In Training

Ach so, one of the lads has mown the lawn, and with the lawn, the four little shaggy ink caps.
That will be the last word on mushrooms then.

Except to say that thinking of mushrooms has suddenly reminded me that I once served mushrooms as a condiment at my little 'Ken's Hot Dogs' stand when I lived in Portugal.
Which, in turn, makes me think of the hot dogs that I served the other day at the big family get-together here in Aldenhoven, where armies once clashed. Though I did not serve mushrooms as a condiment, I did whip up some hot dog chili, and I fried some onions, and sliced some cherry tomatoes and pickles, and served a choice of Bratwurst or snappy-skinned wiener, and of course there was the usual array of ketchup and mustard, and mayo, which is a European hot dog thing. And the family seemed just as content to wolf down the dogs as my customers had been back in Portalegre, Portugal, where a medieval prince had once laid siege to his brother's castle; then, when the brothers became bored of the whole siege thing, they traded castles.

Shonga yonga yonga.

Speaking of armies clashing in Aldenhoven...

From Genealogy.com, December 22, 2006:

A few days before Christmas, and on the 7th day of Chanukka, a Memorial Wall for a US soldier was inaugurated in the town of Aldenhoven, Germany (near Jülich). Michel D Ernst (a Jewish refugee from Poland, who found his way to the US and enlisted in the US Army) was, as interpreter, instrumentive in an American/German attempt to rescue 30 civilians from a caved in shelter near Aldenhoven. He died a month later, December 17, 1944. To honor him the people from the town of Aldenhoven recently have adopted his grave at the US Margraten Cemetery in the Netherlands.

I imagine that caved in shelter was the result of the aforementioned saturation bombing of Aldenhoven by the RAF on the morning of 16 November, 1944.

Or it could have been the result of the bombing that came a few days later, on the 20th, to support the American infantry approaching the town. It would be the US Army Air Force bombing the town on that day, as a 12-plane squadron of P-47's attacked with high explosives and napalm, then gave it a good strafing.

Here are some photos of Aldenhoven after being bombed:

And here are the same exact locations today:

So let us move on into the happy Aldenhoven present.

And future.

Aldenhoven, which is listed on the Arc de Triomphe, is also the site of a triathlon in the summertime, and now that I have included cycling to my list of athletic feats, I thought I might participate.  But having perused the events that will take place at that time, I see that doing the real triathlon might be a bit too ambitious at this stage, so I will probably join the youth and community version, which consists of a 500 meter swim, a 20 kilometer cycle, and a 5 kilometer run. I say again, this is the youth and community version, and not the Ironman version I had supposed it to be when I spied the distances involved. No, this is a mere mini-triathlon; a kiddie triathlon that I will be participating in. This is the fun, amateur triathlon, these 25.5 kilometers, with children, moms and dads, granmas and granpas, and the likes of me.
My goal will be quite simply to finish, and to finish in such a manner-- that is, in a manner with some semblance of dignity; upright, with an appearance of having some poise, rather than stumbling, with wide eyes and flailing arms and gaping mouth and a raucous gasping for breath-- my goal, I say, will be to finish in such a manner that the children I am competing against will not taunt me or throw pebbles at me or prod me with sticks.
I have already begun training with an occasional swim in the pool in Siersdorf, and by walking the dog, and cycling occasionally to the kiosk at the end of the street where I buy my tobacco.
I will be ready.

Here is a photo of me at the pool in Siersdorf:

Ha! Utterly ridiculous! A moustache? Also, the pool in Siersdorf does not allow such large swimming suits, as upon exiting the pool, the swimmer will bring most of the water that is in the pool with him. No, let me try again:

Yes, that is me on the left, having the mandatory shower before getting into the pool.

And here I am cycling down Pützdorferstraße to the tobacco shop:

Yes, that is the correct photo.


And this is me whilst cycling back in August, with some other cyclists I had met:

As you can see, I had grown quite thin after nearly two years on the road. I later lost the top hat whilst cycling down a mountain in Switzerland.

But where were we? I think I had mentioned children throwing pebbles. This is not an unjustified concern, this concern of mine, that children will pelt me with pebbles if I am lacking in the appearance of dignity-- for a child did, in fact, throw pebbles at me, on Easter Sunday of 2012, as I sat on the pavement beside a church in a village north of Valencia, Spain.
Then in Bulgaria, some nine months later, a gang of children hurled snowballs at me as I passed through a village there.
Neither the pebbles nor the snowballs hit their mark, however, so nyaa nyaa nyaa to you, children. 

Meanwhile, the reader may have noticed that I have put both Siersdorf and Pützdorf in bold print. Why? I'm glad you asked.

But we will save this for tomorrow to keep you in suspense.