Yep, another silly Sondy Tale already. DANISH VIGNETTES By Wilton Strickland
In early December of '78, I flew from Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland, to Copenhagen on a Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) DC-8. As I boarded the aircraft, the SAS VP for operations greeted me immediately inside the aircraft and invited me to sit with him in the first class section. I had met him the day before when he came to me with a request to allow SAS fully-loaded DC-10's with a gross weight of 600 klbs to operate at Sondy. After checking runway and taxiway load capacities and weight distribution on DC-10 landing gear, I had to restrict their gross weight for Sondy operations to 450 klbs until they could negotiate with the US government at a much higher diplomatic level than mine to thicken existing pavement by 3 inches. A runway repaving project scheduled for summer of '79 would increase thickness by 1½ to 2 inches (don't remember exactly). I left the Sondy assignment in February, '79 and don't know the final disposition of the paving project, but several months later, while I was preparing for a B-52 training mission in base operations at Seymour Johnson AFB, NC, I saw a NOTAM (official Notice to Airmen, published by the FAA) for Sondrestrom listing the weight restrictions I had imposed. I learned later that SAS was, indeed, operating DC-10's at Sondy; at what weights I don't know.
The next day, during a break in a meeting at the American Embassy Annex in downtown Copenhagen to discuss the operations and maintenance contract a Sondy, I stood in a fifth floor window and asked my host, a USAF colonel, "How old are these two and three-story buildings with the red tile roofs down below us?" He responded, "Oh, buildings in these two or three blocks close around us right here have been rebuilt since a fire in the eighteenth century. The other blocks you see farther out are from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries." An interesting reminder of what a really "new" world we Americans have.
A few days later, on a cold and rainy Saturday, my host at the Embassy drove us to tour Kronborg Castle/Fortress, immortalized as Elsinore Castle in Shakespeare's "Hamlet," on the far northeast corner of the Island of Zealand near the city of Helsingør and across the 2½-mile-wide Øresund Strait from Sweden. A small sign immediately inside the reception center clearly stated, "10 AM TOURS ARE CONDUCTED IN ENGLISH ONLY." Three German tourists (two men and a woman) were already having a heated discussion amongst themselves off to the side - the woman insisting that she wanted to go on THIS tour and that it should be in German. The men were trying to tell her that it's in English ONLY. First thing the tour guide said as she gathered us to follow her was, "Please be advised that this tour is conducted in English only." The three Germans came along anyway. Immediately at the first stop, the German lady tried to engage the guide in German; guide listened patiently and replied in English and German, "Madame, I am terribly sorry, but clear notice was made before the tour started that this tour is in English only. It is not fair to the rest of the group to change it now, and I don't have time to do it in both languages." As we proceeded with the tour, the German lady continued to harass the guide for not doing the tour in German for her. Finally, after a couple of more exchanges, the guide said to the lady, "Ma'am, I'm terribly sorry, but you give me no choice. I must ask you to leave." The lady screamed in German, "No! I paid for the tour, and you should do it in German!" (Of course, I did not understand all of it, but that's close enough.) With a wave of the guide's hand, a burley "bouncer" appeared and escorted the three Germans back to the entrance. We proceeded with the rest of the tour in peace.
In spite of the distraction, I do remember much of the huge and ornate castle's architecture and some of it's fifteenth and sixteenth century furnishings, but it's a pity that what could have been a valuable lesson in history and literature is remembered most for the German lady's childish rant. On the other hand, considering the craziness of some of "Hamlet's" characters, maybe the lady's rants were appropriate for the setting, anyway. I just did not realize it at the time. Maybe she was part of the tour, and I didn't know it.
The following day, still cold and rainy, a Danish Air Force officer friend took me on a tour of several other interesting sites. One was the Danish National Museum at Roskilde, the very old, historical capital of Denmark and a major Viking base. There we saw several well-preserved Viking long boats, varying in sizes from 10 to fifty feet, from the tenth and eleventh centuries that were recovered from a bog during construction and expansion of the nearby harbor in 1962. We also viewed the mummified body of a young, tenth-century Viking woman with long red hair wearing nearly perfectly-preserved and well-made patterned and colorful, woven clothing and gold jewelry.
Nearby is also the world's first Gothic cathedral constructed of brick - red brick - in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It has had many additions during it's 900-year life, all beautifully constructed with the same, original-type of red brick. Roskilde was the home of the Royal families for several hundred years, and the cathedral is the final resting place of many of Denmark's kings and queens.
Back in Copenhagen, we also saw Den Lille Havfrue (literally, The Little Harbor Girl) sculpture mounted on a rock base only a few feet off shore and overlooking Copenhagen Harbor. The bronze sculpture of a pretty, young woman, cast in 1913 in honor of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, "The Little Mermaid," is a major symbol of Denmark and is one of its most popular tourist attractions. Several times during the past fifty years, though, it has been the object of vandalism and political activism, including decapitation twice, loss of an arm, blasted off its base, splashed with paint and draped in burkas. It has been meticulously cleaned and restored each time.
A couple of nights later, Karl J., the senior manager of the main operations and maintenance contractor at Sondy, Danish Arctic Contractors (DAC), called me at the hotel and asked me to join him and his wife for dinner at their home the following evening. At the appointed time, Karl picked me up at the hotel and drove us to his home in the suburbs. The brick home and the neighborhood looked very much like a modern suburb in Anywhere, USA. During dinner, I complimented Karl and his lovely wife on their fine home, making special note of the beautiful hardwood floors. Karl and his wife looked at each other and smiled. Karl turned back to me and said with a little chuckle, "Well, there's a little story about the floors. Several years ago, when we were on a job in Saudi Arabia, I sent several very nice Oriental (Persian) rugs home to my dad for safe keeping. We were planning to use them in this house that we were then planning to build. When we returned from our job in Saudi Arabia, one of the first things Dad said to me at the airport was, 'Thank you for the Persian rugs.' So we have a house full of fine Persian rugs across town. We'll just let Mom and Dad enjoy them as long as they can."
As time came for me to return to the hotel, Karl said that, because of the glass of wine he had consumed during dinner, he would call a taxi to take me to the train station for the return trip to the hotel. He explained that the police would confiscate his car on the spot if he were caught driving after having ANY alcoholic drink, even merely a glass of wine at dinner a couple of hours before. (I immediately felt a lot of envy for the Danish drinking-and-driving laws.) The short, twenty-minute train trip in a very clean, sparsely-occupied coach was fast and enjoyable. The walk for a couple of blocks from the station to the hotel was very pleasant, and, of course, I never felt uncomfortable or unsafe at any time during the trip.
I also enjoyed strolling the busy streets on several early evenings and admiring the very well-done Christmas decorations in all the shops and stores. It was about two weeks before Christmas, and there seemed to be an overall festive atmosphere, especially among the children, who seemed to be excited about what Juleman (Santa Claus) may have for them.
An exceedingly enjoyable walk in the medieval town center was the nearly two-mile-long auto-free zone or Pedestrian Street (Strøget), established in 1962, and the longest such street in the world, with its many shops and department stores of every type, restaurants, sidewalk cafes, museums, art galleries and much more. One of the main attractions on the Strøget is the four-story headquarters store of Royal Copenhagen Porcelain, manufacturer of some of the world's finest and most exquisite porcelain for nearly 240 years. It was a special treat to stroll through all four floors of the store during this holiday season and view the fantastically beautiful Christmas trees and other decorations. (I even bought a couple of small items.) Of special interest every day at noon is the Royal Guard and a band marching through Pedestrian Street from their quarters to Amalienborg Palace, the Royal family residence.
During one of the evening strolls, I ate at a very American-looking Burger King, where I ordered in Danish, but the pretty young server with golden blonde - strawberry blonde - hair much like my wife's immediately responded in beautiful Irish-accented English, "You're American, aren't you? I want to go to America sometime, but right now, I'm happy in Denmark." I responded, "Yes, I'm American. I wish you well and a Merry Christmas." My host at the Embassy told me later that the high unemployment rate in Ireland was driving many young Irish men and women to seek employment on the mainland, especially in the service industry.
My several days and nights in Copenhagen passed way too fast, of course, and I returned to Sondy for about seven more very cold and busy weeks, much of it in darkness (sun below the horizon, anyway), and 2½ weeks as acting base commander in addition to my normal duties as director of engineering before departing for the last time.
Wilton _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no control over the content of the messages of each contributor.
