“Miss me Blind” by Culture Club: The Germans are coming

It was the song playing on an old transistor radio hanging on a wall in an upholstery shop in Lethbridge.

That shop was the conclusion of a long journey of a branch of my family from Germany to Lethbridge. Oh not the same immigrant experience my own family had.

No, this was immigration 1980s style that began with a summertime visit.

The song playing the day we went to visit my Mom’s cousin at his upholstery shop was “Miss Me Blind” by Culture Club, and it takes me back to the journey of the Goetz family.

Twisted family tree
My Oma, my Mom’s mother, had several sisters. The youngest was Elizabeth Goetz, who had been my Mom’s favourite aunt. Elizabeth had been married to Michael Goetz who was killed in the war. Oddly, he was my Opa’s nephew.

This is how twisted my family tree is. My Mom’s cousin on her Dad’s side was married to her aunt on her mom’s side. That means her cousin was her uncle by marriage, and her aunt was her cousin-in-law. For my Opa, his nephew was also his brother-in-law, and his niece-in-law was also his sister-in-law. Incredibly this happened two more times, so my Mom had three cousins from one side married to three aunts on the other side.

Anyway, Elizabeth had two sons, but one was tragically killed when he was hit by lightning. The other was Eugan, or Eugene in English. After the war, the two of them lived with my Mom’s family.

The Goetzes were actually there to see off my family when they boarded a ship bound for Canada.

Chances were, they would never see them again.

My Canadian cousins
That all changed in the summer of 1982, I think. Eugan had actually married and had three children. Elizabeth, Eugan, his wife Sylvia, and their youngest daughter Bianca came to visit. Elizabeth and Bianca stayed with us, while Eugan and Sylvia stayed with my Uncle Witold and Tante Lotte just up the road on their farm.

We toured them all over the place, and I played games with Bianca, including Yahtzee; and chess, which she called Schach, the German word for chess.

We also played my new toy, Intellivision, and the game “Space Armada”, which was just a knock-off of “Space Invaders”. The game had two settings. Game was normal speed, while Practice was slower. Bianca did not speak a lot of English so I called Practice “Langsam”, which is the German word for slow, and Game “Schnell”, which is the German word for fast. It worked well enough.

Bianca would also ride around the farm on my bike, which was decked out like a motocross bike with pedals.

Meanwhile, my Mom spent a lot of time with her aunt, and Eugan and Sylvia would come over all the time as well. They were your stereotypical loud, gregarious Germans. You could almost hear “Roll Out the Barrels” every time they came in the room.

After what seemed like a couple months, they went back to Germany.

Unbeknownst to me at that point, they would be back.

Coming to Canada
Talk had already begun about Eugan and his family immigrating to Canada. It was exciting. I was only 13 maybe 14, so I really wasn’t in the loop. I do recall hearing updates, including Eugan going to Bonn to fill out some papers. That seemed so cool and exotic, because Bonn was the capital of West Germany back then.

Anyway, eventually the idea became reality. Eugan was coming to Canada with his son Ingolf, who was the oldest; daughter Michaela, the middle child and oldest daughter; and Bianca.

It turns out, Ingolf was up for mandatory military service in West Germany, and they wanted to avoid that. I cannot blame the family. The family had been scarred by the Second World War, with Eugan’s father killed in the war; the rest of his family being displaced; and Eugan having to do military service himself.

By the 1980s, Canada was taking a different type of immigrant beyond the labourers my own family were. Eugan had a trade, as an upholsterer, which was desirable for the Canadian government.

Finally, the day came. We all went to the Calgary International Airport and picked up them up. It was a weird feeling, because I had never met two of my second cousins. They were just an idea to me.

It took awhile to grab their baggage. I recall Ingolf even forcing open this door and pulling a bag out.

The bags themselves were even interesting. They were durable white canvas, and we ended up using one at our place for years. Eugan had made them himself, customized to their needs. He did incredible work.

So, we loaded everything up and headed to Lethbridge.

We all went to my Uncle Ed and Aunt Johanna’s house to just relax for a few minutes. I remember Michaeala being so tired, she sat in Uncle Ed’s recliner and dozed off immediately. Soon, it was time for them to go to their new home.

Bianca walked up to Michaela and kept saying over and over, “Wir fahren! Wir fahren!” It literally means “We’re driving”, but she was really saying they were just going.

My Oma and Opa Jetz, my Mom’s parents, had a full basement suite in their house, big enough for a family of five and Eugan’s family would live there.

The two oldest would go to high school at Winston Churchill, the same school my cousin Carl went to. In fact, he even had a class with Michaela and told the story of how their teacher could not pronounce her name. Bianca would go to elementary school at Galbraith then junior high at Wilson.

Eugan would work as an upholsterer, eventually opening his own shop in the Lethbridge industrial park, fittingly called “Lethbridge Upholstery”.

My Mom was a good cousin, and regularly visited Eugan, usually at work, when my parents were in Lethbridge Thursdays doing the weekly shopping.

One time, I had the day off school. It must have been teachers’ convention because that was the only time I would have a Thursday off school.

We stopped by “Lethbridge Upholstery” for a regular visit.

There, doing something on a work bench, was Bianca.

A radio was playing and Bianca was mouthing the words to “Miss Me Blind” by Culture Club.

The song
“Miss Me Blind” was the third single off Culture Club’s album “Colour by Numbers”. It came out on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1984, and went all the way to number five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. This was Culture Club’s sixth straight top 10 hit.

Parting thoughts
I am not sure how long Eugan’s family stayed in Lethbridge. Eventually, they left to pursue an opportunity in Barrie, Ontario. The last I heard, Eugan passed away a few years ago.

I don’t think about them often, because there is a lot more to the story, but whenever I hear the song, I can still picture Bianca mouthing the words, “I know ya miss me, I know ya miss me, I know ya miss me blliiiind.”