Peter Dreher: In Remembrance of Things Past: Abitur 1986 an der DSW

In Remembrance of Things Past: Abitur 1986 an der DSW

Peter Dreher

To the Abitur Class of 86!

Sometimes the simplest actions in our lives--the washing of a car1 , for example--trigger our minds unexpectedly, and an uncontrollable stream of memories floods our dull complacency. In a flash we realize that the routine we have come to accept as the norm has been permanently altered into the intangible--into memory. It is a universal experience yet paradoxically unique to each individual. My memory of the graduating class is characterized in a more than ordinary degree by impressions made over four years.

What remains for both teacher and students is a series of impressions that forms the texture of our days at the German School. Klassenbuch -- Ordnungsdienst -- Hausordnung -- kleine Pause -- grosse Pause -- Erbsen- suppe -- eine Durchsage -- term papers -- Arbeiten -- Protokolle oral reports -- quizzes -- Lehrausflug -- reports -- Notendurchschnitt Punktzahl. The game of associations could keep any DSW student or teacher talking for hours. As time dims as well as sweetens our remembrance of things past, these word-triggers will, no doubt, assume magical power to summon an experience "that wasn't so bad after all."

Although some of the graduates claim to have been at the School since infancy, my association with present class began in 1982 when ten students from this year's graduating class weathered tenth grade with me. To their credit, during all this time, they have neither complained about my pedagogical anecdotes nor given any indication that they have heard them before. These original ten, I concluded, have either very poor memories or a great deal of diplomatic finesse. Interest during that year seemed especially keen. I recall that the artistic talents of several students revealed themselves in a caricature of their English teacher--labeling his attributes clearly. The fact that these particular students are now in the business of selling T-shirts with political cartoons emblazoned on them only shows how important those early years were.

The eleventh grade proved to be a great struggle and challenge for us all. From the very first class hour, we worried about THE term paper. The students hoped that it would miraculously be written before the night of the due date; and the teacher secretly prayed that he would have enough time to read them all before the report cards were due. As we collectively worried, we fought with Henry Fleming, hunted with Captain Ahab, sinned with Hester Prynne, and dreamed with Tom Sawyer. We pondered "the drizzly Novembers in our souls" and sang "the body electric."

The twelfth grade passed before we could comprehend it. In fact, the entire year might best be divided into the BC and AC periods (before and after Charlestown2). Traveling under the blanket of darkness, the senior class journeyed south with all the characteristics of a tribal ritual. The innocents left on a Friday and returned the following week with distant gazes and smiles of experience on their faces.

The thirteenth grade--an anomaly for any American high school teacher--proved especially rewarding for me. It had all the makings of a tale from the Brothers

Grimm, including ogres, princesses, magical estates, and happy endings. We had begun the preceding year with Anglo-Saxon monsters and Punktzahl demons; and we ended the final year by seeing a flower girl turn into a princess and by witnessing nervous students becoming proud graduates. We followed royal footsteps to the "Treasure Houses of Britain"3 and dodged eighteenth-century snakes in the Gunston Hall deer park. During that first week in May, everyone involved in the oral examinations seemed to be under a spell. Students and teachers resembled either zombies or caffeine addicts. However, after the exams, after the meetings, after the anxiety and sweat, a happy ending did seem in sight and at six o'clock on Thursday the spell was finally broken.

Even though I have thoroughly washed the shaving cream from my car, there is a thin film of soap that remains; it appears and or disappears as the sunlight strikes it. Somehow the memories of those four years play the same tricks on my appear unexpectedly, remain for consciousness they a moment, and then disappear. The students from the class of 86 will most certainly have similar epiphanies in the years to come, for their experience at the German School is an essential thread in the fabric of their personalities.

To wish the class of 86 "good luck" would almost be presumptuous since they have gained knowledge and skills that have nothing to do with luck. Their abilities are the result of hard work and concentrated study. Instead I want to wish them the heartiest congratulations and to express my thanks for the memories.

May 12, 1986

Ode: Intimidations of Immorality

from Recollections of Early Parenthood 4

The child is the father of the man; And I do fear my state to be Bound him to me by natural piracy.

I

There was a time when diaper,bib,and scream, The crib, and every common sight, To me did seem Appareled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore; Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The times I slept I sleep no more.

II

I hear the echoes through the classrooms throng "Congrads" from every student's seat And all the earth is gay. My wife and me Gave ourselves up to jollity. And for the child's birthday Each student and teacher a bet doth lay About this child of joy: "Shout to me; date? What time? What weight? If girl or boy?"

III

How glorious was our sunshine's birth! But then I knew,where'er I'd go That there hath passed away a quiet from the earth.

IV

Behold the child among her newborn blisses; A Dreher darling of a pygmy size! Now 'mid corrections of Klausuren she lies, Wetted by sallies of her mother's kisses, With pride upon her from her father's eyes! But it would not be long Ere we'd see another side, Begin to fret and start to chide for baby's not all joy and song:

V

The bottle must be warmed at nine For if it's not,the child will scream "You get it, Peter; l went last timel!" Must this be real? Please be a dream The diaper is eternally wet But Mum and Daddy needn't fret For they are "Pamper's Throw-Away." "Boy, times have changed since yesterday!

VI

Though nothing can bring back the hour Of peacefulness at night, of order and of power, We will grieve not, and rather find Joy in Baby's bare behind.

To the Drehers let us say Our pen-name is, will always stay Not Quite so Ernest Hemingway

Notes 1 As an Abitur prank, the graduation class soaped my car with shaving cream. After baking in the sun, the soapy film never fully washed away. 2 Charlestown, SC, was the location of the senior class trip (Klassenfahrt) that year. 3 "The Treasure Houses of Britain: Five Hundred Years of Private Patronage and Art Collecting" was the biggest exhibition ever staged by the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Princess Diana and her husband Prince Charles toured the exhibit on November 10, 1985. 4 This poem, a parody of William Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" (1804), was written by the Abitur class to mark the birth of my daughter and the reality of becoming a parent.