Folks,

Dux:

LOL!

Your dad was quite the horse trader. My Great Grand Pop would have had a great career as a horse trader as well .... if they hadn't caught and hanged him first. Woodbines are a valuable trade commodity to this day, as gaspers go, however I have it on very good authority that those toilet roll holders supposedly from Berchtesgarten are still being carried out of the back entrance of Hymie Goldberg's Pawn Shoppe and Used Gift Emporium by the boxcar load. If you will examine closely that signature on Goering's diet sheet you may find that it bears a more than striking similarity to that of Hymie's youngest son, Vindaloo. One of Hymie's idols was P.T. Barnum who once quipped "There is a sucker born every minute." No one has done more to prove old P.T. right than has our Hymie.

McDewar's Stag Bile double malt 20 year preparation cannot be bought here in the states without a prescription. It can be purchased in Canada where it is marketed under the somewhat ubiquitous brand name 'Mama Mia's Horse Liniment, Corn and Callus Remover, Never dull Stove Polish and Emergency Snake Bite Cure. C51-sent me a large bottle just last week. I find it is also most efficacious in the removal of unsightly nasal hair and small facial blemishes. One good sniff from at least 20 feet away takes care of the former and a tiny dab of no more than about ten molecules of the stuff carefully rubbed upon an acid-proof cloth and lightly brushed against the face is more than good for the latter. As an added bonus, you will not have to shave that side of the face for at least a full week.

The 8 ton SdKfz 251 Schultzenpanzerwagen half-track with 37mm self-propelled gun and MG14 backup rib tickler was far ahead of its time. It shared several unique characteristics with the better known King Tiger tank. Were it not for the fact that it weighed tons too much to cross soft ground and was far too wide for any bridge ever built in Russia, the thing might have done quite a lot of good when Operation Barbarossa was finally launched against Stalin.

As it was, 912 of the 1000 almost useless SdKfz 251 Schultzenpanzerwagen half-tracks manufactured were eventually carried across Germany in a fleet of Italian built lorries to be ignominiously cemented into the flanks of the Siegfried Line. To add insult to injury, someone wearing a coal scuttle helmet made a slight miscalculation and the useless things spent the remainder of the war stuck in concrete facing the wrong direction. Albert Speer was said to be less than amused.

Now how in the world did one of those clankity, rusticky things make it all the way to Derbyshire? Are you absolutely certain it is a SdKfz 251 and not the much more agile SdKfz 249 Mk3? That was the model Speer liked so much that he had one custom built. He wanted it for Adolph and himself to tear around Berchstesgarten. It is said that Speer's 249 Mk3 had a sun roof, hot and cold running water, a fully appointed wet bar, the first ever prototype stereo record player plus a hand tooled leather interior with rolled and pleated bucket seats. The exterior sported a heavily chromed MG14 and 2 inch thick white mud flaps. The 37mm gun was removed to make room for a full galley and two walk-in closets. It was said to sleep 4 comfortably, and up to 8 if they were well acquainted with each other.

Speer's half-track was found hidden in a railway tunnel at the end of hostilities. It was confiscated by Georgie Patton who begged Eisenhower to get the Pentagon to have them manufactured in the US and have one given to every field grade officer. Everyone believes that Patton was killed in a freak road accident. Truth is, he bumped his head on the lowered movie screen, fell off the diving board and drowned in the SdKfz 249's Olympic-sized hot tub. Eisenhower took over Speer's half track but never did follow up on Patton's request. No one knows what happened to the thing after Ike left Europe for home. There was an unsubstantiated rumor that Ike's very good 'friend', Kay Sommersby had it shipped to England as a keepsake...