I have three grandsons who attend school in Stuttgart, Germany. About eight hour’s drive from where we live, in the south of France. We would have driven up to Stuttgart a time or three this year — if not for the Covid pandemic, which has limited movement around Europe. Luckily, we live in a time […]

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I have been a grandfather for nine years and change, and it’s a pretty good gig. You can take a whack at spoiling the little guys and not feel guilty about it, and you can smile and head for the door when three boys get a bit too … boisterous. There are some great moments […]

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This is what happens when you don’t do enough vacation planning. You get there and something does not match expectations … and you end up wasting a day, or most of one, trying to solve a problem or abandon it in favor of some patch job. Or a witch appears and plots plans for putting […]

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It looks like suburban America. Single-family housing, block after block. Free national health care. Good schools. A chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage. That is what much of modern Germany looks like, to a visiting American. Pretty much everyone living the good life. The German Dream, which seems to have eclipsed […]

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It is not unusual for Americans to look at a global map and say, “Gee, Europe isn’t all that big, considering how often we talk about it.” By U.S. standards, Europe is semi-dinky, especially if you don’t include the European half of Russia in the Euro lineup. The U.S. is a bit shy of 10 […]

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Seventy-five years ago today, 150,000 American, British and Canadian troops landed in France to begin the reclamation of Europe and especially France from Nazi Germany. Recalling D-Day, as June 6, 1944 is known in the U.S., has been a very big thing this week, here in France, and I am more than a little surprised. […]

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In the photo on the left, a young mustachioed French soldier from a century ago is dressed in his parade best as he stares coolly at the camera. His left hand is behind his back and his right rests on a table, near his red kepi and what might be a bayonet. It is the […]

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World War II ended more than 70 years ago, and it is rare to find a new analysis of key events. But a German journalist named Norman Ohler has managed it, in his 2016 book Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich — which I have finally gotten around to reading. Ohler generally prefers the blunderbuss […]

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Germany’s do-or-die, last-kick-wonder-goal, 2-1 victory over Sweden tonight was perhaps the best match, so far, in the 2018 World Cup. It also may be the least popular result, so far, among global soccer fans. Two concepts that call for further reflection.

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I find it nearly impossible to be a neutral observer in any competition. Give me five minutes in a game involving teams I don’t know … and I will have a favorite. It could be about geography or playing style or history, but I will have made a choice. A girlfriend from a long, long […]

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