From The Dubois County Daily Herald
December 27, 1950
HARK THE HERALD
A Drive Through The Schwarzwald
by A. T. Rumbach
On the Saturday morning of our week’s visit in Reute, Herr Wassmer, a tobacconist from Emmendingen, the county seat, who supplies our hostess with Dame Nicotine’s wares for her store, made his weekly call and had his order all neatly written up in time to join us a breakfast. That function having been completed, he regimented us – Brother Fred, Klara and me, into his brand new Mercedes midget, and headed for the hills of the Schwarzwald, with the famous resort, Triberg, as the objective.
Over excellent black-top roads, we drifted between thicknesses of evergreen trees of considerable size, climbing ever upward and upward with an occasional dip down into a green valley or “tal” or “au” usually the site of a picturesque village, reminiscent of the toy houses under our Christmas tree.
We are now entering the “Glotter-tal-now the Immental – and here is the Todenau.” And many others with more or less familiar names. Herr Wassmer was in his element – he knew every hill and vale, every village and tavern along the route, most of them his customers. As our volunteer guide and host, he pointed them out and called them by name, Das Roesli, Der Loewe, Zum Engel, Die Gemsen (the pony, lion, angel, chamois) and many others, and the shield suspended over the door invariably verified his statement, both by picture and in fancy German letters.
Along the way there were saw-mills and neatly piled stacks of lumber, or incredibly long poles of creosoted timbers, like the tall posts on Recreation Field back home bearing the electric lights for night baseball. All along the way also, were hundreds of apples trees with limbs propped up to keep them from breaking under the weight of their fruit, and plum trees laden with their purple freight (prunes). From there the famous Schwarzwalder Obstwasser and Zwetschgenwasser are distilled to warm the hearts of natives and tourists during the long, cold winter months when skiing, coasting and skating are the principal attractions for the visitors. The cherry trees, which yield the fruit for the equally famous Kirschwasser, are generally in bloom, we were told, so early in spring, that they shed the snow-white petals in the cherry groves in the valley while the tops still covered with real snow. The cherries usually mature to a bright red around “Christi-Himmelfahrt,” the feast of the Ascension of Christ into Heaven, forty days after Easter.
The day being one of bright, early autumn sunshine, and rather warm, the dense shadows cast by the thick, bushy branches of the evergreens in the hillside forest were the tip-off to its name, “ Black Forest.” The ground below the branches was as clean as the floor of our gymnasium just before the start of a basketball game. There was not a twig on the ground, or a loose limb on a tree, or a top of a recently cut tree cluttering up the forest, for the forest is patrolled daily and every twig, loose branch or tree top is picked up as were the sheaves of wheat by the gleaners in the olden days tied into bundles or faggots and sold for fire wood.
The clean paths through the forest, winding through the thick growths of evergreens, and up the hillside, generally sloping gently and occasionally precipitously, invited the passerby to a hike. But, aside from stopping shortly from time to time to enjoy a particularly fine view, we pressed on, in order to reach our destination, Triberg, before noon.