Things are becoming recall-ably thin. I guess that comes with age. So it just makes sense if for any reason other than posterior’s sake it appears those things past are going to need to be recorded. What for? One might ask. Posterity, duh! Any readers who took part in this hilarious made for TV movie please excuse the changed names and the omissions. Have tried as hard as I can to remember this correctly.
Arrested For Murder
Yikes! Seriously? Yep. In the summer of ’69. Never charged officially but whoa.. was that a trip!
Now before you go bonkers about that word you have to place this in context. (No it was not a real murder but it sure looked like it.)
Way back in 1968, when I was attending Western Hills High School I was offered the chance to take part, the following year, in a once in a lifetime experience: A trip to Europe to study at the University of Salzburg, Austria.
At the time, I was a spoiled brat. The youngest of three children. Separated by years between kids our sibling relationship was non-existent. Did not know my brother. He was a student at Yale University. I was a spoiled brat.
My sister was no different. Though quite a bit younger than Walter, the soon to be world wide recognized micro-biologist, Virginia (Ginny) had found the love of her life and was headed to a big and wonderful family of offspring. This was years before Happy Days but her shortly thereafter husband: Larry McCarthy; was my Fonz! Along with my cousin Jack Barker (whom I cannot find to this day!) Larry was my idea of cool. I love both of my VERY older siblings very much. I just don’t know them.
AFS, or American Foreign Student exchange program or something or other (forgive me if the name is not fully accurate it was reaching to get that far) provided the itinerary, transportation and chaperons. Frau Kilmer was the name of the poor lady stuck with my group. A group of nearly German speaking high school students from across the country were to assemble, hop a plane and arrive in Europe to travel, see the sights and study something during the summer at the University of Salzburg. Not quite sure what it was we were to study. Paying attention was not a strong suit for me then and obviously the ‘study’ was rather interrupted due to that pesky murder thing.
After what I remember as a rather long and intense period of obnoxious brat: my father acquiesced and paid for the trip. It was just a few months later that his being awakened in the middle of the night by a frantic phone call from Austria would make him question that decision. But he did it in an unusual way.
So there we were, after flying in a huge aircraft across the pond and arriving at Heathrow Airport in London, England we were placed in a hotel and told to stay close by until the next day when we did take a wonderful sightseeing excursion throughout old London. The Tower of London. The London Bridge. The Beefeaters. Piccadilly Circus. The Postal Tower. All of those found a group of somewhat arrogant, overly loud and embarrassing American high school students with gaping mouths asking too many questions.
Wish I would have known then what I know now. Would have made it a point to stop by the family graves and pay my respects. OK that is what I would do today. Then, it would not have registered as mattering. Spoiled brat.
As a heavy smoker at the time, and no where near American cigarettes I was forced to endure a brand I remember to this day. Peter Stuyvesant Cigarettes. Long things. No filter. Not bad either. I blame Peter for what happened in Salzburg. Not the murder. The Sound of Music. Wait for it.
After a day of organized cool place visiting we departed for Belgium. For some reason I have no recollection of whether we took a boat or a plane although a boat seems to peculate to the top. Not a trust-able memory.
In Belgium we toured the main square in Brussels; visited some nice churches and water fountains, took pictures and 8mm movies and longed for Berlin.
Why Berlin you might ask? Well, think Lowenbrau. We had heard of the amazing beer halls of Munich and Berlin and as very young high schoolers, well… you get the idea.
From Belgium we took a train to Paris, France.
While there, the group toured the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and other French places on account we were in France. Stayed overnight in an old hotel with bed bugs. Slept in a chair. Man was that place a dump.
Walked all over Paris at night, greeting people with smiles and after a short while apprehension as it appeared there was not one single French person who was not an asshole. Seriously, every person I met that night looked at me like a horrible American and acted that way. Did get to look out from the near top of the Eiffel Tower. Also got to walk up to and look at Notre Dame Cathedral. Were not able to enter it as scaffolding blocked the doors and there was something about ’no visitors today’.
From Paris we took a train into West Germany and wound up in West Berlin.
Who knew a ‘stein’ was a freaking glass barrel? Whoa; were those big.
The group was well behaved. Everyone was pleased to be experiencing Europe and looking forward to the next day’s trip into East Berlin.
It appeared to be a pretty important thing, we were told, to not aggravate the East Berlin guards. They did not have a sense of humor. Do NOT take pictures of Checkpoint Charlie as we passed through it in a bus. It was Verboten! My 8mm movie camera fit right between the back two seats of the bus and I captured the entire passage on film only expecting to get caught when the guards boarded the bus and stared at me. Wasn’t though.
Inside East Berlin all we did was ride around a big circle and look at destitute buildings with very few people on the streets. Picked up a propaganda flyer there called “Vo Ist Man Besser?” Garbage it was. Set me instantly on an anti-communist kick.
We saw the Brandenburg gate from both sides.
On the way back to West Berlin we stopped at a very important part of the Berlin Wall. It was where John Kennedy had spoken. That was where I managed to break off a small section of barbed wire from the fence while listening to the tour guide. Took it home with me. Somebody’s got it.
Held the camera in plain view as were left East Berlin and showed the boarding guards (same dudes) that it didn’t even have film in it. The seat cushion did but not the camera.
After another night of beer hall bliss we left by train again for Salzburg.
What a beautiful city. We toured the castle high on the hill over looking the town. We toured a giant collection of fountains, including the stone table and chairs where the Barron held court . They said he had a sense of humor and that was why each chair had a hole in the middle of the seat. All he had to do was pull a lever under his end of the table and a very hard water jet blew through the chair. I suspected he was Blofeld with his white cat.
Toured the salt mines, riding a mining car wearing tour provided overalls. And were were taken to our home away from home for the summer. The dormitories of the University of Austria.
As old Europe would have it, the male accommodations were literally miles away from the school and the female accommodations. That wasn’t nice.
We found the ‘D’ bus made that trip shorter. Hop on the ‘D’ and you would be at the girls’ dormitories in under 20 minutes. Hmmm.
Being confined to a second floor suite of rooms around a central common space, the group of guys I was with were pretty easy to get along with. I won’t use their real names here, nor say where they mostly came from but I do still like Hershey’s chocolate.
We were paired up to share rooms where each one had two single beds. My room-mate was John. John and I were very much alike. Hmmm.
And we got bored easily.
As it turns out there was a nice kid with us named Jaime. Jaime was a nerd looking kinda guy but not at all nerdy. He was smart and could be intense. He was also a perfect plant.
So what do high school guys do when bored and not allowed to be anywhere near the girls housing?!? … Well yeah… we plotted.
Then we took a bus ride into downtown Salzburg and on the Main Straße where a nice little store offered not only the Hoeffner Guitar I wound up taking home only to leave in storage in California years later and cuff links.
Cuff links in the shape of guns. Turns out they fired what amounted to a blank 22 caliper report . Some were one shot some were six shooters. We all bought a pair. What fun. The image is exactly the kind of cuff links I had.
Then we went back to the dorm and talked about what to do with them.
I’m not saying who’s idea it was but it became a dorm-wide conspiracy to get the attention of the girls at college. We had been attending daily college courses IN GERMAN no less and nobody had managed to get a single girl top pay attention.
That had to change.
So we put together a plan. All 22 of us. Jaime was to go to the girls’ dorm main building and spread a story that John had stolen and burnt his passport. He was forever stuck in Austria. Could not leave. Was going to be homeless when everyone else left the country. He was going to get even. John was going to meet him there and there was going to be a fight.
Must have been a very boring night in that dorm because as Jaime walked into the front courtyard of the dorm, every single window of the three story building was crammed with girls peering out to see the ‘fight’.
Some windows had awnings below them, some did not. That’s important to know.
The ‘plan’ was for all 21 of us (Jaime was already there and playing his part so convincingly that the girls were very scared and expected to see a rumble) to show up at the front of the dorm with John and watch the ’fight’ and maybe help Jaime because John had ‘gone insane’. Well, that is what the girls were told.
When we arrived on the bus and walked into the courtyard John rushed to the front of the pack. He was wearing a t-shirt under his main shirt that had cigarette holes burned into it and strawberry ice cream spread on each ‘hole’. Austrian ice cream was not mixed so the strawberries were available and as red as ever.
Each of us had our cuff links.
Sometimes the best laid plans, even for a fake fight and a drama infested story go wrong. Who knew literally 42 little tiny cuff link guns sounded like a national invasion?!? Boy did they ever.
When John reached Jaime, who was standing under the only gas light in the courtyard yelling ensued. They yelled at each other while the rest of us hid behind rock walls. The girls did not know everyone else was there until the gun shot.
John had fired one of his cuff links toward Jaime. At night those things put out what looked like an 18 inch flame and a very large boom.
Couple that with the echo that rattled around the dorm buildings and it was pretty real looking. Girls started screaming from the windows. That did it. We all jumped up ran to the two and yelled at John who turned around to face us and ripped off his outer shirt. That was when all 42 tiny wee little cuff links, some six shooters went off. Flames everywhere. Sound resounding between the buildings and girls started falling out of the windows.
Ah. We didn’t know that then. We thought it went well. Nobody could hear so we held to the plan. Except John.
John reeled in pain at the many gun shots first his way and turned around under the gas light to show his bullet riddled body bleeding strawberries.
Instead of running for the ‘D’ bus to take us home… we panicked. Everybody ran across the street. John, on the other hand had fallen down and was laughing so hard we had to pick him up and carry him out past the rock wall where he stood up and we all ran across the street into a forest.
As our hearing began to return it was a rather curious sound combination.
There was screaming and crying coming from the dorms and a whole lot of up and down wailing sirens coming from every other direction.
Ah oh. Austrian state police. Little green Volkswagen beetles. Dogs. So what did John do? Ripped off his bullet ridden t-shirt and threw it up into a tree. From there John and I ran to the ‘D’ bus like the plan required and arrived back at the men’s dorms a few minutes later. The rest of the pack, on the other hand were stuck in the woods where the police arrested every single one of them.
They found the t-shirt and started a man-hunt with dogs to find the ‘body’.
Nobody believed the poor defenseless kids. It was a joke officer. No we didn’t kill anybody. Yes we are American what about it?
Meanwhile John and I had gotten out of our travel clothes and into bed just as the door flew open partially off the hinges and two Austrian State Police officers with rather nasty looking automatic weapons stood there.
We were startled out of our sleep officers. What happened? Really? Well we never. They searched the room. They never looked into the telephone hand set. Unscrew the two sections and there were two sets of tiny cuff link guns hiding there. Took mine home after it was all over and they now reside with somebody. Not me and I don’t know where they are.
Yes they took us in. Yes we wound up in the clink. Yes some kid had caved under torture and (wrongly?!) accused us of plotting the whole thing.
Frau Kilmer was called and she was not happy about it. We had mug shots taken, finger prints taken and a lot of rather nasty sounding orders.
We heard we were going to have to pay for the medical bills and the ambulances dispatched to pick up girls who fell out of windows (awnings.. remember awnings?) but there were no serious injuries. We had to remain confined to our doom building except when we went to school and then we had to have police guards doing that. They even put guards at the dorm. The two we didn’t like.
Then after we got back to the dorm we all gathered in the lunch room and watched the moon landing. One leap for man another for some giant dude.
And a few days later being confined was not a happy thing. Thinking what to do about that. Well as it turns out, we had purchased a few ‘fire crackers’ weeks earlier at that downtown store and they were when put together pretty much like a quarter stick of dynamite. I happened to have a stash of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes and a foot long wick.
Late that night John and I tied sheets together and shimmied down the makeshift ropes to trash cans below our window where we took out across a large corn field , across a road and across more fields until we reached a nice lake.
Look familiar?
The Von Trapp Family home from the Sound of Music was a Music School. We heard music from the school. The hills were alive. The lake was just behind it and off to one side of that lake we planted the quarter stick of ‘dynamite’ attached to the wick with a Peter Stuyvesant cigarette stuck into the end of it. Those things took about 15 minutes to burn down to the wick.
Once lit we ran like the wind across those fields, through the mud and back up the sheets where we had just managed to throw our mud filled shoes up under the beds when we heard a muffled but still quite loud BOOM!
Added about 20 feet to the lake. The hills were indeed alive with the sound of music and a .. well.. interruption.
Moments later, while we were just sinking into the sheets we had recovered from the window the door came crashing in again.
They knew it was us. But two little American angels were tucked into bed and startled by the crashing door. Again.
This time no proof.
Never did take the foot prints out of the garbage can lids. Nobody looked under the beds.
Didn’t get arrested for that one. And I am truly sorry today. Truly sorry.
After the really large guards left the room aggravated, we slithered out from under the sheets to greet the rest of the pack in the common room. (Fully clothed just no shoes.) It was quiet and it stayed that way until we left for home a few weeks later. Nobody ever stopped laughing.
Not one girl would speak to any of us for the entire rest of the trip.
We heard the story of the fake murder made it into the Stars and Stripes Newspaper. But never did see a copy of it.
And when my father got his 3 am call in Cincinnati, Ohio from Frau Kilmer telling him his son had been arrested for murder and it wasn’t real and he better do something about his son because Austria wanted to expel all of the students immediately, and there was going to be a lot of expenses to cover for medical bills and ambulance fees : he asked to speak to me.
I got on the phone and he quietly asked ‘Son, what really happened?’
I told him the truth of this story and he burst out laughing harder than I have ever heard him laugh. Then cleaning his throat he told me to stop being normal and I was gonna get it when I got home.
He really liked the spy film entering Checkpoint Charlie and the guards watching as the bus entered East Berlin. Never did ‘get it’. 1969.
Wound up Drum Major of the Western Hills High School Marching Band for the 1969-70 school year and wasted away most of my schooling playing music: writing music for love torn boys to give to their target girls to make a buck.
Go Mustangs!
P.S. Many years later while taking a polygraph to become a Hamilton County Deputy Sheriff assigned to the Workhouse jail I answered the question: “Have you ever been arrested?” With . Ah.. yes. He asked , ‘For what?’. I replied. ‘Murder’. That ended the polygraph very quickly. It took calling in a detective who knew me very well to attest to what that was all about. After the laughing in the private examination room subsided I finished the examination, passed and was hired. Whew! THAT’s a whole different story you can find here.