Life at the Brook - a narration (part 8)

My home is Carinthia, more precisely, the valley Gailtal. In the sixties and seventies, I grew up in a simple detached house on the Hermagor Mühlbach, in the so-called "Upper Market" of the small town surrounded by mountains, where the valley Gitschtal with its river Gössering merges into the Gailtal with the dreaded river Gail. The episodes "Life at the Brook" are about my nature-loving memories in my old home-town.

Life at the Brook (part 8)

Photos of the playground that used to be a cattle market place

I have some catching up to do! Now I found pictures to my story of the cattle poles in the creek Gösseringgraben, where there is now a sports field and playground. On some photos of the following collage you can see the playground, on two of them you can see me as a little girl on the poles. Until recently I had no idea that I could prove their existence!

Summer sports by the creek

In the summer we children played simply on the street. Today this would be unthinkable, because the roads are much more frequented. In most of the games we kept a certain respect distance to the waters. It goes without saying when we were playing ball. We liked to play badminton on a slightly larger public area, where paths crossed and the forecourt to a building was located.

Sometimes we did our tricks by bike. We practiced freehand driving or let down the steep and narrow alley at the Stocksteinerwand at high speed. Without helmets, of course. Without a protective railing along the Mühlbach. It was not until autumn 2013 that a railing was erected, and I can't remember that there was ever an accident. Would you be more careful not to be patronized? I can't judge that.

The Schützenpark is losing its splendour

The Schützenpark was still an idyll and a popular recreation area in the seventies. The red painted wooden benches invited you to linger. Children played on the small meadow, students learned in the park, employees spent their lunch breaks on the benches and ate their sandwiches. Sometimes we saw a couple sitting in the shade of the mighty trees.

When the energetic chestnut trees blossomed, the park was certainly in its most beautiful splendour. But all glory fades. When the proud chestnut trees were cut down by gardeners or community workers, their natural beauty was gone forever.

It was noticeable that a more sober time was dawning. The white gravel paths were no longer maintained and gave way to a single wider path that was more likely to lead to passage. The bed of the brook has been designed more naturally which brought more liveliness to the scenery but reduced the size of the park optically. Several trees and bushes were removed without replacement.

I still miss the old pretty Schützenhaus, a buikding which last served as the office of the Red Cross and was finally demolished. It helped to design the park and most of the atmosphere is missing since.I loved playing on the steps at the entrance as a child, like many other children.

A neighbouring garden, which belonged to a nice old woman, was then richer in vegetation today. It snuggled up to the park. We children circumnavigated the adjacent clubhouse, whose rear area had something of a hiding place. There was something dreamy about all this. The lawn was never as short as it is today, but white clover and low meadow flowers blossomed.

Now the chestnut trees, my old friends, like all the other chestnuts in Europe, suffer from the miner's moth, and only a small bed in the middle of the park is decorated with flowers in summer.

The crystal clear water of the brook Mühlbach

Located on a crossroads of numerous paths, roads and hiking trails, the Schützenpark and the waters surrounding it enjoyed great popularity among the many summer guests. Where are the times when these holidaymakers literally flooded the Gail Valley and explored all of Hermagor and its surroundings on foot!

Again and again I watched how the summer guests marveled at the mill stream and enjoyed the crystal-clear water, the murmuring sounds and the numerous vortices that were caused by larger stones in the stream bed. The fact that one could see to the bottom of the brook inspired them. Many even took pictures. That cost us a head shake, because photo material was expensive back then. Why were our visitors so enthusiastic about our little brook? So it shouldn't be taken for granted all over the world that brooks are so beautiful and so clear like this one, I thought...

Entertainment for the holiday guests

In other ways I sometimes contributed to the amusement of the holiday guests, and this is how it came about. I had a pet. Actually I had wished for a cat, but my mother had another idea. An aunt brought me a tortoise as a birthday surprise at some pet shop in Vienna. It was quite a large, robust specimen. After initial disappointment I began to develop sympathy for the little animal and cared for it and observed its behaviour closely.

Tortoises are migratory, so was my "Pantilea". So that my turtle and me experienced a little variety, I took it for a walk in the park from time to time. "Panti" marched slowly on cooler days. On warmer days it ran in stages. At hot Panti advanced to a long-distance runner. As a gourmet it stopped now and then to eat clover or ribwort plantain. Years later we found out that Panti was a male tortoise, in spite of the maiden name we gave him first.

A walk with a tortoise is a decelerating pleasure. To pass the time, I looked for a four clover and often found not only one four clover, but a whole bundle during these turtle walks.

All our neighbours were familiar with the sight of the girl with the turtle. But the tourists wondered and kindly asked me where I got the little animal, how old it was and which food it preferred. Most of them were German holidaymakers. They came from different regions of Germany. Over time I learned to distinguish and imitate the linguistic colouring. My short lectures about my pet must have seemed hilarious to them!

The Stocksteinerwand towers above the stream

The Stocksteinerwand is the oldest part of the local settlement and part of the old town of Hermagor. Built on a mighty rock, this quarter rises above the mill stream. A small steep alleyway with venerable little houses leads to the highest point.

To reach the late Gothic parish church, one has to walk down a staircase. On the north side of the church area, you descend to the sacristan's house and the parsonage and past the parish garden and then you reach the level of the Mühlbach again.

In this area the mill stream was to see a short time, but the next section of the stream was covered with boards. A short distance was still granted to him, then it flowed into the Gössering in the lower part of the village.

The "Lower Market"

From the houses Wirnsperger-Haus and Wurian-Haus (formerly Scharschön) one was in the "Lower Market", the lower half of the Old Town. There I liked a particularly picturesque house, the house of the sculptor Hans Domenig. Wooden statues and a name board still remind us of his work. In general, this passage, lined with old houses, had something picturesque and romantic.

An idyllic path leads from the lower market along the Mühlbach and the Gössering to the Schützenpark. This was created only a few years ago and got the name "Stocksteinerwand Path". The Ebner family, who live in a gusset between Gössering and Mühlbach, produced sleds for luge for a long time and not only that, Mrs. Ebner achieved numerous victories on their sport sledges and made these sports equipment even more popular.

The old town in flux

Much has changed since I grew up in Hermagor. According to my mother's descriptions, life and activity before my time must have been even more intense.

There was a large grain mill, a swimming pool, a tannery, an art forge, a luge factory, a dairy, a mechanic's workshop, a stonemason, an electric company, a parish office, a roofing and plumbing workshop, numerous trading companies, including many fashion and shoe shops, a bicycle shop and two bookshops, a crockery shop and several grocery stores.

Many of these businesses and facilities no longer exist today or they disappeared from the townscape and settled on the outskirts of the city. Company chains are spreading where there is enough space for parking. Almost all the small shops have disappeared and the upper market in which my home house is located is almost extinct. There are hardly any children. Almost all the young people have moved away. Many former business premises are empty and are unlikely to find any tenants. Except for the traffic noise and the beating of the church clock it has become quiet.

Refreshing bike tours

As much as I enjoyed walking up the Martinzen field way to the Schabus meadows and in the direction of Radnig forest or the village of Radnig, I was far more often drawn to the Gösseringgraben on foot, by bike or even on roller skates.

Today I could consider myself a forerunner of today's mountain bikers, because with my mother's old Steyr bicycle, which was much too big for me at that time, but very off-road, I explored this cut, even though the path was impassable on some stages, fought my way through the terrain on the most impassable climbs and triumphed if I succeeded in passing obstacles.

Even today I wonder where this fighting sportsmanship came from. Nobody spurred me on. I guess it was a wild, unbridled lust for life that drove me. I suspect something else. Luckily, I've probably never been told how a girl should behave. Unaffected by other girls of my age, I was able to live out my natural wildness. Today I believe that this unbridled development of power was the most wonderful thing about my childhood.

I still feel like a free spirit who is not restricted to a gender role when it comes to interests and hobbies. Yes, this was by no means a matter of course in education at the time. I was just lucky!

Natural energy

The refreshing air strengthened. I was always accompanied by the murmuring and roaring of the stream. I loved the spray of the waterfall, the pelting down of the water at the weir. The sound of the waterfall still accompanied me far away from it... and then passed into a magical silence, in which one could feel the breathing of nature. It was as if the ferns and spruces were talking to me, I felt one with nature and even today I take advantage of these impressions and try to repeat them wherever the path leads me.

Alway glad to receive feedback. How was your childhood? Did you experience nature they way I did?

Contributions in this series so far

(GER)
Leben am Bach - eine Erzählung 1 https://steemit.com/deutsch/@martinamartini/leben-am-bach--eine-erzaehlung-1
Leben am Bach - eine Erzählung 2 https://steemit.com/deutsch/@martinamartini/leben-am-bach-eeinerzaehlung-2
Leben am Bach - eine Erzählung 3 https://steemit.com/deutsch/@martinamartini/leben-am-bach-erinnerungen-3
Leben am Bach - eine Erzählung 4 https://steemit.com/deutsch/@martinamartini/leben-am-bach-eeinerzaehlung-4
Leben am Bach - eine Erzählung 5 https://steemit.com/deutsch/@martinamartini/leben-am-bach-eeinerzaehlung-5
Leben am Bach - eine Erzählung 6 https://steemit.com/deutsch/@martinamartini/leben-am-bach-eeinerzaehlung-teil-6
Leben am Bach - eine Erzählung 7 https://steemit.com/deutsch/@martinamartini/leben-am-bach-eeinerzaehlung-teil-7
Leben am Bach - eine Erzählung 8 https://steemit.com/deutsch/@martinamartini/leben-am-bach-eine-erzaehlung-teil-8

(EN)
Life at the Brook (narration, part 1) https://steemit.com/story/@martinamartini/life-at-the-brook-narration-part-1
Life at the Brook (narration, part 2) https://steemit.com/story/@martinamartini/life-at-the-brook-narration-part-2
Life at the Brook (narration, part 3) https://steemit.com/story/@martinamartini/life-at-the-brook-narration-3
Life at the Brook (narration, part 4) https://steemit.com/story/@martinamartini/life-at-the-brook-a-narration-part-4
Life at the Brook (narration, part 5) https://steemit.com/story/@martinamartini/life-at-the-brook-a-narration-part-5
Life at the Brook (narration, part 6) https://steemit.com/story/@martinamartini/life-at-the-brook-a-narration-part-6
Life at the Brook (narration, part 7) https://steemit.com/story/@martinamartini/life-at-the-brook-a-narration-part-7

This is my #introduceyourself

https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@martinamartini/my-life-a-life-full-of-fairy-tales-mein-leben-ein-leben-voller-maerchen-deutsch-unterhalb

This narrative was first published in a uncorrected original version (in German):

https://reflexionen.wordpress.com/erzahlungen/erdachtes/erlebtes/muehlbach-stocksteinerwand/