Day 137 - Bucharest

When I arrived in Bucharest, the US Embassy had arranged for me to stay in a modest hotel near the embassy. The hotel had a restaurant next door that often was entirely reseved for tour groups from the Soviet Union. I was never sure when I could have a meal there. When it was possible, breakfast was the easiest meal because it was continental style so I didn't have to order anything; the waiter just brought me food.

One evening, when I was able to have dinner there, alone, a young man at a neighboring table, Vlad*,  offered to help me understand the menu items. I hadn't picked up enough Romanian to figure out everything yet, so I needed help. He sat down to join me. I hadn't figured out the profile of a gigolo yet, so I wasn't suspicious; and while I wasn't looking for company, the offer of help was appealing.

After dinner, he asked if I was interested in seeing the old section of the city. There had been an earthquake in Bucharest the March before, so much of the city had been destroyed, including part of the old city, making it an opportunity to see what was still there as well as some of the damage, something I thought worth seeing. Before we took off, he asked if I had any cigarettes. I hadn't learned yet about the importance of American cigarettes, especially Marlboro 100s. All I had was a carton of Eve cigarettes that I bought in New York before getting on the plane. I had picked up the bad habit of smoking in Iran because of the taarof politeness system there. Eve cigarettes were 100 milligram in length, but had a distinctively feminie design around the filter. Vlad never hesitated. He accepted the pack I offered.

image of the People's Palace, Ceaucescu's white palace,
by hchalkley, via Flickr

We walked to the old city and wandered around what I understood to be an area attractive to tourists with lots of shops selling craft items, artwork, and Romanian folk music. What I didn't realize was that the area I toured that evening would be flattened in the near future by Nicolae Ceaucescu to make room for his mostrosity of a monument to himself, the white palace.

Vlad asked me how much I was going to earn teaching at the university in Iasi. I knew that the amount I would receive from the university, only part of my compensation, equated to less than $400 per month, so I thought it would be safe to tell him. When I did, he nearly fell out of his chair. I learned later that the amount I would receive from the university, which was less than one fourth of what I received overall, was ten times what my Romanian colleagues would receive each month. That made it clearer why my Romanian violin teacher in Tehran was so shocked at how little his salary in Iran was. What had sounded to him like a small fortune in Romania, when in put into an Iranian context, wasn't enough for him to rent an apartment without sharing it with roommates. And he wasn't the kind of guy who shared anything willingly. His offer to provide private violin lessons was necessary for him to make ends meet.

One of the first purchases I made was a Romanian/English dictionary. My Teach-Yourself-Romanian book from Karl was only good enough for me to construct sentences I wanted to speak, not good enough for me to understand the answers. I found a bookstore and walked up to the counter to ask if they had a Romanian/English dictionary, in the best Romanian I could muster. Books weren't out on shelves for people to look through, they were all behind the counter. My Romanian must have been pretty good because the guy behind the counter then asked me a question in Romanian that I couldn't understand. Eventually he figured that out and handed me a dictionary which I purchased.

image of Intercontinental Hotel in
Bucharest by anaadi+, via Flickr

It was at that point when I realized I wasn't going to be able to pick up English language books for my reading pleasure, a big difference between Bucharest and Tehran. The next day, I walked to the Intercontinental Hotel for a meal. The Intercon was much closer to the embassy, but it was much more expensive. While I waited for my order to arrive, I finished reading the paper back novel I had brought with me. (Introverts always have a book, magazine, or newspaper with them so we have something to do while we wait, something that also discourages others from thinking they can join us.) My eyes fell on those pages at the back with an order form listing more paper backs from the same publisher. I recognized this solution, I took out my pen, checked off all the novels offered on the form regardless that I knew nothing about them or the authors, pulled out my checkbook and wrote out a check for the total and dropped that order off at the embassy. Those novels arrived in my mailbox at the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest a few weeks later - all except The Painted Bird which was delivered to the door of my apartment in the industrial zone of Iasi anonymously,  and just one of many mysteries during my time in Romania.

*a name, not necessarily the right one

Day 130 - Romanian Language

When I learned I would be going to Romania, Karl found a Teach Yourself Romanian book in one of the English language bookstores in Tehran. I found it curious that such a book could be found there; I hadn't yet discovered all the connections between Iran and Romania which provided some explanations. The book gave me a head start on learning about the language when I completed my Iran to the U.S. travels.

I learned that Romanian is a Romance language, related to French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, not Russian or other Slavic languages spoken in neighboring countries. Some said Romanian is closer to Latin than the other Romance languages. Since I never studied Latin, I don't have the experience to compare. A joke told about the similarity between Romanian and Italian concerned a Romanian peasant who traveled to Rome and told everyone when he returned that those Italians were so dumb that they spoke Romanian like children.

It was difficult to figure out just how to pronounce Romanian words and phrases, having only a book to read and no audio sources to hear the language. Some of the phrases didn't look too difficult. For example, bună ziua, good afternoon, had only four syllables and more vowels than consonants. I figured it should sound something like "boon-a zi-wa." Likewise bună seara, good evening, looked manageable as boon-a se-yar-a. But the Romanian equivalent of good morning had a lot more syllables and nearly as high a vowel to consonant ratio: bună dimineaţa, where I understood that little tail under the "t" was pronounced as two English sounds: ts. Thus good morning in Romanian was boon-a dee-meen-ee-yats-ah, a mouthful for a non-morning person like myself.

But when I got to the pronouns, I just wasn't sure I could believe the book. I thought it might be a version of Romanian spoken by those of several generations ago, much like the Russian textbook of my college days. Who ever heard of a personal pronoun having more syllables than the noun it represented? English pronouns are all short: I, you, he, she, it, we, they. Not a multisyllabic one among them. But the Teach Yourself Romanian book said the Romanian equivalent of the plural (and "formal" or polite form) of you was Dumneavoastra. That is six syllables! And the single, informal form of you wasn't much shorter, Dumneata, four syllables. I just couldn't believe that Romanians waste that much effort and time on the personal pronoun, you.

On the plane from Frankfurt to Bucharest, I finally met someone who had at least heard Romanian spoken by those living in Bucharest at that time. I decided to test out my theory by asking her to tell me how to say good morning, good evening, and good afternoon as a benchmark of my interpretation of the sounds. She confirmed that I had figured out those phrases fine. Then I asked her about the pronouns, starting with the ones I wasn't amazed at: I is eu (which sounds a lot like the Spanish equivalent, yo), we is noi, he is el, she is ea, all of them short. So I fully expected my semi-native informant to give me short versions of the singular and plural you. But she didn't. She confirmed what the book said, Dumneavoastra was the polite form of you. But the familiar, singular form was often shortened to te, although Romanian has many cases so the spelling varies, depending on whether it is the subject or object in a sentence.

So I learned to roll Dumneavoastra off my tongue when addressing strangers. There was no point becoming too familiar too quickly as I learned many times over in Romania.

But those are future stories.

Day 136 - First Class

train image by kev_bite, via Flickr

I had an unusual schedule in Romania. I had classes only Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, leaving me with long weekends every week. And since Iasi was only a provincial capital (read the equivalent of a county seat in my thinking, quite similar to my hometown of Moorhead), I saw the long weekends as my opportunity to travel to the real capital, Bucharest.

There were two ways for me to travel, by train or by plane. And for reasons that I didn't understand, the price of a plane ticket was less than the price of a train ticket. So I flew often.

The single flight to Bucharest each day left in the late morning, when the sun was still shining and the fog had lifted. The train left late at night and arrived in Bucharest, when there weren't delays, around dawn. The return flight from Bucharest was in the late afternoon, before sunset because the pilots had to be able to see to navigate. There were no instrument-guided flights. The return train also left at night. So while I could usually fly from Iasi to Bucharest, I often had to swap my plane ticket for a train ticket on my return as the Bucharest to Iasi flights were often cancelled because of overcast skies.

There was just one class on the planes. I don't think there was even any name for the class, it was just flying. But the "trip" began before we got on the plane. The only way to get to the airport as to take the bus from the downtown Tarom ticket office downtown. I suspect the reason was simply expediency; not many people had cars, so a bus to the airport was about the only was to get there. There might just have been an element of "security" to this arrangement, too. No one had a reason to have to know where the airport was if the only way you could get there was by having someone else drive. I give some credibility to the notion that security was a factor based on the throughness of the screening of passengers before we could board the plane. Of course, since then, screening of passengers has become almost as intrusive in the U.S., but always in the name of security.

The fight from Iasi to Bucharest was only about an hour. The train trip was closer to eight hours. While there were no separate classes on the plane, there were at least three classes on the train. First class had two bench seats, facing one another, one side of which could be converted into sleeping berths to accommodate two passengers. Second class had two bench seats facing one another, both sides of which could be converted into sleeping berths, accommodating four passengers. And third class had two bench seats, accommodating six passengers who were lucky if they could get any sleep sitting up the whole trip.

When I traveled by train, I usually went second class. There was plenty of room for four passengers and I could usually avoid conversation - my Romanian was not conversational quality; i could ask directions and figure out what was said so long as the person used a few gestures to accompany the words - by bringing something to read. But one time, I bought a first class ticket. It was a good thing, too, because on that trip the train was delayed by about four hours. I was used to getting up from the sleeping berth just as the sun was rising and just before the train rolled into Bucharest's North station. But on that occasion, the sun was already up when the porter came through to make sure we were all up, and I could tell from the view out the window that we were still miles away from Bucharest. I had just one fellow passenger in the compartment, and I am sure we passed some pleasantries, but there was no conversation. We both got ready to get off the train and we just waited for it to arrive.

On that return trip, I traveled second class. And I ended up in the same compartment as my first class companion from the Friday before. And that is when the big difference between first and the other classes became clear. She was the same person. I was the same person. But the trip was very different because instead of leaving me in my private world in the first class compartment, she wanted to talk. She asked me question after question, none of them suspicious or curious; it was just conversation. Where traveling first class gave me privacy, second class demanded involvement from me. But it wasn't too difficult as the conversation ended once the sleeping conversions were accomplished and we all crawled into our berths for the remainder of trip.

I don't think I ever set out to test this further, but I did end up once in a third class compartment. I am sure it was the result of there not being any available seats in first or second class. That experience demanded even more conversation and involvement since there were no sleeping berths. I think I may have been able to doze a bit, but I recall having my Romanian skills tested pretty seriously on that trip. I concluded that third class meant the ticket included entertainment - conversation with the other passengers.

I always found it curious that there were classes on the trains in Romania at that time since the communist system emphasized the equality of all in a system where everyone took part in mundane community activities such as sweeping the streets and going off to the collective farms during harvest to help gather the crops. It was called patriotic work. All the students at the university were expected to take part. I suspect all the teachers also took part, although the foreign lecturers were not expected to do so. The fact that everyone took part in the work was something I found admirable in a way. It meant that it wasn't possible to know if the person wearing the blue dust coat sweeping the street was a surgeon, a university professor, or a laborer. And I think that meant that everyone was equally respected or disrespected. I am a "the glass is half-full" kind of person, so I chose to see it as respect.

Day 135 - Reflections on How Fargo of You

My keeper of a sister-in-law, Julie, gave me a fascinating book to read for my plane ride back to San Diego from Fargo last month. The title, How Fargo of You. The author, Marc de Celle. Thank you again, Julie.

Marc de Celle moved to Fargo in 2005 and found it so unlike anywhere else he had lived that he coined the term northern prairie culture to name it and the phrase How Fargo of You to acknowledge examples of anonymous kindness he encountered himself and that he heard others describe about their own experiences living in the zone spanning Manitoba and Saskachewan in the north down to Iowa and South Dakota to the south. He posits that Fargo is at the center of this culture which is why "How Fargo of You" works. That and the fact that "How Northern Prairie of You" doesn't have the same ring to it.

I am not surprised that it took an outsider to discover the qualities that make Fargo and its environs so unlike other places. I grew up across the Red River of the North from Fargo, in Moorhead, Minnesota, and I have spent a good number of years exploring other cultures. For all these years I have been observing how different everywhere else is when a more accurate observation might be how similar everywhere else is and how different Fargo-Moorhead is from all of them.

For example, de Celle pointed out that the media's crime reporting in the Fargo-Moorhead area initially sounded nothing like what he was accustomed to in Phoenix where his family had lived before their move to Fargo. Instead of the long list of crimes reported on TV, a single crime seemed to be the focus of reporting over a long period of time. Since he had been told by friends in the media in Phoenix that the more "ordinary" murders never made it into the news, de Celle was surprised that the crimes reported in Fargo ended up being vandalism and break-ins, not bigger stuff. But then he did some research and discovered that what was being reported reflected what was happening. Very few crimes occur in Fargo-Moorhead, so very few make it into the media headlines. But those that do are covered exhaustively, from initial report of what happened, to the arrest of suspects, to the trial, and eventually sentencing. De Celle came to appreciate that what gets reported locally in fact reflects exhaustive research by reporters, something that doesn't always happen in other localities where "local" news ends up just being rehashing the news sources from elsewhere. Instead of being amused that local news, local sports, and local weather are really local in Fargo-Moorhead, de Celle began celebrating the localness.

I lived for a school year in Carbondale, Ill, a college town in the middle of farming and recreational lake country, very similar in many respects to the Fargo-Moorhead area, where I taught English as a Second Language at Southern Illinois University. In the nine months I lived there, I heard multiple news reports of "alledged" rapes and at least one case of a farmer discovering the remains of a decomposing body in his field when he began plowing in the spring. The contrast in the local news there made me wonder initially if Fargo-Moorhead was underreporting crime or if Carbondale was over-sensationalizing the news. I knew that Carbondale appeared to be different, but I thought Carbondale was the anomaly, not vice versa. I had spent so many years trying to figure out how to get out of the Fargo-Moorhead area that I hadn't recognized the values I would miss when I left.

I have been reading my journal from my days in Iran recently, hoping to find more stories to write about. What I wrote in my journal, however, was not a string of stories; I wrote about feelings. And having read de Celle's book, I now have a better idea about why I had so many very negative, or at least conflicted, feelings in Iran. Once again, it wasn't that Iran was all that different from much of the rest of the world (well, maybe it was partly that); it is that I grew up experiencing a world where things worked. There were rules in place that people in Fargo-Moorhead followed, like de Celle's amazement at motorists on the Interstate merging into the left lane when advised that the right lane would be closed a mile down the road instead of zipping to the absolute end of the lane and then trying to merge in after successfully passing all the patient and polite motorists who merged early.

I have often told Alex that when we go through security at the airport in Fargo or Minneapolis, they mean it when they say to empty your pockets and place containers with liquids into a zip lock bag which must be placed into a bin separate from your carryon when items go through the Xray machine. In Washington and other cities through which we have traveled, those rules are more often suggestions. Failing to follow them may result in a TSA agent's ire, but more often can someone be excused through self-deprecating humor that allows the TSA agent to chide kindly instead of scolding seriously. But where Alex has considered this rule-following behavior as inflexibility, I have always seen it as serving the greater good. Instead of the tragedy of the commons, northern prairie culture exhibits the celebration of the common good.

That kind of behavior provides a level of predictability that was totally absent in Iran. I now think my culture shock was amplified by the contrast not just with U.S. or Western norms, but with the northern prairie norms that hadn't entirely evaporated from my expectations. After reading my journal from Iran, I recall just how out of place I felt there. And I can't help but wonder whether my bosses might not have concluded at least tentatively that they had made a mistake taking a chance on me.

I am so very glad that Marc de Celle and his family moved to Fargo so he could experience northern prairie culture from his outsider's perspective so that I can benefit from his analysis to understand my own journeys outside of the northern prairie better.

Day 134 - Keepers

Image by Elvert Barnes, via Flickr

I knew right away that Alex was a keeper. He can't keep from telling me what he thinks, even when what he says may not be what I want to hear. He just can't help himself, almost like Jim Carey in Liar, Liar. Now that doesn't mean I don't get annoyed with what he says. But it is a refreshing change from my previous attempts to find a life partner. The two before Alex couldn't help themselves from telling me either what they thought I wanted to hear or what they preferred reality to be like. So Alex's approach to the truth is petty darn wonderful.

And Alex brought Simon into my life. It isn't that I decided not to have children. It is just that I was never in the right circumstances when biology was on my side. By the time Alex came into my life, there was no possibility of my having a child. But then, there was Simon. Alex was worried that I wouldn't want to share my life with a teenager. Once Simon arrived, I had no doubt that having him in my life would expand it, not crowd anything out.

And when Simon was ready for his last year of high school, he ended up living in Fargo, ND, just across the river from my parents. His presence in the area expanded my parents' lives, too. When Dad told us he was going for a drive in the countryside, we would jump in the car to join him, but he didn't even turn the key to start the car until Simon was with us in the car. When Simon graduated from high school, he stayed in town for four years of college. Alex and I were half way around the world for most of those four years. Dad would run into Simon at basketball games at Concordia and nothing made him happier than telling his friends that that English kid was his grandson.

Now Simon has lovely Sarah as his wife and together they have James. The two of them have expanded my life even further. They are definitely keepers. But they are just the beginning.

My sister-in-law, Julie, Wayne's wife, is another keeper. Throughout Dad's health challenges during the past two years, Julie has been our medical translator. But she not only could translate the medical situation, she can also translate nursing home situations for those not familiar with that system. When Dad ended up in the Transitional Care Unit at Eventide, Julie explained the possible consequences of first the gangrene and later the infection, helping us all to prepare for all eventualities. She was also the first person to mention that hospice might be appropriate for Dad. While most of us thought of hospice as something that meant there was no hope, Julie helped us recognize that hospice care is in fact a hopeful step since hospice services ensure the best possible quality of life when additional treatment has little hope for improvement.

Julie was Dad's advocate in the medical and nursing processes throughout his final years. And thst meant she was also our advocate, something that I can't adequately express my thanks to her for in words. She is a keeper.

My brother-in-law, Dick, Joan's husband is another keeper. Dick made nearly every trip between their home and Moorhead that Joan made to spend time with Dad. Dick was with Joan and me when Dad died. Most often quietly remaining in the background, Dick provided solid support to all those around him. Dick has always taken excellent care of my baby sister and their two children and their children. His hobby, photography, ensures that we all, even those of us half a continent away, keep informed, visually, of the changes in all those precious grandchildren. Dick is a keeper.

My sister-in-law, Kathy, Bruce's wife, is a keeper. When Bruce married Kathy, her three beautiful daughters joined the family. All little girls then, they are all grown up now, with beautiful little girls of their own. Kathy makes my brother Bruce happy, the best gift possible. Bruce and Kathy have had more losses recently than seem fair. While we all lost both Mom and Dad, and we lost Brian, Bruce's loss was greater because Brian was his twin. And then last Christmas, the family lost Cole, Bruce and Kathy's grandson, their daughter Ashley's son. Through those losses, we have gotten to know Kathy's family, a gift to all of us.

Last, but far from least, my sister-in-law, Lori, Brian's wife, is a keeper. When Brian sent me an email message in Sana'a, Yemen, to tell me that he and Lori had again begun dating, my first thought was, "Yippee!" And that was even before I could see the smile that Lori brought to his face. Being half-way around the world makes it hard to check out facial features. But somehow I think the smile came through in the words he used. Lori and Brian had dated years before, and even though destiny didn't keep them together, Lori really did remain part of our world. Many times when I was back in Moorhead, Dad would tell me to join him in the car because he thought it was time to go see Lori. We would drive to where Lori worked to say hi. I now realize it may have seemed to her that Dad and I were shopping and just happened to run into her. But she was the reason for our trip.

Once Dad had to give up his apartment at River Pointe, Lori opened her home to me when I traveled to Moorhead to see Dad, giving me much more than a bed to sleep in and a roof over my head. Many times I recalled the saying that fish and guests begin to smell after four days as my stays often doubled or tripled those lengths. No matter how long I stayed, Lori always made me feel welcome.

Each time I stayed with Lori, I had the opportunity to spend time with her kids - Erik, Alex, and Megan. They are all keepers, too.

Day 133 - Allowances

Image of coins by oceandesetoiles, via Flickr

When I was a child, probably no older than five, I began to receive an allowance. I received 15 cents a week. Of that 15 cents, I put a dime into my piggy bank, a penny into my church envelope, and I could spend the remaining four cents any way I wanted to. Back in those days, four cents could buy quite a bit of penny candy and I learned quickly that if I bought the two-for-a-penny candy, I had many more pieces to eat. But I also learned that if I wanted to buy a candy bar, I had to save a penny from one week until the following week so that I would have a nickel, the price of the cheapest candy bar.

My penny wasn't the only coin that went into my church envelope each Sunday. Mom put in another coin, usually a dime or a quarter, so the amounts in my envelopes always were an unusual number - 11 cents or 26 cents.

No one could ever have convinced me that I only received four cents for my allowance. I knew I received 15 cents.

Those dimes in the piggy bank grew in number. I was saving them to buy a new bicycle. But I recognized that the pace at which they grew was pretty slow when compared to the total I would need for a new bicycle.  After a couple of years, I decided there might be another way to experience a new bike: I decided to use the dimes I had saved to buy paint to paint my bicycle, giving it a new look. Mom decided this would be an excellent opportunity to teach me about tithing. She suggested, or was it something stronger, that I should take one dime out of every ten to put into my church envelope. I was perhaps a bit too young to understand the lesson because what I did instead was to cheat just a little. Instead of taking one dime out of every ten for my envelope, I counted out ten dimes and then I took one from the remaining pile which had the net effect of my tithe being more like 9% than 10%. I can even recall thinking that I had already put nearly 10% of my allowance into my envelope in the past.

As I got older, my allowance increased. By high school, the amount had increased to $5.00 a week, and I no longer had requirements on how to use that amount. Instead of being told how much to save, how much to put into my church envelope, the guidelines were simpler: from that $5.00 weekly allowance, I was to buy all my clothes, shoes, cosmetics, and toiletries - anything that wasn't purchased by Mom for the whole family.

I learned a lot about managing money through that allowance. I learned that an allowance came with responsibilities. We kids shared the responsibility for washing dishes after the evening meal. I also helped with cleaning the house. I hated cleaning the Venetian blinds. I learned that steady accomplishments over time can lead to expectations of increases in income. I also learned that sometimes I had to put off getting things if my resources in hand were insufficient. And I learned that sometimes I had to put aside money now to have more later.

I could probably have learned these lessons even without a weekly allowance. But I had the gift of an allowance.

Day 132 - Eulogy for Dad

As the oldest child, I had Mom and Dad all to myself for three whole years. I have trouble separating memories of Mom from Dad during those years except for these few:

Dad took me to basketball games at MSTC and Concordia.
Dad took me fishing.
Dad took me to the Fargo-Moorhead Twins games.
Dad told me bedtime stories.
Dad read the comics to me - but not always with the words in the bubbles.
Dad held me up in the air on his hands.
Dad took me to see Pinocchio, my first movie.

So, on reflection, while Mom took care of me inside the house, Dad took me out.

Dad had a mischievous sense of humor that on reflection I can recall from my childhood. He gave us all silly nick-names. I can only remember two - Schnickelfritz and Gerald McBoing Boing. I remember the time we spent a week in a cabin at one of the lakes when he brought a garter snake into the cabin while Mom was on her hands and knees washing the floor - who washes the floor when they are on vacation? He told Mom he had brought in a snake and he put it on her back. She just laughed and said she wasn't going to fall for that trick. She was sure it was a rope, until it slid off her back and into the pail with water and soap that she was using to wash the floor.

While he didn't always know the best ways to show us, it was clear that Dad was proud of us and he wasn't pleased when we didn't get the respect we deserved. One year, my sixth grade class was putting on an operetta that involved two of my classmates and I singing the song "Three Little Girls From School Are We" from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. I was particularly excited to be one of the three because it meant that I could wear the purple silk kimono that Dad brought back from Japan from his Merchant Marines days. I volunteered to bring the kimono to school to show it to the teachers, but on the day, none of the teachers involved asked me about it. And I was too shy to push the issue. When Dad found out, he went straight to the school with the kimono and talked with the teachers about why they hadn't asked me. I don't remember what happened next. I just remember how pleased I was that Dad went to the school on my behalf.

A few years later, I wrote an essay in junior high about the importance of voting in favor of a school bond issue. My teacher showed the principal. The principal of the school sent it to The Fargo Forum, and the paper printed it. I only learned years later that Dad had cut out that column and carried it around in his wallet. Mom had to tell me that; Dad didn't want me to know he was bragging.

Dad was also willing to do nearly anything for us. A very small example from my childhood dealt with my dislike of green beans. I was willing to eat the beans, but not the shells. One day Mom wouldn't let me leave the table until I ate all of the beans - shells and all. She left me at the table. Dad came to tell me I could leave the table because he would hide the shells under Wayne's plate on the high chair. I don't think Dad thought that one through very well because when Mom found the shells under Wayne's plate, she came to me to tell me that hiding them wasn't good enough for her. But since she didn't make me eat them anyway, I guess Dad must have confessed that I was innocent. Green beans are now one of my favorite vegetables.

As I grew older, I was eager to get out of town, to become independent. As the oldest child, I had to fight the battle over the independence boundaries much longer than my siblings did. After my second year of college, for example, I wanted to go to New Jersey for the summer, as a volunteer in an inter-denominational summer program for elementary school-aged children. Because I was under 21, I needed my parents' permission. Dad wasn't ready to sign the paper, but Mom looked Dad in the eye and told him - stretching the truth just a bit - that I was over 18 and therefore I really didn't need his permission. With that clear, Dad signed the form, but I don't think he was pleased. A few years later, when I decided I wanted to teach English as a Second Language after college because I saw that as a way to get overseas, I don't think Dad was all that pleased about that choice either, although he must have felt a little bit of conflict since he had done his own international traveling and working when he was even younger than I was at that point. In the end, he and Mom came to visit me when I lived in Romania, in Germany, and in Barbados. And one of Dad's favorite mementos was his list of the countries he had traveled during his life.

Mom was the spokesperson for Dad. I can recall many conversations that began "your father isn't very happy about. . . " Dad never told us; Mom spoke for him. And there were many times when Mom told us something about Dad's health that came with the warning, "Dad didn't want me to tell you because he doesn't want you to worry."

When Mom died, Dad no longer had a translator. He had to tell us himself how he felt. He had to tell us his news himself. He had to tell us himself what he wanted or needed us to do. And in the course of those conversations, we all got to know him a little more.

I had always connected with Mom through letters or email, but that option didn't work for Dad. Dad had to make a phone call to connect. One day he called just to talk, but eventually he said he had something to tell me, that he had a date. It felt like a good friend sharing his news with me and that felt wonderful. That date was with Dolores and therefore the beginning of her becoming an important part of Dad's life, and ours. The two of them were so happy and as they each began to face health challenges, we worried what would happen when the first of them passed. We lost Dolores in February. Dad's short-term memory was very weak at that point, so her loss wasn't as devastating to him as we had feared. But her passing was a big loss to us.

Sandra, Amalia, and Dad

Dad had a much younger special friend, Amalia, from Romania. He and Mom met her at a Sons of Norway meeting in Fargo when she attended with her Norwegian language professor from Concordia. Dad told me that when he met her, he decided to be the friend for her he hoped I had found in Romania while I was there. Amalia graduated from Concordia and with a lot of help from Dad made her way to Seattle for an internship year. The following year, Dad called to ask me to help Amalia get settled in Virginia as she had received a full scholarship for a masters degree program at Georgetown University. Since he rarely asked for help, and in this case the request was even rarer because Mom was still alive, yet Dad made the phone call. I was happy to do what I could. In the first few months after Mom died, Dad came to visit us in Virginia, in order to attend Amalia's graduation. For the first time, he was more a guest than a dad. Dad the dad used to find things in the house that needed to be fixed and he'd get busy fixing them. But Dad the guest let us take him around town to see the sights. In addition to attending Amalia's graduation, Dad, Amalia and I attended a Sons of Norway meeting. Years later as we kids moved him from his apartment to the nursing home, we found documents indicating how much more help Dad gave Amalia than we had known. How would have learned this wonderful fact about our father if he still had Mom as his translator? So thank you, Mom, for giving us the last eight years with Dad so we could get to know the wonderful man you married.

And thank you Dad for all you did for us, for all you gave us, for the example you set for us, for being the gentleman you were.