On the evening of May 6, Eleanor and I flew from Philadelphia with a destination of Frankfort. We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare but the safety inspection was generally routine. I did feel that I was singled out for special attention though for two reasons. One was that I requested a hand inspection of our film, all eighty rolls of it. The inspectors will tell you that the X-ray machines will not harm any film whose speed is less than a thousand (HA!). I make it a point now to carry at least one roll of film with a speed of 3200 ASA. I can then say that I have film faster than 1000. On the other point, I was suspicious as I was wearing an "Air-Cast" around my injured ankle.
While waiting for departure at the gate, we were called up by the gate personnel who said they were going to change our seats. Apparently, they had too many people for the economy class while they had some extra seats in business class. I do not know the rules for the selection of people in such situations but I believe it was because I was wearing a tie and coat. The airlines do like to "dress the house" and improve the appearance in the business and first classes. I do not normally fly by business class, but I can now say that it is a different world from economy. Whereas there are eight seats across the airplane in economy, they are only six in business. And the seats are spread out more fore and aft. The result is that one can lean the seat back much farther and one can use the leg rest which will raise one's legs to almost a horizontal position. The food and the personal attention are significantly better. So I plan never to fly again unless I am wearing a tie and dress coat.
One loses six hours in flying east from Philadelphia to Frankfort. In our case this was between the evening and the morning hours. We have a plan to cope with this problem. For a few days before departure, we get up an hour earlier and go to bed an hour later each day. Thus, by our day of departure, we were up at 1:00 a.m. By the time the flight left, we were ready for some sleep and our bodies were adjusted to German time. When we landed, we were ready to hit the ground running.
This particular time, we did not hit the ground running. There was a misunderstanding between us and the car rental people who thought we were arriving the day before. In hindsight, it is best not to be too specific because you may be misunderstood. Instead of saying that you are leaving on day x and arriving on day x+1, one should only say that he is arriving on day x+1 and wants a car to commence then. Mentioning day x only confused the other people. There was some delay in finding another car as we had to go to another agency who had one at a slightly different location. Still, we managed to make our 12:00 noon appointment in Pfungstadt. Unfortunately, the city archivist we were to meet had to attend on a sick daughter. So we could only leave some material we had for her.
Our next destinations became Frankenthal and Lambsheim.
(30 May 02)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.