This year marks my 20th year as a professional writer. Over the course of 2024, I'll be sharing a few of those offerings you may have missed along the way...
This week in 1993, Camp King, an American Air Force Base in Oberursel, Germany closed its doors. The base was given back to the Germans. I lived there in 1976, and it's featured in my novel Back in the DDR (Eckhartz Press 2022). Today I'm presenting the following excerpt from Chapter 4 of the book, the day the main character of Back in the DDR (Rudi) goes to school the first day in his new home.
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It was pitch black when my alarm went off at 6:00 in the morning. I stood in the cold darkness waiting for the school bus, which turned out to be an Army bus. Same thing, different color. It was packed. No one got a seat to themselves, so I asked a kid with glasses if I could sit next to him.
“Sure,”
he said, “have a seat.”
Because
it was still dark, and all of us were barely awake, not a word was uttered for
the next thirty minutes. We drove through the town of Oberursel (home of Camp
King), and a couple other small villages on our way to Frankfurt American
Junior High School. The big school bus made a few turns on these tiny streets
that didn’t seem physically possible. I don’t know who this driver was, but he
could have given AJ Foyt a run for his money.
We
stopped at a red light next to a movie theater. The poster advertising the
current movie will be etched forever in my mind. A completely naked woman was
staring back at me.
I
pointed out the poster to my seatmate.
He
laughed. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
I
nodded.
“The
Krauts are very free with the nudity,” he said.
That didn’t sound like any of the Krauts
I’ve known all my life, but I guess it explains the sex shop in the airport.
“I’m
David,” he said, reaching out his hand. “Eighth grade.”
“Rudi,”
I replied. “Seventh grade.”
“Stick
with me,” David said, “And I’ll make sure the ninth graders don’t pick on you.
This is a school for seventh through ninth grade, so you’re an underclassman.”
“Thanks.”
He
didn’t look like he could protect me from anything, but I appreciated the
gesture from the upperclassman with thick glasses and skinny arms.
“Where
are you from?” he asked.
“Chicago,”
I replied.
“Well in
that case, you probably don’t need my protection. I’ve seen The Untouchables.
Robert Stack, Al Capone.” He made the motion as if he were shooting a machine
gun. “I hear people from Chicago are pretty tough.”
“Um,
yeah, I guess.”
“So are New Yorkers,” he said. It sounded
more like New Yawkers. “That’s me. I come from New York City. Brooklyn.”
“Isn’t
Brooklyn the home of Welcome Back Kotter?” I asked.
“Never
heard of it.”
“It’s a
TV show,” I said. “A comedy.”
“Well,
here’s something you’re going to have to get used to. We only have one American
television channel here, and it’s always behind the States. We just got Starsky
and Hutch this week. I’ve been seeing those guys on magazine covers for months
without having the slightest idea what their show is about.”
“It’s one of the best shows,” I said.
“I know that now,” David replied. “This sort
of thing will happen to you too. Next year at this time, if you go back to
America, you won’t understand what people are talking about. Look at me. I
didn’t even know there was a show about Brooklyn. And I watch TV five hours a
day.”
“Our TV won’t even be here for a month,” I
said.
“Oof,” he said. It was like I punched him in
the gut. “That’s rough.”
“I know!”
“At least you can go to the movies. We have
a movie theater at Camp King.”
“New movies?” I asked.
“Sort of. Have you seen the movie ‘Tommy’
yet?”
“Last
year,” I said. “The Acid Queen scene gave me nightmares for a week.”
“Don’t
tell me!” David replied, holding his hands over his ears. “It’s the brand-new
movie at the Camp King theater this week.”
I was
crestfallen.
“What am I going to do?” I asked.
“I have no records. No record player. No TV. Two movie theaters, one with
movies I’ve already seen and another with movies I’ll never be allowed to see.
I don’t even have my baseball cards.”
David
sensed my desperation, even if he didn’t fully understand what I was going
through.
“Don’t
worry about losing touch with America,” he said. “I’ll tell you four things
that will save you. Are you ready?”
I nodded.
“First step is the Stars and Stripes
newspaper. Make sure your parents subscribe. That will give you all the news
you need. Real news. American news. Step two is subscribing to Sports
Illustrated. Do you like sports?”
“Baseball.”
“I’m a basketball man myself. Love the
Knicks. The stories arrive about two weeks late, but at least there are photos.
Before I subscribed to Sports Illustrated, I didn’t know if Harthorne Wingo was
a black guy or a white guy.”
I nodded like I knew.
“Did you see the swimsuit issue?” I whispered
conspiratorially.
David smiled broadly. “Might even be better
than the Sears catalog,” he said.
“Sears catalog?”
“Oh yeah,” he whispered. “The women’s
underwear section is amazing. They use real models to show the bras and
panties. And the lingerie...” His eyebrows went up and down a few times. The
universal language for yowza. “Of course, in West Germany, you don’t need it.
You just saw the movie poster. They have nude women on billboards and
television all the time. They have ads for hookers in the newspapers.”
“What?”
“I’m not kidding,” he said. “Check out the
classified ads in the Kraut papers.”
I was sitting next to pure wisdom.
“The third step is subscribing to Mad
Magazine. It will keep you up with movies and television,” he pontificated
further. “You won’t understand the Mad parodies about the new shows, like I
didn’t with Starsky and Hutch, but you’ll get enough info to pretend like you
do if they ever come up.”
This sounded like great advice.
“And the last step is AFN Radio. Have you
listened to it yet?”
“No.”
“They do
American Top 40 every week. At least you’ll stay in touch with music. Do
you like music?”
“I love
it,” I said.
“Casey
Kasem. He’s the man.”
Boy, am
I glad I sat next to this kid.
