Connections

When I was much younger, I used to teach skiing at Bromley Mountain in Southern Vermont. The ski school was run by an energetic Austrian chap called Herman Goellner, who made quite a name for himself as being the only chap in the world, at that time, who could do a Mobius flip on skis. It seems quite tame now, doesn't it, as we watch the Olympic freestyle events, and the amazing somersaults, twists and flips that they seem to do so easily...but at the time, this was quite an accomplishment. He came from Zell am See, near Salzburg, and I often wondered why he would leave the beauty of the Alps to come to our little hills. He brought with him, in succeeding years, a whole entourage of friends from the same village, to work at the Bromley Mountain Ski School. All were excellent skiers, and became great friends, as we lived and worked next to each other for many winter seasons. In the late spring, they would all return to Austria to their families, friends and their summer jobs.
The memory of our friendship was rekindled this winter, when our family gathered at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont, to spend a few days there, celebrating the wedding of Soe and Colin. The Lodge is run by Johannes von Trapp, affectionately named "Hannie" by his siblings. Before they bought the farm in Vermont in 1942, the von Trapp children lived for a while with their maternal grandmother in Austria in a village called...can you guess? Yes, it was Zell am See!