Syrian Memory #6 (Catherine Screws Up)

We were lucky enough to accompany some US Embassy folks to the very high security "Austrian Position 16" in the Golan Heights-- though we had to pass through countless checkpoints and endure many extended radio conversations-- we were finally granted permission to go up the mountain and see the view: the post overlooks the Sea of Galilee and the Biblical farmland where Paul walked to see the promised land, you can also see an Israeli checkpoint and this is the area where the Druze-- members of a strange religion somewhere between Christianity and Islam-- negotiate cross-border marriages with megaphones to prevent inbreeding-- and on our way down the mountain, while I admired the fabulous mustaches that all the Druze men sported, Catherine realized that she left her jacket up at "Austrian Post 16," her nice Gore-Tex jacket that I bought her as a gift . . . and it took us six months to get that jacket back, finally a nice UN soldier from New Zealand got it to us when he was on leave in Damascus.