Well-read, hospitable and more than 100 years old: Hans Döpping, with his five o'clock tea, is a minor celebrity in the Blauen Eck community of Freiensteinau in the Vogelsberg district.

Freiensteinau – These are the moments in which you can forget your everyday worries and be captured by the spirit of literature. Already at the reception in Hans Döpping's house, when you take off your coat or jacket, you are surrounded by a kind of peace and security.

With kind words you are led to the first floor, where chairs are lined up around a round table in the living room in the first row. A second row of chairs surrounds the table, where the author, born on December 5, 1924, is already waiting and has lined up selected works on a music stand.

101 years old: author Hans Döpping is enthusiastic

There is tea in every flavor. Depending on your taste, your partner Angela Cremer, the guest tanner, prepares the desired variety and lovingly serves it in ceramic cups. You ask how the host is doing, take your seat, greet the person sitting next to you, laugh and wait eagerly.

“I brought you something light and warm,” he says Writer who is also involved in a collection of Steinau stories and tells the story of Waldemar Wölbenleib from Speckbach, which comes as a true story from a friend's chronicle. He also described a citizen who lived his life very carefully to be correct, even if others dismissed his behavior as a “cursor.”

The stories of Waldemar, who was prone to gluttony and caused many problems as a three-hundred-pound man, brought many smiles to the audience. With figurative words, aptly formulated and entirely in Döpping's tongue-in-cheek writing style, he described, much to the audience's delight, how Waldemar, after a visit to the spa, can only get out of the bathtub with the help of the “fire police” because of his size.

Spiritual food and pastries at teatime

Anne Seifert, a native of Middle Franconia and now living in Herolz, described two stories from her youth on her parents' farm that made it clear that it was not easy to assert oneself as a refugee from the East. The firstborn should take over the parental farm.

However, since her brother was of weak stature, he had to attend the nearby high school, where he had a lot of problems, especially in German and mathematics. Regardless of her origins, her appearance and just her charisma – she came straight from the pig market – her mother made the German teacher responsible for teaching her offspring the subject matter. The conversation was obviously fruitful, because the brother completed his high school diploma and completed a state examination in German.

“I was never in the Bütt,” is how the writer, who grew up in Thuringia, dampens expectations of possible foolish lists; he only created “Hännesche” for the Freiensteinau carnival sessions, whose humorous experiences Heinrich Franz then recited in Freiensteinau dialect, much to the delight of the crowd of fools. For a long time this was one of the highlights of the Freiensteinau carnival.

“Hännesche” was launched during the carnival

The story of the chicken coop revealed the art of using figurative words to visually imagine the events and make the physical injuries tangible. Because “Hännesche”, who wanted to equip his chicken coop with new roof tiles, had to transport them down from the attic using a rope and winch.

The 101-year-old's descriptions were not only precise and visually easy to imagine, but the audience could actually sympathize with the injuries he suffered as the stable builder was thrown several times into the depths and then back up again by the earth's gravity and the underestimated weight of the stack of bricks.

Wilfried Ochs brought with him the story of the Ilbeshäuser Babegei, now also known as the leading figure of the local carnival, which goes back to the mayor's visit to his Frankfurt counterpart, who had a talking parrot as his own.

In order to shine with a “bird” from the Vogelsberg, the head of the office took an owl with him instead of a parrot at the next meeting. When the owl remained silent, the Vogelsberger simply stated: “Ilbeshäuser Babegei, they think about their part.” Some games provided mental change and realignment in between.

However Bruno Kant from Eichenzell-Löschenrode, born on February 26, 1916, is probably the oldest man in Hesse and also the oldest pastor in the world. (by Dieter Schneider)