Model Train Layouts, Berlin Wall, Koi

Last night, my husband John and our son Paul and I visited three HO-scale model train layouts which are part of this weekend’s National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) Pacific Coast Region (PCR) Layout Tours.  One of the layouts was in an office in the Bayshore Business Park, very close to the original Sun Microsystems campus in Mountain View.  Before Sun was big enough to have a cafeteria, we used to walk into the Bayshore Business Park to buy sandwiches.  In addition to a good Deli, the Bayshore Business Park has a delightful koi pond, and two big pieces of the Berlin Wall in a tiny monument to freedom next to a parking area. The signs say:

A Tribute to American Resolve
Sections of the Berlin Wall

The period after the second World War divided Western Democratic and Eastern Communist ideologies by what was known as the Iron Curtain, which stretched from the Baltic to the Black Seas. Within East Germany, part of the communist sphere of influence, West Berlin was an island of freedom surrounded by a sea of oppression. In August, 1961, the East German government, to prevent the flight of its citizens from West Berlin, built a wall dividing the City. For 28 years the Berlin was the Rubicon for East and West until “Glasnost” became the new thinking in the Communist World. Between November 9 and 12, 1989 the Wall was breached; not from without with bombs or bullets, but from within by the sound of freedom and the vision of a better life that had drifted over the Wall.

The World must not forget that it was America’s resolve and its political and economic ideals that made this bloodless revolution and most significant historical event possible.

I enjoyed showing 17-year-old, 6-foot-tall Paul the Berlin Wall monument and nearby fish pond and telling him how he and I used to feed the koi bread from our sandwiches when he was tiny. We chased the fish around with our flashlight. My fish pictures turned out surprisingly clear, considering how very dark it was.

Images Copyright 2010 by Katy Dickinson