He Didn't Fight the Nazis for This

Why Fletch "wasn't German Club material" + other free-range Gen X stories

I’ve been oddly jealous of everyone revealing their Spotify year-end wrap lists. I don’t use Spotify and I’d be ashamed of the random nature of my playlists if I did have it. I wouldn’t want to make my list public because I recognize how unhinged the juxtaposition of all the N.W.A. versus Taylor Swift is. Like I’m keeping hand-knit cardigans in my stashbox or something.

Oddly enough, it kind of works.

Regardless, when I see another wrap-up, I want to shout, “But what about my shitty taste?!” because I have such FOMO.

Imagine my delight then when I received my Duolingo app wrap list, inviting me to look back and discover stats about my unique language learner style. One would think that a summary of my poor French pronunciation and mangled Italian verb tenses would not be a source of pride, but ONE WOULD BE WRONG. Not only did I have have 94% accuracy on my exercises in both French and Italian, but I’ve been ranked among the top 3% of learners this year.

Top 3%!

I am the champion, I am the champion, I am the champion of the world universe.

This means IF I TRY HARDER, I COULD BE TOP 1%!

Nothing makes me happier than the chance to win something I didn’t realize was a competition, so it’s about to get extra romance language up in here.

I was crowing about my results over dinner last night, as that is what I do. Fletch and I got onto the topic of learning languages in high school. He took four years of German and the amount of German he’s retained makes me angry. (Everything’s a competition, and yes, I exhaust myself sometimes.)

Over the course of our conversation, Fletch mentioned his German teacher didn’t like him because Fletch dropped out of German Club. Back in those days, joining up wasn’t just a matter of, “This interests me, so I shall sign my name on this dotted line.”

Oh, no. In his high school, he had to pledge the German Club.

Pledging the German Club involved something called “slave days.” If you’re a Gen Zer reading this (Sarah, Becca, I’m talking to you) and you’re clutching your pearls, yes, that is the appropriate reaction, even though all of us in Generation X are all, “Oh, yeah, we did that, too.”

Remember, ours is the generation who stood in line to see the movie Soul Man. (Yes, that is C. Thomas Howell performing in blackface.)

For three days, German Club members were bought by more senior members and made to perform a variety of tasks, like baking brownies and carrying that upperclassman’s books—while attached to a leash. A leash. The purpose was to humiliate the pledges, and Fletch was owned by a particularly sadistic “master.” On Fletch’s first day, his master made him dress up in a cheerleading outfit, complete with makeup and a wig.

Now, Fletch’s dad was older, so he had fought in World War II. He was a tail-gunner on a bomber and flew 25 combat missions over Germany. On his last trip, his plane was shot down and some of the crew didn’t make it home, so he already wasn’t a fan of Fletch speaking German.

Wasn’t keeping America from having to speak German what he’d fought against? his dad had complained.

To say Mr. Fletcher lost his shit when he saw his kid come home dressed like a flyer on the JV pep squad as the price of admission to being in a German club would be an understatement.