Message Board

Tonight I'm off to the weekly Stammtisch here in Seattle and as i get ready to go out the door I find Myself thinking back to those AFRC Holidays. I was lucky enough to have enjoy more then most people (80-82 at Berchtesgaden and 82-86 at Chiemsee)

I can remember how around Thanksgiving we would do snow dances and people were being chosen or dropped for the winter season.

I can remember the those Thanksgiving diners with people from across Europe and the States sitting down or just standing around to eat dinner and have a few drinks.

This year on Thanksgiving we had a person come up all excited to me and tell me that he had counted about 66 people in the house. I asked if he had counted the people BBQing in the back yard, like a bullet the kid was off to count noses.

We had so much food and drink that it was amazing. Some people have attended for years and others had never been to the house before.

One couple that meet here and got married come every year and love to explain this is where they met. Just like people met at AFRC, and got married fondly remember where they met and long to return.

I used to love it when they had St. Nicholastag in Berchtesgaden and how great it was to have that first snow of the season. I cherash those few photos that i have of that.

On December 8th if all goes well I'll bring back a load of snow and we'll build a sled run in the front yard again and turn all the kids in town loose to enjoy it. I can't take Seattle to the mountains but I can a small piece of i here and any kid in the town to enjoy it while it last... any time from 3 days (heavy rain) or as long as two weeks (freeze your ass off cold).

All month long I have a number of parties, there is not much drinking, more talking, and it peaks on New Year's Eve.

We step out side and watch the fireworks on the space Needle and my mind drifts back to the blunderbusts in Berchtesgaden, and years around Chiensee when all the little towns and individuals would set off fireworks, often reflected off the water or ice of the lake.

I owe a lot of emails to a lot of people but I do think of you ... all of you even those who live near by and would never think of stopping by. *grin*

No kids of my own and divorced for 17 years, single a lot of that time, I don't have a family but I do have a tribe that spans the world, plus a lot of old friends around the planet.

Happy Holidays everybody. Hey remember that first holiday that you had there, high in the German Alps? As a kid from Iowa I was blown away. I had lived in Germany 5 1/2 years before I was with AFRC but that first Christmas in Berchtesgaden, the Kristkinlmarkt, hot Gluhwein, cold crisp mountain air, a slab of leberkase on a brotchen, snow crunchin', under my boots... could life have been any better... oh I could have had a Irish girlfriend ... yeah it was agreat winter as were the next nine in Bavaria...