The Lord of the Ryngs
Tristan and Victoria at Stadium HS, Tacoma, in 2003
My great-grandfather Josef Ryng immigrated to the German Empire just before
the First World War from somewhere in the east. He never told
his descendents where he came from, nor the circumstances that
prompted his move. Rumour and innuendo can only carry you so
far, but Josef's point of origin is thought to be what was
then Russian Poland.
He married twice, both orphans. This love of mystery and
secrecy has been carried by his descendants, among whom
are
Rudolf Ryng, my grandfather, was drafted into the German
army in 1941. He survived the winter of 1941-42 on the Eastern
Front, and spent the rest of the war being shot in various
non-vital areas so he could rest in hospital, sometimes for
six months at a go. He was awarded the Iron Cross, Second
Class for an incident that can be charitably described as
desertion. Exactly nine months after his release from a US POW
Camp, my mother
Karin Janowski (neé Ryng) was born. She immigrated to the
United States in 1970, her GI husband Timothy Janowski and two
small children in tow.
Oddly, one of those children turned out to be myself, and
the other was my younger sister Melanie Janowski. Why she got
my step-father's last name and I got my mother's is a great
story that, however, I'm not about to tell you.
I married my college sweetheart, Beverly, in 1985. We
soon had two bouncing baby Ryngs: Tristan (born 1987) and
Victoria (born 1991).
Though they sometimes doubt it, my children are one of
the great joys of my life. Tristan is now 17 and loves any
sport that requires a helmet he can forget to wear. He's
become very involved in glassblowing, which gives him a
much-needed creative outlook and some focus.
Victoria is 13 and on the verge of discovering how
creative and compassionate she truly is. She reads, she
writes, she talks nonsense. She is, in short, pretty much what
I was at that age.
Beverly and I separated in early 2003, and are in the
process of securing a divorce. Regardless, we remain friends,
and I'm still very close to my (soon to be ex-) brother (-in
law) Theo Moriarty. Beverly's mother's pet name for me is
apparently an unspecified obscenity, but then from her I
expect little else.
My life has gone on, and I now share a flat with Victoria,
my Muse, and her 14-year old blue-haired
daughter Michaela.
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