A tale of two lighters and how they connect me to my Uncle

So I was challenged by Logan Nelson to #shareyourstory to talk about one person I love and miss.

Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of my Uncle Manfred because the last time I saw him was before digital cameras and we sent the film off and the pictures never came back. But I do have something else I have these two lighters… We will get to those in a minute.

He came to America to visit from Germany and he rose very early as did I. So though he didn’t speak any English and I spoke very little German he found ways to tell me stories about his job of being the bodyguard and limo driver for his longtime friend Helmut Kohl, the former chancellor of Germany, he showed my photos of him driving a limo like something from the Dukes of Hazzard and I was amazed. He taught me about photography as that was a passion of his as well and he was one of the major inspirations of my love of photography.

During the week he was here Chubby Checker was having a concert and he wanted to go because event today American oldies play in the morning on German radio in the morning. So we all headed to Marietta Ohio for the festival. During the concert we saw that people were being invited on the stage to do The Twist with Chubby Checker and he encourage my mother, sister, cousin and I do go up there and he would take photos. So we did and we were featured on the front page of the Marietta newspaper (I am still looking for my copy of it sorry I have moved 5 times since 😁) it was so much fun and that is something I will never forget.

When the Berlin Wall came down he sent all of us pieces to keep as mementos since he was there working while it happened.

My Uncle came back to America one last time but I couldn’t get off work. Had I known that would be the last time I’d ever see him I would have quit my job. But shortly after he returned while walking someone threw a beer bottle intended to hit Chancellor Kohl and it caught my Uncle in the back of the head. He endured 6 months of rehab then on I believe his first day back to work I friend called out to him and as he turned his head to say good morning he died instantly.

In the end of it all I only got to spend one week of my life with this amazing man but he taught me so much. I took his loss harder then any other person in my life that I had lost. My great Aunt Edith heard about this and had mentioned to Helmut that I really missed him and some how he found out that at the time I collected Zippo lighters so he had her send me these two lighters to remember Manfred by. So every time I see them they make me smile and I can see him smiling and showing me his many photo albums as we spent those early mornings together.

#inspiration #photography #love

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