WenkUSA

TRAVEL WITH PAT

Pat, my wife's crusty oldest brother, had a telling smile on his face as he was sitting beside me on our drive from the Czech border to the old imperial city of Prague. He was an unusual figure in his shining Stetson hat, presenting a silhouette well known to people from the Western movies. Born at Fort Apache in 1912, Pat is one of those Southern souls that are unwilling to fully embrace Yankeeism. He still grieves for the Confederate flag and believes deeply that men and guns are both God's creation.

When we were suddenly stopped by military police outside Prague in the fall of 1989 it may have had something to do with this Stetson silhouette. Stetson hats were no common Czech apparel. The police, manning a newly erected roadblock, thought we had some connection with the recent protests in Berlin and the increasing unruliness in Czechoslovakia. Pat, wearing his Stetson proudly, looked like a genuine troublemaker from Texas. Eastern Europeans may have been whistling up their last hole what communism concerns but they surely had a clear picture of what bad hombres looked like and, we were told, we fit the bill.

We handed our American passports over and Pat, looking gloomier than a cowpoke caught branding a neighbors calf, quietly put his Stetson on the back seat. The officer who checked us out wanted to know why we were hanging around Checkpoint Charlie a couple of days ago. Pat was getting nervous and a bit pale in the face. He had been predicting trouble, big trouble, all along. He was particularly fearful of "the Russians." They finally caught up with us.

Unexpectedly the roadblock had been closing in on us. The Czechs, that Pat took for Russian soldiers, were looking for agitators of the civil unrest that preceded the collapse of the Soviet Empire. After my brief exchange of words in German, the officer in charge let us continue on our road to Prague.

Pat was all smiles again when we reached the old city and over a large Pilsen beer he forgot the Russian threat. But, the next day, his worst fears came back to haunt him once more. It was my plan to show Pat the famous brewery in Pilsen and to cross the border into Bavaria. The problem was, we were supposed to exit Czechoslovakia at the Austrian border. We were not allowed to cross into West Germany. With his Stetson now hidden under the seat in anticipation of the border crossing we looked like two harmless old men as we approached the border station. Pat, unaware of the conflict, was surprised to find himself once more surrounded and interrogated by "Russians." From my agitated conversation in German with the border guards he sensed trouble. He began shaking when I was ordered to get out of the car and was lead into a building for interrogation.

The Czech border guards considered a hefty fine and insisted that we embark on a big detour toward the Austrian border. I was lucky to convince them that we were just a couple of foggy oldsters that flunked geography and were simply trying to get home without any hassle.

Safely across the border, Pat thought that the "Russians" he met were not as tough as he was made to believe. And when the Berlin Wall came down just a few days after our trip, he dryly remarked to a friend: "The Russians I met, were a sorry bunch. I saw the collapse of the Soviet empire coming right then. And in a way, I feel now, that I was actually a part in this historic event."

Pat also decided right then and there, Russians or not, to never ever again hide his Stetson under a car seat,. No siree, not Pat Duke.

STORYTELLER: Ernst Wenk (1923- )

PHOTO: Clarence Richard (Pat) Duke (1912-2005)