Back in the world

An American flag hung outside my parents' house in Richmond to welcome me home, and my parents flew it on patriotic occasions for many years. (Dale family photo)

Home again. Back in the land of round doorknobs. Back in the world, as the GIs used to say.

It was good to be home. My mom had actually written to me in Germany to ask what I'd like her to cook for my first big meal at home. I had been eating quite well in Germany for three years and learning a lot about new cuisines. But sometimes it's mom's cooking you hanker for, and there was no doubt in my mind as to what I wanted: Swiss steak, spoon bread and green beans Southern style (cooked all day with a ham hock). My request was no surprise to her. That had been my favorite meal for years.

I was always fortunate: my mom was a good cook. Given the right incentive -- and that might be as simple as a polite request from one of us kids -- she'd make yeast rolls, spoon bread that would rival any soufflé chef's prize dish, Sally Lunn bread, biscuits that would melt in your mouth, fried chicken as good as my grandmother's, beef stew that would fill the house with mouth-watering aroma, and every kind of pie and cake from lemon meringue to German chocolate. Usually she worked without a recipe. She had been cooking so long and so well that the science of it had probably been absorbed into her DNA. She used what was in-season, what was on sale, and what she grew in her own fairly sizeable garden in the back yard. I don't believe she ever used a store-bought pie crust.

I arrived in Richmond on a Thursday evening in December 1969. My mom and dad and my sister Dianne all stayed home on Friday to hear about my adventures in Germany. We talked forever about what I'd seen and learned. Relatives and friends stopped by to catch up and welcome me home. My father bought a bottle of good bourbon and made a little ceremony of offering me a 'highball" before dinner. I suppose he was acknowledging what he saw as my adulthood.

On Saturday, my father and I scoured the want ads looking for a good deal on a used Volkswagen. We found what I wanted, a 1965 Beetle, light green, at a used-car lot in South Richmond. He went with me to inspect it. "You know more about Volkswagens than I do, so you handle looking at the car, and I'll handle the part about making sure we get a good price," my dad told me. (My dad drove only Chevrolets.) Both of us did our jobs well. I got a Beetle in good shape, with fairly low mileage, and my dad jawboned the dealer down to a good price. I drove that VW all over Virginia and to New York City and back during the next few years.

By Sunday night, I was all talked out about Germany, and I was ready to begin some kind of normal civilian life. The first step would be going back to work. That journey was to begin the next morning, Monday, December 15. I had an appointment with WTVR TV news director Bruce Miller.