the Doors. . . .

It unfolded so gradually that he didn't consciously realize it was happening. Like his own aging, it had proceeded as a continuous, yet gradual process. But he had paid no attention, had not realized it was going on.

Looking back now, he realized that recently there had been a series of quiet denials, none of which by itself had caught his attention. A door closed here, a hurried palm out wave of dismissal there: no time to dawdle and share today. Busy day.

Well: working people are busy. Nothing personal intended. Another time perhaps.

But another time never came. And by the time he recognized the pattern, he became more puzzled than troubled. These people had been his friends. . .hadn't they? Maybe he had only thought they'd been his friends. Maybe they'd simply been his colleagues: associates based upon common training and profession -- working in a common place.

Of course there had been smallish political disagreements. And their academic emphases varied, and the values those variations defined. Still, despite these small differences they had common pursuits, shared interests and struggles, shared hopes for the growth and productivity of the school. They even shared the students.

And, like all university professors, their schedules were scattered -- and had to be. Some met morning and afternoon undergraduate courses. Some met evening graduate courses. Some met classes Monday-Wednesday, some Tuesday-Thursday. On the other hand, there were constant cross-curricular committee meetings whenever an hour or two could be found when all colleagues were available. Department meetings were often early Friday mornings, when all were available, if mostly disinterested in the agenda. So, once in awhile, they all assembled in the same room.

He was different, though. The college was his second home. He loved the setting, liked working in the library, the computer center, and his office. He enjoyed mixing with administrative and other support personnel. And when his wife retired from the public schools, she was hired immediately as Director of Student Teaching Placement. She worked downstairs in the same building. That meant he could drop in on her whenever he wished, enjoy brief conversations, take her to lunch.

So, unlike most of his colleagues, who were present only for office hours and teaching assignments, he was always around. Not so, his colleagues.

University professors are an independent breed. Department and committee agendas fall mostly out of the realm of their major interests. They attend the work because they know it must be done.

It was the work that loosely tied them together. Two kinds of work: the committee and department hack-work -- which forced them to meet. The really important, independent work took place within their individual academic areas: the constant study and update of knowledge, the creation of learning activities related to preparation of classes, the creative work related to publication and presentations -- this was the work that mattered. And it was all largely independent work.

Furthermore, this major work was the sort that separated colleagues, rather than drew them together. Much of it was accomplished behind closed office doors. Much of it was done at home. Some of it took place out among teachers in the public schools. Again, as I said, the important work scatters professors rather than draws them together.

Given that fact, it wasn't as if he ever belonged to a tight-knit organization anyway.

And so, though he wasn't immediately aware of it, the moment he retired, he lost his place and status. He was no longer a comrade. His usefulness as a functional member evaporated. While this fact surprised him, it really shouldn't have. Never mind there had always been a marked atmosphere of busy amicability in the College of Education. Never mind they had often shared the same coffee in the same lounge. Never mind their quick, hit-and-bounce, hale-fellow-well-met greetings. Perhaps it had always been true that though they made the necessary effort, their differences truly mattered more than had their shared department work.

They were not a closely-knit, interdependent team. They were not a learning community. They were, instead, a disparate collection of independent and talented individuals, each bent to his own most-valued tasks. They were largely self-sufficient in all ways.

On some level he was always aware of this fact. Nevertheless, he had always been an incurable Romantic. For him, their quick smiling warmth and easy social exchanges passed for (what?!) at least a degree of friendship. He thought of them as bright and insightful, well worth the time he spent with them. He liked and admired them all. Still, he was very comfortable with the loosely-knit organization of the college. He liked the freedom it afforded.

Two events finally stirred him awake to his changed predicament.

About three years after his wife died, he approached a woman with whom he had often worked closely in relation to his graduate students. Like many middle-management personnel in lower administration, she had enrolled in three of his leadership graduate courses, and had proven bright and perceptive -- a really outstanding student. A delightful person, too. She was an older student, but extremely attractive, younger than he, but well within his age range. He imagined he knew her well, had always liked her. Based upon their nearly 20 years of warm association and shared work with students, he had long thought of her as a friend.

WRONG! It was lunchtime. When he approached her and quietly asked if she would (as he lightly put it) "Grab a quick sandwich with him. . ." a look of absolute perturbation crossed her face, she began to stammer and back away. She became so uncomfortable, in fact, that he felt like a complete nitwit. He smiled, touched her upraised hand gently, and backed away: "Oh! I see you're busy today. Another time, perhaps. . . ." But he knew there wouldn't be another time.

Soon after that happening, the new department chairperson asked him if he felt ready to teach one of his favorite courses as an elective. He quickly assented. But the enrollment process in the graduate school had always been strange. For two initial days, all graduate courses are offered. Then, for three or four weeks, enrollment is denied while undergraduates are enrolled. Finally, enrollment is again permitted by graduate students. This is a long-standing process, well understood by graduate students. A graduate course costs nearly a thousand dollars. Like all intelligent people, graduate students wait for the second enrollment period, using their available money for more immediate purposes.

What happened in this instance was that before the second enrollment period, the administration summarily canceled his course, saying it had insufficient enrollment. Of course it did. It was an elective course on several programs. The early enrollment that had developed during the initial period resulted -- as always -- from the rush to assure places in required courses. That was a pattern well understood from past practice. Still more disappointing was that several students had called him, welcomed him back, promised to enroll in the course.

Those two happenings focused his thinking. He finally became aware that there was no going home to the College of Education. Notwithstanding it had never been quite a home, he finally understood he couldn't go home again. The wife he worshiped was gone. The work he loved was no longer available to him. His youth had vanished.

All roads back were closed to him. The old doors were tightly closed.

But he decided that was a good thing:

The road ahead was wide open!
And other doors were surely open.

In Praise of Clean Air

Now as I begin writing, I think I might've better entitled this posting: In Praise of Sensible Problem Solving.

Let me see if I can make clear why I say that.

This posting is about the persistent cough I had since the beginning of March -- lasted most of six weeks, right through my recent adventures with my grand-kids in Romania and Rome. Really a rasping and deep cough, mostly at night when I lay down to sleep, and immediately in the morning when I awoke.

Couldn't make sense out of it. Thought it might have to do with rising spring pollen-counts. Thought it might be a late reaction to Gatsby-Kitty's dander and hair. Thought it might be some sort of infection going around. Thought it might be some combination of such factors.

Thought it would just go away.

But it didn't. Hung on for most of six weeks. Kinda got used to it: deep rasping coughs that persisted, but didn't produce much phlegm. Coughed so much early-on that my shoulders got sore. But I soon toughened up. Even began to consider the cough a kind of upper-body strengthening exercise.

Didn't go to my doctor. (That'd make too much sense!) There is this damnable syndrome by which (some) old people tend to pooh-pooh anything but major illness. We wait it out. Having been raised in harder times, we've waited-out lotsa maladies -- anything short of long-bone fractures, persistent bleeding, or outright insanity has consistently cured itself over time. We've weathered a long line of physical discomforts based upon the innocent notion that time heals all wounds -- with maybe a little aspirin thrown in among sissies.

So on I coughed. I'm largely a solitary person, so there was nobody around who might catch my affliction or complain she might. Besides, anyone viewing my acrobatic coughing fits was very apt to just step back away from me thirty to fifty yards. I mean this cough was impressive. Theatrical is not too strong a word. I stop short of Tuberculin, only because I never saw a TB patient cough. But it had to be close.

One day though, while I was picking up my mail out front, I began to cough. In a moment or two, my lovely neighbor came over. She's a bright, young medical doctor, and over the few years I've known her, she kinda looks after me -- as if I'm maybe her surrogate dad or grand-dad.

Doc Milly'd been out walking her dog, Cocoa. She didn't have a stethoscope with her. But then she didn't need one. My lungs were about hanging out, dangling down my chest. And she'd seen and heard the cough, which was now lasting into its fifth week. Plus, being an emergency room physician, she well knew an emergency when she encountered one.

She quickly informed me that what I had was currently going around. I never argue with Milly. I like her too much, besides which all the evidence is that she's considerably smarter than I am -- and much prettier, too.

Anyway, she headed off through her open garage door to call my pharmacy with a prescription for a drug I can neither spell nor pronounce. What I brought home from my pharmacy about fifteen minutes later was three cucumber-sized pills -- so big in fact, I considered cutting each one into thirds just to get them down. But I'm brave: I dutifully took one a day, over the next three days.

They worked really well, in fact. But my chest still felt full and heavy, and I occasionally coughed, though just pippy little coughs. Kinda prolonged hur-rummphs hardly worth mentioning. I quickly fell back into my old-folks-ignore-it-it'll-eventually-go-away-pattern. After all, isn't that what happened to my old-timey beauty and virility?

Then about a week later I was Skyping with my Peace-Corps grandkids in Romania. Marisa opined: "Could be it's dust. Could be it's Gatsby-Kitty's hair and dander. . . . Are you still running the vacuum and dusting weekly?"

That pricked up my ears. While I didn't confess it to Marisa, the fact is that this past year I've been back-sliding as a housekeeper. Typically, I've gotten to the point where I reconnoiter my home weekly, picking up no dirt-clod smaller than a softball. Customarily I run the sweeper every few months or so, whether the carpeting needs it or not. My Swiffer has become a complete stranger. Dust-cloths, nevermore. In my defense I empty the waste-baskets -- if I can no longer stomp their contents below their tops. . .at which point I pry the contents free, and it comes out hard and neat as a concrete block.

And there are other tell-tale signs of my housekeeping efficiency. But I'll spare you. Except to say that at times I have to break my bed sheets over my knee and bend them sufficiently to get them into the washer. No spider-webs, thank you. The spiders have long-since evacuated. Dust balls? I'm afraid to look under the furniture. Windows? I had a crew in to wash them three years ago. I like my privacy. I can hear my neighbors well enough without seeing them.

SO! What I finally did to cure my cough was (aaaarrrgh!) clean the house. I smashed up the lumps and vacuumed two bags-full of debris off the rugs. I ran through two full boxes of Swiffer thingees on the hardwood. I dusted through several furniture phases from dry to muddy to bright&shiny. I undusted the Venetian Blinds. I even polished the cherry cabinetry. (I'd forgotten it was reddish in hue.)

But the thing I did that I think really mattered is I went to Sears and bought three humongous air cleaners -- the real spiffy sort with three filters. I spotted them downstairs in the finished basement, on the ground floor, and in my bedroom. I ran them on high until I could clearly see across every room in the house. (Took most of two days.) Since then I have run them around the clock on automatic. Sears alleges they have a sensor which automatically adjusts the air flow, and guarantees they will keep the air in a home pollutant free.

We shall see!

Meanwhile I haven't coughed lately.
Could be, though, I've just outlasted my cough.

Stay tuned!

This morning. . .Suddenly it's Spring

Nearly 6:00am. Awake. Up and about feeling rested. I wander the house. Searching.

Persistent clattery swirls of spotty rain on the roof. Could be the storm's mostly over. Could be the pitter-patter's maybe just spatters blown from water-laden leaves suspended high above, in dense trees surrounding the house.

I'm strangely restless, moving from window-to-window.

I'm shivering. I pull a sweatshirt off its hook in the hall closet, shake into it, switch on the living room fireplace and step out onto the glassed-in porch. As if on cue, the electric heater kicks on and warms my bare legs. A fat sparrow, roosts in puffed-up feathers beside a tiny finch on the trough of the bird-feeder. Their lumpy presence, my-side of the feeder, tells me the general direction of the gusty wind. Their feathers say it's cold out there.

For several moments the rain comes in angry bursts. Heavy raindrops lash the surface of the pond. Bushes rock, and tree limbs whip about in sharp wind-gusts. A bleak, damp day. An inside day. Made for light housework and quiet reading. Maybe a mid-afternoon nap, snug on the couch, beneath a light throw across from the Great-Room fireplace. But not now. I'm restless.

Should I work out? Maybe some yoga? Not certain. I know my mind. I'm tryna find Nancy.

I wander room-to-room in this beautiful house that says her name. Soon I'll find her, sense her presence -- and then this chilly house'll be home.

Rain-spattered windows frame the gusty dampness. Close around the house, scores of daffodil-clumps are mostly fading, their dripping dead flags waving lightly, then dancing in wind-gusts. Among them, startling purple tulips burst free on long sweeping wands. Across the drive, soft-rising bleeding heart blossoms wave gently among foot-high, round globes of spiky green day-lilies. Classic and hybrid hasta-splits rise a foot high everywhere, their tight spikes now unrolling into leaves the size of my hand.

Among the trees, nearly full-grown May-apples sprawl in tight, deep carpets, their round-scalloped, over-lapping leaves already large as luncheon plates. Throughout the woods, German Ivy crowds the bases of many trees, grips the bark, begins its persistent climb. Some sunny day, soon, I'll be pulling it down and snipping it back.

But this past three springs I've put off garden chores until early June. They're not nearly as much fun without Nancy. Still, soon enough I'll work the gardens and crowd the open spaces with large jugs and vases of bright annuals. Soon enough I'll feel her hands crowding mine in tight-rubberized work gloves. Soon enough we'll make the gardens beautiful once more.

Last Wednesday's myriad bush and tree buds have now burst and unwoven into leaves the size of teaspoons -- small, but already so many this morning I can hardly see through them to the pond. The woods is fairly open. Still, though I've long-since cleared the brush and opened paths, I've left many tall, spindly young maples and sprawling green-to-scarlet barberry. This clutter of low-lying, leaf-laden branches largely obscures my view of the deep woods outback, of the homes out front.

Moving quietly from window-to-window, arms-crossed, my right shoulder pressed softly against each grooved window frame, my nose pressed close to the glass, I gaze speculatively out into this damp spring scene. I'm feeling comfortably closed in, alone, yet safe and secure in this home we made. I softly hum and sing that old Methodist hymn from my childhood:

Leanin', leanin', safe and secure
from all alarms.
Leanin', leanin'. . .
Leanin' on the everlasting arms.

By the time I've completed six verses, I've found her. I turn away from the window. No longer restless, I lie down on the couch. . .

safe and secure in
Nancy's everlasting arms.

Timisoara: Cradle of the Romanian Revolution

Before I close this spotty and jangled retrospective on Romania and Rome, I'd like to tell you a little bit more about the part of Romania where my grand-kids live and teach English as a Second Language.

I've talked generally about Mat & Marisa's orange apartment in their purple apartment house. I've suggested the homes I saw and visited are like the people who live in them: colorful and warm. I spoke briefly about how the kids' lovely landlord included us in her family Easter dinner. I also mentioned the Easter carnival -- the middle-aged dancers and carnival rides.

Here's something I have not told you. We visited Marisa's school in Chisoda. Guess what!? It looks just like an American elementary school built in perhaps the 1970's. The classrooms look like ours -- complete with newer metal desks, green chalkboards, and flower-pots on the window sills. Perfectly printed and written alphabets around the top boarder of the room? Yep! Student papers neatly posted? Yep! Copy machines? Yep! Furthermore, the teachers I met look just like American elementary teachers. They're mostly good-looking young women. (Though one hardly notices!) They dress conservatively, as do most elementary teachers. They're engaging, warm, and smiling. I had to shake my head and make myself realize I was in Romania.

Here's something more: Giroc and Chisoda -- where Mat and Marisa teach -- are rapidly developing bedroom communities attached to Timisoara, a large and thriving city of (I'm guessing here) perhaps 60,000 souls. It was in this western city of Timisoara that the Romanian Revolution began some twenty years ago. And it was in the Romanian Revolution Museum there that I experienced perhaps the most emotional moment of my visit.

I remember well, for instance, the aborted Hungarian Revolution of 1956 -- how Soviet tanks rushed in a restored the hated regime. I also remember Poland's struggle to break free from the Soviet bloc: how Lech Walesa and his courageous minions wrestled control from the Politburo in 1989. And I clearly remember thinking in December, 1989, that the Romanian popular uprising would certainly fail to overthrow the hated Nicolae Ceausescu. To my surprise, the revolution succeeded.

Mat and Marisa took me to the Romanian Revolution Museum -- a modest building pressed in between places of business in downtown Timisoara. The RRM is filled with memorabilia of that troubled, but triumphant time -- stuff like army and police uniforms, various weapons, significant documents, and the like. The docent was a lovely woman who appeared to be in her late-forties. She was dressed in a trim tweed suit, and she reminded me of every good teacher I have ever met. She was engaging and warm, bright-eyed and eager to inform us about the revolution.

The first thing she told us was that Timisoara was the center of the uprising, largely because it is situated in the far western part of Romania, and despite the news blackouts of the time, information about the surge of freedom sweeping the western provinces of the Soviet Republic reached Timisoara quickly.

The second thing she did was show us two remarkable and frightening videos of the early freedom riots. Imagine Romanian police shooting live ammunition into masses of angry protesters. Imagine dozens of tear gas canisters flashing through the air, landing at the feet of pressing crowds. Imagine unarmed individuals and groups clashing directly with police in a mad melee of twisted bodies and clubbed-down victims. While Americans often see this sort of thing on television news broadcasts, the large mass of us seldom see this sort of thing in person. Nor does it appear to be taking place close to home.

Imagine people indiscriminately shot dead in surging crowds.

It was after watching these two appalling videos, when our docent was showing me 8x10 black and white glossy photos of bloody protesters dying in the arms of their friends and loved-ones, that I suddenly became aware that tears were running down my cheeks, and I was breaking into sobs.

I was embarrassed. I couldn't account for my emotional response. Though I've always thought myself a compassionate person, I thought my reaction inappropriate. I had to turn away, fight for control, gather myself, and apologize. I kept thinking: Bob, for goodness sake: you don't know these people. . .this was decades ago. . .you've seen this sort of thing scores of times before on nightly television. It has nothing to do with you. Settle DOWN.

It was only an hour or two later that I realized how much Nancy's death has changed me. Before Nancy's death, seeing stark pictures of people dying in the arms of their friends and loved-ones would certainly have raised in me a sense of real compassion -- but no tears. I had some knowledge of death. But I had no personal experience with death. Since Nancy died in my arms nearly four years ago, such pictures bypass my head and go directly to my heart. Such pictures apparently remind me of my own loss and touch me deeply. Now I empathize. Now I realize: death is real and unrelenting. It leaves an emptiness, a hopelessness and state of emotional turmoil only fully realized when one experiences such loss oneself.

Thinking about the experience reminded me finally of a passage in T. S. Eliot's Hollow Men. He completes that long poem with four lines:

This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Fifty years after first reading that poem, I finally understand and deeply feel what these lines mean -- and how they challenge my life-struggle. I feel the warning in that passage. Now, near the end of my life, when my energy and powers are dwindling, when I sometimes wish to give in -- at this time, I know it's important for me to discipline myself rigorously, to martial and concentrate what powers may remain to me, to lift myself, to set my jaw, brighten my eyes, and generate my best possible self -- for myself and for my remaining friends and loved-ones.

I've had a wonderful life. I'll be damned if I'll permit myself to whine about it when I have every reason to be grateful. No more tears. Life is a grueling and joyful race. I intend to finish strong.

So in a way, I suppose I do know these people. Time and distance make little difference. Our hopes, our losses and tears unite us. So too does our shared determination. These were brave souls, determined to live life fully and freely on their own terms. It's well they should be remembered and honored. They set a powerful example of human courage. For our own sake, we need to remember them.

I suppose I cried because I was caught off guard. I was neither prepared, nor had I expected my emotional reaction. The worst part, I suppose, was that this breakdown came in the presence of my grandkids. I have always tried to create for them the impression that while I miss Gramma terribly, I am now -- nearly four years later -- not so easily reduced to emotional turmoil.

Later, I was sharing with our docent my impressions of the Romanian Revolution when it was going on. She asked if I would be kind enough -- and could be calm enough -- to sit with her for a video-taped interview of my recollections , my feelings and impressions about the revolution as it was going on in Romania when I was younger. I agreed to do that, and to my relief I was able to respond to her questions in a controlled manner.


Only much later did I realize that this woman of some forty-plus years had likely been present in those surging and defiant crowds, had herself been one of those heroes. And had survived.

We Americans of a certain age:
We take a lot for granted.
And we owe even more!

When in Rome. . . .

All together, Class:

When in Rome:
try to do as the Romans do,
arise early and wear sturdy shoes,

eat pizza, lasagna, and chicken fetuccini alfredo,
orient your tourist map from the top of the Vatican,
search out and find and study as many monuments as you can,
be prepared to fall in love with Rome, Romans, and tourists, alike.

Coulda been the early spring weather. Coulda been I needed to stretch my legs and my mind. Coulda been the warmth and loveliness of my Peace-Corps grandchildren. Coulda been the warmth of the people I encountered there. Coulda been that for nearly four years I have been in a sort of self-imposed seclusion -- and I needed to be again among people who openly celebrate their lives.

Whatever it was that took hold of me: I fell in love with Rome. And I know my reawakening began the morning we visited the Colosseum. The sun was bright, the sky blue. The crowds were immense and vibrant. The weather smiled. We all smiled back.

Against our better judgment we joined a tour. Thing is, tour-guides are engaging. But even more important, tour-guides and their charges get to cut right in front of the huge lines awaiting tickets and entry. Our tour-guide was short, tan and round, warm and smiling, engaging and familiar. Her patter was interesting and often funny. She knew lotsa interesting stuff she used to enliven her monologue. Did you know, for instance, that there is no written record proving that Christians were ever sacrificed in the Colosseum? Criminals, YES! Christians, NO! Hmmmnnn!? Christian criminals? (Perhaps this is true!?) An interesting assertion in any case.

I liked how our tour-guide swept our group with her bright eyes, focusing an instant on each of us in turn, accomplishing the strange effect that made each of us think she was talking to each one of us only. That was it! She seemed informed and credible. I thought she was a good teacher.

In fact, she was so good at her work that we stuck with her for over an hour, until we became so intrigued by the displays and the Colosseum itself that Mat, Marisa, and I finally decided to break free and follow our own shared interests. There are so many displays loaded with interesting artifacts and related information: armor, weapons and unique weapon combinations used by various groups of warriors and gladiators, intricate descriptions and models of pulleys and elevator systems once used to introduce to the arena the "actors" in that day's drama, on and on. It's a fascinating museum, in fact. It's compelling enough to look at the Colosseum. But to read and study, to learn about it. . .that is even more fascinating.

That first day, we spent at least three hours at the Colosseum. Remember also that the Colosseum is the centerpiece of the Great Square. It's flanked by the huge Arch of Constantine and the Temples of Greece and Rome. Constantine's Arch is virtually covered with bas relief motifs which record events that marked his life's work. Though we knew an interesting story of Constantine's life and contributions to the Empire was recorded there, we were unable to decipher the information offered there. My Latin is by now over fifty years old -- as dead as a dead language can become.

A short walk brought us to the ruins of Caesar's New Forum and the Forum of Augustus which stand high above the modern street level. What appeared so strange and impressive to me was how these various ruins of Ancient Rome stand right in the midst of modern Rome, its wide thoroughfares and bustling traffic. The old in the midst of the new. There's exists there such a strange mixture of past and present side-by-side in that relatively small space that I found it difficult to order and digest it all. Nor could I draw clear lines between the new and the old.

Nearby the Colosseum stand the extensive ruins of the Palatine, the Cradle of Rome, the so-called sacred birthplace of early Rome. This ancient ruin stretches high across a hill. I stood a long time trying to imagine it new and growing, filled with ancient Romans.

Behind and below another set of extensive ruins is what remains of The Circus Maximus. Not much left of it -- a long, narrowed and tapered groove in the ground, that called to my mind the violent Chariot Race of the great film Ben Hur.

We saw so much over the first three days of our visit:

The Imperial Fora:
those of Caesar, Augustus, and Trajan,

The Palatine,
The Domus Aurea,
Tiber Island,

I have to say that after awhile these ancient ruins were difficult to distinguish. After all, a ruin is a ruin, is a ruin. Difficult though it was, we made it our business to see and absorb a rich sense of the monuments we studied. We really did try to grasp all the history reflected in these ancient sites. But trying to reconstruct in one's mind-eye the ruins, and then imagine these ancient Roman sites crowded with ancient Romans proved a mind-boggling task.

In fact, though: Mat and Marisa bought me a wonderful book I recommend for anyone wishing to interpret Rome's extensive catalog of ancient ruins. It's entitled "Ancient Rome: Monuments Past and Present." All of what we saw -- and much more -- is represented in the book. A rich text is offered on each monument. Even more fascinating is that each ruin is pictured in large 8x11 photos. Moreover, a heavy plastic overlay is provided, that when it is in place provides a startling picture of what that monument (probably) looked like when it was new. The publisher appears to be Tipolitographica CS, (Padova: 2006). An ingenious book.

That first day Mat also led us to the Trevi Fountain. To my surprise this wonderful fountain and its huge and striking statuary is -- how can I say it: "tacked onto the rear of a large building."

Nevertheless it looks out onto a large, busy piazza, and is an arresting sight. It rises from a large, walled recess and is surrounded by large benches, which at mid-afternoon were over-flowing with throngs of tourists. In the bright afternoon sun, the fountain shown to wonderful advantage. Like many others, I tossed in a coin and wished for love.

That was the first place we visited where I became aware of a horde of troublesome gypsy peddlers selling everything from fresh, beautiful red roses to cheesy plastic "guns" that shot bubbles. The peddlers were skillful: they would hand a bubble-gun to the youngest child, then approach the parents for money. Or place a long-stemmed rose in the hands of an attractive woman, then approach her escort for money. Perturbing? YES! More than once they got their roses and bubble-guns handed right back to them, perhaps along with an insult. By late afternoon, fathers and lovers can get pretty tired and irritable.

I confess it: I was sorry by evening I had not bought Marisa at least one rose. Coulda brought me the love I had wished for -- at least. Well!? Grandchildren are generous with their love anyway.


Rome puzzled and intrigued me. It drew me in and held me. I think the impression I came away with has as much to do with modern Rome as with ancient Rome. Rome strikes me as a place whose citizens share a keen sense of the place and its greatness over time. In fact, I remain as much impressed by the people I saw there and pressed in among, as by the astonishing sense of history that pervades the city.

It is one thing to live and work in a place, to know one's time, to love one's family and friends, to experience one's own time fully, moment-to-moment. It is quite another thing to sense oneself across a grand sweep of time as Romans appear to do. The Romans I saw appear to be part of a bustling present, yet somehow they are connected securely to this vast sweep of time that reaches back over 2000 years to Romulus and Remus.

On the other hand, I'm a proud American. I love our history and our lore -- a proud history that reaches back a scant 250 years. I'm not certain how that fact might make me different from the typical Roman citizen. I do, however, feel that such a sense of virtual timelessness must have its impact upon any thinking-feeling Roman.

Perhaps the warm openness and generosity I experienced in Rome is one aspect of the Roman character that results from this long historical perspective I'm trying to grasp and express. I thought I might encounter a tourist trap. Instead Rome felt like home -- even though I had little language, and lived in a hotel.

One thing is certain: I loved Rome. I want to go back again soon.

And while there,
I intend to do as the Romans do!

Rome: the Romans, the Glittering City

Here I go again, recording the high-points of my visit with the kids -- backwards.

The entire visit, not counting travel time from Michigan and back, numbered just nine well-planned, pell-mell, exciting days. I spent three days in Giroc and Timisoara (Romania) learning about the kids' daily life, visiting the schools where they serve as English Teachers for the Peace Corps. Then we flew to Rome and toured the city for four days. We spent two final days together in Giroc and Timisoara. Then I flew to Munich, on to Chicago, and finally arrived safely in our tri-cities. Even the traveling was an adventure for me.

In this posting I'll try to tell you some my impressions of Rome.

While every segment of the trip seemed wonderful, the four days in Rome were the most interesting, perhaps because Rome was so new to all of us, and there was so much to see and do. Rome is a beautiful city. The weather was unseasonably warm -- somewhere in the low-seventies with cool breezes. I wandered around in a t-shirt, levis, and sandals.

Rome is bustling and cosmopolitan. It was difficult for me to distinguish the Romans from the tourists. We'd walk through crowds and pick up wisps of various languages, sometimes shifting from language to language in single conversations among the same small groups -- the soft elided syllables of French and Italian, the sharp guttural shades of German, the variant friendly and lilting tones of Great Britain's dialects, the sharp, rapid-staccato strains of Asian tongues, the softly-rasping tones of Eastern European tongues.

I must admit, I felt strangely illiterate. I had only American English, and I was surrounded by signs I could not read -- though my six years of Latin in college helped me with Italian and Spanish. Still, those with whom we transacted business spoke English quite fluently, and because most of our exchanges were business we did quite well.

Notwithstanding my advanced age, I found the women of Rome startling. Scandinavian and German women were tall, often-blond, and arresting. Most women wore the apparent stylish-uniform of the day: knee-length, tight, low-cut levis and tall-dark, high-heeled boots -- six-inch spiked heels, no less. Most sweaters and blouses were long, though often some fetching belly was exposed. Hair: long, dark, swept-back. Often I saw startling hair of red-orange hues. I have to say, young women -- and those still trying to appear young -- displayed an overt sexiness I am not accustomed to seeing in females in Michigan. I thought that might have something to do with the apparent impact of the American Womens' Liberation movement that has helped shape American women as I have come to recognize them over recent decades. But then, I am a creature of the American college campus, where women's dress and general appearance is more casual and perhaps even much more conservative.

Of course, American women are certainly lovely. (I saw lots of them in Rome.) But they do not so completely display themselves as sexual objects. As an aging man, I speak of both American and European women chiefly as an observer. (It's been a long time since any woman, anywhere expressed any particular interest in me.) But what I saw of the European women around me over the past ten days makes me conclude that European women are focused upon men. A generalization to be sure. . .but a pretty sound generalization, at that.

It could be also that the women in my work (and play) life have always been teachers. And while female teachers certainly are a lovely lot, they are perhaps more conservative in their dress and physical mannerisms. They are (what?) more motherly-businesslike, I suppose. They tend to be more professional. My wife was a teacher. I worked all my life among graduate students who were teachers. I don't think it's that I am growing old -- though I am and have largely become invisible to women. I think it's quite apparent that the European women I watched were focused upon the men accompanying them. And they appeared very friendly. . .very friendly, indeed.


Rome is a city of bustling crowds, a city of broad avenues filled with booming, honking traffic. The layout of the city, however, is not so much rectangular as radiating from some center or series of centers I never quite found. These broad avenues meet in large traffic circles, often decorated with large fountains and impressive clusters of statuary. Ever the American, I thought almost aloud: "Criminey! What must all this rich adornment have cost? Does Rome budget for all this? Is this primarily what Rome must do to draw millions of tourists? Or is all this elegance and beauty distinctly Roman, and for Romans as well as tourists?" I have no answers for such queries.

The traffic runs in a torrent on major thoroughfares. There are few stoplights by American standards. To make things more exciting, pedestrians have the right-of-way. Italians are brave! Gobs of people step off the curb into the wild melee of passing traffic, and whole flights of onrushing automobiles screech to a halt, permitting walkers to proceed -- and survive. Narrowly. Many vehicles are small and compact. And on the smaller, interconnecting cobblestone streets, vehicles are parked, packed tightly to one side, while moving cars careen through the narrow space remaining. Walking in Rome is an adventure!

Between and among the broad avenues are myriad small connecting streets -- narrow, short, surfaced with flat cobblestones. We found it possible to combine long avenues with these short streets and find our way almost directly to most tourist sites we wished to visit. Mat -- our personal path-finder -- studied the map, quickly figured the general direction that connected the present site to our next site, and led us off boldly in the desired direction. The more we criss-crossed the city, the more sites we happened upon, the more able we became in determining what sites we really wanted to see, and how to quickly find them. This way we managed to visit perhaps twice the sites we originally had selected.

Again, Rome is a fascinating city. It calls out and commands attention. Much of what I saw held me spellbound. I find it difficult to describe the things I saw -- the tourist sites such as the Colosseum, for instance -- because my intellectual and emotional reactions to these things remain most stirring. And the whole is mixed with my impressions of the people surrounding me at the sites. Most of all, the people, tourists and locals alike, made the deepest impressions upon me. They were so warm and engaging, interested and interesting, and like me, fascinated by the city itself. Or so it seemed.

Imagine: three days of bright weather, friendly crowds, gorgeous parks, and endless strings of sparkling-bright fountains, surrounded by or centered among marvelous statuary. Everywhere spring's promise. Everything lush green or greening. Daffodils, tiny crocus varieties, and up-reaching tulips -- just like home. But some differences in flora, too. Plants I can't remember seeing elsewhere, and a mixture of leafed shrubbery I'd never before seen. However, I was delighted to spy among unfamiliar ornamental bushes the bright golden wands of forsythia, spring's harbinger. Throughout the various parks, stood strange towering conifers, their side-limbs cut off, their fat trunks reaching upwards, perhaps 100-150 feet to flattened tops.

And the whole of every scene teeming with people -- locals and tourists, I think -- because it was difficult to tell them apart. Except for the maps, I mean. And the whole of every scene was soooo spring-like. It seemed to me we all -- tourists and locals alike -- felt touched and expectant. Spring burst alive all around us.

Everywhere I looked I saw couples -- mostly young, but even the middle-aged and aging appeared frisky and light-footed. In the midst of this expansive world of loving couples: Marisa and Mat and Grampa --we three. The only trio I saw. Yet, Nancy was perpetually present, our silent companion. I must've thought a million times: "I wish Nancy could see this. . . ."

I did miss her. . .the warmth of her arm through mine, the tight clasp of her hand in mine, the way she always smiled up into my face and wiggled joyfully at any new and delightful sight, the way she always clung closely to me, her lithe, delighted body pressed against mine. But the past four years have taught me to fight that longing, to cast free and lean into the best moments of each day. I've become a solitary and interested observer of life.

Still, Rome is as much a place to love as a place for lovers. We stayed on the move, always pressing forward, heading to the next site, determined to experience and enjoy everything we could.

I've told you already about the immense Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, it's endless stairways upward to the tombs, the broad array of massive columns, the arresting view from its expansive overviews high above the city.

But I want to tell about Vatican City. The immense crowds there dwarfed any I encountered elsewhere. The lines there were long, deep, and fifteen people wide. Yet they moved rapidly. Our first destination was the top of the portico -- a lengthy elevator ride led to a series of narrow, leaning stairways that encircled the inside of the portico walls, leading to the large circular observation deck at the very top.

Signs along the way warned the unwary: "320 stair-steps." In fact, we had to press to one side to permit the downward passage of one aging man, who smiled sheepishly and apologized as we opened the way for him. But my long-standing regimen of daily walks of two-four hours prepared me -- despite my advanced age. At the very top of the portico -- the highest point in the city -- is a circular site-seeing enclosure from which Rome spreads out below. Mat oriented us to his map, and we could easily locate and observe the sites we had visited and those we hoped to find during our visit.

I'll close this posting with comments about our visit to the Sistine Chapel. First of all, need I say the Vatican is both vast and impressive. There is about it a sense of ancient power and authority -- even for a fallen away protestant who spent many of his boyhood years singing in a Methodist Church choir.

Three things especially impressed me about the Vatican. First, the Pieta -- the incredibly lifelike sculpture of the Crucified Christ lying supine in the lap of Mary the Mother. Second, the expansive collection of ancient Greek and Roman statuary. Third, the Sistine Chapel.

The Pieta is spell-binding. At once glistening marble and softly greenish flesh, the piece must be larger than life-size, But it does not seem so. It is now tucked safely behind thick and impenetrable glass. Once, several decades ago, it was attacked by a madman with a hammer. Still, safe behind its glass it reaches out and touches. I stood pressed in the middle of a crowd for at least ten minutes, quietly transfixed behind a railing ten feet from the glass, unable to break away. Quite beyond its rich Christian symbolism, the piece speaks a deeply human message to any person who has lost a treasured loved-one. I have no words to express exactly how the Pieta held me in place, how it spoke to my own sense of personal loss. Of all the things I saw on this trip, this marvelous work of art touched me most deeply.

The Vatican's Greek and Roman sculpture galleries are extensive -- nearly overwhelming in scope and documentation. Each sculpture is numbered, documented, and dated. Where the artist is known, his name is presented. Fragments of original pieces are also arrayed in some of the extensive galleries. I kept thinking as we moved from gallery to gallery: "Hmmmmnnn!? Someone should match these heads to some of those statues lacking them." (To say nothing of disparate arms, hands, or whatever other body-parts might be hastily cobbled together into new statues.) But that's just me: a poor boy raised on hand-me-downs, still trying to even things out.

We passed from one extensive gallery to another, always following arrows indicating we were growing ever-closer to the Sistine Chapel. However, we soon began to feel we were walking toward the horizon. We never seemed to arrive at the Chapel. After two hours or so, we entered a large rectangular outdoor garden. Around the outside of the garden was a series of displays representing Michelangelo's paintings on the walls and ceiling of the Chapel. These were teaching-focusing centers especially designed to prepare us to better see and understand Michelangelo's work in the Chapel.

We found this "study guide" interesting and informative. And it did, in fact, help us make sense of the scores of images and Biblical references presented on the side-walls and the ceiling of the Chapel. To appreciate the vast work, takes patience and knowledge.

Something strange took place as we studied the ceiling. Imagine standing close-packed among perhaps 500 other people studying this marvelous ceiling. As you stand with your back arched, your head drawn fully back, tightly packed beneath the ceiling, you are moved to lean closely toward one of your friends and express appreciation. Perhaps you nudge your friend and whisper quietly: "Look how close Adam's finger appears to be to God's. Yet the study-guide noted the true distance is nearly two feet. . . ."

Now, imagine hundreds of such quietly shared comments. Imagine how these sharings begin to rise in volume as many such informative and appreciative comments are shared among the crowd. What happens is that the murmurs rise in volume at (perhaps) intervals of thirty seconds. Then: imagine one of the black-suited Swiss Guards scowling and shouting vehemently: "Quiet!" At the same time, the other three or four guards emit loud and angry SSSHHHHHH's. The language of choice is varied, but the shushes are universal. The effect is startling because it is so abrupt and angry, so mean-spirited, critical, and demeaning.

The shared affect upon the crowd became a sort of suppressed hilarity. I'm seventy-five years old, but this snotty shushing transported me immediately back to my adolescent days in my high-school library -- where my black-dressed and irritating librarian had the same hilarious affect upon me and my classmates. She just made us naughtier and noisier with her shushing. More to the point, as we looked around us in the Chapel, our eyes met those of strangers, all of whom appeared to be expressing the same sort of grinning naughtiness. Apparently we couldn't help ourselves.

The more the guards shushed us, the more we murmured. The result was a sort of rising murmur at thirty-second intervals -- followed by angry blasts of criticism from the guards. The more the sequence went on the more incorrigible we became. Whatever training these snotty guards may have experienced, common-sense courtesy and human relations was not on the curriculum. I can't imagine that each group experiencing Michelangelo's artistry does not feel moved to express admiration, quietly one to the other. Nor can I imagine the Swiss Guards' angry shushing ever has the affect they hope to accomplish.

Perhaps these guards are the holier than thou of the Holy City.

Strange. But we had all paid for the privilege of viewing Michelangelo's art and commenting -- ever so quietly -- upon it affirmatively. I suppose we were not suitably reverent. But then, who is these days?

More about Rome later!

The Trip Home from Rome

Woke up in my own bed this morning. Talk about luxury. Talk about simplicity! I lay awake watching the low-spreading red glow rise outside my eastern bedroom window. Gorgeous, that unfolding of shape and substance outside my window. Glorious unfolding of light on the east side of the trees -- a red-yellow brightening that slowly opened the woods to my eager eyes. God: I love this beautiful home in the woods beside the pond. Nancy's place. The place and time where I belong. . .where I once loved and was loved.

Glad to be home.

STILL: I soooo enjoyed the trip to Romania, and absolutely delighted in our Roman adventure. But coming home, finding all well here, feeling Gatsby-kitty snug again in my lap as I finger my computer keyboard -- neat stuff. Reflecting upon the trip and all its small-miracles is a sort of unexpected and wonderful after-trip-boost. I've never been much of a traveler. It's more my style to glory in the familiar and common-place.

Don't laugh. For most of us, the real challenge of every day is the development of an ongoing rich-sense-of-the moment, a sort of quietly-ever-present-newness that unfolds and astonishes the perceptive observer.

Terrible though it has been, my grieving has taught me the value of living in the present moment. I'm aware that one way grieving and aging have changed me is that I seldom look FORWARD. I pay attention to the PRESENT. And I think often of the good days of my PAST.

So it is, I've come to see the present moments melt into each other, while the FUTURE seems remote and of little interest. As my much-honored 101 year old aunt told me recently: "Rich as our pasts have surely been, there's really only this moment, Bob. Treasure these moments as they fly away. . . ."

Change is both minute and constant. Attention must be paid. That is the price of loving any time and place, of loving any person.


I'd like to tell you about my trip. And though it may seem strange, I choose to begin with a few details about my coming home. For, as much as I loved the trip, its stirring sights and sounds, the vitality of Romania and Rome, the challenge of the travel and the decisions we made -- as much as I loved all this, I am surprised at how coming home has stirred me.

While I may appear aging and amply seasoned: I am NOT a seasoned traveler. You get me to a place, I know how to enter in and enjoy. But traveling -- from making reasonable travel arrangements, to following a well-planned itinerary, to orienting a map and launching out in the logical and preferred direction and finding my way back -- this sort of problem-solving drives me crazy.

In fact, if you want to know where we are on a map, and which direction to walk to the next desired monument (or whatever), then just ask me to point in the direction I think will get us there. Then launch out in the OPPOSITE direction. You will then always find your desired location. North, south, east, or west? Nope! I usually know UP or DOWN. But only if I stumble and fall.

However: I always know the way home -- be it the hotel after a long sojourn to multiple tourist sites (in the course of a day) or back to my woods. There is within me, it seems, an inner compass. It is not so much that I find my way unerringly home. It is, rather, that home draws me to it. I can feel "home" drawing near. Distances going away seem long. Travel away, takes longer than does coming home.

I will tell you in later postings how my grandson-in-law Mat kept the map and led us unerringly to our tourist locations. In this posting I will tell you how by luck and lunk-headed decision-making I blundered safely home.

The first leg was easy. Mat piled me into a taxi, jumped in beside me, and guided me safely to the airport in Timisoara (Romania), roughly a 30-minute trip. I could tell by his repetitive questions that he felt he was casting me hopelessly away -- surely I would be lost in the world. "Grampa: in which pocket is your passport?" (at least 15 times?) "Where is your itinerary?" (another 15 times?). "Where have you stowed your Hilton Hotel reservation confirmation for when you arrive in Chicago?" (only 10 times: clearly I was getting smarter.) "Remember, Grampa: Keep your wallet in your left front pocket. . . ." (Maybe six times.) On and on. . . .

What, pray tell, does it disclose about my personality that such a fusillade of questions makes me feel loved, rather than imbecilic? The questions also heartened me, because most of the time I knew the answers.

The Timosaura flight took me safely to Munich -- I mean, how could I get out of the plane? Munich was a little tougher. I had to find my gate, find a bathroom, and seek reassurance that the plane (to Chicago) was on time -- stuff like that. For some reason, every functionary greeted me in a solicitous and reassuring manner -- could've been my inane smile, my silver hair, and my quiet inquiries once I locked onto their eyes. More likely, I reminded each airline official of his or her own dangerously incompetent, yet engaging grampa.

From Munich to Chicago -- a ten-hour flight. My granddaughter Marisa -- who feared that if I didn't move about frequently, I would surely develop blood-clots in my legs which would then break free and lodge in my brain -- made me promise to get up and walk around at least once every two hours. That took considerable creative energy. (How many times can you go to the lavatory?) Besides which, those perambulations interrupted my reading and my viewing of Avatar.

Plus various attractive, female flight attendants kept asking me stuff like "Can I help you SIR?" I wanted to respond with something like "When I get to the point I can't pee on my own, I'll blow my brains out. . . ." But I slipped away each time with a simple "No Thank You!" Actually, I didn't need to pee five times. Still, where else could I go, but to the lavatory, whether I had to go or not?

By the way: nothing is more deflating to an aging male than being called Sir by attractive young females -- be they family or not -- especially when said aging male is presumably on the way to the lavatory.

Half a book, one serviceable meal, a short nap, five bogus trips to the bathroom, and most of Avatar got me to Chicago blood-clot and stroke free.

Chicago was a little tougher. O'Hare's an immense place -- FIVE TERMINALS. Daylight saved me though: once I got onto the shuttle, I could plainly see the Hilton looming toward me in the distance. Because a number of my flights had been canceled, I had eighteen hours to kill. So I took a luxurious shower, changed into my last remaining clean clothing, found a restaurant for a quick supper, then wandered back onto the shuttle, determined to find the terminal and gate of my afternoon flight back to Bay City.

I took a five circuit ride clear around O'Hare -- just for the sheer pleasure of riding someplace free. I assumed a light-hearted and cosmopolitan manner, a sort of Don't mind me: I know EXACTLY where I'm going posture, if you will. Thank goodness for theater training.

It was by sheer accident, on the second time around the circuit, that I blundered out of the shuttle and stumbled right into a map of the entire terminal, complete with a list of the airlines served by each terminal. (What will they think of next?!) Not quite trusting my good luck -- and completely disbelieving the map -- I completed the circuit and found a computer terminal which printed out the boarding pass I'd need the next morning. Amazingly simple: slipped my credit-card into the slot, thereby identifying myself to the computer, and out popped the pass, complete with all the information I'd need in the morning.

Apparently, O'Hare has designed a fail-safe system for aging idiots just like me.


Feeling all grown-up and cosmopolitan, I retraced my steps to the Hilton, arranged a late-morning wake-up call, and promptly fell asleep in the huge bed. Around noon the next day I arrived at my gate cooler than George Clooney (in Up in the Air -- or whatever it is exactly).

Notwithstanding my flight was twice delayed for short periods, I was soon sorting ten-days of dirty laundry and poking the first load into my very own washer, in my very own utility room.

Man! Am I GOOD-or-WHAT?


Next time I'll tell you a little about Rome, the Vatican, the endless sculpture museum, and Mike's Sixteen Chapel (which is how I found it spelled on all the signs). And about the trim, black-suited Vatican guards who kept shushing us every time our astonished murmurs of delight became too irreverently audible as we stood transfixed gazing upward at the ceiling.

And other stuff, too.

The Travel-King Arrives

Happy Easter from Romania!

I've survived nearly a full day and a half waiting in terminals and flying east in three airplanes. But here at last I sit comfortably in my grandchildren's apartment living room pecking away on Mat's laptop. The walls are sparkling orange. The two fat easy chairs are orange. The overstuffed love-seat is orange. The tied-back drapes're orange. The dark-mahogany coffee table and long-low, mahogany tv table appear black and very modern. (Mat calls his tv-table-book shelf the biblio-tech entertainment center. But I'm OLD. I can call it what I wish.) The textured wall behind the orange furniture supports a counter that separates the kitchen from the living room, and guess what!? The counter is textured and is a deeper-darker orange.

A large picture on the wall to my left picks up the orange tones. Other pictures are framed in black with pure-white mats -- a nice contrast. The biblio-tech entertainment center is lined with books shelves -- and some of those books are. . .orange. (I'm discovering that Romania is a lively and colorful place.)

The floor is made up of two-foot marble squares, and the baseboards are also marble -- or some highly polished stone. But these elegant floors, baseboards, and window and door casings are gleaming white, the only elements in this apartment that are not brightly colored. Enough to say, the entire apartment is bright, colorful -- and delightful. I feel I could sketch and color this entire engaging apartment home with one small carton of twelve crayolas. The bright ones.

Even more surprising -- and pleasing -- is that so many of the houses in the village are painted bright colors. The kids live in this orange apartment. But the apartment house itself is bright purple. In fact, as I write this posting, I am glancing out through the large glass balcony door, and I can see gold, pink, and chartreuse houses among a cluster of other houses equally colorful. Here and there from our window is a house of salmon and red. Could be I would need all the colors of a jumbo crayola box to adequately describe this village. I am told that during the twenty years since Romania threw off Communism, the grays and somber colors of that earlier period have given way to the colorful array of homes and apartment buildings I now see all around me.

This village -- Giroc, Romania -- is a community of approximately 3500 souls. Giroc (pronounced Gee-Rock) is growing, but is currently a compact community of concrete and stone homes. Think high, long, sloping tile roofs, thick-concrete walls covered in brightly-painted stucco. While home designs are varied, many remind me of Scandinavian ski lodges -- except, as I have said, they are stone and concrete, stucco-covered, rather than the sort of wooden structures so typical of American and Scandinavian homes. Add large, modern double-pane, winter-proof, steel windows and doors, and you have the sort of sturdy and impressive homes I see all around me. But, for me, the most striking feature of the community is the bright colors chosen for the homes -- nearly every color except gray. Talk about stirring color. Talk about vitality. Talk about sturdy construction! I find these houses intriguing. Makes me wonder about the people.

I hope I can meet a construction foreman in the coming week who can take the time to quickly explain to me how pipes and electrical wiring are run throughout the homes. (The homes being built or renovated appear to be solid masonry.) Perhaps they use some form of pipe chases. However Romanian builders accomplish their work, the homes are varied, very attractive, and especially sturdily built. On our walk, I saw hip-roofs, as well as long, rich-looking sloping roofs, all of colorful tile made especially to match the bright colored stucco walls. Some homes have ornate concrete gable ends with gracefully rounded edges -- a feature I somehow associate with rich Spanish homes.

The kids tell me that Giroc has become an attractive bedroom community for workers in much larger Timisoara, a commercial and industrial community nearby. There is wealth here. And much evidence of investment in new homes and extensive renovation of existing ones, too.



The first evening I arrived, Marisa and Mat took me to an Easter Carnival in a lovely park just two blocks down the street. There were carnival rides and a wide variety of exciting activities. The kids told me that Easter is somehow a larger festival than Christmas. It appeared that all 3500 Giroc citizens were present at this exciting holiday get-together. The place was swarming with people of all ages. Attractive, teen-aged girls were followed by entourages of a dozen would-be swains. Meanwhile, older people, who appeared anywhere from forty to near my age danced together in large folk-dance circles, arms wrapped warmly about each other's shoulders -- the hora, I was told. I was proud when a number of Mat&Marisa's students approached us and I was introduced as their Grampa. It was such a friendly and engaging crowd, and people of all ages milled about, greeting each other warmly, enjoying robust conversations.

Despite my awkwardness I found the dancers so attractive, I felt an almost overwhelming impulse to join a circle of dancers. But I had no language, nor any skill as a dancer. So when several of the dancers saw and felt my interest, and nodded for me to join them, I simply smiled and waved, and shook my head in what I hoped came across as a friendly manner. But I must admit, I had gotten quickly caught up in the warmth and ambiance of the setting, and I truly would have liked to have joined the dancers. But I was reluctant, and there was so much going on, so much to see, that when I was invited, I just smiled and turned away with a wave. (I confess, I well know I'm an awkward dancer -- even with the simplest steps.)

Never mind! Next Easter I'll be brave enough to join the dancers.

Anyway, it had grown late, and I'd had little sleep overnight on the plane. We soon came home and fell fast asleep. But this one incident makes me think the people are as lovely and engaging as their homes appear from the outside.

Before I close, I offer one more example of what I am discovering about the people here. Today we visited Marisa&Mat's landlord to report a leak beneath the bathroom sink. Before we knew it, we were immediately caught up into a wonderfully warm family party.


I'd tell you about the family and the party, but it's nearly midnight, and I'm exhausted. I'll tell you about the party in a short posting tomorrow.

Enough to yawn and declare
I'm glad I came to visit the kids

in Romania!

My Current Delinquency

I know! I Know! I KNOW!

I haven't been writing very often lately. Lots of excuses. About a dozen, but three will serve for now.

First, I'm an aging lamebrain. I can't seem to adjust to doing intelligent things for myself these days. Part of that's because Nancy always did clerical stuff for me in the good-times. She had this easy competent manner. She was so absolutely adult and unflappable. Simple chores that irritated and confused me just smoothed out gently under her hands like soft, sweet symphonic passages from Brahms.

So she protected me from my incompetence: "Booby, Booby, Booby. Lemme do that. I like being in charge!" (a soothing smile, warm hug, two or three smacky kisses on my embarrassed cheeks.) I suppose you could say that she was the mother I missed when I was growing up. Looking back, I can't begin to understand WHY if I pitched in to help her with tasks I had just abandoned in frustration, the irritation vaporized and I did quite well. Even became fun. Hard work turned into play.

Carve it on some prominent and unshakable tree:

Cherished Friendship Soothes the Weary Heart And Fixes Everything!

So that's EXCUSE #1: Been drowning under preparations for my Romania-Rome trip. Been too discombobulated to focus my mind enough to write.

The second thing is maybe more serious. The past two weeks I've been suffering a massive onset of allergies. NO!no!NO! How dare you even suggest it's a psychosomatic disorder. (Not that I do NOT at times consider myself a blithering idiot.)

For some time I've been growing increasingly sensitive to Gatsby-kitty's fur and dander. Usually after I give him a really good rub, or brush him down, my nose runs, and I start sneezing and coughing. And if I should absent-mindedly rub my eye, it turns all red and irritated. So the allergy has been there for years. But with aging, it's really become serious for me.

Thing is, too: Gatz knows some change is coming. He sees all the running around, trying to get stuff done. One result is that whenever I sit down, he latches onto me. My butt hits the couch, he's in my lap -- or stretched out luxuriously at my feet awaiting a rub-down. I lie down, he's on my chest with his nose up my snoot. And whenever I fall asleep -- in bed, or cat-napping anywhere in the house -- here he comes, up onto my pillow, his nose shoved up under my chin nuzzling away, or even worse: shoving his damp nose into my eye-sockets. Then it's a quick shower and scrub; and a second Claritan pill, and a plastic bag with ice-cubes across my eye-sockets.

Middle of last month I began experiencing what I guess I can call: a clogged voice-box and related irritation that had me constantly clearing my throat and harrumphing. Frequent coughing and throat-clearing irritated me, and had people around me in the grocery store (or wherever) exchanging troubled glances and shrinking away. . . . (Frequently got me first in line, however. Frequently got me irritated glances, too, however.)

This past Wednesday I woke up feeling clogged up. I had complete laryngitis. Couldn't utter a word -- still can't. Went to the doctor yesterday at my daughter's insistence. His nurse-practitioner examined me first: no fever, no redness in throat or ears, blood-pressure 106 over 60. . . . The doctor came in and told me (what I had told my daughter he would tell me): "You have laryngitis. We don't prescribe medicine for what you've got. It will last a indeterminate period, then go away. DON'T TALK."

I thought that final two-word phrase a brilliant prescription. But I'm a nice person. I just nodded affirmatively -- and quietly shuffled on home. (I haven't even told my lovely daughter I told her so.)

Consequently, my trip preparations this week have all been in person, using a plethora of brief written notes. And lotsa smiles.

I get home with a list of accomplished preparations, each with a triumphant line drawn through it. . .and a large OKAY which expresses my delight in having one less thing to do.

And you should've witnessed my weekly Skype exchange with my Peace-Corps grandchildren: incoherent sign language, quickly contrived bold-print messages, accompanied by apelike grunts and reassuring smiles.

Did I say three excuses? If so, half my carefully constructed flight arrangements have been canceled and restructured. I now arrive at the airport at 6:45am tomorrow (unless more changes materialize), board soon after, and arrive in the Chicago hub just in time for a NINE-HOUR LAYOVER. Best they could do. On the way home I have an eighteen-hour layover. But I made a virtue of that. I arranged a hotel room at the airport, called my southern Wisconsin kids, and we'll spend some waking hours having fun in Chicago.

I have to conclude United Airlines is experiencing financial difficulties. I made all these flight arrangements early February. Three changes this past week.

BUT! I am determined to enjoy this visit with my grand-kids in Romania and Rome. I hate travel and its related difficulties. But I adore the kids! I know we'll have fun.

OH! One more thing: My intention is to spend a half-hour or so reporting daily (or frequently) our adventures.

Unless Mat's laptop gets stolen!