Friends

My old Climbing skiing buddy since about 1969 or 1970 called me and said, "Come over to the restaurant. My old girlfriend from years ago is meeting her sister. Remember we all used to hang out with them around 1969 to the early 1970s?" Since I hadn't seen his old girlfriend (from the 1970s) sister for 30 years and we used to have some really great discussions about the meaning of life back then. (I think she was into T.S. Eliot ( a famous Poet) back then. Today she was returning from Peru with her 17 year old son. It was great to meet her son and to speak with him and to talk to her once again. 30 years is a long time after all and I think she has aged much better than I.  It's really great to see old friends once again. I was amazed that she had lived in Zurich where my father's family is from originally. I stayed there in a Hotel that translates into something like the "Pony" hotel or something when my family visited there in a motor home we had rented in Munich, Germany in 1999. It had hand hewn beams on the 3rd or 4th floor where we stayed from the 1400s. Later I found out that my family had come from this area. I noticed the weather vanes there had a rooster or something cut into metal a lot on roofs. On my families crest it is a rooster on top with two trees with a snake climbing them. I think this shield or crest predates Christianity when trees were sacred and people were killed for harming a live tree in this area. However, I'm not entirely sure about the snake. My father once told me that our family in Switzerland had a Spirit snake protector. I've seen it sometimes protecting my family from  harm over the years. But this is really ancient stuff that predates Christianity from Switzerland I think. It's really amazing the kind of stuff you can find out about your ancestors isn't it?