Monday, February 27, 2012

Hello, My German Friends!

It's interesting to every now and then check the stats on my blogs. I notice that both yesterday and today I have gotten more than fifty views from Germany. Who are you? I'd be delighted to learn that some of my Stellrecht kin are checking in on me. My late father is Percy. His father Christian Stellrecht emigrated from Germany to Wisconsin (going by way of Iowa, I think) sometime around 1900. I was in Germany several years ago and felt a sense of being and knowing that I have not felt elsewhere. I recently copied into a file the song lyrics for Bobby Helms' 1957 #1 hit "Fraulein." I was a dreamy 12-year-old, and it was my favorite pop song. It begins with the words: "Far across deep blue waters, Lives an old German's daughter, By the banks of the old river Rhine," and ends with "You are my pretty Fraulein." What memories that song carries---a plain ordinary-looking farm girl, dreaming someone will one day claim her as his pretty Fraulein.