One bright sunny July day I was barely out of bed when I heard a knock on the cabin door. I knew immediately that it was Albert, our 75-year old neighbor who usually showed up unannounced. Sometimes he was a welcome guest, but at other times I felt downright irritated, especially before 8 a.m. Why didn’t he get it? I wondered. Our time at the cabin was short on weekends and it was a long drive home; we just wanted some quiet, family time after a hectic week in the city.
“You’re wasting half the day away,” he said in his thick German accent. “I’ve already been on a two-mile walk with Toby (his beloved basset hound) and done some fishing. Why do you come here if you waste the best part of the day sleeping? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Albert, you need to understand,” I shot back, more than a bit resentful. It’s been a long week and everyone’s tired. You don’t have to get up early and fight freeway traffic on your way into work every morning. “
“I know plenty about getting up early and going to work,” he reminded me in a rather scolding way. “I worked 90-hour weeks at a bakery in Milwaukee when I first came here from Germany. I damn near sweated to death. I was up at four in the morning. You couldn’t give me that big city or any other. Concrete jungles I call them.”
Somehow we’d digressed a bit, nothing unusual in discussions with Albert. It took me a long time to realize how truly unique and different Albert was-- a true icon. Yes, he was opinionated and overbearing at times, but he was also tender, wonderfully kind and generous, funny, and remarkably intelligent.
Perhaps the truest example of his tender heart I discovered one morning when he pulled me out of the cabin to point out the baby rabbits he was protecting from some raccoons near our screen house. He’d discovered them by accident, but he felt responsible for their welfare. My initial reaction was a bit of confusion.
“How did they wind up here, Albert? What’s going to happen to them? Won’t some animal find them?”
He reassured me, saying, “That’s why I covered them up. They’re camouflaged—nothing can get at ‘em. The mother’s gone. I think a cat got it. I heard some screeching a few nights ago.”
I agonized over the mother, but I knew that Albert would check on the rabbits often and that they would probably survive.
What was hard for me to understand, though, was how Albert, who showed so much tenderness toward those bunnies, could hunt an “adult” rabbit with no qualms at all and offer it to us for dinner. That was an issue we never agreed on, but after many long discussions, we could at least chuckle about it. I’m sure that Albert thought that I was naïve about the realities of the world, especially hunting, but he begrudgingly accepted it.
Albert also learned to accept his differences with the rest of the family, including my mother, who spent summers at the cabin after returning from Arizona. Often they would get into heated political discussions that reached an impasse. Albert would get up and head for the door. But the next night he’d be right back sharing a beer and some popcorn and talking about football and the Packers. He didn’t take sports as seriously as she did, but he understood her love of the game. Sometimes he would just shake his head and say, “Millie, it’s just a game. How can you get so upset about it? How can anyone watch those idiots who make millions play a stupid game that means nothing?”
“Cut it out Albert,” my mother would say. “Just leave me alone.”
Albert would get up, shake his head, and mumble, “I’ve got things to do. See you later.”
Albert always watched over the cabin in winter when my mother left for Arizona. He sometimes climbed up on the roof and shoveled the snow, disregarding his own personal safety. He checked the cabin regularly and called her if there were any problems. She was extremely grateful and paid him $25 a month. He was happy to get the money, but he would have done it for nothing.
There were some things Albert considered a waste of money. Feeding the birds in summer definitely fit into that category. My mother loved feeding the cardinals, hummingbirds and finches and nothing Albert said would make an ounce of difference on that subject.
“Millie, why do you do that,” he said emphatically. “Those birds have plenty to eat. When you leave they won’t know what to do.”
“I don’t care,” she’d snap back. “I love feeding the birds and watching them. I look forward to it when I come back.”
“But Millie, it’s STOOOPID!”
Albert didn’t understand that practical was not part of my mother’s vocabulary when it came to birds. The same was true of her use of firewood in summer. Why would anyone use the cabin’s fireplace on a summer evening, or anytime he wondered.
“You’re just wasting wood,” he complained. “It just goes up the chimney. There’s no sense to it.”
“There is to me, Millie answered. I love a cozy fire and I’m only here a few months.”
“But Millie, it makes no sense at all.”
The discussion ended, but not without a smile from Albert. He loved my mother’s feistiness and resolve.
Albert was always willing to help his friends, even in the middle of the night. Years ago I had gone to the cabin with a friend and attempted to start a fire in the fireplace late at night. Years of watching others successfully build fires apparently hadn’t registered. I carelessly threw in an overabundance of newspaper and the cabin was starting to fill up with smoke. I called Albert frantically. He showed up, in disbelief, but he quickly built a small wood fire and got the newspaper smoke going in the right direction—out the chimney. He never mentioned it the next day.
One problem of his own that Albert told us about occurred when he was still on his farm. A few teenagers thought it would be fun to knock over his outhouse one Halloween night. Albert’s response took a full year, until the next Halloween, but it was worth waiting for. He moved the outhouse back five feet. Much to the mischief makers’ surprise, when they attempted to repeat their prank, they discovered that the trick was on them. They stepped right into the pit. Albert never had that problem again.
One touching story of Albert spoke of his love of dogs. Toby, his aging basset hound, followed him everywhere. When Toby died, Albert was devastated. He had lost his best pal. When anyone mentioned Toby’s name, Albert’s eyes filled with tears. But a neighbor who knew Albert well surprised him with a special gift—a beagle puppy. After a few days Albert told us, “He’s no Toby—he’s crazy,” but he was obviously thrilled. It just took time to adjust to the new puppy’s energy level. I’ll always remember his smiling face as he came through the cabin door one day.
“Guess what I named my dog?”
“What, Albert?” We couldn’t imagine.
“ALEX!!!”
We were shocked and honored. Albert and our son were buddies and shared a genuine love of dogs.
Albert also loved reading. Whenever he received a copy of Time, Newsweek, Scientific American, Popular Science or other news sources, he was grateful. He combined long walks with a healthy dose of reading every day. He didn’t understand why Americans didn’t read more or follow current events. It was his lifeline to the world. We were amazed at the statistics he recited from different publications. He cared deeply about global issues and how they impacted all of us. Among his concerns was how technology was causing people to lose their connections with one another. We discovered a great deal of agreement on that subject.
It’s been a few years now since Albert passed on. Sadly, his cabin and ours have also passed on to other hands. A few years ago when I was lamenting the painful loss of the cabin, a fellow teacher reminded me that the rich memories would always sustain me. In his words, “that’s all we really have anyway.” At the time I resented his remarks, but I now realize how right he was. One of my fondest memories of the cabin will always be of Albert. He was an exceptional human being and I will forever count my blessings that our paths crossed.
As for that “concrete jungle” that Albert often spoke of with disgust, he once acknowledged that his view of cities needed some revision. A few years before he died, he visited us in Minneapolis. He was surprised that the city had beautiful parks and lakes and places for people to walk and bike and enjoy nature. It wasn’t going to turn him into a city person, but he realized that things change over time. That also applied to the country he left so many decades before—Germany. It had been over 50 years since he’d been back, when he had the opportunity to visit his homeland and the area where he grew up. Although he felt some anxiety about making the trip at his age, he was as excited as a little boy. When he returned home two weeks later he couldn’t wait to talk about the astonishing changes that had occurred in Germany since he left. He couldn’t believe how the roads had been paved. He was thrilled to have seen so many fascinating places. It was heart-warming to see his youthful spirit; he was happier than we had ever seen him. The family connections he made were meaningful and enduring. His fondest wish was to return to Germany where he wanted to spend his remaining time. Unfortunately that never happened. He did, however, leave us with unbelievably rich memories. Thank you Albert, we won’t forget you.
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