Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
APRIL 16, 2022 – (Cont.) The procession led to a dark red brick, two-story abbey. I followed the leaders right to the front stoop and watched them disappear into the building. And there on the concrete steps I stood, an improbable observer—a 26-year-old, Protestant “amerikánsky”—in the company of three Polish Catholic nuns. I turned my …
APRIL 15, 2022 – I’d reached the convention center by unconventional means. On my way to a bus stop where I’d been told I could find a public ride, I saw a bus parked along the street. The vehicle was bedecked with signs—including Solidarity posters. Its passengers stood on the sidewalk beside it, and I …
APRIL 14, 2022 – South of Gdansk, the train passed within sight of Malbork Castle—the largest in the world. Completed in 1405, according to my guidebook, the structure was built by the Teutonic Order of Knights (think “German Crusaders”). The Poles had laid siege to the castle in 1410 after one of history’s turning points, …
APRIL 13, 2022 – During my days in the capital, which included mass, pro-Solidarity demonstrations that I joined to get a closer look, I learned three things about Poland that would’ve escaped me without on-the-ground exposure. First was the psychological proximity of WW II. For many Americans, that conflict was epitomized by Pearl Harbor, D-Day, …
APRIL 12, 2022 – Most of my time in Warsaw was spent in Stare Miasto (“Old Town”). This appellation, however, was misleading. In WW II, German bombing had obliterated it. In an inspirational demonstration of resilience after the war, Poland had assigned top priority to the painstaking reconstruction of Stare Miasto—so masterfully executed that until …
APRIL 11, 2022 – My next stop was Warsaw. If it wasn’t the birthplace of the Solidarity Movement, it was a cauldron of history and the vortex of current political protest. I covered much of the city on foot, including stops at various shops, bookstores, and a music store where, for next to nothing, I …
APRIL 7, 2022 – I can best characterize my impression of Poland in September 1981 via a giant Venn diagram depicting Polish: 1. Social unity; 2. Catholicism; 3. Sophistication in the arts and understanding of history and politics; and 4. Hatred of the Russians. Within the substantial overlap of these “circles” I found the essence …
APRIL 6, 2022 – Well after suppertime, I boarded a train in Malmö for the hour-long trip to Ystad at the very southern tip of Sweden. There I boarded a Polish ferry bound for Świnoujście across the Baltic—formerly the German city of “Stettin” before the westward re-arrangement of Polish borders after WW II. Nearly all …
MARCH 28, 2022 – Having spent considerable time inside the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, I next aimed for Vienna, capital of that old regime. Two years earlier I’d visited Salzburg, where I hiked in nearby mountains. If Salzburg was Mozart’s hometown and the movie set for The Sound of Music, Vienna was the larger magnet for …
JANUARY 14, 2022 – Our DNA evolved to accommodate “fight” when our ancestors dropped from the trees of Africa. The word still describes a central element of our personalities—individual and societal. “Fight,” some argue, is as essential to our survival as is “flight.” I harbor hope, however, that we’ll evolve enough socially and emotionally to …
JANUARY 2, 2022 – While the mercury flirted with zero-Fahrenheit outside, I binged-watched the eight-episode PBS Masterpiece Theater production, Atlantic Crossing. My executive summary: it’s a . . . masterpiece. The story’s about the Norwegian Royals (King Haakon VII, (a widower after Queen Maud died in 1938); Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Märtha (Olav’s …
DECEMBER 30, 2021 – Lately, for mental health, I’ve pursued various diversions. The motivation isn’t vacant distraction but a compulsive search for perspective. Trouble is, I’m not sure if “perspective” means getting or giving. At my current juncture in the journey of finite existence, do I strive to impart perspective to loved ones or do …
DECEMBER 18, 2021 – Yesterday I got sidetracked by a PBS series about the War of 1812—the “Forgotten War,” more forgotten than the other “Forgotten War,” which, you’ll remember, was the “Korean War.” Even as an undergraduate history major, I emerged from college without much memory of what’s also called the Second American Revolution, more …
DECEMBER 17, 2021 – As I lie low with The Blasted Cough, and no holiday visitors are expected at our hearth this year, we’re not buying a cut-from-the earth Christmas tree. What’s ironic is that by my latest count, we have 17 “pretend” Christmas trees on display—not including the flat, felt tree (which our granddaughter …
DECEMBER 14, 2021 – One of the biggest Wow! moments occurred aboard a city bus in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. After buying a ticket for two kopecks, I boarded the bus, handed the driver my ticket, and stepped down the aisle to an empty seat a few rows back. As I turned and faced …
DECEMBER 7, 2021 – Veterans Day was originally “Armistice Day,” marking the end of the “Great War for Civilization” (I kid you not—that’s what the victors dubbed it, despite the four years of criminal slaughter—all sides—of the men of a whole generation)—at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. …
NOVEMBER 30, 2021 – In our front yard stand a clump of three birch trees that now tower over our house. When I planted them umpteen years ago, they were small enough to transport home by sticking them up through the open sunroof of our car. I noticed recently that blustery weather had peeled off …
NOVEMBER 25, 2021 – Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. First, its centerpiece is culinary abundance, and at the center of the centerpiece is a stuffed turkey, my favorite land-based food. Second, I enjoy the story of the Original Feast, which occurred exactly four centuries ago this year. However mythicized and romanticized, it’s a …
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 – This was the day that we who are old enough to remember . . . remember. By November 22, 1963, however, people had largely forgotten a key issue of the 1960 campaign: Kennedy’s Catholicism. His speech before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, however, buried the fear that if elected president, he’d …
NOVEMBER 19, 2021 – Simon Winchester wrote a book entitled, The Perfectionists, an interesting work about precision engineering. In the world of machines and micro-machines, precision to the nth-degree marks the difference between function and failure. Perfection applies with equal force to many fields, from music to medicine. It even rules in the practice of …
NOVEMBER 12, 2021 – Star Media, the Russian TV/film production company, delivers again. Yesterday, I finished watching its 12-episode-series, Sorge: Master Spy—a superb work, even if you’re not interested in WW II. That conflagration unfolds only as backdrop; the entire setting is Tokyo (before being fire-bombed by American aircraft) with intermittent trips to Stalin’s Kremlin …
NOVEMBER 5, 2021 – Nine hundred days was the duration of the German siege of Leningrad during World War II. More precisely, it was 872 days—September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944—but after such mass-scale, civilian suffering, Leningraders (now St. Petersburgers) and historians rounded up—as did American Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Harrison Salisbury, whose 635-page, …
OCTOBER 29, 2021 – The other night I dreamt that along with alleged co-conspirators, I’d been sentenced to execution for political crimes. I’m unsure what triggered the dream, though I’ve been reading about the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror (mid-1793 to mid-1794). The guillotine was in active use back then—initially in France then …
OCTOBER 26, 2021 – In my latest plunge into the history of the French Revolution (Hero of Two Worlds by Mike Duncan—see 10/20/21 post), I’m reminded of a factor I’d dismissed in previous study: climate change. Royal decadence, aristocratic privilege, and enduring feudalism became a powder keg. But what was the match that lit the …
OCTOBER 21, 2021 – Once upon a time I was in third grade—at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 16 – 28, 1962). On the day before Kennedy and Khrushchev stepped back from the ledge, I kept my fingers crossed from the 8:00 a.m. radio news until the sun went down. During that …