The Lady on the Train -- another story from the "I can't make this stuff up file"

(To listen to this story, click on the photo above.)

It was a beautiful, sunny, spring Tuesday morning in 1985. I had a three-day pass and was on the InterCity train from Frankfurt to Munich. It was a slow travel day so I had a compartment all to myself. Airman O’Connor was off duty and looking forward to some serious relaxation.

After stowing my bag on the overhead rack I settled in. I had a system for train travel. It consisted of a classic German cheese sandwich on a hard roll, orange Fanta and a good book. It didn’t get much better than that. After opening my can of pop I sat back and let the world wiz by my window. I was looking forward to three hours of peace and quiet. Awesome!

Thirty minutes into the trip we stopped briefly in Heidelberg to take on passengers. Thanks to world-renowned German efficiency before I knew it we were back on our way to Munich. I still had more than two-and-a-half hours of solitude in front of me. Great!

I returned to my book. Two pages later, however, I heard a knock at the compartment door.

I looked up and found a little gray-haired German grandma-looking lady at the door. She was wearing a floral-print dress under a raincoat – the classic German grandma outfit. With a smile she asked me in very formal German if there was a free seat in the compartment.

A quick side note. I don’t speak German. The best I can do is “tourist German.” Keep the conversation focused on food, booze and traveling and I’m OK. Beyond those subjects I’m lost, so I end up just smiling and nodding like an idiot.

I was able to handle her particular question, and being a Boy Scout at heart I helped stow her bag on the overhead rack.

I returned to my seat, Fanta and book, innocently assuming that our interaction had come to its logical conclusion. Like boxers, we’d mixed it up and now were in our separate corners.

She on the other hand had a different plan. She wanted to chat – whether I wanted to or not was immaterial. She had me squarely in her sights. I could feel her staring at me. Like the mouse at the trap I took the bait – I made eye contact.

That’s all she needed. She switched into tour-guide mode and proceeded to give me very detailed play-by-play of everything we saw whooshing by our window – pausing often to ask me what I thought about it – all in German. It was all I could do to keep up.

So there I was, imprisoned with the German version of my Grandma Lucy. Now that’s not a bad thing. I loved my grandma, and this lady seemed perfectly nice. It’s just that I had a plan. But apparently so did she.

I was raised to be polite, so I gave it everything I had and stretched my limited German to the breaking point. It was like a two-and-a-half-hour oral exam. By the time we reached Munich I was a sweaty, frazzled, stressed-out mess. So much for my plan.

As the train slowed to enter the Munich train station I stood up with relief and helped my newfound friend retrieve her bag from the overhead rack. As she gathered her things, I reached for my bag.

At that moment she turned to me and with an absolutely spot-on Midwestern American accent asked, “So are you British?”

I almost dropped the bag on my head. Once I got it safely to the floor I said, “No ma’am, I’m American.”

“Really?!,” she said. “I would’ve sworn you were British. I couldn’t place your accent.”

I explained that the little bit of slang German I spoke came from living in Frankfurt.

“Oh,” she said. “That explains it. People in Frankfurt don’t have a strong accent.”

Then I asked her where she was from. “Oh, I’m from Munich,” she said with a smile, “But I’ve lived with my daughter and son-in-law in Ohio for the last 10 years. I’m home on holiday.”

With that she waved goodbye and walked off the train. I never saw her again.

It just goes to show that you should never assume anything about anyone. My adopted German grandma and I both assumed, and we were both wrong. But I did appreciate the German lesson.

I just can’t make this stuff up. Danke schoen Oma, wherever you are.

###

If you enjoyed this story, please like, follow or subscribe. Thanks!

Situations Go To Sergeants

(To listen to this story, click on the photo above.)

Sometimes God speaks to us in ways we’d never anticipate and through people we’d never expect. The key is to keep our ears open and listen. Let me give you an example.

In spring 1985 Army Sgt. Ron Howko was the NCOIC (non-commissioned officer in charge) of the Radio Command Information Office at the American Forces Network-Europe headquarters in Frankfurt, West Germany. In civilian terms that meant he was my supervisor.

Some background. Ron Howko had an unquenchable thirst for outdoor adventure. You name the sport, he not only played it, he excelled at it. Skiing – he was a certified member of the National Ski Patrol. Bicycling – he rode with a German club every Sunday. If you put together a three-day mountain climbing trip he’d be the first to sign up. The guy never sat still, and he had a fabulous sense of humor.

In short, he loved life and welcomed all the challenges it could provide. I think that love of adventure, and numerous brushes with serious injury and death, gave him a solid sense of what issues to sweat and what issues to let slide away like water off a duck’s back.

That became clear to me one afternoon as I approached his desk. I was in a tizzy about some problem I had. “Sgt. Howko,” I said as I stood in front of his institutional green, U.S. government-issued metal desk, where he was busy working on a mountain of paperwork. “I have a problem…”

Without hesitating, Howko, dropped his pen, looked up at me and threw up his hand like a cop stopping traffic. He cut me off in mid-sentence.

A benevolent smile spread across his face as he said, “Stop right there Airman. Obviously you’re confused.”

I paused, letting his comment sink in. Now I truly was confused. “Ok, Sgt. Howko, how am I confused?”

He continued, “You see Airman, you’re confused because you said you had a problem. Now problems go to God. Situations go to sergeants. Because you’re standing in front of me you must have a situation on your hands. I’m here to help. What’s your situation?”

For the life of me I can’t remember what my situation was. But more than 30 years later I remember that moment, and that insight, like it was yesterday.

Howko was right. Situations do indeed go to sergeants. That’s something I tried to remember every day when I became a sergeant. But more importantly, I took to heart the bigger lesson he was trying to teach me – don’t sweat the little stuff. And when the big stuff does happen, take it to God, that’s what he’s there for.

Sgt. Howko, thanks for setting me straight. God bless you.

###

U.S. Army Master Sgt. (retired) Ron Howko today.

If you enjoyed this story, please like, follow or subscribe. Thanks!

Christmas-Day Extortion -- A Story From O'Connor's Standard Service

(To listen to this story, click on the photo above.)

Christmas Day 1982 fell in the midst of a nasty snowstorm. I was home on break from college. All of us at O’Connor’s Standard Service, 402 West Main Street in Osage, Iowa, had been working 16-hour days. And everyone looked forward to taking Christmas Day off.

The O’Connor family was in the middle of opening presents Christmas morning when the phone rang. Four buddies from a local factory had gone out drinking after work and had managed to put their car in a ditch three miles north of Osage and two miles west on the Mitchell blacktop. It was Christmas morning! And they wanted us to come out right now and pull them out. Really?

I could hear my dad on the phone in the kitchen. As always he was very polite, but he was doing his best to convince the guy on the other end of the phone that he didn’t really need us – at least not right away. Family time was really important to Ed O’Connor. And this guy just didn’t seem to care. I heard dad ask him if he had AAA. He didn’t.

The negotiation continued with Dad saying, “OK, we’ll come out, but it’ll cost you $50 cash.” I know Dad was hoping the inflated price tag would be the deal breaker. But instead of the flat, “no way” he expected, the guy agreed.

The verbal battle was lost. Dad had capitulated, and with a frustrated sigh of defeat, hung up.    

I’d had a feeling that’s how things were going go, so I was already in the back entryway layering up for yet another dicey trip into the teeth of the storm.

On a normal day, Dad would send one guy and the little wrecker to handle a job like this. But he always like to send a two-man crew in the big wrecker when the weather was bad. There was just something about the height, the weight and the power of the big wrecker that gave you a sense of confidence as you drove into dangerous conditions.  

Ten minutes later we were headed north on U.S. Highway 218. The good news was the wind was dying down and the temperature was rising. The bad news was the wind was dying down and the temperature was rising. That meant dense fog and very slippery conditions.

We didn’t talk much as we turned west onto the Mitchell blacktop. Dad was concentrating hard, steering as much with the accelerator as the steering wheel. The big engine purred as we slowly but steadily made our way into the fog.

We were only about a mile down the road when we saw an old sea-foam green Ford Falcon four-door stopped in the oncoming lane. The car was what the local factory workers liked to call a “work car.” Work cars were sacrificial beasts of burden -- old junkers driven in the wintertime when salt and sand would take a heavy toll on a car’s paint job.

The driver was flashing his lights and waving out the window. As we pulled up it was obvious these were the four drunks we were looking for.

Like a giant white curtain, the fog enveloped us as we pulled to a stop. The big wrecker dwarfed the little Ford.

The driver stuck his out his window, craned his neck to look up at my dad and proceeded in slightly slurred English to thank us for the effort but he no longer needed us. A passing farmer had taken pity on them and used his tractor to extricate them from the ditch.

A side note. My dad had a temper like a steam engine. When the pressure reached a certain level he blew. But the only people he ever yelled at were his employees and his kids. Never a customer. Dad was old school. The customer was always right. It was always “please” and “thank you very much.” No matter how wrong the customer was they were still right.

I sat quietly and listened as my dad leaned out his window and spoke to the driver. I could tell by his voice he was starting to get uptight. You knew he was heating up when his voice would go up in pitch and he’d start to respond with very clipped responses, “Yeah,” “Uh-huh.”

He patiently explained he was glad they were out of the ditch, but they’d still need to pay for the service call. That was the deal they had agreed to, and it was Christmas morning for goodness sake.

I heard nervous laughter from the car below. The driver started to argue that since we didn’t actually have to do anything they shouldn’t have to pay.

Another side note. Back then I had a serious temper problem. Something my dad had warned me about on numerous occasions. I’d been doing well, sitting quietly. Now I could feel my pulse quicken. My blood began to boil.

Here was my dad, trying to do the right thing and help these goobers. And now they had the gall to interrupt our family Christmas, ask us to risk our safety, argue with my dad, and to cap it off, now they were trying to stiff us! 

A switch flipped in my head. I quietly opened my door and climbed down from the cab. Once on the ground I opened the first utility door and found what I was looking for, a six-foot, heavy-duty towing chain.

With practiced ease, I deftly pulled the heavy chain from its resting place and proceeded to walk around the front of the wrecker. I quietly moved into position between the wrecker and car, stopping next to the car’s rear door.

Dad and the driver didn’t notice me in the midst of their intense banter. I looked into the car. Through a heavy cloud of cigarette smoke I could see from the looks on their faces, the passengers thought the situation was funny. I didn’t.

I stood silent and motionless. But the look on my face must have made my point.

The first person to notice me was seated directly behind the driver. With a cigarette perched between his lips he turned and looked up at me. His initial reaction was a cocky sneer. Then he saw the towing chain.

The subsequent reaction was right out of a Three Stooges film. Without a word, the guy behind the driver started hitting the guy next to him get his attention and show him what he saw looming outside his window.

That guy in turn reached forward and punched the front-seat passenger’s arm to get his attention. Lit cigarettes fell as hands were jammed into pockets. Previously hidden wallets sprang forth. Ones, fives and tens started flying into the front seat.

The guy riding shotgun interrupted the driver with urgent tapping to the shoulder as he pointed at me. His pantomimed message was clear. “Look at the guy standing by the car!”

The driver stuck his head back out the window and turned aft. Our eyes met. The cigarette fell from his lips and hit the pavement. He spun in his seat, turning to his buddies for support.

Instead his troops were in full-out surrender mode. All three held their hands up like I was Jesse James and this was an old-fashioned hold-up. Deciding a tactical retreat was in order, the driver gathered the cash and thrust it into my hand. And with a hasty “Sorry, Ed. Thanks!” They sped off.

I slowly retraced my steps, replaced the chain and climbed back into my seat in the cab. Dad was speechless.

A good minute passed as we sat silently, staring straight ahead into the fog.  The only sound was the wrecker’s engine.

Dad finally broke the silence and started to count the money. I began pondering what the penalty was for extortion. I suddenly became very concerned that not only had I committed a felony, but also I’d committed the cardinal sin of confronting a customer -- and even worse -- had embarrassed my dad.

I think he too was concerned. Then the spirit of my intentions became clear. He smiled, handed me half of proceeds winked, and said, “Merry Christmas. Just don’t tell your mother!”

And I never did.

###

The last in our series of "big wreckers." Circa 1980.

If you enjoyed this story, please like, follow or subscribe. Thanks!