Jurgen: my lifelong penpal

When I was a kid, around 11 or 12, I saw a children's television show that talked about penpals.  They wanted kids from around the world to write in to get a penpal.  I managed to get them from Malaysia and Trinidad and Tobago.  Over the years, we lost contact.  However, when I was about 14 there was one kid who started to write to me from Germany.  He didn't tell me how he got my address but said he wanted to write to an American who was about his age.

So I started corresponding with Jurgen from Herzogenaurach.  He has always lived in the same town, which makes keeping in contact much easier.  I've moved many times, having lived on 3 continents.  At least now we have the internet and can keep the same e-mail addresses.

A few years ago Jurgen called me and I finally asked him how he got my address.  Apparently, he had met my father, who was stationed in Germany with the Army at the time, in an area of town where a lot of the GIs would hang out.  Jurgen talked to my father and ended up getting my address.  That was one of the nicest things my father has ever done for me.

Over the years... and decades... we have been close enough geographically to have visited but somehow always missed out.  I lived in France for over two years but didn't get to visit.  He visited Thailand while I was living in Cambodia but we didn't see each other.   Maybe another time.   But we still write.

Jurgen sends me photos of himself on his various adventures, more often than I send him ones of me.  Here he is in Athens, Greece.