Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1540851
12 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com to stay in a friend's spare room (luckily no swas kas, and they don't seem to share his views) when we belatedly realized that our Airbnb stay had been can- celled. He brought beers over each night and cha ed with my father and the parents of my friends late into the night while us pro riders slept, recovering from long days of walking in the rain. Then, one evening, over the beers, he began talking, unprompted about his grandfather the SS officer, the "glory days of Germany" and how he won't watch American movies because the "Nazis are always portrayed as the villains"… I was safely asleep in my hammock by this me, but my dad told me the story in hushed tones while glancing fur vely around the paddock to make sure (redacted) wasn't walking up. "What did you do??" I whispered back in horrified tones, while contempla ng that when you meet a Nazi, as a red-blooded American, you're supposed to punch them, not walk tests and share beers with them. I wondered if ignorance was any excuse and if this meant I would need to punch him tomorrow instead. But then again, punching someone unex- pectedly who has been nothing but kind and gracious to you also felt wrong. I was in quite a moral dilemma as I waited for my dad to gather his thoughts and speak. "Well.." my dad said, ".at first we just sat there horrified. We wondered if he realized he was talking to an American, an Englishman, and a Norwegian. All Allied forces or occupied during the war. So I told him that if this had been seventy years ago, the three of us would have broken the beer bo les and jumped across the table to cut his throat. I told him he was welcome here, but his views weren't. There was a long pause, then we all started talking about motor- cycles again…" Apparently, (redacted), the Nazi, he had no hard feel- ings, because he kept coming back with beers each night, just without his offensive views. He came to each of my awards ceremonies, said he'd look me up if he ever came to the USA to ride, and we parted as Facebook friends… but man, what a weird situa on. Besides the poli cal intrigue in Paddock B, there was plenty else going on. I was invited to a press confer- ence where I sat next to Josep Garcia, always a weird feeling. I walked up and down hillsides in the rain, lis- tening to my teammate Rosie talk about lines and talk about how she planned to spend her season bonus from Rieju on a boob job. I was amused and horrified at the same me, and she was enjoying my discom-