On the Train from Munich

A glimpse of my Valentine's Day in 1968 as a young American GI in Europe

In February 1968, on a Monday morning close to Valentine's Day, my friend Allen and I sat on a commuter train leaving Munich. We were two twenty-year-old GIs coming off a three-day pass headed back to the motor pool in Schweinfurt.

I was a mechanic, and Allen was the motor pool clerk.

I knew we had long ride a head of us and that we had to change trains a couple times. The first train had an aisle down the middle with two open seats, which faced each other, on either side of the aisle. Of course, Allen and I picked seats directly across the aisle from three young women that looked like nicely dressed college students or sales clerks at a distinguished department store.

The train stopped a couple times. Each time, a few more passengers filled up the seats. A round-faced, middle-aged man with a mustache and carrying a satchel stopped.

He asked us, in German, if he could sit in the seat facing us. Allen and I said yes and gestured with our hands for him to sit.

“Danke,” he said.

He sat and opened his satchel, taking out a piece of cheese, a hunk of bread, and a newspaper. He proceeds to munch on the cheese and bread while reading the newspaper.

Next I saw an attractive tall blonde woman in a blue Air Force overcoat coming down the aisle towards us.

She stopped at the seats across from us and, in German, asked the three women there if she could sit with them.

All three smiled, nodded, and said, “ja, ja.” She unbuttoned her coat, took off her scarf, and sat.

I found myself staring curiously at this woman. Her hair was piled on her head and held together with a tortoiseshell comb. She had round, wire-rimmed glasses and wore an off-white, cable knit sweater, and faded jeans with a red heart patch sewed on the knee.

The thing that really made me do a double take— she was sporting black, high-top Converse sneakers. A German girl wearing Chucky high tops?

She is different, I thought.

I said to Allen, “If she took off those glasses and let her hair down, she would look like Mary Travers from Peter Paul and Mary.”

When I think about it now, this woman was the first hippie chick that I'd seen.

The three other women were very attractive, but there was something oddly intriguing about the girl with wire-rimmed glasses.

The three women were also curious about her. I could tell by the way they asked questions and the tone of their voices that there was an uneasiness.

This helped with my self-righteousness. I continued to look intently at the girl with black high tops.

So, there I sat, trying to take longer looks without drawing attention to myself.

As I was stealing a peek, a pink wiggly thing, like a skinny worm, protruded from her hair. I didn't want to get caught staring, but my eyes kept shifting.

I saw it again, this weird alien looking pink, wiggly thing sticking out of her hair.

Now, I was really looking.

I saw a little pink nose, then beady eyes as a white mouse emerges from her hair! That pink wiggly thing was the mouse's tail!

It sneaked onto her shoulder and sniffed around. A couple more sniffs and it scampered under the blonde strands of safety.

I nudged my friend Allen with my elbow.

“Allen,” I said. “That girl has a mouse in her hair.”

He laughed.

“I know we drank a lot last night,” Allen said, “but this is crazy.”

“No. I'm telling you,” I said. “I saw a mouse come out of her hair onto her shoulder and then run back into her hair.”

Still laughing and calling me crazy, Allen joined me in looking at the hippie chick.

Our heads kept moving in unison, stealing a peek and then looking back, stealing another peek then looking back at each other.

The German man, who's eating his cheese and bread, noticed Allen and I trying to sneak a peek at the girl with the mouse in her hair. He put down his newspaper. With an inquisitive look on his face, he followed our glances toward the odd girl.

Now the three of us, in unison, try to take looks without getting caught. Eyes shifted and our heads slightly moved in the same direction. Quickly, we snapped back, staring at each other. We looked at the German man and the German man looked at us.

Each time, a more sinister look grew upon the German man's face. Back and forth we go until the mouse comes out and boldly stared at the middle-aged cheese eater, sniffing the air as if to say, “cheese, I smell cheese.”

The round-faced German man stood. His satchel dropped to the floor. He pointed with his right hand.

“Maus! Maus!” he shouted.

The hippie chick turned.

With a smile, she said, “Ja, ja.”

She took the little white mouse from her shoulder. Holding it in her left hand, she stroked its back with the index finger of her right hand. She nonchalantly continued to speak in German. What she said, I wish I could have understood, but the grace of her body language and the tone of her voice seemed as if she were explaining how normal and yet how amazing this relationship with her mouse is.

It was obvious that the three other women were uneasy and extremely surprised. They didn't sit quite as close to the odd fraulein, although their conversation remained polite.

Still in shock, the German fellow sat again with an expression of disbelief. He gestured to us and with his right index finger he pointed to his ear. He made a clockwise circular motion, the international sign language for crazy.

Allen and I nodded with smiles of agreement. I couldn't help but think of Bugs Bunny cartoons when they would show a sign above somebody's head with a picture of a crackpot, screw and ball, and nuts.

At the next stop, the German fellow, the three attractive women, and the uniquely odd fraulein, and her mouse, all got off the train.

Allen and I agreed that it was a good thing that we experienced this together.

Because nobody would have believed us if we saw it by ourselves.

There I was intrigued by her uniqueness, boldness of expression— a folky free spirit— and she turned out to be a shelter for rodents.

Life does throw you a screwball sometimes.

God Bless and Have Fun!

— Larry

If you are in the Lehigh Valley and you want a copy of Larry’s books:

If you want to see Larry in person and have him sign your books (or buy books for him to sign, he will be attending the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group Write Stuff Conference on Saturday March 15 at the Homewood Suites by Hilton in Center Valley, Pa. (not far from the Promenade Shops).

Even if you do not attend the conference, the book fair is open to the public and typically begins at 3 p.m. Larry’s publisher, Parisian Phoenix, will have his books at the event.

If you enjoy Larry’s Stories, don’t forget to click the heart or leave a comment. This is a place where you can share in the storytelling!

To read more from Larry…

Coffee in the Morning presents a collection of nostalgic short stories celebrating 20th century Americana, capturing the hopes, dreams and fears of multiple generations and different life circumstances. Similar to his first book, The Death of Big Butch, this carefully curated collection blends his experiences as observer first and storyteller second.

These sixteen stories weave from the backyard into diners and into forests, capture the other-worldliness of fairytales and the grittiness of misfortune. So visit the general store to discover the hero, explore perspective from the pawnbroker shop, pay your parking tickets, sleep beside the Jersey Devil, and never underestimate the power of a good Pennsylvania Dutch pie.

The book is available for sale via Larry or Parisian Phoenix, at Easton’s Book & Puppet Company downtown or at the Blue Flame Events Retail Store at the Palmer Park Mall.

(And, of course, all your favorite online retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, bookshop.org, etc.)

Larry Sceurman, the author of nostalgic fiction COFFEE IN THE MORNING and THE DEATH OF BIG BUTCH, also has a dyslexia-friendly children’s book BOOKWORM’S MAGICAL JOURNEY.

You can get those Barnes & Noble loyalty points ordering his books online! Click here to see all of Larry’s titles on the Barnes & Noble website.

BOOKWORM’S MAGICAL JOURNEY uses whimsical characters to break down the concepts of learning to read. The book is available for sale via Larry, at Easton’s Book & Puppet Company downtown or at the Blue Flame Events Retail Store at the Palmer Park Mall. (And, of course, all your favorite online retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, bookshop.org, etc.)