Dancing on Tour Overseas pt 2
Posted: January 11, 2022 Filed under: God and Country, History, Memories, Overseas Life, Service, War and Peace Leave a commentContinuing Saga
by Lynda Southworth
The Flight from the USA to Germany 2
A short while later, one of the young pilots walked down the aisle to check the passengers. When he returned, he struck up a conversation with me and sat in the empty seat next to me. 5 minutes later he returned to the cockpit. There were three pilots.
A couple hours passed, and people were trying to get comfortable enough to sleep on the long, overnight flight. I was resigned to a sleepless night and being exhausted by morning.
Then the cockpit door opened. One of the pilots came out to speak to me. He informed me that they had a couple bunks, but rarely if ever used both. I was invited to use the one they rarely used, “because a young lady entertaining the troops should be well rested.” I was assured I’d be perfectly safe. How long do you think it took me to say, “Yes”? I very quietly stepped in front of him, so he blocked the view and stepped through the door.
I didn’t wake until morning when I heard through the curtain someone knock on the cockpit door. It was George in a panic because one of his troops was missing. The pilot whispered where I was. George asked how long before we landed and was told in about two hours. I went back to sleep.
Just before we were supposed to land, the pilot came to notify me through the curtain that we would be landing in half an hour. I went quietly back to my seat refreshed and ready for the day. Only George knew that I had slept in a bunk. All the rest were stiff, bleary-eyed, and exhausted. I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so to speak. As I deplaned, all three pilots wished me well on the tour and to “knock them dead.”
My Angel had been with me all the time. If I hadn’t been late, I would have been sitting back with the rest and exhausted. What I thought was a disaster, turned into a wonderful adventure. I’m always amazed at the kindness of strangers.
We landed, were driven to our lodgings, and had time for a nap before supper and our first performance. After every performance, the troop remained on stage to meet and greet the soldiers. I decided my M.O. (Method operandi) that evening. I noticed a young man still sitting in his seat when others came on stage. He seemed hesitant, so I went to him. We talked until it was time for us to depart for our lodgings. He was a shy, homesick young man. He wanted to know the latest songs in America, etc. At times I tried to make him laugh, but mainly, I just listened to him tell me about his hometown, his family, and his girlfriend along with his wish for a juicy American hamburger instead of sausages. He was so grateful that I listened to him. He expressed what he was experiencing and feeling. He couldn’t tell that to his buddies because they all are tough MEN at least on the outside.
That is when I decided I would look for the young and shy and mainly just listen to them along with answering questions about what was happening socially in the USA. Remember, many of these young men were fresh out of high school, this was the first time they had left home, they were dealing with a new culture, and they had to be unemotional, tough MEN ALL the time. Many times, I heard that they just wanted to talk with an American girl.
This tour was so satisfying to me because it was like listening to and comforting one of my brothers when he needed to let it all out.
WHY THE DINING BOOKS?
Posted: June 2, 2021 Filed under: History, The Host Nation Leave a commentby Allen Dale Olson
The idea for DINING IN ALSACE struck me in the spring of 1971. At lunch with Mary Neth, a reporter for STARS and STRIPES, she mentioned that I was always taking notes about touristic-related sites to include restaurants and wineries. Her beat included the Defense Department schools, and she saw that part of my protocol and public affairs duties included arranging off-duty activities as well official conferences and interviews for visiting dignitaries and, often, their wives. Such groups enjoy good food together.
I showed her my notebook which at the time contained a couple dozen interesting restaurants within about a 50-mile radius of Karlsruhe, most of which were on the French side of the border. She told me she thought a lot of American military families in Germany would really like to enter France for a dining experience because it was nearby – just across the Rhine River – and didn’t require all the time and expense of having to go to Paris. “Why don’t you turn these notes into a book?” she suggested.
In February, 1972, Walworth Publishing Company produced the first edition of DINING IN ALSACE. With photos and chefs’ commentary it told the story of twenty restaurants on the French side of the border with Germany, all within an easy drive of where most Army and Air Force families were assigned. It covered a range from a couple of world-famous classical places to a few rustic places with romantic and/or historic associations. But in all cases, the quality of the food and the value of the experience were highlighted. We were told it was the first-ever English language book about restaurants in Alsace.
That led to a fourth edition in 1986, but there is much to tell along the way between 1972 to 1986. First, In the beginning I met twenty established restaurateurs and many of their suppliers. My conversations with them changed the way my wife and I spent our weekends and leave days. We went to wineries, asparagus growers, cheese makers, foie gras producers, and to the writers of gastronomic and culinary writers and journalists. We became friends with a couple of Michelin Guide inspectors and eventually had meetings with two different chief inspectors. I made sure that whenever I traveled, any free time would be used to find an interesting place for a meal, wherever I happened to be.
Germany’s Black Forest is also on the border with France, and Karlsruhe, Heidelberg, and Stuttgart are “gateway” cities to this famous area. We began to get questions about the German side of that border; DINING IN THE BLACK FOREST was born.
The late Jean-Pierre Haeberlin who, with his brother, for years looked after the three-Michelin-star Auberge de l’Ill, made sure I gained entrée to two of the most prestigious hotel-restaurant associations in the world: les Grandes Tables du Monde and Relais et Chateaux, and soon my wife and I would be invited to some of their special events, and we became acquainted with some of the most remarkable cooking personalities ever – Paul Bocuse, Jacques Pic, Pierre Troisgros, Mado Point, to name a few. Wine families like the Humbrechts, Trimbachs, Matuschkas, Mondavis, Jadot, and Latour became friends.
The Romantik Hotel Association of Germany made sure we visited their member hotels in all parts of the country, giving rise to our DINING IN GERMANY.
With the help of friends like those I was able to meet chefs from Sweden to Italy, the Baltic to San Sebastian, England to Belgium and Holland. Those contacts spawned two additional books: DINING IN GERMANY and DINING IN EUROPE’S GREATEST RESTAURANTS in 1983.
Of course, there have been many highlights resulting from this second, unpaid career, but one of the most memorable came the morning after the Armed Forces Television Network aired a film of my having dinner in a German restaurant interacting with the wait staff about dining customs and etiquette in Germany. As I walked into the Karlsruhe Army Motor Pool that morning, I made eye contact with a sergeant coming off the night shift. He stared at me a full minute, then said “Ain’t you the guy I seen eatin’ on television last night?”
A footnote… One of our more interesting findings was that most of the hotel-restaurant people were surprised that we wanted no payment for inclusion in the book. Learning that we were doing this privately without any corporate support opened them up to candid and revealing discussions about the business. Many of them offered us a free meal or a free room, but other than that, all of our production was out of pocket and on off-duty time. Book sales enabled us to recover most of the actual production costs of the books but nothing close to the travel and dining costs necessary for that production.
Ah, but the friendships. We still hear from a few of the chefs. Every month or so we get a message from a former soldier or teacher about how they appreciated the books when they were serving in Europe. Retired STARS AND STRIPES and American Forces Network journalists still e-mail us descriptions of their current meal experiences just because they know we care – and remember.
And my wife and I still insist on dining well, often trying to recall just what dish was it we liked so well in where was it?
To see all of the titles, please go to the museum’s book blog At Ease at:
https://ateasebooks.wordpress.com/?s=dining+in+Alsace