While I Lived in Austria

Posted by on 26 Feb 2017 | Tagged as: blog

While I lived in Austria Dec. 1969 to Oct 1971 I experienced some interesting things.

 I wrote some of my blog entries about my  experiences there as an LDS missionary:

 http://jaybeacham.com/2013/01/24/the-danube-bike/

JayBeacham.com-A Voice as an Instrument » Kennst du den Wolfgangsee?

http://jaybeacham.com/2015/09/06/romanian-freedom-fighter/

And I saw three plays while in Vienna because a member was an usher at one of the theaters; he got us tickets at three different places.

In the description of this song, the Impossible Dream”,  tells about my mission some.

http://www.singsnap.com/karaoke/r/c6b1f12f5

I also saw the Operetta “the Land Of Smiles” in German

And a Russian opera which was trash.

Also while in  Leoben, I saw the movie “Paint Your Wagon”.   A member had asked us to watch it and tell

him about the Mormon in the show and if that could have been true or not.

No it couldn’t have been.  Just Hollywood.

What an interesting time to be in Vienna, Austria.

The Salt Talks were happening in Vienna while I was there.

We often walked past the American Embassy.

It was a great feeling to see the 2 Marines  at the door.

The Vietnam war was going then.

We didn’t know much of what was going on in the USA but we did about Europe.

Here’s another song description that tells some about my time in Austria.

http://www.singsnap.com/karaoke/r/b887da133

A different time a different me.

What a great experience for a young man to have.

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Romanian Freedom Fighter

Posted by on 06 Sep 2015 | Tagged as: blog

written 11/27/1990
Romanian Freedom Fighter

When in Vienna, Austria the fall of 1970, I lived and worked with Mark W.
in the 17th Bezirk. Our apartment was right over a sourkraut factory. Mornings
early, we could look down on the wagons coming in from Lower Austria to dump
their loads of huge cabbages down a chute under our window.
The toilet we shared with all on our floor, had no light so a candle had to be used
at night.
Mark W. and his former companion seemed to be drawn to characters of
espionage and international intrique.
So when I joined Mark, we visited some of those contacts.
One Czech was being dogged by the KGB but got a visa to Australia and
left the country.
One lady seemed to be a spy or something.
All their contacts seemed to be that way for awhile.
(We visited several elderly ladies and as all Austrians do, they served us a meal
or herb drink. 2 old ladies were surprised to see me return after poisoning my food
one evening.)
Either the area or the people attracted them(Mark W. and companion.)
One evening we met a man from Romania.
The apartment was drab, table, chairs, single bed-that’s about it.
He was very talkative and knew Mark W. from previous visits.
‘No, not interested in religion but please keep coming.’
He’d just received a letter from Bucharest: “…snow on the green leaves of September.”
It was an omen he said that Romania was soon to be free. He was working in the
“west to support the Romanian underground and he was going back to fight against
the communists.” If he wasn’t there at our next appointment, he would have
already left. He left two days later, not to return.
That was 20 years ago.
Did he make it?
Did he help in last year’s overthrow?
Or was he killed or imprisoned long ago?
I’ll never know but I know that as long as freedom means more to men than home, jobs, even
life itself, communism along with all slave regimes must eventually crumble and fall
into oblivion.

posted 9/6/2015

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