Not a Sondy Tale, but a tale, nonetheless: TWO STRANGERS By Wilton Strickland
In 1944, when I was 10, we lived on a tobacco farm in rural Eastern North Carolina. One Saturday afternoon in early summer, my brother, Carson, then nearly 18 and driving the car, Daddy and I were returning home after grocery shopping in Spring Hope, a small town about 5 miles east. We came upon two young men in their early twenties, standing by the road trying to "hitch" a ride. We stopped for them, and they got into the back seat of our '37 Ford with me. They were thin, dirty & unshaven and had no luggage or baggage - no package of any sort that I remember. They said that they had not had a meal in several days and had been eating green, raw corn from the fields by the road. They told us that they were from New Jersey and just "bumming" around the country on an "adventure." Because tobacco harvest time was just beginning, and labor was in short supply, Daddy made a deal with them to stay with us for the summer and help with the harvest. They had never been on a farm before, but they learned quickly, seeming to enjoy all of it, especially when I would let them drive the mules pulling the small tobacco trucks back and forth from the fields to the curing barn. At times, however, they wanted the mules to go too fast for our safety and the animals' good health. Once, when one of them was driving the mule pulling an empty tobacco trunk along the side of the busy, paved highway, and I was in the truck with him, he was making the mule run. Suddenly, the mule bolted onto the pavement in front of an approaching Trailways bus! The bus driver and I stared into each other's terrified eyes as the bus skidded toward us and stopped close enough for me to reach out and touch the front of it. (Every day I've had since that day has been a bonus.) The visitors and I soon became good friends and were often "alone" - just the three of us. Almost every time we were "alone," one of them would ask me if I spoke German, sometimes pressing me with, "Are you sure you don't speak German?" Of course, I, a ten-year-old farm boy in Eastern North Carolina in 1944, did not speak German. After being assured each time that I did not speak German, they would go into a private & lengthy conversation in German. Until a few years ago, I had never told anybody else in the family about these conversations in German and their insistence that I not be able to understand them. They never spoke German around others in the family, and I was too young and naïve to suspect anything other than what they had told us, but I now feel certain that the two young men were, indeed, German. The two visitors were with us for six or eight weeks until Daddy began to suspect that he may have been harboring "draft dodgers" and asked them to leave. They left our lives as suddenly as they had entered. Meanwhile, they had become part of our family - ate with us, slept in our house, wore my brothers' clothes, etc. - a relaxed & comfortable part of the family. Though they became such a part of the family for that short time, I do not remember their names; I vaguely remember that one was blond and the other darker. Years later, after I had studied a couple of semesters of German in college in 1953/54, and learned that there had been German prisoner-of-war camps in Eastern North Carolina only 25 miles or so from us and German ships/submarines had been sunk just off the coast, I realized that these two were most likely escaped German prisoners of war or even survivors from a sunken German ship. There were times many years ago, while watching a movie with German speakers or someone speaking English with a German accent, when I would feel that I had heard certain sounds and accent before, finally realizing and remembering that I had heard them in 1944 from our two visitors. How ironic that these two lived with us in friendship while two of my brothers were at war trying to rid the world of their maniacal leader and his thugs - one of my brothers was on Omaha Beach in Normandy at the same time the visitors were living with us. Later that year, Carson, who slept in the same room with the visitors as "brothers," was drafted into the army and fought in Germany the following spring. At the same time I had such a fear and hatred of Germans (because of the talk of war, news on the radio, in the papers, the enemy, etc.), these two kind, young German men lived with us and were my good friends. For years, I have wondered what happened to the two visitors. Who were they, really, and where were they really from? Did they stay on in the states after the war? Have they kept their secret all these years, or did they return to Germany a year or so after they lived with us? Have they raised families - are their families German or American? Have they told their children and families about my mother, who cooked three full meals for them every day and cared for them in many other ways as if they were her own sons? Have they told their families about the kind, tenant-farmer family in North Carolina who gave them refuge, treating them as sons and brothers during such a cruel and terrible time in world history? Can we all take this as a good example of how even mortal enemies can live in peace, harmony & trust if we look at each other as fellow humans in need of comfort without all the usual "baggage" of politics and religion? I hope so.
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