The mid-1970s were among the most challenging times the German Federal Republic ever faced. They were marred by terrorist attacks from the extreme leftist organization RAF. Their activities climaxed in September and October 1977, a period which has been dubbed “the German Autumn”. The president of the German Employers’ Confederation had been kidnapped in a violent attack in broad daylight, and Germany was on high alert. Police officers were in great danger, because the terrorists were armed and started shooting as soon as a police man looked at them with any kind of interest. Such an encounter had happened in Holland in mid September. Two police officer had walked into a restaurant and looked at three of the patrons for a few seconds too long, perhaps recognizing them as members of the RAF, when the young subjects drew machine guns and mowed down the officers before fleeing in a dark green VW bus with dutch plates. Days later, a young policeman at a road block accidentally fired a dozen rounds through the floor of a car because he had nervously clutched his unsecured automatic rifle while his colleagues were checking the passengers.

Into that atmosphere of fear and tension arrived two happy-go-lucky American friends of mine. They were blissfully unaware of any of this, and they decided to do what was a very common thing back then: Buy a VW van in Holland and drive through Europe in it.

The three of us had just driven across the US from California to New York, flown to Europe and after they bought the van, we met up in Heidelberg where I was studying at the time.

The morning after they arrived, the three of us hopped into the – dark green – van and drove to the post office. During the drive, I noticed a police car at a distance behind us. It followed us on every turn, and I mentioned it to my friend thinking that he might have committed an infraction. But since they oddly stayed at a distance and didn’t make a move, we decided to just continue on our drive.

We parked in front of the post office and got out. At that moment half a dozen police cars came screeching around corners from all directions, and the officers swung the doors open, took cover behind them, pointed their machine guns at us and ordered us to stand with our hands against the wall.

I had heard of all the occurrences over the past days, and suddenly the danger of this situation became clear to me: Terrified cops with their finger on the trigger and the safety off on their guns, and the three of us shocked by the turn of events – it was a situation fraught with danger. One of my friends is a bit of a hot head, and I was afraid he might do something that could be misinterpreted, so I said to him in English, and in a loud voice so the cops would hear it: “Do exactly what they say! This is the most dangerous situation we’ve ever been in.” The other friend, who did not speak a word of German was simply terrified. I translated the command to her, and so the three of us stood facing the wall. After what seemed like an eternity, two heavily armed cops crept toward us and patted us down. In order to further diffuse the situation, I told them that we would be in full compliance, that my friends were tourists and that this obviously was a case of mistaken identity.

We were handcuffed and each of us put in the back of a separate police car. Next to me was an officer who couldn’t be more than 18 or 20 years old, whose face showed fear, and whose machine gun barrel was poking me in the ribs. It was my most uncomfortable ride ever, and probably my most dangerous one.

We were treated with the appropriate civility, and at the station we were locked into separate cells, waiting for the specialists from the BKA ( the German equivalent of the FBI) to fly in and identify us. I think by now the police officers suspected that it was a mistake, but they had to wait for confirmation by the federal specialists. By the time they arrived I had fallen asleep on the cot because of my jet-lag, and when they stepped into the cell one of them said: “Aw, look, he’s sleeping like a baby. No, that’s not him.”

We were released with apologies and were asked for understanding. They told us that a citizen had seen us driving in the van and called the police thinking that we were the terrorists involved in the shootout in Holland. I later saw their pictures and understood how that mistake was easy to make: Similar age, similar haircuts, same color VW van, dutch plates, and they were – as we – two men and a woman.

More shootouts happened that autumn, and every time I was reminded of how much could have gone wrong in those minutes. But luckily it didn’t.

In April of 2021 we all had just lived through the most unusual year of our lives. It was marked by the stark contrast of being disastrous for some and merely strange for others. Due to our place in life, Wei and I were lucky to belong to the second group. Even though it completely shut down our business for months and had a massive financial impact, we were able to perceive it more like a “pause” button had been pressed than a “stop” button.

A strange distortion of time perception set in, and a mixed jumble of concepts, experiences and mental pictures couldn’t quite find their place in the time sequence. Were they even real? Did I actually drive on the freeway through downtown LA in the middle of the day sometime in April 2020, – or was it July? – with not one car in front of me, as far as I could see nothing but empty lanes reflecting the glistening sunlight? Unexpectedly, though, it didn’t feel post-apocalyptic to me at all, just oddly serene. It felt like the world was taking a breather. The irony was palpable that it was able to do that only because a vicious virus was making it hard for hundreds of thousands of humans to draw a breath. Had the situation been described to me a year earlier, I would have found it terrifying, but now that I was actually in it, despite all the implications, it struck me as serene. That mix of horror and serenity became the defining feature of our 2020 experience.

So, yes, in April of 2021 we were ready to resume life and do some “revenge traveling”. Vaccines had become available which all but removed the threat of death from the virus, which was the only thing that had really worried us.

The day after we both had reached the full protection offered by the vaccines, we hopped on a flight to Hawaii. The state had just re-opened and allowed tourists back in on a very restricted basis, and only following tight protocols. We arrived at the resort in Kauai as some of the first tourists after they had just re-opened days before. The place was empty, only partially staffed, and it had the feeling of Sleeping Beauty just re-awakening.

We got up early the next day and walked to the beach to see the glorious sunrise. More serenity. It seemed that this feeling continuously suggested itself into our lives during a time when much of the rest of the world was struggling to cope with unspeakable horrors.

After breakfast, we went for a walk on the beach, which was completely empty, and I was reminded of my drive through an LA devoid of cars, sometime in the recent, or not so recent past – I wasn’t sure. But now Hawaii, and we’re the only tourists? How bizarre is *this*?

During our two and a half hour walk we saw a total of perhaps five other people. About twenty minutes in, we encountered a couple strolling in the opposite direction, and a bit later, there was a fisherman surf fishing with his pole stuck in the sand. Another half hour passed, and a few hundred yards in the distance, a young woman emerged from the trees, walked down to the water and then proceeded along the beach in the same direction as we were walking.

What a picture, almost surreal in its serenity: A beautiful Kauai beach, empty as far as the eye could see, except for a Hawaiian woman slowly strolling along the water’s edge. We both watched her every now and then, fully aware that this scenario might have occurred every day for hundreds of years, but probably not since the middle of the last century, and it would likely never occur again. We both felt a deep calm and an enhanced ability to enjoy the surroundings, and we imagined she felt the same. At one point, she reached for a stick and drew something in the sand. Then she slowly walked up toward the trees and disappeared. A few minutes later we got to the spot where she had written in big letters: “Fuck you, Jim”.