Reinhard

 Before I left home for Germany, Denny McClelland  told us that he’d written his best friend when he’d been the exchange student—-Reinhard.  He’d sent Reinhard my name and address. I’d received a letter very formal and stilted before I left for Germany and I’d replied with my itinerary and where I would stay.  My family and I tried to imagine what he would look like.  We all agreed blond hair and blue eyes, muscular and tall.

I’d been expecting the phone call and was dreading another “set up” that would be TV at his apartment fending off his moves or a drunken night at a disco dance cafe again fending off the moves.  So, I took a deep breath and agreed to a date the following week. I still had my hands full with TV-Peter, Disco Hellmut and Georg who talked down to me like I was his “little woman”.  My “dance card” couldn’t get any fuller and I was not looking for another one to “dance “with..

A week later, in walked a bespectacled tall, dark man with bushy eyebrows, a cleft chin and a friendly smile. We’d already decided to go to a cafe to get acquainted.  I think my mother knew Reinhard would be “trouble” when she read my one page description of our date.

“We went to a cafe and talked for about five hours. . . .We talked about Berlin and divided Germany, Nazism and the last war, communism and Viet Nam, literature, art, music.  Hearing him tell about East Germany and East Berlin (where he was from) is enough to make you realize the threat [of Communism]. Reinhard said that he can’t understand why his parents didn’t realize what was going on in the concentration camps during WWII.”

After that date, we went out to an organ concert in Ottobeuren basilica, went hiking, ball room dancing at a nice ballroom. out for dinner at one of the local inns, played cards with an older couple, a cafe for wine and talk again, and finally on our 8th date. . . . he kissed me.  That was the way to my heart:  hiking, dancing, concerts, wine and talk, playing cards and then after we went walking in the rain window shopping at night, he kissed me.

I soon joined his exercise class called Kneipverein where we also played volleyball and basketball followed by wine and beer at a local pub.  Everyone in the class was older than we were, but I enjoyed the companionship of more mature people.

Kneipverein Group

Well, they might have been more Reinhard’s age since he was 6 years older than I was which means his childhood was during WWII and the harrowing last days of Berlin being bombed.  He went to the university, got his degree in architecture/civil engineering and was working on a large municipal project for an indoor swimming pool in Memmingen.

Several weeks later, we went to our favorite pub for dinner and he confessed he was concerned about our future.  I laughed and said “That’s 8 months off” and thought, “I’ve never had a relationship that lasted more than 3 months”.  He said, “It’s going to get worse not better, “ meaning our parting would be more difficult than if we ended it now.  But we didn’t break up but kept seeing each other several times a week.

We even went on several trips together including several ski trips, a trip to Switzerland and one to his home in Berlin for New Year’s .I stayed at his home and met his widowed mother.  I got along with her pretty well, but there was some friction when she and I shared a room on one of the week long ski trips. I think she was beginning to worry.

Berlin NYE

Reinhard was very kind and gracious even inviting my friends out to dinner when they visited me and served as chauffeur and tour guide for our excursions in Bavaria. A close friend of mine, Carol, visited me about once a month. Our activities usually included Reinhard.  She confessed that she never thought we were that serious about one another.  We certainly didn’t cling to each other in public.  To be honest our size difference made it difficult to walk arm in arm or even to slow dance.  He once said he’d never danced with a Zwerg (dwarf) before.

On an excursion with friends---Boden See

 As the year came to a close, he gave me a ring.  I had to return to St. Louis to finish my degree, and he had another year on his construction project, but he vowed to come to America in July of 1968 after I’d graduated.  We kissed and cried as I got on the train and headed for the long trip home.