POLAND

October 2002, I took a trip to Gdansk, Poland. Why? Lot's of reasons. Perhaps the biggest reason is that I'm always aware of a world that exists outside of my route between my Wrigleyville apartment, and downtown Chicago. There are wars, and elections, and languages, and varied priorities, and growth, and births, and discoveries, and torments . . . an entire universe whether I acknowledge it, or not; whether I participate in it, or not.

I considered my budget and considered where in this entire world I might go, based on what I could afford. The second requirement: the fewer American tourists, the better. I wanted an extreme experience. I didn't want the crutch of being able to speak English. Nor did I want an extremely touristy place where there's nothing to do but buy souvenirs and hang out with people whom I could hang out with in Chicago.

So, of all the places I could afford, Poland made more sense than, say, London, Las Vegas, or Nassau. One thing though: I studied Russian, and figured it might come in handy in Poland.

Another reason for my decision was the loss of my uncle, Frank Floyd, this past Spring. I was born on his 21st birthday and most years we'd make that phone call to say "Happy Birthday!" Some years we missed, like the year I was out on a submarine in the Mediterranean. But this September 25th was the first birthday without him. So, I wanted to do something special for our birthday. And this year's something special had to be big, and about Living Life.

Uncle Frank ended up on the trip with me. On the day that I left Chicago, I bought a portable CD player and grabbed some CDs on my way out the door. See . . .

After my Uncle's death I learned that he was a regular studio musician with Steely Dan & Donald Fagen. And what had I grabbed? Donald Fagen's Nightfly, and Kamakiriad CDs. Uncle Frank got me through that brutal 8-hr flight to Copenhagen.

The Nazis saved hair, shoes, luggage, prosthetic legs, Cyclon B canisters . . . all sorts of things; and this is where my visit to Auschwitz became real and difficult. Up to this point I'd been looking at photos, reading placards and walking around. But what can I really say here? The experience was both overwhelming and well worth the trouble of getting out there from Krakow.

After this, I made my way back to Krakow, then boarded a train for the 7-hour ride back to Gdansk. I sat across from a Polish guy who looked about 45 years old. He spied my Auschwitz brochure, and asked if I'd gone there. He said he's refused to go there because of the shame that the Holocaust is part of Poland's history. He went on, and I picked up on a mixture of both anger and embarrassment. For 4 hours we patched together a sloppy but elegant conversation in Russian, English and Polish. He explained . . .

It's his understanding that Finland, the UK and others have Holocaust records that they won't make public. Top Secret. He believes that they are hiding their own participation in the attempted genocide. In halting English he says, "We go to UK and ask for records. What they say?" And his eyes brighten and he raises his hand as if turning a key, "They say, 'closed!'" Thus, Poland and Germany go down in history as the sole bearers of the Holocaust corpus.

I don't know my history well enough to refute my fellow passenger's understanding, but these were very real feelings that he was sharing with me, and I processed the conversation as such. During this, the 3rd passenger in the car was out flirting with the girl who was in charge of selling beer, candy and coffee.

For most of the 4-hour ride between Warsaw and Gdansk, the 3 of us were together. One guy bought beer for us, and even though I hate the taste of beer I drank it--and I had to drink the whole thing because it was in a glass bottle. We talked about all manner of things--from the Holocaust to their preference for Russian women. One guy sad he came to America looking for Claudia Schiffer. What he says he found, instead, were a nimiety of television food commercials and fat American women. "I looking, looking. No Claudia Schiffer; only eating, eating."

My Gdansk Souvenir. The 3 people in the shop were very polite. The girl spoke some English, but the guy with the small beard spoke none. And I don't speak enough Polish. This was both sad and spooky for me because I would loved to have been able to speak with them: find out what's on their minds, maybe invite them to have some Zubrowka vodka with me. The communication gap felt like we were in adjacent sound-proof booths; smiling and gesturing from opposite sides of a common glass wall.

The tattoo artist, however, we were able to communicate. He'd visited New York City in the recent past, and spoke pretty good English. Like several other Poles, he commented on the drive for success here in the US. Seems that the drive for money takes over everything and there's no real time for friends or family. He said, "I prefer the easy life." And I didn't take that as the confession of a layabout. I understood it as someone with a respectable perspective and a sense of "enough." Our friends at WorldCom, Andersen, and others . . . seem to have lost their barometer for having "enough.

Other people whom I spoke with described the US as a place where they could come and make money to take back to Poland. None of them were aching to come live in the US forever. Instead, with 20% unemployment in Poland, they get money however they can get it; and I came across a guy who'd been kicked out of the US for working illegally as a rat exterminator. But he'd made enough U.S. dollars to live for quite a while in Warsaw. He didn't want to stay in the US because, again, the chase for money is obscene. He only needed "enough" money.