I Apparently CAN!

Whew. I had another journal on LJ before the days_unfolding one, under the name of "adriennerad," which is the name that I use across the Internet. I thought that it was backed up to Dreamwidth, but I discovered it wasn't. So I just used blogbooker to save it in case LJ goes down, and backed the PDF file up to Evernote. I'm breathing more easily.

No ice and no snow this morning. Just wet. Awesome. I need to go get oatmeal, but I've been having IBS symptoms and my stomach is upset, plus I have some grits that I need to eat. I'm trying to eat down my stash of food to save money and to decrease the amount of food that I'd have to move.

I was accepted into the iCAN (Illinois Computing Accelerator for Non-Specialists) program!!!! U of Illinois Computer Programming Department, here I come!!!!

I asked my dad how the family got from Lithuania to the southern part of Germany during World War II, and he's describing the trip in email installments. Should be interesting.

Hmm. Facebook reminded me about a free hotel voucher if I go to Hawaii and plant trees. Maybe I should try for that for my 60th birthday, although now that I'm on iCAN, that could conflict. Okay, that seemed to be a scam, but I found a legit site. One in Nepal caught my eye, but the airfare is $2000. Can't do that this year.

Hmm. Now I'm mulling over a trip to London or Dublin/London for my 60th birthday if I can pull it off financially. It would be in November, so the prices would be lower. I could see a trip basically seeing the museums in London. (I've been there once, but only for a couple of days 40+ years ago.) Need a London guidebook. And one for Dublin. Oh! I do have a London guidebook. It's dated 1997, so stuff like restaurants and hotels might have changed, but the sights wouldn't have. And Oh! The museums in London are free! (You could spend days in the British Museum alone.)

I lay down for a while to get rid of a headache, but couldn't sleep. I have stuff to do, so it's just as well. Well, I blew a bunch of time researching the trip and on Facebook. Not going to be productive tonight. But given that I wasn't feeling very well, it's okay.

My Dad's Story: Lithuania to Bavaria: Part 1

I asked my dad how his family went all the way from Lithuania to Bavaria in Germany during World War II. He's telling me the story in installments. I thought that some of you might find this story interesting. Here's part 1.

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I will do this in installments so you'll have the complete story. Keep in mind I was very young at the time so I may not have the reasons why things were done the way they were.

We left Lithuania in August, 1944. Me, my mom, her two sisters, Linda and Ann, and Linda's husband, uncle Bruno. We left in a horse driven farm wagon going south, toward Poland. My father and Ann's husband, uncle Vince, were both in the German military. The reason they were in the German military was that everything was rationed in 1944 and the only people who got ration coupons were those who served the Reich. My father had given me a pop-gun. You cocked it, which compressed air in a cylinder and pulled a cork into the barrel attached to a string. When you pulled the trigger it released the compressed air with a loud pop and shot the cork out of the barrel. I loved that gun. Somewhere in Poland we were stopped by German military police (feldpolizei) and searched. My pop-gun was confiscated because refugees were not allowed to have weapons. I suspect the policeman had a son about my age and also thought the gun was a neat thing.

We were traveling southwest and ended up in a pre-war Czech army camp which the Germans had converted into a refugee camp. Somewhere on that leg the wagon and horses were disposed of and we began traveling on trains. At this stage of the war, the American and Soviet air forces pretty much ruled the skies. So when travelling on the train it would suddenly stop in the middle of nowhere because the engineer got a report that the next town was being bombed. No information was passed to the passengers so they didn't know whether the train would start up in the next few minutes or sit there half the day. If the wait was long some men would leave the train to see if they could buy some food from the local farmers and occasionally some got left behind when the train suddenly started up.

The next installment will cover our stay in the refugee camp and our trip to Berlin.

My Dad's Story: Lithuania to Bavaria: Part 2

I asked my dad how his family went all the way from Lithuania to Bavaria in Germany during World War II. He's telling me the story in installments. I thought that some of you might find this story interesting. Here's part 2.

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At the refugee camp we stayed in the old barracks. These were long wooden buildings consisting of one room. Bunks were along the long walls and in the center was a pot bellied stove for heating. Basically the same as when they were army barracks. In the morning the adults went to the administration buildings for food and possibly other purposes, such as transportation permits.

This one morning not long after we got to the camp I was in the barracks and there was a baby sleeping in a baby buggy at the end of the room. There was one man there to keep an eye on us kids while the adults were at administration. Our bunks were near the center of the barrack. This morning there was a massive Soviet air raid on the camp. Bombs were exploding everywhere. One bomb hit the end of our barrack. It came through the roof, went through the floor and then there was a bright flash and an explosion . Before the explosion the man grabbed me and ducked behind the stove. The raid was over in about fifteen minutes. Our family was all right. Here is the most remarkable thing, the baby buggy was three feet from the edge of the hole the bomb made in the floor. The baby was OK and slept through the whole thing.

I can't really blame the Soviets for bombing the camp. They knew it was an army base and their reconnaissance photos showed activity there. I'm sure the Germans didn't send them a telegram telling them it was now a refugee camp.

In later years when I was studying weapons systems and ballistics I tried to figure out why our building wasn't destroyed and us along with it. The wooden roof and floor weren't substantial enough to set off the bomb detonator so the bomb just broke through them and went on its way. There was a lot of topsoil where the barrack was situated so the bomb plowed through it to a substantial depth until it encountered rock which set it off. The deep well the bomb path created funneled the force of the explosion straight upward rather than to the sides so things, like the baby buggy, in the vicinity weren't harmed.

Apparently there was a substantial war news network among refugees so people were pretty up to date with what was happening. So my mom and her sisters decided they wanted to be in the American zone when the war ended and they knew where that zone was, Bavaria. The reason for that was that mom's brother, uncle Joe, was an American citizen which they figured would help them. So they arranged for train transportation to Bavaria even though the Americans were nowhere near there then. But all the German railways go through Berlin, so the next installment will be about our trip to Berlin.