20 years ago today

[wa-loaf]

The Berlin Wall came down. You can debate about who is responsible for it's end (just not here), but what an awesome time to have been around. I wish I had pics to post, but they are in a box somewhere in my dads barn.

Sorry, just reminiscing a little.

 

[drjeff]

The world became quite a bit smaller that day!

 

[dmc]

A good friend of mine in Hunter was a young girl in East Germany when it came down..

Her accounts of the GDR are vastly different from a woman I knew who's family escaped the GDR for the west..

 

[wa-loaf]

So my Mom posted up a photo. A 21 yr old me:

 

[dmc]

Thats awesome!!!

 

[Puck it]

So my Mom posted up a photo. A 21 yr old me:

Did you keep a piece of it? I take it that you were on the non GDR side when this was taken.

 

[severine]

Wow, Jens! You were but a baby in that picture!

I only have vague memories given my age at the time...

 

[wa-loaf]

Did you keep a piece of it? I take it that you were on the non GDR side when this was taken.

I still have the pieces. That was some seriously tough concrete so nothing huge. Although I do have a big piece of the round cap that was on the top that an East German guard gave me.

Yes, that's in West Berlin. There was no graffiti on East side.

 

[Puck it]

I still have the pieces. That was some seriously tough concrete so nothing huge. Although I do have a big piece of the round cap that was on the top that an East German guard gave me.

Yes, that's in West Berlin. There was no graffiti on East side.

I fgured that but just amking sure.

 

[dmc]

I still have the pieces. That was some seriously tough concrete so nothing huge. Although I do have a big piece of the round cap that was on the top that an East German guard gave me.

Yes, that's in West Berlin. There was no graffiti on East side.

i have a small piece.. can see paint on one side..

The news was just showing a thing on exactly where the wall has ended up... there's pieces of it all over the world... it's crazy...

 

[Grassi21]

So my Mom posted up a photo. A 21 yr old me:

Very cool

 

[wa-loaf]

i have a small piece.. can see paint on one side..

The news was just showing a thing on exactly where the wall has ended up... there's pieces of it all over the world... it's crazy...

They're actually kicking themselves now because they just pulverized a lot of it at the time.

 

[dmc]

They're actually kicking themselves now because they just pulverized a lot of it at the time.

I got mine at the time it happened... But when I was in Berlin last year they were selling small necklaces of it for like 80 euros..

 

[Madroch]

I remember my professor in a politics class devoted entirely to the Soviet Eastern Bloc- labeled comparative communism/socialsim or something-- literally threw the text book out the window the morning the news broke and handed out a copy of the NYT, Washington Post and some other papers and told us to read that every day instead.

 

[Glenn]

I remember going over it in History class the day it happened. 7th grade IIRC.

 

[playoutside]

We spent hours in HS German class learning about the Berlin wall and life on both sides. I was always fascinated with escapes and attempts. Went to Germany in Dec 88 for the first time for work, went several other times in the first half of 89, never managed to make it to Berlin. I always thought I could get there on my next trip...never dreamed the wall would come down in my lifetime.

 

[Trekchick]

I was a chaperone on a school field trip when the wall came down. We had an exchange student with us who was from Germany.
You can imagine how much more powerful this experience was while watching it on tv with someone who was extremely involved emotionally.

 

[wa-loaf]

We spent hours in HS German class learning about the Berlin wall and life on both sides. I was always fascinated with escapes and attempts. Went to Germany in Dec 88 for the first time for work, went several other times in the first half of 89, never managed to make it to Berlin. I always thought I could get there on my next trip...never dreamed the wall would come down in my lifetime.

In October I had attended the 40th anniversary of the DDR in East Berlin with row after row of tanks and rocket launchers (took a lot of pictures of those). Gorbachev was there and everything. Less than a month later it was all over. Hungary had loosened it's border and few people were slipping into Austria, but we had no idea it was coming and we were right there.

 

[Trekchick]

Wa-loaf, love the pic.

 

[ctenidae]

Interestingly (maybe), the Google graphic is for the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. There's an analogy in there somewhere.