Revealing: Ten truths and one lie about me

I am super late, but here it is: the reveal of the “Ten truths and one lie about me” that I had posted a little while ago.

First of all, huge thanks to @felt.buzz, @linnyplant, @mysecondself01 and @mariannewest for taking a guess!
@felt.buzz had assistance by Inspector Dash and thought No. 5 was the lie
@linnyplant was suspicious about No. 10
@mysecondself01 also thought No. 10 has to be the lie :)
@mariannewest put on the Sherlock cap and didn’t think that No. 4 was true

And actually one of you had guessed right! So let’s see:

1. When I was 12, I helped my father change the engine of an old car.
   True! This was considered quality time and I had to hold one side of the hood for a while. When I was little, we almost always had old cars and all the repairing and maintenance was done in the garage – and I did the same myself with my first cars. I’ve had my last car a long time ago now (no need for it and I do generally prefer to look out the window and float when I’m travelling), but as a result of this “car history” I’d really love to restore an really old car some time.

2. I was once held in custody for one night after participating in an illegal demonstration.
   True! I agree that I had not necessarily participated in that demonstration because I was totally convinced of the motto and the aim (it was sort a general “anti-capitalism” thing), but I’ve learned so much on that day about the mechanisms that work on various sides during such “occasions”, on the one hand that there are indeed people who don’t care for content or politics or what ever at all and just want to yell and throw things around, on the other hand that at some point you are just rigorously beaten down for not doing anything by “authorities” – only because a court hadn’t allowed the demonstration in a literally last minute decision, at that point nothing had “happened”. So I spent half the night in jail and did learn a lot again, e.g. that certain protesters would keep up the confrontation just for the sake of confrontation or that they collect the laces so that you cannot hang yourself. Yes, that was the official reason.

3. When I was 14, I went to my first concert alone, The Rolling Stones.
   True! Although not completely alone, I went with someone from my class, he was also 14. The concert was in Cologne, about 80 km (50 miles) from where we were living, we took the train and we tricked the guard at the entrance so that we could get into the pit (didn’t have tickets for that), pretty much front row.

4. Also when I was 14, I hitchhiked for the first and so far only time in my life, because it was the only way to get home after the concert.
   False! Congratulations, @mariannewest! You do somehow to know how German parents behave, lol!
   We had the problem that we stranded about halfway between Cologne and our hometown because it was late and we had missed the last train to out rather small city. I called my parents (yes, phone booth) and they were really not happy, believe me. It didn’t get better when my classmate, listening to me as I was obviously trying to convince them to pick us up, said that “they shall not make such a fuss!” Yep, a bit embarrassing for me. We got home at around 2.30 a.m.

5. Shortly after my 6th birthday, elder boys took me and a friend hostage for one day.
   True! Sorry for Inspector Dash and @felt.buzz! But, hey, how could Dash solve this once, he didn’t have Pinches on his side back then! ;))
   There would be so much I’d have to say about this, because currently half Germany seems to go crazy because of “knife attacks”, presumably acted out by refugees. The best I can do when I’m reading/hearing such things is facepalming the whole day. That small abduction took place in the summer of 1980, shortly after my 6th birthday, and the boys had knives with them and threatened to kill us if we wouldn’t come with them. I spare you the details on that day (which was actually not traumatizing at all for me, no worries please), but the point is that they were “German” (I usually only use nationalities and a few more words in quotation marks because they don’t really make sense to me) and it makes me furious to see this kind of snapping at certain keywords these days, especially since all of the people who do that and to whom I’ve talked are only blabbing without having any experience with people, let alone incidents at all. So much for the political section of the day, sorry for rambling.

6. I used to teach German as a foreign language to people who were blind or vision impaired.
   True! Great experience. Also, I’ve learned a lot (again), on how to make a class work for people who cannot see what I have written or would usually write on a board. And I’ve met amazing people there.

7. I have been to 24 countries so far in my life, one of which doesn’t exist anymore.
   True! The German Democratic Republic doesn’t exist anymore, obviously, and I’ve only once been there with my parents.

8. My first story was published when I was 15.
   True! I had entered a contest, they wanted stories on the future of nature. I came up with the story of a whale, and it was – together with other “winners” – published as a book. I’ve had my 15 minutes of (local) fame and it made me most uncomfortable. Being in newspapers and signing book – really not my thing, I have to say.
   What I still find to be one of the most interesting aspects of that experience was the process of writing or rather creating. I’ve mentioned it once or twice on Steemit that I’m someone who writes by jumping into a scene, situation, story rather than observing it from the outside, and that’s what I did back then. The deadline was on December 31th (postmark) and I sat down at the typewriter (yes, mechanical typewriter) the night before and just wrote this story, and we had to find a post office that was open to get the postmark on the next day. It’s really interesting to me that my basic way of working had not changed.

9. When I was 21 I was fed candy by a drunk Japanese businessman at a train station in Tokyo and was too polite to just slap him.
   True! And I still have to laugh my ass of when I think about that scene. To be honest, I had almost forgotten about it if it wasn’t for a friend with whom I had travelled, and he reminded me of that episode.

10. I don’t drink alcohol anymore.
    True! So sorry for @@@linnyplant and @mysecondself01!! It’s mainly due to some autoimmune thing that I can’t process it anymore, so I get the worst hangover from literally one sip and there’s just no use in that. It was weird when it began a few years ago but it’s more than fine with me now. Actually, I’ve learned a lot (again – seems to some kind of motif) about how people react when you refuse to drink alcohol. I’d say just for the sake of self-experience regarding the reactions: try it just once and see what happens.

11. I once flew to Poland only to collect a handful of soil for a sculpture (not even sure it was legal).
    True! There is really a huge story behind this, one I will definitely publish at some point. In short: The sculpture had the working title “scorched soil” and I collected the soil from the woods near a concentration camp where my grandmother had – as I had just found out about 3 years ago, shortly before I started this project – apparently stay for a night on her flight from East Prussia. It made me feel all kinds of confusing feelings, especially after I had found out more details as to what had happened only short before that flight trek came along to the poor people who had been imprisoned and murdered there. I’ll definitely share more about this in the future.

So, thanks a lot for reading, for participating and for connecting here!

Maybe I’ll try this another time with different episodes of my life, because it was really interesting and, in many cases, great fun to pick the truths and the lie.