Do Talk to Strangers

Long ago I worked at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, and through that job I got to know many interesting people. This is the story of one of them.

The College sent me to Washington, D.C. On a free day, I decided to take a boat trip to see Mount Vernon. When I boarded the boat, I was distressed to see that a crowd of loud, unruly men had boarded before me. I searched for a quiet place. I finally saw a dowdy man with some empty seats on either side of him. As I drew closer, I noticed his old-fashioned wool coat, and his cane. I thought – this guy will not be rowdy. I asked if I could take the seat next to him. We made eye contact and I saw his bright, chestnut-brown eyes. He smiled and said in a very strong accent: Certainly!

He flashed a disapproving look at the noisy ones, explaining that they were German, he was Austrian. I asked what he was doing in Washington, and he said he was working. He was a chemist with a specialty of coatings on glass and added that he worked for Swarovski. He looked at me expectantly.

“Swarovski?” I asked. I saw his eyes dim. He was disappointed. “You flew here, right? Every airport in the world has a Swarovski shop. Our glass objects sparkle like none other.” He handed me his card: Dr. Wolfgang Porcham, Director of Research. He coached me until I could pronounce his name.

He developed the glass coating that makes Swarovski glass so brilliant. He elaborated: “It is a closely guarded secret. Chemists around the world are trying to duplicate it. So far no one has. But if someone discovers my secret, I must buy them out, no matter the cost. We at Swarovski must be the only ones who can make glass sparkle like that. I visited an inventor here who thought he had duplicated it. He had not.”

As the boat pulled up at Mount Vernon, he said, “Now we must split up. With this ridiculous leg I wouldn’t be able to keep up with you.” “Aren’t you going on the tour?” I asked. ”Yes, but I walk awkwardly and slowly.” “I’d like to walk with you,” I said. We skipped the tour and just talked. He and his wife Helga had two sons. One was a technician, the other worked for a big shipping company. He imported wine to Austria, so he said, “Someday when you come and visit us, we will drink the fine wines, imported by my son, who will have kept the bottles in an atmospherically-controlled climate the whole way to our house.” Much later that actually came to be. Wolfgang and I became friends.

Whenever he was in the US, he contacted me, and if possible, we met in person. Once it was in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. My young stepdaughter Rebecka came along to catch those strings of beads that wildly-dressed people throw off floats. We ate gumbo and listened to Cajun music. He rented a Mercedes car and got us lost in the swamps, hoping to see a real alligator. He told us how he got polio as a little boy during WWII, but was never treated for it. He said, “Doctors had much more serious cases to deal with than a little boy with polio.” We never saw an alligator, but we had our beads and our memories of his stories.

I visited him and Helga in the Alps. Despite his unsteady walk, he insisted on climbing up to a high point with a large cross. With his walking sticks safely hidden from view, we took photos of each other.

At their home Helga made delicious dumplings: large and soft, pulled apart with forks, served with melted butter and Parmesan. Helga and I clicked. She whispered her secret trick: she cooked them in the microwave! She had fallen in love with Wolfgang when they were young and devoted herself to giving her Wolfie the support he needed. At breakfast, Wolfie took over. Ever the chemist, he carefully laid out muesli ingredients and measured out into each bowl precisely: 1/8 cup oatmeal, 1 teaspoon sunflower seeds, 4 pumpkin seeds, 3 hazelnuts, 1 prune, some freshly chopped pear, and 3.6% Alpine milk. Yum!

Ever the Austrian, Wolfgang proposed a hike. Thinking of his leg, I glanced at Helga, but she shrugged and off we went along a well-worn trail on the side of a lake. Wolfgang led. Helga whispered to me that he had had many surgeries and was often in pain. She was worried because he was becoming weak. Seeing him struggle on the uneven, rocky trail, she turned to me and said “Mensch” – Men! We walked for two hours until the path was near the lake. With a twinkle in his eye he said, “We’ll take the boat back.” Smart man.

One year he came to visit my husband Folke, my brother Dale, and me at our family cabin. When he saw the little cabin by the lake he said, “You must be very wealthy to own such a property on a lake! No one could afford such a thing in Austria!” We chuckled, thinking that there are at least 100,000 such cabins owned by regular Minnesotans. The highlight for him, I think, was a visit to the hardware store in little Deerwood. He stood in front of the flashlight display for an eternity. Ever the scientist, he hefted each one, comparing lumens and batteries and weight, wanting to make sure he got exactly the right flashlight.

When Folke and I lived in Sweden it was a lot closer to Austria, so we took the train down to Innsbruck. Folke was impressed with the sturdiness of Wolfgang’s house. It had copper gutters and roofs, everything made to last for hundreds of years.

That was the last time we met Wolfgang. Helga died in 2018. We still corresponded with him; in fact, just a few days ago I sat down to write him a letter. I was embarrassed that months had gone by without writing. I Googled his name and found his death announcement. He had passed away September 9, 2023 at the age of 81. The warmhearted inventor, our kind and gentle friend, was gone, but lives on in this story.