Being 5 years old wasnt always fun
I am a bit younger than five in this picture but I have no other right now . This is my dog Denzer and me. He was a doberman-mastiff and protected me were he could. He was not accepted to be in the house but was our guard dog outside. He also guarded me from my brother and sister if they got to nasty to me while playing outside. I could also ride on him. He was huge when he was standing. We took a scarf, made loops in the ends for my feet and put it over his neck. I loved him so much. We had him for almost six years, than he died.
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One of my first own memories is from the time in the Kinder garden. I remember the day I was sent to the big play doll house as a punishment. After I was sitting on a boy and beating his face with my fist, I was sent to the dolls house because there was no bigger punishment for me than spending time there. I hated that place. It was so, so, uhhhaaa so girly. The other kids were pointing at me and were laughing while I walked down the isle to get there. I sat myself down in the darkest corner which was also the furthest from the door and cried. I do not remember what brought on those tears, I could give a few guesses of the reasons today, however I do remember that the sobs hurt me so badly that I started to choke and I hyperventilated. Just about the time when I was getting really bad, the door opened and a boy came in. I cleaned my face with my sleeve and tried to be as quite as possible. The blond boy was not looking in my direction and I thought:“Good for him!“ Than I heard them; the other kids. They were laughing again, pointing at the play house and yelling things. At First I thought they were laughing at me again, but after a little while I understood what they were screaming; “He plays with dolls!“ I still have their laughter in my ears. Over 30 years later and I can still hear the high pitched voices of the children. The boy turned his back to the door and lowered his head. He looked sad for a moment until he saw the doll on the chair. He picked her up and started to sooth her. Rocking her back and forth and whispering words. No, I don't know what he was saying but it felt like he was talking to me. I know that it was that moment when I started to care for someone who wasn't of my family. I was allowed to leave the playhouse after half an hour and only if I say sorry to the boy I hit in the face. The next I remember of this day was of me standing in front of the doll house, keeping it safe and facing every kid that came close to mock that young boy. He was blond and had blue eyes. He looked to me like an angle and I always thought that Angles did not exist. I had now found my place in the Kinder Garden day care. I did not hurt any kid again except when they made fun of the boy who played with dolls. I had fallen in love with him and his name was Olaf. I couldn't wait to get to the day care in the mornings and I hated it when I got picked up again. Olaf and I started to meet in the afternoon in my house. Other kids also joined in. There was Janinna, Marko, Janin, Dirk and Kai the twins from across the road, and a few other kids who lived near my house. We started to be a clique of kids who had to entertain themselves and couldn't do that at their own home because of different reasons. There was a big field behind our house and it did not take long for my brother Marco and I to tear down the fence. This is were we started to meet. We were all kids who had reasons not to be at home. All those kids were afraid to be at home. There were many children just like us. But there were also others who just came to be with us. Like Olaf. From that time on, you could not meet me without Olaf being by my side. We were not only at the day care together but also in all our spare time. Except through the nights. Those were still the dark hours of my life, and the weekends when he was with his family on trips or such. If I was not in day care, I would be at the hotel of my parents. They had never time for me and so I was with the guests in the taproom. They let me sip on their drinks, sit on their laps and tickled me all over the body. My father did catch me once on the lap of a male guest and he pulled me down on my hair and kicked me into a corner yelling: “Don't you ever dare to sit on his lap ever again, or I gonna beat you as you never had been before!“ I didn't listen to him, just payed more attention not to get caught by my father. And so I had my first Whisky at age 5 given to me by a guest.
Another first memory I have, is of a night when my father came to my room. I could hear him downstairs and covered my head with the pillow so as to not hear the fight between him and my mother. When I heard those heavy foot steps on the wooden stair case, I knew there would be no escape. The only question was, does he come first for me or is my brother going to be the one to feel his wrath first. Why do I remember this one night? I don't know, I can only guess that it was the first time I can recall him beating me until I lost consciousness. Or maybe it was because this was the first time that I used my own weapon to protect me from his beatings. I stopped breathing while he did what he did when he was drunk and I knew through my brother that if you keep quite or don't respond, he would let you go. This so called weapon of mine was used many times later in my life to escape situations I thought I couldn't cope with. If it happened that our father came home in the afternoon and started a fight because of being drunk, my brother and I used to throw ourselves on top of our mother when our father started to beat her. We wanted to keep her safe and if that meant taking the beating for her, then so that is how it had to be. My brother and I were a unity when it came down to protect our mother. With my sister I didn't have a good relationship. She was always just so mean. (that's what I thought back than) Because our parents didn't have much time for us, it was put upon her shoulders to rise us. She is only 5.5 years older than myself but still she had to be a grown up very early. For many years she hated us because we destroyed her childhood. (her own words quoted) That did not change until she was well over 20 years old.
Something else I did experience during that time was the risk of stealing things from my father. You see, my brother is two years older than I am, and one day he asked me if I knew what father was hiding in his little brown suitcase. I told him that I sure did know what my father hid in that suitcase,"His tobacco and cigarettes!" He told me that I would not dare to try to open it and to get as proof a cigarette from it. I could not resist that dare and so that night I went down stairs to the brown case of our father and I tried to open it. It didn't go. The lock had numbersn for a code to unlock it and I knew not what to do. So on the next day. when I saw our father go to his suitcase, I sneaked up on him and looked over his shoulder. He had the case open and was about to pick his choice of smoke when he saw me behind him. He then held out a cigarette to me and so I simply reached for it. I didn't know where it came from but the next thing I felt was a slap across my face. I held my hand to my cheek while he screamed at me that if I would ever dare to smoke, he would beat me to death. He closed the case before putting it down and then just walked away. I was left blinded by the tears and the pain in my face increased while I tried to hold back the sobs so that he would not hear me. After a while I looked down at my feet and it was then when I saw it, it was.The cigarette he was holding towards me before he hit my face. He must have dropped it then. So I quickly picked it up and hid it in my pocket. During that night, I woke my brother and gave him the proof. He was stunned and in awe that I had done what he thought I would never dare to do. I didn't tell him what really happened but I was happy that he was pleased with me and let me sleep in his bed on his side. For many months after this, I knew the security numbers and so I knew exactly how to open my fathers little suitcase. Two or even three times a week I would take cigarettes from this case for my brother. On his eighth Birthday in January, I had a whole box of smokes for him. He shared one with me and said that this is one for me because of all I had done for him. Wow I thought, my first own smoke. The next day we met at the school grounds and he showed me how I should smoke it. Pull and exhale he said. And so that is what I tried to do just that. It actualy took two more years before I learned how do it properly and pull the smoke down into my lungs. And so I had a smoke now and again with my brother and we had our fun in hiding what we did from our father. We had soap with us for washing our hands, and chewing gum for our breath. We also never smoked in our Jackets. We both knew we would not survive if he would ever found out what we had been doing. But one day he did find out. Well he didn't catch us directly but my brother was seen smoking by someone who then told our father. I was seven years old by then and in the evening of that day, he came into my room where I was playing with my brother. He pulled my brother up to his feet and told him to follow him to his own room. I sneaked right behind them as I was worried. Father was not drunk, and so he would not beat him up, so what was it that he wanted with him in his own room? He pulled out of his pocket a "Havana" Cigar and gave it to my brother. My brother shook his head and would not take it. Father said than that he knew he was smoking and my brother should show him how he does it. My brothers face turned as white as the wall. He stepped back and you could see the fear in his eyes when he heard those words spoken by the man who told us he would beat us down if we would ever be found smoking. I was shocked, ready to jump in to help my brother if needed. But father only said: "You smoke this one, here with me, and if you get sick, throw up, get diarrhea or just a green face color, you wish you were never born." They both set down on the bed and started to smoke their own "Havana". Father told him how this cigar was made and where it came from and they had a great talk. There was nothing else to hear. No coughs, no screaming, nothing. When they were done, I was back in my room, I heard how they got up from or off the bed and came to the door. During the next hours, father followed my brother even to the toilette. Nothing. After dinner our father told my brother it is not healthy to smoke but it was from now on up to him if he wants to or not. I smiled a big smile to my brother, I was so happy that nothing bad had happened to him. In the next moment I found myself back on the floor by the feet of my father. I didn't see that slap come either. He only looked down at me and said: "You will be dead no matter how good you would be in smoking if I ever find out you do." He turned and left the room. Needless to say with me being still alive that he never did find out that I already was smoking at that time.