MARCH MADNESS AT THE US EMBASSY

Warsaw and her people were so easy to fall in love with. They had a sense of humor far superior to any “Pollack” joke, and were more like Americans than any other culture I had encountered in my European experience. We immediately related to these people. In a briefing with the Minister of Agriculture, John – the cattleman – asked what kinds of cattle they raised in Poland: “Black and White” answered the Minister. Later that night, it was “March Madness” and as spoiled Americans, we were kind of put out that we would not be able to watch the basketball play-offs. So we arranged with the Ambassador to go to the Embassy to watch the play-offs. The instructions were to go to the Polish guard and have him ring up the Marine Guard to let us in. So, armed with the 5-digit extension number, we wandered over to the US Embassy and went into the Polish guard’s little room outside the gates. When we tried to give him the number for the Marine guard, it became clear that he did not speak any English (What? A guard at the American Embassy who doesn’t speak English??). So we showed him the numbers. Now, numbers are the same in both English and Polish, but the Poles write so differently, that the guard was not sure which numbers we were showing him. So five men from our group gathered around the phone and each pointed to a number on the dial (yes – it was a dial phone) for the guard to dial in succession, while Judd Blakely stood off to the side and muttered: “How many Pollock’s does it take to dial a phone?”

Well aren’t we funny! Just to be clear, Poles have their own jokes about themselves. One of the best jokes I heard came from Kuba. He told me a favorite Polish joke that really captured the Polish cultural view of their tumultuous history:

“The Polish Army has one test they administer to the new recruits to determine if they are officer material, or regular army: ‘If you find yourself fighting a Russian on one side and a German on the other, who do you shoot first?’

The correct answer for an officer is: ‘The German!' Every officer knows that business always comes before pleasure.”

Of course, this makes me laugh whenever I remember the time I was eating breakfast in the Maria hotel restaurant in Warsaw at a later date, and sitting at a table next to me was a contingency of German businessmen, telling jokes about Americans (we’re not funny!).

The universal lesson here, is
• The family of man is more alike than unalike, and
• No one is above a joke – earned, or not, and
• Pride might be the best target for those jokes.

ANYWAY – we finally got the Marine guard to let us in to the quarters upstairs, above the Embassy Offices. There was a “Pimp & Prostitute” party going on, and the Sergeant of the Guard was dressed up as a Prostitute. His costume and makeup was so good that some poor, drunk Marine tried to pick him up, until that girl (Sergeant) gave him an order. He was embarrassed back into sobriety!

To re-cap:
While in Warsaw, we set about to learn some new Polish words:
• The word for work is “robot;”
• The word for sky-cap is “bagazojev:” (We reduced this to “Bagazonie” because it was funnier)
• The word “Poland” means prairie: as in “the wind came sweeping down,” causing us to always land side-ways down the runway in Warsaw;
• Solidarity is “Solidarnosc;”
• The word for “businessman” is businessman; and
• The word for joint-venture, is joint-venture.

All the while, Studibert continued to bask in his own self-glory. Judd, who was the instigator of the trade mission, was beginning to grumble against Studibert along with the newsman from Hong Kong. I couldn't understand at the time, why they were unhappy with Studibert . . . I would soon find out.