

Matylda: And I Thought Everyone Drives a Limo in Amerika

First part of the "Searching" trilogy

by Filip Zachoval

Published by Filip Zachoval

Distributed by Smashwords

Cover design by Silvie Vavřinová

Copyright © 2016 Filip Zachoval

First Edition

ISBN-13: 978-0-9984335-1-6

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, scanned, photographed, or distributed in either print or electronic form without the author's express permission. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. I appreciate your support.

This is a work of fiction.

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# Contents

Unnumbered Part

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

About the Author
Summer has taken over spring and pride month has arrived: rainbows of all shapes and sizes have sprung up around the entire city. Our hood smells of water evaporating from gardens, and of barbecue dinners. Lovers in parks are getting high on pot and each other's lips. Litters of newborn humans and puppies are wearily gazing at long sun-rays dancing with shadows while their parents cool their thirst frosty brews. And everyone's showing their skin proudly again. I pick up cherries, as red as blood, at the market on my way back from an evening walk, so that we can eat them watching the sunset while I reminisce about how I came to call this country my home. #fromseattlewithlove

# UNNUMBERED PART

Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.

– Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace

Who is Matylda? America with a 'k'? Driving a limo? Aren't limousines usually driven by chauffeurs and people rent them for that very reason, so that they can enjoy the luxury of being driven around? You are right. The title is a bit blurred – and maybe not just the title. It could be me slash or the whole book that are off. Or maybe nothing's weird and there is a simple explanation that will build up to a huge revelation. Tada! In the end, you will leave with the feeling that everything makes sense again. Perhaps.

Let's not get distracted by insignificant details though and let's stay on track of introducing the story. There was a time when I thought that every American drove a limousine – the most expensive form of automobile ground transportation – beautiful, luxurious sedan car, a symbol of wealth and power. To many, me included, an icon of the United States of America. And what does all of this have to do with Matylda? That's simple, the first limo I ever sat in was named Matylda and she was my very first car.

Voilà!

If you are intrigued, if you want to figure out what this is going to be about, whether I'm nuts, from Mars, trying to sell you some novel way of how to live your life, or perhaps pulling out some writer's tricks on you, just read the next sentence. The answers are: me, maybe, not to my knowledge, nah, I wish. Now, allow me to elaborate a bit on my answers; one by one.

This book is my story. It's a true story, but the characters depicted are [insert the legal blahblahblah here]. It is a recollection of my first visit to the United States, my first encounters with its people and culture. It is based on what is stored in my memory from a life-changing round trip, interwoven with all sorts of digressions, thoughts, and observations that might have more to do with the person I have become rather than with what I experienced one summer at the end of the last century. Which part is the true story then? Which ones are fictional, and what is the author's agenda, you might ask. The teacher in me wants to say that these are all excellent questions. The less grown-up part of me is laughing at your attempts to figure that out. I'm easily entertained.

Am I nuts? Thank you for the compliment. Hmmm. I have never been diagnosed with a mental illness or even seen a shrink. To a casual observer, I may appear to be a fully functioning member of society with an advanced degree, a fulfilling career, loving friends and family, and an obvious midlife crisis that I'm overcoming by trying something new – writing this book. Writing is not really my forté, and the predicament of someone about to turn forty would explain things. I hardly ever enjoyed writing, often times even disliked it, and occasionally even, yes, the H-word-ed it. On the other hand, there are those times when the above-mentioned "normality" shows cracks and might require further attention. Maybe I'll make an appointment one of these days.

I am an alien. Not from Mars or any other planet, for that matter. I was born in Czechoslovakia, in what is known today as the Czech Republic, one of the countries in the European Union. I've been living in the U.S. for the past thirteen plus years and call it my home. However, at the same time I am considered an alien in this country. At least on paper. There are other words used on various official documents and they vary depending on the particular form or office you're dealing with. But alien comes up pretty frequently. My status recently changed from 'temporary permanent resident alien' to 'permanent resident alien'. In the eyes of the law, I suppose, it makes me less alien, but still an alien nevertheless. By the way, if you look up synonyms for alien, the word immigrant does not turn up. Martian does. I guess I still could be from Mars and just not know it.

This book isn't selling anything and after you're done reading it, it's extremely unlikely that your life will change in any significant way. It just isn't one of these books that tries to teach you how to live your life. Not that there is anything wrong with them, they have their place in bookstores and peoples' lives, too. The thing is just that this book is about how I lived a part of my life. It's as simple as that. Frankly, I'm just glad that I'm (sort of) managing and have no desire to preach to anybody else.

Moving to the next one, playing language tricks is not anything I've ever occupied myself with. Moreover, it isn't really an option for me. As already stated, I ain't no native speaker of English here, so I would have lost any word game with you at the first attempt made. For realses.

This book, the title included, is a very candid account in which the words are not meant to mislead you, but to take you on a journey. Well, on a trip to be more precise, but this will be explained shortly.

That's what this book is about, nothing more, and nothing less. Well, obviously there will be more pages with words on them. There is Part One, which sets things up for the main body of the book, and is rather short. Then there are Part Two and Part Three, each describing a certain time period. They are, of course, related, but are different, so that's why they are split. And there is the ending, too. Wow, this paragraph is so profound. Job well done, sir! It might be better to stop writing what the book is going to be about, and start writing the book itself. No hurry, but at some point, it would be appreciated.
PART ONE

"How do you find America?"

"Turn left at Greenland."

– Ringo Starr

The year was one thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven and I was a sophomore at Charles University in Prague – the first and the oldest university in Central Europe, as the faculty and staff constantly reminded their students - us. Talking about the past was a big deal. Not only at the college but pretty much everywhere in the Czechlands when I was growing up. Examples taken from the bygones were frequently utilized to answer many questions that started with how, what, where, who, when, or why. Stories from the distant and not so distant past also provided a constant reminder of who the good guys and the bad ones were. In the 90s good and evil switched places and a new grand narrative was drilled into people's heads, so they could learn what's right and what's wrong. Same as before, referencing the past continued to be incorporated into many conversations, even if the topic had nothing to do with history. You could ask someone for directions to the nearest bank and the events of 1620, which led to the Czechs losing their independence for 300 years, and almost perishing from the surface of this earth, somehow popped up in their answer. The past was often depicted as splendid. The future was glamorous, too. The present, not so much. It often felt that it was easier to re-write what happened and to foresee what was going to happen, rather than to face what was right in front of the nation, us, at that very moment. In this vein, my people were just continuing a tradition of their ancestors of hundreds of years, by glorifying the past and painting the future in the brightest colors possible, while turning a blind eye to the present.

In her commencement speech at the same institution, my friend Káťa made the case that dwelling on vanished times is _so 1400s_. She reasoned that the university would be better off focusing its energy on the present. She made a much more elaborate and eloquent argument, but that is my take from the speech she gave in breathtaking borderline intimidating Karolinum's aula magna, right under the tapestry with the motif of Charles IV kneeling in front of St. Wenceslaus. Charles IV was the founder of that very institution of higher education and the first king of Bohemia to also become Holy Roman Emperor, and St. Wenceslaus a beloved duke of Bohemia, the patron saint of the Czech state. The trinity of three great minds — Charles, Wenceslaus, and Kat'a — is the picture that commemorates that very special step into my adulthood, Kat'a being a brightest one who challenged the status quo like the other two had centuries before her. For years, Káťa was the person I used to call when the crazies of this world got to me and I needed a fresh voice of reason, simplicity, and logic.

There I was, a Moravian boy from a one-horse town, getting his education at a university that was founded 650 years prior. To be honest, I was not really sure what I was doing there. Even though my Russian major led to a successful career, at that time in my life, college wasn't all I dreamed and hoped for. Don't get me wrong, education was, and still is, a huge part of my life. I attended a university and was thoroughly enjoying the newly gained freedoms of adulthood, but I still wanted more.

I was twenty and a half, had just finished my third semester of college, and was at my parents' for the winter break relishing a few weeks off. My folks patiently listened to the recently gained wisdom of a sophisticated college urbanite who was still relying on his mom to do his laundry. I had mixed feelings about the visit. It was great to see my friend and family, but at the same time it felt awkward coming back to the little town where I spent so much time dreaming about how I would leave as soon as possible and never come back. I've always felt that I did not belong there.

There was a lot of negativity in that village. It often felt like hatred of anyone who was different was a favorite pastime. There was a strong push to preserve at whatever cost the way people live, too. And I wanted change things. There was also a lot of uniformity. One pretty much needed to look, think and behave like the locals. If you didn't, they made sure to let you know that you weren't one of them, and that you were not welcome there. I wanted to live among more diverse people. It just makes me happy.

Anyway, during one of numerous family Christmas get-togethers, after being quizzed about school, living in Prague, and whatnot, some nosey relative popped the question. Not _that_ question, but the one he would frequently annoy me with: "Sooo, what are you gonna do this summer?" I didn't have an answer ready and almost choked on carp, a traditional x-mas delicacy of my people. The interrogation had to be halted before it got into further details of my college life and it just slipped out of my mouth – "I'm going to America this summer."

Somehow I managed to muddle through the follow-up inquiries. Once the words came out of my mouth, the simplest thought came to mind: _Why not? Why couldn't I go?_ Looking back, there were at least a few serious reasons for not going, but when you're still counting your age in half years, decisions are not made by writing a pros and cons list. As soon as the thought materialized, I was overwhelmed with anxiety and excitement for the rest of the evening and conversations faded away. What remained were these those two sharp and distinct feelings: the excitement of an unknown adventure, subconsciously knowing your life will never be the same, and the anxiety produced by the very same thing. This wasn't the first, nor would it be the last time, my slow mouth to brain connection put me in a precarious situation. Now I have numerous strategies for dealing with this. But back then I was still a novice at answering questions without actually answering them. I feel so grown-up now.

The five months between my decision and the time I landed at Newark airport on May 18, 1998 went by really fast. I started looking into ways of making my hasty plan a reality right away. As I found out, there were not that many opportunities. After a few weeks of researching my options the old-fashioned way, at libraries and in the newspapers, the odds of being able to pull off my trip to America seemed rather bleak. I shared my frustrations with a few classmates and one of them mentioned a summer program she had participated in recently. It was called Exchange Visitor Program, which was established in order to bring young people from overseas to the United States for a four-month program in summer camps. The rationale behind this program was _to promote the general interest for international exchange, and allow international students to gain educational and cultural experiences in America_. It sounded like an intriguing program and without much trouble I found a couple of agencies that sponsored these exchange stays.

Shorty after, I attended an informational meeting at the agency that shall remain nameless. Their world headquarters is in California and they have offices in many countries around the world. The meeting took place on campus at the University of Chemistry and Technology, which was just a few tram stops down the hill from my dorm in the Petřín neighborhood. There were several hundred students gathered in a huge auditorium, all eager to learn about the program. The meeting was held by a young couple in their early thirties, an American and his Czech wife, who were the owners of the agency sponsoring the program. There were a few other people helping them. Most had gone through the program and talked about their experiences, painting a colorful picture of their best summer ever. The couple and their assistants were all smiles and they had the meeting down to the smallest detail. I was captivated. The only unsettling thing was that everyone was so positive and smiled all the time. That wasn't the way serious matters were dealt with in my neck of the woods. In spite of my suspicions, I filled out the registration forms right away and took an English interview to ensure that I had the language skills needed to survive. I looked the agency up recently, and it still offers its services to Czech youth. The wife is now the sole owner and seems to have gained some pounds of experience over the years, but still has the same bright eyes. The husband is not mentioned.

***

The next step was to figure out where to get money for the fees. Several months earlier my paternal grandparents – Meemaw and Grandpa – had divided between their four grandchildren some money they had been saving little by little for twenty years. My share wouldn't buy even a used škodovka, but it was the most cash I had ever held in my hands. They said it was up to me how I wanted to spend it. I knew very well the hundreds of hours of sweat, pain, and sacrifice my grandparents went through. Using my share to pay for a summer abroad didn't feel one hundred percent right, since it wasn't a tangible thing, like a computer or books for school.

My grandparents lived most of their lives under communism and couldn't travel abroad, especially to the West. They never talked about traveling and I always assumed that it simply wasn't their thing. It occurred to me much later that not talking about certain things was part of their survival tactic – they simply didn't talk about or even acknowledge things that were not possible under the realities of communism. When I told them what I was planning to do with their gift, Meemaw leaned closer to me, pinched me on the cheeks the same way she used to when I was very little, and whispered with excitement: "I'll cook you vepřo-knedlo-zelo." While she was preparing my favorite dish, Grandpa was reminiscing about their youth, about how they met, and about things that were on their minds when they were about my age.

One day in early April, I opened the mailbox and found a letter informing me that I had been officially accepted to the program. The letter contained some basic info about the camp that selected me, and instructions on how to obtain my travel documents. I followed these and got my visa at the local American embassy, which was much easier than I anticipated, all thanks to the status of the exchange program sponsored by the U. S. Government. That was it. It was a deal. I was going. There wasn't much else to do in terms of preparation for the summer, but I really wanted to do something radical – something to mark my leap into the unknown. The only thing that came to my mind was cutting my hair. I had hair that went down to my shoulders. It didn't take much maintenance, but still needed to be washed and combed regularly. I thought that getting a buzz cut would ease the burden of having to take care of my hair while traveling. Not only would it be a practical hairdo, but buzz cuts were _in_ back then. When my mother saw me, she said that I looked like a labor camp prisoner. I felt ready for the summer.

The night before my departure, I didn't sleep much. It might have been because of the three-decade-old mattress or due the stuffy air that didn't seem to cool down even when the sun took a little break from fiercely heating the city. It might have had to do with something else. Who knows? I was ready to get the summer started, and I rushed with excitement to the airport in the early morning. It was my first time on a plane and I enjoyed every moment of it. The flight was direct, from Prague to Newark. I counted down the seven hours on the big screens that showed our progress with a tiny plane jerking across a map highlighting odd cities. There would be Leeds but not London, Kawawachikamach but not Ottawa. I kind of liked that. Well, except for the huge amount of new information that was bombarding me, so many new words and the way they were spelled.

One thing I have not learned so far and I don't expect I ever will is how to spell. Well, that's not accurate. I can spell just fine most of the words I'm familiar with. The issue arises usually with proper names. When someone else tells me how to spell their name, a street name, or web address, my brain just won't get it. I can do it if they go really slow - "i:" "ti:" "heɪtʃ" "i:" "ɛl" - What? Once more! What was the third one? I do much better when I have something to write with and on, but it's usually not the case. Plus, people with uncommon names have probably told others how to spell their names a hundred times, so the speed with which they say it feels to me like the speed of light, and I have no chance of keeping up. I know it's totally embarrassing and something that one would hope I would be able to learn, but I haven't.

For most of the flight I found myself in a strange state, as I always am when I'm waiting for something important. It's hard to focus on anything – I can't read or work, and my senses are heightened to the point where it almost feels like I am having some sort of attack. It's not exactly a panic attack, but more like an overwhelming excitement. Being a bit of a control freak, I decided to follow to the letter the plan I had prepared to keep myself occupied. I watched a movie and enjoyed the in-flight meal like it was the gourmet experience of the year – eating slowly, trying to examine the flavor of every carrot and each of the five medium to small pieces of the chicken. Excitement was pumping in my veins and I believed, or tried to make myself believe, that the in-flight food was delicious. Even today, the first bite of food is preceded with expectation whenever I fly, and followed most times by disappointment.

There were still many hours left, so I decided to occupy myself with one of my avocations – people watching. Ordinarily I can just watch people, and disappear into my scattered thoughts. There is something weirdly appealing about it that can keep me occupied for hours. I'm easily captivated by imagining what strangers' lives are like. I observe their gestures, facial expressions, and the things they do, and try to invent a personality for them. Sometimes I have imaginary conversations with them or dream up various situations and envision how they would behave. I started trying to guess peoples' nationalities. It was relatively easy – most people were Czechs and Americans. There were some Russians and Israelis. I used to be quite good at this game, but have given it up, or perhaps I lost the will to maintain the skill of figuring out someone's national background. Now I wonder why it was ever important to me.

A couple of hours later, after the second meal, I talked to a few Czech students in the same program. There were actually quite a few young people, perhaps half of the passengers, traveling for the same purpose. It almost felt like all of Eastern Europe was coming to America and I was a part of it. It was comforting. Even if it turned out to be miserable, as long as there are others who are as miserable as you, then it can't be so bad.

The flight turned out to be much shorter than I had expected when the pilot out of nowhere announced the beginning of our descent. _Maybe the Old World and the New One are much closer than people on either side are made to believe,_ crossed my mind. We landed at Newark in the early afternoon. When looking at the airport location on the map after buying my ticket, it seemed like it was right in New York City, but in fact it's in New Jersey. Back then I thought they were pretty much the same thing. I guess it is common for us to bundle together things that are unfamiliar to us – a couple of places, people, cultures smashed together. There was a bus waiting to pick up the camp staff and counselors who had flown in from different parts of the world. The drive was pretty short and I was eagerly trying to get the first glimpses of a new continent. Everything felt so new and yet so familiar. I had seen lot of it before, in the movies, magazines, and in my imagination. But the few glances I was able to steal of the people, cars, and buildings still had an almost overwhelming sense of novelty. It was like being behind the mirror in the real Wonderland.

Here were all the things I had heard about for years, that seemed imaginary until I saw them for myself. But there they all were – wide highways with streams of cars, ads so colorful and convincing that they made you believe in the future once again. There were McDonald's and all the other familiar brands, breathtaking skyscrapers, blocks of businesses, and people everywhere. And what people, beautiful people of New York City! It almost seemed like they came to the city at the same time from all over the world just to parade for me. Each of them seemed to have it all. And from the bus, they did. It felt like the end of a search for something unknown. Like when you keep looking for something but are not sure what it is. You know when you find it. There is a feeling of satisfaction, of putting your mind at ease. The quest is over. I believed I found what I had been looking for. It was a city, New York City, my city. In that moment I was happy and nobody could take it from me. No one.

The bus dropped us off right in the middle of it all on the campus of Columbia University, where hundreds of international students were welcomed for a short orientation before traveling to camps in the Carolinas, Florida, Nebraska, Oregon, Missouri, and other states. The dorms were teeming with people. At first, most people flocked with their countrymen, but soon they were seeking new faces and exotic accents and dispersed to meet new folks. There is so much energy when young people from diverse cultures get together. It is almost like long-separated souls reuniting with their lost parts. There was laughter, chatter, questions, and excitement and it felt like we, the youth, could and would change the world.

After soaking in the energy for some time, I decided to call my folks, just to let them know that I had arrived safe and sound. There was a phone card in the welcome packet, but the phone cards in Europe had a microchip, so that when you wanted to make a call you'd insert the card into a slot and dial the number you wanted to reach. The charge was made through the chip and money was debited from your prepaid account. The cards we were given had no chip and the phones had no slot to insert the card. I was at a loss. Fortunately, there were people from all over calling home and someone offered their help the minute they saw a confused Eastern European face. I was able to let my parents know that I was okay. At the time they didn't have their own phone, so I called our neighbors to leave a message. I calculated the time zones in my mind and thought the best time to call would be right after dinner. It turned out that I was subtracting instead of adding seven hours. They were not super happy about my five AM call, but were already up getting ready for their morning shift at a lace factory and said they would pass on the message to my mom at work.

This little episode made me realize that North America would be challenging my status quo in unexpected ways, as I would never know where the next Quarter Pounder with Cheese versus Royale with Cheese dilemma would come from.

Another confusing thing was the various words for _bathroom_. Our English teachers back home taught us to use "WC" or "toilet." Both of which seemed to be understood but were often met with strange looks, which made me believe that native speakers probably used some another expression. On the plane the voice from intercom welcomed us to use _lavatories_ , several conveniently located at the end in the middle of the aircraft, as the stewardess informed us. On the ground I heard people using mostly _bathroom_ , but sometimes _restroom_ too. Later on I heard some people calling it _washroom_ as well. And to make things more complicated, there turned out to be even more words, such as "convenience", "powder room", "outhouse", "the potty", "the can", "the head", "the ladies/men's room", "the little boys/girls room", "the pisser", "the shitter", "the toilet", "the facilities", "the euphemism", "el baño," and "the john," of course. Which one to use and when was not clear to me. Maybe restroom was for a public one and bathroom for a private one? Or could it be that one was for ladies and the other for gentlemen? Well, but all homes, lots of restaurant and businesses have just one toilet, which anyone is welcome to use... Man, I thought, I'm clearly overthinking this.

At that point I completely gave up on trying to figure out the nuances of the English language and turned my focus on making sure to leave the facilities not dirtier than I found them and most importantly on washing my hands. Some things are better left uncomplicated.

I tried to see as much of the city as possible, but only had about twelve hours and hadn't slept much. I walked all the way to Central Park and couldn't believe my eyes when I saw how large this park was. I didn't have much time, so I just watched a few entertainers. Quite a few artists were selling their paintings or offering to sketch passers-by – exaggerating some aspects of their faces or body to make customers laugh, or portraying them in with subtle improvements that still made their art believable. You know, the pre-Photoshop way of making things look a bit, or more than a bit, better. There were also some musicians along the park pathways. One of them, a guy in his late twenties in dreads and wearing colorful patterns, played John Lennon's _Imagine_ next to the mosaic with the same word on the ground. He seemed to really be enjoying when people joined him singing. _Imagine all the people living life in peace..._

I still needed to stop at a store for some essentials that escaped my hasty packing. I remember being puzzled by the freshness and variety of fruits and vegetables in the outside displays. The sandwiches looked so good, but the price seemed astronomical compared to what I was used to, so I rushed back to the dorms to be on time for the free dinner.

I went to bed around midnight and fell asleep right away. But it didn't last long. I woke up slightly before three o'clock and, after realizing that I wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep, I decided to explore the city a bit more. I walked around the campus and admired the beautiful buildings. The campus radiated knowledge and inquisitiveness, and I felt connected. However, there was an entire city and country beyond the invisible borders of the university, inviting me to explore them. I ran to catch a few glimpses of the infamous Broadway. I set off south, hoping to see it all. The streets were relatively empty, but there were still some people out. I didn't make it far before everything became too much and I had to return to the safety of my dorm.

The morning seemed short; just a quick breakfast and an orientation meeting, from which I remember just two things: someone slowly explaining fanny packs, very slowly, and a group exercise. It felt strange because there were so many things that I wanted to know, but the whole orientation seemed to focus on inconsequential things, like the fanny pack. Till this day I have no idea why the trainers thought this personal miniaturized piece of luggage was potentially so important to the young people coming to this country from every corner of Earth. It's been bugging me for a couple decades; so if you have any idea, please let me know.

The next thing we did was form a tight circle, dozens of us, squatting at the same time, and then falling. The point of the exercise was to realize that we all needed to work together or we would fall apart.

That was the knowledge I acquired on an Ivy League campus thousands of miles from home – what a fanny bag is and that we all need to work as a team. This profound moment happened not far from a building inscribed with the names of many of the great writers, philosophers, and thinkers who have changed our world. It freaked me out a little bit, as it felt very much like communist youth trainings that I had to attend as a child. It stirred up memories I had been trying to suppress for years. They were back, awakened in New York City of all places.

Little did I know that the past of my family, and my country to some degree, would be erupting unpredictably that summer with a force that would challenge how I perceived and lived my life.

I didn't have much more time to ponder; it was time to start discovering the New World. A minivan was ready to take me and about a dozen other people to our new home for the next ten weeks. The ride was bumpy and disorienting. We dropped people off and picked some others up along the way. I have no idea what route we took. I heard someone say that we were in New Jersey, and later someone said we were entering Pennsylvania. At some point I heard we were back in New York, but I thought that New York was where we started our trip. If we started in New York City, how could we have arrived in New York State after going through New Jersey and Pennsylvania? I didn't know. It was all very confusing. Several hours later we turned left one last time and ended up at a camp in the Poconos.
PART TWO

_Because this is the other thing about_ immigrants ( _'_ fugees, émigré _s, travelers):_ _they cannot escape their history than you yourself can lose your shadow._

– _Zadie Smith, White Teeth_

The camp was almost empty. A few dozen recently painted white buildings with garish red trims were scattered on a quarter of a thousand acres of land, surrounded by lush vegetation and abundant trees on all four sides. There were a few people around who could have been maintenance workers since they were wandering about with the blue-collar fanny bags, aka tool belts, but I wasn't sure. How are you supposed to be able to tell who is who when they don't wear overalls, the unmistakable sign of an eastern European maintenance guy, but instead wear a pair of jeans?

Moreover, the jeans these guys were dressed in looked authentic, almost identical to the Levi's I had gotten a year before. The brother of one of my classmates worked as a manager at the first Levi's store in the Czech Republic and as such got a fat fifty percent discount. One autumn day after our classes were over, a herd of bargain-loving peeps and I went to the store to figure out our exact sizes. Of course, we knew our measurements, but all our clothing had labels with European dimensions on them, and the Levi's ones were different, American. The shop assistants could tell that we weren't going to buy anything, but they were nice enough to let us try the clothes on. The following day we gave our sizes to our friend. She carefully double-checked the widths and lengths of each person's order before passing on the list to her brother. Several weeks later the jeans arrived. They looked and fit perfectly. I would wear them whenever I wanted to be checked out by random strangers, which was pretty much all the time. A white t-shirt and a pair of 501s – that was my look. I couldn't really afford it, but owning a new pair of 501s that were valued at over $100 was worth skipping a meal every day for a couple of months.

Years later, when I found out that the very same jeans sold for 'a capital letter "s" with a vertical line crossing the middle of it' 25.99 at Ross Dress for Less in Texas, I wouldn't buy them any more.

Shortly after I dropped my bags in one of the five bedrooms on the second floor of one of the buildings near the entrance to the camp, as directed by the driver of our van, I was summoned downstairs for a welcome meeting. Finally, I got to see all the fellas who were to be my closest companions for the next two and a half months. I could tell they were all from Central and Eastern Europe, from different parts of it, but nevertheless we all shared the same "bright" past, and probably the same "bright" future. Bright one, too, naturally. There were fourteen of us: four Poles, two Russians, two Belarusians, two Slovaks, two Czechs, one Romanian, and one Hungarian. Like Benetton's summer of 1998 collection "From behind the wall." We had names too. Tadeusz, Mikolaj, Patryk, Mateusz, Rodion, Pyotr, Vladimir, Nikolay, Libor, Juraj, Josef, Filip, Dan, and Kristof. We were the kitchen crew for the camp of about three hundred kids, ages six to fifteen, on top of over a hundred counselors and staff.

I stole a few glimpses of the new place. The building had two stories with a basement. On the main floor were the industrial size kitchen and the dining hall. The dinning hall was a rectangular room – quite narrow, but rather long, with almost two dozen wooden tables and benches and a number of small windows all along the walls. There were small photographs scattered all over the room. In a way they were a time capsule capturing decades of young Americans coming to this place. The hairdos, and clothing underwent a change, but the common thread of shiny happy people ran through this gallery. There also were some framed notices and regulations on the walls, but not much else. That's where we were waiting for our first assembly to begin.

There were several people among us who smiled and smelled good. They clearly were Americans. The two with the biggest grins were trying to make small talk with us until everyone was congregated. Then the nice people quickly started the gathering by introducing themselves. They were the owners of the camp, Matt and Rosemary. They were continuing a family business started half of a century ago. During the off-season they lived in New York City and travelled all over the world to recruit camp staff and counselors. Summers they spent at the camp, they said. Matt and Rosemary talked about how much they loved the camp, how it was all about the family, and that their main goal was to ensure everyone had a great time. It was an uplifting speech. Hearing it made me look forward to my summer. Right away I envisioned all the activities that I would be participating in and thought about how awesome it would be to make friends and improve my English. After that meeting, I didn't see the camp owners much. They showed up twice for family days, when parents and relatives came to visit the campers, and a few more times between that. I suppose that was what they meant when they talked about how the camp was one big happy family to them.

Matt introduced "the man", the camp director Mike, who was in charge of everyday operations, and his very pregnant wife Rachel. They were a middle-aged couple with a small daughter, cute as a button. His wife seemed rather unexcited about sharing space with us. At least that's what her face, gestures, and demeanor were screaming in all directions. A lot of it was directed at her husband, as I noticed in the upcoming weeks. It would appear that Mike must have done terrible things to that lady, but he appeared to have accepted his punishment. There was a certain aura of dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and frustration between them. Mike talked very briefly, while his wife continued to look rather uncomfortable. Mike kept avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room and appeared to be somehow at a loss about what to say. After a few minutes of jumping from one topic to another, he hurriedly handed the meeting over to the last nicely smelling person in the room. He was introduced as James, our direct supervisor.

James was one of those people who could be in his 40s, but probably was in his 60s, possibly early 70s. I found out later that he was a Vietnam vet, and that's one of the very few things I ever learned about him. He talked to us often, and I assume that he shared something about himself, but I'm not really certain, as it was extremely difficult for me to understand him. Focusing very hard on what he was saying, it was becoming obvious that language was going to be a challenge for me. I was able to catch every fifth, maybe third word, while trying very hard to make some sense of what he was saying. James' accent was very different from the very few native English speakers I had encountered in my life and the actors in the rare American movies I had seen that were not dubbed. I had been learning the Queen's English, like most Europeans are taught, though my language skills were nothing to write home about. I was pretty good at passing exams, but that is a very different skill from actually speaking the language. I took English in high school for four years, plus a couple more in college, and was able to role play little conversations with my classmates – ordering a meal, asking directions, describing my daily routine, stuff like that. Mostly, it was memorized sentences with a quite limited vocabulary.

But most real conversations are unscripted, and that threw me off. I had never used the language in real situations. I tried to shut up the voice of panic roaring in my head and compel myself to pay attention to James. His demeanor and the bits of speech I was able to grasp, projected an aura of someone who had a lot of experience cooking and running a kitchen. From what I was able to put together, I liked that he got to the point right away and seemed very straightforward. Also, there was a strong odor of whiskey surrounding him.

After the meeting, our brigade joined the counselors and other staff in a tour of the camp. The kitchen slash dining hall building was next to the camp entrance, so I hadn't seen much of the camp yet. It turned out to be much bigger than I had anticipated. Most of it was cabins for hundreds of kids and their counselors. Each cabin housed a dozen campers and two adult supervisors. There were also huts for the camp owners, the director, nurses, senior counselors, and the chef. Some kids stayed for eight weeks, some for four weeks, and others for just two. According to the camp advertisement, there were almost 100 different things to do. Mostly sports or outdoor activities, but there were also a few big buildings that were used for various indoor doings. There was an Olympic-sized swimming pool, courts, fields, rings, and shooting ranges, a climbing tower and a wall, even an amphitheater, workshops, and studios. It was a summer camp. If you've been to one, you get the idea.

When I was a kid my parents sent me to a summer camp several times. The camps had a much smaller selection of activities than the one I had just toured. One of them actually specialized in a single activity – hiking. For three weeks we slept in log based tents and during the day went for hikes, almost every single day. I had a blast just walking for hours in the mountains. We played games during the day too, had bonfires in the evenings, and grilled Czech style wursts over the open fire. After we ate slightly burned "špekáčky" with bread and mustard, some of the staff would start playing the guitar, and we all sang songs late into the night.

The camp was organized by the workers union at the factory where my mom worked. Trade unions were immensely powerful in communist Czechoslovakia, with a huge number of members. Joining them was the closest thing my parents got to do in terms of political involvement, along with eighty percent of the country's wage earners who also became members of the largest organization in the country. My folks' participation in politics consisted of annually paying union dues and attending a couple of mandatory meetings that took place during the workday at the factory to insure that all people attended. After these meetings, the only thing my parents talked about was the food they were served. Often it was Wiener schnitzel, which was one of my family's favorite dishes. However, I don't remember my mom having anything good to say about the union food – it was either too dry or too thin. "So thin that you could almost see through it," she would say. Often she added: "They were so cheap that _they_ couldn't even treat people to a proper schnitzel." My dad usually just nodded along as my mom went on. He was happy with the unlimited servings of _liquid bread_ , as Czechs call beer, that he rewarded himself with for not ditching the meeting and thus not ending up on the black list.

The labor unions organized a few things for its members throughout the year – small presents, a set of bath soaps, a half dozen handkerchiefs, an Intima spray to female workers on International Women's Day; Christmas gifts for their families, usually a box of chocolate x-mas tree ornaments; and the above mentioned summer camp for the offspring. Now, some ten years later, I was finishing my first tour of an American summer camp, which looked quite similar to the one I went to as a kid. Maybe the cabins were a bit bigger and there were more events offered, but apart from that, the camps on both continents seemed to be more similar than different.

There were a few days between our arrival and the official beginning of camp. We spent this time getting familiar with the kitchen and each other while learning the craft of cooking in huge quantities. James, being the chef, was in charge of the kitchen and of our training. He definitely knew his way around the kitchen, but didn't appear to be that interested in training. Often times, he stepped out and when he came back the smell of whiskey surrounded him. Two guys from our group, Juraj and Dan, helped him with the coaching since they had worked in the camp's kitchen before. Juraj was a very confident, maybe even a bit cocky guy who spoke perfect English, or at least that's how it sounded to me. Dan, a skinny guy from Rumania, enjoyed being in charge. I attributed his eagerness to appear managerial to the fact that he weighted maybe 80 pounds and was a half head shorter that anyone else. So my explanation was that he had to compensate by acting a bit superior. At that point we were only cooking for staff and counselors. We were split into groups, each responsible for a different function in that yet-not-so-well-oiled machine. The idea was to learn the basics of all the jobs before the campers arrived so that later on we could rotate between the groups on a weekly basis.

James and the two senior guys did the actual cooking. Then there was a three-man dishwashing group. One guy replenished drinks and one guy hand-washed the big pots, pans, mixers, and cutlery. A group of five was the so-called "general" group in charge of food preparation and serving, cleaning, hauling things, and much more. Mike, the camp manager, regularly stopped by during our training to see how we were doing. He showed up every single day at the exact times, at ten and at four o'clock. I approached him with a question a few times, as did the other guys. His most common response to my questions was, "Definitely yes... Well, probably maybe... Actually, let me get back to you on that..." He never got back to me, though.

His choice of words perfectly reflected his managerial style. I think he was a bit afraid of us, based on his body language and lack of eye contact. Later on I found out that it would get quite intense among the kitchen staff and frequently physical. Mike didn't seem to like confrontations and managing the somewhat wild crowd was a bit too much for him. After a few futile attempts, I stopped approaching him with questions and decided to promote myself to the role of my own manager. There was no raise, but things started working much better after that. Well, for me they did.

The general group definitely had the most challenging job. There was always something for them to do. The minute you finished one task, there was another one assigned to you. If you weren't prepping, you were cleaning or carrying food from or back into fridges and freezers, or helping the other groups. They were the first to start working in the morning, bringing food from fridges and freezers, cutting, slicing, warming up, making toast, grilling, frying, scrambling, pouring, mixing, peeling, boiling, and who knows what. Then taking all the food to the serving line and serving hundreds of campers. After that, they cleaned the serving line – tossed away most of the food that didn't get eaten, transferred leftover food to containers, wrapped it up, labeled it, took it to the fridges, and cleaned the kitchen and the dining hall. When they were done with the breakfast they started the lunch cycle, then the dinner one. And the following day they did it all over again.

The guy doing the kitchen dishes probably had the most physically demanding job. He worked long hours bent over a sink most of the day, and was constantly lifting heavy objects and breathed chemicals all day. The two cooks had to work a lot, too, but could ask for help from the general group anytime. The guys doing dishes from the dining hall had it easier. They worked for just a couple of hours after each meal and then cleaned, or pretended to clean, the dishwashing room. And that was it. The drink guy had it, without a doubt, easiest. There were three coolers – one for unsweetened iced tea, one for sweet iced tea, and one for lemonade. There were also regular and chocolate milk coolers. The drink guy had to make sure they were full at all times. He worked for less than an hour a day. Of course he was paid the same as everyone else. Hold on, he had to make coffee, too.

Getting paid the same amount of money for doing an easy job for one hour or for working hard for up to 14 hours didn't make sense to me. Having written this, I hear some people calling me a socialist, a commie, or even worse. Well, regardless of the label, it simply defies common sense. I merely thought that the laws of the free market take care of these things automatically and that somehow the system ensures fairness towards all its members. I followed the logic that if two people do exactly the same job, they are awarded equally.

Back then, I believed that was how capitalism worked. I wasn't aware that, for example, just being of a different gender is reason enough for a varying amount on your paycheck. I guess that being paid for the same work differently is the norm then one shouldn't expect the correlation between how much you work and how much you make to work either. The unbalanced division of labor at the-summer-and-to-my-understanding-not-a-labor-camp was definitely demotivating and a source of tension among us. Theoretically, we were supposed to rotate jobs every so often to balance the variances. In practice, the rotation didn't last long and management gave up on that idea a couple of weeks into the summer. There were some exceptions. However, most groups got stuck in the same job for the whole summer, whether they liked it or not, and regardless of the fact we had been told otherwise.

***

The main reason for having a few days of training, of course, was to get familiar with our responsibilities, but it also gave us time to get to know each other. Everyone in our group was in their early twenties and we were all enrolled in Masters degree programs at prestigious universities in our home countries. We spoke different languages but these languages were Slavic, meaning they derived from a common language, except for Hungarian and Rumanian, which are from other language families. We could all understand each other to varying degrees. The Czechs and Slovaks understood each other almost perfectly. The same with the Russians and Belarusians, plus the Belarusian guys spoke Russian, usually even between themselves. There were a lot of words in common that allowed simple conversations on everyday topics among the entire group.

I was quite fluent in Russian, but didn't tell anyone for several weeks. Not that I was hiding it, it just didn't come up. Also, I was trying to practice my English as much as possible and looked for any opportunity to speak it. The Russian speakers would talk amongst themselves in Russian and I would react in English. I thought the way I reacted clearly indicated that I understood what they were saying, but they just didn't connect the dots. After a few times, and with me carrying around The Brothers Karamazov in its original, it finally clicked for them. Most of them would speak Russian to me from then on, but I would still respond in English. I did love the fact that I could understand the mother tongue of pretty much everyone in our work brigade.

A common protolanguage was one part of our shared culture and history, which became even more collective during the lifetime of people who were in charge of our upbringing, that is during the lives of our parents – the baby boomers, and our grandparents – the GI generation. Their personal stories and eye-witness versions of events often provided alternative records of twentieth century events than the ones that were fed to us in school. The discrepancies contributed to our generation's distrust of anything political, labeled as official, or communist. Our cohort grew up listening to accounts of conflicts that challenged mankind to rethink their humanity and affected the lives of millions of people all over the world. In just the twentieth century, mankind produced quite a list:

Somali Jihad,

Philippine-American War,

The Boxer Rebellion,

Italo-Ottoman War,

First Balkan War,

Second Balkan War,

World War One,

The Turkish War of Independence,

Russian Civil War,

Polish-Soviet War,

Sino-Japanese War,

Second Italo-Ethiopian War,

Spanish Civil War,

World War Two,

Cold War,

Greek Civil War,

First Indochina War,

Vietnam War,

Pathet Lao War,

Khmer Issarak War,

First Kashmir War,

First Arab-Israeli War,

Malayan War,

Korean War,

Algerian War of Independence,

Suez War, Second Indochina War,

Laotian Civil War, Cambodian Civil War,

Yemen Civil War,

Sin—Indian War,

Second Kashmir War,

Six-Day War,

Warsaw Pack Invasion of Czechoslovakia,

Bengali War of Independence,

Yom Kippur War/Ramadan War,

Lebanese Civil War,

Ogaden War,

Third Indochina War,

Afghan Civil War,

Iranian Hostage Crisis,

Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan,

Iran-Iraq War,

Falkland Islands War,

Israeli Invasion and Occupation of Southern Lebanon,

Invasion of Grenada,

Gulf War,

Third Balkan War,

Second Chechen War,

Congo War.

And then there was the rise of communist ideology, which materialized in a Communist block with Central and Eastern Europe ending up on the "behind the wall" side of the history. This wasn't due solely to conquest but by agreement between the WWII Allied Powers: Soviet Russia, USA, and Great Britain. As is often the case in history, the lives of millions of people were decided by a handful powerful men.

The rise of the Iron Curtain that followed, of course, wouldn't have happened if it weren't for support from within Central and Eastern European countries. Fear and hatred of those who were different blinded the better judgment of many men and women who gave up their freedoms, believing that their future was in imminent jeopardy. Democratic societies were replaced by totalitarian dictatorships. The biggest enemies for those in power became capitalism, religion, or any kind of otherness that didn't officially coincide their ideology. Plus there were numerous other groups who, for some reason or other, threatened, or at least didn't really fit, the official ideology – Jews, Christians, the disabled, Romas, gays, freethinkers, rockers, criminals, and many others. They were unwanted elements in the communist society that officially claimed to _welcome, love, and treat all equally_.

The way the communist party saw its relationship to others in society was summarized in their slogan "Who is not with us is against us." On the deeper level it meant not just "who is not with us," but more accurately "who is not us, is against us." The abhorrence of everything that was different, the blind devotion to the party, and endless rewriting of history was the environment in which the x-generation, my generation, grew up. In a milieu of animosity towards everyone who thought, looked, or behaved differently.

Among the kitchen crew, most of our parents didn't buy into the communist ideology and despised the reality they were caught in. They never joined the communist party. There was a lot of pressure to do so, but they never caved in.

Being a communist offered numerous benefits. It was a sort of VIP club that made it easier for you to advance at work, get loans for building your house, obtain a passport, get better vacation spots, and so on and on. My parents seemed content with not getting these benefits for themselves but they considered joining the party for the sake of my brother and me. As one of our neighbors frequently reminded my mom, we had much better chances of being accepted into good schools if they were members. It used to infuriate my mom. She would completely block off everyone in the room and go on a rage.

She was angry because the neighbor was right and my mom knew it. For several of the following weeks, she would throw angry looks and let spicy comments slip from her mouth in the direction of the neighbor.

Education was a touchy subject in my family. Grandpa, my dad's father, was from a family of seven kids, and only a couple were lucky enough to get some schooling. He was not among the lucky ones. Later on, when he had his own family, he was determined to provide his sons what he was deprived of. At that time he was pressured to join the communist party. When he refused, he was punished accordingly. On top of not joyfully embracing _the_ _warm womb of eternal happiness_ , the communist party's promise if you joined their numbers, his youngest brother immigrated to Brazil, which automatically put the whole family on the black list. Also, being farmers, which meant being an owner of a small business, was another reason for ending up on the black list. The communists saw businessmen and farmers as enemies, and even though they would not necessarily be prosecuted, they were to be kept an eye on. On top of that, my grandparents were churchgoers, which had the same consequences.

When my dad wanted to go to college, the local tovarischs gave him two options – either he could become a tractor driver or an agricultural machinery repairman. His younger brother was really into agriculture, so he was "allowed" to become a plumber. My youngest uncle was the only one who ended up with the job he wanted. By the time he was old enough for a job, the party was trying other ways to convince those who were unable to see what was best for them to embrace communism.

Growing up in the seventies and early eighties was much less bleak than one would think. As a kid, I paid very little attention to the propaganda coming from the TV, newspapers, and my teachers. There were a few things related to politics we had to do in school. One of them was to commemorate every political occasion: the anniversary of the October revolution, Lenin's birthday, the February revolution, the month of Czechoslovak-Soviet friendship, and a few others. Usually we devoted a page in our notebook to the event, drew some pictures, copied a short poem, or otherwise honored whatever we were told to be proud of.

The vast majority of our teachers didn't care if we did this or not, but I remember one who was obsessed. She would check regularly every single pupil's notebook, providing her harsh feedback in front of the whole class. Once she asked me why I glued a picture of Lenin for the commemoration of the launch of the first Sputnik. My response was that he, as the leader of the world, was responsible for any and all things that happened to mankind and thus without him there would be no space program, no cosmonauts, no anything. Her whole body stiffened and her lips quivered spastically as if she were fighting the temptation to reason with me. It was as if she was torn between wanting to utter that _Lenin is not responsible for everything_ and her fears of what the consequences of saying these words might be. I though for a moment that something terrible was about to happen, but she silently turned away and without finishing her round, she proceeded to her lecture about Newton's third law of motion. Years later, as the Soviet block collapsed, her body reacted intensely to the ongoing actions in the region. She suffered a nervous breakdown from which she never fully recovered.

There was also Young Pioneers, a youth organization established to prepare kids for being proper communist citizens. Young Pioneers was in charge of molding young minds in the Eastern block. I was never sure what exactly their core values meant, as there was a lot of big words employed, but the reality of it was much more prosaic. When we reached the age of being enlisted in the organization, we had a few meetings, maybe two or three, with some not very subtle brainwashing. After that the responsibility of imprinting the right values was mostly left to our teachers. Mine did not seem particularly interested in spreading "the only truth" and left us alone for the most part. Occasionally, they were asked to recruit a few pupils to help out during a communist party meeting or to provide entertainment. The first time, I sang in a small choir. The second time, I was supposed to memorize a poem and recite it. For some reason, I didn't do my homework and actually didn't even bother reading it even once in advance. I knew I'd have the script in front of me while on stage and thought that I would just read it very artistically.

That night, on the small stage of our – Kulturní dům – the municipal cultural center, I started reading the poem "Red Star" in a way I had seen famous actors and actresses reading poems on the weekly poetry TV program "Nedělní chvilka poezie," in the same slow pace with exaggerated annunciation and theatrical flair. I thought I got it. However, as I was going though it, I realized that the poem didn't make sense, nor rhymed particularly well. At least to me it didn't, so I commented on the nonsensical nature of the poem - out loud.

Needless to say, there was no more performing for me after that.

Later on, I was asked to help serve schnitzel and kofola at the last communist meeting I ever attended. It was thoroughly engaging for me to watch people siting there, extremely bored, not even trying to hide that they were hardly listening to the speeches, with only a few people participating in the follow-up discussion. However, the minute lunch was announced, the atmosphere in the room changed 180 degrees. Everyone was laughing, chatting with other people sitting at their table, and making jokes. For most people, that was pretty much the attitude towards politics in Central and Eastern Europe in the eighties.

A few truly faithful and devoted ones made a last attempt to save the empire by introducing a rather radical reorganization of the system. The new catchwords of perestroika and glasnost drew some people into believing that the system was still sustainable. But it was too late for that, as the biggest slouch of that century was already collapsing and its debris was hitting the ground in the late eighties and early nineties. The cold war was over. There was a lot of noise, reek, and many eye-openers for all of us.

People were so tired from decades of hearing about how the greater good was more important than their insignificant lives that many of them shamelessly chose to put themselves first rather than society-at-large. People were eager to experience what they had missed – traveling, forbidden films, music, art, exotic foods and drinks, churches, pornographic magazines, and opportunities to take their professional careers into their own hands.

The English language became extremely popular and people of all ages started taking courses where they could learn their first phrase in - until recently - an evil language: "English is easy!" And some of them even memorized whole conversations, my grandparents among them:

-Hello! How are you?

-I'm fine. Thank you. And you?

-I'm fine, too. Good-bye.

-Bye-bye.

That was one of the first, and for many, the very last conversation they mastered in English.

Throughout my school years, believing that I could handle a simple exchange in another foreign language made me feel terrific and motivated me to keep pursuing my life-long affair with the English language. But years later, when I was finally in America, when I got a chance to practice my skills, even the simple task of greeting someone turned out to be much more challenging. First, hardly anybody used "Hello!" It was much more common to hear "Hi," "Hey," or even "Howdy." Second, "How are you?" turned out to be just one of many possible questions and hearing even small variations, such as "How's it going?" "How are you doing?" would throw me off. That was nothing compared to "How's it hangin'?" or "What's up?," both of which were completely confusing. I would think: _Hanging? What is supposed to hang? What is he talking about? And what is up? The ceiling. The sky. That's not what she means. That can't be right. I don't know. Why is everything so confusing?_ Furthermore, giving even a very brief answer, just a few words, was challenging. When someone asks how you are doing in the old country, it's more an invitation to start a conversation, to spill out everything that's on your mind. The expected answer is much more than a brief answer; it's an account of what you've been up to since you've seen your interlocutor the last time. You don't just say "fine" and move on.

And finally, don't get me started on the optimism of people's responses. "Fine. Great. Awesome." _What? Where is the whining, complaints, or whimper? At least give me some details about how life's unfair and how were you're an innocent victim in the big game. There must be something bad going on in your life, there always is. On top of that, how am I suppose to commiserate about my misfortunes and then jump onto my bandwagon of misery if you don't follow the rules of our traditions?_

Anyway, back when I was learning my first English phrases I had no idea how much more complex communicating in a foreign language was going to be. I was taking the challenge of mastering a new language step by step. Teachers took their time presenting the material to eager students, as a lot of them previously taught Russian and were sometimes just a few chapters ahead of their students in English language acquisition. After the first waves of pioneers from English speaking countries, who were scavenged by enthusiastic educators and dragged to our classrooms to provide us with the experience of interacting with native speakers, many of us fell head over heels in love with the tongue of the Queen, Rolling Stones, and Madonna.

When the schools were able to hire native English instructors permanently, the biggest changes were to come. These young teachers unknowingly turned schooling, as we knew it, upside down. They welcomed us asking questions, discussing matters, even making mistakes. They shared their views with us and didn't seem to get offended if ours differed. Glen, a young fellow from Canada, stood in front of my class and acknowledged that he did not know everything about everything. Jaws dropped. Even if I struggled with the idea at first, the brutal and simple honesty astonished me even more. The real shock came a little bit later though, when it all sank in and I realized that Glen didn't practice education as a way to bestow wisdom on me, but simply was there to help me with finding my own way, truths, and voice. And as a bonus, it turned out that he had a lot of knowledge about many things.

There were many previously forbidden matters from the other world, from the west, to be explored by my generation in the nineties, so we hungrily dove into the unknown waters with the vigor of youth. We had a lot of catching up to do, and on top of that, there was the fact that we had recently become teenagers. And as such we began taping into adulthood, experiencing our changing minds and bodies, and rebelling against our dearest fathers and mothers. I almost didn't notice a decade passing. Suddenly I found myself in the USA. For most of us it was an American dream experienced first hand at the summer camp in the Poconos. For me it was a second birth. The birth of an adult "I".

***

As much as all of us on the kitchen staff seemed excited about the new experience and wanted to get the most out of it, there were conflicts among us, too. Alliances formed by national origin at first. How passé, I know. There were tensions among almost all groups. The guys from Rumania and Hungary, for the most part, stayed out of it. Alliances were sometimes broken, but Czechs and Slovaks observed the golden rule the whole time. Not that we were any better than others. We were equally as dull as the rest of the guys and were just as ready to start abhorring people because of where they were born. The reason for acting neutral like Switzerland was more likely because two out of four of us were from mixed Czech-Slovak families, so we opted out of punching ourselves in the face.

The Russians seemed to have an alliance with Belarusians, but it didn't last long, and then they formed one with the Poles. That one didn't last long either. More accurately, over time nationalities didn't seem to play a role any more. Our group was a living organism and parts of it were constantly changing. Subgroups would slowly weaken and regroup according to individual interests and personalities. I guess the pot was doing its melting.

Nationality wasn't the only dividing force. There were the work groups, strong personalities, and the excess testosterone of fourteen young men.

For several weeks there was occasional teasing and a few small arguments, but the clashes were gradually getting more intense. With the long work hours and the effects of being confined to a small space — like sailors on a submarine — two guys got into a fistfight. It started like many other disputes. Mateusz was standing around and not doing much during a very busy dinner preparation, while Nikolay was running around like crazy and trying to pick up Mateusz's slack. When Mateusz uttered: "Looks like Byelorussians have been finally trained to be of some use," Nikolay lost it and his fist flew toward Mateusz's face. In an instant they were on the ground punching each other and screaming. In a few moments a repeated command "Stop it! Stop it!" joined the party, followed by Mike rushing to the scene. I will never forget the panic in the eyes of the camp owner who was trying to tear the fighters apart, before quickly rushing everyone involved indoors, while looking over his shoulder.

His reaction was more surprising to me than the way the combatants chose to resolve their conflict. There weren't even any broken bones, just a little blood. I had only been in a half dozen fights or so. Solving differences by physical confrontations was not encouraged when growing up, but definitely common wisdom was that you do whatever it takes in order to survive, that life is a fight, and that the winners write history. So I took fighting as a way of establishing dominance or as a necessity for survival. The sheer panic in the eyes of Matt puzzled me for a while, but then it clicked: he wasn't so worried about the well-being of the fighters, he was fearful that some of the parents who came on family day might see the confrontation.

We had some training the next day, and after that incident there was no more serious fighting. We all had much more in common that we were willing to admit and for the most part we got along. Besides, our focus was on why we came to the camp – work.

***

I started in the general group and I didn't mind it. The job was hard and the days were long, but I was no stranger to labor. At home I always had chores – did the dishes, cleaned my room, worked in the garden, helped dad fix things around the house, chopped wood, swept the garage, mopped the floors. My grandparents also had a small farm where I often helped out, pretty much every summer since as far back as I can remember. Working at the camp was physically less demanding than many jobs I had had before. Even the hardest job in the kitchen, hand-washing dishes, wasn't so bad. The dishwashers were always complaining and were very insistent on being replaced every several days.

Soon it became the job that was given out as a sort of punishment. Two weeks in, one instance of me being myself and not keeping my pie hole shut when I should have, and I ended up there. To my disbelief, I enjoyed it. I stood long hours at the same place lifting heavy pots, scrubbing them in almost boiling water, drenched in sweat. I loved it.

There were several great things about it. I got little breaks throughout the day – after finishing a round of dishes, there were 10 to 15 minutes to rest. And I had a lot of time to think. I don't remember everything that was going through my mind that summer, but I remember enjoying the self-philosophizing. The greatest advantage was that nobody else wanted to do it. I was an odd guy who enjoyed a dreadful job, and I liked that. It gave me an edge and even a bit of respect. Nobody would mess with me. Unfortunately, after a month I got numerous cuts from hastily picking up large pots with sharp edges that led to an infection so James decided to go back to the old rotation system. It was a bummer for me. He wasn't happy about it either since he had to start dealing with the constant complaints coming from the washers again.

I would have probably argued with James against being transferred back to the general group if it wasn't for a surprising incident. One morning I came down to the kitchen and found a 25'' x 17'' baking pan with a thick layer of burned stuff in it sitting at my workstation. It turned out that someone left the pan in the oven overnight. The food burned and slowly melted into the pan, creating something that looked like some new element from outer space.

I didn't think the pan was salvageable and wasn't sure why it was placed next to the sink, so I asked James. He smiled, took a look at it, then at me, and said with a grimace on his face, "have fun cleaning that." I thought he was joking, but Juraj was pretty sure he was not, so I got into washing it. First, I tried to chip away as many pieces of the burned food as I could. It went very slowly and took me hours to get rid of some of it. Then, I soaked it for several hours. I talked to Juraj about it and when James showed up he asked again if he really wants me to clean the pan.

He nodded.

So I continued scrubbing on and off for the rest of the day. Before the day was over, I poured a couple gallons of beach into the pan, covered it with a lid, and wrote a note to make sure somebody else didn't stick their hand in it. The following morning I continued the process, which kept progressing at a painful pace. Throughout the day I spent as much time as I could, but it was going very slowly. Eventually, after a couple days of scrubbing, I had cleaned the pan. James came to check on my work, and after a thorough inspection he brought several days of sweating over the pan to an end with a simple, "throw it away."

It made me furious, but he was the boss, so I did what he asked me to without saying a word.

As much as I enjoyed the solitude while working, I disliked the lack of after hours interaction with anyone outside of the kitchen, including the counselors and other staff. We were all busy and some days had almost no time off but there were a couple of free hours in the evening when we could theoretically socialize.

I wanted to make friends with Americans. I was in America and I wanted to talk to the people, get to know them, listen to their opinions, and find out who they were. And I wanted to practice my English. I had occasional conversations with people and with time I was becoming more confident in speaking. To my disappointment, none of these exchanges were very remarkable and usually were quite brief. One of them, however, stuck in my mind. I don't know how the topic came up, but one time a group of kitchen staff and counselors ended up talking about the Iron Curtain. One of the counselors, Erin, mentioned that she used to have evacuation drills at her school – hiding under the desk, marching to a shelter, and learning what to do when nukes started dropping from the sky. Hearing that blew my mind. Thinking about it now, my belief sounds quite naive, but until that conversation I thought that paranoia, brainwashing, and vilifying the other side were trademarks of being behind the wall.

The iron curtain discussion brought up memories from the mid-80s, when I was about 10 or 11. I was in math class. It was hard to concentrate because there were jets constantly flying over the school. It wasn't that unusual since we were not far from a military base, but it seemed much more frequent that day. In the middle of our class, the principal called all the teachers to his office, saying that it was an emergency. Our teacher told us to read a chapter in a textbook and hurriedly left.

My classmates and I were certain that the moment the adults had always talked about, the imperialist attack, had arrived. We started saying our goodbyes and wished our friends the best of luck. For our generation, there was no doubt that we would experience some major world conflict during our lifetime and many of us believed that it was just a matter of time. I knew that I was supposed to go with my classmates to the shelter in the school's basement, like we practiced several times every school year. We had our gas masks stored there in alphabetical order. A few times a year we took them out, cleaned them, and made sure they fit us well. We had trained for that situation multiple times and we all knew exactly what to do: calmly form a line of twos, walk to the basement where you pick up a gas mask, and wait for further instructions.

My plan was different, though. I intended to sneak out of the school and run to my parents who worked about a mile away. We would all go home and wait it out there. I figured our chances for survival were pretty good. Our house was almost new and well built, and I would breath through a slice of bread, which we were told filtered the radiation. That night, when my brother rushed to my bed because I was screaming in my sleep, I shared the story with him, after he woke me up and calmed me down a bit. He told me that my plan was cute but if things go south bread might not do the trick. I wanted to call him stupid, probably out of the frustration of knowing that he was right, but I didn't.

There was also very little interaction between the kitchen staff and the campers. Three or four guys served the campers meals three times a day. Speaking was generally limited to a few phrases – "Chicken or ham?" – "Chicken." – "Mashed potatoes?" – "No, thanks." Besides that, there wasn't much communication. Frankly, there was really no reason for more, plus neither party seemed interested in the other that much. A couple of kids did ask me about my country once. They wanted to know if we had TV where I came from.

I tried to be nice and chatted with them a bit. But inside, I was offended. I realize they were too young and didn't have much world experience, but I felt their question suggested that my country was inferior. I guess it also reflected something much deeper – the way kids are taught to view the bigger world around them. From a very young age, we drill into them how the place where they live is the best, which is often done by bringing other places down.

There is nothing wrong with raising kids to be proud of their country, state, and community. But living in this world is not always just about being or having the best. Why can't there be four or twenty or even seven thousand great places? Why can't I have a favorite place while another person has a different favorite place? Is it really that important to be telling yourself all the time that your country is the best? Does one really need to be on top in every single aspect of their life, even in things that we have no control over? Is it necessary to be always better than someone else?

But the real problem for me was not that the kids were deciding whose country was better, it was the shock of seeing the very same idea that was so integral to communism, popping up here of all places. The same "who is not like me, must be worse than me."

That evening, scrubbing dirty dishes for hours, breathing fumes, and trying to ignore the shouting and madness surrounding me, I pondered that this way of thinking might lie behind a lot of hatred in the world. I think it's one of the reasons people seem to think "if you were born in a different place and with a different skin color, if you worship differently that I do, if you love and make love differently than I do, then I am a better person than you are." Wasn't an attempt to escape this way of thinking one of the very reasons why people came to this country?

Those were questions and thoughts that went trough my mind while scrubbing dirty dishes for hours, breathing fumes, and trying to ignore the shouting and madness surrounding me. The next day I would move on to pondering something else.

***

There were days when I didn't leave the kitchen building at all so whenever we had time I tried to do something, even if it was very insignificant. One day when we got a short break in the afternoon, I decided to walk around the camp. There were some kids making hemp wristbands and necklaces with one of the counselors. For whatever reason it caught my attention, and the counselor noticed. She invited me to try it. The kitchen staff didn't generally participate in camp activities, especially not when the campers were around, so I was a bit taken aback by her warm invitation. I followed her instructions and soon finished my first hemp wristband. I was hooked. The counselor gave me some thread and for a few weeks I spent every free moment making them. It was extremely relaxing. I made a few wristbands for other kitchen staff and several people actually asked if I would make one for money. I didn't know how much to charge and just asked for whatever they felt comfortable paying, which ended up being a couple of bucks per piece. It was the first cash I made in America since our paychecks were to be handed to us at the very end of the summer. It made me proud. Making the wristbands helped keep me sane as well, which wasn't bad either.

There were other small things I did to keep occupied. In order to maintain my new haircut at a minimal cost, I brought an electric razor/trimmer. It took a lot of time to cut my own hair since the clippers had to be recharged in the middle of cutting, but it got the job done. Eventually.

Charging the clippers took much longer that I was used to. On European 220 volts, this would have been done in no time. With 120 volts, it was a bit of a different story, as I didn't have a convertor. Neither did I have an adaptor to accommodate different shapes of electrical plugs.

To resolve this incompatibility between male and female parts, I wound wire around the plugs and jammed the wire into a socket. This was probably not the safest way of charging my device but it did the trick. For some reason, one of the senior staff members commented on my haircut, attempting to make a joke about "workers' fashion." I didn't really get what was supposed to be funny about it, but a couple of guys overheard that, and decided to get their head shaved which led to a few more comments about kitchen staff getting the same haircut. Until this day, I have no idea what bothered the counselor about our hair and why he felt the urge to comment on our buzz cuts. We weren't breaking any rules and what was on our head didn't affect or limit him in any way. If anything, his comments stirred the rebellious side of a few more workers.

Since I was the only one with a trimmer, I opened an unofficial red-white-and-blue pole business where all but a few of the guys got a buzz cut from me. It was also a hot summer and there was no air conditioning in our rooms or in the kitchen, so it helped us stay cool, fashionable, and rebellious at the same time.

With our new haircuts we all looked like we went through a gulag, especially Vladimir, my closest friend at camp. He looked like he just stepped out of one of Stalin's labor camps. There was something about his physique and demeanor that screamed incarceration. In retrospect, I realize that it was indicative of his life. He was from Belarus, a former Soviet Union republic, and studied English linguistics at a prestigious program at a university in Minsk. His parents were working class and struggled to support their two kids so he had to rely on scholarships and work extra hard.

Vladimir was an athlete and trained for the Olympics. He was sent to a gymnast boarding school. The training was very demanding, both physically and mentally. There was constant verbal abuse, some physical abuse in the form of slapping and pushing, occasional broken bones, and, of course, hours of intensive training and insane diets. At one point, he ate only rice for an entire month. He knew that making the team could be the ticket out for him and his family. Vladimir trained for years, but in the end he didn't make the cut. He wasn't a show off, but I got to see him do gymnastics a few times. Each time we watched, we were just speechless. Vladimir would do barani, chasses', deep arch, flic flac, fouette', handstand, headspring, healy twirl, hecht dismount, pirouette, salto, sissone, side leap, split leap straddle pike jump, switch leg leap, tour jete, and I don't know what else. What he could do was breathtaking, jaw-dropping. I wanted to find out more about that part of his life, and when asked about what competitions he partook in, his response was: "Oh, it's been too long ago." His body language was even clearer that talking about anything related to gymnastics was like opening a Pandora's Box of what his life could have been, so I never acted on my curiosity again.

Coming to the U.S., even if just for a few months in the summer, was a challenge for Vladimir. There was, of course, the problem of obtaining an American visa, which was, and still is for many people from other corners of this planet, practically impossible. For others it's just very difficult. How hard it is depends on many factors, but one of the most significant is the country of origin of the applicant. A _rule of color_ applies here – white for the color of one's skin and green for money. The whiter and greener the country or applicant, the more likely the odds of getting a visa are.

For Vladimir, this wasn't even the worst obstacle. The biggest hindrance came from his side. His family's financial situation was one. It's expensive to be poor and getting about $300 to the agency organizing the summer exchange program in various fees, a $50 registration fee, and $250 for insurance meant many decisions were a real challenge for the family. A much more serious impediment was getting permission to leave the country from his government, whose bureaucracy was inherited from the Soviet times. I never learned the exact details but it was clear that the process was painful and that he was advised not to discuss it with anyone. Vladimir did mention once that he was summoned to an "interview" (quotation marks aren't mine) before he was allowed to apply for a visa. "There will be another 'interview' waiting for me," he said. And the tone of his voice confirmed that he was very anxious about it, to put it mildly. Applying from Belarus thus took a lot of time, paperwork, and money. But Vladimir overcame them all. Eventually.

Vladimir was a tortured man. He was working very hard trying to emerge from the shadow of his family's misfortunes. That summer he had come to realize that living in Belarus was killing his dreams and aspirations. He was slowly falling into depression. I think his mental decline was triggered by seeing how life in the U.S. differed from the realities of his own country. He confessed to me that he had considered staying in America, but he knew his family would be persecuted for it and he couldn't live with that. All of this was on his mind and he was trying to cope. One day, an extra stressful situation at work pushed him over the edge and he started to hit the wall with his bare hands. It happened so quickly that at first I didn't know what was going on. Then I saw blood on his hand and instinctively jumped between him and the wall. His hand stopped a couple of inches from my face. Vladimir walked away. After that we talked and he said that his biggest fear was the prospect of going back to Belarus. He told me that he was also scared of not being able to find a woman who would love him for who he was. He had dated a few girls. He was a natural caretaker and had a gymnast body, which in his mind was the sole reason anybody was interested in him. Vladimir was a super strong man who had to work all his life for everything, but all he wanted was to find someone who would love him. Despite the enormity of his other problems, his desire for love and acceptance was the greatest.

***

At times, the camp felt like a prison. This was partially due to the work conditions, but mostly we felt confined because we were unable to leave the premises, even when we were off the clock. None of us had a car so we were pretty much stuck in the middle of nowhere. There was a little town nearby with a post office and there was a gas station about half an hour's walk in the other direction. The gas station was such a welcome relief that some of us called it "the movie theater." Most guys went there rather frequently – to buy cigarettes, chewing gum, or small toiletries. Without wheels you couldn't get very far, so the gas station became the destination for our evening walks, and as its nickname suggests a place for entertainment. I usually made the trip a few times a week to hang around, and/or car and people watch. Apart from not being mobile, my passport was collected right after I had arrived at the camp. My passport was my only official form of ID and it wasn't really advisable to wander too far from the camp without it. I was told that collecting my travel document was for immigration purposes and that I would get it back in a couple of weeks. It wasn't returned to me until the camp was over. At no point did I consider leaving the camp before my contract was up but it felt unsettling that someone had my passport. It was hard enough to come here. Not being able to leave was taxing. I felt unfree at times; unfree in the freest country in the world.

One day, a senior counselor approached me and started asking questions about Erin, a counselor I had chatted with a few times before. He was curious about my interactions with her but seemed to be beating around the bush. I had no idea where the conversation was going and was sincerely confused. Finally, he got to the point and asked me if I had given Erin a hard time. I didn't know what that meant and after he explained, it hit me – I had.

One time when I talked to her I said something that was okay in Czech, but it got lost in translation and came out as mean, hurting her feelings. A few days prior, Erin and I were chitchatting and somehow arrived at the topic of our birthdays. She mentioned that she was born in September and talked a bit about horoscopes. A few days later I saw her again when serving her a meal. Building on our previous conversation I greeted her with excitement: "Hi, how's it hangin', Virgin?" She didn't reply, just walked away. I didn't have much time to pay attention to that, as there was a line of hungry campers waiting for their meals, so our exchange slipped out of my mind until the senior counselor approached me. It didn't take long for me to figure out what had happened, just a quick consultation in a dictionary. In Czech there is just one word for Virgo and Virgin, and the meaning is usually determined by context. I thought I was being nice and personal by referring to her horoscope sign, not realizing what I was actually saying.

I felt terrible and promised to talk to Erin, which I did. She was very sweet and generously accepted my apologies. We hugged it out and would still chat every now and then. In a way, she has been a reminder for me of how words can, and do, hurt. What starts innocently can very quickly turn into something spiteful. Even without intending it. Language was and still is something to keep working on, not just to avoid misunderstandings, but also to fit in. Sometimes I say that I would give my right arm to be able to speak perfect English. I'm not sure if I mean it, but the desire is real. I'd like to experience a single day when I walk around, talk to people, and totally fit in, with nobody commenting on or grimacing at the way I speak. I have come to peace with the realization that it won't ever happen, but this is what it is. But the unrealistic wish sneaks in every now and then.

Some days weren't all about the work, though, and I was able to enjoy myself a little. One afternoon we were given a rare couple of hours off, and I wanted to make the most of it. I hadn't been swimming for several days and it was a hot day so I decided to put on my Speedo and take a swim in the pool. I was obsessed with swimming under the water. It was so quiet and I would just swim back and forth, trying to hold my breath as long as possible. It felt amazing to dive under the surface in one quick move and the whole world was gone. Even if the pool was only five feet deep, there was peace and solitude, which I cherished – if only for a few moments. It was a therapeutic escape from my daily stresses and it strangely connected me to my prepubescent years, when the approaching changes started brewing up. In order to handle the cornucopia of new feelings and thoughts, I spent hours swimming underwater – enjoying the ultimate freedom from daily events and a profound connection to the surrounding world. It was just nature and I, and we were in harmony with each other.

After swimming for about an hour, I went to change and get ready for the afternoon shift. On the way to my room, I stopped by the dining hall for some cold lemonade. There was a flock of young girls standing around the doorway, chatting and giggling. I didn't pay much attention, but one of them spoke to me. She was still giggling and said that she had never seen anyone in a bathing suit like mine. At the end of her short monologue, she pointed at my Speedo and said, "That's disgusting." Then they all left.

_What the what?_ immediately popped up in my mind. I could not believe what had just happened but after thinking about it for a while I just let it go and went on with my day. Nobody directly forbade us from using the pool, but shortly after my encounter with the campers a senior counselor announced that we should use it only when the kids weren't using it. There was not much to do for fun, and when we had a half an hour break, a quick swim was the best relaxation. Now, that was taken from us. We were back to the same old monotony.

Our routine consisted of seven days of being worthy followed by one day of mooching. Most of the guys chose to work on their day off. They did it for the almighty dollar, of course. I didn't think that making a few bucks was worth not decompressing so I always took my days off.

The first thing I did was sleep in. Technically, you couldn't really sleep late, though. There was so much commotion when the kitchen crew was getting ready to be productive members of not-so-much-their-society every morning. I just stayed in bed with my eyes closed indulging in the fact that I was a free man, at least for the day. Soon everyone left. I stayed in bed just long enough to feel the unapologetic satisfaction that came from knowing that everyone else was already working, and then I got up and descended the stairs to have breakfast. I had to go through the kitchen, where everyone was frantically preparing the most important meal of the day. Sometimes, James would shoot an order at me but without even looking in his direction, I would yell back "Off today!" Everyone else ignored me, the same way I ignored them, on their days off. It was an unwritten rule, a courtesy of sorts, that we all chose to follow.

After a leisurely breakfast, I usually enjoyed sun tanning, reading, or writing letters and postcards. Later in the day I walked to the post office or to the gas station, swam in the lake, and occasionally participated in some camp activities. My day was usually a very lazy sequence of engaging in little things, in whatever felt right at that moment. I have always strived for a certain balance in my life. As much as I enjoy being around people, I desperately need to be alone on a regular basis. Socializing with people charges me with energy. It motivates me, and challenges me in the best possible way. But, I also need my solitude. That's when I have time to process my experiences. It's a time when things click, information transforms into ideas and plans, and everything starts making sense. Days off were not necessarily just about getting rest, but they were giving me a sense of time, too. It was like chapters in a book, you finish one and move on to the next. There had to be some mark, some separation between the two. Even though my days off might appear a bit boring to an outsider, there was a lot of internal motion going on and I looked forward to this weekly internal housekeeping.

On one of my days off, Libor, Kristof and his friend, and I decided to go to New York City. We rented a small car the evening before, got up before the birds started singing, and off we went. Going back to NYC was thrilling. It was the very first place I had visited in America and I was thirsty for the high of exploring "The Huge Apple," as I called it back then. The trip to the city felt very short, as we were sharing the thrill of a road trip and making plans about what to do in the metropolis: "Let's go to the Empire State Building!", "I always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty.", "How about taking a sightseeing bus around Manhattan?", "I wanna try me some real Chinese food.", "Is Willis Tower in New York? – I've read somewhere it's the tallest building in the world," "It would be cool to take a subway to Brooklyn and check that out." It went on for quite some time and we'd discuss each proposal and everyone weighed in on everybody else's suggestion till we narrowed our list down a bit.

Once we got there, we spent a couple of hours just driving around and glimpsing the communities from the car. It was as breathtaking as it had been the month before, and there was more of it. Eventually, we decided to see the city from up close and paid $25 to park the car. Twenty-five American dollars for us to leave the car for several hours to sit and do nothing. When I did the math in my head and realized how much it was in Czech crowns, I felt robbed.

I guess when you grow up with little money you have a very specific idea about how much things are supposed to cost and are sensitive when something is out of that range. I grew up knowing exactly how much things are supposed to cost and I was reluctant to pay more. My parents lived from paycheck to paycheck. They were making just enough to buy food, clothes, and pay the bills. You know, all the basics. With an extra tightening of their belts, they would make an occasional bigger purchase, such as a color TV in 1984, or a washing machine in 1988. The only vacation we ever took together was a visit to my mom's side of the family in the far eastern part of the country, in a little corner between Ukraine and Hungary.

Growing up, I had a very clear idea about what things are unreachable and stayed away from them as if they didn't exist. I guess it was in line with many other people's attitude towards wampum. There was a certain sense of resignation in terms of being motivated do well financially beyond making sure they had enough to cover the basics. One of the reasons for this was the very small difference in salaries among different professions. It's true that a doctor made more than a cleaning lady but only about twice as much, that was it. And even if people had money, there wasn't really much to spend it on. The goods were scarce, people couldn't travel, and entertainment was limited. Most people would invest in their car, or in a cabin. My family used public transportation exclusively and a cabin was kind of superfluous. We lived in a small Moravian village so spending time in nature meant walking to our backyard.

Saving money, either under a mattress or in the bank wasn't really such a great deal either. My grandparents lost all their savings in 1953 when an infamous devaluation happened. One day you had fifty crowns and the following you had just one. My paternal grandparents had just sold some cattle and hoped to fix their house with that money. Instead they bought a small truck of coal, brown one of course, that didn't even keep them warm a winter. The banks were not trusted because money as well as other property could be taken at any moment. And it often was.

Trying to forget about the price of parking, I shifted my mind to what was all around me. New York City. We walked around the Upper West Side, then down Broadway and through Central Park. We considered going to the World Trade Center, but decided that we should leave something for our next visit and went on to explore other parts of the city. The melting pot was bubbling. The people of New York, both locals and visitors, were showcasing the diversity of mankind. Passersby talked to me without speaking. I just watched them, at times stared at them – I couldn't help myself. Seeing such diversity in the humans of New York was magical and felt so right.

Most passersby had perfectly straight pearly whites, which made me a bit jealous as my biters were (and still are) rather European, both in their shade and shape. Well, let's call them natural. A lot of people also wore baseball caps, sunglasses at all times, even indoors, and white socks. For some reason seeing so many people wearing baseball caps felt like being at a stadium, and somehow their look didn't really work with suits or a nice pair of long pants. Sunglasses indoors felt utterly ridiculous, somehow the purpose of protecting one's eyes from the sun when there is no sun didn't make sense. I guess if other people could see well with shades indoors, good for them.

It took me a while to realize what bothered me about the sunglasses. When I talked to someone and couldn't see their eyes, it made me feel uncomfortable. It felt like they were not sincere with me, like they were hiding something. But it was more a matter of habit. I got used to it and don't hold it against anyone. It's not the same as wearing white socks, which is one thing that's just wrong. I don't even know how to explain it. For god's sake, just no! Don't! Strolling down the streets, I also noticed quite a few passersby drinking and eating while walking. It never occurred to me not to stop and take a little break to eat. I wasn't sure if these people were just that busy they couldn't stop for a few minutes to have a meal.

A few other small things became obsessions of mine. My all-time favorites are water towers on many Manhattan buildings. I thought that they were the coolest thing ever. I could spend hours and days walking around the city with my head slightly tilted, observing wood tanks, steel tanks, small tanks — hot, cold, round, square. I don't know what's so special about them, but they just do it for me. It might be the presence of a rather primitive (in my book thus genius) apparatus in a most modern city. Seeing that these relics of the past still have their place in a complex metropolis even today makes me feel good.

Then there were the meticulously dressed doormen. Somehow I didn't realize that their job still existed. I thought they were common only in the nineteenth, maybe first half of the twentieth centuries. There was something in their posture and movements that felt like it was passed on from one generation to another. It seemed that there was a very particular way they do things and that one almost has to have special gifts to be able to join their close society. The nature of their occupation gave them an incredible opportunity to get insight into human life. Perhaps my enjoyment of people watching has something to do with my attraction to their profession.

Yet another thing was the water drops dripping from the AC units installed in windows. When a cold drop landed on my neck for the first time, my body jerked a bit and I looked up, searching for the pigeon, so that I could wave my fist in anger at the animal for crapping at me. After realizing that it was coming from an air-conditioner, an occasional cold drop would become something I'd look forward to. It couldn't be planned and I never knew when it would happen again. I guess that was a big part of me being so amused by it.

And finally, the energetic black men selling bus tours, show tickets, and other touristic attractions. They would show up in front of a passersby trying to sell their goods — almost as if they danced onto a stage. They had their little catchphrases, jokes, and small talk. It seemed that they approached their rather mundane job with an amazingly positive attitude. It was so novel to see how they accepted rejection with a smile and often a joke. Selling services was almost like a performance of sorts, one that they were genuinely enjoying. I also noticed that their skin was quite a few shades darker then the skin of a few black actors I had seen in movies, theirs was more like mahogany black. Based on their accents it seemed they came to this country more recently and I felt we shared a connection.

And of course, there were the skyscrapers, a staple of the New World architecture. The attitude of these sky-reaching buildings screams out that the country can reach the skies and beyond.

After a few hours of soaking the energy in, we drove down to Brighton Beach, because we all desperately wanted to take a dip in the ocean. Swimming in one of the biggest and most beautiful cities on the planet felt to me like a most luxurious thing to do. It was the ultimate proof of success at that point in my life. Driving to the beach was interesting on its own. Just checking out the neighborhoods was plenty of fun for me. I knew we were getting closer, as I started noticing signs: «Книги, музыка, фильмы», «Аптека», «Кафе»: we were entering a Russian community. It felt surreal to see signs for "Books, music, movies," "Pharmacy," "Cafe" businesses written in Cyrillic here, of all places.

The beach was nothing special. It wasn't that clean and was pretty crowded. I willingly overlooked the real conditions because what mattered most was that I was on a beach in NYC! I went for a swim and when I came back to our spot to dry off, I noticed that people to the left to us were speaking Russian, and the people in front of us as well. It seemed that the majority of the beachgoers were Russian speakers. It was fun to observe this crowd: weird hairdos, unusual interpersonal interactions, and snacks I'd never seen or smelled before. It all screamed Old World against the backdrop of a most American city. The juxtaposition of Cyrillic letters and the NYC skyline made me wonder about what emigrants bring along from their old countries? What is so important for people who leave their country for a search of a new one that can't be left behind? Is it their language, food, or their traditions? What would it be that I'd never give up if I ever found myself in the position? Should I bring family heirlooms, my books, or family recipes? Perhaps my clothing, paintings, and tchotchkes, so that I could decorate the new place with them? The response showed up in my mind several weeks later, when I was boarding the plane heading back to the old country. I freaked out at first, realizing how much luggage I had been carrying all my life, some of it surfacing that summer. I decided that if I ever were to embrace finding a new home I would opt for leaving as much as possible behind and starting all over, from scratch, being it just me, myself & I.

In the late afternoon we headed back to the camp. We drove through Chinatown and it was probably the most striking place I had seen in my life – so many colors, unusual objects, and exotic smells. So many of the people there seemed to be hustling, exerting themselves for purposes I couldn't see. We crossed the Hudson River and drove north. It was getting late and somehow we got lost. It seemed like we were driving in circles and everyone was getting agitated. It had been a long day and we all wanted to get back to camp and rest. At one point we decided to stop and ask for directions. The driver, Kristof's friend, slowed down and we looked for someone who could help. I saw a bunch of guys standing around a flaming trashcan – we were in a ghetto. The minute they saw our car and us peeking through the half-rolled down windows, a couple of guys started marching toward us. There was something about their unexpected and fast movement that freaked us out. We never found out if there was any real danger at all, as the driver didn't take any chances and stepped on the accelerator leaving the guys behind. After that, we found our way out from the hood very quickly and arrived at camp in a couple hours.

***

I'm not very proud to admit this but I fought with almost every guy in the kitchen crew. I never physically laid my hands on anybody, but there was occasional yelling and a lot of adult language. Naturally, high pitched screaming with drops of saliva flying out of one's mouth, and locked eyes five inches away from each other with rolling one's pupils were frequently employed for additional intimidation. We worked long hours under rough conditions and a lot of pressure without much support from the management. It was an environment that begged for confrontation to happen. On top of that, the level of testosterone was high and most of us did not have any formal work experience which left us unclear about how to behave in a professional environment. It was the 90's, we just didn't know back then.

The steam would build up over days or weeks, and then erupt. Sometimes, I'd start a fight over something totally banal, something that didn't even have anything to do with that person. Other times someone would yell at me for no reason and I alpha-maled it back at him. I recall mutual teasing with Libor that was in good spirits, equivalent of yo momma jokes, pulling down pants, or other horseplay. It was all good fun until one day it wasn't, and he was screaming from the top of his lungs and chasing me. I was trying to run away but he was catching up, so I slammed a door in his face, breaking the door's glass window in the process. Another time, when Josef was barely coping while the others were being too hard on him, I grabbed Rodion and put a huge kitchen knife under his throat and yelled at him to leave Josef alone. Or sometimes I would run to the dishwashing room to drop the f-bomb for five minutes because my group was overworked while others seemed to have it easy, so I, somehow, felt the need to let them know and blame them for such injustices.

Despite these events, I guess on some level I knew that the guys I met that summer were some of the finest people I'd ever meet. There was a lot of cursing but we stuck together when it mattered. We all gave our best to make sure the kitchen ran smoothly, and we made it happen as a group. When you needed to borrow nail clippers, ran out of smokes, or had to step out to call your family, you could ask any of the guys and they would help without hesitation. To an outsider we might have seemed like a rough group, and at times we were, but we stuck together when it mattered.

The camp management knew there was tension and someone actually mentioned that it had been much worse in the past. To keep us "motivated" there were a couple of team-building trips, both to the same place, which was a golf course with an ice-cream shop. The trips weren't a surprise, but they weren't advertised far in advanced, so it was pretty exciting hearing about it on the day they happened. We all dressed up, like most Europeans do when they go out. We all pulled out loose-fitting flat-front khakis or jeans and long-sleeved button-up shirts that were wrinkled from sitting in backpacks for weeks. Some overdid it with their cologne, as the role of antiperspirants wasn't yet fully established in parts of Europe. A big van drove us to our destination. It was in the middle of nowhere, just a huge golf course with several buildings next to it. None of us had ever played golf and we didn't have the money to spend on a game, so we watched other people playing while eating ice cream that we were treated to by the camp owners. After two hours of watching others having a good time and being bored out of my mind, the magic of team-building started working. The co-workers and the job felt much more bearable again. Frankly, I would do anything at that point to get out of there, just to avoid the ultimate boredom and even looked forward to being back in the kitchen.

Sometimes our days ended very late, often just late. Usually, one of the last things to do was sweeping and mopping. In the kitchen it was a few times every day, but in the dining room it was only done once or twice a week. If there were enough hands, one guy swept and another mopped right behind him. The others who finished their duties just kept a weary eye on the progress being made. Once the floors were clean, the workday officially ended. One night, Pyotr was sweeping and I was preparing my mop. He suddenly stopped and looked out of the window. His body straightened and he put his right hand over his heart. He stood like that for a short while and then returned to work, without knowing that I had witnessed his moment. I looked out the window and understood. The campers and counselors were gathered around the flagpole for the pledge of allegiance, like they did every morning and evening. The kitchen crews were the only staff members that didn't officially participate in the pledge. But, occasionally, one of us paid his respects from inside the dining hall without anyone but us knowing. That particular evening, it was a young guy from Russia that pledged his allegiance to this country against the background of a sunset dancing with colors.

As much as the sight touched me, I find myself almost allergic to worshiping symbols of any sorts, especially ideological ones. I take after my parents in that respect. My dad never liked his assigned career, but since he was stuck with it, he tried not to let it get to him. He tried to stay away from politics at all cost but it was not always entirely possible. Once, on the eve of May Day, which was probably the biggest communist holiday, a local party representative who was in charge of decorating our town showed up at our place. He told my dad that he needed to put up flags because our building was on the main street. One Russian and one Czech, a symbol of eternal brotherly friendship. He tried to hand a handful of flags to my dad, who was encouraged by beers and told the guy to go away, using the "... off" version of that phrase. My mom freaked out. This representative, no matter how repulsive he was to my dad, could report the incident and that would lead to serious consequences for the entire family. Even if he just mentioned it to someone else and the story got out there, it was potentially perilous. As in any little town, everyone knew everyone and everything was everybody's business. It might have been the nature of a small town, or cultural peculiarity of the Czechs, or a sign of the socialist society. Who knows? Anyway, that's what my family exploited.

There was a short window and we had to act fast. All the adults appeared to know the drill, though. My mom dressed my brother and me up and quickly visited with the close family to make sure they knew what happened, so they could join us in the efforts of keeping my dad out of trouble. My grandpa made rounds visiting his people, anyone he knew who had some influence. He told them about the incident and cashed in favors they owned him. My meemaw opened her pantry, pulled out smoked meats and sausages from her stash, and ensured they made it to the places where it mattered. The other grandparents, Baba and Pops, came to pick my brother and me up for a few days, so that we were not in a way.

Baba wasted no time and she disappeared in the barn soon after we arrived to her place. In a few moments she emerged from the darkness carrying a fighting animal, holding it with her left hand as far away from her body as she could. She grabbed a wooden club with her other hand and started smacking the frantic rabbit in its head. The bunny wasn't giving up so easily. My brother commented on the efforts: "The other grandma is more humane. She chops off animal heads with an axe." I wasn't sure if baba overhead him, but her forceful final stroke proved she did. After the rabbit stopped moving, baba slid two of its little feet info tiny loops of string that were hanging from her outdoor clothesline. Once the corpse was securely hanging, she made a few movements with a small knife around each leg and a slice going up from the ring cut to the backside of the animal. For a short while she worked her fingers inside the incisions and then started to pull the hide from the little body. Once she worked the hide down the upper torso to the head, she severed the head from the spine with unexpected force and speed. Then, with her hands, she broke the bones at the arm and leg joints. Afterwards she made a small incision in the belly, ran the knife up to the ribcage and down to the pelvis a few times, and quickly removed the innards. The tiny heart, liver, and kidneys along with the corpse went to a prepared basin. The remaining parts she threw to Puňta who had been barking that entire time, but as soon as he received his share, he ceased his maddening participation. Baba disappeared in the dark barn a couple more times, repeating the process.

Soon afterwards baba started making her rounds, carrying dead rabbits and pickled mushrooms with her. We tagged along. My older brother showed how smart he was when prompted to show his math skills. I pretended not to hear my grandma talking about my recent illness and played along as she used me to win some sympathy points as I played with my car toy car. One of my dad's brothers provided free spare parts to a son-in-law of the highest ranking communist in our town who just happened to have his car in my uncle's shop for service. My dad's other brother brought in imported chocolates to be given as little gifts. My mom's younger sister arrived to provide moral support and the elder one got their circles involved. This aunt was the only one in our family who was a party member and her house was the only one with a telephone at the time. So she got on it right away and started pushing a new narrative that defused what really happened and that played to people's better sides. My dad gathered all the slush funds, went to the pub, and started buying shots left and right, mostly left. His closest friends knew that something was going on and, without questioning, joined my dad drinking with people they would usually not drink with.

It wasn't our first or last rodeo. Everyone hustled for a few days and when no officials showed up at our doorsteps, we knew that the storm had blown over. This time. Nobody was so naive as to believe that what my dad did was forgotten and forgiven. Without doubt, there was a report written and filled in my family folder where it waited to be used in the future.

***

I shared this story during one of my chats with Erin and it sparked a discussion about politics. We talked for quite a while and covered many topics and issues. Naturally, our personal political views came out as well. Erin was passionate about her opinions and argued them vigorously. However, there was no malice, no twisting the truth to make her case whatever the cost, no pressure to convert one another. We just had an old-fashioned, respectful argument.

At some point she said something I will remember for the rest of my life. Erin really didn't like (and that is an understatement) the sitting president Bill Clinton. She had multiple reasons, some of which came up during our conversation. However, the shocker came when Erin said she supports and stands behind _her_ president. I asked: "How come you call him _your_ president when you didn't vote for him?" She explained that she recognizes the fact that the people elected him as their president and the minute he was sworn in he became president of the whole country. Plain and simple. In her view, the way of showing respect for the democratic process is to accept that choice. Plus, Erin believed that being united makes her country stronger and this supersedes party affiliation. She was passionate, rational, and listened to what I had to say during the whole conversation.

Writing this now, it makes me think how diametrical our exchange was compared to ones that seem to dominate social media nowadays. I wonder what Erin would say about political discourse today, twenty years later.

***

Having mentioned the on-line world, here is another memory that will probably make me sound old. But one of the well-known and frequently noted benefits of being old is that you care less about what others think. As I mentioned, the camp had numerous buildings for activities. Sometimes I walked around and checked out what was happening. During one of these small explorations, I found a building filled with computers. I had my own desktop back home but pretty much used it only for writing papers and playing games. This building had several computing machines and it seemed quite packed with counselors and campers. It didn't make much sense, because the people didn't appear to be playing games and definitely were not writing college papers. When I asked my buddies about what I had seen, one of them explained that they were writing e-mails and browsing the Internet. I had no idea what any of that meant. It was the first time I saw people doing these things. It felt like something out of a sci-fi movie, right in the middle of the Poconos.

After the summer, when I returned to my alma mater, I got my first e-mail account and started exploring the World Wide Web. At first I used it maybe once a week for about 30 minutes. Now, I brag whenever I stay off the Internet for a single day. Even in the time it took me to write this paragraph, I checked my inbox and Facebook a few times.

***

One day, Mike noticed that Vladimir was wearing shoes that were all torn up and falling apart. He told Vladimir to go change, saying it wasn't safe or hygienic, but Vladimir had no other shoes. A couple of hours later James showed up and told Vladimir that they are going on a shopping spree that evening. Josef and I wanted to go too, to get away even for just a few hours, and James seemed to be okay with that. After our shift, the three of us were impatiently waiting for James. He eventually showed up but didn't seem excited about shopping. We drove for about half an hour when James pulled over and ordered us to wait for him in the car. He disappeared into a building with neon signs outside. Twenty minutes later, he reappeared and we carried on.

Vladimir and I were sitting in the back seat, and Josef in the front passenger seat. Josef was constantly talking and asking James questions, one after another: the "What's your favorite color, James?" variety. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that James wasn't interested in the conversation. His responses were short and he was murmuring something to himself for most of the trip. Vladimir and I were cracking up at the awkwardness of the situation and at Josef for not getting the clues James was radiating. When we got to the store, James said he would wait by the entrance and pointed us in the direction where we could find shoes. The place was incredible. It was the size of a stadium, maybe two, and seemed to sell everything. The prices were so implausible that I almost overlooked the pale and exhausted faces of the employees. We couldn't believe our eyes. It was like something from out of this world. It was WalMart.

Vladimir tried on several pairs of sneakers but didn't buy any. He felt that $10 was too much to spend. He acknowledged that it didn't make sense, since the same shoes cost the equivalent of $50 or more in his country. It was clear that he was thinking about how much more his whole family could benefit from every dollar he brought home. We went back to meet James who asked about the shoes. James' face turned red when Vladimir told him about our failed mission. His body turned away and he started marching towards his car, muttering. We followed him and I overheard just a couple words, one of which was 'misfits'. I kind of knew from his tone that it probably wasn't a compliment but didn't know exactly what it meant and had to look it up later in a dictionary. Now I know.

Without saying anything else, we got in the car for the not-so-much fun trip back. There was no laughing this time. We stopped at the same place as on our way but this time it took James much longer to return. Several weeks later I found out that James was doing shots of whiskey in a bar that night and telling a story of how he took three misfits shopping.

***

I had never worked in a place that fed so many people. The volume of food that went through the kitchen was huge. There were a couple of walk-in fridges and a freezer, and multiple smaller fridges. There were numerous shelves in the basement, filled with non-perishable almost anything. Once a week, Sysco delivered most of what was going to be consumed. There were a couple of other suppliers for specialty foods. I'm not a food quality expert, but I am pretty sure that what we received was on the cheaper end of the spectrum of sustenance. The amount of food thrown away was staggering. I remember thinking that if the camp bought about thirty percent less food, but of better quality, and managed it more carefully, they would spend the same amount of money. With this plan, I'm certain we all would eat better, and we wouldn't be throwing away tons of food weekly. Just saying.

One of my biggest shocks about food in America was that everything is very sweet. Sweets were so sweet that you could hardly taste anything – it was like pure, concentrated sugar. A kind of "Sugar 2.0," if you will. The blood sugar spike I got from the amount of glucose in food made me feel lightheaded, like I was sliding into a coma. Don't get me wrong, I like sugary. But it was difficult to enjoy it when everything was so over-sweetened that all I could taste was the sugar.

Even supposedly savory things tasted sweet like French fries, salad dressings, even pizza. Processed foods were the worst; without exception they were just way too sweet for me. Most of the food tasted like it was injected with sugar, overpowering all other flavors. There wasn't much unprocessed food around and I was never a picky eater, so after a while I got used to over-saccharined nutrition. This didn't include sodas, which I hardly ever drank. I loved the taste of most of them but usually preferred water, tea or coffee. I suppose you can't beat the Euro out of me. Mineral water rocks, yo!

There were many foods that were new-ish to me. I had tasted them before but they were very rare when I was growing up: toast, hot dogs, and hamburgers. We cooked these all the time and as it turned out, they were much more diversified than I had thought.

There was also food I had never tasted before: avocado, sloppy joes, roast beef, raw celery sticks, and peanut butter. I remember tasting peanut butter for the first time and spitting it out. Now, I can't go a week without it. One of the biggest surprises was the lack of pork. Having grown up on a pork and potato diet, this was a huge change for me. But the profusion of alternatives, namely beef and fish, quickly moved this from being an issue to being a welcome change.

Another big difference was the lack of what I called 'real bread'. The cheap bread we used for toast was so different from the artisan bread I grew up with – denser, more savory, and more flavorful. It was even hard to use the same word to describing these two different phenomena. Bread had a special significance back home, and my great grandparents survived wars, depression, and famines on it. My great grandfather, who spent several years in Siberia as a POW, asked his wife for three things after he returned home: not to bring up the past, never cook fish under their roof, and always make sure there was bread at home. He said that as long as there was bread he knew the family would make it.

His son-in-law, my grandpa, believed that bread is the only food you can't eat too much of and that doesn't make you sick. My mom continued the family affair in her own way and baked bread whenever there was a shortage and we couldn't get it at the store.

Food can tell you a lot about people. My first exploration of food in America was exciting and satisfying and it was only a small sampling of what's out there. And boy did I sample! By the end of camp I was almost twenty pounds up but that was all shed later that very summer. Let's not jump ahead though.

***

As a kid, I don't remember ever being hungry. There was enough food for everyone. It might have been a rather limited selection and not the best quality, but my family always had food. Some things, actually many things, were scarce and there was a whole culture of deficiency: standing in lines, and barter exchanges. Most adults spent a couple of hours a day hustling to get stuff which included standing in lines a lot. Sometimes people didn't even know what they were standing in line for. It didn't matter. If there was a line, it was clear that they were selling something and if you got something you didn't need, you'd exchange it for something else with your family, co-workers, or neighbors.

One of the funniest to recall and saddest to experience first hand (pun intended), was probably the toilet paper shortage. What the what? Yes, there was a brief time when you couldn't get TP, which became a good source of jokes for many years to come. And there were, of course, at least occasional, shortages of everything else. What made our life easier was the fact that we lived in a village with our own gardens, orchards, and farm animals. The family produced enough food for themselves and there was even extra, which was a great currency to exchange for other goods with the city folks, who were better supplied with clothes, appliances, and such.

The food we grew ourselves was on the opposite end of the scale from stuff they sold in stores. It was of the best quality – everything was grown organically and locally, and there were no shortcuts in the process or any unwanted ingredients in our home-produced nutrition. There was always something pickled, smoked, or preserved in other ways. Producing food occupied a big part of our time, as did preparing meals and consuming them together. At some point my meemaw would buy only salt in the local grocery store, the rest of the food came from their farm.

The camp kitchen reminded me a bit of my grandmothers' kitchens, which were smaller, but at times seemed equally busy. My grannies wouldn't, obviously, let us touch anything in their territory and chased everyone away. But the camp was much bigger than a one-woman operation and required many more hands, which we were there to provide.

There was a lot going on every day in the kitchen and the responsibilities were numerous. There were lists of chores hanging on the walls. James and his right-hand man Juraj did most of the cooking. Dan was in charge of everything that was served at the salad bar. The chopping, peeling, washing, slicing, wrapping, carrying, defrosting, tossing, pouring, and much more was done by the general group. We'd make toast, scramble eggs, and did some basic boiling and frying.

I had never worked in a professional kitchen before and was surprised that a lot of meals were prepared from processed foods. Soups and mashed potatoes – so easy and delicious when made fresh – were prepared from dry ingredients. They tasted accordingly. Some days, when a whiskey odor came from James's direction, we used more cans and frozen things and there were no compliments coming his way. But on the days when he cooked with fresh produce, some campers and staff often stopped by and thanked him for the meal. One of my co-workers overheard Mike and James talking about this very matter and shared it with the rest of the crew later. James argued for cooking with fresh fixings but Mike had the mighty budget in his argument arsenal, so you can guess the outcome correlation between customer satisfaction and how much cooking from scratch was done.

***

Of course there was always more work to be done, which was mostly carrying, organizing, recycling, and cleaning. The worst chores were often the ones you couldn't plan for and the most disgusting of these surprises was an accident in the downstairs bathroom. The plumbing went crazy and backed up under strong pressure, painting the entire room with what looked like popcorn in many shades of brown, yellow, an occasional green - fresh from the toilet. James ordered me to clean it.

It was the only time I asked for a sick day. I had a high fever and clearly needed to stay in bed. I suspected that this was his way of paying me back for leaving him one pair of hands short. There wasn't much I could do so after he dragged me out of bed I sucked it up and went downstairs where I wrapped myself up in layers of protection – a raincoat, plastic gloves, and bags on my feet. All of this was topped off by cling wrap. The smell, to my surprise, wasn't too bad since the mess had been there for several days. However, since the poop was well dried, it took some serious scrubbing to get if off all possible surfaces. I was done in a couple hours and went back to my room, took some aspirin, and passed out for the rest of the day. I really hoped that my fever was so high that I wouldn't remember that day.

A couple of weeks later, I was throwing some plastic bins from the kitchen into the basement. We were not supposed to do it that way, but on busy days we would do it to save time. You just had to make sure that nobody was down there before throwing the empties down the stairs. I had a couple of empty containers that each weighed less than a pound in my hand and was ready to send them down. I looked and saw that James was approaching the foot of the stairs. We made eye contact and then I let the containers slide from my hands. They went down slowly, bouncing on the stairs, and he had to jump out of the way so that the empties didn't hit him. After that, there were no more special assignments for me.

***

In the evenings, we were let out to run around free, temporarily. The time in the evening when the long awaiting juncture happened, varied. It could be as early as 7:30 pm, but was usually after 8 pm, sometimes closer to 9 pm. The moment we were done, everyone disappeared from the workplace as quickly as steam from a boiling pot. Most of us rushed to take a shower and wash off the sweat and the stink of the kitchen. There were only two showers in our upstairs living quarters, so almost every evening there were lines and people shouting at the person in the shower to wash faster, cracking jokes, and then yelling some more at those showering to hurry up.

I never spent much time in the shower. In a way it felt like a waste of my time, but at camp it was the only place where you could avoid all human interactions entirely. The five to rare ten minutes in the shower were so needed to relax my sore body. But more importantly, it was a pleasant transition to the second, much shorter, part of the day.

We were not confined to the camp after our shift was over and I often tried to leave but there were few places I could go without a car. Frequently, I ended up just walking across a little road and sitting on the lakeshore or next to an old bridge. Other times some of my buddies and I wandered around the camp and chitchatted, often ending up on the staircase of the main office building. There were some pay phones inside the office, and people would shoot the breeze, call their families, and make plans for their days off. That was pretty much my only interaction with people outside of the kitchen.

The kitchen staff was mostly separate from the rest of the camp. The counselors worked hard and would get out of camp whenever they could. Most of them were Americans and had their own cars, so they would go shopping, to the movies, or hang out in bars.

I went with them to a bar once and it was a lot of fun. It was pretty much like most of my nights at my alma mater – drinking, chatting, and laughing with friends. Even though I was just twenty-one, I had had experience with alcohol. First of all, the legal age for drinking in the old country is eighteen, and second, nobody waited that long. There was also that fact that beer, slivovitz, and wine were always an inseparable part of the culture in my little hamlet. Our little village even had its own distillery founded centuries ago by the villagers. They collected money, built a tiny house, and bought equipment in order to distill their own plum brandy. It worked smoothly and many families still use it today. All you needed to do was to make a reservation and then show up to make your own slivovitz. You can make it a family pastime or even turn it into a tradition. The distillery was one of the most unique things about the place. Many of my later friends who have visited the little village where I grew up seemed genuinely impressed by it. They say the village is picturesque and looks like something from a fairy tale.

I totally get why they would think so. It is a colorful town between small hills, surrounded by deep forests and fields of crops bursting with colors. The houses are attractive, vibrant, and enhanced by meticulous landscaping. There is a fine church overlooking the town, a couple of small lakes and streams, and a lot of greenery. Very Moravian.

But appearances can be deceiving. People can be sweet and nice, but they have another side as well. I didn't have any say in growing up there, but I don't resent it. But I always knew that the community wasn't for me and that I wasn't for them, so I decided to allow my wandering feet to take me places where I can be happy, free, and in charge of my own life. I moved away to college, to a big city. I loved it there, but soon I was ready to explore the world beyond the borders of my country. That's how I ended up at the camp on a different continent. The camp was becoming too small for me, just as my hometown was years ago. I was ready to step out of its borders and start discovering the U.S. of A, I just had to be a little bit patient.

***

The counselors sometimes went to other cities on their days off. From their conversations, it sounded like those were crazy nights spent in hotels with lots of booze, hookups, and all sorts of trouble. The only guy from the kitchen staff who went on a two-night motel trip was Libor, one of the hardest working guys. He was sleeping with a married lady that summer whose three kids were at the camp. Libor shared some spicy details. He was mostly boasting about his performance and commenting on how he had broken his personal record and how Maria's reaction to Libor's prideful moment was: "My husband is twice your age and we've done it more times in a row."

Her husband came to camp to visit his kids a few times and Libor became friends with him. Libor even worked at the guy's restaurant for a few years after he came back to the U.S. After leaving his job at the restaurant, his high school sweetheart joined him in New Jersey. After their two kids were born, they eventually decided to return to Slovakia. Now he writes posts on Facebook about people doing what they are not supposed to do or not doing what they are supposed to do. He tells both individuals and whole nations how they are right or wrong. If you ever try to figure out something, contact him. He knows it all. He's glad to tell anyone, you included, how to live your life.

Since it was summer and there were people around, it was inevitable that there would be romance. James enjoyed the company of a pretty, recently divorced nurse, and later on of another woman. There were couples among the counselors who were officially dating, and for every couple there were probably 10 hookups. I don't really know about most of the campers, but I assume there were some first crushes and kisses. The kids were fun to watch since for many of them it was possibly their first romance. There was this 14-ish year old couple who were considered the hottest couple at the camp, according to overheard gossip.

One day they were in the pool making out with a lot of tongue. I didn't pay much attention, but enjoyed watching the reactions of others. Quite a few people didn't seem to think it was a big deal, but others stared, some with open mouths and jaws dropped. A few counselors evidently felt like they needed to do something. They started running around as if they had been shot in their rear ends with a shotgun, as my mom says, and talking to each other. It was so much fun to watch their unveiling live performance.

I don't remember seeing much public affection after that. I thought how strange it was that for many in America borderline pornography in advertising was OK, but public expression of intimacy was met with raised eyebrows. And in this case, it was followed up with quick action that made sure that what these two teenagers did was never done in public again. I must say that seeing how the counselors ran around to smooth over whatever it was that disturbed the camp's "moral values" was almost like watching a silent-era movie: funny and quite awkward at the same time.

***

There was a rougher side to camp, too. For me it was the hard work with few outlets to relax and to replenish. For others it was homesickness. I mentioned the incident when Vladimir hurt himself; he hit rock-bottom that day but bounced back from it almost right away.

Josef, the other Czech guy at the camp, wasn't so lucky. His girlfriend had come to the U.S. for the summer too. She was in California and was having the time of her life. According to Josef, her camp rocked. Of course she worked, but the hours were more reasonable and they were treated differently outside of work. They could participate in any activities the camp offered and the senior counselors included the staff in organized trips and outings. They could borrow cars from the camp for free to travel on their days off. They even had parties. The campers and staff were one big family.

Josef was happy for her but he couldn't help comparing his camp experience to hers. He also just simply missed her. As the weeks passed, Josef began to feel that the world was closing in on him, that the camp was too much for him to handle, and he didn't see a way out. He made a couple of mistakes at work and the guys made him pay for it. His mental state was quickly getting worse. It was like a downward spiral and by the end of the camp he was barely functioning. The patience of the guys in his group was running thin and they were getting mad at him more frequently. I found out that they were planning some sort of retaliation.

Without Josef having the slightest idea, we split into two groups over this plan for retaliation. One group wanted to do something about Josef slacking and the other insisted he shouldn't be punished. The last straw was when Josef disappeared from a shift for over an hour without telling anyone. His coworkers covered for him, but they wanted to draw a line. Pyotr was sort of a spokesperson for the group that wanted to make him pay for making them work harder. The other group didn't want to make a big deal of it.

Even though Josef was driving me crazy, I knew that a confrontation could only make things worse. Plus, I felt like it was my duty to stand by my countryman. Pyotr and I met on behalf of the two groups to talk about the situation, sort of a peace talk at the lowest level. He told me about the guys' frustrations, how Josef was making everyone's life harder. I saw where he was coming from, but tried to convince him not to do anything stupid. We argued for almost three hours, going over everything Josef did and didn't do and over what to do and what not to do. Pyotr was making several good points, saying how unfair it was to others, how it creates tension, and how by teaching Josef a lesson, we all will be more relaxed. My counter argument was very simple: "Dude, we must stick together and not start a war among us. It will turn against us. Josef might be doing silly things that are making our lives worse, but he is not the one who is overworking us." Eventually, we came to a mutual understanding. There was a lot of back and forth with our teams, but peace prevailed.

A few days before camp was over, Josef shared with me that he wanted to hurt himself. I spent hours listening to him, there wasn't much else I could do, but being able to pour his heart out seemed to calm him down. It was, and still is, scary to think that someone right next to you could be hurting so much. Getting some perspective on this high school drama helped Josef focus on getting better. Taking his mind off what was going on with him and engaging in some camp events seemed to help as well.

The camp organized a special day trip to a water park and we tagged along. We brought a portable kitchen with us to cook for the campers. I usually took my work rather seriously but that day I just didn't care and other guys didn't seem to either. The kids were buying their own food from the park and everyone was in a great mood, enjoying the pools and slides. We hurriedly cooked hot dogs in the picnic area for those who were interested but mostly we enjoyed the water park for the day. I had never seen anything like it and, not counting my trip to NYC, the water park became my greatest experience of the summer. I didn't know what to do first so I tried to figure out what was most fun for me. It was basically everything. I took a ride on a roller coaster and quickly ran to one of the water features, and after that took another ride on a different amusement. This went on for hours and hours.

One thing that I believed about America before visiting, was that it provided the world's finest entertainment. That day I felt that the greatest contribution of America to mankind was the invention and perfection of the funfair.

It was a great day, and the cherry on top was that I saw a sign for a place I had heard so much about before, a place called Bethlehem. I spent hours talking about it for about a year before, after, and during that summer.

In Prague I mentioned my summer trip to my classmates and a few professors. One of the professors had traveled a lot and had visited the U.S. several times and he gave me some tips about where to go. He repeatedly mentioned Moravian College and the associated Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, PA. The college was founded in 1807 by the Moravian Brethren, who fled religious persecution after the Bohemian Protestant martyr Jan Hus died at the stake in 1415.

Jan Hus, also known as John Huss in the west, was a professor and rector of my Alma mater, and he used to give lectures in Karolinum, where the commencement ceremony celebrating my graduation took place. He inspired many, and was in some ways the first Protestant, influencing Martin Luther himself.

The connections between Bethlehem and my old country are very strong even today. Czechoslovakia's last president and the Czech Republic's first president, Václav Havel visited during his first official trip to the U.S. The professor occasionally reminded me of his strong conviction that I should visit and my classmates teased me about it. My dear friend Libuše even mentioned it in the postcard she sent me at camp. And, of course, everyone asked about it when I returned, including the professor.

I could have visited several times but it felt too limiting for me. I wanted to be as immersed in America as possible, not chasing the connection between America and the Czech Republic. Having spent almost two months in the country, the constant urge to compare everything with my fatherland was getting weaker and weaker. I knew it would never completely disappear, but after two months in the country I was ready to start seeing America on its own merits.

***

The last two weeks of the regular camp session, everyone talked about their after-camp plans to travel around the country. People shared ideas, talked about the pros and cons of various routes, and tried to find people to join them on their trips. The searches went beyond our camp. I visited the neighboring camps and people stopped by ours.

There was a lot to consider. It wasn't just about who I wanted to travel with, there was also the budget, the route, the anticipated return date, and many other details to contemplate.

I decided to go with Juraj. He found four girls from the neighboring camp who wanted to go with us and one of them had a friend in New Hampshire who wanted to come. A couple of them stopped by and I met them briefly. Juraj was especially excited about a girl named Claudia, who he was really attracted to. However, a couple of days before we were about to leave, she changed her mind and decided to take the money she made and go back to her boyfriend. I also seriously considered not traveling. The alternative was cashing the check, returning to Prague, and being able to live on the money for months. I considered all options, made a mental list of whys and why nots, and talked to numerous people. I really wanted to make a rational and well though-out decision.

Juraj had been looking for a car for a while and had a several options in mind. We discussed the pros and cons of each car at length. He test-drove them, talked to the people selling them, and then talked it over with me. I didn't know much about cars so I mostly asked naïve questions, but he answered them all. It seemed like he enjoyed it because I wasn't trying to swing him in any way. One day he came in with a big grin on his face. There was a car he had never mentioned to me and he fell in love with it. He had already bought it and when I saw it for the first time I knew _she_ was the one. She exactly matched what I had envisioned before ever stepping on American soil.

It was a limousine! She was definitely a deciding factor for me when considering which group to travel with. It felt right to travel America in a manner that I thought a typical American would. Juraj liked the name I picked for her: Matylda.

***

Before I knew it, camp was officially over. The kids packed up and their parents picked them up. The counselors, owner, manager, and James all left. There were no tears from us. We got to breathe a bit freer and had a couple of days to "clean everything really good," according to parting orders from James, before two small groups arrived. One was a marching band and the other was a football team, there to practice their respective skills.

The band was really cool but they only stayed for a short time. They were all adults, middle-aged, or well past what passes for middle-aged, and most didn't take advantage of our fine cooking. Go figure. The football players were from a local college and they did eat at our not-really-even-a-single-star-establishment. They were all huge, noisy, and a bit gullible. I toyed with them occasionally, as there was less work and I was a bit bored. Once, they were blocking my path to the cooler when I was coming with the refills. The shortest was a head taller than me and all of their shoulders were twice as wide. I screamed very loudly that they must form a line, for which there was no actual need, otherwise there would be no drinks. They did and I walked slowly towards the cooler and poured the lemonade.

Another time, as any European, I naturally had to point out that football got its name from 'ball' that is primarily defined as a 'round' object and 'foot' because it is a body part used for kicking a ball around the field. I guess I didn't have to be a jerk about it. Then again, the players teased us as well; most of it was all in fun.

One day a player went too far when he compared the chicken to cat food. That clearly crossed the line and pissed Juraj off. He didn't say anything when the comment was made and just left. Lunch the following day was chicken. For some reason it was defrosting the previous 24 hours on the counter, not in the fridge as always before. Juraj cooked it as usual but made us a special lunch. We served the chicken to the football players and the following day almost no one came to dinner. Someone told us that all of the players had food poisoning. We made fun of the guys for the rest of their stay without feeling bad about it because anyone over five years old should know that you don't mess with the people who make your food.

***

Those last ten days were a moneymaker for me. I got paid four times what we had been making during the regular camp session. There wasn't that much work either, which gave all of us a lot of time to prepare for our trips. Almost everyone took some food from the pantry, mostly canned soups and other non-perishable but easy to cook food. I remember that the girls (whom you will meet shortly, my reader) got much more food from their chef since the camps were about to close and the leftover food would have been thrown away. One of the weirdest things someone brought was a huge block of cream cheese. We ate it with crackers during our trip - it was gone in three days. The supplies from the camps were what I ate almost exclusively for the first half of my trip. Without them I wouldn't have made it.

After the football players left, a few maintenance guys started preparing the camp for winter. One afternoon they came to the kitchen to fix some equipment while we were scrubbing the walls and floors. A bunch of us struck up a conversation with them and later others joined in. They had worked at the camp for many years and had heard stories about staff members' past trips, so they had some really good advice for us.

At some point one of them brought up how he could arrange for us to stay in the U.S. permanently. He talked about it for a while and asked who would be interested. None of us were. He seemed shocked and told us how great the country was and how there were many opportunities, which we all agreed with. But it wasn't the point. Some of us tried to explain that we all were enrolled in good universities, had friends and families back home, and that there were many good jobs and opportunities in our countries as well. The guy really seemed to believe that every human on this planet wanted to come live in the U.S. and that it was the ultimate goal for each of us. His arguments dazed many of us, as we simply couldn't understand how the fact that we came to spend one summer supported an assumption that any of us wanted to stay permanently.

To the best of my knowledge, all of us went home that summer. A couple of guys worked in the U.S. again years later, but for a short period of time, and then they returned to their realms. Everyone I know of is doing pretty well – there are lawyers, businessmen, and college professors among us. I came here five years later to get a graduate degree. Then, life and love happened and I made it my home.

***

The guys finalized their after-camp plans and began announcing departures dates. Everyone was pretty much leaving within two days, so we decided to have a farewell party – the first and the last bash that summer. We got some hooch, prepared snacks, and gathered for the evening's festivity.

Almost everyone got a bit tipsy, or more than a little, that night. Liquor triggered loud recollections of the highest and lowest moments from each and every one. We then moved to loud singing and ended by taking pictures of us mooning each other. All hatchets were buried by mutual, silent agreement: no reconciliations, apologies, or explanations. That is not how we made peace. We simply teased each other, drank together, and laughed at ourselves and with each other.

I think all of us saw it the same way – we occasionally behaved stupidly, but there was no harm intended and no one wanted to leave with bad blood. We had made it through and were going to part our ways on good terms. It was a choice we consciously made. I have to admit I was a bit surprised, since the tensions towards the end were high, but very glad at the same time. We shared the good and the bad for ten very intense weeks. We made it through and that evening was the last time we all hung out together.

The following morning, the first group set off to create their memories of this country, then another one left, and in the evening I waved good-bye. It's been eighteen years since that summer and I haven't seen any of the guys again. It's unlikely I ever will. That was reason enough to part as friends.
PART THREE

The United States is a beautiful place, you know?

– _Billy Higgins_

My last day at the camp had arrived. The beginning of my long anticipated adventure was just a few hours away and the pre-travel high was kicking in. I surrendered to the growing excitement, which I had been trying to fight for a while.

I felt that the upcoming trip would be a metanoia, and as such would have an immense impact on me and the way I perceive the world. I was ready to travel and discover myself. I don't recall the specifics of that day much, all my thoughts were on the trip and I just wanted to get through the day and dive into the exploit. After a full day of labor, I quickly packed my things and went to get my paycheck.

I got paid $6 a day.

Yes, six American dollars for a 12 to14 hour work day. The math behind the amount was that we were provided with meals and a bed. After these expenses were subtracted from our daily wages the remainder was exactly six dollars. Sixty-three days of regular camp work translated into $378.

Our days off were unpaid. The work we did after the kids left was paid $25 per day, which added $250 to my budget. I spent a little over one hundred dollars during the ten-week period and I also had almost $100 left from the money I brought with me from home. The grand total was $730. I paid $300 toward the car right away, which left me with $430 for the trip.

That was it. My budget for a round-trip across America was just over four hundred bucks. From the east coast to the west coast, and back. Preferably. It was to cover my share of gas, park entrance fees, tolls, my food, and possibly a few nights in a hotel. Of course, all the unplanned incidentals needed to be covered as well. I also had to keep enough money on hand to be able to return to the east coast from anywhere, in case Matylda gave up on us.

There was no back-up plan. It was all on me to make it happen. In certain aspects, it felt like the most American way to be discovering the country: a man relying solely on himself.

After getting our paychecks, Juraj and I quickly loaded the car, said our goodbyes, and drove to the neighboring camp to pick up the rest of our crew. It was only about a mile away and the girls were already waiting for us. As we approached from behind a curve, I spotted a pile of luggage in front of their cabin. When we stopped the car in a few seconds, grinning faces and "the boys are here, it's time to go" welcomed us. They had collected lots of food that and we loaded as much of it as possible but couldn't fit all of it and our belongings. Juraj and I had to take all of our things with us, but the girls had friends at camp they could leave their possessions with so they could pick them up later. They left behind some books, gifts for their families, and other non-essential stuff. Without thinking it through, we had just locked ourselves into returning to Pennsylvania before flying back to Europe. It wasn't the smartest decision, but we didn't realize the implications until much later.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

We packed Matylda good [sic]. The huge trunk, that previously seemed to be able to fit so much, was suddenly overflowing. In order to fit our belongings, we folded down the middle seats and filled the empty space with more of our stuff, creating a platform the size of a queen bed in the back of the car. It turned out to be pretty convenient, as three travelers could comfortably sleep there while the other three sat in the front.

While we rearranged things in the car, quite a few people came to say goodbye to the girls while "Truly Madly Deeply" and "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" blared from the radio speakers. It was getting dark quickly and we wanted to get on the road before night took the reign. Soon enough, we were on our way.

There we were, the full squad: Monika, Jitka, and Zoja from the neighboring camp; Milan, Monika's schoolmate from back home who came down to meet us from his camp somewhere in Massachusetts; and Juraj and I. I had met the girls briefly before but barely remembered their names. Now we were taking off to spend almost a month traveling in a confined space with limited resources.

I liked our group of three boys and three girls a lot. Jitka, Zoja, and Juraj were Slovaks. Monika, Milan, and I were from the Czech Republic. We were all born in the 70's, when our republics stood united as one, in a country officially called the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. Growing up, lots of TV programs were bilingual. The news pretty much always had a Slovak and a Czech anchor and many other programs were bilingual as well. The languages are quite close regardless and if you speak one, you understand most of what's said in the other one. It also wasn't unusual to have families that spanned the federation with one of the parents, or a grandparent of the other nationality.

Our countries had quite a separated history for centuries but in the twentieth their paths merged and went along for seventy-plus years. Regardless, the two languages were very close to one another and we were able to understand each other perfectly. There was a word or an expression every now and then that we had to clarify, but it was rare.

Monika and Milan knew each other before coming to the U.S, but not very well. The girls had become pretty good friends during the two months they spent together. Strangely, what I found most attractive was the fact that none of us were close friends. Our time together was just starting and it was up to us to develop the relationships and see how the trip would shape them.

***

It was almost midnight and we had a few thousand miles ahead of us. The adventure had officially started! Everybody was talking, trying to get to know each other a bit, and sharing ideas for the trip.

We agreed on some things prior to the trip – most of them regarding Matylda. Juraj was the owner of the car as the title and registration were in his name. I'm not exactly sure, but I believe he paid about $1500 for her. He bought her from a guy who had sold him a car twice before, so Juraj trusted him. The car had been used just by his wife, as the owner told Juraj: "She only drove it to church on Sundays," and was well taken care of.

Well, at least, that's what Juraj was told. We all contributed some money and in exchange he provided round-trip transportation for us. Part of the agreement was that if something broke, he would take care of it. I asked Juraj why he wanted to do things that way. He said that, on his two previous trips, sharing ownership of the car equally turned out to be problematic because the fellow travelers all had the same right to decide and this led to never-ending discussions. It was "too democratic" for him.

Being the majority owner, he would make most of the decisions himself. As a second cook, he made much more money than any of the first-timers, around $3000 for the entire summer, so his financial situation was somewhat different. It was what he preferred and we all seemed to be on board with it. Juraj said that for him the trip was mostly about driving. He really didn't care about nature, sightseeing, or other tourist stuff much. He loved cars and loved driving them long distances.

We knew that six opinionated individuals in a small space could be a recipe for disaster, so we came up with some basic ground rules. Nothing complicated: we agreed that each of us could choose a place they wanted to see and as long as it was reasonably on the way, we'd try to make it there. It's strange to think about it now, but I remember choosing Seattle. I didn't have any particular reason and knew very little about the city. But I was a big Nirvana fan and had heard a lot about the music scene there. I also thought that if we went to Seattle then we could very easily drive down the coast all the way to L.A. That was pretty much it.

We never made it to Seattle that summer and I never got to choose a different place but I clearly remember wanting to go there. Now, years later, Seattle is my home.

The rest of the rules had to do with money. We agreed to collect $20 from each person for a mutual gas fund and whenever we ran out of money, we would just contribute another twenty. We agreed the money could also be used for anything else that benefitted the entire group and each of us would use it more or less equally. Primarily, this was park entrance fees, water, and snacks. It was a very simple arrangement, that worked without any hiccups.

Juraj had veto power, which was basically proclaimed to us. He could overrule any place an individual or even the whole group wanted to go. He was the only one who had made the round trip before and it was his car, so we were all OK-ish with it. Nobody seemed excited about it but the car title was in his name and he had the keys. No one wanted to have a big argument at the beginning of our trip. As much as I disliked where it could potentially take us and hated that Juraj sprung it on us, I stayed quiet and just hoped for the best. It wasn't easy for me, as I really felt that it was gagging my voice way too much. There was an inner struggle brewing inside of me but reason was telling me to take the back seat, figuratively speaking.

Literally speaking, I was riding shotgun, next to Juraj whose ear-to-ear grin was somewhat contagious. It had been a long day and the four people in the back started falling asleep. A few hours into the drive, Juraj pulled over to let us stretch and use the bathroom. To my surprise, Juraj offered to let me drive Matylda after our break.

I was nervous. I didn't have much driving experience and having six people on board felt like a huge responsibility. It sounds funny now, but back then I didn't know how to even start the car. I inserted the key into the "hole" and turned it to the right. It made some noise but the engine wouldn't start. I tried several more times and could see that Juraj was quickly getting frustrated. Long story short, the engine wouldn't start, most likely because I flooded it and drained the battery. At that point, everyone woke up.

It started to rain as we all got out of the car. Nobody said anything directly but it wasn't terribly difficult to figure out that they were not happy with me, as a sarcastic "well done, dude" suggested. It was an unnecessary delay and it took some time to find someone with jumper cables and the willingness to help us. Finally, we found a guy who liked a challenge. I remember how his truck jumped in the air trying to get Matylda going again and the guy's eyes lit up like a child's when unwrapping a birthday gift when he was pounding on his pedal. Eventually, the engine sparked and we were off. Juraj asked someone else to drive, though. I was relieved to pass the buck.

I had never driven a car outside of driving school. You had to take classes in order to get a driver's license in the old country – about twenty hours of theoretical training in a classroom and about the same amount of practical driving time in the city with an instructor. I always thought I was doing alright in driving school. Once I asked my instructor when we would be practicing driving in reverse and parallel parking. His response was "right after _we_ master driving forward."

After the course, I took a test similar to the one in the U.S. – a multiple-choice quiz followed by a short driving test, passing both just fine. Back at camp, when we started discussing the trip, Juraj asked if I knew how to drive. I was honest and told him, "I've done 20," even though I knew it wasn't much. Surprisingly, Juraj seemed pretty satisfied with that answer. In hindsight it was most likely because, while I meant that I had driven 20 hours under an instructor's supervision, he probably thought that I had 20 thousand kilometers under my belt. Kilometers or miles probably doesn't matter, as my overall experience at that point was definitely at least ten times less than either, and exclusively in a forward direction.

***

Our first night in the car was exciting. It was like the anticipation of a sleepover with your best friends when you're eight years old. Except we were semi-adults, strangers, and nobody slept much, but the expectation of good times was there. After all, we were on what, for most of us, was the biggest trip of our lives.

We arrived at our first destination and had no trouble finding parking. Mostly because we found a huge parking lot that was absolutely empty, possibly because it wasn't even six o'clock in the morning. It was sprinkling and rather cold and, since nobody had slept much, the mood turned much less cheerful rather quickly.

We hung out for a while waiting to meet with two strangers. They were Jitka's distant relatives, Charlie and Mary Lou, whom she had never met before. They were traveling several hours from Mississauga, Ontario where they had recently retired. The rain turned heavier. "Guys, where are they," Jitka said just when a silver Corolla pulled up. Jitka's face brightened and she ran into the relatives' arms, all of them weeping. After a moving reunion between distant relatives, they took us all to a restaurant for breakfast. The meal was delicious and the couple insisted on paying. With some hot food in our stomachs, everything started looking brighter. I remember peeking under Charlie's hand as he was signing the check and thinking that the amount they spent on our breakfast was about my entire food budget for the round trip.

After breakfast we went to check out Gahnawehta, the trio of waterfalls that make up Niagara Falls: Horseshoe Falls, American Falls, and the Bridal Veil Falls. First, we walked along the Niagara River. It was magnificent. I had never seen such a big river slither through the forest in such a tender and, at the same time, forceful way. In some places, water was flowing around the trees, smashing onto rocks and boulders, pushing its way powerfully through nature.

We meandered toward the waterfalls. I knew that we were getting closer by the sound of sixty five thousand cubic feet of water per second hitting against the rocks some 170 feet below, but it took a while to actually get to the falls. Several times I thought that we must be there, as the sound was piercing. "Wow," Zoja said and I followed her around a bend. It was astonishing. For what seemed like an hour, I just enjoyed the view, walking around and thinking that if time had to stop, this would be the moment to do it. But the day was nowhere near over.

Next stop was Rainbow Bridge, where the view got even better. The weather was amazing and I took several pictures with my fancy new camera and asked Milan to take a few of me. "Make sure, you can see the falls behind me," my instructions sounded, as I was situating myself on the railing of the bridge. "Yeah, I know man. Just make sure you don't fall into the river" he responded. After a while we decided to go back, but didn't realize that by stepping onto the bridge we had left the U. S. of A. In order to get back, we had to go through customs. Normally it wouldn't be a problem. We carried our passports on us at all times, but we were required to have some additional documents to cross the border which three of us had left back in camp. For a moment, it appeared that half of us would be allowed to return, but the other three wouldn't unless we drove back to get their documents.

Things got even worse when it turned out all of us had a single-entry visa; we had already entered the country once when we arrived several months ago. I noticed Juraj was sweating. That was it. The situation looked very bleak and with our lack of the English language mastery we were having difficulty explaining ourselves. We were confusing and starting to irritate the customs officers. Fortunately, Charlie and Mary Lou saw our desperation and stepped in to talk with the officers on our behalf. They explained the situation and vouched that we had just gone onto the bridge to get a nice view. They said that we had come from the American side and that they were with us the whole time. The officers were sympathetic, said that it happens all the time, and let us go back.

After that misadventure, Mary Lou and Charlie treated us to "the most exciting way to see Niagara Falls - aboard the famous Maid of the Mist Boat," as a postcard eloquently puts it.

Just looking at the falls was an experience in itself. They are majestic, with water falling dozens of feet and crashing spectacularly at the bottom, but going on the boat gives you an entirely different perspective. After you board the boat, it gradually takes you closer to the falls and then the vessel turns a bit offering a different view. When you get much closer, the sound is so powerful that you are reduced to gestures and miming to communicate. I was running, gesturing to my friends, and getting high on the excitement.

There is so much mist that it's like the sun disappears and you are amidst a storm where the sky seems to be falling. It's a bit intimidating. You feel the vastness of nature and realize that humans are just a small part of it, regardless of what you want to believe in. The water was coming from above, from below as it splashed against the surface, and from the side. When the boat turned around, the rush of adrenaline dropped, but in a few minutes you saw another boat under the falls and smiled at people's over-the-top gestures and their wide grins. You smiled because you already knew.

Charlie and Mary Lou treated us to a late lunch, during which I experienced a delicious discovery, while stuffing my face with a double cheeseburger: extra bacon. A weight fell from my shoulders as I realized that even if the trip ended right there, I could go home and talk proudly about my experience. There would have been relatively little to describe, but there would be something. That put my mind at ease. That was the real beginning of the road trip for me.

By three o'clock, our crew was getting anxious to get on the road so we parted with Charlie and Mary Lou and took off on our next adventure. Those two total strangers had made my day and raised the spirits of my fellow travelers. When things were not going so well later on, we would sometimes recall their kindness: the breakfast and lunch they had treated us to and their help at the border. We sent them a couple of postcards from the road and thought of them often. Niagara Falls set the bar for the rest of the trip pretty high.

***

The next stop on our journey was Detroit. I believe it was Juraj's choice. He was a car geek and wanted to see "the birthplace of the American car industry, the city that had been providing millions of people across the globe with modern and convenient personal transportation," as he put it. His pitch worked quite well on us and got us excited about seeing the cradle of the car industry with our own eyes.

We drove through the night, heading toward the city on Interstate 90. Little did I know that I would be taking the same highway fifteen years later almost every Sunday to go hiking in North Bend, Issaquah, or Snohomish. Back then I was dozing in the car, being lulled to sleep by the motion of our stretched-limo. It almost felt like a boat cruising on a quiet lake. At some point, I half-woke up and it felt like the car had stopped. It was still dark so I thought we had probably arrived way before anything was open and went back to sleep. When I woke up again at the dawn of a new day we were somewhere in the middle of cornfields, next to an old, worn-down building. Matylda had broken down and we were waiting for a mechanic's shop to open. Juraj was clearly unhappy but was taking care of it per our agreement.

There wasn't much to see where we stopped. Not much at all. It was just a repair shop in the middle of the fields. So, we took out some blankets and food and dug into our cream cheese supply along with some other munchies. It was the first of numerous meals alfresco. We were all a bit bummed out about the car trouble but in a couple of hours the shop owner fixed Matylda well enough for us to continue.

There were several issues with Matylda. I've heard that one should never talk about a lady's age, but I've been told so many other things. Who can keep a track of all the rules someone tells you? So here we go. Matylda was manufactured in 1981, and was seven of top of ten years old at this point. During the negotiations the seller told Juraj that she had been used gently and had been taken good care of, but some issues started showing up due to her age. There was the battery trouble which had appeared the previous night. There was also overheating, failing brakes, worn-out tires, and multiple little parts that failed at some point.

The issue that seemed to stop us on the way to Detroit was the wheels and brakes. When we applied the brakes, the pedal didn't return to the original position. It was not clear what was going on and a thorough inspection or full replacement would be time consuming and costly so Juraj went for a temporary fix. We were cautious when applying the brakes, trying to make sure we didn't stomp on them, and this seemed to work okay.

I never really knew exactly what was going on with Matylda for two reasons. First, I didn't know much about cars. Second, Juraj wouldn't share many details with any of us. Maybe he just didn't feel like there was any point in discussing the car trouble with others and was focused on fixing it. One thing was for sure, when it came to cars Juraj was absolutely unpredictable and turned into a different person.

Since we had spent a large part of the day fixing the car, we had a lot of catching up to do. Juraj really wanted to see Detroit, so off we went. We drove and drove. I'm not sure if it was the entire next day but in my memory that's how long we spent driving past Lake Erie. It looked beautiful and some of us wanted to stop to suntan a bit and swim. Others felt that we should keep heading west, so that's what we did. As the lake became more and more inviting, everybody eventually agreed that we could pull over for a quick break. We needed to stretch and get out of the car, at least for a while, so why not next to a beautiful lake?

To our surprise, that was easier said than done since there were few public ways to access the lake. The ratio of privately owned to publicly-accessible shore seemed very unusual. There were literally hundreds of miles of shoreline but the public could access very little of it. Signs everywhere read, "No trespassing," "Private Property." I had seen them back at the camp when walking around so it wasn't something completely new to me.

It never occurred to me as an adult to be on someone else's property without their invitation and consent. I just wasn't used to seeing so many rules everywhere: swimming pools, classrooms, next to roads in such quantities. On all products, in all offices, elevators, public spaces, in workplaces, online, at your doctor's office, everywhere. If you buy a coffee, the cup will say that the contents may be hot. When you cross borders, you must fill out pages of questions, attesting, among other things, that you are not a terrorist, never participated in genocide, trafficking people, or organized crime. As if people who do these things would confess to their crimes on some document, right?

If you want to watch a movie, you must read how the characters are not real, how the creator reserves right to artistic expression, who can and cannot watch the movies, what could possibly offend you, etc. If you're updating your computer, you sign dozens of pages of something you will never read.

My brain is blind to the majority of these warnings, rules, and "laws," or whatever you call them. But somewhere in the back of my mind, there is the occasional little devil that grins and says that I might not be so lucky one day, and one of these annoyances might warn against real trouble. Maybe someone can sue me because unknowingly I did something I wasn't supposed to do, like overlooking a check box or something. It would most likely sort out, but just having to deal with the law is something I'd gladly avoid.

I might be a bit skeptical of the infallibility of a judicial system. Certainly because I watch so many legal shows on TV. Partially, and maybe, because I don't seek further interaction with law enforcement – been there, done that, thank you. My encounters with the police during that summer were numerous and, in retrospect, fun. _In retrospect._ When they were happening, it was mostly me freaking inside, envisioning that some minor miscommunication would lead to ending up in jail. I had seen enough American movies and had no illusions about how it would end up for a young boy from Eastern Europe who barely speaks English.

At camp I was occasionally given long and significant looks by cops driving by when I was walking to or from the gas station. It was about two miles down the road and probably our most common destination. They never stopped, as they were probably used to strange looking guys walking down the street every summer. But they always slowed down when passing me, making sure that I knew they knew. I should have taken that sign more seriously but back then I was a bit cocky and didn't take hints.

***

The first encounter I had with the police was in Cleveland when I almost killed a cop. Yep, I'm not proud of it and only a few people have heard the story before, but it's true. I don't think I'm ready to talk about it yet, but I promise to get to it before too long. We didn't spend much time in Cleveland, just passed through it on our way to Motown.

However, I will never forget the city because of what happened there. After the incident with the cop, I was also relieved of my duties as a driver, for the most part, and was demoted to the role of sole passenger for the rest of the trip. I drove a few more times but only on very easy highway stretches when there was nobody else who could drive.

Juraj was the primary driver; Monika would drive often too; Jitka a few times, only during the day time because of her night vision problems; Milan almost never, as Juraj didn't seem to care for him at all and didn't trust him, plus later on, Milan wouldn't be able to anyway. Zoja never drove, as she didn't have an international driver's license.

With a day's delay on top of an eight-hour drive, we finally made it. The Detroit skyline was exactly how I had imagined it would be – strong, proud, and industrial. In a way it felt like home, as many cities in the old country were industrial as well.

The working class is in my blood. My grandparents were all born in the 1920's, which was an important time in the history of the so-called First Czechoslovak Republic. It was formed in 1918 when the country became free for the first time in centuries. The country was just a baby in the 20's but was doing rather well. Czechoslovakia was the tenth most industrialized country in the world, an island of democracy, and a vibrant, multicultural and multilingual society with a sizable middle class.

My grandparents often remembered their childhoods as an exciting time full of hopes for a peaceful and prosperous future. I often heard them speak of "our daddy Masaryk" and assumed that they were talking about my great-grandfather. Later, I learned that it was a reference to the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, a famous intellectual, philosopher, and politician who took the last name of his American wife as his middle name. For a short time, I believed I was related to the first Czechoslovak president. My brother, David, explained that "daddy Masaryk" was the president's nickname. I wasn't really disappointed, as I could still refer to him by his nickname. Not in school or public, of course. Masaryk was taboo for communists because he saw a great danger in communist ideology and set out to build a democratic society. And he succeeded! The Czech people had to work hard to make the newly independent country viable. Like in the city I was about to enter, the hard work of generations was behind much of the progress made.

My grandparents and parents all had blue-collar jobs. Mom worked in a factory and Dad was a farm machinery repairman. None of them has or ever will see Detroit, but I believe they would like it. I didn't get to see much of the city, though. Once we got there, I thought that we would get out of the car, look around, and explore downtown. However, Juraj was more than happy to just drive through the city and see it from the car. It was a strong realization that each of us had totally different ideas about how the trip would go and what our priorities were. I was okay with not sightseeing in Detroit, but thought that we'd need to work on how we did things as a group. We left one city behind and set off to the next - Chicago.

***

I was very excited to see Chicago. Back home, it carries a reputation as a tough city that rewards hardworking women and men regardless of where they come from. One of the former mayors of Chicago was from Czechoslovakia. He is known by his Americanized name, Tony Cermak. He died from a bullet that was destined for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was Czech-born and started in this country as a first generation immigrant. During his life, Tony changed the political structure in one of the biggest cities in the country and he ended his life by paying the ultimate price for an American president. I was eager to see this legendary city with my own eyes.

It is said that Chicago is home to more Poles than the capital of Poland, Warsaw. I never bothered to fact-check that information but Chicago is clearly popular among not only Poles but other Eastern Europeans as well. When we drove into Chicago, I noticed signs in Polish for various businesses. I ate at a small family-owned restaurant called "Podhalanka." My budget wasn't really designed for eating out and if I did it meant I had to spend less somewhere else. Even knowing the lunch would mean restrictions on what I could afford down the road, I was excited about being there. I saw it as proof that the American dream can be dreamt and, more importantly, materialized by anyone. On top of that, I felt proud to be in a place owned by a neighbor from the old country, in a city that's as American as it gets.

Chicago is a city that makes sense to me. The city and its people seem much alike. I loved it then and have enjoyed visiting ever since. The city can seem a bit intimidating – it's huge, spreading for miles and miles, with many distinct neighborhoods. You could spend years exploring it. The metal, glass, concrete, stone, and brick stand strong against the freezing wind, rain, and snow that try in vain to bring the proud city down. Chicagoans are like their city in many ways. The people of Chicago have come to build their lives from every corner of this earth, paying with their sweat and blood. The city has a softer side as well. There are individuals there dreaming of a better future, not just for themselves, but for the ones they love. There is a lot of art and urban culture – in different forms, at unexpected places. I wished I had more time to get to know the people and the space they occupy on the shores of Lake Michigan, but there was more to see. We had to go.

After Chicago, we had about a thousand miles to go to get to our next destination: Mt. Rushmore. Everybody felt that we were moving slower than anticipated so we decided to drive with as few stops as possible. We rearranged the back of the car to make it more comfortable for us to sleep there.

Spirits were high as we set off to the west. Driving through Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska has merged in my memory to a degree. However, I will never forget the trademark barns that were no longer protected by the mixture made from lime, skimmed milk, and red iron oxide, but still retained a distinctive red color. I was intrigued to see parts of the "bread basket" and was excited about seeing American farms. Part of my childhood was spent at my grandparents' farm and agriculture, nature, and food are part of the core of who I am as a person.

The chunks of the Midwest I saw were a bit disappointing though. There was corn and soybeans as far as the eye could see. The fields just seemed enormous. It was difficult to imagine how farmers could produce good food; the farms simply seemed too big. Everything had to be done by machines and it was clear that people hardly touched the soil or the crops with their hands. There were pesticides used to kill insects, rodents, bacteria, and fungus. There were machines to do most of the work. There appeared to be a clear disconnection between man and the food they were producing. It seemed like profit was driving everything, ignoring the quality of the food, the environment, and the people.

Thankfully, up close the picture was a bit different. During one of our breaks we pulled over next to a small farm by a creek. It was a very picturesque place, much like Grant Wood meets Marc Bohne meets Sharon France. It was a hot day in early September and the harvest wasn't over yet. Many fields were still waiting to be relieved of their crops that had been getting a bit too heavy.

We got out of the car to rest and have a meal in the shade of some trees next to the creek. We had spread a blanket and brought out our food when we noticed a couple very timidly hanging around their front door. It seemed like they wanted to talk to us but they appeared to be arguing about whether or not to do it. The husband with grey, previously probably black, eyebrows and a chiseled face looked at us, then turned back to his wife again and continued the chatter. This repeated several times but neither of them was moving. Finally, they collected their courage and approached us. The few first minutes of our conversation were rather awkward, as there seemed to be something in a way. However, several minutes later the initial awkwardness completely disappeared.

The couple was extremely nice and invited us in to their house. We politely rejected, and explained that we stopped just for a short time to have a meal and rest. We talked a bit and they told us about themselves. They spent their entire adult lives on the farm, he came from "somewhere in Eastern Europe" as a young man and met his soon-to-be wife whose family lived at the same place for generations. They got married, raised several children, and were retired now.

The passion with which they talked about their land made me realize that my first impression of Midwestern farming was a bit too harsh. Even with the vast land, there was a lot of planning, knowledge, and love that these farmers invested into producing food. They clearly knew their land well and cared for it deeply. After they left us, we talked a bit about why they were behaving so strangely at the beginning. Juraj suggested that they might have simply been afraid of a group of young strangers, which seemed to make most sense. Having talked to us for just a little bit appeared to melt the suspicion away.

An afternoon shower sped our departure and we hurriedly ran to seek shelter inside of the car. And the petrichor brought back memories of all those summers at my grandparents' farm when water poured from the sky and chased us away from the fields. We used to run to hide under a bridge or a tree to wait the shower out, breathing in the combination of green crops and dirt. It smells the same in my old country and in Iowa, the same when I was a kid and as a young adult. It was a smell long forgotten and found somewhere in the Midwest not far beyond the point where the names of radio stations switch from W to K.

***

The first few days of our trip had been eventful, with Matylda breaking down, all of us getting used to life on the road. Driving longer without interruptions allowed us to get to know each other a bit better. I'm sure that to a casual observer we looked rather strange, out of place, foreign. We were all of the above. The way we dressed, talked, our body language, everything was out of place. Quite often, we would get strange looks that usually turned into huge smiles, and a few times into involuntarily gasps and cries. These usually happened when someone witnessed our car pulling over, the doors opening, and six people coming out – one by one – to enjoy another day. One, two, three, four, five, six. We called it "the grand entrance." On second look, we were just a group of college kids from Europe traveling across the country - in a stretch-limo.

You've probably wondered where the name Matylda came from. Actually, there isn't much of a story. I suggested the name, Juraj okayed it, and everyone seemed to like it. When I was about ten years old, I had some medical problems. My parents were freaking out because it was taking a lot of time for the doctors to figure out what was wrong. Well, clearly it wasn't anything that serious, because I'm still around. Anyway, I spent a lot of time in hospitals and after one extremely long stay my dad bought me a turtle. It got named Matylda and I loved playing with her. A turtle was something so exotic and none of my friends had one so it made me feel special. I would imagine that she lived in distant lands, in tropical forests, on islands, and in my imagination I traveled with Matylda all over the world.

I didn't really know how to take care of her and she died a few months later. I was very sad and I never got another pet again. That's how the founding member of our group got her name.

Monika was the binding element of our group. She got along with everyone without compromising herself. She knew how to talk to people, and it appeared to be something that came very natural to her. Perhaps it was her inquisitive nature. Perhaps it was her no-judgment, no-agenda, no-bullshit attitude – she neither projects any of the above, nor takes them from anyone else. Monika is from the western part of the Czech Republic but studied in Brno which is about 20 miles from my hometown. Her major was business and she had the most traveling experience out of all of us. She had been to the U.S., I believe Milwaukee, with her school for a short exchange program. She had also been to the Sahara and many European countries. Monika knew how to take care of herself and she was always there for others. She is the only person from the camp that I have kept in touch with on a regular basis since the summer of '98.

At her camp, Monika worked in the kitchen. She also made extra money making and selling pizza on movie nights. Not only did her camp support that kind of activity, they encouraged it. Monika was also dating a chef at the camp. The camp director and his wife told Monika that they thought their chef would like her and that it was a factor when hiring her. He supposedly had a thing for tall blonde girls with an accent. It was shocking to hear Monika talking about it years later, but she said that there wasn't ever any pressure and the fact that she and the chef ended up dating was totally coincidental. They would often hang out with James and it was strange hearing her talk about him. We knew him as a boss but she knew him as a drinking buddy. It seemed there were two versions of the same guy. And it was she who told me about the night when James came to the bar very upset telling a story of how he took three misfits to Walmart.

Jitka was in love. Even if she didn't talk about it, her body and demeanor were screaming it. She was incredibly passionate, open-minded, and easygoing. She was great at dissolving tensions. She had a motherly aura about her. Jitka's love was revealed a couple weeks later in Las Vegas and Mesa Verde but we'll get to that when the time comes. She and Zoja both studied in Bratislava, I believe in the same major – sociology.

Zoja was a little bit more introverted but she was a strong woman who knew what she wanted. She was very enthusiastic, focused, and full of life. She was dating a guy from Scotland named Scott whom she met at her camp. I remember meeting him and liking him a lot, even though I had difficulty understanding him. Yet another English accent that didn't sound anything like the other ones. Zoja was very smart and an awesome travel companion. She usually stayed quiet whenever we argued. She would listen and let others speak. Once she did say something, it counted. She was that type of person.

Milan is the one person that I never really got to know on the trip. He was there and I talked to him but I don't think I ever got to know him. He didn't get along with the group too well. There was something about him that made people uncomfortable. I don't think I saw it back then. I simply thought we didn't click. But thinking about it in retrospect, that is how I see it. Monika was the only one who had met him before the trip but she didn't know him that well either. To his credit, Milan knew he didn't hit it off with other people and took a back seat during our travels.

Juraj was one of the strangest people I had ever met in my life. I think he would take that as a compliment, as he seemed to be very proud of his uniqueness. We spent hours talking, both at the camp and during our trip. Weirdly enough, I don't have a picture of him. There are just numerous snapshots of him in my memory, but not a single full sentence I can say about him comes to my mind.

That was our crew - six kids and a car.

***

We talked a lot about our respective camps during our long stretch west from Chicago. It was interesting to hear from the girls about how their experience at a camp, which was literally about a mile from ours, was so different. At their camp, staff worked much shorter days, four to six hours tops. The rest of the day, they were welcome to participate in any and all of the camp activities. Their living quarters were also across the street from the camp so they had more privacy and were able to throw parties. The overall atmosphere sounded friendlier. Their camp was designed to be fun not just for campers but for everyone. Our camp ran more on the idea that campers are customers and we were there to provide them with the best experience possible. The girls liked their camp a lot and seemed to have had a great time there. At some level, I was a little jealous about not having a more relaxed camp experience. On the other hand, I wouldn't change a thing.

On our way to Mt. Rushmore we decided to stop in The Badlands in the late afternoon. Since we were finally in a place where we could see something noteworthy, Matylda gave up. We tried to fix her but it was taking a long time and we were stuck in a pretty remote place. It started getting dark and the mood wasn't great. We were pretty much out of food and there was not much water left. There was nobody around. Well at least, not anybody who was willing to help. On top of that there was no estimate on how long it would take to fix the car and mosquitoes started sucking on our blood with a vigor as if they felt the source of their nutrition might dry up fast.

After a while we decided to split up and the girls and I started walking towards civilization. We had a very long walk ahead of us. We were walking for miles and the hills were beautiful. The sunset created spectacular views like nothing I had ever seen before. A couple of hours later, it was dark and we still had no plan other than just walking down the road. Out of nowhere, we saw car lights and a few minutes later Milan and Juraj were grinning at us. We quickly got in and we were off, not even daring to steal one final look of the setting sun.

Since we had lost so much time we agreed to drive through the night to Mt. Rushmore. It was supposedly just a couple of hours away and we planned to find a place to sleep in the park, maybe even a campsite with hot showers. As we got closer, everyone felt that we needed a break to relax at the mountain. Surprise, surprise, as the hills got steeper, Matylda started having trouble. Nobody wanted to give up on the possibility of a good night's rest and showers but we couldn't ignore the smell, smoke, and noises our elderly lady was giving off. We agreed to skip Mt. Rushmore and continue west. It was disappointing but in retrospect probably a good call. South Dakota fought us and won. There was nothing else to do but to accept the defeat and move on.

***

At least I didn't have to drive. Well, to be accurate, I was not trusted to drive. It was all because of the Cleveland incident. The one where I almost killed a cop. I was driving Matylda down the highway. Until then, I had only driven on highways, never in the city. But Juraj was asleep in the back after driving for hours and I had been put in charge.

Monika and Zoja were sitting next to me, navigating and making sure I didn't fall asleep behind the wheel. Everything was going fine when suddenly I noticed a big city on the horizon. My instincts were screaming at me to stop and let someone else drive but I hadn't been driving for long and felt embarrassed asking for help so I went on being the king of the road.

Things were going alright, even after we entered the city. The roads were wide and there wasn't that much traffic. Then, suddenly, there were cars and people everywhere. I was going slowly, 20, 25 MPH tops, but Matylda took time to slow down and stop, so it felt like people were just jumping in front of the car. Someone noted that we were passing a huge stadium and a game had just ended. That explained the crowds.

After what felt like an hour, but probably was just about five minutes, spent trying not to run over innocent sports fans, we were heading towards the highway. The road signs indicated that I needed to keep going straight. I picked up speed and just kept following the road. I saw a cop standing about a hundred feet ahead who was signaling me to turn right. I have no idea what was going through my head, but something in there failed. The map and the sign were telling me to go straight, and that's where I wanted to go. The cop was telling me something else, but was he just suggesting or ordering? I decided to follow my plan and go straight. He saw me approaching and not turning and tried to become more visible by moving into the road.

I kept going.

The girls were telling me repeatedly to turn right, as the cop was signaling, but I was stuck in my head and didn't listen. They saw what I was doing and started to panic and shouted at me to turn. Juraj, who had been asleep the whole time, screamed at the top of his lungs: "Turn!" At that point, his blaring overrode my intention and I started turning the wheel. Our eighteen-or-so-foot-long lady began turning to the right. Very slowly. I knew that the car was about to hit the cop when our eyes locked and I saw the panic in his eyes. That's when a miracle occurred and he jumped to the curb, saving his own life.

What followed is foggy, but, after that incident I never drove Matylda again.

***

The next stretch of road after we almost made it to see the presidents carved in the mountain was a bit long, as there really wasn't much we wanted to see until Yellowstone. So we drove and chatted. Zoja didn't talk much about herself but it had been several days since we left our camps and she was missing her Scott from Scotland guy-boyfriend-dude-bro. She tried to call him but his roommate had refused to take a message and this, naturally, upset her.

She said that there was an ongoing dispute between her and Scott's roommate back at camp. Zoja would sometimes hang out with Scott in his room and would occasionally come over to cuddle after her late evening shift when he was already asleep. Everybody knew about it, and it wasn't really a big deal to anybody. However, one night when she came to the room Scott's roommate was watching porn and masturbating. Scott was sleeping next to him. She brought it up and that's when they clashed.

It seemed to me that the girls' camp had more dating, hooking up, or anything sex-related than our camp. Well, up to certain degree. There was a Polish guy there who got caught red-handed with a male sous-chef and was sent home right away. That's where the line was drawn.

The drive was pretty uneventful and we were looking for something entertaining to do on our way. There were a couple of huge billboards along the highway luring travelers to visit "The World's Only Corn Palace" with pictures of a building that reminded me of bashnyas – the Russian onion-shaped towers. It took some persuading, but everyone eventually agreed to see the pride of South Dakota.

The palace was, and I assume still is, an architecturally strange building. It's like three styles were mashed together: a Russian Orthodox Church, a contemporary American movie theater, and a Native American shelter. The exterior corn murals are replaced every year with a new theme based on designs created by local artists, which, in my opinion, was the coolest thing about the whole building. The rest was pretty dreary. There wasn't much to see inside, apart from some photographs hanging sadly on the walls. They were pictures of the mural from over the years. You could also buy popcorn inside but it was not even freshly made. There wasn't anything terribly wrong with museum but the others were disenchanted with the half-day detour we took to get there. I was quiet, as visiting it was my suggestion. There is probably a good reason why it is the world's only corn palace.

After our disappointing detour, we continued our trip west. Expectations were high and everyone was in a good mood. Our next stop was Yellowstone National Park. We had to go uphill and our stops were rather frequent because of Matylda. Often we stopped just because we didn't want to overheat her or we had to make minor repairs, but we were moving along nicely despite this. Everyone was getting excited to see one of the most famous national parks in the world.

Yellowstone National Park is really something else. It is breathtaking, unexpected, and uplifting. For me, the best thing about the park was that it's mostly wild. Of course there are some roads and trails but the majority of it is natural. We enjoyed hours of wildlife, mountain peaks, streams, and meadows. We even got to see bison. It was my first direct and significant encounter with native America, with pre-Columbus times.

For me, the bison is such a strong symbol of that period. All my childhood I read books about American Indians. The most famous was a series by a German author Karl May who wrote dozens of books about Winnetou, the wise chief of the Apaches, and his white blood brother Old Shatterhand. There were movies too, starring Pierre Brice and Lex Barker. They were partly shot in former Yugoslavia – in the Plitvice Lakes, Zrmanja Canyon, and Trogir – and I will never forget the beautiful falls and rivers and rugged landscape that provided the backdrop of America's Old West. Every child in the Czech Republic read those books and watched the movies.

The bison was, of course, part of the plot as it played a vital role for many tribes. Both Winnetou and Old Shatterhand were fighting the white men who were killing them just for fun, eventually almost wiping the entire population out. Seeing these animals in real life was a dream come true. They were a symbol of what America was to me as a pre-teen, and always will be in some ways. Watching the mighty animal, I imagined what the land was like centuries ago. It was elevating. On the other hand, seeing only a very tiny herd of bison was a reminder of the changes that have taken place.

Of course, we had to check out Old Faithful. It was impressive to see what happens after surface water seeps down into porous rock, is heated under pressure, and then rises up as a geyser. As heated water approaches the surface, pressure drops and it flashes into a stream of water up to 150 feet in the air. There were a bunch of people watching the show that lasted for several minutes. I could hear different languages, some that I recognized, others not. At one point, a group of people speaking Czech passed by. It was unexpected, and made me smile and look in their direction. However, being able to understand what they were saying when they thought that nobody understood them made me turn around and act like we had nothing in common; because we did not. I overheard just one sentence: "I didn't expect to see so many _brownies_ in this country." And just one word uttered by these strangers was one too many. I felt ashamed for my "countryman's" obnoxiously ignorant and hateful comment.

It confirmed for me how easily people will change their behavior when they think that there are no consequences to their words. It makes people watching less fun, as there is no room left for imagination, when the other party serves their true self on a golden platter. When people share their most profound thoughts, and especially if you don't know them at all, whatever they tell is the only point of reference you have. If the thing is offensive or extremist, or simply opposing your views, it's hard to understand where the person's coming from. It's like most "political discussion" these days. People post online a lot of zingers, grossly oversimplified views, and radicalized statements without much (or any) context. When you read them, they may appear not to be coming from the same person you thought you knew.

The hills of Yellowstone were tough on Matylda. We spent a lot of time pulled over on the side of the highway. I would jack her up and Juraj would fix her while the others smoked, chatted, and suntanned. People stopped several times and talked to us. When we told them what we were doing, they often gave us drinks and snacks. It was very unexpected and generous. When people learned that a bunch of kids from Europe were on a road trip, their eyes would light up. Back then I didn't make much of it. The encounters were short, just a couple of minutes at the most, but people seemed to rejoice in them. Our little exchange made both of our days. It was a simple human interaction between strangers. It was absolutely uncomplicated, banal in some ways, and yet so profound.

***

We were thinking about going directly to San Francisco. Everyone was on cloud nine and excited about the west coast, especially since we planned to chill out for a few days on the beaches of California.

Matylda had different plans for us, though. There was a handwritten sign next to the highway saying "tires" with an arrow pointing right. It was all we needed. One of our tires blew in the park and the rest of them were really worn out so we decided to buy some new shoes for our lady. In a couple of miles we saw a small village of sorts, just several trailers and houses made of corrugated steel. There were a few people around, just hanging out and working on some projects. It was an Indian reservation. Looking at what could have been Winnetou's grand-great children, if he hadn't been killed so young and wasn't a fictional character, I felt heartbroken. It was like a picture from a third-world nation, but it was here in the country that many people call the best in the history of mankind. It didn't make sense to me how the United States of America could have people living in such terrible conditions. People in much poorer countries live in better conditions than those I saw on that reservation as well as other places I've seen since.

We bought our tires for the asking price. The guy seemed a bit baffled that we didn't haggle. He was probably much less surprised that we left rather quickly. That sad reality didn't fit into our summer. At some level we thought that if we didn't talk about what we saw it would be as if it didn't exist.

***

The new tires helped a bit but Matylda was very sick and gave up on us again shortly afterwards. Without warning there was a loud "Bang!" and she sputtered to a stop. We pulled over on I-15. A few people stopped and gave us some water and snacks, which was very kind, especially considering that all we had was a half-full bottle of Coke. I tried to drink from it but couldn't – it was that nasty.

It was taking a long time to fix Matylda, it was extremely hot, and we were all tired. After a couple of hours, a car pulled over. A huge grin and warm "How can I help you, guys?" sounded like music to my ears. It came from a young lady and it didn't stop there. "You're all very welcome to stay at my place and get some rest," turned my inner dark thoughts into tunes of hope. The lady's name was Angie and we unanimously started calling her "Angel." When I later asked what made her stop and why she was helping us, she laughed. "Back in the day, I backpacked in Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon. It's about time I paid back the kindness I experienced during my travels". Her words evoked Dvořák's "From the New World" and both his symphony and this country made even more sense to me at that moment.

Everybody but Juraj and me jumped in her car. She gave us the address to her house, which was at least three hours away, before they left. As much as I hated splitting into two groups, it was the best solution. For a split second I thought that if something happened, like if we accidentally lost the address, we wouldn't be able to reunite. That worry was replaced with another thought – that there is no benefit to worrying about things that haven't happened yet. I resigned myself to dealing with situations only when and if they actually occur. My mind was at ease and I had a sense of personal freedom as I eagerly got back to helping with the repairs.

Juraj worked really hard and fixed Matylda in a couple hours. But there was a catch. When we applied the brakes she would stop, but we had to pull out the jack, jack her up (which was my job), and then Juraj had to do something – I assume release brakes – before we could move on. The whole thing took anywhere between 15 to 30 minutes and caused a few blisters. Naturally, we wanted to avoid using the brakes as much as possible. As bad as that sounds, the bright side was that Juraj had found out exactly what was wrong and knew how to fix it.

On our journey from somewhere near Idaho Falls to Angie's place we had to stop a few times to attend to Matylda's latest malady. Regardless of the hassle, we were rather joyful as we headed to reunite with our group. There was even a promise of shelter above our heads for the first time since we started the trip. We were in a great mood and enjoyed the spectacular views of the mountains. I kept expecting there to be some end to the astonishing scenery, but the mountain ranges just kept unveiling themselves. Every time I thought I had seen the most majestic one, there was another even more impressive than before. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. The chills I had back then return every time I visit my sister-in-law Andi and her family in Utah and greet the mountains from their backyard. They are even mightier when a winter storm rolls over.

The sun was almost setting when we reached Angie's place. She described it as a student apartment, which threw us off a bit because the address took us to a very nice apartment complex. But it turned out to be the right place. It was definitely nothing like my dorm "Větrák" back in Prague, with a shared room where two students lived in a space of about 162 square feet. We had two beds, one long desk, two chairs, a bookshelf and one armoire. Each floor held 20 rooms along with shared bathrooms and one kitchen with a fridge. That was my expectation.

Angie's place was quite different. It was a nice standard two-bedroom apartment. Everyone was thrilled to see us and to hear that we had fixed Matylda. They had all taken showers, done some shopping, and regenerated. A couple of people were making dinner with the food they had bought and the mood was at an all-time high. I was really looking forward to sleeping indoors, possibly even on a sofa!

We started discussing our plans. Everyone but me thought that we should take off right after dinner to make up for lost time. When I heard that, it felt like someone had poured a bucket of ice water on my head. I tried to persuade the rest of the gang to stay the night. They appreciated Juraj and I staying behind in the heat for many hours to take care of the car, so they said it would be my call. I was depressed because my dreams of sleeping in a soft, comfy bed had to be postponed again. I went to take a bath.

It was magical. My muscles felt so good and I soaked my body for a long time, adding more hot water when it started feeling cold. The water was incredibly dirty when I was done. I couldn't believe that it was from me! I kept thinking about it as I was getting dressed in the bathroom, how dirty the water was. I felt more relaxed than I ever had in my life. After I was done, I went to the living room and told everyone my decision: I was ready to hit the road.

It was already dark when we took off. We drove through the night. There was less traffic than earlier which made driving much easier, as we didn't need to apply the brakes as frequently. I think we stopped only once to get some gas and use the bathroom. Most of us were asleep in the back. When we woke up, it was just before dawn and we were pulled over in the middle of the Mojave Desert in Nevada.

If you've never seen a sunrise in a desert, you're seriously missing out. It is magically astonishing to experience nature waking up in the desert. Everything comes alive: lizards, butterflies, cacti, and even stones seem to come alive. Shapes appear out of nowhere and get filled up with color. Smells penetrate your nostrils, so that you can almost taste them. Sounds enter your ears and stimulate your mind. As if not wanting to be left behind, tumbleweeds blow across the plains without warning, the same way as in its original land of Ukraine – with weightless confidence, as if it is aware of its immortality. You want to become part of it and touch everything but know you're a guest there so you just quietly observe nature breaking away from the night.

After breakfast, Juraj arranged for some spare parts to be ready for us to pick up in Reno. We got there in the afternoon.

Juraj got the parts while the rest of us wandered around, except Monika who had fallen asleep in the car. There wasn't much to see there and we were just drifting around the parking lot, sitting on the curb, smoking, and chatting.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, we were surrounded by cops and, before we knew it, the four of us were around the car with our hands on the roof being ordered to spread our legs. It happened quickly and I didn't know exactly what was going on. They were ordering us around, checking our passports, asking questions. As a cop looked me up and down, I saw Monika wake up inside the limo. I'll never forget the look on her face. It started as the smile one has after a nap but quickly changed into a look of doubt followed with utter confusion. She seemed frozen. I was staring at her, trying to tell her with my eyes to stay inside the car. She got it. There was really no reason to hide Monika from the cops, but I somehow felt that was the right thing to do. The cops didn't notice her and let us go after we showed them our papers. We were all relieved. If we only knew there was more interaction with the police awaiting us. We left Reno as soon as we could. Our next stop was El Dorado.

***

Believe it or not, the Eagles came on the radio as we were entering California. You know which song. We all burst out laughing. A few seconds later, we all were singing along to "Hotel California" at the top of our lungs.

For some reason I expected farms to be everywhere in California, having heard about its food production even on the other side of the pond. Soon enough, I began to realize that there was just much more to the state than I thought. Regardless, seeing the Land of Milk and Honey made me think of my family. My paternal grandparents were farmers and they were the hardest working people I've known in my life, working everyday from when they were children until they physically couldn't move. They had a small farm – a couple of horses, hogs, milk cows, and chickens on about forty acres of land. Meemaw would buy only salt and spices for a brief period to time. All the other food they ate was from their farm. Farming was their life.

My grandparent met, fell in love, and got married in the 40s, during WWII. It all took place in a little town about five miles from where they are buried. The city felt empty at that time as many of its residents were forced into concentration camps simply because of who they were. Four hundred seventy-three people never returned to the town that was their ancestral home since 1069, and the remaining only stopped by on their way searching for a new home. Six people survived the camps. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Six people.

During the Nazi occupation, for the most part my grandparents' daily lives went on unaffected, until my grandpa was drafted towards the end of the war to dig trenches for the German troops who were retreating from all directions. There were rumors that women would be relocated by the Third Reich in order to work in factories. That never came true, probably because time ran out. After the war, it seemed that the worst was over. Grandpa returned home in one piece, they owned a farm that provided them with everything they needed, and they started having kids.

The good times lasted for just a few years before the communists took over. The Iron Curtain was quickly raised and the borders were sealed. Their farm was taken away, along with some of their equipment and most of the livestock. They were assigned new jobs and their sons would later be told what their professions would be. Their passports were permanently revoked. They couldn't speak publicly of the new political system unless they wanted to risk imprisonment and losing their children. Everything around was changing, but still life went on.

My grandparents raised three sons and helped them start their own families. Every day except Sunday, both grandpa and meemaw worked from 5 a.m. until the sun went down. Their day jobs were at the agriculture cooperative, a state owned institution that worked on confiscated land. Their second job was on their own farm, or, more accurately, the remains of it. They still had a few pigs, a couple of milk cows, and a dozen chickens. Most of their land was taken away but they were left one field and a garden attached to their house. The farm was smaller than it had been but it provided the family with food. Anything left over was exchanged for other things they needed or used to help grandpa deal with red tape. It became handy when grandpa went to request a permit to cut the grass from the ditches next to a road so that he could feed his animals which helped him to feed his sons. They worked on the land, raised livestock, and helped feed the people.

Farming was in their blood and in mine so I was eager to see the farm life of the people in California. I expected farms to be everywhere, having heard about its food production even on the other side of the pond. Soon enough, I began to realize that there was much more to the state than I thought. Even though we had not seen the Pacific yet, we felt optimistic about the odds of seeing it. We agreed to sleep in a motel that night as a way of celebrating the milestone. Without much driving around we soon found a cheap one and it even had a pool. At reception we said there were just three of us so we could pay for just one room. We tried to sneak everyone in but the receptionist saw us, so we ended up paying for two rooms. I was bummed about not being able to save some money, but having my own bed for a night turned out to be the best thing ever. It had been about ten days since I slept in a bed and it felt great. We ate some cold dinner and called it a day. It was our last stop before reaching the West Coast and seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

We were all excited about heading out as soon as possible the next morning. California is the ultimate symbol of freedom for many foreigners and immigrants, the place where the American Dream comes true. Most people on this planet have heard of San Francisco and those who haven't have seen photos of the Golden Gate Bridge. That insanely iconic bridge was our first stop and it was magnificent. We got the full experience with the rolling fog and sun peaking through. I was stunned and I felt that if I died at that moment, at that place, my life would have been complete. I'm glad I didn't, but still, the city of San Francisco has had a very powerful effect on me – I feel free; I feel like being myself there. The city and I have the same blood type. I've been back to SF several times since then and got engaged to the love of my life there. It is a place that has cast a spell on me, and I happily surrender to the City by the Bay.

But driving in this metropolis was insane. It was the hilliest city I had ever seen! I admired and envied the driving and, needless to say, parallel-parking skills needed to live there. Matylda wasn't too happy about the hillside, but she was a good girl. It was difficult for her to drive uphill, but she wouldn't give up. She kept pushing as if she wanted to see what was at the top. Once we reached the crest and drove over, it was like driving into an abyss. At times, I seriously thought that the brakes wouldn't hold up and we would end up in the bay.

***

My travel look was a pair of blue Levis 501 jeans and a white t-shirt. I usually had my camera, too. My very good companion on our trip was my fanny bag. I wore it pretty much all the time and sometimes would even sleep with it. It was where I had everything essential, my passport money, and a number of other small items. If anything was to happen to my other belonging, I would still be able to get home.

In San Francisco, there seemed to be people from every corner of the world. They wore different clothes and spoke so many languages and English dialects. It felt as diverse as it gets and even in my worn-out jeans and the plainest t-shirt, I felt like I fit in. There are several cities that I feel I could live in, and San Francisco is undoubtedly one of them.

After seeing the bridge, we went to check out Lombard Street then we wandered around the city and went to the pier. It was full of tourists. It felt like the whole world had sent their representatives to the city. You could hear so many languages. Tourists are sometimes a bit less respectful of others and can behave obnoxiously but the city had such a positive vibe that there was almost nobody behaving like a jerk. People were smiling, enjoying the views, eating, and having a good time. So was I. I didn't do much, just wandered around for hours and people-watched, but I felt like I was in the right place.

We drove along Lincoln Way, too. Back then I had no idea that years later, when I was living in Iowa, I would live, work, and get married along a road of the same name. The two are even connected! They're part of a very early transcontinental network of roads called the Lincoln Highway. We pulled over at the Botanical Garden. It was a good opportunity for us to scatter so that each of us could spend some alone time, recharge, and explore on their own.

I walked around Stove Lake, the Japanese Tea Garden, and sat for a while in the park next to the De Young Museum. It was moderately busy. There was a big family there and it seemed like the grandparents had flown in from another part of the country to meet a new addition to their clan. There was a group of teenagers hanging out and listening to music. Many other people were just passing by or stopping for a short while. I heard a few different languages.

A few benches to the left of me, there were a couple of middle-aged men. They both had buzzed hair, one with a beard, and the other with gray sides, both wearing plain jeans and white t-shirts. They were not talking, just holding hands and sitting close to each other. They seemed content, as if a huge burden was recently lifted off their shoulders. The enormous weight of what they went through had been lifted.

I suspected it was the weight of freaking out when he realized he was different than the other kids; the weight of believing for years that he would be alone for his whole life; the weight of words coming out of the mouths of those who claimed to love him, but whose love depended on his conditioned their love by the denial of his true self; the weight of his first love Jason telling him about being HIV-positive and of the following months leading to his lover's, and so many of his friends', deaths.

There was the weight of memories of being attacked in a dark alley and being beaten so hard that the broken bones would never completely heal and the constant pain making sure he won't forget the bashing for the rest of his life. The weight of numberless everyday reminders about how who he was not good enough to many around him. None of these would be forgotten, but the two simple words, "I do," soothed memories of the past and brightened the present. The two men smiled, but one of them had tears coming down his cheeks. Somehow, I knew they had just gotten engaged. I didn't hear a word from them, but the fulfillment of their search for happiness revealed in front of my eyes.

Voilà!

I saw more than I could have asked for and didn't want to be an uninvited witness to their juncture, so I left to rejoin my group.

***

It was late evening when we left the city and headed down Highway 1. We were going slowly, 30 to 35 miles per hour. The cars behind us were clearly not happy, but couldn't pass us because of the narrowness and curviness of the road. It was getting dark and after a few kilometers we pulled over at a rest stop right off the road.

The cops showed up within ten minutes. They told us that someone called them very upset because we were driving so slowly. Both cops chatted with us for a while and wished us good luck in our travels. They wanted to make sure we were alright and said they would check on us during the night. One thing I couldn't understand was how someone could have called them from their car. My parents didn't even have a home phone line. It was most likely a car phone that the guy used to call cops on us, but might have been a handheld cell phone, as someone in our group mentioned. Either way, it was the first time I heard about cellular phones and I liked the sound of it. The image of driving a convertible down a coast while speaking on the phone was such a tempting picture. Perhaps it seemed symbolic of a life that's profoundly different, even the polar opposite, of what I dared to envision as a kid.

It had been a long day and I fell asleep quickly. I was awakened by a scream and somebody grabbing my shoulder. I wasn't sure what was going on. I don't remember what I was dreaming about, but it clearly took me somewhere else, as I had trouble comprehending where I was. Zoja's face was right above me. She was frantically trying to pull me toward her and, since she couldn't drag me, began to roll me over instead. I had no idea what was going on but did what she wanted and it seemed to calm her down.

After she took several deep breaths and I woke up a little more, she explained. She was the first one to wake up early that morning, before anybody else. She was cold and went to get a sweater from the car. While she was walking, she noticed that I was at the edge of a cliff that was several stories tall. It turned out that when we pulled over the night before and found a place to sleep next to the highway, we didn't realize that we were next to a cliff. The slim Mylar mattress I was sleeping on slid toward the cliff during the night, gradually moving my body to the edge of the abyss. If it had not been for Zoja, I might now be in the land I was dreaming about.

The next morning we went down to Santa Cruz. We didn't spend much time in town but headed for the beach right away. We enjoyed the whole day there – swimming, sun tanning, and chatting. We would stay at one beach for a few hours, and then drive a bit to find another one.

The ocean was like in the movies. No, it was magical like a movie can be but it was better – it was real! There was something special about the Pacific Ocean. I jumped into the water, let the waves toss my body, then walked along the beach feeling the sand and little rocks on my feet. We drove down the coast until dusk, and watched one of the most mesmerizing sunsets of my life. I thought that mystical and alluring Asia was _just_ across the ocean. And it is connected to Europe, so in a way I had made it half way across the globe. I know I didn't, but belief is sometimes more important than the truth. At that moment it was what I chose to believe.

Earlier that day, Milan was tossed around by a strong wave and hurt his arm. He was in pain but said that he didn't think it was that serious and refused to see a doctor. He got some pain relief cream, a sling, and some generic painkillers at a gas station. He had to take it easy for the rest of the trip but it looked like his arm would get better on it's own without medical assistance. I was relieved for him because, even though we all had medical insurance, none of us had any idea what it covered or how to use it. We were required to buy a policy that met certain criteria in order to participate in the program and get our visas. In retrospect, the insurance wasn't really that good. It would probably help if we were in a very serious accident, and it seemed to provide pretty decent benefits in case our dead bodies needed to be transferred to the old country. It didn't seem to be that helpful for anything else, though. I'm grateful that we all made it back home safe and sound.

Driving on Highway 1 is something every person should experience at least once in their lifetime. It's California, baby!

Our next stop was the City of Angels. Even though I had seen it so many times on TV and thought I knew what it was like, I did not. It's so much more – the smells, the wind brushing against your skin, even the colors are different in real life. It's a bit intimidating at first, as any big city can be, but you just want to dive into it and be tossed around. I may have been the only person in L.A. that day who was excited about being stuck on the road for hours. The city is famous for its movie production, but the best picture is the city itself. Being trapped in the car gave me time to see more of the civilization hive.

Driving into L.A., we got off the highway and took on city streets. It was a nice way to get to know the city a bit better. Usually, we would stop for gas, food, and cigarettes when we exited the highway but there was a lot of construction in the city and many streets were closed or had lane restrictions. Lanes were reduced or detoured and there were signs everywhere saying that fines are double in the construction area.

Suddenly there was a cop car behind us. We noticed him immediately and told Juraj, who was driving: "Dude, don't freak out, but there are cops right behind us." "Not again," he responded and added: "Let's make sure not to give them any reason to pull us over." We weren't doing anything wrong, but clearly Matylda caused some suspicion and we were being followed for miles. It was nerve-wracking to have a cop on our tail for what felt like hours. Everyone was absolutely quiet and tried not to distract Juraj. He did his best not to give the cop the slightest excuse to pull us over, especially with the double fines looming over us. The cop finally turned off the road and we all were relieved.

Our worst experience with the police was still to come.

We drove downtown, found parking, and split into two groups. One group went to tour the Hollywood studios. The ticket was something like 36 bucks and I wasn't sure if my budget could take the hit so I decided to tour the city on foot. Milan joined me. First we went down Hollywood Boulevard to check out the Chinese theater and the famous stars. We even treated ourselves to a fast food breakfast. For some reason, people on the streets were very chatty that day and everyone was approaching us to strike a conversation. It felt like there was certain tie among people who were getting around on their feet rather than in a car. The world definitely appears different when you travel that way.

I didn't feel like doing anything else in downtown so we decided to climb up to Hollywood Heights and the Hollywood Bowl. It was a nice little hike and I really enjoyed seeing the houses and mansions on the hill. Most of the dwellings were enormous and their architecture was new to me, very glamorous and very fresh. The landscaping was out of this world and seeing live palm trees fulfilled a childhood fantasy. We wandered for hours as we ascended to the theater where we spent some time relaxing and watching people.

The fatigue of traveling for days hit me that afternoon and in a way I decided to take a day off from being a tourist. I read my Dostoyevsky and enjoyed lying on the ground doing nothing. In the late afternoon we headed back to meet up with the rest of the group. They said that the tour was amazing, which made me a little sad, but I didn't regret my decision since there was no telling what was ahead of me. You know what they say, "as many cherries and many sour cherries." If you don't get it, contact a friend, Youknowwhichone.

While we were sharing our stories from the day, it felt like there was a hint of sadness. Perhaps it was because we realized that our next stretch of road would take us east. It felt like when summer break tips over the halfway mark. Like a weekend where Friday and Saturday were amazing but the Sunday could be a toss-up. Traveling eastward meant starting the end-of-summer countdown.

Getting out of the City of Angles took us through Beverly Hills. We had all watched the famous TV show, the one with the famous ZIP code in its title. Young people all over the world did and to many it was what America was like and about. My meemaw was a regular viewer and once told me that she'd like me to be more like Brandon. It left me speechless, and my brother laughing at me for days. The infamous neighborhood was nothing special, just some nice houses and people who looked rather uninteresting. I felt a little cheated by the TV studios. The America I knew from films and TV shows was in many ways the America I was experiencing but in so many other ways it was nothing like that.

We got only a little bit outside of Los Angeles that day. It had been a long day and it was starting to drizzle. It was getting late and we needed to find a place to sleep. We pulled over at a gas station to do our routine, which could take anywhere from five minutes to an hour. We would normally get out one by one. Oftentimes people would turn their heads at the sight of the limousine and, when they saw a bunch of skinny, not really that clean looking kids, they would stay for the show. Several times the girls got cheers. Monika was the star. She is a gorgeous, tall blonde, and disliked the attention her height brought her. But during the trip she was a good sport and would joke about being 5' 23" whenever someone asked. On multiple occasions, we saw guys with dropped jaws after she exited the car. Once out of the vehicle, we worked as a well-oiled machine: someone got gas, someone else water and snacks while others used the restrooms or smoked.

This time, we pulled up next to a Bentley. It's really no surprise that Juraj was so bold; he never missed a change to get close to a cool ride. I was not really paying attention at first when Juraj struck up a conversation with the owner. Hearing that we were in the middle of a trip around the U.S. in a limo, the guy was in utter disbelief. He stared at us, shook his head, and stared at Juraj speechless, at first. But there we were. The guy opened up to us. He said that it was the worst day of his life and that he was stopping to get some booze. He had lost his job, his girlfriend, and his grandma due to lay-offs, a breakup, and cancer. He said he was losing it and was about to do something stupid. He said that hearing about our trip made him realize that everything is not over for him yet. "You guys are crazy. But thank you," he said and left.

The whole conversation lasted less than ten minutes. I've often thought about the guy and hoped he is doing well. I feel like there is a deep parallel between his experiences from that night and my ongoing experience. I have met several people in my life that profoundly affected its course. The encounters were often brief and to an outsider might appear meaningless. At times it was just the right phrase, an unexpected answer, or a smile. None of these can be planned or sought out. They are spontaneous connections with other humans.

One of these connections was with a teenager at McDonalds. We never even exchanged words, and he probably didn't notice my existence, but it had a considerable impact on me. I don't even know where this happened exactly. I think it was somewhere between the Badlands and Yellowstone, yet again, it was maybe somewhere around Reno. I'm certain it happened after we left L.A. It could have been anywhere, really.

We decided to stop for some fast food, which we rarely did, because it was too expensive. We were more likely to stop for specials like two plain burgers for $1. We drove onto another Indian reservation. It felt surreal and I didn't know what to expect. I was hoping to go back in time and see how life was centuries ago but that wasn't the case. It didn't appear any different than the rest of the country we had driven through. Not that we saw much of the reservation, but this was just a regular gas station with a McDonald's in it.

To my surprise there was a group of four young people inside speaking Czech. I was pretty sure they had also worked in a camp and were now traveling. I didn't talk to them though. My mom is someone I've talked to about it several times, but she doesn't get it. I've been living outside of the country I was born in for almost 15 years now and she will still ask me if I have any Czech friends here. It used to upset me. I do, but that's not the point.

In my opinion, the concept of a country is outlived. It doesn't necessary protect anyone, anyone's family slash tribe slash nation. On the contrary, we as people are so easily manipulated and controlled by meaningless labels such as national origin or nationality. It seems there is always a threat looming of someone coming over and changing the way you live. And many are inclined to believe the scary stories of those who spread the fear of otherness, so that they can control the people who give up their freedoms for the sake of "protecting" the status quo and making themselves more powerful and wealthy.

Anyway, back to the story. I just ate my two burgers with my friends at a McDonalds on an Indian reservation. There was also a group of locals, just eating and chatting. I felt more connected to this random group of kids than to the group of my countrymen. Among them was this kid who was a bit overweight, had quite a few pimples, and he came off as being very feminine in the way he talked and behaved. I noticed all of this, but it didn't matter. What mattered to me was how comfortable he was with himself. He was just a kid having a good time with his friends. It was a picture that somehow made up a big piece of the puzzle of what America is. To me, at that moment, America was a place where a bunch of kids can have a good time and feel safe being themselves. I didn't realize it fully at that moment, but after my return to the old country, I recalled the feelings I had during the encounter many times. The flashbacks would come in different situations which had one commonality – I became thirsty for living in a place where I can be myself. But these realizations came later, back in the fast-food chain, the encounter made me think about my family again.

My maternal grandparents both worked in factories. They worked the longest at a factory that produced sharpeners. There were small ones for kitchen knives and big ones used for industrial purposes. They carried up to 90-pound sharpeners throughout their eight-hour shift. It was hard labor, especially for women, and not many were willing or able to do the job. My baba worked there for 30 years until she retired.

Most of the stuff I know about my maternal grandparents is through my mother. They lived about two miles from us and we would see them frequently but I couldn't understand them very well. They spoke Hungarian at home and with my mom but I never learned the language. My mom says that when she was growing up she felt like she didn't fit in, partly because her parents spoke a different language. She didn't want my brother and me to ever feel like outcasts so she never taught us Hungarian. My grandparents spoke Czech, baba not really well, but pops was quite fluent. Our exchanges were limited to short phrases and they usually quickly switched to Hungarian.

Baba's parents died when she was young and her older sister raised her. They lived in southeast Slovakia, about five miles from Hungary. Everyone there spoke Hungarian. There wasn't much food to go around in the thirties, as the depression didn't discriminate against nationalities, so she decided to stop being a burden to her sister. At the age of seventeen she left the village to become independent. Along with dozens of young girls and boys, she walked west to find work. They walked for days and weeks. Some found jobs in bigger cities, others across the border in Germany or even further away. Baba found a job in a factory about 500 miles from where she started, just a few miles from where the Iron Curtain would be raised later on.

A few years later she met pops, who was serving in the army. He was from the same region and also an orphan. His father shot and killed his wife and then himself because she fell in love with another woman when pops was about four. Strangers raised him and his brothers and in return all three boys worked for them until they became of legal age.

My grandparents got married and had three daughters, my mom being the oldest. When she was a teenager they were given almost free house from the government but they had to move across the whole country to live there. It was an old flour mill whose owners hid guerrilla fighters during the Second World War. German soldiers encircled the house one night and there was no chance for the people trapped inside to make it out. When the Germans started throwing grenades, the guerilla fighters left the house to give the family a chance. They fought in the open field for a while but didn't last long. The family was taken to prison, interrogated, and executed as a warning to the locals.

After the war, nobody from the village wanted to live in the house. That's when my grandparents were given the house by the government for a bargain. I actually learned the story at school, as my family never talked about it. In the third grade we went on a school trip with a local historian and one of the stops was at the old mill. We were on a little hill overlooking my grandparents' house, listening to the historian talk about the tragic events that happened at the place where I played on weekends with my cousins. I remember spotting my baba in the garden picking fresh strawberries and running to her to say hi and to get some fresh berries. She was in pain that day and quickly sent me to re-join my classmates.

Baba used to have bad days occasionally and I didn't find out why until I was older. When she was fourteen, a young man fell in love with her but she didn't want him. Baba remembered liking his dark, bushy eyebrows and his chiseled face. She was attracted to him at first, but later realized that she didn't reciprocate his feelings.

He was desperate and joined the army. A couple of years later he returned and proposed. She said no again and he threw a grenade at her. She was babysitting her sister's kids and playing with them outside when it happened. She instinctively shielded the kid who was closest to the grenade and got most of the shrapnel. The kids were alright but baba had to get multiple operations throughout her life. She never complained, though.

The man escaped the law by running away to America. Having heard that story, I remember wondering how she could live in the old mill where so many lives were lost due to grenades. I asked my mom and she explained that my grandparents couldn't catch a break where they used to live so when they were offered the free house, it was their ticket out. They could live in a house instead of a tiny apartment. They could have a garden with a couple apple and sour cherry trees. They could make money to buy food and clothes for their daughters. In the end, they chose the sacrifice of living in a place many would consider haunted. Besides, they weren't superstitious people.

All of my grandparents lived rather long lives but this grandmother is the only one who is still among us.

***

As we traveled back to the east coast we felt optimistic that we would make it. Matylda hadn't given us any trouble since she got the new tires outside Reno and was driving like she was in her prime again. Our next stop was Las Vegas and I was determined to experience it. Even though my image of the city was a bit eerie, like my mom says, "He who is afraid, shits in his own bedroom."

We arrived in the morning and found a worn-out, two-story, definitely not included in any guidebooks motel on the main strip, a couple of miles from the big casinos. I don't remember the name of the place but I remember that my share for the room was $8. It wasn't the cleanest place and I wouldn't look under the bed but it provided a roof over our heads. After a quick shower with some, we found a laundromat and washed our clothes. We also cooked lunch. There were still some supplies left from our camps: a couple of canned soups and a camping stove that used small tablets. We decided to cook inside, in the bathroom sink to avoid burning the place down. It took forever and the soup ended up lukewarm, and that's quite an optimistic characterization, but we ate it anyway.

Having rested a bit, we all dressed up in our nicest clothes and headed out. We boys pulled out long pants and short-sleeved shirts, and the girls put on colorful dresses. We walked down the strip, watched a few free shows, and went into every casino possible. I remember watching a pirate ship show and taking pictures with people dressed like Cleopatra and Spartans. At some point Jitka separated from us to meet up with her boyfriend who was in town. We agreed to meet at 3 pm the following day in front of the Excalibur.

The rest of the group wandered around for several more hours. I remember eating at my first all-you-can-eat buffet. Briefly, it felt like the happiest moment in my life. I couldn't imagine why people would do anything but eat at a buffet. I suggested that we stay there the whole night and just eat. Nobody objected, but an hour later it became impossible to stuff more food down my throat and I had to give up on my genius plan.

After a wonderful dozen to fifteen course meal we decided to try our luck at gambling. There was a luxurious red convertible displayed as a grand prize in the lobby of one of the casinos. Someone said that it had to be worth at least $80,000. I was sure that it would be mine and pulled out $20, the maximum I could afford to lose.

Five minutes later those two Hamiltons were gone. I felt a bit like the first person in history that didn't get rich in Las Vegas. We wandered down the street and I remember seeing numerous fliers offering sex, mostly noticing them when looking under my feet and trying not to stumble on photographs of semi-naked male and female bodies. They looked gorgeous, many of them looked as attractive as movie stars, if not more. I couldn't wrap my head around it. It was strange to me that prostitution was advertised very openly. It seemed like that had not been the case in the other parts of the country I had seen. In some places you couldn't even buy beer! The notion of one country with such diversity inside it was pleasantly running through my mind. These thoughts were replaced by recalling the fliers while I was falling asleep in the motel. My dreams were wild that night.

We stayed out the whole night and slept until we had to check out. We had breakfast and wandered around a bit before we went to pick up Jitka. We were supposed to meet her at 3 pm in front of the casino. We waited and waited, with the person who was feeling least patient at the moment wandering around to see if she was on the other side or around the corner. "Dudes, it's been [whatever amount of time it was] hours," every now and then someone broke the silence. It was a hot afternoon and there was not much shade, but we waited.

After a while we started to lose patience. We talked about what to do but there were no viable suggestions so we just waited. The girls were pretty tight, no surprise, as they had spent ten weeks together at camp and formed strong friendships during the trip. Even Zoja, who had known Jitka since college, became visibly upset after a while. We had some time to kill, and some anger to fuel the conversation with a person who was not even present. "You're so #€%}* selfish! This is so disrespectful of you! What? You don't know why? Are you fucking kidding me? Oh, this is gonna be good. Let me tell you why! We are mad 'cause we made an agreement. And you broke it. We all had to follow a few very simple rules and had to trust each other's word. And now? You think we wanted to wait for hours in this damn heat? But we knew if we left, there would have been little chance of you finding us. That's why. Don't look at us like that. This is so ... I can't even speak right know. You realize how worried we were? No, don't even dare to open your mouth."

She showed up, eventually. Almost three hours late. The well-rehearsed conversation never took place but the group unanimously gave her the cold shoulder. She took it and we all silently walked towards Matylda, which felt like it was taking forever. We drove quietly for a while, but eventually everything went back to normal. "Jitka, are you thirsty? Do you want some Coke?" Monika asked. And when Jitka nodded, Juraj handed her a half-empty bottle of lukewarm soda. If you are stuck with someone, it doesn't make sense to stay mad forever. You forgive, make a compromise, and move on.

***

Our next stop was Lake Mead. We arrived late and couldn't enjoy the entire afternoon as planned. Thank you, Jitka! There were just a few other people there, probably because it was after the season and also a weekday. The water was amazingly warm and pleasant and we were swimming and diving in it till my skin wrinkled. When it started getting dark we used the BBQ pits to make ourselves dinner and soaked in the beautiful sunset. The sun was reflecting on the water and the hills across the lake were magically lit. It was a relaxing evening and we didn't feel like leaving. So we didn't. We slept well again that night and in the morning took off for the next adventure, one that we were all psyched about.

There are many unique and beautiful places in this country, and the Grand Canyon is at the top of that list for many people. We arrived relatively early and spent the entire afternoon running around and taking pictures. We even went on a short hike. One would think that walking for 90 minutes at a rapid speed you'd cover significant ground, but not in the Grand Canyon. We pretty much just stayed around the rim. We watched as people hiked the trip all the way down. This was something we all wanted to do but we knew we didn't have the time or equipment. Plus, we would probably have to stay until the following morning. It's a great reason to go back to this natural wonder some time again.

Of course, we couldn't miss the Desert View Watchtower for more views of this monumental place. I took some nice pictures but I don't think that photographs do much justice to the vastness and magic of the place. The backdrop of the canyon confirmed the idea that humans are nature's babies. It's a beautiful feeling and a huge responsibility. I try to remind myself of it every now and then – you know, a little reality check. The realization was one of the discoveries I made that summer. I gained a feeling of being a citizen of this earth. I became to see America, or any other country for that matter, primarily for the natural beauty combined with the perception of its people, rather than viewing a country through the lenses of politics and whatever the media spits on me. We left down East Rim Drive in the late afternoon as the sun started setting. The views were out of this world and we had to stop a few times. There is no way to describe it.

The following day, we drove to Arches National Park in Utah. The rock formations are magnificent and something that only nature can create. They are so unique. I couldn't stop taking pictures. We were joking among ourselves, as we would arrive at a place, quickly get out, see as much as possible, and then rush back to the car to go to the next thing. It wasn't exactly true, but it wasn't incorrect either. Often times, we had to rush and could not spend as much time as we would like to. There were too many things to see and too little time. But at Arches we stayed for a while to enjoy the scenery created by water and ice, extreme temperatures, and underground salt movement. The process is ongoing, with new arches being formed and old arches being destroyed. They say it took 100 million years of erosion to create the greatness and density of such formations. A hundred million years is a long time, but sometimes it takes time to achieve greatness, I guess.

Our next stop was Mesa Verde. We paid for a tour there and I was fascinated by the history of the place. I learned that tribes lived in cliff dwellings and that they survived using a combination of hunting, gathering, and farming. Their culture sounded so rich, complex, and unique. There were so many other cool facts about the Mesa Verdeans. I guess I could tell you some, or you could visit this national park yourself . I loved every moment of listening to the stories that I almost overlooked that Jitka started feeling unwell at some point and then even fainted. Zoja and Monika took care of her and it slipped my mind until years later when I found out that she had been pregnant.

There are two stories I often recall when people start presenting their views on somebody else's pregnancy. The first one I heard from my mom after my brother had his first sex ed class at school and he decided to share with me what he had learned. I'm not sure why my mom felt to tell us the story. There might have been something my brother or I did or said to bring it up, or she just wanted to stop me from chasing my brother around the house with tons of questions: _Can someone tell if I am a virgin or not? What is the clitoris thing supposed to do? So, can a woman get pregnant if she has sex with a man she doesn't love?_ And quite a few more.

Who knows what prompted my Mom to tell us about a lady in the little town where she grew up. The woman was a bit younger than my grandparents, never got married, but she was raising two kids who were about a year in age apart from each other. Both sons were teased by other boys and sometimes even by adults for not knowing who their dad was. Good and proper citizens of that town laughed at them — called them bastards and their mom a slut.

At some point the boys got fed up with being mocked constantly and pushed their mother into telling them about their dad. She refused for weeks, but they were no angels and found their way to pressure their mother until she gave in. She told them that she didn't know who the father of either of them was. During the war, when the country was occupied by Germans she worked in a local pub and one night when a group of German soldiers got drunk, and after the other patrons left the place, they forced themselves on her. One after another. One. Two. Three.

A few months later her own father found out about her being pregnant and soon after he kicked her out of their home, her first son was born. Just around Christmas. She found shelter with a distant relative in a small village not far from her hometown. After the birth she couldn't stay with her kid at home and had to get a job. The only place that would hire her was the same pub she had worked previously. WWII ended and the Germans was replaced by the ally troops, but not that much changed in the young woman's life, she was mostly just busy providing for her son.

One late evening when she was returning home from work, she was attacked by liberators in Red Army uniforms and was raped again. Four. Five. Six. Her younger son was born nine months later.

Around the same time, I remember overhearing my mom chatting with her sister about a neighbor of ours. My mom was telling my aunt that our neighbor just had another baby, because the committee didn't allow her to have an abortion. I wasn't really sure what some committee had to do with having or not having a kid. It got me quite curious though, so I asked my BFFs at school.

One of them, nicknamed Kwik, seemed to be more knowledgeable on the matter. "My mom went to the committee recently," he interrupted me sharing with my buddies what was on my mind. Kwik explained to all of us that if a woman wanted to get an abortion, she had to get permission from a committee. It made a bit more sense, but still not completely. It became clearer only after I researched the topic in our village library. It turned out that according to the law of the land _women had the possibility of deciding for themselves the question of motherhood. Permission for termination of pregnancy was granted on basis of medical or other reasons, which were loosely worded. Commonly these were understood as advanced age of the woman, already having other children - usually at least three, invalidism or loss of husband, threat to living standards, along with quite a few medical ones. Request for an abortion had to go through a local committee that consisted of one gynecologist and two lay people._

It made more sense why my mom was saying that our neighbor ended up trying to persuade the committee to sign off the papers almost a dozen times. Sometime she succeeded, other times not. She gave birth to seven boys, then she didn't become pregnant for years. And when she was in her mid-forties she got pregnant once more and gave a birth to a girl. Her daughter went to school with her brothers' kids and was nicknamed "Little Auntie."

I've recalled both of these stories many times over the years, especially when hearing others providing unsolicited opinions on a complex and personal situation someone else ends up in and pushing their own way of solving it. I simply can't see how the stories of these two women and of many others are relevant to the pro-choice versus pro-life labels. I don't see how much choice either of these women even had. And whose life does this term refer to? Their other children's, their parents', their unborn fetus's, their own?

I learned about Jitka's condition by accident, and this cannot be undone. Whatever my beliefs were or are on her pregnancy is irrelevant. Period. This applies to my thoughts about any other woman's pregnancy, contraception, and/or abortion. There are many reasons, but two stand out for me. First, it is a personal matter that has nothing to do with me. Second, as a man I can never be in the same situation. I will never face those decisions or their consequences.

It is easy to be moral about something that is biologically impossible to experience. It's all hypothetical and I can claim whatever I want, but in reality, I do not know what I would do. No man does. That's reason enough for staying quiet. I also wouldn't tell a war veteran with post-traumatic stress syndrome to get their shit together and or shame someone with this illness for losing their cool and kicking the crap out of a trashcan. I didn't experience what they did and I'm not in their shoes, so I zip it.

I was totally clueless back then about why Jitka was feeling sick and attributed it to the heat, exhaustion, and overall weariness. She seemed to recover and after finishing our tour of the mesa we decided to continue on, as we had several other things we wanted to see. We were all excited and in a great mood, but there were other plans waiting for us ahead.

***

As we were driving downhill away from the park, Matylda suddenly started shaking and making terrible noises. I knew right away that we were in real trouble. We quickly pulled over and Juraj inspected the car. It was bad. The front axle was about to fail, on the driver's side. For the next couple of miles we all squeezed on the right side of the car to ease the weight on the axle. Like it would help.

We had to stop again and everyone but Juraj got out of the car. We walked alongside as Juraj drove very slowly. Our hope was to make it to the nearest town and have her looked at. At some point Juraj stopped and wanted to inspect the car again because of some new noises. We needed a rock to put under our jack, but the one we'd been using wouldn't work so we had to look for a different one.

Suddenly, a park ranger stopped, asked us what we were doing, and we explained. He nodded to indicate he understood the situation then he told use we were not to disturb any of the rocks since we were in a national park. There were about four rocks that we picked up and we returned them to where they belonged. The moment I put down the rock I was carrying, the realization that we are in serious trouble hit me. The ranger left and we continued walking while Juraj drove until we got out of the park and the axle failed completely.

Juraj wasn't a happy camper. We were all down but he felt responsible for making the trip a success. There had already been many expenses with the car and he knew this one would cost him a lot. He called a towing company and Matylda was taken to the city of Cortez. We went to explore the town a bit but there wasn't much to do. We talked about changing our plane tickets and flying from Colorado back to Europe. It seemed like a good idea until someone pointed out that the girls had to leave some of their things, including some valuables, back at camp so that we could fit more food in the trunk. We had to go to Pennsylvania.

The girls went to a hotel and the rest of us just waited at the repair shop. It was late afternoon and the owner was kind enough to let us stay on his property and sleep in one of his cars, in an old broke-down minivan. We had to clean it first, at least to collect the shattered pieces of glass from the floor on which we spread our sleeping bags. It didn't take long and we were grateful for the shelter.

Juraj and I went for a walk. It had been a long day and we felt like spending some time away from the rest of the group. The girls were in the hotel and Milan was in the car. We walked around for an hour or so. There was not much to see, and it was getting dark, so before long we decided to call it a day.

We were almost back at the car, when suddenly there were cars squealing to a stop in front of the repair place. Exactly like in a movie. When the clouds of dust settled and I collected my mind a bit, I saw two police cars. Two cops were rushing towards us and two cops were hiding behind car doors, all of them aiming their guns at us. It might have been bright lights pointed at us, but my pores opened within seconds and streams of sweat started pouring down.

The two uniforms approaching us said that they got a call regarding trespassing and started asking questions. I couldn't say much beyond "yes" and "no, sir," but Juraj answered most questions on our behalf and explained that we had permission from the owner of the shop to stay on his property. They asked us to show them our IDs. Juraj reached for his passport which was in the fanny bag on his hip. As he was trying to get it, I saw panic in the cops' eyes. One of them grabbed his gun. I was pretty sure they were about to shoot us. I remember thinking, "This is it. That's the end of my short life." I wanted to stop Juraj but it was happening so fast that I couldn't. The motion Juraj was making with his hand looked exactly the same as if he was trying to reach for a gun.

Before anything bad could happen, the cops saw that he was holding a passport in his hand. "What brings you to the USA?" one of them barked at us and Juraj briefly explained, pointing at the documents supporting what he had just said. They quickly checked our identities and, without any additional questions, left. I couldn't move for several minutes. After my teeth stopped chattering and my knees stopped knocking, we proceeded to the car without uttering a single word. That night, I slept like I was reborn.

Fortunately, Matylda's latest problem was fixed the following day and off we were. The bad news was that there were other serious issues, the brakes were starting to misbehave again and the engine was loosing it strength in the hills, so we all agreed to head directly back to the Poconos, making as few stops as possible.

***

I remember stopping at the Hoover dam, a monumentally powerful, impressive feat of American civil engineering. We walked across it and looked down into the concrete abyss. Beyond that, nothing major sticks in my mind from the trip back. There were long stretches of beautiful country. I wished we had time to stop and explore it, but it wasn't an option. We drove for several days and nights, only stopping for gas and to use the restroom. We slept in the car and alternated drivers. I remember driving through Ohio. It seemed it was taking forever to cross that state but the scenery was enjoyable. The next state was Pennsylvania, our destination.

***

During our trip back to the east coast, I had plenty of time to write postcards to my friends and family. I thought of my parents and wished I could they could see this country. They were both born just a few years after the end of WWII. My dad was actually born in 1948, the year the communists took over, and my mom three years later. They grew up during hard times in the history of Czechoslovakia. It was a time when family businesses were nationalized, farms were taken away, jobs were assigned, and people were sent to prison and executed. In the 60s, when my parents were teenagers, the oppression eased and there was a brief hope for the return of democracy.

The Soviets didn't like that and, just as they had suppressed the freedom movements in Poland and Hungary; they sent their military to make sure it didn't happen in my country either. On the night of August 20, 1968, about 200,000 Warsaw Pact soldiers invaded to crush the Prague Spring, as we named this brief period of liberalization. People protested but they were no match for Soviet tanks. Fifty-eight innocent people were killed. A young student named Jan Palach set himself on fire to protest the invasion by foreign troops, but it was too late to stop the crushing powers already in motion. The liberal reforms of Alexander Dubček were repealed and thousands of people fled the country.

My dad thought about leaving but was serving in the army and it would be considered desertion, punishable by death. Plus it would have had a severe effect on the people left behind, so he decided to stay. My mom was only fourteen at that time. Her whole family was scared because her youngest sister, who was very little, was on summer break in Budapest visiting family and they couldn't reach her for a month. The political events were escalating and there wasn't much reliable news reaching small villages. My grandparents desperately wanted to get the whole family together and doing so took several months. My pops couldn't bear it any longer and, against the warning not to travel, he set off to get his daughter. They both returned safe and sound a few weeks later, and by then my aunt didn't speak any Czech after spending so much time with our Hungarian relatives. She cried for days and was terribly confused about where her home was, what language to speak, and who her family was.

Life went on despite Soviet occupation. My parents met in their mid-twenties and got married shortly after. They lived their lives trying to ignore the surrounding politics as much as they could. There were many things they couldn't escape: mandatory meetings, propaganda, shortages of many essentials, pressure to join the communist party, intimidation, the lack of basic freedoms. They had their lives, though. They built a house by themselves and raised my brother and me.

Then, one day, rumors started to spread. We had no idea what exactly was going on, but something was in the air. The next day was November 17, 1989. Things escalated quickly during what was later called the Velvet Revolution. Within a few days, the communist system collapsed. For several days without a break, my family and I devoured any information coming in from the TV and radio. We talked about everything late into the night. Our parents told us things from the modern history of our country that they had been afraid to tell us before. We heard about President Masaryk, about Charter 77, Havel, Dubček, the Prague Spring. None of it was in the textbooks. They talked about things they and their parents lived through. Much of it was new to me and I was thrilled to get a more complete picture of my family and my country.

Our family was frantic with excitement. Grandpa and meemaw were in tears. They had hope again that the land that their ancestors had worked for, for centuries, would be returned. And it was. Soon they had their land back. My grandparents, my brother and I rode on our tractor to our fields the following spring. Meemaw insisted on siting up high right next to Grandpa, and the rest of us were in a trailer being pulled behind the tractor. "I want be able to see everything," she reasoned. But I knew that it was the other way around, she wanted everyone in our village to see her. Grandpa slowed down a few times when we passed their friends. Meemaw's face was already lit but it intensified even more when up when she boasted: "We got our land back and are thinking about growing some beets and potatoes this year." They didn't even wait for a reaction before grandpa stepped on the gas. I never saw them happier. They didn't think they would live to see that happen.

My parents were happy about the changes too. They were around forty when this happened and their lives didn't change much. My brother and I tried to talk them into starting over, maybe moving to a city, or starting their own business. My mom gave it a try, but it didn't work out for her. My dad got a bit excited about his possible changes, but somehow felt much more comfortable in his old ways. They kept their old jobs and continued living the only way they knew how. Life for my generation is completely different than it would have been if it hadn't been for the events of that year. The fifty terrible years when the country was occupied first by Nazis and then by Soviets were over and freedom and democracy were reestablished in Czechoslovakia.

Maybe you are thinking, "why is he writing about himself, when his parents' and grandparents' life-stories are so much more interesting than his? Why isn't the book about his family?" Well, it is. This book is written about, because of, and for them. It's also for the dozens of not mentioned blood related family members, and my love - my lover - my life, my in-law family, my brother's son and his wife, the family of my choice – my friends.

***

We made it back to the girls' camp and everybody started making arrangements for their departures. I had four days left until my flight and Monika arranged for me to make some extra money. I painted cabins for two days. It was super easy and I made $50. Juraj took me to Walmart where I bought half a dozen items of clothing that I would draw the attention of many people back home because they were so unique. They were just regular hoodies with words in English on them, but back then items like that were difficult to get in the old country. I would wear a few of them for years. My favorites were plain white t-shirts though.

I had one last encounter with an armed person after we returned from our trip. We went to a nearby park one afternoon. There was a short trail and some nice waterfalls. A few families, mostly with kids, were there enjoying a midweek afternoon. I don't remember talking to anyone – just sitting, watching the falls, chatting with Juraj.

Out of nowhere, a middle-aged guy showed up. He was a regular joe, wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, and sunglasses. The guy made sure we noticed the gun holster at his side with a deadly weapon in it. He barked at us, "Show me your IDs!" When he checked our passports he told us that we were not welcome at the park, without offering any further explanation. We didn't argue and left, but it hurt deep inside. I didn't have a single doubt about how an encounter between an armed man and a foreign student would have ended.

I did nothing wrong but it didn't matter – he was a man with a gun. The basic difference between a man with a gun and one without a gun is that the one who has a weapon is right, regardless of the truth. Some people, when there are no more words, facts, and arguments left, employ weapons to force on others their point. Probably out of frustration or fear, or both. Guns bring them a false feeling of being right; without them they feel scared and weak. These things combined can lead to incredible tragedy.

I believe that there are very few truly evil people. Most bad ones are just people who have no strength left to fight for being good, those who have given up on being good. I felt angry with the guy who kicked us out of the park but that feeling has been replaced with being sorry for him. The vast majority of my encounters with people in this country were amazing. Even if there were misunderstandings, there was never any malice other than this incident. I will always remember the good, and a few things that were not so good, with the instance just described being plain disappointing. This person whose animosity left me speechless 'cause I choose to not let him spoil my memories.

The drive back from the falls was the last time I ever saw or sat in Matylda.

***

The day after we arrived back at camp I was sitting outside of our cabin and looking at bus schedules to New York, when my thoughts got interrupted by loud: "Hey, brother. You made it back home," followed by a grinning face of an old friend giving me a hug. It was Vladimir. He heard that a group returned from a trip and came to see if it was someone he knew. It was awesome to see my old friend. Neither of us had expected to meet ever again. Vladimir was supposed to be back in Belarus, but had been postponing the return as long as he could. Luckily for him, the camp was able to give him a job and he made much more money that summer that he had hoped for. At the same time, he got homesick towards the end of his stay and was looking forward to leaving in a few days.

He was showing off a pair of brand new sneakers but he looked quite worn out. Dark circles around his eyes and extra pounds on his very athletic body struck me right away. When I enquired about how things were, he admitted that there was almost no food left and he was eating mostly plain pasta. When I told Monika, she filled a bag with groceries and gave it to me to pass on to him. I went to visit the following day and there was hardly anybody there; just a couple of maintenance guys getting the camp ready for winter. It was a bit sad, as my memories were of a place buzzing with people's voices and laughter, and occasional screams. I gave my farewell to Vladimir and quickly left.

***

I woke up very early on the day of my departure as the walk was almost 5 miles to the bus stop. I ate a small meal, said my goodbyes, put on a 50-pound backpack filled with all my belongings and gifts for the family, and off I went. I walked on a small road surrounded by peaceful trees and I felt content. Rudenėja was in the air. Autumn has taken over summer and the harvest month has arrived: fog would put a blanket on all the living for the night; and in the morning sun rays would burn it out, while the dew was weighing spider webs down, and making leaves of grass sparkle for the last moon cycle before they die. Nature was proud to show her colors in plain sight, and postured with his fruit in front of all who cared to open their eye. Little critters and bigger ones were hustling to get themselves stronger for what was to arrive, so that they had a fighting chance to survive. That summer was over, but it woke me alive.

Voilà!

It was time for me to go back home though, time to let the experiences sink in, to process them, and make changes in my life. I walked for a couple hours before reaching the bus stop. There was a small store next to the gas station where I stopped to buy some water. When leaving the store's owner told me "Take care." I didn't expect to hear that and responded with the default English phrase I had memorized in my class: "Bye-bye." At that point a realization hit me like a lighting and I knew that my trip was over. There was something sincere in his words, something that only simple and frank words can convey.

I have no recollection whatsoever of how I got to the airport, but I made it all the way back to Prague, to my old life that would never be the same after the summer of 1998 in the United States of America. Such a cliché, I know. But the trip changed my life and me in a most profound way. At that point I didn't realize exactly how the trip altered my life and in some ways I am still pondering it even today. I stopped trying to figure out where people came from and stopped forming opinions about them based on their place of origin. I started to smile more often. I realized I want to see more of this beautiful planet and meet many more people of all imaginable backgrounds and experiences. I became thirsty for diversity. Also I became more optimistic about my own future, as I saw that it's possible to become truly happy. I didn't know how, but somehow I calmed down completely when I realized that it's all gonna be all right, that I can and will figure it out.

We traveled about seven thousand miles and visited twenty states, around a dozen parks, and numerous tourist sites and attractions. To some, the numbers might seem impressive but, it never was about quantity for me. I believe that that the value of traveling lies in how the experience affects you, how it challenges your comfort zone and ways of thinking, how it makes you want to be remembered after you're gone. If you need it to, it can help restore your faith in humanity as well.

I'm not driving Matylda anymore, and I don't know what happened to her. There is probably nothing left of her. She could have been recycled and there is a tiny possibility that something in your household is partly made out of her. However, this can be true for one reader of this book, and even that is extremely unlikely. I have no way of finding out where she ended up and that's fine. She will be remembered as part of the journey where I first started searching for an answer to the question, "What is America?"

I still don't have an answer and continue searching. Mostly, I just walk the streets, sit in bars and restaurants, hike the mountains, work, hang out with my friends and family, and talk to people. Listening to their stories seems to be getting me closer to finding an answer. But it might be a rather long trip. I hope it is.

Needless to say, to this very day, there is a part of me that still believes that everyone drives a limo in America.

###

Thanks for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, take a moment to leave a review at your favorite retailer please.

Thanks!

Filip
About the Author:

To a casual observer, I may appear to be a fully functioning member of society with an advanced degree, a fulfilling career, loving friends and family, and an obvious midlife crisis that I'm overcoming by trying something new – writing. Previously I hardly ever enjoyed writing, often times even disliked it, and occasionally even, yes, the H-word-ed it. A few years ago my attitude toward this creative art started changing. I guess, having mastered writing shopping lists, Facebook posts, and whatever-nots they required in school, left its mark. And now I scribble, cross out, replace, re-write, curse, rearrange, and jump out of the bed in the middle of the night to note down a thought on daily basis. I admit – the craft of writing makes me whole.

I am originally from the Czech Republic, and have lived in the USA since 2003. I studied Russian language and literature and at University of Texas at Austin and at Charles University in Prague; and have been teaching world languages for about twenty years. My writings have been predominantly academic, and the memoire _Matylda: And I Thought Everyone Drives a Limo in Amerika_ is my literary debut. I currently live in Seattle, WA.

Connect with Me:

Personal Website: http://fzachoval.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/filip-zachoval-2a88ab8b

Smashwords: <https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/fzachoval>

FB: <https://www.facebook.com/Matylda-328096520909514/>
Acknowledgments:

Naomi Gebo

Lydia De Jorge Gotós

Markéta Navrátilová

Jason Norman

Suzanne Morrison

Brent Payton

Hana Píchová

Silvie Vavřínová

and everyone else who have inspired or influenced me.
Reading Group Guide:

1. For the person who chose this book: What made you want to read it? What made you suggest it to the group for discussion? Did it live up to your expectations? Why or why not?

2. What do you think motivated the author to share his life story? How did you respond to the author's "voice"?

3. Memoirs can be written for a variety of different purposes, such as clearing up a misconceived notion, gaining fame and notoriety, promoting something, or trying to make sense of an experience that left a mark on the author. What category does this book fall into?

4. Does the book have a central theme? If so what? Does it have many themes? If so how do they interlink?

5. Was there a specific passage that had left an impression, good or bad? Share the passage and its effect.

6. Was there something especially surprising about this person's story? What was it and why?

7. Were there any instances in which you felt the author was not being truthful? How did you react to these sections?

8. What is the significance of numbers – especially 6, 3, and 2 in this book?

9. Was there a lesson could be taken away from this person's life? What was it and why is it important?

10. Did it expand your range of experience or challenge your assumptions (for example did it take you to a place you haven't been before or help you see a place you know in a different light?)

11. What was the purpose of this book?

12. What did you like or dislike about the book that hasn't been discussed already?

13. Would you read a sequel that describes the author's trip to Russia?
