I’m currently in Frankfurt Germany, the land of my ancestry, for training, and will be here for two weeks. For many years I kept a German 10 pfennig in my pocket to remind myself there are other places in the world than Pampa, Texas.  I don’t know what happened to that coin, but I have never forgotten what it represented.

I will gain about 5 pounds while here; no probably 10.  I’m talking schnitzel, bratwurst and German beer.  With a diet of pork every day, I would get very fat if I stayed too long.  One associate told me, when he was posted here he gained 30 pounds.  I believe it.  The Germans themselves are an interesting lot.  The adults don’t yell when they speak among themselves like the Italians and Russians, but the younger ones are arrogant and noisy.  The natives are tall and big boned compared to other parts of the world, and the older women are quite robust.

The other night I sat having a salad at the nearest schnitzel house, when a stern German sat down at the other end of the table.  His movements remind me of a robot.  In staccato movements, he cut the meat, stabbed it with a fork, and placed the meat in his mouth then placed the fork down on the table while he chewed X number of times.  Then repeated the process for ever bite.  What’s more, I sense they do this purposely, not just a habit.  If I asked him why he ate that way, … well, ….  no telling what he might have said.

My boss is here for training also, and Sunday we decided to go sight-seeing  along the Main river where there are several large churches.  We came across one with a tall steeple and bell tower that we could pay 3 Euros and climb the spiral staircase to the top.  So we did.  All 328 steps in a dizzying spiral.  Up and then down.  I had to stop a few times to suck air before continuing.

It was amazing to see the sculpture of the building up close.  If you look at the picture below, you will see one of the many gargoyles mounted on the building.  Generally, gargoyles are used to hide the drain spouts.

It was truly awesome to look up close to the tool marks from centuries ago, that the builders left on the edifice.  I could see places they repaired the building, adding strapping where cracks were starting to form.

When I first arrived in Frankfurt, from the moment the plane landed, it took 4 hours exactly to get to my hotel.  I had a specific set of instructions posted by the hotel, on how to arrive to the premises.  They really made sense, because I took the time to study the public transportation system before arriving.  But as I realized, not everything is in English.  It took about an hour wandering around the train station at the airport, to figure out how to buy a train ticket.  I knew what train I needed, but the vending machine wanted to know my destination.  And all the destinations are in German.  No way to convert German names to English.  Finally decided to get into a long line at a counter to see if the people behind the counter could help.  Once I finally got the front and showed the gentlemen the info from the hotel, he said, No problem.  He clicked here and there and then said, 4 Euros, 20, please, and handed me a ticket.  I got on the train he pointed to.  It traveled so many kilometers then stopped. I had to get off.  Turned out I did not board the correct train and only ended up part way.  Had to figure out which train I needed to take me the rest of the way.

Using the old reliable Nolte intuition, I finally found where I needed to go and got to the next point I needed.  Then I had to board either bus number 30, or tram number 18.  The Nolte intuition failed me and I boarded bus number 18.  Not bus 30.  Not tram 18, but bus 18.  By the time I realized something was wrong, I was about a half kilometer off the route I wanted.  Grabbed my suitcase and jumped off at the next stop and walked back to the beginning. I did eventually arrived at the hotel and have since learned the peculiarities of the German system.  I learned that tram 18, somehow turns to tram 12 while you are riding it.

But the system is superb.  You can get anywhere in the city without a vehicle.  And the ticketing is just as unique.  You buy a ticket for where you want to go at one of the many vending machines along the routes, then you board the bus/tram/train.  No one verifies your ticket.  It based on the honor system.  They do have people who wander through the system stopping people and checking to see if you have your ticket.  If not, its’ a 40 Euro fine.

I’m sitting outside in front of the hotel as I work on this piece with the traffic passing by.  Very different from Addis, as there is a smooth transition of the traffic.  Compared to Addis, even with the traffic out here, it’s serene.  No hordes of pedestrians and no beasts of burden.  No honking and no beggars.  There are two sidewalks.  One for pedestrians and the other for bicycles.  There are enough bicycle riders in the city, that it’s best not to walk on their path.  I have to keep watching over my shoulder to see if a cyclist is coming to avoid being in their way.  But that’s a good thing in my book.

Just now, a friendly looking gentleman shuffled by with his cane, carrying his morning newspaper under his arm.

Frankfurt does have its bizarre moments.  Saturday, my boss and I went down by one of the metro stations to go through some of the stores in the area.  When we arrived at the station, there was a gay pride parade passing through.  Now I have seen some strange things in my life, but nothing like this.  I have seen aspects of this on the Internet and the News, but never in person.  Some of you will say, How cool!  I’d love to be there!  Well, I beg to differ.  When you see grown men wearing makeup and dancing around wearing nothing but ballet tutus, it’s not awe inspiring.  To make it worse, they all had lipstick all over them and not just their faces.  Some of the women were dressed in very little, and some dressed like barbarians.  There was a couple that looked like two bulldogs.  These were just the tip of the iceberg of what was out there.  Luckily I did not have my camera with me.

I didn’t stay around and watch, but had to walk through the throng of these people and their supporters to get where we wanted to go.  If these people have their lifestyles, so be it, but to flaunt it in a grand array just adds fire to those who find it detestable.  And the gay community wonders why not everyone supports their way of life.

Well, now I have a bad taste in my mouth.  I’ll upload this and then head to the Consulate for lunch.  Today I do not have a class, so I have time to catch up on some writing.

I just returned from the States from what I’d like to think, was a well deserved vacation.  Because of the wondrous equipment United Airline uses, a flight was missed in Frankfurt, Germany.  In the meantime I happened across a good friend who was also returning from points far away, so we sat together having a few beers while waiting for our flight.  About 4 feet away, a young girl came and sat in a booth, pulled out a book and had a plate of pasta to eat.  About 20 minutes later, a young man with straggly hair and dreadlocks, came and asked her if he could visit with her.  He was the type of kid that young girls would find attractive; one of those things I don’t understand, like kids walking around with their pants hanging dangerously low.

I worked in Afghanistan back in 2004, and it was drilled into me to be aware of my surroundings.  This is something that I have hung on to since.  I am also in the process of reading a very good book that all people should read:  The Gift of Fear.  So as I sat with my buddy drinking, I do notice what is going around me.  I noticed the straggly kid was walking back and forth for about 30 minutes before visiting this young girl.

When she first encountered him, I noticed a moment of unease on her face at first, but after sitting with her and they talked, she relaxed and dropped her guard.  Even though they were only 4 feet away, because of the noise I could not hear what they were saying, but by her relaxed face and his smile I sensed something was not right.  He kept smiling, asking her questions and soon they were both eating the pasta.  This kid was good.  He lightly picked at the food just to be sharing a meal with her, which told me he was not hungry.

I would not have slept well that night, aside from the damn plane, if I did not do something to interrupt this.  Whether he was going to get money off her, or completely lead her out of the terminal forever, I do not know.  What I did know for an absolute certainty, was this kid was not good for this young girl.

So I took a napkin, and reaching into my bag pulled out a pen.  It just so happened to be red.  On it, I wrote the following:

Even seen the movie “Taken” with Liam Neeson?  Think twice before you give him anything, even just information.

I stood up to leave and asked the young girl if she spoke English.

“Yeah, sure!”

Then I turned to the straggly kid who was afraid to make eye contact with me, and I asked him if he spoke English.  He made the little waving motion with his hand and said something about a little.  Then I asked him if he lived in Frankfurt?  He stumbled around with his words and never gave a clear answer.  I handed the young girl the napkin and walked away.  Later, while at the ticket counter, I noticed he was still sitting there with her.

I sincerely hope she was smart enough to politely tell him “No” for whatever he was after.  If not, she had been warned.

Our Gardener, Michael, lives with his grandparents in a small house at the bottom of a hill near the Embassy.  The other day, a power surge took out Grandmother’s TV, which disrupted her life immeasurably.  She likes to watch the soaps on TV.  She was going to go down to the power company and chew their butts out for blowing her TV.

When Terese found out, being the loving and gracious person she is, she suggested to me the idea of giving her the old TV we picked up in Russia.  Sounded good.  So, the other day, I took Michael, the TV and his bicycle to his grandparents house.  Terese didn’t go, because she had a bad head cold and didn’t want to risk getting them sick.  I met his grandfather on the porch as I entered.  He’s 84 years old, but looks like a hundred and ten; sporting a lot of teeth, but few in front.  I clasp his hand gently and he clasped mine firmly.  All four hands combined into one.  For an old man, he had a warm, solid, muscular grip.  He started bowing and I started bowing and before I knew it, we both were bouncing up and down.  His dark eyes squinted as he continually smiled.

I entered the house and met his grandmother, whose hands I also gently clasped.  She bowed as well as did I.  She motioned for me to sit in what I felt was the choicest seat in the house, then using Michael as a translator, she offered me something to eat as if there was plenty of food in the house.  I very graciously declined.  She had her dark eyes as well, but she did little smiling.  When Michael told her the TV was hers, she became most appreciative, holding my hand and bowing again, this time with moist eyes.

The house was small with rough wooden floors.  A cloth covered the doorway into the next room.  The walls were bare except for a few religious icons adorned with flowers.  Michael set the TV up, and I secretly hoped it still worked.  I hated to go through all this just to have it not work.  He hooked the rabbit ears up and all he got was static.  I thought, uh-oh.  Then Johan, a little kid about 10-12 years old, picked up the remote and within 30 seconds had the TV programming itself.  Where do these kids learn this stuff?  When he got through, the TV was picking up all 3 channels.

When I left, we did all the clasping and bowing again.  I climbed into my 4 wheel drive and climbed the rocking path back to the nearest road.  A few days later, Michael told Terese that Grandfather was happy because Grandmother was happy.  Grandmother was happy because someone who did not know her, gave her such a valuable gift.

Sometimes I forget my value in this world and how fortunate I am.

I come from a family of nine kids.  Doctor Key delivered all of us, except one, and that was because of the distance between Texas and Nevada, especially in the 60’s.  When I was little, my older brothers told me I was not born but hatched.  If that was true, it was still Doctor Key who did the hatching.

One of the outstanding traits of Doctor Key, was his use of the miracle called “Milk of Magnesia”.  When any of us kids got sick with a bellyache, Doctor Key would prescribe a “big ol’ dose of Milk of Magnesia”.  It cleaned us out before the bugs could multiple and take over our bodies and perhaps even kill us dead.  So whenever Mom brought us in to see him, the first thing he ask, “Did you give him a big ol’ dose of Milk of Magnesia?”  And Mom would proudly say, “Yep.”  I often thought, if Mom ever took me into Doctor Key’s office for a broken arm, the first thing he would probably say is, “Did you give him a big ol’ dose of Milk of Magnesia? ‘  And Mom would’ve say, “Yep.”

The stuff has a heavy chalk taste that we abhorred, so Mom gave us crackers to eat with it.  In looking back at those times, I now realize the crackers really did nothing but fool us into thinking they actually made the horrible stuff go down easier.  Today, it has been converted into pills.  Kids these days don’t know how lucky they are.

So, as I grew and raised a few kids, I too used the wisdom of Doctor Key.  It wasn’t until my teenage daughter had a bellyache, did I realize there may be something different about this.  I gave her a big ol’ dose of Milk of Magnesia, and when that didn’t get rid of her bellyache, I gave her another.  Still the miracle did not work, so I took her into her doctor, since Doctor Key had long retired.  When he asked what the problem was, I explained how I dutifully gave her a big ol’ dose of Milk of Magnesia, and when that didn’t help, I gave her another.  Since the bellyache didn’t go away, it had to be something sinister.  The doctor had a peculiar look in his eyes and said, “Why did you do that for?”  It was at that point, the Little Guy in the back of my mind told me something was not right.  I explained, that’s what Doctor Key said to do.  He asked, “Who’s Doctor Key?”  I had to mention that he was an old family doctor, and added that I was named after him, thinking that may quell the situation some.

He did some poking and prodding and took a spit sample or something, and said she is already getting better and will be okay.  Then he told me to take her home and buy her some fresh yogurt to replace the good bacteria that I flushed out of her system.  “And don’t do that again!” he yelled.

Man!  I felt bad…

Well, I still have not learned my lesson completely.  A couple of weeks ago, I had a bellyache that I couldn’t get rid of, so I took some laxative pills my wife had, to flush the bugs out.  Still didn’t do too good, so I went to the Med Unit and told them I have a sinister bug in me.  … and I told them I tried to flush it out with a laxative.

There was that same, why did you do that for?, look.  “Well, when I was a little boy, my family doctor used to prescribe it to me when I was… “ and I let my voice trail off to a mumble.  Well, bottom line is, she said, “You’re getting okay now, but don’t do that again!”   Wow!  I won’t do that again.

It’s amazing how medicine has changed over the years.  Mom would always put a drop of cod-liver oil on our tongues every night before bed.  So, recently I got to thinking about that and decided to find out what Mom was really giving us.  Wikipedia states: “Cod liver oil was traditionally manufactured by filling a wooden barrel with fresh cod livers and seawater and allowing the mixture to ferment for up to a year before removing the oil.  Modern cod liver oil is made by cooking the whole cod body tissues of fatty fish during the manufacture of fish meal.”  Now the question here is:  Were we getting the traditional stuff, or the modern stuff?  I tell you right now, when I was a little kid, the word “modern” wasn’t invented yet.  You figure it out.