...something meant to be.

I'm old enough to remember World War II. The day it ended. VE Day. Victory in Europe Day. And there was great celebration in the small town where I grew up. My brother and a neighbor kid and I went downtown. People were dancing in the street. They even formed a congoline. And danced in and out of stores. And some guy gave us 50 cents. Money to split. That was lots of money in those days. Or so it seemed to us kids. Funny, the things one remembers. My dad never had to go into the Army. He got deferred, I guess, because he had three kids. But my uncle Norman (my mother's brother) was in the Army and he came to visit us once when he was on leave. And I would write him letters. When I was 8 or 9. And he was with Gen. Patton in Germany. And Uncle Norman was having difficulty with his hearing. Because of the sound of heavy artillery fire. He also brought us kids Nazi armbands. With swatzikas. And we were cautioned by mom not to wear them out on the streets. That would have been considered unpatriotic. My German friend, Gerhard Broede, is the same age as me. And he remembers those times. From a different perspective. In Germany. And how he was scared by all the bombing. And the need to go to bomb shelters. He reminieces about growing up in Germany in those days. And how he was recruited into the Nazi youth movement. And how, for so many years after, he was a good communist. And now how he has evolved into something else. And that he has a good American friend. Me. He has undergone so many transitions in his life. I expect to see him again this summer. In his little summer garden. And we'll go out on the Baltic Sea. And be amazed at how we became friends. We were curious about each other. Because we happen to share the same surname. We aren't related. The fact that our paths crossed -- well, maybe that was just something meant to be. --Jim Broede