A Mormon and a Nazi

It is purely by the grace of God and Southwest Airlines that I am writing this from Albuquerque and not from Baltimore. I finished out my last day of school on Wednesday and hurried home to clean, pack, and tie up loose ends before my flight on Thursday morning. As I was walking in the door, right after hanging up the phone with my dad saying "See you tomorrow!" my phone rang with a travel alert from Orbitz - "your flight has been cancelled." So of course I freak out, and then realize that it's snowing in Denver and my flight was through Denver, so that was the deal. I called United, and couldn't get through, so I called Orbitz and the soonest they could get me on a flight for less than $750 additional cost was Monday evening. Then, once I was willing to accept that, they couldn't even make that happen because it would have been on a first class seat and they couldn't approve the upgrade without talking to United first. So I was completely wigging out...I finally found a one-way ticket on Southwest for $350 on the 24th, so I bought that and then went down to the airport to try and find someone to talk to in person at United or Southwest either one. No one was there except a night dude at Southwest, so I talked to him and he recommended I fly standby on Thursday. He said the ticket counter opened at 4:30 and I ought to be there then. So I went home, slept for 3 hours, and came back to the airport. The woman at the counter was a miracle worker and managed to change my ticket to a flight through Phoenix that would get me in to Albuquerque only 2 hours after I was supposed to get in originally. So I almost kissed her and got on the flight.

Last year when I flew home I got stuck next to a crazy Korean woman who converted me to some crazy form of evangelical Christianity. This time I got stuck next to two octagenarians - a German and a Mormon. I sat down in the window seat, sliding by the German in the aisle, to have him immediately start talking to me and telling me his life story. Before the Mormon ever sat down, I learned that the German was born near Hanover, was drafted to fight in WWII before he was 16, the war ended when he was 17, and he came to the US when he was 20. He came on Christmas day through Ellis Island, and three days later was settling in Baltimore. He got a job working at the National Brewery (home of Natty Boh), and worked there until he retired in 1990. He now lives in Las Vegas with his daughter, but was in Baltimore visiting his son. Like I said, I found all of that out before the Mormon sat down...and the German tried not to let him sit down, saying our conversation would be better if no one was between us, so he lied and said the seat was saved. The flight attendant disagreed since it was a full flight and the last remaining empty seat.

The German didn't talk to me for the first hour of the flight, until the Mormon got up to use the restroom. Then he started telling me dirty jokes. It was more than a little traumatizing. When the Mormon returned, he joined the conversation, and they talked about Germany for awhile, where we recounted all of the previous stories. The German told us more about working for National Brewery - mostly about how amazing "that Jew" who ran it was. He said that the other Jews hated him because at Christmas, every hospital in Baltimore got a check for one million dollars, and the other Jews thought he should send it to Israel. He apparently did a lot of other good works as well - he built the eye clinic at Hopkins, set up funds for any veteran working at the Brewery to be given a down payment for a house, and other various things. He sounds like an awesome guy, and the German was quite enamored of him.

The Mormon turned to talk to me for awhile about my job and his life, and since the German was primarily interested in talking about himself, he tuned out and started eating his sandwich. Eventually I asked him what type of meat was in it, because it was very fragrant, and he said it was Polish sausage made by his butcher neighbor in Baltimore. Then he insisted that I try it. That was definitely creepy, but the sausage was good, so there's that.

The rest of the flight was passed with small talk, except when the German started talking about the war. We started by talking about the atrocities committed by the Russian soldiers on German women, and that spread to what the US soldiers did and how the first black Belgians were born around that time. That was awkward enough, but then we started talking about Hitler specifically. Apparently, when Hitler was elected the country was in economic ruin, and he promised that within one year of his election, everyone who was looking for a job would have one. When they did, he started the national income tax. Now, according to the German, the Jews owned Germany by this time, because when they were exiled from Russia by Stalin, they were the only ones in Germany with any wealth. So the Jews refused to pay income tax, saying they were Jews, not Germans, and this made Hitler mad. Finally, he gave a speech that said "In one year, anyone who has not paid all of their income tax will not sleep another night in a German bed." On year after that, they rounded up all the jews and marched them to the pre-built barracks (you know them now as concentration camps, says the German). Apparently, due to lack of organization, many of the Jews died on the way that night. The German said, "You know those furnaces came in handy that night!" At this time I was obscenely uncomfortable, and I turned away. The Mormon listened for awhile longer to the German essentially defending concentration camps, and finally chimed in with "Have you been to any of the camps?" and the German said "No, but I know all about them." "Well, I've been there, and you are mistaken. You have been misinformed." That was good, it closed the other guy's mouth. I spent the rest of the flight reading SkyMall.

I made it to Albuquerque without anything else interesting happening to me, except realizing that I had left my Nintendo DS in the seat pocket on that flight. I easily got my other ticket refunded at the United counter in Albuquerque, and easily got my baggage. I even easily filed a claim for the DS, but to no avail. And I only got home two hours later than originally planned.