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Thanks for the "heads up" Doug about the Grass family and their experiences. You are doing work in Miami - why don't you see if you can look them up or get their address and phone. I don't speak any Spanish - do you ? I wish you and I had gotten on this subject at Mount Dora and I would have picked your brain more on the matter.
A few years ago, 3 East German's defected in a carefully pre-arrangedplan where they were picked up in the Florida straits by a speed boat waiting for them. Actually, the story is a bit stranger than that - 2 of the men had planned the escape and a small plane flew over and waggled its wings to tell them that the plan was a "go" at which point they took off their shoes and socks and dove off the East German cruise ship. Another East German on the opposite side of the deck saw what was happening, figured things out, and dove over the other side !. A club to which I belonged made contact with the three of them and we managed to invite them them to our monthly club dinner. They spoke no English, but I speak passable German, having been stationedin Germany some time ago and speaking my Bayerish (Bavarian) whenever I have the chance in orderto keep it up. I acted as translater and we had a mighty interesting evening asking them questions and hearing their answers. As most of us realize, for a foreigner, let alone a really materially deprived East German, these three were literally overwhelmed by what they saw - what the stores had readily for sale, by the number of automobiles, etc. All of this lead to some pretty interesting reactions.
With the Grasses, whoknows someone might be able to get them to essentially build a duplicate of one or both of theirvehicles. It smellslike the making of a good movie. Do any of you remember a movie which I think was titled "Night Crossing" where two East German familes with absolutely no ballooning experience undertook to construct a huge hot air balloon and then successfully drifted across the border toWest Germany, landing within 10 miles of where I had lived near a town named Naila in Bavaria.The whole project was very involved and of course, entirely surreptitious, and took weeks of planning, procuring the necessary materials all surreptitiously so as not to attract any attention. Imagine how many yards of material a balloon for 2 families (with some children) would have required, let alone the logistics of the Propane, the burner, etc.
Vic Nelson with the 1967 "Split Personality"
