JRT,

An inspired choice which I fully endorse!

Folks,

Dux:

Thanks my friend.

Forgive me if I'm somewhat pensive, perhaps even a bit melancholy on this beautiful spring day. Today would have been Lady T's birthday. We will celebrate by taking the kids to the park for a picnic. There will be sandwiches and cupcakes for dessert. They will write "We love and miss you Nanny" on two helium filled balloons and release them to the Heavens. This may seem a somewhat saccharine little ritual to some however I hope it will continue on in future years as the four of us come together to remember her birthday and celebrate her life.

An excellent campaign ribbon Roger, from what I hear, fully endorsed by AVM Streeb-Greebling himself, no less.

Gents, I trust you have read the fine preview of the next BoB 2 upgrade from the fine labs of the BDG, a preview which seems to have caused new pilots to pour in through the gates in droves! Well done HeinKill, very well done old sport!

If you haven't read it yet, its available via the frontpage.

Folks,

MG:

Thanks for the compliment. I'll be posting the complete graphic on the 24th. I do alright with PhotoShop after many years of practice and I'm still learning. Having said that I have my limits and I could never mod like PV1 and say Stickman.

Yes, I've read it however I'm stuck with my last patch until I upgrade to a computer made some time in the present century. I've also been reading with interest a post by Dux and several recent posts in which PV1 took part. It is good to see some new activity.

In other news, I've received picture postcards and an e-mail from C51 who is still wandering around Germany. Fortunately his wife is with him. She is acting as interpreter and struggling to keep beer stains off his lederhosen and him out of trouble. He writes of sightseeing around Cologne and visiting the Cologne cathedral in particular. I believe Cologne took quite a beating in the war.

Gents,

JRT,

Cologne cathedral took about 70 bomb hits but survived to be repaired by 1956. Miraculous, considering all around was devastation.

I reckon C51 will enjoy his visit to Germany. So much to see, including places associated with WWII. I was in Remagen thirty years ago and visited the famous bridge while the others went shopping to Koblenz. Horses for courses.

Folks,

Dux:

I remember going to see the film about the battle for that bridge years ago. As I recall it was a B&W film. Capturing that bridge intact was a triumph for the Allies. It hastened the end of the war.

Another e-mail arrived from Germany today. C51 and Lady "M" are certainly getting to see a lot of Bavaria. I expect them to be winging their way back to Pearson near Toronto sometime next week. Thinking of Germany today I've been trying to remember the name of that German fellow who used to post regularly. I know there were several over the years but this fellow's dad worked for BMW and they had lived for a time in South Carolina. He knew this area well.

Let's see, there was a chap called 'Grief1' whose name was Ernest Roth and a fellow by the name of Andreas Herrmann and one named Rainer Osselmann. I can remember the names but not recall which one lived in SC. It has been a long time since they posted here. Speaking of which it has been ages since our pals Wildman and Wagonuilad posted. They used to drop in on occasion. Perhaps, unlike us, they have grown up or maybe they are posting over at A2A? Dux, JRT, McGonigle and PV1 it has come down to us to carry SNAFU's brainchild into another decade.

Folks,

I have received another brief e-mail from C51 who is still at large and traveling in Deutschland. He writes that among other activities he has felt compelled even obligated to sample and enjoy the local beer, Diebels alt. Is anyone familiar with that particular libation? He has also driven on the Autobahn. Hopefully he did not combine the two activities. Speeding down the fabled Autobahn was a blast he says. According to him driving at such breakneck speed was a new and delightfully exhilarating experience. Confidentially I do not believe that driving at great speed is entirely..um...foreign to him.

Apparently he has promised to go to a model train exposition in Dortmund with someone who does not speak English. That should be interesting. Trains have a universal appeal so they'll work it out and have a great time.

Three weeks is precious little time to see even the most important spots of interest in any country. They'll go back one day I'm sure.

I can't remember tasting German beer but I probably have, as many years ago, after obtaining my driver's license, I came upon the idea of taking a motoring vacation through Germany Belgium and Holland, to catch the ferry from Oostende to Folkstone.

My car at the time wasn't particularly fast, so driving on the Autobahn was more an exercise in keeping mainly in the first lane while being very careful when preparing overtaking. You had to look very carefully in the rear view mirrors for approaching cars from far back as they tended to be much faster than you'd thought, and be closing on you in no time at all and at terrifying speeds.

An old colleague of mine had a crash on the Autobahn, totalling his car. Luckily the occupants in the car were unhurt, if shaken.

I know of an elderly couple, living just a few houses down the street some years ago who went on a motoring vacation to Germany in their new car and they never came back alive.

Still many years ago, I did on some occasions drive a bit too fast on the motorways here in Denmark but generally found it to be too stressful as many motorists cannot judge the approaching speeds correctly and thus pull out in front of you causing you to brake, lose all the speed, and then you could start all over again building speed. It was too much stop-go-stop.

Anyway. My own vacation went well, although I did find that taking one's own car on holiday was not my kind of holiday. In England I went to Reading to visit with friends there, stopping over at one or two B&B's and the odd hotel, and finally I went on my way to Harwich to go back to Denmark by boat. On that occasion there was quite a storm in the North Sea and when I awoke on the morning of disembarkation, I found my cabin was tilted some 20 degrees or more. Hearty breakfast while musing over the fact that not a lot of passengers were up and about!

Folks,
MG:

Me also. Imported beers, yes, but I can't recall ever tasting real, honest to goodness, German brewed beer. Several in my crowd used to drink Heineken Beer. This was partly because JFK drank it I suppose or was reputed to (In the early 70's I saw a bottle of that beer prominently displayed on a pull up tray in the mock up of JFK's Air Force One in the Smithsonian) also because it was more expensive, 'imported' and therefore must be better than domestic beers, right? Well that beer is brewed and bottled right here in the US now I understand.

C51 is no different from many other folks in his love for going fast. Most of us do. I dunno for sure (PV1 would certainly know) however I suspect that because Canadian babies are fitted with ice skates before they get their first pair of booties; Canadians are used to going fast from very early on.

I agree with you regarding traveling over there in your own car. Trains can take you most places inexpensively with little hassle in Britain and across Europe. Rental cars are, in my opinion, preferable to driving your own vehicle. Be sure to take out the insurance though. Wealthier Americans purchase their Mercedes or BMW car at the factory, drive it about for a time and then they have the car shipped to the states.

I guess maximum list is determined by the center of gravity of the vessel. Twenty degrees is a noticeable list! Considering all the recent notoriety attendant to the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic and recent sinkings of cruise ships I'd imagine that would get the crew's attention as well these days.

Speaking of speed; do you recall the time that Olga happened upon Dux and nurses Anita Biggun and Ivana Huggankiss playing strip poker in the tall grass behind Drubbin's barn? The eagle-eyed Dux saw her coming in their direction at a respectable distance. He knew he could never outrun Olga in a fair race. So he desperately looked about for something that would lean the odds in his favor.

He longed for the speed of his Spitfire but there wasn't even a car anywhere in sight. Then he spied farmer Drubbin's ancient, rust encrusted Penny-Farthing bicycle that was leaning against the mercifully distant pig sty. Dux headed for it at a brisk trot looking back over his shoulder as he ran shoe-less, sock-less and shirtless through the tall grass. He fell once and on instantly rising he looked back and saw Olga coming in his direction at what seemed to him to be great speed.

His heart pounding in his throat Dux tore off toward the old bicycle as fast as he could run. He ran as if his very life depended on it. That was because it did. Arriving at the old bike he took hold and shook off a cloud of rust. Using the rails of the pig sty as a ladder he climbed aboard the saddle of the freakish contraption and launched himself forward. To his great relief he soon was flying downhill at a very good clip.

For those unfamiliar with the machine the Penny-Farthing is a very odd contraption indeed. The front wheel is about shoulder high and the back wheel is about calf high to a grown man. The saddle is perched high on a metal frame. There is a chain and pedals similar to a regular bike on some models. Fortunately for our pal he was going downhill for it was all Dux could do as he bounced down the rutted old road just to stay on the thing.

It was said by several startled pedestrians who were forced to dive into the ditch as he passed them by that before Dux abruptly ended his flight from Olga head first and shoulders deep in farmer Drubbin's gigantic manure pile at the base of the hill that he was smiling ear to ear and traveling at a truly astonishing speed.

It was too bad that Dux was not aware that Olga had not recognized him at all. In fact she had come upon Anita and Ivana without noticing him as he disappeared down the road obscured by a great cloud of dust and rust. On being heartily invited so to do Olga had happily joined the two nurses in their card game never knowing Dux was anywhere near.

This inconspicuous condition was short lived. Having plunged into the stinking manure pile, from that moment on everyone within a city block radius knew when Dux was near for several days to come.

Regarding rapidly sliding canucks, I suspect it may be true to some degree,
but you must know that there exists on the very fringe of the west coast
of Canada a region, that can't be much more than perhaps 80 miles on a
side if it were all assembled together into a square, rather than the narrow
wriggling strip that it actually is, which does not enjoy the national
characteristic of freezing solid for months every year, thus allowing
a hose applied to any horizontal surface such as one's back yard to be all
that is required to generate an ice rink. And, as it transpired, my entire
upbringing occurred within that region, as in fact has most of my life
since. That is largely why I have never spent any time on skates; well,
that as well as the observation that standing on an intentionally slippery
and extremely hard and unyielding surface seemed rather an invitation for
severe damage to any number of parts of one's anatomy which would be bound
to come out second best in a gravity induced dispute over occupancy of the
space to which the ice had prior claim.

I will not comment on my personal preferred style of operation of motor
vehicles, inasmuch as if left unexamined, it may continue to bring me no
problems. Beer, on the other hand, is a subject I can spend far too much
time discussing. This may be true of many people, I suspect, however I am
definitely in a minority in this regard as I find almost all beer available
in north america to be wretched, and yet it appears to continue to sell in
vast quantities, not in any degree thanks to me. Thus, I refrain from the
temptation of this field of discourse in the recognition that it will only
underline my nonconformity, which must seem large enough already.