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We finally got back home, but not before we got to experience an aborted landing in Dallas. Other than the fact that the airport was socked in with clouds that could pass for fog (we descended for what seemed like an hour – and I never did get a glimpse of the ground), the pilot came on the intercom after an amazing surge of power to take us straight up into the air and explained that we had been instructed to land on a runway that already had another aircraft on it. It was nearly a Western Airlines catastrophe that had occurred many years earlier in Mexico. Again, the thought crossed my mind that I had traveled so far from home, and witnessed so much just to have it all end in Texas – it was unacceptable.

But when we landed and connected to our flight into Salt Lake City, I was so relieved to be home and to see that all my boys had fared well in our absence. I was still absolutely tingling with all I had soaked in from our encounters with the Eastern European heroes of our day. Even though I had passed through that portal-membrane that tends to strip all good intentions away from the minds of the good-intended, I was quickened with the desire to give the experience some meaning through actions.

I told everyone I knew where we had gone and what we had done. I pulled every string I could grab and met with CEOs, working-stiffs and good friends to try and get some Western enterprise back over to that emerging nation-market.

I will summarize here that since that initial trip, I kept my promise to the people of Poland that we had met in March of 1990. I went back to Poland with many businessmen: opened doors and helped create those promised joint ventures.

I brought in environmental specialists to help clean up the toxic pollutants left by the communist-run industries.
• I put together a venture with an American businesswoman and polish crystal exporting;
• Reported back on the film industry in Poland to Chuck and Aaron Norris;
• Helped resolve a strike of the air-traffic controllers in Warsaw;
• Worked as the catalyst for changing Polish law in Parliament on foreign grant money coming into the country;
• Worked on the successful election of Lech Walesa as President of Poland; and
• I partnered up with USAID (United States Agency for International Development), Solidarity and the University of Michigan to execute a 2-day seminar in Gdansk for all the healthcare professionals in Poland, where they were taught how to revamp their existing healthcare system. It was here that I met Alina Pienkowska, one of negotiators to the strike of 1980, and co-founder of Solidarity.

The adventures and melo-dramas to accomplish these few items is the Forrest Gump part I played. For the good I truly wanted to impose in Poland, I was met with death-threats from my good friend Studibert, backed up by Frank, and a nasty divorce from Fred. But everlastingly, the men and women I met in Solidarity stayed true and courageous as they unfaltering brought about the sweeping changes they needed to enjoy their God-given free agency.