Klaus Schoff (1823-1841 AD)

I was born Klaus Schoff in the year 1823 on a farm somewhere in the patchwork of farmlands in the upper Rhine valley. My family was ethnic German, and staunch Roman Catholic. I was the fourth son and seventh child overall, and somewhat of a runt compared to my siblings.

I do remember, however, that my parents marvelled at my vitality. I was never sick. No fevers from teething. No childhood illnesses. My exposure to chicken pox resulted in a few red dots, which never blistered up and which vanished in two days. I certainly had my share of cuts and bruises, but I never mentioned the small ones, and I healed quickly and without infection from the big ones.

I remember an episode when I was about six years old in which one of my older brothers pushed me out of a barn loft; I landed head first on bare earth, and he thought he had killed me. By the time he climbed down, I was sitting up and rubbing my head. He told me never to mention the episode to my parents; being young (and naive to the fact that I should have been killed or seriously injured) I agreed.

I was quick to learn from books, and came to develop a loud and confident (if not operatic) voice, so my mother set her heart early on to earmark me for the priesthood. At the age of twelve, I was packed off to Freiburg and into the care of the priests at the cathedral.

The city life was exciting, even on the limited hours allowed to a seminarian. Every now and then I earned or was given a small coin and encouraged to go out into the marketplace. I think, in looking back, that the townspeople considered me a simpleton - I was not inclined to bargain, and my casual conversations with them seemed to die out rather quickly.

Within the community of the school, however, I was alive! I savored the discussions of theology, mathematics, and science with my instructors and peers. I never caught on too well with “conversational” Latin, but I could after a fashion read and write well enough in the language. Music was a particular passion, and the source of my (pardon the pun) downfall.

By the time I was eighteen, I was established as one of the bellringers in the steeple of the cathedral. because of my size (I had topped out at a hair over five feet tall, and about 110 pounds) I was assigned the collection of six smaller bells in the upper reaches of the tower. These could be used to play snippets of familiar hymns which were by then well established in the DNA of the Catholic faith. I had mapped out a set of musical phrases, and was pulling ropes while trying to figure out how to obtain and hang two or three more bells, when it happened.

I was surely aware of the age of the planks that high in the steeple, but I had never given any thought to their failing. This day, however, one did. I could not tighten my grip fast enough on the rope I held, so down I went. I spun enough so that I hit the largest of the lowermost bells head first. This broke my nose, but obviously not my fall. My body spun like a pinwheel, hitting a walkway with the back of my head after the bell. I fell a total of seventy feet, finishing with a gruesome header into the cobblestones, with six people watching me. They all knew that I was dead the moment I hit the floor of the tower.

Except I wasn't. By the time I started coming to my senses, Father Boniface, one of the teacher-priests, had knelt over me. He was whispering the last rites into my ear, entreating me to feel sorry for my sins, when I gripped his arm. He stopped cold - he had seen me fall and he knew that should have been impossible - but he also realized that he had to act fast. He hoped that the folds of his robe had concealed my arm movement from the others. The last rites ended - he said simply “Go limp - do nothing but breathe.” I had come to realize by this point that I really should be dead; while I didn't think I would be murdered as a demon if I stood up I wasn't sure I wanted to find out. So I played along. Boniface shouted to another priest, “He still breathes - I want to take him to the Jesuit house!”

Father Boniface and another priest hauled me out of the church and two blocks down to the Jesuit house. The Society of Jesus did not operate any churches in Freiburg, but two or three priests lived there. They seemed to consider themselves superior to the local priests, and today they were to enhance this status. I was hauled into the house and dumped on a bed, where I was quickly visited by Pere Martin.

This priest looked to be middle aged, but something in his eyes spoke of vast age. He said simply, “Klaus, are you whole? If you are, you may safely sit up.” I stretched my arms, rolled my head, and sat up on the bed. My nose was wrong, and my head was still shooting with pain, but I knew I was recovering. “Boniface was very quick on his feet today,” he continued. Please, let me ask you some questions.“

Pere Martin quietly queried me for thirty minutes on my life to that point. He wanted to know when I was hurt, when I was sick, and what happened at those times. He seemed to know in advance what the answers were going to be.

“Young man,” he continued, “you and I share an amazing gift. God has surely given us but a brief span of life in His own eyes, but we have a much longer life than most other men would consider normal. I want you to reconsider your life. You may no longer stay here, for we have found it best to hide our longivity. I will help you to move to another place. If you wish to continue studying for the priesthood, I will help you in finding another church. If not, no one will hold it against you - your perspective on life has just been changed. After all,” he winked, “I have been in this job for only eighty years.”

He explained to me that Boniface, while not similarly gifted, had been taken into confidence and provided help in looking out for our kind. There were others, throughout the world, and he told me of the few he knew. He reminded me, however, that a long-lifer could not stay in one public place for too long, hence his knowledge of these contacts could be outdated.

Two nights later, completely recovered, I was ushered out of town and down the Rhine to Rotterdam, where, thanks to money given me by Pere Martin, I took ship to America. Pere Martin said that the story would come out that a demon had tried to re-animate me, which the pious Jusuits had prevented. That would encourage everybody to forget about me, which, ironically, brought about my first imprint on American culture. A few immigrants brought the story to America of the boy who fell from the highest part of the tower. It eventually took hold of a colloquialism and became a joke, ending with the punch line “I don't know his name, but his face rings a bell.”

Klaus Schoff (1841-1844 AD)

My ship arrived in New York on August 16, 1841. I kept the name Klaus Schoff, figuring nobody on this side of the ocean knew of the boy who died in Freiburg. I carried a letter of recommendation to a banker in Philadelphia, which gave me access to a small network of long-lived in America.

I was somewhat surprised at the degree of secrecy affected not only by the Europeans such as Pere Martin, but also by the Americans. My first contact in America, Friedrich Ritter (not the name he was actually using; I’ll do that a lot in this manuscript for the sake of my friends’ privacy), likened it to carrying extra equipment on a journey – “better to have an extra bag and not need it than to need an extra bag and not have it.” America, he said, has a wonderful respect for privacy and a vast breadth in which to hide, but don’t ever advertise the fact that you may live forever! Somebody just might take it personally.

Friedrich did help me to develop some skills and a plan for my “ongoing education.” He suggested that I spend a number of years developing several professions so that I can move from place to place and from persona to persona. My first assignment – printer’s apprentice. One of the useful things about the job was the ability to hide within a publishing house some useful dyes and chemicals which can allow one to show a little age over some years. Friedrich himself had been in Philadelphia for ten years, and planned to move on in about ten more so that people did not begin to wonder. He said that it was common for the long-lived to age themselves a little over a few decades, hop a train, and resurface hundreds of miles away with a new identity, a new profession, and a much younger look.

After a year learning the printing trade from a business client of my benefactor, I set out by train for Peoria, Illinois. I did this somewhat out of respect for Friedrich, who asked for a “waystation” in that part of the country. I also figured that my next move would be further west, and that this was a good first step. I did not give any thought at this time to returning to the priesthood; there were few Catholics in the area, and no church in town. Even if I were to stay in Peoria, I would be very conspicuous as the only Catholic priest in town. Besides, it was difficult in those days to “retire” from the priesthood – retirement generally coincided with your heavenly reward.

It was difficult at first – there was a printer in town, and he welcomed competent help, but he barely had enough work for himself. We would do handbills and a few pamphlets, and tried a one-sheet newspaper on occasion. I took on odd jobs as a messenger and helped on delivery work; I wasn’t overly strong but I could work all day and be back for more the next day.

I struggled along for a few years, barely earning enough to cover my expenses. I had a small amount of money in the bank, but I tried not to use it. I found myself in western Illinois in June of 1844 on an errand for a Peoria store owner. I heard that the town of Nauvoo was starting a second newspaper, and I went over to apply for the job.

What a hornet’s nest! I had heard of the Mormons, and knew that they pretty much controlled the town of Nauvoo, but I hadn’t figured on walking into a religious schism. The new newspaper, run by a few dissident Mormons, was highly critical of their leader, Joseph Smith, and retribution was not far behind. I was accosted on the streets of Nauvoo by eight or nine very angry Smith supporters, carrying pieces of the former printing press. I would like to say that I fought like a lion and that the few who could run away ran, but unfortunately I am a poor fighter. They beat me within an inch of a common man’s life and left me on the street. I did a convincing job of cowering and covering up so that when I crawled off to the train station they ignored me.

The county sheriff had asked me to come back to provide testimony against Smith and his supporters. Honestly, I was glad to hear that Smith had been lynched a few weeks later and that his followers were less and less welcome in Nauvoo. The experience “beat into me” that hiding was frequently a good course of action for an “immortal.”

Klaus Schoff (1844-1866 AD)

I had grown weary of life in Peoria by 1861. We had managed to establish a full-time newspaper a few years previously, but I was truly ready to exit that particular business. Not that I had done nothing else – I had learned bookkeeping for the new business, gained some hunting and outdoors skills, learned to cut and sew clothes, even spent some time on a farm under the pretext of earning some extra money – that gave me a chance to complete the education which was interrupted by the priesthood.

I had been born thirty-eight years previously, and had slowly used some chemicals from the shop to age myself to appear in my thirties. As the frontier tended to attract the more physical specimens, I was somewhat below the average in size. The townspeople who knew that I had lived there as an adult for twenty years tended to regard me as slightly impaired, as I never seemed to mature completely.

I had not found anybody in whom I could confide about my gift, but my benefactor out East (actually, in New Orleans by this time) had offered to send a new contact and advised me to head for the state capital at Springfield and work with a colleague of his in learning law.

But came the war. I did go to Springfield, and did take up a clerking position with the lawyer to whom I was referred. I could not, however, resist the pressure to enlist. I joined the 32nd Illinois Regiment of Volunteers in December, 1861. After some training, we marched south to Fort Donelson in Tennessee.

They say that soldiers don’t care whether they march or whether they kill – the pay is the same. I can say after having done both that marching is a lot easier. I knew I was not as impressive physically as many of the others, but I could march all day, do whatever camp chores needed to be done, and do the same the next day. I noticed that many of my comrades in the regiment would take sick from time to time, and some required extended wagon rides or even a trip back to Illinois and a hospital. A few even died.

The obvious problem was that in a large group of men, the overall health of the group depended on the least hygienic individual. Some individuals, unfortunately, were downright slovenly. Some were given to use any convenient spot, even by their drinking water supply, as a latrine. Others would later go to the same drinking water supply for the evening meal’s cooking and cleaning needs.

I was the wrong person to raise a fuss. A group of men from the regiment responded to my complaints by tying me up, dressing me in a sailor’s cap, and putting me in a rowboat in the middle of a pond one evening. Then, for good measure, they all “polluted” the pond while I sat helplessly thirty feet away. (Years later, in the age of television, I noticed a commercial in which a very small man in a naval outfit sat in a rowboat in a toilet tank discussing the virtues of a cleaning product. Couldn’t be…)

One of the advantages of having incredible vitality was the energy to wander around the army’s camp well into the evening. As we marched through Kentucky, I spent some time in a very informal series of classes taught by a Captain O’Connor of our brigade on hand-to-hand combat. The captain was very skilled, and I learned quite a bit from him. Little did I know that he was seeking people who could be thrown about with no sign of injury.

Late one night, as I was passing between units within the camp, a man loomed out of a copse of trees. I took notice of the large knife in his hand, and followed his direction to walk with him to a tiny clearing. It was O’Connor. I flinched, terrified, as he raised the knife. I knew that I could heal from serious injuries, but no one had ever attacked me with clear intent to kill.

He held his own free hand up in the moonlight and gashed it with the knife.

It healed almost immediately.

O’Connor handed me the knife.

I held up my own hands, and cut myself on my free palm. It healed, though not as quickly as did O’Connor’s.

“I thought so,” breathed O’Connor. “Right now, my name is Gregory O’Connor. I was born with the name Gregorios fourteen centuries ago. You are the only other Eternal I have seen in this army. Who are you?”

“I heiss Klaus Schoff. I was born in Germany in 1823.”

“A young one. It is good to meet you.”

O’Connor and I spoke every chance we had over the next few weeks. He gave me a lot of practical advice on how to remain hidden among the soldiers. I still went to his hand-to-hand combat sessions, but at his suggestion I nursed some minor bruises overnight, long after they were gone. I found some loosely fitting clothes, so that should we come under fire I might shrug off a minor wound as having passed through my uniform.

The first week of April, 1862 found us approaching Memphis, Tennessee and looking for the army of the Confederate General Albert Sydney Johnston. We had seen his picture in some of the sketches found in news magazines, and had heard stories of his skill in handling troops. General Grant had made short work of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, and we expected to fight a major battle against the main Confederate army.

Johnston seemed obliging. We were camped at Pittsburgh Landing on the Tennessee River. He came with all his troops to make our acquaintance before daylight the morning of April 6. We tumbled out, gathered up the tools of war, and tried to line up in formation before the enemy overran us. We did not completely succeed. Our division was close to the river, on the left of the army’s line. We found ourselves fighting a strong force to our front, while some enemy troops tried to work their way between us and the river. The fight went on for hours, well into the afternoon.

I found myself separated from most of my regiment while scrounging for cartridges and attached myself to a regiment in the division of General Prentiss. His forces were holding their ground in the middle of the battlefield, while my own division appears to have fallen back. It seemed for the longest time that we fought the entire Rebel army all by ourselves. The men took to calling our position the Hornet’s Nest from the fight we offered the enemy.

My fight at the forts had not been so intense. Several times I had a bullet clip my arm. I was so driven by the battle that I did not flinch, and during lulls in the fighting I could make a show of examining my arms and finding that the bullets had only passed through my clothing. My new friend O’Connor, who appeared to be further back with most of the division, had trained me well.

My battle came to an end, however, in the afternoon. A great fire of cannon raked our lines, and I was suddenly tumbled over and on the ground. Pain! Was my first, last, and only thought. It seemed to go on forever. I prayed that I could recover from it, it hurt so badly! I must have passed out from the pain, for when I awoke I lay among the dead, and the Confederates, led by Johnston himself, were upon me!

Johnston looked worn and sad, as if he had won the battle and had to now deal with its aftermath. One of the men with him was a surgeon, and the two looked over the men scattered over the ground. “Over there,” said the general, “are some men who can use your help.”

“And this one?” The surgeon was looking at me.

“I marvel that he’s still alive. He looks as if a shell struck him. I think we must let God tend to him. After you tend to those men, you can see to my leg. I am barely scratched.”

The surgeon moved off to my right. As I drifted back to unconsciousness, I noticed that General Johnston looked very pale…

I awoke in full darkness. I assumed it was the evening of the 6th. I was alone among the dead, and I was barefooted and cold. The lines of battle appeared to be to my north, toward Pittsburgh Landing. I was behind enemy lines!

I was, however, also whole. I must have been moved out of the way and left for dead while the armies moved on. I decided my best move was to follow the creeks down to the Tennessee River, and go to the Union lines from there. I could pass myself off as a straggler from the fight, and that I had been briefly captured and stripped of my boots and coat. I found when I emerged from the water that the blood on my remaining clothes had been mostly rinsed out, and that the remaining blood had been mixed with mud so as to disguise it. The pickets on the river allowed me to pass quickly after I told my story. I had succeeded!

I found my way to where most of General Hurlbut’s division was camped, and then to my brigade, finding and greeting men who must have given me up for lost. One of those I saw was O’Connor.

“You look used,” he remarked.

“I was used.”

“Well, you had better get used to it.”

“There’s no need to be abusive about it.”

“I would disabuse you of that notion.” We were both laughing by this time. I could not think quickly of another sentence with a new twist on the word use. I had conveyed to O’Connor that I had been severely wounded and he had responded that we could talk later.

“And while you’re at it,” said one of my regiment’s sergeants, “you’d better find yourself some used equipment for replacements. Back to the surgeon’s tent.” That led to a gruesome exercise in finding reasonably intact uniform parts and kit from the equipment collected off the dead and seriously wounded brought back this far. Coats were easy – I could wear almost anything, and I could cut it down to my size after a day or so. Shoes were not so easy – I must have owned the smallest feet in the Union Army.

The next day, as the saying goes, was history. We had received reinforcements, and the Confederate army, though victorious, was slow to regroup after the first day of battle. We retook the field of battle, and continued our march. I marched in a thick wrap of cloth rags inside my “gently used” footwear.

The Army was forever reorganizing our units. The following year, after the siege at Vicksburg, O’Connor went west while I went east. I ended up marching all the way to North Carolina, chasing down the other General Johnston until he surrendered in 1865. Then we marched around Kansas before they disbanded us late in the year.

I did return to Springfield for a short time, clerking in the law office, but I was starting to imagine the stares. I doubt that my appearance was that much at odds with my stated age, but the comments the veterans received about being an “unkillable” from the Army of Grant and Sherman started to grate on me. The West beckoned. It was time to move on.

Henry Miller (1866-1877 AD)

I had secured work with the Central Pacific Railroad; I guess you could say they were going my way. I was not given any consideration for the typical job of driving spikes – they took one look at me and decided I could not lift a hammer. I did find a job helping the (design) engineers and running supplies up to the working head from the towns built back along the way. We had just crossed into the Wyoming Territory, and had set up our forward base at a place called Pine Bluffs. I had been up from our “next back” base at Bushnell, in Nebraska, and they had asked me to take a handcar back to there instead of riding the engine, giving them a fresh set of eyes to look over the tracks for possible problems.

I didn’t mind that much – I figured I’d have to stay overnight somewhere, but that was hardly a big deal – the threat of savage natives was somewhat exaggerated, and I wasn’t afraid of animals. I should have been. I threw some provisons and a couple of wood blocks (for leverage, I'm rather short so it helped to better bear down on the handles of the lever) onto the handcar, and set out about mid-morning.

The track at this point was mostly downhill, so it was fairly easy to build up a comfortable pace and allow me time to look over the track. I did stop a few times, making note of some areas in which the roadbed seemed too shallow, or where the ties were starting to go out of true, but in all it was a pretty uneventful day until I saw them.

They were magnificent – a large herd of American bison, known to the work crews as “buffalo” – and I marveled at the sight of them. “Large” in this day was not as impressive as it used to be – I am told that the five thousand or so which I saw was a shadow of the vast herds which used to roam the plains. They weren’t more than a half mile from the rail line, but they looked like an army.

I don’t know how it happened – a hunter on the far side, an animal, perhaps an insect annoying the wrong animal, which ran the wrong way – but suddenly they looked like a cavalry charge – coming right at me! The only instinct which came to me was to flee!

Unfortunately, I was constrained by the track and by my existing eastward “downhill” progress. The track took a bit of a bend to the north and then east up ahead; I thought I might escape if I could pass through that turn. I tried too hard to speed up the handcar, and lost my blocks to clumsy placement of my feet in frantically pumping the lever. This meant that I could not reach up easily to the full height of the lever in order to push down, and my only recourse was to jump up with each cycle of the lever in order to get as much speed as possible. I’m sure I looked comical had there been anybody watching, and I’m sure I saw this as a sight gag in one or two silent films forty or fifty years later. The humor was somehow lacking at this moment.

Then the herd was upon me! The beasts had reached the bend before I did, and all of my desperate efforts did nothing but drive me straight into their headlong charge! The first few bison managed to dodge me, but the corner of the cart hit one about three rows in, and after that I lost track of things. I do remember the cart being flipped off of the track, and an endless set of hooves trampling me before I passed out.

I woke not long before dark, lying in the midst of some of the hardware from my former cart and a large collection of buffalo chips. One crippled bison was lying a short distance up the tracks, and from the nearby sounds it would receive a visit soon from a local wolf pack. I was far from Bushnell and far from friends, which was a good thing as I was also very, very far from fragrant. Time to distance myself from the scene and look for a creek.

I was somewhat rinsed off and on my way back to Bushnell late the next day when I saw the supply train approaching from the east. I told them only that a stampede had wrecked the cart, but that I was more or less uninjured. At least they did not ask me again for a while if I would take a handcar.

I related the story many years later to a mortal man, a songwriter in whom I trusted. He found the story amusing, and concocted a song with the title “You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd.” This time, art imitated life.

Augustus Schwannberg (1877-1905 AD)

I drifted aimlessly in the West for about a decade. I spent some time in San Francisco, establishing an identity as a lawyer as part of our network. I was given to take extended trips alone into the high country, exploring on horseback, carrying little but what I needed for travel and shelter. I died once on such a trip, falling down a steep slope when I couldn’t unspook my horse – stupid, and barely worth the mention. I saw the commotion made about Cuba Libre and decided that war was inevitable. I did not want anybody asking me if I was looking to volunteer, so I decided to change identities and move on. (In hindsight, I was foolish to think that there was going to be a great need for soldiers, but sometimes any excuse to move on is a good one.) I took a train north and joined the trek to the Yukon, seeking gold. I figured I could hide out for a few years as a prospector, then return and start over with a new identity.

I got there, but not without an adventure on the way. I fell in with some bad company on the way to Dawson. They knocked me unconscious, robbed me, and then left me for dead on the trail. I never caught up with them, and when the next storm came I was poorly prepared. I managed to make a small, empty camp by a stream, but I was unable to start a fire. So I froze. This, I thought, is a fine way to spend a winter…

After a week or so, another party came by – I could make out three voices and what sounded like a few dozen dogs. They had found me, and were trying to figure out what to do with me.

“We’ll need to bury the poor guy. We did for Tommy, after all.” They must have lost one of their party earlier, and that meant they may have some extra gear – maybe even an extra sled and team.

“Ground’s too hard. We could just leave him for someone else to bury come spring.”

“How ‘bout if we burn him?”

Well, at least being ambulatory was a start. I was worried that if they left me I would have to fend off a pack of animals which thought they had stumbled on a renewable buffet of Klaus.

I don’t know what you guys call it, but I have heard the team “Promethean” used by some of the long-lived. To summarize the story, the Titan Prometheus was punished by being trapped, helpless to avoid being killed every day, then healing up at night so that he could be killed again in the morning. So, hearing the discussion among the three men, I was glad to have the chance to escape.

My funeral pyre was a stack of downed wood a short distance from the camp. I was carried over, and laid amidst some of the larger branches. The three men were reverent, saying a few words about a man they knew only as a frozen corpse. They then started up the fire and walked back to the camp.

They had done a good job of covering me up – I could shift around a little to avoid being burned too much as I thawed out. When I was able to move I jumped out of there in a hurry! I ran up to the camp, half-dressed in charred clothes, and bounded into the shelter like a wild animal. In the confusion immediately following my entrance, the travelers did not get to notice that I was still healing up. By the time they took a good look at me, I was a normal, healthy man in a layer of soot and a ill-treated set of clothes.

I did tell them that I had overheard them, and that I was sorry about their friend Tommy, and do you think I could have enough of his things to keep traveling to Dawson? Flabbergasted, they agreed. I accompanied them as far as Whitehorse, which was their destination.

After traveling to Dawson, I ended up in one of the more unlikely of careers – at least for my stature – I was a bouncer in one of the saloons! Very few of these boys knew much of fighting, and I had forgotten more of Gregorios’ / O’Connor’s teaching than any three of the patrons had learned.

After a few years, I had accumulated enough money to pay back my rescuers, who had remained in Whitehorse and with whom I had been corresponding. I’m sure one of them told the story of the remarkable fellow who “thawed out” on the trail to a bank clerk named Robert W. Service while depositing their money. “There are strange things done in the midnight sun…” Pity I never got any royalties from that…

Weidl Helmburg (1910-1922 AD)

I found myself gravitating back to Peoria – I guess I just found it a good place to blend in and live quietly to whatever purpose God has for us. I returned there about sixty years after my last visit, and I never heard of anybody wonder if that little guy looked somehow familiar. My natural appearance was that of a man in his late twenties, and I figured that would be a good place to start. I took on menial labor, not wanting to tap into the money I had acquired over the years, and lived in a small rooming house near the center of the city.

After a few years I found a job at the Catholic Church of Saint Boniface, which served the German community of the city. I worked as a handyman, custodian, and (from the safety of the floor) rang the bells in the tower. I drew a rather dangerous assignment one day, and I’ll mention it here because of its later relevance.

It was an early winter day. I was sweeping one of the school corridors, when one of the older boys came running in looking for me. “Weidy! Weidy!” (Normally, I got at least “Mr. Weidy,” but it was an emergency.) “Father Paulus needs you! Little Viola fell down the coal chute!” Well, I had a hard time believing that anybody “fell” down the chute without some help, but I followed the panicked boy out to the back of the building at a run.

Father Paulus was one of the associate priests of the parish, and he was tying a few jump ropes together as we approached. “Weidl, she’s all the way down at the bottom of the chute. She’s choking on the dust and she’s scared to death. There’s too much coal to move from the inside, but I thought perhaps you could slide down and we could pull you both out.” I was easily the smallest of the men in the immediate area, and since we weren’t sending nuns or boys after the girl, I quickly agreed to his plan.

The two of us figured out the number of jump ropes to use, and we prepared to slide me down after her. I was a little worried about having enough room at the bottom to tie her on, so we decided to tie the rope around me and if needed I could simply drag her. I positioned myself to slide headfirst down the chute, and Father Paulus, with the help of the biggest and strongest boy in the school, pushed on one of my feet each as hard as they could.

I wasn’t sure it was going to work – there were still small pieces of coal caught up at joints in the chute – but after all, Viola had found her way to the bottom. She had one advantage – she was smaller than I. At the bottom was a metal gate, which of course had been opened to allow coal into the bin at the bottom. The latch for the gate protruded from the top of the chute, between me and where Viola was wedged in. And of course I hit the thing forehead-first. I probably had it embedded a good half-inch in my skull.

I’m sure the poor girl was scared before, with only the light at the top of the chute for comfort, but now she had a motionless man blocking her way out, and she could feel blood on my forehead mixed in with the coal dust. I must have been out for only a few seconds, because they had not tried to pull me out. I set up a trapeze grip with Viola, and yelled for them to start pulling.

I had a few seconds to think about how to get out of there afterwards, because this injury was not going to last as long as would be expected. I was lucky in that Viola got all the attention when we were out, and I could clap a kerchief on my forehead, state that I was going home to clean up, and get away before too many adults showed up. Nobody thought twice about it when I decided to take a day off, and I was able to hide my healed head under a bandage for a few days after that.

What did I do in the War? Not much. I was lucky. I volunteered, then I caught the attention of a training officer who saw one of the smaller men in the unit best two big men in rough-and-tumble. He had a sense of humor, and I had a job teaching hand-to-hand combat in for eighteen months.

The name will come up again in my next story, but I was “found out” by a local private detective after the war. A real veteran, not an instructor like me, who saw me take a crowbar to the head late one night and noticed that I got up afterward. I called him Trip, short for “Triple C,” which were his initials. I took him into my confidence, and he agreed to keep an eye out for any other long-lived who happened into town. I in turn gave him an extra set of eyes and ears in one of the seedier parts of town – an informant, if you please.

Weidl Helmburg (1944-1945 AD)

I had allowed myself the “luxury” of a telephone. I’m sure it seemed a particular luxury for a retired custodian, but I had lived frugally, and it allowed me to keep in touch with my current “employer,” a private detective.

It also allowed him to keep in touch with me. “Old Man,” came the voice from what was obviously a pay phone and not from his own office. “Triple C” could call me “old” as I did appear to be a few years older than he. Of course, he knew I was somewhat older than that.

“Trip?”

“You’ve got some friends come to town.”

“My kind of friends?”

“Looked like G-Men to me. Ought to be there soon. Thought you might like to know.”

Trip hung up after that. Ten seconds later, as I was still puzzling it over, came the knock on the door of my walkup apartment and the inevitable “Mr. Helmburg?”

I figured there was no point in running. I opened the door. “Good afternoon?”

Four men in identical dark suits muscled their way in, with two of them taking post at my shoulders. The smallest of them, who appeared to be the boss, had ten inches and most of a hundred pounds on me. “You need to come with us. Government business.”

“But why? I mean, I’m German, well, my name, but…”

I suddenly found hands on each shoulder, and the leader punched me in the face hard enough to draw blood. He watched the bleeding stop. “That’s why.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out some handcuffs. “I have been told a pistol’s useless against you, but that these aren’t. You want to walk out of here or be carried out?”

“Do I need to pack anything?”

“If we decide you need something, we’ll give it to you.”

I’m sure we made quite a scene walking out of the building during the early evening and packing into a military green sedan. Thus began my third stint in the military. I was taken by airplane to a secluded military camp in North Carolina, and told that I was being conscripted as an enlisted “technician” into the Office of Strategic Services due to my “unique” talents. After some surreal interviews and very intrusive physical exams, I was introduced to a team of seven “commandos” which I would be joining.

The first day of physical training had an interesting twist. We went out ten hot, humid miles from camp, jogging in full gear, and stopped at a parked sedan along an empty road next to a target range, beside which stood a familiar man in a dark suit. He introduced himself as “Lynch.” When our boss, Lieutenant Baker, a tall, weathered Texan, asked him why he was out in the middle of nowhere to meet with us, Lynch said simply, “Special physical training for Technician Helmburg.” Then he produced a .45 and put three bullets into my midsection.

I was, understandably, distracted for a while. Lynch answered the barrage of abuse and questions by simply saying “Look at him.”

Sergeant Pierson, the burly second-in-command of the unit, knew what death looked like and was still looking for it in me. “Two in the gut, one in the stomach. He should have bled out already, but he’s not even pasty. What’s the deal?”

“He’s a Wandering Jew. Well, he’s not that old, but the point is he can’t die. He heals from stuff that would instantly kill anybody else. Helmburg, how old are you?”

Pierson had elevated my head a little. I was still groggy from the pain and shock. “Hundred twenty-one.”

“How many times have you – should you have – died?”

“Counting this, eight.”

“Ever in battle?”

“Once.”

“What did you?”

“Six-pound round shot. Shiloh. Second time I should have died.”

“Can you walk yet?”

“Not yet.” I wasn’t even sure I could stand yet.

“Lieutenant, weapons range until Helmburg can walk. Then you head back to camp, as fast as he can move. Weapons practice resumes when you get back. I don’t think I need to say to the rest of you that nothing about this man’s talents will ever be uttered outside of this team. Helmburg – we are timing you. You are going to get hurt – even die – every day, and you’re going to heal more quickly every time. We know you will, and when you get good enough, you’re going to do it twice a day, maybe even more, until we get a mission assignment.”

Perry, one of the PFCs in the unit, piped up. “How do you know he’s going to improve?”

Lynch shook his head. “Shouldn’t have said that,” he muttered. He took a breath, and went on. “We have more like him. Big guys, warriors with centuries of experience. We’re doing research on them. If we ever figure out what makes them tick we’re going to graft it into men like you. Imagine – an army of super soldiers!”

Perry persisted. “Why aren’t you researching on him?”

“This runt? Who needs him in a lab – we’ve got ancient Greek heroes. We’ll use him in combat because if something does kill him, you can probably carry him until he heals. Then he’s back on the team.”

I managed to sit up a few inches. “You monster,” I gasped.

Lynch’s lips curled up into a little smile. “Oh, and Pierson, time him from now until he can stand up. Add three minutes twenty-two seconds to whatever you get. You have a lot of work to do, Helmburg.”

I was on my feet in about twenty minutes and “jogging” after a half mile of the return march. I don’t know what was most disturbing to me. I was going to have to face Lynch or somebody like him every day for “special physical training.” I was considered little better than a tool by the OSS. And God knows what the prime specimens of long-lived were going through in the “labs.”

The next several months were a blur of activity, and pain, and camaraderie. I did suffer a lot, in many inventive ways, at the hands of the black-suited “agents.” The stress of this “Promethean” regime caused me to wear out two sets of rosary beads. I was decades behind in military training, but I learned enough that I was not a burden on the team. They accepted me, and the false signs of aging wore off so that I looked like one of them – that is, looked like a soldier. I suppose they could have nicknamed me for my age, but I was easily the smallest member of the team so they played on that. I didn’t mind, since it was coming from them.

Mission-specific training started that winter. We were to go into Czechoslovakia and rescue some scientists from a Nazi camp before the Russians could do so. The camp included a reinforced bunker, and we were looking for a weapon to knock that open. We had bazookas, but somebody got worrying about having to use a bazooka inside a bunker. So, I was issued a special additional weapon – a captured Japanese Type 89 mortar tube.

I worked with an armorer to modify the mortar (really a glorified grenade launcher) to my own abilities. The original design had a stock and plate suitable for resting on the ground. Since it had no additional legs, the user had to kneel and steady the tube it to fire it. Some of our Marines thought that the Japanese soldiers were bracing it against their thighs; when they tried to imitate that stance they broke their own legs. After some trial and error, we fitted it with a larger plate so that I could if needed hold it against my chest. We also modified the triggers on the shells so that I could fire it almost horizontally if needed. Of course, it kicked like no small arms weapon I’d ever seen. They also made some shells with a special design and explosive for use on heavy doors.

We would have about as good of weather conditions as we could expect – a full moon and clear skies early, but some clouds toward dawn to help cover our withdrawal. Wiseman, another PFC and the only Jew on the team, was helping me with my camouflage “war paint.” He seemed to be a lot more elaborate than I would have done for him, but I was not thinking very much about that – I was instead worrying about having the heaviest load of gear going down attached to me. I guess it was to be expected as I was the lightest member of the squad. I jammed my knee pretty badly on landing, but that was a very temporary problem. We redistributed our gear and headed for the camp.

The camp had been “softened up” with an air raid that night, so we were able to break through the fences in the confusion and reached the target (a bunker near the edge of the camp) without attracting too much attention. We managed to sneak through the door but started running into guards once inside. It got very exciting very fast – run down the hall, check the few rooms, and kill anything in feldgrau.

Wiseman and I hit paydirt – if we could get away with it. One room held three inmates and a single guard, whom Wiseman expertly took out, but the soldier had triggered a grenade. “Helmburg!” Wiseman yelled as he upended a table and threw the prisoners behind it.

“I’m on it!” was all I could manage. Actually, I cheated – I threw the slumping body of the enemy soldier on first – after all, it was his grenade – then covered his body with my own just to make sure. I took some shrapnel to the legs and hands, and one spectacular but superficial cut which took off much of my left ear. The hostages – one middle-aged man and an elderly couple – were surprised at the disregard I paid to my injuries, which were visibly healing as I stood up. The old woman was pointing at my head and stammering something in fear. I finally caught enough of her words and of Wiseman’s responses to understand. “Great. I’m a golem. Can we leave now?”

Nobody mistook me for a fighter – my job was to stay with Pierson at the back of the pack and put our bodies between the refugees and any possible source of harm. The younger man seemed to do as much for the older couple – I gathered from the conversation I could understand that they were his parents. I took one stray round in the arm as we rallied and prepared to leave, and I think the parents noticed more than did the son.

We found the going too hot to exit the way we came in, but the building had an escape tunnel which led into the forest outside the camp. The door looked like heavy wood. Baker didn’t hesitate. “Helmburg – break it!” it barked, while a pair of commandos covered our backs at the head of the escape hallway. He pulled everybody else into a side room as far back as possible. “Say hello to my little friend!”

I was already rigging the Type 89 mortar up to my chest, twenty feet from the door, hoisting a “special” shell. “I don’t see you shootin’ the 89, sir!”

“Ain’t talklin’ about the 89, midget!”

“Everybody’s a comedian,” I muttered as I slammed the shell home. It wooshed right back out, singeing a few fingers, but that was nothing. The kick knocked me back a few steps, then the explosion – that is, the portion of the explosion which blew backwards into the tunnel – knocked me back thirty feet back, scorched a lot of exposed skin, and doubled the number of bones in my body. I was told that Baker was gratified to see the door sufficiently removed to allow our escape.

Pierson stopped to check on me as the others double-timed for the exit. “How bad?” was all he needed to ask.

“Hurt” was all I could squeak out.

Baker shouted over his shoulder. “Pierson! Make like Odysseus and haul Aias!” The big man slung my arms over his shoulders and quickly caught up to the remainder of the mission.

“Hope you don’t mind my wearing you like a blanket,” Pierson grunted as he ran. “I figured you’d have a better chance of stopping a bullet that way.”

“I can’t believe the lieutenant,” I gasped.

“What? That he has a sense of humor?”

“No. That he has no grasp of the Classics. Odysseus carried Achilles off the field, Aias covered them.”

“Well, you should know. Your big brother wrote the Iliad, right? Maybe he was just looking for a pun.” My sense of humor suffers when I do.

Pierson carried me three miles at a brisk walk to an intact stretch of road, where a Boston III light bomber awaited us. I was able to sit up on my own in the hold, and was able to help strap myself in. The fact that I was recovering seemed to panic the old couple again, and the younger man (who turned out to be some kind of research biologist) put his head together with Wiseman’s.

Wiseman came over to me in the loud, crowded hold. “Shorty, I think it will calm the old couple down if I unmade you”

“What?”

“I mixed some Hebrew letters in with the camouflage earlier. It looks like the letters you’d find on a golem.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“I’ll rub the letters off your forehead, you collapse, and we’ll stash you somewhere out of their sight.”

“And why am I doing this?”

“To maintain your bleedin’ cover.” That last was coming in my other ear, and without turning I knew the only person on that side was an SAS sergeant manning a cut-in gun turret on the side of the plane. “Let him do it. I’ll catch you and haul you to the nose to finish recovering.”

“Oh, all right.” Wiseman came up to me, murmuring something, and wiped some of the paint off my forehead with his hand. The SAS guy seemed to want to make it more realistic; he jabbed me in the neck with some kind of open-hand strike and I was laid out completely. The sergeant carried me, doubled over, to the nose of the plane and laid me on the floor.

“Right now I go by Garrick,” the sergeant said as he wrapped me in some blankets. “From the description you must be Schoff. I don’t think we’ve ever met, but I read up about you last time I was in the Archives.”

“They said they had more of us! They said they wanted to take our blood or something and make super soldiers!”

“They will fail. We’ve heard the same stories, and we’re looking for those men. We’ll get them out.”

“How?”

“Don’t ask, and I won’t have to tell.” Garrick winked as he returned to his station.

Weidl Helmburg (1945-1956 AD)

I don’t like to talk about the Second World War – for me it didn’t end for another ten years. I was forced to stay in the service due to my “talent.” The government decided that I was too easy to lose as a paramilitary – they did not want me to fall into the hands of the Commies. After the war was over, they found for me a job uniquely suited to my previous job. I was assigned to collect samples from the atomic proving grounds in the American Southwest – a janitor, if you will.

My first stop, in May 1946, was the military laboratory at Los Alamos, and a new test of my “abilities.” “Let him twist the Demon’s tail,” said one of the scientists, “and we’ll see how good this healing ability is.” The “Demon,” in this case, was a mass of plutonium. They explained to me that it could be brought to a near-critical mass by building up a partial layer of reflective material around it. My instructions were to place blocks of this material around the mass until “something happened,” then knock the blocks away. From the little I had learned about radiation, it sounded to me like a swift way to ruin a perfectly good laboratory building. After they told me to begin, I started placing blocks, hearing a slight increase in the rate at which the meter was clicking. All of a sudden the pace of the clicks went to “rainstorm.” I decided that was my cue to knock the blocks away. Then I sat down. I cannot quite describe how I felt – a combination of weakness and pain, with blurred vision thrown in just for the sake of disorientation. A team of men in radiation suits came in and bundled me off to a hospital room. I was recovered in three days – they said it might have been sooner had they been able to keep the intravenous lines in (my flesh kept pushing them out).

I spent a lot of time wandering through test sites, examining items with a Geiger counter, and learning first hand about the early stages of radiation poisoning. The climate was oppressive, the work was tedious and harmful, and the entire situation was depressing. I was told early on that my service was being extended indefinitely.

The government did issue me a radiation suit. It wasn’t very effective, and I think they took pictures of me using it to provide the illusion that common men could work in this environment effectively. In reality, they would have needed a very cumbersome suit to protect a common man to a degree consistent with fifty more years of expected lifespan. I think they really wanted to see how I handled low-level radiation.

Not that I was always out in the field. I was frequently called upon to recount my field observations to those scientists working on the projects. Most of them were told only that I had been out collecting materials in a heavy-duty radiation suit, so they knew nothing of my “abilities.” They allowed me to sit in on the full length of their discussions, and I learned a lot. Being small, and looking young, and having a background as an enlisted man in the army, led these scientists to think that I was a bit of a simpleton. This turned out to be quite useful later on.

One day in 1952, somebody decided to play a practical joke on me. I had been assigned to the wrong area, and was out collecting samples when the klaxon sounded giving ten minutes notice of a test blast. Surprised, I looked around and saw a live bomb hoisted to a tower. I don’t know how I missed it the first time. It was not a terribly large one – I was told later that it was twelve kilotons – but I certainly did not want to be standing next to it when it went off. I was too far from anything on wheels, so I shucked the radiation suit and equipment and started running, figuring that if I could cover a mile or so I should be all right.

Eight minutes later I was in a mockup of a town, entering a house and looking for the best shelter. Of all things, I found a clothes dryer. Not having much time to look further, I jumped in and closed the door.

The house was not well built – it fell over and buried me in debris. Fortunately, I was able to force the door of my improvised shelter open and dig my way out of the rubble. When I related my story to my superiors, their first question was “why did you leave the Geiger counter behind?” I had my pay docked to replace that thing! And when they used that gag in an action movie years later (the star of that movie, being bigger than I, hid in a refrigerator), I didn’t get any credit for it!

Finally, one day in 1955, I was summoned to the office of my commanding officer, to be mustered out of the Army. Sitting in the office was a middle-aged woman who introduced herself as Marie Francoise Agassiz. She explained that she was an employee of the Immortals' Trust (well, she said simply “the bank managing your trust account”), and that the Trust had found enough levers to cause the United States Government to release the handful of long-lived who had been collected for research purposes during and after the war. The commanding officer said that any questions about my departure would be answered by the placement of a memorial marker in my name out in some obscure test field.

We left soon after that, ending on an eastbound train. The government had sent us back to Illinois, but we made other plans. Marie Francoise had arranged for some lookalikes to be on the train, so we could swap tickets with them and use their identities to fly to Europe. I had never visited the headquarters of the Trust, and it turned out to be an interesting and beneficial few months. I told scientists there everything I had learned from the atomic testing experience, and in return learned quite a bit about the Trust and some of my fellow long-lived.

Then I headed back to America for a vacation – I needed it.

Carl Stovall (1957 AD)

I found it more difficult than expected to return to my adopted home. It seems agents of the United States government took exception to my “skipping town” to fly to Switzerland. I spent some extra time in Europe, even visiting the Freiburg area of my birth, before all of the issues were smoothed over. I was asked to make myself available for government service if ever needed. After the last episode, my thought was “I’ll be glad to serve if you can find me.”

I did, however, decide to make a stop in Peoria in late October of 1957 on the way to my chosen new home in California. Years ago, when I had abruptly left for another round of government service, my buddy Trip had cleaned out my apartment and placed my personal belongings in storage. I have never been the type to collect things just to keep them, but there were a few items I would be glad to recover.

Trip, who had also been my employer, had retired and moved to Florida. (He was not a long-lived, but I had entrusted him with my secret and we looked out for each other.) He had given me the address of his oldest son, who had cared for a locked suitcase for the last few years. The address was fairly close to one of the trolley lines in the city, and I did not worry too much about walking there and back. To be fair, Trip Junior had offered to drive me back to the bus station, but I had caught him at a bad time – his wife and three of their four kids were sick, and I figured he did not need to be leaving them alone.

I was making good time, at a brisk walk, back to the main road and the trolley. Unfortunately, I was doing so by walking in the street. I had figured on moving to the side for oncoming cars, but the one coming up from behind was too fast for me. I was bounced off the road, and rolled a few times on the sidewalk before being stopped by a convenient utility pole. (By the way, straddling a convenient utility pole is not the preferred method of stopping one’s forward progress.)

I was, not surprisingly, stunned and lying flat on the pavement. I could see the passenger clambering out of the car as fast as he could and yelling at the driver. “Jesus, Babe, I told you to hit something soft – not to hit a person!”

“Well, if your clutch wasn’t shot, I could have hit that bush back there!” The driver, a woman, was slower to exit the car.

“Yeah, yeah. How’s the bambino?”

“I didn’t hit the steering wheel, so the baby should be okay.”

“Good.” The passenger was just reaching me. “Mister, are you still with us?”

I was going to be sore, but the broken leg would soon be to the point that I could limp. The scrapes were pretty much healed but the blood on my clothes would hide that for now. I was hoping I could bluff my way out of a close physical exam. “I think the suitcase took most of the blow.” The suitcase had certainly taken enough of a blow to break it open and ruin it.

“What about that landing – looked like a bad kick in the groin.”

“I was in the Army – we got kicked in the groin every day.”

The passenger looked over at the woman. “I told you, Babe – it wasn’t just my battalion!” He proceeded to help me to my feet. “I’m Bill, and this is my sister Maria. My wife had picked Maria up this morning for help in chasing down our kids – good practice for Sis. And she asked if she could drive herself back home in my car. Which isn’t going to happen again!”

“I’m Carl,” remembering the name on my current set of documents. “I’m visiting some friends here in the city and I was just heading back downtown.”

Maria, who was noticeably pregnant, looked me over. “Your clothes are ruined. Do you have more?”

“The bag with my clothes is at the bus station.” I was a little concerned about some new noises coming from the suitcase, but having broken possessions was hardly new and hardly serious.

“Well,” she continued, “let us take you to our Mother’s house. You can clean up, and maybe we can find you something else to wear.”

“What do we have, Babe? Dad’s stuff is long gone, and it would never have fit him anyway.”

Maria filled in the blanks. “Our Dad died years ago, but our uncle stores some stuff there – mostly old suits and costumes. He’s about your height, but he’s really too round for most of the suits we keep for him.”

The siblings were insistent, so I soon found myself walking into a small house on a small lot. Their mother was not home, but the two quickly showed me some suits from which I could choose. I really did need a full change of clothing – everything had been torn up. Bill found, of all things, a Captain America costume which he said would never again fit “Uncle Shorty,” but was thin enough to use as underwear for a short while. He pointed me into the bath, where Maria had laid out peroxide, merthiolate, and gauze for my (no longer a problem) wounds.

While I was cleaning up and decorating myself with bandages, they had found a spare suitcase and had gone about moving my things out of the old one. That was when their mother arrived and things got a little awkward. I walked out of the bath, buttoning up a white dress shirt over a bright blue body suit (complete with star-and circle emblem), to find my fifty-year old host looking at a photograph of St. Boniface Catholic Church and School – from over forty years previous.

While she was shifting her focus to my face, she got as far as “Do you know that I went to this…” before she stopped and stared. Stared at the face of the man who rescued her from a coal chute years before. Who now stood before her again, impossibly young…

“Mister Weidy,” Viola whispered. She stood up and walked over to me, never taking her eyes off my face. She put her fingertips on my forehead, where remained the scar from the rescue. “How can this be?”

Only the truth could save me now. “I’ve been working on a government project for the last twelve years. I really shouldn’t say more than that, and I have to ask you to forget you saw me here.”

One other fact saved me – I really needed to get back to the bus station on time. I managed to extricate myself and my new suit and bag from the house, leaving Maria to learn a story from her bemused mother. Bill, who had no trouble with the clutch, managed to drop me off in time to reclaim my bag and depart for St. Louis.

1960 AD – Present

I’ve been hiding for about fifty years. Not as a hermit, although that is certainly not unheard-of among us. I have been living out in California, trying out odd jobs as I felt the impulse, and generally trying to be ignored by people. Usually it has worked out quite well. The times it hasn’t have generally been associated with the entertainment industry.

I worked for a time in building sets and moving props around for the Smothers Brothers variety show. It was generally pretty quiet work, although I had a spectacular accident once. I was trying to cut across a raised set while carrying some props – clown shoes and a football helmet, don’t ask me why, they decided against using that sketch – while some others of the crew were putting up a backdrop for a set. It fell, and I was right underneath. The top of the backdrop hit me right on the head, and I found a weak spot in the raised floor and fell through. Well, partly through. I was able to stand on the solid stage beneath the set, with my head and shoulders sticking up through the thin plywood. The clown shoes were on either side of me, and the helmet just out of reach.

This, of course, got the usual chorus from the other crew members – “Man, are you okay?“ “Geez, that must’ve hurt!” and so on. One of the writers, Bob Einstein, looked at me with a little more detachment once they were sure I was uninjured. (I can’t say that a common man would have been seriously hurt, those sets are nothing more than canvas and slats, but it certainly looked impressive.) “That’s almost funny,” he mused.

I was a little irritated, and couldn’t hold back a retort. “It would have been funny had I been wearing the helmet instead of carrying it.”

Of course, one of the crew members promptly put the football helmet on my head. “Like this?”

Einstein got that thoughtful look in his eyes. “Okay, that is funny,” filing the image away for future reference. (I’ll leave the lookups to you readers.)

I almost got in trouble a second time in the entertainment field. Against my better judgment, I was working as a stunt double in an action movie. My job was basically to be run down by people and animals during the battle scenes. I had several different outfits, and the horses had the sense not to step too hard on me when I was falling to the ground. That was not where my problem was – the problem came one evening, when a number of the actors and extras were sitting around drinking and talking.

The star of the movie was a bodybuilder – you all know who he is – and the conversation drifted into weightlifting contests. He had made some pretty impressive boasts (not that he was an Olympic weightlifter, but he had put in the effort) about his ability. I had not been listening very hard, and I made some remark on the order of how I could beat him in a weightlifting contest if the weight was light enough.

Nobody could believe this – one of the big/strong types in the cast remarked as how he had eaten things bigger than me for breakfast. Unfortunately, the alcohol was, for a short while, doing the talking for me. “How many repetitions can you do with a five pound weight?”

“Five pounds? Nobody lifts just five pounds! I could do that as long as I can stay awake!”

“Are you sure?”

“Aber natürlich!”

“Are you really sure?”

“How many can you do, short stuff?”

“Five pound curls, one arm, one rep every three seconds, twenty reps per minute, one thousand two hundred reps per hour, eight hours and twenty minutes nonstop to get to an even ten thousand reps. I’ve done it twice – one on each arm.”

The movie star started thinking about it. “How do you do that?”

“You know all about exercise and recovery time? I need very little recovery time. With a light enough weight and a slightly longer time between reps, I have no muscle fatigue. Kind of like some of those skinny long-distance runners from Kenya.” I felt I had to give some kind of analogy which did not involve our kind.

The Big Eater was not sold. “I’ll try it.”

The star found an out. “I can’t take all day for that.” And so we held our little contest the next off-day. Big Eater managed about three hours – really pretty impressive – before his right arm turned to rubber. Most everybody lost interest after about five hours, and only made occasional check-ins until I reached the ten thousand rep mark.

I quit the movies after that – I felt as if the lifestyle was making me too reckless for my own good.

Klaus reminescenting about Joseph Smith

I did visit Nauvoo, Illinois while Joseph Smith was there, but I did not meet him, and I was not feeling the love from his followers.

Klaus' musings on the term Eternal

I (Klaus) had been studying for the priesthood. I generally refer to us as “long-lived” rather than as “immortal” or even “eternal.”

Klaus reminescenting about Robert A. Heinlein

I knew Heinlein - around 1960 in California. I don't think he knew me as anything other than a casual acquaintance, and I certainly could not add to works such as the Howard-related books. He was the kind of author you could only marvel over.