On my first trip to Germany in the summer of 1971 I spent 10 weeks in Bad Oeynhausen, about a 45 minute drive from Hannover. In German class we were always told that the best German is spoken near Hannover, so three Ambassador College students and I embarked on an adventure to improve our German.

One of us, Jon Rogers, bought a German newspaper in Los Angeles and found an ad from a real estate firm in Bad Oeynhausen. So he wrote them, telling them that we did not want to buy any real estate, but wanted their help in finding a summer job. And did they ever help! They contacted the local newspaper and within a few weeks the four of us had a place to stay and a summer job.

One family had wanted to host one of us, but was late in contacting the local newspaper. So they invited us over one Sunday, and that was where I met the Tarin family – Walter and Ingeborg and their children Jörg, Ralf and Ilka. (Ingeborg’s first husband was killed in WW2, and I got to know her son Jochen from that marriage some years later.) Walter was an officer in the German army during WW2 and was among the last German prisoners of war to be released by the Soviet Union in 1955. He and Ingeborg’s oldest son is about 10 years younger than I am, so when I visited them in 1971 for the first time we had fun playing soccer (football for most of the civilized and uncivilized world) and watching the German version of Bonanza.

As I was about to leave their home at the end of the day on that first visit, Mr. and Mrs. Tarin told me that I was welcome to come back anytime I wanted. To make sure I understood what they meant, they added: "We know that in America people say ‘Stop by anytime’ but sometimes they don’t really mean it. When we Germans say it, we mean it." And did they ever! I visited them several times that summer and enjoyed it every time. On a couple of Sundays they arranged for the four of us to see some historical sites within a 100 km radius of Bad Oeynhausen, including the "Friedenssaal" in Münster where the peace accord was signed to end the 30 years war, and a cathedral in Paderborn, where a German cardinal sprinkled me with holy water as he left the church. 🙂

During the summer we had a conversation on the word "friend" in English. The Tarins wondered how Americans could meet someone and immediately call the person a friend. The word friend in German definitely means someone who is a friend, not just an acquaintance, which is how Americans sometimes use the English word friend. They wanted me to understand that when a German says you are his friend, you really are his friend. That was the way they described me after I visited them again in 1972 and 1973 when I spent my semester vacation in Bad Oeynhausen.

In the 32 years since 1973, our friendship has been maintained, although at times several years may have passed between visits. Ralf (on the left) is now a police detective and lives not far from Bielefeld, and Jörg (on the right) is a ship pilot on the Weser river, guiding ocean vessels from the North Atlantic to the Bremerhaven harbor and back. Ilka lives in Canada, and I last saw her 5 years ago during a farewell party prior to her departure for Canada. Monica, I and our daughter Rachel were privileged to attend Mr. Tarin’s 85 birthday party with family, friends and soldiers from his WW2 military unit in January 1995. He died a year and a half later. Mrs. Tarin keeps on going and is now 82 years old.

Thanks, folks, for helping a student learn what a German means when he says, "Stop by anytime!"