OUR MAN in EUROPE/dave delacroix/Part 1: "Verboten till Frankfurt!"

1)  "Verboten till Frankfurt!"

So fare thee well ol' trucking days of yore. Farewell, oblique times; my thumb at attention on bleached, tattered, freeway On-ramps, launching pads to nowhere in particular, their recurring names: North, South, Truth and ALL its Consequences-New Mexico. Adios to my old accessories, shoulder bag, guitar hunchback, the perpetual "rollie" cigarette...
Now? I am older and somehow more dependant, though not quite at the level of Blanche Dubois.

ROLL FILM SOUNDTRACK: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers..."

-in the July 4th gridlock of airports, queuing, clutching E-tickets for check-ins with elephantine (SAMSONITE) "wheelie" bags, baggage fees, boarding cards, dignity stripped Homeland Security, from Denver to Chicago to...to Europe!
...And on today's fashion runway, Delacroix can be seen sporting laptops, E-books, cables, chargers and cell-phoned up to the gills, crammed into seat 48A of AIR INDIA's wide bodied 777, and SCREAMING - along with several infants - for that cigarette, "verboten" till Frankfurt!...

But then, on my arrival, old German friend, Count Alex von Ludwigshafen, plucks me from the "flughafen" maze and beamers (BMW) me out into the deep greens and wood scented wilds of the oulying country of Hessen, through Grimm Brothers-fairytale villages of timber framed houses and spruce goose postcard, tourist attractions; an antithesis of geo-shock and awe.

...Pausing at a deserted forest lake for a beer and a smoke, Keatsian stillness (Do I wake, or sleep?) showers the senses and a new rhythm is born, whilst church bells from a nearby hamlet Christen this pastoral moment.
In a day or two the funny-tummy and jet-lag will be exorcised and rusted shackles of routine, the habit of accrued domesticity, will crumple at my feet.

At my host's ramshackle "schloss"-cum-farmhouse near the ancient town of Usingen, BITBURGERS, SICHER Pilsners, DRUM tobacco, dark breads, bier-wurst, handkas, prosciutto, schinken, kartoffel-salat, "blau und grune kase", are all to be enjoyed. We will dally with Weisen-bier, apfel-wein, Mosels, Rhien-gau's and  dry "Sec": Deutsche champagne. The Backerai, the Fleischer, grated "fenschel"...in peppers, herbs, "essig" and olive oil.
Such feastings are common here, morning, noon and night, and friends - old and new - with guitars "ist befehl" (are always "de rigeur"), so later, in the candle swathed wee hours when my turn comes to play, red-eyed but willing, I forego Willie Nelson's "On the Road, again" and render an old folk tune from Beatles-land:

"It's not the leaving of Liverpool
that grieves me,
but me' darling, when I think
of thee..."

Let the Games begin!

Merzhausen, July 2010

c 2010. All rights reserved. Dave Delacroix/Our Man in Europe.