Dankeschön (Part Zwei)

Hello again, readers. Just a quick addendum to the recent post about our time spent in Germany for Oktoberfest. I wanted to clear up a few points after some things came up in various comments on various social media outlets. So here goes…

First, I submit to you the following piece of video evidence, regarding my “fall” at Oktoberfest, as discovered by my sharp-eyed wife:

Did you see that?! As Sue said, “She needs to get a clue.” Again, I tell you – I was pushed!!

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Second, I’d like to give a shout-out to my senior-year German teacher. In the interest of privacy, I’ll refer to her as “Frau Champagne,” which isn’t what she currently calls herself. In the last post, I spoke about how poor my German language skills are, and after getting a little bit of grief, I just need to tell her: “Frau Champagne – it’s not you, it’s me.”

I only took one year of German, as a senior in high school. There I was, a seventeen-year-old, sitting in German I, surrounded by freshmen because I dropped out of Physics. Much to my parents’ dismay (the engineer and the accountant), I was never very good at (and never really cared much for) math or science. So my senior year, I was in two English classes (A and B level), French IV, and German I. Surprise I turned out to be a writer-producer. Just not in German.

Amy speaks a little French, Spanish, and Italian; some Japanese, and prides herself on knowing how to say “hello,” “goodbye,” and “thank you” in ten different languages. But as we drove across the border from Hungary to Austria, she turned to me and said, “You took German, you’ve got this one.”

Almost thirty years later, my German was completely rusty, if non-existent. But don’t worry, Frau Champagne, I didn’t forget everything, just mostly everything. And you shouldn’t feel bad – I forgot most of my French as well, and I took FOUR years of that (just don’t tell Madame Serotsky). What’s more funny, after 20 years in New York City and a dozen years working in baseball, Spanish is my most proficient second language. Que comico, y muy interesante!

(By the way, isn’t it funny that Frau Champagne taught German, and Madame Serotsky taught French? Shouldn’t it have been Madame Champagne teaching French and Frau Serotsky teaching German?)

One great story about Frau Champagne: around Christmas, she gave anyone wanting extra credit instructions on how to build a gingerbread house. About a dozen kids, including myself, actually went through with construction. There were plenty of sweet gumdrop houses, and candy cane chalets, and of course a few that looked like they should be condemned by the Betty Crocker Department of Public Safety.

And then there was mine. I took an old model car that I had (I’m pretty sure it was an orange Corvette with flames on the hood), and used a pair of pliers to smash up the front end of the car. Then I took the car, swerved it through the icing “snow” (leaving tire marks), and crashed it into the corner of the gingerbread house. I then took an old plastic army man and buried his body in the snow, with only his torso and head exposed (I think I clipped off the gun with scissors). The coup de grace was red decorating sugar, sprinkled liberally to look like a bloody mess. And on the front lawn, I place a little title placard, just like in an art exhibition: “Problems on the Autobahn.”

Frau Champagne had arranged to have all the gingerbread houses displayed in a glass case in front of the library. But our librarian protested that she didn’t want MY gingerbread house in the display, as a matter of public decency. By the way, our librarian once revealed to my friend Mike and me, at the advent of our teenage “punk rock” years, that her sister was none other than Wendy O. Williams of the Plasmatics. But I digress. Frau Champagne insisted that my demented gingerbread house be displayed with the others, arguing that there were in fact a lot of problems on the autobahn, and much debate in Germany about the safety of the roads, and that my blood-sugar-spattered piece of teenage depravity was in reality a topical statement on a greater German issue. And so sure enough, the gingerbread house was allowed to be displayed with the others in the glass case, free to stain the vision and morals of the innocent student body.

I tell this story because never before had a teacher of mine stood up to another educator to defend my special creative brand of dementia. And I’ve never forgotten it. It’s the kind of thing that eventually leads you to a rewarding twenty-year career writing and producing for television, where you’re free to stain the vision and morals of the innocent viewing public.

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Lastly, I wanted you all to know that “frenphew” has failed to gain any traction whatsoever.