After
descending from "cloud nine" I had to face the
insurmountable obstacle that continuously was
looming on my horizon: my horrendous accent. I was
afraid that when I began working at Britannica my
heavy accent, in no time, would bring me down. Thus,
my plan for Britannica was as follows: when I would
arrive I would say to everybody "Good Morning", when
I would leave I would say "Good Evening" and, in the
interim, I would bury myself in my work and to
everybody and everything that came into my way I
would use only the "ah-uh" routine. But this plan
never materialized!
It was Monday,
April 20, 1970 --my first day of work at
Encyclopaedia Britannica. As I arrived there and I
was shown where my desk was, minutes after I sat
down, a guy came to me and stated:
"Hi,
I am Marvin, I am an Editor in Egyptology and I
am a homosexual!
To this,
following my script, I said: "Ah-uh!". But the guy
did not let me off the hook as he again stated:
"Hi,
I am Marvin, I am an Editor in Egyptology and I
am a homosexual!
From Romania the
only thing that I knew about this subject of
homosexuality was that those people were treated
in various psychiatric hospitals. Thus with this
knowledge and understanding of this subject and,
recognizing that I could not get rid of this guy
with my "ah-uh" routine, I stated:
"Marvin,
you are very lucky that you are here in America.
I am sure that with proper medication and
therapy you soon will be back to the mainstream
of life."
Absolutely
stunned and transfixed by the whole thing, he
became almost instantly transformed from a lively
person into a statute-like figure. As he was still
staying motionless and speechless, I stated:
"Marvin,
I think that we should keep the proper distance
between us, as I heard that many homosexuals
have this neurological reaction of jumping on
people without knowing what they are doing."
To this in
disbelief and laughing rather hardily, he asked me
in total bewilderment "Are you OK?" to which I
said: "I am fine. Are you?" From that very moment
my enlightenment period in America began! I
realized soon that he was a normal human being and
that what he did in his bedroom was his business.
We became friends, but we always kept, just in
case, the proper distance!
Soon, I
recognized that my place of birth, Communist
Romania, where I had been locked up until I was 24
and was able miraculously to escape from, was in
fact a very different place from the real free
world. It was this new free world that now I had
to get accustomed to. For the next two (2)
years, there was not a day that I would not have a
question to ask as the contrast between where I
had been and where I had landed was indeed
immense. And fortunately for me I was in the best
place on earth to ask questions. There was no
imaginable question that could not have received
an authoritative answer from the 11th Floor of
Britannica where the Research Department was
located and where also was my place of work.
Almost every
morning when I arrived at Britannica my friends
and colleagues would ask: "Hey, what's today's
question?" Some of my questions were downright
funny as the episode described below.
Soon
after my arrival in Chicago, I noticed a rather
large sign not far from where I was living
stating "We Sell Hot Dogs." Looking in my small
pocket dictionary, I saw for the word "hot" one
meaning and for the word "dog" also one and only
one meaning! I knew that in China and other
parts of the world people ate cats. That sign
for me automatically triggered the reaction:
"Oh, my God!" In fact, I remember writing home
to my mother this: "You may not believe this,
but in this great civilization there are places
where people eat hot dogs!"
For weeks
and weeks I avoided passing near that place as
the whole thing made me sick just to think
about it. One day, a neighbor with whom I
became recently acquainted, teased me by
saying "So, you are from Romania. I have never
heard of that country. Do you have hot water
there?" to which I responded "Of course, we
have hot water. We have TVs, we have
everything, perhaps not the latest models but
we have them." After that, this dialog took
place:
[Neighbor]: "OK, OK, I got
the picture. Let's go across the street and
have a hot dog! It is on me, and we can
chitchat more..."
[Me]: "Are you out of
your mind? We would rather die of starvation
than eat hot dogs! What do you think we are?
Look on the map: Romania is part of Europe. No
matter how poor we are we do not touch that
stuff!"
Baffled by
my answer and recognizing that perhaps I did
not understand his question, the neighbor
asked me: "Why don't you look in your dinky
dictionary and see if you find an entry for
franks or frankfurters? To this after looking
in my pocket dictionary, I responded: "Oh, we
have those in Romania. They are delicious with
sauerkraut and mustard. But why do they call
them Hot Dogs here?
[Neighbor]: "Beats me! I do
not have a clue."
Unable to get an
answer from my neighbor to my Hot Dog question,
sure enough on the next day when I went to
Britannica, that was the question that I
wanted to be answered. After I told them of the
story with my neighbor, everybody including my
boss was laughing almost uncontrollably. Then, I
said:
“OK, you had your
laugh. Is there anybody here who can tell me how
the word Hot Dog become part of the English
language?”
To this, an
English Editor (for whom I had the greatest
admiration and envy of his mastery of the English
language) replied: "We are pleased to let you know
that the word Hot Dog has been coined in Chicago!"
.In disbelief, I
interjected by saying "No kidding!" to which he
continued:
"No
kidding is right, and this is the official story
of the word 'Hot Dog':
.At the turn of the century the
fashion for ladies in Chicago was to wear big
hats and
walk along the
street with dachshunds --small dogs with long
bodies that were extremely popular at that time.
And when this item, which we call now the Hot
Dog, was first introduced at Wrigley Field with
baseball games, kids who would sell it called it
the Hot Dog to parallel it with the popular
dachshunds. Thus "hot", in this context, was
referred to as an item of fashion to be seen
with, and not as something that was spicy or hot
in terms of temperature. Similarly as
dachshunds, hot dogs were portrayed and
marketed as a "hot" item to be seen with!"
Thanking him for
the explanation, I began wondering how many people
from Chicago, from America, or for that matter
from the entire English speaking world knew about
the "official" story of the Hot Dog! I was happy
and fascinated to know the story behind the story!
And speaking of the story behind the story, almost
all Americans know that the nickname of Chicago is
the "windy city" but very few know how and why it
got that name. The great majority of Americans
believe that Chicago got its "windy city" nickname
because it is windy out there...! In fact,
however, Chicago's nickname has nothing to do with
the weather. As I was told at Britannica, the name
was coined in the 1920s with politicians "blowing
hot air!"
Fascinated with
having at my disposal the story behind the story
of every imaginable question, I was confident that
I had a question that no one from Britannica could
answer. Boy, how wrong I was! 
As I
have mentioned in my story, Pall Mall cigarettes
with no filter were by far the most famous
American cigarettes in Romania. On the other hand,
here in Chicago, I noticed that the Pall Mall
brand was one of the many brands of equal
"stature" with many other "Class A" cigarettes. In
fact the cigarettes with filters, as a general
rule, were more popular here than the ones with no
filter. All this baffled me as to why in Romania,
Pall Mall cigarettes with no filter were reigning
supreme. I was confident that no one from
Britannica could have a logical explanation for
this but, to my surprise, someone from Britannica
had the answer right away! I was told that for a
number of decades Pall Mall cigarettes with no
filter were the cigarettes of choice among
American sailors. And when an American ship
entered into a port anywhere in the world,
sailors, as was customary, exchanged their
cigarettes for the ones offered by the locals. And
this is how Pall Mall cigarettes became synonymous
with the American cigarette! Wow, I liked
that answer. Day by day my appreciation for
Britannica grew, myself being happy to be part of
this unmatched center of knowledge.
With the help
from Britannica, it took me some two (2) years to
get integrated into this great American city
--Chicago which is by far the most American of all
American cities!
Not many
people recognize that anything, but absolutely
anything that has to do with mainstream American
culture was either born or cultivated in Chicago.
Look at these items one by one: Jazz, Blues,
Mafia, Hot Dogs, Politics, Baseball. Each and
every one of these items is synonymous with
Chicago itself! When you talk about each of these
items you also talk about America at its core.
Anything that you want to study of "pure"
Americana you will find it in Chicago in its
"purest" American form. Do you want to study
American architecture? Well, there is no better
place than Chicago. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871
wiped out the entire city which was rebuilt from
scratch the American way! And in that American
architectural revolution, the skyscraper --this
American architectural wonder was first introduced
here in Chicago. You cannot study American
politics without studying Chicago politics. You
cannot established yourself in Jazz or Blues
without making a name for yourself in Chicago. In
short, Chicago is and has been for a long time the
epicenter of the entire mainstream American
culture.
This American
culture many times conflicted with my own culture
as illustrated from this example of the many
available. In Romania since you were 3 years old,
you were taught that when you saw a woman in
public transportation to offer her a seat. You did
not size her up if she was old or not, you just
simply gave her the seat. Well, here I was in a
bus in Chicago and I saw a woman standing not far
from my seat. Upon seeing her, immediately I rose
from my seat stating to her in my heavy Romanian
accent: "Please sit down." The woman came to me in
a charging fashion with one of her arms placed on
her waistline and stated: "Don't be funny!"
Bewildered by her behavior and recognizing that
somehow I had offended her, when I went to
Britannica, I wanted to have an explanation for
this and said: "I clearly have offended that
woman, but I have no idea what I did wrong."
Someone from
Britannica upon hearing my story came to me to
console me with this explanation:
"We
are glad that you came here to tell us about
that experience as we want you to know for the
rest of your life or for as long as you will
live in the United States that it is the
cornerstone of our entire American culture to mind
your own business! We all applaud you for
the fact that you felt compelled, for whatever
reason, to offer your seat to someone else. But
this is where you need to stop. You never ever
give a command to another person as to what to
do! And your heavy accent may have indeed
sounded like a command!: You better sit
down, or else ..."
Enormously
grateful for the explanation, I began appreciating
the fine tuning that was needed on my part to
complete my integration into my beloved city of
Chicago --a city with
c h a r a c t e r
like no other city in America. Yes, more than
anything Chicago is first and foremost a city of
great and unmatched character!
As in humans, the character is not
something that you are born with.
The character is
the result of a particular struggle that shapes
one's character. And in a way, it is like a piece
of marble that is continuously chiseled to its
present form. Thus, to understand, to see, and to
appreciate Chicago's great character --as a city,
you need to look at Chicago's entire history. And
that history, is a history of continuous struggle
to catch up with New York for the supremacy of the
greatest American city.
Chicago, in that
contest, was always the underdog and, that
struggle to catch up with New York gave Chicago
its extraordinary character. If you live for a
while in Chicago, you will hear Chicagoans saying
"Whatever New York has, we are going to have it
but BETTER!" It is this continuous struggle of
Chicago to not only catch up with New York, but to
do it better that has shaped the character of
Chicago as no other city on this planet. I
remember in the seventies when New York was
bragging and bragging about its Empire State
Building as being the tallest building in the
world. Chicago had enough of it: its answer
was the Sears Towers which was made to be sure to
be taller than New York's Empire State building!
I was privileged
and happy to know and be part of Chicago
--unquestionably the greatest American city, a
city which was so good to me and opened so many
doors for me. Like any first love, Chicago will
always have a special place in my heart as it was
this city that made me love America for what it is
and for what it stands for as the greatest
experiment in democracy ever created by mankind.
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