May 2001                                                              The Megaphone                                                                Page 4

Half full ... or half empty ... ???

  Okay, I will tell you the truth about how I got the name Mean Gene (watch out for that sudden thunder and lightning).

  The nickname got pinned on me at the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp just outside of Celle, Germany, in April or May of 1945. (I spent my 21st birthday in that Con Camp.) We AFS (American Field Service) volunteers were driving our American Dodge ambulances under direct British Command while we worked with the English Order of St. John in cleaning-up this God-awful mess (with very few con camp inmates still living and one hell of a lot of dead ones in the mass graves).

  In the middle of May '45 we all commandeered the German General's house out in the woods near the con camp itself at which to throw an all-night party to relieve our stresses (among other things).

  Having consumed a lot of good British beer and the hard stuff, I struck up a conversation of sorts with a very tall, skinny and ugly nurse from the Order of St. John. Somehow she extracted my promise to take her to the camp movie house the next evening. I had just turned 21 at the time, and she was in at least her 40s. Together intimately we would have given the appearance of a mouse romanticizing a giraffe.

  The next afternoon when she came to our tent, calling out expectantly "Gene, Gene?", I snuck out the rear of the tent, making my buddies promise to tell her I was not there and they didn't know where I was. She proceeded to call out "Gene, Gene?" in front of every other tent in our encampment.

  This went on for almost a week, but after the second night of no response, she started asking all the tents "Is that mean Gene in there?"

  My buddies found this to be hilarious. So much so that from then on they always referred to me as "Mean Gene." And it's stuck with me ever since.

Elmer (Mean Gene) Eisaman 1942
Bullhead City, AZ 

ibmeangene@webtv.net

Ask Meg

Dear Meg,
   News question! How many smart panthers will be peddling themselves to Frankton on bi-cycles?
   When are Loretta, Sharon and Ted going?
   And lastly, WHY?

Love,
"Mama Duck" -- Class of '65
Alexandria, IN

My Dear Mama Duck,
   1. None!
   2. Once the date is set, extra medics will be placed on call!!
   3. Good question. Why . . . to Frankton? There can be no reasonable explanation for that one. But I can 

        tell you this all stems from Loretta's theme song . . . and its final line which admonishes,

  *Fear for the author's  life (from an ol' tomboy) ordinarily keeps us from providing this much personal information . . . but this one is just tooooo good . . . it's from Queen's "Fat Bottom Girls."