In past writings I have mentioned that my father was a man of extreme moods. On a good day, he could be lighthearted and charming, but when he was going through one of his low times, my mother, sisters, and I felt like a dark cloud hovered over our home. However, in my memories, I’ve allowed this extremism to dominate and to define him, which isn’t fair because there was more to him than that.
He came to America in the mid-fifties, a time when Germans were probably the most hated people on the planet, and so it’s understandable that he assimilated by putting all things German behind him. When people ask me why he didn’t teach us to speak his language, all I can think is that his desire to tuck his past away must’ve been why. When I was a child, the TV show, Hogan’s Heroes, made his people look stupid on a weekly basis. We, of course, were not allowed to watch it, and once, when I managed to sneak a peek, I was appalled. It was, indeed, a ridiculous show. Lawson King, a boy who lived up the street, played “Kill the Germans!” loudly, aggressively, and all over the neighborhood, going so far as to take cover behind our tree and fire his toy rifle at our house; and though his dad and mine were great friends, his father never did a thing to make Lawson shut his rude mouth. Having learned to lay bricks during the reconstruction in Germany, my dad took up bricklaying in his new home, Amarillo, where the population is close-minded and disdainful toward new ideas and anyone of a different ilk. I can only imagine the insults that came his way every day on the job site. At all times, with those outside our household, he was cautious with his interactions. He withheld opinions and was always polite—not in an obsequious way, but in the way of a European aristocrat, which he’d once been.
At one point he came across an English translation of German short stories, which he loved reading to us. His favorite story denigrated English speakers, and here’s a summary: A foreigner comes to Germany, sees a beautiful mansion, and asks the groundskeeper, “Who owns this mansion?” And the groundskeeper says, “Ich vestehe nicht,” which simply means, “I don’t understand.” The foreigner then travels further out into the countryside and beholds a prosperous farm. When he asks a boy who’s herding cows who the lovely farm belongs to, the boy answers, “Ich vestehe nicht,” which simply means “I don’t understand.” This phrase is repeated until, at the end of the story, the traveler leaves Germany filled with awe that this man, Ichvestenicht, is so very wealthy. My dad never got tired of reading it to us and he laughed after every reading.
Another of his favorite tales—and I have no idea where this story originated, or if it was fact or fiction—had something to do with hoarding pancakes. Apparently there once was a person who liked pancakes so much that every surface in their house was stacked with them. My father gleefully elaborated: they were on the bed and under the bed; on top of the chest and in the drawers; in the closets, stacked from the floor to the highest shelf, covering the couch and every chair—on and on. This was during an era when people collected things—coins, stamps, ceramic figurines, mugs, tiny spoons from the national parks they’d visited, etc. He compared this act of valuing things that, in truth, had no value, to the absurdity of having so many pancakes that you could never eat them all, and so they decayed where they lay, taking up space and eventually creating a stink. To this day when I entered a home cluttered with collectibles, I think to myself—some people like pancakes. Anyway, if you know the source of this story, please let me know.
Other memories of my Dad on his good days:
He was an excellent cook. Being German, he made use of the organs. We were served heart, tongue, liver, kidneys, tripe, and brains. He advised my sister and I not to mention these foods to our classmates because they’d find them gross and they’d tease us about it. Curious about whether he was right, I went against his advice and mentioned that we’d had heart for dinner the night before—and this was met with emphatic yucks and ooos. At first I was embarrassed, but then I remembered the delicious sauerbraten of the night before, and decided it was their loss. On the other hand, I became known as the girl who ate heart, so there’s that.
Another fun thing to do with my father was go shopping. Back in Germany, he and his family, the whole country, really, had been starving; and this gave him a worshipful appreciation of grocery stores. With eyes twinkling and his hands clasped behind his back, he’d become almost playful as he wandered the aisles, amazed by the diverse selections of cheeses and meats, aahing over the pre-sliced packaged bread, and faking indecision over the different brands of laundry detergent. He’d joyfully and expansively say, “Only in America.” He did the grocery shopping every Saturday, and it wasn’t until after my parents’ divorce that I learned that my mother felt that she hadn’t been allowed to do the shopping because he didn’t trust her to do it. She’d thought he thought she’d overspend. Married twenty-five years, and she never knew how much pleasure he took in this weekly task; she only knew that she’d been excluded from it. And, after all those years of not doing the shopping, she became just like he’d been—thrilled because she got to go to the grocery store! Yippy!
So there you are—some memories about good times with Hans Haenisch.
Sadly, this picture of him in old age is the only photo I have of my father. He married and again and it’s my understanding that all his photographs and documentation, like his citizenship papers and immigration records, are boxed in a storage facility in Amarillo.
