Prosit, Herr Schmidt

Wyman Schmidt was a leader in silvicultural research in the vast Northern Rocky Mountain area for 34 years. His studies and those of the group of scientists he led were directed at many tree species—western larch, ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, whitebark pine, and others—and forest ecosystems at a wide range of elevations.

Schmidt was recognized as an excellent research program planner and manager. He effectively led a unit whose members were scattered over a wide geographic area and organized several international technical conferences attended by hundreds of scientists and resource managers. He also deserved honors as an entertainer.

The forester became a barbershop singer as a teenager. During Air Force service in the Korean War, he often was assigned to Special Services to provide entertainment at bases throughout the U.S. When fellow Forest Service research personnel met in Bozeman or Missoula, Montana, where Schmidt’s unit had offices, you could count on him to have arranged musical or audio-visual shows to help fill off-duty hours.

We had two major laboratories in Missoula, and two people in the unit I supervised were stationed there. It never was a chore to visit Missoula; I enjoyed the city. It just seemed to be a place populated with genuine, down-to-earth people like those I grew up with in the Midwest. It also had some pretty down-to-earth eating places, among them the Missoula Club (the Mo Club), the Oxford (the Ox), the Montana Club, and a pizza place whimsically named “Red Pies Over Montana” after a movie about forest fires and smokejumpers titled “Red Skies Over Montana.”

Schmidt knew how to take advantage of what was available locally to entertain a visitor, sometimes in novel ways. Around midnight after one lengthy Missoula meeting, he invited me to head downtown with him for a bite to eat. He picked the place as one with an unusual menu that included breakfast items served at the bar at all hours.

I ordered scrambled eggs. Schmidt poked me and whispered, “Watch this.” He told the bartender he wanted an order of brains.

The bartender whirled around and yelled to the cook at the top of his lungs, “He needs ‘em!”

Schmidt made several trips at the invitation of governments in Europe to provide expert advice on forestry activities. After a visit to Germany, he put together a slide show describing his trip. He offered it for viewing as an evening activity at a Montana meeting of fellow Research Station employees. The last slide pictured Schmidt raising a stein at the famous Hofbrauhaus in Munich during Octoberfest. He claimed his visit just happened to end in Munich.

Schmidt got a lot of razzing about that. He was accused of arranging a boondoggle trip that allowed him to avoid work and spend most of his time in beer halls. He took all the kidding in stride, and figured out a subtle way to strike back.

Sometime later, Schmidt was sent to what was then Yugoslavia as a technical advisor. He again produced a slide show describing his activities, and attendees at another Research Station meeting were invited to a showing. The last slide showed Schmidt again toasting the audience--from a table in the Hofbrauhaus! He refused to answer any questions about how Munich had been relocated to the Balkans.

We stopped in Munich last month. Of course, we made a special visit to the Hofbrauhaus. Of particular interest was the wall of beer steins there, where personalized mugs are locked away for use only by their owners. Alas, we couldn’t find Schmidt’s stein. All were identified by numbers, not names. A few had pictures of the owner. Perhaps Schmidt’s was removed to be enshrined in a Munich tourist hall of fame somewhere else, but certainly not in Serbia or Croatia.

Raus, eine kurze Hose (Out, Short Pants)

They’re not just for show, although holidays and festivals bring them out of closets in droves. Lederhosen often could be spotted gracing the frames of Teutonic men during our recent four-country auto tour from Baden to Switzerland and Liechtenstein and across Bavaria and Austria.

Lee has been fascinated by the leather shorts for several years. When we reached Salzburg on April 12 he found just the right store and after an hour or so of expert advice from the Austrian shopkeeper and Karen and Sandy, he was outfitted in elegant style.

Lederhosen are among the most versatile forms of clothing. The leather pants come in various lengths, from very short to those that cover the knee. They can be worn with or without suspenders or belts. Any sort of shirt is OK. Men wear them to work on farms. With linen or other expensive coats or jackets, men wear them to work in offices. Men, sometimes sporting ruffled shirts and ties, get married in them. But, men never wear them in Vienna’s State Opera House. We learned that the hard way.

Lee received admiring, and occasionally quizzical, glances (when he spoke English) as he wore his Lederhosen throughout a full day of sightseeing in the old imperial capital. We planned to cap off a grand day by attending a ballet version of “Die Fledermaus” at the historic opera house.

As we waited in line for admission, a uniformed attendant tapped Lee on the shoulder, pointed at his pants, and intoned, “Lederhosen, nein.” We had driven in from the city of Baden, and left our luggage there. Sandy saved the day. She remembered stowing some of her dirty clothes in one suitcase in the car.

Lee and Karen hustled away to see what was available in the laundry as Sandy and I held our places in line. They returned with Lee wearing a pair of Sandy’s slacks. With a six-inch gap between the top of his shoes and the bottom of the slacks, he wasn’t a pretty sight, but he passed the opera house’s pants test.

As our line moved forward, the attendant administered the shoulder tap to a young German man just ahead of us who was wearing regular walking shorts. “Shorts, nein,” was the command this time. The young man promptly stripped to his underwear, pulled a pair of wrinkled trousers out of a backpack, put them on, and smiled in triumph at the official.

Another tap and, “Packs, nein,” wiped away the smile. Everybody got in eventually. The ballet was wonderful. Everyone in the audience wore long pants.

Lee is not the first Klade to run afoul of short pants sanctions. In 1987 I was with a half dozen fellow Forest Service employees who were led by a local to “the best Mexican restaurant” in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after a day of meetings. I had completed my freshening up process before dinner by changing to a pair of walking shorts.

The doorman said I could not enter the restaurant. Plaintive pleas by me and my associates, which were elevated to the manager level, did no good. Shorts were forbidden, whether worn by men or women.

The manager finally said he had a way to solve the problem if I would go along with it. He produced a gaudy embroidered skirt, one usually loaned to women who showed up in shorts. It was a dazzling Hispanic red, yellow, and white creation, with a “one size fits all” elastic waistband.

I put the skirt on, entered with the group, and all sorts of innovative comments about my appearance flew about throughout our meal. The climax came when one of the more fun-loving Forest Service men loudly asked me for a dance, and we got a round of applause after a few whirls around the small floor in the center of the restaurant.

When we left, we moved through the door in a tight group concealing me in the center. The manager was leaning against a pillar a few feet beyond the exit. “All right,” he said, “hand over the skirt. I knew you Forest Service guys would try to sneak it out of here.”