As a young woman, I did something that startled everyone I knew. I married as a mere girl of 21, and left on a plane headed from Russia. No, I’m not Russian, but a Volga German American. My Great Grandfather spoke very little English, remembering his boyhood along the Volga River in Russia. Born in central California in the mid-1900’s, I grew up three hours away from anything fun (including, but not limited to the mountains, desert, beaches, big cities, or Disneyland). Being a California girl, and blonde on top of that, common sense didn’t start to develop until later in life. I was a clueless child in the spring of 1977.
The bloke I married wasn’t Russian either, and also quite clueless. A city boy on a mission to learn something in college. On a job board during our Senior year in college, there was an interesting posting.
“Needed. One Agronomist. Tiraspol, Moldavia. Please apply.”
He did, accepting the job as long as his new bride could come along. That would be me. Arm candy on a foreign adventure. Why I accepted, I can’t begin to explain. I had nothing better to do. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Not accepting the position until the last minute, I received all necessary inoculations in one setting at the health department. A horrible two days followed, bedridden with the room literally spinning around me. Fever. Sweats. Chills. I think malaria, cholera, typhus, typhoid, liberalism, swine flu, bird flu, or Wu-Flu would have been preferable. In a matter of weeks, I was a college graduate, a new bride, fully inoculated, and off to the USSR.
With a ring on my finger and bells on my toes, I arrived in Tiraspol, Moldavia in May, 1977. Not speaking the language didn’t really matter, because the only person I knew there spoke English, although, we often didn’t speak the same dialect. For six months, I lived in a special hell that is communism. For anyone with a free will and intelligence, shear torture with no answers as to why things were as messed up as they were. The local “sheeple” didn’t know any better or different. I wasn’t about to point out how degrading and awful their life was.
Bibles were secreted deep under mattresses. Churches were boarded up. Elections had a single hand-chosen candidate who always won. Children didn’t smile or play. Adults were weathered and worn, with any hope or spirit beat out of them long before I came on the scene. Proper flush toilets were non-existent. Everyone walked in lock step to the beat of communism. If you didn’t….. Well….. Rest assured, everyone did.
I wore my daisy dukes and halter top to the beach. A little golden fish in a very small bowl. I was physically followed, watched with binoculars, taped, and documented. Hand written letters home were returned, edited by those in charge if stories were too sensitive or unflattering to The State. As I watched communist life grind around me, I knew one thing. America was a very special place I’d never again take for granted.
Our escape began in 2:00 AM darkness one early November night. We weren’t only fleeing communism, but the horrible American boss who ran our lives ragged for the six months we worked there. Risking jail, or worse, we lied and cheated our way to Moscow and eventually out of the USSR. Desperately trying to return to the country we loved so much, we would’ve told any story to get us to safety. We did, and it worked. Take a look on a map. There’s quite a story about two people who made it from Tiraspol, Moldavia to Moscow, Russia, with only a bottle of gin and a box of Juicy Fruit gum with which to barter.
Forty four years later, I wonder how in the world Socialism is even a discussion in this country. If it is your cup of tea, I have a little bit of advice. Take six months out of your life and go live in Russia. Not in the Potemkin village called Moscow. Go live off the beaten track. Try an outhouse on for size. Maybe a cistern well. Tote your own water, bucket by bucket. Try a horse and wagon on for size. Starve a little. Enjoy a room with no heat during bone-chilling cold. I did all those things. It gave me a perfect view of how lucky we are here in the United States of America.
I remember a reoccurring dream I had during the summer that Elvis Presley died. In my sleep, I strolled through aisle after aisle of the local Safeway. Every shelf was filled to the brim with all kinds of delicacies such as pasta, bottled spaghetti sauce, cheese, milk, rice, bread, lemons, and maggot-free meat. Delicacies not available to starving locals where I lived. Night after night, I’d dream this to be true. In the morning, the one grocery store was still there, stocked to the rafters with one product. Canned peas. Oily, grey, canned peas. Aisle after Aisle. Shelf after shelf. An entire grocery store filled with cans of oily, grey, peas.
We are so blessed with everything our heart desires here in the USA. An abundance of choices. Visiting Walmart last week, I found lots and lots of empty shelves. Let’s hope that soon, our way of life returns. That the shelves fill up with choices of the many different products we’ve become used to. Let’s hope we continue to embrace our American traditions, and, again, enjoy the holidays as a nation. We need to bring happiness back to Who-ville, because, we are the very Who’s that can do it.
Sorry for my ramblings. But, then again, not sorry. In my real world experience, I experienced it all first hand. Socialism and Communism don’t work. Just ask those immigrants streaming over our borders. They know a thing or two, as well.