May 12, 1971

Dear Mom & Dad,

Here are some more pictures for you.  These were all taken here in my new home away from home, Bamburg.  I took a chance and tried some cheap Japanese film for these pictures and I'm afraid you can tell the difference in the quality of them.  Very shortly I will try to get out another letter with more details, but now for these pictures.

 On the highest hill overlooking Bamburg is a very old castle.  This is a picture of the watch-tower inside the courtyard of the castle.

 This was taken from the castle; that's the city of Bamburg down below.  You will notice that the U.S. isn't the only country with pollution problems.  If you look closely through the haze you will be able to see two imposing structures.  These are both very large church's which you will see closer views of later.

 I climbed up the tower in the first picture (for a small fee of 10 pfennigs, or about 2 1/2 cents) and took this picture.  This was taken in the opposite direction of the city.

 Inside the walls of this castle is a pit, where in the old days, they kept bears or other wild animals for the amusement of the castle residents.  As you can see, the city of Bamburg still keeps this one lone bear in the same pit for the amusement of the tourists.

 Here's the same bear trying in vain to throw a little fear into the hearts of the onlookers.

 This is one of the churches that could been seen in the picture above.  It's called, simply, The Dom.  the church and a cluster of very old buildings around it are called collectively, Domberg.  This church was built between 1215 to 1237!  Inside are the tombs of Heinrich II and Pope Clement II.  At the present time, Bamburg is doing some major renovation work on this very old building to keep it from collapsing to the ground.  It is somewhat of a disappointment inside because of the extensive work going on there.

 These are two more of the four towers of the Dom.

 Here is one of the massive front doors of the Dom.

Across the square from the Dom is this building which in some past time was some type of church headquarters.  This whole area is very interesting especially if one is interested in architecture.  I quote form an English guide book I picked up.  "Here a square (Domburg) of really solemn greatness and impressiveness has emerged in the course of time.  In seven hundred years, from the heroic 12th until the end of the princely 18th century, the edifices, surrounding this square, have gradually come into existence.  Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque have united here exhaling a stream of German individualism, a world of pain and joy of battle and prayer.  The drama of this situation should appeal even to the least imaginative." Note that you can see my car parked in front.

There is another envelope on it's way with 10 more pictures.

April 22, 1971

Dear Mom & Dad,
Well, I'm now in Bamburg, Germany, where my new club is.  I really like it here, so far a lot better than Illishiem.  It's really quite a big city with around 70,000 people in it.  The city itself is very beautiful.  There are two rivers that run through the middle of the city which gives the town it's nick name of the "Venice of Germany".  I have also heard it called the "Rome of Germany" because it is built between 7 hills, like Rome.  On one of the hills overlooking the city is a very old castle. Another reason why Bamburg might be given these nick names of Italian cities is because about half of the population is Italian!  Most of the major stores and businesses in the city are owned by Italians and you hear almost as much Italian spoken on the streets as you do German.  Also in Bamburg, there are many very old medieval buildings and churches.  They say that it is one of the very few cities in Germany that had almost all of it's beautiful old buildings and churches saved from bomb damage during the second World War.  I've been going crazy taking pictures of everything to show you.

Also the Officer's Club here is much much better than Illishiem.  There are about 350 to 375 members here instead of the 135 at Illishiem.  The building itself is about four times bigger than my old one.  It is a rather old building and needs some remodeling work on the inside, but on the whole it is a palace compared to Illeshiem.

The financial condition of the club, which is the real important thing from my stand point, is also very good.  They have plenty of money in the bank and we are right now finishing up the annual audit, which has been going on for about a month.  They haven't finished the final report yet but it looks fairly good with no major problems.  This is really a great relief to be some place which isn't a hopeless situation to begin with.  Right now I am Assistant Custodian working under a 1st Lt. who is the full Custodian.  This Lt. has been here for over a year and sometime this summer he is scheduled to go to Vietnam, so it looks like I will be taking his place when he leaves which I think was the main idea of me being sent here.

By the way, I just found out that in March, which was the first month that I was official custodian of Illishiem, the club made money for the first time in about 6 months.  It may have been just luck, but at least it sounds good.

My Manger here at Bamburg is Italian, from the Bronx N.Y.  Also, about 75% of the other employees here are Italian, which makes the language problem a little worse.  If I get back to the states with an Italian-German accent, you'll know the reason why!  I get along with the Manager here pretty good, which is also helpful, since I couldn't stand the manager at Illishiem who was an old Drill Sgt before he became a club manager.  his main problem was that he hated officers, and especially 2nd Lt's.  By the way, just before I left Illishiem I came across some bills charged to the club that I knew we had never made.  It turned out that my Manager had charged some things to the club and kept them for himself.  We found the stuff in his room and he was relieved for misappropriation of government funds.

Yes I would say that on the whole I am very happy about my change here to Bamburg.  There is only one thing I have found her that I do't care for, and that is that a lot of the officers that come to the club are real A----'s.  This weekend, we had about 3 or 4 all-out fights in the club.  One. Lt. hit another Lt. so hard that he broke his jaw.  Blood is really hard to get out of carpets!  About a half hour after that happened two Captains and a Lt. got in a real bar room brawl over a slot machine.  They ripped out part of the slot machine and broke a glass case on a pinball machine.  Then my Manager got his Italian temper up and hit one of them over the head with a beer bottle.  We then called up the MP's and had every body in the club thrown out and closed up the club for the night.  Well at least I got to go to bed early that night!

I'm beginning to get writer's cramp, so I guess I will close for now.

April 21, 1971 #2

 Dear Mom & Dad
Well here are 10 more pictures all taken in the Illishiem area.

Here are two views of my car that you haven't seen before.  The first one is the inside as you can see.  It takes a little acrobatics to get in but once you get the hang of it, it is no problem.  It has a surprising amount of leg room, and is very comfortable.  As you can see I don't have a radio yet, but plan to get one soon.

This is the front compartment, which has a small luggage space and spare tire.

Here is an interesting shot of a helicopter about to land at the air strip in Illishiem.

In the small town of Bad Windsheim, 3 KM's from Illishiem, I took this picture of this very large statue near the Rathaus (City-Hall)

In Germany there is a very popular sport which you seldom see in the states and that is glider flying.  People who are interested in this sport form clubs, and pool their money and buy two or three gliders for the use of all the members.  Every Sunday afternoon the local glider club would bring their planes to a field near Storck Barracks and practice their sport.  They take any one who wants to go up for rides gladly, for 10 Marks.  ($3.00)  I never got up enough nerve to go up, but they say it is a lot of fun.  It was fun enough for me, just to watch.  This picture is of a glider just as it is taking off.  The plane is attached to a cable which is connected to a wench way down at the other end of the field.  The wench starts up and pulls the glider toward it until the plane has enough speed to gain a high altitude.  It's kind of like running with a kite, until it begins to fly.  When the glider is high enough the cable is disconnected and the glider is then on its own with nothing but the wind to keep it up.

Here is one of them just as it is about to land.  I think this picture came out pretty well.

 Here some people are moving this one out of the way to make room for another glider about to land.

Here is a closer view of a couple of them.  Two people can fit in the cockpit.

Another shot of one about to land.

I think this last picture is my favorite so far.  This is really not too common of a sight any more in Germany.  Tractors do most of the farm work, but if you go far enough out in the country you can still see things like this every now and then.
That's all for now....

April 21, 71

Dear Mom and Dad,

Here are some more pictures for you.  As you know I have been reassigned to another larger Officer's Club in Bamburg, but these pictures are the last ones I took around the Illishiem area before I left.

One weekend I took a short drive out into the country, no more than about 10 miles from Illishiem and came across this castle.  It was really off the beaten path, and somewhat hard to get to.  I had to go down a very small dirt road to get this picture, but I think it was worth it, because I think it turned out very well.

This was taken in the very small village right beside the castle in the other picture.  I can't remember what the name of this place was but it doesn't matter too much, because one of these tiny villages is pretty much like all the rest of them.  The tractor and trailer are a very common sight on the rural German roads. Notice my car in the background, with a friend who was with me.

This is a closer view of the castle.  I tried to go inside, but it was closed up.  I've been calling this a castle but I really don't know if that's what it really was.  It might have been a monastery or something like that.  Notice the water in the moat.

This picture was taken from the hill with the castle on it looking down into the area from where I took the first picture in this group.

Here is another common sight along country roads.  this cross was standing all by it's self on the side of a field.  You also see a lot of religious statues of various types and sizes.

This is a small cemetery on the side of the hill that the castle was on.

This picture of a church in another small village, close to Illishiem didn't really turn out like I had intended it to, but in a way it has an interesting look to it.

One Sunday afternoon I was again driving around in the countryside and came across this local soccer game which I watched part of.  In this picture one of the gollies team mates is congratulating him after successfully blocking an attempted goal by the other team.
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Again at the soccer game.  Here is the goalie after someone kicked him instead of the ball.  He recovered quickly though and went back to the game.  Soccer, as you probably know is very popular in Germany and if you drive around anyplace on the weekend you're bound to see one or two games going on.  It seems to  have no season and is played year round.

I have one more envelope of pictures to get out to you so I will stop now on this one.

March 30, 1971 #2

Here are the last 9 pictures of this particular group.  the first five, below are the ones I really have been anxious to send you.  My lotus.  I got it to hold still long enough to pose for a formal portrait!

From the Rear

Side view

From above

Front View

With me

This and the rest of these pictures I took in the old part of the city of Nuremberg.  Although Nuremberg isn't a very large dot on the map, it is a very large city.  I haven't gone there too often, mainly because I usually spend most of my time getting lost in its very confusing network of roads.

Since this is a family letter, I can't really tell you what goes on in this block of "houses".  These types of establishments are very common in Germany.

This is the  Nuremberg Baunhauf, or in English, train station.

This last picture is of an interesting looking church in downtown Nuremberg.

Well that's all my pictures for now.  Some more are being developed, and every chance I get, I drive around looking for interesting subjects. Tomorrow night I will try to start work on a letter to you, because I know I am overdue on one, and I've got a lot of news to share.

March 30. 1971

Dear Mom & Dad,

Here are 11 more pictures for you.  these are the last ones I took of Rothenburg.  There is not too much to say about most of these pictures because mainly they are of buildings and things that I just thought were interesting at the time.  Most of my pictures so far, have turned out pretty good I think.  I'm glad I didn't invest a lot of money in an expensive camera.  The one I have, is reliable, takes good clear snap shots and is simple to work, which is about all I ever really wanted in a camera.  OK, now on to the pictures:

 This one above, as well as below are both long shots of the town.  Notice the wall.  the river in the valley is the Tauber.

 This stature of St. George is on an old water fountain, one of two in the city that supplied the town with water from the Tauber River in the old days.

 A picture of the main church in Rothenburg.

Some very old statues at the base of the church.  It was a little too dark in there to get a really good picture of them.

 A close up of one of the statues on the side of the church.

This is just an interesting old building with some interesting sculptures on it's side.

 One of the many very high towers in Rothenburg, which were used to look for enemies in medieval times.

 This is the oldest entrance to the city.  They say it dates back to the 700's

 If you can read the sign on that wall you will know more about this picture than I do!

This picture has no historical significance, but it is kind of funny.  I have no idea what they were looking for in that gutter.

One more envelope to come soon.

March 29, 1971 #2

Dear Mom & Dad,

Here's 12 more pictures.  Most of these were taken in a town about 15 miles from here called Rothenburg.  It's claim to fame is that it is one of the oldest cities in Europe that is still in original condition.  There is a stone wall built completely around the town and many of the buildings date back to the 8th century.  It is a very popular place for tourists, but at this time of year it isn't too crowded. Even though it is kind of a tourist trap, it is very worth seeing.  

if you look closely at the picture above you will see me standing over on the side.  A friend took this one for me.  Believe it or not this is a very famous place in Rothenburg.  Mainly because there must be about a thousand paintings and drawings of this spot.  In fact one of the drawings that I bought myself is of this scene.  Why all these artists picked this spot to draw is kind of a mystery to me.

This is a closer view of the tower in the picture above.

Both this picture above and the one below are of the same building.  You can see by the clock that it was one o'clock.  On the sides of the clock are two windows.  Inside the windows are two figures which are kind of hard to see in theses pictures.  Every hour the windows open and these two figures of men come to the opening.  Their arms raise and they proceed to each "drink" a large mug of beer.  This takes 3 or 4 minutes.  When they are finished they turn around, leave the windows and then the shutters slam shut for another hour.

Above also taken in Rothenburg.  At the time I thought it was kind of an interesting composition for a picture.

This one was taken from the wall around the city I mentioned.  you can walk completely around the town on this wall.

This one was also taken from on the wall.

Here is a picture of a typical store window in Rothenburg.  Too bad there was too much reflection to get a better picture of this.

This is a German police car, with a friend and fellow 2nd Lt. standing by it.

Here is the man who drew the pictures I bought.  He was a very interesting character to talk with and like I said before, he is over 80!

Most people take pictures of their cars after they spend hours shining and polishing them.  I did that too, which you will get later, but I thought I would let you see what it looks like after a little normal use as well.  It is almost impossible to keep a car clean for more than a week on the roads over here.

Don't show this picture to Mike!  (their dog)  It's a dog skin rug.  Wild Chinese dog, or so they told me, but it is really nice to put your feet on in the morning.  I just hung it on the door in order to photograph it.

More to come.....