That's my Story and I'm Stickin' to it.

Well, then. The other day when I was filling out the Meme that I got an “incomplete” on, I mentioned that I have been an international smuggler in my lifetime. Poolie jumped right on that one and told me I had to dish. It’s quite a sordid story, so you better think twice about reading it if you don’t like sordid!!

When we lived in Iceland we chose to live off base for the entire time we were there. We thought as long as we’re in this foreign country why not take advantage of it and get the full experience. This of course, made for some difficulties, but nothing we couldn’t overcome. The biggest difficulty was buying groceries at the commissary and getting them off base. Because Iceland was such a small country and things were so expensive there, it would have been easy to disrupt the economy by taking cheap groceries off base and selling them to the Icelandics.

Anytime you went on/off base you had to pass through a guard shack with not only Marine guards, but also Icelandic police. The Marines didn’t care what you had in your car; they were just there to keep the Icelandic police in line. The Icelandic police were there to inspect your car and make sure that you weren’t smuggling anything off base that wasn’t supposed to go. There were times when we saw them tearing cars apart, probably out of boredom, or just making a power statement. They loved to use the “intimidation factor.”

Each family that lived off base was allowed so many dollars a week in “take off.” The amount depended on your rate – the higher your rank the more you were allowed, which didn’t make any sense, but that’s the way it was. You could be an E3, have two children to feed, but wouldn’t be allowed as much as an E9 who had no children. So then you’d have to take your squanty little paycheck and go out on the economy to supplement your groceries in an expensive Icelandic grocery store.

Oh well, on to the smuggling.

We made some dear friends there, John and Donna. (We’re still in contact with them and see them at least every couple of years.) Donna was of Italian descent, with a mother who used to make all kinds of homemade Italian sausage and other treats. She regularly sent a care package to her daughter and son-in-law, who were generous people and always shared with their friends because we just couldn’t get that kind of stuff in Iceland, not even in the commissary (that’s the base grocery store for you folks who don’t have a military background.) Well, one day this huge package came to their house from her mother, and she called us to stop over after work and she would send some goodies home with us.

Previously the food items that she had sent were of the smaller variety – like maybe a bunch of sausage links that could be cut apart and placed in strategic coat pockets, purses, etc., in order to get them off base. But this time everything she sent was HUGE. I guess it was just before Christmas or something so she wanted all of us to thoroughly enjoy.

Oh yes, I should also tell you that if you were going to smuggle something out the gate you had to pick your time frames carefully. After going in and out of the gate several times a day for so long you got to know the Icelandic police and which ones were going to give you a thorough investigation, and which ones would just wave you through. Now there was an Icelandic guard by the name of Slouny who had a reputation for being the toughest guard on duty, but he usually worked a daytime schedule when the traffic was heavy, or a late night schedule about the time the clubs closed. So going out the gate between 8 and 9 didn’t usually present a problem.

Now back to the large Italian sausage. This honker had to be about 4 inches in diameter and approximately a foot long. I guess that’s not all that large unless you have to figure out a way to get it through customs when it’s not supposed to go. Now under normal circumstances we would have just shoved it under the seat because the guards on duty at that time would just wave you through.

For some reason I was driving that night and Ole was in the passenger seat as we approached the gate. And much to our astonishment who should be on duty that night, NOT at his usual time – Slouny of course. He was stopping every car, sticking his head WAY into the window and giving the car a good visual search. He even opened the trunks of several of the cars and made several of the passengers get out so he could crawl into the car and feel under the seats.

We were in a line of cars waiting to go through the gate, so to get out of line, turn around and leave would have made things pretty obvious. So – what to do. Ole reached under the seat, grabbed the sausage, unbuckled his dungarees (that’s navy work jeans for you non-military), and shoved the sausage down one trouser leg, buttoned his dungarees back up and buckled his belt so that it kind of held onto the sausage and it wouldn’t slip down his leg.

Well now – we waited in line for our turn, and as we inched towards Slouny, we tried not to look guilty. I approached the guard shack, rolled down my window and Slouny stuck his head in. Then he opened the car door and asked both of us to step out. Ole got out on the passenger side of the car hoping that Slouny wouldn’t come around to that side, but guess what – he did. He asked Ole to step back from the car and proceeded to feel around the floor, under the seats and into the pockets and glove box on the passenger side. I often wonder if he couldn’t smell the Italian sausage. He probably knew it was there and just couldn’t figure out where it was. He walked around the car several times, then looked Ole up and down, stopping his glance momentarily at Ole's mid section, gave Ole a strange “knowing” look, winked at him, grinned a bit and told us to go on our way. We’ll never know for sure but maybe he spotted the bulge in Ole’s pants and thought Ole had “other” things on his mind at that time.

One Friday night a bunch of us had gotten together out at our house for an impromptu party. We were all kind of broke, and couldn’t afford to go to the Icelandic liquor store and buy their expensive beer. At that time they had beer vending machines in the barracks so we went on base, put quarters in the vending machines and stuffed our jackets up the sleeves, in the pockets, etc., with cans of beer. There were five of us stuffed into a Volkswagen beatle, and we clanked when we moved, but we were successful in getting the beer home and had lots of fun following.

One night Slouny got his though. Chief Turner was leaving base late at night, headed for home, and Slouny thought for sure he was going to catch someone who was drinking and driving. This is a very BIG no-no in Iceland. ABSOLUTELY NO consumption of any kind or you lose your license and get tossed in jail. Well, Chief Turner didn’t drink at all – ever. And Slouny had this habit of sticking his head into your window, right in your face, very close to your mouth, then asking a question so he could smell your breath. He did this to Chief Turner, and Chief Turner gave him a big smack right on the mouth. One of those with “suction” – I guess Slouny changed his tactics after that!!

I really shouldn’t make light of this because it truly was a serious matter. One friend of ours got taken in for smuggling because he had a package of gum laying on his dash that was not listed on his take off. Again, the guard was Slouny. Our friend was written up for international smuggling, fined and now has a record. It doesn’t say WHAT he was smuggling, it just says “international smuggling.” There were various other incidents too, nothing ever really serious – no drugs or that kind of stuff. But our friend who had the gum on his dash says he still has problems when he comes back to the United States after a Mexican vacation. He’s ALWAYS thoroughly searched along with his luggage so he knows it’s still on his record.

Now for a little tour of the NATO base, which, much to our dismay, closed several years ago. We always planned to go back and see it again, but I guess we’ll just have to tour Iceland again without the Base.

Approaching the guard shack

The marine is standing in the door, Slouny is at the desk.

Leaving the base headed toward the town of Keflavik.



NAVCOMSTA - the building that Ole worked in.

The Supply Department where I worked.

This was the commissary (grocery store)

The gas station - gas was 22 cents a gallon

One of the streets on base. I believe these pictures were taken in January when we had about three hours of daylight. Note the lack of snow and the sloppy, muddy conditions. It's NOT cold there, like Minnesota.

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

My First Turkey Disaster

I bet I never told you the story about the very first turkey I ever cooked, did I? Well, get yourself a cup of coffee and get comfy in your computer chair. Here goes.

As a bride of only one year, Ole moved me off to the NATO base in Keflavik, Iceland. Prior to that time we lived in a small (very small) mobile home in a mobile home park on a lot about the size of a postage stamp. Needless to say, this didn’t make for good entertaining capabilities, so I hadn’t done much cooking or meal planning for more than just the two of us. I am fortunate that Ole will eat anything I put in front of him, and in those early days never complained about my amateurish cooking - with one exception.

His favorite pie was banana cream pie. It’s not anymore cuz I think I ruined it for him. I’ll tell you this short little story before I get to the Turkey Delight.

Anyway, one Saturday when I was at home and he was working I thought I would surprise him with not one, but two banana cream pies. I worked so hard on making the piecrust from scratch – none of those store-bought crusts for me. I filled the pies with the banana pudding and sliced bananas and then came to the meringue. I’m not a fan of meringue myself, but in Ole’s world banana cream pie had to have meringue because that’s the way his mother always made it (any of you ladies heard that before?) So I dug out my trusty old Good Housekeeping cookbook from 1957, looked up the recipe and proceeded. I broke and separated a half dozen eggs and proceeded to beat the living H-E-double toothpicks out of them, added the cream of tarter and then realized I was supposed to also add sugar – according to this recipe two tablespoons per egg white. Well, somewhere in my Young Bride brain I left behind the word tablespoon and superimposed the word cup. As I gradually added 12 cups of sugar to the six eggs, the peaks kept getting higher and higher. After putting the meringue on the pies I tucked them into the oven for browning. I watched carefully and pulled them out just at the right time – beautiful high peaks of meringue that were golden brown on the tips. Picture perfect. They were sitting on the counter cooling when Ole came home that night. He couldn’t wait to sample so grabbed a fork to dip in for a bit of a taste. I happened to be in the other end of the mobile home, but I could hear when the fork hit the meringue with a loud TWANG so hard it bent the tines. Then he tried it again in a different spot and again on the other pie. Same results – TWANG! Then he chuckled and asked me where I had gone that day to get concrete? That’s when I discovered that 12 cups of sugar is just a bit much for 6 egg whites. Actually, I haven’t made meringue since. Now if Ole wants something on top of his banana cream pie he gets Cool Whip!! Remember – simplify your life.

Anyway, back to the turkey in Iceland. We lived off base by choice when we lived in Iceland. We thought as long as we were there we might as well enjoy as much of the flavor of the country as possible. But this did present one itty-bitty problem. In order to buy groceries at the commissary and take them off base there were a number of steps you had to go through. First of all you were only allowed to take a preset dollar amount of groceries off base on a weekly basis. This was called your Take-off Allowance. This was all due to the fact that the Icelandic government didn’t want American goods making a negative impact on their economy. Guess they were afraid we’d sell all that cheap American food to the Nationals or something. Once you had made your food purchases for the week you had forms to fill out and then had to go through Icelandic Customs where they would check your bags and make sure you didn’t have more than what you claimed. Yah, this was a pain in the neck, but it didn’t take us or all the other Americans living off base to figure out ways around this little bottleneck. I won’t go into them now, as that’s another story, but if we’d been caught we would have had a record for “international smuggling.” How’s THAT for being a bad girl?

We rented a large house off base overlooking the ocean, which made for a beautiful view with all the snowcapped mountains across the fjord. Because our house was so big it was always kind of Grand Central Station not only for other married couples but also the single guys stationed there, and the guys who had to leave their wives back in the States. Kind of a sanctuary to get away from all the military bullshit that would take place on a NATO base. So I got the bright idea that I would fix Thanksgiving dinner for all these guys that frequented our house. Now, for someone who’s never fixed a turkey before in their life, that wasn’t exactly an intelligent decision. First off, getting the turkey presented a problem, let alone not knowing how to cook one. The commissary had ordered a limited number of turkeys that year, most of them going to the officers which left very little for the enlisted personnel to pick from. And because I was having a number of hungry guys for dinner I knew I’d need more than a 12 pounder, which was about all there was left. Not only was the size a problem, but also by the time I had purchased everything else I needed for dinner I had reached my limit of Take Off Allowance.

Never fear – the guys in the Supply Department where I worked, unbeknown to me, came to my rescue.

One afternoon, shortly before Thanksgiving, one of the guys who drove the supply truck through the gates out to the remote sites on a daily basis came up to my office and asked for my house keys. I didn’t question him about why, because several of the guys kept extra sets of clothing at our house so they could change into civies (civilian clothes) once they were through the gates. The Icelandic government requested that all military men, regardless of their rank, be dressed in uniform when they were off base. Guess it was a good way to keep track of them or something.

So Bud picked up my house keys, and about an hour later came back to my office and returned them. When I got home that night, I walked into the kitchen and there sat a 28 lb. turkey in my kitchen sink – frozen solid – and only three days until Thanksgiving. Remember – I had never cooked a turkey in my life and I’m presented with this behemoth!! Somehow I wrestled that thing around in my sink for the next several days trying to get it thawed out, having to twist and turn it periodically because only about a third of it would sit underwater. It still had ice crystals inside when I stuck my hand in to take out the “interior parts.” And of course it didn’t have a pop up timer either.

So Thanksgiving morning came and I was up at 5 a.m. stuffing that dam bird. I put it in a pan, opened the oven door and then realized that this bird was NOT going to fit into the oven of an Icelandic kitchen stove (they’re somewhat smaller than our American appliances.) After taking out all the oven wracks and jostling things around a bit, binding the turkey legs tighter to the body, I finally managed to get Mr. Turkey into the oven with neck and butt each touching the oven wall on their respective sides. Obviously there was no room for anything else in that oven.

I had invited everyone for dinner at 4 p.m. The guests arrived, 4 p.m. came and went, we fed them more wine, 5 p.m. came and went, more wine, wash, rinse, repeat. By 7 o’clock the bird finally decided it was done, although the rest of the meal was somewhat dried out, when we finally sat down to eat. The outer parts of the turkey were pretty good, but down by the bones things were still a bit on the pink side – not quite done. But after that much wine nobody really cared anyway.

Since then I’ve had a lot more practice, so things turn out a bit better now. And nobody got sick from the 28 pounder!!