26 Jun, 1987 … a stranger in a strange land
Current Mood:
nostalgic
Scott becomes an international man of mystery.
Or maybe I just arrived at Hahn AB. which would have looked something like this:
except they didn’t fly me into Hahn. Flew into Frankfurt. Something about Hahn being a military base kept most of the commuter flights away.
Pretty sure it was, like today, a Friday. Took an impressive bus ride from Frankfurt to Hahn; I remember the coach bus making impossible turns through small towns along the way – German countryside into a lengthening day. Got to Hahn late in the day – maybe 4:30’sh, no one was around much, got a room assignment (Matt I think was his name – he’d go on to have a Kawi EX500 and some kick ass leathers – wonder how he like riding at the Ring…). Started my ‘no one knows me, I know no one’ with gusto, stayed up as late as I could (that was the advice), I even remember a drive by Metro Tango – lights all yellowy/orange through the trees – little did I know I’d spend the next three years having a hell of a life.
I had spent the month of June back in Upstate after a somewhat memorable time in West Texas; for example, driving towards Midland-Odessa in the middle of the night in an ex-taxi station wagon; stopping alongside rt. 158 (?) and just looking up … with the lights out, there were stars all around us – a complete dome of stars from horizon to horizon, where ever we turned.
Lots of fun for being in the middle of nowhere – good training for being sent to Hahn, now that I think about it. At Goodfellow I enjoyed a good bit of mischief, some snobbery at a comic book called ‘Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtles’ that I had never heard of (those crazy indie comic artists), Kelvin O’Ree was the comics fan. There was lacrosse equipment ordered from some place in Rome – Matt would recall their name – I think it was a tape and bandage store, so very odd to be ordering lax sticks and gloves from them. Buying a motorcycle and running it for exactly one day before I left it at a dealership – something about the master link being flung off ever few miles made me … concerned.
Ah, youthful foolishness. For my visit home, I vaguely recall being pissed that no one wanted to lend me a car when I had my month off in Upstate, what with my license being suspended at the time. I wonder if that was the summer of the party at Pat’s in Cortland – Matt?? I came back and had so many good times at my friends’ colleges, they kinda merge together.
But then shipping out to Germany. Arriving at Frankfurt Int’l, the Polizei with the Uzis at the top of the escalator from baggage claim, the McDonald’s that offered Heineken with your Big Mac.
Went looking for pics – oh yes, lots and lots of pics of Hahn, including some of the post office boxes we had – didn’t have a pic of old Box 6776, c’est la vie.
Wonder if I’ll recall (again) my first day at ‘work’ come Monday – basic stories of making immediate friends with Andy and Charlotte, of trying to pick up a phone and having no idea how to operate it, meeting the people who would be my life for a while. Perhaps, if I’m nostalgic, I’ll share.
Ciao,
~ S ~ || dona nobis pacem ||