2017-12-10
Why i never learned to swim
My father helped me to learn riding a bike. It happened on a empty playground and later on a car park near our restaurant in Ratingen, sometime between 1993 and 1996. In hindsight quite late. Because at primary school we were already learning the rules for biking on public streets, but i didn't even know how to ride a bike. Maybe this is the reason why i never broke a single bone: I'm just not into risking my life. I never smoked either, for obvious reasons. But i passed the test, supervised by the police, and since then, i liked to get around like that.
I took part in bike rides and was even photographed once for the local newspaper, when i visited the Schützenfest in Ratingen on my bike. And i cycled several times from Bad Godesberg to Cologne, along the Rhine river, a distance of about 40 km. But in December 2015, i sold my latest bike on eBay, because there is nothing out there anymore: The human overpopulation is knocking on the door, and i have no skin in the game. It was not the right size for me anyway: My OCR Zero by Giant from 2004 became a waste of space. Nevertheless, one year later, i was interested in the Kwiggle folding bike, claiming to be "the most compact bicycle", which is why i backed the Kickstarter campaign, without success for founder Karsten Bettin in early 2017. The label "Made in Germany" is not enough these days.
I never learned how to swim, and i almost drowned the first time i tried, but friend Luis Diaz from school pulled me back to the pool edge, sometime between 1999 and 2002 in Bonn. No one makes it alone, really. Years later, i wanted to learn it, this time with my father. Back then, in 2009, it seemed like a good way to lose weight. But i have decided that i will not pursue it any further, since i found another path to get it down, just by eating healthy. And the only time when swimming skills could have been useful was in May 2006, when schoolmate Oona Frick and i were invited by friend Daniel Tiedge to go sailing for a week in the Netherlands. This was very generous and nice of him. I have never done that before and afterwards, because it's quite exclusive. There you have it, i'm going to sink with the Titanic.