Let me start out by saying I love them and miss them very much. They raised me more than my own mother did and I only have one regret. Opa (Hans Benker) didn't really speak english, only german, and I would have loved to understand more of what he said. He was funny but srtict. I only knew him as a maintenance man for a Luthern church in Rochester, NY (my birth place). He would take me there when I was younger while he worked and was just in awe of the church, but afraid to run and play with him there. Before and after WWII he was a traveling salesman dealing in flatware to hotels & resturants. I still have some of the knives he sold. He had funny ways to holler and did so whenever the echo was the best, in the greenhouse of Highland Park, at the shores of Hamlin Beach or at the race track. Every Sunday we would go to the horse races, I would run around and pick up disgarded tickets and he would meticulasly study and plan his picks. Occationally he would buy a ticket for me and I won anywheres from $5 to $60. Even though I couldn't speak german he taught me how to play chess and I managed to understand a few of his stories. He told about being in a French prisoner of war camp, he had to hide his wedding band in a bar of soap so they wouldn't steal it, and just before being released he won the camp chess tournament; prize: a bottle of wine, some cheese and a fresh loaf of bread, just like Vegas baby. The only other story of his that really stuck out was a story I can only imagine came out of WWII. the older soldiers were assigned to guard camps (concentration or P.O.W. I didn't know). But he told me that the soldiers were given rations of bread and he had a stale loaf in his coat pocket. as he passed by the camp the people inside began to cry out for food, he walked up to the gate and told the guard to let him in, the guard told him that he was crazy the people would kill him, he said open it anyway. He walked in, pulled the stale bread from his coat and handed it to the crowd......they fell to their knees and began kissing his hand and saying "thank you" over and over. I never got tired of hearing his stories.
He was strict and growing up I remember feeling like I was in a camp. I wasn't allowed past the chain link gate across the driveway that connected to a common driveway of my mothers house and my grandparents house. He had a german shepard named Bullet that was so intimidated by him that the dog would pee in submission when Opa walked up barking orders. They made this nasty oatmeal grul for the dog with potato peelings and any kind of leftover they had. I don't think they ever bought dog food until they moved out of the city. Opa would whisper the dogs name while sitting in the living room and the dog would slink up, get a Ritz cracker and run back to his bed in the kitchen. he hated blacks, hispanics, and basically anyone other than germans.
Oma (Erna Benker) was an angel, she worked as a housekeeper for a rich family and when I went with her I had free run of the house. A huge, beautiful mansion with its own indoor greenhouse. When Opa yelled at me for bouncing my ball against his house Oma would come outside and juggle three balls, bouncing them off the house. She played checkers and memory games with me.
They both were amazing cooks and I would sit for hours watching them work side by side preparing the best food I have ever eaten. My mother couldn't cook to save her life, more on "chicken face soup" later.
Opa had a stroke and was the shell of the man he used to be. I was in my twenties when it happened. When I would visit he thought I was his brother Heindrich. Oma died a few years after he did. The image I had of my grandfather was tarnished after he died when I found out that he had mulitple affairs while married to my granmother. I lost a great deal of respect for the man. When he died he was cremated, after Oma died it was decided that they be buried together and I was volunteered to ride a Greyhound Bus up to NY from Alabama with the ashes of my Opa in my lap. It was a bit sureal. As I said starting out I love them and miss them very much.
