Young and Dumb is No way to Go Through Life.   

But you have to start somewhere

The photo above is me sitting on the balcony railing outside of my 2nd floor room in the hospital in Nürnberg.  I was 19 years old at the time.  Just a young and dumb guy learning about life and the world.  I wasn't totally clueless.  I had been to Europe 3 times already prior to my joining the Army.  I went through Army Basic Training which taught be many things about myself and what I could do.  I had worked in my father's store for some time, I worked in a big factory for a year.  I have always been an avid reader and by the time I was 20 I had read a lot about a lot of things.  But I was still "wet behind the ears" as they say, there's only so much you can experience and learn in life after only 19 years.  This next story happened because I was young and dumb, that's pretty much the reason for it.  It wasn't a lot of fun at the time, but I did learn a lot about human nature and other things, and like many stories, with age it has grown to be quite an amusing tale.  Any story involving drugs, money, stolen cars, shady characters, and the US Military Police and the German polizei has a certain appeal, right?

My story starts out with a friend of a friend.  Sometimes a friend of a friend can become a good friend and a wonderful relationship can begin.  And other times a friend of a friend is no friend indeed.  In this case the friend of a friend was a guy we'll call Olsen (Actually his real name was Olsen, but I am using it for reasons that will become clear later in the story).  Olsen was a former American soldier that had been discharged at the end of his enlistment and chose to stay in Germany because he had a German girlfriend.  This option was called a 'European Out', and was often chosen by soldiers in the same situation as Olsen.  Sometimes they could find jobs working as civilians for the military, sometimes, if they spoke German well enough, they could get jobs with a German employer.  Some of them like Olsen just seemed to survive by their wits ands the support of their girlfriend. 

I was hanging out with a couple of friends at my little cellar apartment one day and a guy I worked with came over with Olsen.  I had never met Olsen before.  My co-worker introduced Olsen to me and we all sat around talking and having a few beers.  Then we decided to smoke a little hash, a pretty common occurrence as you might realize by now if you have read my other blog posts about my life in Nürnberg in the 1970s.  As we were smoking, Olsen mentioned that he "knew people" and if we wanted to buy more than a few grams of hash, he could hook us up.  I should explain something at this point about buying hash back then.  Most often, for casual users such as most of the people I knew, if you needed some hash you asked around.  Everybody knew somebody that seemed to be able to get some hash.  At the time, the standard amount was 10 grams, a little over 1/3 of an ounce.  In other words, not a lot.  The 10 gram chunk cost $20.00, or $2.00 a gram.  We called this a 20 cent piece for obvious reasons.  Hash came in several varieties.  There was Afghan black, brownish-black in color, a very nice mellow high; Tripping green, kind of a light grass green color which as the name implies would make you see things and was quite strong; Chokin' red, which was red in color, of average intensity but it was very harsh and made you cough a lot; And blond, another mellow high without any remarkable qualities, named after its color, a nice light shade of blond.    

Somebody asked Olsen what amounts he was talking about and what the price was.  Olsen said at the time, he could get a 100 gram brick of Gold Seal black for $180.00.  Gold Seal Black was a black Afghan hash that had a small elephant and 3 interlocked rings below it stamped in gold on the brick, a trademark of sorts.  If you do some quick math, if you buy 100 grams for $180.00 and sell nine 20 cent pieces, then you have 10 grams left for personal consumption.  So essentially you had a free piece of hash for yourself.  Of course there was the danger of getting caught with 100 grams of hash.  It was bad enough to get caught with any kind of drug, but in larger quantities the punishment was more severe, possibly even prison time and a dishonorable discharge.  But of course the lure of a free 20 cent piece can cloud a young person's mind.  

It just so happened that on that particular day I was celebrating my 20th birthday.  In addition to that, because we were paid on the last day of the month, I had just gotten paid 3 days earlier.  At the time my net pay was around $350.00, most of which was spending money because food and shelter and most other essential life costs were taken care of by the Army.  So here I was, feeling festive about my birthday, a wallet full of cash and a guy offering me a way to get some free hash.  What's not to like about a situation like that!  What could possibly go wrong?

With the thought of having 10 grams of my favorite variety of hash at my disposal, and enough friends that I knew I easily could sell the other 9 pieces. I told Olsen that I was interested in getting a brick.  I have to admit that the idea of holding an actual brick of Gold Seal Black in my had and admiring it before I cut it up was attractive as well.  Kind of like that thrill you get when you have a large amount of cash in your hand, or some other interesting thing of value.  I asked Olsen just what was involved in making the transaction.  He told me that I could pay him half of the money, $90.00, he would go to his source, get the brick, return in a few hours and I would pay him the other half of the money and I would get my brick.  That sounded pretty simple to me.  But of course nothing is as simple as it first appears.  

The first of what would turn out to be many complications was that Olsen didn't have a car.  He said it would be faster and easier if he could borrow somebody's car to go get the hash.  Well, it just so happened that I had a car!  A couple of months earlier I had bought an old Fiat 131, a 4 door, boxy looking, Fiat sedan, from another soldier at the hospital.  It's a pretty common thing for soldiers to buy and sell old cars to each other. Often when a soldier leaves an overseas duty station it isn't feasible to bring their car with them.  Many of the cars soldiers would buy were old, cheap and not really worth the time and trouble to ship back to the US.  In addition, there were different rules about equipment on European cars vs. American made cars that often made it virtually impossible to ship the car back to the US.  I had paid $400.00 for my Fiat and it ran pretty well.  For a car that price, you weren't going to get something wonderful or beautiful, you got basic transportation.  The main criteria was; did it run OK, did it have a heater that worked, and would it pass a rudimentary safety inspection.  Anything beyond that was a bonus.  My Fiat wasn't pretty but it worked and the body was sound and for what little driving I needed to do, it was just fine.  

I told Olsen that the could borrow my car as long as he would return in a few hours.  He assured me that he would do that.  So I agreed that he could run his errand and I would wait at my apartment for his return.  He said he could go immediately to get the hash for me, I just needed to give him the $90.00.  I pulled out my wallet and as I was counting out the $90.00 and I thought to my self, I'll just give him $180.00 and get it over with.  To this day I wonder if I hadn't done that, maybe this story would be entirely different.  But I did what I did and you can always look back on the past and think, "If only  I would have..."  I gave Olsen the money, my car keys.  He told me he only needed half of the money, but I insisted he take it all (foreshadowing alert).  He said he would be back in about 2 hours at the most.  Off he went to get my hash, and my friends and I sat around drinking and smoking.  I had already gotten promises from a couple of my friends to buy some of the hash from me when Olsen returned.

As you might suspect at this point, a couple of hours passed, it was now about 4 p.m. and Olsen hadn't returned.  I wasn't worried.  I mean things happen right?  Maybe he was running some other errands, maybe his dealer wasn't in, who knows what.  Shit happens.  So we sat around some more, no one in our little group was worried about Olsen either.  Around 5 p.m. the other guys decided to go to the hospital to get some supper.  I stayed at my apartment because I wanted to be there when Olsen returned.  Around 6 p.m., I started to get a little nervous.  But then I thought he was only a couple of hours late and maybe he ran into a problem or something.  I was sure that soon he would appear with my  hash, or worst case, he wouldn't have been able to buy it and he would give me my money and my car keys back.

Around 7 p.m., I was getting more than a bit concerned.  I decided to go over to the hospital to my room in the barracks.  On the ground floor, there was an entrance to the barracks portion of the hospital.  There was an inner door that led to the barracks area and a broad staircase to the 2nd floor where my room was.  Next to the stairway was a little wooden shack with a window opening and a door.  This was the CQ shack.  Every Army barracks has such a little room, or a desk or something where the Charge of Quarters sits.  During off duty hours, this desk needs to manned so that in the event of some kind of emergency or other needs, a soldier is available to find somebody in the barracks or whatever. They are also tasked to ensure no unauthorized people entered the barracks.  For example, at that time women were not allowed in the men's barracks without a very good reason and vice versa. The person,  sometimes there were 2 people, were normal soldiers in the unit that periodically incurred this duty.  They would sit there from the close of duty hours in the afternoon, usually around 4 p.m. until the following morning at 8 a.m.  On weekends, they did a 24 hour shift.  Nobody liked pulling CQ, it's usually very boring, but that's Army life.  The CQ had a phone on the desk, soldiers in the barracks didn't have phones.  

When I went into the barracks, I stopped at the CQ desk and told the CQ that a person named Olsen might come to see me, and I gave him my room number.  I figured when Olsen went to my apartment and saw I wasn't home, he would go to the barracks and try to find me, or our mutual friend that lived in the same room that I did in the barracks.  Even though I had an apartment off post, I was still required to maintain a place in the barracks, as technically I wasn't authorized to live off post although they allowed us to do it unofficially.  I went up to my room and my co-worker was there.  We talked about Olsen, he vouched for him and said that something probably came up and not to worry.  About an hour later, there was a knock on the door.  I was hoping it was Olsen.  I opened the door and the CQ said that Olsen had called and I need to come down to talk to him on the phone.  I was relieved that Olsen called, now at least I could talk to him and see when he would arrive.  I went to the CQ shack and picked up the phone receiver.  Olsen said he was sorry, he had to wait for his dealer, but finally everything was done and he would come to the barracks in about 1 hour.  I said that was great and I would be waiting for him to come around 10 p.m.  

 !0 p.m. came and went and no Olsen.  I went downstairs several times to see if he had called but the answer was negative.  I was quite worried, not about Olsen, but about the fact that he had my car and $180.00 of my money.  I regretted giving him the entire amount, but still held out hope that it would all work out.  Finally about midnight I decided to sleep in my room in the barracks, I needed to be to work the next day on the early shift which meant I had to be in the mess hall at 5 a.m.  I went to sleep hoping that Olsen would be waking me up at some point early in the morning.  My alarm went off at 4:30 a.m., I got into my cook whites and went off to work.  No word from Olsen.  I pondered my situation and thought what a nice birthday I'd had.  I gave some guy I didn't know my car and $180.00 and he never came back.  At this point it was beginning to dawn on me that perhaps I had been ripped off, a common phrase in those days meaning that somebody had taken something from you or did you wrong somehow.  I talked to my friend that had introduced me to Olsen, and he was mystified.  He didn't think that Olsen would do such a thing.  On the other hand, my co-worker friend was from a small town in Michigan and was even more naïve than I was.  After about 4 days, I did believe that Olsen had done such a thing.  I was getting a little pissed off, if there was a problem, he would have contacted my by this time.  So I decided to report the situation the the Military Police, the MPs.

Now of course I wasn't going to tell the MPs that I gave some former soldier $180.00 and my car to buy me some hash and the guy ripped me off.  I might have been a little naïve, but I wasn't that stupid!  So I decided to tell them that Olsen was a friend of a friend, which was true.  I had met Olsen and he told some sad story about having a German woman he was living with and they needed to go shopping for necessities for their love child, so I loaned him some money and my car and he never came back, which was mostly not true!  I went to the MPs and told my story, signed a statement to that effect and never heard another word from them about it.  Ever.  But wait, that's not the end of the story, not at all.

A new soldier had come to the hospital around the time of this incident and we became friends.  He was a new pharmacy tech and he was assigned to the hospital pharmacy for a few months to learn the ropes before he was sent to the medical clinic in Bamberg, not too far from Nürnberg.  Our hospital was responsible for 13 satellite outpatient clinics on Army bases in the Nürnberg area.  I was sad to see my new friend leave when the time came, but that happens in the Army.  By this time it was probably 3 months since I had last seen Olsen.  I had gotten over the experience for the most part, I figured the MPs didn't consider my situation a big crime.  

So one day, I was at work and somebody told me that I had a phone call in the mess hall office.  I thought that was unusual, who would be calling me on the military phone system at work!  When I picked up the phone, it was my friend now in Bamberg.  I asked what was up and he asked me if I had a red Fiat 131.  I said yes, I did.  I told him that it had been stolen from me.  He said he suspected something like that.  My friend told me he bought it from a former soldier by the name of Olsen, and he found out that the motor in the car was ruined and the car was basically worthless.  I told him given that Olsen had stolen the car from me, that news didn't surprise me at all.  I asked my friend how he knew to call me.  He replied that he found papers in the glove box with my name on them.  Then he asked me if I wanted my car back.  I told him I had no use for a junk car and he could do whatever he liked with it.  So now you are probably thinking this long complicated story is over right?  Well you're wrong!  As they say on the infomercials, "But wait, there's more!"  

About a month later I was at work again and I was told the German polizei wanted to talk to me on the phone.  Now, I was nervous, why would the polizei want to talk to me, I didn't remember doing anything to come to their attention.  So I nervously picked up the phone and they asked me if I knew a character named Olsen, and did he steal a car from me.  I replied, yes, those facts were true.  They told me I needed to come to the central police station in Nürnberg to answer questions about the incident.  They said they had arrested Olsen for stealing  a German rental car and then they ran across the stolen car report I had filed with the American MPs.  Of course that made me a little nervous because who knows what Olsen might have told the polizei about why he had my car.  

I practiced my sad story  about milk for the baby and the next day I went downtown to talk to a detective.  I was shown into a small office and there was a German plainclothes detective that could have stepped right out of a TV detective series.  He was middle aged, bags under his eyes, his shirt sleeves on his button down, wrinkled white shirt rolled partly up on his forearms, and of course a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth.  He asked me about Olsen and  I told him the same story I had told the MPs.  He asked my name, birthday, my parent's names, and yes my mother's maiden name again(If you read my last blog, this will make sense, go read it!).  He was smoking and taking notes the entire time, while I tried not to act too nervous.  I must have done well, because after a few more questions, he told me that Olsen was sitting in prison and he was charged with stealing 2 cars.  The polizei told me thank you and I was free to go.  I walked out of the building with a sigh of relief, and happy that justice was finally served.  

Yes, that is finally the end of the story .  I certainly learned a lot from the experience.  The biggest thing probably was that I wasn't cut out for a life of crime, even as a minor criminal.  I just wasn't cut out for that kind of activity. I also learned maybe I shouldn't be so trusting or, yes, I'll say it, so stupid.  There are people everywhere just waiting to take advantage of young innocent rubes like I was at the time.  Not that I haven't been taken advantage of later in my life, but I had a good idea it would happen, and let it happen any way for various reasons.  I have developed a very high tolerance to stress over the years, in part because of experiences like this one, in part because of some of the jobs jobs I've had, and in part because I like a little excitement in my life at times.  Olsen was my first experience with a genuine sociopath, somebody that will jump at the chance to take advantage of others with no remorse whatsoever.  I met many others throughout the course of my life.  

As I mentioned earlier here, I often wonder if I had only given half of the money, maybe he would have returned that day.  Maybe the extra $90.00 was enough to tip him over the edge and he decided it was worth the risk of ripping me off.  $90.00 wasn't a small amount of money back then.  Who knows.  I chalked it up to another life lesson and I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the story over the years.  All this time later it's pretty funny in that 'real life' story kind of way.  Nobody got hurt, the bad guy eventually got caught.  And it was just another step on the path to experience life, do various things, and sometimes pay a price for it.  I will honestly admit that as the years went on, I purposely made questionable decisions because they sounded like fun at the time, even there was a bit of risk involved.  I figured if it went south, I would have a good story to tell years later!  And for the most part It has worked and most of the scars I got in the process aren't too terrible.