S. S. Fehr's Letters to Mom

Excerpts from Letters to Mom in italics.

20 August 1964 [Postcard]
Everything going OK. The last bier tent is coming to Zwei. One of these days I'm going to buy lederhosen and the works. I've been promising to get an outfit for years but never get around to it. I left ur letter at the office, but I'll try to answer anything that was in it within a couple days. Send me any clippings you see about Dick Shiner. He's with the Washington Redskins, NFL.

31 August 1964
[The son instructs his mother parenthetically that he wrote the letter slowly so it wouldn't read so fast (and thus last longer).] I sold my car a couple days ago. It was just too much trying to keep up the payments. Perhaps I don't really need a car. I'll find out, soon.

I got a kick out of that Penna. Dutch do-hicky. [Probably a place mat or coasters sent from home.] I showed it around the office. I'm dating another girl and she told me, " Du machst mein Haar strooblisch!" (You're making my hair stroobly!) That was one of the expressions on the mat and I cracked up. I explained what we say back home - Look up the street the parades coming down -- All about throwing the cow & momma -- [i.e., Throw the cow over the fence some hay, and Throw Momma from the train a kiss.] - eat your plate empty - and a bunch of others. I can really see where all our expressions come from.

This coming Labor Day weekend I plan to take in the illumination of the castle and old bridge at Heidelberg and then go to the wine festival at Bingen/Rüdesheim. That is one of the best things since sliced bread. I won't have enough money to make the Rome trip in October, but I hope (plan) to catch a little of the Oktober Fest in Munich. I'll take a three day pass to that Mecca of bier trinking.

No, there is not very much hope that I'll come home before late June 65. I got a card from Dick Coleman from Israel. [Dick, one year older, was studying for the ministry and visiting the Holy Lands.] He said he expects to be in Zweibrücken about the 14-15 of Sept. Well, I guess I'll go finish reading the paper and hit the rack.

08 September 1964 [Another German postcard]
I didn't go to the Bingen-Rüdesheim wine fest as I planned, but there is another fine wine festival, the Würst Markt, in Bad Dürkheim next week. That is where the gigantic wine barrel is located. I've been there before, but not during the fest. Next on the itinerary - and foremost is the Oktober Fest in Munich. I just completed a tour of Kirmisches [Carnivals with beer tents and rides for kids.] in Niederaurerbach (Zwei Suburb). I'll tell you all about them and Germany when I return.

22 September 1964 [Postcard to sister Betsy]
This is a small scene of the famous Oktoberfest in Munich. The fest was started by two big parades with horses pulling bier wagons, many folk costumes and lots of oompa bands. The Fest is a gigantic carnival with many bier tents. It is so big you could put the S.E. playground into the area about 25 times.

Actually, the Oktoberfest in 1964, the 131st Oktoberfest, occupied 62 acres of the Theresienwiese, Munich's ancient carnival grounds, interlaced then with three miles of streets. Six million visitors attended the bier trinking party. Always wondered why it wasn't called the Septemberfest since most of the 16 days occurred in September - from September 19th through October 4th in 1964. All the hotel and pension rooms were booked for months. Fehr traveled with an erudite, witty AG1 buddy from the barracks named Sam Owens. Sam had bought a new Karmmen Ghia and the two slept in cramped fetal positions within the womb of that fancy VW with the Italian body parked along a street near the Theresienwiese. Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, der Gemütlichkeit!

There were seven immense bier tents seating 35,000 drinkers. Yet most consumers were out-of-towners looking around gawking like tourists hypnotized and in awe of the enormity and scale of it all; not to mention by the loud, continuous music and milling crowds. Young Fehr enjoyed the more intimate and, yes, even more boisterous bier tents found in the villages beyond Zwei. And the food and Mass Krugs, those large clay bier mugs at the smaller bier tents in those little "heims" and "bachs," were much cheaper. The Oktoberfest was nice, but not nearly as friendly an experience as prosting with local Bürger or citizens.

Can you read this to Bobby?

22 September 1964 [Postcard illustrated by Le Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg, alt. 785 m.]
From the Oktoberfest I traveled due East [West] thru the beautiful farm land of Bavaria and Schwabing to Freiburg in the heart of the Black Forest.

The tall, thick fir trees appeared dark and thus sprang the descriptive name Black Forest for the region which stretches north-northeasterly from just east of the Freiburg area and extending to the vicinity of Baden-Baden, about 60 miles as the cuckoo flies, give or take. If one chooses to drive the scenic Schwarzwaldhöhenstrasse road it rambles about 145 miles through countless picture-card views of deep valleys and mountains. Here and there among the thick fir trees spring Gingerbread houses seemingly fresh from the pages of a Hänsel and Gretel fairy tale.

History also springs from the ground at fancy Baden-Baden with its posh resorts. The Romans loved the thermal springs and constructed some of their famous baths there. The verb Baden means bath; guess the early Germans had a stutter? Baden-Baden. About 20 miles northeast of Freiburg are Furtwangen and Triberg, the unofficial twin capitals of cuckoo clock making. And nearby in those Black Forest mountains and valleys are the sources to the Danube River, die blauer Donau, the blue Danube, which flows eastward discharging eventually into the Black Sea. From Black Forest to Black Sea!

Going the other direction roughly 30 miles to the west from the cuckoo capitals and the Danube sources, the mighty Rhine River flows lazily northward on a broad plain forming the eastern boundary of Strasbourg and France. This is the Alsace (or Elsass, in German) region of France that has alternated as spoils between German and French hegemony. Oh, to be young again! Impossible, but it is within the realm of possibility, if only in possession of enough coins of the realm, to be in Baden-Baden again with a bier-bier. Enough of this cuckoo geography already!