Benaya- My First Memories of Ted

The first time I met Ted was in Amsterdam. We flew into Schiphol and were met first by Ted. He was much bigger than I ever imagined him and had the ability to carry all of our luggage with absolutely no problem.  (Other than Ella’s suitcase – that somehow didn’t arrive.)

We were joined by a local teacher and one of our first stops was a vegan restaurant, we sat at a nice table on the patio and waited… the waiter took a long while to do anything, even get us the drinks… eventually after about 40 min, we also got our soup. After about an hour, in which we were all getting extremely hungry – Ted kindly turned to the waiter (who turned out to be the owner of the place) and asked him if he happened to have a number of a pizza place so we could order while waiting for the food in the restaurant. The waiter was not very amused (I was) and kicked us out of the restaurant saying 'if this is your sense of humor – I do not like your sense of humor. Out!!'

And so – we got our first complementary drinks and soup in Amsterdam :) – we did head right for a pizza place where we could all satisfy our hunger! 

The experience was continued on the same evening by Ted driving us all the way to Dusseldorf  at 240km/hr in a new rented Volvo station wagon.  I couldn’t believe that the car could go so fast, especially with all of us and our luggage (other than Ella’s) in it. My comment about it brought about the first of Ted’s many 'true' stories.

It went like this: many years ago, when Ted just got to Germany, he was driving along the exact same autobahn with his friend, and suddenly, on the side of the road, he notices a chicken running at the same speed that he was driving! His friend was just as shocked as him! They immediately decided to follow the chicken and so about 10 miles down the road, when the chicken turned left onto a dirt track between fields, so did they, and a further 10 miles down that track theye finally reached a farm that was full of these chickens running everywhere – it was almost impossible to track them with his eyes, but after a few minutes of stunned observation, his friend pointed out that these chicken had 4 legs! That seemed unreal and had to have some logical explanation. Ted took the initiative and knocked on the door of what seemed to be the farm office. In it was a quite surprised-looking old German farmer. Ted and his friend talked to him and it turned out that one of the German food conglomerates had decided to genetically engineer chickens with 4 legs(as they figured it was the main thing people liked). Being the food lover that he was, Ted  excitedly asked: 'well, how does it taste?' to which the farmer answered: 'I don’t know, we’ve not managed to catch any yet!'

I found it very surprising and extremely funny. I had been expecting a real true story – and it was a fantastic surprise for me. His response to my accusations that the story wasn’t real came in the form of one of Ted’s most known expressions: 'Never let the truth get in the way of a good story' – and this is a genuinely true story.

Ted was always a man of wonderful stories – some of them completely real, some with a twist and some of which you wouldn’t know are a joke until he reached the punchline. There was never a dull moment with this wonderful and multitalented, multiexperienced and brave man, who lived life to the fullest.

He has always been there for companionship, advice and help – he was a friend and a big brother I could always happily talk to.

Ted, there’s so much that I would like to thank you for, but above all - thank you for being yourself.

Love,

Benaya