Our Local Authors

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1. When I was in college, there existed a curious fellow with the air of academe about him — tweedy, bearded, half-kempt, convoluted but sensible sentence structure — who cadged drinks at the biergarten. I took him for some sort of disgraced former professor, or something equally romantic, so I bought him the odd pint to get him talking. One of the conversations went like this:

   Him: “Did you know that when Eisenhower finally closed in on the Afrika Korps in Tunisia, they never found all the tanks?”

   Me: “You don’t say.”

   “And they never found any of the Nazi tank commanders.”

   “No?”

   “No. Not one. Documented fact. And do you know where they went?”

   (Long, pregnant pause, after which he said:)

   “Hollow earth.”

   To which I replied “Kellnerin? We’ll have two more.”

   About a year later, I sidled up to him at the same watering hole. He obviously didn’t remember me. I mentioned in passing “Did you know all the Nazi tank commanders went into the hollow earth?” — and he gripped my arm, hard, and leaned in very, very close. In a too-loud whisper he said “How do you know that? HOW??!!”

   I didn’t tell him.

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