“Miss you” from 6./7. August:
Sensitive Journalism
I lived longer in the USA – but by far not as long as Hubert Wetzel. Reading his wonderful article brought back old memories, made me wistful and sentimental. For me it wasn’t baseball, it was (college) football (at the time “Texas was No. One in the Nation”). This article is – at least in my layman’s opinion – a masterpiece of journalism that is as knowledgeable as it is sensitive.
Dr. Knut Suhr, Hamburg
Next “Aschfahrt” Munich
My husband and I have loved America since we made our first home exchange in 1983 to Long Beach, a suburb of Los Angeles. There we experienced at first hand how the members of a church community lived together like a big family and thus made social benefits like in Germany unnecessary. The whole community lovingly cared about making sure we had a great vacation. In a family we met the son-in-law who was a well-known baseball coach. He was the hero in the family and community and was proud to have been to Munich once, without being able to say more about it than that he liked the “Aschlese” wine (Auslese) very much, and that in Germany so many cities had the same name, namely “Aschfahrt”, which I was able to correct.
We’ve done about 40 home exchanges in the US, three to four weeks each in New York City, Hawaii, near Boston, North California, the Rocky Mountains, Maine, New Mexico, and always lived like locals away from the tourist crowds. Enjoyed such outstanding hospitality and helpfulness from friends of our exchange partners and their simplicity. Immediately we were treated like old friends.
In the first 20 years, our American exchange partners were often people who wanted to look for their roots in Germany, or former crew members who were curious about what had become of Germany.
America is not only a country of contrasts due to the extreme differences in landscape, life in the big cities and in the “flat country” is like being on two different planets. We drove through small towns that could still be used today as backdrops for old Western films if they hadn’t been renovated.
My husband and I even have a kind of “homesickness” for America because we haven’t been there for many years because of the pandemic. But we know families who lived in the USA for a few years for work reasons and then, after some hesitation, moved back to Germany, although things were going very well for them in America. There are many reasons for this.
Christel Klemenjak, Mindelheim
topic missed
As a German, I have been dating an American woman from Chaska (a city in the state of Minnesota; d. Red.) married. Due to family reasons, we live on both continents and I have – also due to my job – a well-balanced and decades-long insight into US society.
If you look at various SZ articles, there is consistently negative reporting about the USA. In good German manner, the problems of US society are instructively written. The above article is also an almost grotesque description of US society, incoherent, only partially reproduced and completely misguided.
Former President Trump, who has been heavily criticized over and over again, was also elected by a democratic majority in precisely those regions that you narrow-mindedly and arrogantly describe with baseball and country bliss. Despite your six-year stay in the USA, you have in no way grasped, let alone understood, the spirit, the emotions and the attitude of the population away from the major centers on the west and east coasts.
Thomas Sedlmair, Puchheim
Americana on your ears
I would like to thank you for your report on America. I also lived in the USA for about six years (1980-1984, 2014/15). I’ve never become friends with baseball (perhaps because I don’t have a little boy), but if the sport and the social community that surrounds it contributes to a more peaceful society, all the better.
On the other hand, our assessments (“loving ones”) in the music coincide all the more. Country (or: Americana) music has accompanied me since the early eighties. My friend Dan introduced me to his musical heroes from Austin while we were studying together in Iowa: Willie Nelson, Asleep At The Wheel, Townes Van Zandt. The “late” Johnny Cash from the mid-nineties provided the second boost. Those are just the big names. I now have a collection of thousands of CDs by the artists you mention and many others. Chris Knight is there, who I also saw live once.
Since I was also a journalist (since “retired” a year ago), I was lucky enough to be able to present my music to an audience – in this case for Deutschlandfunk and DLF/Kultur in countless programs of different lengths – but always focused on Americana and the social and historical context of this eclectic genre. Since most of the programs ran at night (hardly possible otherwise with four hours of broadcasting time), I reached a loyal but small group.
I now work for municipal internet stations (Multicult.fm Berlin and Hamburger Lokalradio), for which I produce the program “Roots Americana”. I, too, constantly try to show that country music is much more than the “radio hits” and shamrock songs, often of alarmingly conservative content. It’s a deep dive, but maybe we can spark a little interest in a brand of American folk music that’s actually about people, not stream numbers. Three Cords and the Truth!
I have to give you a tip. Singer/songwriter Mary Gauthier has released a CD (“Rifles & Rosary Beads”) after a workshop with US veterans. The soldiers wrote the lyrics in which they deal with their traumata, Mary added the wonderful music.
If Corona allows it, I want to travel again, go to concerts and festivals, in my beloved cities and in the southern states. I’m afraid the United States cannot be saved. My impression is that the self-healing powers are diminishing, the USA is destroying itself.
Michael Groth, Berlin
Home Run
The article “Miss you” by Hubert Wetzel is the best thing I’ve read in your newspaper for a long time. The references to baseball are missing “Unterwelt”, Don DeLillo’s magnum opus, in which the baseball is hit from the field onto the stands right at the beginning.
Manfred Boscolo, München
a notice
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