Joshua Wandner still has an illuminated Christmas tree on the balcony. © Michaele Heske
Actually, Peter is a Dorfener, at least in the Isenstadt is assumed. And that could also be the reason why May is so rainy. Author Michaele Heske investigates this.
"Peter is a villager," people here say. For example, when wonderful arias sound over the Lower Market during the bel canto evening, on a balmy summer night, even though the weather app has actually announced the heaviest thunderstorms. Or the sky over the shirt parade suddenly opens up, after days of rain. Somehow, you could always rely on the old man at the Gates of Heaven to send sunshine to the Isental when the people of Dorfen need it. But something seems to throw Peter completely off course this year. Until April, there were still temperatures just above freezing in the morning, and in the merry month of May it rains almost every day so far.
Some say it's climate change. However, it is also possible that the Christmas tree, on top of the Ruprechtsberg, sends out the wrong signals. Vis à vis the parish church of Maria Dorfen, there is still a small fir tree on the balcony, in full Christmas gear: in the twilight, the lights have gone on here every day since Advent. It was the first Christmas tree that Joshua Wandner and his girlfriend Judith bought together in Oberdorfen. And it was the first Advent season together that the couple had spent in their new apartment on Ruprechtsberg. Immediately after Christmas, however, Judith went to study in Aarhus in Denmark. "I'll leave the light on for you", that was probably Wandner's intention for the perennial favorite, in a variation of a candle in the window.
A well-meaning neighbor warned the young man immediately after Candlemas: "This brings bad luck – the Christmas season is over!" But Wandner remained stubborn. He is not superstitious, he says. From the stairs up to the church you can see the tree of offense, quite a few Catholics have been sustainably upset for months. And Peter was probably completely irritated.
But don't worry, after Pentecost it is allowed to sing Christmas carols again, at least that's what popular belief says. Thus, it is probably also legitimate from a Christian point of view that the tree on the balcony shines. And thankfully, the semester abroad in June is over. By then, at the latest, nothing stands in the way of summer. Soon there will be a premiere for the open-air spectacle "Faust in Dorfen" - at the city's anniversary, the people of Dorfen must be able to rely on their Petrus again.
