Life was a lot different in the early 1970's, There was a great feeling of expansion, the sky's the limit, the world is becoming a better place. For a working class kid with no money and a desire to study as long as he thinks he needs to, the answer is twofold.Get a job and pay for as much as you can, and see if you can get someone else to pay the rest. It worked for me, but in those days the relationship between the minimum wage and the cost of a state college, for example were in a hell of a lot better proportion than they are today. It was possible, providing you were reasonably smart and didn't want to party much, to hold a job and go to college and get it done in 4 years with just a little outside help.

After meeting Alex Bealer, I decided between first and second year of grad school to try and get a grant to study somewhere in Europe. I contacted the world craft council immediately and made inquies to Richad Quinnell whom many of you know from his great work with the British artist blacksmiths. I found out about a school in Aachen and another one in another German city,Pforzheim. Aachen gave me a good response, and from the pics they sent, I knew that they really did forging for real. I asked them whether, if I was granted a fellowship, would they accept me as a student. BINGO,The hardest part of getting a fellowship was solved right there. At U.GA my prof introduced me to a man in the German department who had connections with the German Academic Exchange and often got his sponsorees grants if they were qualified.

It was wierd, The German grant could only go to someone getting an academic degree, Only in the US is artmetal an academic degree BFA or MFA, most everywhere else it is a technical degree. Qualification three was that I had been fortunate in choosing to study German two years in high school and one in college. I was the only student Dr. Trespe had lined up that year. I also applied for a Fullbright and was granted it too.I about killed me to turn it down , but I did it for the extra 100 marks a month, and because Dr. Trespe had been so kind.

Actually getting there was a nightmare, First an overnight flight from JFK to Cologn, then directly on a shuttlbus to a crowded hot train to the north most of the day, being dumped out of the train in a little town, and then finding I had been on the same train with several other american students. That was the good part , because one of them had been to Germany before and could ask how to get to the Goethe Institute.Thank God for the two months language class and living with a German family.Also thankfully I was going to a craft school and knew I wouldn't have to do much writing and reading, so I could concentrate on conversation.

Near the end of the course, I took the train to Aachen and went to a student bar and asked around whether anybody knew of a room for rent,and one student did .I rented a room and introduced myself at the school and met the professor, Fritz Ulrich, 5th generation smith form Augsburg. Being a smith however, he had not had a really great education,due to WW2 and his profession, so Bad News he didn't speak high German and most of the time I had to have one of the other students Translate into high german. I was thrilled with the shop. The craft school was in an old spinning factory and had those wonderful zig-zag skylights , a large forging room with 3 double forges on three walls and a big mother power hammer in the middle. It also had a large machine room and an enameling studio.

Fritz had me come to the school the day before the other students arrived and introduced me to the workshop superintendant a local Aachener, an old guy who had been with Fritz in the mountain troops when they walked to and from Jugoslavia. Naturally he didn't speak high german either , but the local dialect of which the south german student from Freiburg, could only understand about twenty five percent.

He started to laugh when I got some paper and wood slivers to light the forge the way Alex had taught me. He, took the oxy acetelyn torch and said , That's what this is for. I did understand that. Then he learned that I had never used one before!He gave me a hammer a good bit heavier than any I had used before, and showed me how to make a nail. Just before lunch I broke the nail heading tool, and
took it to Herr Scheen to weld and he learned that I had never used an arc welder, and I was not about to try to forge weld the damned thing together.

A student took me to lunch at a student cafeteria in another building a few blocks away and I found out they had adequate but plain lunches for less than a dollar. I really wanted to show what a good student I would be and wore myself out, I had never forged that long at one time before and was really exhausted by the heavier hammer , and wouldn't you know it , after one too many connects between hammer and anvil, a little chip flew off the face of the hammer into the vein behind my left wrist. Blood started to spurt out and I staunched the flow with my right forfinger and stood there figuriing out how to say "Mr. Scheen, I've had an accident" in reasonably proper German. Well, Mr. Scheen who was pale anyway, turned white. Being a good German he made me take my finger off the wound and tried to tourniquet my arm, but not very successfully, When the ambulance roared into the school courtyard, a couple of guys grabbed me , one by each arm and helped me to the front door leaving a trail of drops of blood on the floor between the blacksmith shop and the front door. In the hospital they took out the small axe shaped splinter. The next morning when I walked into the shop , Fritz was there with all the students. he had a horse shoe with a piece of gauze tied on it and he hung it on my neck and wished me luck for the rest of the year.

The first day was the worst ,and the rest of the year was great. To be continued.