The Grapefruit

My friends know I attend the Freiburg Writers' Group, although not too regularly. There I meet young aspiring writing hopefuls, some keen to read their latest oeuvres during our meetings.

Yes, I am the oldest guy by some 30-plus years. Still, I like the ambiance and do those writing exercises our American master of ceremony, holder of a doctorate in literature, and head of Carl-Schurz-Haus's library imposes on his disciples.

©Wikipedia (Evan-Amos)

When last year I mentioned to him that I am just a humble blogger and not a writer, he looked at me and demanded, "You write a blog about the grapefruit," a snappy reaction that rightly punished my cheeky remark.

Here I am, sitting in front of my iPad, racking my brain about the grapefruit not having any relation to the fruit. I like its taste but still not too much to buy myself a grapefruit.


When I opened my e-mail browser yesterday morning looking at the news, I suddenly became excited reading the word Grapefruit-Fahrt (grapefruit trip) in the context of Butterfahrt and Kaffeefahrt. Deus ex machina, I am saved!

In my young days, before the common European market came into being, butter trips to Denmark were trendy in northern Germany. Whole families, from grandma to the newborn baby, mounted a bus in Hamburg, crossed the Danish border at Flensburg, bought one kilogram of butter per person duty-free, and, counting the fare, still benefitted a couple of Deutsche marks.

Times have changed. Nowadays, crooked guys organize coffee trips instead. With cheap fare, they lure older people into spending a few hours in the company on a bus, offering either "free" lunch or, even better, the sacrosanct German Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake) in a godforsaken village somewhere out in the wilderness. In the end, these hawkers sell overprized vacation trips or trashy blankets and household goods at more than a fair value to their passengers. When sales are going bad, suddenly all the restrooms are locked until, due to urgent necessities (watery coffee is offered in large quantities to seniors), wallets open in despair. This lately happened in Nottuln, a village south of Münster, where Red Baron's grandparents once had a farm.

The author closes his article with a piece of advice, "We should rather call those trips grapefruit trips for grapefruits are bitter, and you can squeeze them." I find his proposal rather funny peculiar than funny, haha!

There goes my grapefruit anchor.

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