New Year's Eve 1978 - memory of my father

The year was 1978. I was a fresh fifteen years old and I felt like I owned the whole world. My parents were fairly newly divorced, so I spent almost every weekend at my grandmother's house with just my dad. And because he was born here, and because he was a great local patriot, he decided to build a cabin. Actually, it was more of a "sulking house".

He bought a plot of land in the cottage area, near the local cemetery, and bought a small prefabricated wooden cabin. Well... a cabin... more like a wooden tent. A tiny room downstairs that functioned as a material store, a ladder, and upstairs a place for two beds and a tiny table next to the hatch.

He placed the parts of the hut on the property and began preparing the foundation. He was in no hurry. In fact, he came here to play. A little private escape from reality. My mother used to call it Karlstejn as a joke. Not because it was castle-like, but because it was the building of the century. Personally, I think they must have built Karlstejn faster.

My mother didn't come with us much. The divorce was fairly recent. But I didn't mind it too much. I loved my dad and we were always inventing things together, assembling, making nuggets, jewelry out of the bark of rotten trees, carving spoons out of spruce wood, chewing pitch out of trees (it tasted disgusting, but if you tried for a while and spit out the awful aftertaste of resin long enough, it made a gum-like substance). We learned to weave rugs together, scrub, make items out of leather, and many other things. You could say it was the most beautiful period of my childhood.

When I was relatively grown up and my calves were starting to light up, I also experienced my first love there. There weren't so many fashionable lifestyles back then. Basically, the youth was divided into "wimps" and "wimps". You can tell from the names that the "bums" dressed nicely, while we "donkeys" had a somewhat looser style. Today I would compare it to the romantic and free-thinking style of the hippies. My dad used to jokingly tease me about being a "somr lady" and I was duly proud of it.

As far as love goes, I must freely admit that I was never very lucky. My choices were geared towards similar, often dubious existences. What the hell? The boys were handsome, good-looking, and would carry me on their arms, but as for what is technically called intellect ...

I guess like every dad, mine was afraid some guy like that would "screw up" his good girl, as they say. From today's perspective, I'm not surprised. Thinking back on all my favorites at the time, I admire his amazing ability to leave me feeling free. However, when he happened to get his hands on one of those lovelorn confessions, he never failed to remark "He doesn't know grammar. He's our man."

The year 1978 was a turning point. I was allowed to go to dance parties, wander around with friends, and generally make friends with the local youth. However, celebrating New Year's Eve at the local clubhouse was a bit much even for my dad, who outwardly seemed like the most tolerant father. So he tried to be tactful and with hope in his heart that I would decide not to go, he uttered the fateful sentence "Well, I don't know if it's a good idea, but if your mom lets you..."

And my mom, quite unexpectedly, did. He didn't expect that. To this day, I don't know if it was just my dad's idea. However, the sentence was spoken and the imaginary door to adulthood was opened wide for me. Only until midnight, but YAY!

It was unseasonably warm that day. Even in just a sweater, I was almost hot in the sun. The fun flowed in a pleasant and completely innocent way. There was dancing, eating, and drinking from meager supplies. Who brought what? The fireplace was beautifully warm, so we didn't actually find out until midnight how cold it had gotten outside. It was a record thirty degrees then. And even though I had a brave escort who tried to strap me in and hide me under a thin jacket, I was shivering like a dear dog.

 My teeth were chattering so hard I nearly knocked out all my fillings. We walked at a very brisk pace, but it still took us an interminably long ten minutes.

I've never looked forward to going to bed as much as I did that night. The old wire bed with the feather-down comforters used to be very cold because the bedroom was only heated when we arrived. My grandmother used to warm my duvet by the stove then and add a hot brick to the bed, as she called the iron that was actually permanently heated over the stove. How I loved her for it then!

The first New Year's Eve was over. It wasn't until years later that I learned that my dad used to check on me through the clubhouse window. Oh, yeah. Thank God he didn't have a gun, and thankfully he didn't see any of the fleeting kisses.

I had passed the imaginary stepping stone to adulthood.
And Dad? He was relieved. At least for now.