Matching Tracksuits

Every tobacco product in Poland has a warning, much like in the States. Polish warnings tend to be more targeted than those in the US.

Mothers

“Smoking seriously hurts you and those in your presence.”

Individuals Who Place Great Value on Their Physical Appearance

“Smoking tobacco accelerates the aging of your skin.”

People Who Are Terrified of Pain

“Smoking tobacco can cause a slow and painful death.”

People Who Need It Straight

“Smoking kills.”

Between the recurring rain — eternal, daily, multiple-times-during-some-days-all-day-other-days rain — we tried to make the most of those periods without rain. Three mini-adventures:

1) The dog needs a walk, so I took him for a walk in the fields, and discovered once again why the fields sometimes emit such a strong odor of manure despite the relatively few cows grazing there.

2) Days like this in Polish are called “bar days.” Hardly an appropriate option for a six-year-old; hardly desirable when alone. So we found the obvious compromise: a “restaurant day.”

3) One former teacher/colleague is now the mayor of Lipnica; another is the director of the new Orawian cultural center in Jablonka. I set out to chat with him a few minutes and get a look at the center itself.

Not an ideal day, but what can one do on the sixth consecutive day of rain…

Pyzówka is a small village a few miles outside of Nowy Targ, the county seat, and in some ways, a world away from the rest of Poland. Relatively isolated, it still has the look and feel of a Polish village as I remember it from the 1990s.

To get there, you have to go up this road. Well, there are other ways of getting there, but I chose the back roads that I cycled so often when I lived here: narrow streets crowded with large house-barn complexes typical of this area, long stretches of road with only hayfields in forests in sight.

When L and I arrived at G’s and D’s charming new house, the sun was still high and soon G had meat, meat, and cheese on the grill while all the ladies took a short trip to Nowy Targ.

I couldn’t help but be a bit jealous. Not of the house so much, though it is beautiful. No, I was jealous of the views, of the sounds, even of the smells. A house set in the middle of pastures, bordered by forests and a stream. The odor of hay and pines and dung making an unmistakable odor that, in its muskiness and simplicity, provide a hint of what life was like before cars, the internet, cell phones, nightly news, and the thousand and one other distractions that we call modern life.

After dinner, D, who is L’s godmother, chased the rest of us out of the house for a while so she could prepare some things for the next day — sounds very familiar — and so the five of us hiked up the hill to the cross. “Do krzyża.” It has a specific name; it has a specific history; we discussed it. I remember none of it. I only know that as we were approaching the village, as I was not sure I’d headed the right direction, I was terribly relieved to see the iron cross on the mountain: I knew we’d made it.

“Does anybody live in that house?” I asked G as we passed by an old-style mountain home.

“No, nobody,” came the anticipated reply.

“It’s a shame — such a beautiful house.”

Yet unlike the Communist-style bus station in Nowy Targ, this structure has a fighting chance. Someone could remodel it, keeping the character but bringing it into the modern era. Still, such an endeavor is more costly that simply building a house.

We continued on our way, pausing occasionally to talk to this individual or that, stopping to buy some homemade treats. And then M, G’s and D’s two-year-old son, saw the tractor. And when a two-year-old sees a tractor, the earth stops its rotation and all else loses significance. Others are welcome to play about on the tractor as long as the two-year-old sits in the driver’s seat.

Further up the slope, items of interest for older boys.

We finally reached the cross, climbed on the cross, looked up through the cross, and ate a few of the freshly baked cookies we’d just bought — masterpieces of Polish baking. Crisp to the point of being brittle, lightly sweet.

By this time, the fog was settling in the valleys and the blue hues of dusk softened the views.

We headed back down

past the church and cemetery,

and returned to the back patio. By nine thirty, the littlest trooper was in bed, D’s brother, K, arrived with a friend, and a long evening of chatting, discussing, and snacking ensued.

Just a little slice of perfection in this six-week adventure.

“What’s new in Lipnica?” I asked when I arrived in Lipnica in 2000. And again today, the same question. J, my closest friend from Lipnica, arrived in the early evening and gave the same response to the same question.

We first headed to the border crossing that was just past Lipnica. No border crossing anymore. Thanks to the EU, no border anymore. But that would not be quite right: Slovakia uses the Euro, Poland doesn’t. This means a change in border crossings: in the 1990s, Poles went to Slovakia for cheap goods; these days, the reverse is much more common.

On through the lower part of Lipnica to the Elementary School Number 1.

Where I see the first surprise: a new sports complex.

And further down the road, a few more surprises: street lights with solar panels and wind turbines.

All the while, a new road, a road that doesn’t jostle riders to dust.

Not all surprises are plesant.

And not all sights are surprises.

What’s changed in Lipnica? Everything, and nothing.

Fourteen years — a long time to wait. One could move to another continent, start a life in an American city, move back to the original continent, start life there again, get married, move back again to the other continent, have a child, buy a house, have another child, and a thousand other things in that time. And when there are two involved, the possibilities are even more endless: new businesses, new houses, and more. The children I just finished teaching were born fourteen years ago. Their whole lives are encapsulated in those fourteen years, and for us adults, in reality, fourteen years is ironically almost nothing when casting a backwards glance in time.

A Thursday night fourteen years ago would have often meant only one thing: an evening of billiards and conversation at Dudek (“Woodpecker”), a bar and music room in Nowy Targ. C, the only other American I knew for several kilometers, and I would head out around seven, have something to eat (the owner of the bar fixes the most amazing hamburgers on the planet), then head to the pool table for an evening of nine-ball. We’d flirt a little with the ladies, chat with friends, and be your fairly typical single guys on a night out.

Fourteen years later, we decided it was time to head back. But how times have changed. Both married, both fathers, both with countless other concerns (the cost of heating oil; the potential water damage done during a recent downpour; the health of our children; myriad other worries) than having a good time on a Thursday evening.

But last night, we put all those concerns behind us for a few hours and acted like it was 1999 — literally — again.

We began in the backyard: drinks, cigars, conversation. C’s son, F, regaled us with magic tricks; C, his wife M, and I talked about differences between life in the States and in Poland; and a couple of hours slipped by almost unnoticed.

We headed off down the hill, between the hospital and cemetery (the ironies), stopping momentarily to look at the views. At any rate I stopped and C slowed: the views are almost commonplace for C now, and if the Tatra Mountains aren’t crystal clear, well, there’s not much point in slowing to look. They’ll be clearer tomorrow, or the day after.

Down, down, through a small neighborhood, across the river, and suddenly, there we were,

just a couple of blocks from the town square. And how the rynek has changed. I was honestly too much in awe about the changes to think of taking a picture. Or maybe I just want to save that for some other time.

Yet the tragic highlight of the walk to the club was the construction occurring at what used to be the bus station in Nowy Targ. It was a perfect example of sixties archetecture in Poland.

Now, in its place, they are building a gallery. Why not just renovate? Why throw away a piece of history?

“Perhaps they want to forget about it,” C suggested. Perhaps. Maybe I’m just being overly Romantic about it.

But last night was not the time for wallowing in the past. Well, perhaps it was — after all, we left the site of the old bus station and arrived shortly at our old haunt, and as we walked, almost every sentence began with “Remember when…?”.

We arrived at the fenced outdoor sitting area only to find the gate locked. There were a few people sitting at the tables there, but the gate was locked up tight. And suddenly, from the bar, the owner, G, rushed out to greet us. A burly man in every sense of the word, G had always been kind to us when we were passing seemingly countless hours in his establishment. Sometimes he would bring us free food; sometimes he would bring us free drinks; sometimes he would declare that our five hours of nine-ball that evening were “on the house.”

It was good to be back, especially when we discovered that, like the bus station, Dudek has, for all intents and purposes, passed into shadow. There are no more concerts; the bar is closed except for patrations of the hotel above it. “But you guys come on in!” he declared. He opened the upper room for us to shoot pool, and fourteen years disappeared, and it was 1999 again.

We played pool,

we wandered back into the virtually pitch black concert area, and we reminisced endlessly.

The hours slipped by and before either of us expected it, it was two thirty in the morning. Just like old times. We went down to the main bar area to find we were the only ones in the whole place. G had sat there, putting CD after CD on, keeping us fed and watered, and letting us revel in the last time we’ll ever get to relive those magical years of the late 1990’s.

G called us a taxi, and we chatted one last time.

“In fact, I’m trying to sell the place,” G admits just before we leave.

I know better than to try to capture the long-gone past. I’ve tried it before, and it didn’t work. Still, a thought flashed as G admitted his hopes to sell the place.

“How much would you want for the place? Maybe C and I could go into business together…”