No Pictures! But a Free Starbucks Mug...

A fresh (and cold) German morning beckoned. Starbucks, too, since the pathetic "continental breakfast" at the Hotel American Base was less than appetizing and the coffee substandard. I decided to go for yet another walk to the PX.

There I began to make friends. Vanessa (from Colorado), Carolina (from Poland), Tina (UK) and Lena (Korea) were working the counter. I ordered the largest mug of strong coffee they had and settled into a comfortable chair.

Then Frank walked up. Frank wanted to talk. He explained that he is 88 years old and had just returned from the United States on Thursday and couldn't shake the jet lag. He has seven children, a buncha grandchildren and six great-grandchildren and after six months they had driven him crazy and he had to come back home Wiesbaden, where he has lived with his German wife since the early 1990s.

Frank talked. And talked. And talked. He was obviously lonely. I didn't mind because he talked about very interesting things. Also, as a short man (about 5'2") with a strong Brooklyn accent and a great sense of humor he was entertaining.

His first topic was family, by which he meant wives and children. He welled up with tears when he told me about losing his first wife when she was 61. She had been German, too. He loved his second wife dearly and spoke highly of her. That's the mark of a good man.

Women are important, Frank explained, because "a man without a woman is like a piss-pot without a handle." I thought of some unmarried friends of mine and considered the validity of that analogy.

Frank's second topic was his career: forty-three years in counterintelligence, twenty as a warrant officer and twenty-three as a civilian. He couldn't tell me what he did (!) but he could tell me he got two Legions of Merit as a civilian, which is actually pretty cool. He was there when the 66th MI Bde was stood up. And so on.

One of his final topics was money. He wanted me to know how much he made in retirement, which was comfortably six figures when including his wife's German pension and his personal investments--which he had been making since 1961! Basically, he was loaded and had a guaranteed income stream. This was lucky for me, because as our conversation concluded I walked up to the counter to pay for my last Starbucks mug (yes, I decided to get one more--Heidelberg) and he insisted on paying for it. I could tell he was grateful for the conversation.

I asked if I could take a picture of him and he steadfastly refused. It seemed like he really kind of wanted me to take one. So I snapped this while he was talking to somebody and he pretended not to notice: