How our author tried to find an old friend after 27 years

The story begins with me leaving home and suddenly having a brother - if only for the Easter holidays. His name is Danny Boudreau, he is 17 years old and lives with his parents and two of his four older sisters in Trumbull, a 35,000-inhabitant town between New York and Boston. In March 1989 I come to the exchange student from Dusseldorf.

Before the three-week trip to the United States, I was a little worried: what if I could not handle the host family? Already on the way from the airport to Connecticut, I am reassured: Between me and this same-age guy with curly dark brown hair and alert eyes, the chemistry is right. And also the other Boudreaus give me the feeling from the first day to be welcome in their white wooden house.

Danny is actually Daniel, is with Lorie and likes to skateboard. So he does not lose his glasses, he always secures them with a clamped behind the ears sports band. He usually wears loose trousers, hooded pullovers, colorful T-shirts, sneakers. On the walls and even on the ceiling of his room hang countless newspaper clippings, souvenir snippets and band posters, including Suicidal Tendencies and Black Flag.

My host brother already made his "driver's license" when he was 16 years old. First I can not believe it: Who has the driver's license, may teach others to drive, completely legal and without driving instructor training. How can that be, even though it's forbidden to drink alcohol when you're younger than 21?

Other countries, other laws: I take the chance and experience in Trumbull in the first week a little adventure. As a driver of the Nissan of Danny's parents I jerkle as a driverless seventeen-year-old (just before my 18th Birthday) by side roads.

Driving instructor Danny gives tips. Despite automatic I fail again and again: confuse gas and brake, put the gear shift on the wrong letter, give too much gas or too little. The combined driving lessons usher in a German-American friendship: Danny laughs, I laugh, we laugh. And eventually it works reasonably with driving.

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Quickly I have a daily routine: After breakfast, Kellog's Rice Krispies with milk, Danny and I drive with the classic yellow school bus to Trumbull High School. In the afternoon we cruise through the area, go to the mall, drive to the short beach in Stratford only 20 minutes away or hang out with Lorie and Danny's clique.

Classmates ask if Hitler is still alive

While Roxette's mainstream radio "The Look" goes up and down, Danny and his friends prefer Hardcore, Punk and New Wave. The black-clad Lysbeth, called Lys, outed as a fan of the German synth pop band Camouflage, since their single "The Great Commandment" apparently underground stars in the US.

Danny's cousin Heather and Henry, who is half Austrian, passable German. Danny's skate partner Sam Lee has Korean roots, a bone-dry sense of humor, and likes to fool me: when he claims to be related to martial artist Bruce Lee, I'm about to believe him.

In high school, some students ask me strange questions: "Does Hitler still live?" Or: "Do you have cars in your country?" Danny's questions are not strange and often have to do with music: which genres do you like? Are there German punk bands as well? What are they singing about?

Helmut Kohl beats his wife ? "

At that time, I'm in my tote-pants phase and often wear the fan shirts. The Toten Hosen are not nearly as big in 1989 as they were a few years back in the nineties, but they just had their first Top Ten album with "Eine kleine Horrorschau". My second big favorite is the doctors. Although they broke up in 1988 (re-founded in 1993), they are still more popular than ever in my generation.

I brought tons of cassettes and CDs to the US, so I can act as a cultural ambassador. Of course, I also smuggled in the indexed doctors album "Ab 18", on which a certain Claudia has sex with a German shepherd and a certain Helmut K. beats his wife Hannelore. Terrific nonsense.

I'm trying as a translator, Danny is as shocked as excited: "Do you really sing Helmut Kohl beats his wife ?" Musically, too, the doctors and pants songs are good for him. His favorites are "I eat 'flowers" and "waste your time". But above all: "Anneliese Schmidt" from the album "Earlier", on which Die Ärzte have put together some older and less well-known pieces.

From now on, "my" American is inexorably in love with "Anneliese Schmidt". Listen to the song in continuous loop. Find him "very German". According to him, he is probably ideal as a soundtrack for smoking (Danny is just like me non-smoker). Finally, he even tries to memorize and recite the wonderfully abstruse text:

In 1990, Danny comes for three weeks on return visit to Dusseldorf. First I show him my city ("the hometown of The Dead Pants") and introduce him to my friends. This is followed by a small trip to Germany: I travel with Danny to Cologne and let him compare Kölsch with Alt; he likes both. We also visit my relatives in Hamburg, including harbor cruise. And then I show him Berlin ("the hometown of Die Ärzte") - although "show" can not really speak, because I'm there for the first time.

There, Campino!

We live in a small old-building boarding house in Charlottenburg, are lost in East Berlin and are then limited to the West. In the evening we end up in bad tour discos between Kurfürstendamm and Europa-Center. After all, we make it to Kreuzberg. Before we climb the stairs to the 66-meter-tall eponym of the neighborhood in the Victoria Park, Danny buys a white T-shirt with a cross and the red-lettered inscription "Let me through, I'm a doctor" in a small boutique. And in the pension we prefer to hear "Anneliese Schmidt".

Shortly after our Berlin trip Danny has to return to the US. At the Düsseldorfer stop Fürstenplatz I discover, just as the tram closes the doors, outside the Tote-Hosen-singer Campino, alone and on foot on the way. For me as a teenager, he is a kind of idol. I've seen Campino on stage several times at "Tor 3" concerts and never dared to speak to him.

Video of Danny 1989 in Trumbull: Sing "Anneliese Schmidt" in German

Video

Sebastian Brück

Danny is looser there. And totally in the "Anneliese Schmidt" fever. He knocks on the windows frantically. Campino does not react, the train picks up speed. Danny climbs onto the bench, craning his head and shouts out the refrain of his favorite song from an open vent: "Anneliese Schmidt, Annelie-se Schmidt, Anneliese-Anneliese Schmidt, Anneliese Schmidt, Anneliese-Anneliese".

I do not know if Campino has heard Danny's vocal insert, meanwhile he has disappeared from our field of vision. The other passengers look at Danny irritated to interested. He sits down again: calm as if nothing had happened.

On the return flight Danny has a fresh 60-minute tape in the luggage, on it only one song: "Anneliese Schmidt", almost 20 times in a row. A "secret" world hit between Dusseldorf, Berlin and Connecticut. At that time, social media still consists of mail and telephone. Danny and I write between Trumbull and Dusseldorf a few times back and forth, make a phone call (international calls are still extremely expensive!) - And then lose sight of us.

The Search: Will Danny Have His Doctor Shirt Still?

What does my old buddy do today, almost three decades later? Is he still living in Connecticut, is he married, does he have children? In what kind of job is he working? Does he still have his "Let me through, I'm a doctor" shirt? I would like to have answers to such questions. I have to find Danny again. Ten years ago, I once searched the internet, unsuccessfully. I'm optimistic: Danny has certainly left his mark since then.

Facebook brings me a surprising number of hits: more than 80 Boudreaus with first names Danny, Daniel or Dan. His ancestors once immigrated from French-speaking Quebec - I remember that, it also explains the many Canadians in the hit list. I filter it out, but among the Americans, no one pushes on, whose profile photo looks like the Danny from my memory.

Of course, people can change a lot in a quarter of a century. Maybe Danny has long hair or bald head today, bear full beard or weigh twice as much. I take a close look at the candidates: age, appearance, taste in music - nobody fits. Perhaps Danny is a Facebook muffle, has signed up under another name or adopted his wife.

Dozens of hits also on the business portal LinkedIn, a Daniel Boudreau from near Boston fits the age, but has no face photo in the profile. I write to him - and get a friendly "I'm not the one you're looking for" answer.

In my memory box in the store I find an old notebook with address and landline number of the Boudreaus. For weeks, I choose them again and again - nobody takes off. So a very old fashioned letter to Danny's old address. Tenor: Hello, here is your former exchange student from Germany. How are you? Do you still remember Anneliese Schmidt? I would like to talk to you again.

No answer for weeks.

I almost want to give up, because I find on a special portal four related Boudreaus. The two middle 70s could be his parents, the younger end of 40 two of his sisters. I'll contact you via Facebook. Then everything happens very fast.

"Good memories" and the bitter truth

Ave answers. Although her answer starts positively, I already have an idea after the first few lines. Ave does not tell how Danny is and where he lives. She tells how she likes to remember the jokes and jokes of Danny and me.

On the very first day, how we extravelled the sisters to Düsseldorf Löwensenf, one of my feasts, as a "not at all spicy" sandwich set: "Our ears almost blew our head."

As the sisters, instigated by Danny, made sure that the morning of my 18th birthday on April 1, 1989 - also in the US "April's Fool's Day" - with makeup on her face, "You woke up with a full face of 1980's glamorous eyes, blush and lipstick. "

The "good times and good memories" is followed by the bitter truth. Ave writes that her brother Danny was killed in a car accident in Trumbull on September 8, 1997 and buried in the cemetery of the town: "Having lost Danny as a young man will hurt forever - but knowing that he will be enjoyed a short life by the side of wonderful friends, a little comforting. "

I have to swallow. After the difficult search I am not completely surprised by the sad news. Still, she touches me: When I finished my studies, Danny's life was already over! How I would like to meet mid-twosome Danny, real or Skype. It would have been a great exchange-brothers-revival: We would have told the old stories, adjusted our memories, made nonsense. He, the greatest "Anneliese Schmidt" fan of all time, would have filed the chorus quite certainly to this day in the "Germany" drawer of his memory. I would have told him that the doctors also included an English version in 1994: "Analyzer Smith". We would have listened to them together - and laughed at us.

With Ave I exchange photos and memories, tell about Danny's time in Dusseldorf, our Berlin trip, his tram insert for Campino. Now the other Boudreaus know Danny's preference for the doctors and the Toten Hosen. And of course I send Ave a YouTube link of the original version of "Anneliese Schmidt". She wants to play the play to her children, three girls and a boy.

The next day, Ave sends an e-mail saying, "My kids love the song and as we write, I have Danny thinking about how he's dancing to it."