Saturday, September 2, 2017

Short Story ~ When Holy Hell breaks loose

"Fuck it!"

With that we started to change our minds about the other Americans who live in Paris.

Up to this point the only Americans we seemed to encounter were Rich Debutants or Rich Lawyers or just Plain 'Ol Steenk'n Idol Do-Nothing Reeech.  More properly said, we were meeting Americans rather far above our class.  We felt we needed to call it a Gap That Shall Not Be Breeched.

We recently met a 91 year old man who has lived here going on 38 years.  His invective, those are his words that opened this post, sprang from having to renew his American passport.  It's about to expire and the US Embassy is encouraging him to mail his documents to Gawd Knows Where.  He's a little angry at the system and says he's not able to travel, ever again, so why re-apply?  He is carefully considering his position on the matter.

Then there is the situation our new friend finds himself in as he tries to pay his US taxes.  His document list is rather long, what with having four pensions from three different countries.  Things are a little complicated.  So he liberally fires his short, succinct invective in the direction of the IRS, too.

The man spent 20 years in Germany working as an editor for Stars and Stripes newspaper.  He then moved and spent years and years in Paris working as an editor for the International Herald Tribune.  It feels like he is one of the last to hold the fort from the quickly vanishing class of hard working, deep thinking, living abroad Americans who I first learned about from reading Hemmingway.

He describes himself as un-American.  Not that he has anything against America.  No.  That's not the sense of the way he uses the word un-American.  What he means is that he doesn't feel German.  He doesn't feel French.  He holds no passport but a soon to expire American passport.  Yet he doesn't feel American, either.  It's been decades, many decades, since he's spent significant time there.  In short, feels like he is One Of Us.  Or maybe it's the other way around.  We are becoming like him.  Un-American.

His Down to Earth American nature is expressed in a story he shared with us.  My father asked if I could find out if the 91 year old was in Berlin during the airlift.  As you will see he wasn't, but he did share something rather interesting about his experiences during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  In his own words, here is his story.

I wasn't in Berlin for the  airlift although I did contribute bags of candy and stuff for military air crews to drop for children in starving East Berlin as U.S. planes descended to land at the U.S. airstrip at Tempelhof.

I was assistant managing editor at the time (when Stars and Stripes  had a bigger daily circulation than the International Herald Tribune) and I usually kept track of events in Berlin  from the Stars and Stripes office in Darmstadt.

For example we had a reporter stationed 24 hours a day at Checkpoint Charlie when U.S. and Russian tanks were muzzle to  muzzle  in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis.

Every day I called him a few minutes before  our various deadlines.

As we talked one Saturday just before noon, he said, "All quiet. NO'!!! WAIT!!! The Russians are climbing into their tanks!! They are  closing the hatches and starting their engines!!! They're beginning to move. (Short pause,then)  THEY'RE TURNING AROUND!!!!!

World War III was cancelled. 

I yelled at the news desk to hold the presses for a page 1 makeover  (just like in the movies).

So it went.


Around town with friends