Today I want to tell you a short story from my childhood. I can get inspired by a lot of things. Today I got inspiration by a friend on the gaming platform Steam. She wrote me a chat message and apart from other things she chatted also about the meaning of different first names. She for example mentioned that there is a similar one as my name Dennis. It´s a Turkish name that is written Deniz. Dennis is the english variant of the greek name Dionys and Dionysius. But she told me that the Turkish name Deniz would mean “He belongs to the sea” and mentioned that this would somewhat fit to me as I live near the Baltic Sea.

Some memories came up when she told me about the Turkish name Deniz. That´s why I said she inspired me anyhow to write about it. I am not sure if the age is right but I remember I was 11 years old when I heard the first time that there is a similar sounding name to my first name. A friend and me were roaming through one of the local garden grounds because we were bored. We noticed that one of the many gardens had an apple tree. My friend said a little excited “Look! There is an apple tree! We can eat apples!” and I decided to climb over the fence to pick some for us.

I had the desire to eat an Apple too and it seemed as if there would be no one on the garden parcel, not even on the surrounding garden plots. I went over the fence and picked one or two apples for each of us when I remember right. Standing directly under the apple tree with a smile in the face, that smile changed when I heard a voice “Hey! What are you doing there!”. A Turkish looking old man came out of the small wooden hut and confronted me with what I had done. With my age of 11 years I was pretty worried and I am not sure anymore if I was more worried that he could scream at me or worse, or if he could call the police to make my mother mad. It had been one of these moments where you start to realize that the most heroic idea comes also with certain risks.

It went off different. After he noticed that I had stolen a few apples from his tree, he just said with a friendly mien “I don´t want to be awkward, you can keep the apples, but you shouldn´t do something like this again…” and explained that asking is always better than taking without permission. He continued that he would have given the apples to us. He also said that other people might have been angry at me, but he isn´t as I still need to learn.

He asked me and my friend who was still behind the fence about our first names. Still shy, I answered “Uhh, I am Dennis”. He replied “Deniz? Deniz Turkish name!”. As he pronounced it with Turkish sounding accent, I wasn´t sure if it´s the same name and told him. He asked me to spell my name and said “True, that seems to be another name, but a similar one!”. Without saying anything more, he went away, into his wooden hut and came out again with two plastic bags. He picked many apples from his tree and filled both bags, while I did stand there with a big question mark on my head.

When he had both bags filled with so many apples, he gave me his hand and said his name that I don´t remember anymore and “Nice to meet you Dennis, one bag is for you and your family and the other one for your friend and his family”. You know what? This was a very strong life lesson: You don´t steal, not only because people said it´s bad. You don´t steal because you never know to whom you do damage if you do so. It could be one of the friendliest human beings on earth. Even if I just talk about apples, it ashamed me and I felt so awful that I wanted to steal from this friendly man back then, that stealing never had been an idea in my head again, right, not even apples.

That is a story that came to my mind again today when a friend sent me the chat message about the first names. Also it should tell you that memories can be very inspiring too if you are writer or webmaster. If you are general blogger like I am, write about your memories. You might think they are bored, but others maybe disagree and will enjoy it. If you prefer anonymity, you don´t have to add any details that would threaten the anonymity of you or others. It´s a big suggestion that I can give you. Our heads are never uninspired, not even if we sleep. There is a lot going on, we just need to grab what the thoughts offer. Memories are one of these things. Hope you enjoyed.