A Man's Castle is his Home

KEYS to castles and catastrophes.

When I decided to take my mother and two small children and drive to visit an old friend in Bad Reichenhall, Germany, just across the border from Salzburg, Austria, I made an early decision that, aside from my burning need to visit Lichtenstein, castles would be the focus of our trip. Castles, I reasoned, were a pretty good way to combine my love of history, with my daughter’s love of sparkly princess crap. It worked like a charm, mostly. With the ridiculous architecture, the sparkle of gold, and the occasional rides in a horse drawn carriage, by the time we finished the trip and had visited six castles including the interiors of three of them, L still wanted to see more castles. (Note: Technically we visited five castles and the fortress in Salzburg, but I called Hohensalzburg a castle rather than a fortress, because L had no interest in it when I told her it was a fortress, but lots of interest as soon as I told her it was a castle.)

Neuschwnastein—Not that old

As we left Neuschwanstein Castle, King Ludwig the Second of Bavaria’s grand monument to ridiculousness and impracticality, we were, of course directed through the gift shop. We were tired by this time. My mother, who gets around well, still had not reckoned with the sheer number of steps involved in visiting this particular castle, and I’d carried C up each and every rise. She had a brought a collapsable cane with her that she does not, strictly speaking, need, but it had proved invaluable on this occasion. It’s not that she couldn’t have climbed the stairs without it, but that it sent a clear and unambiguous signal to other tourists that this is a lady who would be moving slow, so don’t rush her. It also proved enormously entertaining to the children, who gave the brand new cane a nice, weathered look in approximately five and a half minutes.

Inside the souvenir store, L’s attention was immediately caught by a pink, conical hat with a couple of rhinestones and a bit of golden lace— a princess hat. It was only 13 euros, so I told L that if she wanted this as her souvenir for the trip, she could have it. Despite the hat’s obvious historical inaccuracy, she was overjoyed, and wore it almost perpetually for the rest of the trip, save for the 80% of the time when it was pouring rain.

When we went to our last castle, the Hohenzollern castle in Baden-Württemberg and went through their gift shop, she informed me that she really hadn't liked her souvenir that much at all. I was aggravated. It is not nice to see something that was so well-loved dismissed as soon as a child wants another trinket.

I hadn’t planned to get her anything else, but as she, her brother, and my mother walked slowly toward the exit, I snuck back to the gift shop and got her a little snow globe of the castle. I was feeling like I was a pretty nice dad… right up until I showed it to her and she informed me that she didn’t really want it.

What she wanted, it turned out, was a popit, a piece of plastic with little buttons you can press in one direction, and that then stick out and you can press in the other direction. Nothing to do with castles. I explained to her that a souvenir was not just a toy, but rather something you buy with a connection to a place you visited, so you can remember it. She sadly accepted this definition and we moved along.

Hohenzollern Castle, another newbie.

Well, we moved along until we stopped to get gas for the long ride back to Geneva. I brought L into the gas station with me to get a treat of some kind, and that’s when it happened. She saw a popit in the gas station, apparently one much more colorful than the one she had at home, and insisted that it was all she wanted. There was a four hour car ride ahead, I probably should have just given in, but I’d drawn a line, and now I had to stick with it. As my daughter wailed “THE ONLY THINK THAT WILL MAKE ME HAPPY IS A POPIT!!!!!” I carried her to the car and buckled her in.

Her wailing continued, and it started her brother wailing too. I made the best of it, knowing that it couldn’t possibly last for the full four hours could it?

I’d been proud of the calm patient father I’d been for the trip, and I….. Oh My God WHY AM I SCREAMING NOW TOO!!!!!!

For perhaps, 30 seconds, I joined in the screaming. Not anything specific, certainly not threats or even words, just the sort of primal shriek that blows off steam.

It felt great.

For about 40 seconds.

Then I realized I was acting like a fool, and shifted into about 36 hours of self-recriminations. I was embarrassed in front of my mother, and I was not the man I wanted to be in front of my children.

I asked L about it later. “L, how did it make you feel when Daddy started yelling?”

“You were yelling?” she replied. Apparently the trauma will be limited.

I am not an angry person. At least not anymore. In my 20s, I had two relationships that, while they had plenty of good in them, were not good fits, and there was a lot of yelling. I would like, more than anything, to simply blame it on them and say that’s not me, but that would be a lie. You need two people to have a a yelling match, and I was one of them. Perhaps with one person it can be a fluke, you just found someone who really pushes your buttons, but with two people it’s a character trait, and a rather unpleasant one.

In my 30s, I don’t recall any yelling. It has never been part of my life with Madame Melendez, and I like it this way. Probably my greatest fear of becoming a father was that my children would activate that part of me and being angry and yelling, at least occasionally, would again be part of my life. I’ve done really well, there is very little anger and very little yelling in our house—at least not by the adults. (Note: C this morning yelled because he wanted to watch TV instead of eating cereal, and then yelled because he wanted to eat more cereal before going to daycare. Also, that kid eat almost exclusively cereal right now.) I am more mature now and manage my emotions better, I am now able to channel the anger into incredulity.

“You’re mad because of that?” I smirk thinking to myself.

I also have better tools. After my yelling fit in the car, I shifted to more constructive tactics—asking L to explain how mad she was and what it made her want to do.

She was really mad.

She told me she wanted to take away my computer, my phone, my CPAP machine, my bed, and my wife. That’s really mad. Also, she wanted to cut my arm off. Too far if you ask me.

But it worked. With her anger out there in the open, she was able, eventually, to settle back into her seat and retreat into her tablet—popitless—for the rest of the trip. I had lost the battle, but I had won the car ride.

---

I really enjoyed the castles, but I did have one disappointment with them. They were so new. Far from being the medieval marvel I imagined, Neuschwasntein, was in fact a 19th century tribute to the castles of old. King Ludwig II was born too late for his desires. He wanted to be Louis XIV, the Sun King, and instead he was just another powerless potentate in a Germany consolidating under—blech—Prussian leadership.

And the rest! (Hohenschwangau, across the street from Neuschwanstein; Hohensalzburg; Nymphenburg Palace in Munich, and Liechtenstein Castle in Germany, not Liechtenstein)

Neuschwanstein famously inspired Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disneyland, but the castle only opened in 1886. Disneyland only opened in 1955—there’s just 69 years between them. Far from being a recreation of a medieval palace, the castle at Disneyland is a recreation of a recreation of a medieval palace. George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate, built in 1734, is dramatically older than Neucshwanstein. Hell, Neuschwanstein is only around 40 years older than my house in Northeast DC.

The Hohenzollern castle isn’t much older either, having been completed in 1867. Now, the Hohenzollern Castle was built on the site of much, much older castles, and the Salzburg Fortress commenced construction 1,000 years ago, so it’s not as if there isn’t a ton of history there. Still it’s a reminder that the people of long ago are not so different from the people of a little ago, who are not so different from the people of today. We’re all just trying to grab onto the best of what used to be while not yelling at our kids.