03:53

Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

Aldrans

2008-06-16

Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner

Nicole D`Incecco

1938

When I was young, my aunt- my mother's sister - ran a small butcher shop in Innsbruck. Not a big one, the small kind you used to have back then. She taught me to cook - meat mainly. Sometimes I went down there to earn a few pennies, because we never had any money, really. 'We were short of money but never deprived! My uncle was older; he always used to chop the meat. He gradually lost his hearing. Not hearing well, he couldn't serve customers any more. A customer would want this or that and he'd get it wrong. So my aunt had to do it. In my spare time, on Saturdays or holidays, or when the shop was quite busy, I did the till and my aunt chopped the meat. She always needed me then. And I earned a few pennies. Even though there was a bus from Innsbruck, I always walked to save the bus fare. That’s why I’m still so good on my feet. Five kilometres one way. Aldrans to Innsbruck, as you might know, Aldrans is on the plateau, the first village. Today it’s a suburb, so to speak. I mean it’s mostly city people with money who have built homes up there. It’s a nice location. Even when I was young, some built there. Doctors and high civil servants, everyone who was well off. I always went on foot, just to save a few pennies. I often think about it. My goodness, what got into me! As we say in dialect? I had a bee in my bonnet. Somehow everything always worked out. I never inherited anything, got nothing, except solid mental strength and it's worth a lot more than a full wallet - if you don’t take life that hard. Sometimes things were really bad, but they always worked out. It’s not everybody's attitude, you either have it or you don’t. Fate delivers a blow and one person breaks down, has a nervous breakdown or something. Another takes it less seriously. That’s just how it is.