My Tablet

By Karlo Hameder

My biography as a young man covering the first 20 years of my life. In the form of a story.

I was born in the north-eastern part of ex-Yugoslavia, a country that split into six (probably even more) countries much later. I wish to tell you about my very early childhood I spent in a small town near the river Danube, which I have named Benghazi and a neighbouring bigger town I called Usumbourgh.

The story begins in the first year of the 1950s covering c. 20 years and ending in 1970. The story involves situations and events from the earliest memories describing outstanding moments of my early childhood spent in Benghazi with tiny details of the history, the political and social situation as well as the different personal profiles of the inhabitants
.
It continues in Usumbourgh with further funny but also quite serious events and description of actions, places and characters with special attention I intended to draw to the education process in the primary and the secondary schools with quite a bit of criticism of it.

I also mentioned family matters and the main characteristics of the social and political background of al actions and activities as well as friends, friendship and human relations that almost all of us encounter.

Therefore, I think it is not only an account of a period of a person's life but also a description of a place and time, and the people, who filled them with their actions and mindsets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karlo Hameder
• Release date: Jan 31, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224051342

Karlo Hameder

Karlo Hameder was born on July 10th 1951 in Sombor, Vojvodina, Serbia; happily married for 49 years, father to 2 adult children (46 & 45); graduated from the Grammar School in Sombor (1970) and the Faculty of Philosophy – Dept. of English Language and Literature at Novi Sad University (B.A. 1974). He did a specialist course in Scientific and Professional Translation in Belgrade (1979).He spent most of his working life teaching English, business correspondence and translation at grammar schools, secondary technical and teacher training school. In the early 1980s Karlo Hameder was the Official Translator at the Dujailah Project in Iraq. In 1993 he founded Olympos Language School and Technical Translation Service in Sombor, which he ran until his retirement in 2016.Karlo has written a number of essays and articles on various topics, which were used in the teaching process or examples within the framework of exam preparation courses. However, Karlo has written a number of articles for the electronic magazine Mason (Scribd) and Neimar (Builder), both in English and Serbian in the last twelve years. His book Freemasonry through the Funnel and its Serbian equivalent Somborski sinovi udovice were published at Smashwords.com together with Masonic books of translation from English into Serbian: Poema Regius, Rukopis Cooke and Rukopis Dowland and others.Karlo Hameder is also a keen photographer, an ecologist (including human relations). He respects hard work, peace, recognition of cultural diversity and global patriotism.

Book preview

My Tablet

A Yugoslavian Youngster’s Life

in the 1950s & 60s

by

Karlo Hameder

Published by Karlo Hameder

Copyright 2024 Karlo Hameder

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be published by a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

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To Katarina, Karlo and Viola

My Tablet

A Yugoslavian Youngster’s Life

In the 1950s & 60s

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Usumbourgh

Moving to Benghazi

Mile and Me Are Neighbours

Great Rhine

Esma

Sickman, Friends and Life in Great Rhine Street

Kindergarten

New Friends

Moving – again

Horror

School – Teacher Emilia

Aca and the Smokers

Kotyor, the Revelers and the Millers

Pioneers

The Church

Back to Usumbourgh

My Family

A Different School

Brazil, Brazil, Brazil

The Usumbourghian Granny's Journey

Fabolo

Gabolo

Upper Years of Eelementary School

Philately

Athletics

Music School

Grammar School and the Rest

Class Trip

Further on

Katka, Farewell Grammar School and Katka again

England

Motorcycle

Epilogue

INTRODUCTION

One unknown day, I think it was Saturday, sabbath, szombat, al-sabt or something like that, in the dead hour of sleep, when I was sick of laziness and inaction, Greedy Nooby and One-Eyed Tsitsa (short i) roared in unison:

'My dear Quintus, Carlito, Charles, Dragutin, Carolus, it mustn’t be like that! What are you waiting for?', - then they suggested – 'let's start exploring the world, both small and large, to visit those whom you have somewhat forgotten, and those you have never even encountered, so that you can meet them, see how they live, what they are doing, where they came from, where they are going to and what moves them and embrace those places that you have never even entered but you have always known or assumed they existed; the unbeaten tracks you admired or shied away from, or feared of.'

'We will give you a part of what the Eternal has gifted us with. We will not plan anything for you but you will let your soul guide you, as you have done all these years that we have spent together here, among us and some others, with intentions and big goals for shaping this small world. You will visit the ancient giants of the tiny space we live in as well as the modern master- devastators and misty vision killers. You will wander around places where something has always been happening, seething and boiling, though, unfortunately, hardly anything beautiful, wise or strong was conceived, let alone born'.

'Tsitsa will go with you, if she feels like it,' – said Nooby - 'what do you say, Tsitsa?'

'I might say yes' - she said carelessly, but her one eye shone brighter – 'to be at hand if he needs it', - 'and to keep him company,' – 'and I will also ask my relatives to meet him I'm definitely staying here. I would be grateful.

'However, are you sure you will go with a clean heart?' I say that because of the rudeness and disrespect to which you and I were occasionally exposed.' - said Nooby and continued:

'I believe that you will have mercy on him and favour him. Your presence would keep before his eyes all that independence and objectivity of his view of places, other beings and events', - 'he needs you because of your spontaneity, so that he would always know which laws should move and maintain the balance between God's creatures and the backdrops that we all inhabit.'

'What say you, Quintus?'

'Well, I will make the maximum effort to carry out the mission given to me', - 'if I am lucky enough to reach the other side of existence in relative completeness, after losing my body ballast, I will inform you and the others about the flip side of the world, without hiding anything, so that all of you will be able to make the necessary preparations and expertly light the way for your descendants.'

That's why Tsitsa joined, and so did some others. Yes, they came in, stayed for some time and then left, but there was always someone next to or around me. I planted Tsitsa into a wicker basket that I painted light green, let the paint dry well and get rid of the heavy smell, lined it with a soft white artificial material similar to angora, and carried it in my hand or held it on my lap. It was her mobile home. There she napped, stretched, tossed and turned and apparently enjoyed her physical, mental and philosophical idleness. Tsitsa would disappear from time to time, especially at night; I never knew where she went, but I knew that there was always one of hers around me. After a while, she would come back and continue to doze, as all cats do.

I observed her and learned how to see and receive what was in front of my eyes, without interfering in the course of events or expressing judgment about what I saw and experienced. I formed opinions, attitudes and allowed the ripples of emotions to be able to convey it all to you though, I say again - without interference.

Usumbourgh is the physical beginning, but Benghazi was the place of revelation, the starting point of everything that followed and boiled, but not of what was created. In Benghazi, I opened my eyes and immediately embarked on adventures. Actually, the place wasn't called Benghazi, but I like that name. In that time, it was the whole world for me, and now it is still one of many places with a solid number of masters of various ages and their four-legged household occupants. We wouldn't say they were pets, because pets shouldn't be chained. All in all, Benghazi was a unique environment, with unique characters, both the people and their other household members. People lived in single-story 2-3-roomed houses, mostly in straight streets with dusty, muddy, rutted roads in the rainy season. The main street was winding, with larger houses dotted delightfully on either side. In the past, the so-called pre-war times, they were inhabited by a completely different population, and more care was taken of their household members - they were not kept on a chain and much more attention was paid to them - they were well fed and cared for. That population disappeared overnight, at the will of others; only some of their graves have been preserved, covered by dense vegetation on the outskirts of Benghazi - oblivion has preserved quite a few of them. Something similar happened to some others in those vindictive years when a hundred and three fathers and sons disappeared in an instant from the hands of those who should be forgiven because they did not know. It is certain that, in historically insignificant times, householders were chained, but today times are changing and their position is experiencing an unprecedented boom, perhaps with little thought for the little people.

USUMBOURGH

So, let me say a word about us. I reckon that real life starts at the age of 4, although there were certain events even before, related to one of Tsitsa’s black-furred ancestors and life advice from my father's mother. Namely, that Tsitsa’s distant ancestor (he) had a special affection for me even from the days when I was riding in a pram that looked like a tank, closed on all sides and with a narrow window-like opening facing the direction of movement. Lying on my back, I could only have a glimpse of the hands of the operator of this contemporary marvel of a vehicle as well as a part, usually of her torso and a piece of sky or canopy in the background. Those who supposedly know say I'm just making it up and stealing someone else's description. Otherwise it would be impossible to remember things so vividly. However, it was all uncoloured, a gray-olive shroud enveloped everything like a semi-transparent shell. Experts have some of their own so-called principles, a science through which they make a selection and classify things and phenomena in the world, probably thus protecting them from themselves, not seeing and admitting the existence of anything that happens to be outside their scientific framework. Anyway - that Tsitsa’s black-furred great-great-great-great grandfather used to jump into that tank and ride with me to the street corner, probably the border of his undisputed territory. He would leave me there, sit down at the end of the well-worn wooden steps right next to the threshold of the barbershop where the master was more concerned with mending dolls - you know the ones with porcelain heads - than cutting hair and shaving.

There, Tsitsa’s ancestor, we'll call him Marko, would take a short look at other tomcats' territories and, seeing that his own was not in any danger, he would return home with light steps, proud and obviously self-satisfied. He too was overcome by a kind of calmness when he idly, to his heart's content, glided down the street on his soft paws, like those Russian berezkas. A few years later, after finally returning from Benghazi, I realized the grace of the unreal peace that the street radiated, with an avenue of horse chestnuts on both sides, whose crowns folded over the roadway like a canopy conducting absolutely strong life energy. The rare carriages that passed by tried not to disturb that dense, all-fulfilling tranquility.

As I said, I vaguely and grey-olively remember being driven somewhere, but I can't even recall how I was taken back. However, they certainly brought me back because, after a certain time, I always found myself in the house again, filled with the smell of old furniture and traces of mothballs, listened to my grandmother telling my mother about the old times, the challenges and her own sobriety and strength to deal with difficulties.

'Since you probably don't know what it's like to run a big house, issue orders and take care of the family's reputation, you should listen to me, because it's to your credit.'

In her mind, she would probably add:

'You should be glad you’ve married my son. What would have happened if you had stayed in that exploitative company and that drunkard of a boss and top idler put his greasy paws on your hot, young body?!'

She did not turn to my mother out of malice but because of the importance she attached to herself and the pride she had gained in running the house and all the affairs after her husband's death. She knew very well what my mother and similar new wives felt when they reached a so-called noblesse family (although there was nothing of it in our family, not even in traces). For my granny, as the only child of a widow, born in those times when single-parent families were not looked upon very favourably and were on the verge of social excommunication, it was a way to regain a bit of her honour and pride. A lot could be written about her and grandfather (whom I hadn't met - probably I will, after some time - but we would then be way off the path of this book.

That grandmother instantly directed me to one of the paths of life with her very usable advice. Namely, at the time of my discovery of the world, a little more than a year before the Benghazian beginnings, in front of our house, on a lawn measuring about 15 by 5-6 meters, a noisy crowd of c. 30 boys aged 7-10 years old used to play some pseudo football every afternoon. Most often, it was played with a rag ball, but occasionally a plastic one was used, which could rarely last an entire afternoon.

Well, it was the day after my 3rd birthday when I got a blue plastic ball with two big yellow pentagrams on it as a gift from my Benghazian grandmother’s sister i.e. my mother’s mother’s sister. I went out onto the lawn with it in the hope that I might be allowed to play too, but a five-year-old scallywag, whose hair had been completely removed for the summer, as was the contemporary custom in order to most effectively suppress the various intruders who made their home in the lush hair of the little ones, haters of bathing. The other reason must have been the high price and rarity of soap. Well, this little monkey snatched the ball, slapped me mentioning my mother and my belonging to the clerical class. I cried bitterly because I felt helpless and ran to my grandmother. She grabbed my arm, dragged me furiously into the street where the madding crowd was jostling and chasing my ball.

'Now go to the one who stole your ball, kick him in the leg and punch him in the stomach with all the might you have and tell everyone you want to play too.'

Grandma was always right, so everyone in the house listened to her, without questioning, especially me at the beginning of my life's journey. Received - done - effect perfect. The little bully cowered, and one of the older ones (a self-confident kid from the officer’s block) said so that all the kids could hear:

'Come on neighbour, you’ll play for the offirs (officers’ kids). Stand there by the goal and don't let these lalas (tulips, funny name for the natives) come even near the goal; just stomp on their feet.'

I don't remember what happened in the later days, but I learned my lesson. I started with the street but forgot to say something more about the house, and the town of Usumbourgh. In those early years of absorbing everything without the slightest filtering, it was impossible to focus on something concrete, so please show understanding for my comings and goings and wanderings; I hope everything will work out. After all, isn't that the way we collect all our knowledge, insights and experience?

Well, the house was, to put it mildly, old, one of those from the end of the 19th century, bought hastily before the Great War, after a split in the family. Grandpa was tired of supporting his lazy, arrogant and, above all irresponsible brothers who made life miserable for him as the sole breadwinner and acquirer of property (after the death of his father), with their crazy behavior and accumulating debt. It was even worse that this unruly group was supported and even comforted by Fat Mom, as most of the housemates called her - behind her back, of course. So, my grandfather, Carolus Tertius, the third in the family line with the same name, abandoned his closest kin leaving them to the fate of the coming war, and married grandmother Olga, which gave him the right and justification to buy a house, a typical 19th-century Austro-Hungarian one, in the already mentioned quiet, sleepy street. It was a 5-roomed house with an uncomfortable layout and poorly equipped, so a 3-roomed extension was soon added, as well as a stable for 4-5 horses, and a garage for one of the first cars in Usumbourgh. The house was more of a refuge during snowy winter days than a permanent home since they lived in their homestead several kilometres away from the city. Life was lived quietly in that murky period in anticipation of sunny days. Then they would go to the farm, where the newly built large house with all the auxiliary buildings provided complete comfort for the body and soul. They lived there to the fullest, knowledge of which reached me through my granny only in fragments.

Let's go back home. In the narrow and long front yard, grandfather planted two rows of different varieties of cherries, and in the front part of it, not far from the gate, 5 common firs (Abies alba), one for each of my father's first 5 birthdays, to offer protection for the young Carolus Quartus, I guess, in accordance with the popular belief, from spells, since his first son died during unprofessional assistance during delivery. In the course of time, those fir trees reached a dangerous height, so I mourned them and had them cut down, in order to protect my own children as well as the ancient house.

The front yard ended with a whitewashed wooden fence that leaned against an old apricot tree with huge fruits that had a heavenly taste. A wobbly wooden gate, also whitewashed, led to the backyard, terribly neglected at the time, where there were a pigsty and a chicken coop, both built of bricks. In the first „structure, mother raised one pig every year for traditional basic food in the winter. It is said that pigs give sausages, blood sausages, cracklings and other winter delicacies, just like cows give milk, sheep wool, chicken eggs, and all the animals we feed and love also give meat. In another „structure granny kept a few hens and two roosters; all of them had human names and died of natural causes. Only eggs were collected.

In the five rooms of the upper part of the house lived grandfather, grandmother and father as a child. In the lower part of the house lived the maids and the stableman and his wife. After my grandfather's death, 3 years before the second great war, the lower house was rented to Mrs. Margareta, the owner of an antique shop, for a warehouse.

Perhaps more was written about that second great war than was necessary, given the immeasurable quantity of untruths, deliberate lies and everything that was guided by the lowest human instincts in order to wash away that huge amount of blood of God's creatures spilled in the name of „something". We are not sure whether this deluge of humanity and the failings of human beings was greater during or after the war. All in all, greed, justified by revenge, reigned the turf for the first few years after the second great war, waning gradually but not disappearing for a long, long time. So, in that whirlwind, the homestead disappeared having been turned into building material; interior items were moved to newly established local government offices and private apartments, and agricultural machinery to local collective farms, called cooperatives.

The house in the city was requisitioned, it was said that my grandmother did not need it because she was alone and why would she need such a big house. Father had not yet returned from captivity. Thanks to some people with conscience, two rooms and half a kitchen were returned later. The officers and members of the proletariat, those who showed enviable skill in choosing sides in the last year of the war, moved into the two rooms from the street and into the lower house.

I remember that life in the house was not boring, that it was above all noisy, something always heppened unexpectedly; there was shooting, and also drinking, whoring, going out and coming in, banging, smashing and all that was accompanied by constant vociferation. Officers, both active and retired, their wives or girlfriends and their bosom friends, comrades and neighbours, all of them were constantly shouting as were all those who stepped through the always open gate. Only the children didn't shout - there were none then - they were produced there, so they joined the general vociferation a bit later.

The rooms were furnished and requisitioned in that condition. The furniture was old (read stylish), the dining room was art nouveau, made of walnut and extremely heavy, so it could not be moved easily - the main reason why its fate was different from that at the farm. The so-called black room miraculously remained almost intact: a huge black bookcase, with a door of cut glass inserts in the middle, miraculously survived even though, knocked down, it was used as a bed. A leather three-seater and 4 leather armchairs used to be pressed with various butts and, as a souvenir, were filled with rifle and pistol ammunition that slipped out of the pockets. I used to find bullets there even 20 years later. Easily transportable objects, decorations and paintings, due to their mobility and difficulty to settle at one place, were lost trace of, but not of the silk with which the walls of the rooms were covered with. In the last year of the war, my granny found herself in a similar house in a nearby street, which had been converted into a tailor's workshop where women, including my mother, my Benghazian granny and great-aunt, sewed underpants for the army.

I know that I should’ve started with telling you a few words about Usumbourgh. I’ve always hated overplanning and prescribed rules. If they were of some essential value, they would not be changed so often, especially in free forms of expression and communication. My intention is to inform, without being too boring, as well as to express my views on the actions of us, bipedal mammals.

So, the place is not called Usumbourgh but something similar so, like in the case of Benghazi, I prefer to use this name, because I am a global patriot and I do not associate the names of places with geography, but with what happens in them and those who create those events, consciously and very often unconsciously.

The place, in the old times, boasted of something cultural. Contemporary authorities were bent on creating culture by erecting buildings which, they hoped, would acquire something cultural, though it was quite difficult to define what it was: according to them, it was fame or wealth, but in my view, it was , only fog and confusion. Spending wealth, though necessary in the production of culture, can hardly be the essence of it. I don't want to debate on it, but there was a lack of long-term planning, priorities, determination and perseverance, as always happens when results are