Snoqualmie Pass

One hours drive from our front door we can be thoroughly in the mountains (or in ten minutes walk to a tidal beach - I get to the beach more often).

Looking across to where the old road disappears beneath the (ice- & snow-covered surface) of the later Lake Keechulus.

[This is the fourth (and probably final) post of places along my solo daytrip yesterday]

Umtanum Creek

I have loved the Yakima Canyon since I first drove through it in April, 1975, on my way to an army training course on counseling that would eventually have a profound impact on my life.

Umtanum Creek, which flows down a long side canyon into the Yakima River, has become one of my all-time favorite places.

Pedestrian suspension bridge across river from parking & picnic areas along Canyon Road

 

 

 

 

 

Cacti, ~2" high. This may be the same group that I photograph every visit.

 

 

The old Northern Pacific line from Seattle & Tacoma comes over the mountains from Auburn via Stampede Pass, then follows the Yakima River to Richland, where it turns north to Spokane, before heading through Montana to Minneapolis-St. Paul.

 

About a mile up river from the Recreation Area, I found an empty tank train coming towards me. BNSF's Stampede Pass line is now used to move various trains of empties East.

 

Point B

I posted yesterday with an old lousy picture from this location, this panorama might give a better idea of what can be seen [click for larger image]. The BNSF (ex Northern Pacific) wraps around below us on this side of the river. Track is visible to left and right, and in the distance just right of center. What appears to be a rail line going into a tunnel on the other side of the river is the Iron Horse Trail (ex Milwaukee Road Railway).

Oh - and a primary mission today was to determine how hot & tasty a hamburger from the Dairy Queen in Cle Elum would be after driving here, and finding a suitable sitting spot on the hillside. Still hot. Very tasty.

West Nelson Siding Road

East on the BNSF [ex-Northern Pacific]

West on the BNSF [ex-Northern Pacific]

West on the Iron Horese Trail [ex-Milwaukee Road]

East on the Iron Horese Trail [ex-Milwaukee Road]

Map

Twilight & a river

In last night's dream I sit on a hillside above the Yakima river east of Cle Elum.

Someone is with me. Probably my wife Jo, perhaps one of our adult daughters, or my sister, or a friend, but certainly someone I am entirely comfortable with.

It is twilight.

View Larger Map 

The canyon is almost entirely in darkness. There are lights at a distant farm. The river catches the last light from the sky and reflects it back.

For sharp eyes, thin lines of light reflect from the railroad tracks, where the railheads have been polished by passing trains.

We have been talking quietly since before sunset, sitting just above where the hillside's slope breaks into near cliffs.

Now we are silent, listening to the distant sounds of a train approaching from the east - first the diesel's horns sounding their way through Thorp, then the growing throb of the diesel engines themselves.

A glow from the locomotive headlights gradually appears, then their bright illumination appears on the opposite side of the river, briefly restoring near-daylight to a sweeping patch of hillside and river and trees.

The train rounds the bend from our left to pass beneath us.

We watch and listen as the noise of the heavy diesel engines fades and the train continues beyond us, replaced by the steadier rumble & random metallic creaks of the loaded freight cars. A final surge of diesel noise marks the passage of the rear-end locomotives, and then the sounds gradually fade again.

Coal train.

The distant murmur of the river reasserts itself.

Lilli Marleen

Underneath the lantern,
By the barrack gate
Darling I remember
The way you used to wait
T'was there that you whispered tenderly,
That you loved me,
You'd always be,
My Lilli of the Lamplight,
My own Lilli Marlene

In World War II, every country had it's song that more than any other "spoke" the mood. For most countries, that song was not Lilli Marlene.

Vor der Kaserne
Vor dem großen Tor
Stand eine Laterne
Und steht sie noch davor
So woll'n wir uns da wieder seh'n
Bei der Laterne wollen wir steh'n
Wie einst Lili Marleen.

But throughout the countries involved in the European war, on both sides, in many languages, Lilli Marlene was at the very least a close runner-up, and by being so widespread surely qualifies as the leading song of that war.

The version that first pushed Lili Marleen to fame was by Lale Anderson, who was born in Bremerhaven, Germany, in the Lehe district.

In 1971, while with Det B, 42d MP Gp (Customs) at the US Army installation in Bremerhaven-Weddewarden, I had an apartment in Bremerhaven-Lehe, on Artilleriestraße, named for the artillery barracks or Kaserne that was across from my kitchen window. I looked down into its courtyard. Lale presumably grew up knowing that same barracks as "the Kaserne," and its gate may have been what she pictured as she sang "vor dem großen tor."

I wish I had known that when I listened to Marlene Dietrich singing Lili Marlen in my tiny mansard apartment.

I certainly thought of the song when I looked at that gate.

Lili Marleen An Allen Fronten has 184 historical recordings of different versions on 7 CDs. I wish I could get that out of the Library. Maybe my kids will get it for me for Father's Day? Nah.

Today is Memorial Day, and I think of my father's friends who died in that war, my friends who died in Vietnam, family and friends who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and lost friends there. Of everyone who has lost family and friends in any war.

I watch our flag dance in the breeze.

Hildegard Knef

I was sitting on the couch this morning, taking another break from reading Stasiland - a wonderful but heart-shearing book of stories of secret police victims da drüben, as the DDR was known to us then - and apparently my mind circled out from those times and my post yesterday about Katja Ebstein.

The name "Hildegard Knef" came into my aimless drifting.

For a moment I wasn't sure if I remembered her as actress or singer, but a quick Google search confirmed she was both, and the opening bars of  the first YooToob clip i played - Ich brauch' Tapetenwechsel - went deep into my soul (even if the English lyrics seem a bit goofy) - it was on the record I had. As was the second - Insel meiner Angst.

For both songs, I had to move away from the computer, standing stiffly in the door of the room, muttering "holy shit" under my breath.

In various episodes of mental illness I sent versions of myself through my brain like herds of crazed wolverines followed by Attila the Hun's Mongolian Hordes* equipped with weed-eaters, attempting to rid myself of whatever memories drove me toward the abyss. I never seemed to have much success at the intended goal, but many times in the last decade of therapy I have learned how much of the good was chased away in my ineffectual attempts to destroy the evil.

I went back to the attic, but didn't find the Knef album. Is it gone?

This post is taking me a long time to assemble, interspersing writing with crying, walking around the house, listening to the same songs again, finding more, for Im achtzigsten Stockwerk, I again had to move away from the computer, to stand in the doorway mumbling.


So, I am ordering the CD of  my old Knef album, and looking to see what else I might like to get, in the affordable range.

I think now that when I found the Katja Ebstein album in 1971, I was looking for something to keep me from playing Knef over and over again - and like Mike, I think I was initially disappointed.

What I don't remember at all is why I never asked either Ruth Gottwalles or Claudia Haase to help me find some more music that I would like. Did we only talk about the music we enjoyed in the Tanzbars, not what we enjoyed on our own records?

Bremerhaven. Helmstedt. Braunschweig. Zonengrenze. Zollfahndung. Da drüben. Dienstfahrt im Sowjetischen Besatzungszone. Feierabend.

Long, long ago.

__________________

* Back when I was young & oblivious I once wrote: 

I was crazy when I started,

I'll be crazier when I'm done

that's why they call me

Attila the Hun

If you ever find yourself with even a remotely plausible belief that you have mental health problems, get therapy now. Do not let decades go by. If not for yourself, then for those who might attempt to love you.