An old army buddy, Dan Ehl, writes books. I believe this is his seventh published in the series. It also is one he included me in the dedication, a nice surprise. Another old army buddy, Ron, and Dan’s wife, Barb I know. Good company!

Andy seems unimpressed, but I appreciate Dan’s gesture! Our friendship goes back to when we were stationed in the 69th Signal Company (Photo) in Kaiserslautern, then-West Germany. 🇩🇪 Dan was a still photographer and I was a motion picture photographer.

Dan was the one who introduced to the Tropfsteinhöhle Restaurant, a quirky place decorated like it was a cave with stalagmites with elves or some spirits among them (as I recall…).

The chef was a culinary school trained chef from Italy and his wife was a dour German who sat at the Stammtisch with her nasty miniature poodle, Cheri. She waited on the patrons. Cheri’s purpose was to bark at us and be very annoying.

The food was excellent, then they turned it into a pizza restaurant. 🍕

I always ordered the saltimbocca mit pommes frites. Barbarian that I am, I asked for catsup for the french fries, but snuck some on the saltimbocca! The chef 👨‍🍳 would come out of the kitchen about then to ask how the saltimbocca was – always excellent! – and, I hope, never caught me sneaking catsup on his masterpiece. The Tropfsteinhöhle Restaurant wasn’t upscale enough for that fellow! And I wish I could apologize to him for the catsup indiscretion!