Getting back to my German-American frame of mind or German-American uber alles
I’ve really neglected this blog, having not posted anything since last April. I have a full-time job as a long-haul truck driver, plus I do another kind of general current events and life commentary blog, but maybe I’ll make it my New Year’s resolution to get back on this one — I really want to re-kindle my interest in my German ancestry and pride in being German-American.
I was listening to a radio talk show the other night, and while speaking on the subject of the failings U.S. public education, a caller claimed that we had to depend upon German technology on a project to bore another tunnel hole on a San Francisco Bay area highway.
Seems like I’ve been hearing several reports recently that a lot of our green revolution stuff and so on depends upon technology and know-how from overseas, and quite often Germany.
Just read an article in Der Spiegel Online that said Mercedes-Benz is working on a revolutionary electric car that will have little steel, but instead mostly some stronger and much lighter synthetic, plastic-type material known as carbon fiber reinforced polymer. The good thing for the U.S. is that this stuff, the carbon fiber polymer, is made here in the U. S. in Washington State, taking advantage of the availability of hydroelectric power there. I may have German heritage, but I’m no scientist, but you can read the article at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,736296,00.html
Germans are noted for innovation and quality. And the German nation is not as bad off economically as many of its European neighbors and even the United States because it is still into making quality products in demand all over the world (although I just read that workers in Bavaria are not too happy about stagnant wages and having had to give wage concessions some time ago to remain competitive on the world market).
I read a book awhile back (actually I think I listened to a recording of it) about suspension bridges and how a German immigrant was the one who came up with woven steel cables that make the modern bridges possible — before that we were using rope.
And if you look up the history of the automobile and the internal combustion engine, you’ll see German names all over that.
And if you live in the northern end of the Sacramento Valley in California, here’s some trivia/history for you. My mom, who’s 100 now, not too long ago did some research for a short story she wrote for a writing class. Seems that the crossroads you might see referred to by sign along I-5 (or the old 99W) known as Artois (pronounced something like “our toys” by the locals, but actually named after a former province of Northern France and pronounced “artwa“) was once known as Germantown. But during World War I things German fell into disfavor so the name was changed. Seems a troop train went through town and the American doughboys were not too happy with the name Germantown, seeing as they were off to do battle with the Kaiser.
Someone in my own family once suggested to me that they thought the mailbox name on my grandmother Walther’s farm was changed to her brother’s French surname, which of course was her maiden name — he was living with her at the time, Grandfather Walther no longer being around. This supposedly was done because of the anti-German mood during World War I.
Like I say, I’m trying to get back into my German-American frame of mind to revive this blog I have neglected over the past few months. In that spirit, I made myself my own version of a German omelet this morning, eggs mixed with sauerkraut.
Right now I think I’ll have a beer.
PROSIT!
P.s.
I decided to add “German-American uber alles” to the headline and tags hoping I would snag more readership. I have read that the infamous line “Deutschland uber alles” (Germany above all) in the German national anthem did not mean Germany over the rest of the world but instead called for a united Germany (Germany not being one nation until the 1870s — and then of course it had been split for decades after World War II between the Eastern Soviet block and the free West before being unified again). At any rate, I am not 100 percent German (is anyone?), but the German part of me is peaceful in nature.
