Queen Anne Hill - Seattle, Washington
Written on the 8th of May, 2013

While you are reading this I am in Prague for a month on a book tour.
While away I will post pictures and thoughts about my adventures on my Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/robertleefulghum
I’ve left behind a series of unpublished stories from previous experiences with the Czechs – to be posted on this website every few days.
I will be back from Prague shortly, with tales of Czech adventures.

This last posting was actually written in Seattle, but from what I’ve seen of the same age group in Prague, it applies to Czech students as well:

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MIDDLE

One day last week I drove past a middle school just as classes ended for the day. As the young trudged away from the school burdened by their bulging back packs, they seemed like a defeated army in retreat.

The raw recruits of the First Junior High Demolition Division, having lost another round in the Battle of the Brains, ravaged by hormones and hunger, were headed home to the trench warfare of family life.

A fleet of yellow busses was lined up in front of the school, with a cluster of students in front of each one waiting to board. Despite the sullen grimness of the general mood, and the ragged appearance of most of their uniform clothing, one small group was laughing while they waited, and another small group was singing as they boarded their bus.

As I watched them, I remembered . . .
Bobby Lee. Thirteen. Seventh Grade. West Junior High. Yellow Jackets. (Really, the school mascot was a wasp) Black and white and yellow.
Mrs. McClung. Algebra. Lucy. Jack. Coach.
Shall I sing the school song? I can.
Shall I tell you far more than you would ever want to know about that time in my life?
I can. But won’t.

How about the dark angel of puberty?
Remember that? Ohmygod . . .

And - (let’s use the least inflammatory words) - remember the transactions you had with your parents in those years?
I was a door slammer.
So were they – that’s how I learned the technique.

The image of the trudging young has stayed alive in my mind for days now.
I see them all over the world when I travel.
And every time I’ve mentioned the experience and asked adults if they remember middle school, the same thing happens:
They smile, roll their eyes a little, and laugh.
Then they will gladly tell me far more than I ever want to know about that time in their lives. They, too, can sing their school song.

It’s a powerful, provocative episode in growing up and on.
Thirteen and in the middle.
Technically a teenager, but half child, half young adult.

Have I made much progress since I was their age?
It’s not yet completely clear.

They have identity problems and wonder who they are.
And so do I.

They’re alarmed by the relentless drives and mysteries of sexuality.
So am I.

They’re worried about what’s happening to their bodies.
So am I.

They wonder why everybody doesn’t like them.
So do I.

They want to fit in and be exactly like everybody else, while at the same time they want to be seen as special and unique.
Me, too.

The person they know themselves to be on the inside is not the person the world thinks them to be from the outside, and they simultaneously want the world to see them as they really are - and never ever find out the truth.
So do I.

They don’t understand the opposite sex – or what opposite really means.
Neither do I.

And they feel caught in the middle between being a kid and being an adult.
So do I.

They wonder what will become of them when they grow up.
And so do I.

They wonder how and when and why they will die.
Me, too.

And the heaviest weight they bear is not their backpacks.
It’s the sense that their lives are in the hands of forces over which they have no conscious control: culture, custom, genes, hormones, the electro-chemical activity of their brains, sunspots, teachers, peers, the internet, and parents.

Me, too. (Having dead parents doesn’t take them out of your life.)

The only truly obvious difference I can see between the middle school scholars and me is that I don’t have a back pack.
I want one.
But if I put all my stuff in it, I couldn’t pick it up or carry it very far.
I have way more stuff now than I did when I was in middle school.
And my stuff now is just as important to me as their stuff is to them.
Nobody understands that – least of all me.

Once again the passing parade of 13-year olds comes to mind.
I wish I could tell them something that would make their burdens lighter.
What do I know now that I didn’t know then?

That the essential nature of being human will not change much over time?

You will always be caught somewhere in the middle between where you’ve been and where you’re going, between what you have and what you want.

It’s called Now - and it isn’t a place, it’s a condition.

Being alive is not a destination, it’s a place on a moving bus.

You will always have more questions than answers.

You will never get yourself or the world all figured out.

You will never ever really know what other people think about you.

You will never ever really understand what you think about yourself.

And -You are not as alone as you think, but it always seems that way.

You will always be in the middle.
Between the facts and confusions, between the joys and cruelties of life.
All this will weigh on your mind as long as you live.

Life will always be a load to carry.
But most of the time you can do it.
This is your life as it is, and there’s no place to go but on.

You’ll get used to it.
And will understand some day that you’re in middle school all the way to the end of your days.
That’s not bad news.
It’s just the way things are – for all of us.

One more thing:
Some who wait for the bus are laughers and singers.
Travel with those people whenever you can.

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Queen Anne Hill - Seattle, Washington
Written on the 8th of May, 2013

While you are reading this I am in Prague for a month on a book tour.
While away I will post pictures and thoughts about my adventures on my Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/robertleefulghum
I’ve left behind a series of unpublished stories from previous experiences with the Czechs – to be posted on this website every few days.

This one, for example:

THE BLANK CZECH

In a countrywide survey asking who is the most famous and important Czech, Jara Cimrman was the winner.
To know why is to understand something very essential about the Czech mentality.

Jara Cimrman was forgotten until 1966 when he was rediscovered by two men – a radio journalist named Zdenek Sverak and a theater director, Ladislav Smoljak.
It seems that a trunk full of the records of his Cimrman’s life was accidentally found in the village of Liptakov.
On the basis of that evidence, it was clear that Cimrman was one of the most extraordinary Czech personalities of all time.

Unfortunately, he was always behind – a bit late.
He was the third man to discover the North Pole.
He had the same ideas of Einstein, but, alas, a few days later.
He invented the light bulb, but only a week after Edison.
He would have been a great military hero, but the battle was always over by the time he arrived.
He was also the third man to invent ice cream and beer.

Thirteen plays have been written about Cimrman, and many unauthorized biographies as well.
If you ask any Czech, they will all tell you stories about the adventures and accomplishments of this remarkable man.
Sadly, he’s still unknown to the world because he was always late – always came in third place.

As you may suspect, Cimrman never existed in the flesh.
He exists in the imagination of his two “discoverers” and continues to have a life because he has been a part of the imagination of the Czech people for more than forty years.

Any Czech will tell you “Cimrman lives!”
I saw it written on a wall.
Written by Cimrman himself.

There are plaques in some places saying “Cimrman Did Not Sleep Here” and “Cimrman Would Have Been Here, But He Was Late.”
A group of “Cimrmanologists” quote long passages from his plays and find new evidence of his many third-rate achievements.
Someday, some say, Cimrman will be elected President.
But only if the person with the third place in voting will be chosen.

There is only one known photo of Cimrman, and a partial one at that – a picture taken in 1909 - of one of his legs.
Cimrmanologists are in dispute over whether it is his right or left leg.
Or perhaps he had only one leg?
Or, as would be very cimrmanistic, three?
Some Czechs say is his middle leg.

I wanted to meet Cimrman.
And I did - saw him in the faces of the Czechs when they told me his stories. They could not keep from smiling and laughing when they shared the ongoing tales.
For example, it has been recently learned that this greatest of all Czechs invented the CD – Cimrman’s Disc.
Cimrmanoligists pursuing geneology discovered that this Czech hero is the great-grandfather of Bob Dylan, whose real name is Zimmerman – the German spelling of Cimrman.
And they are pleased when I bring news of Cimrman from his adventures when he traveled to the United States.

It is easy to like a people whose greatest national hero does not exist.
They are all descendants of Cimrman, the father of the country. 

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Queen Anne Hill - Seattle, Washington
Written on the 8th of May, 2013

While you are reading this I am in Prague for a month on a book tour.
While away I will post pictures and thoughts about my adventures on my Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/robertleefulghum.
I’ve left behind a series of unpublished stories from previous experiences with the Czechs – to be posted on this website every few days.

This one, for example:

SCARY?

At the annual Czech Book Fair I had an encounter with a little girl – about five years old.
After addressing an audience of readers, there was the usual time for questions and answers.
The little girl stood up on the seat of her chair and raised her hand.

“Yes?”
“Is it true that you are a writer?”
(She spoke in Czech, and we conversed with the help of an interpreter.)

“Yes.”
“What do you write?”
“Stories.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“Tell me a story.”
“What kind of story would you like?”
“Scary.”

And so I unwound a tale I had told when similarly challenged by my grandchildren. The scariest story I know. About long, thin, pencil snakes that come in through the windows at night in search of little children with their eyes still open. The snakes crawl toward them . . .

“Are you getting scared,” I asked the little girl.
“No. Keep going,” she said.

And so I went on – about how the long thin pencil snakes with the very sharp teeth attack the eyes and slowly eat their way into the brain.

“Are you scared yet,” I asked the little girl.
“No. Keep going,” she said.

I continued, telling how the long thin pencil snakes eat the brains and then crawl back out through the ears and go away. And in the morning the little children act stupid and their mothers ask, “Have you no brains?” and the children don’t.

“Now are you scared?” I asked the little girl.
Courageously, she stood her ground.
“No!”

The little girl’s father moaned:
“Well I’m scared. Please don’t go on.”

And the adult audience laughed in relief.

The little girl, however, sat down, clearly unimpressed with the limited imagination of the American writer who could not scare her.

She gave her father a proud, confident look.
Why should I be surprised?
The little girl is Czech.
The historic record shows that her people don’t scare easily. 

link to this story

Queen Anne Hill - Seattle, Washington
Written on the 8th of May, 2013

While you are reading this I am in Prague for a month on a book tour.
While away I will post pictures and thoughts about my adventures on my Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/robertleefulghum
I’ve left behind a series of unpublished stories from previous experiences with the Czechs – to be posted on this website every few days.

This one, for example:

LANGUAGE REQUIREMENTS

One Sunday I was driven a long way out of Prague to the deep woods of South Bohemia to speak to more than 1,000 Czech Rover Scouts gathered in an outdoor encampment.
They were between the ages of 15 and 18.
Boys and girls together - like the Adventure Scouts in the USA.

They were all born after 1989 – after the Velvet Revolution and the fall of communism.
Their parents were forced to learn Russian – the language of those who occupied their country.
Now the young people want to learn English.
And they’ve done that well – no interpreter was needed for my talk.

In a question-and-answer period one Scout asked me how many languages I thought a person should speak.

After some thought, I said: At least five:

First, the language of your own people and culture and history.

Second, the international language of your time – English.

Third the language of love and romance – often non-verbal.

Fourth, the world language of the human race – music.
And, fifth, the language of the cosmos – which has no words.

The latter is a language composed of the unspeakable feelings of amazement and wonder we feel at being part of an infinitely astonishing universe.
One must stop and be still to know it.
It is the language of awed silence.

The Scouts nodded and smiled.

They already speak all five languages - fluently.

link to this story

Queen Anne Hill - Seattle, Washington
Written on the 8th of May, 2013

While you are reading this I am in Prague for a month on a book tour.
While away I will post pictures and thoughts about my adventures on my Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/robertleefulghum
I’ve left behind a series of unpublished stories from previous experiences with the Czechs – to be posted on this website every few days.

This one, for example:

KISSING WITCHES

Late one night my Czech publisher and I drove narrow twisty roads out into the countryside, bound for a May Day Eve bonfire with Witches in the small village of Pelestrov.

In the darkness we could see a great fire, but there were no Witches.
We were told they had adjourned to a local pub for Witches’ brew.
Inside the pub were maybe fifty people, drinking beer, dancing to live music, and drinking some more beer, as is the Czech custom.

About these Witches.
What does a Witch look like?
It’s a subtle thing.
All the ones I saw looked like standard-model middle-class Czech
women in standard-model middle-class Czech party clothes.
No brooms or black capes or snaggly teeth or warts.
Babes is what they were.
Perhaps it is best left at this: If you say you are a Witch, and want to play at being a Witch from time to time, then you probably are a Witch.
Who is to argue?

In a moment I was swept up into the dance with several substantial Witches, and urged to drink as many glasses of slivovitz (Czech white lightning made from plums) as possible before midnight, when, as is the May Day Eve tradition, blossoms from an apple tree were produced, and held overhead.
At that point one must kiss as many Witches as are on offer.
For luck.
And I felt lucky.

I personally kissed six of the biggest Witches.
Well, I exaggerate. I kissed four large ones and two smaller ones.
After playing the guitar (badly) and singing along (even more badly) and drinking another round of slivovitz, and going outside to be personally introduced to two small horses, I was taken away, babbling, according to my friend, Eva, who may be a Witch-in-training.

To say that the hospitality of Witches in a small Czech village is overwhelming is a substantial understatement.
But the night was not over.
Hurtling along on the freeway on the way back to Prague, we came upon a disaster.

Imagine that you are a Witchy-woman driving home on late at night – returning from a Witcheroo.
Suddenly, your car is struck broadside without warning - attacked by a pig the size of a baby rhino.
This would explain the pie-eyed look on the face of the Witch we saw standing beside her car.

The pig, it turns out, was a large wild boar.

What, I wonder, got into the mind of the boar and sent him hurtling into the side of that car at midnight?
A bad day with Mrs. Boar and the boar-lettes?
A Witch’s spell?
A bet with his fellow boars that he couldn’t get across the highway between cars?
A sudden deranged revulsion at global warming?
A fermented pile of acorns?
An urge to enter the Monaco Grand Prix?
What?

Alas, we will never know.
The late boar lay quite still in bloody disarray alongside the freeway.
And what will the Witchy-woman tell her husband when she gets home?

Imagine the conversation.

“Hello, dear, how goes the Witching?”
“You’re not going to believe this . . . on the way home . . . this giant pig came out of the woods . . . and attacked the car. . .”

He didn’t believe it.
You probably don’t either.
But I do - I was there.
I think . . .

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