This seems a perfect beginning to a very interesting story. I like this!

I fear that, if a redneck at that time were to ask someone if he were a product of miscegenation, he would use cruder terms.

“Yo mama sleep with a wombat or what?”
“Naw, I’d be better looking if she did.”

It’s interesting to see what details you can extrapolate from the limited info provided, assuming this story resides, albeit fictionally, in our reality.

Obviously before the Second World War. Karl was injured in a manner that he missed most of the war, or he dodged the draft. Not that there was any.

I can kinda picture this whole conflict actually being Karl’s interview, to see how he’d approach such situations.