Thanks for the welcome Paul. It's a testament to the good times we all had in Garmich, Chiemsee or Berchtesgaden that people write in 30 or 40 years after the fact to reconnect with that experience.
Unfortunately, no, I haven't been able to keep in touch with friends from that time. There are quite a lot of names. I found someone in a thread posted in 2004 or 2005 -- Geoff (schlumpfe) -- and he listed many of the same names that I knew. It was a really busy time and we all went our different ways after work, but some of the people I knew were: the inimitable Sanny Day, Randy + Monika, Debbie, Hubert, Herbert, Hans, Willi, Frieda, Caroline Braun, Dave Steffes (instructor after being ski patrol for several years), Bill, a tall African-American dude who had the best sense of humor in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and always had his ski classes in stitches (I can still hear him bellowing "That's life in the mountains!!" whenever almost anything happened), a lot of the folks from the Breitenau Kaserne where my roommate, Jeremy Aziz and I had a place, Dee, Jack (GAP doctor at the time) and his wife Anne, Minta Miller, Cols: Jenrette and Miller, and a few friends at the Annex whose names I have forgotten. It's funny how many people you can know on only a first name basis.
I'm a Canadian, based in Vancouver, British Columbia (ski paradise). I've been a television producer for the last 15 years after several years of living abroad in Germany and Norway (where I taught some Armed Forces employees at the Holmenkollen ski area that hosted the 1956 Olympics). I went to university in Oslo and that's also where my first daughter was born. Most recently I've been working as a sports producer -- doing features for Athens, Torino, and Beijing. I can post links if anyone is interested.
Also, if anyone wants to know what I look like, I've posted my flickr photography page. Maybe you'll see me and say "hey I knew that *****". Here's the link again --
http://www.flickr.com/people/inklake/ .
Whether I knew you before or not, it would be great to share memories of that fine area. I've been back a couple of times since -- once in 1993 to study at the Murnau Goethe Institut in the summer and fall -- and the place still had exactly the same charge it had for me in 1978 when I saw it for the first time. I was very young when I arrived then -- I had just had my 18th birthday and I was hitching across Europe. I had a dream of teaching skiing in the Alps and had an appointment in Innsbruck for a tryout there.
On the way, on a Munich friend's recommendation, I stopped in to talk with Col. Jenrette and announced I was looking for a job. He looked at me, a young kid with hair past his shoulders and a scraggly 18 year old's "beard", and said, "hmmm, my sons's name is Kevin, why don't you go see this guy (a barber), clean up a bit and we'll talk". Jenrette was like a surrogate Dad for me that year, and the kindness I enjoyed from about October to May-June when I left, was outstanding. I really haven't met so many great people in one place ever since. Must be something about living in paradise that puts people in good spirits.
Anyway, about Whitefish, it sounds tempting. It's about a 12 hour drive from my house in Vancouver, and I've done that before to go to Banff or Jasper in Alberta. I could get there, but I don't know if I can take the time off. I'm hoping some funding comes through for a Vancouver 2010 project and I might have to work right around that time. Haven't I already missed the deadline?