By the time I had cleared the tears, the prince was walking past us, nodding and heading for a specially prepared lunch at the President’s table. I couldn’t help but stare. His skin was very dark, and his heavy hair was sculpted straight down to his collar on the sides and back, and cut into square bangs over his eyes. His hair looked like Prince Valiant’s in the funnies. (Actually, there used to be a TV show with an Indian prince who might be a better comparison, but that guy had beads in his hair.) Once he was in the light, I noticed that the prince was a very handsome guy with dark intense eyes set off by his high cheekbones. He was about six feet tall, lean, and… well, “regal” is the only word for his posture, stride, and manner. He was definitely a prince, only one with a very dark complexion.
While the Fab Four followed his movements with mouths slightly agape, the goddesses managed to keep their cool. I learned later that one girl had fainted from the shock. I felt sure that it was Nonni. I can’t imagine her wealthy southern-princess brain being able to cope with an African prince. Likely the only Africans she knew worked in her home and lived on the bad side of Mobile or wherever she was from. For that matter, I don’t remember any Blacks in public school in the 1950s. But boarding school and college held a mix of everyone. The Quakers had never known prejudice, and I learned that people were people in spite of skin color or religion. In fact, the Quakers, including several of my ancestors, played a major role in the Underground Railroad. One of my relatives even showed me a hidden room in her house that had been used by escaping slaves.
Wilds, Kaeti, and I rushed outside to burst out laughing and to compare notes on the reactions we had seen. When we broke up, I watched Kaeti’s lithe stride as she went back into the building. Her hair was pretty and really caught the sunlight. It wasn’t one color but ranged from blonde in places to light brown in others. You could tell that she left it natural. Nice! Wilds, noticing my focus, poked at my shoulder with his bony knuckles.
“Hey,” I said, “she’s female and she talked to us. Beside I kinda like tomboys. If nothing else she could be a good friend in the girls’ dorm.”
Before heading back inside to lunch, I quickly scanned the mountains across from us. I still couldn’t believe that I was in a Swiss college tucked in a notch on the side of a mountain surrounded by these majestic Alps.
Chapter Two
Escaping Vietnam
How had I ended up in Switzerland in this school for the wealthy? Well, during the first term of my freshman year at Earlham College I had tried to do everything, except study, and I was still on academic probation by the end of the year. Then, as summer approached, my lieutenant colonel father received orders for Germany, and I decided to drop out of my college and take a year in school somewhere in Europe. So, at the beginning of that summer in 1966 I found myself on a ship with my parents, sister, and two miniature dachshunds crossing the Atlantic Ocean, learning survival German and international road signs. Our ship, the USNS General Patch, hit the tail of a hurricane; so I also learned how to slow dance on a heaving deck, walk stairs on the down side of the swells, and tie myself off when trying to feed and walk the dogs who were stuck together in a small kennel on the poop deck. I believe that I am using the correct term for that part of the ship, but for me and my sister, the term “poop” was quite literal.
We disembarked in Bremerhaven, and after a mad dash in a taxi from the ship to Customs, I jumped out of the cab and went searching for a bathroom. When I was directed to them, I stood staring at two bathroom signs marked “Herren” and “Damen.” With a “her” in one and “dame” in the other, I wondered which one was the men’s room. I thought that my survival German had saved me. I opened the door marked Herren, and I saw a cute girl, almost my age, standing at the sinks. Had I not noticed the urinals, I would have retreated immediately. Instead I stood there frozen until she turned, a cleaning cloth in hand, spotted my consternation, giggled, and politely walked out. It took a while to get used to the relative openness of Europeans about toilets, especially the coed toilets in southern Europe. If you men find it sometimes difficult using the urinal with an overly curious man beside you, try having an eighteen-year-old girl at the sink smiling and nodding.
I don’t remember much about the journey from Bremerhaven to Landstuhl, which was to be our home for the next three years. The autobahns were very similar to highway I-70, which had just been finished across the farmland of Ohio from my boarding school, through Columbus, where my favorite uncle and non-Quaker grandmother lived, and to my college in Indiana. I don’t remember the speed on the autobahns being excessive, but dad was doing all the driving because I had yet to get my international driver’s license.
Our home in Landstuhl was in a converted German military post on a hill across from a tumbled-down castle, but I didn’t have time to get settled in. A letter waiting for me when we arrived said that if I had not yet been accepted at a college I needed to report to the nearest draft board. Did I mention this was 1966, the middle of the Vietnam War? So my immediate mission was to find a college somewhere in Europe that taught in English and would accept me quickly and without question!
The Landstuhl newcomer’s center said there were three colleges that fit the bill: the American College of Paris, the University of Maryland extension in Munich, and the American College of Switzerland. I began my search using a Eurail pass that would allow me to transfer freely between trains all across Europe for a month. I hopped on my first train in Landstuhl and two transfers later I was at my first stop, the American College of Paris. It had interesting, old buildings in the middle of the left bank crush. I joined the summer students at a hootenanny and thought that I could learn to like the school. But it would be very different from the open, rolling hills of my boarding school or the heavy trees and greens of my college. The school’s admissions office cared little about my transcripts but let me know the costs and sent me on my way.
Next stop was the University of Maryland extension in Munich. This school was scary! Something out of a German prison camp story, complete with stone walls and tiny roads surrounding it like a moat. Admittedly, the fact that it was across the street from the world famous Hoffbrau Haus bar had some appeal, but I hadn’t learned to care much for beer. I don’t remember even going to the admissions office. I just wanted to get far away from there. My next destination was Switzerland.
Perhaps I was more relaxed by the time I began riding the trains from Bavaria toward Lake Geneva because I started to meet people. Before that ride, my only communication had been to ask “where is the train for *.*” in French or German and letting someone point me in the right direction. I wasn’t able to talk to anyone on the trains until I shared a cabin with a middle-aged German woman who taught Spanish. My school-learned Spanish flashed back to me, and we had a great time talking about Germany and my travels. She even gave me a short course in German by translating through Spanish. I thought it very odd that the Germans put their verbs at the end of their sentences, instead of after the subject, like in English and Spanish. I told her that I was - to Switzerland – going, – and she told me that I would – Switzerland – love!
When I got on the next train in Basel, Switzerland, every cabin on every car seemed full. I was afraid that I would have to stand until I heard what I thought was Spanish coming from a lively group in one car. I looked in the door, smiled tentatively, and said, “Hola!” The cabin was full with what appeared to be one large family: grandmother, two men and two women in their thirties, a teenage girl with long dark hair and a shy smile, and a couple of rowdy dark-haired young boys. They motioned me inside and wedged me in between the two boys. No sooner had I sat down than I was overcome with the smell of unwashed bodies, garlic, and sausage! My eyes watered; I couldn’t get my breath, but I couldn’t leave. I was afraid of hurting their feelings – so I stayed. The young boy on the side toward the window took a bite of a long dark sausage and passed it to me. I stared at it for a second. The car grew quiet, and I noticed everyone staring at