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Chapter 21: After Arabia

We decided to buy a Ford station wagon for use in the States
as a family car. We had liked an Opel coupe which friends had in Ras
Tanura. Accordingly, we ordered one for factory delivery in Frankfurt.
After checking the schedules, we decided that Janet and Richard would
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Basel, Switzerland to see Gus Gerber. We had been impressed with
Gus’ worldwide travels as an American Express agent. He had now left
American Express and was working for a small travel agency in Basel.
We had talked with Gus about the idea about his coming to the East Bay
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would manage. We thought his personal knowledge of so many areas
in the world would be an important asset and a competitive advantage.
We then planned to drive to Rotterdam and ship the Opel from there to
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ranged for a babysitter to care for the little girls during the day and Jean
could tour London.

Janet, Richard and I went to the Dhahran airport and left on a
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have thousands fewer engine parts than the propeller-driven planes that
we utilized at that time. Our plane was delayed an hour or two in leaving
Dhahran and was held for several hours with mechanical problems in
Cairo. By the time we arrived in Frankfurt it was about six hours later
than the scheduled arrival time. Fortunately, the Opel representative at
the airport waited for our arrival. We had to pay him for the delay but he
drove us into Frankfurt to our hotel and we were on our own.

The next morning I looked out the window of the hotel, saw our
little canary yellow Opel in the parking lot, and was delighted. We drove
to Basel that day and took Gus Gerber to dinner that night. Insofar as we
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through the Belfort Gap area that had been an invasion route into France

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