A Tale of Two Resaurants - Memphis and Frankfurt

“We never repent of having eaten too little.” Thomas Jefferson

How true TJ’s words are!

I try not to whine often about my eternal battle with jet lag, but this once I have to use it as an excuse to explain why it has been a week since I last posted - even though I’ve been on a trip where some fairly interesting things have happened. It has been more important to use the time I’ve had in the nice hotels FedEx puts us up in to show up to fly well-rested than it has been to write.

In any case, the layover in Memphis was fairly short and there was only time to go to lunch, watch the final day of the Masters and then nap before the midnight alert call.

Just about every state in the union has a Barbecue that they are proud of. (No … BBQ in Minnesota is not called ‘Lutefisk’) Memphis rightfully holds claim to some of the best BBQ restaurants to be found. You can get a nice plate of BBQ anywhere along Beale Street but Corky’s is right around the corner from where we stay in Memphis and we went there. An old friend who hired on at the company when I did and was in my ‘New Hire Class’ was staying at the hotel too and we joined up and walked over.

You can experience Corky’s ribs yourself! Just click this link and you can order a mess of them and Corky’s will FedEx them to you tomorrow. You get a great meal and we get business….can’t recommend this highly enough. Drop everything you are doing and go order now.

That night we took off from Memphis and crossed over the Great Lakes, Newfoundland, the Big Pond, Ireland, England and landed at Frankfurt, Germany. The trip was boredom at its best - my favorite kind of flight. It was cloudy most of the eight hour flight, but I did get this one picture over England out east of London.

And this one flying down the Rhine as we approached Frankfurt from the east:

Manfred, the guy who owns the transportation service for us at Mainz, picked us up and took us to the Mainz Hilton. Enroute to the hotel, He told us about the Mainz Spargel Festival. I’d never heard of spargel before, but it is a specially grown white asparagus.

We turn now to the second restaurant in the tale of two restaurants. Here is the reference from the internet:

Rosi`s Schinderhannes
open daily from 17:00 – 22:30 (opens longer only for Fedex Crews)
traditional german food, special Schweinshaxe “Big Ed” (knuckle of pork)

Schinderhannes was a famous local Robin Hoodish character and Rosi’s Schinderhannes is named for him. There are old pictures painted on the walls of his execution that are turning brown from age.

We sat down outside on the sidewalk tables and had a nice dinner of schnitzel – I had chicken and the other two guys had veal. Of course we ordered a big platter of spargel just afloat in butter and other spargel enhancing spice that was just wonderful. Bitburger, Pils too.

One of those interesting coincidences happened as we ate. There were two other FedEx guys sitting at table next to us and we struck up a conversation.

First some background. When this travelog was just an email I sent around to family and friends, I would name names and give histories of folks I flew with. I am hesitant to do that now as once I post this I now longer have control over who sees it.

My FO on this trip - who will remain nameless - is an interesting guy. He was a student pilot at Laughlin AFB when I was an instructor there. He has some time as a bush pilot in Alaska and is presently still with the AF Reserve unit there at Anchorage’s Ted Steven’s International Airport as a Blackhawk Helicopter pilot. He has rescued folks from the sides of Mt Kinley and done other things that I am in awe of. More on that in a later post.

The most famous bush pilot in Alaska’s history is Don Sheldon. He has a biography called “Wager with the Wind.” When Alaska pilots get together there is always at least one mention of him. He landed airplanes on glaciers high up the side of Denali and rescued trapped skiers. He landed airplanes on raging river canyons and rescued capsized fishermen. He is immortal.

As we sat and munched our spargel and schnitzel, my FO says to one of the guys next to us:

“Did I meet you on the airplane in Bagram?” (Afghanistan)

“I thought that was you!”

This started one of those “Hail Fellow, Well Met!” episodes that I will always remember.

My FO was activated to go with his Blackhawk unit to Bagram some time back and got ‘military leave’ from FedEx to go do his duty and defend his country. FedEx started doing military charters into Afghanistan about the same time. He made it a policy to go out and greet the FedEx crews on the ramp after they landed if he could.

Conversations ensued and bush pilot stories began to fly. That’s when we discovered that the new fellow sitting next to us was married to Don Sheldon’s daughter and he knew a lot of lesser known Don Sheldon stories.

So, I got to sip my Bitburger Pilz, and listen to good stories as I watched the setting sun light up the watch towers that define the confines of the Old Mainz City in a golden light. Like an idiot, I forgot my camera so I don’t have an image to share with you.

On that note, I remain,

Dad / Geoff