My Father's Eightieth Birthday 1 Comments

I tried to make a monument in words to my father. When you are in a peaceful frame of mind, please read Part 2 as well as Part 1. They are both one poem.

Thanks for stopping by. You are lucky to have spent time in that area, where you probably added a fair amount of German to your multi-lingual accomplishments. My father was born in Pfaffenhofen, which is 22 kilometers upstream from Innsbruck. The ruins of an old castle overlook the village. My sister went to Pfaffenhofen and established connections with my father's cousins who stayed in the village. Later, when my father's cousin's son Gerard Mair came to the U.S. to do research on constitutional law, he visited my sister and stayed with my brother in Philadephia. He later practiced law in Vienna, and when he got married, my sister traveled to Vienna for the wedding. I am glad that my sister re-established the family connection. She copied records and interviewed relatives to prepare a booklet about our Pfaffenhofen roots, which she gave to every member of our family at Christmas. My brother Victor also was quite taken with the area and went there a few times during vacations in Europe. Not far from Pfaffenhofen there is a place called Oetztal, where the ice age man Oetzi was discovered. That place became a pilgrimage site for my brother, who admires Oetzi's exploratory spirit and considers him an ancestor. My brother climbed up to Oetztal.// Thanks for telling me about Mutters and Natters. I'm going to ask my brother and sister if they know about those two villages. I am curious what you did while you stayed there. Did you stay with a local family, or at a hostel? Did you hike on the mountain climbing routes? I am told that hiking enthusiasts in Austria sometimes carry a small booklet for ink stamps. At certain destinations along the trails they can affix ink stamps in their booklets to prove they have passed by those spots.// I invite you to read the second part of my poem to find about the second half of my father's life.