Mrguy's Heartwarming War On Christmas Story

The Christmas tree is so crisp now that parts of it broke off in my hand while I was adding an ornament on Christmas. That reminded me of a favorite Christmas story from the old days that mrguy tells. In a mrsguy first, I have asked him to write a guest post. 

So sayeth mrguy:

So around 1985, some friends of mine were living in a loft space in the Inner Mission. Their street was one-way, narrow and only one block long. On either end was a major street. It was your fairly gritty '80s urban scene, with people hanging out on the street at all hours playing cards or getting drunk and whatnot.

And as you might expect, there was a fair amount of trash here and there on the street, including an abandoned car. Parking was a very scarce and precious resource in San Francisco even then, so having a valuable parking space taken up by someone's useless car was really annoying. My friends would notify the city every so often and try and get them to come and haul it away, but the city never did.

As time went on, the car slowly disintegrated and would eventually lose its wheels, get all its windows busted out and doors pulled off. The kids on the block used it as a playground and would hop on and off of it, and eventually they managed to bust a hole in the roof. More phone calls to the city to deal with the eyesore were ignored.

So, it being a month or so after Christmas, and my friend being a very clever and industrious guy, came up with an idea. He took their old Christmas tree and stuck it in the hole in the roof, so that the tree stuck out a couple feet over the top of the car. He then borrowed a forklift from a neighboring business, drove the forklift over to the dead car, picked it up and then transported the car to the median strip of the very busy city street at the end of their block. The car was gone in a couple days.

Germany 2017 Post 5

The reason we were in Leipzig *at all* was because of genealogy.

I had always wanted to go back *one generation* on my German lines, which would allow me to identify the parents of my first immigrant ancestors. In 2012 I had the opportunity to go to Germany for work, and I did a little genealogy work beforehand. One of my ancestors had a really uncommon last name, and I found an obituary on Google Book of a guy with that same last name, who lived in the town where my guy was born. Could they be related? I printed it out and brought it with me.

Friends I made at the museum in Germany where I was working translated the obituary for me. I learned that the guy with the same name had been married to the daughter of the portrait painter Gottlob. Fascinating! I couldn't get any farther without help, so I hired a researcher in Germany to help me. For the next few years I worked with her, and she helped confirm connections between the American and German branches of the family and to link them to the person whose obituary I'd originally found. To Belinda Bölckow (real name), I am eternally grateful. I'd ask her specific questions and she'd bring me answers from various archives in Saxony. I'd do my own research based on what she found, and then I'd develop new questions. Much of the family story rested in Leipzig, it seems, so I really wanted to go there.

Day 2 in Leipzig, we boarded one of its many graffitied trains headed downtown and had coffee at Café Riquet. The facade sports elephant gargoyles and mosaics. The interiors have deeply carved wooden paneling with duck pond scenes. It's so beautiful that you can't simply pass it by.

After some coffee, we went into the Altes Rathaus (old town hall). Can't recall why we walked in, but it had to be my favorite stop in Leipzig. We entered the main hall, and it was lined with portraits of government officials. I asked the lady at the counter if she knew whether any were by Gottlob, and she did not know. But mrguy quickly started scanning the walls and found portrait paintings of Gottlob's that I hadn't even known about. It was exciting. These were objects created, and touched, by my 5th great grandfather. There were also a few of his etchings, but the paintings really show the direct hand of the artist.

Not sure how much I've spoken of Gottlob, but he has been a great find in the family tree. He was born in a military installation in Poland. By the age of 25, the time of his first child's birth, he was both a bodyguard to a count and also a painter. As seen through his children's baptismal records, which note his profession, over the years he progressed to cabinet painter and royal Bernbergian court painter. His children's godparents show that Gottlob was acquainted with a variety of artists, minor royalty, merchants and artists or musicians of note. My sense is that these sponsorships might have been requested during portrait sittings, because Gottlob was seemingly not of royal birth. And we may never know.

Gottlob was known primarily as a portrait painter, and often a copyist. When the famous local portrait painter Anton Graf was not available, my guy Gottlob was often called on to start a portrait from scratch or to copy an existing work by Graf. When I saw the courthouse lined with portraits it suddenly became clear that these were the governor's photo of their day. Every government building needs one, and that adds up to a lot of portraits, not all of which could be painted by Anton Graf. Here are a few from the Rathaus:

Christian Erdmann Deyling

Georg Gottfried Hermann (definitely in the style of Graf)

 

Romanus Teller

And just for the icing on the cake, another gallery displayed a portrait of two daughters of Adam Friedrich Oeser, one of Gottlob's mentors from the Leipzig painting academy. These women were godparents to two of Gottlob's children.

I can't say enough about this place and its collections. There was an exhibit of special trunks belonging to various guilds. A chronological exhibition about the city of Leipzig was completely gripping. Here were a few items from the various collections:

Mourning art:

Shelf lining paper in a festive Hitler Youth design. Looks wholesome and normal, just like the Boy Scouts. Scary.

A chunk of wall graffitti by Alfred Frank "Hunger! All thanks to The Fuehrer".

I was moved by the fairly unflinching look at their culture and what their people have done. There was a display of photographs of members of the Roma community that had been exterminated. And then a section detailing the Cold War period. All really well done. My mind was full, but it was only mid-day.

Germany 2017 Post 4

We got to Leipzig around mid-day. Mrguy had rented us an apartment for a few days. It was newly redone in respectful Ikea-style, and it was vast, clean and cheap.

This was our neighborhood.

We found the Lidl down the street and bought supplies. This Lidl was some of our only grocery shopping while we were there, for various reasons (weekend hours, the upcoming religious and bank holiday). We immediately scored some Spreewald pickles, which had been a recent obsession since seeing Goodbye Lenin. Like many much-anticipated things this trip, they turned out to be not to my liking. But whatever, right? Now I know.

 Our dinner at Fela included local beers. Had to try them.

Time for the check, then bed.

Christmas Eve 2017

This is my view.

About 2:30 my next-door neighbor was feeling himself. Couldn't hear the topic, but he was drunk and having fun.

Around 4, he was still at it. Not a school night.

At 5am I couldn't sleep, so I rolled over to grab my laptop, which was on the floor. Then the bed loudly collapsed. 

We cleared the debris and I think that mrguy has forgiven me and we are now down here this morning.

Happy Christmas Eve, My People!

Update: my sister, who was sleeping in the Lady Room, directly below us, took the whole night's activities and created an interesting narrative from the parts. Earlier in the evening, mrguy had been out playing a gig. Sis thought that he'd come home drunk after his show and was raving. When the bed broke, she thought something really horrible was happening. This, despite knowing mrguy for almost 30 years. The mama didn't wake up at all!