The rainbow never sets

Vater also had our carpenter make us a gym, with a cross bar and a vertical bar to climb up.

"Yippee," said Günter, "We can now hold our own Olympic Games." We fixed a day, and invited about 20 young people for this occasion. Horst and Bernd, of course, and they brought their two cousins Junkermann along. They also brought some of their Polish friends from Strykowo. The rest of the participants came from our own village.

To make the competitions somewhat more even, we grouped ourselves into different age-groups.

Our games started with a parade. Our parents, grandparents, and any others present stood on the steps of the big house, taking the salute. We waved and they waved back. After that the races started all around the drive way. From one end to the other was about 120 meters, so the 60 meters and 100 meters sprints were started in such a way that we ended up by the steps of the house. So did the 200 meters and 400 meters. We did not have any races longer than that. We had dug a sand pit for long jump and high jump, and on the lawn in front of the house we threw the javelin, shot-put and discus.

Swimming was also part of our Olympics, and diving. Our families were the umpires and we received gold, silver and bronze medals at the end of the games. Mutter had made these medals from gold, silver and bronze paper, over some card board. Because there were so many divisions, and so many different kinds of competitions, somehow we all managed to get at least some of the medals and proudly displayed them afterwards. This was quite a memorable day for us. We kept talking about it long afterwards, reliving all the details. We also kept up with our athletics for years after that.

*

It was good to dream of the past, even though the sadness about the death of the young doctor was still there.

Soon after that, Vater and Mutter invited a boy from the city to stay with us. His name was Heinz, and he was the son of a friend of theirs. He stayed with us for three weeks. The previous Christmas we had been given an Indian tent with red-indian head gear made of turkey feathers, and a tomahawk. The spear was our javelin. We were now fully equipped to wage war against the pale faces. They were, of course, imaginary, and we spent many hours fighting them, making camp fires, and smoking the peace pipe (a chestnut hollowed out, using dried leaves).

Heinz's visit was just at the right time for me. He helped me to get over my sadness.

Once the harvest started, we were again fully occupied with our horse-drawn rakes. A feeling of peace and freedom came over me, and for a time I was allowed to forget the horrors of war.

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