On Thin Ice

As children my father’s idea of winter sport was to take his three boys hiking on the ice of the swift-running river that ran in front of our Sinyang home. He looked for areas of thin ice that would crackle as he crossed it — Once across my oldest brother Gerhard made the trip, next Henry and finally Arthur trembling and perhaps crying. This reinforces the message to our own grandchildren that Nesses are, as I mentioned before, not necessarily smart and certainly not careful!