Not just another Burg in Southern Germany

It is interesting for me to realize that I once spent my summers taking pictures like these. In fact, some students would occasionally say that they had seen so many castles that they could not recognize one from another. That statement still amazes me, because I could never have felt that way, and I would never have said it--regardless how old I was.

The first thing my father taught me was never to use any form of the word boring, whether as an adjective, a verb or a noun. It did not result in being kicked or hit or anything else.

What the result was are things that are much worse for anyone who finds something boring. On the ranch where I grew up, there were always rocks to haul, fences to mend, fields to tend. There were times that just thinking about being bored was a good thing.

That must sound strange to anyone who has never spent he day lifting lava rocks. Gloves make it more comforting, especially since basalt stones like that sometimes have edges that scrape the skin. And they are not always heavy either, depending on just how violent the forces of nature were when the rock flew into the air so long ago. It is just doing it for four or five hours or more is more than tedious, yet hauling rocks is so much better than dealing with sunshine: a euphemism for the substance produced by happy cattle after they eat grass and grain. The Germans have a word for it, Mist.


The word always made me smile, especially after I saw some American soft drink company use the word for a name of a new soft drink, Alpine Mist--or something like that. And even in ignorance, having tasted the drink once, they really did not miss the mark very far. But after attempting to drink one out of a can once, I poured the remainder on a lawn of a house I once owned. Unlike the substance in Germany or "sunshine" on the farm where I once worked, it did not make the lawn grow any better.

I have a difficult time thinking how anyone would mind seeing a place like this. To see it every day would be nice. Living in a small German city would be so nice, not even taking Italian ice cream or German chocolate or the fine pastries at the local bakery into consideration.

My dad once heard one of my students use the word boring just one time at the airport when we returned home from Germany. The student complained about seeing one too many castles and one too many gothic churches and cathedrals, because mean old Mr. Ward would not let them take a break and go to a disco.
It was once that I would love to have known what my father thought at that moment, because I am sure that he would have taken the little dear to the tarmac to remove stones, weeds and occasional tumble weeds that sometimes pause in their bouncing path across a runway at Salt Lake International Airport.

But what he did do was this. "Jon, you need to take adults to Germany," he said loud enough for the young adult and his parents to hear. "You know, someone who would appreciate seeing what is there."
Dad never had a chance to have me take him there. But if he and I are ever sitting in heaven on a lazy afternoon when I join him some day, if he even mentions the word boring, I will take him there--more as a fun joke between the two of us rather than punishment.

Teaching me not to use "boring" in any conversation is probably one of the greatest things he taught me. And he taught me a great deal of things in the years we spent together hauling rocks, mending fences, tending fields. Sometimes we went fishing and hunting together. But regardless what we did, there is not much I do not think about fondly at this moment.