You Can Go Back Again

I ran across an interesting thing at the Overseas High School online page at Facebook. Being able to connect with fellow alums from the school after almost forty years is pretty amazing in itself. Military brats, at least when I was growing up, always expected to move on and lose touch with their high school friends. That held true for decades until the Internet became a reality for all of us. When I went to a 25th school reunion in Las Vegas, it was kind of a miracle... not as cool as I thought it would be because many of my peers didn't go, but still, it was kind of a bittersweet kick.




So today, I found pictures of some of the housing areas where I and friends lived. These, however, were after the Army base closed and the Germans took over the properties and rehabilitated them for sale to German citizens. And billed them as luxury homes.




I never really thought of where I lived as a luxury, but I suppose the size alone throws these homes into that category. Standalone or duplex housing is very expensive in Europe, so you can see why these old officers quarters likely fetched a pretty penny.

Above is a huge back yard by German standards. Even the apartments below were luxuriously large.

Hard to really see much through the fence, but it seems lighter and cleaner than I remember. There were hundreds of these buildings in one housing area.

I have to say the attractiveness of the places is much higher than when I was there. Germans just intuitively know how to make things gemuetlich.
Keep in mind that for Europeans, apartments like this with their larger square footage, hardwood floors, large balconies and surrounding real estate, were really quite a boon to average lifestyles. The end apartments were four bedroom and two bathrooms, which is very spacious.




There were a lot of Army bases housing thousands of families, so returning this to the German economy had to be a big benefit for them. Only fair, I guess, since we took the land to begin with after the war and during military occupation.









I haven't seen these buildings since I left c. 1970 so it's kind of like visiting an old home. The Internet is an amazing place, and thanks to technology, you can go back again. It certainly brings back memories!