A Mile Away

“I was fighting a Nazi youth, and I punched him so hard, he fell down a staircase. No really, I did. That’s the way it was, we were fighting fascists in the streets.” My dad has a twinkle in his eye, his right hand clenched into a fist, and a huge grin.  He was fifteen or sixteen when he punched that fascist, who was probably a classmate.

This is one of the few stories my dad, Victor Vogl, told me about living through the rise of fascism in his home town, Karlsbad (now Karlovy Vary) in Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic). I don’t remember when I first heard it, my dad would drop a pearl of a story randomly, while we were doing something else. Perhaps we were driving up the Angeles Crest to ski or I was handing him tools while he changed the oil in one of the many VW Bugs he owned. Sometimes I could get him to tell me more. I don’t remember any other details about this story and neither do my sister and brother. All I know is that this story is present in my thoughts right now.

My dad could spot a fascist from a mile away.

What family voices are resonating with you right now?