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The Wingham Advance-Times, 1985-04-24, Page 29Page 10—Crossroads—Apr. 24, 1985 The twin towers of the St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church dominate the section of the city in which the church is located, to the west of the Stork Tower. Frdm Stork Tower to Bacra Bar (Continued from Page 1) ARMY LIFE I go back to chatting with Shirley Landry seated beside me and ask her how she likes army life. It turns out it's nothing new to Mrs. Landry. Her father was in the army. But even so, she says, she found her first year in Lahr de- pressing and tough. "Leo and I got married just three weeks before we came to Lahr, so we had a lot of adjustments to make." They were unable to find accommodation in Lahr and "got stuck out in one of the little villages". "It was awful," Shirley Landry said. "I couldn't find a job. I couldn't speak .Ger- man. There was no one to talk to. I spent that first')ear stuck in an apartment, hardly going out." Now that they're living in. Lahr"and she has a job, she says, she is enjoying the ex- perience. They are now in their third year in Germany. Later they tell me Leo is thinking of signing on for a fourth year, "so we can save some moneyto buy a house or trailer when we get back to Canada". There are some aspects of army regulations however,. that upset Shirley Landry and she tells me about one of them. Recently she has saved the money to buy a stereo and She is unprepared for what happens when she and Leo go into the store to order it. "I went to sign for it and they told me I couldn't, that it had to be in my husband's name — army regulations." Cpl. Landry confirms his wife's statement. "That's right," he said. "It surprised me too. I thought it should be in her name. It was her money that was buying it, but there was nothing I could do about it." ' What would happen if it was the wife who was in the service? "Oh.;'I don't think there is any discrimination that way," Mrs. Landry replied. "ft would go in her name, not his, even if he paid for it. It has to go in the name of the person in the Forces.." What happens if the couple splits up or divorces? What guarantee has the spouse who paid for the goods, that he or she will end`up with the stereo, the car, or whatever? "That's just it," Mrs. Lan- dry replied. "I just don't agree with it." BACRA BAR We have finished our din- ner with atinther specialty of the house, fresh strawber- ries "from Spain", served with maple -walnut ice cream. The heavy smokers in the group are down at the other end of the table with Capt. Anido and I get the impres- sion the discussion has had a lot to do with things military. A few of us have arrived in Germany with a bad cold, if not something bordering on the flu, and I hear Lorne Eedy of St. Marys has all but lost his voice. However, un- daunted, he is croaking away. It's time to go. We've been here about three hours and the time has passed pleasan- tly and swiftly, I haven't had an oppor- tunity to talk to Margaret Kohler, but on the way back to the hotel she tells us an in- teresting story about a bunch of people who call them- selves the "friends of the frogs". On this stretch of road, she says, in the springtime thou- sands of frogs cross during the mating period. It used to l'ie that many got run over by the traffic. But now orga- nized groups take turns pat- rolling the crossing, carry- ing lanterns. I ask her if she's serious. "Oh yes, absolutely," she replies. "It° it were a bit later, in a few weeks, I'm sure you would have seen them." Itia,about1 il5,p.m, ,when we reach our hotel and again all is silent. We say good evening to the Kohlers, the Landrys and the captain, but not to each other, During dinner it has been determined it's to be another night on the town. Peter Schierbeck of Fairview, Alta., has good-humoredly pressed Cpl. Landry for the •names of "some good pla- ces". "Well," Cpl. Landry finally says, "if you really want to see something, I hear the Bacra Bar is pretty good." "Have I ever been -there?" his wife asks. "No," Cpl. Landry replies. "And you ain't going." "Oh, I see," Mrs. Landry' smiles. "It''s one of those places." Capt. Anido says he's never heard of the place. But the Bacra Bar it is. We head down the deserted marketplace to find a cab. We're the only -'people in sight and Rick James pulls on black gloves, whistles the theme music from a spa- ghetti western and does a good imitation of Clint East- wood. It's funny stuff and fits right, in with the cobble- stones and dimly lit store- fronts. Four of us pile into the first' cab, leaving the other five to catch the next one. We have no idea where the Bacra Bar is, but the cabbie knows. It turns out we head north of the city on the same road we've just taken from Gast - haus Hirsch. The Bacra Bat, at 7632 Friesenheim, is about half way to the restaurant, or seems about that distance. Like the Tiffany cabaret, it's on the outskirts and the only businesses around are. a Couple more bars. I think I'm starting to get the picture. This place has at least three floors, but upon entry, we find ourselves following the noise downstairs. The place is crowded. We get the last table, in the cor- ner near the entrance. We're no sooner seated than the waitress, attractive, polite, and scantily clad, comes over for our order. She tells us we will probably only have time for one round. In the Bacra Bar the porno flicks, shown 'on at least three screens located around the room, are anything but fuzzy. Lorne Eedy (his voice ,has orkillmilmw Bill Smiley ti A gruesome winter By Bill Smiley In many ways, it has been a rather gruesome- winter. To begin with the little things, around our .neck of the woods, -we had about fourteen feet of snow in about ten weeks, beginning on New Year's Eve. That creates a survival course, all by itself. But that's nothing to an old, retired guy like me. In fact, it gave me something to do: just getting myself in and out of the house, and -my car in and out of the garage. On really bad day, there was a tendency to jtt.lie in bed with a good book, take an occasional glance through the window at the white whirlwind outside, and hope your neighbor with the snow- blower would have you dug out in a couple of days. My only problem was a short but fierce battle be- gotten worse), says the quality is good. I tell him °I hope he is referring to the technical quality and not the eetent. The crowd here has an in- tense feel. There are some young people, but most ap- pear to be in their,thirties. The show makes the one at Tiffany look like an after- noon tea party. The stripper is decked out in black lea- ther, including high . black boots and carries a whip. It is a raunchy act. "What do you think, Marion?" asks Peter Schier- beck. I say the first' thing that comes into my head. "It's a good thing Coates didn't come here, or the en- tire cabinet would have had to resign." Mr. Schierbeck nods his head in agreement, The waitress has returned: We de have time for another round, and, as it turns out, another floor show. "What's upstairs?" asks Mr. Shierbeck. "Lots of nice girls," she replies. During the second show, Rick James, who is seated along the bar with a couple of the other fellows is busy chatting with Rick (Eric) Derkson of Manitoba and isnot watching the act. The stripper, a young black woman with an ob- vious sense of humor, takes. advantage of his inattention and whacks him across the knee with her short lash. Rick James jerks to atten- tion, rubs his knee and the rooms erupts in laughter. At the end of her -act the wo- man, with a broad grin goes over and apologizes. Mr. James isn't allowed to forget the incident for the re- mainder of the tour. After the downstairs has closed, it's a visit to the up- stairs. re's no mistaking what's going on here. The short bar with its expensive drinks is no more than a place for the men to reach a price with one of the four or five women, in various states of undress reclining or sit- ting 'on stuffed chairs and couches. Before leaving Canada I have read it is illegal to sell sex in West Germany. I've also read` prostitution flourishes on the outskirts of cities, or in well-defined downtown centres. , There's no doubt it flourishes in these bars on the fringe of Lahr. We don't stay long up- stairs. Instead of a beer I've ordered a coke. It cost the same as a beer, seven marks, but at least comes with ice. E, v. Van Duuren of Hunts- ville has managed to calm down a soldier from , CFB Baden, one of two other people at the bar when we arrive. The soldier really doesn't have much use for journa- lists and launches into a dia- tribe about the Coates' af- fair. Mr. Van Duuren listens patiently, and finally gets to tell the man why we're here. By the time the soldier leaves, telling Mr. Van Duuren we've Mucked up his plans for the evening, we're ready to go too. "Ma) ion," says Peter Schierbeck, "I don't think these ladies here like you. I think we'd better get you out tween my car and ,my garage, won by a knockout in the first round by the garage: And the ice backing upon the rook, creating a spooky stain on my bedroom ceiling and some sagging plaster here and there. And two, nearly broken elbows when I took the garbage out one night, got one leg up tohe hip,in a drift, couldn't mo\e, and fell on some stones because I wouldn't let go of the gar- bage. The only' moral to this is, "What does it profit a man if he cling to the gar- bage can and break both el- bows?" veteyan of a Canadian winter can hack this sort of stuff. Do we not live in the "temperate zone", according to the old geography lessons? No, it wasnit this type of minor misery that made the winterof 1985 a sour one: There was the continuing war between Iraq and Iran, with two Moslem neighbors fighting a four-year conflict with no sign of peace, and a quarter of a million casualties, about something we in the West don't begin to understand. Sick. There was the dreadful Bhopal disaster in India, with thousands killed or poisoned due to a failure in "technology," our latest god. Sick. There was the concurrent horror of Beirut, in Lebanon; where everybody; regard- less of religion, common sense, or economics, wants to kill someone else. Sick. There was the on-going fighting in Central America, with thousands of innocent bystanders killed, or burned out. Sick. There` were the endless pictures' of children in Africa, with bloated bellies. and flies crawling over their faces, dying in a world where we Canadians" debate whether we'll have chicken or steak or "Oh, no, Mom, not hamburg again." Sick! Of course, that was a media mecca. The starva- tion had been going on for years. Suddenly it was news. And almost as suddenly (I'11 swear I saw the same baby with the same flies and same swollen belly twenty times) it almost ceased, though mil- lions of conscience-stricken North Americans con- tributed millions of dollars for relief, which was like spitting in the ocean. Sick. Back home, despite our comparative luxury, we had trouble with ( what else?) the Canadian dollar. Every day we were told breathlessly that the dollar had "plunged" to .a new low, or "surged" to a new high, compared with yesterday. The dollar had never dropped slightly, or rose a quarter of a cent. Sick. Before the last election, the cry from all parties was "Jobs" as first priority. Seen any drop in the unemploy- ment figures? Nope. Only warhings of cuts in this or that program or of increases in expenditures for this or that, a euphemism for higher taxes. Sick. We have a new govern- ment, with a tremendous majority, and a mandate to make some major, courage- ous changes. What has it done in six months? Costed up to Ronald Reagan, put out some trial balloons about slashing social securities and spent millions on patron- age, bigger everything in Ot- tawa, and a general feeling that the new Tories are the same old gang we've had for fifty years, with a different label. Sick. And speaking of sick,. I've almost thrown up by the media coverage of a couple of little twerps who have captured much of this winter's new in this country. One is Dr. Henry Morgen- thaler, strutting like a banty 0 0 0 of here." I.'m not about to argue. I've had enough of the Bacra Bar. It's a good thing, I think, we've only got one more free day before we get down to the purpose ofthis tour. I, for one, am more than ready to start seeing what Canadian Forces Europe is all about, rooster toward his next battle with the courts, with ordinary, sensible Cana- dians booing or cheering, much to his gratification, as he strives to set up more abortion clincics. The other is Ernst Zundel, the blatant Nazi, who says Hitler was a gentle man and the holocaust was a hoax. He was convicted of something or other, applealed the con- viction, and looked like the proverbial cat who swal- lowed the canary as he left court, surrounded' by his hard-hat goons. Best publicity he could have hoped for, for his warped views. Sick. If I could be a dictator for a day, I'd deport Morgan- thaler to Ethiopia to set up his clinics. Tot, many babies there. And I'd deport Zundel to Israel, to give him a fifty - yard start, and devil take the hindmost. Sick winter. or personal talismah. 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