The way to school of klaus kuhrau
The burggegfluster "lighthearted times" by romy denk (BR from 2. August) inspired the former pastor of mangersreuth, klaus kuhrau. He has written under the title "our way to school" the following is an article we are pleased to publish:
"Now, at the age of 77, I would love to walk once again in peace and quiet, just for myself, along our former school path, which I walked at the age of seven! That was in eppendorf in saxony from the last property in the freiberger strabe, the schneider-bayern, about two kilometers to the center of town. We had moved here from east prussia in 1944.
For more than ten years, from the first to the tenth grade, I walked along this path, which also varied through alleys and country lanes. Our road was neither asphalted nor paved, but full of potholes and dirt – peppered with cow patties and horse apples.
Milk on the cart
When I left after seven o’clock, the farmers brought their milk cans to the milk house in a handcart, or the farmhands brought potatoes and grain to the cooperative on horse-drawn carts. One after the other, the classmates joined in. The first was my friend peter, a bombed-out man from chemnitz. Then erich, cursed from pomerania.
Gerd and ulrike came from the village. Gisela’s family had a small factory, renate’s a greengrocer’s shop.
But boys and girls mostly went for themselves. On the way to school, we watched closely to see how far the cherries, apples and pears were behind the fences so that we could "mice" something in the evening. The trout in the village stream! What an experience, when i took out the first one by hand together with the coarser ones and fried it in the pan at home. She hooted again!
Interesting the content of our pockets: basically a pocket knife. There were also matches and combs, as well as barter items such as glass marbles, cartridge cases, tin soldiers and cigarette pictures. In the seventh grade, I had brought it to an impressive collection of 300 pieces in several cigar boxes!
The little joys
At the bohme-backer a cream roll for 30 pfennigs or at milch-hubner a sour cucumber for ten pfennigs or in consumption a stick candy, an hour lollipop. Those were the little joys on the way. It took us half an hour to get to school – and the farthest ones were the first ones there. Siegmund, from the butcher’s shop across the street from the school, was the last to arrive, or late.
The way home could take up to two hours. Damme building after a heavy rain! Watching the pottewitz blacksmith put the horseshoes on a horse. It may have smelled like a burnt hoof!
There were no cars. Even the doctor and the pastor made their visits by bicycle.
With mother or father to the school, if one had then still one?! Then you would have been a mother’s son, a mamabubi! But also snowball fights or class wedges, a kind of vigilante justice, were possible on the way home.
Today, once again, we will go to school in peace and quiet, just for me! What a lot of memories came back! Later the saying came up: the way is the goal."