On a More Serious Note

A life changing experience in Nürnberg

 I took a little break from writing and today I am feeling a little reflective.  While I listen to the Allman Brothers Band seminal 1972 Eat a Peach album I want to tell you about an experience that happened to me when I was a young, impressionable soldier in Nürnberg that made a lasting and profound effect on me and how I viewed the world, life and the human condition.  As we grow up, we have many experiences that influence shape us and prepare us for what's to come.  Some of these things are wonderful and some of them aren't but we learn something from every experience in our lives, and if we take these lessons to heart, they makes us stronger, better people.

After my adventures upon landing in Germany and finally arriving at the hospital in Nürnberg, I started to settle in, do my job, explore the city and make friends with my fellow soldiers at the hospital.  The barracks for male single soldiers were in a wing of the main hospital building.  The women soldiers, known at the time as WACs (Women's Army Corps) had their own barracks in a separate building.  In the wing of the hospital that our rooms were in, on the first floor was a room that every Army barracks had, called the Day Room.  It was a kind of lounge, usually with some comfortable chairs, a pool table, some tables for board games and card playing and if you were lucky, a television.  It was a place to hang out and relax with your buddies, and there were usually a few people in the room doing just that.  

So one day, shortly after my arrival, I went down to the Dayroom from my 2nd floor room to see what was there.  A couple of guys were shooting pool and I asked if I could play the winner.  I wasn't a very good pool player, but I thought it would be a good way to meet some people that I would be living and working with for the next year and a half.  In a few minutes the guys finished their game, and a short, stocky guy with a friendly smile would be my opponent in the pool game.  I introduced myself and the guy told me his name was Jimmy, as he shook my hand.  As we banged the pool balls around the table, we talked, and learned the basic things about each other.  When you are in the Army, you move around a lot and meet new people regularly, so it's just a natural ritual to exchange information with new people all of the time.  Jimmy it turns out was 29 years old, 10 years older than I was.  He was an Italian American from Brooklyn New York.  I told him about my Italian mother and immediately we shared a common bond.  Jimmy was a medic and he worked in the dermatology clinic at the hospital.  After we finished our game, I lost of course, we sat down to talk some more.  I immediately took a liking to Jimmy, he was friendly, cheerful and smiled a lot.  He told me he had been in Vietnam, a draftee when he was younger, and he was an airborne infantry soldier and he had been in combat in the war.  He said after his discharge he had floated around working in various jobs back in Brooklyn, and after a time he decided to go back in the Army.  He had been in Nürnberg for more than a year when I met him and he had been back in the Army for a few years by this time.  His rank was Specialist 5.  The same pay as a sergeant E-5, but without the responsibilities or authority as an NCO .  I told him some things about my life, and after a time we parted ways and went off to do other things. I had made my first friend in my new home.  I felt good about my new friend, an older guy with some life experience, and we had hit it off right away.  Because of the nature of the Army, the need for teamwork in pressure filled situations, and the constant moving from place to place, you tend to make fast friend quickly because you share a unique, common experience.  The only environment that even comes close in the civilian world is working on the police force, fire department or in EMS.  An often high stress, fast paced, stressful environment. These kind of jobs cause the workers to form tight relationships, and you depend on and trust each other completely.

As time went on, I would frequently hang out with Jimmy.  He took me into downtown Nürnberg for my first time and showed me how to use the streetcar to get there and we saw some of the sights in the beautiful walled Altstadt, or 'Old City', full of medieval buildings and a large, imposing castle on the northwest corner of the high wall that protected the city centuries ago.  After a time, Jimmy found a little basement apartment right around the corner from the hospital and he moved out of the barracks.  We were allowed to live 'off post', an Army term for living 'on the economy' as long as we maintained a room in the barracks, and appeared for inspections and such.  This was a luxury that isn't allowed on too many Army bases.  Because it was unofficial and only married enlisted people received money to pay rent, the soldier had to pay rent out of their pocket.  Jimmy's apartment was quite small.  It was in the basement of a 2 story building that had about 8 regular apartments on the normal floors.  You went in the front door of the building, went down ta flight of stairs and through a door into a short hallway.  In the hallway were 2 doors on the left and one on the right.  The first door on the left was a very small narrow kitchen with a stove, refrigerator, a sink and a couple of cabinets.  There was just enough room left for a small table and 2 chairs.  The 2nd door on the left led into a small room with a single bed, a 2 door wardrobe called a schrank in German, a comfortable chair, a set of bookshelves, and a small oil fired heater in a corner. A sort of living room/bedroom There was a good sized window in the opposite wall, and there were small steps in the outside window well that led to the front yard of the building.  The bathroom was down another hall in the basement. The opposite door from Jimmy's rooms were for another larger apartment which shared the common bathroom.  At the end of the hall where the bathroom was, there was a door that opened on to a staircase into the back yard of the building.  It was a small cozy apartment, for one person, and the freedom and peace and quiet out of the barracks, and the proximity to the hospital made the little apartment very attractive in spite of it's small size.  The monthly rent was quite low.  In time it would become my living quarters, but we'll get there in a bit

In time my friendship with Jimmy grew, he was an intelligent guy, he had a lot of stories about his life and he had a great sense of humor.  However he never said much about his experience in Vietnam.  Because he was 10 years older than me, and I was a young guy far from home, Jimmy became a kind of mentor and role model to me.  He introduced me to his friends, other medics in the hospital and all older than me.  There was John, he worked in the OR as a tech. Joe worked in the urology clinic and we called him pee pee Joe for obvious reasons.  Everett was a big burly guy from Arizona, a respiratory tech, he would become another good friend of mine.  Everett was a little younger than Jimmy.  We would hang out as a group or with 1 or 2 others.  We went into town often, hung out at Jimmy's little apartment and other activities.  Everett had an apartment about a half mile from the hospital behind a nice little gasthaus that was run by a Czech guy named Ulrich that had escaped from the communist country and made a new life in Germany. We would often go to the gasthaus to have a beer or two and have some well prepared, basic German and Czech food.  

Now I need to explain something about the environment of the Army in Germany at the time.  The draft ended in 1973 and the Army had become all volunteer.  The Vietnam war was unpopular as was military service at the time.  Because of the need to fill the ranks, the Army would take almost anybody that wanted to enlist.  A high school diploma wasn't needed, the minimum IQ score to join the military was quite low, and at the time some judges offered lawbreakers the choice of going to prison or joining the military.  In other words, although there were many good soldiers, they weren't attracting the best and the brightest at the time.  There were lingering problems from the Civil Rights battles of the 1960s, and often there were clashes between black and white soldiers.  Drug use was rampant, everything from smoking marijuana and hashish to users of intravenous methamphetamine and heroin.  A strong sedative and hypnotic drug, methaqualone, marketed under the name Quaalude was very popular.  Inn Germany it was sold on the street and known as Mandrax otr 'Mandrakes'. There were many soldiers that either casually used drugs or were addicted to the stronger dugs.  Hepatitis B, a viral infection of the liver which can be transmitted by sharing needles used to inject drugs was a big problem in the military at the time.  It was a wild and crazy time to be in the Army.  The problems were particularly prevalent in the combat units in Germany.  Their obvious mission was to protect Western Europe from a Soviet invasion so they trained a lot but they also had a lot of down time to get in all kinds of trouble.  Because we had a real world 24/7 mission at the hospital we were quite busy and didn't have as much trouble as some units, but we also had a lot of young soldiers that liked to have some fun when they weren't working, and they also needed some stress relief from a difficult job.  My friends and I were no exception.  After a couple of months, my 2 baker classmates and I were pulled out of the bake shop and we became cooks.   They put some more senior cooks in the bake shop to replace us and enjoy the easier schedule.  We had an exhausting schedule.  We had 2 shifts and worked 12 days in a row and then had every other weekend off.  On the weekend we worked we put in 14-15 hour days and worked about 120-130 hours in our 12 day workweek. 

Some of my little group weren't into using any drugs.  I had other friends that used many dugs, one friend of mine was a pretty heavy heroin user.  The most popular substance with the casual drug users was hashish.   I knew far more people that smoked hash then the ones that didn't.  It was easy to get and came in several varieties.  I had smoked an occasional joint before I joined the Army, it was the 1960s and 1970s after all.  I think I was around 16 years old the first time I tried 'pot' as it was called back then.  I liked to get high on occasion but I also wasn't stupid and I stayed away from hard drugs.  When I first came to Germany I wasn't interested in smoking hash, it was much stronger than pot at the time.  But after a few months, I decided when in Rome, do as the Romans, and I started to smoke hash.  We would smoke in the barracks, we would smoke in parks, and we would smoke it in people's apartments off post.  It was just a normal thing.  We would have occasional 'Health and Welfare' inspections in the barracks but it wasn't hard to hide whatever drugs you might have had.  Occasionally somebody would get caught with something, but if it wasn't heroin or a large amount of hash, the punishment was light.  Jimmy liked to smoke hash and he and I and other friends would sit in his little room and listen to music, talk and smoke.  It was a good time!   I had some other friends, and as a group we would go to an apartment one of them had, on a Friday night after work.  We would all have a '20 cent piece' a 10 gram piece of hash that cost $20.00 at the time hence the name.  I would bring bread, lunch meat, and cheese from the hospital kitchen, my friend Rick would buy a bottle of an over the counter stimulant, and there was always a case or 2 of bottles of good beer.  We would sit around the kitchen table, put our chunks of hash in front of us, Rick was in charge of the liquid speed.  We would all have a beer and somebody would pull out the board and game pieces for the game 'Risk', the 'Parker Brothers game of world conquest.'  The board was a map of the world and the object was to roll the dice, move your armies and the winner was the person who had defeated everybody else's armies and took over the world.  It was a fun game involving strategy, making and breaking alliances and generally having fun.  We would start around 7 or 8 p.m. and play successive games until 6 or 7 a.m.  The entire time we would smoke cigarettes and pass around the hash pipe or bong, eat baloney and cheese sandwiches washed down with beer as Rick would judiciously add drops of the liquid speed to our beer glasses.  In the meantime there were non stop records playing from Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Cream and all of the great rock music from that era. It was a great time.  Sometimes I had to work on Saturday and I needed to be there at 5 a.m.  I had worked a ten hour shit on Friday prior to going to the party, I would be smoking hash and drinking speed laced beer all night and then get up from the table at around 4:30 a.m., go change my clothes and work a 14 hour shift. When I got off of work I would go to my room in the barracks and crash after working a long day, partying all night and working an even longer day with no sleep in between.  Oh too be young and dumb again!  

When I wasn't engaged in the all night Risk parties, I would go to Jimmy's place for a more sedate experience.  Just Jimmy and I, we would talk about life and other things, get mellow with some black hash (my favorite!) and have some beer and just chill out.  We would go to jimmy's little kitchen and cook something to eat at the little table there.  Jimmy had a great collection of record albums and we would listen to music.  Sometimes I hear a classic rock song nowadays and in an instant I am transported back to Jimmy's little living room sitting in the chair and Jimmy stretched out on the bed, stoned out of our minds, and enjoying life. Jimmy also had used LSD or 'acid' many times in his life.  He enjoyed the intense experience.  He asked me several times if I wanted to try it and eventually after a lot of thought, I decided I would.  Jimmy gave me some insight as to what I might experience, and said it was good to have a guide who had experience with acid to help on the 1st trip.  So one evening, Jimmy had some tiny black micro dot acid, and we each washed down a miniscule tablet with some beer.  It takes some time for the acid to work it's magic.  We sat there talking for a while as I patiently waited for the acid take effect.  After about an hour I started to feel something and about an hour later I was having a full blown acid trip. I've done a lot of things in my life, dabbled in a number of drugs, and I have to say there is nothing quite like an acid trip.  Your entire reality is completely topsy turvy, your mind goes in strange places and for a visual thinker like me, you see some incredible things.  For example,  the wood grain on Jimmy's little schrank became magnified and looked like rivers flowing down the surface of the wood.  Yeah, things like that.  Your thought are going a mile a minute and time dilates so minute can feel like an hour.  This is not a sport for amateurs.  Everything was going fine that night, I was hanging on for the ride and Jimmy was my stabilizing influence.  Then some people we knew, unexpectedly came over, 2 or 3 of them.  We all smoked some hash together and drank some beers.  In retrospect, smoking hash and drinking alcohol while on my 1st acid trip probably wasn't the best decision I've ever made.  At some point I found myself on the floor huddled in a corner and getting a bit paranoid.  I felt that the others were staring at me and talking about me.  I felt the need to get out of the crowded room and get some air.  So I asked Jimmy for his keys so I could get back in the building and went upstairs and out to the street, taking deep breaths of the clean night air.  I started to walk down the little quiet street.  I knew the street well, a few months earlier, I had shared an apartment further down the street for a couple of months with a coworker that was waiting for his wife to join him in Germany.  The street was only a couple of hundred yards from the hospital.  After walking about 20 yards, suddenly I had no idea where I was.  With my heart pounding, I quickly turned around, recognized Jimmy' building and ran back as fast as I could, unlocked the front door with a trembling hand, and ran down the stairs and into Jimmy's living room.  I went back to my corner and huddled there in a fetal position and tried to be invisible.  After a short time the other people left and Jimmy noticed my obvious distress.  He calmly offered me a big glass 1 liter beer mug full of water and said that I should have some.  My spinning brain told me that Jimmy wanted to help me.  I took the water and it was amazing.  As I swallowed the water I was back in the real world.  The minute it had gone down my throat I was back in wonderland.  But I started to feel better.  Then Jimmy started telling me about green monsters.  He said that everyone is afraid of green monsters and the worse thing to do is to try to fight them or run away from them.  He told me the best thing to do when a green monster knocked on the door to your brain, was to open the door, say hello and invite them in. Tell them to take a seat and talk to them and make friends with them.  In my drug addled brain I took this to mean that I should just relax and everything would be fine.  So I let the green monster in for a nice chat, and I slowly calmed down and just enjoyed the trip.  By now we were about 5 or 6 hours into the trip and it had felt like an eternity.  We had hit the peak and now we were slowly coming down.  We went to the kitchen and made some food.  we talked for a few more hours and at some point near dawn, I started to feel somewhat normal, and completely exhausted.  It was an incredible experience, wonderful, crazy, enlightening and terribly frightening all mixed into an experience that I will never forget.  When you ride a horse for the first time, and you get thrown off, you have to dust yourself off and get back on the horse or you will never ride one again.  You have to overcome the fear.  So I tripped again a few more times, and I knew what to expect and had great trips.  I even went to a movie theater in town and watched the film Tommy, starring the rock band The Who that had recorded the world's first rock opera that was then made into an amazing film.  I had seen the film after it's release and seeing on acid took it to a whole new level.  Especially Tina Turner's amazing performance as the Acid Queen'!  

If you think this experience was the point of this long story, it isn't.  I needed to lay the necessary background to give some context for the events that followed.  But now I need a short break.  I think I might have induced a little flashback relating the story of my first acid trip and some of the other crazy things I did back then.  

Part 2

After a few months I had settled into a routine.  Lots of work, lots of parties, some sightseeing and travelling to some other cities in Germany and other countries in Europe, either on a weekend trip or occasionally taking some leave for a longer trip, and more work.  By now I had made many friends that worked in all different parts of the hospital.  I made a good friend, Woody, who was a licensed practical nurse (LPN), an enlisted job.  He worked on one of the wards.  I knew a female soldier, Patty that worked as an x-ray tech.  Another good friend and eventual neighbor of mine was a mortuary tech, Scotty, I have some stories about that for another time.  There were many other wonderful people.  In short I had friends all over the hospital.  In the Army, it's good to have a friend that works in the mess hall!  I was interested and fascinated by the workings of the hospital.  Sometimes in my off duty hours I would go to where my friends worked and hang out and learn things.  I watched my friend Everett run emergency arterial blood gas tests, a complicated procedure in those days that required drawing a blood sample from a major artery, usually in the wrist and then taking the sample on ice to the lab in his office and calibrating a machine and working out math on a slide rule to get the critical result! Nowadays it's a simple procedure that involves a tiny amount of blood from a small prick on the ear lobe that can be processed in a modern machine in a couple of minutes.  One time I helped my friend up in the x-ray department.  She had to hold a little baby still and she showed me which button to push to take the x-ray when she gave me the word.  Occasionally I would help carry a litter off off of a Medevac helicopter that would land on the helipad on the large lawn in front of the hospital, with an injured soldier.  Now and then I would help load an aluminum transfer case holding the body of a deceased soldier into a van for transport to Frankfurt, to be flown back to the US.  It was all interesting and started my interest in the medical business which influenced my job decision when I went back in the Army 12 years after my first enlistment.  As a result I eventually became a certified Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and worked in medical clinics, emergency rooms and a couple of trauma centers and on an ambulance, in addition to my primary job in the mental health clinic.  In the 19 months I spent in Nürnberg, I crammed in a few years worth of experiences, good and bad.

Jimmy and I would often meet at his place or go downtown and other activities.  Of course we smoked hash often and I tripped with him a few more times.  I worked hard, played hard and got in a little trouble here and there.  I didn't get along with some of my shift leaders and others in the kitchen, I didn't like authority figures telling me what to do and occasionally I could get a little mouthy.  I had to be escorted to the barber shop on the floor above the mess hall on more than one occasion.  We can talk about all of that another time.  

After I had been at the hospital for almost a year,  Jimmy's behavior started to change.  He was using more drugs and he wasn't his usual cheerful self.  One night we were sitting at his place and he started to talk about Vietnam, the first time he ever said more than a passing mention about the experience.  He described a fight with Viet Cong soldiers attacking the firebase where he was.  He became very agitated and emotional as he described a brutal firefight which culminated with him killing a young enemy soldier at close quarters.  He described the incident in detail, it was fascinating and chilling at the same time.  He ended the story, sobbing uncontrollably.  I was now 20 years old, and here was my mentor, my older friend, my rock breaking down in front of me.  It was a something I had never experienced before and it shook me up seeing Jimmy like that.  

This was in the 1970s and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) hadn't been identified yet.  When I went back in the Army years later I worked in mental health.  We spent time learning about combat stress which would be a large part of our job if we went to war.  In my 5 months of training we learned about various psychological disorders and about human behavior among many other things, including PTSD.  But back then I knew very little about these things.  As the days went on, Jimmy's behavior became more erratic.  Jimmy liked to play the drums  and he didn't have a drum kit so often when we listened to music, he would beat a tambourine in time to the music.  Now he was saying he wanted to sell an expensive 35 mm camera that he had for just a little bit of money, and buy a drum kit so he could practice the drums.  He spoke of some other unrealistic fantasies as well.  I was young, concerned and frightened by Jimmy's ever increasing  strange behavior.  A short time later, pee pee Joe saw me and said Jimmy hadn't reported to work for a couple of days so he went to Jimmy's place to see what was up.  He said when he went in to Jimmy's living room, Jimmy had punched a hole in the schrank door, circled the hole with a brown crayon and had scrawled the word 'feces' next to the hole.  Joe said that  Jimmy hadn't shaved or showered for some time and appeared to be confused and disoriented.  He convinced Jimmy to come to the hospital with him.  Jimmy was examined in the ER and was admitted to the psychiatric ward on the 4th floor of the hospital.  The preliminary diagnosis was schizophrenia, a severe mental disorder.  In retrospect, Jimmy's schizophrenia probably stimulated his PTSD from his experience in Vietnam  Of course I was devastated by the news.  As soon as I able I wanted to see my good friend Jimmy.     

The next day I went to the 4th floor.  Jimmy was in a 2 man room, obviously on medication and lying in bed.  He recognized me and we chatted briefly.  He made sense at times and other things he said were incomprehensible babble. One of the nurses on the ward told me he was being given Thorazine, an anti psychotic drug commonly used at the time, that had many bad side effects.  It was known as a 'chemical straight jacket' and it basically turned the person into zombie.  While it controlled potentially dangerous behaviors, a person taking Thorazine speaks slowly, they show no emotion and they have a flat affect.  The drug causes the person to walk with a slow, shuffling gait, much like the movie zombies, known as the Thorazine shuffle.  While this person looked like the Jimmy I knew, I couldn't see any of his old personality.  I wondered where Jimmy had gone.  Needless to say, I was very upset and hated to see my good friend this way.  I went to visit him as often as I could.  One day I went into his room and he brightened up when he saw me.  Then he started to giggle and told name he had been bad.  I asked what happened and he told me another friend had brought him a few grams of hash, and he had eaten it.  Here was my friend drugged up on Thorazine and now on hash as well. He continued to giggle.  At least he appeared to be happy.  A couple of days later I saw him a gain and this time he appeared to be agitated and angry.  I asked him what was wrong.  Jimmy told me that he had trouble with his roommate.  He said the night before he had turned out the light in the room because 10:00 p.m. was lights out time and bedtime.  He said his roommate got out of bed and turned the lights back on.  Jimmy told him he shouldn't do that and got out of bed and turned the lights off again.  His roommate turned them on yet again.  I told jimmy I could see why he was upset and asked what happened next.  Jimmy said that his roommate turned the lights back on for the 3rd time.  "So I punched him in the face, what else could I do, he wouldn't listen!"  Jimmy said angrily.

A couple of days later it was Thanksgiving. I had just turned 20 years old at the beginning of the month.  I had been working in the hospital for almost a year.  It was the 1st holiday since I had been there that I had the day off.  For all of the prior holidays that I had to work, I asked why I had to work, that maybe I would like to have a holiday off as well.  I was told they wanted to give the married cooks the day off to spend with their families.  While I understood that to a point, I wasn't happy about it.  I was told that after Thanksgiving weekend, Jimmy was going to be medevaced back to the US for further treatment.  They said that for the patients that were able, they would escort them to the mess hall to take part in the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner.  The Army always goes all out on Thanksgiving day to provide a traditional sumptuous holiday dinner to soldiers far from home, even in wartime, out in the field.  I asked the head nurse if I could go with them and have dinner with my friend.  She said sure, no problem. So on Thanksgiving day I put on the only suit that I had brought with me, I fastened a bowtie around my neck and I went up to the 4th floor.  In a group, several nurses and medics, about a dozen psych patients in their pajamas and standard Army hospital blue bathrobes, and me, went down to the mess hall.  We got our trays and went through the chow line.  We got our shrimp cocktails, plates full of turkey and all of the trimmings and the traditional pumpkin pie as well as other desserts.  We all sat at one long table, most of the patients were well medicated to control their behavior.  It was a scene straight out of the novel and film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.  Actually Jimmy bore a strong resemblance to the star of the film Jack Nicolson.  I sat next to my friend, it was a bittersweet moment.  Jimmy docilely ate his dinner and I tried to control my emotions, knowing I would probably never see my good friend again.  In the Army you get used to saying goodbye to close friends but not under these circumstances usually.  It was probably the saddest moment in my young life up to that point in time.  I'm not ashamed to admit that tears are rolling down my cheeks as I type this more than 45 years later, the memory is etched into my brain.  It was the first really difficult thing I had experienced in my life, thousands of miles from home, my family and my close friends.  I spent many more Thanksgiving holidays in the Army years later but under much better circumstances. 

The experience I had with Jimmy really shook me up at the time.  Of course I got over it, I dealt with the loss.  I dealt with the experience of watching somebody that I knew, my mentor that I respected, that I looked up to; go from a great guy, always cheerful  smiling and laughing about everything and having a lot of good times, to a shuffling drugged out human being.  In the months that passed after that Thanksgiving and to this day, I've often thought that I would have rather he had died then to have succumbed to a serious psychiatric illness.  Schizophrenia is incurable.  Today there are better drugs and therapies available.  People with schizophrenia can live near normal live in many cases.  Back then Jimmy probably lived in an institution for the rest of his life, drugged to the point that he was merely a shell of a person.  I often wonder where he went and what happened to him.  I imagine given his age he might have passed away by now, it would probably be the best that could happen.  I have fond memories of our too brief friendship and our many adventures.  I hope you found peace Jimmy, wherever you are my good friend.

I learned a lot from my experience with Jimmy.  I learned that things can change in life quickly.  Up until that point in life I was lucky.  I hadn't lost anybody close to me to accident or illness.  I had a fun, mostly happy childhood and a great safe and secure family environment.  I knew how lucky I was for that, and my experience with Jimmy woke my up to the ugly side of life.  I learned how to deal with and overcome a traumatic experience, pain is a good teacher.  Of course later on in life through my jobs and other things, I experienced many ugly things.  Between my work in mental health and in the medical experience I had, I have seen, heard and dealt with absolutely horrific things.  I've lost family and friends and all of the usual things that happen in life.  I drew on and built from this first real life trauma that I had and it started me on the road to become the strong and resilient, self reliant person that I am now, and it allowed me to live the life I've lived.  Nobody gets the ideal life they would like, everybody has to deal with painful events.  We can succumb to the vicissitudes of live, give in to the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and become angry, bitter and depressed, or we can try to learn from these experiences and do the best we can with what we have and try our best to make the most of whatever life throws our way.  We won't always succeed and we all have our limits, but we can try hard. That's been the driving principle in my life that has gotten me through some very tough times and led to many wonderful adventures.  It all started when I was a young soldier in Nürnberg, Germany with my friend Jimmy.   

Here is a photo of Jimmy on one of our outings 

   

 A German Imperial City With a 1,000 Year History

How I fell in love with Nürnberg

I'm back, I took a break yesterday, writing is hard work!  Today I would like to talk about another experience when I was young that was a major influence in shaping my world view and the future of my life, my passion for travel, my passion for new experiences, and my desire to live in other countries and cultures.  I talked about going to Europe several times when I was young and how that opened my eyes to the big world we live in, this was the next vital and informative step in my life that got me where I am today.  And it led to the discovery of another one of my favorite cities in the world, Nürnberg.

I graduated from high school in 1973.  I knew the summer after my graduation would probably my last chance for a carefree, good time summer vacation, so I didn't do anything but go to the beach, hang out with friends, and generally have fun all summer.  I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life yet, but I knew that I didn't want to head straight off to college like my brother did, and my sister did earlier.  I was tired of school.  So I went to the Pennsylvania State Employment Office and applied for a job at GE.  At that time the GE plant employed nearly 14,000 people.  The state office said there was an opening for a job making copper parts.  It wasn't the most desirable job, but is was a job at GE with good pay and benefits.  So I took the paper from the employment office and went to the GE employment office.  The person there told me the copper parts job had been filled but they had an opening in a new program to train machine operators.  I said sure, I'll take it and they told me I would be trained to operate a turret lathe, a traditional manually operated metal turning lathe with some additional parts to enable the efficient turning of the same part repeatedly.  The following Monday, I reported to building 13, part of the DC Motor and Generator Division (DCM&G), a big part of the manufacturing at the Erie plant at that time.  They produced DC motors from about 200 hp up to 10,000 hp as well as DC motor-generator sets for use in giant strip mining shovels, elevator motors, other industrial motors and even motors for nuclear submarines.   

There were about 12 young guys like me and we were to be trained to operate various various machines; lathes, milling machines, drill presses, etc.  We spent some time in a class room and a lot of time turning round pieces of metal into metal chips.  I had never been in a large factory building before and it was interesting.  Machines of all kinds working every where, the smell of cutting oil and hot metal and a smoky haze hanging high above, near the roof.  I learned the basics of operating a regular lathe, how to use tools like indicators and micrometers, and how to cut metal to exacting tolerances down to a few 10,000ths of an inch.  To a point it was interesting and challenging.  After a couple of months I was sent over to building 17 next door, and paired with an experienced turret lathe operator to learn the intricacies of that machine.  It was far more complicated than a regular lathe.  I grew a little frustrated and I figured out that being a machinist was not the life for me.  I saw a lot of older men standing in front of the same machine they had been working on for 20 or 30 years and they had that blank '1,000 yard stare'.  They worked hard, they made a good living, they were every skilled and took care of their families but the dull repetition of the work, and coming home every day covered with grit and cutting oil had taken its toll on them.  I quickly realized I didn't want to be that guy in 30 or 40 years.  So I talked to my instructor and he agreed that my heart wasn't in this kind of work, and I got an open transfer which meant I had one week to find another job at the plant, or I would be out on the street looking for another place to work.  

I went back to the plant employment office and they had an opening in building 12, to be an assembler, putting together electric commuter train car sets that were used in the New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut, Philadelphia metro area.  I had a brief interview with the foreman at station 4.  Luckily for me, an older guy I had known in high school worked at station 4 saw me, and put in a good word to the foreman about me.  The next week I started a new job in building 12.  I have always loved trains and I was happy to get a job building them.  It was cleaner than the machine shop, and because it was a relatively new operation at the plant, most of the workers there were young.  I enjoyed the work for the most part. We had a certain amount of tasks to perform at our workstation, putting in insulation and floors in the cars, adding parts of all kinds here and there and everywhere, inside, underneath and on the roof of the cars.  It wasn't too boring as we all did many different tasks individually or in teams, before the car would move to the next workstation and a new one would come to ours.  The building was massive, there were 4 parallel assembly lines with 9 workstations on each line.  Each car was about 70 feet long, and at any given time there were 36 cars in various stages of assembly at any given time, so you can imagine the size of the building.  Because we were mostly young men, you can imagine there was a lot of playing around.  The car shells were stainless steel and there were a lot of sharp metal edges everywhere.  I think I left some of my blood in ever car I worked on!  One day I tore a chunk out of my finger and had to go to the infirmary on the grounds of the factory for a repair job. I left a lot of blood in the car that time.  I still have the scar.  

During the year that i worked at GE, a good friend of mine was talking to an Army recruiter and I went with  him a few times.  The recruiter was a cool, funny sergeant, an infantryman Vietnam veteran from Brooklyn, NY, and our visits became more frequent.  My friend enlisted and off he went.  I stopped by the recruiting office a few more times.  I thought seriously about enlisting.  It was 1974, the Vietnam draft had ended the year before, luckily about 7 months before my 18th birthday.  Now with the threat of being sent to Vietnam being over, the recruiter offered "Fun, travel and adventure"  which sounded interesting to me.  I went to Buffalo, NY to take the exams and physical.  I scored very well in the exams, in the top few percent.  The recruiter offered me a job in electronics repair as a part of the Army Security Agency (ASA), the folks that gather intelligence on the enemy by various means.  It all sounded very interesting and exciting but it required a 4 year commitment.  I wasn't ready to make kind of commitment, what if I didn't like the Army?  So the recruiter offered me a 2 year enlistment with a guarantee to go to Germany, and the Army would chose my job.  I thought that was a fine plan.  When I told my parents about it, they were not at all happy.  My father had been a soldier in WW II, actually in the forerunner to the ASA, he worked with radios intercepting the German radio frequencies and things like that.  My mother lived in Rome, Italy during the war and endured the German occupation of Rome and occasional bombing raids, so I understood their reluctance to see me go in the Army.  But I was stubborn and I told them I was going to do it.  So in the middle of August in 1974, I raised my right hand, swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and off I went off to Basic Training at Fort Know, Kentucky.  That was an experience I will cover another time in more detail. It was 2 months of exhausting, intense, physical and mental hell.  But at the end I learned a lot about my limits, learned something about discipline, the power of teamwork, and how to shoot an M 16 rifle and I was proud of myself for surviving it all when I graduated.  On the day of my graduation, I got my orders for my school and I found out the Army decided I should be a baker!  I went to Fort Lee, Virginia and spent 2 months in baking school, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day of learning how to bake anything and everything in quantities large and small.  It was more relaxed than Basic Training, we had weekends off and I enjoyed it.  I graduated number 2 in my class of future Army bakers. 

Me at age 19 in baking school. I turned 19 when I was there.
 

I graduated from baking school right before Christmas so the Army allowed me to take some leave and I needed to report to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey for my flight to Germany about a week after the New Year holiday.  I would receive my duty station assignment in Germany once I was there.  I relaxed at home, regaled my friends with tales about Basic Training, proudly wore my combat boots with blue jeans and prepared for my trip to Germany. On the appointed day, I said my goodbyes to family and friends, maybe wiped a tear or 2 out of my eyes and my father drove me to the airport in Erie for a flight to New Jersey.  I got to McGuire Air Force Base, signed in at the terminal and late that night along with a couple of hundred other soldiers I boarded a chartered Overseas National Airlines Boeing 707 for the 8 hour flight to Germany.  Since I had flown across the ocean to Europe a couple of times already, I knew what to expect on the flight, most of my fellow passengers had never made such a long fight before.  The next morning we arrived a bit sleepy, wrinkled and jet lagged at Rhine Main Air Force Base outside of Frankfurt, Germany.  The air base shared the runways with the civilian Frankfurt airport.  The air base was one one side and the civilian terminal was on the other side.  We were processed through the military customs and immigration formalities and we were loaded on a bus with the 2 duffle bags that we were authorized to bring, with all of our military and civilian clothes in them, among other things.  It was already shaping up to be an adventure.  The bus took us into the middle of Frankfurt to a large, old red brick building.  We drove through a guarded entry arch and into a large cobblestone square formed by the 4 story building's walls.  It was a rather foreboding looking place, and later I found out why.  What a welcome to beautiful Germany!

They herded us off of the bus, we found are bags in the mountain of identical bags in the courtyard and were ushered into a gym inside of the building.  We sat in some bleachers and they gave us a little orientation as to where we were and what would happen there.  As we sat there sleepy eyed, hungry and desperately in need of a shower and some rest after our flight, we were told that were the guests of the 21st Replacement Station, and welcome to the Federal Republic of Germany, the formal name of West Germany at the time.  We were told that we would receive our duty station assignment here and then we would be bussed to the location.  They informed us that we could be there a few hours, up to a few days.  This was before computers were used for everything, so there was a lot of paperwork, typing, and phone calls involved in finding us a place to go.  They informed us that the Army base we are at was a Gestapo prison during WW II.  I couldn't help but think that that was one hell of an introduction to life in Germany for the next 19 months!  I would soon learn that virtually all of the US military installations in Germany were former German military bases built for world wars 1 and 2.  At this time the Cold War was at it's peak and there were about 300,000 US military people in Germany to keep the Soviets at bay and protect Western Europe from the Red hordes.  We were told we were on the front lines of freedom and the enemy wasn't far from us.  As they say "Shit was about to get real."  Next they proceeded to call some names from a list and some lucky soldiers grabbed their bags and headed out for their bus.  Then they proceeded to assign us to large bays with about 60 soldiers in big rooms full of bunks.  Lastly they read off names for a duty roster for the new arrivals to perform necessary, menial tasks.  I heard my name, and I was assigned to be the baggage room guard from 2 a.m. until 6 a.m.  Oh, lucky me!  Then they released us to get some chow, get cleaned up and told us we were not to leave the compound, that we were in a bad part of town and danger awaited new arrivals to the country.  So I got clean, got some food and then tried to get a little rest until my guard duty at 2 a.m.  At the appointed hour, I went to the cellar to the baggage storage area, a hallway lined on either side with rooms with iron barred doors where our duffle bags were kept.  At the head of the hall was a folding metal chair for my comfort.  The hallway had a brick arched ceiling, the light was dim and near my chair was a fuse box, with old Gothic lettering that said "Prison Fuses."  I have to tell you, that for a 19 year old, tired kid, with an active imagination, it wasn't the most pleasant 4 hours I've ever spent.  I think the only thing that kept me from falling asleep on the job was the sound of the prisoners anguished cries while the Gestapo did whatever they did to them echoing in my fevered brain.  I was quite happy when my relief arrived at 6 a.m.  I wished him luck and got out of there quickly.  I was at the 21st about 3 more days, I got to pick up litter and other simple tasks, but no more guard duty luckily.  They finally called my name at the daily formation in the gym and I found out that I was assigned to the 33rd Field Hospital in Würzburg, Germany, about 75 miles (120 km) east of Frankfurt in the German sate of Bavaria.   

I boarded a green Army bus with other soldiers and we made our way east stopping to drop soldiers off at other Army bases on the way to Würzburg.  After a few hours the bus dropped me off at the entrance to the hospital in Würzburg, on top of a hill overlooking the city, with a nice view of vineyard covered hills across the Main river.  The 33rd Field Hospital, in spite of it's name, wasn't going anywhere.  It was composed a large, solid,  white building and several smaller buildings.  I went inside and found the Orderly Room the nerve center of any Army unit.  The Orderly Room is where the soldiers of their unit tracked, administrative matters dealt with,  and is the home of the company commander, usually a captain in charge of the soldiers for administrative purposes.  To explain briefly, in the Army you have 2 chains of command in a non combat unit.  You belong to a company, in the case of the hospital all of the soldiers belong to the medical company, they are responsible for your care and feeding and the endless paperwork and record keeping.  Then you have your work chain of command, your immediate supervisor, usually an NCO (noncommissioned officer, a sergeant) and then the higher bosses, at some point usually an officer.  They are the folks that you work for.  I went into the orderly room, told them I was assigned to the hospital, gave them my records and did everything I needed to join the unit.  Then somebody took me to the dining facility where I would be working.  I met some folks, greetings all around, welcome aboard etc., and I found out that two of my fellow baking school graduates had already been assigned there so it was nice to see some familiar faces.  Then somebody took me to my room in the hospital where I would live.  It was a nice airy room with large, tall windows,  4 beds and wall lockers, and some desks and a sink but no shower or toilet, those were don the hall.  The soldier showing me around pointed to one of the beds and said it would be mine.  I pointed to the bed next to mine where some boots and shoes were lined up under it in good military fashion, and asked who my neighbor was.  The soldier said, "Oh, that's private Jones, but he's gone.  He jumped out of the window yesterday."  I glanced at the large window nearby and thought wow, first I spend 4 days in a former Gestapo prison, now I come to a beautiful little city and a nice hospital, and I find out one of my roommates jumped out of a window.  Then I realized we were on the ground floor and the window sill was about 2 feet above the grass outside.   Somewhat relieved, I shared my observation with the soldier.  He told me that Pvt. Jones was a little strange and that he hadn't been seen since his flight out of the window, and that when he showed up he would be evaluated by the psych people.  I couldn't help but think that my first week in Germany was certainly shaping up to be a very interesting experience, and I wondered what else would happen. I didn't have to wait long.

After about 3 days of getting settled in and generally relaxing, I was told because they already had 2 new bakers, I wasn't need in Würzburg.  They were calling around Germany to find out who might want a new baker.  It turns out that at the time the only place bakers were authorized, was in fixed hospital facilities, which meant I would go to another hospital in Germany.  The next day they told me that the 130th General Hospital in Nürnberg said they would take me off of their hands.  So once again, I packed my bags, and I was driven to the Würzburg bahnhof (train station) in an ambulance, the only vehicle available, and dropped me off at the main entrance and drove away. I stood there on the sidewalk with new orders for Nürnberg, a voucher for a train ticket, and 2 heavy duffle bags.  I hadn't been in country for even 2 weeks, I didn't speak any German, and I had no idea what to do and I was on my own!  As Alice in Wonderland said, and whom I started to feel some kinship to, "Curioser and curioser."  So Like Alice, I bravely forged on and went into the station. 

Würzburg is a fairly small city so the bahnhof wasn't too big.  I saw a row of ticket windows, went to one and shoved my voucher under the glass window to the ticket clerk.  He said something in German and pointed down the row of windows.  After a couple of more tries with the same result, I got to a window where the clerk looked my paper, stamped it, typed on some keys and handed me a small cardboard rectangle with Würzburg printed at the top and an arrow pointing down to Nürnberg on the bottom.   The ticket also had a number 2 printed on it and the date.  Being a clever guy and having made some train trips in Italy, I recognized that I now had a 2nd class, one way train ticket to Nürnberg.  Then I found the timetable on a nearby wall, figured out how to read it and found the departure time and track number for my train, which left in about 45 minutes.  I went to the correct track, and at the appointed time a train arrived and I boarded a 2nd class car, found a seat and settled in.  Nürnberg was also about 75 miles (120 km) from Würzburg, so I had some idea how long the trip would take.  As we passed through the beautiful, green, hilly Bavarian countryside dotted with little villages and farms just like a picture post card, I started to wonder if I would spend my 19 months in Germany shuffling from Army hospital to Army Hospital, 75 miles at a time.  I was 19 years old with a healthy sense of adventure and I was ready for anything.  When I left Würzburg, they told me that they had told the hospital in Nürnberg to expect me in the early evening at the bahnhof.  I was told the folks in Nürnberg would collect me at the bahnhof and take me to my new duty station.

After a few hours on the train, my pleasant journey ended at the Nürnberg bahnhof.  I got off of the train with my 2 heavy duffle bags and made my way into the station.  Nürnberg is a city of half a million people and is quite a bit larger than Würzburg.  The station was bustling with activity with people going all directions, a few American soldiers mixed in with the crowd.  I made my way to the main doors of the station and looked eagerly for a soldier to find me.  It was a long wait.  After a few hours, being a clever guy, I figured either somebody lied to me or that the hospital in Nürnberg forgot about me.  I flagged down a passing soldier and asked him if he knew how I could contact the hospital.  He told me my best bet was to go to a US military hotel across the street cleverly named the Bavarian American hotel where I could call the hospital on the military phone system.  He took me to the doors and pointed it out to me.  I dragged my bags across the busy square in front of the bahnhof, dodging cars, buses and street cars and went into the hotel. There was an old man at the desk and I asked him if he had a phone so I could call the hospital.  He glared at me and suspiciously asked me in heavily German accented English if I was sure it was to the hospital.  I told him indeed,, that was where I wanted to call.  He reluctantly shoved a phone over the counter to me.  Then I asked him if he had a phone number to the hospital orderly room.  Once again he glared at me and muttered something under his breath in German as he dragged out a Nürnberg Military Community phone book and looked up the number, muttering darkly the whole time.  He gave me the number and I dialed and a soldier answered.  I explained who I was, where I was and said that they received word to expect my arrival and I need a ride to the hospital.  The soldier said they were on night duty in the office, that nobody told them about me when they came on duty and that there was nobody available to come and get me.  He suggested I stay at the hotel and I could get a ride the next morning.  One little problem was that I only had a few dollars in my pocket, I had spent what little money I had brought with me and I hadn't gotten any pay yet because I wasn't in one place long enough to do that.  I explained this to the soldier on the other end of the phone and I heard him softly muttering some bad words.  I wasn't making too many friends in Nürnberg that night. The soldier said to hang on, and I heard a muffled conversation.  He came back on the line and told me to tell the desk clerk to give me a room and they would bring the money in the morning when they picked me up.  I said hang on, and I turned to my good friend the angry old desk clerk.  I made the request, the clerk really glared at me this time and said no way, he did that in the past and he never got the money and basically said "tough shit."  So I put the phone receiver back to my ear and gave the news to the soldier on the other end.  He sighed heavily, told me to hold on again, and I heard another muffled conversation.  Finally he came back on the line and told me to wait outside the front doors of the bahnhof and somebody would come to get me.  I said thank you. I'll be waiting and I hung up the phone.  The friendly desk clerk snatched the phone back to safety probably fearing I would steal it.  I mumbled my sincere and profuse thanks for the wonderful help to the old, grouchy desk clerk who glared at me one last time and as I left the hotel, I pondered what he had done during WW II.  He was the right age to have been a soldier on the wrong side in the war.  Maybe that was why he was so crabby, I don't know.  I made the dangerous trip across the busy square once more, made it safely to the other side with my heavy bags, and about 45 minutes later a fast approaching Army jeep came to a screeching halt in front of me and a very big,  burly sergeant with a bushy mustached hopped out of the jeep amazingly agilely for his size, grabbed my 2 duffle bags as though they were nothing and threw them in the back of the jeep.  He motioned me into the passenger seat and off we went, driving very fast.  On the way he pointed out the famous Palace of Justice where the famous Nürnberg War Trials were conducted between 1945 and 1942.  A few minutes later we made a screeching, high speed turn off the main road and through through the front gate of the 130th General Hospital.  I caught a fleeting glimpse of a 5' tall concrete Nazi eagle statue on the wall next to the entry gate.  I had arrived at my home for the next 19 months, and the remainder of my 2 year enlistment.  When I left in August of 1976, I would be a different person than the one that arrived there in January of 1975.   But we'll talk about that in the next blog.  

I know the subtitle of today's blog said "How I fell in love with Nürnberg, and we finally just arrived there.  You probably feel at this point that it took you almost as long as it took me to get there.  Well, if you remember, I said in my first blog that I like to explain things in detail to paint a clear picture of the events, so I figure you had a fair warning, so don't blame me.  Maybe now you will know that I mean what i say!  I hope you enjoyed the story and tomorrow I will describe my time in Nürnberg and why I love the city so much.  

"When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore!"

Dean Martin

I want to talk about food today because who doesn't love Italian food!  And I promised you yesterday that I would.  There's a good reason you can find Italian restaurants in almost every country in the world.  Probably second in the world in the number of restaurants only to Chinese restaurants.  I have rarely eaten in an Italian restaurant anywhere in the world that is equal to the taste of the food in Italy, even if they have an Italian chef.  One notable exception was a place I accidentally stumbled upon in the Roppongi district in Tokyo.  We saw the sign outside, "Gino, Casa Del Pescatore" (House of the Fisherman) went in and hanging on the wall was a photo of president Jimmy Carter in the restaurant, next to a dinner plate that he had signed.  I figured it must be OK.  The food was unbelievably good, one of the best restaurant meals I have ever eaten, the chef was Japanese and he had trained in Italy for several years before he returned to Japan.  The bill for dinner for two with wine was about $350.00 back in 1990, but I am willing to pay almost any price for fine food.  Did I ever mention that I love good food and good wine?  

Of course Italy is famous for its cuisine among many other things.  There is just something special about Italian cooking.  I might be a little prejudiced because my mother was an excellent Italian cook, but I don't think so.  Italian food is just good!  Many Italian dishes are simple and relatively easy to prepare.  One of the secrets to Italian food is to use the best, fresh, local ingredients.  I think that's the main reason Italian restaurants outside of Italy rarely taste as good.  My mother always said the fruit and vegetables in the US just didn't taste as good as the ones in Italy.  I think she was right.  Something about the terroir, as the French like to say as to why their wines are so good.  Like many well know cuisines, Italian food is regional and can vary quite a bit from region to region.  Bologna, which is the epicenter of Italian haute cuisine is located in the province of Emilia-Romagna, where everybody's favorite spaghetti Bolognese originated. Hence the clever name. The city of Parma, famous for Parmigiano Reggiano cheese for your pasta Bolognese, and prosciutto di Parma is also in  Emilia-Romagna.  Many dishes in the region have heavy cream sauces and involve a lot of slow simmering, and is similar to French cuisine.  In southern Italy, the cooking can influenced by the spicy flavors and spices from Northern Africa, a short distance away.  Naples is famous for its thin crust wood fired oven pizza, particularly pizza Napolitano, a simple fresh tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and anchovies, or pizza Margarita with just a simple sauce, mozzarella cheese and basil.  Of course popular dishes from any region can be found all over Italy.  Because Italy is a relatively narrow peninsula, seafood is available almost everywhere, but of course the best is in or near the coastal cities and towns.

Rome is located in Lazio and the cuisine of Rome is recognized to be some of the best in Italy (at least that's what any Roman will tell you) along with Bologna. In contrast to the rich, heavy dishes of Bologna, in Rome the key is simplicity.  One of the iconic dishes of Rome is spaghetti carbonara.  I am serious about my carbonara because my mother was from Rome and I want to settle something right now.  I'm going to have a little rant if you don't mind.  If you are in an Italian restaurant outside of Italy, and you see spaghetti carbonara on the menu, read the description of the dish.  If it mentions cream, peas, or god forbid, onions, RUN AWAY!  That is not spaghetti carbonara, it's an abomination masquerading as Italian food.  I can't imagine why anybody would want to use any of the ingredients above and call it carbonara.  I said one of the keys to Roman cuisine is simplicity.  Here is what is in genuine pasta carbonara. Fried guanciale (cured pig jowls) or pancetta (cured pork belly), eggs, butter, pecorino Romano cheese (Roman sheep cheese), and salt and pepper.  That's all.  No cream, no peas, and no onion!  Are we clear on that?  If prepared properly, which isn't too difficult it is a sublimely delicious dish.  You can have it with many kinds of pasta, spaghetti (#5 is the best size), or macaroni such as rigatoni, farfalle, penne, etc.  If absolutely necessary, you can substitute the pecorino cheese with Parmesan, and the guanciale or pancetta with bacon, but only if absolutely necessary.  OK, that's the end of my rant.  Sorry, but that's one of my favorite types of pasta, I make it often and I cringe when I hear what some places serve as 'spaghetti carbonara'.  Sheesh.

Now that I've calmed down, let's talk about some other specialties of Roman cuisine. Romans love artichokes.  They eat the normal large variety and also a smaller more tender version.  They can be cut in wedges, dipped in egg and flour, and fried, or steamed, and they are very popular in season.  There is no specialty pizza but like all of Italy, very good pizza is common.  There are pizza shops, usually take out only that offer pizza rustica, or 'country style pizza'.  No, it isn't slathered in BBQ sauce and consumed with Hank Williams music.  It is a thick crust pizza, unlike the typical thin Italian pizza and it's baked on a large sheet pan in a normal oven.  It's available with many different toppings.  You go in the little shop, with a variety of the large pizzas on display and you ask for a certain weigh, usually in 100 gram increments.  When buying food by weight in Italy an etto (an abbreviation for ettogrammo or hectogram) is 100 grams.  The staff take some scissors, cut a piece with a practiced eye that is right around 100 grams, or however much, and weighs it.  They ask if you want it warmed or not.  If you want it warm they throw it in the oven for a few minutes, then score the slice with a knife to fold it on the scored line and wrap it up in some paper, so you don't get your fingers dirty as you eat it.  It is quite different than the thin pizza and I like it very much.  While we're on the subject of Italian pizza, don't expect your pizza of any type to be covered with thick sauce.  The usual sauce is a very light, fresh tomato sauce with a little basil in it and they spread a small amount over the pizza.  You might ask for extra sauce, but good luck with that!  When in Rome, eat as the Romans do, eh?  One last thing about Italian pizza.  It comes 2in two styles.  The thin, round dinner plate kind, and pizza rustica.  Don't go looking for deep dish pizza, Chicago Style pizza, pizza with chicken on it, stuffed crust pizza or Hawaiian pizza. Don't ask for it, don't look for it, just don't.   Because Rome isn't very far from the Mediterranean Sea, all kinds of fresh fish is available.  I think the best way to eat it is simply broiled maybe with a little butter and lemon on it.  If you prefer fried sea food, the 'frito misto' (mixed fry) is a good choice.  It's a platter with a variety of fish, squid and maybe some baby octopus if your lucky.  No really, the little tiny tentacles get crispy and they're good. The sea food is lightly breaded and pan fried in olive oil. Of course many, many varieties of pasta besides carbonara are offered, the classic favorite Bolognese, amatriciana, a red sauce with diced guanciale or pancetta, and on and on.  

Inexpensive drinkable wine is available in all restaurants, just look for the house wine in red or white.  Sometimes it's bottled wine, often it comes in a glass carafe.  Otherwise, bottled wines in specific varieties in on the wine list, but like restaurants everywhere the markup is big.  Unless it really matters to you, the house wine tastes reasonably good and is usually inexpensive.  The white house wine is often Frascati, which is grown and produced in large amounts amounts and is known to be the white wine of Rome.  Its light, fruity and refreshing and it doesn't cost much.  What's not to like about that.  If you insist on having the classic straw covered, glass fiasco of Chianti, expect to pay a premium for it nowadays, they usually make those bottles for the tourist trade.  If you don't mind spending a lot of money on wine, in recent years 'Super Tuscan' wines, blended with Sangiovese and other classic Italian grapes with wines form French Bordeaux blends such as Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot.  Many of them vary in their composition, the good ones cost $100.00 or more a bottle, the best ones even more.  Speaking of beverages, many Italian restaurants will automatically bring a bottle of fizzy, natural mineral water.  It isn't free, it isn't terribly expensive, they just assume you want mineral water because most Italians do.  If you don't want it, just tell them that and they'll take it back, while muttering something about silly tourists, but if you don't know any Italian then who cares..

There other kinds of food in Rome and in Italy besides pasta and pizza and seafood of course.  Beef isn't common however good restaurants in Rome might offer a dish made famous in Florence, bistecca alla Fiorentina, a big, thick, like 2 or more inches thick, T-bone steak, charcoal grilled.  It's expensive because Italians don't raise a lot of beef cows, usually you pay by the weight of the steak. One reason that you don't see a lot of beef in Italy is because for Italians do eat a lot of veal (vitello) so the baby cows don't grow up to become beef.  Just don't think about it and enjoy the veal, OK?  It's prepared in many ways and if you like veal you will like them all.  Another Roman specialty is saltimboca alla Romana.  It's a thin veal cutlet with prosciutto on it, and sage.  It's sautéed in a little olive oil and butter and a dash of white wine.  If prepared properly it's sublime.  It is probably my favorite meat dish of any kind.  Of course it's best eaten in Rome!  Pork (maialle) and chicken (pollo) are popular meats in Italy.  A simple roasted chicken with rosemary and potatoes becomes a work of culinary art in the hands of a competent Italian cook.  Remember I said simplicity is the Roman cuisine.  Wild meat such as boar(cinghiale) and rabbit(coniglio) are available in better restaurants if you feel adventurous.  Don't expect them to be cheap.  One final treat from Rome are suppli, or the full name suppli al telefono.  These tasty treats can be had as an appetizer in a full service restaurant or as a light dish in a casual or take out place.  They are balls of rice which is cooked with tomato.  The cooked rice is then formed around a chunk of mozzarella cheese  into an oblong shape, rolled in bread crumbs and fried in olive oil.  The telephone part comes in because when you pull  apart the hot suppli, the melted cheese inside forms thin strings like a telephone wire between the supporting poles.  They are incredibly good and can become addictive, so beware.  I can eat them until I'm ready to burst and then I still keep eating them.  One last Roman specialty that is sometimes sold on street carts or in a restaurant is porchetta.  Porchetta is an entire suckling pig that has been deboned and flattened.  Then a paste of lard and seasonings, particularly sage is spread on the inside surface of the meat, it's rolled up, tied and slowly roasted.  The result is a big pork roll full of flavor.  No, it's nothing like New Jersey pork roll, be quiet!  It is sliced and can be eaten hot or cold.  There are far more Italian dishes, stuffed zucchini flowers, mussels steamed in wine, butter, and garlic, and on and on.  Just about all of it is good except tripa (tripe) in my opinion.  Italians like to use every part of the animal, they say that they eat every part of the pig except the squeal. I'm pretty sure it's true, and one time I think I even saw a can of pig squeal in a shop although I might have been confused. Tripe is a cooked cow stomach, and in my opinion, it's as gross as it sounds.  Many people in Italy love it.  Go for it, you can have my portion.  I've tried it, and I don't like it.  Not a bit.  It's awful.

So know that we know of some classic Roman dishes and some other Italian food, let's talk about where to eat it.  Like many things in Italy, it can be a little complicated.  But in a culture that values food over almost everything except family, what would you expect?  Besides, many things in Italy are complicated, it's just their nature.  We'll start with the basics.  There are occasional food carts with porchetta or tripa, but not nearly as ubiquitous as they were years ago.  Then you have the pizza rustica shops which only offer pizza rustica of several varieties.  Next up the chain are Tavola Caldas, literally hot table.  You go in, there is a glass fronted counter with various foods, some pasta, some meat, suppli, maybe some fried peppers, fried artichokes, etc.  You just tell them what you want and how much of it.  They will pack it up for you and off you go.  Some of them might have some small tables or a stand up counter where you can eat, but you are expected to eat and go.  Then there is a rosticeria, the most casual of casual sit down restaurants.  They might have bare wood tables or paper tablecloths, a simple menu and wine will usually be in a carafe.  Good, honest cheap food.  Next up is the trattoria.  Often a casual place as well, this is the kind of place with the red and white checker tablecloths, simple wooden chairs and often a rustic look.  They usually have a pretty good assortment of dishes, pizza, pasta and meat dishes, etc.  Again they are typically not too expensive.  One caveat.  With the low airfares of the last number of years and the increased glut of tourists, but also in Italian restaurants where no tourist go because they aren't in the touristy parts of town, it has become chic to ironically give your very expensive Michelin starred restaurant a humbly ironic name, calling a place where you can drop a few hundred dollars on a dinner for 2, a 'Trattoria'. or 'Rosticeria'  Then there is the ristorante.  They can look similar to a trattoria at one end of the scale all the way to places with fancy waitstaff, fine linen tablecloths and prices to match.  Most restaurants in Europe will post their menu outside somewhere so you know what they offer and what it costs.  So always check that before you go in to avoid an expensive shock.

Now a word about the warning I gave you yesterday.  With the glut of tourists from all over the world, everywhere in the world nowadays, many problems have occurred.  Europe especially the famous cities, are all choked with tourists, especially in the summer.  The amount of tourists in Rome today is an exponential increase from what it was 40 or 50 years ago.  Yeah, I know progress.  I hate to sound like a snob, I hate it.  I know, I travel as a tourist to other cities but I've lived in Europe for more than 20 consecutive years now, and I try not to behave like a typical tourist.  If you want to behave liek a typical tourist, go ahead, it's OK, there will be plenty of company.  But at least try to be polite and respectful, which I'm sure you will do.  Most of you anyway.  No, I'm not naming names, you know who you are!  Years ago I could walk into Saint Peters Basilica in Rome, and gaze at Michelangelo's Pieta unmolested.  Nowadays, not only is there a thick glass wall in front of one of the most moving and beautiful pieces of art in the world, but you sometimes have to push your way through a throng just to see the sculpture.  Many of these tourists know nothing of real Italian food.  I'm not judging, why would they.  So the restaurant owners can cut corners and provide barely adequate food at a higher profit, but it's not nearly as tasty as it should be.  So what to do about this quandary, how do you know where to eat?  Good question!  One way is to let me know your coming, send me a plane ticket from Berlin to Rome, and I'll fly down and help you.  But that's not terribly practical.  First and foremost, never eat around the popular attractions, the Coliseum, ST Peter's, etc.  You will likely pay too much for bad food and possibly poor service.  Avoid places where a waiter is out front calling to you in English with an armful of menus.  Avoid places that have signs in English and 6 other languages offering a fixed price 'Tourist Menu'.  Please avoid places that offer Italian, Greek, Spanish, Croatian, and Tex Mex food all on the same menu.  Run from places that advertise American Hamburger and American Hot Dogs.  Believe me Italians make great food, but they have no idea how to make a proper burger.  Hardly anybody in Europe does, believe me.  I've been searching for that elusive item for 20 years now, and I have found a couple that are close, but none that are great.  But, you might say, Wait Ed, I have kids that exist on chicken nuggets and nothing else but chicken nuggets, and this place offers spaghetti Bolognese and chicken nuggets.  NO!   There aren't many of them but Even Rome has a few McDonald's especially in the tourist areas, just leave the kids and their older sibling to watch over them, and they can eat their nuggets.  You and your partner can sneak off to a real Italian restaurant, and have a little peace and some good food.  You can thank me later for that tip.  Finally here is the best tip.  Go wander around Rome, get out of the tourist areas.  You will know when you are far enough away when you only hear people speaking Italian.  Then, walk around, enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of the real Rome, and look for little trattoria.  The weather in Rome is very temperate and like in most of Europe Italians love to eat outdoors.  Almost every restaurant will have tables outside.  Look for a place that has a fair amount of people, but has a few empty tables so you can sit outside.  If you see a place packed to the gills and everybody is speaking Italian, and you are not in a hurry and willing to wait, then wait until somebody leaves and snatch the table.  If the place is full of locals, then there's a good reason and that is that the food must be really good!  You might have figured out by now that Italians love to eat good food.  Italians love their cuisine, they rarely eat any other kind of food.  You won't see many foreign restaurants in Italy, except the rare American fast food chain, and an occasional Chinese place because even Italians like Chinese food now and then, and Marco Polo brought noodles to Italy from China a few hundred years ago.  No, I have never seen a Pizza Hut in Italy and perhaps they do exist, but I hope not.  

So, that just the tip of the Italian culinary iceberg, but I think now you have some idea.  Like many things, I could go on and on about Italian food, but I'll leave it here for now.  I don't want you to get too stuffed.  Buon appitito!

"Oh Rome!  My country! City of the soul!

The orphans of the  heart must turn to

 thee, lone mother of dead Empires!"

Childe Harold, Canto VI

Lord Byron

I have been to many cities in the world, large and small, capitols and villages and everything in between.  Though I have my favorites, there is no other city in the world that means as much to me as Rome, Italy.  There are many reasons why Rome holds such a special place in my heart.  First and foremost it was the birthplace and the home of my mother for the 1st 20 years of her life.  So I feel entitled to say that I have some Roman blood coursing through my veins.  Like my mother and many Romans, I am a passionate person with a fiery temper, with a love of life, la dolce vita!  Rome was the first of many foreign cities I have spent some time in, and my first trip there left a lasting impression on my young mind.  It was definitely love at first sight.  The city is big, it can be noisy, it's full of cars and motor bikes and the traffic, like typical Italian behavior, it's often chaotic.  The city has been around for a few thousand years, endured several sackings and a world war, yet it endures.  Rome is proud of her heritage and bears the ruins and scars of all of it's history with pride.  To the tourist's eye, the city can be dirty, and dare I say it, a bit decrepit.  Some of the newer buildings, only a hundred or so years old look worse than the ancient Roman ruins.  The ubiquitous terra cotta stucco that covers so many buildings in Rome is often faded and peeling in spots, as though it has fallen victim to some minor plague.  But these things are only superficial, they are minor aesthetic inconveniences, and they shouldn't be a distraction from the soul of what I consider to be the most magnificent city in the world, the "lone mother of dead empires" as Lord Byron so eloquently puts it.

There are so many things to see and experience in  Rome I hardly know where to begin, and I will have trouble stopping, once I start.  So hang on, relax, have a beverage of your choice, and I'll try to describe a city that I love as much as one can possibly love such an entity.  

To start, I would like to honestly compare Rome to some other cities I have lived in or visited.   As I mentioned, Rome has it's faults, don't we all.  I think in appearance Paris is more beautiful.  I think my favorite city in Germany and one of my most favorite cites in the world, after Rome, Nürnberg, where I lived for several years, is smaller, quieter, cleaner and so much more orderly.  But Nürnberg is a German city and we would be disappointed if it was anything else, wouldn't we.  Tokyo, another of my favorite cities and my home for 3 1/2 years is mostly modern, very clean, absolutely huge and has a vibe and energy that I've only found as well in Manhattan.  Tokyo is weird, wonderful, strange and exciting and it's certainly a seductive and bustling metropolis.  And I have to mention Amsterdam, full of canals, and absolutely charming old narrow buildings. It's a fascinating mélange of cultures and people imported by the intrepid early Dutch explorers, and the most tolerant, pleasant and laid back big city I have ever experienced.  And of course, the coffee shops!  But in spite of the fascinating charms, attractions, and appearance of these cities, in my opinion they can't hold a candle to Rome, warts and all.  We really need to cut Rome a little slack because after all she has been around for almost 3,000 years.  I think given that, she has aged remarkably well, like the aging elegant, grande dame, that while her best years might be behind her, she still has that special something that demands your attention and earns your devotion and affection by the sheer force of her personality.

When people think of Rome the 1st thing that pops into many people's heads is the ancient Roman Empire.  The epitome of civilization rivaled only by the ancient Persians, the Babylonians, and of course the ancient Greeks.  The long gone civilizations that have shaped our modern world in innumerable ways.  And interestingly, all of these ancient antecedents of today's world are now just shadows of their former glory.  Perhaps we should heed the lessons of history, nothing lasts forever!  But I digress.  So lets talk about the ruins of ancient Rome that are so ubiquitous, that you literally trip over them sometimes on some little side street.  

We can begin with the Foro Romano, the Roman Forum where the Caesars strolled, where Julius Caesar's life ended rather abruptly, and the Senators of the Empire conducted their business.  Located in the middle of some of Rome's most important landmarks, most of the Forum is below the level of the street.  Depending on where you approach it from, you can turn a corner and suddenly see the ancient columns rising from below and the grand avenues stretching before you.  The remnants of the forum are but a glimpse of it's former grandeur.  Here and there massive columns are lying on their sides with grass growing around them.  There is a crumbling façade without a building behind it.  There is a small temple to some long forgotten pagan god.  And cats.  Feral cats are everywhere in Rome, but especially in the ruins of the Forum.  As you walk over the well worn paving stones the ruins, it is hard to believe you are walking in the footsteps of some of the most powerful men of the ancient world.  At times it's best just to sit and rest a moment to try and grasp what your eyes see but your brain can't quite comprehend.  It is no understatement that is probably one of the most important relics of a time long gone, a place where so much history was made that literally changed and influenced the world in a lasting way.  Most wonderfully, you aren't gazing at this wonder from behind a rope, no uniformed guards are shushing you or pointing to signs that forbid photography.  You are standing right in the middle of where it happened, the same as the Roman Senators did so many years ago.  You can touch and feel, and even taste if you wish to surreptitiously lick a stone column, the history all around you.  The Foro Romano is literally a living museum where you can stand on the very spot where Brutus plunged a dagger into Julius Caesar's body, and plunged a vast empire into chaos.

Not far from the Forum is another one of Rome's most iconic and recognizable landmarks, the Coliseum.  The mass of this large arena is easily visible from a distance and once again, you are marveling at the actual sight of a building that almost anybody recognizes from seeing so many images of it in books, films and everywhere else.  It stands on an almost island surrounded by a sea of cars, several main road encircle the site.  The photos, the drawings, on a screen, even the 9,000 piece Lego replica you can build yourself, just can't compare to seeing this huge edifice in person.  It is in a word, massive.  Even in today's world where huge stadiums can accommodate huge crowds, the Coliseum is no slouch, especially considering it was built without motorized machines, 2,000 years ago.  When the arena was in use for some spectacle it could accommodate nearly 90,000 people which makes it just a little smaller than even the biggest modern stadiums.  The multi-level, oval building constructed of layers of brick arches is an engineering and aesthetic marvel.  In spite of it's appearance, it still doesn't look as big as it is given it's capacity because of the harmonious proportions of the structure and the lightness imparted by the multiple graceful arches.  When it was new, the entire edifice was covered in white marble, one can only imagine the beauty when it was dressed so.  Unfortunately, when Saint Peter's Basilica was being constructed about 1,500 years later much of the marble was stripped off of the coliseum to be used for the new church, leaving the the coliseum naked and  exposed for all to see.  Perhaps the Church was taking a long delayed revenge for the Christians that were regularly fed to the lions and gladiators for one of ancient Rome's favorite spectator sports.  The word arena comes from the Latin word, harena, which means place of combat  It is possible to go inside the arena, unfortunately there isn't a lot to see.  When it was constructed there were vast cellars and tunnels under a wooden floor that formed the performance area of the arena.  This covered space served as a storage area, and cages for animals, prisoners, Christians and other assorted miscreants.  The rulers of the empire realized that the average citizen could be easily distracted from their poverty and the uglier events of the empire if they could be entertained.  So to provide sufficient distractions, not only were theatrical productions and other relatively sedate shows presented there, but a much more popular and satisfying activity was the violent and bloody battles between gladiators, animals, Christians and others.  These sports were always a fight to the death, be it man, animal or both.   People would flock to these events, eat, drink, cheer and groan as the bloody combat played out.  according to contemporary accounts of these brutally violent contests were immensely popular and very satisfying to the spectators.  Today people go hockey games and hope a fight breaks out on the ice, and are rarely disappointed, or to car races, hoping to see a fiery crash, which is rare nowadays, or settle for American football where big men try to hurt each other while wearing padding. Unfortunately, but occasionally a player is carried off of the field on a stretcher.  The ancient Romans would have been severely disappointed at such passive spectacles.  Enough blood and guts, let's move on to another nearby landmark.  

After seeing the Roman Forum and the Coliseum, I think a little peasant diversion would be appropriate at this point.  A pleasant walk to the North will provide a little time to digest what you have seen and fortunately at our next destination there are plenty of little ice cream shops that will happily sell you some famous Italian gelato to refresh yourself after the walk. My favorite is a scoop of fragola (strawberry) and a scoop of cioccolato.  There are a vast array of standard and exotic flavors available, but when it comes to ice cream, I am terribly traditional.  Stick with the classics I say, but of course you may indulge in any of the flavors you like, I won't judge you.  As some ancient sage said in Latin, De gustibus non disputandum est, In matters of taste, there is no dispute!  Now that you are rested and refreshed, take some of your change from your gelato purchase, walk across the street, and if you can get through the wall of picture snapping tourists, you can elbow your way to the railing, take a coin, turn around and with your back to the building, throw a coin over your right shoulder into the famous Trevi Fountain.  There is no required minimum donation, any coin will do but it is a most important ritual.  So no matter how crowded it is, no matter how many elbows you need to subtly jab into somebody's side to get them to move, just do it.  By carrying out this ritual, you will guarantee a return to Rome at some point in your life.  Ignore it at your own peril, it's probably the cheapest insurance you will ever buy!   I have been to Rome probably a dozen times for varying stays over the years.  I don't consider myself a tourist there, and generally I avoid acting like one.  However the fact that I stoically brave the crowds each time I visit and throw a coin in the fountain and hurry away, and repeat this activity each time I return is obvious proof to me that the ritual works.  I'm not going to press my luck, so the next time I am in Rome, I will be at the fountain, my coin in my hand, at some point.  I have 2 warnings for you at the fountain.  It is often crowded there, and there are pickpockets in Rome.  It is easy to loose a purse or a wallet in the jostling crowd on the steps leading down to the fountain, so be aware of your belongings.  I've never heard of anyone stealing a child there, so don't worry too much about that.  The other warning is, under no circumstances, no matter how hot it might be, no matter how late at night it might be, and most importantly, no matter how much vino you might have drank with your 'menu tourstico' lunch at a nearby trattoria, do not attempt to jump in the fountain.  You will get in trouble and you will pay a large fine.  So just don't do it.  'Nuff said.

Now that the Trevi insurance has been purchased, you can circle back to the southwest to see one of Rome's most simple, yet possibly the most historically important buildings.  Built in 125 A.D. the Pantheon is a circular building with a portico at the entrance and a domed roof.  It is the oldest building in the world that is still in use.  The existing building is actually the 3rd try.  The first one was built it in the year 80 A.D. and it burned down.  They built a 2nd one and it was stuck by lightning in 110 A.D. and also burned down.  They say the 3rd time is the charm and the existing building is almost 2,000 years old.  The Romans invented concrete, and the circumference of the dome is 142' (43 meters) and at the top of the dome a round opening called an oculus, or eye is 29 feet (8.8 meters) across and it is the same height from the floor of the building to the opening.  The oculus allows the sun to enter the building and if you are patient and don't mind a stiff neck, you can watch the progress of the earth circling the sun as the light moves across the walls and floor of the circular building.  It is the largest, unsupported concrete dome in the world.  It was originally built as a pagan temple but it was converted to a Catholic church in around the year 600 by one of the Byzantine Christian emperors.  It is still an active church today.  The building is significant not only because of it's age, but because of the engineering principles involved in making such a large, heavy dome almost 2,000 years ago.  The building has a simple, graceful harmony to it, especially as the sun travels across the walls.  If you go on a rainy day, just stay away from the oculus if you're inside so you don't incur bad luck by opening an umbrella indoors!  There are many beautiful architectural and artistic details in the building, you can look in a guide book or the internet to find about them if you like that sort of thing.  

I warned you at the beginning of this blog, that once I got started talking about Rome, it would be hard to stop.  But stop I must, I need a rest and perhaps you do as well.  We will return to Rome more than once, don't worry.  I would like to say a few words the next time about another passion of mine related to Rome and that's Italian and particularly Roman cuisine.  If you ever plan on going to Rome, you might be particularly interested because nowadays it isn't difficult to get expensive, bad food in Rome if you aren't careful!  But I can help you avoid that kind of disaster.  So stay tuned and start dieting, so you can pig out in Rome!