NORMANDY-I

There were 28 of us on this Beyond the Band of Brothers (BBOB) tour, though at times our numbers swelled to 38 people from other tours, like those of the Battle of Britain, joined us for Normandy. Our digs were the Novotel in Bayeux. Our guide Barry explained that there were few hotels in Bayeux suitable to house tour groups, and the Novotel was it. After looking at a map of Bayeux Jim and I were pretty sure this was the same hotel where members of Seacoast Community Chorus stayed in 2011. We were right. The bar and the dining room hadn't changed much but the rooms had been recently renovated. Thanks to a SNAFU between the tour company and the Novotel Hotel Chain Liz and I wound up in our own rooms with luxurious, walk in showers.

Our group was diverse. We were four nurses, two doctors, two policemen, and several business men. Six of us were from Maine. Others were from Cincinnati, Idaho, Virginia, Florida, Colorado, and California. One couple had just moved into a 55+ community three blocks from my sister Laura and her husband. Our interests ranged from knitting to scuba diving. Several were looking to connect with their father's history. Some were couples, but like Liz and me, many of us were simply friends who agreed to travel together. We six Mainers did not know each other in advance, so sitting down at the same table for or introductory dinner was totally random. Funnier still we all live (or in Liz's case had lived)  along a corridor of I-95 from Portsmouth, NH to Falmouth, ME. That most certainly got a laugh from the group as everyone else introduced himself or herself by describing their relationship to Maine. ("I've never been, but I've eaten a Maine lobster.")


It was about 55F, with a wind of 40 mph, and pouring heavily when our group began our Normandy tour with a visit to a German Cemetery (it was on the way); and then to spend the rest of the day at Pointe du Hoc, Omaha Beach, and Colville su Mer, where the US Cemetery is.

Interestingly, Christof, our local guide, began by telling us not of glory, but of death. During the invasion and ultimate surrender of Germany in May 1945 both sides buried their dead near the battlefield, then exhumed the bodies and reburied them--often more than two or three times s the front moved toward Berlin--until a more permanent resting place could be determined. At the war's end Germany repatriated as many of its dead as they could. However, Germany was broke, no one really wanted their land to be used as a German Cemetery, until one farmer stepped up and gave his land for what is now the largest cemetery containing the remains of Germans killed on D Day.

The crosses were of a different shape than those in the US Cemetery and painted black. Five crosses stood in a cluster with each set of five containing perpetual markers of the soldiers names, date of birth, and date of death. SS and Wermacht soldiers were intermingled to prevent desecration of SS graves. 

Christof led the group deep into the cemetery to show specific items he thought were of interest. But, with my painful blister and achy back I stayed behind and strolled through the graveyard, looking at the perpetual markers. I found a man who had been born the same day as my father. My Dad, who was in the China-Burma-India "Hump" died at 63. This man was 26.

As the rain and wind persisted my thoughts turned to sadness. Other than the SS troops, whose graves are intermingled with those of men in the Wermacht, these were often men conscripted into the Army to fight for a dictator. By 1944 the Germans had been fighting on the eastern front for six years. I could justify my feelings about World War II by considering our intentions were noble. But this sense of nobility was lacking as I stood in the rain and considered the lives of men born the same time my father. I could only see the sorrow of war.

Here are some pictures from the German cemetery.

Inside the chapel at the German Cemetery

This is one of the perpetual plaques at the German Cemetery 

Clusters of five crosses mark some of the graves

Rows of perpetual markers

THE BIG BUCKET LIST TRIP--PART I

From September 22-October 2 my good friend Liz Higgins and I were on  a "Beyond the Band of Brothers" tour of World War II battle sites. Taking this tour was the last big ticket items on my bucket list. My hope was to publish a post, with pictures, just I like I did almost every day on the cross country bike trip. It didn't happen. Although I took lots of pictures--at least for me--and filled my heads with thoughts to write down, our days were very long: leave the hotel before 0900 and not getting back until eight. So instead, I offer you four rather long posts: this one, plus one each for the three main locations we visited. I promise a few pictures if you hang with me to the end.

When I was a kid my father worked swing shifts (7-3 or 3-11)  as a mechanic for The Monongahela Connecting Railroad, a subsidiary of Jones and Laughlin Steel in Pittsburgh. I was the family night owl, and sometimes, when Daddy was at work, I would sneak downstairs to watch TV with my mother. I don't remember how often I went downstairs, but I do remember one program in particular. It was a documentary about the liberation of German concentration camps in World War II.

The program did not frighten me. On the contrary, I was fascinated. How could the Germans--and I knew I had plenty of German blood flowing through my veins--have done this to their fellow citizens? Because they were different, or because they were Jewish? I was too young or too innocent to know how many wars over the centuries had been fought in the name of religion. Seeing the pictures of bodies, many of them naked, stacked up like wood struck a deep cord within me. I knew America had not started the war. Japan had. So why were we in Germany? And thus began my life-long interest in World War II, and in particular the European Theater of Operation.

Fast forward ten years. I wanted to be a nurse. My Dad wanted me to go to college. I was the oldest of four girls. If all four of us went to college he and Mom would have at least one child in college for 14 years. In 1965 most young women became nurses through three year hospital based schools of nursing. I wanted to go to Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing in Pittsburgh because I liked their caps. But Daddy insisted on college. Because young women and men went to schools of nursing rather than four year colleges there were no scholarships available for me. Not even from his VA benefits. I saw only one way to help pay for my education, and that was to join the Army.

Fast forward some more years. I went to college on a fabulous scholarship, entirely paid for by the Army. I did my clinical internships mostly at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. I cared for lots of men who had been wounded or sickened in Vietnam. My interest in WWII remained, even after I went to Vietnam in February 1970.

Fast forward again to what one might call older adulthood. My kids were grown, my husband and I had the financial ability to travel, but he was only interested in seeing more of New England ("If you live in Vacationland", and we do, "why leave?")

So while Jim's bucket list was small, short, or fulfilled (take a look at the Porche in our garage) I made a list with three big trips on it:
:
1. Cross the US by bike. Did that in 2013.
2. Sing in Denmark. Did that in 2017.
3. Visit WWII battle sites. Have done that now in 2018.

Next year is the 75th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, the liberation of France, and the Battle of the Bulge. Many tours are already filled, or over-priced. Why not go now? So I did, inviting my friend Liz Higgins to accompany me.

For both Liz and me it was a kind of pilgrimage. Her father was in the First Army (the Big Red One), and had been part of the invasions of North Africa and Sicily, and was in the third wave of men landing on Omaha Beach. He was wounded in the Ardennes forest.  My hospital in Vietnam, the 24th Evac, was the first evacuation level hospital to land in Normandy on D Day +6. I didn't know that when I visited Normandy in 2011. I wanted to see if again.

We chose to go on an 11 day tour: three in Normandy, three in Belgium, three in Munich, and the rest in travel with a company called Procom, which markets its tours as "Beyond the Band of Brothers." It was a good choice. Although there was little time for shopping the 30 or so people on our tour were given every opportunity to learn, in depth,  about each of the three main sites we visited.

If you have managed to stick with this to the end, here are three pictures, one from each of the places we visited.

beer beautifully served in a small Belgium restaurant 

A pizza house in St Mer Eglise. Laura, Larry, Jim and I ate pizza there in 2011.

No choice on beverage. Beer at the restaurant at Berchesgadan, Bavaria  

UTAH

Unlike yesterday today was warm and about 62F at noon. This day was devoted to the 101st and 82nd Airborne Parachute Infantry divisions. On D Day they jumped several hours before the assault on Utah Beach, also invaded by American infantry divisions.  The beaches could not be more different geographically. Whereas Rangers had to scale Pointe du Hoc, the PIR parachutists and glider companies were tasked with clearing Utah Beach from the rear. These are what the Band of Brothers, Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment did.

As anyone who has seen " Band of Brother," Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day," or read the books then you know that the planes carrying parachutists were blown off course by the wind, or their formation was destroyed by German flak. Their job was made more difficult by fields flooded by the Germans. The ultimately prevailed with heavy casualties, but not as heavy as those on Omaha.

In the afternoon we visited St Mer Eglise, known best for the parachutist caught on the church's cathedral steeple. Seacoast Community Chorus singers visited this church in 2011 and saw its beautiful stained glass windows with  St Michael portrayed as a parachutist. There is another window at the back of the church that also includes liberating soldiers with holy ones.

On a completely personal note: I have been able to be a slow but steady member of our group, trying to participate in every activity if only for a little while. My average distance has been around 5 Km/day--with a bad back and bleeding blister on my right foot. In St Mer Eglise my friend Liz found me a drug store and when I walked out I had 48 Euros worth of bandages for the blister on my right toe that has been the guilty culprit.

Antoine Saintt Exeupery, the author of the "Little Prince," a children's book for grown ups wrote the following to the men going to Utah Beach, after describing them as honorable men who gave up their comfortable lives in the US to join the fight:

And what were they told that could motivate [American men] them to sacrifice their lives?They were told of hostages hanged in Poland. They were told of prisoners shot in France. They were told that a new form of slavery threatened  to extinguish a part of Humanity. They were told not about themselves but of others. That gave them a sense of solidarity with Mankind. 

The fifty thousand soldiers in my convoy went to war not to save American Citizens, but rather for Man himself, respect for Mankind, liberty for all men, the greatness of Man...

 Let that still be true.

OMAHA

The tour for today, Sunday, Sept 23^rd, was of Omaha Beach, and Pointe de Hoc, under the guidance of a Bayeux resident named Christof. It was pouring with the wind blowing at 40 mph for most of the day. (People in jeans got soaked. I got soaked, too, but the travel pants dried quickly.) These were not the ideal conditions we dreamed of for what many of us considered to be the most important day of the Beyond the Band of Brothers tour.

But Christof really made the battle come alive. Our first visit was to a German Cemetery. The crosses there are arranged in groups of 5. After the war Germany could not afford a burial site anything like the US Cemetery, but it had its own sense of sadness, perhaps best exemplified by the mostly black crosses in German cemeteries. The Germans had many casualties on 6-6-44 as well. Years after the war the German people planted  trees along the road between Bayeux and the Normandy coastline—one for each dead soldier. One of the decisions that the German government made then was not to separate the graves of Wehrmacht troops from those who were SS. This was done mostly to prevent desecration of their graves.

In all there were more than 20 battlefield cemeteries. Men buried in freshly dug graves on both sides were later exhumed and reburied in a central location, and then moved again as Allied forces moved east. In the early 50s families were given the opportunity to have their loved ones’ remains returned to the US or reburied in what is now the US Cemetery at Omaha Beach. About 60% chose to bring their sons and brothers, fathers and uncles home. The remainder from Normandy are buried here.

Not all died on D-Day. It took over a month to liberate the Normandy province. There are also unique graves like those of a father and son, the father killed on Normandy, the son about two weeks earlier in May 1944. The father did not know his son had been killed. Sadly the telegrams from the War Department arrived at their family home within an hour of each other.

This may seem like a macabre topic but at the same time it is an important one. Certainly it was not possible to bury our dead soldiers in permanent graves as the troops rapidly advanced. The US Cemetery, to me, is sacred ground. It is not about death but sacrifice. These young men, some as young as 16 or 17 knew they had to do what they did if they were to save the freedoms we still enjoy.

The wind was dreadful. The rain was dreadful. Some of us got soaked, some merely wet. (Don’t wear heavy cotton blue jeans in a torrential downpour.)

Although I have repeated many of Christof’s sad stories there were some incredibly brave stories to be told. What they spoke to was American and British ingenuity and doggedness in the face of terrible odds.

I was at the US Cemetery in 2011 with Seacoast Community Chorus. That was a warm, sunny days. We could walk the cemetery at will. Today much of the site was closed to visitors. I don’t know whether or not it was the rain or preparations for next year’s 75^th anniversary celebration. Perhaps a bit of both. Yet there was a single rose laid at each grave. And the rain added to both the solemnity of the place--and our wonderment that these young men gave their lives for an abstract cause called freedom. 

I am having trouble uplaoding pictures will add tomorrow.

Traveling with Sticks and Spokes-- a post in honor of Dolly and Don Craft

I decided to write this blog post after reading one from my cross country biking friend, Dolly Craft. She and her husband Don often tour by tandem bike.  Riding a tandem is a lot more difficult that it seems. Jim and I tried it once--on Mackinac Island, MI and we were glad to get back to the bike rental agency after circumnavigating the island. To successfully ride a tandem you have to be in perfect rhythm with your fellow cyclist. The bike weighs a lot too, so if one of you gets a little wobbly the other has to pick up the slack--or you will fall. 

So Dolly has a blog called "Dolly's Bike Blog,"  ( I was unable to post a link) in which she posts stories and pictures of her adventures, either solo, or with Don. On the cross country trip we teased her about "Dolly Gaggling" because she would stop at every road sign, every park, every interesting thing to see. Dolly rode the ride I had hoped to, but was never fast enough. 

Right now she and Don are biking in Holland. Their trip across the pond was filled with plenty of opportunities to practice meditation, or count backward from 100 in Dutch. Their tandem bike, partially disassembled and in its hardshell case weighs 80+ pounds, so first there was the adventure of paying for the extra weight and making sure the bike got put on the luggage conveyor belt. Then there was sitting on the tarmac at Dulles for about an hour and a half while thunderstorms cruised over the airport. In between was Don's need to unpack his carry on and submit to a thorough pat down because the TSA's dog didn't like him. All was well and they are now somewhere in Holland. But it got me to thinking about my own encounters with TSA agents. 

I have had metal implanted in my body since I tore a tendon in my left foot in 2000. That was followed by a bunionectomy  and more metal, in 2001 and a hip replacement in 2002. Then knee replacements in 2013, another hip replacement in 2015, and shoulders in 2014 and 2016. If that were not enough I then managed to fall off my bike this past February, breaking my right arm just below the replacement prosthesis. That gave me a metal plate and multiple screws so that on x-ray the interior of my right arm looks like an upside down saxophone! 

So, when I travel, usually 3 or 4 times a year, I always tell the TSA or security agent that I have multiple joint replacements and I will make their machine go off. I try to be nice. After all, theirs is a rather thankless job. I don't think they get paid enough for it either. 

I have told agents, mostly in Boston and Denmark, that I do not particularly care who pats me down. So I have had sweet women having bad days who were glad for someone with a smile on her face. And I've also had some agents who were not so nice in their pat downs--but they were thorough. I can only remember one or two agents so perfectly annoying I wondered if they had had a fight with their beloved earlier in the day--or were late to pick up a child, or called in to work on their day off. Or simply enjoyed being mean. 

It was hot and muggy this past August when Jim and I left for our annual trip to Denmark. Despite an air-conditioned bus and terminal I was sweaty when we got to the head of the TSA line. 

"I have multiple metal body parts," I told the agent, as usual. He pointed me to the line for the scanner. 

Of course I needed a pat down afterward. I claimed not to care about the gender of the person patting me down, which is true. But at Logan it must be a woman. While I waited for the person to come do her job I asked to see exactly what the scanner showed. Much to my surprise there was only one metal piece showing in a generic outline of a female person. It was not my right arm but my right hip and showed up like a metal wallet. 

When my friendly TSA agent--and she was friendly--came to pat me down she focused on my back. Because I was so sweaty I asked her if she would straighten out the back of my bra while she was back there. And she started to! "Whoa," I said. "That's not part of your job. I can do it." In reality I really can't reach back that far, but I was not about to get her in trouble. Jim fixed the errant bra back for me. 

But my favorite pat down was in Denmark five or six years ago. No scanner, I just made the metal detector go off.
"Do you want a man or woman for the pat down?"
"I don't care."
At the point they put me on a pedestal (where I always belong, of course) and a very cute young guy came over, prepared to do his job. 
"Knee?" He asked. 
"Knees, feet, and a hip." 
He gave me a funny look. 
"I guess I am bionic." 
He laughed, "No you are a transformer."

If there is a message to this it is a simple one. If you tell people in advance you have a special need they will usually accommodate you. If you truly have trouble walking let the airline know in advance.  There is no reason to be embarrassed because yesterday you ran 10 miles, and then you broke your toe. No one will care and you will go through security faster. I usually pack my hiking poles because I can walk just fine inside. The poles are in the checked bags. The one thing I have never found out, and am not about to try, is whether or not poles with removable rubber tips are considered a problem. I don't need a cane inside either. But I can tell you that most circular knitting needles regardless of the substance from which the point came are OK.  

 Last summer our chorus went to Stockholm on Icelandair. The Keflavik Airport, where we changed planes, went security, and thus were considered to be in Europe,  was mobbed. Eight or so Icelandair flights from eight or so different US and Canadian cities plus those of the start-up airline WOW and an airport under construction to meet this incredible increase of passengers ( that happened over a three year period) meant we all were funneled into a stairwell where we would stand in what seemed like an endless line to go through passport control in Iceland. Some of my fellow singers were worried we would miss our flight, but we were nearly 50 people on the same flight. I was pretty sure the plane would wait for us. Nevertheless I was in said line, trying hard not to push my way to the front.

And then my friend Peter Blanchard sailed by in a wheelchair. His wife, Sudie, was with him. He waved. Peter, whose orthopedic problems are quite possibly as bad as mine waved as he rolled past. If you do use a wheelchair, especially in the US, please make sure you tip the person who has gotten you where you need to go.  I have had interesting conversations with men and women pushing me. Often they have escaped hellacious conditions in their home countries including Yemen and Eritria. The stories they tell are heartbreaking. 

Yes, it is annoying, and sometimes time consuming to have to go through a miserable TSA line in a way we hadn't planned for. Leave early for the airport. Put a smile on your face, be thankful you live in the US, and remember:  None of us want a repeat of 9/11.  

The Other Kind of Sticks

In my last post I wrote a bit about some of the things that kept me from sticks and spokes the last nine months. Jim even gave me a set of new hiking poles for York Nordic: www.yorknordic.com. They are lightweight, fold easily and fit into a 25" suitcase without

Meanwhile, I spent a lot of time with the other kind of sticks, aka knitting needles. For Christmas I knit my daughters and daughter-in-law sweaters with my new favorite yarn, Ella Rae Lace Merino Chunky. Unfortunately Ella Rae has decided to discontinue this yarn. Luckily I got enough yarn to knit at least 2 more projects. But here are the sweaters:

I don't know if anyone
has actually worn the sweaters. One of the weird things about this pattern is the back of the neck is lower than one would expect. My guess is that this is because band and collar are both knit as part of the main sweater.

A Long, Cold, Frustrating Fall and Winter

My very best intentions for continuing this blog during the fall and then winter of 2017 did not work out that way. I had hardly gotten home from New Life Hiking Spa the end of September when two things happened. First, I got what I believe to have been true blue influenza rather than a simple cold. Second, my very dearest friend Grethe Petersen, my "adopted" Danish sister came for her first visit in many year. 

Thankfully Jim was able to take the long walks with Grethe I had envisioned. There is digging deep when you are sick and then there is how I felt. We did, however, make it back to Woodstock, VT. That was a fun trip! I had not gotten gas before we left York, believing we could get off the highway at the intersection of I-93 and I-89. But we didn't.

 We stopped at the State Park at Quechee Gorge, VT  to visit the Cabot Cheese Shop and have lunch in an old diner before walking the trails of the Gorge. Jim and Grethe could go a lot further than I could, even with my recent sojourn at New Life.The weather was lovely and I know they enjoyed going the entire way to the Gorge, while I got lost and wound up in an entirely different spot on the opposite side of the road from where we started! 

Then it was off to visit  Sugarbush Farm, specializing in making cheese and maple syrup. We were using a tourist map that showed the farm to be four or five miles from Quechee. It turned out to be more than 10 miles away. About half way there the "running out of gas" bell began to ring every minute or so.

So we turned around, went to Woodstock, found a gas station, and filled up. Grethe suggested we forget the farm, but by then Jim, who was driving, was on a mission. So back to Sugarbush we went! 

By the time we reached Sugarbush we were definitely in rural Vermont. With every sign pointing to Sugarbush the road got narrower--and bumpier. The trip was definitely worth it, though. Grethe and Jim followed the permanent tap connections from one maple syrup bush to the next for a nice walk.

And then it was on to the cheddar cheese. Sugarbush gathers milk from a variety of farms throughout Vermont to make cheddar that ranges in age from 2-8 years. There were also some flavored with horseradish or other substances. Lots of fun, and grilled cheese sandwiches for home.

My health, and thus my travels with sticks and spokes, did not improve after Grethe went home. My bout with infuenza improved, but not the cough. It lasted until February, and kept me from singing with my chorus, the church choir, and cut off singing at York's Lesson's and Carols" just before my favorite piece. Christmas Eve saw me leaving in the middle of the Gospel. 

And then I went to Florida to spend a couple of weeks with my good friend Liz--and bike and walk lots of steps. I got the rental bike on Friday and on my maiden voyage fell, landing on my right arm. I had asked my orthopedic surgeon what would happen if I fell off my bike and landed on that arm 13 months after having my right shoulder replaced. He predicted--and he was right--that I would fracture my humerus right below the prosthesis. Falling was a result of foolishness. I was turning back toward Liz's house so I could go to the bike shop and buy a rear view mirror. But I didn't want to get off the bike, and lost control while making a U turn. I spent my first week in Florida in the Ocala Regional Medical Center--a Level 1 trauma facility who had 3 surgeons on staff--if only they weren't so busy--who knew how to do the difficult repair required of this fracture. The staff was marvelous, and when I was allowed to eat the food was pretty good. 

 The medical cautions of my humerus repair kept me from walking much for the following six weeks.  It was a typically disgusting March in Maine, but worse than that, the precautions my doctor placed on me included no using hiking poles to walk. 

Jim and Karen, in particular, tried to convince me not to bike again--or at least until I do some serious time in the gym. I convinced that an electric assist adult trike would work, and my orthopedic surgeon agreed. 

NOT! On my first ride, the trike went into a ditch 50 feet from out house and threw me onto my left side. (This is the short version of the story.)  Road rash and a broken rib. I have finally agreed to stay off the bike, perhaps forever. It makes me sad. It is difficult to consider that I may never get back on a bike again. I have done lots of walking and hiking in my life, but much prefer biking. I know it is not unreasonable for me, at 71, to end my love affair with biking, especially since I have so many replaced joints, which have probably diminished my balance. But in my mind I am only 51. Maybe even younger. 

Our dear friend Don Lippoth, who passed away in April shortly before his 88th birthday, once told me he thought I was aging badly. I hope he was wrong.

In my downtime I've been doing a lot of reading and writing. I dislike the rude political arguments on Facebook. Instead I have decided to start a second blog I'm going to call "Tuesdays with Donald" in Don's memory. We had dinner together almost every Tuesday for six years. Don and I could really get into political discussions, especially since he was very good at baiting me, and I almost always responded--until Jim would start kicking me under the table while we were eating dinner. 😏

But I am still hoping for a few adventures with sticks, even if I should change the name of this blog.