We went back to the Austrian Alps and it was the same as it was last time, ending our hike on an old chair lift, coming down the valley with the sound of cowbells and accordion music drifting up, back to the beer tent where they were climbing up on tables and falling off. Meeting Eberhard’s ex-girlfriend’s grandson Benny (23), him offering us a spliff by the river, stepping out of the beer tent and everyone at the table turning to watch, leaning against a handmade fence and then breaking it, paranoid about getting caught. Re-entering the tent with Eberhard’s friends Willi and Elsbeth (77 and 78) and their friends, all of them at least 60, most with mustaches, one of them (Heinz) glomming on to me with scraps of German I can’t make out, not understanding a thing: he hands me a cup of schnapps and gestures, take a drink and pass it around: and then it’s like I’m implicated in some scheme with a woman who’s wearing a Tyrolean dress with a bodice that’s pressing her breasts up: Heinz cups his own chest and smiles, shouts for her, points at me, signals for her, come over. But she looks road worn, a bit like Iggy Pop, with sad eyes and many lines in her face, a spiky, early ’80s hairdo—so I turn my back but they won’t stop poking at me and shouting, laughing, slapping me on the back: jokes about fresh milk and nearby mountain peaks, big “titties.” It goes on and on like this, the music and the toasts. Then Heinz grabs a biker girl and gestures for her to sit down with me on the other side of the table to see if we like each other, but she’s clearly with another man and they’ve been dancing and smoking and drinking the whole time: and I keep pointing to my wedding ring but he doesn’t understand, or pretends not to. She has a biker jacket with the brand Triumph on it that says Size Really Does Matter.
Back at the farmhouse later we take a drink and walk up the hill to watch more of the meteors, lying on our backs on the road—me, Brad and Benny—but each time I see one I say look, and they miss it. And when a car comes, we just roll off the side of the road onto the grass: and when we get home later Benny has to lie down on the bench and then Eberhard takes him home to make sure he gets to bed OK. We invited him to Prague with us but maybe it wasn’t a good idea.
We spent five days in Austria like that, eating wursts and pickled vegetables with too much bread, the mustard that comes out of toothpaste tubes they call senf. And up high in the mountains, I recognize some of the mountain rescue guys from last time who are there handing out free schnapps for donation, the black tea drink they make with rum I can’t drink, small cans of beer and Fanta, dried sausages, seeded rolls.
Down at the alpine hut, at the end of the hike before you take the lift down to the beer tent there’s another biergarten: it’s the one where we met my mom the last time we were there and Lily was with us too, just 10 years old…she’d gotten wrapped up with the Austrian farm boy whose parents own the hut (he glommed onto her and wouldn’t let go)…and I see him again three years later now playing the accordion, almost as tall as some of the old guys, chatting it up with them. And on the way down the sound of the cowbells is so clean and musical I have to record it with my phone. It’s the same as it was the last time, and the next.
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Great post
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I loved this one, Bill….thanks! hope all is well….you around this weekend for a coffee or a beer? best,
gregg
gregg s johnson cell: 206.399.3066 email: gregg@greggsjohnson.com
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Hey mister! Great to hear from you and have been wanting to see you too…what about next weekend? I’m here in Europe until next Thursday and we’ll be in Prague this weekend. But we are way overdue. Let me know what works maybe that Saturday?! Can’t wait to catch up. Beer-worthy.
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More cowbell! 🤡
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Ha, righto!
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In the Alps with Eberhard should definitely be a tv show. I know I’d watch.
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Nice, there’s a lot to tell. Wish you were here Walt! The gloaming is coming down jezt.
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Sounds like a real party, and nicely done story. A few years ago, I’d have run for the hills at the sight of an accordion, but after Los Lobos, BeauSoleil and zydeco bands, and some squeezeboxes in English pubs, really like them now. The cowbells chiming on mountainsides sound pretty neat, too!
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A real party and really scary in a way too, Twilight Zone like. But I’m a sucker for the cowbells, for sure.
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You made me nostalgic for tubed senf.
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Ah, therein the flawed logic of nostalgia, right? As if it has any, ha! We’re a touch nostalgic for Prague and going there today to satisfy it. Good luck to us on the autobahn without AC, though. No nostalgia in that.
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Nothing like open windows and sweat for guaranteeing a bad hair day.
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Nostalgic for tubed mustard?! I Googled snef. Don’t confuse that with toothpaste.
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I have a story about that with a German exchange student and Preparation H.
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I keep the toothpaste out of the fridge to be safe.
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that would have been surreal ,coming down the mountain to the sound of cowbells ringing through the air
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Yes, surreal having done it twice in the past 3 years, too! Sorry I slipped out of comment mode here and this is now way out of context…hope you’re well and looking forward to September, Beth!
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Beaut post. I feel incredibly fortunate not to have been there.
What’s glomming? It sounds unpleasant.
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Hi Bruce! Hot in Prague. Sweat stains down the butt crack. Glomming is like attaching or affixing oneself.
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Like your butt to your undies when it’s hot?
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Yes, not a good look.
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Hope you can find a cooling breeze and a cold glass of something, Bill.
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Heinz and Benny sound like my kind of guys. I’d watch them from a distance while they unraveled on everyone. Dinner and a show.
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Unraveled is the word for sure. Hi Mark! Coming back to the states tomorrow and looking forward to it for sure.
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I got your pal Ross and his charming family here in town. It’s a treat!
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Sweet! Give him a nipple pinch for me please.
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No nipples were pinched, fortunately. (Unfortunately?)
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Fortunately.
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Life moves pretty fast.
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Thanks, “someone.” Too true. —-Anyone
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Aw, it’s Ross, weird log-in.
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