One of the benefits of military life, for my family, was the opportunity to travel and spend some time in Europe. We used to load up the wagon with all the littlies and the dog and go find something neat. A lot of the time we just headed out without a real destination, just looking for something. One Saturday we traveled to Trier, one of the oldest towns in Germany. There are the ruins of a Roman aquaduct, Roman Baths, and roads built by Romans...or actually slaves of the Romans. It is a neat town and full of picturesque buildings and ruins and parks and stuff. Some funny things happened in connection with Trier that make it a "dear-to-me" place.
First, I was trying to get a picture of all the kids and the dog with the ruins of the aquaduct in the background. Every time I thought I was set to fire, I would look through the lens and see the boys looking off to the right, not at me. I turned to see what was catching their eye and discovered that the park behind me was designated as a "nature" sunbathing park. The two young ladies closest to us were enjoying a lunch break...topless. I gave up on that shot.
Strolling through the town we came to a musical instrument shop and went in to look around. The shop keeper was an older gentleman, he was interested in so large a family...we had five kids...and we began to work on a conversation. I say work on it because he had no English and my German is pretty good but requires concentration to make sense. The talk came around to his Staffordshire...sort of a mini-pit bull. He said he was a big fan of German Shepherds but couldn't afford to buy or keep one. I told him we had bought a German Shepherd many years before. We agreed on the merits of Shepherds and then he told us a story that happened right after WWII in Trier. Seems a US Army captain came looking for a high class German Shepherd that was in a kennel in Trier. This dog was world reknown before the war...a champion of many dog shows. The Captain's familly were Shepherd breeders in the States and they wanted to see if they could get that dog. The German owner, as all Germans in the aftermath of the war, was strapped for cash and as bad as he hated to let him go, he began to negotiate a price. After days of offers and counter offers, they settled on 40,000 Marks. I have no idea how much that was in US dollars at the time, but it was an impressive amount to this little shop keeper. After weeks of struggle with red tape, all the permits and certificates and breeder papers and health inspections and everything else were finally in order and the captain arranged shipping for his champion...who then died in transit...Sad story...but the part of the story that sticks with me still is the little German music shop keeper ending the story by cupping his right hand and saying, "Fierzig Tausand Marks"...then making a spitting sound into his cupped hand.
On Monday, back at work, I stepped into my Ammo NCO's office to see about something and found him working on an ornate photo album. He had carefully labeled each picture with descriptions of where the picture was taken and when...Heidelberg Castle, April 1985...Nurnberg Markthalle, June 1986...and so on. As I looked over his shoulder I recognized a lot of the photos, but they were all things we had seen at Trier on Saturday. Every photo on that page was from Trier no matter what the labels said. I mentioned that to the Ammo NCO...he looked up at me with a smug expression and said, "So? It's for my folks...they ain't gonna know!!"
I love sharing my memories of Trier...or maybe it was Mannheim...you ain't gonna know....