Re: [Killietalk] Frank Marotta and the German guy

["Rudnick" <spark at quik_com>]

A friend that I never met
The German guy might have been the president or former president of the DKG.
I too went through a similar evolution to killies. I had only been a member
of the AKA for a couple of years, when one afternoon, circa 1977-78, when I
received a phone call from a German gentleman who identified himself as the
president or former president of the DKG, who was touring the US.  Over
dinner that evening the conversation was all killies.  He was the first
fellow killie keeper that I had ever met, and he was far more knowledgeable
than I.  Not only that he knew Jorgen Sheel and other European killie
keepers, and was excitedly describing many new species that were just being
bred by them.  I lived in Phoenix, Arizona and he stopped over to rent a car
to drive to LA and was going to search for desert pup fish between here and
there.  My girl friend at the time had just moved to Phoenix, from Ajo, AZ,
where she had grown up and he quizzed us as to possible locations for
possibly unknown populations.  Too much new info in only just a couple of
hours to process, so most of the evening remains a blurr
  What I do remember was that he had spent some time with your father the
previous day. Your father, your family and your fathers fish house had
greatly impressed him.
   At that time I only had a few tanks and was only keeping gardneris,
golden australes and red dwarf gularis.  At the end of the evening he
advised me that I should set up some new tanks.  Luckily I was smart enough
to heed his advise as within a couple of weeks later, there was knock at my
door around 10 in the evening and I was surprised to find a mailman who
handed me a package, within which were a pair of Aphy. santa isabelle, now
named oseri, that had been mailed to me by your father.  Santa isabelles
were hard to come by at the time so I was over the moon.  A thank you note
to your father led to further correspondance, and more varieties.
  Ron Rudnick


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