By Al Reimer
When Del Plett suggested I talk about growing up in Steinbach, I thought it would be an easy and enjoyable talk to prepare. With so many memories and materials to draw on, however, it wasn’t easy to decided what to include and what to leave out. Del had one other suggestion. “We want the Kehler side of your personality”, he said, “not the Reimer side.” I knew what he meant, of course. He wanted me to be lively and funny like my eight Kehler uncles, tell outrageous stories (Schnetteriete) and get you all rolling in the aisles.
The trouble is I’m not as funny as my Kehler uncles were (maybe there’s too much sober Reimer in me) and, also, they told their hilarious stories in private and opp Plautdietsch. So far as I know, none of them ever made a public speech, while I’m addressing a large, sophisticated audience and have to do it in English, which for a Mennonite of my generation is not nearly as good a language to be funny in as Low German is.
Read the rest of this article (in PDF), as published in Preservings, No.21, December 2002