Selected excerpts from “Journey Without Destination”
Copyright © 2010 by Karl E. Kleinn
…. My father had reinforced part of our basement with concrete and steel and had concrete walls put up in front of the above ground windows with a couple of inches of breathing space left. As far as I understood at the time the constant bombing of our city could not harm us in the snug safety of our private bunker. We had bunk beds down there, lots of food and water, and tools including shovels and a pick ax so we could dig ourselves out if need be. At the crack of dawn after the steady whine of sirens let us know that the bombers had left we would emerge from our bunker and go out into the yard, and we often saw a lot of smoke coming from the downtown area.
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….. Because our flight was delayed I picked up a payphone behind the check-in counter to call our Saudi friend in Houston who had promised to pick us up from the airport. One of the young ladies came toward me and started to shout obscenities into my ear while I was on the phone. I tried to shut her up, but nothing worked. I finally got tired of it and kicked her in her fat ass. She had a large plastic cup full of beer, which she dumped over my head. I was all wet. Virginia sat close by and acted as if she didn’t know me. Meanwhile the check-in agent had called the airport police. Two police officers showed up and, after a brief interrogation, arrested both ladies. Shortly thereafter I was summoned through the public address system to come to the Delta check-in counter. I thought that I was in trouble. On the contrary! The check-in agent profusely apologized for the incident and handed me two First Class boarding passes. The moral of the story is: If you want to get upgraded to First Class, kick a fat lady in the ass.
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…. This resulted in my first trip to the Middle East. The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Khalifa bin Zaed al Nayan opened the exhibit. He was an impressive young man as he strode down the aisles of the exhibit hall flanked by armed guards. I had a very short focal length camera and as he approached and the guards shooed everybody away I stood my ground to get a closer picture. They let me. When the Sheikh finally passed our exhibit booth I got to shake his hand. He is now the ruler of Abu Dhabi and the president of the United Arab Emirates. On that trip I took a day off to drive to the brand new city being built around the oasis of Al Ain where I was to spend some time later.
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We were to meet the rest of the gang at a prearranged restaurant in Niagara Falls, Ontario on the Canadian side. The rest of the gang consisted of my oldest sister in Canada, my second oldest sister from West Germany and my youngest sister from communist East Germany. Together with me that made four siblings from four different countries. At one point the seven of us lived in six different countries.
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There was a good reason the little church at the British Embassy compound in Ankara was named St. Nicolas. At the service on the first Advent Sunday that year the Anglican priest addressed the children in the church. There were always a lot of children present. The priest said:
“Children I want you to tell the grown-ups in this church where Santa Claus is really from.”
The children all raised their hands in unison and practically shouted:
“From Turkey!”
I could hardly believe it. The following day at the office I researched the matter on the Internet. Saint Nicolas of Myra was a priest and later a bishop during the Byzantine Empire during the fourth century AD.
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The next morning the once-a-week flight finally made it to Dembi Dolo after a brief stop at the town of Gore. On final approach to the grass landing field at Dembi Dolo when the wheels were almost on the ground the pilot suddenly pushed the throttles forward and climbed out again. We came around and landed. My sister was there to greet me and after hugs and looking each other over I finally said to her:
“He screwed up that first approach didn’t he?”
She said: “Oh no, he reacted very quickly.”
She then explained that during the first approach when the wheels were almost on the ground, a horse ran onto the landing field directly in front of the aircraft. When I looked at her incredulously she simply shrugged her shoulders and said:
“Welcome to Africa.”
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Back at the house on the Lake my friends asked me to write something into their guest book and to please leaf through it and find previous entries I had made. My earliest entry was about forty years old. They asked me if I noticed anything in particular about my previous entries, and I had in deed noticed something. On each previous visit to their house I was traveling with a different lady.
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…. Virginia also told me that unless I promised that on the longer stretches of travel in Germany and The Netherlands we would travel by train she would not come with me. I asked her:
“Why?” She looked straight into my eyes and said bluntly:
“You are too old to drive on the Autobahn.”
