In the 1970s, my father was instrumental in creating the Iowa Regents’ Program in Austria.  Students from the University of Iowa, Iowa State, and the University of Northern Iowa would travel to Austria for the summer and earn 10 hours of credit. The program started in Millstatt, which became too touristy and expensive, so by the time I was in college, the program had moved to St. Radegund – a little mountain town near Graz.

This would be the first time I had spent any length of time away from my parents and  I remember the conversation we had the night before I left.  I was trying to decide what to wear, and had settled on my Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. My father identifies with Mickey Mouse because they are the same age, and had given me a white Mickey Mouse sweatshirt of a vintage Mickey on the front and the same figure from the back on the back of the sweatshirt. I wanted to pair this with a pair of baggy jersey pants that were so in in 1986.  But my Dad had other ideas.

In December 1985, there was a terrorist attack at the Vienna airport.  My father thought that Mickey Mouse would symbolize American arrogance.  I maintained that Mickey Mouse was recognized all over the world as a symbol of good will.  And to prove my point, there are pictures of me wearing my Mickey Mouse sweatshirt while waving goodbye to Iowa City. while hanging out in various airports, and grinning for the camera in St. Radegund.

The summer of 1986 changed my life in so many ways.  I traveled overseas for the first time in my life. I fell in love with the country of Austria, and vowed one day to live there.  I learned the importance of a foreign language.  I learned more about my father’s passion for Austrian poetic realism and his chosen specialty author, Peter Rosegger. And I gained self-confidence by winning first prize in my class at the University of Vienna (my Miss America moment).

Now, nearly 33 years later, I live in Austria. I teach English as a foreign language to Austrian high school students.  I know more about Peter Rosegger than most Austrians.  And the teacher who gave me my self-confidence back in 1986?  He’s now my boyfriend.

This year, for my birthday, DoD gave me a Mickey Mouse t-shirt.  I wore it this weekend in St. Radegund, 33 years after my first visit, to commemorate the fact that none of this would be possible, if my father hadn’t established the Iowa Regents’ Program in Austria.

Ganz liebe Grüße aus St. Radgund, und danke von ganzem Herzen!

Today, March 5, 2019, is my father’s 90th birthday!

What do you give someone who has everything he needs and most of what he wants?  He has enough books and pens and pads of paper and sweatshirts and baseball caps and electronic gadgets and CDs and hedgehogs and Mickey Mouse memorabilia.  There’s no room on his walls for more pictures and posters.  He’s not into cruises or trans-Atlantic flights, although he and my mom will shortly set out to Nebraska to see the sandhill cranes.

My dad, or DoD as I like to call him (short for Dear old Dad), is amazing.  He still drives, goes to the fitness center three times a week, and has mastered WhatsApp and Skype, complete with emojis.  He even orders his coffee online from Vienna!  Every day he reads Latin, Greek German, the Bible and probably something by C.M. Russell or Willa Cather.  He works on projects for the sheer joy of the exercise, and sometimes they even get published. On any given day, you can find him sitting in his easy chair, watching television, while simultaneously listening to a ballgame on the radio, reading or doing a crossword puzzle – in pen!

As a college professor, it was my father’s job to teach young people not only about German literature, but also the universal truths and insights into the human condition that stories provide. “That’s why I made the big bucks,” he is fond of saying.  But it wasn’t only book learning that he passed on to his students. He stood before them as a positive influence, a role model, if you will. And as his only daughter, his only child, I learned these lessons firsthand.

And so, the essays here are dedicated to my DoD, who taught me to be honest, to be fair, to be generous, and to believe in myself.  To love books, nature, German, classics. How to drive, how to tell right from wrong, how to deal with difficult people. But the most important lesson of all, one which he reminds me of on a weekly basis, is this: always keep your dobber up!