With a completely furnished new apartment, a brand-new Trabant and a wife who had the household, child, and work under control, it was not difficult to be a caring husband.
To top it all off, two streets away were the ever-helpful parents. So there was plenty of time, which I used in my own way. In the fall I carried the winter potatoes to the people’s cellars, which arrived at the loading station in freight cars and were weighed out and filled into sacks to be driven to the customers.
The truck driver placed the full sacks on the loading sill, and a colleague and I hauled them to the cellars. Three trips after work were common, and the tip was generally higher than the hourly wage. At an electrical company, I built stoves from large scrap pipes.
The so-called all-purpose burners were in great demand because they provided quick heat but did not hold heat because they were not lined with firebricks. I earned very well because I was paid by the piece. In a private locksmith shop I often worked as a welder by appointment for good pay.
The owner constantly tried to poach me for his company, which I consistently refused. In the factory I had a cheap lunch, and after showering and shaving in the communal toilet, I went home polished and ironed. At the Krauter, the most I could do was scrub my hands at a dingy basin with washing sand, and there was no hot food anyway.
The most important and most enjoyable pastime for me was rehearsing with the chemistry trio. After our successful performance at ‘Herzklopfen kostenlos’ we were constantly invited to company parties to perform our Sputnik parody. Most of the time, people also asked us to play for dancing. Only with singing and rhythm, without amplification system this was not to be done in the long run.
Finally we acquired a microphone and a small amplifier and concentrated only on dance music. Soon Rudi supported us with his drums, and Siggi, only sixteen years old, was a very welcome addition with his skills on the saxophone. The chemistry trio had become the chemistry combo, which continued to develop in the period that followed.
Announced on posters, we played mainly in public halls, which were always packed because the combo played a rousing rock ‘n’ roll. Within the family there were different opinions about my music-making. Marga was relaxed about it and let me be. She was probably of the opinion that the desire for music, born of youthful zeal, would eventually take care of itself.
My mother was different. Like most people, she was of the opinion that all musicians are Hallodris (rogues), who do not take it so exactly with the loyalty and the general rules of conduct. She put it more drastically, saying it would be better if I quit the breadless art sooner rather than later, before something worse happened.
Father was very musical and felt reminded of the time of his youth, when he himself had played to the delight of the neighbors on all kinds of festive occasions with his brothers on the farm.
Now he appreciated the obligatory name ‘Chemie-Combo’ and was proud of my good cooperation with the clubhouse management as well as of our performances in the plant’s own club hall, which were always crowned with success. In the interest of domestic peace, he never expressed his positive opinion aloud in the presence of my mother. 𝓣𝓸 𝓑𝓮 𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓮𝓭…
💡 Do you have a Linkedin account? Then you can subscribe to my newsletter „The Bright Side of the Doom“ ✔︎