Tourists on bicycles stop at Hauptplatz to admire Alter Dom in Linz, Austria
The church in the background is the Alter Dom, where Anton Bruckner played the organ from 1855 to 1868. After the Anschluss of Germany and Austria in March 1938, the Hauptplatz was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz.
Have you ever experienced something seemingly coincidental that brought you back to another time in your life where a similiar thread intertwined? It’s a kinda strange feeling as though maybe we’re all a little more connected then we think, and the world is getting smaller every day.
I’ve had a few of those moments. I graduated from high school in Oklahoma City. Four or so years later, I was walking down the hallway at the University of Alaska and passed a guy who looked familiar. We both stopped and turned around and started talking and comparing notes to try to figure out where we knew each other from. Well, it seems we both were from Okie City. In fact, he had been a basketball player and we realized that we had had one of each of our legs tied to the other to play basketball for some silly fund raiser at school. We hadn’t really known each other well at all, and this was the closest we ever got. He was a mediocre basketball player and I was one of many from the pep club who had their names drawn to pair up and play b-ball.
I’ve had several moments like that that seem almost like de’ja vu but not really. Just that intertwined string not the feeing that you lived something before kinda feeling.
Saturday one of those things happened again that seemed even more remote and coincidental.
The hubby and I left home on our motorcycles for a ride. As we often do, we talked about where we wanted to go and decided that we’d head up to the Lake Winnipesaukee area since we could ride in shade much of the way and it was sunny and hot.
We discussed many options about where to stop for brunch. I had always wanted to go to the German Restaurant at the Danbury Inn so we stopped there. It was almost 3:30 and unfortunately they stop serving lunch at 3 pm. The owner kindly decided to serve us anyway.
Lunch was lovely with great Wiener Schnitzel and cold beer. I was telling my hubby about the last time I had Wiener Schnitzel. I moved to Fort Worth the day after I graduated from high school. One of my roommates was from Port Arthur, Texas and grew up with Janice Joplan. Janice left Port Arthur and headed to LA to become a rock star. My roommate said that nobody believed her. She did, of course, become a rock star but died young. The cost of fame and fortune is enormous sometimes, especially since many rock stars make very poor choices when it comes to drugs and alcohol. I can almost still here Janice’s gravel voice pounding out the tunes.
Two German guys were sitting next to us at the Inn, and we struck up a conversation. A senior citizen and his son were traveling around New England taking in all of the unique experiences each of the state’s has to offer. We enjoyed talking about various subjects including WWII, the Autobahn where people drive aggressively at 150 mph, the D-Mark, the Euro, the Vietnam war, what we all do for a living. Hubby had been to Berlin and Hamburg some 35 years ago, and they talked about a casino on the Baltic Sea, etc. They were very nice gentlemen and followed us out so that they could each sit on my hubby’s chopper and take pictures.
Shortly after I moved to Ft. Worth my roommate convinced me to go on a blind date with an Austrian guy she knew. It was a last minute thing, since another of her friends became ill and couldn’t go. So, Gunther Hoeferrer and I met at a lovely restaurant. He was a ski instructor and had come over to the states to learn about air conditioning and heating. I remember him talking about his parents and Hitler’s invasion of Austria although, at the time, I really wasn’t that interested in Nazi’s, etc. since at 18, it just wasn’t in the forefront of my mind.
He gave me roses and treated me like a princess. He was truly very sweet. By the end of the evening he had asked me to marry him and said that he would teach me to ski. He was convinced we would live happily in Linz, Austria and that he would bring me back to the states 3 or 4 times a year so that I wouldn’t become homesick. Hey, I’m 18 and while he was a gentlemen and looked like your image of the quintessential Austrian ski instructor, marriage was about the last thing on my mind. We dated a few more times; he came to my apartment and fixed Wiener Schnitzel one night. It was delicious so I ordered it at the Danbury Inn since I hadn’t had it since Gunther fixed it for me almost 40 years before.
Guess where the young German guy lived? If you guessed Linz, Austria you’d be right although apparently he’s a successful actor in Germany. He was particularly enjoying his annonimity in the States as apparently he’s well-known and has virtually no privacy in Germany his Dad told us. Gee, hopefully, he won’t end up like Janice although he didn’t seem the type to overdose on drugs so hopefully he’ll be fine.
I told the story of Gunther to them and the guys thought the name sounded very familiar and said they would look it up when they returned to Linz in 10 days.
Of course, I fondly remembered Gunther and wondered if he ever started his air conditioning business back home and became successful. I even wondered how different my life might have been had I actually accepted his marriage offer and moved to Linz and learned to ski in my teens. I would have loved to ski in the Alps and perhaps I will one of these days although now I’m a snowboarder and only ski on rare occasions.
It did enter my mind that perhaps Gunther needed an American wife to become an instant U.S. citizen and that perhaps he was calculated rather than sincerely enamored with me. I choose to believe that I was just that awesome that he was honestly swept off his feet since, hey, it’s my story and I can believe anything I want people.
Anyhow, twice I’ve had Wiener Schnitzel and I now know two people from Linz, Austria although the encounters were almost 40 years apart. Kinda odd coincidents, eh, and I’m sure you’ve had a few yourself that perhaps also make you feel that the world is getting smaller and smaller and sometimes there are things you just can’t explain but possess that mysterious intertwining string. Did I tell you that I met my hubby on a blind date that neither one of us wanted to go on? Hmmm, another odd coincident I guess.