Growing Up and Reminiscing about it

"My" street

I did most of my growing up in a section of Bern called Holligen. Actually, Ausserholligen, since there is an outer and an inner Holligen, although the whole place consumes less than a square mile. Not exactly the most affluent area, but it does have a castle! It's quite old. According to this and the Wikipedia page, it is probably older than 800 years, although what is there today is at most 500 years old and much of it has been remodeled and added since then.

The Wikipedia page has a much nicer picture.

I'm not happy with the picture above, but it is the best I could do. The grounds were off-limits when I was growing up in that area, although my brother admitted that he and some friends had snuck in at some time. He wasn't very specific about what happened after that. Today it is a conference center.

Die Krippe an der Krippenstrasse. Built in 1906.

The street where we had our apartment is named after the day-care center, or creche as they call it here in Ireland. One of my aunts worked there for a while and ended up adopting one of the girls whose parents kept forgetting to pick her up.

We lived on the middle floor to the far left.

On each balcony there is is a closet, kind of like a shed, to store things. We had a cabinet out there filled with tools and junk people keep in their garage. The cabinet almost reached the ceiling, but not quite, was too heavy and wedged in to be moved, and there was a small gap between it and the wall it stood against.
The reason this is important has to do with the Teppichklopfer my Mom used to use on us kids when we got out of hand. We had grown enough that we were taller than her, but were still in much need of disciplining (at least in my Mom's opinion).
So, this common household tool came in handy once in a while.
At some point my sister and I began feeling (on our back sides ;-) that my Mom had too much of a strategic advantage with this advanced weaponry and we let it slide behind the closet in the balcony shed. Without the help of strong movers many years later when she moved out of that apartment, that carpet beater was out of reach and that period of our upbringing ended abruptly.

The library at the elementary school.

The primary school was a five-minute walk away. I loved the library! The librarians liked my frequent visits and they were my gods until one day when I brought back a book that had clearly gotten very wet at some time before I checked it out. When I returned it, the librarian accused me of having read it in, and dropped it into a bathtub. I assured her that it was exactly in the same state I had gotten it, but she remained skeptical. How could she not know that I would never treat a book like that? Unfathomable. Even gods do not know everything.

My 3rd and 4th grade building.

I spent four years in the Steigerhubel school buildings. Each building had four class rooms and each building had a name so us beginning learners could find the right building. My last two years there were in the badger cave.

On the right side of the building is a secluded covered area where my friend Peter let me try my first cigarette. I didn't care for it and never picked up the habit. I noticed that now there is a security camera back there. I guess nowadays they do more than having their first smoke back there.

We weren't the only ones smoking. Behind the school is the incinerator where the city of Bern burns its trash. Real estate is too expensive in Switzerland to be used for landfills, and ground water is heavily protected. You can walk up to a fountain and drink the water that comes straight out of the ground and it probably tastes better than any other water you ever had before. But that means trash has to be burned.

The fountain in front of the highschool. I have often drunk from it.

The stacks keep getting better and better filters to protect the air. Nevertheless, not a lovely sight. Maybe the filters weren't as good when I was a kid, or there are still some particles that escape. I remember it would sometimes snow in Holligen but nowhere else in the neighborhood. The smoke was seeding the clouds or the steam condensed into snow.
The heat that is generated is used to heat the university hospital on the other side of the incinerator and some other public buildings.

The school playground has improved too since then. Of course, I had to try it out!

Some things, like the building below, have not improved and are condemned now. We used to walk past it on our way to highschool.

The note attached to it asks whether the writer would be allowed into the building to take some photographs. He has heard that it will be torn down soon.

Let me in!

Walking further down the street along my daily path to highschool, we pass the university hospital with the women's clinic that wasn't here back then.

I seem to remember the buildings below looked like that back then. Maybe a little less graffiti but the level of soot seems similar. Maybe time for a wash and a fresh coat of paint.

The highschool has been repainted and they added a play ground. Things certainly have changed. Our hated gym, the one with the warped floor from the boots of the soldiers who had been stationed there during WWII, has been torn down and replaced with a multifunction facility.

I didn't take a picture of it because it is an ugly metal cube to the left of the picture below, but I am sure it is much nicer inside now than the torture chamber we had back then.

My Dad used to go to school here and maybe his Mom. I get conflicting information about that, but the buidling is certainly old enough: It was built in 1903.

On several trips to Switzerland over the last couple of years I have met with several of my schoolmates from back then. It has been interesting to hear what they have done and experienced over the last thirty years or so. All of us have memories about going to school here. By telling them one to another we can all refresh ours and hear things we didn't know back then.
Something we all knew was forbidden was to leave the school grounds and sneak into the bakery across the street. But, being teenagers, many of us did anyway because we could resist the tempting bread and chocolate for sale over there. And the urge to be naughty ;-)

The forbidden bakery.

No wonder it still exists. I bet the owner makes a fortune off those kids across the street. A pure gold mine and it is not even illegal! I'm looking forward (I think) to when I get to read the blog of my daughter's childhood memories. Or maybe they'll use a direct mind link by then.

The next generation.