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After three months of living in a sub-tropical summer climate near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I landed back in North – Eastern Switzerland at Zurich Airport, close to my hometown Schaffhausen.  During the descent from the transatlantic cruising altitude, I could see the snow-capped mountain peaks of the Swiss Alps to the South in their morning light, in a strange way not unlike the New York City skyline I had just left behind.

I did not know who would be greeting me in the arrival’s hall, after clearing immigration and customs. I assumed that my parents would be there, reasonably sure that one of their friends would drive them to the airport. My parents never owned a car and bought their first TV set only after I had already left for business school.

While I was away in America, my mother had fallen off a ladder, injuring her back while picking her favourite black cherries from a tree she had planted years ago in a garden plot. They had not told me anything about it in their letters because they did not want me to worry. Fortunately, by the time I returned home my mother had substantially recovered thanks to a temporary back brace.

After a few days at home, I took the train to the town of St. Gallen to complete the remaining two years to obtain my university degree – a Lizenziat in business and economics, abbreviated as “lic.oec. HSG.” Later on, it was recognized as equivalent to a Master’s degree by the organization of European universities.

St. Gallen was a small provincial town with a population of about 60,000, located in North-Eastern Switzerland at an altitude of about 3,200 feet, close to Lake Constance, Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein. It had a rainy, pre-alpine climate. I was warned not to go to school without an umbrella, because it was usually likely to rain for part of the day, and to bring rubber overshoes for the snowy, slushy season.

The city’s economy had seen its better years during the heyday of its lace, embroidery and textile industry, during the late 19^thand early 20^th century, when it was known the world over for its elegant fashions. Back then, royal and aristocratic ladies still wore fancy wide brimmed hats, like what you could associate with British Royal Ascot horse races.

I could still sense the feeling of loss among the upper society, who no longer could live the life of big earners and big spenders. By the 1950’s spending on museums, the arts and new concert halls had long dried up. After the end of the Art Deco era, expanding the local university with taxpayer’s funds was a tough sell. It took astute political maneuvering to pass public votes at city and regional levels to approve contributions from taxpayers’ funds. Let millionaires and large industrial and insurance companies support Switzerland’s top business school. At the time, its alumni network was compared to the “secret alumni society” of Harvard Business School in the United States, whose members were believed to be always looking after their own first. When I first enrolled, the university had only about a thousand students. It has grown steadily since then to about an enrolment of ten thousand undergraduate, grad, Ph.D. and MBA students.

The business school did not have any residences or dormitories. All students had to find their own accommodation, rent rooms or share apartments. Therefore, I went directly to the school’s housing office to view the list of single rooms, their price and their location. I wanted to live within 15 minutes walking distance, and preferably not down in the valley, nor on the opposite hills.

I was lucky to find a quiet room with a couch as a bed and a large desk, with windows on the South and West sides on the top floor of a three-story three family building from the early 20^th century. The room had a few drawbacks, though. No kitchenette, no bathtub or shower: only a Spartan cold water sink and toilet. The house at Number 2 Herder Strasse was owned by an elderly woman probably in her late 80s who lived in her 3^rd floor apartment. On the second floor lived the Kobelts, a retired business couple who both had worked in London, England, for a representative office of a St. Gallen textile business while the demand for high end embroidery still existed. I considered them to be well off, because Mr. Kobelt drove a top-of-the-line black Mercedes 600 limousine. Every few years, he would drive to the Mercedes factory in Germany himself to pick up a replacement car, which would have been manufactured to his order.

The next-door place had a small grassy backyard, where a few sheep would show up twice a year for a few days to crop the grass.

With my overseas experiences still fresh in my mind, I naturally began to compare my home country to America. Just as I had just witnessed in America, there was unrest in Europe, too, especially in France, where there’s always unrest. But it was felt even in my peaceful Switzerland, although my business school was not a hotbed of protest, unlike in the largest city of Switzerland, Zurich. There, unrest was not uniquely by students, but by a diverse section of the population, including union members, socialists, etc.

Zurich had an overly aggressive police force, known for its brutal treatment of students, protesters and activists. The police and the ruling political leaders claimed that it was their duty to suppress even beginnings of unrest, considered to be the work of communist agitators and infiltrators acting on Soviet instructions.

Despite the similarities of our two federal systems, with the enduring stresses between federal, centralist ambitions and decentral state or cantonal aspirations, two differences between America and Switzerland stood out to me:

First, Switzerland always has had three (now four) different constitutionally recognized languages, German, French, Italian, and now Romansh, whereas the United States only has one recognized official language.

The other big difference pertains to arming its citizens. The U.S. emphasizes the right to bear arms and permits the establishing of small National Guards with limited scope in each state. There is no obligation for its citizens to become soldiers except through draft laws. In Switzerland on the contrary, it specifies that all adult males must undergo basic military training and continue into their fifties to do refresher training and meet annual performance targets with their Army issue rifles, assault rifles or handguns. In addition, they must show annually that their basic issue equipment is still in good condition. This applies to two pairs of military boots, uniform clothing must still fit, and their take-home can of ammunition is still complete and remains sealed.

So, in addition to my university studies, I also had to fulfill my mandatory military obligations. By the time I was getting ready to graduate, I had worked my way up to the rank of corporal. A military career, however, was not what I was after.