Is Erika Kirk...

[DFW]

26. I think she just had her "I like to sail!" moment. I had better explain.........

Outside of DU, there are maybe four people left alive who would understand this, so please bear with me.

After the European part of World War II ended in 1945, the U.S. Army was confronted with the overwhelming logistical task of transporting millions of soldiers back across the Atlantic, and they just didn't have enough ships to get it done right away. They set up a system where requests went out all over friendly European countries for individuals or families who would temporarily offer to house our GIs who didn't have pressing family situations that required priority return. My father was one who claimed no pressing priority. When families offered to take our guys in, they were asked if there was anything that would make a prospective boarder especially suited to stay with them. My dad had studied French in college, but that was about it, since being a baseball fan wasn't going to resonate with 1940s continental Europeans.

One day, his CO came in the tent where he and others of his unit were waiting around to hear if anything had come up for them. His CO asked if there was anyone who liked to sail. My dad had no interest whatsoever in sailing, but since it was an unusual question, he had the presence of mind to ask why. His CO explained that there was this rich Swiss family with a big villa on the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, and...."I like to sail!" my dad's voice rang out before the CO could finish his sentence. I don't even remember how many weeks he stayed there, but he had a great time, and the friendship that developed lasted long enough for them to invite me, 25 years later, as an 18 year old high school grad who spoke rudimentary French, to stay with them for a few days on my first solo trip through Europe. To give you an idea, my bible was "Europe on $5 a day." This was (I found out later) one of the richest families in all of western Switzerland, but they didn't act like it at all. Their villa was beautiful, but for its simplicity as much as anything else. A huge wheat field in back of the house led down to a lake dock where, just as my dad probably saw when he got there the first time, a sailboat was moored. I had only the address.

When I first got to their village, I showed the address to some of the local people, they looked at me, a scruffy American student with hair all over the place, and asked, "are you sure you are looking for THAT address?" I said, "yes, my parents gave it to me and said they were friends of theirs." They rolled their eyes, shrugged a "whatever" and told me how to find it. What did I know? When I finally went into the city of Geneva, I saw that 75% of the construction sites bore the name of the family I was staying with. Oh, NOW I get it. It must have been like some Swiss hippie arriving in New York, saying he was supposed to be staying with friends of his parents, and did anybody know the address of a family named Rockefeller?

So, I think here is Erika Kirk, an opportunistic, clever, but otherwise uninspiring woman who suddenly found herself teetering on the edge of obscurity. She sensed that if she didn't hook up quickly with some influential people to prop her up, she, and the source of her comfortable income, would shrivel into insignificance.

It looks like Vance showed up just in time to ask her if she might like to be close to the owners of the villa for a while. In other words, to use my dad's metaphor from his tent in France, Erika recognized her chance and her moment, and yelled out, "I like to sail!"