I didn't want to go to graduate school right after college. But in 1965 the Vietnam War made being out of school and under 26 dangerous. My father was friends with the head of the local draft board, though, and he found a deferent if I was enrolled in a foreign university.
Dad had been to Munich's Oktoberfest in 1964 with several of his business friends and had a blast. One of his friends could get me a job in an automobile factory there, and his contact knew that the University of Munich ran German classes for foreigners that were accredited to the U. S. armed forces. The deferment was approved.
To save money for the boat fare (the cheapest way to get to Europe in those days), I was living at home, in the house my parents had bought after I graduated from high school. It was almost 20 miles east of the city, in a rural area. Mom and dad's rules were that I came home every night and didn't bring anyone with me. I was celibate for the entire summer.
This was the second year I'd worked as an intern in the Governor's office in Harrisburg. The head of the vestry at church, knowing of my interest in government, had helped me get this job. It was fascinating and I decided to make government my life's work.
As the summer came to a close, mom suggested I invite all the interns out for an afternoon party the Saturday before our last week. We would pick apples from the orchard behind the house and bake pies. It was an inspired idea and nine of them came. We baked 16 pies and had a ball.
One of the interns was Kathy, who had graduated from Vassar and was headed to Harvard Business School. She was stunningly intelligent, painfully thin, had long black hair down to her waist, and stooped to camouflage her 5-foot-11 height. Combining her crust-making skills with my peeling abilities, we worked together and had everyone taking home at least one well-filled pie.
I drove her and two others back to their rooming houses, making sure hers was the last stop. Her interest was finance. She already had a job at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington lined up for the following summer.
I told her about my "wanderjahr" and how I had applied to Harvard, Yale, and North Carolina in urban planning programs, but that I was asking to be deferred until next year. I was sure that I would be back at the Governor's office next summer.
She gave me her B-school address and I promised to send her postcards from wherever I travelled. She asked me to let her know where I got into graduate school. We shook hands and she was out of the car and into her building.
Working in an automobile factory Munich, in 1965-1966 was a toughening experience. Germany was so desperate for workers from abroad, men who would work and then leave, that even my meager assembly skills were welcomed.
I knew no German but the foreman had been a driver for an American general and spoke enough English to help me. My Italian workmates could put together enough English for me to understand them. They were regulars at the nearby whorehouses and invited me along, but I was terrified of disease and wouldn't go.
Where I would go was the Bavarian Alps, to ski. The local ski shops ran escorted tours, mostly day trips but occasional overnights, to an amazing number of lodges. On one overnight trip I hit it off amazingly well with the female organizer and finally got laid, for the first time in a long while. Over the next month she passed me along to two other guides who also wanted to improve their English.
I worked as many hours at the factory as I could, oftentimes doing a double shift or weekend work. I wanted to buy a car and take the six weeks before I had to be back home to travel around Europe. I had a return airplane ticket, courtesy of my parents as a graduation present, but everything else was my responsibility.
I bought a used VW and had enough money to drive wherever I wanted, from Scandinavia to Italy. I sent Kathy a postcard from every country I visited, more than a dozen of them.
When I picked up my car at the dock in Jersey City in mid-May, my first thought was to see Kathy. When I got to Cambridge, I found a phone booth and called her.
"Hi Kathy, it's Peter. From the Governor's office. Are you free for dinner tonight?"
"Who? Peter? Oh
Peter
. Yes, that would be great." We agreed to meet at a place in Harvard Square.
Aside from having put on 15 solid pounds, grown a full black beard, learned how to drink serious beer, and now spoke passable German, I was the same guy.
Kathy, while still very thin, now displayed her full 5-foot-11 frame to its full advantage. She had a small chest and her black hair was even longer. She was wearing the regulation Cambridge springtime outfit of jeans, peasant blouse, and sneakers.
We ate in a restaurant with a large window looking right onto Harvard Square. This alone made me regret not getting into Harvard, having accepted a completely free ride to Yale instead.
"Peter, I really appreciated your postcards. You've been to places I've wanted to see — Brugge, Berlin, Copenhagen, Venice — and you sent me postcards from there. It was very sweet."
We drove back to her apartment, which was on the ground floor of a house she shared with two couples. In the living room, Kathy sat in an overstuffed chair and I sat at her feet. After about an hour she stood up and moved toward the front door, saying it was getting late.
"Kathy, I'd like to stay with you tonight."
"Peter, how can you ask that? We haven't known each other ten hours, total."
You're right. But I think I know you well enough to want to know you more. So I'm asking."
And then I said "Where can I park my car?" This was the money question in Cambridge, where non-resident overnight parking was impossible.
Kathy folded under the double-barreled assault. "Pull it into the driveway, Margery and Mike won't mind."
When I got out of the car with my duffel bag, Kathy met me and we went back into the house. "You can sleep —" and I cut in — "with you. Which is your room?"
She opened a double door to reveal a huge four-poster bed in what must once have been the formal dining room. The bay window had curtains and venetian blinds and there was an armoire for a closet. Several large throw rugs covered a parquet floor.
I was staggered by the amount of space and the sparseness of the furnishings. "Cambridge is an amazing place. Everybody's a graduate student with no money but they have the most wonderful apartments."
"My grandmother died last year and I got this bed, which is way too big for anyone in my family. The armoire and the rugs are from the Salvation Army. It already had the blinds but I added the curtains."
As we were standing next to each other, it was easy for me to reach her waist and pull her to me. We kissed, she tentatively, me just forcefully enough to show I was serious.
"May I undress you, Kathy?"
She stared at me for maybe five seconds, then walked to the door and closed it. As I undid the buttons on her blouse she stood motionless, until I got to her pants top; then she pulled the blouse out of her jeans and tossed it on the floor. She reached for my polo shirt and yanked it over my head. I lost my balance and fell onto the bed. Kathy hooted.
"I have that effect on you?"
"I cannot tell a lie, yes you do."
