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The Internet has indeed removed barriers of
space. Thousands of miles
can be measured in milliseconds, the time it takes to click send a
message and the time it is received on the other side of the state, the
country or the world. In a
way, it has also erased the time factor. Some people live in the same town or community
all their lives. Some even
live in the same house. Everything is familiar.
The church on the corner. The
drug store, neighbors’ homes. They
see the same faces and accept the changes over the years without even
noticing the aging. If a
person leaves and is gone for years, he or she may not be recognized at
a reunion. In my newspaper work, I was pretty much a
restless Gypsy. It was a
challenge to be a troubleshooter, picking up an ailing publication and
putting it back on its feet. It
was interesting to make new friends and encounter different stories in a
town I had never been in before. Sometimes
I would go into a strange town and start a newspaper from scratch.
Once I started one in the wrong town. Once I was contacted by a man whose investor
wanted a newspaper in Greenville. I
took a team and went to Greenville, NC, to start the Greenville Gazette.
Then I found out he meant Greenville, SC. The disadvantage of moving so much is losing
contacts. You keep
addresses and phone numbers. You
call occasionally. Christmas
cards are exchanged. Gradually
the contact dissolves. As
you pack up and move, address books and notes are lost.
Faces and names fade into memory.
But some stand out. Forty years ago I worked for a while with
Chester Martin as his semi-weekly newspaper in Hamlet, NC.
Bert Unger was sports editor of the News-Gazette and he was my
friend. Someone mentioned
Bert had a severe affliction. “What affliction,” I asked, then said,
“Oh.” I realized they
were talking about his stuttering.
He sometimes had to hold his head back to get started with the
first word. It had been years since I heard from Bert.
Recently, I looked him up on the Internet white pages and he was
still around Hamlet. The Internet can find anyone. And anyone can find you. Dalton Roberts and I work together to produce
the IPS Features syndicate. He
received an email message from a lady wanting to get in touch with me. Suddenly thousands of miles and 50 years were
rolled away. Her name was Almut and she emailed Dalton she
saw my name on a column and wanted him to relay a message to me about
her brother, Alfred Kallenbach. She said she thought she had met me when I was
stationed at a base near Frankfurt, Germany.
We did meet, incidentally.
Alfred had died in New Mexico of colon cancer in 1985 where he
had married a girl he met at the Seattle World’s Fair. In a few short sentences, she told how he had
gone to New Mexico with his wife who was from there.
He earned a BS in education at the University of New Mexico and
taught history there. They
had no children. Almut said
her brother remembered me as a “good friend.” Years rolled away and I could see Alfred just as
he looked in 1957 at Camp King in the Taunus Mountains near Frankfurt in
Germany. It had been a
Gestapo camp, sill had its high fences topped with barbed wire. It was part of the army’s intelligence corps and a
temporary station for troops waiting to be transferred to a duty
station. Alfred was a thin, pale young man with the
blonde hair of his Germanic ancestry.
He always looked as if he had just taken a bath and was
immaculately clean. His
uniform looked as if it had been starched and pressed.
He had a ready smile and openness in meeting people. We quickly became friends and I learned how his
father had been a imminent psychiatrist and escaped the Communist
takeover of East Germany. He
had migrated to America where he was drafted and sent back to Germany.
He was a watchmaker. One
day in the chow line I mentioned my watch was running slow. He took a case knife, popped off the back and adjusted it. Alfred gave me a lot, a lot of thoughts.
He introduced me to Dr. Paul Brunton’s “Search in Secret
Egypt” and “Search in Secret India.”
Meditation, reincarnation, transmigration, teleportation and were
fertile subjects for our mental ventures.
Taking my mind into new avenues were the rewards of our
friendship. I am grateful to Alfred’s sister and the
Internet for knowing about him. It
is sad to know that Alfred died. But
it is good to know he must have found happiness with a wife and with
teaching. His legacy will
live long beyond his mortal days. I do know that I am one of the beneficiaries of
Alfred Kallenbach’s friendship.
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