Flexibility · Friday September 14, 2007 by Julie
I keep telling this story so please don’t read on if you’ve heard this.
Mom was an art student under Hitler. In order to keep going to school, students had to spend their summer vacations working for the “war effort.” Mom’s assignment was to a munitions factory, which I think was somewhere near Bad Mergentheim, but maybe not. They lined the students up before work and said, “You will work the production line and you will do a good job. Saboteurs will be shot. If you work too slowly, that is sabotage. If you work too quickly and demoralize the year-round workers, that is sabotage. Have a nice day!”
According to Mom, she and her classmates were in school mostly to avoid becoming part of the war effort. I believe her. The only professions you were allowed to study for were teaching and medicine. Her brother was in medical school, and her parents couldn’t afford to send the girls there as well. So she and her sister studied teaching. They really wanted to study art, so they studied art education.
Anyway, there they were, working the swing shift. In the daytime, they’d go into the hills around town to paint. Then they’d link arms and walk up to 10 miles back to work. The two girls on the outside of the human chain would steer the middle girls, who slept as they walked.
This kind of knowledge is common in countries where times are routinely hard. I think Americans are losing all kinds of tricks (thank goodness for why!).
My neighbor and I were exchanging stories like this. Hers had mainly to do with preserving food. She said, “I think in the next few years we’ll need all the flexibility we can muster.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I think we’re going to see some interesting changes, what with new diseases and wealthy people having to move away from shoreline properties,” she said. “It could get quite interesting.”
