looking back to Germany

I was getting nostalgic and dug up the first newspaper stories I had written -- back when I was a 20-year-old floating around Germany working in restaurants and factories. I wrote my experiences for the Marin Independent Journal. Could have used some editing, for sure, but here they are:

Independent-Journal, Friday, July 19, 1963
HARD WORK
Youth Describes Life In Germany
By David Rosso
I work in a spulen and hulsen factory, which makes spools and bobbins for textiles, with Donald Light of Fairfax and Dennis Fitch of San Francisco.
The work is long and dull. We walk to the factory to begin work at 6:30 a.m. and finish at 5:30 p.m. All day we operate machines to mold, sort, cap and package spools, bobbins and flyers to be sued by textile factories around the world. The factory is bog, dark and dirty.
However, it is fascinating to work with people from all over the world. The people we work and talk with represent France, Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, Algeria, Persia, Turkey and Egypt.
As soon as the people at the factory heard I was an American, they said, “Kennedy!” The German people love him. They describe him with one word, “prima.”
After we finish work, we head for home, or the Kolpinghaus, where students from all of Europe live. I room with a Yugoslav and two Frenchmen. We speak in German, English and a little French and Yugoslav.
One unfortunate incident has arisen. A Negro from Nigeria refuses to speak to Americans because of the American race riots. There is no communicating with him.
Before I left the United States I was told of the great German food. On a limited budget, I have failed to find any. I don’t think a day has gone by when we haven’t had noodles for a meal. Wurst, beer, bread, cheese and noodles make up a meal.
The factory employees have a taste for warm beer which I have yet to acquire. During work they soak their beer bottles in warm water.
Prices for food vary. At Kolpinghaus we pay $1.25 for 21 meals, including the continental breakfast of bread, butter, marmalade and warm milk or coffee. At the factory we have five hot lunches for a total of about 87 cents.
Milk is about eight cents a half liter and beer is 13 cents a quart. A good meal in the town costs about $2. Most desserts are expensive and very rich.
We have found a café which is frequented by the younger set for dancing. American music is very popular, as is the twist. The bossa nova has come and gone but the Madison has survived. The Germans were very anxious to learn the American version of the “tweest.”


No date
AFTER 12,000 SPUDS
Marin Youth Washes Dishes In Germany
By David Rosso
I was standing all alone in the crowded Munich railroad station about to search for a room and a job. Two weeks later I found a room, but finding a job was much easier.
I started as a potato peeler in a restaurant. Four days and 12,000 potatoes later I started washing dishes for a restaurant. Here I have a room, four meals a day and enough money to get on my feet after having had to spend it on expensive hotels while looking for a permanent room.
Nothing need be said about the work. Washing dishes is washing dishes wherever you are. But the room is very interesting. I live with two Germans in a run-down room behind the restaurant. There is no hot water, no toilet and no heat except from a small pot-bellied stove.
I will work at this job until I begin my regular job at the Bayerishe Motorwerke AG (BMW) which I got by writing to the mayor of Munich.
I saw much of Munich while looking for a room; there is too much to say about it and an amateur’s description would not do it justice. Munich never sleeps as tourists and students constantly come and go. I plan to use the entire year to see all of the many art, history and science museums.
One of the most impressive sights of the city is Munich’s Leopold Street in the Schwabing area. This is an existentialist section where the students display a nightly exhibit of their art. The sidewalks are lined with candle-illuminated paintings, copperware and pottery.
The city is much too great for casual analysis. Now I can only say that Munich is a city with much American influence, hourly bell-tolling, many cathedrals, museums and flowing beer.

Oct. 3, 1963
‘PROST’ IS WORD
Marin Youth Tells Of Fest In Germany
By David Rosso
MUNICH – For three weeks the fest will bring in people and pour out millions of liters of beer. Last year three and one half million liters of beer were consumed in the many beer halls set up at the edge of the mile-long fairgrounds.
There are numerous side shows, booths of chance and restaurants, much like any other state fair, but the beer halls are like something I have never seen before.
They are packed with persons from many nations, all celebrating as one. The magic word is “prost.”
One can always join in table-top dancing, sing German drinking songs or simply prost a perfect stranger who will at once become your close friend.
In one night I drank with Germans, talked with Frenchmen, argued the merits of the Giants with students from Los Angeles and sang with Canadians.
The parade which officially opened the fest lasted for 90 minutes. Even at the end it seemed to continue as the crowd fell in behind the marchers and choked the streets leading to the parade grounds.
The warm spirit of the fest has failed to take the edge off the cold winds which are promising a long winter in Germany. For the past week the temperatures have never climbed above 65 degrees and there has been some cold rain.
(The editor’s note did say I was describing the Octoberfest)


Nov. 25, 1963
Marin Youth Tells About Living Costs In Germany
By Dave Rosso
West Germany’s money, the Deutsche mark, is worth about 25 cents in U.S. value, and living here in Munich is very good at this rate if you are living on the American economy.
A good steak dinner costs six marks, or the equivalent of $1.50, which is well and good, except that, unfortunately, all the money I make is in marks, coming from a factory here in which I work.
The same steak, then, in my “new currency,” costs me two hours of working at drilling metal.
Too, when I received my paycheck, I discovered that 25 percent of my earnings went to the Bundes Republic. From the remainder, it cost 30 percent for rent, 10 percent for transportation, seven for food, and every other cent for whatever travel I’ve done around Europe.
However, the taxes do include free medical services for me at the factory clinic, service including most everything from pills to eye glasses.
The factory workers here are surprised to see me, an American, working in their factory. The image of the American with streets lined with gold dies hard. The only way I can answer their questions is that I’m working here “because I am a student.” This they understand.
A major tax is housing and land. Apartments are being erected everywhere and are inhabited as quickly as they are finished. Nonetheless, there exists a housing shortage here.
Laundromats, a relatively new business in Germany, cost about the same as in the U.S., but haircuts cost only about 75 cents. A turkey for Thanksgiving, however, will cost as high as $8.
I hope to have an article on Christmas in East Berlin.