Our fortieth wedding anniversary is coming up, and that started my thinking about the taxi that interrupted our very first anniversary. It was June of 1979. Cathy and I were stationed in Germany and living in the small town of Helmstadt. The night of our anniversary, we were sitting outside on the patio drinking Sekt (German champagne) and celebrating the one year mark. I planned to put some steaks on the grill, and we had a fun night planned.

While talking, we saw a cream colored taxi coming up the hill. Hmmm we thought, one of our neighbors must have some rich visitors arriving – the nearest city with taxi service was Würzburg, and that was fifteen miles away. The taxi kept coming and turned onto our street. Wow – a local neighbor. And then it stopped in front of our house. What!?! The back door of the taxi opened and out stepped my sister Roberta and her friend Debbie.

Roberta and Debbie had stayed with us earlier in the month, but now, they were suppose to be on a Eurail pass (a train pass for all of Europe), somewhere in Austria, or France, or Italy. Yet, here they were. Hugs all around and what the hell is going on?

Well, their travels had started out great. Eventually, they made it to Rome, where besides getting pinched, they met the mysterious Giorgio who was quite nice and showed them some of the sites. After spending a few days in Rome, they left town on the train, and were promptly robbed. In fact everyone in their train car was robbed. Roberta and Debbie lost all of their cash AND their passports. What to do?! They left the train at the next station, and then boarded a train back to Rome, where they planned to go to the embassy for new passports.

Arriving in Rome, they realized they had no money. Interestingly, they still had Giorgio’s business card and a few lire in change. They called Giorgio and miraculously, he picked up the phone. No problemo….he would be happy to help. He arrived at the train station, picked them up, and checked them into a hotel not far from his home. For the next couple of days, he squired them around to the embassy for passports, American Express to pick up money being wired in by parents, and several other local sites. One day they were sitting at a small cafe and he bought them cappuccinos. In the America of 1979, pre-Starbucks, nobody knew what a cappuccino was. As they sipped their coffees, Roberta asked him “Who are those guys that are always with you? Can’t you get rid of them?” His answer – “Those are my bodyguards. They go with me everywhere.”

Eventually, they received their new passports and the additional money. Rather than travel around anymore, they decided to return to our house. They said farewell to Giorgio, and took the train north. In Wurzburg, they obtained a taxi at the train station, and make their way to our home.

Now this was an incredibly interesting story, but IT WAS our one year anniversary. We had Sekt for two, steaks for two, dessert for two, and….well you get the idea. So, after chatting a bit more, we mentioned to them that a bier fest had started in town that day, and perhaps they would like to walk to it. They happily agreed and departed a few minutes later, while we went back to celebrating our anniversary.

The next morning over coffee and breakfast, we asked them how the bier fest was. It turned out the fest hadn’t started yet. As a matter of fact, the huge tent was empty, except for about 20 guys. The local soccer team had helped get things ready for the fest and they were now relaxing with a few biers. They saw Roberta and Debbie enter the tent and called them over. Roberta and Debbie spoke no German, and the majority of the team spoke no English. This small impediment caused no issues and they spent the next several hours together becoming the best of friends, drinking biers and eating bratwursts.

At some point in time, Debbie disappeared to take a motorbike ride with one of the soccer players. He was going to “show her the route of the next day’s Volksmarch”. While in the woods, the bike got stuck in the mud, and in order to get it unstuck, Debbie had to follow the cycle on foot until they were out of the muck. As Deb told me later “It was a little eerie to be stuck in a forest in Germany at midnight with a complete stranger. For a moment I questioned my sanity and if it would end well. Fortunately it did.” Eventually she returned, and Berta and Deb made the walk back to our home, arriving some time well after we were in bed.

Debbie and Roberta left for the States a few days later. Time passed and they both became wives, mothers, and eventually grandmothers. I laugh to myself when I think about the story and the passage of time. I know my sister and Deb are around my age, but I can still see them as the young women who met Giorgio in Italy and the soccer team in Helmstadt. We should all know how to have such fun.