Two Graduations—a World Apart!

When I graduated from high school, I didn’t want to go to the ceremony. I was so glad to be through that I just wanted it over with. Although I went, it was a chore and not a joy.

When I graduated from college, 20+ years later, I was so excited that I was determined to go my college graduation despite all the obstacles that made it difficult.

I graduated from the University of Maryland, European Division, we were living in Vicenza,

Vicenza, Italy where we lived

Italy, where my husband, Ed, was assigned as head of security at an army base there. I had four children and was expecting my fifth child in my mid-forties. My husband had been critically ill and was at the hospital at Landstuhl Air Force Base, Germany where he’d been recovering from Osteomyelitis. If I went to my graduation, I’d have to drive myself 521 miles (838 km) through Italy, Austria and Germany to Heidelberg, Germany where the graduation ceremony was to be held. My oldest son was in college at Utah State, and my two younger teens could not by law drive in Europe. My 8-year-old would have to be left with someone while I was gone. But I was determined to go!

 

I had loved all my classes in Vicenza, Spain, Paris while I worked on my degree in English. Although I had taken college classes at Utah State University, University of Utah, University of Texas, Troy State College and University of Nebraska, and had my associate degree, it hadn’t been until we arrived in Italy, that I’d been able to complete my degree. It had been so fun to take classes in the evenings there. I took several Italian history classes where we’d studied different cities in Italy during the week and then drove to the cities on Saturday to see their art, culture and history. It was one of my favorite classes.

 

I also loved my Italian classes where I learned to speak Italian and practiced in my daily life. It seemed ironic that I’d waited until my children were all in school before I finished my degree, then I ended up taking night classes!

 

We lived 45 minutes by train from Venice so I took several Venetian history classes as well as “expatriate writers in Venice and Paris” where we actually visited the sites where their books were written.

I loved getting my education in Europe far more than if I’d gotten my school in four years back in the states. One of the really neat things was that my mentor, advisor and friend was Donna Leon, a professor who was living in Venice and writing books on the side. She later became famous for her Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries which take place in Venice. She has written 25 books (as of 2016), and had 20 of them made into a German TV series. She won the Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger in 2000, and her novels have been translated into many languages, but not Italian at her request.

Landstuhl AFB hospital

During my last year of school, my husband had become ill and spent months in Germany where they tried to heal him, but he returned to Vicenza in between hospitalizations. For spring break we took the family to Paris, but afterwards he relapsed and was sent back to Germany hospitals. (Eventually he would spend more time at Walter Reed Hospital, in Maryland before they determined how to fix him.

We were very optimistic about his recovery when my 

graduation ceremony arrived, so I decided to drive up to Landstuhl, Germany, pick him up and we’d go to my graduation in Heidelberg, then drive home. The only problem was that I hated to drive and was afraid to drive across Europe by myself. Finally, my 15-year-old son decided he would go with me, we would pick up Ed in Kaiserslautern, the city where Landstuhl Air Force Base was, Ed would drop Marc off at the train station in Mannheim so he could get back home to Vicenza for his High School prom.

After we dropped Marc off in Mannheim (the 8^th largest metropolitan area in Germany), Ed and I would drive to Heidelberg, where I would graduate. It was the 600^th anniversary of the founding of Heidelberg University (the oldest university in Europe, established in 1386), and the faculty of the University of Maryland had planned wonderful entertainment for the graduates, including a cruise along the Rhine River.

I will never forget the road trip to Landstuhl AFB. It seemed to rain continually, and I worried getting lost while driving on the Autobahn, Germany’s federal highway, which has no federally mandated speed limits for 52% of its roads. It was supposed to take around eight and a half hours (I wondered how fast you had to drive to get there in that length of time). It, of course took me longer. In other words, it was a nightmare.

I was so grateful to have my son, Marc, along as navigator as I didn’t remember my 23-years ago German classes I’d taken in college.

But we arrived, picked up my husband and dropped Marc off at the train station. (Is it child

Where I graduated

neglect now to let a 15-year-old travel alone through three European countries by himself? But he was far more streetwise than I was.)

Later we heard that the prom Marc and my older daughter Athena attended in Vicenza was wonderful, and they loved it. I also loved my graduation, with my husband by my side as we took our cruise, attended all the festivities, and I finally graduated magna cum laud to get my B. A. in English.  It was worth all the effort.

Athena & Marc at their prom

Me at Graduation