Gdansk, Henryk & Irene

In the campground in Warsaw (where this photo was taken in 1985), a young boy in the next campsite was wearing a sweatshirt printed with the name of Indiana University — where I visited, I mean where I was enrolled for a few months, 60 years ago. We found that his Grandfather Henryk spoke English, then we found his daughter Vicky (who had left Poland years before) was moving from England to California. We gave him our card, which he mailed to her, and she later visited in our home.

In 1986 Henryk and Irena each received a six month Visa, to visit their daughter in the US. While their Visa was good for only six months, their plane ticket was good for one year, so they got a job as a cook and handyman in a large home in Irvine, California. They made $1,800, plus room and board, per month, so they returned to Poland as “millionaires.”

During their visit in the US, they visited overnight in our home, and we were invited to visit with them in Gdansk in 1991. When we first met in the Warsaw campsite, the odds of visits in each other’s home must have been at least 10,000,000 to one. How many people in adjacent rooms in a fancy hotel get to know each other, then have home to home visits, 6,000 miles apart! Bet it almost never happens.