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Polish men's duty: Taking turns washing dishes in the rain...
AT HOME IN AMERICA (2003?)
As a kid I was obsessed with "Ameryka" magazine that my grandfather collected in Poland. He regularly purchased "Amerykas" in Ruch kiosks, which were located on every corner. It was a collection of tens of glossy books that, as I recall, represented the years 60-67. He had it covered and binded by year. Each book was way too heavy for a kid to carry; I was able to keep only one at the time on my lap. My cousin, who joined me in reading, got bored quickly, me? never! There were stories and pictures all from America. I knew how people lived, I knew what they ate, I knew how they looked and I knew how they dressed. We had glass milk bottles, Americans had milk in carton boxes, I thought it was so cool!
Juice boxes, plastic containers, disposable diapers, plastic cups, all that stuff that causes our planet to rot and doesn’t dissolve in the soil for some 500 years. While in Poland, fish was still wrapped in old newspaper and if you did not bring your own (reusable) bag you couldn’t carry your groceries. Americans drank coca- cola. My shopping trips with mom always ended with a stop at the coffee shop. That’s when I had my coca- cola. It was some kind of treat, for not bothering her at the store.
I remember a picture of a young couple on their farm somewhere in Montana or Idaho posing with their young son. They were captured standing in a front of a cloth line where all their Levis’jeans were hanging; At least a dozen, in different sizes. My thoughts were mixed from "don’t they wear anything else in America" to "original Levis’ jeans are expensive, they must be rich." Of course I was thinking in Polish categories.
There were pictures from some small town on the US-Canadian border. The borderline went exactly across the room attached to the bar. There was some gambling going on, but since it was on Canadian side it was all-legal. The borderline also went across someone’s backyard. And there was this cloth line... Someone could claim that his or her cloth line is the longest in the world, and stretches all the way from US to Canada. Imagine this, you wash your undies in the US and you dry them in the neighboring country. Amazing...
While reading "Amerykas" I discovered Ella Fitzgerald. I loved pictures of Louis Armstrong blowing his trumpet as if his face was made out of rubber and pictures of floats from Pasadena's Rose Parade. I remember behind the scenes pictures from "Whatever happened to baby Jane" with Betty Davies and Joan Crawford. And others from "To kill a Mockingbird." I knew all about them and I was probably one of few kids in Poland who knew who Sidney Pointer was. I could look at those pages for hours.
Most of all, I loved designs by Frank Lloyd Wright. There were similar houses by less known architects, meant for regular people, but I loved his work, that modern block design, with windows that covered a whole wall. Houses that were set on an edge of rocky mountain, houses in which I imagine regular people in America lived; houses that the average American could afford.
On my arrival, I did not expect American houses to look like mansion from the "Dallas" or "Dynasty" series. I expected them to look like smaller versions of Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs. So I cried for the first two weeks after arrival. We just moved from Germany where the living standards in 1986 were pretty high.
And in a small New England town nobody seemed to own the house like Frank Lloyd Wright’s. The apartment was huge. There were 5 windows in our bedroom; all covered with plastic, of which I’m sure Frank would not approve. A church lady showed up to show us HOW TO USE THE GAS STOVE. You know, those primitive Poles must have cooked over the bonfire. Slowly I learned to accept our new living standards.
I enjoyed the look of confusion on people’s faces as I contradicted almost every myth about my native country. But I could lie and have peace of mind or be truthful, accept looks of disbelief and have people keeping distance as If I was... some character.
I bombed them with revelations, like.. In supposedly a strictly Catholic country, I was THE ONLY CHILD of divorced parents, and I wasn’t baptized until I was 5. Only because, one day my grandparents decided to baptize all 5 (at the same time) grandchildren together. I had a blue dress on and white knee socks. Someone brought white pigeons and we set them free. Most of my friends were only children or had only one sibling. In the future, I pictured myself with three children, my rebellious side was telling me to rise above the average, typical 2 plus 1 family. And in my grade 1/3 of the students came form divorced families. My mom remarried; my mother in law remarried twice. Her two ex-husbands are not dead; they are very much alive. And she is the most devoted Catholic of them all.
Poland’s population is slipping due to the low birth rate. As typical for Western European countries, Polish women also chose careers over childbearing. It’s not like they were tied up in the kitchen all those years, quite opposite. In Poland women doctors and judges always outnumbered men. And the professions where men actually BEAT women were hairdressers and chefs. But it is only so because they had women teachers.
Next bomb was, the Polish winters were less severe than New England’s. What in Poland we called " the winter of the century," in New England I have a chance to experience every year. And the Polar bears were locked up in a zoo, rarely walking the streets of Warsaw. In last years Poles are experiencing snowless winters. Although occasionally
they may have a huge snowstorm in November, but then warm weather can bring tulips in my mom’s garden in February.
Cabbage and pierogi are great but, roasted chicken with young potatoes and dill and mizeria a.k.a. cucumber salad, I thought were traditional Polish foods, because that’s what we ate the most. For some strange reason, on my local radio station, un-appreciated cabbage always makes the list of most disgusting foods. To stereotype Poles as fat and cabbage eaters does not make sense. Nobody ever got fat on cabbage, although I heard of cabbage soup diet, go figure.
I do not expect to see "Polska" magazine in every kiosk in US but then think about it, Poles had "Amerykas" in kiosks under communism. What can we say about access to such info on Poland by millions of Americans? . With a monopoly on everything from movies, information to prescription drugs, with the shrinking number of growing corporations that are uncontrollable and unaccountable, I feel more and more at home as if I were in Communist Poland.
Levis just closed its last factory; no more US made originals. With big corporations running the country, with a few cocky politicians we are bullying the rest of the world and the word "diplomacy" is long lost from our vocabulary.
The other day at the bookstore I got my house coffee with free refills. Moments later I shuffled to the counter and since there were two people working there I asked the one close to the coffee machine if I can have a refill. He looked at me and said, " you have to stand in the line first." But I paid for it already and I just want a refill (and he is standing next to the machine). Nope. I looked at the long line of customers waiting for their coffees and cheesecakes. I landed here 17 years ago, but somehow at that moment I jet backed to the time when I left Poland that was still under communist rule. That incident reassured me, that people everywhere are the same, no difference. It’s the times; the circumstances caused by governments can change people’s attitudes. Under communism the customer was necessarily evil and the shopkeeper was the god.
Polish men's duty: Taking turns washing dishes in the rain...AT HOME IN AMERICA (2003?)
As a kid I was obsessed with "Ameryka" magazine that my grandfather collected in Poland. He regularly purchased "Amerykas" in Ruch kiosks, which were located on every corner. It was a collection of tens of glossy books that, as I recall, represented the years 60-67. He had it covered and binded by year. Each book was way too heavy for a kid to carry; I was able to keep only one at the time on my lap. My cousin, who joined me in reading, got bored quickly, me? never! There were stories and pictures all from America. I knew how people lived, I knew what they ate, I knew how they looked and I knew how they dressed. We had glass milk bottles, Americans had milk in carton boxes, I thought it was so cool!
Juice boxes, plastic containers, disposable diapers, plastic cups, all that stuff that causes our planet to rot and doesn’t dissolve in the soil for some 500 years. While in Poland, fish was still wrapped in old newspaper and if you did not bring your own (reusable) bag you couldn’t carry your groceries. Americans drank coca- cola. My shopping trips with mom always ended with a stop at the coffee shop. That’s when I had my coca- cola. It was some kind of treat, for not bothering her at the store.
I remember a picture of a young couple on their farm somewhere in Montana or Idaho posing with their young son. They were captured standing in a front of a cloth line where all their Levis’jeans were hanging; At least a dozen, in different sizes. My thoughts were mixed from "don’t they wear anything else in America" to "original Levis’ jeans are expensive, they must be rich." Of course I was thinking in Polish categories.
There were pictures from some small town on the US-Canadian border. The borderline went exactly across the room attached to the bar. There was some gambling going on, but since it was on Canadian side it was all-legal. The borderline also went across someone’s backyard. And there was this cloth line... Someone could claim that his or her cloth line is the longest in the world, and stretches all the way from US to Canada. Imagine this, you wash your undies in the US and you dry them in the neighboring country. Amazing...
While reading "Amerykas" I discovered Ella Fitzgerald. I loved pictures of Louis Armstrong blowing his trumpet as if his face was made out of rubber and pictures of floats from Pasadena's Rose Parade. I remember behind the scenes pictures from "Whatever happened to baby Jane" with Betty Davies and Joan Crawford. And others from "To kill a Mockingbird." I knew all about them and I was probably one of few kids in Poland who knew who Sidney Pointer was. I could look at those pages for hours.
Most of all, I loved designs by Frank Lloyd Wright. There were similar houses by less known architects, meant for regular people, but I loved his work, that modern block design, with windows that covered a whole wall. Houses that were set on an edge of rocky mountain, houses in which I imagine regular people in America lived; houses that the average American could afford.
On my arrival, I did not expect American houses to look like mansion from the "Dallas" or "Dynasty" series. I expected them to look like smaller versions of Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs. So I cried for the first two weeks after arrival. We just moved from Germany where the living standards in 1986 were pretty high.
And in a small New England town nobody seemed to own the house like Frank Lloyd Wright’s. The apartment was huge. There were 5 windows in our bedroom; all covered with plastic, of which I’m sure Frank would not approve. A church lady showed up to show us HOW TO USE THE GAS STOVE. You know, those primitive Poles must have cooked over the bonfire. Slowly I learned to accept our new living standards.
I enjoyed the look of confusion on people’s faces as I contradicted almost every myth about my native country. But I could lie and have peace of mind or be truthful, accept looks of disbelief and have people keeping distance as If I was... some character.
I bombed them with revelations, like.. In supposedly a strictly Catholic country, I was THE ONLY CHILD of divorced parents, and I wasn’t baptized until I was 5. Only because, one day my grandparents decided to baptize all 5 (at the same time) grandchildren together. I had a blue dress on and white knee socks. Someone brought white pigeons and we set them free. Most of my friends were only children or had only one sibling. In the future, I pictured myself with three children, my rebellious side was telling me to rise above the average, typical 2 plus 1 family. And in my grade 1/3 of the students came form divorced families. My mom remarried; my mother in law remarried twice. Her two ex-husbands are not dead; they are very much alive. And she is the most devoted Catholic of them all.
Poland’s population is slipping due to the low birth rate. As typical for Western European countries, Polish women also chose careers over childbearing. It’s not like they were tied up in the kitchen all those years, quite opposite. In Poland women doctors and judges always outnumbered men. And the professions where men actually BEAT women were hairdressers and chefs. But it is only so because they had women teachers.
Next bomb was, the Polish winters were less severe than New England’s. What in Poland we called " the winter of the century," in New England I have a chance to experience every year. And the Polar bears were locked up in a zoo, rarely walking the streets of Warsaw. In last years Poles are experiencing snowless winters. Although occasionally
they may have a huge snowstorm in November, but then warm weather can bring tulips in my mom’s garden in February.
Cabbage and pierogi are great but, roasted chicken with young potatoes and dill and mizeria a.k.a. cucumber salad, I thought were traditional Polish foods, because that’s what we ate the most. For some strange reason, on my local radio station, un-appreciated cabbage always makes the list of most disgusting foods. To stereotype Poles as fat and cabbage eaters does not make sense. Nobody ever got fat on cabbage, although I heard of cabbage soup diet, go figure.
I do not expect to see "Polska" magazine in every kiosk in US but then think about it, Poles had "Amerykas" in kiosks under communism. What can we say about access to such info on Poland by millions of Americans? . With a monopoly on everything from movies, information to prescription drugs, with the shrinking number of growing corporations that are uncontrollable and unaccountable, I feel more and more at home as if I were in Communist Poland.
Levis just closed its last factory; no more US made originals. With big corporations running the country, with a few cocky politicians we are bullying the rest of the world and the word "diplomacy" is long lost from our vocabulary.
The other day at the bookstore I got my house coffee with free refills. Moments later I shuffled to the counter and since there were two people working there I asked the one close to the coffee machine if I can have a refill. He looked at me and said, " you have to stand in the line first." But I paid for it already and I just want a refill (and he is standing next to the machine). Nope. I looked at the long line of customers waiting for their coffees and cheesecakes. I landed here 17 years ago, but somehow at that moment I jet backed to the time when I left Poland that was still under communist rule. That incident reassured me, that people everywhere are the same, no difference. It’s the times; the circumstances caused by governments can change people’s attitudes. Under communism the customer was necessarily evil and the shopkeeper was the god.
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