A Year to Remember

No, I’m not talking about a great year for Cahors wines or a memorable vintage from the local vineyard. I’m referring to the fact that the year 2009 holds some significance for me. It marks the anniversaries of three important way stations in my life and the reasons for some major partying to come. Let me explain.

First and most surprising of all from my vantage point, I turn 70 years old in June of this year. I’m joining the ranks of the geezers. Sorry, Ian, no offense. Who’d‘ve thought it possible? In my book, that’s a pretty good achievement for a guy who was told by a gypsy fortuneteller that he would not see 30 and as a callow youth was pretty much a wastrel and did things of which his Mama vehemently disapproved. I know I have been looking over my shoulder for the past 40 years to see if anyone was gaining on me, to paraphrase Satchel Paige. My friends thought I was paranoid, but I think my caution kept me alive. I guess the moral of this story is, don’t buy into the spiel of people who claim to know what’s in store for you down the road. You will live longer.

Secondly, this September marks the 50th anniversary of my arrival on the shores of the great state of New Jersey and my introduction to the nasty business of war. I was, of course, familiar with war, having lived through one as a child. But I was a passive participant then, trying to duck the bullets and bombs raining down from the sky. What I’m talking about here, is becoming an active contributor to death and mayhem. I’m not going to get into that now. One: because you cannot personalize war, if you want to stay sane and two: because I put that episode of my life into deep freeze and out of my consciousness. As “they” say, it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Had I known then that New Jersey is more or less the armpit of America and not a beacon of Yankee ingenuity, I probably wouldn’t have been so excited about stepping on the docks of Hoboken, the North American port of entry for the German Hapag-Lloyd shipping line. Other than being the birthplace of Frank Sinatra and Willem de Kooning, there seems not much else that speaks for this city and evokes fond memories. No, I take that back, Hoboken is also the city were the zipper was invented, in case that little tidbit slipped your mind. But to give the place its due, I only stayed for a couple of hours. In any case, it was an inauspicious beginning to my life in the land of the free.

I thought I’d share with you how it was that I ended up in what’s known as “the city with a bar on every corner” and on the same day entered the employ of Uncle Sam.

When I was a teenager, all I ever wanted was to come to America, the land of plenty. My father despaired of me, my teachers shook their heads in disappointment, but I didn’t care. I wanted to live in what I perceived as paradise, the land of rock ‘n’ roll, jazz and white bread. I had no idea how to make this happen, but when you’re young, you don’t worry about details. You simply dream and hope for the best, if you can think that far ahead.

I had known an American Army officer who had come to my father’s house in Germany to hunt ever since shortly after the end of the war. His name was Robert Lofton. He spoke German very well and I often guided him on his hunts over the years. By the time I told him about my dream to go to America, he was a colonel and he worked in military intelligence. I know you think that that is an oxymoron and my experience since then tends to support that argument, but this guy was alright and what’s more, he was a man of his word, more or less.

This colonel explained to me that to be allowed to immigrate to the U.S., you needed a sponsor, a person or organization that would be responsible for you in case you became a burden to the state. He also told me that if I was serious about going to America, he would see to it that I would have a sponsor. He said the US Army would be glad to have me. In return for greasing my path, all I had to do is give them a minimum of four years of my life and, hopefully, more. He was sure that with my background, I would fit in without a problem. The fact that I could not speak English didn’t bother him. “The Army wants your body,” he said. “They’ll make you understand what they want.” He turned out to be right.

I didn’t realize that this four-year commitment was a bit of a trick proposal, because the official enlistment term in the US Army is for three years; so four years meant a minimum of two tours or six years. You couldn’t re-enlist for just one year. I was able to overcome that dilemma eventually, but it cost me dearly. I’ll deal with that in a later installment of this saga.

Back to my friend, the colonel. The next weekend, the colonel invited me to the officers’ mess at Ledward Barracks in Schweinfurt for dinner. This was the headquarters of the 3rd Infantry Division. When I showed up, he introduced me to a group of four Americans, all in civilian clothes, all very polite. Everyone spoke German. We talked about hunting and hunting customs here and in the U.S., my family background, political leanings, had a nice dinner, drank whiskey. The colonel talked about his long friendship with my father. He sang my praises as a hunter and stalker and related how I’d hidden his downed bucks in the early days and made him look like a fool. Everyone laughed. Good joke. I was sure that I was being appraised, assessed, graded. At the end of the evening, the colonel drove me home and told me that I was on my way, that he had major plans for me. I said nothing. I had the feeling that I’d just passed some kind of test.

A week later, he introduced me to a young Specialist 4th Class, a chaplain’s assistant, who proposed to sponsor me for immigration to the U.S. This soldier’s name was Peter Barnaby and he was from somewhere in Ohio. He spoke German well, but seemed to be very nervous. He assured me that he’d be very happy to take care of all the red tape to get things moving along. I asked him why he would do such a thing, particularly, since he didn’t know me, had, in fact, never met me before. “Don’t worry about that, son,” the colonel interjected, “I’ll explain everything to you in due time. Leave the details to me.” I never saw the kid again, but my immigration papers arrived from the American embassy in Frankfurt a month later.

The colonel later told me that the Specialist was in love with and wanted to marry a German girl from Schweinfurt. The problem was that her father had been a high profile Nazi official, a Kreisleiter – county leader – in Schweinfurt, who had been jailed as a war criminal by the Americans after the war. The Army frowned on their relationship and refused them permission to marry. The colonel arranged for that permission to materialize, in return for the soldier’s agreement to sponsor me.

My aunt knew the family of that girl well. Their name was Hoffmann. They lived only a couple of blocks from my aunt’s house and had been shopping at her corner grocery store since the end of the war. “During the Nazi time, those people were too grand for us,” my aunt told me. “They lived in a huge villa on Adolf-Hitler-Strasse, which they had confiscated from a Jew. They were much too important then to shop in my little store. They were living the high life then. Nothing but the best for Frau Hoffmann,” she said. “But after the war, the Amis kicked them out of their mansion and turned it into some kind of a club.” My aunt didn’t like the Hoffmanns. It’s funny how things in life sometimes work out. The Hoffman’s daughter became my ticket to America.

I was excited when I stepped off the MS “Berlin” in the early morning hours of a fine September day in 1959. Here I was in the land of my dreams. I didn’t know what to expect and, to be honest, I didn’t care. I thought I could smell the adventures that lay ahead, but what I probably inhaled were the rank odors of the polluted waters of the Hudson River, an environment totally alien to me. Until I boarded my ship seven days earlier, the closest I’d been to the ocean was the equivalent of an eight-hour train ride away.

After I’d cleared customs, I was met by a Lt. Connor, who was expecting me and who spoke fairly flawless German. He drove me to the U.S. Army Recruiting Station in Trenton, where he told me that the Army did things by the book and that I had to pass an aptitude test, to see if I was mentally fit to join the military. He explained that this was a necessary step for anyone wanting to join. We went into his office and he administered the US Army Aptitude Test. This test was designed to weed out the undesirables and retards. It was a multiple-choice test, consisting of two parts, basic math and mechanical questions, followed by essay and language skills questions. I had no problem with the first part, but had absolutely no clue about the second. Of course, I flunked the test. The lieutenant knew that I couldn’t speak English and would fail the test. He explained to me that he had to follow the rules and then he gave me a sheet with the correct answers, told me to memorize them and handed me a Greyhound bus ticket to Morrisville, a small town a few miles down US 1, just across the Delaware River in Pennsylvania. He explained that the Army Recruiting Sergeant in Morrisville would expect me later that afternoon and would give me the test again. Everything would be alright.

True enough, when I presented myself in Morrisville, I was handed the very same test I’d flunked earlier. Only this time I aced it. Along with a dozen other volunteers, I took the oath to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States of America or rather, I mumbled along because I had no idea what was going on, was given a folder that contained my file and train tickets to Columbus, Georgia, and Ft. Benning to start my basic infantry training. No one seemed to care that I was not a citizen, didn’t have a clue what the oath I had just taken was all about and, in fact, couldn’t understand a word that was said to me. I wonder if in this case ignorance was bliss. Well, it was too late for second thoughts. As far as the Army was concerned a fresh body was a fresh body, everything else was a detail.

All this happened on the day I stepped off the boat, my big day. So here I am 50 years later and I have to tell you, I don’t regret any of it. I did ok here. It turned out that Americans, and Canadians for that matter, are pretty good people. What impressed me most was that no one wanted to see my papers qualifying me for a particular job. And, of course, I didn’t have any. All they wanted to see was if I could do the job, the rest, which in Europe is the most important, was but a detail here, a bagatelle. True, your father’s name is equally important here as it was in the old country. How else did George W. get into Yale? But unlike in Europe, here there are alternatives, if your old man doesn’t have enough clout. I was able to immerse myself in the melting pot and prosper. The thing about dreams is that one: they are free, two: no one can take them away from you, so you might as well dream big, and three: if you single-mindedly apply yourself to the task at hand, with a little luck, dreams can and will become reality.

This brings me to the final important marker for 2009. This August, my wife and I will have been married to each other for 30 years. You’re right, I should have put this event at the top of my list, but apparently I’m a glutton for punishment. So, here’s my problem. On the day of my 30th wedding anniversary I’m booked to go fishing for salmon off the west coast of Vancouver Island with my son and a group of my friends. There’s going to be 12 guys on three boats trying to hook a big one. The conversation will be about fishing and guy stuff, not wedded bliss. I know I’m in the dog house, but I’m thinking perhaps there is a way to at least salvage a tie. I haven’t come up with a plan yet. Maybe I could try the advice one of my neighbors here gave me, who explained that any problem can be made to go away by whipping out your checkbook. I don’t know. Somehow I have the feeling this would not work here, given the circumstances.

Of course, the obvious solution would be to cancel the fishing adventure, but that would signify a total lack of subtlety on my part. Exit strategies used to be my strong point in an earlier life, but I seem to be stumped. I guess my mind is not as agile as it used to be. Help me out here. If you have any brilliant ideas, share them with me, otherwise the outlook for calm waters come August may be dim.