If my vertigo kicked in while I was driving that, I would probably be going at 5mph while crying with anxiety.
Any other time? That looks fun.
Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
Any other time? That looks fun.
Not sure if the pass would have been open in January at all - or if it was closed due to snow like many winters.
Here you can see a picture of May 1975.
Edit: checked a few things more - that photo was not May, but June 7th - the final stage of that years Giro d'Italia. Also the pass road is usually closed November-May nowadays, not sure if that maps exactly to ATL 1975.
Last edited:
Normally, yes. However, in researching this I discovered that in 1974-75 there was an unusually mild winter that year. Was the Pass closed? Likely. Would have the Darwin Award Winner in question have listened to advice telling him that it was suicide? That is a different question.
Fair enough.
It's not as if the local police in Bormio or probably worse Prad would care too much in getting involved in that mess pre-emptively, even if they did hear about the play boy crown prince wanting to drive the pass. Additionally badly/not at all cleared snow might have done him in, nothing else needed.
And I really should reread this sometimes - since I can't remember the status of Italy in the immediate aftermath of WWI TTL. Not sure where South Tyrol belongs to, not sure if there was Mussolini... No 'Option' I'm pretty certain, and if it is Italian as I suspect, it'd be interesting to see if the fault lines of the South Tyrol conflict still caused trouble - OTL of course by the early 70s that one started to die down somewhat.
Mussolini was shot and killed by who the police concluded was a jealous husband back in the 20's in TTL. In reality it was Heinz Thorwald working with who we now know was Cosimo di Medici...
That's built for making people like me wet themselves. Ten pounds of 'nope' in a five-pound bag.
Part 137, Chapter 2350
Chapter Two Thousand Three-Hundred Fifty
7th January 1975
Sonthofen, Bavaria
Watching Nina running around on the snow-covered field with children her own age was something that Kiki liked to see. In Berlin Nina had been kept isolated so much of the time along with Kiki and Ben behind several layers of security. It was believed that it wasn’t as necessary here. Kiki knew that Nina wouldn’t be nearly so happy when she was cold and wet from playing in the snow, but for now she had a huge smile on her face. Out of what had become a habit, Kiki glanced at the pager that was in her coat pocket to see if anyone had tried to contact her. No one had.
The Clinic was small, just a few Doctors and a handful of Staff. As Kiki had already learned, this was the busy time of year as people took ski vacations and suffered the sort of injuries associated with the sport. They were more than happy to have her help as they prepared the patients for transport to Kempten or Munich depending on the severity of their injuries. There was word that a hospital was being built in nearby Immenstadt which would both serve all the communities in the region as well as serving to shorten the transport times. Kiki had been asked if she intended to work at the new hospital when it opened next summer. She had been forced to say again and again that she wasn’t supposed to be working at all by then.
At the same time, everyone had been treating her as if she were made of glass since Freddy, curse him, had included her pregnancy as part of his New Year’s address on radio. People wanted to know how his family was doing, well, he had told them everything. There were jokes flying around that the tabloids were upset because there wasn’t much left for them to splash across the front pages of their magazines after that.
For Kiki personally, things had been difficult. The migraine headaches, nausea, and unsettling dreams were back. That just made her own ignoring of those symptoms a few years earlier all the more inexcusable. At least she wasn’t trapped behind enemy lines and having to walk hundreds of kilometers across Patagonia with a colleague she hardly knew this time. If that had merely been the end of it, it would have been fine, except Ernesto had written a book about the long journey from Southern Argentina to La Paz, Bolivia. These days he was regarded as the great hero in his native Argentina because of that. Regrettably, he had also sold the rights to an American studio.
When the film in question had been released right before Christmas, Kiki had not thought too highly of it. The actor playing Ernesto was way too tall and couldn’t maintain an Argentine accent to save his life. While Kiki had nothing against Sally Field, who they had cast to play her for some confounding reason, she hadn’t been shy about stating her opinion about how she looked nothing like her, and that role was badly miscast. She was supposed to be playing a German Doctor when she sounded like a girl from California, which was exactly who Sally was. There were also a few things that the movie had implied and when asked about them by a reporter Kiki had made clear that it was complete rubbish. The only thing that Kiki had to say to Ernesto at this point was to ask if he was ever planning on returning her car.
That inevitably led to the next question that was on everyone’s lips. What did she think about Prince Vittorio’s death by misadventure? That he had ignored warnings and put himself in a dangerous situation with predictable results? What exactly had they expected her to say in reply to that? That She had found Vittorio repulsive. That his existence had been key in the argument that had ended with her mother getting decked and Kiki being sent to Japan for a year as an exchange student, which was actually exile. That her mother had refused to speak with Kiki when she had returned from Japan even though she was dying from congestive heart failure. Even though it had been almost twenty years, the hurt that single action had caused still remained. While Kiki understood that her mother had made that choice out of pure spite, it had not made it any easier.
Watching Nina as she joyfully played with the other children was a reminder of the promise that Kiki had made to her when she had first held her almost four years earlier. That Kiki would do her level best to make sure that Nina wouldn’t have the same sort of lonely childhood she’d had. That she wouldn’t force Nina to make impossible choices that no one should have to make. She assumed that she would be making a similar promise to the one nestled in her when it came in mid-April, which was what they estimated would be the due date.
In the end, she had simply refused to answer those questions. Vittorio was irrelevant, he was someone who she had not wanted to know. She felt bad for his parents, who must have been aware of what he was and had been unable to change that. Perhaps, it a different world, one where he had been forced to grow up and act like an adult things might have been different.
7th January 1975
Sonthofen, Bavaria
Watching Nina running around on the snow-covered field with children her own age was something that Kiki liked to see. In Berlin Nina had been kept isolated so much of the time along with Kiki and Ben behind several layers of security. It was believed that it wasn’t as necessary here. Kiki knew that Nina wouldn’t be nearly so happy when she was cold and wet from playing in the snow, but for now she had a huge smile on her face. Out of what had become a habit, Kiki glanced at the pager that was in her coat pocket to see if anyone had tried to contact her. No one had.
The Clinic was small, just a few Doctors and a handful of Staff. As Kiki had already learned, this was the busy time of year as people took ski vacations and suffered the sort of injuries associated with the sport. They were more than happy to have her help as they prepared the patients for transport to Kempten or Munich depending on the severity of their injuries. There was word that a hospital was being built in nearby Immenstadt which would both serve all the communities in the region as well as serving to shorten the transport times. Kiki had been asked if she intended to work at the new hospital when it opened next summer. She had been forced to say again and again that she wasn’t supposed to be working at all by then.
At the same time, everyone had been treating her as if she were made of glass since Freddy, curse him, had included her pregnancy as part of his New Year’s address on radio. People wanted to know how his family was doing, well, he had told them everything. There were jokes flying around that the tabloids were upset because there wasn’t much left for them to splash across the front pages of their magazines after that.
For Kiki personally, things had been difficult. The migraine headaches, nausea, and unsettling dreams were back. That just made her own ignoring of those symptoms a few years earlier all the more inexcusable. At least she wasn’t trapped behind enemy lines and having to walk hundreds of kilometers across Patagonia with a colleague she hardly knew this time. If that had merely been the end of it, it would have been fine, except Ernesto had written a book about the long journey from Southern Argentina to La Paz, Bolivia. These days he was regarded as the great hero in his native Argentina because of that. Regrettably, he had also sold the rights to an American studio.
When the film in question had been released right before Christmas, Kiki had not thought too highly of it. The actor playing Ernesto was way too tall and couldn’t maintain an Argentine accent to save his life. While Kiki had nothing against Sally Field, who they had cast to play her for some confounding reason, she hadn’t been shy about stating her opinion about how she looked nothing like her, and that role was badly miscast. She was supposed to be playing a German Doctor when she sounded like a girl from California, which was exactly who Sally was. There were also a few things that the movie had implied and when asked about them by a reporter Kiki had made clear that it was complete rubbish. The only thing that Kiki had to say to Ernesto at this point was to ask if he was ever planning on returning her car.
That inevitably led to the next question that was on everyone’s lips. What did she think about Prince Vittorio’s death by misadventure? That he had ignored warnings and put himself in a dangerous situation with predictable results? What exactly had they expected her to say in reply to that? That She had found Vittorio repulsive. That his existence had been key in the argument that had ended with her mother getting decked and Kiki being sent to Japan for a year as an exchange student, which was actually exile. That her mother had refused to speak with Kiki when she had returned from Japan even though she was dying from congestive heart failure. Even though it had been almost twenty years, the hurt that single action had caused still remained. While Kiki understood that her mother had made that choice out of pure spite, it had not made it any easier.
Watching Nina as she joyfully played with the other children was a reminder of the promise that Kiki had made to her when she had first held her almost four years earlier. That Kiki would do her level best to make sure that Nina wouldn’t have the same sort of lonely childhood she’d had. That she wouldn’t force Nina to make impossible choices that no one should have to make. She assumed that she would be making a similar promise to the one nestled in her when it came in mid-April, which was what they estimated would be the due date.
In the end, she had simply refused to answer those questions. Vittorio was irrelevant, he was someone who she had not wanted to know. She felt bad for his parents, who must have been aware of what he was and had been unable to change that. Perhaps, it a different world, one where he had been forced to grow up and act like an adult things might have been different.
Last edited:
There are so many cultural butterflies by now ITTL, that the cultural landscape is going to almost, but not quite unrecognizable.
With the earlier death of J. Edgar Hoover and the selection of Elliot Ness to replace him, the FBI is going to be more aggressive in fighting organized crime in such a way that the word "Mafia" doesn't become part of the popular culture, instead "Mischner Style" organization becomes the shorthand for organized crime.
Ironically, a look back at John Aleshire's tenure as FBI will show that he was very aggressive in going after organized crime, the passage of post "Augusta Conspiracy" laws allowed more prosecutions of corporations, and there probably are more investigations into public corruption, and the FBI will have a record of going after foreign espionage, but for some reason it will be directed against countries like Russia and China but not Germany.
As for European Royalty, the example of the House of Hohenzollern, alongside the fact there are much more countries at this point ITTL compared to IOTL that are monarchies will most likely reduce the "Eurotrash" factor, and there is a more of purpose for royalty.
IOTL, in the United States various members of the displaced European royalty are on the "Charity Ball" circuit getting paid to add "Glamour" to the events.
The death of Italian Crown Prince Vittorio will be used as an example of what happens when you live a dissolute life as sick jokes go around about the tragic accident the car was in and as a side note also Vittorio,
The new hospital may be named after Princess Kristina as a way to highlight how useful German Royalty is to the people, but somehow Kiki will try to dissuade that.
With the earlier death of J. Edgar Hoover and the selection of Elliot Ness to replace him, the FBI is going to be more aggressive in fighting organized crime in such a way that the word "Mafia" doesn't become part of the popular culture, instead "Mischner Style" organization becomes the shorthand for organized crime.
Ironically, a look back at John Aleshire's tenure as FBI will show that he was very aggressive in going after organized crime, the passage of post "Augusta Conspiracy" laws allowed more prosecutions of corporations, and there probably are more investigations into public corruption, and the FBI will have a record of going after foreign espionage, but for some reason it will be directed against countries like Russia and China but not Germany.
As for European Royalty, the example of the House of Hohenzollern, alongside the fact there are much more countries at this point ITTL compared to IOTL that are monarchies will most likely reduce the "Eurotrash" factor, and there is a more of purpose for royalty.
IOTL, in the United States various members of the displaced European royalty are on the "Charity Ball" circuit getting paid to add "Glamour" to the events.
The death of Italian Crown Prince Vittorio will be used as an example of what happens when you live a dissolute life as sick jokes go around about the tragic accident the car was in and as a side note also Vittorio,
The new hospital may be named after Princess Kristina as a way to highlight how useful German Royalty is to the people, but somehow Kiki will try to dissuade that.
It sounds like the "fishing fleet" will be heading out to where the three Naval Princes are stationed looking to come home with a bumper catch.
Freddie would love to do that to her. He would probably fund it from his own pocket, not even touching the royal coffers.
Kiki would hate it. It would probably take Nora to remind Kiki that this isn't about her at all, and roll with it.
That is not going to happen. While Freddy would find that amusing, Albrecht of Bavaria would be extremely resistant to having anything in his domain that aggrandizes anyone outside the House of Wittelsbach to that extent.
A vintage Schwinn Breeze bicycle, like the one featured in the next post.
Part 137, Chapter 2351
Chapter Two Thousand Three Hundred Fifty-One
18th January 1974
Montreal, Canada
After months of internal debate, Marie Alexandra had finally purchased a bicycle and was riding it home, even as she was annoyed by the noises that it was making. Squeaking and clanking mostly. It was an old metallic-green Schwinn Breeze Deluxe 3-speed with a step through frame that admittedly needed a great deal of fixing, which was part of the reason why she had been able to get it for a song in a shop that sold an odd jumble of everything from rusty tools and car parts to electronics and hi-fi stereo equipment. Marie got the impression that the old man who owned the shop had cut her a great deal because he thought she was pretty. It was something that Marie felt she could live with so long as he had been polite, that was just how the world worked. There had been countless times when Marie had been forced to endure unwanted attention and boorish behavior. That was something that she would not put up with for very long.
Out of habit, Marie went past that Lane house to see if family car was in the driveway. On a Saturday, that typically meant that they were home. Walking the bike up to the door, she knocked and was surprised when Isabella, the Lane’s Housekeeper didn’t answer the door. Instead, it was Mr. Lane who looked at Marie as if she were a visitor from a different planet.
“I just stopped by to check of Henni and Alice” Marie said a bit awkwardly. She had rarely seen Mr. Lane around and all she knew about him was that he worked downtown as an Insurance Salesman. To her, he was the epitome of the grey men she saw every day who worked in boring offices and went home to boring lives.
“That’s good” Mr. Lane replied in a manner that suggested that he really was dead from the neck up. Why was it that many people seemed to just sort of give up on life as they grew older? “What are you riding that for? I would assume that you would have something nicer.”
“I am intending to fix it up” Marie replied looking at the bicycle, “The new ones I looked at lacked character.”
“It certainly has that” Mr. Lane said, “I didn’t know that you were into bicycle mechanics.”
“Something like that” Marie said. Fixing old things up was something that she had done for as long as she could remember and was what she preferred. While she wasn’t exactly mechanically inclined by any means, finding someone with that sort of knowhow had never been difficult. It was too bad that Sophie was on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, she lived for this sort of thing.
Near Rio Gallegos, rural Santa Cruz Province, Argentina
Niko remembered what Manny had told him about the wind in this part of Patagonia. So, the constant howl of it should not have been a surprise. Zwei’s reaction though was. During particularly strong gusts, the horse shied away from the wind. That was a reminder to Niko of something that his grandfather had warned him of, that you never could tell what might startle a horse. Niko supposed that the Devil winds were as good a reason as any.
Niko had been running dispatches between the forward Command Post and Headquarters in Rio Gallegos. It was a simple, though monotonous task. He knew that he was supposed to be learning from this experience, though exactly what he was supposed to be learning was unclear. He had done his best to continue his education independently, but that was proving more difficult than he had imagined. There was no one to keep him on task, if his mind wandered then it might be hours or even days before he got back to the assignment.
There was also the issue with Teachers here in Argentina. Most of them were in the employ of the High Command, few in number, and overwhelmed by the workload they had. If Niko turned in a paper, the wait until they got back to him was often considerable. Finally, there was the nature of Patagonia itself in the summertime. He was surrounded a vast number of distractions. Niko had seen how Willi didn’t bother, and how that had marked him for whatever unpleasant job the Senior Noncoms had in store. While Niko had found himself doing those sorts of jobs plenty of times, being seen doing something that the Noncoms approved of during your spare time tended to stay their hand.
On the opposite extreme was Juan Ibarra. The Gaucho seemed to come and go as he pleased, and Niko figured that was because his knowledge of the region was priceless as far as the 3rd Hussars were concerned. They needed someone who the locals would be inclined to at least talk to.
In the short time that Niko had been in Argentina he had already seen what happened when the people in the distant sheep stations and scattered communities were not inclined to cooperate. They turned noncooperation into an artform and stole anything that wasn’t nailed down or on fire. He supposed that they’d had a great deal of practice during the months that this area had been occupied by the Chilian Army.
There was another gust of wind and Niko felt Zwei shutter and made sure that he had the horse firmly under control. The last thing he needed was for Zwei to run off out of control with Niko along for the ride, that was if he didn’t get bucked off first. Either way, it was something that he would never be able to live down.
18th January 1974
Montreal, Canada
After months of internal debate, Marie Alexandra had finally purchased a bicycle and was riding it home, even as she was annoyed by the noises that it was making. Squeaking and clanking mostly. It was an old metallic-green Schwinn Breeze Deluxe 3-speed with a step through frame that admittedly needed a great deal of fixing, which was part of the reason why she had been able to get it for a song in a shop that sold an odd jumble of everything from rusty tools and car parts to electronics and hi-fi stereo equipment. Marie got the impression that the old man who owned the shop had cut her a great deal because he thought she was pretty. It was something that Marie felt she could live with so long as he had been polite, that was just how the world worked. There had been countless times when Marie had been forced to endure unwanted attention and boorish behavior. That was something that she would not put up with for very long.
Out of habit, Marie went past that Lane house to see if family car was in the driveway. On a Saturday, that typically meant that they were home. Walking the bike up to the door, she knocked and was surprised when Isabella, the Lane’s Housekeeper didn’t answer the door. Instead, it was Mr. Lane who looked at Marie as if she were a visitor from a different planet.
“I just stopped by to check of Henni and Alice” Marie said a bit awkwardly. She had rarely seen Mr. Lane around and all she knew about him was that he worked downtown as an Insurance Salesman. To her, he was the epitome of the grey men she saw every day who worked in boring offices and went home to boring lives.
“That’s good” Mr. Lane replied in a manner that suggested that he really was dead from the neck up. Why was it that many people seemed to just sort of give up on life as they grew older? “What are you riding that for? I would assume that you would have something nicer.”
“I am intending to fix it up” Marie replied looking at the bicycle, “The new ones I looked at lacked character.”
“It certainly has that” Mr. Lane said, “I didn’t know that you were into bicycle mechanics.”
“Something like that” Marie said. Fixing old things up was something that she had done for as long as she could remember and was what she preferred. While she wasn’t exactly mechanically inclined by any means, finding someone with that sort of knowhow had never been difficult. It was too bad that Sophie was on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, she lived for this sort of thing.
Near Rio Gallegos, rural Santa Cruz Province, Argentina
Niko remembered what Manny had told him about the wind in this part of Patagonia. So, the constant howl of it should not have been a surprise. Zwei’s reaction though was. During particularly strong gusts, the horse shied away from the wind. That was a reminder to Niko of something that his grandfather had warned him of, that you never could tell what might startle a horse. Niko supposed that the Devil winds were as good a reason as any.
Niko had been running dispatches between the forward Command Post and Headquarters in Rio Gallegos. It was a simple, though monotonous task. He knew that he was supposed to be learning from this experience, though exactly what he was supposed to be learning was unclear. He had done his best to continue his education independently, but that was proving more difficult than he had imagined. There was no one to keep him on task, if his mind wandered then it might be hours or even days before he got back to the assignment.
There was also the issue with Teachers here in Argentina. Most of them were in the employ of the High Command, few in number, and overwhelmed by the workload they had. If Niko turned in a paper, the wait until they got back to him was often considerable. Finally, there was the nature of Patagonia itself in the summertime. He was surrounded a vast number of distractions. Niko had seen how Willi didn’t bother, and how that had marked him for whatever unpleasant job the Senior Noncoms had in store. While Niko had found himself doing those sorts of jobs plenty of times, being seen doing something that the Noncoms approved of during your spare time tended to stay their hand.
On the opposite extreme was Juan Ibarra. The Gaucho seemed to come and go as he pleased, and Niko figured that was because his knowledge of the region was priceless as far as the 3rd Hussars were concerned. They needed someone who the locals would be inclined to at least talk to.
In the short time that Niko had been in Argentina he had already seen what happened when the people in the distant sheep stations and scattered communities were not inclined to cooperate. They turned noncooperation into an artform and stole anything that wasn’t nailed down or on fire. He supposed that they’d had a great deal of practice during the months that this area had been occupied by the Chilian Army.
There was another gust of wind and Niko felt Zwei shutter and made sure that he had the horse firmly under control. The last thing he needed was for Zwei to run off out of control with Niko along for the ride, that was if he didn’t get bucked off first. Either way, it was something that he would never be able to live down.
Last edited: