Good morning, people… it’s Monday, which means that the weekend is only a few days away! If I were to say, “Hang in there…!” would you actually picture that kitten dangling by its front paws on that poster? Well, whatever trite and overused Monday image comes to mind, the day is here. The roads seem to be clear, though… wish as I might for something to write about, the hazards have really dried up around here. It’s a damn shame for anybody who has to compose road reports, but, I suppose it’s good for everybody else. But, see how I made a full paragraph out of practically nothing?
So, with nothing to report, the requirement to fill blank spaces with words and stuff must be fulfilled in other ways… so, today becomes what we’ll call, “Stories Hidden In Time,” the acronym for which I am still working on.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to roam around Europe in a POC BMW, LOL. One day, some buddies and I decided to go drive through Germany, and see how close we could get to (Communist!) Poland. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, we followed the map (back in those ancient days of yore, “maps” were devices made of paper, with lines and words printed on them, and they never spoke, or directed users to “… turn left here, into the ocean…”), and ended up on a highway that looked as though it might bring us pretty close to Poland. Soon, however, we noticed that the road was a one- way highway, with no exits… no places to stop… no places to turn around. We were on a bobsled with no brakes, heading INTO Poland. It’s very likely that signs had been posted before we entered the Highway of Communist Doom, but for some reason, those European countries only post signs in their native tongues… and the tongues in my car were all foreign tongues, there. But, enough about tongues. That’s sort of disgusting.
The final leg of the chute was a long bridge, crossing the river that marked international borders. Once over the bridge, the border guards were waiting for us.
Now, in MOST of Europe, English is at least nominally understood by MOST people. However, Poland was an exception to this generality… the guards there did not even understand the words, “yes,” or, “no.” Really. We found it impossible to express our desire to go back from where we had just come, while the Polish guards found it difficult to express what THEY wanted from US. However, their rifles seemed to clear things up somewhat, conveying sort of an, “international language,” one that we were able to understand. It was clear to us that the time had come for us to exit the vehicle, park our butts on the curb, and keep our hands in the air. It was clearly expressed to us that we were in the wrong place. Like, DefCon 8 wrong place.
We volunteered our military ID cards… these are often sort of a “get out of jail free” card, in much of Europe. However, these guards saw no reason to honor the service of a bunch of idiots who didn’t even speak Polack… uh, Polish. Sure, the cards had our photos on them… just like every fake ID any kid ever carried.
The cards were examined, and returned to us. It did not seem that we were in immediate danger of death, but we certainly were not “free to go.”
But then one member of our party recalled yet another “international language…” MONEY! Carefully and slowly (we still had military rifles, operated by (Did I mention, Communist?!?) Polish guards trained on us!), we pooled our cash, about $100 worth of German currency. THIS was the thing! The guards appeared to be overjoyed (we learned later that this was quite a fortune to the Polish guards… divvied among them, they probably got a weeks’ extra pay each), and it even caused rifles to lower, and safeties to click back to the “on” position. We were escorted back to the car… then, with smiles and waves from the formerly stoic and poverty- stricken guards, we were ushered INTO Poland, and sent on our merry way!
Well, we were certainly glad to no longer be under the gun… but, there was now the prospect of needing to figure out how to ESCAPE from (did I mention Communist?) Poland!
We thought about sewing our coats together and making a hot air balloon… we considered tunneling under the river (shouldn’t take more than 30 or 40 years, with no unexpected hindrances)… we considered swimming across the Rio Grande, but this wasn’t the Rio Grande, and who knows what was in THAT river.
We toured Poland for a few hours, figuring that we might as well enjoy our last few hours on Earth while pondering our great escape. Then, we came up with an amazing plan: No, we didn’t.
We decided to just drive the car, and aim it towards Germany… we’d see what happened.
We drove to the place where you EXIT Poland (COMMUNIST FREAKIN’ POLAND!!!!). This was the part where we sort of figured we would be denied travel. I had always been under the impression that one of the big things about Communism is their policy of, “nobody gets to leave, comrade…” but we simply drove on through the border. No worries, no wall, no gunshots, no paperwork requests, no suggested donations to the policemen’s ball, no issues, no problems, no gates, not even a suggestion for us to slow down. Moments later, we found ourselves in serviceman- friendly Germany.
So, that paper map got us to Poland… Communist Poland. I wonder, if we tried that today, would the GPS lady have warned us ahead of time about that? Who knows… I guess you have to choose: Do you want to drive into Communist countries, or into the ocean?