The Small Boy, the Big Rocket, and the Road South

It was Friday, not Monday, and already that made everything a little bit different. Normally when The Mayor and I meet, it is Monday morning, eight o’clock, and the week is standing there with both feet on my chest. But this time it was Friday. The sun was shining, the engine was warm, the grill was almost ready, and the topic was Silly Games for Adults.

I liked this topic immediately, because maybe people think adults are serious. We work, we pay bills, we make appointments, we have responsibility, and yes, yes, all this is true. But inside, if we are honest, there is still a small boy. He is sitting there, waiting for a car, a machine, a barbecue, a button, a sound, something with fire, something with wheels, something that makes the heart go boom.

For me, the first adult toy that made me feel like a little boy again was not a big car. It was not a monster machine with six hundred horsepower. It was a little Fiat 500 Cabrio in Greece.

We were on Crete. We landed in Heraklion and took a rental car. They gave us this Fiat 500 Cabrio, and from the first moment I loved it. It was not a big car. It had not so much horsepower. It was small, simple, not powerful, but it was fantastic to drive. We drove from Heraklion to Rethymno, the roof open, the sun above us, the Greek air coming through the car. I looked out through the sunroof, the beach there, the sea, everything open. I still have a picture from this car on my wall. The car stands by the beach, the roof open, and when I see it, I remember this feeling. I was like a little boy again. No big reason. Just a little car, a warm country, open sky, and freedom.

Maybe that was good training for my new company car.

Because yes, now I have a new company car, and I was wildly enthusiastic. I sent WhatsApp Status updates from the first drives like a teenager. My wife and I drove together in it, and of course the first silly thing was the music. Too loud? Maybe. But when you have good speakers, you must test them. This car has a high-end sound system, Canton boxes, and the sound is fantastic. You have the highs, the middle, the bass. It is clean, strong, beautiful. And for the first time in my life, I have a head-up display in the window. The speed and the information are standing there in front of me like a small airplane cockpit. For an old Air Force man, this is not bad.

The car is a Skoda Kodiaq, a hybrid. It has a petrol engine and a battery, and when you push the accelerator, they work together. There is a switch you can pull down, and then the petrol and the electric power come together. The car becomes crazy. It drives so fast, so smooth, so fantastic. It is not just driving. It is playing with power, but in a good way.

The car has the high-end technical package. It has speed limiter, camera, lane assist, all these modern things. When the speed limiter is on, the camera looks out of the car and reads the signs. If there is a sign for seventy kilometres per hour, the car brakes automatically. When the seventy zone is finished, the car goes back to one hundred. When there is a roundabout, the car knows it. It slows down to forty, you drive through the roundabout, and when you come out, it goes again to one hundred. I sit there and think, So geil. So fantastic.

It is nearly self-driving, but of course you must still steer. The steering wheel keeps the car in the middle of the lane, between the left side and the right side. But when you do not move your hands, the car says, “Hey, wake up. Put your hands on the steering wheel.” It gives vibration in the steering wheel, in your arms, in your body. And when the car thinks you are sleeping or not paying attention, the seat belt tightens, and the car really tries to wake you up. It is a little bit strange. Honestly, sometimes I do not know what to think about all this. What do people do who drive old BMWs? They still drive with buttons, push here, push there. This is also fun. This is still reasonable fun.

For me, these systems are not only gimmicks. I like gimmicks, yes, I must say that. But first of all, it is security. If I do not need the system, I can switch it off. If I want to drive one hundred and ten, I can do it. The car does not say, “No, Ralf, impossible.” But there is also a little bell, bing bing bing, and sometimes I think, please, make it away. But at the garage they say, no, we cannot remove it, it is security. And okay, security stays.

The design also makes me smile before I even drive. The smell when you go inside is the new car smell. I like this. The workmanship is very good. Better than Volkswagen, I think. There is Alcantara leather on the dashboard, in the tunnel area, in the middle. The cockpit is beautiful, the display is nice, Apple CarPlay is there, the seat can extend forward under the legs, and you sit inside like in a small technical world.

But it is not only design. It is also horsepower. I like driving fast. My wife says when I am on the road, I am a Rampensau. And maybe she is right. When I hear AC/DC, especially “Thunderstruck,” I become crazy. On the highway, when a car in front of me drives only one hundred and twenty and does not go to the right side, I come closer, and my wife says, “No, no, no, wait, wait, wait.” But I drive seventy-five thousand kilometres per year. I cannot wait always for a man who drives one hundred and twenty and dreams in the left lane.

The Mayor said maybe I should play “Autobahn” by Kraftwerk instead. Yes, maybe. But my heart says AC/DC.

On Father’s Day, my wife drove the new car for the first time. Father’s Day, yes, the men can drink, so the wife drives. She was also crazy about the car. She said it is very fine. And this was nice for me, because she is not always impressed by my technical toys. But this car, she liked.

She has her own world of equipment. She does triathlon, and she is training now for a half Ironman, or middle distance, on the 29th of August. She trains two or three hours a day. But she is not like me with every new toy. She does not always need the best of the best. Her old bicycle was twenty-five years old before she got the Stevens bicycle. That bike came through a good connection from my time at Tyrolit. Our chief, who was also my best man, had a customer in Hamburg, Stevens Bicycles, and there was a very good price. From thousands down, a big discount. So she got this good bike.

For training, she also has equipment at home. The Stevens bicycle can go on a special wheel, connected with electronics and a tablet. When the tablet shows a mountain, the machine makes resistance, and she must push harder. For competitions she needs the good bike. For training, she can use the Cannondale and the indoor machine. It is also adult playing, but with pain. My toys make noise and smoke. Her toys make sweat.

And then there is the next big dream: the mobile home.

For me, the mobile home is not only a vehicle. It is the next step in our life. When I am retired, the first step is we buy two dogs. Then we do not fly so much to Gran Canaria or Greece anymore. We drive with our mobile home. South Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal — the Mediterranean states are very high for us. Not Scandinavia so much, because I need sun, warmth, good food, markets, the smell of fish and vegetables. But one time in my life I want to drive north to see the Northern Lights. One moment, take a picture, and then back to the Mediterranean.

The mobile home, if it could speak, would say, “Ralf, make a stop. Make a break. Drink coffee.” Because of course, even before we have the mobile home, we already have the Nespresso machine for the mobile home. We do not have the car, but we have the coffee machine. That is important. You can forget many things, but not coffee.

The real dream is not just travelling. It is quiet mornings. Mediterranean light. Going to the market in a village, buying fish, buying vegetables, maybe some cheese, maybe bread, then going back to the mobile home. I put the barbecue machine outside. Last Wednesday I bought a little gas cooker, so we do not have to cook inside the car. Outside, fresh fish, vegetables, good smell, a glass maybe, the sun going down. This is life.

The Mayor told me about Manfred from Kassel, who is in Croatia with his mobile home, sending pictures for the Pineapple. He will make a travel report next month. That is exactly the kind of thing I like. Croatia, Slovenia, the road, the little places. He also told me about a very good restaurant in Slovenia from Chef’s Table on Netflix, with local Slovenian cuisine, cheeses, wine, meat, things you do not always think about when you think of Slovenia. This is also research. Life is nothing more than research.

But we men have a special kind of research. We can look at cars, machines, barbecues, gadgets, tools, accessories for three hours and call it research. Women can talk for three hours about handbags, and that is also research. For us, it is machines. Boys and technicians, we like things that move, things that drive, things that make a system.

One of the best examples is the dishwasher. This came up when we were with friends. Four men said the same thing: when our wives put things into the dishwasher, before we switch it on, we repack it. We put everything in order again. Spoon here, cups there, space used correctly, water can come everywhere. My wife says, “Why can you think about what is better?” But I see it. I cannot unsee it. A dishwasher is not chaos. It is engineering. In The Mayor’s house, he said, he is responsible for loading the dishwasher. His wife does not do it. I said maybe my wife should speak with his wife.

And then we come to the big dream of fire and metal: The Rocket.

The Rocket is a German-made barbecue. For me, this is important. I do not like to buy too much from China. Before, I had a barbecue from China, and at some point I said to my friend, you can buy it, I do not want it anymore. Then I bought a Broil King, because it comes from Canada or the USA, and I liked that more. But now the next step is a machine from Germany.

The Rocket story is beautiful. There are two brothers. Their parents have a big factory with iron and steel. They make everything you want from stainless steel. One day the brothers wanted to make a new barbecue for their father, because the father had a small barbecue. They built it. People saw it and said, “What is this?” And then the barbecue was gone. People wanted it. So they thought, why do we not produce a series of barbecue machines?

You can configure it. Gas or charcoal. Then you can add the chicken drill machine, flames, six burners, all the things. And then they wanted to build the highest-temperature barbecue grill in the world. That was the beginning of The Rocket. Then came the Big Rocket, my favourite. Small area, big area, flames, heat, ceramic burners with one thousand degrees.

When you have a good beef, a good steak, you put it first on the grill for thirty seconds. Then turn it around, thirty seconds again. Then put it in the next area at one hundred and twenty degrees until inside it is about forty-five degrees. Then take it out and let it rest five minutes, so the juices go back inside the meat. This is not just cooking. This is science, but also feeling. The juices go down, then back inside, and then the steak is fantastic. Very, very good.

Is barbecue a serious cooking method, or is it just adults playing with fire and calling it responsibility? For me, it is both. You do not always see the fire, but the fire is there. You put the meat near the fire, sometimes inside the fire, and this is one of the oldest things in life. The Argentinians have a special way for this. I could not remember the exact name in the moment. Not Rodizio, that is Brazilian. The Mayor told me I must research Francis Mallmann, the Argentinian cook. He makes barbecue outside, in Patagonia, with fire, meat, iron, everything. He makes it to an art form. Michelin restaurants, Buenos Aires, South America, open fire. I need to research this. This is also my kind of education.

In the end, when I think about all these silly games for adults — the new car, the mobile home, the barbecue, The Rocket, the dishwasher engineering, the coffee machine before the vehicle — it is not only about owning things. I do not need a new car just to have a new car. I like a new car when it is fantastic, and the Skoda Kodiaq is very, very good. But I do not need it to be happy.

The mobile home is different. That is a next step in life. Retirement, two dogs, my wife, travelling south, stopping when we want, coffee when we want, markets, fish, vegetables, barbecue outside, Mediterranean evenings. This is freedom.

The barbecue is also not only a barbecue. For me, good food is one of the best things in life. You can make meat, fish, vegetables — everything better when you understand fire, heat, time, patience. You stand outside, maybe with music, maybe with friends, maybe with your wife waiting and smiling because she knows I am happy. And yes, maybe I am like a little boy. But this little boy is alive. He is curious. He loves machines that are made well. He loves the smell of a new car, the sound of AC/DC, the taste of a good steak, the idea of coffee in a mobile home somewhere near the Mediterranean Sea.

This is not childish. This is playful.

And maybe that is the philosophy of Ralf: life inside must be happy. Keep the responsibility, yes. Do your work, yes. Drive safely, yes. Pack the dishwasher correctly, of course. But also keep the small boy alive. Let him look at the car. Let him dream about The Rocket. Let him buy the Nespresso machine before the mobile home. Let him stand outside with fire and food and say, “The sun is shining. The engine is warm. The grill is almost ready.”