1967–2026 | Nearly Sixty Years Between Visits
My dad was career military, and growing up, that meant spending part of my childhood overseas. My sister and I were both born while he was stationed in Europe, and over the years, various members of our extended family came to visit.
My parents would take them sightseeing, visiting places around Germany and sometimes farther afield. Christmas markets, festivals, historic towns, the kinds of places you take visiting family when you have the opportunity.
Several years after Dad passed away, I was helping Mom clean out his office. He had collected quite a bit over the years: military medals, rank insignia, photographs from the places he'd been stationed, and years of genealogy research. Eventually, Mom decided she wanted the family's old slides and home movies digitized, so she sent me a duffel bag full of them.
I spent quite a bit of time going through everything, sorting, labeling, cataloging, and scanning the slides, then putting together DVDs so Mom could enjoy them. She watched them a few times and was grateful to have those memories available again. Afterward, the originals went back into storage, and life went on.
Fast-forward to September 2026. After Teresa, our friends, and I returned from Germany, I started thinking about those old photographs. I knew there were pictures labeled Munich, and I knew I'd been there as a child, but I couldn't remember whether they were from Dad's first or second tour in Germany. So I went digging through the old slides again.
And there they were. Pictures of Oktoberfest. Beer tents, carnival rides, horse-drawn brewery wagons, crowds of people, and some of the very same attractions we'd just seen. The slide box was marked 1967.
Now, I can't guarantee every photograph in that box was taken that year. Some of the old labels are a little questionable, and after nearly sixty years, there aren't any people left who could tell me exactly when each picture was taken. But 1967 makes sense. I was born in November 1965, which means I would have been not quite two years old. Apparently, I'd been to Oktoberfest before. I just didn't remember it.
By 2026, Oktoberfest had reached new heights in more ways than one. The rides towered over the fairgrounds, and millions of people attended the festival. Teresa, our friends, and I were among them.
Looking through Dad's photographs, I was surprised by how much of the festival I recognized. The beer tents, the carnival rides, the brewery wagons, and the crowds of people enjoying themselves. The festival had certainly changed, but there was something familiar about it, too.
One of the more unusual rides in the old photographs was a contraption with airship-shaped arms and gondolas hanging beneath them. I don't believe the rides reached quite the heights back then that they do today. Of course, I was only two years old at the time, so my perspective might have been a little different.
During our 2026 visit, I found myself about 60 meters above Oktoberfest on a swing ride, close to 200 feet or roughly 20 stories, looking down at the enormous Olympia Looping roller coaster and the fairgrounds below. I wonder what the people standing beneath those airship rides imagined the future might look like. Did they ever picture a time when visitors would be swinging high above the festival grounds, looking down on an ocean of beer tents, rides, and people? And here I was, doing exactly that.
Modern day: the Teufelsrad in 2011, marking 100 years. It was closed when we walked past in 2026, so this photo isn't ours. Stock photo by Psemdel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Modern day: the Toboggan in 2012. It was still going strong when we visited in 2026, but we didn't photograph it, so this photo isn't ours. Stock photo by Soluvo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Dad always told me there were three priorities in life: family, friends, and work. Family came first. You couldn't choose the circumstances of your birth, but family was where your responsibilities began. In my case, I was adopted, and my parents had chosen me before I was even born. There was never any question in my mind about who my family was.
Friends came second. Dad believed that friends were the family you chose for yourself. Those relationships didn't just happen. You built them, worked at them, and maintained them over the years.
And work came third. Not because it wasn't important, but because a job shouldn't define who you are. You could find another job. Replacing the people who mattered in your life was another matter entirely.
I've carried that philosophy with me throughout my life. And looking back on this trip, I find it interesting how naturally those priorities fit into the story. My first visit to Oktoberfest was with the family who had chosen me. This time, I returned with Teresa and some very dear friends, people with whom we've shared experiences, laughter, and more than a few adventures over the years. Different people, different times, but perhaps not so different after all.
During our 2026 visit, we rode the Ferris wheel and looked out over the festival grounds. I took some video as we went around, capturing the tents, rides, and crowds spread out below us. A Ferris wheel goes around in a circle, eventually bringing you back to where you started. Looking through Dad's photographs, I couldn't help thinking that, in a way, I'd done the same thing.
I hadn't planned this trip as a return to my childhood. We went to Europe because we wanted to travel, explore new places, revisit a few familiar ones, and spend time with friends at Oktoberfest. It was only after we returned home, and I found myself looking through those old slides, that I began to appreciate the connection.
I can't tell you what I thought of Oktoberfest in 1967. I don't remember the beer tents, the rides, or the crowds. But Dad was there with his camera, capturing pieces of a day that I wouldn't understand the significance of until almost sixty years later. This time, I was the one holding the camera.
And when I look at those old photographs now, alongside the ones we took in 2026, I find it remarkable how much has changed and how much has remained familiar. The tents are different. The rides have evolved. The crowds are probably dressed a little differently, although lederhosen and dirndls certainly haven't gone anywhere. And somewhere in those old photographs is a little boy who had no idea he'd be coming back.
Almost sixty years later, the wheel has come full circle.
