In the early seventies Germany was very much an occupied country. According to Wikipedia, at one time there were over 196 military “installations,” which could be anything from an army barracks to a training area, storage facility or depot. Gradually they’ve been closed or consolidated; today there are only 42 and that number will be dropping in the next couple of years unless the cold war heats up. Let’s hope, dear God, it does not.

The only Americans who really understand what it’s like to live an occupied county are Native Americans. The rest of us cannot imagine having foreign troops on our soil, driving their tanks down our roads, building their bases on land that could be used for housing, disrupting our festivals, and, in many cases, sadly, raping our women. I’m not saying it wasn’t necessary to have so many troops stationed there. I’m just saying it affected the psyche of both the occupiers and the occupied. From the German perspective: Americans bought their food cheaply on army bases, received gas coupons to alleviate the exorbitant price of petro, and, with the money they were saving, hired local women to scrub their toilets.

The college students I met reacted by becoming well versed on American atrocities and thus were more than happy to jump at the chance to point out just what an evil group of materialistic, war-mongers we Americans were. I’d been raised politely and thus didn’t point out Germany’s recent past, besides I knew they were lashing out however they could. And the Americans? Well, they tried to maintain little oceans of Americana on the bases – softball games, Indian Princesses, Cub Scouts and of course that very necessary of American traditions: Happy Hour.

It was the night of a thousand peanuts; casings and skins littered the bar and floor. When one bowl emptied, another was brought forth from beneath the bar to replace it as gin and tonics replaced Heinekens, shirts were loosened, ties were flung to the side, and jokes became raunchier and raunchier. Happy hour at the officers’ club was in full swing.

This week I’m throwing in an extra excerpt from the Graduation Present.  Our young protagonist (Riley) has just been picked up from the airport by her uncle and they’re driving through the German countryside to his home.  The captivating Gil and Oncle Boob are in the front seat chatting as Riley enjoys the scenery from the back.

This green landscape seemed so clean, so pure. The land of happy villagers, peaceful, loving peasants and urbane, chic, and sophisticated Europeans. I’d arrived.

“Gilberto, did you get a look at the knockers on Lou’s new secretary?” Uncle Bob blurted out, destroying my revelry.

“Molly, you mean Molly, right?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s her name. You know, the big ones are fun to cuddle but there is something to be said for frisky little titties. The French have a saying that the perfect size tit fits into a champagne glass. What do you think of that Gilberto? You like the little bitty titties?”

“Ah, Uncle Bob. I’m in the backseat,” I reminded him.

“So? You got a thing against tits?”

“I can’t believe I actually thought you were a spy.”

“Spies don’t like tits?”

The first time I went to Europe, so full of romantic illusions and so desperately naive that it’s painful to think back upon that time, many things took me by surprise. First, it wasn’t Disneyland.

“Jan at fifteen” by Connemoira

Second, the war which seemed so long ago to me, still hung over the continent as if it had happened the day before I arrived.  I will never forget seeing WWII, not from across an ocean, but through the eyes of people who’d lived through it and for whom it remained a constant shadow.

However, what gave me the most pause were the lowered expectations of the young people I met. In America, everyone wants to be a movie star or athlete. In America, it’s drummed into our heads that not only could everyone go to college but everyone should want to go to college, as well as buy a house, a car, twelve television sets and membership at the local golf course. To do otherwise was – for my generation – lazy, degenerate behavior, ultimately resulting in a life spent on the street with a bottle of gin hidden in a paper bag.

Thus, running into young villagers perfectly happy to remain at home, with a life no better than their parents, caused me to rethink American values.

I lived in a village unchanged for hundreds of years and populated by people of Slavic descent who’d migrated there for political reasons. As in many small villages in Europe, during the day there were practically no young people on the streets, only old women tending small children. The parents of the children and young people old enough to work, commuted to one of the larger cities nearby.

I met Inga and Hans only because they were both on vacation; he was on leave from the army and she was taking a short breather before training to become a shop clerk. They lived with their folks and had no immediate plans to move out. Nor was college or a car a remote possibility.

From the Graduation Present: It depressed me to see young people my age without the hunger to change the world or to rise up the ladder to what we in American defined as success; more money, more power; greater knowledge than our parents. But, on the other hand, they were happy, content, and secure, on a path that wouldn’t lead to an uncomfortable place. I envied them in a way. If I told my parents: “I just want to live with you the rest of my life, work in the local store, maybe travel a bit,” they’d blow a gasket.

I regret to say that after I returned stateside, I got a letter from Inga and Hans asking if they could stay with me when they came to the United States. My life was then in such flux that I never responded.

For the last couple of months I’ve been blogging about the wild time I had on my first trip to Europe, which would have lived on only in a cardboard box had it not been for a writing contest back in the 1990s. The challenge was to write about “our wackiest travel adventure.”  I immediately riveted back to my ignorant youth when I traveled the world naively believing that the universe would take care of me.  Twenty years later that challenge evolved into THE GRADUATION PRESENT (on Amazon now). Of course it’s impossible to remember everything that happened 40 years ago so this book is primarily fiction. However, there are a few real life incidents that I just couldn’t help adding.

My Uncle Bob (who I stayed with in Europe) read the first drafts of the book and said:

“I don’t remember any of these things happening, Jan.”

To which I  said “That’s because it’s a work of fiction!”

He looked at me oddly.  “But Gunthersblum is real and Worms is real and I’m real!”

“Okay, there’s a little real even in fantasies.”

Still dissatisfied  he went on to ferret out the real.  He couldn’t.  Forty years is a long time.  This particular scene which he vehemently denies ever happening actually did:

“Did you see all those young lieutenants at the bar?” Uncle Bob asked as we waited for our meal.

“Yeah,” I lied. I couldn’t tell a lieutenant from a general.

“Well, I figure that they’d all love to take a pretty American girl out to dinner.”

“What?”

“I was thinking, why should I be the one who has to feed you when there are all those young studs who’d gladly …”

“Uncle Bob!”

“You know, you’ve gotta learn to use what you have while you still have it. Think of it as the law of supply and demand. You’ve got the supply and they’ve got the demand,” he said, taking a chomp out of a breadstick.

Whereas the following scene is complete fiction, although the character of Lou was loosely based on Uncle Bob’s boss at the time:

Outside it was dark. The rain had stopped. “She sleeps!” The Moroccan shouted again. Lou appeared a few minutes later in the door. I could only see him in silhouette but I could tell he was livid. His aura was bright red.

“Where have you guys been?” I asked innocently.

“I was investigating your kidnapping!” he snorted.

“My what?”

“YOUR KIDNAPPING!” he yelled, stomping his foot like an enraged Rumpelstiltskin.

The following bit of musing was inspired by listening to my uncle’s friends who were WWII vets talk about their experiences:

 I thought of those young kids from small-town America, about to jump from a rattletrap plane into the unknown, for that one last moment believing Hollywood crap of fame and glory, then dropping with fewer chances than a duck in a shooting arcade into an alien land, a land they’d been assured would include cheering crowds and willing women, which they would never see because they would splat like frogs into marshes filled with dung or float to earth full of bullet holes.  And they were the lucky ones.

I wish some things in the book hadn’t really happened but they did, such as:

Unfortunately Uncle Bob was wrong. Not every moron on the planet can pass the army typing test and I’m living proof of that fact.

I made army history by flunking the idiot-proof army test three times.

So a bit of truth and a whole lot of imagination went into the writing of the book as I imagine is the case with most novels.

Next time I’ll post the first chapter of the book.  Oh, the drawings on this page are doodles drawn by the cartoonist for Stars and Stripes, the armed forces newspaper, as we sat drinking Heinekens in the bar of the Officer’s Club in Worms Germany.  Alas, I’ve forgotten his name. If anyone out there recognizes the work, please let me know.