The Glorious Summer of 1985

1985 was to become one of our craziest and most glorious years. Both children were out of the ever more beautiful house. The space! The light! We took to sleeping in different rooms. 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 close. With the help of Ray and John Specchierla, the gardners, father and son, we replanted the back garden. - Thinking of Lady Murasaki and the garden Genyi laid out for her, a Winter and Spring garden for Barbara: azaleas, agapanthes surrrounding the olive tree, which I couldn't bring myself to up-root, and later, unsuccessfully so roses - with all the trees protecting our privacy, the back garden had too little sun for them.

To unburden her from additional housework we came to an agreement that Barbara would only take extended tours through the Southwest, sometimes ten days, sometimes three weeks long. I cooked for myself. Occasionally she went on back-to-back tours. In 1985 there were six or seven of them.... She enjoyed the responsibility and the variedness of this work. A total challenge, an excellent guide. I stayed out of her way when she worked and was much by myself. I didn't mind. Jealousies and insecurities did not plague us any longer. When she was home, she prepared excellent dinners for our friends - still our preferred way of being with them. There were many, and as in the years before, many came to stay for longer times: Imchen Gernand, Jutta Micheuz, Sophia Severino, Sigrid and Ralf Damm, Carolyn Forrest, Judy and Jim Roberts, Pari and Vasha Kasliwal, Anik Girard from Paris.....

Cornelius was doing very 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. 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.

He flew to Europe in June, and was for all purposes incommunicado.

During the early summer of 1985 he roamed Italy alone. His trip was to end in Greece, and we decided to meet him in Athens and spend four weeks in the islands together with him, before he would fly to Stuttgart to start working for Fritz. India would follow in February 1986.

Thus came about the Glorious Summer of 1985 in Amorgos, which was so long that it has a separate folder.

We have visited Amorgos so often that I put our numerous, general Photos from Amorgos into a separate folder.

Spring of 1985

 Cornelius and Susanne one early morning cutting a bouquet of flowers for Barbara in the garden. Not a good photograph but a rare one, the two together at home. They soon left for Denver and Berkeley again..

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Cornelius in India 1986

Cornelius has his photos of India in Rome. He has to make his own web-folder.

Monique's father, Marc's mother, Monique, Monique's mother and Marc in Holland before Marc's and Cornelius' departure for India February 1986.

With Cornelius in Nepal, Kashmir, and Ladakh 1986

While they were roaming through Rajestan and Nepal I couldn't sit still and watch the two hiking up the Kali Gandaki and back via the Anapurna Sanctuary. I got on a flight to Kathmandu and met them in there.

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A week later Marc flew home at which time I took this photo of the charming pair. March had a thumb-sized hole in his foot. They were both exhausted. Cornelius and I spent another week in Kathmandu. Cornelius took me to all their discoveries: Pashupatinath, Daksinkali, Swayambunath.... The pictures of that first visit to Nepal you find by clicking here, also included in this folder are Barbara and my pictures from our visit to the Kathmandu valley in March 1989.

Finally we flew to a very hot New Dehli and from there on to Srinagar, where we rented a rickety house-boat, and waited for the Himalayan passes to open.

House boats on Dal Lake in Srinagar, the yellow shikaras operate like taxis - and pleasure boats....

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When the passes opened we took a De Luxe bus on a terrifying road cross three very high passes to Leh.

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Squeezed among dusty pilgrims, a few foreigners, and the Mothers of Ladakh we watched the Hemis Festival in honor of Padmasambhava and hiked to a dozen of Buddhist monasteries. Cornelius, exhausted from his long Indian trek got ill, then I had a bout with girardia....

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Chemre Gompa on a long hike to Traktok onn our last Sunday in Ladakh....

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... and Cornelius, kindly carrying our baggage, on the way to Alchi Gompa.

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In Alchi I photographed the miniature wall paintings from Cornelius' back, who also pointed a high-intensity flashlight on this Ratnasambhava Buddha.

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On the last day before our scheduled departure by plane for New Dehli we sat near the Leh castle watching anxiously the coming and going of the military airplanes. Would our flight be able to take off? The air had become hot and thin. After a 6 hour delay we made it with white knuckles over the nearest 4000-m mountain. I flew home via Kathmandu and Cornelius followed via Hongkong a few days later.

A detailed account of our numerous adventures illustrated by magnificent pictures you find here.

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Cornelius went back to Berkeley in July. He found a beautiful apartment and roomed there with Alan Teng, a highly educated Chinese, dancer, cook, restaurant manager, and gay. We all laughed and his girl friends teased him mercilessly. Nobody came to harm, and Alan is still a close and shy friend of all of us whom we love and respect highly.

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In September Rudolf and Christine Scharlau - whom I had met 1983 on Omei Shan in China - visited us with three-year-old Hannah, shown above in a picture from 1985. I was asked to be Hannah's godfather!

1987

Cornelius took up Chinese in the Spring of 1987 to satisfy his search for the most difficult language. In this class appeared Julia Schwartz, intelligent, highly unstable, and determined to marry C. She almost succeded. For months C. was held prisoner by her.

At this time Helga Gabler stayed with us and we took her skiing in Mammoth.

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In June 87 Gemma, a faithful friend and admirer of Cornelius, got married to John in a traditional Sicialian wedding in San Pedro. Cornelius acted as usher.

Julia had come down to LA for the wedding, and I had to take care of her.... Here she sits with Helga on the bus bench at Sunset Blvd. and Temescal Canyon Road. Soon thereafter C.s and her difficult relationship came to an end as she moved to Nanjing to research her PhD thesis - without Cornelius....

Cornelius sewing a new bedcover on Barbara's machine for his celebrated futon in Berkeley. He had taken a sewing and cooking class at high school and has remained very good at both.....

Julia having gone, Anne took her place. Barbara visited Cornelius on one of her tours and met her. Barbara was as fond of Anne as Cornelius. Anne helped him much emotionally after the abrasive relationship with Julia.

 In case you wonder, I saved these pictures from the trashcan.....

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20 July 1987 Jenny Wood born in Denver

A few days later Barbara took the Greyhound Bus to Denver. It was cheaper than a flight and could be booked on short notice and with an open return.

October - December 1987 Rolf and Barbara in China

By now I knew how to trvel in China, I could also read a smattering of Chinese characters. I made all arrangements, hotels, buses trains, a boat ride down the li River, and our flights myself.

We spent 10 days in Yunnan, in Kunming and Dali. Barbara on a bicycle exploring the old road from Dali to Shaming. The Dali pagodas in the background. A beautiful country.

Many more pictures from the China trips in 1983 and 1987 you can find by clicking here.

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Winter and Spring 1988

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June 1988 Cornelius' Graduation in Berkeley

.The distribution of the Barchelor's degrees

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.Anne and Cornelius in serious conversation.

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Cornelius, rabbit-eyed and this couple in a Chinese Blue Unisuits? Who took that picture, his sister?

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July-August 1988 Cornelius and Marc Travel along the Old Silk Road from Pakistan to Kashgar, Lhasa, Chengdu, and Hong Kong.

Cornelius had applied to the Yale Ph.D. Program in Molecular Biology and had been accepted by Bill McGuinness (?). Meanwhile he was still finishing an experimental undergraduate research thesis at Berkeley. He gave a talk on this subject, the determination of Sichel-Cell Anemia using a laser (a disease which is endemic in the black-American population), in Tashkent. This talk had earned him a full invitation by the Soviet Academy of Sciences for this trip. - Nepotism was still a natural in the Soviet Union, in every institute worked a son of its famous director!

I could see that he was itching to get away from the tight university work, this time he wanted to go on a a trip from Pakistan along the old Silk-Road to Tibet and China - with Marc Hermans! One of our oldest dreams. I could understand his longing. He had done very well at Berkeley, his Chinese was close to 1500 characters. - I was in no physical condition to join or follow him on this extreme journey.

Christmas 1988

Photos of our Christmas room are rare. This time I was relatively lucky.

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Heike and Jutta in Pacific Palisades

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The four-armed Buddha of the future backed by the Christian Coalition (David Thornton) in back of my BMW.

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Soon thereafter, in the winter 1988-89, I sold the beautifully restored 20-year-old Bimmer to a 20-year-young lady for $6000 and a kiss......