Brief memories of long summer days: refreshments from the gas station

2023-07-24 21:05:07

We’re sitting here in the air-conditioned open-plan office and letting the valuable summer days, which seem to be in a hurry every year, pass by. Perhaps if we hold on to our memories, time can be slowed down a bit? In the next few days we want to create a small collection of past but not forgotten summer vacation moments. Here, for example, this one from July 1982.

It used to be hot sometimes. In GDR times, the summer holidays lasted eight weeks. Two weeks camping with my parents, one week with my grandparents, three weeks at summer camp. There were two weeks left over, which one spent at home in the half-orphaned city.

wheat chaff and grasshoppers

I was lucky enough to grow up in the middle of Berlin between two bathing lakes, one of which – the Weißer See – was considered dirty, at least in my family, after my sister once swam at what she said was a monstrously large turd. To the other lake, the Orankesee, we walked along the edge of a church field, through dust made of wheat chaff dancing in the sun. Awns tickled bare bruised and punctured legs. Grasshoppers jumped up and away in panic.

Today it is criss-crossed by an oversized concrete road and built on with houses that are now in need of renovation. The gas station already existed back then, a secret path led behind it, right next to the chain-link fence. Sweating, my friend and I rolled an inflated tractor tire through the undergrowth, we were warm, the path endless, the water far away. It stank of petrol, rubber and dust.

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A wonder truck with a refrigerator

On the other side of the fence, a man with a mustache was watching us. He waved us over, motioned for us to wait, and got into his truck, a western truck, with stickers, souvenirs, curtains, sleeping compartment, porn magazines and scents from all over the world. The cab swayed comfortably under his load. He came back and rolled us two cans of Coca-Cola under the fence, which immediately fogged up. Apparently, the miracle truck also had a refrigerator.

Sitting on the hot hoop, we drank the strange black cool sweetness empty, slowly and knowing that there couldn’t be any refreshment that tastes better and feels better. Also knowing that this moment would remain unrepeatable and unforgettable.