley, from the left, and sunsets behind the Jura mountains, to the right a little over my right shoulder. There is the possibility Hodler painted this landscape from at or near where the Camphill community, Fondation Perceval, sits today, and the Genève–Lausanne Autoroute suisse A1 (freeway) immediately behind Perceval and the viewer. As I’ve said before, I lived here 1982–1987. I had a similar view, a little closer to the village of St-Prex at the lakeshore, in my second year, at Maison St-Martin a few kilometres west of the main property of the community. In the first year I had a quaint bedroom on the ground floor near the front door of Maison François, alas, in recent years replaced by a new house on the same site. During my practicum, I lived at first in the west end of the attic of Maison François, with a view of Etoy, the rooftops of Aubonne, and the Jura sunsets. Then, the last few months of the practicum, in a cave-like basement room in the same house.

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

2010-01-08T21:04:00.001-08:00

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner (Penguin Books, London, 1993) paperback (first published by Jonathan Cape, 1984)

This novel is an underrated gem. It is a must-read for any serious lover of words, writers, and books. Writers wanting to learn about writing fiction are advised to develop an intimate relationship with this classic.

Brookner captures the female and writer’s mind and inner life with great depth and feeling, evokes the Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) region with precision. I lived in that world, a microcosmic Mediterranean-like climate, 1982–1987.

Despite its obvious qualities as of the first page, the first sentence, I was initially irritated, trying to decipher where the hotel is situated, in my mind measuring times and distances from Genève and Cointrin International Airport. The half hour travel time to the village and the hotel, Brookner allows Edith Hope, appears to me inaccurate and insufficient. I watched for clues, rediscovering the Dent d’Oche, the shoreline details, the large castle nearby (clearly the Château de Chillon of Byronic fame and Gustave Courbet canvas). Clues were revealed word by word as I carefully read along, walking those familiar shores. I saw again, also, the Rochers de Naye up behind, her slopes of green meadows and the deadly but homeopathic medicinal nightshade, Belladonna (Atropa belladonna), in September, the same time of year as in the story. The subtle descriptions of the sun and the weather are precise, accurate, just as I experienced them, my memories of them, surfacing from the depths of the lake, matching those in the story. The Hotel du Lac—there are many examples of this sort of establishment along the lemanic shores—is somewhere immediately west or east of Chillon, possibly in a village such as Villeneuve, Grandchamp, Veytaux, or Territet. To the west are Montreux, La Tour-de-Peilz, Vevey, the terrassed vineyards descend to meet the lake, and Lausanne. At the eastern end the Rhône flows into the Léman near La Petite Camarque, then there is Bouveret and the Route Cantonale 21 to St-Gingolph straddling the Switzerland–France border, the Dent d’Oche up behind on the Swiss side.

Anyone in a relationship and anyone not in a relationship—and that means everybody, women and men—should read what Brookner has to say about certain women, and of men. I relate to Mr. Neville quite strongly. What Mr. Neville says, p. 96, is a most important detail: “You cannot live someone else’s life. You can only live your own.…” Make it a personal motto, a mantra: “I cannot live someones else’s life, I can only live my own.” I know I must heed these words.

Some reviewers have stated the importance of women, and men too, reading this book. Unfortunately, those men most in need of this homeopathic dose of life, people, and relationships, are also the least likely to read what they would consider a woman’s book, or any novel, any book, for that matter.

Another important detail, one of those scents or road signs, reminding the reader of the underlying current of this story, is on p. 124, “… before you sail off into the blue.” When you get to this sentence you will understand.

Read slowly and carefully, with conscious precision. You must love words, writers, and books for the full experience of this masterpiece.

Three Kings Day

2010-01-06T20:12:00.001-08:00

The Flight into Egypt by Giotto di Bondone, 1304–1306, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italia

This image is in the public domain because under United States copyright law, originality of expression is necessary for copyright protection, and a mere photograph of an out-of-copyright two-dimensional work may not be protected under American copyright law. The official position of the Wikimedia Foundation is that all reproductions of public domain works should be considered to be in the public domain regardless of their country of origin (even in countries where mere labor is enough to make a reproduction eligible for protection).

The flight into Egypt is a biblical event described in the Gospel of Matthew, 2:13–23, in which Joseph fled to Egypt with his wife Mary and infant son Jesus after a visit by [the] Magi because they learn that King Herod intends to kill the infants of that area. The episode is frequently shown in art, as the final episode of the Nativity of Jesus in art, and was a common component in cycles of the Life of the Virgin as well as the Life of Christ.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adoration of the Magi by Gentile da Fabriano, 1423, tempera on panel, 300 x 282 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze, Italia

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

Adoration of the Magi by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1475–1476, oil on panel, 111 x 134 cm, Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze, Italia
The work of art depicted in this image and the reproduction thereof are in the public domain worldwide. The reproduction is part of a collection of reproductions compiled by The Yorck Project. The compilation copyright is held by Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Today is the last official day of Christmas, the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas, and the last day of the traditional German Christmas, Weihnachten, as I know it from childhood. I have visited these two Adoration paintings twice at the Offices (Uffizi), Easter 1986 and mid-September 2006. They are stunningly beautiful. I stand before them in awe and veneration. A warm glow bathes my heart.

... It will be obvious to you that very profound symbolism is contained in the Festival of the Three Magi from the East. Until the 15th century, this symbolism was kept very secret and no definite indications were available. But since that century some light has been thrown on the Festival of the Magi by exoteric presentations. One of the Three Kings—Caspar—is portrayed as a Moor, an inhabitant of Africa; one as a white man, a European—Melchior; and one—Balthasar—as an Asiatic; the colour of his skin is that of an inhabitant of India. They bring Myrrh, Gold and Frankincense as offerings to the Child Jesus in Bethlehem.

Rudolf Steiner, from “Lecture VI: On The Three Magi”, Berlin, 30 December 1904, The Festivals and Their Meaning: I, Christmas, GA 60b

Walking in cities

2010-01-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

Twilight by Edmund (Ödön) Tull, Paris, 1897, oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm, on auction in 2005 at the Judit Virág Gallery and Auction House, Budapest, Hungary. Current location unknown.

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

Note the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris in the background. To date, I have visited Paris three times, criss-crossing many of her neighbourhoods: Christmas 1982, early September 2006, and late September 2006. The City of Lights is my favourite city.

La Tour Eiffel by Georges Seurat, 1889, oil on canvas, 24 x 15.2 cm, Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco, California, USA

The work of art depicted in this image and the reproduction thereof are in the public domain worldwide. The reproduction is part of a collection of reproductions compiled by The Yorck Project. The compilation copyright is held by Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

A wonderful view of Paris is to be had from the top deck of the Eiffel Tower, well worth the time, effort, crowds, and money.

L’Avenue de la Gare à Nice par Louis Béroud, before 1930, Musée Massena, Nice, France
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Nice is nice, Nice was nice, late September 2006.

Le boulevard de Clichy, la neige by Paul Signac, 1886, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

This route runs out the northwest of Paris. Nearby I stayed at the Hostelling International Auberge de Jeunesse (Youth Hostel), early September 2006. My first visit, Christmas 1982, a full century following this painting.

Hamburger Hafen von Friedrich Kallmorgen, 1910, Öl auf Leinwand, 51,5 x 40 cm, Düsseldorfer Auktionshaus, Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Deutschland

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

The Hansestadt is my ancestral home port and city. “Hummel Hummel Mors Mors”.

Der Hamburger Hafen mit reicher Schiffsstaffage von Alfred Renz, Öl auf Leinwand, 62 x 75,5 cm, Hampel Fine Art Auctions, Schellingstr. 44, D-80799 München, Deutschland
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Regen, Berlin 1917 von Hans Baluschek, 1917, Gouache und Farbkreiden auf Velin, 49,5 x 33 cm, Villa Grisebach, Fasanenstr. 25, D-10719 Berlin, Deutschland

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

Despite my five years in Switzerland, hitch-hiking the length and breadth of West Germany each summer, 1982–1987, I only visited Berlin for the first time in mid-September 2006, and immediately fell in love with her.

Spaziergänger im Regen vor Pferdedroschke von Lesser Ury, 1919, Radierung, 20,8 x 14,8 cm (Plattenrand), Galerie Bassenge, Erdener Straße 5a, D-14193 Berlin-Grunewald, Deutschland

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

Nollendorfplatz von Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1912, Öl auf Leinwand, 69 x 60 cm, Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Berlin, Deutschland

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

Kassel. Bellevue, Blick auf die Aue vom Generalkommando aus von Louis Kolitz, Gouache, 21,5 x 36 cm, Auktionshaus Michael Zeller, Bindergasse 7, D-88131 Lindau im Bodensee, Deutschland

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

I once knew two wonderful sisters from Kassel, visiting them at their parental home, late September 1989. Ah, Almut Weigandt and Gudrun Weigandt, where are you beauties now?

Blick aus der Grimmschen Wohnung in die Marktgasse von Kassel von Ludwig Emil Grimm (Die Markt Gasse gez. den 28 July 1842. Morgens v. 10 bis 12 Uhr. Cassel), 1842, Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg (Leihgabe an das Brüder-Grimm-Museum Kassel), Marburg, Hessen, Deutschland

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

Köln–Heumarkt–Unter Hutmacher–rechts Torbogen zur Fleischhalle von Wilhelm Scheiner, www.kunstbilder-galerie.de

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

München von südwest von Michael Zeno Diemer, spätestens 1939, www.ak-ansichtskarten.de
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

München Marienplatz bei Schnee von Michael Zeno Diemer, 1899 oder früher, www.ak-ansichtskarten.de

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

München Blick vom Maximilianeum von Michael Zeno Diemer, 1899 oder früher, www.ak-ansichtskarten.de
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Dante meets Beatrice at Ponte Santa Trinita by Henry Holiday, 1883, oil on canvas, 140 x 199 cm, National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, Liverpool, UK. Depicted are the river Arno and the Ponte Vecchio, Firenze, Italia. Here Dante Alighieri meets Beatrice Portinari, in white, strolling along the Arno with her friend, Lady Vanna.

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

I have enjoyed the streets, alleys, and many sights in Florence twice—Easter 1986 and mid-September 2006.

Venice at Dusk by Miklós Barabás, 1834, watercolour on paper, 136 x 183 mm, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest, Hungary

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

Byron in Venice by Ivan Constantinovich Aivazovsky, date unknown, oil on canvas, 107 x 82 cm, Galerie Köller, Zürich, Schweiz

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

For a change, I am not posting of paintings I have seen, but rather, using them to represent a few of the cities I have walked in. Walking is the ultimate mode of transport. As much as I enjoy, very much so, flying, ships, train travel, driving—particularily if it is a vintage Volkswagen or a classic Mercedes, public transit, mopeds, and bicycling—walking and hiking is it. The perfect companion to this is Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople—from the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube and Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland—The Middle Danube to the Iron Gates. It offers the serious reader of travel literature the best inspiration to walk and hike.

As for cities I have walked the breadth and width of, there are many. Some of the greater and lesser cities are: Paris, Hamburg, Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Calgary, Grande Prairie, Saint John, Moncton, Seattle, Bellingham, Everett, Portland, San Francisco, Bakersfield, Palm Springs, Hermosillo, Guaymas, Ciudad Obregon, Berlin, Stuttgart, Konstanz, München, Köln, Lausanne, Genève, Montreux, Zürich, Bern, Basel, Winterthur, Nice, Firenze, Venezia, Roma, Milano, L’Aquila, Barcelona, Luxembourg, and Monte Carlo.

On foot I see things and meet people I would miss by other means of forward motion (or backward!), at a depth of experience unsurpassable by any other method of getting around. All I need is a good, sturdy pair of walking shoes, a hat, a jacket, a camera, notebook and pencil, a few good maps, passport and wallet, and an open mind. My curiosity knows no bounds.

Jean-François Millet

2009-12-10T19:19:00.001-08:00

Des glaneuses (The Gleaners) de Jean-François Millet, 1857, huile sur toile, 83,5 x 110 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Fidèle à l’un de ses sujets favoris, la vie paysanne, Millet livre dans ce tableau le résultat de dix années de recherches autour du thème des glaneuses. Ces femmes incarnent le prolétariat rural. Elles sont autorisées à passer rapidement, avant le coucher du soleil, dans les champs moissonnés pour ramasser un à un les épis négligés. Le peintre en représente trois au premier plan, dos cassé, regard rivé au sol. Il juxtapose ainsi les trois phases du mouvement répétitif et éreintant qu’impose cette âpre besogne : se baisser, ramasser, se relever. Leur austérité s’oppose à l’abondance de la moisson au loin : meules, gerbes, charrette et la multitude de moissonneurs qui s’agitent. Ce foisonnement festif et lumineux paraît d’autant plus lointain que le changement d’échelle est abrupt. La lumière rasante du soleil couchant accentue les volumes du premier plan et donne aux glaneuses un aspect sculptural. Elle souligne vivement leurs mains, nuques, épaules et dos et avive les couleurs de leurs vêtements.

Puis, lentement, Millet estompe les lointains pour produire une atmosphère dorée et poudreuse, accentuant l’impression bucolique de l’arrière-plan. Le personnage à cheval, isolé à droite est vraisemblablement un régisseur. Chargé de surveiller les travaux réalisés sur le domaine, il veille également à ce que les glaneuses respectent les règles liées à leur activité. Sa présence ajoute une distance sociale en rappelant l’existence des propriétaires dont il est l’émanation. Sans user d’anecdotes pittoresques, par des procédés plastiques simples et sobres, Millet confère à ces glaneuses, pauvres sans doute, mais pas moins dignes, une valeur d’emblème, dénuée de tout misérabilisme.

L’Angélus (The Angelus) de Jean-François Millet, entre 1857 et 1859 (commandé par Thomas Gold Appleton vers 1857, qui n’en prend pas livraison), huile sur toile, 55,5 x 66 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

Un homme et une femme récitent l’angélus, prière qui rappelle la salutation de l’ange à Marie lors de l’Annonciation. Ils ont interrompu leur récolte de pommes de terre et tous les outils, la fourche, le panier, les sacs et la brouette, sont représentés. En 1865, Millet raconte : “L’Angélus est un tableau que j’ai fait en pensant comment, en travaillant autrefois dans les champs, ma grand-mère ne manquait pas, en entendant sonner la cloche, de nous faire arrêter notre besogne pour dire l’angélus pour ces pauvres morts”. C’est donc un souvenir d’enfance qui est à l’origine du tableau et non la volonté d’exalter un quelconque sentiment religieux, Millet n’est d’ailleurs pas pratiquant. Dans une scène simple, il souhaite fixer les rythmes immuables des paysans. Ici, l’intérêt du peintre se porte sur le temps de la pause, du repos.

Isolé au premier plan, au milieu d’une plaine immense et déserte, le couple de paysans prend des allures monumentales, malgré les dimensions réduites de la toile. Leurs visages sont laissés dans l’ombre, tandis que la lumière souligne les gestes et les attitudes. La toile exprime ainsi un profond sentiment de recueillement et Millet dépasse l’anecdote pour tendre vers l’archétype.

C’est sans doute ce qui explique le destin extraordinaire de L’Angélus : objet d’un incroyable engouement patriotique lors de sa tentative d’achat par le Louvre en 1889, vénérée par Salvador Dali, lacérée par un déséquilibré en 1932 et devenue au cours du XXe siècle une icône mondialement célèbre.

September 2006, I was in Paris for the first three days of my vacation, and the last four days, visiting the Musée d’Orsay on one of those last days. I also saw these paintings there, standing and sitting before each of them, thinking about the harsh lives the poor peasants endured.

Classic German diesel locomotive

2009-12-08T21:34:00.000-08:00

Museumslokomotive V 200 002 der Deutschen Bahn AG im Stuttgarter Hauptbahnhof/DB Class V 200 historic diesel locomotive, V 200 002, at Stuttgart main station, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland on Sunday, September 12, 2004

Photograph by Klaus Jähne. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. Some rights reserved

The DB Museum owned V 200 002, the second prototype, until it was destroyed by fire at the museum on Monday, October 17, 2005.

Light

2009-12-07T21:22:00.001-08:00

Swiss painter and illustrator, Albert Anker

2009-12-01T16:40:00.000-08:00

Das Schulexamen (The school exam) von Albert Anker, 1862, Öl auf Leinwand, 103 x 175 cm, Kunstmuseum Bern, Schweiz

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

Junge Mutter, bei Kerzenlicht ihr schlafendes Kind betrachtend (Young mother contemplating her sleeping child) von Albert Anker, 1875, Öl auf Holz, 36,5 x 46,5 cm

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

Schulknabe (Schoolboy) von Albert Anker, 1881, Öl auf Leinwand, 56 x 42,5 cm, Museum Oskar Reinhart am Stadtgarten, Winterthur, Schweiz

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

I had the privilege of viewing this painting two or three times, visiting the museum in Winterthur. I have several art cards of Anker’s work in my extensive postcard and art card collection. Some large prints adorned the walls of some of the children’s bedrooms and living quarters in the various houses of Camphill’s Fondation Perceval, where I lived, worked, and studied, 1982–1987. During that time I was infatuated and friends with a beautiful Swiss-German farm girl who lived and worked on the Perceval farm. She was Daniela Stoll, then in her late teens, just finishing high school at the Morges Steiner School. She was an exuberant, intelligent, friendly, and talkative girl in blonde braids, sometimes in the German and sometimes in the French style, wearing skirts and dresses, with healthy red cheeks, and deliciously plump. She loved the outdoors, worked hard on the family farm. In another time, she could have been a stand-in for an Albert Anker painting. When I look at the girls and women he painted, I immediately think back to fond memories of talking, sharing tea and treats, and walking and hiking with Daniela. It was Daniela who first introduced me to Albert Anker. And she was the first girl I befriended, mere days after my first arrival in Perceval, August 1982. I have always wondered what she did with her life.

Eine Gotthelf-Leserin (A Gotthelf reader) von Albert Anker, 1884, Öl auf Leinwand, 59 x 42 cm

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

Ziviltrauung (Civil marriage) von Albert Anker, 1887, Öl auf Leinwand
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Der Dorfschneider (The village tailor) von Albert Anker, 1894, Öl auf Leinwand, 53 x 42 cm, Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Schweiz

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

Stillleben: Unmässigkeit (Still life: Excess) von Albert Anker, 1896, Öl auf Leinwand, 48 x 62 cm

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

Schlafender Knabe im Heu (Boy sleeping in the hay) von Albert Anker, 1897, Öl auf Leinwand, 55 x 71 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel, Schweiz. Legat Johann August Schetty-Eisenlohr, 1922.

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

Lower Mainland, Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

2009-12-01T15:35:00.000-08:00

Air Canada Airbus A319 approaching Vancouver International Airport (YVR), seen from Iona Beach Regional Park, Iona Island, Richmond, B.C., Canada

Iona Beach

Indian Arm, background left, Belcarra Regional Park, middleground, upper reach of Burrard Inlet with Burrard Thermal Generating Station near Port Moody, middleground right, Barnet Marine Park, foreground bottom, seen from Burnaby Mountain viewpoint immediately north of Horizons Restaurant, Burnaby, B.C., Canada

Closer view of previous photograph

Burnaby’s Capitol Hill, 203 metres, and downtown Vancouver, B.C., Canada seen from Burnaby Mountain, 370 metres elevation

Burnaby and Metrotown, and beyond to Richmond, Ladner, Tsawwassen, Georgia Strait, Gulf Islands, and southern Vancouver Island, Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Fernand Khnopff

2009-11-27T20:31:00.000-08:00

Wer wird mich erlösen? (Who shall deliver me?) by Fernand Khnopff, 1898, coloured pencil on paper, 22 x 13 cm, Collection Nourihan Manoukian, Paris, France (Künstlergruppe »Les XX«)

I lock my Door upon Myself by Fernand Khnopff, 1891, oil on canvas, 72 x 140 cm, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Neue Pinakothek, München, Deutschland

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

I lock my Door upon Myself is a rather eerie painting, and yet, I like it. I saw it at the Neue Pinakothek back in late 1989 with my youngest sister. I bought an 8½ x 11 inch print, still in a plastic insert to this day. This painting takes its name from the poem, “Who shall deliver me?” by Christina Georgina Rossetti dated March 1st, 1864, from Poems, 1876. It was revised in 1900 under the title “A Recluse”.

“Who shall deliver me?”

God strengthen me to bear myself;

That heaviest weight of all to bear,

Inalienable weight of care.

All others are outside myself;

I lock my door and bar them out

The turmoil, tedium, gad-about.

I lock my door upon myself,

And bar them out; but who shall wall

Self from myself, most loathed of all?

If I could once lay down myself,

And start self-purged upon the race

That all must run! Death runs apace.

If I could set aside myself,

And start with lightened heart upon

The road by all men overgone!

God harden me against myself,

This coward with pathetic voice

Who craves for ease and rest and joys

Myself, arch-traitor to myself;

My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe,

My clog whatever road I go.

Yet One there is can curb myself,

Can roll the strangling load from me

Break off the yoke and set me free.

Not so long ago, before the winds and the rain ...

2009-11-25T16:57:00.001-08:00

Ophelia

2009-11-25T16:02:00.001-08:00

Ophelia by John Everett Millais, 1852, is part of the Tate Gallery collection. His painting influenced the image in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet.

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

John William Waterhouse’s painting Ophelia, 1894, oil on canvas, 49 x 29 in
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Ophelia by Alexandre Cabanel, 1883, oil on canvas, 77 x 117.5 cm/30.3 x 46.3 in, currently part of a private collection
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Ophelia is a fictional character in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes, and sweetheart of Prince Hamlet.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Google “References to Ophelia” and you read on Wikipedia:

Ophelia was a favorite subject of artist John William Waterhouse. Ophelia is often referred to in literature and the arts, often in connection to suicide, love, and/or mental instability.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Caspar David Friedrich

2009-11-24T18:43:00.000-08:00

Tetscher Altar, Gesamtansicht, Szene: Das Kreuz im Gebirge (The Cross in the Mountains, today known as the Tetschen Altar) by Caspar David Friedrich, 1807, oil on canvas, 115 x 110.5 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, Deutschland. Friedrich’s first major work, the piece breaks with the traditions of representing the crucifixion in altarpieces by depicting the scene as a landscape. (Landschaftsmalerei als Altarbild).

The Abbey in the Oakwood by Caspar David Friedrich, 1808-1810, oil on canvas, 110.4 x 171 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Deutschland. This painting has been described as like “a scene from a horror movie, it forebears all the Gothic clichés of the late 18th and early 19th centuries”.

This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States and those countries with a copyright term of no more than the life of the author plus 100 years.

Grabmale alter Helden (Gräber gefallenere Freiheitskrieger, Grab des Arminius) (Old Heroes’ Graves) by Caspar David Friedrich, 1812, oil on canvas, 49.5 x 70.5 cm, Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Deutschland. A dilapidated monument inscribed “Arminius” invokes the Germanic chieftain, a symbol of nationalism, while the four tombs of fallen heroes are slightly ajar, freeing their spirits for eternity. Two French soldiers appear as small figures before a cave, lower and deep in a grotto surrounded by rock, as if farther from heaven. (Landschaftsmalerei).

Kreuz an der Ostsee (The Cross Beside the Baltic) by Caspar David Friedrich, 1815, 45 x 33.5 cm, Schloß Charlottenburg, Berlin, Deutschland. This painting marked a move away by Friedrich from depictions in broad daylight, and a return to nocturnal scenes, twilight and a deeper poignancy of mood. (Landschaftsmalerei).
The work of art depicted in this image and the reproduction thereof are in the public domain worldwide. The reproduction is part of a collection of reproductions compiled by The Yorck Project. The compilation copyright is held by Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer (Wanderer above the Sea of Fog) by Caspar David Friedrich, 1818, oil on canvas, 94.8 x 74.8 cm, Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Deutschland. This well-known and especially Romantic masterpiece was described by the writer John Lewis Gaddis as leaving a contradictory impression, “suggesting at once mastery over a landscape and the insignificance of the individual within it. We see no face, so it’s impossible to know whether the prospect facing the young man is exhilarating, or terrifying, or both.”
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Kreidefelsen auf Rügen (Chalk Cliffs on Rügen) by Caspar David Friedrich, c. 1818, oil on canvas, 90.5 x 71 cm, Museum Oskar Reinhart am Stadtgarten, Winterthur, Schweiz. Friedrich married Christiane Caroline Bommer in 1818, and on their honeymoon they visited relatives in Neubrandenburg and Greifswald. This painting celebrates the couple’s union.
The work of art depicted in this image and the reproduction thereof are in the public domain worldwide. The reproduction is part of a collection of reproductions compiled by The Yorck Project. The compilation copyright is held by Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Caspar David Friedrich in seinem Atelier (Caspar David Friedrich in his Studio) by Georg Friedrich Kersting, 1819, oil on canvas, 51 x 40 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Deutschland. Kersting portrays an aged Friedrich holding a maulstick at his canvas. (Genremalerei).
The work of art depicted in this image and the reproduction thereof are in the public domain worldwide. The reproduction is part of a collection of reproductions compiled by The Yorck Project. The compilation copyright is held by Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Mondaufgang über dem Meer (Moonrise Over the Sea) by Caspar David Friedrich, c. 1822, oil on canvas, 55 x 71 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Deutschland. During the early 1820s, human figures appear with increasing frequency in the paintings. Of this period, Linda Siegel writes, “the importance of human life, particularly his family, now occupies his thoughts more and more, and his friends appear as frequent subjects in his art.”
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Das Eismeer (The Sea of Ice) by Caspar David Friedrich, 1823-1824, oil on canvas, 126.9 x 96.7 cm, Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Deutschland. This scene has been described as “a stunning composition of near and distant forms in an Arctic image”.

Friedhof im Schnee (Graveyard under Snow) by Caspar David Friedrich, 1826, oil on canvas, 31 x 25 cm, Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig, Deutschland. Friedrich sketched memorial monuments and sculptures for mausoleums, reflecting his obsession with death and the afterlife. He also created some of the funerary art in Dresden’s cemeteries.
This work is in the public domain in the United States, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years or fewer.

The Oak Tree in the Snow by Caspar David Friedrich, 1829, oil on canvas, 71 x 48 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Deutschland. Friedrich was one of the first artists to portray winter landscapes as stark and dead. His winter scenes are solemn and still—according to the art historian Hermann Beenken, Friedrich painted winter scenes in which “no man has yet set his foot”.
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Mann und Frau den Mond betrachtend (Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon) by Caspar David Friedrich, c. 1830-1835, oil on canvas, 34 x 44 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Deutschland. In this work, the artist depicts a couple gazing longingly at nature, in “Old German” clothes, “scarcely different in tone or modelling from the deep dramas of nature around them”. (Landschaftsmalerei).
The work of art depicted in this image and the reproduction thereof are in the public domain worldwide. The reproduction is part of a collection of reproductions compiled by The Yorck Project. The compilation copyright is held by Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH and licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Erinnerungen an das Riesengebirge (The Giant Mountains) by Caspar David Friedrich, before 1835, oil on canvas, 73.5 x 102.5 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Deutschland. Friedrich sought not just to explore the blissful enjoyment of a beautiful view, as in the classic conception, but rather to examine an instant of sublimity, a reunion with the spiritual self through the contemplation of nature. (Landschaftsmalerei).
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Die Lebensstufen (Strandbild, Strandszene in Wiek) (The Stages of Life) by Caspar David Friedrich, c. 1835, oil on canvas, 72.5 x 94 cm, Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig, Deutschland. The Stages of Life is a meditation on the artist’s own mortality, depicting five ships at various distances from the shore. The foreground similarly shows five figures at different stages of life.

Meeresufer im Mondschein (Seashore by Moonlight) by Caspar David Friedrich, 1835-1836, oil on canvas, 134 x 169 cm, Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Deutschland. His final “black painting”, Seashore by Moonlight, is described by William Vaughan as the “darkest of all his shorelines.”
This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Landscape with Owl, Grave, and Coffin by Caspar David Friedrich, 1836-1837, pencil and sepia drawing, found on the internet.

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

Caspar David Friedrich, September 5th, 1774-May 7th, 1840, is another of my favourite artists, specifically, a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter. I have visited and at length stood before the sixth painting in this post, Kreidefelsen auf Rügen (Chalk Cliffs on Rügen). During my first half year in Perceval, St-Prex, Vaud, Suisse, I had a large print, glued on wood board, hanging in my attic room in Maison François.

More Swiss electric locomotives

2009-11-20T20:32:00.000-08:00

Richtung Bière ausfahrender Pendelzug bestehend aus dem Triebwagen Be 4/4 12 und dem Steuerwagen Bt 53 der Bière-Apples-Morges Bahn (BAM) im Jahre 2007 in Morges, Vaud, Suisse
Fotografie von Hanspeter Stähli. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. Some rights reserved

Chemin de fer Bière-Apples-Morges en gare de Bière, Vaud, Suisse, mercredi le 9 novembre 2005
Photo de Marc Mongenet. Ce fichier est publié sous la licence Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5

MBC (BAM) Ge 4/4 22 avec train de betteraves (tombereaux à voie normale sur trucs transporteurs) et Be 4/4 12 avec Bt 53

SBB-CFF-FFS Re 10/10, das heisst Re 6/6 mit Re 4/4 II in Vielfachsteuerung mit Stahlrollenzug auf der Bözberglinie in Richtung Brugg/SBB-CFF-FFS Re 10/10 ie. Re 6/6 MUed with an Re 4/4 II with a steel coil train on the northern Bözberg ramp, Aargau, Schweiz on Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
Fotografie von Kabelleger/David Gubler. The copyright holder of this work hereby releases it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

SBB-CFF-FFS Re 4/4 II electric locomotive, 11253, im TEE-Anstrich neben dem Gepäcktriebwagen De 4/4, 1682/SBB Re 4/4 II, 11253, in Trans Europe Express livery beside motor coach De 4/4, 1682, at Gossau Station SBB, St. Gallen, Schweiz on Friday, May 13th, 1983
Photograph by Peter Alder. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0, Attribution Share Alike 2.5, Attribution Share Alike 2.0, and Attribution Share Alike 1.0 Licenses. Some rights reserved

Classic German and Swiss electric locomotives

2009-11-19T18:43:00.000-08:00

DB Baureihe 120, 120 142-5, der Deutschen Bahn AG bei der Einfahrt in den Hauptbahnhof Stuttgart, Zugnummer IR 2565/DB Class 120 electric locomotive, 120 142-5, arriving at Hauptbahnhof Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland with train number IR 2565 on Friday, August 11, 1995.

Photograph by Klaus Jähne. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. Some rights reserved.

DB Baureihe 112, 112 311-6 und 112 312-4/DB Class 112 electric locomotives, 112 311-6 and 112 312-4, in Hamburg, Westdeutschland on Wednesday, August 3, 1983.

Fotografie von Benedikt Dohmen. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. Some rights reserved.

DB Baureihe 103, 103 222-6, 103 230-9, und unbekannte Lok/DB Class 103 electric locomotives, 103 222-6, 103 230-9, and unidentified, in Hemelingen, Bremen, Westdeutschland on Wednesday, July 11, 1984.

Fotografie von Benedikt Dohmen. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. Some rights reserved.

DB Baureihe E 10, 110 451-2/DB Class E 10 electric locomotive, 110 451-2, with a Regionalexpress at Hauptbahnhof Hannover, Hannover, Niedersachsen, Deutschland on Tuesday, March 18, 2003.

Photograph by Christian Immler. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Some rights reserved.

SBB CFF FFS Re 4/4 II electric locomotive, 11297, in the Gare de Lausanne, Lausanne, Vaud, Suisse on Friday, December 9, 2005.

Photograph by Rama. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.0 France License. Some rights reserved.

SBB CFF FFS Gotthardlok Ae 6/6, 11464, inzwischen meist nur noch in niederen Güterzugdiensten anzutreffen/SBB CFF FFS former “Gotthard locomotive” Ae 6/6 electric locomotive, 11464, now mostly used for short-distance freight runs, on Friday, May 25, 2007.

Fotografie von Kabelleger/David Gubler. The copyright holder of this work hereby releases it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

SBB CFF FFS Re 4/4 I TEE electric locomotive, 10033, for the Rheingoldexpress, at Gare de Genève-Cornavin, Genève, Suisse on Saturday, May 15, 1982.

Photograph by Peter Alder. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 License. Some rights reserved.

SBB CFF FFS Swissexpress pulled by Re 4/4 II electric locomotive near Oron, Vaud, Suisse on Sunday, December 15, 1985.

Photograph by Peter Alder. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0, Attribution Share Alike 2.5, Attribution Share Alike 2.0, and Attribution Share Alike 1.0 Licenses. Some rights reserved.

SBB CFF FFS Historic-Pendelzug bestehend aus BDe 4/4, A und ABt nach Hettlingen, Zürich, Schweiz/SBB historic push-pull train consisting of BDe 4/4 electric locomotive, A and ABt, near Hettlingen, Zürich, Schweiz on Saturday, July 14, 2007.

Fotografie von Kabelleger/David Gubler. The copyright holder of this work hereby releases it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

La Re 420, 511, du BLS entre Lalden/VS et Brig/VS, Suisse.

Photograph by Titane8226. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Some rights reserved.

SBB CFF FFS Re 420, 11151, Rheintal-Express auf der Strecke Sevelen–Weite, St. Gallen, Schweiz am Samstag den 7. Juli, 2007.

Fotografie von Kabelleger/David Gubler. This file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 2.5 License. Some rights reserved.

I love travelling by train, especially the electric locomotives in Europe. The majority of my experiences were during my years living in Switzerland, 1982–1987, hence the focus on trains operating at that time. At least once a week, often more frequently, I would take the regional (train régional) and Intercity trains to Morges, Lausanne, Genève, Montreux, Vevey, and many of the local stations in-between, plus the regional private rail companies connecting with the national rail network, such as the BLS and the MOB. On holidays I often travelled by train to Swiss towns and cities farther afield, and in West Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. For local trips I relied on single discounted vending machine tickets as I regularly had a Swiss rail pass. For trips in the other countries, Inter Rail, like Eurail but for European residents, was often the best deal to be had. The Swiss trains have always been an excellent network, regularly on schedule. This still holds true today. Germany’s state railway, Deutsche Bahn, once held the same reputation. Since its privatization in 1994, grumblings about deteriorating standards can be heard at times. I experienced this in September 2006, trains almost always at least ten minutes late, or even much more, even the fast InterCity trains. The Italian rail system, still state-run, appears to hold and deserve a better reputation than Germany these days. I experienced a distinct difference between rail travel in Italy in the 1980s and in 2006. Clean, efficient trains, running on time.

The last photo (SBB CFF FFS Re 420, 11151, Rheintal-Express) is the typical colour scheme and configuration I travelled on between the bigger Swiss cities. Some were also in the colour scheme of the train in the eighth photo (SBB CFF FFS Swissexpress Re 4/4 II). My favourite is the fifth photo (SBB CFF FFS Re 4/4 II electric locomotive, 11297). I travelled to and from the Lausanne train station several hundred times in the 1980s! This is the station I know the best of all those I have travelled through. Sometimes I would take my meals in the train station café-restaurant, Buffet de la Gare, Place de la Gare 11, serving local specialties at a reasonable price. One of my occasional favourites here was the Papet vaudois, a dish of finely sliced leek and diced potato served with hot smoked pork sausage, accompanied by a glass of Cardinal Spéciale or Feldschlösschen Hopfenperle, a golden yellow premium lager.

Dents de Morcles, Vaud et Valais, Suisse

2009-11-18T16:57:00.000-08:00

On the weekend du visite, Saturday, September 13, 1986, Jean-Frédéric Rosselet and I aimed for the Dent de Morcles, in fact two summits—our destination, the Grande Dent de Morcles at 2968 metres, and the Petite Dent de Morcles at 2929 metres.

We travelled by train to Bex, from there ascending with a yellow-with-red-stripe PTT Swiss post bus up through le Bévieux and Frenières to les Plans at 1101 metres, the turnaround point for the bus.

We commenced our hike turning right, up four hairpin bends in the trail, then levelling out for a bit, a little north of and below Pointe des Savolaires, 2294 metres, passing through a few wire gates, over wood stiles, across meadows, meeting two milk jerseys with bells clang-clanging as they munched on grass.

Soon we passed through the hamlet of Javerne, 1666 metres, and turning south for a now steeper ascent for the Croix de Javerne at 2097 metres, marked with an approximate two metre wood cross with carved lettering. We were rewarded with a magnificent, albeit overcast, view of the region.

Somewhere a little further along we stopped in on a hiking refuge, the overcast sky clearing for mostly blue, clotted with cloud here and there. We each purchased a bowl of tea to go with our pain de Vaud, jambon fumé, and soft stinky cheese known as Tomme.

Satisfied and rested up, packs hoisted, and away we went, soon coming upon the Grand Vire, a horizontal path across two steep combs, the path thinner and less secure with some loose shale and rock in numerous places, even erased by erosion in a few spots, picking our way along until we met the foot path at the base of a chimney.

Now it was a very steep and narrow climb, yellow painted arrows showing the way up on a very tiny path, zig-zagging up the very steep, rocky couloir. It was built by the Swiss Army many years ago. On occasion rocks the size of grapefruits accompanied by plentiful smaller stuff would come down, necessitating gymnastics, forcing us to duck under overhangs or pull our full backpacks up over our heads. Luckily we could usually hear the tumbling well in advance. The sun was receding westward, with it a significant temperature drop, still no summit in sight through the top of the chimney quite far up.

In the half dark we finally came out on a crest and quickly and easily to the left for the awesome summit, somewhat level in places. Our reward was a magnificient 360° view in the evening glow. The morning was to reward us with even better.

Supper was heated on a primus burner—freeze-dried pasta with white cream sauce, buttered bread, a shot of white wine each, then black coffee.

It was necessary to sleep fully clothed despite the sleeping bags rated -15° and all-season, it was so cold at that altitude.

We were greeted early with a glorious sunrise over the Alps, the rose and orange colours sweeping westward peak by peak. At this height one could see pretty much all the Swiss ranges, the northern Italian, and probably even some western Austrian peaks, too.

After a breakfast of black coffee and oatmeal porridge, we packed up and decided to head northeast a little, checking out the ridge toward the Dent Favre, 2917 metres, and a somewhat closer view the Petit and Grand Muveran, 2820 and 3051 metres respectively.

By now we had slowly warming sun, the cloud shreds increasingly scattered.

Now we made down the northern slope and curving westward over the ridge leading to the Pointe des Martinets, 2638 metres, eventually coming upon yesterday’s Grande Vire and turning right to a crest and then down a grassy comb to a marked path soon passing the old military barracks of Rionda. Jean-Frédéric told me of a network of tunnels throughout these mountains, constructed in the name of national defense, all as a result of the famous “Reduit Concept” developed by General Henri Guisan in the summer of 1940. Recently I read that it was about 23 kilometres of tunnels! Some tunnels and fortifications throughout the country were abandoned in the 1990s.

It was another good hour until we reached the La Tourche hut with its beautiful view. From here we descended the old military trail to Le Crêtelet and the path to Les Martinaux, followed by about twenty bends in the road down to the hamlet of Morcles and another thirty tight hairpin bends leaving this little mountain road at Lavey les Bains for the road to St-Maurice.

At the train station we rested about 40 minutes for the next local train. The only others waiting for the same train was an old farm couple, leather-faced from decades outdoors in all weather, sporting traditional costumes from their village, wherever that was—Jean-Frédéric said they were in the Valaisan style with subtle variations in the details, specific to their village and valley. They must have been off to some special event or celebration because one did not see anyone wearing regional costume in daily life anymore.

Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain, Christmas 1986 and New Year’s Day 1987

2009-11-17T19:19:00.000-08:00

For my 1986 Christmas vacation I decided to travel to Barcelona with Roser Ylla Janer, a Perceval co-worker with us for a one-year practicum, staying with her family on their rural estate winery several kilometres south of Vic, Osona, and in her absent friends’ flat in the city.

Not being a citizen of the EEC, I needed a visa for travel through France, obtained with some difficulty at the French consulate in Genève—much paper work and a 24-hour wait—because of a new French law in reaction to fears of terrorism, France having a terrorist movement of French nationalists working closely with the German RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion), an increasingly growing and complex problem.

Across the lake and around Genève, the French Army now had extra soldiers stationed near and at the border—machine guns, bazookas, jeeps, barb wire, and road blocks much in evidence at the main border posts and at all the small village crossings, nightly 20:00 to 7:00, seven days a week.

Certain elements in France were becoming fearful and untrusting toward foreigners, with growing anti-Semitism and other forms of racism. Added to this the student protests against the Chirac government, in Paris and the other big French cities.

On the periphery of all this, the Swiss felt quite smug and secure in their little country, and as we heard more than once, “La Suisse, elle en a raison d’être comme elle est dans un monde pareil” (Switzerland has good reason to be as she is in such a world as this).

Nonetheless, we took the opportunity to travel, despite the striking SNCF (Société Nationale de Chemin du Fer) since Monday the 22nd, arranging to drive down with a Spanish friend working in Camphill Beitenwil in Berne, via Genève, Lyon, Montpellier, and Perpignan to the border, there boarding the famous RENFE Tialgo [sic] at Port-Bou just before dawn. The train runs on a different gauge of track from the French and most European systems. Our friend was on a mad dash for Madrid, but willing to bend his route for this detour.

We passed Girona at about eight, arriving in the winter sunlight Sunday, December 28, 1986. Cataluña was to be the only region of Spain I have visited to this day. This region is basically its own country, a people proud of their language and culture, with a strong, quite evident separatist movement popular with the young, many of them university students.

We were abundantly blessed with sun and blue skies. We walked Las Ramblas, passed the Casa Gaudi, extensively visited La Sagrada Familia, walked the port area and many back streets.

The first evening we met three of her longtime female friends on Las Ramblas, treating us to a high-class Chinese dinner in a pricey, exclusive establishment on a nearby side street—not the kind of Chinese cuisine you would traditionally find in North America. This was Mandarin-style exuding an aura of some past royal dynasty. I can not remember exactly what we ate, but I do remember it was many entrées and much variety, delicious, and very clearly I do recall that we five worked our way through several bottles of a strong, clear alcohol much like sake, likely a Chinese rice spirit, and in each bottle of probably a litre in volume was preserved a scaly, grey baby dragon much like an iguana, ugly as sin, but we pickled ourselves with the stuff, becoming increasingly lively, boisterous, and wildly talkative as the night progressed.

As best as I can remember, her family’s masia (Catalan villa) and vineyard was just west of route C-17, Autovia de l’Ametlla, across from the commune of El Hostalets de Balenyà, a municipality in the comarca of Osona, part of a small but traditional wine-making region, a mix of small family-owned wineries and some larger cooperatives, predominately growing the native red grapes Garnatxa (Grenache) and Ull de Llebre (Tempranillo), and the white grape Picapoll.

Their masia was a typical farmhouse for the region, of considerable size under a pan-tiled roof, evenly square in dimension, originally meant to house several branches of the family, having held three daughters and two sons before they all married and moved out—except for Roser. The living quarters were all on the upper floor, as the ground floor sheltered the animals at one time, the rising body heat keeping the human inhabitants warm in winter, now exclusively used for their winery. A large sun room was furnished with wicker chairs and what we North Americans would consider love seats, and as the show piece a large portrait, oil on canvas, about 3 x 2 metres, of Roser a few years younger. Its colours were vibrant and modern, and I believe she had posed in what resembled typical woman’s attire of ancient Greece.

Catalunya is an autonomous region since 1979, made up of the four provinces of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona, with its institution of self-government, Govern de la Generalitat, that ties itself to old, traditional forms of Law and Government, enforcing the Catalan Civil Law system although most of the justice system does remain under Spanish authority. It consists of a Parliament, an Executive Council, and a President. But some want complete separation from Spain.

The evening of the 28th we attended a sold-out concert in Vic, Lluis Llach, a popular singer and songwriter on the piano, whom I have enjoyed and admired ever since, although I do not understand a word of Catalan.

Upon hearing Roser was visiting with a Canadian friend, her friends had got us into the show, front and centre, despite no more available tickets. And the separatists made up a large part of the crowd, the hall packed to the rafters, Catalan flags waving, much singing, cheering, and shouting of political slogans—Lluis in favour of the cause. Several of them, some translated by Roser, asked me about Québec separatism and René Lévesque—seemed quite knowledgeable on this subject. The Catalan anthem “Els Segadors” (“The Reapers”) was repeated a few times that evening.

We ate with her family several times, the memorable one being New Year’s Day—half the day eating and drinking, a variety of sophisticated, flavoursome foods each accompanied by select wines and sweeter ones between courses—some from their winery, others locally and foreign, and probably some Penedès or Alella too—with all her siblings and their families present.

Looking at my remaining, hurried, pencil-scribbled notes on loose tattered graphing paper, I will attempt to recall some of the foods.

We started with entremesos (hors d’oeuvres) of tasty cold plates of prime quality smoked and cured sausages and meats such as fuet (a salami) and longaniza (local spiced sausage), slices of cheese and olives, asparagus, and anchovies. Then several amanides (salads) including potato salad with olives, esqueixada (a salad of raw desalted cod), escalivada (roast aubergines, onions, and red peppers), and xató (curly endive lettuce, cod, and anchovies). This was followed by sopes (soups). Finally la carta (the menu) of various courses like butifarra amb mongetes (a stew of Catalan sausage with white beans), bacalla a la llauna (salt cod with tomato, garlic, and parsley) and various other fish and seafood dishes, the special Catalan stew escudella i carn d’olla, more salads and some vegetable sides including espinacs a la catalana (spinach sauteed with raisins and pine nuts), slices of bread rubbed with tomato known as pa amb tomàquet. Hours later dessert wines, coffee, some kind of cake, and a variation of my favourite dessert, crema catalana (cinnamon and lemon-flavoured Catalan crème brûlée).

Later in the evening, after Roser and I circled the farmhouse holding hands, we listened to a cassette of Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack for the spaghetti western, Once Upon a Time in the West. We sat on her large brass bed, plump with many pillows and an eider duvet, all in white, first sipping some dessert wine, kissing and cuddling, but the night ending in some long-forgotten disagreement, possibly something to do with our future and her parents’ hopes and wishes, revealed piece by piece. Like the night before, with bedtime very late again, I was quickly off in deep slumber in a guest bed a few doors down the hall from Roser.

A few days earlier I had already been warmly welcomed with open arms and soon I had the distinct impression, later officially confirmed, that they hoped to marry Roser off on me, even though I was definitely not Catholic nor Catalan. Roser had always been the rebellious one, the black sheep, but nonetheless loved. They were irritated and somewhat shamed she was not yet married.

I almost took the bait after a wonderful ten days there, but in early January, soon after our return to Perceval, upon serious, objective reflection, decided against this. By then our Libra-Scorpio incompatibilities were overshadowing our friendship.

In the meantime, we also spent much time in the city, highlights for me seeing again La Sagrada Familia and Park Güell with its thousands of mosaic tiles and pieces, both by Antonio Gaudi, also his Casa Gaudi. And the Catedral Santa Cruz in the old part of the city.

One evening we also rode the local train a little down the coast to Sitges, enjoying a sunset stroll on the beach. Roser said this village is a favourite of the gay tourism trade, some moneyed gays even settling down here, buying up some of the pricier real estate.

One noonday meal down in the harbour out past the Monumento de Colón (tall column with a statue of Christopher Columbus), at a tiny sidewalk restaurant specializing in seafood, we had something with mussels, clams, scallops, and calamari along with a bottle of white wine between us, then a long dockside walk out along the quais.

All the wonderful weather disappeared the day of our departure, buffeted by heavy rains and fierce winds by the time we crossed into France, easier travelling, we initially thought, by bus from Barcelona due to the Tialgo [sic] [kindly corrected by the comment below. Thank you] being booked full as the French railway strike was still in full effect.

But the buses were many and full too, and so it was a long crowded bus ride back to Genève—long delays at the Spanish-French border with the French authorities fine-tooth combing over every traveller’s passport. It was a luxury getting back on the trains, the efficent Swiss trains, for the last bit into St-Prex.

Lac Léman, la Suisse Romande

2009-11-16T22:50:00.000-08:00

Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) with Jet d’Eau, Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, April 17, 2009.

Photograph by Markus Bernet. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.5 License. Some rights reserved

Le Lac Léman pris depuis le Lavaux (patrimoine mondial de l’UNESCO) en direction de l’est, au fond les Alpes/Lake Geneva, photo taken in the Lavaux (UNESCO), with the Alps in the background, August 2008.

Photograph by CalistaZ. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0, Attribution Share Alike 2.5, Attribution Share Alike 2.0, and Attribution Share Alike 1.0 Licenses. Some rights reserved

View of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) from Saint-Sulpice, Vaud, Switzerland, Friday, February 13, 2009.

Photograph by Koosha Paridel. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Some rights reserved

“I have”

I have …

Memories of a slice of life

Spent in the Vaudois region,

The bouquets and tastes of the

Local reds and whites,

Grapes hand-picked on the steep slopes

Skirting the Léman shoreline,

The vigneron’s Must served with lake trout and fries

Announcing the harvest.

The fisherman who rescued three of us

In a catamaran with broken keel and rudder,

A beeline for Thonon-les-Bains

Pushed along by high winds and waves,

Struggling two hours to tow us in to St-Prex

In a wood dory, outboard panting,

Crowned with a shooter wine glass passed around

As is custom with the farmers and fishermen,

The white gold toasting our safe return

Before the harbour police were to come along with a fine.

I have …

Memories of tastes, scents, and sights that linger and hang

At the back and on the edges of my mind

Like props and stage sets, of life’s play pushed aside

By time and experience, out of sight of spectators:

Our friends and family who were not there

But watched from afar,

The rows of red velvet seats lining the towns

Of the West Coast, the stage in a field on the road to Morges.

I have …

Memories of the putt-putting moped,

The green Kreidler on my free day of the week

Cutting across inland fields, cobbled lanes

Through villages and into Lausanne and up

Past the SBB/CFF train station to steep

Narrow streets ascending from Place St-François,

Nursing a tall blonde, chasing the hops

With an espresso to kick off four in a row,

French cinéma with no sub-titles,

Bleary-eyed into that upstairs pizzeria,

White walls graffitied with salutations and names and places

From the four corners of the globe.

Stephan Alexander Scharnberg, September 2004