- Feb 3, 2024
New blog post by mickleinapickle – discussions in this thread, please
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I was thinking back to December 1973… a village called Oberjoch (over the hill) in the Bavarian Alps. Six feet of snow! I was learning to ski with a six-man unit from 49 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery.
It was a 2-week course, and we manage to ski fairly well down the smaller slopes at the beginning of the second week, but the first few days were difficult. I wasn’t particularly athletic, and spent much of the time sprawled in an undignified heap on my backside.
Mid-way through day two, I fell for the umpteenth time… badly-fitted skis detached and legs akimbo, when a boy of about 10 years skied proficiently to a halt beside me, and enquired in a concerned voice, “Was ist falsch?”
I understood some German, but couldn’t speak it very well, so I was only able to reply, “I keep falling over.”
He pointed to my skis and asked, “Sind sie kaputt?
“Nein”, I answered, “Ich bin kaputt.”
He gave me a strange look, chuckled softly to himself, then whizzed off with an expertise that I could only dream of acquiring. He quickly got up to speed, and I heard him yelling something that sounded like, “Onderlay, onderlay, onderlay!”
“Little show-off!” I shouted after him… but he was out of earshot.
After a hard day’s training on the slopes, we’d visit a gasthaus in the village for a meal and a few beers. The locals had a tradition of singing folk songs, and we joined in with gusto… getting the hang of the tunes and lyrics by the second week. One of our party was a Scottish lad who had a good singing voice and a larger-than-life personality. His bawdy version of ‘Donald Where’s Yer Troosers’ went down a storm with everyone, and his soulful rendition of ‘Danny Boy’ caused couples to hug each other, and left the rest of us with a moist-eyed yearning for something intangible.
One night, we bumped into some young ladies from a local finishing school. They were chaperoned by a formidable matron, and a bull of a middle-aged male teacher. The girls were 16/17… giggling and fluttering in our direction. We were late teens/early twenties…sinking our beer and girding our loins. The matron was glaring at us.
As if to break the tension, the male teacher suddenly produced a guitar and started singing the Leonard Cohen song ‘So Long Marianne’ in perfect English. Everyone joined in… six callow soldiers, ski instructor, young ladies, matron, mien host, busty barmaid and all. If memory serves me right, I kissed the prettiest girl in the room.
.
time trundles on…
always forgetting
to pray for the angels
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By @mickleinapickle
Get the discussion going – post your thoughts & comments in the thread below…
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I was thinking back to December 1973… a village called Oberjoch (over the hill) in the Bavarian Alps. Six feet of snow! I was learning to ski with a six-man unit from 49 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery.
It was a 2-week course, and we manage to ski fairly well down the smaller slopes at the beginning of the second week, but the first few days were difficult. I wasn’t particularly athletic, and spent much of the time sprawled in an undignified heap on my backside.
Mid-way through day two, I fell for the umpteenth time… badly-fitted skis detached and legs akimbo, when a boy of about 10 years skied proficiently to a halt beside me, and enquired in a concerned voice, “Was ist falsch?”
I understood some German, but couldn’t speak it very well, so I was only able to reply, “I keep falling over.”
He pointed to my skis and asked, “Sind sie kaputt?
“Nein”, I answered, “Ich bin kaputt.”
He gave me a strange look, chuckled softly to himself, then whizzed off with an expertise that I could only dream of acquiring. He quickly got up to speed, and I heard him yelling something that sounded like, “Onderlay, onderlay, onderlay!”
“Little show-off!” I shouted after him… but he was out of earshot.
After a hard day’s training on the slopes, we’d visit a gasthaus in the village for a meal and a few beers. The locals had a tradition of singing folk songs, and we joined in with gusto… getting the hang of the tunes and lyrics by the second week. One of our party was a Scottish lad who had a good singing voice and a larger-than-life personality. His bawdy version of ‘Donald Where’s Yer Troosers’ went down a storm with everyone, and his soulful rendition of ‘Danny Boy’ caused couples to hug each other, and left the rest of us with a moist-eyed yearning for something intangible.
One night, we bumped into some young ladies from a local finishing school. They were chaperoned by a formidable matron, and a bull of a middle-aged male teacher. The girls were 16/17… giggling and fluttering in our direction. We were late teens/early twenties…sinking our beer and girding our loins. The matron was glaring at us.
As if to break the tension, the male teacher suddenly produced a guitar and started singing the Leonard Cohen song ‘So Long Marianne’ in perfect English. Everyone joined in… six callow soldiers, ski instructor, young ladies, matron, mien host, busty barmaid and all. If memory serves me right, I kissed the prettiest girl in the room.
.
time trundles on…
always forgetting
to pray for the angels
---
By @mickleinapickle
Get the discussion going – post your thoughts & comments in the thread below…
