People can be very different from you, but they can still be good people. That lesson learned as a foreign exchange student has shaped my life. And was my German family different? The parents were a generation younger than mine. Instead of two quiet older brothers, I suddenly had three, and later four, very lively younger siblings. The child from a factory worker’s family was part of a dentist’s family. Generous host parents, Udo and Gudrun Eggert, invited me for a few weeks in the summer of 1972, kept me for more than a year, and made me part of their family forever. 

Of course, many things have shaped my life, starting with my loving parents, Olive and Dorman Holcomb. They made sure my brothers and I went to school and church and were taken on many camping trips.  “We’re not lost, we’re exploring” became a family motto. Living in Germany, which has excellent public transportation, I learned to explore without adults. My friend Eva and I ventured to  Berlin on our own. Marriage to Fred Farnell and the opportunity to live with him in Texas, California, Ohio, and Japan as an Air Force spouse has also given us lots of opportunities for “exploring.”