I am not a geocaching participant but was one of Helmut Mueller's childhood friends. I now live in Boise, Idaho and visited our childhood neighborhood last month in New Jersey. Throwing back a drink with the gentleman who lived next to the Mueller's house I inquired as to how is "Mousey", as we called Helmut back in the 1960s.
I was saddened by the news of his passing and his family's loss. I was angered that I had the opportunity to see Helmut two years ago when visiting New Jersey, invited by his brother Manfred, but I allowed something else to interfere with that visit.
Learning of his death I searched Google for his name and found a large community of friends and supporters out there. I saw his photos--first time I have seen his image since I moved from Sweetwood Court in 1971. His posture and expressions are the same from when he was a kid. Except for the missing head full of blond hair, it's the same Mousey (incedently, I have no idea where that name originated from--it's actually the only name I knew he had as he first started playing kickball with us when he was about 4). There is a remarkable likeness in his daughters. His love for geocaching, I am sure, comes from the countless trips he, I, and our friends took into the swamp and wooded areas adjacent to our neighboorhood.
Helmut would always be at my door on Saturday mornings (every morning in the summer) to pull my brother Chris and I away from the TV to go collect cattails (punks), bird nests, skeletal animal remains, potential locations for tree-forts, rocks, and anything else the outdoors yielded. Kenny, Michael, Anthony, Domineck would join us too. I recall Helmut's closeness to his mother and her calling him in German for lunch--and we could hear her from across the field.
Helmut's other love was fireworks. His brother Manny, being much older than us and the coolest guy around, fed the passion by frequently pulling mysterious brown bags stuffed with fireworks, from the trunk of his royal blue Camaro. The best place to be on the 4th of July was always in front of the Mueller's house, until, the police showed-up. Helmut would then show up at our house for a swim, his face covered with a grin and smuged with charcoal. The fireworks would always resume after dusk. And the next day we would all scrounge the debris-covered street for duds and remains.
Our lives are, in a large part, our stories. The stories gather and live in all of us as a collective family. If not shared the stories fade. If either of his daughters have an opportunity to read this, and are ever interested in hearing more about their Dad, from a childhood perspective, it would be my honor to share them. My children would want to know, I thought they might too.
Roy De Young
rdeyoung@temel.com
