Legendary Night

Typical German Beer Fest - Where it All Started

As I shamble around with my slowly improving back I was buoyed last night with phone calls from my daughter (who we’ll see this weekend), my son (who we’ll see much later), a good friend, my son’s superb girlfriend (who we’ll see this weekend), and my cousin (also this weekend).  Since I am fairly immobile due to this cranky back I spent some time last night wandering how some of my youthful haunts were doing.  Google earth is a great tool and I was able to find the Army base in Frankfurt where I was first assigned in 1978.  It was called Drake-Edwards Kaserne on Homburger LandStrasse and it reverted back to the Germans a long time ago.  It was an SS base in World War 2 and was occupied by the US Army until the late 1980s at least.  This was the place I broke off my first engagement and had some real adventures.  For some reason last night I flashed back on the night an Army buddy and I met a pair of girls at a German beer fest (my favorite thing about Germany – these things happen year round - the fests I mean).  The biggest surprise was that one of the girls was American and we hit it off right away.  We spent the evening together and at some point they invited us back to their favorite bar.  We thought we were doing so well as we pulled up to the Club Paris somewhere in Frankfurt.  As we walked downstairs to the club we noticed we were getting some really strange looks from the people (all female) that we passed on our way down.  We reached the club and our new friends were greeted with loud hellos from several tables, again all female.  I just thought this was great and the odds were certainly in my favor.  You can probably guess where I’m going with this – we were the only males in a gay female bar.  I know you’ve seen scenes in a movie where someone walks into a room and all noise and conversation halts in response to the arrival – that was us.  Being only 24 years old at the time it took me a while to realize where we were.  My older, somewhat worldlier buddy pointed out to me where we were and that it was time to leave.  Even through the fog from the beer consumed at the fest I could tell the rest of the crowd was not exactly enamored at our presence.  A large percentage of the other females in the bar were American Soldiers, which was a serious taboo back in those days.  They actually had a men’s room in the bar and while I was in there one of the these gals walked in (apparently surprised it wasn’t empty) and said in a very loud voice, “Ewwwww, a guy!”. My buddy had promised a ride home to some friends we had abandoned at the fest so we made our excuses and prepared to leave.  The American gal I had been pursuing was a little disappointed because we had hit it off, as friends (obviously her choice).  She said we should come back after running our errand.  When my friend and I were safely out on the street we both exploded with laughter and ran our other friends home.  As we talked, the effect of the beer must have taken firmer hold because we decided that we didn’t like getting run out of the bar by our own fear.  We surprised the gals, almost as much as we surprised ourselves, by returning to the bar.  I could tell that my friend was very pleased and we ended up having a great time.  She was a victim of rape and I was the first guy she had a normal conversation with in over a couple years.  We ended up closing the place and the female bar tender kept sending us free rounds in recognition of our “courage”.  It was one of my favorite memories from that time when I was still hurting from the broken engagement.

My Old Army Barracks in Frankfurt as They Look Today