Many years ago, when I first applied
for my basic permit to make wine, the neighbors who owned the
substantial meadow in front of my house were Juergen and Anne-Marie
Ruesch. She was then perhaps in her late 60's, had been brought up in
Berlin, left for the obvious reasons in the late '30's, but retained
the splendidly ironic Berlin-Jewish sense of humor and its
accompanying accent that ensured we'd get along perfectly, which we
did.
Anyway, on this occasion, she came by
on her horse, Punky, and we chatted over the fence, as usual. I had
just gone through the ordeal of applying for my basic license, and
had had no clue in advance what I was getting into; firgerprints, FBI
background checks, inspections, charts, and so on; it was quite
overwhelming, particularly for one who doesn't take well to
regulation in the first place.
So when Anne-Marie asked me, "Tell
me, Sean, iss zair any regulation of vine in ze United States?",
I really had no idea how to answer. But Europeans were always amused
by the name of the agency then involved; so I replied, "Look,
Anne-Marie, I don't think I can do any better than simply tell you
the name of the department I'm dealing with; it's the Department of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms".
She looked a me for a moment, surprised
and bemused, then replied, "Vat? Nozing about sex???".
Told this to my then-supervisor at ATF,
Lennie Goldstein from the Bronx; she snapped, "not around here,
honey, I can tell you". She was more than enough to make even so
grim a bureaucracy amusing. How could even I resist a plea such as,
"Sweetheart, just get all your missing Form 702's in to me by
Valentine's Day and we'll still have a beautiful relationship".
Unfortunately, I never even met her in person…
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