My Captain

During my year as exchange student in Michigan, Brendan was the captain of our swim team at J.W. Sexton High School.

Under his guidance, we practiced seven times a week for four months, not counting the swim meets. I remember these winter mornings in Michigan when I would walk to school in the dark early snowy morning to practice two hours before school. Him and I and two other guys formed a pretty fast 4×50 freestyle relay which made third place at the end of the season’s regional competition. We missed the qualification for state finals by a couple of hundredths of a second.

We were a proud and ambitious bunch of youngsters, and I felt very safe and appreciated amidst this group. It didn’t take long for me to turn to the flag with them at the beginning of every swim meet, us standing one side of the pool, the competing other team on the other side, and to sing the national anthem with them. It became part of a ritual which I liked and which I liked to be a part of. This experience made it very difficult for me to return to Germany after my American high school year. Germany, where the display of national symbols and the singing of the German anthem in public was something like a taboo among young people at the time.

Brendan and “the boys”, as we used to refer to us as a group, were a group of friends that welcomed me as one of theirs. I have never witnessed any other group of people integrate me as a newcomer in such a natural and equitable manner before or after. They picked me up at my home after school or on the weekends, and most of the time, we just hung out together, played some sport, did as if we were partying, and inhaled Brendan’s mother’s homemade salsa with tortilla chips. I will never forget the kindness and hospitality that all these wonderful people showed to a 16-year-old German exchange student from the bottom of their heart.

And it so happened that Brendan and I met again at his house in the north of Seattle a couple of days ago, where he now lives and works, together with our families, for a lovely afternoon and evening with a fabulous barbecue and delicious Washington wines. Our last encounter had been in 2003, when we celebrated our 10-year high school reunion in Michigan. I admit that I am a bit nervous when we actually pull up their driveway. Will we re-connect after all these years?

We do. Time flies by, but heartfelt friendship doesn’t. It is not LinkedIn or Facebook that keeps such friendships alive. It is actually getting together. And while we dig out old stories about this and that and catch up on the last decades behind us, our children play together and next to each other in the most natural way. That my children do not speak English and Brendan’s not German is of no real concern to them. They speak Childish. Kind of like us 25 years ago.