Albert Boonstra and Irma Uijttenboogaard

That's an August 2005 shot of Albert and Irma at the left, but first some background. I've known Albert since the summer of 1975, when, between my first and second years of grad school, I went on a long road trip through southern Canada, all the way out to the West Coast, and, just outside of Lake Louise in British Columbia, I spotted a pair of backpacking hitchhikers by the side of the road. I never pick up hitchhikers — but, that day, some sort of Destiny factor was operating, and I did. Albert and his wife Janny were only in my car for five minutes — they were heading towards a campground which turned out to be nearby — but in that short time we made plans to get together the next day for some sightseeing. A few days later, we hooked up again in Jasper. And then, weeks later, we bumped into each other yet again on Vancouver Island, waiting for a ferry back to the mainland, and wound up spending a week together in Washington State.

For the next year, we corresponded regularly. At one point, they invited me to come to Holland to visit them — and in the spring of '76, I quit my job and flew to Europe and wound up living in their Amsterdam guest room for several months!

It was through Albert and Janny that I met Lydia Boeken, who I married in 1977, and after Lydia and I moved to Amsterdam in '79, we saw a lot of the Boonstras over the next several years.

Son Wouter was born in the late '70s, daughter Femke in the early '80s. After I moved back to the US, we dropped out of touch for a while, but then reconnected in the mid-'90s.

Around the turn of the millennium, Albert and Janny divorced. She's got a new boyfriend, Ton, but she and Albert have remained on friendly terms. In fact, when I spent a week in Holland in 2000, the three of us got together at Albert's Almere home for dinner, and there we are at the right.

In the summer of 2001, I returned after a 10-year absence to the University of Maryland's European Division to teach a term in Italy. Becca spent the last five weeks of the eight-week term with me, and when my classes ended we travelled for three weeks — including several days in Almere with Albert and Femke, who you can see at the left.

Albert and Irma met in 2002, and Becca visited with them after her term abroad in 2003. In 2004, I taught in Germany, and Becca and I spent a lovely weekend with Albert and Irma in Almere. Then, in 2005, after a summer's teaching in Kuwait, my girlfriend Paula joined me for a week in Holland, and we spent several days at Irma's house in Nieuwegein, outside Utrecht. Albert was there - his house in Almere is being renovated, and Irma will be moving in with him as soon as the work is finished - and so was her son, Maurits. Wouter, now living in Utrecht and working as a journalist, stopped by for a visit, but we didn't get to see Femke or Janny this time around.

Albert, Irma, Janny, Wouter, Femke and Maurits are some of the warmest, nicest people I have ever known — and I would never have met any of them if I hadn't acted completely out of character one summer afternoon in western Canada and picked up a pair of backpacking hitchhikers....

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