Mayor Sam Katz Solves Thirty Year-Old Mystery - the TWO Minklemans!

A joyous reception-dinner is being held this evening at
CFB Shiloh for the two Minkleman brothers - lost for three
decades, and only now re-united.

Fred Minkleman, genial mine-host of the WCE's premier
nightspot, Gambays, tells the story:

"Yes, I've always had a brother, Frank. We were born
as conjoined-twins,in a small town just outside Topeka, Kansas.
The medical team got us separated ok though, and we had
a fairly-conventional childhood together, on the farm, with our Mom and Pop".

Troubles arose for the two boys however - they looked identical,
sounded identical, walked the same, and went to the same little school together.
"Our teacher, Miss Quagley", Frank continued, "kept writing our name wrong.
Sometimes she wrote 'Minkelman',other times she wrote 'Minkleman'.
"Well, as the years went by, all kinds of bureaucratic blunders kinda
flowed-on from that, and that was part of the reason why we eventually
lost each other".

Fred and Frank had an uncle in Germany, a sewing-machine
repairman named Heinz "Manto" Minkleman, then-living in Hamburg.
"Uncle Heinz invited us both to visit him", said Frank, "however
our Pop was too poor to send us both - he'd long-since cashed-in his
Liberty bonds, you see".

Frank did travel to stay with their uncle in Germany when they
were both aged around 17. Uncle "Manto" had gained celebrity-status
in Germany, by being the first person to float the length of the River Rhine, on an inner-tube, naked. "Yeah", Fred laughed, "and he went upstream, against the current.
Der Spiegel ran his story for a week! Unfortunately the courts weren't too
happy with him though."

Frank returned to the family farm near Topeka about three year's later,
only to find that the entire family had sold-up and moved-on.
Frank said that their neighbours couldn't assist him much as to the
Minkleman's whereabouts. "Except old Walter Brennan, down the road, had a hunch they'd all moved to Hollywood, or someplace thereabouts", Frank recalled.

Frank contacted Steven Spielberg's studios, and Dreamworks, but nobody there had ever heard of any Minklemans. "Or Minkelmans", Fred added.

Fred eventually took-over Gambays, in the WCE, and had given-up hope of seeing
his beloved twin brother again.

Fate took a hand when Fred recently arrived in Brandon, Manitoba, with the
WCE Trio Tour entourage. "When I was introduced to Mayor Katz", Fred went on, "he
said that I looked familiar to him. He also said that my name had a familiar ring-a-ding-ding to it."

"'Bout a week later, Mayor Sam Katz came running-up to me and told me a right-curious little story. About a year ago Mayor Katz went on vacation, to
Disneyland, you-know, down there in in LA. Sam went on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and half-way through, his little boat somehow got stuck. Anyways, along came
one of the Park's repairmen, and got the danged-boat thing going again".

Mayor Katz was extremely appreciative, and the two men swapped business cards.
Finally, in Brandon, Mayor Katz found the repairman's card, and "sure enough,
'twas my long-lost twin brother, Frank! So, here we are now!", said Fred, a few small tears welling-up in his eyes."

For now, the twins have a great-deal of catching-up to do. As to the future,
Fred said "I've told Frank that he can come back to the Expatdom with me. I can give him a job as a cellar-man. And, Miss Cherry Soda needs a hand behind the bar too,
so, as they say in the old movies, 'Y'all watch this space!' ".