The Italian man walks up to the glass doors in front of the building, he unlocked them and calls to me. He’s inviting me in. With the lights out, you would never have known that this dark, empty building was a hotel, a resort hotel...just closed for the off season! Curiosity if nothing else drew me inside. Leading me through the lobby of this luxury hotel, the man told me to grab whatever I wanted from the bar. I grabbed some pretty bottles.
We went downstairs to a huge kitchen decorated mostly in functional stainless steel. Home-made sausages hung from the rafters and the man asks if I’m hungry. He pulled down some sausages, pulled out a huge jar of olives, and brought me to a table. We broke bread and ate and drank and talked and laughed. His name was Michael and the hotel was his mother’s. He told me that the sausages were made on his mothers ranch and the olives were grown there too! He told me that he was a student in Rome where he was studying law. Then, he asked me about myself and about America. We talked most of the night until we went upstairs and he threw me the keys to my own suite! I’ve never stayed in such a nice place before or since!
Michael and I woke-up about the same time and we ate breakfast. He was intrigued by our talk the night before and the idea of traveling across Italy. He paused, smiled broadly, and then he asked if we could travel together to Rome. “I’m a law student at the University there”; he told me: “My mother has me in this big apartment, and if you’d like, you could stay there with me.” I liked Michael, and the thought of traveling to Rome in a comfortable BMW seemed too good an offer to pass up. ‘Sure’; I said, shaking his hand: ‘Deal!’
We drove on a beautiful main road over-looking the deep blue sea. Then, Michael turned his shiny black car right, on a less traveled route. ‘He must know a short cut’; I thought. The rural road became a dirt trail and the car bumped and jumped through ruts and pot holes until we pulled in to a picturesque ranch, surrounded by ancient groves of twisted and knotted olive trees. I didn’t understand, I thought maybe he just wanted to say good-bye to his family before we headed north, to Roma.
‘What are you doing’; I eventually asked my friend. “Oh, we’ll leave the car here”; he told me: ‘I want to hitch-hike, like you!’ He wanted to share in the adventure, and although I had been very lucky up until this point, I had to wonder: ‘How many Italians are going to want to stop and give two brown men a ride to Rome?’
Soon enough, I had my answer. We were back on the shoulder of the autostrada, and the generous Italian spirit that took me across half of the Italian peninsula was now taking both my friend and I to Rome! The eternal city, the home to the Vatican, the home of Caesar and the glory of Imperial Rome. I was excited!
Michael’s apartment was huge, large even by American standards. With me touring the Forum, the Coliseum, the Vatican, and dozens of lesser sites...and Michael back in school. We saw little of each-other. Even at night, there were places to go and it was exciting to walk down an old street and see radical communists running to and fro, pasting-up their propaganda on whatever surface they could find. I loathed their cause, but admired their enthusiasm, and, truth be told, I lamented our lack of conviction and fervor in spreading an equally effective campaign for democracy.
One night though, my last night in Roma, Michael and I rounded opposing corners and came home at the same exact time. Two girls, about our age stood at the front door...pushing on a doorbell and looking frustrated.
Walking towards the girls at the front door, Michael looked at me and grinned, asking: "Jacqumo, you like?" I focused on the girls, one was very beautiful. She looked like a work of art at the Sistine Chapel. She could have been an angel freed from a block of perfect marble by the master Michaelangelo!
The other girl was plain, simple, unattractive. Unenthusiastically, I thought: 'I'll probably end-up with her.' Yet I owed Michael so much. He looked so eager. I smiled and said: 'I like.'
His lines must have been perfect. Either that or the girls were just tired of waiting for their other friend, but in a few minutes of quickly spoken (and therefore incomprehensible) Italian, we were all on our way up to Michael's apartment!
To my surprise, the angel who had escaped the marble block at the hands of Michaelangelo sat next to me. ‘My name is Gina’; she told me. 'Why would an American be so fascinated with Italy'; she wondered aloud. It reminded me of people who never discover anything beyond their neighborhoods back home. I tried to explain, to no avail.
Michael's tastes were obviously different from mine, or it may have been that Italian hospitality, again. But, as we spent the night talking, he really seemed happy with the plainer of the two. We had a great night of talking and my Italian seemed to be improving.
The conversation lasted late into the night, and finally...Gina asked me if I wanted to go to bed. I’d like to say that I was suave and debonair, I’d like to say that I was calm, cool, and composed. Yet I wasn’t. I froze for a minute, I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t even know if I understood what she was saying! I must have stuttered when I asked her what she said. ‘Do you want to go to bed’; she repeated matter-of-factly. ‘Do I want to go to bed’; I asked in disbelief. She shook her head yes.
I had to call my friend, Michael over. ‘What is it’; he asked. In a confessional whisper, I confided and told him that I didn’t want to insult Gina by misunderstanding her. ‘What did you ask him’; he just about shouted to her. Gina repeated herself, Michael smiled and he said: ‘She wants to go to bed, and she wants to know if you want to go to bed too?’ I don’t remember my exact words, but in about a fraction of a second, this angel and I were on our way to the bedroom.
She stripped down to her bra and panties. I stripped down to my tee shirt and briefs. We pulled the comforter off one of the beds, folded it, and ended-up in each-other’s arms, sharing an incredible embrace and an erotic kiss. We moved towards the bed, surely there could have been no more fitting a temple to Eros, the ancient Roman god of love. Then, Gina pulled away slightly...she looked up at me and said: ‘No, no, no, no...’ ‘No, no, no, no’; I asked sadly. ‘No, no, no, no’; she repeated with a knowing smile, she pointed at the other bed and told me: ‘You sleep there, I sleep here.’
‘No, no, no, no’; I muttered, sulking as we folded the comforter on my bed...an altar to sacrifice and denial! In a few minutes, her friend came into the room and she too stripped down to her underwear. Then, she hopped into bed with Gina. For one terrifyingly homophobic moment, I feared Michael might do the same, but he took the couch.
Gina and I held hands and talked and laughed throughout much of the night. Much to the chagrin of her tired friend. ‘When are you leaving Rome’; Gina asked. ‘Tomorrow’; I told her. ‘Where are you going’; she inquired. ‘Florence, Milan’; I guessed. Bolting-up in her bed, she repeated: ‘Milan?’ ‘Si, Milan’; I declared proudly. She almost cried and in all seriousness told me that even though she was a communist, that the communists in Milan were extremists who might kill somebody like me! She was certain they would kill me! She pleaded with me, she begged me not to go to Milan. She made me promise.
Then, she asked me if I would go with her to Bologna. She told me that she was a medical student at the University there. I agreed...we fell asleep holding hands, me in my bed, her in her bed, and yet it is one of the most romantic memories of my life.
By morning, Gina and her friend had to leave. “But, I’ll be back in two hours”; she said: “You wait?” I waited.
She came back, alone this time...and I said good-bye to my friend Michael. We walked down the street to where I thought we would catch a train to Bologna. ‘Do you have any lira’; she asked me. ‘No’; I told her: ‘But I can exchange some American money for lira at the train station.’ ‘No problem’; she quipped.
Gina took me to a bus stop in the middle of town. “Oh”; I thought: “We’re going to catch a bus.” “If she’s paying, I’ll surprise her and take care of something else later”; I promised myself.
At the bus stop, she walked up to a group of people and just declared: ‘We have no money!’ She cupped her hands and the people, so it seemed, couldn’t give her enough! We paid our fare and had some money left over. We rode on a very crowded bus to the outskirts of the city.
‘What are we going to do now’; I asked my self appointed guide. ‘We are going to hitch-hike’; she offered cheerfully. ‘Hitch-hike’; I asked. ‘Hitch-hike’; she repeated. Everyone I met seemed to think that this was a good idea. We walked about a block to the autostrada and the first truck to come our way nearly jack-knifed, it stopped so fast! When we got into the truck, a burly driver leered at Gina__she asked me to get in first and sit in the middle. I did, and we began our trip to Bologna.
“It’s nice that you can hitch-hike here”; I commented: “Back in the USA it’s illegal.” ‘It is illegal here too’; she advised me: ‘But the police would never bother an American.’ Painfully aware that I had been breaking the law during my whole vacation, I looked out the window as we drove through Florence (one of the cities I really wanted to see), as we passed the Gucci factory on our right, Gina fell asleep in my arms and I wondered where this relationship might lead...
The truck driver mentioned something, turns out he was going by the square in front of her apartment. Gina told me it would be ‘just across the street...’ And with that declaration, we sort-of blew into town with the wind. I don’t remember much right now, it was dark, there was a fountain, we crossed the street, and we were there. Right in front of her apartment building. She unlocked a door, we walked into a hall, and then we climbed what seemed like a million stairs!
Half way up this mountain path to Olympus, halfway up the pyramid to the sacred temple, half way up to her apartment...I started running out of breath! She laughed, she said I was funny, she didn’t know this soldier was really exhausted. Then, we came to the door, her door, the door to the apartment where she would fulfill my fantasies, where I would fulfill my destiny! She put her key in the lock and opened the door...
The apartment was a hive of activity, it was crowded with other students, Gina took me around and introduced this person and that. She told me their names, she told them my name and our interesting story. They gasped in disbelief that she hitch-hiked a ride on a truck. I couldn’t believe there were so many people.
Then, Gina took me to her room and closed the door. We were alone! I took her in my arms and we kissed. It was sensual, it was romantic. I moved slowly, and we moved towards the bed. We gingerly moved closer...then, she pulled back as she had done before and said the dreaded words: ‘No, no, no, no...’ ‘No, no, no, no’; I repeated as if I had never heard the words before. ‘No, no, no, no...’; she said with a sweet smile: ‘You sleep here, I sleep out there.’ She was pointing at the outer room, the living room. ‘No’; I blurted: ‘You can’t sleep out there, this is your house, I will sleep out there.’ Gina would have none of that and her Italian hospitality insisted that I sleep in the frilly bed in her small bed room.
Her roommates made sandals and argued politics. Gina made some tiny macaroni in a tomato sauce and squash. It was the best pasta dish I ever ate! Two of the roommates argued so fiercely, I was alarmed that they might get knives and kill each-other! But, the argument ended and the combatants hugged and laughed and drank some wine. The others kept gluing leather to leather and fashioning shoes.
A few days passed, Gina and I really talked, really got to know each-other...but, in an ironic blend of her being a good Catholic and a good communist (which could only happen in Italy), we never made love. Her friends became my friends. I even convinced them that capitalism wasn’t a bad thing (although they were still communists). Then, it was time for me to leave, time to go back to the army. The friends all cried, but no-one cried like Gina. She asked me why I had to go and I tried to explain. ‘They’d arrest me if I didn’t go back’; I told the mournful crowd. Gina’s closest friend had an idea. They were all going to be doctors and lawyers soon...they would hide me and support me, for my whole life! I was touched, but I had to go back. They cried, Gina cried, I cried. Part of me wanted to stay, but I had to go home.
I caught a ride quickly. Another truck stopped and I hopped-in. The driver was from Austria and he was bringing up a load of magnum bottles of champagne. He handed me a bottle and drank another himself! We spoke German and laughed our way through the border. We drove on a mountain road and he showed me the cities and towns below. We parted at a truck stop...and I got no more rides. I hiked and walked through woods and along roads, through towns and camped out. Finally, in one of the lands of my ancestors, I caught a train and headed back to Germany (another ancestral land) and my home in Mainz.
So, how do I top that story? Well, romantically...I can’t. Not while I was in Germany anyway. Although I did meet other interesting people and had some other great experiences. For example, with parties...nothing in the world is exactly like Fasching. This is a Mainzer Fest to the max. The season begins on the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month and goes on, building in intensity until Rosen Montag (Rose Monday) which is the last Monday before Lent.
It’s also called Carnival, much like Mardi Gras. Anyway, the whole town of Mainz parties like crazy! There are parades and festivals, parties and wild times!!! It originates from the old pagan traditions and on this one day, ANYTHING goes! Women take off their wedding rings and no-one is held accountable for enjoying themselves! It’s great!
In Germany, I went out like any other GI, but there were mainly two girls who I spent most of my time with. Daisy and Pia Maria. Of these, Pia was the one I spent most of my time with. I met her at my office. She spent a lot of time in church groups and played the guitar at our Masses. She had long, flowing blonde hair. Pia’s father was a Colonel in the Luftwaffe (the German Air Force).
A formal man, it was understood that before his daughter and I could go out...I had to spend some time with him. Usually that meant watching soccer and drinking warm beer and cognac. At first we didn’t talk much. He would sit there, silently...then, he’d start tapping the ear piece of his eye glasses against his glass eye! It was nerve racking! And then, when I found out how he lost his eye, I didn’t feel any better. He lost his eye when he was captured as an American P.O.W. during the war (World War II).
Eventually though, he warmed to me. We’d talk and he explained that it was an accident. He told me how he felt lucky, because he was captured at the end of the war, when the German people had to undergo a lot of hardships and they were starving. ‘At least the Americans fed me’; he told me: ‘And my job wasn’t bad either.’ He was talking about how the German P.O.W.’s (at least in this case) were sent to work on farms. As an officer, all he had to do was ride on a tractor. The enlisted men had to follow and pick-up potatoes.
I was very fortunate to have had a friend working in the Military Intelligence office. One night, I got a call, it was him, a SFC Dinger. He asked if I’d like to go on a trip (as if anyone had to ask). He explained to me that the service was sending some of our people on a kind of exchange with the Russians, to East Germany. I think my orders were cut that night!
We took the troop train through East Germany to West Berlin. It was foggy out and the soldiers guarding our train when we made our first stop (a bureaucratic exchange of papers at the border) look just like something out of a novel or film. We crossed-over and headed towards our destination without any problems. We arrived in West Berlin at some ungodly hour and then were shuttled to our quarters in Hitler’s Finance Minister’s house on Lake Wansee.
From the outside, the house looked grand, but inside, with army furniture...it was a little disappointing to say the least. There were a group of maybe twenty of us. We grabbed out rooms and bunks and then the army took us to a dining hall of the Berlin Brigade for breakfast.
West Berlin was so cosmopolitan, so full of life, we had a lot of fun. The only down side was that everything was so expensive! But, that was mainly because everything had to be imported from the west, across miles and miles of communist dominated land.
There were nightclubs and restaurants. The people seemed to appreciate the American presence. It was almost like Fasching everyday.
Then, the day came for us to cross into East Berlin. We went on an army bus, but we knew that if anything went wrong...even the U.S. Army would have a hard time protecting us. The difference between east and west was never so clear to me as we crossed over. From colorful free life, we crossed an invisible wall into a gray, 1950’s Twilight Zone kind of world. There was still rubble from buildings that had collapsed in the war (World War II). People walked around in the depressive pace of people without hope. There was little traffic, one car wash in the whole city, and emptiness.
It’s hard to explain the differences and how it was something you could taste and feel. Maybe only someone who had been there would know what I mean. On a commercial level, there was a lot to be said as well. They took us to their showplace, a store where they said: ‘Everyone from the East, when they come to East Berlin, makes sure to stop here and shop.’ The building was impressive, three stories tall and modern looking. But that was it, it was like a run-down, understocked K-Mart to say the best. And really, I have to apologize to the K-Mart people for saying that. The stock they did carry would have been out of date, again, in the 1950’s let alone the 1970’s. It was sad.
But, sadder yet was the look on people's faces as they watched us walk from here to there with diplomatic protections none of them would ever know. We were told by a Russian officer that if we had any problems, we were to call for a Russian officer...that the East German authorities had no authority over us. Since I returned, I talked with another GI who went on the same kind of trip. He got into trouble and yelled out. A Russian officer ran up and beat the German cop to a pulp, then he told the GI to go. Fortunately, nothing so dramatic happened on my stay. I also went to a museum in East Berlin where they had displays of American War Crimes since the second world war. It was illuminating to see how propaganda really worked from that side of the iron curtain!
But wait! Besides the trips all over West Germany...to Koln, Munich, the Nord See, there was one last trip I took to Paris! The city of lights!!!
I hate to travel by way of tour bus and well planned schedules (obviously). I think you have more fun by just going and doing. At least that has been my experience so far. So it was that before I left Europe in 1979 I took a train from the Mainz Hauptbahnhof (the Mainz train station) to the what would loosely be translated as the east train station in Paris, France.
Meeting a beautiful, young, blonde French girl on the train, I thought my trip was off to a great start. She was from Brittany along the coast. We had a lunch together, mostly what she had brought with her for the trip. Some cheese, some meat, some bread, and I bought our drinks. She taught me to speak some French, ‘how much...’ ‘where is...’; useful phrases.
She laughed at my pronunciation, and kept saying: ‘No, like this...’ I’d repeat the phrase and we’d both laugh some more.
As we neared the city and the ‘gar de la est’ she grew serious. ‘The people in Paris’; she warned: ‘Are not like all the French.’ I knew that. ‘Why don’t you come with me to Brittany instead’; she invited: ‘You can stay with me and my family.’ It was a great offer, she was a beautiful girl, I wanted to say yes. Then again, how many times would I get to Europe? I don’t know why, but I always felt that if you went to Europe, there were some places you had to go...Paris being one of them. I couldn’t believe myself as I told her that. She smiled and said she understood. She was a very nice person.
It was August, 1979 and it was hot! I took my bag and walked out of the train station into the hustle and bustle that is Paris, and New York, and Los Angeles, and every big city on earth. But, this was Paris! And so, looking around like a typical American tourist...
Now, bearing in mind that I just came from Germany where women would go out on Saturday mornings and scrub the sidewalks...Paris seemed filthy! Bearing in mind that I had no idea where I was going, Paris seemed to be a ghetto slum! And I walked and I walked and I walked for hours, trying to find a ‘decent neighborhood.’
I walked past butchershops with raw meat hanging outside, it seemed to be rotting in the hot summer air. I was beginning to regret not having gone with the cute French girl on the train. Then, I saw a black man walking along. Being an American, I naturally assumed that a black man was another American, or at the very least that he would speak English. I walked up and said: ‘Say, pardon me bro., but do you know where there’s a decent neighborhood around here?’ He looked at me strangely and uttered: ‘Pardon Monsieur, blah, blah, blah...blah, blah, blah, blah.’ I felt stupid, I was mortified, and I was beginning to wonder about my ideas on traveling. He pointed in a direction, and I walked that way with no idea of where I was going.
Finally, I found a hotel that looked all right. It was clean outside and modern, and it didn’t look like it would cost a fortune (like the hotels on the Champs Elysees). I stepped inside. The clerk was an old, stereotypical Frenchman. I walked up to him and started to explain that I wanted a room...an hour later I was still explaining that I wanted a room! Somehow, he tired of playing with me or he understood...he gave me the key to a room and I went upstairs.
To my horror, as I opened the door, the room was filthy. The bed wasn’t made, the scent of a woman hung in the air, I could only imagine that some hooker had just finished plying her trade in the room! I ran back down the stairs, I was the ugly American...yelling, screaming, motioning with my hands the making of a bed! The clerk and a friend looked at me, bemused. ‘Moment monsieur, moment...’ I went back to the room and waited, as if I were at the Hilton or Holiday Inn. No-one came. I fumed, I was mad, I ran back down the stairs ranting and raving, and the chorus of: ‘...moment monsieur, moment’ answered my cry for a clean room.
‘Better be a damned moment’; I muttered angrily as I went out to get something to eat. I remembered something the girl had told me: ‘Act like a German, they like the tourists because they spend so much money.’ In an area called something like ‘Le Republic,’ I found some restaurants around beautiful marble fountains. I went inside one and ordered a pepper steak, in German! And, I was treated very well...the food was terrific!
Walking back to the hotel, I picked-up some postcards and held my breath...I opened the door, and as the French would say: ‘Joila!’ The room was spotless, the bed was made, the air was clean. It didn’t matter much, I wrote on the post cards: ‘Dear Mom and Dad, I came, I saw, and I’ll leave Paris tomorrow!’ Then I went to sleep.
The next morning, I met a couple at breakfast. The hotels in Europe routinely serve breakfast in the mornings. They were from Germany and we spoke in German. They asked me how I liked Paris, and I said...I didn’t. They seemed disappointed and asked why. I told them about my adventure the day before and we laughed, then they said that Paris was so much more than that. They asked how long I was going to stay. I answered that I was planning to leave that afternoon. ‘No’; they said: ‘Stay just one more day, and let us take you to someplace special...the Louvre!’ I agreed. They knew the city well and we took the Paris Metro (train)...from the moment we saw the ancient museum, I was in awe!
We spent a good part of the day together, they took me to lunch at the museum cafeteria...and then we got separated, but I was in heaven. I could have stayed there a week and not seen everything or studied all the Masters. It was everything you ever heard and more.
During the next few days, I fell in with a couple from Australia. The husband was a doctor I think. They took me to the Eiffel Tower and the Marine Museum across the street. They had been here before too, and they had a favorite restaurant where we went for a fine lunch. Then, I met an Argentinean Jew...he took me to a place called Pigalle. It was the artist district, the red light district, and the night club district all rolled into one. On my last night, I found myself surrounded by a group of Catholic High School girls from New York. Their escort was a buyer for Macy’s and she knew Paris like the back of her hand. We went to Notre Dame and other traditional sites, we had dinner at a Wimpies Burgers (a place I hadn’t seen in America for years!). I was saddened to leave Paris, but grateful for my experiences!
Ofcourse, not every day was a vacation or holiday. As with every G.I. stationed in West Germany in the 1970’s, my job in its broadest sense was to defend Western Europe from the Warsaw Pact (i.e., communists)!
My unit, the 1st Brigade of the 8th Infantry Division (Pathfinders) was supposed to secure and defend the ‘Fulda Gap.’ If that war ever came, the way our vehicles broke down, we would never have made it. There were rumors that the Soviet Special Forces would parachute in with a well coordinated airborne attack because of a critical defense plant near our barracks and the strategic value of Mainz. There were rumors of a hideous plan for something called controlled cannibalism, because our supply lines would be cut! There were even rumors that all the forces on our side of the Rhine River were to be sacrificed, just to delay Soviet advances...
These rumors, if nothing else, kept our training realistic. There were alerts almost every two weeks. There were field problems in places like Baumholder, Wildflicken, and Grafenwehr. We trained with British and German forces from the NATO alliance. We even trained with the French military.
One of my favorite training exercises was when only one other soldier from my unit and I were attached to the nearby Pioneer Regiment of the Deutches Bundeswehr. We were the only Americans and I was the only one who spoke German. My partner was from Puerto Rico and sometimes we had trouble understanding each-other. Anyway, it was a little plusher than our army’s version of a field problem. For one thing, we rode to our assignment in a nice, tourist type Mercedes Benz bus. Then, in a place called Schwartzenborn by my new comrades, it turned out that the ‘field’ had barracks...modern, nice, comfortable barracks with nice, soft beds! For an American G.I. who hated field duty, this was heaven.
'...And then what happened Jim?'
I WANT TO KNOW MORE...(next page)
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Created: August 26, 2000r.
Last Updated: April 1, 2001r.