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Flashbacks
First House I Remember
October 2, 1992
Throughout my life in Warsaw, my family, like ninety nine
percent of all residents, was living in apartment houses. They were large,
gray and ugly, built without any attention to esthetics, to the need
for individual character and style; and so was the one of my childhood.
We lilted in that house until I was eight; I retained in my memory many
details of that early period.
Like most of the others, the house was a large rectangular
block, enclosing the inside court; the entrance was from a narrow cobblestone
street. The building was not high - most of those from the pre-first World
War time (and that was the period of this story) had four or five floors.
The ground floor, called from French "par-terre," was occupied by businesses;
the first floor was the next higher; the building didn't have elevators.
The courtyard was not a place for children to play; in the
center stood a wooden rack for dusting carpets with a beater, and with
the great number of apartments there was considerable traffic, including
various peddlers hawking their ware.
There was the ice cream vendor - a great favorite of mine.
He was a Russian and used to announce his arrival by a loud: "Sahar marozhnyi”
– “Frozen sugar” in translation. Then there was the
organ grinder with a little monkey or a parrot on a tether; for few pennies
the little helper would pull from a box a card with one's fortune –
very popular with the maids of the households. Again, another grinder,
who would sharpen knives on his pedal driven wheel; acrobats, who fascinated
me with their skill - people threw money for them from the windows. Then
occasionally a Gypsy came, offering to tin the worn pots and pans; I used
to watch him and still remember the smell of the glowing coke and the
fumes from the tinning.
Altogether a lively parade of entrepreneurs!
Ours was a five-room apartment, a comfortable place for a
family of three (in Poland the kitchen was not counted as a room). Actually,
we were four persons, one room was occupied by the live-in servant.
Here, a digression is necessary. In those pre-war years the
disparity between the standard of living of the middle class and the peasantry
and even the workers, forced many women from the poorer classes to work
as domestic help.
We were not rich; my father, a young man then, was accountant
for a company; still, as many other families, we could easily afford a
servant.
I had my own
room, where I could freely spread my toys, coloring books and crayons
on the floor without interfering with the normal house traffic. I had
many tin soldiers of different formations; there were hussars, cavalry,
infantry, and others. With a friend from the neighborhood we fought imaginary
battles. I also remember an exciting toy I got from my father when I was
older - an electrostatic machine: electric sparks were jumping between
two steel balls when I turned the crank.
In bed, when the room was dark, I often heard deadened sounds
of a piano played in the adjoining apartment. The thick walls carried
only low tones of accompaniment: a rhythmic boom, boom, boom; in the still
of the night it was eerie and sort of melancholy.
Another sound, typical to our street, but especially pronounced
in the silence of the night, was the hoof beat on the cobblestones of
the horse pulling a carriage: tratata, tratata. A horse-drawn carriage
was the main means of transportation, the only other was a tramway on
the rails, pulled by two husky stallions.
Our kitchen was large and simple: a long coal stove, an ice
box, a large table and an iron sink. It was a kitchen typical for those
days- it was not a place where the family would gather for breakfast,
it was solely a domain of the cook. Occasionally, attracted by an intriguing
smell of baking from the kitchen I would steal in there, trying to be
out of the way of the busy cook, lest she would show me the door, threatening
to chase me away - with the wet dishrag, as the Polish saying went.
After a morning conference with my mother, the cook went
to the market to buy food; this took place daily, since our ice box was
too small to contain many, or bigger items.
Often she would bring a live chicken which attached by a
string to the table leg had for few hours the freedom of the kitchen.
The part I did not like was hearing its shriek when carried to the table
in order to have its head chopped off with a cleaver. Another time the
cook would bring live fish, usually a carp, or a pike. It was immediately
put in the bathtub to swim.
Dairy, like milk, butter and white cheese was supplied by
a peasant woman. Milk was ladled into a pot; I often heard talk about
it being diluted: bluish tinge would betray the adulteration. Milk was
promptly boiled; after boiling it had a skin on the surface which I dreaded
if by chance it got in my cup. Butter, formed in a ball, was wrapped in
a wet rag. The farmer's cheese was in the shape of a heart, with the texture
impressed by the linen bag in which it was pressed and dried.
An important time, and totally upsetting the routine of our
life, was the washday. This is what was going on: Water was boiled in
a large kettle on the stove, and, together with a liquid soap, was poured
into a round wooden tub,. A hired woman did the washing on a washboard
and, after the water was changed for rinsing, the linen went through the
hand-cranked ringer attached to the tub and fell into a big wicker basket.
The washing took more than one day - on separate days they
washed “whites” and “colors.”
The basket, full of damp linen, had to be dragged to the
top of the kitchen stairwell to the attic, where it was hung on clotheslines.
The attic, dark, with slanted ceiling and windowless openings
to the outside, was cool and windy.
However, all this was not as simple as it sounds; the access
to the attic required a key, and since the attic was used by all tenants
who occupied apartments adjacent to that stairwell, it was necessary to
find out who had the key and when the key would be available. More often
than not this involved negotiations and resulted in friction between the
neighborhood maids, who were the front line soldiers in this effort.
In spite of the smell and humidity in the apartment, I liked
the wash days, since that was when we used to go out for dinner to the
restaurant.
My younger brother, Bronislaw, like all three of us, was
born at home. That day I saw strange people rushing around; in a fleeting
glimpse into my parent's bedroom I saw my mother in bed with her feet
propped up; I noticed a pot with boiling water on the stove.
Later in the day I was sent away to my playmate's place,
where his mother treated me to a dish of preserves. I distinctly see her
when holding it by the stem, she placed a cherry on the dish. This must
have been an exceptional treat for me, if it engraved itself so deeply
in my memory. When I returned home, somebody said to me: "You have a little
brother.
In retrospect, I have to conclude that in spite of the fact
that my mother did not have in her household the technical facilities
of to-day: a refrigerator, washer and dryer, dishwasher, blender, food
processor and prepackaged products, she was working much less to keep
her household going, than the contemporary American women.
Often she would leave afternoon to shop, or to meet with
a friend in a cafe, and return home to find dinner ready.
After dinner, as soon as the maid cleared the table, we would
play cards or games, read, or talk; there was no television, not even
radio yet, and no football widows. That kept the family together.
But remember: all that bliss was long ago, before the two
world wars!
The Earliest Summer Vacation I Remember
My earliest memories of vacations are from the period before
the first World War, some 80 years ago, when I was a pre-school age boy.
Those years we were spending our summer vacations in a rented cottage,
in a small resort near Warsaw accessible by a narrow gauge railway. Not
that I can describe in details our life from that period, but I do remember
some of the less usual events of that time.
I remember seeing
through the window of the train a horse-drawn wagon moving on a country
road below, packed high with our furniture and bedding and with our maid
sitting on top of all that. I walked to her and she walked back. Or maybe
she was just walking to a passing train.
I remember,
once I wandered away somewhere to a peasant farm, where a colt ran over
me. I came home with scratched face, crying, complaining to my mother
about the colt and surprised when she spanked me.
Once I played with a toy - a sheet metal propeller on a twisted,
helical rod. When pulled up off the rod, the propeller rotated and flew
in the air. It hit my upper lip below the nose and cut it. Taking care
of the wound, my mother wondered whether it will leave a bald spot in
my mustache. I still have a little scar there, the only mark for FBI to
identify me by.
I remember my
father, who was visiting us on week-ends, once brought with him a business
acquaintance, who chased the squirrels with a pistol, unsuccessfully.
I never saw him again.
I remember watching
with envy the village boys, naked, jumping and swimming in a pond.
I also remember
when my mother went for a walk with another lady, leaving my baby brother,
sick with diarrhea, in care of the maid. When she returned, she found
the maid asleep under the apple tree and the baby in a pram gnawing into
a green, unripe apple. With no doctor for miles, no telephone, no car,
and the train arriving only once a day, mother was in panic. Obviously,
nothing could be done.
Mirabile dictu, next day the diarrhea disappeared - baby
was like new.
After that I still believe that the best cure for this ailment
is a green apple. When I mentioned this to my son, who is an M.D., he
smiled and said to me gently: "Dad, I fully appreciate your clinical experience,
however I suspect that you are a product of the school of thought that
believes in a cure-all chicken soup."
Writing Something About Red - Vignette
Jan. 30,1990
This is a short story, which I should have written several
sessions ago, when we were asked in our memoir writing group to write
“something about red.” I am writing it now, because it is
true, and had certain influence on my life.
This is a delayed reaction, which often happens to me; there
isn't any English name for such an affliction, although the French have
an apt description of it, they call such person "Esprit d'escalier”
and Germans say: "Treppengeist." These are people who, having left a gathering,
while still on the stair down, too late realize what they should have
said, or answered over there. I am such a Treppengeist.
It was a gorgeous summer day, a school vacation time, when
I was taking a walk in the Warsaw Saxon Park. I was passing two young
girls, sitting on the bench and hailing a lively conversation. One of
them, a strong brunette, with beautiful black, slightly slanted eyes,
and rosy cheeks, was holding a large red poppy on a long stem.
I was trying
to be cute: "Is this flower for me?" I asked, slowing down my pace a little.
Her answer was cold: “It is not.”
Half an hour later, when I was returning, they still were
where I left them. However she must have seen me coming, since when I
approached them, she handed me a naked stem, without petals and said with
mischief in her eyes: "This is for you.”
That could have been all that was to it, except that several
years later I married her.
My Student Years
Introduction
April 8, 1992
The engineering education in pre-war Poland, as well as in
Germany and Russia was in the institutes of technology called Polytechnics,
rather than in Universities. These were schools similar to the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in
USA.
It should be mentioned that even though Poland was not a
rich country, all academic institutes: the Universities, the Academies
of Economics and of Agriculture, the Polytechnics were free for everybody
matriculated from Gymnasium (High school).
However, acceptance to the Polytechnic was subject to successful
passage of a competitive examination. It took at least six years of intensive
study to end with the degree equivalent to the Master of Engineering in
this country.
Mechanical Engineering students were required to spend six
months of approved field work in industry. Generally, this was done during
Summer recess.
In most cases these were blue collar jobs in different types
of production: foundry, machine shop, assembly plant, operation of power
station, and others.
I want to recall
here some episodes of those “working vacations” of mine.
Summer Field Work in Gdansk (Danzig) Shipyard.
April 8, 1992
The time of this story was between the two World Wars, over
sixty years ago. The shipyard where I was working was the same where in
1980 the Solidarity movement was born.
Gdansk, city of below 100,000 inhabitants at that time, is
located at the mouth of the Vistula River; it was, and still is an important
Baltic port. It is a very old city, with a picturesque medieval character,
with narrow streets and old churches.
I remember a
large wooden crane in the harbor, protruding from an old warehouse over
the water, a crane similar to ones I saw hanging over canals from residential
houses in Amsterdam, another old city. This crane is one of Gdansk’s
old landmarks.
The city had changed hands several times.
Seven centuries ago, Gdansk was an important hub in European
shipping trade, as a member of a group of German Hanseatic towns, even
though it was in Polish hands at that time. This was changed when the
Prussian Teutonic Knights seized the city and slaughtered its Polish inhabitants.
Later the Poles regained Gdansk, then lost it again, together
with freedom, after the partition of Poland.
After World War One, the Versailles treaty established Gdansk
as a Free City under Polish administration. It also gave Poland access
to the sea by a narrow corridor running through German territory, dividing
Germany into two parts.
That was the status of Gdansk when I was there for my Summer
field work. At that time Gdansk was totally Germanized, with German Language
and Prussian discipline in the working place.
I was assigned
to the division of the maintenance and repair of Polish locomotives.
On my first day I was told to report to the division superintendent.
His office was in the powerhouse, at the end of a huge turbine room, behind
glass doors. The turbine room was immaculately clean, with white tiled
floor and walls. Several large steam turbines, sitting on concrete bases
and totally insulated under rollers, were quietly humming.
The superintendent’s office was empty, and waiting
for him, I squatted on a turbine base.
Shortly I heard a voice roaring and cursing [in German, of
course] and saw an angry man with a red face, standing over me and shouting.
I got up to face him and asked who he was and what he wanted.
My innocence surprised him, since he thought that I was one
of the workers. who came there for a rest - a serious breach of the discipline.
I was in the
shipyard for two months and was working on the lathe, the milling machine
and in the grinding shop. While on the lathe, I happened to use a file
on a shaft I was turning and then I put the file down to rest on the lathe
steel bed. I was promptly fined five guldens for that: the precisely ground
rails of the bed could easily be marred by the file - there was a special
wooden board to place the tools on.
In the grinding room I was helping the machinist in regrinding
cranks on huge locomotive wheels. A two wheel and axle assembly was placed
on rolls; the wheels had to be rotated in order to bring the cranks, which
were hanging freely down, into upper position to face the grinder. This
rotation of the heavy assembly was a two-man job and was done in a very
primitive manner.
The machinist was using a long steel bar which he hooked
on the rim of a wheel and was using his whole weight at the end of the
bar to rotate the wheels. The helper (meaning me) on the other side of
the wheel was holding a clamp, anchored on the floor, trying to tighten
the clamp on the rim after each partial rotation, until the crank reached
the top.
It happened once that the clamp got stuck, and I could not
apply it to the rim promptly enough. The wheel started rotating back to
the original position. The poor man who was clinging to the end of the
bar was lifted in the air; when he finally let it go, he fell to the ground
and dislocated his ankle.
The bar swung over the top and crashed to the floor, missing
my head by few inches (or were they centimeters ?) No helmets were worn
in the plant.
I went to visit
the man in hospital with mixed feelings - I felt guilty and was afraid
that he will blame me for the mishap. However, he was quite friendly and
pleasant; perhaps he enjoyed this unexpected and paid time off?
The last days in the shipyard I spent in designing a safer
method of rotating the locomotive wheels for grinding the cranks. And
then -- back to school; I did not even have an opportunity to see how
the new fixture worked!
The Summer Field Practice in Paris
May 3, 1992
Two of my schoolmates and I decided to work off in Paris
several weeks of the Summer field practice required by the Technical Institute.
It was a tempting, if not somewhat unusual idea; however
it did entail several problems.
In Poland at that time (i.e. between the two World Wars)
existed a compulsory military service for all men 18 years old, or older;
there was however a deferment for students of the academic schools. Those
in Poland who wanted to travel abroad had to obtain special passports;
those with deferment were usually refused such documents.
The authorities relented in our case after we presented affidavits
from several respected citizens guaranteeing our return.
Another problem was the currency regulations, limiting the
amount of money taken, or sent abroad. However, we did not consider this
a serious obstacle - we thought that with thrifty living and with the
wages for work in Paris we could get by on the limited amount of money
our parents will be allowed to send us.
The difficulties swept aside, I tried to brush up on my conversational
French. We also got in touch with a local agency in Paris, which would
find jobs for us in proper industries.
We traveled to Paris by train through Berlin, Cologne and
Brussels; at every border crossing our passports and luggage were checked.
The year was 1925 and there were no flights between Warsaw and Paris;
I can safely say that there were no passenger flights abroad from Poland.
The French agent had some difficulties in finding jobs for
us, hence when we arrived to Paris he recommended that we temporarily
stay in the hostel of the Armee de Salut - the Salvation Army. The organization
could be placed between YMCA and a mission. Its officers, both men and
women, wore uniforms and made impression of strict disciplinarians.
The rooms, immaculately clean, with simple furniture had
to be vacated before nine in the morning; food was simple and adequate,
heavily biased towards salads with oil dressing. I remember this, since
salads based on raw vegetables were not a staple in my mother’s
cuisine.
At last I got a job in a small aluminum foundry and rented
a room in a close by neighborhood.
My duty was to clean new castings from sand trapped inside
and in the folds, using a narrow chisel and a mallet.
I did not look
for an excitement in my job, but after two weeks I decided that this was
not a very instructive experience for an engineering student; beside,
I did not think that the dean of our Institute will give me credit for
the time spent at this operation.
At my request I was transferred to the proper foundry.
I was assigned
as a helper to a man pouring molten metal from a hand ladle into the form;
I, with a smaller ladle was to pour in additional load of molten aluminum.
During the pouring my companion called to me “coulez”;
this word which among several other meanings, indicates also “pour,”
was new to me, and I hesitated. As a result the casting was ruined.
My man complained to the supervisors, describing me, with
certain justification, as a hopeless imbecile, and I was instantly fired.
This failure did not depress me - Paris was too tempting
for that; I had already part of the required practice approved by the
Faculty and still had several Summers before graduation to complete the
required Six months of the field practice.
To have several weeks free to roam Paris was a wonderful
opportunity, a chance that seldom a visitor, a tourist can have.
Now, after nearly seventy years, I retain not only the happy
feeling I had discovering the beauty and greatness of Paris, but also
many less significant facts and impressions remain vivid in my memory
to this day.
Moving around in Paris was easy and inexpensive using subway
(called Metro). There were excellent maps for its extensively developed
lines, lines reaching every corner of the city. At many points the stations
had several levels for different crossing directions. One ticket was valid
for transfer to any other line.
I moved to the vicinity of the Boulevard St.- Michel, bordering
with Latin Quarter, the old learning district with Sorbonne and the University
of Paris, both many centuries old institutions.
North of the place where I lived was Ile de la Cite, an island
surrounded by river Seine; this was the place where Paris was born in
the first century B.C. Several times I visited there the Notre Dame cathedral
with two squatty towers and a very tall and slender spire.
As a budding engineer I was fascinated by the structural
aspect of the flying buttresses supporting the tall, vertical side walls.
But the additional reason of my frequent visits to the
Ile de la Cite were the book stalls along the bank of the
Seine, where among literary odds and ends one could find interesting,
or sometimes old books and manuscripts.
Adjacent to the Boulmich (a popular nickname for the Boulevard
St. -Michel) there is a manicured Luxembourg garden surrounding the Luxembourg
Palace, seat of the Senate.
In the garden I saw scores of children playing, some floating
little boats in the fountain; and many mothers pushing baby carriages.
Another neighbor of mine was the Pantheon, a huge, domed
building, housing crypts of famous French writers and philosophers. From
among many names I still remember Voltaire, Hugo, Rousseau, Zola -- those
I was most familiar with.
There was also a unique exhibit and one I found most exciting,
a copy of the Foucault pendulum. The pendulum was a weight hanging on
a very long wire, which was attached to the high ceiling. Under the point
of the weight there was on the floor a round brass plate with many engraved
radial lines on it, and with uniformly graduated circumference.
The oscillations of the pendulum were steady, most probably
prompted by an electromagnet hidden in the center under the plate. The
motion of the point of the pendulum passing over the center of the plate,
was proceeding along a radial line.
However an observer would notice that the point slowly moved
towards the next radial line - the pendulum seemed to be rotating clockwise
with respect to the plate and to the whole room.
The reality was that it was the room with the rest of the
earth which was rotating counterclockwise.
A property of
a pendulum, similar to that of a top and a gyroscope is that it maintains
its position, in this case, the plane of oscillation; it is the earth
which moves.
Four hundred and fifty years ago Copernicus said that the
earth is rotating on its axis, but his was only a hypothesis, there was
no proof. His theory was accepted only because it explained the solar
system in a much simpler way than the old Ptolemaic theory.
The Foucault pendulum supplied the experimental proof of
the Copernican hypothesis.
As it happened, I saw recently a similar pendulum demonstration
in the Academy of Science in San Francisco.
I did not have
cooking facilities in my room and was eating out, in numerous small restaurants
and bistros in this student district.
One evening I had a late dinner in a restaurant; the place
was nearly empty. Two young men at a nearby table had an animated discussion.
The topic was a woman, but since they were talking in Polish, they did
not bother to keep their voices discreetly low.
“I don't mind that Louise helps you with your French,
but remember that she is my girl,” said one of them. The other took
out a cigarette and started feeling his pockets for matches.
I struck a match,
lighted his cigarette and returned to my table without a single word.
They looked at each other and one of them said: "Frenchman
would not do this." Then he looked over my head and said, still in Polish:
"Do you see over there a red-headed Negro?" I did not fall for the trap,
and did not stir, I found this game amusing.
Leaving after dinner, I said, to their surprise, "Do widzenia,”
which is "Good bye" in Polish.
This was the way I met two Polish students of Sorbonne; we
became good friends and they were helpful in my operation of discovering
Paris. By the way - I never met Louise.
One of the first things every tourist wants to do is to get
on the Eiffel Tower. This was the year of “Exhibition des Arts Decoratifs,"
and the Eiffel Tower was beautifully adorned.
Many tourists were satisfied to land on the second platform
of the Tower and visit a restaurant there; I got to the top.
The bottom elevator was inside of a leg and brought me to
the second floor, then I took another elevator to get to the 900 feet
high, all glassed in, third platform. On the top platform one could walk
around and scan the whole city. I recognized Place L'Etoile, where twelve
streets converge toward Arc de Triomphe and where the Avenue des Champs
Elysees starts, then La Place de la Concorde, where the Champs Elysees
ends.
Place de la Concorde was easy to recognize by the tall Obelisk
brought by Napoleon from Egypt. Another landmark easy to notice was the
elevated dome of the Sacre Coeur basilica in the North.
Champs Elysees was a magnificent, wide avenue, lined with
trees, with exquisite stores, sidewalk cafes; it was a river of fast traffic.
For the Parisians this elegant avenue was a promenade, where they used
to go for a leisurely walk, or bicycle, or car ride. I made this mile
long walk often, always impressed by its grandeur and beauty. I n spite
of the pedestrians' islands, crossing of this avenue was risky, as my
own experience attested.
Trying to make the crossing, I was between two pedestrians'
islands when I saw two cars speeding side by side towards me; it was too
late to run. I faced them, put my palms together, as if diving - they
split and one passed on my left, the other on my right.
From then on I used the underground crossing only.
One of the "musts" for a visitor to Paris is the Louvre.
Museum of Louvre is a large rectangle of buildings, spread
alongside the river; the museum is so large, that simply walking through
all rooms of the buildings would take several hours.
Out of great multitude of exhibits I remember only two; this
is not because they stood out from other beautiful pieces of art, but
because they were very famous.
To stand in front of the actual masterpiece which one saw
so often in the art history books, was exciting.
One of those was Venus of Milo, standing on the ground floor,
where sculptures of several periods were exhibited, the other was Leonardo's
Mona Lisa, (called by Frenchmen Joconda), on the first floor of the building.
On the ground floor, among the sculptures I saw a number
of people making sketches on portable easels -- art students, I guess.
My friends from Sorbonne suggested to me to visit an interesting
for the engineer, but little known, Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers
-- Museum of Industry and Trade.
It contained exhibits of inventions and technological developments,
such as first airplanes, first designs of Morse telegraph, Edison's phonograph
and many other products of human ingenuity.
Another neighbor of mine was Musee De Cluny, housed in the,
so called, Hotel de Cluny (which was not a hotel at all). Hotel de Cluny
was an old Roman fortress, which later belonged to the Benedict Monks
of Cluny.
The Musee de Cluny, large and important, (probably next to
Louvre), contains a vast collection of medieval and renaissance art: statuaries,
tapestry and textiles, carved wood furniture and chests, pottery and many
other exhibits. As with the Louvre, it was not possible to remember details
of this great collection - except for one room.
This was a room of medieval armor collection.
I saw there
two halberdiers, fully dressed in the corners, and saw exhibits of coats
of mail, medieval spears (halberds), and other martial objects.
There were also, somewhat associated with conducting warfare,
two rusted chastity belts for the ladies left at home. I can imagine that
these must have been a hey-day for the locksmiths.
I t was with
special feelings, feelings of veneration, that I visited the tomb of Napoleon
in the Hotel des Invalides (another non-hotel, or rather a former hotel).
In the memory of two countries only, France and Poland, Napoleon
was a hero, always recalled with affection; for the rest of Europe he
was a power-hungry adventurer.
Poles were the only allies of Napoleon in his war with Prussia,
Austria and Russia - the very powers who divided and occupied Poland.
Polish legions of one hundred thousand, under Prince Josef Poniatowski,
fought alongside French armies in Europe, Egypt and in their fateful march
into Russia, sharing Napoleon's victories and defeat.
Prince Poniatowski was killed in action in Germany during
the retreat from Russia.
With Napoleon, Polish hopes for freedom were born and died.
In the imagination of the students of Polish history, literature and poetry,
and I was among them, Napoleon, the “little corporal,” was
a giant, a heroic figure.
Under a huge, gilded dome, the sarcophagus with Napoleon's
ashes was in a crypt, placed down, below the visitors’ balcony.
The tomb was surrounded by giant figures and with flags conquered in battles.
My finances were in poor shape; I was without a job and the
fiscal restrictions in Poland limited the amount of money my father was
allowed to send to me. I could not afford any of Montmartre's favorite
tourist haunts, such as the Moulin Rouge, or the Folies Bergere cabarets.
I had to settle
for less lavish entertainment, such as a popular Cafe Concert, where I
spent a couple of hours with a drink, listening to a chanteuse. Towards
the end she walked around with a plate; from her expression I had the
feeling that she was less than enraptured with my contribution.
The gramophone company Pathe had music rooms, where one could
make a selection of a record from a catalogue, write the number of the
choice on a slip and drop the slip together with a coin into a slot; upon
which the operator (in the basement) would play the record, while the
customer would listen through the earphones. I even remember what one
of my choices was: it was Rue Maria, by Gounod.
The automatic coin player did not exist in those days.
Another noteworthy curiosity was the mail distribution within
the city: they used a pneumatic system, similar to the present method
used to make bank deposits from the car.
On all Parisian streets there were primitive relief stations
for men, called “pissoirs." They were placed against building walls,
with a round sheet metal screen covering the middle section of the human
figure, leaving the head and the legs visible to the public.
Presently they are replaced by the bi-sexual, coin operated,
totally enclosed booth.
Would it be that the habitual wine drinking is what makes
the easy availability of these relief stations so necessary?
I was touring
in Paris alone, mostly in daytime, when my schoolmates were dutifully
working in industrial plants, earning their credits for the required Six
months of the field practice. One evening the three of us decided to survey
the red lamp district. We went in one of the “maison de tolerance,"
which was something between a "brasserie de filles" (a beerhouse with
the girls), and a brothel.
In a large room with a number of small tables, half naked
girls were meandering around.
The “half naked" calls for a closer description: none
were topless and all had short non-transparent skirts. I have to say that
their cover was more discrete than that of the contemporary photographs
advertising ladies’ lingerie.
We took one of the tables and were promptly, without asking,
served beer, the only item on the menu.
One of the girls approached the table, offering her services
upstairs; since there were no takers, she asked whether she could join
us at the table. Promptly she was served beer in a small mug.
The conversation was conventional, and I don't remember any
details, except that she liked music, and played piano herself. After
she finished her beer, she left the table.
The place was half empty and quiet; occasionally a man entered,
and with one of the girls would disappear upstairs.
The mood was businesslike and cheerless - it was depressing.
Every Summer, after ending my field practice I wrote a report
and filed it with the Department of Mechanical Engineering for review
and credit.
Alas, this report is sixty seven years late - I don't think
I should file it now - I am afraid that the Faculty may not approve it,
for more than one reason.
The Summer Field Practice in a Powerhouse
October 8, 1992
One of the industries in which an engineering student in
Warsaw was required to do the summer practice was a powerhouse. That year
I chose a moving powerhouse - I worked as a coal stoker on a steam locomotive.
_
Before I was allowed on a locomotive, I had to learn the
railway signal system, reading semaphores and interpreting road signs.
Our crew operated only within the limits of greater Warsaw, which meant
that after an eight- hour shift I was back home.
The weekly work schedule was unusual: two days from 8 am
to 4 pm; next two days from 4 pm to midnight; next two days from midnight
to 8 in the morning; then 24 hours free.
During the daytime our train serviced adjacent cities, at
night we would assemble freight trains in the switchyard.
My duties of a stoker were varied: I had to watch the steam
pressure gauge, and feed coal into the boiler when the pressure started
falling; I had to keep the cabin clean and the brass fittings shiny; between
the chores I, together with the engineer, watched the road signs as the
train was passing them.
At a station I stepped down, added oil to oil cups, wiped
the steel bars, and cleaned the lenses of the lamps - the engineer kept
me busy.
However, the stoker's main duty was to maintain the steam
pressure, thus the power of the locomotive, on the necessary level.
I shoveled coal
from the tender behind the cab through a narrow hatch onto a glowing grate
of the boiler, keeping my face away from the blast of heat.
Coal had to be thrown on a wide and long grate in a thin,
uniform layer. The black layer of coal on top of the glowing surface cut
down the heat radiation inside of the boiler and caused a temporary, additional
pressure drop; this had to be kept to minimum.
This simple operation was tricky, and required skill; however,
I had no problem with it, and enjoyed the task.
During one of the night shifts we were forming a long freight
train, when my engineer fell sick with diarrhea; he told me to take over
and disappeared in the bushes. I moved to the right side of the cab and
put my hand on the control handle - I had a pleasurable feeling of power.
This feeling was soon dashed; I was backing the long train
toward standing freight cars when I heard a roar and saw a head sticking
out of thebush and a shaking fist at me – “Slow down, you
sonofabitch, you are going to crash!”
This was a timely tip, and I made a smooth connection with
the cars.
Another time, during the night shift a young woman with an
empty bucket approached us; seeing her, the engineer promptly sent me
to the depot for lubricating oil, which we did not need. I must have returned
too early, since I saw her leaving with the pail full of coal; I was told
that this exchange of government property for favors was a very common
practice.
The engineer was not a pleasant man - he was a choleric,
prone to sudden outbursts of anger; once he swung at me with a wrench,
but reconsidered when I put my hand on a hammer, which I used to check
the wheel rims for cracks.
I filed a complaint,
supported by evidence: the suffit lamp he broke in his swing; I was transferred
to another squad.
Soon afterwards I asked for a leave of absence, I had to
attend my wedding. The wedding took place in Sopot, at the Baltic Sea
-- we were eloping.
By the way, you should know my bride - she was the brunette
with slanted eyes, holding the red poppy in her hand in my earlier story:
“Writing Something About Red.”
The year was 1927.
Smoking In My Family
May 3, 1991
At one time or another each of the four of us was smoking,
and at one time or another each of us quit. At present there are no smokers
in my family.
My smoking history is rather uneventful. As with the rest
of us I started it in college, which in my case was the Warsaw Institute
of Technology.
At the beginning of World War Two, as a refugee, I did not
smoke, I could not afford it, but after I reached my new country, Canada,
I returned to cigarettes. When the reports of health problems caused by
inhalation of the tobacco smoke appeared in the press I was trying to
switch to cigars. This alarmed my family who promptly bought me a pipe,
which for many years to come was the tool of my pipe.
I accumulated
a nice battery of pipes, but have to confess that I specially enjoyed
aromatic tobacco; I said "confess" because I believe that real men, like
Captain Hook, or the Sea Wolf would never have touched aromatic tobacco.
And yet, after all those years of enjoying my pipes, I got
tired of scraping and loading the bowl, of cleaning the stem and of the
lingering tobacco taste in my mouth and one day I put the pipes on the
rack and never used them again. I guess, I was not addicted to nicotine.
The business of Quitting was not as simple for my wife Lydia
as it was for me.
Her adventure with cigarettes started at Grenoble University
in France, she smoked when I met her in Wilno, both of us refugees, then
when I saw her in Japan, and smoked for many years after we got married
in Canada and then settled in U.S.
Several times Lydia tried to quit, only to return to her
pipe with increased ardor.
Believing that her attachment to cigarettes is nothing more
than a habit of motions connected with smoking and of holding something
in her mouth, she went to a drug store and asked for a pacifier. "Is it
for a baby boy, or baby girl, what color do you want?,” the sales
person asked. Lydia was embarrassed, “Just give me a pacifier, please.”
This might have worked, but when Lydia, who was an accountant
in a CPA’s office, was caught with a pacifier in her mouth by a
client, she threw it away.
One year, when we resided for several months in upstate New
York (I was a consultant to an engineering company), Lydia found an ad
of a hypnotist who was treating drug addictions.
In spite of the fact that she did not believe that she would
respond to the treatment because of her negative attitude and of her fear
of being a subject of hypnosis, she decided to try it.
She went to Albany together with her friend, Helen, who was
a chain smoker and, like Lydia, decided to try the healing art of the
therapist. Upon returning Lydia told me that the whole session was a failure;
she went along with the game, but never was in trance and was all the
time aware of the happenings. Helen, she said, lit a cigarette as soon
as she returned to the car. ''But,” Lydia said, “I lost $25
on this experiment, and will stop smoking until I recoup the loss."
And that was the end of her cigarette habit.
Yes, she stopped smoking cigarettes, but she did not stop
smoking, she switched to pipe, meaning my pipes!
Even though then I was weaned from smoking, my heart was
bleeding seeing my faithful pipes poorly cleaned, and the bowls emptied
by an energetic rap against any hard object.
However, I was glad, this was an improvement -- she was not
inhaling any more.
And as I said earlier, Lydia soon became tired of the pipe
and quit.
Our friend Helen, an attractive and gifted woman in her forties,
chain smoking as usual, died of lung cancer several years later.
There was a mildly humorous incident in connection with Lydia's
cigarette smoking.
Occasionally I traveled from Vancouver to United States on
business, or to attend a convention. Every time I would bring home for
Lydia a carton of American cigarettes, which I used to declare at the
Custom Office upon landing in Vancouver.
Once my return plane arrived in Seattle behind schedule and
I missed the connecting flight to Vancouver, so I took the bus.
At the border in Blaine the custom officer demanded that
I pay duty for the cigarettes. This surprised me - on all my previous
trips I was allowed to bring one carton duty free. The rate was high and
I decided to abandon the cigarettes. I was disappointed, thought this
to be unreasonable and when the officer went to bring his record book
I took out my jack knife and slashed the box from end to end, cutting
all cigarettes in half - nobody is going to enjoy my smokes!
In the meantime the man was back. Seeing what happened he
called his supervisor. There were two possibilities, the agent said: either
I would pay the duty and take the cigarettes, or stand to be accused of
destroying Queen's property.
I was trying
to argue that at the time the cigarettes were still my property, since
I did not sign the release yet, but did not want to cause any delays by
further arguments, paid the duty, and for a long time Lydia was smoking
the 400 butts.
Joan, our older child, was a sensitive 16 years old girl
when she graduated from the Helen Bush School. She was an outstanding
student, an editor of the school paper, a valedictorian at graduation
and a recipient of the National Merit Scholarship. Joan was accepted to
the girls' Smith College in Northampton and to a coeducational Reed College
in Portland, Oregon. The proximity of the school decided on the choice
of Reed.
We knew of the liberal atmosphere, in the student body at
Reed, but we did not realize that it was a hotbed of the non-conformist,
defiant, even rebellious individualists. After all, these were the notorious
sixties then.
With the first Christmas vacations approaching, Joan, in
one of our phone conversations, told us that in her circle of friends
one boy from New York would not fly home for holiday, and since the dormitories
will be closed, he had no place to go - could she bring him home?
When the day arrived we drove to the King railway station
to meet them.
Following Joan, a very strange creature stepped down from
the train: a young man, perhaps very young - it was difficult to know
with the bushy hair covering his head and eyes, with cheeks and chin which
did not see a razor for months, still with whiskers not dense enough to
call it a beard, with shoes on bare feet, and of a generally unkempt appearance.
“This is Mark,” Joan introduced him, after she
exchanged kisses with us. In the car on the way home Joan lit a cigarette
- a surprise for us.
I was driving,
Lydia in a front seat was silently crying, the shock was too much for
her. "First thing I would like to do" she said in Polish wistfully, "is
to fumigate him".
Next day, Lydia, always motherly, seeing that the boy was
penniless, suggested to him a deal: he would get five dollars if he took
a bath. The deal was consummated. Encouraged, Lydia pressed further, offering
him two dollars if he used my spare safety razor; having in his pocket
already the fiver , he said: "I am not that broke".
Joan's smoking continued for a few years, but then just as
her initiation to smoking was somewhat dramatic for us, it ended simply,
she just quit.
Alan is our younger child. Even though his family did not
give him a good example, his cigarette smoking took us all by surprise
- it was totally out of character.
A boy scout,
and devoted sportsman - early in the little league, later playing in a
soccer team, a captain in high school golf team, a sharp skier, he was
the least likely candidate to become a tobacco addict.
We tried to dissuade him from smoking, since in childhood
he had symptoms of asthma, and we were afraid that smoking may aggravate
this condition, but to no avail.
Alan, an A student never caused problems; not that we did
not have, let us say, differences of opinion, but they usually were of
minor nature.
He would, for example, come to me with a business proposition
- there was an opportunity, he would say, for an exceptionally good buy
of a pair of laminated skis, which he could acquire if I helped him with
half of the cost. "Did you not buy two years ago hickory skis, which were
supposed to be tops?" I asked; "Yes, but...,” he would argue, and
so it went.
Alan always had his own money, early as a newspaper boy,
later caddying in a golf club, or working in the summer at the hardware
store.
In most cases I would yield, but he did not have such an
easy time with his mother.
Often, when Lydia would enter the house after the day in
the office, eager to start preparing dinner, Alan would meet her at the
door, anxious to get approval for his, often less then acceptable, ideas.
Lydia called this an assault on her.
I remember once,
when Lydia might have been more tired and less patient, and Alan more
persistent, she tried to fend him off, and finally this was the exchange:
Lydia: “Do what you want and leave me out. From now
on make your own decisions.”
Alan: “This is unfair. I want to know my limitations.”
Alan's smoking did not last long. After a couple of years
he attended a seminar by a psychologist on the topic of hypnosis, and
volunteered to participate in a hypnotic séance performed on the
stage. He asked to be rid of his smoking habit.
The result was so successful that he, until today cannot
tolerate even the smell of tobacco smoke.
A curious incident
happened at the seminar. When Alan was leaving the stage after the experiment,
the speaker said to him: “When you return to your seat and I resume
my lecture, you will shout to me: 'You are a fake' and when I ask who
said that, you will point at the lady sitting beside you."
As Alan told me, he murmured "Like hell I will," but as soon
as he took his seat he did just that - he called the man a fake and then
blamed for this his girlfriend, who accompanied him to the seminar.
For some years now all of us are abstaining from tobacco
and none feel any craving for it. In fact, I can't even imagine now that
I ever found pleasure in smoking.
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