Is 900 Years Sustainability?

Anyone interested primarily in our work scoping out tours can skip this one. On the other hand, an evening spent with a community celebrating the 900th anniversary of the founding of their parish may offer a perspective on sustainability that we in America are incapable of appreciating. Many of our friends in this village and the surrounding area can trace their family's histories in these towns back much farther than the founding of the United States.

The church in Nussbach, Austria.

When I was 16, I was given an opportunity that opened up the world to me. My high school in a small desert town in California had hosted American Field Service exchange students from abroad for several years. I was the first student from Hemet to be accepted by the national AFS committee to go overseas. I spent a summer about an hour east of Salzburg in the village of Sierning, living in a large country inn that was built in 1313 (www.forsthof.at). It is operated by a family that has owned it for over 150 years. My exchange "brother" has long been married to Maria from the nearby village of Nussbach, so when we were teenage boys he somehow had us spending a lot of time there with her family and their neighbors. I came away from that summer with as many friends from Maria's village as from the one I lived in. One of those teenage friends has been the city manager of Nussbach for years.

Nussbach rests on a stream in the Alpine foothills.

So every visit back to Austria, we see a lot of old friends from both places. One evening early in this trip, a collection of us was gathered in the inn my exchange family runs. Someone mentioned that it was too bad Emily and I would miss the 900th Anniversary party for Nussbach the following Saturday night. Eventually we were talked into adjusting our schedule and spending that evening in Nussbach. Of course, we were hosted by Maria's brother Hans Staudinger and his wife Doris. The view from their house on a ridge above the village includes some of the highest peaks in Upper Austria.

The courtyard of the vierkanthof.

A side note for the planners and preservationists: The Staudinger's house is in an agricultural preserve. The brand new structure is on the site where a much older "vierkanthof" (four-sided court) farmstead that Hans inherited stood. The rules in the district are that any replacement structure must be in kind and in situ. So a stunning modern vierkanthof stands where a ruin once was falling in. It is still built around a courtyard, with the original huge paving stones intact. It has the most modern furnishing and fixtures imaginable, but every room has traditional touches like dining nooks and warming ovens. It still is part barn, with 386 horses in residence in the building. One stall houses a single horse to meet the agricultural use requirement. The remaining horses power Hans' Porsche Carrera 4S.


Hans and I and some other teenage idiots climbed a few of the peaks we can see from his house back when we knew we would live forever. We could hitch a ride to the train station in Kirchdorf, get off at the end of the line in Hinterstoder, and start walking. With a student membership in the Austrian Alpine Club, it cost about one American dime to stay in a hut. Twice that for a bowl of goulasch with some bread for dinner. We would sleep on big platform beds and get up in the dark with all the other adventurous sorts and scatter through the mountains. You can still walk from Croatia to Monte Carlo carrying just your basic clothing and a sleeping sheet, staying in a different hut every night.

But back to the celebration. We arrived in Nussbach just before things were starting off. The city was closed off by the firemen, who were driving shuttle vans from parking areas on the two entrances to town to the huge tent set up for the event. A bathroom trailer was set up on a slanted hillside outside a side door in the tent. The door to the bathrooms was on one side of the trailer, which was several inches lower than the far side. That meant going up the steps felt like climbing an Alp, and coming down felt like falling off one. Late in the evening, it was almost more entertaining to watch those who had sampled too much Nussbach beer navigate the bathroom steps than it was to listen to the mayor's speech.

Emily and I with the Staudingers.

There were probably 500 people at this event, more of them in traditional dress than not. Emily got to wear her new dirndl from Munich. The governor of Upper Austria was there, but otherwise very few non-locals. A large crew of young people from the town served dinners from a short menu, and the beverages flowed. Kids ran about, the band played, teenagers made eyes, conversations were shouted, and pandemonium reigned. A 900 centimeter (9 meter) strudel created by a small army of local women was carried in on a 30-foot plank by a small army of their husbands in lederhosen.

The ten or twelve movies and slideshows were mostly in High German, but almost all of the people at the microphone doing introductions, giving speeches, singing, or doing the skits spoke the local dialect. I've spent a year of my life in this part of the world, but when they are deep into the local lingo I only just get the gist. In other words, I knew the person talking while he showed slides of buildings was speaking about historic preservation, revering our old buildings, and the dates involved in the construction and additions to those buildings. But not much more than that. Emily has a great understanding of German, but was also pretty lost. Still, should it be any other way? Of course not. Living local for 900 years has served them well. This is their community, their anniversary celebration, and it MUST be conducted in their language. So we sat, and smiled, and loved every minute of it as they basked in their transition from subsistence farming to hi-tech employment.

A high point, as he intended it to be, was the mayor's speech. I can't tell you much about most of his talk because it was in dialect. But he spoke very slowly and clearly and with great dramatic effect for his closing statement. All 15 of them. The first one was something like "Und so, meine Damen und Herren, Ich lassen Sie 900 Jahre von Nussbach!....." (And so people, I give you 900 years of Nussbach....dramatic pause) The crowd clapped, whistled, and roared, then turned their attention back to their conversations.....and the mayor began to talk again. A few minutes later he again entered the dramatic mode of speech with "Here's to 900 years of Nussbach!....." And the well-trained crowd clapped, whistled, and roared. And once more he picked up his speech. Repeat this cycle a few times and the crowd quits listening. Then they start shouting their own conversations while the mayor talks. Then they quit clapping when they are supposed to. Then the heckling starts. Then relatives begin screaming at their drunken uncles for being rude to the mayor. It became a hilarious, drawn-out verbal brawl at the family reunion. Finally, yes meine Damen und Herren, finally, the mayor signed off and abandoned the podium. THEN the crowd responded with a last deafening ovation and the servers jumped to their tasks of pushing wine and strudel through the crowd. It was one of the best evenings of this trip.

I rarely go back to the town in Southern California I grew up in. It's not there any more in any recognizable form. My childhood friends have all scattered to the winds. But the 500 good folks from Nussbach and Sierning in the tent that night? Those are my people.

Doris with flowers and Hans holding the frame, receiving an award for excellence in business.