With the release of Big Claus on March 15, 2021, comes a reminder of a promise I made to myself forty years ago.

On a school bus on the way home from band contest when I was fourteen, I invented the Stondt, Weller, and Sky Families and their fictitious town Whispering Pines, Wyoming. Over the next couple months, I wrote the story of Leonadus and his brother Franz Stondt and their journey to America. The novel was written on lined paper with a ball point pen and has long since returned to dust.

At that time, I knew the Stondt brothers came from a region where both French and German were spoken. Before I even knew that place was called Alsace, I vowed I would someday learn to speak both languages.

Someday is here. This week, upon finishing Big Claus, I started learning German. Ten minutes into the first free online lesson, I realized that conversational German is nice, but the homeschool teacher in me needed conjugation charts and article tables. Guess what? Those are readily available online, too. And the best tool in my crusade is mein Freund Bianca who has patiently answered questions regarding second person singular verb tenses and other mysteries.

I am pleased to announce that I can now say:

Ich esse ein Zeitung und Sie trinkt das Buchen!

Bianca says I have a way to go, but I think I’m doing pretty well!