sounds of the space age

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Vacation Photos

Luxembourg. After a day trip to Trier (or Treves if French suits you) we went to some restaurant. It could have been any restaurant and I don’t care for the specifics but it had something to do with French food. We stopped into a bar for a nightcap. Danny’s always suggesting nightcaps. He often makes suggestions about how many drinks will be had too but he always suggests one drink and I never have fewer that three. I had four. On the way home he pulls up to Thorsten’s bar for a second nightcap. Thorsten had introduced us to the drink which was to remain nameless until we decided to call it the “Thorsten”. Yeah, clever, I should get a medal. A Thorsten is the perfect beverage for Luxebourg, sandwiched as it is between Germany and France. It’s a pretty even mix of Pernod and Jagermeister. It seems disgusting but is really pretty ok. Especially when its served to you by a very German looking man who is down a few teeth and who’s English seems limited to, well, limited. Thorsten’s bar is pretty much a German biker bar which is damn entertaining. Despite the fact that we were strangers, Thorsten poured me at least two Thorstens on the house when all I ordered was a Piconbeir. If you’re keeping track, I am drunk at this point in the story. All I know is that pictures have surfaced of me on a motorcycle inside the bar. I don’t remember posing for them. At around two we left because Jesse was taping an interview the next day at like eight and I was supposed to go see a Patton memorial in Ettelbruck.

I woke up hella-drunk. Danny dropped me into the center of town and says something about a memorial being in the general direction indicated by a wave of the hand and he drove off saying something about meeting him “later” at “a place that I could neither remember nor pronounce”. My German is not good. I was drunk. I lit out for wherever it was that I was supposed to be going and was having a reasonably good time trying not to stagger (failed) while walking. Never mind that I had no idea where I was, had little money, no communication device and no idea where Danny even lived or where Jesse was. Fuck it, as they say. So I stumble upon this memorial with a tank parked beside it. I shoot a few slides of the tank and climb on it some and decide to read the plaque. As near as I can remember (the slides aren’t processed), the plaque said “On such and such date in the 90’s, we renew our gratitude to the brave American soldiers who sacrificed their lives to give us back our freedom”. I’m pretty sure it was the booze that caused it, but I started crying. I mean, fucking sobbing. I could taste my tears. They were salty. This is pretty strange because I can only remember crying like three times in my life, and certainly no time recently. So here I am crying like a son of a bitch looking at this plaque in a little park in Luxembourg where hundreds of men lost their lives 60 years ago. About then I noticed the gardener watering the flower quite near me who was trying not to stare. Ass. As I sort of stumbled away, still crying some, I thought about what it was that had gotten to me (besides dubious european liqueurs). All I could figure was that I wasn’t crying for the men who died, but for the tragedy of a nation being occupied. I was crying because once, we (America et. al) sent our young men to die for something that was worth sending men to die for. In those days, freedom really was worth a damn, and we had a pretty good idea of what it was like to be without it. As I wandered around Ettelbruck, still drunk and with salt all over my damned face like two year old, I looked at all the people on the street. What do they think of us now? Will they renew their gratitude again? Will there ever be memorials like that in Baghdad?

I ran into Danny and he gave me some kind of roll with pate inside and some kind of wine grape jelly. It tasted good.

1 Comments:

Blogger Stanley said...

Thorsten for President!

(Thanks for having us over last night; sorry I dipped out early.)

1:39 PM  

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