Old Gifts and New

Today the new brings the old. Quite some time ago my brother, Baldy, discovered that a book had been published about Tirschenreuth, the Bavarian town. It’s a modest place of around 9,000 inhabitants, but one of our important family locations. We lived there as a family as World War II came to an end. Multiple posts here hark back to that place. I’ve intended to mention that book here for a long time, but the means of showing it were lacking. Now a new gift, called the HP Photosmart 5510, provides the means. It is a printer, scanner, copier, and photo printer all rolled into one. Until now I’ve had to photograph books or their contents. Now I have a new tool. Herewith three images produced using Photosmart, beginning with the book itself.

The title of the book is Long Ago in Tirschenreuth. That word, Damals, does not have an actual English equivalent. A forced translation of it is There Once, that “once” not further amplified, but the word’s essence is remembrance. The author is Eberhard Polland, a writer, the publisher is Bücherhaus Rode, Maximilianplatz 38, 95643 Tirschenreuth, Germany. The book appeared in 2010.

An image of the market square (Maximilianplatz formally, but everybody called it Marktplatz) is a kind of signature for this town if the photo includes the town’s church, named Mariä Himmelfahrt (Mary’s Ascension).

The region is blessed with high quality clay deposits, and one of the oldest industries in the region, although not in Tirschenreuth itself any more, is porcelain. One of the producers of the finest high quality porcelain is Falkenpozellan GmbH located not far away in Bärnau on the Czech border. Well, Tirschenreuth was the first, and the factory was right in town—damals. The old ad reproduced in this book of remembrance says on top: “A nurturing place for German quality work.”

My Photosmart is another and this time an American instance of quality workmanship. It speaks to my computer by wireless means; we’ve tried its prowess printing photographs, and, by golly, they look just like the photographs of old, brilliant colors, stiff little pieces of shiny paper. This gift came to me from a virtual person, ECDI, the acronym of our company name. We live in a mysterious world where invisible persons give valuable, tangible gifts. Thank you, ECDI; thank you, Baldy, for that book.