W Połowie Drogi

At the halfway point, or thereabouts, of this experiment I cannot report a single qualm about what I have wanted to do and what I’ve managed to do so far, nor what I intend to do as a result, that is, continue on becoming polakiem indefinitely. How, I do not know. Slowly? Surely? The details, I confess, are hazy. Yes, I will return home as planned and resume the outward life of an American, see my kids, attend to friends, do my work, golf with my sibs, etc., but my inward being looks much farther east now (from Minnesota) and into the past, almost fixedly.

This week, though, my attention has been turned to my Americanness, amerykańskość. Taxes are due, work has gotten busier, and my newly assigned lecture topic for the 25^th is Ronald Reagan. Perhaps no political figure in the 20^th century was more mythically American or more appreciated in Eastern Europe than Ronald Reagan. Poland has erected at least two larger-than-life size bronzes, in Gdansk and Warsaw, in honor of his role in fostering the collapse of the Soviet Union, no one’s favorite regime, especially here. Liberal as I am, I will attempt to qualify his mythic status. He was just a president to me, not a particularly good one, but in his defense, not the worst in my lifetime either.

Meteorological spring has arrived at long last. To the boats.