Afton---Fasching

In Austria and Southern Germany(München/Munich), the Carnival Season, known in that area as Fasching, starts officially on 11/11 at 11:11, but it's low key until the end of January. Then look out! It's a season of wild excess and full hearted abandonment prior to the beginning of Lent with its requisite fasts and deprivation. Incorporating pagan traditions with a modern bent, it's understood that a good time will be had by all. Anything goes. Anything.

Who knew that? I had not yet taken the test for my European driver's license by the end of January, so had taken the bus into base for a Wednesday night Relief Society meeting with the four other ladies in our tiny Branch, all of whom I think must have lived on Base.

It was the first time I had left you alone with your Daddy, and I knew you guys would have fun. So I enjoyed my time out with the girls, and following the meeting that night, walked across the highway from the base and waited for the bus to pick me up for the return trip. And waited. And waited.

Minutes ticked away. Before long they added up to hours. No bus ever came. In desperation and defeat, I crossed back and approached the Guardhouse at the Base entrance. Needing sympathy, expecting help, I was greeted with contempt and hostility. Stunned, I asked them to get me Captain Cox, our Branch President, on the phone. I believe he was like the Base Commander or some VIP, and trusted he could part the seas. The Guards refused to let me contact him.

In tears, I was able to remember the name of one of the young GIs who worked with Dad and had come to our house to visit(I think our Disco/etc. location made us a destination for some reason). He lived in the barracks and they did let me talk to him. I was shaking as he came to the phone. I hardly knew him, and I could hear him cussing and yelling as he came to the phone. Unhappy to have been been roused from sleep, he gruffly answered, but he melted when he heard me sobbing and quickly came to pick me up. You gotta love the shining knights of the world, white horse or not. I explained to him how I was stranded, with no way to reach my husband. He explained why I was treated so disrespectfully---the guards would have been watching me alongside the road, waiting to be picked up like any lady of the night ready for a Fasching experience. That I'd begged to speak with a family man was a bridge too far. Embarrassed? Humiliated?

I was driven straight home, and Dad was relieved. But he sure laughed a lot! Not me though, for years.

So I start out with a good intention, Church meeting, and practically end up with a scarlet letter. Pretty much the way my life usually goes. Hope that DNA spares you, love.