ANOTHER FORREST GUMP WEEK

I had been on the lots of Columbia and Warner Bros. because my older brother was an Editor in Hollywood. He had done the “Trailers” (coming attractions) for “Jaws,” “Gandhi,” “Superman,” “Bird on a Wire,” “ The Exorcist,” “Howard the Duck,” and hundreds more. I had visited him on these lots on several occasions. I had also been recruited as an “Extra” in “Ordinary Hero,” “Deliberate Stranger,” and in local films and commercials. So going to the studios in Warsaw was strictly a fact-finding mission for me.

True to Polish form, the staff was there to meet me, show me around, and provide me with all the information Mr. Norris had required. I also gathered information regarding studios in Krakow (by the Carpathian Mountains), and the film festival in Gdansk.

Later, when I had returned home, I was able to watch some of the movies made in Poland as Solidarity emerged, such as “Man of Iron.” They were all in Polish, but the style of film was very American-like: not Italian-artsy, or French-weird, or British-stiff; but more like American film than any other foreign films I had ever seen.

I left on the afternoon Express train to Gdansk, and arrived fairly late that night. I was asked by the clerk at the “Hell” hotel why a British Subject had an American passport. I laughed, because I knew exactly why he was asking this. I had been making a concerted effort to pronounce my English with deliberate articulation and enunciation so that the regular slur of American English would not interfere with the Poles’ ability to understand the words “coming out of my mouth” (to quote a movie phrase). I explained – with an American accent – that I spoke the way I did, because I was sure that no one would be able to understand my American English because it was so rapid, and so inarticulate. My point was made, and he thanked me for my consideration.

I fell asleep fast, because my appointment in the morning was down the street at Solidarity headquarters where I was to meet with Lech Walesa. I woke up, drew a bath, and went to brush my hair up into a pony-tail so it wouldn’t get wet, when I discovered to my horror that I forgot to bring my hairbrush. I had left it in my hotel room in Warsaw! I was furious with myself. My hair hung down to my waist in very large natural curls, which is just great when it’s brushed – but I had been sleeping on it in the damp air, and it now had additional bends in it. Aggghhhh!!!!

I quickly got on the phone to the Concierge, and learned there were no “extra” hairbrushes in the hotel -- not even in the gift shop -- (looked like the free markets had a ways to go). They would be glad to call me a cab so I could drive around the streets of Gdansk at dawn to try and find a shop or kiosk that sold them. OK – I had a couple of hours before my appointment, so I hurried and got dressed and dashed downstairs to the waiting cab.

Of course, the cabbie only spoke as much English as I spoke Polish, so it was very difficult to tell him what I needed. He finally understood my very poor charade (I always loose at that game), so he drove me to all the nearby stores (2 to be exact – that’s all there were), and either they were not open, or they did not sell hairbrushes. So we tried beauty salons, but all they wanted to do there was CUT my hair – and although I had to agree that it probably needed a trim, I just didn’t have the time. So back I went to the hotel – downtrodden – with even messier hair than I had started with, because the wind off the Baltic Seas was howling.

I went back up to my room to gather all the stuff I’d need for the entire day. The plan was that after I met with Walesa, I was to go with a Medical Doctor – Thoracic Surgeon – to tour the health facilities and equipment they were dealing with there in Gdansk. I opened the closet, and there sat a LINT brush. Aha! I could “brush” my hair with a LINT-brush. I was saved, except that my hair is so thick, that I break regular brushes in it – and so the lint-brush was really only good for smoothing down the outer-layer of my “do.”

I “molded” my hair into a pony-tail on the top and off to one side of my head (my heavy hair gives me a headache when it’s on the center of my head), and smoothed the outer layer with this lint-brush, and then consoled myself that it was so windy outside that it just didn’t matter what I did with it. Brush, or no brush, I’d still look like a crazy woman. I encouraged myself by saying that I looked “trendy,” (what a lie).

Before I left, I checked to see if Martha had left a message. She had. She would be traveling back to Gdansk from Krakow, and she and her new-found friends, Piotr and Pino (artists in Gdansk) would be meeting us both for dinner at 7:00P – I had something fun to look forward to!