PHOTO: Pfänder mountain in Bregenz, Austria, in Vorarlberg, the westernmost province, where I proposed marriage to my wonderful wife on April 10, 2005 ... I took this photo of the exact spot where I proposed a few minutes after I proposed. Four countries can be seen from that location: Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Germany.
This mid-afternoon (February 24, 2025), I fulfilled a decades-long tradition, albeit late, by speaking with my cousin Rita in Dornbirn, Austria, near Bregenz. It's a New Year's Eve/Day tradition my father created in the early 1980s.
Rita's phone had not been working, which is the reason for my delay this time.
In the early 1980s, my father and I took our first trip to Dornbirn to visit many of our Austrian cousins, including Hans and his wife Rita. On that trip, we spent New Year's Eve at Hans and Rita's house, where we were staying.
When we returned home, my dad started a new tradition, where Dad would call Hans on the phone from Dad's house in West Islip, Long Island, New York, every Dec. 31 at 6 p.m. Eastern Time/U.S., which was 12 a.m./Midnight Austrian Time (Central European Time) on Jan. 1 of the next year. My father wanted to be one of the first people to wish Hans and Rita a Happy New Year.
When my dad sadly passed away on February 14, 1997, I first continued the tradition by calling on December 31, 1997. I have been calling from my various homes in southeastern Florida since I moved from Jersey City, New Jersey, in May 1998. Sadly, Hans passed away on November 20, 2013, so since then I have been calling Rita directly.
This afternoon, I was finally able to get the telephone line through to Rita and speak with her in the English, German, and Italian languages. She is originally from Italy. She was quite happy to hear from me. I am elated that I was able to speak with her for another year; she's 82 years old.
Since the early 1980s, I have visited my cousins across Austria seven times and have gone skiing in the Austrian Alps with several of them on many of those trips.
My father and I traveled for the first time to Austria and celebrated New Year's Eve at Hans and Rita's house (in the early 1980s). On that trip, we arrived on December 28 and departing on January 8.
Hans and Rita live(d) on the side of a mountain ~ Rita still lives there ~ in the Austrian province of Vorarlberg, overlooking the small city of Dornbirn. I remember the wonderfully subdued feeling as we gently raised our Champagne-filled glasses and quietly spoke the words "Zum Wohl" and "Prost" as the clock struck midnight in their living room. We then went outside onto their patio to watch the fireworks explode below us in arrays of colors. It is my most memorable New Year's Eve celebration.
Actually, the last several years, she has not been celebrating at home, so I have had to leave voice messages during the beginning of the Januaries until I was able to speak with her.
On April 10, 2005, the day I proposed marriage, my wife and I went to lunch with Hans and Rita in nearby Schwarzenberg, Austria. We then shared Champagne (maybe it was Prosecco) with Hans and Rita in their house with two more Austrian cousins (Blanka, Hans' sister, and Blanka's son Markus) to celebrate our wedding engagement. I had just proposed marriage to my wife on a nearby snowy mountaintop in Bregenz with Hans and Rita just several yards from us.
My wife and I wed in a small church in Delray Beach, Florida, on February 4, 2006, and we are still married.
February 24, 2025, at home
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