Enjoying the Ride

Win Straube
SCI Corporation (2005)
ISBN 097770310X
Reviewed by Irene Watson for Reader Views (9/06)


Win Straube provided it all – three books in one with history, ancestry, inspiration, adventure, romance, and personal accounts.  He also provided a CD with lovely Hawaiian music to listen to while the reader pursues the book.  Taking all this into account the reader becomes one with the story, often feeling as if it is his/her own life that they are reading about.

Interspersed are 134 photographs, maps and illustrations, “Enjoying the Ride” does exactly that, it takes you on a ride through the life of the author.  At nine years old, Straube volunteered for paramilitary training with a vision of becoming an officer.  As a teenager he escaped the bombing of Dresden.  “As a precaution, because the barracks could be included again in one of the next wave of bombings, the young soldiers in training were told to dissolve, to get lost, go home or elsewhere, as fast as possible and report back after the attack.” 

Straube explains “Life was never the same after the bombing.”  After reading the prelude to that statement I, as a reader, couldn’t help but take a moment and reflect on the experience this young teen must have had knowing that hundreds of thousands of people perished during the bombing, including many of which were his classmates.

This is just the beginning.  Straube’s well written book is a page turner in the sense that he hooks the reader to finding out the next step in his life. Thus the journey takes him through the escape to West Germany, going to the United States, “the land where milk and honey flow,” and on to Ontario, Canada where he builds a business, as well as his life in Asia and the Pacific Rim. He touches on the death of his 43 year old father in the Mulberg concentration camp, his escape to West Germany, his successful business ventures, and up close and personal accounts of his life and relationship with his wife, Hildegard.

Straube’s comment “when God created man and woman, He didn’t guarantee retirement” is so agreeable.  He feels that there is no in between life and death, that we “either live or die” and if there were an in between it could possibly be called retirement.  Straube further states that “retirement means having given up on the pursuit of making a living and/or partaking in the challenges of life. Retirement means being passive, having things come your way, not being active, creating and giving.”  Yes, Mr. Straube I so agree with you.  It’s such a pleasure to read about a man’s life, regardless of his joys, successes,trials and tribulations, who is not ready to give up on life. He is a youthful age of 77.

Certainly a diamond, Straube’s “Enjoying the Ride” is a book that will give you the whole gamut of emotions with tears, laughter, surprise, contemplation, and an opportunity to look at one’s own life and reflect on the journey that has taken place. We all have a book inside us and may this book be an inspiration to bring your story into light.

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