Komet im Mumintal, 1972-78
Mumintal
1977-1993
Barbara's New Name
1973
Komet
im Mumintal, 1972-78
In Germany Barbara had bought the children book “Komet im Mumintal” in German by Tove Janson. She read it and several sequels from the same series to her children, and soon they called her Mumintal or simply Mumin. The name has remained the endearment used by her children and young friends to this very day.
Rolf in the USSR
May
27 - August 12, 1977
In early 1975 I had applied for a fellowship to spend two months in Moscow at Prof. Basov's Laboratory under the auspices of the US-USSR Scientific Exchange Program. It had not been granted - but in 1976 the US Academy offered me the fellowship for 1977, there were no interested US takers.... This was my fourth time in Moscow - the previous visits had been brief to attend conferences. I wanted to see more of the USSR and submitted a carefully detailed itinerary: laboratories in Novosibirsk, Minsk, Kiev, Tbilisi, Tashkent, and Leningrad. When I arrived, Basov smiled: "When you come back, you will know our country better than I do. - But your wishes shall be granted." - I worked one month on a research project at his laboratory in Moscow and traveled five weeks - all expenses paid for by the Soviet Academy..... An unusual experience.
On my way back from the Moscow I met my parents in München and joined them on their vacation at the Seiser Alm above Bolzano. Mother was now 78 and Father 76. They had become very old, and I had to walk slowly with them on their daily outings - yet I had a good time and many intimate talks with my beloved mother.
Barbara's Six-Week
Camping Trip with Susanne, Heike, and Cornelius
Summer 1977
During my long absence Mumintal took the children and Heike on a six-week camping trip to Oregon and Washington State, to Canada, through Wyoming, Glacier National Park, and Yellowstone. Heike flew home from Denver - the end of her year with us - and on the day before her departure Susanne's beloved Canon camera was stolen in Denver. She was inconsolable - with her camera vanished all the pictures she had taken on their trip.... She was enrolled in photography at the high school and doing excellent work. I bought her another, better Canon.
Barbara in Tübingen
and Badenweiler
September 17 - November 1, 1977
Barbara
and her father, Badenweiler October
1977
Quite suddenly Barbara's father had fallen very ill. Was it his end? Barbara immediately flew to Tübingen and spent three weeks taking care of him at a sanatorium in Badenweiler - a place that could have been culled from one of Thomas Mann's novels....
Will Rogers
State Park
Winter
1977/78
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During the following months Barbara, to balance herself, took up pottery classes at the Pottery Farm in Santa Monica, the same place where Susanne had potted in the previous 2 years, and Cornelius would go to next; the reason why we have so many hand-thrown pots in our house....
My Parents' Third
Visit
Feb-March, 1978
On the initiative of my mother, my parents came a third time. Gerhard had adamantly refused to see them during his last year.
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Barbara completely devoted herself to them especially to mother. It would become their happiest visit.
Klaus and Lilo -
Barbara in Tübingen - Susanne Art Center
July
1978-February 1979
In July 1978 Klaus and Lilo Lattmann stayed with us for three weeks (no photos). Barbara took them on a 2-week tour of California.
Concerned about her old father Barbara flew to Tübingen at the end of November 1978 and stayed until January 1979. I shared the house work together with Susanne, who, having graduated from high school 'made money' at a record shop and later at an ice cream parlor in West LA. There are many stories from that time and the many camping trips. In February 1979 Susanne decided to apply at Art Center and was admitted on the basis of her portfolio. She bought an old Citroen car and rented an apartment with an “unrelated guy” in Pasadena.... (More stories).
Barbara Tour
Escort
April 1979
Frustrated by her unsuccessful
search for a publisher of her German translations of American novels,
Barbara looked for another challenge. Some extra money would be fine,
but it was not the major driving force, she wanted something to do
for her head. She found an ad wanting German-speaking tour-escorts
and in January 1979 took a blitz course offered by one tour operator.
After three weeks they put her on a flight to San Francisco and let
her do a city tour for 30 people there. She worked hard in the days
before this test - and passed it to everyone's satisfaction - except
her own: she had been too nervous....
We decided that local LA
city tours would be highly inefficient: she would feel that she had
to do her house work on top of her tour work. I urged her to take
only out-of-town tours - which, of course, would take her away for
two or three weeks. I would have to take care of myself, Cornelius,
and occasionally of Susanne's emergencies. There was also the
question of jealousy - surrounded by men as she would be. I put that
consideration aside, we trusted each other.
After extensive
preparation for all events she possibly could encounter (heart
attacks, bus break-downs, etc), she took-off with a big bus and
thirty-five “pax” on her first tour to Las Vegas and the Grand
Canyon, 1-11 April 1979
Barbara
Tour guide for thirty Gemüsebauern in San Francisco,
the
“bodyguard” was the German leader of the group
This was a sea-change in our life, not because of her being away repeatedly from home – I had gotten used to that – but because she cut her hair short and later moved out of our communal bed. I am afraid I never forgave her the irretrievable cutting of her beautiful hair, and I still keep a rolled up blanket next to me at night.... It took years to get used to this new stage of our marriage.
The Great Fire
October
1979
Brush fires, hill slides, and earth quakes are an inseparable part of the Californian Paradise, but it had never been so close before. Thank God Barbara was home. The wind from the hill became fierce. With a roar like big jet engines the fire raced downhill.....
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Cornelius and I climbed on our roof
and tried to water it down. Ashes and glowing embers were raining on
us. Susanne was paralyzed by fear. I sent her to load the tent,
sleeping bags, and all our camping gear into the car and drive it
into the dead end of Albright St. Barbara was in the kitchen cooking
a transportable meal for us. Still no fire engines in sight.
The
heat on the roof became unbearable. And then the shingles of the
Barnaba's house below us caught fire. Together with Herb Crew, our
other next-door neighbor we dragged a ladder to the Barnaba house.
The fire had already burned a 6-foot hole into the shingles. While we
doused the flames on their roof Barbara and Susanne evacuated the
confusedly babbling Mrs Barnaba and her husband in his befuddled
tails and hat. I had to call his reluctant son in law and shout at
him to come and pick up the old couple. Barely had we pushed them
into the son-in-law's car, the Maestro got out again and ran into the
house to rescue his precious music. When he reappeared he carried a
hastily collected bundle of sheet music and the plaster busts of
Verdi and Beethoven....
And then fully unexpectedly the wind
stopped dead. I remember vividly how I became aware of the crackling
of the burning trees at the bottom of the canyon below. A complete
calm settled on us. The danger had passed - in the very last
minute..... We sat down to dinner. The fire crackled all night.
Barbara in
Tübingen
December 9-23, 1979
Worried about her father's rapidly failing health Barbara flew to Tübingen again in December. It was to be her last visit with her beloved father. She found him in the Tropenheim in Tübingen. Father Lattmann's vital energies deteriorated quickly. He died on April 24, 1980. Barbara was not there. Barbara and Susanne visited Tübingen a year later
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Barbara, Rolf, and
Cornelius in Georgia, Moscow, and Yerevan
Sept 24-Nov 22,
1980
In 1980 Merab Djibladze tried hard to persuade me to spend a year teaching with him at Tbilisi University. The Polish-Russian crisis was raging, besides l couldn't be away from my job for a year – last not least the salary Tbilisi could offer would not even cover our house payments. It was Cornelius who finally talked me into going for 2 months. He and Barbara were included in Merab's offer. We spent a week in Moscow before we flew to Tbilisi.
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Merab drove us tirelessly all over Georgia – the many photos you find here and a few more here. Before returning to Moscow and home we spent a few days in Yerevan/Armenia. This was the time Cornelius saw Mt. Ararat in the clouds on the horizon, where to he drove with his family just now, August 2013....
Tamriko and Jeffrey
December 1980
Tamriko
psyching Geoffrey, Christmas 1980
Merab had begged us to take care of newly married Tamriko and Jeffrey, she Georgian, he a Dadiani grandson from Toronto, who were studying at UCLA (Art History and Anthropology). They soon adopted us. A wonderful diversion for me, and a delicate new obligation for Barbara mediating their frequent marital discords and Tamriko's unhappiness. They rented an apartment. We saw them often. After many emotional up and downs they moved to Toronto in 1982, where Tamriko started a PhD in philosophy and Jeffrey sold computers to Russia. Eventually their marriage fell apart. After Tamriko finished her thesis on Kant, she had an emotional collapse. Her mother took her back to Tbilisi, where she now has a professorship at the University. Jeffrey gave Tamriko his house in Toronto and married a rich Russian jewelery designer. - All of this happened within our purview by email and Tamri's repeated visits.
Mammoth Skiing, John Wood and Susanne's Graduation from Art Center 1981
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As most every year we went skiing
with some of our friends in Mammoth in early March 1981. - Susanne
had fallen in love with John Wood, a photography student at Art
Center. John had patiently waited out all her previous suitors. One
morning at Mammoth, there was a bang on our window. I discovered a
laughing Susanne below, who had thrown the snowball. She had stayed
in Pasadena and borrowed the BMW to spend a weekend with us. In her
tow was John!
All day John said hardly a word. Suschen did all
the talking: John does, John says, John means... until I shut her up.
Allow him to talk for himself! At night, after a long discussion
between the two, he went out to the car and returned with a guitar. I
had made a big fire in the fireplace and John sung the whole evening
- love songs, some of his own making. Soon the entire crowd lay
open-mouthed on the sofa and the floor listening transported to his
music. - This was how we met John for the first time.
In June 1981
they both graduated from Art Center, went on a trip to Europe, and
came back engaged.... Barbara was on tour at the time.
Both my Parents
Die
March-May 1981
In 1978 my father had lost his hearing in both ears. We communicated with him by writing notes on snippets of paper. Even our visits did not animate him any longer like in the past.
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On March 20, 1981 my Father died in a hospital in Bad Orb, restless and despaired with himself. Barbara and I flew to Gelnhausen for his burial, March 25, where we met Brigitte, Udo, and Onkel Gerhard. We buried him in the cemetery at the end of the Alte Leipziger Strasse, in the grave in which Grandmother Hammer and Tante Gretel Laffert were already buried.
Mother was relieved and almost cheerful. Father had been a difficult burden. We made plans for her to visit us in California. At the end of March Mother collapsed from an aneurism in the basement of their house trying to get Schlagsahne to welcome Käthe Schmidt's arrival. Unconscious, a neighbor took her to the hospital. She never woke again in the two weeks she stayed there. Christine flew in from Hong Kong but arrived too late. Mother died on 9 May, 1981.
Trip to the Indian
Country
5-21 August, 1981
It was Mumintal's idea to invite Lorentz and Carola Graef, the children of her cousin Karla in Tübingen, and Johannes, the son of her friend Anne Unger in Lucklum. Barbara borrowed an old Volkswagen bus from the mother of Cornelius' girl friend and took the three children, Cornelius, and me on a camping trip through the Indian Country. Susanne had to remain at Art Center in Pasadena.
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It became a difficult trip, the Graef children were obstinately independent and resented the discipline I tried to impose. Johannes was love- and home-sick, and all three were bored by the large landscape. Barbara and I had several arguments about how to handle the borrowed children, but the weather was glorious.
Susanne and John's
Wedding
Wayfarer's Chapel, Palos Verdes
March 19, 1982
Richard
and Dolores Wood, John and Susanne, and Barbara and Rolf for once in
an elegant suit!
One
day they packed John's two hot-rods and left for Denver, Colorado. We
missed her very badly.
Germany
and Greece
Summer
1982
We needed a rest. Cornelius and Barbara flew to Germany to attend Anne Unger's Silver anniversary in Lucklum, after which Cornelius went on a bicycle tour with Johannes, and Barbara and I flew to Crete to meet there with Norm Cohen. We rented a car in Herakleion and visited Knossos, the Akrotiri excavations on Thira and several other Minoan sites. Norm had to return, and we attempted to hike along the Cretan south coast. The sirocco from Africa was blowing so hot, that we had to abandon this hike. We fled to Amorgos and later to Sounion, where it was cooler.
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On
the last day we went to Kaiseriani, where I took this beloved picture
of her.
Cornelius' High School
Graduation
June 17, 1983
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Cornelius in
Berkeley
September 1983-1988
Cornelius
in his dormitory room at Berkeley 1983/84
Cornelius had been admitted to Berkeley. Berkeley turned out to be just right for him: cosmopolitan, chaotic, and high quality professors. I told him to interview the professors before taking their classes. In time he found some excellent instructors in some unnoticed subjects: a young archeologist woman teaching a passionate course on the "Stones of Athens", Western History taught by 3 superb specialists, and finally in 1987 Chinese, to satisfy his fascination with difficult languages. As his major he stuck with biophysics, doing an experimental undergraduate research thesis on the detection of Sichel-Cell Anemia using a laser in 1988.
Rolf
in China
November
1983
Following a conference in Guangzhou and a series of lectures in Beijing in November 1983 I tramped for 5 weeks all over Western China entirely by myself. When I returned Cornelius had moved to Berkeley.....
Barbara on Tour, in Denver and
Germany
Rolf in Novosebirsk
Oct 1983-July 1984
Between October 83 and March 84 Barbara conducted 5 tours, each 2 weeks long. In the interim several people visited for extended periods: Barbara Gabler, Heike Rönitz, Cornelia Fröhlich, Cornelius several times, and Irmchen Gernand - whom we took to Mammoth skiing in mid March - A wonderful time for me: The two of us would go on long cross-country tours, while the others skied downhill.
From March 28 to April 8, 1984 Barbara flew to Denver to visit Susanne and John, and from May 19 to June 12 she attended the Lattmann Familientag in Goslar. On her way back, in another long-range arrangement, we met in London on June 11-13 at Cynthia Beresford's house (whom I had met in Lanzhou). Barbara flew home and I to Moscow, Novosibirsk, and Tbilisi.... How we ever coordinated all these events and people I don't remember. I returned on July 18.
Rebuilding
the House
Sept
10-Dec 5, 1984
I had decided to let Glen Berg rebuild our house to my long planned and detailed specifications. We put all our furniture into Susanne's room (the former garage) and moved into the converted garage of Werner Lilling 6 blocks east, while Glen's men destroyed the inside of the house. The construction work took only 3 months. Every second day I would pass by to inspect the progress. Mostly they did an excellent job, the few glitches (a misplaced glass door and skylight, the wrong paint in the living room, the door to the front part of the house) I was able to catch right away, and Glen corrected them at no extra expense.
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The results were a large open airy space with glass walls on two sides and a sky light over the breakfast table, light everywhere and and a view of both gardens. Beams and wooden ceilings in all rooms. We slept the first night on a futon in the empty dining room. and I felt so high that I feared some disaster would happen and everything would disappear....
We
celebrated Christmas Eve 1984 with a beautiful tree and Anneliese,
Peter and Cornelius
1985 was to become one of our craziest and most wonderful years. Both children were out of the ever more beautiful house. The space! The light! We took to sleeping in alternating rooms. First in Susanne's room, then Barbara moved into the small bedroom on the corner in front, and I put my computer into the other small bedroom looking into the peaceful back-garden. We could spend entire days not hearing each other, but knowing the other was close. With the help of the gardener, I replanted the back garden. - Thinking of Genji's garden for Lady Murasaki I designed a 'Winter and Spring Garden' for Barbara: azaleas, geraniums, agapanthes around the olive tree, which tied it to Greece. Barbara later planted roses, but the back garden had too little sun for them in Winter and too much in Summer.
Cornelius was doing well in
Berkeley. During the Winter of his second year he asked to be allowed
to take a break from Berkeley and spend a year in India. As a
condition I demanded that he first secure an official readmission for
his third year, and that he make a detailed plan of what he wanted to
do in India. Readmission assured, he persuaded Marc Hermans from
Holland to join him. Together we eventually concluded that twelve
months in India would be too long, and I found him a "post-doctoral"
research-fellowship with Fritz Keilmann in Stuttgart for the Fall of
1985.
During the early summer of 1985 he roamed Italy alone. We
agreed to meet in Athens and spend four weeks in the islands together
with him, before he would fly to Stuttgart to work with Fritz. India
would follow in February 1986.
The Mani and Amorgos with Cornelius
Barbara
in the Secret Garden of the Monks
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I met Cornelius in Athens and we explored the Mani together for 10 days before we met Barbara at Athens airport. Together we made the 15-hour long night journey to Amorgos on the rusty old Kylades II. When we reached Katapola at six in the morning an old woman rang the bells of the harbor chapel, and the captain sang opera arias through his megaphone – a great welcome.
We discovered the Garden of the Monks, hiked all over the island until we visited the Moni - and Jutta appeared. It was instant “love” between the two.... A few days later Cornelius and Jutta eloped to Santorini leaving his parents behind. Over Barbara's objections I decided to follow them with the next boat, catching the fugitives at midnight in Paros on their return from Santorini. Next day was my birthday and Cornelius allowed Mumintal to invite them for dinner. The köfte Barbara ate had been old, and she lay sick in her bed for 2 days. I took the 'children' to the abandoned monastery above town where the photo was taken. Jutta eventually became Barbara's loving and faithful follower. A long story....
Rolf
joins Cornelius in Kathmandu
June
1986
During the six Winter and Spring months Marcus and Cornelius traveled by bus and train through India: Rajestan, Mumbai and Southern and Eatern India. When India became too hot they fled to Nepal: Kathmandu, the Annapurna Sanctuary, and the Kali Gandaki Valley. I couldn't sit still and flew via Bangkok to Kathmandu where I was met by the exhausted and run-down pair at the airport.
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Marcus had to leave early, and Cornelius took me to all their discoveries in Kathmandu Valley. I put Cornelius and me on a flight via two very hot days in new Delhi to Srinagar, Kashmir, where we rented an idyllically rundown house boat while we waited for the Himalayan passes to open. The first bus brought us over two 4000-m passes in two days to Leh, Ladakh. We were just in time for the Cham Dances at Hemis, an unforgettable two-day affair. We hiked to many monasteries, got both sick with dysentery, were eaten by bedbugs and fleas, but hiked and saw much. Mid July we flew on a white-knuckle flight back to Delhi and separately via Hong Kong home.
Jenny Born in Denver
20
July, 1987
Jenny
a few days old
Jenny Lynn Wood, our first grandchild as born in July and Mumintal immediately went to Denver - by Greyhound Bus! Cheaper than a flight, it could be booked on short notice and with an open return.
China
with Barbara
October-November
1987
I had kept in touch with the laser people in the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which got me an invitation to present a paper at their 1987 Laser Conference in Xiamen. By now I knew how to travel in China. We spent a few days with my sister in Hong Kong and made all transportation arrangements from there. We took the train to Guangzhou and stayed at the charming luxurious White Swan hotel, where I had stayed in 1983.
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From Guangzhou we flew to Kunming and went by bus on the Burma Road all across Yunnan to Dali. As you see, we rented bicycles and explored the neighborhood and Lake Erhai Hu. Despite the primitive Guesthouse No 2 we spent a week in colorful Dali. From Kunming we flew to Xian, visited the Clay Soldiers and the Moslem quarter before going by train to Maiji Shan ending at good old chaotic Lanzhou. I successfully negotiated a CITS taxi to Labrang the Tibetan Monastery of Tsongkhapa and Alexandra David-Neel's fame.
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A twenty-four-hour train ride (first-class sleeper) brought us to Nanjing, where we found Cornelus' spurned girlfriend at the university and spent three days with her. Julia Schwartz had met Cornelius at his Berkeley Chinese class, she studied political sciences. She decided that she would marry him and take him along to China. She kept him enthralled for a year before he woke up and deserted her just before she left for Nanjing.... Julia was in desperate condition and Barbara decided to rescue her. We took her along to Suchou, and she later confessed that these 4 days had been the most beautiful and comforting in her life.... We kept up a correspondence with unhappy Julia for several years – while Cornelius in no time found a new girl to share his futon with. He had no difficulties attracting girls and, in fact, collected three marriage proposals during the next three years....
We ended our China tour with a most beautiful three days on secluded Putuo Shan Island, the Buddhist sanctuary in the Jiangtse River Archipelago east of Shanghai. The laser conference was in Xiamen, from where we flew back to Hong Kong and home.
Cornelius' Graduates
from Berkeley
June 1988
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After finishing Berkeley with a junior thesis on the Detection of Sichel-Cell Anemia he got himself a scholarship to pursue a PhD thesis with Bill McGinnis in the Yale University Molecular Biology Program. He was itching to get away from university and spent July and August 1988 with Marcus traveling along the Silk Road from Pakistan to Kashgar, Lhasa, Chengdu, and Hong Kong. Too far for me to follow him.
Our
Buddhist Winter
Rolf and Barbara in Ladakh, Srinagar, India,
Nepal, and Thailand
January
26 to March 18, 1989
This winter trip would become the
most memorable and meaningful journey of our life. Ladakh in Winter?
I received encouragement and advice from two old Himalaya hands, John
Sanday and Corneille
Jest. The trip was meticulously planned. Jest recommended Sonam
Jacob's "Indus Guest House," one of only three guest houses
open in Leh during February 1989.
Of the many beautiful photos -
very few of Barbara - I will show only one for each place. You can
see more by using the links.
Ladakh
Leh,
Stok, Matho, Lamayuru, and Alchi
My wish to see the Oracle Cham
Dances in Ladakh determined the entire journey. They follow the lunar
calendar and would take place in the Buddhist Holy Month in February
1989. Very few Westerners have seen them; for once Wikipedia has no
information. There were only a handful of foreigners in Leh, none of
whom knew of or were interested in them. We followed the pilgrims
from Gompa to Gompa staying at a small guesthouse in Leh owned by a
Herrenhuter Christian. - “During Holy Month, the Buddhists are on
pilgrimage, drink chang, sleep, or make babies,” as the Moslem taxi
driver, who took us to Lamayuru and Alchi, described it.
We saw
the Stok Guru Setchu. The Matho
Namrang could not start, because the Abbot, residing in India,
did not arrive in time....
At the end of our 2-week-stay we went
to Lamayuru and Alchi, which was idyllic at this time of the year.
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Kashmir
Srinagar
in Winter
We flew from Leh back to Srinagar, which was transformed
by the snow into a most poetic landscape.
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Nepal
Sivaratri
and Patan
I had timed our stay in Kathmandu to coincide with the
celebration of Sivaratri in Pashupatinath a ritual spectacle you have
to see elsewhere in my web pages (link above). The early morning in
the Buddhist temples of Patan a was gift of Indian Airlines, which
could not get their flight together and quartered us in a plush hotel
in Patan for the night.
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India
Varanasi
and Kajuraho
We flew from Kathmandu to Varanasi and then to
Kajuraho. Both places are essentially Hindu but the temples
of Kajuraho are
the earliest Tantric monuments (900 AD) from which the esoteric
Mahayana has inherited much. The sculptures of Kajuraho exhibit a
power sine
qua non in
India or elsewhere in Asia.
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Thailand
Ayutthaya
and Sukothai
Ayutthaya, just north of Bangkok, is the previous
capital of Thailand. Irmgard Hammer had urged us to go to Sukothai a
Buddhist temple city 400 km north of Bangkok. We flew and rented
bicyles to explore the many temple ruins, all still in daily use. An
enchanted place and the first really warm day in 6 weeks.
Barbara
in Ayutthaya
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Cornelius
and Rolf in Moscow, Tbilisi, Tashkent, and Samarkand
May
4 to 26, 1989
An invitation for Cornelius
(nepotism is still practiced in Russia) and me to deliver lectures in
Tashkent turned into a historical visit: Gorbachev had become premier
- and the Soviet Union was collapsing, a new Duma was being elected.
In Tbilisi 20 young women, who had protested for Georgian
independence, were hacked to pieces by the troopers of te Soviet
Ministry of the Interior.... There was high tension in the air that
kept us awake at night and followed us on our flights. Basov was
demoted and effectively under house arrest, and Prof. Prokhorov had
signed the invitation. He sent Viktor Apollonov and his wife Zoya
along to Central Asia as chaperons.
But first Ivan Shcherbakov
and his enigmatic sphinx of a wife accompanied us to Tbilisi. Merab
picked us up and took us straight to Sioni Cathedral to pay homage to
the Virginal Victims. The two Russians kept a stony silence. A heated
debate lasted until midnight. The Georgians prophesied the end of
Gorbachev and the USSR – which took 2 years....
In Tashkent the
women defended the Communist Party as their 'liberators', the men
wore Moslem skull caps and only smiled sheepishly. On the flight back
at Moscow airport police searched the plane for “terrorists” whom
they boxed into a Red-Cross ambulance....
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It was an exciting visit – my last to Russia and Central Asia. - On November 10 the Berlin Wall came down. Georgia, the Baltic, and Central Asia separated from Russia. For New Year 1990 Cornelius flew to Berlin to celebrate the opening of the Brandenburger Tor.
Berlin,
Istanbul, Antalya, Cappadocia,and Eastern Anatolia
April-May,
1990
Now that he gates of the DDR were open I decided that we had to visit our friends in Berlin. Barbara and I spent a few days with Volker and Noemi Kempe, before flying to Istanbul for a month of exploring Anatolia by public bus.
Noemi was a Russian physicist, whom I had met in Novosibirsk, Volker the director of the East German Academy Institute of Cybernetics. Despite that he still drove the Institute’s Citroen we found them depressed. Volker had been dismissed from his position and was contemplating suicide. Later that year he was offered an industrial director position in Graz, and they moved there. Noemi gave up physics and founded an institute for alternative healing and has since been very successful. There were long defensive discussions between us.
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In Istanbul it was cold and raining, and we spent much time in Sinan's wonderful mosques. We flew to Antalya, rented a car and explored the Greek cities along the South Coast: Phaselis, Arykanda, Syllion. In Zelge, high in the Taurus Mountains, the German-speaking children trailed Barbara – their teacher had been born in Germany. - The overland buses turned out to be safe and very comfortable: Konya with Rumi Mevlana's tekke and grave.
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A week in Cappadocia with a rental car. In Ilhara Valley (Peristrema) we were surprised by a snowstorm on May 1 and had to warm ourselves in the very simple village (thermal springs) hamam, spied on by the local urchins from above through the central air hole. -
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On to Diyabakir, the Capital of Kurdistan and the Monophysits of Mardin at the Syrian border.
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A long day's bus ride brought us to Lake Van. During the days at Lake Van and on its Armenian Island of Akhtamar Spring finally caught up with us. In the smugglers town of Dogubeyazit we took a look at Mt. Ararat, had a hamam adventure, and visited Ishak Pasha Serai.
From Dogubeyazit we went north to
Kars, the ruined Armenian city of Ani, and through once Georgian
Tao-Klaredji to the last Byzantine capital, Trabzon.
We flew to Istanbul and stayed for another few days before flying
home.
Cornelius just returned (August 2013) from an expedition to
Mt. Ararat. To see his many photos write him a note for the link:
cornelius.gross(at)embl.it.
Rolf and Barbara in
Amorgos....
August 1991
This was the year of my 60th birthday.
After our travels in South-East Asia, Ladakh, and Anatolia the
longing for the clean, blue Aegean and Greece had become
overwhelming. I had never taken Barbara to the Peleponnes and the
places Gerhad and I had been to.
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After a few days trying to conquer Folegandros – it was dry and very hot – we fled to cool, windy Amorgos. One of our happiest visits there. On the boat to Amorgos I lost Barbara for a while only to discover her hiding with a notepad writing poetry.... Her poems are in German and English. Five from that summer have survived on my Box website, they are quite complex. Others, written later she has kept to herself.
... and the Peleponnissos
September
1991
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Almost forty
years had passed since Gerhard and I had hiked
through
the Peleponnes. I felt old enough to show those places to Barbara.
Could the high of 1953 be reproduced? Would I destroy these memories
by covering them with new experiences? These questions lingered in my
mind, when we arrived in Athens. But the magic of Greece proved even
greater than before. For a meditation on this journey, see
On
the Way to Arkadia.
We
rented a small Honda in Athens and drove to Daphni, the Heraions of
Akragas and the Argolid – two of the oldest sanctuaries – Mykene
and Tyrins, Mystras, the last Byzantine stronghold, and on Barbara's
wish spent two days in Bassai.... Barbara did all the driving. A long
excursion to Dodona in Epiros eventually brought us to Delphi, the
nearby Byzantine Monastery of Osios Lukas, and back to Athens
I flew back to an increasingly hostile work environment at Aerospace. The Cold War was over and so was the liberal financial support of my research in nonlinear optics. Barbara stayed another 2 weeks with Marga in Tübingen and returned on October 14, 1991.
Mumin in Germany with
Susanne+her children
February 1993
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The occasion was Barbara's brother
Klaus's 70th birthday in Hamburg - the design one of Susanne's grand
plans: a whirlwind tour of all her friends in Germany - in February:
her cousins in Hamburg, Gisela in Essen, Margit and Uli, Andechs and
München, Tübingen and Marga. All with the fast German trains and
two little girls. She needed Mumintal for this adventure. Barbara
flew to Denver and off they went.
The return flight became a
nightmare. Too much excitement, Susanne had wrenched her back and was
delivered in Denver in a wheelchair, and little Kelly was sick all
over her grandmother. Barbara, when I picked her up in LA four-hours
later, stank to holy heaven.
My End
at Aerospace
10 Sept 1993
In 1991-93 the situation at
Aerospace had become intolerable. Gorbachev had done us in. The
defense budget shrank and the company tried hard to shake off people.
Research was expensive and increasingly considered an unnecessary
extravagance. And I had a well-paid position. Finally the
vice-president of research - himself in a shaky position - ordered a
complete reorganisation of the "Labs Division". The result
was that I was given a young smart hero (and competitor of many
years) for a boss, who was instructed to growl me out of the
division. To cap it all off, the poor guy stuttered compulsively
whenever he laid eyes on me. Our relationship soon became very ugly,
but for a long time he could not displace me, I had my own support.
These were 3 very trying years in which I slept badly and my blood
pressure became very high.
The end of the story came when upper
management took away my support, and the stutterer was encouraged to
call Air Force and outside supporters and tell them I was a fraud. My
last papers were not accepted by the journals, because he had called
all possible reviewers. I was subjected to a painful internal
"scientific" examination, during which they rifled my
computers and research data for 'incriminating' evidence. After that
I became convinced that I had to retire, which, because I was close
to 62, was quite feasible without any loss in retirement benefits.
However, before my 62nd birthday, the stutterer was demoted, because
he could not deal with me!
And then happened the day, which I will
not forget. One morning the company offered a "Golden Parachute"
of an extra day's pay for every year of service - if I left. Within a
week I had my retirement papers, had destroyed all my computer data,
and unceremoniously walked out. Barbara was on tour that week.
I
have not touched physics since, nor put my foot back into Aerospace.
A pity, really, my professional life at Aerospace had been glorious
and greatly satisfying. I had never worked on a subject that was not
of my invention and had enjoyed an unprecedented degree of personal
freedom.
We flew to France
Rolf
and Barbara in France
September-October 1993
We
flew to France two days after Barbara had returned from the tour she
had been on, 9 September 1993, a day before my birthday for a 5-week
drive from Bad Godesberg through the Burgundy to the Mediterranean
Coast and back through Switzerland to Tübingen and Munich.
Robert, Illa, Christopher,
Barbara, Marc, 
