Gelnhausen, Germany - vacation time!
After Frankfurt, Gary, Cindy, Dave, Irene and I traveled to a little town called Gelnhausen, I say little but it's close to the size of Boone. It’s about about 30 minutes ride on the train, so approx. 40 or 50 kms east north-east of frankfurt.
The first recorded history in Gelnhausen was in 1170 (WOW). The date on the inner wall or hold (Inneres Holztor) is 1250 and the date on the outer wall (Ausseres Holztor) is 1340. There are a few watch / archer towers still standing, and a good part of the wall still circles the town in places, and is incorporated into the actual buildings now. It was quite amazing to touch something that old – the stone is very solid and doesn’t crumble or slake off. Simply fascinating.
Gelnhausen is situated in a valley between two lines of hills, a very strategic spot in many wars, because just past Gelnhausen, heading towards old East Germany, the valley narrows. According to Gary (who once lived here), Genghis Kahn made his great march up this valley. 
There was an old Nazi military base here, and after WWII, the US military just took over the existing military base, complete with barracks and roads, and used this as the “first line of defense” against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. That’s why the band members in the Monks were in Germany in the first place, they were all stationed in Gelnhausen during the 60s. They were here during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Gary said it was an extremely tense time. The division that was stationed here had artillery, tanks, the works – they meant business. And as Gary said, if the shit went down, the troops in Gelnhausen were toast ("first line of defense" usually means first to get stomped).
Colin Powell served here during his time in the military as well, there is actually a street named for him…. Colin-Powell-Strasse. (Strasse is actually spelled with the weird S character and an s, not two s's)
Inside the city center, there are a lot of old-style German homes, buildings butted up against each other, narrow cobbled streets, beautiful architecture, with interesting cellars and terrace/courtyard gardens.
The hotel we stayed in is in the city center, just below the Untermarkt, or lower market. The Hotel Grimmelhausen is owned by Herr Grimmelhausen, descendent of Johann Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelhausen from 1622, who somehow did something big for the town (or was important to the town), I cannot translate it. How amazingly cool, to have that much history in one town, in your family.
Above the outer wall, on the hillside, there are a lot of newer houses, with yards and big homes, almost American in style except for that distinctly “something” european which sets them apart. The locals here call that part of town “upstairs” and apparently you have to be somewhat rich to live or build “upstairs.” Doctors, lawyers, owners of factories, and rich people from Frankfurt with second homes build up on the hill.
On the first day there, we were too tired from Austria and Frankfurt to do much. So we took a nice walk around the area, ate a nice dinner at a German-style restaurant owned by a Greek native (an odd combination) and then i went into a local pub frequented by the younger crowd for a little quiet time by myself. The pub was United Kingdom / Irish-themed, with a lot of Liverpool paraphernalia on the walls.
The second day in Gelnhausen was a rainy day, rest day, laundry day (clean clothes, hooray!), reading day. After the rush for the past week, that was a welcome change. In the afternoon I went for a walk in the rain, and discovered a "panorama trail" above the town in the trees, which took me out to an overlook peering into the valley and the other little towns beyond Gelnhausen. It absolutely amazes me how similar the flora is to what we have in the Appalachian mountains in the U.S. Maple trees, poplar trees, spruce trees, feather ferns, rattlesnake plant, yarrow, yellow dock, stinging nettle... It was as if I walked a trail near my home town. For a few minutes I enjoyed one of the most beautiful bird songs I have ever heard. Pure and crisp like that of a cardinal, but more varied, whimsical almost - i believe that bird was really getting a kick out of singing.
At dinner, we met with Bobby Staedel and his wife Irena, at a restaurant called Zur Kaiserpfalz. Bobby was the original bass player for the Torquays, before Eddie joined the group, and repairs old instruments and music equipment. Karl-Jurgen Zellman, son of the family who we were to eat dinner with later in the week, also joined us (more about them later).
Later in the evening, we partied with several locals. It was a hoot. In case you forgot, Dave and Gary from the Monks lived in Gelnhausen for several years, and apparently they were remembered for being a good time. A group of locals wanted to come out and have a party for the Monks and their wives, and a woman who owns a local little pub agreed to close the place for a private party (she is good friends with one of those old local friends). So we had the two Monks with their instruments, a frenchman named Dominique who once lived here and served food in the Army commissary, who just so happened to be here on his yearly vacation to Gelnhausen; Monk Eddie’s former wife 
Anita (Eddie didn’t come to Gelnhausen with us), and a collection of other characters which included three locals who actually spoke a native Hesse dialect in addition to their regular German. Rudi, Gerhard and Wolfgang. Now THAT was cool to watch. It is very fast, and more foreign and less easy to follow than German. If I listen to someone speak German slowly, I was starting to sort of follow part of the conversation, because the language is somewhat close to English. But the Hesse dialect was so very different. These three old men kept switching over, because they knew it drove Dave nuts, since he couldn’t understand them! Rudi kept trying to teach me German, but he kept throwing things at me so fast I couldn’t keep up. I didn't get many pics of that night, because I made a video of the men speaking Hesse with my little Sony, and then lost battery power. So I just enjoyed the night without snapping photos.
At one point, someone brought out a radio with a tape in it of a very famous old German song, “Lili Marlene” and all the Germans and the two Monks burst into song. It is a very beautiful, somewhat haunting song sung by Lale Anderson, a German songstress. According to the men that evening, during WWII the German military radio would play this song every night at 10 p.m., and men on both sides (Germans and Americans) would stop fighting to listen to it. There are many, many versions of this song, including Marlene Dietrich, who brought the song a certain popularity in the U.S. Here is a link to a YouTube version that was closest to the one they played by Lale Anderson, who recorded the version most played during WWII.
Then Dave played them “Cheatin’ Heart” by Hank Williams, which they really got a kick out of. Apparently the three Hesse men absolutely LOVED 40s, 50s and 60s country music. I talked with them quite a while about Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Conway Twitty, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and other musicans from that time period. They dug the fact that I lived so close to Tennessee, because of Nashville. The oldest, and most fluent in the Hesse dialect, kept chattering to me in Hesse, as if I was eventually going to understand him. I’m not sure if he was teasing me, or if he was just far into his cups, as the saying goes. The pils was flowing quite freely the entire night. I left right after Dave’s rendition of “Don’t Be Cruel,” when one of the younger men in the group (whose name I did not get) stood up and mimicked Elvis’s famous hip wiggle. It's strange - I came 1/4 the way around the world to talk about music which is almost in my backyard.
End of part one. On to part two --->