Little song of memories page 6 to 7

I also liked to walk into the DellA certain spot in Linden to "Tant Traut", my godmother, where there was always something tangible to eat, where there were rabbits and where there was always at least one pig fattened, sometimes with "Muttföische"Frogs from the nearby Ackersweiher, on which you ice-skate in winter. At the house of Tant Traut I was very impressed by a floor flap, which had to be lifted up to get to the basement stairs.

In the Pützgracht there were also the toboggan mountains for the Linden children. For the little children Dittmann's meadow, for example, where today the houses of Amberg, Kötherand F.J. Nießen are. The larger children sledded from different altitudes in the "Jüddeküllchen" (today's plots of Knipprath and Basten), or on the last sloping part of the so-called New Way, today's Mozartstraße. The very brave luged a rather high and steep meadow nose down to Broicher Straße opposite Wahl/Wöbel. The bravest, however, sledded in the Dell, from the hedge behind " Bieße Ween" down to the hedge in front of the creek (today's kindergarten grounds). This steeply sloping toboggan run had only a very short run-out. Those who did not pay attention ended up in the hedge, at very high speed also in the creek, which at that time was not yet canalized, only framed in concrete.

Speaking of channel. Linden-Neusen was no sewers in my youth; To build them was started after 1950. At the end of the 1930s, the Köpp dairy had a private canal laid down to the Dell and probably financed the concrete bed up to the curve in front of the farm (inhabited by Schunk). Some houses in Linden were connected to this canal, among them also Kappertz. The rest of the village, however, was without sewers, the simple sewage flowed into the "Sief"gutter, for the rest the Plumpsklospit latrine Plumpsklos were there. When bathing at Mainz, the "Sief" was bluish discolored and smelled of good soap. Some houses had multi-chamber system in the garden, the contents were used as fertilizer for the garden depending on the need and weather.

The water pipe was certainly not old, because before World War II there were still the high, cast-iron pumps with the huge swivels at some places in the village. But they gave no more water then.

The main means of transport in my early youth were the feet. Mariadorf, Weiden or St.Jöris were no distances for us. Horses and wagons were there for loads. Only Kronenbrot drove farer routes with motorized vans and Leo Rosenbaum in Neusen already had a lory.

The main road was so little busy that on Sundays, for example, we could play with paper planes in front of Soquar's house on the street, when playing on the store with the tin soldiers became boring for us, though there was a huge number of tin soldiers at FJS.

The electric light rail, the “Tramm" which has been running through our village since 1896, was expensive and was only used for long distances, for instance to Aachen or to Stolberg. Students also went to Aachen, as there were no secondary educational facilities around. Families with older children received ticket subsidies from the state based on their parents' income.

But once a year we ought to go to Aachen: in the run-up to Christmas. The purpose "et Kresskengche kikke"see the “Christ Child” and once I even saw a performance of by "Peterchens Mondfahrt"A theater play for children in the City Theatre. Probably I had been a "good" child for a long time.