Bumper cars, bearded ladies, knock the cans down, shoot the ducks, carousels for small tykes ... it is all there! BUT!

Oh, yes, but ...

Though well attended, those are not Oktoberfest.

The whole chickens baking on the rotisserie, an entire ox baking over an open fire, a pig skewered over the flames, and the beer halls.

It is difficult to explain the atmosphere of Oktoberfest. Beer flows, yet, at least in those years, there were no serious outbreaks of fights or vandalism, or drunkenness. People tend to be very friendly. On one of the rides through the haunted house, a man has put his daughter in the car with me, he introduced her to me, and walked away.

The girl, about fourteen, was a pretty girl, and we spent a fun afternoon together; just two kids running from one ride to another, eating ourselves to bursting, I won a doll or two at the shooting booth, which I gallantly gave her. We parted at the Punch and Judy puppet show, where - it appeared it was pre-arranged with her father to meet. I have never seen her since.

That is Oktoberfest.

The next two Oktoberfests I spent with Dieter. We did not bring any "dates" with us, but we did have female companions every day, different ones. We were having fun. Dating, as such, was not really known or done. We would meet with girls at the swimming pool or the skating rings, go to the movies, or just walked the Englischer Garten. We would talk, joke, have fun of the most innocent kind.

Sometimes the girls would flirt, as I have already touched on in previous chapters. But I never did any "petting" or kissing. I am not so sure about Dieter.

There were two ice skating rings in Munich. The one we frequented most often was the large, open air ring. The other, much smaller, was an indoor ring. We would skate there when the weather was too warm for the machines to maintain the ice at the Stadium. Pretty much the same group always met and skated together.

We would practice our jumps, and the compulsory figures - they were required at that time in order to belong to the Federation. To join, a prospective member had to show proficiency in the figures, and the jumps. The Federation was represented on the local level by local Figure Skating Club, but the testing was done by the National Federation representatives at only certain times of the year.

The same is true of roller skating clubs. I had to go to Regensburg for the ice skating exams and to Augsburg for the roller skating ones. Even though I had hard time passing the roller skating exam, as my skate broke and I had to borrow a pair, I did, eventually belong to both.

The Summer gymnastics were directed by Frau Schnelldorfer. The exercises we did, the floor and parallel bars, and horse, were mainly intended to keep our muscles in shape for the Winter season. We would practice the jumps on the floor, the bars we used for toning muscles, and for practicing the spirals and glides. We would hold onto the bars, standing on one leg, and, with the help of another student, would stretch our other leg up into the air. Splits were also helpful for that, but not as much fun. Dieter and I joined up mainly because the girls were there. And we were always most happy to help them stretch the legs out, so we would pair off at the start of the lesson. Dieter usually wound up with Carla. I sometimes paired off with Gerda, though I preferred Inge. She and I became good friends. Summer or winter, we would usually wind up together, practicing and dancing.

That’s Inge and I at the Englischer Garten roller skating ring.

There are many other sights I want to share with you, but I will make a separate photo section at the end of this story, rather than including them here.

Here is a map of Munich so you can orient yourselves.

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Just above and to the right of the red outline on the map, the city center, is the area I lived and moved in. Here is an enlargement.

The circle on the right shows Franz Joseph Strasse, my first place in Munich. On the right is another circle. That is Englschalkinger Strasse, where we moved after the first year. In the lower right, just off center is the Englischer Garten, on the right edge of it are the buildings of Radio Free Europe. So, as you can see, I could walk to work. As I often did.

The Stadium is not on this map, but it is only a couple of blocks below the Richard-Strauss Strasse, in the lower right. You can see Prinzregenten Strasse on the larger view.

On the map of the whole city, in the upper right corner is the road to the airport. I flew from there. Next to the lower left corner of the red outlined rectangle is the field where Oktoberfest was held.

I will refer to more places, as I progress through my years here.