1 July 1979 (Sunday): Day 15

Copenhagen, Denmark – West Berlin

JOURNAL: Rose at 5:45 am then on to breakfast. Left Copenhagen at 7:20. . . . A note about the countryside here (and in France)—gently rolling and very green and now and then the blowing fields are broken by beautifully laid out sections of bright yellow flowers—a beautiful combination. . . . This morning is a little blue, a little rainy, and there was a rainbow. . . . Here we are on the two-hour cruise to East Germany. It is with really mixed feelings that I enter this Communist land; so far everywhere we’ve been has been free. There is a slight element of fear crossing this Baltic Sea. . . . Gulls seem to just hang above me on a string. . . . There’s a dark storm off the bow (starboard) and it’s misting rain a bit here. . . . We made the East German side and finally got the OK to go ahead. The EG countryside very pretty green and rolling but no one seems to live there. About 15 km from West Berlin we got first shock: cobblestone streets through a small German town. The shock—maybe 4 people on the streets, buildings are war torn and in ill repair, seemingly untouched since the war. After we passed through, for the last 5-7 miles to the border of WB, both sides of the road were covered by a massive Russian military camp housing thousands. It also seemed unrepaired from the war. In fact, the whole trip down here was dotted here and there with monuments of red and the red star. The first billboards we saw when we entered the country read “Praise to our Russian Brothers” and “Long Live Socialism.” Along the last 5 miles at odd intervals stood caped Russian soldiers, trying to look inconspicuous while watching the road. There were also a few towers of watch. . . . Another long wait at the border to WB. At least we don’t have to go through what the cars do: seats taken out, headlights, etc. . . . We finally came to the hotel. I’m in room #26 with Gary, Mike, Greg, and Allen. We had a great supper at some soccer-crazy place. Then we hit the disco and I danced all night. It is easy to tell that Michael cares little for East Germany. He always complains about “shitty” cars and roads and people lying! Shaved off beard. . . .

NOTES: 165 k of wall [?]; 16,000 guards

Many of the DDR border guards don’t like what they are forced to do by the Russians. The Russos take away all of DDR industry to help support their other children—DDR knows what it’s like in the West, but Russia has them down for now

1 July (Saturday): Day 2 of Reunion Celebration of 38^th Year

San Diego, California

BLOG: In the morning, I walked on the Martin Luther King, Jr., Promenade. I hoped to breakfast at Richard Walker’s Pancake House, but it was too popular. A line of at least fifty folks extended down the block, so I went across the street to Skybound Coffee & Dessert Lounge for an Everything bagel and cream cheese. Then I stopped by Ralph’s, a grocery store in the Kroger family, and picked up three apples for Leesa. Later in the morning the 616ers met in the lobby and caravanned to Torrey Pines State Reserve, where we hiked in the amazing hills above the ocean, walked along the sand below the escarpment (inside joke), and eventually bought lunch from a Japanese food truck and ate on the beach. We went back to the Hilton Gaslamp around 3:00 and got ready for an early supper at Coasterra, a terrific restaurant in a spectacular location at the end of Harbor Island (which, I’m sorry, isn’t an island but a peninsula). We enjoyed after-dinner beverages and bowling at Tavern+Bowl East Village before going back to the hotel. Shaved off beard. . . .

That is a lie.

San Diego is a marvel! But a haunting echo reverberates between the Berlin of thirty-eight years ago, with its infamous and detested Wall, and being here in southern California, just a handful of miles away from what I assume is either the beginning or ending point of Trump’s proposed wall. While many might say that the Border Wall is different from the Berlin Wall, the two walls are essentially the same. Both stand for a shortsighted, even barbaric nationalism that is meant to divide humanity and keep it weak—to separate us from them, separate our souls from ideological systems, hearts and hands from pocketbooks, the forward-thinkers from the meat puppets who holler for dollars.

When we 616ers stood at that wall or passed through the legendary Checkpoint Charlie, we hurt for humanity. But the hope that the wall would one day come down—as it did ten years later, in 1989—and the idea that we might imagine ourselves as one world lived in us and in the stories of those we met at the Wall or on the other side of it.

It might have happened. It almost happened. But it didn’t happen.

Here, in San Diego, as we 616ers stand less than twenty miles from Trump’s wall (will he put his name on it, every 500 meters, in towering gold letters?), we hurt for humanity, knowing that the idea of one world over separate and warring nations will not come to pass, not in our lifetimes at least. And this holds true, I believe, even if the Border Wall is never built. The commitment to the idea of a wall is enough.

[Many of my Christian friends and family will say that we are in this situation because the world has forgotten Christ and thus can do no better than we’re doing. While that might be, it might also be that we have never known Christ. A significant disconnect exists between our supposed faith and the Christ we’re supposed to have faith in. The world need not be judged for having turned from God and Christ; judging is not our job. If we take Christ at his word, we’re to love God with all we are and all we have, and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Most of us aren’t good at either of these acts of love. The old song by The Teddy Bears, from 1958, the year I was born, says, “To know, know, know him / Is to love, love, love him.” I’m afraid we don’t “know him,” and that is why we don’t “love him”—he is our God and our neighbor. (See Luke 10:25-37 for the official definition of neighbor.]

In June of 1979, nearly fifty randomly-grouped college students from across the USA (with a couple of additions from Canada and Argentina) left home and gathered in London, England, for a grand tour of Europe led by a company called the American European Student Union (AESU). My group was to begin its experience together on 16 June, and so the tour company tagged us as AESU 616.

We bonded during that magical summer, and over the years, a core group of AESU 616ers, en route through “17 countries in 53 days,” have remained close and in touch, meeting periodically—perhaps every four to seven years—to continue growing up together. Most people have at least one friend (family member or not) with whom time apart makes no difference. No matter the length of separation, they meet and pick up right where they were, as if no time intervened. That’s us.

So, thirty-eight years later, twelve or so of us—some with spouses who are now considered part of the group, as Leesa is—are gathering in San Diego, California, meeting for the first time since 2013, when we gathered in Nashville, Tennessee, on the occasion of another reunion—that of the band Cody.

Once upon a time . . .

30 June (Saturday): Day 14

Copenhagen, Denmark

JOURNAL: This morning brisk like an October day at home, very windy. Left hotel for city tour (guide Lona), Church of Our Savior, gardens of parliament Library, Churchill Court [?], the Little Mermaid in the Harbor, Grundtvigskirche (bought mermaid), found our Hotel is named for the founder of Køpenhaven. . . . Later on to Hamlet’s Castle in Helsingborg, got a nice look out over the “Eastern sea” to the coast of Sweden. Now to lunch. . . . had beef sandwich, ice cream, and some strawberry Danish . . . on to Fredricksborg Castle, which was great . . . wrote postcards home . . . beard coming along but I look kind of scraggly; no one here I have to impress . . . back in Copenhagen, I went to get some groceries for the trip to W. Berlin tomorrow; then back to the hotel to rest awhile before 9:00 “dinner”; afterwards to a porn shop to get cultured, then to a store for a real Danish Tuborg beer. Then to sleep. . . .

30 June (Friday): Day 1 of Reunion Celebration of 38^th Year

Johnson City, Tennessee, to San Diego, California

BLOG: Leesa and I rolled out of bed at 5:45, but while serious about getting the first leg of our Summer 2017 travels underway, we didn’t hurry with focus as we should have. WAZE told me that we needed to leave by 8:18 AM to reach the Atlanta airport by 12:45, which seemed plenty of time to make our 2:30 domestic flight to San Diego. We left around 7:50, putting us ahead of schedule.

Or so we thought.

Here I cannot but pause for a word about the value of the human over the app. On Thursday evening, in preparation for the second leg of our travels, I dropped off my guitar with friend Sharon Barnett. She asked if we were packed; I said we weren’t but we were close. She asked what time we were leaving; I said around 7:30. She said we should leave earlier; I said we were leaving 7:30 at the latest but would try get out around 7:00. Then WAZE told me what it did, and I relaxed my 7:30 plan.

What Sharon was able to do—and WAZE wasn’t—was to consider the Atlanta factors of humanity . . . lots of humanity . . . in cars . . . lots of cars. . . and rain . . . lots of rain from Greeneville, South Carolina, to Atlanta, Georgia, . . . and lots of humanity in lots of cars, humanity who cannot drive their cars well in lots of rain.

Suffice to say, we confidently left at 7:50 and missed our flight in Atlanta.

After some rather aimless wandering around in the Atlanta airport, trying to figure what to do, we finally encountered the Delta Angel, whose name I wish I could remember and whom I wish every lost Delta customer in Atlanta could meet to set them on the correct path toward their destinations.

We had standby status for the 5:03 flight and got on it easily. All the tension of the five hours since noon was gone. Leesa even got Delta Preferred seating.

About forty-five minutes from San Diego, I saw Russell Welday come along the aisle, making his way to the restroom in the back of the plane. I looked a few rows up and there stood Vallory Welday, one of the AESU 616ers. We joined them when we got off the plane and mooched a ride in their rental car.

After checking in at the Hilton in San Diego’s Gaslamp District, we joined the earlier arrivals at a place called La Puerta for food and drinks, laughs and reminiscences. The La Puerta gathering: Vallory/Russell, Lynne, Judy, Steve/Scott, Valerie, Linda/Tino, and Moose/Leesa. (I am Moose.) After some great street tacos and a couple of Negra Modelas, we headed back to the Hilton, Russell and I talking science fiction along the way. Then to sleep. . . .