Meanwhile, Back At the Zamek

February 2012 - Before we moved here

2012-01-03T13:48:00.003-05:00

My husband, George, youngest daughter Ann, and I first came to Czechoslovakia in April 1990. You still had to get visas, so we visited the embassy in Vienna, pointed there by Schwartzenburg's office manager. She also arranged a meeting for us with Schwartzenburg. Over tea and coffee all he told us was pertinent as we explored this country soon afterwards. He suggested we talk with the farm collective, meet people in Obecny Forum, and talk with town and village people. For now, lawyers could not help us much as so many things were still in flux.

The next day we drove to Czechoslovakia. The young border guard greeted us in his best English – “Ciao, Baby” Later, we pulled up at the Zámek and walked through to the farmyard. A man getting manure for his fruit trees said, “I know you. You were in 4th grade when I was in 2nd grade. Everyone here says "Now George will come back.” That is so amazing after more than 40 years.

We spent the night in a Tabor hotel. On Sunday we returned and tried to go to church. The priest had gone to Prague to see the Pope. This was the first ever visit by a pope to this country. Then we went looking for Obecny Forum in another town. Two women there, Lída and Jaruška, were about to close the office. Lída invited us to her apartment, while Jaruška had to go home. Lída talked non-stop when she fixed coffee and started lunch for us. She talked all about the Velvet Revolution. George translated for us. I thought Lída was using the work protože excessively. Why would anyone need to talk about proteges so many times – even though the Velvet Revolution had had so many students in it? Later I found out that protože means because. Then Lída's husband was in the hallway. She went out, calling, “ I have 3 Americans (Amící) in the living room!!” Jaruška came and we talked for the rest of the afternoon.

Back at the Tabor hotel we were in the dining room when someone came flying in, This was Boženka, George's classmate. (1st to 4th grade.). Her daughter Hana got her to take her curlers out after she'd talked with Jaruška who'd told her the news. “And when it rained, George, I could always go to school in the coach with you.” (In WW II fuel was extremely limited.)

The next day George talked with people at the farm collective. That afternoon of course we were invited to Boženka's and her husband Franta's apartment

One of the members of our family had had a dream five years earlier.The view we saw as we drove into the Zámek, had been in the dream – the falling down shack off to the side, the velorex, a cloth-covered three-wheeled vehicle (an auto?), the fallen-down gate. This indicates how importantly Brezina figured in our children's minds long before we could ever come here.

When we visited our brickyard, I picked up two bricks and took them home with me.to Saudi Arabia where we lived then. I had to make a shipment to USA and added these bricks. I wrapped them up for our oldest daughter's birthday. A young friend said “My mother does a lot of crazy things, but she would never have given me bricks for my birthday!" Our daughter said they were very special bricks which she was happy to have. She uses them for doorstops.

Memories of Havel

2012-01-03T13:46:00.002-05:00

MEMORIES OF HAVEL

I would have loved meeting Havel. Many people with connections to us did meet him.
When we visited them, the Baron said to his daughter: "Now, when I introduce you to Havel, you cannot say 'Jak se maš' " !

Several friends, members of women's group, worked in Havel's Hradčany office. They had good things to say about him.

Our daughter Alice worked for the Philadelphia City Council, and in that capacity occasionally volunteered for the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. Havel was coming to the U.S. to receive the Philadelphia Liberty Medal on July 4, 1994. Because of her Czech connection, her great admiration for Havel, and because we already lived here, she was asked to assist in the dinner honoring Havel the evening before. On that evening, she arrived two hours early to make certain that all was in place.

Finally Havel arrived. Alice stepped up to greet him: "Dobre večer. Vitejme vas." But his guards pushed past her, hurrying Havel on into the room. Chamber officials made sure that Alice had an opportunity later in the evening to shake Havel's hand and have a brief word.

The next day, the Fourth of July, we had a party, but I was eagerly anticipating the CNN televising of the ceremony. We told several Czech friends at our party. They were quite skeptical, not believing that Alice had arranged anything or that Havel was getting a medal. It was indeed on television - but very quickly finished. Alice watched the awards ceremony on closed circuit TV with Philadelphia Wilma Theatre owners Jiří & Blanka Žizka, and actor F. Murray Abraham.

In Havel's acceptance speech of the Liberty Medal, he said: "The idea of human rights and freedoms must be an integral part of any meaningful world order. Yet I think it must be anchored in a different place, and in a different way, than has been the case so far. If it is to be more than just a slogan mocked by half the world, it cannot be expressed in the language of departing era, and it must not be mere froth floating on the subsiding waters of faith in a purely scientific relationship to the world."

Very Special Gifts

2011-11-05T12:40:00.001-04:00

Grandchildren often make drawings and paintings for us. Recently we got a letter from the youngest, a four year old. There were two words - her name and "LOVE". When she was only two years old she looked around supermarkets for me – in North Carolina! But I am here, in the Czech Republic, so her looking for me is a gift of sorts.

Grandchildren give me other gifts, both incidental and Christmas and birthday gifts. I have two coasters. One is from a zoo, with a lion on it. I don't know if it was a give-away or was purchased. The other one is obviously a crafts project – all blue decorations, scratched into a blue layer and with unevenly cut edges. The most ordinary gift, appearing like other ordinary gifts, is two short wide-mouthed jars with red plastic lids decorated with green pears. Of course I immediately threw out some other jars, storing herbs in these on a shelf.

Lately I've received a rash of objects made from lanyard plastic lengths. It began with key holders, proceeding onward to lanyard knotting covering pen bodies. The key holders you would not want to use for your major key collections as they are not strong enough. The pens are of a nice size to fit in a box of stationary or Christmas cards.

I have a cute little house made of coffee stirrers sitting on green paper. Grass?. Good thing I live in a Zámek, so I have room for all this stuff.

One Christmas I received a set of jewelry. The bracelet broke first. The set is plastic and glass beads held together with bits of wire, The necklace broke next. I still have the earrings which I often wear when our grandaughter is joining us for dinner. Sometimes someone else says, “You don't want to wear those junky earrings, do you?” Oh, yes I do, I definitely do.

Who wants junky jewelry, paper and stick cottages, unevenly cut coasters? Would anyone? Well, yes, a grandmother would, that's who. And mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles. May your holidays gift you with presents which are close to your heart! I expect and hope I will receive a few more.

2011-09-12T04:41:00.001-04:00

One of the first meetings I ever attended was at the Diplomat Hotel. Ivan Klíma spoke. (I know that he spoke again in a recent year.) He talked about time he'd spent in America, he talked about his books, he talked about getting rid of communism. I was especially lured by My Golden Trades, buying it very soon, reading it, and highly recommending it to others, but not actually forcing them to read it! Now and then I read it again.

At an early Christmas bazaar in the Pyramid Hotel I worked at the Canadian-USA table with Joan Drabek who became a very good friend. Even at that first meeting we enjoyed working together. When I went home I told my husband about her. It turned out that he had been interviewed by her father-in-law for Voice of America in 1963. Joan and her husband Jan visited us, spending a month of vacation here in 1996 and coming to two of our children's weddings in 1997. Joan served as president of Women's Group later. We also visited them in their apartment in Prague. Jan worked for Havel in Prague and elsewhere, but he also is an author. We have and have read some of his books.

George and have have gone to 6 Balls, always with others - an artist friend and 2 of our children; Aunt Hana and her granddaughter at the Forum; friends from Canada at the Marriott; President Anja Haanpas and friends at the Citizens' Building on namestí Míru; and my mother-in-law at the Marriott and at the Prague Castle. The first ball was at the Diplomat Hotel. Edna, our artist friend had been restoring a fresco in the chapel. Caroline was working at the Prague Post, David was working with us. We won several prizes at the ball!! I yielded to someone's entreaty for the stuffed animal, but Edna and I most happily used the coupon for a delicious lunch at Parma Restaurant!

We have enjoyed visits from group members. One day Linda, Grace, and Jane arrived here. It was great talking with all of them. Linda was a ballet teacher from Cape Town, who was sending her son to Czech schools where he was doing just fine. Linda showed how she had asked for eggs when she'd forgotten the word in Czech. She flapped her "wings" and clucked, setting all in the grocery store laughing. Jane had been in the film world. Later we went to a reception and a Turkish restaurant with then. Jane bought a king size bed from us - at that time I had to have the mattress made by an upholsterer here. I'm still friends with Grace. Her then teenaged daughter spent several weeks here and planted flowers to bloom for some weddings.

Our first Charity Group chairwoman was Elizabeth Poulsen-Hansen. She and I developed a little exchange - Fokus, a sheltered workshop in Pelhrimov, made slippers. Women's Group paid for them, I took the slippers to Elizabeth who gave them to people in the refugee camps in northern Bohemia. This was continued until the refugees did not want any more slippers and the Fokus workshop people did not want to make any more!

Elizabeth and her family planned to come visit us. However, it happened that Olga Havlová would open our first Christmas Bazaar, so Elizabeth had to stay in Prague. Her husband, the Danish ambassador, and his friend, the Finnish ambassador, did come. The men had wanted to go on a hunt, so my husband and our son arranged it. The ladies who helped me baked and prepared refreshments. After the hunt some Czech folk dancers performed. I was sorry that Elizabeth could not come. We visited them at their home in Copenhagen later on.

Beginning the Facade at Last!

2011-09-12T02:45:00.004-04:00

As you are about to get dressed someone walks past your window. You quickly close the shutters. But what would you do if the room you're in is on the second floor [European/British first floor]?? This is very startling. The bricklayers had moved the scaffolding around a corner and now were walking on the planks outside the window. We'd hoped for repairs to the facade for many years. Right now just the
facade of the chapel is being repaired. The chapel is not a separate building - it's at the western corner
of the Zámek. They had repaired the western side and the sacristy and now were starting on the south side, facing the platz.

Some outside repairs were done immediately, notably windows. Windows were broken, frames and/or glass. We were going to live here all winter! Some window openings were only openings, some had flapping frames with glass on the ground or on the inside floor. Some were covered with plastic. A few were boarded up.

The first Christmas eve we thought someone was trying noisily to break in. It was a flapping window.

A carpenter friend came to insure that all windows had glass and framing. In rooms we were living that first winter he fixed

double windows. In rooms we only walked through he fixed single windows. He warned me never to open a certain window in the Grand Dining Room. If I had, it would have crashed below. Then he returned to his wood shop to make enough frames for the whole Zámek. As was typical of him, he made many more. Later we used some for screen windows in summers warm enough for screens! A glazier very skillfully filled all the new window frames - that is, of as many as we needed.

Did you ever read Kidnapped? Remember the wicked uncle sending the boy up a stairway? Only a flash of

lightening saved the boy from stepping off into nothingness. We had a balcony like that. There was a wall with a door, so we were not in very great danger. But there was no balcony. Father and son blacksmiths visited, looking for work. We ordered a new lacy stairwell surround, an iron bed, and a half-round table. Then my husband commissioned the new balcony. When it arrived we hired a crane to lift it up. The same glazier added the glass it needed.

Today the balcony is filled with plants, the half-round iron table, and a wicker settee. It is a lovely place to sit and read, or just relax and gaze outside.

;

In George's grandmother's bedroom was a hole to the stars [or to sun, clouds, rain, hail, snow ] We fixed the

hole and reroofed the first spring.

The facade very badly and still needs restoration.but many other things clamored for money. Outfitting carpenter shops, farm machinery, seeds, fertilizer, hiring a few workers were important needs. The facade waited in its dilapadated state. At last a grant became available. Little by little the facade its regaining its High-Baroque gold.

Art lessons

2011-08-03T02:19:00.004-04:00

Several well-known artists have been connected to the Zámek, but perhaps the first to give art lessons was the sculptor, Vaclav Icha. In WWII universities were closed, and students sent to work camps. So, you'd offer students important jobs, such as on a farm. Vaclav Icha, a sculptor, had been my father-in-law's roommate, along with Prince Karel Schwartzenberg V, at cavalry school in Pardubice. He sculpted George's grandmother and sketched.Mostly Icha is remembered for making "bathtub gin" and partying. However, he did teach my husband, then a small boy, to sketch. My husband still draws in the style Icha taught him!

Other artists connected somewhat to us are Jan Autengruber, painter, who courted Zdenka, a family member, but didn't marry her. He died of pneumonia.at only 33. I found a few of his paintings on internet.

Another artist was Vilem Pistorius, an especially excellent painter of horses. He lived at a nearby zámek with his wife. Many of his paintings were on our wall.. After they sold their estate, Mrs. Pestorius often came from Prague to visit my husband's grandmother.

Today, Ivan Smilauer lives nearby, painting and sculptiing. In summer he sculpts great, beautiful pieces in one of our barns. He is a friend of Zoubek, doing some exhibits with him.

Two of Karel Simunek's paintings are on the walls. One is of the chapel dome and the other is the zamek from a hill. He spent some time here, but no one today knows when he did. His dates are 1869 - 1942.

Our son's brother-in-law , Petr Hempl has done much work here. There's a formal portrait of a Polish officer, a lovely sketch of the Zamek, posters for a nearby 400 year celebration, a contemporary portrait of my husband and me behind the chapel, surrounded by impressionistic foliage. The Grand Dining Room features his painting of General Helidor Pika who came to the last hunt in 1947. Hempl has done some restorations here, also - a large painting of the Prague skyline, sprucing up St. Florian in the chapel, some work on the library fresco. For that fresco it was tremendous watching him, with a few brush strokes, bringing out a face.

Our young artist friend,

Michael Loughlin, stayed here one summer, Petr showed him how to restore the Saint Jan Neponuk fresco in the chapel. Petr restored the painting of The Fourteen Auxilliary Saints in the chapel. It was full of

holes!
The artist who gave lessons here this summer is not as yet famous. She worked here on vacation from art university in Prague, mostly working in the kitchen. Grandchildren arrived. What a great opportunity! The boys, Sam, 6 1/2 and Ben, 8 1/2 and the girls, Charlotte, 9, Maisie, 7,and Taylor, 3 1/2 were all very, very interested in art lessons.

We thought that outside at a big table was the ideal spot, but it was not comfortable, as it was quite cold that day. After breakfast and the workers coffee break was cleaned up, the art teacher and her translator, another college student who's worked here seven summers, covered the long table in the kitchen with newspaper, laid out art paper, and set out leaves, grasses, a few flowers by each paper. Each painted his/her bits of nature with acrylic paints, using the leaf or grass to make a print on the paper. There was still another step. These prints on the paper were then made into animals with paints or crayons. A small leaf might be an eye; a flower might be hair, a long grass might be legs.

The next project was covering a piece of paper with crayon in stripes, or circles or as one wished. Then, this was painted completely with black ink. When the ink had dried, a picture could be scratched on the black paper, letting the colors show. Again the teacher suggested animals. The younger boy, Sam, drew a dragon made of cotton-candy. It looked as if the dragon were leaving puffs of himself, everywhere he went.

Two days later the girls went home to America, but the boys begged for another art lesson, preferring the black ink on crayon. It was interesting - the girls packed up their pictures, but when the boys were finished, they were finished.

Sheep and Bees

2011-06-07T11:55:00.004-04:00

My husband, George, went out one evening to put the sheep in their fold, as we usually do. Normally they are waiting just outside the fold when he comes with the bucket of snacks. This evening they were already inside, very quiet and tense. He thought, "This is a little strange". when our golden retriever, inside the yard gate, began barking furiously. He looked up to see two men going out the gate.

One, he thought, was dressed like a cowboy - white clothing with colorful detailing and having a large hat on his head. A sombrero?? So, George went to talk with them. The "cowboy" was actually a bee keeper and had come to collect bees which were making their home in a fuse box. The large hat was a bee-keeper's hat, covered in the typical mesh. That is why George had not been able to see his face. (He is someone we know.) He asked if they had caught the queen. They had. All the bees were in his special box which he was taking away.

The sheep had not liked the sounds outside - the angry buzzing, two men they did not know - so they had slipped into the fold very quietly.

2011-04-04T03:48:00.001-04:00

I did do other things in DWG, but the most interesting & the most fun were the 5 years I spent as the Welfare Chairman. In this article I will mention some names of women who worked with me, but please realize, that I, having left Saudi almost 20 years ago, and Dhahran for RT before then, I simply don't remember all the names of people who worked so well with us. Several names have reappeared as I've been working on this, but not nearly all.

We organized people to run clothing drives for refugees, and supported women's nursing scholarships in the Middle East. Once I had 10,000 blankets to give away! In the place where the blankets were stored, many Saudi men worked. It was fun visiting with them and talking about their villages. Many were in the village charitable societies, so we arranged blankets to go to these societies. Many went out of the country to refugees.

We really loved cooperating with various women's charitable societies. We had an Arab cooking class at their place and they came to our place for an American cooking class. We were invited to homes. We went to oasis villages to give educational aids and show their use. Once we had a nursery school workshop in Dhahran. Many ideas were presented by Welfare Committee members and by nursery school teachers who joined us for this special day. Women from the Al Khobar nursery school who had more resources, afterwards themselves helped village societies with their nursery schools.

However it was amazing to see how those village women had worked to fix their schools and to prepare themselves to lead. Many got books from the boys' schools, studying at home, and going back eventually to take the exams for their high school degrees. I was so impressed that some of the grandmothers had encouraged this program.

Western women thanked me, too, for the treasuring those contacts.

Students had opportunities to work on clothing drives! This was not volunteer work - I drafted Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and returning students and some others. Well, they needed service hours.... Of course, DWG members helped, too. Art Kelberer facilitated the movement of the clothes up the Tapline. Recently one of our daughters asked if those big boxes we'd had in the hallway were for clothing drives. Yes, they were. We once took clothes to Greece; people going on a trip to Pakistan took some suitcases. In the papers of the Welfare Committee I found a wonderful little note. Someone asked Tom Barger for help for people in terrible floods in Italy. He'd written on that paper - 'try the women's group'. Kathleen took hold, sending many tons of clothing.

Ruth Edmondson, living down the alley from me was DWG president. She said one day," Barbara, now you are the Welfare Committee chairman." I wasn't certain I loved this information. What should I do? There were almost no references to find. Kate Crawford wrote letters, having them translated as needed, and had checks issued for the charities we supported. People told me to talk with Ellen Speers, but Ellen was in Houston for a year. The Speers did come back to Dhahran later, and Ellen was very helpful. Someone found the files for me.

Some letters with checks were taken to Qatif and Hofuf by a DWG member in a taxi. This is how the visits to the societies began. We were sometimes asked for further assistance. Soon, we expanded the project. Margaret Woodhams, a school music teacher, threw herself into this. Drawing lessons, help for the nursery schools, the cooking lessons mentioned already, private visits. Once my friend, Karen Irwin who speaks Arabic, and I, with our daughters Chandra and Alice, went to Tarut Island Charitable Society. It was a lovely morning. Of course, the girls wouldn't talk, but we made up for that!

One very helpful person in making contacts with the Arab women was Mr. Nawab, the head of Public Relations. He was very much in favor of our programs and helped facilitate some of them.

When Mary Eddy lived in Dhahran she was one of three women who really got the welfare program off the ground. When Norah Barger visited she said that Mary Eddy's family had made her move from New Hampshire to New Jersey [I think NJ], because, in her 80's, she was still skiing the NH hills! Do you still send scholarships to the Mary Eddy nursing program at the American University of Beruit?

Now I will tell you more about Norah Barger's visit. She was working with Catholic Near East Welfare in Jordan, came to visit her sister, Annie Hebert. I asked her to speak to the welfare committee, as well as some visiting vice-presidents' wives. Of course it was interesting, and wonderful to have someone directly working with one of our charities speaking to us.

One woman who worked on some of our programs, Louel Larkin, is betterknown for her work in organizing the hospital volunteer program. When she finally stepped down, perhaps when they were leaving. the program was very well staffed, and running like clockwork. Probably Louel would disput this last. Of course, DWG members were in the program, as well as a number of Saudi women.

The Zamek Store

2010-06-03T09:11:00.003-04:00

For several years my husband, our son, and I talked about having a store to sell our wooden products directly to customers. Last year it was built and finally this year it opened. We've had customers every day. Some people are just looking over this new store, but many have bought. Even customers from Prague and Vienna have visited. One of our neighbors often stops by to buy several small items.

The store is named after my mother-in-law. Rina's Carpentry Store, or, in Czech, Riny Truhlarsky Obchod. Rina was interested in all aspects of what we do, particularly loving the forests. Many times our forester took her to visit one forest or another. She actually helped in the carpenter shop sometimes when she was 86 years old!

Our products are all made of wood from our forests using mainly spruce, birch, pine and beech. These trees were planted by my husband's grandfather after WWI. A large section in the store is devoted to slats for fences or balconies. There are different profiles and varying sizes. These are very popular items. Gates may also be constructed for customers.

Popular for gifts, or perhaps for remodeling, are shelving units with open slats, or with solid shelves. Smaller display shelves in varying sizes and designs hang on walls, holding knick-knacks, spices, or even cleaning supplies. The woman who runs the store asked me to provide her with some knick-knacks and mugs. A son-in-law in the USA keeps his Becherovoka on one! From the hooks below the shelves, I have seen soup ladles or aprons or attractive coffee mugs hanging on different people's shelves

Several smaller items can be snatched up for gifts – for others, or for yourself! There are two types of knife blocks, wine racks of various sizes, key/coat hangers and a good number of do-nothings. (Do you wonder what this is?)

Doors are good sellers. We have some standard types and are able fulfill special orders. Many doors have glass inserts and/or are lined in wainscoting.

It's really fun to decide on a cupboard or chair or coffee table and have the carpenter make something to order for you. I've done it and love this. Late this winter we made a couple – I guess you might call them freeform – corner cupboards for our dining room.

If you want to visit our store, carpenter shop, or forests look on our website [in Czech] for directions. www.plotovky-homolka.cz Or, e-mail me: homolkab@yahoo.com. Maybe the summer will warm up, and we'll drink our tea together on benches on the lawn!

Cape Hatteras Memories

2010-05-15T10:43:00.001-04:00

In anticipation of our family reunion this summer on the Outer Banks:

When Leslie was 10 months old, we went camping on Cape Hatteras. Near us another family put up a shade over a table. Useless. Too, too much wind. Our tent did not blow down. I guess we had long tent stacks. But i do remember shoring it up sometimes. Dad couldn't come in the tent with his hat on which he was wearing for sun protection: Leslie would scream!

I took Leslie out of the tent only a very little - there was blowing sand & lots of sun. We took her out to see the sunset. Dad went swimming a few times; I also went in the ocean a little. We camped for 3 nights.

Now I will tell you about the piece of driftwood Dad has kept on his dresser ever since The last full day we decided to go rowing on Pamlico Sound. It was somewhat windy. The man was happy to rent his boat, but the woman said, "You are taking your baby out there?!?!" She handed me a blanket to wrap her up. They gave us a few tips - but they were not much. In the channel leading to the sound proper the rowing was quite good - but once we were in the sound, it was nearly impossible. Our boat got stuck in some reeds, & Dad had to get out & push it some. When we got back to the rental place Dad realized that he was missing his wallet. He went back to the reedy place while Leslie & I stayed in the house. Of course we prayed. He came back with his wallet. It had been caught in the piece of driftwood in the reedy area.

We struck camp the next day & stopped to see the Wilber & Orville Wright's museum, the lighthouse, [Which was moved inland some in 1999.] & the airfield. The first place we stayed the night on the way to D.C. to see Aunt Tania & Uncle Matt was in the area where they catch the wild ponies for a census. At Chincoteague, I guess. The owners of the motel & restaurant had helped with the census. The little boy, probably 4 yrs. old, tied various toy trucks to our table legs - his father said that he had done this ever since the pony census.

April 2010 Generations together at the Zamek

2010-03-03T14:15:00.009-05:00

You may combine keepsakes with grandchildren for the greatest delight and pleasure. We have a red doll cradle which was given to my grandmother, Dora Markham, on her sixth birthday back in the late 1800's. Her parents could not afford to buy toys for her, but her oldest brother, William Colfax Markham, who had graduated from college and was working, could buy her playthings. My mother, Ruth Clark, received the doll cradle on her sixth birthday, as did I, Barbara Hunt, and our oldest daughter, Leslie Homolka.
Our granddaughter's sixth birthday was missed by a year, as we'd had illness in the family. Our carpenter fixed the joints. Kristyna Homolkova and I arranged the bedding – we still have the original bedpad, but I don't know where the blankets are, and bought a new doll. The latest granddaughters to enjoy the cradle are Charlotte and Maisie Tate. This happened while their 18 month old sister was napping! Perhaps I will show the grandsons sometime. It's kept on top of a wardrobe, as it's delicate and over 100 years old. Kristyna loved hearing about the six year olds who had gone before and who are her forebears. Later we found some photos of them. Of course she knows me and her Aunt Leslie.

Kristyna and I have greatly enjoyed a pack of cards which belonged to my dad, Harold Marquardt Hunt, who was born in 1905. Those cards must be 100 years old, or close to it. Kristyna knows Harold Hunt was my dad, her father's grandfather, and her great-grandfather. It's picture cards and is played like “Go Fish”. Many of those cards have been repaired, but mending tape was not as good when I was a child as it is today. One card is half missing.

Many pictures are what might be expected today – apple, orange, banana; elephant, horse, dog; rooster, rabbit, cat, but not all the pictures. The card with a pocket watch on a chain intrigued Kristyna. The card with a department store includes a Morris chair and a high topped shoe. The card with a passenger traincar also has a coal-fired steam locomotive and a hopper of coal. The card with a house also has a stable [well, you might think it a garage.] and a buggy.

I've learned the Czech words for 'top': 'kaca' and 'rifle': 'puska'. Kristyna has learned violet, golden rod, and buggy. The cardboard of the cards is brittle, so we do not suffle them, but lay them out, and pick them up. This summer when we go to North Carolina, I think Kristyna and I will take the cards to the Tate girls.

Never did I plan to collect little boxes, but nontheless I have a collection. A few boxes are from our travels, such as a tin box, replica of Sledmere Manor, north of York, which was full of sweets. Boxes inlaid with lapis lazuli are from my trip to Afghanistan, Many boxes are hand-me-downs from my mother, mother-in-law, and step-grandmother. There are several compacts from the 1930's; a child's paintbox from the teens, along with linen helf-sleeves to protect the Sunday dress; a 1920's celluloid dresser set, complete with chamois to buff one's nails. We have porcelain, glass, leather, metal boxes. A wooden box contains a 100 year old fan. Kristyna and I will have fun with all of them, and then I'll share them with the other grandchildren as time goes on.

Summer Issue- 2009

2009-06-17T16:44:00.001-04:00

We've had three summer weddings here. One year a daughter and our son had their weddings, and another year, another daughter. Of course there was much joy, partying, visiting with family and friends.. For the daughters' weddings we hired a man with horses and a coach who gave guests and helpers rides around some fields and forests. Along with the joyfulness of the ceremonies and parties we experienced some hitches and difficulties.

One important family member from the States told us that she was coming for the week before the wedding. Thinking of the complications about to arise, I strongly suggested she stay for the week afterward! She thought about this for about 20 seconds, before saying that, no she would come the week beforehand! I mentally tore my hair, wondering how to manage. I made arrangements to rent a bus for a week. We planned the itinerary – picking up guests in Prague and delivering them to local hotels, supper and music at a vinarna, a visit to Cesky Budejovice and Krumlov, a trip to the glass factory with lunch following, a visit to Orlik with an evening barbecue on their restaurant patio, another evening grilling lamb on a sheep farm. Some stateside guests rented cars, but most relied on our bus.

Many people were very helpful. The bride's roommate arrived mid-afternoon while our youngest daughter was agonizing over the wedding cake assembly. Instead of going to play Pitch with the university friends, the roommate stayed, talking the very nervous cook and decorator through the process.. A nearby organic farm gave us fresh roses for the cake decorations.

A few people acted as saboteurs. A couple people insisted on inviting guests for coffee, on one of the remaining weekends I had to work on writing and sending faxes. Also, after several months, the caterers hadn't gotten back to us. I sent a letter to them saying that we would have a number of important people who would expect good food: “several authors of books, a former ambassador, a signer of Charter 77, the daughter of a Czech senator [Not bothering to mention that this had been in the First Republic!], someone who had set-up a dinner for Havel when he was in the states”, and so on. I got a quick phone call: “Didn't you get our fax?” They quickly faxed their offer! However, I am certain they had not faxed earlier! Finally, while I was sending out a group of helpers to gather branches to arrange in two painted milk cans, someone else grabbed them, setting them to scrubbing the chapel door! This did no good. [A few years later it was painted.]

The bride's dress was remade from her great-grandmother's. Unfortunately a new set of bridesmaids' dresses had to be ordered! One bridesmaid was now pregnant! All the women staying here spent the morning decorating the chapel and tables on the Platz with flowers. I removed ORANGE flowers from the altar, replacing them with the pastels I'd wanted! I gave one woman who would read the intercessory prayers bits of papers to arrange for reading. Instead, she worked on flowers; during the service she had to shuffle those papers!

For our son's wedding the bride's family of course planned dress, flowers, reception. I went to the factory which makes material, buying a long roll of sturdy red cloth to run up the aisle of our chapel. Helpers fixed refreshments here for those invited to the ceremony, but not to the reception.

A nearby dressmaker fashioned the dress for our other daughter, washable silk and beautiful lace for sleeves, which we'd chosen in Vienna. She fainted at the final fitting, alarming the dressmaker who phoned us. We picked her up as planned and all was well.

The deacon from the nearby monastery brought a lovely bouquet. We asked if it was from the abbot. “No, they are from the archbishop.” !!! We finally unraveled that mystery. A cousin who had done some translations for him, sat next to him at a special mass on Vysehrad.. We could just imagine her saying to him, “I am going to a lovely zamek for a wedding in a lovely family in the Highlands!”

Standing on the platform with the deacon and his bride, the groom realized that he had left the rings upstairs in his room! Somehow he communicated this to a friend in the middle of the chapel who somehow where realized the rings were. She slipped out the side door, went to a dresser drawer, and brought back the rings, delivering them safely to the groom!

Both of our daughters' wedding receptions ended with a big thunderstorm. Guests flew around the Platz, bringing in food and dishes and taking down tents, before heading for shelter. The second caterer told me later it was if the kitchen were full of ants scurrying around!

My Czech Treasures

2009-04-03T09:06:00.001-04:00

In the operetta, "Cikansky Baron", the protagonist returns home to a ruined estate and, after many adventures, finds a treasure, a trunk of gold coins. I came with my husband when he returned to his ruined estate; we continually have adventures. I found an old trunk his family had used for boots; chickens had been nesting in it. It was not filled with gold coins.

My treasure I found elsewhere. That it was so unexpected intensifies its value for me. My treasure is our relatives. Some my husband knew as a child, with some few we corresponded, and some, even fewer, we met in England & Germany. Of course, many were not born yet when my husband & his parents left.

In April 1990 my husband, our junior high daughter, and I went to Litomerice to see Uncle John and Aunt Irene whom we'd met once in Oxford, England. Uncle John used to send us things - phonograph records: the lovely J.J.Ryba baroque Christmas mass, and a Karel Gott 45; and a Lada calendar and Lada prints for the children. From that April '90 visit I have a wonderful photo of Uncle John showing my husband the surrender papers which had been given him in 1945, and which he had kept hidden for over forty years. Aunt Irene was rushing out to buy ham, cheese, and rolls for us.

In August 1990, I arrived at the Pilsen train station with four of our nearly adult children, and my mother-in-law. We were looking out of the train, to see who was meeting us and wondering if we would know them. Suddenly I realized that almost all the people stretched out along the platform were there for us. There was a little old lady I was certain was someone special. Later, I found out how very special she is. She's my husband's aunt and, with her husband, his uncle, had facilitated their route out of Czechoslovakia. There were 3 of my husband's first cousins, and some spouses; 5 of my children's second cousins. We hardly knew these people existed.

In cars and a farm truck, we were carted off to the village mill which my husband's grandmother had run. I actually had the address in my address book, but had no idea what it meant. We saw the weir island with its ancient huge hollow tree where every year the children put on a play, "fairies" emerging from the hollow tree. We ate and drank, laughed and talked, in a mixture of languages - Czech, English, German. Peter, a second cousin took us to see an ancient castle ruin, which once was a beacon, when fires were lit, on the route to Prague. In the evening we sat around a fireplace & sang. We all learned "The Mill Doesn't Run Any More", "Nemelem nemelem". But my husband's cousin, Joe, was trying: he is producing electricity. One of my daughters went to bed first. She was highly startled when her second cousin walked through, the rooms being interconnected, as typical of a Czech house. "WHY is Leslie (eldest sister) here?!!" "No, she's your second cousin, Katya!"

There's Jane, a loving homebody. Before I learned Czech we communicated just with smiles, and appreciation of her meals. She and Georgiana both like to try new recipes. Another Jane speaks English, and is sensible, outgoing, and, also, caring. Olga is full of enthusiasm, loves adventure and was in the big Sokol parade with Havel. There's Eva, with whom I used a dictionary to speak together in German, hers much better than mine; years later I was her confirmation sponsor. Her husband, Thomas, still later, did a reading at our daughter's wedding. There was Vasek to whose retroactive Charles University medical school graduation we went. Havel instituted these graduations for people who had been thrown out of university in 1949. There was Cousin Irene, very precise, organized, and interested in art.

Cousins Slavoj and Milada scurried around introducing people to each other. IWAP's support of the Zbraslav children's home was a result of Slavoj's introductions because his cousin who worked there asked me for help. There's Hana who was one of the first signers of Charter '77. There's Joe who's a computer genius. There's Margaret who brought her boyfriend, now her husband, for a visit, remembering how our girls took her on a picnic for her namesday, when she, only 8, had been dropped off with us to practice her English! She's now an elegant young woman and the mother of a little girl. There's Kathy, and Peter, Paul, and Katy, who thank us for visiting, as if we, not they, had provided hospitality.

Aunt Hana, who died at age 95 a few years ago, plied us with constant tidbits of the art, history, and architecture of Prague. When young, she listened to Ema Destinova* singing from the Vysehrad while she stood with her family across the Vltava below. 'Her voice was so clear! You know, it was before the days of microphones, but we heard her perfectly.'

I treasure all of these people. Certainly I could use a trunk full of gold coins; oh, yes, I could. However, my Czech treasure is truly of lasting value to me.

*Ema Destinova was a famous and beloved singer and opera star. You may look at her face on the 2000 Kc. note, or read her plaque at the entrance to the National Theater.

April '09 Bridge European visits

2009-03-11T13:28:00.000-04:00

After junior year in high school I went to a conference in a camp called Sky Lake. We had discussions, cookouts, lots of fun, but I had a worry that I didn't think concerned others: the upcoming vote on the European Common Market with uncertain passage. It felt very important to me. One evening I went in the camp store and a radio newscast: the European Common Market had passed. It was years later that I first visited Europe, but since then my family and I have been to many countries of what became the EU.

In early years at the Zamek a TV crew came to film us. It was summer, so my mother-in-law, Rina, was here. As we sat on the Platz, she told how she had packed small suitcases with pajamas and a sausage for their 1948 escape. I was interviewed in the kitchen; I said how I feel at home as climate and terrain are similar to my hometown area in central New York State. My husband talked about what we grow while interviewed on a field. Our son was filmed in one of the woodshops. He said that he had been very fortunate to have visited many countries throughout his childhood and now was pleased to be in the free Czech Republic.

When you visit another country you find, even within Europe, similarities and differences. My husband had business in the Netherlands . I went on a canal boat ride and a bus trip with two little daughters."We'll go visit a castle on the weekend" my husband said. I said, "Don't be silly. Holland doesn't have castles!" But they do - dozens. We went to Muiderslot, and also visited WWII bunkers, and the Comenius' Museum, which my husband's grandmother's friend had founded. On another early trip to Amsterdam a couple daughters bought tiny delft-ware type pieces in the hotel gift shop. They complained to the sales girl that they were using too much of their vacation money for small gifts. "Yes", she said, "Holland is a small and expensive country".

We never spent much time in France, but one two-day visit to Paris seems quintessential to me. We arrived from an overnight flight. The concierge at the King George Hotel looked askance at our bedraggled crew, fumbling around with reservations, until my husband asked him to store our PC very, very carefully. [PC's were a new item in the world back then.] The concierge found the reservations. The computer went to the storeroom; we were taken to a beautiful and extensive suite. There was some chipped paint, pre-renovations, but for us and our four children unending space after a night flying was wonderful. There were three bedrooms, a large sitting room, corridors, and a number of bathrooms. One child did math homework on a Louis the something table.

After all rested, we ordered room service for the three girls -exquisite food, with linens, silver, and flowers. My husband, I, and our young teen-age son went out for dinner and then the show at the Folies de Berges. Of course it was interesting. I remarked that I liked the variety of costumes; our son remarked that he thought it very repetitious, my husband agreed. However, we had at least viewed it once.

The next day we walked to the Champs Elysees, Napoleon's tomb, the Eiffel tower, and lovely gardens. Our fashion-conscious daughter remarked on the clothes of French children playing in the gardens. "They are all wearing Outfits!", she said. [Toiletries she collected from the hotel bathrooms lasted her several years.] The following morning we flew off, having experienced Paris.

Greece was our destination four or five times. On the island of Kos the children played in marketplace ruins. There had been money to excavate mosaic floors, but not to build a structure, so you scraped the four or so inches of sand off and then recovered them.. One child got a painful bee sting. I went to a pharmacy across the road. This was my first experience of European pharmacists as medical advisors. I said she was not allergic, and he gave me something which took the sting out.

The last time we saw the Parthenon it had scaffolding. I think the repairs were really needed, so it wouldn't collapse. However our youngest did not like this! "Don't they know that people want to see it like it ended up? I'm not coming back until they take the scaffolding away!" She left. My husband said, "I didn't know Ann is a classical purist".

One of our daughters has returned to Greece twice, from Prague, including on her honeymoon. It's not sneaky infecting the children with interest in other places, it's vital to our world and theirs.

March 2009 "Thinking of Children's Insights"

2009-02-11T10:07:00.003-05:00

Perhaps you will soon be taking your children on vacation for a late-winter or early-spring holiday. I always tended to stuff my children as full of the history, geography, literature, culture of the place visited as I possibly, possibly could. It is fair turnabout to note well what children are feeling and saying. Recently I've been thinking of many interesting reactions of my youngest daughter in all our travels over the years, from the time when she was a baby to our arrival in Czechoslovakia, and later moving into the zamek.

Eight months old, she was sitting on my lap while we viewed a herd of zebras in a game park. At this moment she registered what she was seeing, her eyes growing large - these were the first animals she'd really noticed. She was baptized on the trip; Years later we needed the date so looked in her brother's notebook; interspersed with a sentence about seeing a lion, and lots of drawings of tanks and guns, was the sentence, “Today my sister was baptized”. Also in Africa, when she was 3 or 4, she brought her notebook, with pasted-in maps to her father. What she requested of him was to mark HOME - the town in the Middle East where we lived! It was all very well to visit Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nairobi, but she wanted HOME to be firmly marked.

When she was 5 she had one goal for our USA trip: getting a pair of “Party Shoes” - black patent Mary Janes. When she had those she said, “Okay. We can go home now.” Never mind that her father had a computer course, one child needed a small operation, I had to get some household supplies and clothes for everyone for the year, and we needed to visit relatives.

Some incidents in England, involving her at age 9, come to my mind. She really hated walking on tombstones. “Thank you, Becky!!”, she said with all her heart to the cousin who warned her about a tombstone on the floor in a small country church. I remember her amazement at the age of the Oxford “New College”, where we watched “The Tempest”. We also visited the pubs which C. S. Lewis and the other Inklings frequented. I bought her a copy of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, telling her that she was absolutely going to read it. Of course, she could read, but until that point had avoided full-length books; after that, you couldn't stop her. Her very best day was the day a neighbor in the village where we rented a house took her to school -PE, art, and music all in one day, and all the other little girls on the school bus.

A few years later she was with her sister, so my husband and I enjoyed the art of Florence, Italy, without complaints! But another time, in the Prado in Madrid she recognized a painting because of a set of coasters including that painting. The hour we spent there suited a child more than the 3 hours at the Uffizi would have.

When we drove to Czechoslovakia from Vienna in April 1990 most of the old border defenses were still very apparent. When she returned home to 9th grade one of the other students remarked, “Of course there is really no such thing as 'No-man's land'”. Our daughter immediately informed him that there certainly is, and that she had seen it!

She wrote poems about the zamek later, putting into them ages and sounds. If you didn't know better, you might think that she had actually lived here centuries ago.

Music (originally published in "The Bridge" in 2005

2009-01-05T20:08:00.002-05:00

It's possible to find musicians in our history, including into recent years. At the end of the 1800's, Bedrich Smetana, then a young man, lived in an area zamek and, according to the local historical society, came here for hunting parties. They said he once gave a concert at our zamek and that he set "The Bartered Bride" around the fish pond in Posna, a nearby village. Wouldn't it be fun to interview people there, asking if this one's or that one's grandmother or grandfather were the prototype for a character in his opera?

We've liked inviting musicians to help us in our celebrations, but the first group, about six people, invited themselves on December 24, 1991. They were dressed in folk costumes and gave a little talk saying they were reviving the ancient Czech custom of caroling from place to place. We shared "Good King Wenceslaus", greatly pleasing them that English-speaking people remember him. When they'd left for a retirement home snow fell furiously for about fifteen minutes covering the bare ground and sealing the thrill for us of that magical, musical afternoon.

Weddings are perfect times to invite musicians. There's music for the wedding ceremony, a folklore group to perform local wedding dances and songs, and a band for dancing. I'd wanted a bilingual ceremony. Fr. Max accomplished this at the rehearsal in one sentence: "Now, Petr", he directed our organist cousin, "your family please sing all the responses in Czech." And they did. Hymns were in English, some scripture was in Czech, some in English. Fr. Max did the ceremony in English with the bridal couple reciting their memorized vows in English. The congregation chose their own participation language! Our violinist
friend played Bach's "Sheep may Safely Graze". Afterwards the folklore group was enjoyed and then dancing began with the classical Czech circle around the newly-married couple.

At another wedding a couple funny or off-beat incidents took place. We pushed two guitarists, who'd gotten off an airplane three hours before, to take part in the rehearsal. They survived, barely. The flautist did not come to the rehearsal, quite to our surprise. He did come to the wedding, not particularly early, but instead of the flute, he played the
saxophone for the offertory to everyone's astonishment! Between when I'd talked with him and the wedding, he'd decided that he knew the French chanson better than he knew the flute music.

During the reception I found a few of the folklore group just hanging out. "What are you doing?" "Waiting for the others." Long afterwards I realized that I had forgotten to send the bus for them! Others picked them up in several loads, so we did have the show after all.

The older cousin of the young man who played the saxophone is an accomplished pianist. She is now a PhD in languages, but she did give a concert here years ago. The old general who lived here then had some requests which she played competently.

Jack Frost at Work - Dec/Jan '08- 09

2008-11-08T14:34:00.001-05:00

Have you ever seen Jack Frost.....or, just his work?

When I was only six I stopped believing in Santa Claus. I was already suspicious that year, so I tested my theory. I got my parents to promise they wouldn't eat the snack we left near the fireplace. It was still there in the morning, so I definitely knew.

I myself have never seen fairies in the garden. One daughter wrote down, with a little picture, that she saw a fairy under a mushroom. Her younger sister said that knowing her, she probably did see one.

However, I believed in Jack Frost for a very long time, probably until I was eleven, or so. This is how he looks, and what he does. He works in the winter in cold climates. He always has some brushes to decorate your windows. He's slender, but tall, and moves quickly because I've never actually caught sight of him. Most of his work he does at night, or very, very early in the morning. He wears a pointy hat, and some of his clothes are red and green.

My mother told me about Jack Frost, but neither she nor my father were charmed as I was, because Jack Frost's work takes place when there are air leaks around the windows. My husband had silicon put around all the window frames, so frosty paintings are rarely seen here. An exception is the glassed-in balcony at the top of the stairs. Warm air rises from the furnace room, and warm, moist air rises from the clothes dryer. On frosty mornings I see the elfin painter's artistic creations.. There'll be tall ferns, flowers, perhaps a storybook castle, a frozen white meadow, or maybe a cat. I have not yet seen sheep here! Maybe they are hiding in the meadow.

If you catch Jack Frost at work, please write and tell me.

October 2008

2008-09-03T08:12:00.001-04:00

October 2008

First, if you think you are having a hard time shopping in Prague, think of me here in the countryside, so much sparser in stores, but I do manage it.When you are still very unfamiliar with the Czech language, take your dictionary along shopping with you! Forgot your dictionary? Buy only foods you recognize until next trip! I once bought “hard flour” thinking it was the gluten-free I needed. A daughter bought a bag of kitty litter – here for the Zámek, where we are replete with sawdust! She thought it was dry cat food. Early on, I bought a slepice, when what I needed was a kuøe. I cooked that old hen for two days.

I do bring a few things from the States or England, but most things can be managed by substituting or making your own – cream sauce cooked in a pot, rather than the can of soup the recipe calls for; baking cocoa + butter, rather than baking chocolate; chocolate bars chopped in the food processor, rather than chocolate chips. It's good to have a list of pound/kilogram equivalents, although more stateside recipes now give both. I taped a card with centigrade-fahrenheit equivalents above the oven.

DISH FOR A DESPERATE DAY

Make the number of hamburger patties you want, or wash the number of chicken legs.
Lay in a shallow baking dish which has a cover.

Add whatever veggies you want -
Chopped onion, carrots sticks, zucchini sticks, celery OR grated celer [celeric root]
parsnip sticks
Cut up potatoes

Add whatever herbs you want -
Garlic, summer savory, thyme, marjoram, salt, pepper

Put the lid on and bake at 350 for about an hour. If the lid is loose, you might put foil around the edge.

Play a game with the children, make a phone call, take a nap.
****************

EGGLESS, MILKLESS, BUTTERLESS CAKE

Made by my grandmother, Dora Markham Clark, during WWI. I have the recipe in her handwriting.

Mix in a saucepan:

1 cup brown sugar. [This can now be purchased in more shops, and health food stores have it.]
1 ¼ cup water
1/3 cup lard or margarine
2 cup raisins
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon cloves or less
[You may need to look these words up in your trusty dictionary!]

Bring to a boil, and boil for 3 minutes. Let cool.

Add 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in 2 teaspoon water.

Blend in 2 cup flour mixed with 1 teaspoon baking powder.

Pour into greased and floured or crumbed baking pan.
Bake about 50 minutes in a 325 oven.
******************

BLUEBERRY BATTERCAKE
from "Women's Day", Sept '39

The Czech word boruvky can be translated into English as either bilberry or blueberry. What grows wild here, on the forest floor, is the soft-stemmed bilberry. A few people have blueberry bushes in their gardens; blueberries may sometimes be purchased fresh in the markets, or from the frozen food counter. Use either in this dish.

Line a greased pan with 2 cups blueberries or bilberries, sprinkling with juice of ½ a lemon.
Canned fruits may be used – peaches are quite good.

Mix the batter:
Cream ¾ cup sugar with 3 tablespoons butter.
Mix 1 cup sifted flour with 1 teaspoon baking powder and ¼ teaspoon salt.
Add to creamed mixture alternately with ½ cup milk.
Pour the batter over the berries.

Mix:
1 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon cornstarch, ¼ teaspoon salt.
Sprinkle over the top of the cake batter.

Pour:
¾ cup to 1 cup boiling water over the cake!! Do not stir!
For canned fruits, use their own juice brought to a boil.

Bake in moderate oven (375) one hour.

You may put this in the oven during dinner preparations and thus have a hot cake.
Leftover is OK, but fresh is fantastic. Great with ice cream, of course.

What's New Around Here- September 2008

2008-08-07T17:14:00.002-04:00

2008 is the 100th year since my husband's grandfather and grandmother purchased the estate upon the 1908 birth of my husband's father. We've thought of ways to celebrate, both sensible and ridiculous ones. A ridiculous idea might be a dumpling-eating contest. Celebrations, in a low
key way, will continue for a couple years – first because our daughters and families cannot come this year, but also because the grandparent's family, consisting of the mother, father, infant son, and 7 year old daughter, did not move into the Zamek immediately. They added toilets!!, renovated the kitchen, added water-powered electricity, and the grandfather probably began thinking about the horses he would become well-known for raising.

Our son is ordering logo t-shirts, with lettering done by an artist, his brother-in-law. For the chapel, my husband has ordered granite plaques with his parents' dates and will order his grandparents'. I went with our son and his children to the village of the grandmother's family to visit the graveyard where the grandmother was buried in 1960, as we did not find any papers with her exact birth and death dates. [The communists would not allow her to be buried here in the tomb alongside her husband. Villagers there helped us find the family estate where she and her children had been born.]

Recently the abbot from the nearby monastery visited our woodshop. He ordered 100 smallish wooden crosses for the monastery. When he heard it was our 100th year he said he'd like to have a celebration mass in our chapel. There have been masses here, but never before by the abbot! I'll need to do some cleaning! A date has been set. Afterwards we'll grill lamb shish-kebobs for supper.

[Many sheep are still alive and walking around, but they've finally worked out the routine of WHERE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO GO! New this year, that's greatly appreciated by me!]

Long-delayed repairs are proceeding. We're working on the suite that was my husband's parents – large bedroom, veranda with tower, bathroom made from my mother-in-law's large dressing room. A tiny toilet room will be a linen closet. The adjacent sitting room is slated to be an Arab majlis with our collections from the Middle East. My husband had a enchanting curved staircase added to the tower. I've purchased light fixtures I imagine could be from the 1930's. The bricklayer is upstairs right now, plastering holes the electricians made.

The next BIG item needed is a furnace for this wing. But who knows: the carpenters or the agriculture department might decide one or the other really needs something else. Well, the Zamek was built over a number of centuries.....

Lovers Lane - May 2008

2008-04-04T14:11:00.002-04:00

Lovers' Lanes

We have two lovers' lanes that I know about on the estate. Most likely there are more. Probably lovers walk through a forest. Perhaps some ramble along the stream. But these two paths I know about directly from lovers who used them.

Any physical indication of the first lane is long gone, but my friend who walked this with her husband-to-be has explained exactly where it was. A double alley of oak trees went from just behind our garden, across a field to a meadow between two ponds to a road to another village. That alley is where they walked, exchanging secrets and caresses. Wildlife was plentiful here. Grouse ran, hares frisked, pheasants stalked. The walk was especially lovely through the meadow between the two ponds. Sometimes they saw a deer with her fawn.

Later in the 1970's and 1980's the regime proceeded to turn the typical small Czech fields into giant rolling fields like countries further east have. What to do with that oak alley? The head of the farm collective knew what he wanted. After he had the oaks chopped down, he had furniture for his house made with the wood.

Just the other day my friend told me again how lovely that oak alley was where they ambled and courted. She's sad that it was all cut down, but its beauty lives on in her heart and her husband's.

You may still go on the other lovers' lane, as it's a small rocky dirt road which is occasionally driven on and often walked upon. Down below it splits, one branch leading to the old brick yard and the other to a meadow and stream. Over the stream is a small wooden bridge.

In 1996 we were preparing for our Fourth of July party. My neighbor at the time, Joan, was making three-bean salad; our son David was getting fires started; my husband was entertaining early arrivals; one daughter was putting up red, white, and blue decorations; another daughter, Alice, was mowing the lawn. She had to stop for awhile to converse with her grandmother. Finally finishing the lawn, her friend Christian took her away for a walk.

They walked through the village, down to the meadow, and onto the bridge. They became engaged. Christian gave Alice a ring set with family diamonds and in the center a garnet he'd purchased. The garnet is because garnets are Czech stones, and Alice is half-Czech. The following summer they were married here in the Zamek chapel.

My artist friend, Edna, once visited us for a month. Afterwards she did a painting of a small bridge which we bought Alice and Christian for Christmas several years later. It hangs in their room, and is a keepsake of their engagement on the Fourth of July.

Sewing Projects

2008-03-07T09:09:00.002-05:00

A manufacturer of upholstery and drapery material is not far from the Zamek. I shop there at the factory sometimes. Then I phone our upholsterer who incidentally did the furniture at Obecní Dùm when it was renovated a few years ago.

Once we needed felt for Christmas ornaments for gifts and to sell. First, questioning IWAP members and then searching in Prague, I found a store. I even learned the Czech word, "filc".

A dressmaker near the Zamek sewed outfits for me, my mother-in-law, and for two daughters, including the wedding dress for one of them. We shopped for fabric, drew pictures or took patterns to the dressmaker, and went back for fittings.

But the project which still amazes me took place many years ago. I made a silk dress for a thirteen year old girl. Are you familiar with the concerns thirteen year old girls have about clothes?

"Mom, I really need a new dress for the dance next week."

"Alice, why don't you wear the floaty two-piece white on white, satiny stripe, I made last year."

"Mother, I can't wear that! There' s no contrast: you know we're all wearing white stoles. I need the dark blue silk you brought me from India last year. I really want a sheath; that would look nice."

"I don't have a pattern. Alice, you are not a paper doll, you are not flat, you are three-dimensional. I've made doll clothes that wouldn't fit the dolls." [Where we lived at the time it was nearly impossible to get patterns.]

"Oh, Mother. You can do it. Just use a pattern you have to shape the armholes. It will be so easy for you."

It wasn't exactly easy. The armholes needed facing, also, which was another cutting problem. I had to think carefully and measure for darts. Of course, I had to make certain there was enough room on the sides to fit in a person, even someone slender like Alice! Finally, after she'd tried it on many times, I put in a zipper and did the hem.

She was very pleased with the dress. She looked lovely in it with the white stole. I was proud of how I'd managed to construct it!

Now, Alice is a mother of girls herself, contending with their reasonable and unreasonable requests.

Exercise in, mostly, the countryside.

2008-02-05T15:48:00.000-05:00

Many people like to have a home workout program. Here are my suggestions. As in all programs, you may move from the easy to the difficult.

Gentle exercise
Put sticks in the fire. Put more sticks in the fire.
Vigorous exercise
Take a wheelbarrow loaded with wood to the Zamek. Unload inside into wood boxes.
Extreme exercise
Carry many large pieces of wood upstairs.

Gentle exercise
Fill the sheep's drinking buckets. Hand out oats, dumplings, and salt.
Vigorous exercise
1. Give the sheep six large baskets of hay.
2. Take the flock out to their pasture, not allowing them to sidetrack to eat flowers.
Extreme exercise
I won't go into this. It involves several people chasing the whole flock outside, preventing them from going onto the highway, or down to the moat.....By the way, did you ever see a five year old try to pick up a skittish runaway lamb?

Gentle exercise
Get out crayons, legos, or "Sorry" for grandchildren.
Vigorous exercise
Carry a large basket of blocks to another room.
Extreme exercise
Sprint to beat a two year old to the street.

Gentle exercise
Cut up meat, veggies, and fruit for children.
Vigorous - Extreme exercise
Wait for them to eat it. This involves much self-control, but NO vigorous motions.
Return to gentle exercise
Clean up. Divide leftovers among dog, cats, and sheep.

Gentle exercise
Give guests gulaš and wine or beer, koláèe and coffee in the dining room next to the kitchen.
Vigorous exercise
Take three or four trays of said repast to the TV room across the drive-through.
Extreme exercise
Take all of these, plus a first course, to the formal dining room upstairs, where, unless it's summer, you've made a fire three or four hours ago. Run back and forth for the things you forgot.

Gentle exercise
Trim forsythia. Plant a few herbs or flowers.
Vigorous exercise
Spade up a section of the flower bed. Move small trees which have rooted there.
Extreme exercise
Spade up the whole flower bed. Move a large shrub or a tree. Repeating these exercises will strengthen you, as you will use different muscles each time you bend and lift and carry.

Winter Activities in the Country Side

2008-01-19T12:24:00.000-05:00

Many people knit in the winter: one year my neighbor knit me, a daughter, and our niece each a pair of socks, as well as for everyone in her family. Many Czechs like to whiten inside walls [nowadays, using wall paint, not whitewash]. To air the room, they open windows, of course, but the heating helps to clear fumes more quickly than in summer, they say. Some women still have "darning" bees where they all get together to strip goose feathers for feather beds. The woman at whose house they're working provides a nice supper.

"Keep the homefires burning" is not just a saying! The most important winter activity is making fires and keeping them going. Sometimes this includes going to the woodshed; generally others bring in wood. In the Zamek it is possible to have seven different fires. A small furnace between the TV/computer room and the accountant's office also heats a hall and bathroom while a wood-fired cookstove heats the whole arched kitchen. A large wood-gas furnace heats radiators in dining room, bedrooms, laundry room; and floors in a bedroom suite, in bathrooms, and, slightly, in chapel.

A blue tile stove, with seating area, is in the office of the farm manager, woodshop manager, and forester. When the fire is going there you must not lean on it while wearing a nylon jacket! In the big dining room and library there's a large metal stove, with pipes which spread heated air. It's a special occasion to build a fire there because all that wood has to be carried upstairs. When it's very cold the everyday dining room's fire is also lit.

I catch a few people to do a few repairs, things suitable for doing inside, in warm rooms.

We invite a few people over for lunch, dinner, or to spend a few nights. We might go to Prague for a day or two, seeing friends, going to a party, swimming in a hotel pool.

As we each finish our new Christmas books, we trade with others.

The sheep are fed every day. At least now they are locked up in the barn, no jumping over fences, or breaking through them. Often we must thaw their water faucet.

The woodshop manager supervises making of special orders, such as doors, tables, Adirondack chairs along with wine racks, bookcases, and pegged shelves. The biggest concern is to manufacture enough fence and balcony slats so there's ample stock when requests for thousands pour in a few months.

The forester has trees cut and delivered for our woodshop production, along with planning springtime planting of baby trees. Forest workers are making the fences which will protect these young trees.

The farm manager plans fields for spring, with, this year, starting no-till farming. Her tractor driver repair machinery. She discusses crop prices for the coming season with buyers. She resists hiring a gardener!

I plan flower and herb beds and some tree and shrub planting around the Zamek. I try to hire a gardener!

Christmas at the Zamek and elsewhere!

2007-12-02T11:33:00.000-05:00

For this Holiday issue I polled four young women who have spent at least two holiday periods at the Zamek and consolidated their responses.

That first Christmas at the Zamek I remember buying that live carp and seeing it swim around in the bathtub. I decided a shower was out of the question, not wanting to share with the carp.

We welcomed real live carolers in costume into our home! For the first time we heard “Nasam va noviny” sung as a real song by people who spoke the language, not just phonetically learned as we had years before for a Christmas surprise for my father.

I was determined to wear a skirt to Christmas Eve Mass. Because the church would be frigid, I layered long johns, slacks, and two skirts under my coat.

We’d lived for many years in a warm climate: experiences common to many people were very special to us – the smell of the real Christmas tree, seeing the snow fall, hearing the quiet of a moonlit snowy night. Our tree had chocolate ornaments wrapped in foil, as our grandmother’s had had years before. It was great to live finally in a place where we were not admonished by worried Americans about real candles on the tree.

Traditions we’d grown up with fit well into our new life: an early evening seafood supper, candle-lit tree and carols when Baby Jesus came, passing caramel nut triangle cookies and pouring wine or hot cocoa after opening gifts. On Christmas morning we had stockings with clementines, had a Christmas dinner, and read each other’s new books.

It was a surprise to get a block of lard as a gift from another family.

The weather was freezing, the frozen roads terrifying. But I loved going for a quiet walk alone in snowy woods, the snow crunching underfoot, cheeks cold. I took the dog Meddy for two hour hikes, watched him chase deer and hoped he’d come back. There was the smell of coal burning in village stoves.

Boxing Day is not an American holiday, but we did celebrate it with another family for many years. As an adult I have been able to celebrate Boxing Day several years with this same family, a heart-warming time.

We were invited to a ball after Christmas. Driving home from that ball I had a few pheasants on my lap. We had won the raffle!

New Years always means getting a phone call from someone in another country/time zone, who has already welcomed the New Year. There’s some sadness in goodbyes to friends returning to school and college. We spent our first New Years here at neighbors in the village. Around the room, each person told his wishes for the coming year, and my dad translated. Other years we walked through Prague on New Year’s Eve, and drank hot mulled red wine in a little vinarna near the Vltava.

What if I am not in the Czech Republic? One year in the USA a Slovak exchange student was with us. He decorated the Christmas tree very precisely, unlike I do myself. He also phoned his mother in Slovakia to get her recipe for homemade mayonnaise. But when his parents’ gift package had arrived weeks earlier, he immediately opened every last gift! I didn’t realize a 16 year old would do that!

Often we are with a friend’s family. Our friend’s father likes perfecting new recipes. One year we had lobster bisque made with frozen broth from a lobster dinner the previous summer! Another time he made beef Wellington. The whole family’s skill at handicrafts dominates the gift exchange – socks and scarves, pieces of furniture, hand-woven pots.

So, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, whether much or little, I advise you to do it with heart!

November 1989

2007-10-16T23:17:00.000-04:00

Before the move to the Zamek.....

In the summer of '89, Uncle John of Litomerice actually mailed us a political joke. "Will they arrest him, or is the Communist bloc breaking up?", we wondered. Then we began hearing stories of east Germans requesting asylum in Prague. In September arriving in Boston to visit my ill father, security told me chunks of the Berlin Wall had come through security continuously in people's carry-on bags.

Short wave radios were not allowed where we lived, but we had one, and followed the BBC's announcements, excitedly hoping and holding our breath. My father died on November 22, the day before Thanksgiving. I cooked on Thursday and soon flew to his memorial service.

In the States, television programs and newspapers were full of events in Czechoslovakia. We prepared for the memorial service and arriving family, meeting some men my dad had known in the 1930's. In between, we glued ourselves to the television. I thought about how my husband, back where we lived, was listening to these happenings on the BBC.

The most wonderful day was when Vaclav Havel was due to speak on Wenscelas Square, but could not because of the cheers of the huge crowd. Soon they were chanting, "Havel na Hrad, Havel na Hrad" - "Havel to the castle, Havel to the castle". And the crowds all went to the castle.

We devoured newspaper and magazines, collecting them for my husband. After I returned in December we started planning when we would go to Czechoslovakia. This would be my first time, and the first time since 1948 for my husband when he was ten years old. Although we knew some people who'd visited, we'd never seriously considered it. We'd read about a young man who had decided to visit - and had been put into jail for awhile. Others had had sad experiences, and had to reimburse the regime for the time they had spent in Czech schools!

At first we thought we'd go in August, our long vacation time. Then we decided on a short break in April. Our youngest daughter was in ninth grade. At the border from Austria we saw the scary no-man's land. Back home our daughter enlightened a fellow student who remarked that there's no such thing as no-man's land: "Yes, there is! I saw it!". The Czech guard used his "English" on us: "Caio, baby!".

We visited the Zamek in its devastated condition. Near the Zamek, one man said to my husband, "I know you. You were in fourth grade and I was in second grade. Everyone here says 'Now George will come back'."

We met other people, including some from Obcansky Forum, Havel's party then, and also our present doctor. We saw Uncle John in Litomerice who showed George the surrender papers he'd been given at the end of WWII which the communists had wanted and he'd kept hidden for 40 years.

The Colors of Autumn

2007-09-11T08:56:00.000-04:00

We rapt rhapsodic over glorious autumn colors. One October in New York State I drove south about 60 miles to the Binghamton airport. It was a gray day, but the trees were so wonderfully beautiful that I've remembered the sights for twenty years. Gray skies simply served to accentuate glorious reds, yellows, oranges in valleys and on hills.

Today I will mention other colors of autumn. Reds are not plentiful in a Czech autumn, but sumacs and Virginia creeper are indeed richly red. Mountain ash along a stretch of highway is bright with berries. Red apples hang in orchards and along highways. Maybe the last rose of summer is red. Think about other reds - blood of the slaughtered pig, and blood soup. The pig will be served at the dozinky, the harvest celebration. It's cooked on a spit outside, so there are red flames and coals. Also, if I ever actually do run over a chicken, there will be blood. So far, driving slowly, yelling "Chicken Soup!", clears the road.

Orange? You might call the ash berries red-orange. Trees and lamp posts still carry tattered orange posters from summer discotheques. Then there are Halloween pumpkins.

Yellow and golden beauty abounds. One fall we drove from Karlstein to Pilsen. Hills were a feast for the eyes, covered as they were in birches whose leaves seemed to have become pure gold. Perhaps the last rose of summer is yellow. Blighted horse chestnut trees are ugly yellow. Their leaves have been turning yellow and brown prematurely for months. Larches' skinny leaves turn yellow, falling off, sticking to everything.

Autumn this year had much more green than usual because of rain. Colors don't turn as quickly when there's been enough rain. But every autumn has green fields. Green fields? Yes because winter wheat, rye, and canola, planted in late summer or early fall are sprouting. They will then rest over winter to flourish next spring.

Skies are blue: it's classical for October. What else is blue? Fish ponds reflecting skies. As weather is more chilly, maybe workers' hands and noses when they come to the Zamek for morning coffee break.

Asters, both tame and wild, provide shots of purple. Hills appear purple when you are distant from them. My sweet peas are multicolored, majoring in lavenders and purple. They last an amazingly long time. Bring them inside and they'll last even longer, into November. Oaks pass through yellow and red to become brown, but very often a maroon-brown, rather than a pure brown.

Most, though not all, of our wood products are beige. Dried grains and herbs are beige and brown, except for poppy seeds which are black. Unplanted ploughed fields, the compost heap, scraggly leftovers in the garden are brown, all brown. Mud is brown, outside mud, and inside on-the-floor mud. Mud on clothes, mud on rags and mops are all brown. Mud, mud, mud. Mushrooms are brown, or off-white. Many people collect them in brown handmade baskets up until there are hard frosts. Long mounds of stored hay out on the fields are covered in white or black plastic.

Finally one day everything is white, blanketed by the first snowfall.

Back-tracking in time

2007-07-22T22:27:00.000-04:00

I am going to give you a few dates, but stories, mostly. George Anthony Joseph Homolka was born Jan. 28, 1938 in Prague, coming to Brezina when he was about 2 weeks old. His name in Czech is Jírí [Year-zee] Antonín [An-to-neen] Josef [Yo-sef]. His father, also George, was born on Jan. 24, 1908 in Horky nad Jizero, a small town in Northeastern Bohemia on the Jizero river, although his father had been managing the estate at the other end of Horepnik. They moved into Brezina a year or so later after a few renovations, esp. a bathroom & toilets. Antonin Homolka, George's grandfather, died in 1941 at about 62 years of age and is buried in our chapel tomb. The Communists did not allow his grandmother, Zdenka Syrova Homolkova, to be buried here when she died in 1960. She is buried in the cemetery in Horky. George & I went there during our second trip, fall of '90. Ladies were weeding & planting family plots. "Oh, yes the Syrovys were a very nice family - see their house over there in the opposite bluff? You're Homolka? Ah, yes, one of the town girls went to work for a Homolka in Prague near the Prague Castle." [Can you IMAGINE this after so many, many years?! It could have been just after the turn of the century, although it could have been later.] One of George's great-uncles was that Homolka. George's grandparents also had a daughter, Zdenka, born in 1900.

Now I will tell you the story of the four brothers. Antonin was the youngest, born 1874. The others were Jan, born 1867; Vincent, 1870; & Josef, 1872. Their parents both died. The court directed that the great-grandfather's partner in their brewery business take brewery and inventory, and farmed the four boys out, singlely, to pubs which owed the brewery, for the children to eat up the debts! Then an uncle, Napravník, who must have been a brother of the mother, sold what household goods remained and asked the boys what he should do with the money. They said to put it in the Austrian-Hungarian lottery. They won the lottery - 200,000 gold ducats! Uncle Napravnik removed the boys from the pubs, sending them to orphanages [Maybe you had to pay or maybe just for them to be together again...?] The archbishop took on the education of Jan, the oldest. The uncle was studying to be a priest and still had some time in the seminary. When he finished and was assigned a parish he engaged a housekeeper & moved with the boys to Hodkovice, south of Prague. Antonin was 4. He told Rina, my mother-in-law, that the housekeeper was a good baker! We haven't have not gone to this town yet.

We have a photo of the four brothers and their wives. On the back the names are written: Jan married Anna who was called Hanièka, born, perhaps Bulantová, but there's a question mark on it; Vincent married Anna, ne Benèová; Jan married Marie, ne Èerná; and Antonin married Zdenka, ne Syrová.

When the uncle had his jubilee the boys bought him a robe decorated with emeralds.

You have a number of things about George's childhood in the blog. When George, Ann, & I came here in April '90 she & I kept staring at each other. We could hardly believe all he knew. He said it was because there were so many adults around trying to make an impression on him & busy teaching him - parents; grandparents; Aunt Zdenka [often here from Prague]; governess before he was in 1st grade; Rina's school friend, Helenka, an English teacher who often visited; "Uncle George", Vincent's son, a medical student who came to work here when the Germans closed the universities; Icha, an artist - painter & sculptor the older George's roommate in cavalry training [along with Schwartzenburg, the present one's father], also avoiding being sent to work camps in Germany with possible injury to hands; and other relatives. However he also remembers an amazing number of things from WWII and afterwards.

Several things made them leave - when Jan Masaryk died George explained in school that he had not jumped from the window, but been pushed. The police came to say he couldn't talk like this. George's father was urged to join the Communist party - showing him a newspaper article which would be published, if he did not. Of course, also, all the general tenor of what was happening. Many people including good friends were being arrested, with trumped up charges. In March '48, George's father took some things to Kozolupi, beyond Pilsen, and planned their escape with Rina's brother Frantisek & wife Boska. In April they drove to Prague, leaving some things with Aunt Hana & Uncle Dick Hucl [who much later compiled the Hucl family history], but not telling them. They drove to Pilsen & had lunch in a hotel, leaving their car in the parking lot. About then they told George. They took the train to Stribro where Uncle Frantisek met them & took them to a mill hidden in the woods. After dark two young smugglers walked them across the border, where they spent the rest of the night in a farmhouse kitchen. The next day the OSS took George's father to the county seat, Tischenreuth, to ask him about conditions here. They stayed in a hotel in Bamberg for awhile, waiting for their things which never came. Then they went to refugee camp in Burg, north of Frankfurt for a few months, & then to Ludwigsburg for about a year. The Atlanta Rotary Club sent boxes of clothing which they used & sold. George's father belonged to Rotary.

George's father corresponded with a man who owned African farms, saying, "Now I can't consider buying a farm". Mr. Kapnek asked him to come as one of the managers on his huge farm. They went by ship. They had plenty of food at last! George had some adventures. He enjoyed the week resting & swimming in Mombasa, spending time with the Captain. Someone said later that the captain had cried when George left the ship in Beira. George's parents had spent alot of time on the ship studying a book of African trees - later it was apparent that they knew much more than people who'd been there for many years! After working on Kapnek's farm they went to Tracy's farm - Tracys are friends to this day. In Cape Town this April we had dinner with his granddaughter & husband. Meanwhile George was sent to a boarding school whose head was near retirement & who wanted to teach a child English before he did. He also had the kids do wood-working in the afternoons - easy to learn words, if you are holding, say, a hammer. Alot of the kids, especially the Afrikaners, left school for good when this school finished after 6th grade and went back home to their poor farms. After about 1 1/2 years he began St. George's College, a Jesuit high school in Salisbury, as was.

After living at the Tracy's for awhile, Tracy helped George's father buy his own farm. When George was home they were building & he helped supervise the builders- the foundation rocks had specks of gold in them, as they were in a gold-mining area!

They bought almost no furniture - people gave them things, some was built on the Tracy's farm. Of course Rina was making Czech dinners & pastries for many & knitting sweaters for all the babies. George & his mother liked to go to the movies about 15 mi. away - he took her, as he had his license at 16. George liked to read the "Saturday Evening Post". It was only in the '70's that the farm was making a good profit as they got a better irrigation well & pump & began doing flower seeds for Holland & California. There were a few Czechs in Rhodesia & they got to know most of them.

University of Rhodesia had no chemical engineering department and George went to the University of Cape Town. He took the train a couple times, but mostly hitch-hiked. He & friends liked to go to the movies, and he also read literature - these helped slow down his chemical engineering progress! At one point he went to Zambia, teaching school on the copper belt for part of a year, to get money to go back to UCT. After he graduated he worked on the copper belt.

After 1 1/2 years there he'd paid back his school loans. He went to London for a few months & then to Washington D.C., sponsored by people they'd met in refugee camp. He went to many Czech gatherings with "Uncle" Matt. He began applying to many companies. He had an interview at the salt works in Watkins Glen but arrived a day early, so hitch-hiked to Corning. The engineer who picked him up suggested he apply at the Glass Works. While he was in the personnel office they pulled out a letter from a D.C. friend of "Uncle" Matt to Amory Houghton, head of Corning!!! He had NO idea this had been done! He went back the next day, & then was taken to lunch at the country club, which made him late for his salt works interview - by then he didn't care.

After he was in Corning a couple weeks, working on control for the television bulbs, another engineer took him to a "Young Adults Group" dance in the Baron Steuben Hotel & he met me & knew he'd marry me!! Which he only told me much later, of course. This was in Sept. 1963. We saw each other at the group, but our first date was Feb. 22 when the group was skiing. We were married in Oneonta on August 22. Leslie was born in Corning in 1965. When she was one, we went to Rensslaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY for advanced degrees. David was born in 1967 in Troy; Caroline was born in 1969 at a maternity hospital in Niscayuna, NY. George finished his PhD in early Jan. 1971. We went at once to Africa for over a month to meet George's parents finally.

The day in Feb. we came back from Africa we began moving to Bellaire, Texas for George to work at the Texaco Labs. Alice was born in Sharpstown in 1971. Very little research was actually done there, so George joined a smaller company in Fort Worth, going there in the summer of '72. He enjoyed much of the association there, but it was a rather strange company; he left & worked for Alcon, which does cleansers for contact lenses. At the same time we began investigating working for Aramco in Saudi Arabia. We moved to Dhahran, the summer of 1974, seeing a little of Holland for 3 days.

In all of these places we'd had very little money for travel, so did things on the weekends that were close to the places we lived, going to open houses in developments, going to state parks & lakes, visiting people some. George also told the children stores from Shakespeare, which he continued later in Saudi. [Ann recently had a Shakespeare class & said that, along his stories, the plays we'd seen in 1983 the summer we spent in Oxford, it felt like coming home.]

Ann was born in Dhahran shortly after we moved there. We went to Africa for the second time when she was about 6 months. & she was baptized there. One reason for going to Aramco was so that we would have the air fare to go to George's parents. We went about every other year.

George decided to learn to dive, joining the diving club. Once he took Leslie & another time David. I went, too, when Ann was about a month old, with her as she was nursing! I can hardly believe I actually did it. I swam a little while someone watched her, but don't dive. George only did it a few years.

His big hobby was doing research on a British explorer of Arabia, Gerard Leachman, who was the first to photograph Riyadh. Aramco library has many manuscripts. We followed Leachman hither & yon - to an oasis north off the tapline; to Nanital, India; to Baghdad, where he is buried, shot in Iraq in 1920; to his birthplace, Petersfield, Eng. where we met a doctor whose father had been the other doctor in town with Leachman's father, and an old woman who had met Leachman when she was 17. The material in the Aramco library is also at St. Anthony's College in Oxford, along with much more. There is also material in Durham, and in London at the Military Museum, the House of Lords, & Kew Public Record Office [I discoved something there!!] Even Alice's friends ask now & then how Leachman's coming along! He's in a cupboard in our library. George began reading many biographies to see how authors made them both factual & interesting. Leachman's diary, written up as a sort of biography by St.John Philby, father of Kim, the spy, is deadly dull.

In Arabia George always worked in Computer Processing - which sometimes changed its name, but was always that - regulating processes with computers. He went on business trips to Texas & Arizona & Mass., & to UK, watching as new computers were being developed, often for Aramco's specific purposes. Sometimes these trips were tacked onto our vacations, but often he went alone or with other employees. Once while he was gone for several weeks I had all the rooms in our house painted, glorying in the colors, as it had been all white! Our Indian houseman thought I'd overdone it, but I didn't.

We talked about taking Aramco's early retirement, buying a pecan farm, & moving to Texas. One vacation we spent several days looking around, & nearly bought one near West, Texas, which is a very Czech community. Then came the Velvet Revolution in 1989 and we changed our direction, to Czechoslovakia.

Summer 2007, The Second Visit and Moving to Brezina

2007-07-22T22:16:00.000-04:00

In the fall of 1990, on our second visit, George & Rina, his mother, began working with people in the Pelhrimov archives & with a lawyer in Prague. In the spring of '91 they continued this while I looked out at un-expected snow & wrote to everyone that we had survived the Gulf War.

The Farm Collective said of course we could move into the zamek in the summer, "It's yours, after all". Went back to Saudi. Made arrangements for moving. Talked with Fr. Reynold, a priest friend. He gave us his blessing - that we would be surrounded by helpful people. After we were here, in Oct. friends visiting asked if they should tell him to call a halt! When he visited several years later he prayed that we would "have just the people we needed to help" us! From Saudi we flew to Switzerland at the end of July, 1991 with Ann & the cat, met Alice who flew from the US, vacationed for a week, took the train to Pilsen, went to relatives, picked up the car a cousin had purchased for us, and drove to Pelhrimov. We stayed a few days in the hotel, bought some mattresses & bedding, went to a few offices, & moved to Brezina.

Some of the rooms you could just go into, some needed a key, & some were nailed shut. George went to someone's house & got a key. Bozenka's daughter & son-in-law & the Obcensky Forum woman came after work to start helping us clean out. Alice picked up beer bottle tops for half an hour from under a bed. I threw out about 20 loaves of moldy, blue bread. And many moldy canned pickles & strawberries. The village firemen came to remove their things - tables, chairs, dishes, booze, leaving us a few tables, chairs, & dishes, & an old wood-burning stove. They had a banquet here 2x a yr. but also used the room next door as a kind of village pub. Ann was appalled to see two crosses upside down, so we got those off. Ann & Alice removed girlie match-book covers from a door. The Horepnik mayor brought over a farm wagon to throw the junk in, & switched it as it filled. In the evenings we went to the people above for showers & supper. During the days George visited offices in Horepnik, Pelhrimov, maybe Prague. Alice, Ann, & I straightened-up, washed clothes by hand, vetted the visitors, walked to Horepnik to buy a few bits & pieces to eat. Once Alice & I had lunch out! We had hotdogs in the buffet/grocery store... Alice reconfirmed her flight at the post office telephone - we didn't have one until Thanksgiving. "You needn't spell 'Homolka' in this country!!" said the agent!

One day Ann went to Pilsen with George to the relatives to get the rest of the suitcases we'd had on the train. One day George & I went to Prague to see about our air shipment - Aramco shipped 3 large boxes that way & we'd put blankets, sheets, towels, more clothes, some dishes. The expediter lived on a hidden street!! His wife was listening to the radio about the Russian communists trying to get back in -- she had to be hoping... Also she asked if we had asked our embassy about our shipment!! George told her he could move wherever he wanted, with his things! While we were gone several builders came to visit - they asked if we had any plans so Alice showed them what I'd sketched on a tablet. She said they were disgusted, but would return, which they did. The girls also walked to Horepnik to buy us glasses for our anniversary present! "Where did you get money?" "Each time I went to Horepnik, I kept the change." later someone from Horepnik told us about this excursion! The girls also told us that if we never came back they'd decided to go to Pacov to Jaruska, the OF woman, & she'd help them! A bit scary.

People didn't stop coming. We started getting invited for dinner every Sunday - but the string attached was the family then communicated with an old Communist running another JZD. We almost had to have another wedding, because USA was not a country with which the Communists had a marriage agreement. We phoned Leslie at the post office to get us another certificate at the church in Oneonta. She thought this was quite amusing & sent us a fancy wedding congratulations card. George got the certificate officially translated in Tabor - he had to wait for the man, but the neighbors said he'd be back, as he had small children. He was embarrassed to translate for George, but added a couple words after he'd got George to do the translation. While he was gone some neighbors came over here & invited us for coffee, but they used different words than I knew, & I told them something crazy. The translation was accepted by the town hall.

Rina had to come sign some things - she came in November for about 3 weeks. She owned a percentage from the 1930's. Normally she came only in the summers, until George moved her here in the fall of 2001. George's grandfather had a will, & his father & we had those. Also, one vacation here a woman came running from a store in Horepnik, waving a piece of paper with a name & phone number. There was a man in another town who wanted us to come see him. In the early 50's he'd lived in George's grandmother's room, now our room, & had found & kept all the papers between the Knight von Eisenstein & Antonin Homolka from the 1908 purchase of Brezina & he gave them to us.

We were returned the forests in Jan. 1992. That spring we found out that the zamek had never been confiscated!! In the fall we hired a young man from Horepnik to be the farm manager, but we had back the garden & park. George called Pepik his "field marshall". The property is not in one neat square - maps from the archives Pepik pasted on a big piece of paper - there were bits & pieces that George didn't know, although most of it he did. The fields were mostly returned in the fall of 1993.

The First Visit

2007-06-28T22:25:00.000-04:00

******
George, Ann, & I first came in April 1990. We still needed visas, so we were going to Vienna. We stayed at the Schwarzenburg Palace Hotel, having made arrangements through Schwarzenburg's secretary to speak with him, as he has property here & actually was helping Havel. [Now he is the Czech Foreign Affairs Minister.] We got our visas in the morning & met him in the late afternoon. He suggested 3 things which were exactly right - talk with the local people, see the local farm collective - the JZD, and talk to the local Obcansky Forum people, Havel's party. Nothing about trying to see a Prague lawyer, which was what we'd planned. We rented a car and drove to Brezina. Within the first few minutes a man gathering manure for his fruit trees talked with us. "I remember you. You were in fourth grade, I was in second. Everyone here says 'George will come back'." !!! We poked around & then went to Horepnik & talked with two women with a baby. [The younger is our doctor, the older a nurse who helped out with Rina when she was ill.] The next day we returned from our hotel in Tabor to go to church, which was closed with a sign on the door. A woman told us that the priest had gone to Prague to see the Pope. The first visit ever of a Pope to the Czech lands.

So then we went to Pacov to find the Obcansky Forum office. The two women there were just closing up & took us home to one apartment. Over beer & coffee she told us the story of November 18th, and then started to cook lunch. Her husband came home; she met him at the door: "We have three Americans in the living room!!" After lunch the other woman returned. We watched some of the Prague coverage of the Pope, and talked all afternoon. "All of the history books were withdrawn from the schools." [Tigre whom George's family knew in refugee camp wrote new ones.] They were appalled to hear where we were staying - George remembered it from his childhood, but now it was mainly hourly stays by military personnel! We tried a new hotel, but they had no room until the next day. So we went back to our hotel for supper - about 8 pm. Bozenka came flying into the dining room! After we ate she sat & talked with us. George's parents had encouraged friendship with her, because she was the fastest & best reader, by testing. "When it rained I could go in the coach with you to school." [WWII severe gas rationing.] One of the OF women lives next door to Hana, her daughter, & told her. Hana went to Bozenka's apt. "Take out your curlers. My husband will take you to Tabor to see George. You've always said you want to see him again before you die." Bozenka invited us to her apartment for dinner the next day.

In the morning George visited the JZD. They had been expecting him, and were cordial. Later we went to Bozenka's for dinner. She had family there. Her daughter & son-in-law along with one of the OF ladies helped us clean trash from the Zamek when we moved in in August 1991. After another night in Tabor we drove to Prague for a couple nights and then on to Litomirice in Northern Bohemia to see Uncle John [George's father's cousin, whom we had seen in Kent, England when they were visiting a daughters there. Also, Uncle John was one of the very few people who ever wrote to us, he sent presents, too. In the spring of '89 he sent a political joke - you could see things were loosening up here. When we knocked on the door he said "Of course, I know you are George Homolka. But which one??" ..He knew George's father had died, but we threw him for a loop. Aunt Irene came home, and went out again to get us ham & rolls. Uncle John showed George the surrender papers which the German commander had signed at the end of the war. I snapped some photos. As things crumpled for the Germans they'd run around town trying to surrender ahead of the Russians. Uncle John was the leader of the resistance there & they gave the papers to him. Uncle John had kept those papers hidden for 40 years because the Communists wanted to claim the surrender for themselves. I felt he should have some honors & he did the following May.

In another couple days we returned to Vienna for a short time. We had not yet visited any of the Prague or Pilsen relatives.

Summer 2007

2007-06-01T17:51:00.000-04:00

Life is different in the summer. I might lie in the hammock for awhile, gazing up at the trees. More visitors come, including family. There's unexpected happenings, adding interest, or a smile and a chuckle. You do things you'd not do in cold weather, such as planning outdoors parties,
and filling the wading pool. [Although, I have known children who swung in the middle of winter.]

One summer we had a lamb on a bottle, who came running when he saw people. It was a major children's attraction at a Fourth of July party. We tried to limit bottles, but still the lamb had many. The next Monday one of the children's mothers remarked, "I bet that lamb didn't eat yesterday"!

Ben, not yet three, firmly believed that when he finally possessed the correct key, he would be able to open big glass doors leading to Platz and farmyard, where he mustn't be alone. He tried many batches of keys; the reason he couldn't open the doors was that he was too short!

He also believed that with the right key he could get into the bedroom where his cousins slept... That door knob is too difficult for small children to turn.

One summer no one here had time to do a party, so I booked one at a nearby sheep farm, where they'd previously done lamb roasts for us. I couldn't believe the consternation amongst those invited. "There? You want us to go there?" "Tell me again how to get there." "No, no, we won't come. If it were at your place, of course we would." In the end we had a great time with the people who decided it was fine to go to OUR party at another farm!

Visiting college-aged cousins made salads. After lettuce and tomatoes were in the bowl, they reconnoiter my herb bed outside the kitchen tower, snipping chives, parsley, oregano, thyme, a different combination each evening. They'd add many more herbs than I would have, but results were always tasty.

A cousin shared a bedroom with her grandmother. The grandmother loved "The Nature", flinging wide window and shutters. Closing the shutters, the younger woman said,"I love nature, too, but I can't sleep with light coming in so early." Grandmother would open them again. They didn't do this all night, but I don't know who won.

I've even played tricks, telling a cousin who asked about a ditch draining from the tomb, that we were building a moat, because "a castle must have a moat". She briefly believed me!

One summer day I looked out the window to see a couple with their son, sitting on a bench, talking with a family member. They were searching for family and ancestors. The next day I telephoned people with the same last name. One older women growled, "We have no foreign relatives", and slammed down the phone! I was a bit scared to try again, but I did; the man who
answered was eagerly welcoming, telling me how to get to his nearly hidden village. At his place I was pleased to view fence slats from our workshop, which he said he'd come to the Zamek to pick up. The man had lived in Munich with brothers; my visitor had spent a year in Germany, so they communicated in German.

The young teen-aged son was amazed that the man and his brothers had had to escape - so I explained about the last regime!

I wonder what interesting things will happen this summer, and who willvisit...

June 2007 - Czech Women

2007-04-30T13:42:00.000-04:00

Two admirable Czech women are relatives who visit the Zámek. I know Hanicka and Katerina better than other admirable women; each deserves to be admired.

A wedding guest should relax and enjoy herself. Before Hanicka did, she hiked up her skirts to wash the chapel floor! She'd arrived early. Another early wedding guest pointed out the streaked chapel floor, reminding us the wedding would be in an hour. Could we get the annoying streaks off? Hanicka got rags and buckets, and did it.

Hanicka was one of the original signers of Charter 77. She signed because she firmly believes she must do what is right, regardless of consequences.

Consequences were not pleasant. The first thing which happened to her was having her passport confiscated just as she and her husband were about to visit Holland. Persecution continued: instead of teaching languages at Charles University she was sent to clean stairways in panalaks. Later she taught, but was only allowed in various night schools around Prague.

She experienced great pressure to renege to free her son and daughter from the stigma of being children of a dissident. Every year until the Velvet Revolution she was called into a bureaucrat's office shortly before Christmas to discuss the problem of her children and, how, as children of a Charter 77 signer, would they receive the education which every child needs in order to succeed in life? She replied that this was her problem, and she would take care of her children.

The older child silently suffered with his mother. Not until several years after the Velvet Revolution did he became healthy. The younger child took longer to realize the importance of what her mother had done. After we lived here, I explained this to her, firmly, more than once.

Hanicka was finally successful, in the larger picture of her country, and in her personal life. She traveled, her children studied, graduated, and traveled. She taught at Charles University, and became head of a department until her retirement. Now, she continues to help people and take care of her family. A small example of her bravery: she was the only person willing to sign for our daughter a Prague place of residence.

Katerina was looking at a colored engraving of flowers here at the Zámek. "When I was little I loved finding the bugs depicted amongst the flowers." She could look at them, because it was one of the things which George's father had taken to Plzen in 1948 before the family escaped.

When we came, Kátá tried to return them. "But we're hardly moved in", we said. In June 1992 their whole family came, bringing the things: the engraving, linens in pink and in yellow, a cut-glass box, and, most endearing, a small porcelain coffee set, yellow with silver. This had been George's grandmother's who'd died in 1932. Kátá's mother even apologized to my mother-in-law, Rína, that she'd sold a diamond ring which she herself had been given by Rína's father. "We needed a bathroom," she explained.

Giving things back to those who had escaped is very, very unusual. One woman was told that there was absolutely nothing, no photos even. She'd seen them in the dining room the first time she visited after 1989! It's much more usual that relatives keep whatever was left, and expect you to give them more.

The regime expelled Kátá's husband from medical school just before he finished; he went to cut trees in the forest. [He had his retroactive graduation after '89.] Their family all turned out well: one son, an engineer, became a priest after '89 and was sent to Rome to study Aramaic. The other son, an engineer and an organist, played at our weddings here. Her daughter also with a college degree is married with three little boys.

When you visit Katerina she thanks you profoundly for visiting!! I wish both she and Hanicka could visit more often.

May 2007 - Body, Mind and Spirit

2007-03-30T09:40:00.000-04:00

Body, Mind, and Spirit. Hmm. Well, there have certainly been tasks enough to stretch all of these during the 15 years we've worked on this devastated place.

Initial sports were carrying wood upstairs, carrying dirty water downstairs - or, flinging it out the window -, digging nettles and picking broken glass from flowerbeds, planting shrubs, moving furniture. I filled duffel bags with boxed orange juice in Prague and hauled it home on the bus. I chopped wood.

Sports changed in nature. Then it was chasing sheep to re-pen them, walking - being dragged by - the huge Central Asiatic shepherd dog we had, moving books and furniture, moving plants, hanging clothes outside. Sometimes bringing wood inside.

Now I hang clothes outside only in pleasant weather - I have a dryer. I still move books, but move only small furniture - no large pieces. I get assistance for any difficult plant moving. Others bring in wood. Our Golden Retriever walks herself, although once in a while I go looking for her.

Nowadays I ought to take the tips I give visitors. There are interesting walks - down to the old mill, to a little bridge above the river, to the ancient brickyard, and along a road to a fishpond and up the rise in a field to overlook forests, fields, villages.

My mind has been so engaged here that at first when I shut my eyes in bed at night I saw things, things which don't exist. As well as all the physical work, learning Czech took energy. In early months, after a neighbor visited, a daughter sick with a cold said, "Today, I didn't understand one thing Eva said. Now I know why I'm so tired when I go to her house, with the dictionary, for a couple hours".

There were many problems and many interesting puzzles and questions about people and history to which we bent our minds. If I should make a list, you wouldn't have time to read it. Who would work for us, and how, and when, and what paper work is needed? These are a few things we pondered.

Renovations require much thought. We found that areas where we'd planned and re-planned most were most done to our later satisfaction. We engaged in negotiations garnering comments: "Barbara, you don't want several colors in the kitchen. Kitchens are best all white." I answered in meager, broken Czech, that not only did I not desire a hospital operating room, but that I
wanted to match colors of remaining decorative tiles my husband's grandmother had installed in 1910: beige, gray, and deep red, as well as white. A carpenter explained if my closet had just shelves, I wouldn't have to hang anything up! "No, no", or rather "Ne, ne" worked okay here.

As a respite for the mind from present problems there is always the library - a biographies, travel books, family photo albums. In a mystery story, I ponder someone else's mystery instead of my own.

Aunt Hana used to say on visits here that it's wonderful to be in "The Nature". I find it so, although a series of gray days I do find not uplifting. Letters, e-mails, phone calls, and personal visits by family and friends feed the spirit. I like talking after church with people we've gotten to know here - which here has been VERY SLOWLY. I especially enjoy talking with the young novice whom I help with English.

We had a wonderful old abbot, and somehow, I'm not certain how, we communicated. One day he did the sermon. Not understanding him, I was thinking about hopelessness and hope. Afterwards my husband told me our abbot's sermon had been about prisoners of the old regime, especially those he'd known in prison camp. Those who survived best were those who had not lost, or at least had not completely lost, hope.

April 2007 - Books and Libraries

2007-03-05T15:58:00.000-05:00

I'm happy that we have a library. In the old days it was The Grand Salon, used during large parties. Most of the time Empire chairs and settees held large fancy dolls! Several death masks lazing on black velvet pillows and granite busts of ancestors on stands did nothing to improve coziness. A cousin and my husband agreed that as children they'd found the room sinister. Now it's comfortable, nicely decorated, with sofas, a round African mahogany table, new and old bookcases. It contains our myriads of books.

The library does not have central heating yet: in winter one pops in and out quickly! One year as the weather warmed up, someone working here wanted to reshelve books with no regard to arrangement. I made her wait for me or a visitor to reshelf properly.

Although we're out in the countryside people do come looking for information. We supplied a customs official with maps before he went for special training. He was pleased to have "National Geographic" maps of Civil War battlefields which he then explored in his free time. I switch
books with another English-speaking country dweller. Fulbright exchange teachers borrowed reading materials during their year nearby. Every Christmastime one daughter pulled-out and reread "Cheaper by the Dozen". Another daughter met a male visitor, clad only in his shorts, looking for a particular novel in the library! I loaned our doctor information before a trip to Scotland. Children pick books from the children's section. Very careful children get to look at old children's books. Recently I showed my second cousin family photos, including one of our great-grandmother. I gave her two children's books, with bookplates, of a first cousin-once-removed who died a few years ago at age 100 because I have those books.

I prefer mysteries, biographies, novels when they are NOT the kind specializing in being depressing, and poetry. I read poetry when I am feeling emotionally strong. Our son likes Tom Clancy for his intricaties of science, history, politics, and human relations. My husband has read much on Middle East explorers and has a number of biographies and journals. I think we've both read most of Havel's plays, and some Ivan Klima, Josef Skvorecky, and Jan Drabek.

At various time I concentrate on specific authors. London is a wonderful place to collect, but other places are possible, including Prague. Special to me are Eleanor Fargeon, Madeleine l'Engle, George MacDonald, Alice Meynell, C.S.Lewis, Charles Williams, Laura Ingalls Wilder. My first old George MacDonald books came from Foyle's in London, when it still existed. In a summer in Oxford I collected several authors, but most exciting was attending meetings of the C.S.Lewis Society and meeting the man who was his literary executor. One person leads to another - Alice Meynell is because of Fargeon; MacDonald and Charles Williams follow Lewis.

Admittedly I read just about anything printed on pieces of paper.... But some pieces are much better than others.

March 2007 -Storytelling

2007-02-03T19:31:00.000-05:00

When children visit the Zamek here a few stories I might tell them.

Most villages and towns have fish ponds; some have rivers, also. These bodies of water are guarded by vodniks. You can always recognize a vodnik. Seaweed hangs from him, and green slime. His hair and clothes are wet. One coattail drips water. He loves to catch children, pulling them under water where he catches their souls in clay pots, popping on the lids, so they don't escape. If the citizens of village are bad people, their fish pond has no vodnik. Do you think this is good? No, it's certainly not, because no one is guarding the pond, no vodnik scaring away children who could fall in the water. Sometimes a vodnik floats a yellow ribbon on the pond to attract children. Do not be fooled by things you might see floating on the pond, and do not go close to the vodnik or his pond.

About once a year fish ponds are cleaned out, by men, never by children. The men pull the plug to let the water drain away, netting the fish which they toss into barrels of water. Then they clean out mud and rubbish and plug the pond again. The owner of the pond and everyone who helped clean take home fish for their families. In the old days often a wooden-slatted cage was placed in the deepest part of the pond and filled with some fish. It was fairly easy to take out fish for dinner during the winter.

Long, long ago, at a time lost in the mists, Duke Kroc's daughter, Princess Libuse, married Premysl. Their children and grandchildren began a dynasty lasting hundreds of years. Princess Libuse founded the capital city, Prague, "threshold = prah" - Praha.

After some generations one Premysl, Duke Kresomysl, decided to mine gold in the fields of a farmer names Horymir. Horymir did not like this and killed the miners. Then Horymir rode on his horse, Semik, to High Castle. The angry duke went to kill him at the High Castle wall. Horymir whispered in Semik's ear. The horse sailed over the wall, plunged into the Vltava river, dashed through Prague to the village Radotin where the poor exhausted horse died.

Another story from long ago is about a noble family who lived in the beautiful Bohemian castle, Cesky Krumlov. The mother and maids noticed that the children had an extra playmate, a kind woman, White Lady, who loved children. White lady was a ghost, a very kind ghost. She played with the children of the family for generations. The very last one, Peter, she visited very often because he had no brothers or sisters. Nowadays you may go to Cesky Krumlov, seeing rooms of elegant furniture and paintings, and also live bears outside in the moat, but there are no families with children living there. People say that White Lady is very sad and sometimes walks through the castle rooms, searching for children with whom to play.

Karel Capek, a famous Czech writer, told stories about a cat and a dog who were best friends. They liked to do projects together. Do you do projects with your friends?

One day they washed the floor. Oh, did they wash the floor! The cat poured on a pail of water, the dog poured on a pail of water. They swished it around with rags and a broom. Then each poured on another pail of water. Oh, they had a big flood! Maybe next time they used less water??

Another day they baked a cake. They put in lots of all the ingredients you usually put in a cake - eggs, flour, sugar, milk, butter. Then they added more things to make it especially delicious! The dog put in some meat, the cat put in a fish, the dog put in a bone, the cat put in a mouse. After pouring the batter into a large cake pan, they baked it. When the cake was done they set it outside to cool. Along came an ugly, fierce, mean dog who stole the cake and ate it all up! They were very sad until they saw that the mean dog had a terrible, terrible stomach ache. They were glad it was gone and had sandwiches for their party.

A small part of a nearby town is named “Goat Hill", on part that's a hill, of course. Every summer there's a Goat Hill Festival, a weekend of parties, singing, dancing. A mayor is elected for the weekend. He makes such promises as that it won't snow in the summer, or that no more trucks will drive through town, only goat carts. Children like the parade best. A band plays, people dress in old-fashioned clothes and ride in farm wagons pulled by horses, or carts pulled by goats. A large papier mache goat stands on a farm wagon. Watching the parade, you might have ice cream or a big balloon.

Here, below the Zamek a little boy had a cave in the cliff side above the weir. When he'd found a niche there he began enlarging it with a chisel and hammer. One day he showed it to a young man, who immediately borrowed the tools and enlarge it more. After that whenever strong young men visited, the little boy invited them to his cave, because the young men would always work on it. If you come visit, and are between four and ten years old, say, we will take you to try out the cave.

Can you draw a picture of one of these stories? What will you draw?
Princess Libuse? Semik, the horse, leaped over High Castle wall? White Lady? A vodnik? The cat and the dog baking a cake? Or, maybe you'll draw yourself in a little cave.

February 2007 - Artist Hampl

2007-01-20T23:04:00.000-05:00

I met Petr Hampl for the first time in the autumn of 1992 when he came to the Zamek and lept upon the chapel altar to point out aspects of the painting of The Fourteen Auxiliary Saints. This astonished me of course, but I soon learned that this creative person, overflowing in energy, dips into dozens of interests.

After his visit, several firemen arrived to see our two depictions of St. Florian, the firemen's patron saint. One's a fresco and the other's a statue outside. Their visit puzzled me until I learned Petr had sent them. He quite likes astonishing people. At a church under repair he took his sister up to the open tower and shot photos, which shocked his mother later.

Hampl was born in 1964 in Pacov, a small town east of Tabor. Artists and craftspeople are in his blood: his mother teaches art and math; his grandfather, now in his nineties, was an extremely skillful blacksmith; and his uncle is an artistic blacksmith.

After basic school Hampl studied at art schools in Prague: Umeleckoprumyslva skola; the painting department of Vysoka Umeleckoprumyslva skola; and the restoration department of Akademi vytvarne umeni. He does both original compositions and restoration work. If he drops in for coffee or lunch, he's soon off again - to Olomouc, Bechyne, Nepomuk, Prague - wherever he is working on restorations. Asked to enter a local show, he painted a slew of pieces in just a few days.

Before this, he'd had his own show. The centerpiece and crowning glory was an absolutely fantastic triptych of the Battle of Britain with Churchill, Big Ben, planes, Czech flyers in their youth and in their old age. The flyers included General Perina whose wife Anna belonged to IWAP. They and other flyers still living had come to his show! Hampl gave the painting to the Air Force Museum where it was displayed at first. Later he found it shuttled to a storeroom and, disgusted, took it home.

Hampl ordinarily restores frescos on or in buildings - government ones, churches, zameks. One very hot summer he worked on the Mala Strana clock in the wee hours of the morning, because of the heat and because tourists were there all day. He used a ladder, painting by street light.

If you are walking in Prague late at night it is quite normal to run into Petr. We have. During the millennium celebration one daughter met him on Charles Bridge. Another daughter and her husband were once on Old Town Square when they heard: "Leslie, Robby". Startled, they looked around to see Petr. He took them to Umgelt, the ancient customs house, and up in the construction elevator to see how he and colleagues had been repairing frescos.

We have some of his work - a formal portrait of a Polish officer, a lovely sketch of the Zamek, posters for Pacov's 400 year celebration, a contemporary portrait of my husband and me behind the chapel, surrounded by impressionistic foliage. The Grand Dining Room features his painting of General Helidor Pika.

Hampl has done some restorations here, also - a large painting of the Prague skyline, sprucing up St. Florian in the chapel, some work on the library fresco. For that fresco it was tremendous watching him, with a few brush strokes, bringing out a face. He wanted to work more on it, but it turned out to be impossible. He had other work that summer before our daughter's wedding and we needed to remove the scaffolding to do the floor in the library.

He restored the painting of The Fourteen Auxiliary Saints, which designates our chapel's name. It was greatly damaged. [We were told that a potato-picking brigade - from another location of course - had amused themselves by making holes in it.] Petr Hampl removed it from its frame putting it in an unused room where he set a new canvas. He ironed the painting onto the new canvas! Eventually he painted missing and damaged sections. I had had a 1941 photo enlarged which helped him. We no longer use the enormous and very heavy Baroque frame, but have made a simple frame in our workshop.

Czech Dumplings

2007-01-15T22:50:00.000-05:00

Czech Dumplings

5 Viennese rolls [rohlicky?], or one half loaf of white bread, 1-2 days old.
1/2 cup butter or bacon fat.
Cut the rolls or bread into small cubes, heat butter or fat and fry cubes until they are crisp. Set aside.
Often dumplings are made without this frying, but babicka says they are really much better.
Of course you might experiment if you wish, with tossing in oil & baking or microwaving.

2 eggs
1 1/2 to 2 cups soda water.
1 pound flour sifted together with [or just mixed with]
1 teaspoon salt & 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Beat eggs & soda water.
Add flour mixture & beat vigorously until dough is very smooth & loosens.
[It says from a wooden spoon with which you are beating, but I think I'd use the Kitchen Aid, until the dough would be smooth & start to ball.] Mix in the fried cubs and if desired, chopped parsley, until all cubes are covered in dough.
Let rest for 15-20 minutes.

With dampened hands (small bowl of water) form two large long rolls.
Slide them into a very large saucepan with briskly boiling salted water.
Be sure the water is boiling vigorously when you put the rolls in, or they will stick to the bottom. Bring to the boil again.

Cooking time is 25 minutes - about half-way through, turn the dumpling over.
Test readiness with a cake tester - no dough should cling to it.
Remove with a dumpling lifter. If I didn't give you one yet, use 2 spatulas.
Immediately poke with something long & thin - skewer, cake tester - to let the steam out, so they don't collapse.

Dumpling may be reheated in the microwave, either sliced or whole dumpling.

More on Traveling with Kids

2006-11-30T23:51:00.000-05:00

First off, you need firmness in your own mind about what is important - saying please and thank you, hello, goodbye, and insuring reasonably adequate sleep, reasonable food, reasonable safety. Some of these do need to be stated firmly to children or relatives; some require your ingenuity. For example, if relatives are majoring in cake and candy, and you will be with them for some days, purchase bags of fruit, "For all of us." Cut some up, and feed it to your children! Teach your children how to handle unfamiliar things safely - stairs, perhaps; a large highway, a small highway; snakes in the garden? Bees? This learning is at least as much a part of their vacations as visiting Disneyland! However, perhaps your greatest strength is your ability to be flexible. Relatives do things differently? Think what they do that you appreciate. The museum is closed? What is of interest there outside - maybe statues? Or, the children can play stone school on the museum steps, while you think what to do next. One suitcase is lost? Fill out the paperwork, and buy a new dress. Take as much as you possibly can as an adventure. Yes, sometimes hand the kids over to their father or grandmother, and chill out ALL BY YOURSELF.

The child doesn't always want to be flexible. Three-year-olds particularly don't like things moved around. You can help by taking special pillowcases, which you pop onto pillows in airplanes, trains, hotels, and relatives' houses. You may also turn routine variations into special treats. For example, you're quite sure the four & five-year-olds will never go to sleep if their eight-year-old sister is in the room, which is how Auntie arranged it. So eight-ear-old sister gets the special treat of staying up with Uncle and Auntie an extra hour! Let the children interact with those you visit: that's one of the reasons you're going, isn't it? You don't want a 40-year old child later saying; "My mother, my grandmother, and my three aunts were all exactly the same," do you? You want them to have special individual memories of each of these special people. Here are some things my grown children have said to me: "I remember my two-year-old birthday party Grandma had for me." "Grandpa helped me with my homework when I was in fourth grade in the States for two months, and he always made me finish it!" Do not talk for your child! Of course, you can explain anything necessary, but if the child can talk, let the child talk to his relative! Furthermore, if basic safety is observed, let them go. The three-year-old goes with his grandmother to visit the pigs. He comes back clean, but if he doesn't, does it matter? My children were washable, and yours are, too, aren't they? Grandpa swears, and you don't. "I don't use those words, and neither does Daddy. But, don't you love that song Grandpa sings to you? Please sing it for me." Uncle Jim is about to help Veronica roller skate. You don't want her to skate without kneepads? Improvise. Maybe you can use extra large Band-Aids [plasters] on her knees. Perhaps, it is more important for her to have this experience with Uncle Jim, whom she may not see again for several years, than to go through life with totally unscarred knees. Or, go buy some kneepads. Your children normally have their own rooms. "Steve, today you are so lucky. You'll be in a bunk bed in your Cousin Tim's room." You think Maria will be terrified of owls hooting from the woods while she is sleeping on auntie's screened porch. "Oh, Maria, you have a special treat. You'll see some stars through the screen, AND! You'll be able to listen to owls hooting. Auntie has a book about owls. Let's read it and then listen to the owls together." I wish you many special experiences of love, joy, learning with your family and your extended family this summer!

Brezina - War and After

2006-10-15T23:57:00.000-04:00

George & his parents left in April, 1948. They drove to Prague and visited his aunt, and left silverware with her, without saying anything.

Afterwards they drove to Pilsen and had lunch in a hotel, and left the car in the yard behind the hotel. Then they took the train to Stribro where an uncle met them, drove them to Tachov, and beyond to a mill in the woods. After dark the mill owner took them to meet the smugglers - a boy & a girl, about 16 & 17 yrs. old. They went on a string through the woods, with George in the middle. They had a bag of food, and a suitcase of clothes, George's stamp album, & a box of Rina's jewelry. Some of this you have seen our girls wearing - for example, the cross, which the family bride wears, dating from the Battle of the White Mt. in 1620 (a section of Prague now, fairly near the airport). They also took a green onyx ashtray which Rina has in her room here now. The companion side-table Aunt Hana has in Prague. These were gifts to Josef Hucl, George's grandfather, when he was head of Bank Slavia. (Mucha window, St. Vitus Cathedral) One summer recently this man from the mill came to visit Rina at her sister-in-law's near Pilsen! He brought with him a cloth napkin they had left in his mill!! Rina gave it to him.

Across the border into Germany they spent the rest of the night in the kitchen of a farmhouse. In the morning a vehicle of the OSS picked up the family to take them to the county seat for questioning on the status of the then present life in Czechoslovakia. (George drove me to these places in the early '90's.) The next night they spent in Regensburg where they met two men, friends, who had also just escaped! These men had offered to take George's father along - but he had refused, saying, "only with my wife & son". Then they stayed in Bamberg for awhile, waiting for trunks they'd given a man who came in a little truck to Brezina to be brought by smugglers, but this never happened. Then they were in a refugee camp in a town called Berg north of Frankfurt and lived in a noodle factory for about 4 months, and afterwards for just over a year in Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart. Then they took a ship to Africa, and the train to Rhodesia where George's dad had a position as a farm manager.

In refugee camp there was sometimes a little schooling - one man who later wrote for Newsweek for years attempted to teach the children history. George sold shoes and newspapers. His father was a Rotarian, and the Atlanta, Ga. Rotary Club sent shoes, clothes, socks. Lots of socks were singles, but hand knit, so the women unraveled them & made new things. Food was very sparse, but in Ludwigsburg it was somewhat better. George remembers his dad, who had a few American dollars, taking him to the Army post to the canteen to eat - oh, wonderful tasting - waffles.

One of the initial things Bozenka, George's school mate, from Brezina, now living across the road in the blue house, said in April 1990 when we first visited was, "I could ride with you to school in the coach when it rained." Gasoline was not used for anything so minor as taking children to school. The war quite annoyed his aunt - she had to take the train from Prague to Pacov, and then the coach met her. She was used to traveling by car. Farms were important to the Germans, so there was fuel to take milk to Tabor to the dairy co-op. George remembered that city better than Pelhrimov, our own county seat. Bread used to be baked in an oven once a week, but during the war they baked several times a week, so that visitors could take it back to Prague with them, where bread was very scarce. Butter was churned by hand, at home, secretly, as all the dairy products were supposed to be delivered to the co-op. Apples were locked-up in the room that is our furnace room now.

When Germany first occupied Czechoslovakia the crown was high compared to the mark. The Germans lowered the crown, and encouraged the Germans to come shopping. George's grandmother was quicker, and managed to buy enough chocolate and coffee to lock-up and last through the war.

It was fun for young boys to see soldiers and armaments, but then one would hear of someone who'd been taken away & shot, so war was not so much fun. George watched German tanks & troops moving east for many weeks on Route 129 above us; some time later the remnants came back for days. Once there were 1000 German soldiers in the farmyard where they slaughtered animals and cooked meat; on the upstairs veranda (which we are now repairing) were 7 downed Russian flyers. The seven year old boy walked freely amongst them all, and never revealed anything. Or I would not be telling this story!

The universities were closed, and many of the students were sent to work camps in Germany. So, if you could, you would offer students important jobs, such as on a farm. To Brezina came Vaclav Icha, a sculptor who had been George's father roommate, along with Prince Karel Schwartzenberg, at cavalry school in Pardubice. Icha sculpted George's grandmother and did some sketching. Mostly Icha is remembered for making "bathtub gin" and partying. "Uncle" George Homolka, George's father's cousin, studying medicine at Charles University, helped with the bathtub gin, but also helped with supervision of the alcohol factory.

After the war, in Oneonta, NY, as in many other American schools, classes outfitted Junior Red Cross boxes for the poor children in war-torn Europe. Toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, washcloth, Lifesavers, crayons, pencils, eraser, small notebook, a small toy. BUT NO WAR TOYS. The children in Europe are tired of war. Meanwhile, the children in Europe were collecting real bullets, hand grenades, and guns. My mother, in Oneonta, NY, read in the newspaper about the poor children blowing themselves up, as did Rina here at Brezina. So she warned George to report any weapons he might find. This was while he was dismantling bullets on his play table. Luckily no one walked by with a lit cigarette, or I would not be telling this story, either. Later, at refugee camp, they benefited from the Red Cross boxes - the toothbrushes lasted for some years after they had arrived in Africa.

First Accomodations at Brezina (publication date?)

2006-10-02T00:50:00.000-04:00

Many of you moving to the Czech Republic have temporary accommodation provided by your company. Usually these include hot and cold running water, electricity, heating, beds, a sofa, and a kitchen!

Our permanent accommodations lacked most of these amenities. We bought some mattresses and moved out of the hotel. The mattresses were the old Czech-style three-piece, so we had to put our suitcases at the foot, otherwise the mattresses moved around the floor during the night. The village firemen left a few tables, chairs and dishes. Within the week, some of our boxes arrived by air. Then we had blankets.

The first day we cried “Eureka!” when a helper broke into our room with washbowl and cold water faucet. We proceeded to wash the filthy floors.

Parts were damp. Until we got a furnace in the hallway, where the one bathroom was, towels would be wet in the morning if we forgot them.

Electricity functioned here and there; some plugs even worked, so we bought an electric hotplate. Buying meat was difficult, because butcher shops in our area were closed for several weeks for privatization. I did not realize that one might buy fish and chicken at the little grocery store. Finally, in another town in a sort of supermarket, I found poultry and proceeded to buy a slepice. Slepice had been one of my first Czech words – taken from a book. I didn’t know this meant “tough hen” rather than “tender chicken.” I boiled and simmered it on that hotplate for three hours and we gnawed it for supper. The next day I cooked it some more.

Former experiences can come in handy in a new situation. For five years I had been camping coordinator for several Girl Scout troops. One of my tasks was teaching girls and adult helpers how to make fires. Since my children were scouts, or helped with campouts, they are all expert fire builders too. If I ever say to you “I [or he/she] am keeping the home fires burning”, please realize that this is a literal statement of fact. Now there’s a woodshed; back then I hunted sticks in the park.

We had plenty of visitors, with varying agendas, for example “My grandfather did the tile stoves for your grandmother. Perhaps I can help you.” One Sunday we had 18 visitors, five arriving before we were dressed! We lived here and there around the zamek, choosing rooms that had both their inside and outside windows and/or woodstoves.

When one of my daughters heard about all the work her sisters had done, she began claiming that we hitched Tibbs the cat to a little cart to clear rocks from the fields. This is not true. Tibbs had his own extremely important work to do: catching mice. Tibbs also loved it that many doors didn’t work and he could run in and out at will.

With my interest in words, I soon learned to say a phrase which beautifully alliterates in Czech, although not in English: Bydlím ve starým, strasným, spinavím, studenýn zámku – I live in an old, terrible, dirty, cold castle. Daughter Caroline stayed with Aunt Hana in Prague when she worked on The Prague Post. One morning, Hana was making tea and laughing. “Why are you laughing, Hana?” asked Caroline. “Well, you know what your mother says.…but a castle should be old.”

September 2006 - Hunting Parties

2006-09-01T23:30:00.000-04:00

**********************
Everyone looked forward to autumn hunting parties. The Zamek was filled with people, some of whom spent the night; hot soup lunches were taken out on a farm
wagon, or sometimes held at a hunting lodge; there was a gala dinner in the evening, followed by hours of singing folk songs. From the game bag, what wasn't to be eaten soon, or given to participants, was taken to a Prague restaurant featuring game. The little boy gloried in the visitors, the hunt, the dinner, and learned countless songs.

His mother went on the hunt unless there was a very large party, in which case she
spent the day at the Zamek helping his aunt and grandmother prepare dinner. Fires in tile stoves had been lit and fed - from an unobtrusive corridor - for most of the week. It the party would be in the smaller room, seating 12, the table was set with hearts and onions china. [Finding broken pieces in the park, I gave them to a daughter who collects this china.] When the party was in the Grand Dining Room they used blue flowered china with delicate gold accents, a service for 24. [In 1991 my husband found the gravy boat lid.]

The forester organized the hunt, sending invitations, and planning where each person must stand to shot. He sent invitations to people he wanted as well as to those whom the owners wanted. He made certain that inexperienced hunters were
kept out of the way of danger. Deer hunting was in October with only a few hunters, one of whom skillfully blew a hunting horn. Other hunts were for grouse, hare, and pheasant. The forester kept a careful account of who shot what.

After the hunt everyone came to the Zamek from forest and field to change out of possibly muddy hunting clothes. Ladies left aprons in the kitchen to don something elegant. All gathered in salon or dining room for the evenings festivities

The person who'd shot the most game became King of the Hunt, but the second in line became the king's fag. He might have to pour wine for everyone, chuck out the jester, or crawl under the tables pretending to bite people. Perhaps sometimes the
forester skewed the numbers a little?

The last great hunting party was on December 15, 1947. A very honored guest was General Heliodor Pike. One year later everyone who'd been present had escaped, or had been imprisoned or executed. Recently my husband commissioned the art restorer and painter Petr Hempl to do a portrait, nowin our Grand Dining Room of General Pika. Hempl painted him in uniform, although he had actually worn battle dress. Pika greatly impressed the boy during the hunting party, and afterwards when he read of Pika's trial, sentencing, and death. Pika's name has been restored. General Heliodor Pika Street is the street behind the Diplomat Hotel leading past the military buildings.

March 2006 - Spring!

2006-03-01T22:29:00.000-05:00

Arrival of Spring seemed a fantasy. This winter had so much snow, so much below zero weather. There were so many inconveniences. Acquaintances, in a cabin while a house is being built, after the first big snowfall parked, walking for half an hour; our forester rented a bulldozer to move snow to reach cut trees; one of our drivers waited for an hour and a half for someone to help get a vehicle off an ice patch; in our furnaces we were interlacing wet boards with dry scraps and sawdust to keep fires going. Many mornings my husband opened the shutters exclaiming, ironically, "Ahhh. A winter wonderland." The worst thing was watching a friend have an accident on the road while here snow was being cleaned off a roof to prevent it collapsing.

We greet Spring deliriously. Prague spring comes earlier than in the Czech-Moravian Highlands. One year a daughter and I climbing Petrin Hill kept exclaiming over the flowers already blooming there. But spring comes to us soon. A first sign is the snowdrops blooming in a corner of the lawn. They're a protected plant, but they seem happy and every year there are more. I begin examining the flower beds: tulips and daffodils are poking up; forsythia, golden showers, are blooming; roses are sending out shoots. I check the herb garden. Did the summer savory last over the winter? Is the mint planning on taking over the oregano, or is it sticking to its own place? Have the peonies begun to come up?

Donning rubber boots, I check the garden. Are the tulips and daffodils there coming up? How is the asparagus doing - especially considering that one driver likes to haul the tractor over their spot? What will we put in the greenhouse? I also need to make sure I have pumpkin seeds for Halloween and Thanksgiving pumpkins and not just gourds as we had last year. Well, the Czech word "dyne" does refer to both of these vegetables... I look at the small nursery: before it gets too warm we really must move a tree to the park for one of the babies who hasn't had his planted yet. Some fences need repair.

It's good to hear the birds singing again. We open some windows. We put the park benches back outside, and can't resist sitting for a while. We start hanging sheets and dishtowels on the clothesline to benefit by sunshine and fresh air. But I leave the basket upside down! Those birds have no manners. And you might just as well take along rags and cleaning solution when you go to sit on a bench.

Tractor drivers are plowing the fields; the farm manager is getting the seeds and directing the planting. We check to make certain that the canola, planted in late summer, is doing well. [It's those brilliant yellow fields you see in the countryside a few weeks from now.]

Leaves on trees and shrubs are emerging. Before very long apple and cherry trees are blooming along the roadside, overwhelming in their beauty. The orchard, too, with its apple, plum, and pear trees is wearing its finery. You hope no late frost will kill the fruit buds.

It's fun to show children how everything is starting to grow. In a few weeks we can plant nasturtiums - nice big seeds for a child to handle. If you bring your children to visit us when it's mud-season you're welcome to borrow a bathtub, and I've got various pieces of outfits you may also borrow when you've washed away the mud.

Don't let minor difficulties keep you from enjoying springtime!

December 2005 - Christmas

2005-12-01T22:19:00.000-05:00

Philip Brooks, author of "Oh, Little Town of Bethlehem", wrote another poem that is pertinent to us who've spent some of our lives flitting around the globe. "Everywhere, everywhere Christmas tonight! Christmas in lands of the fir tree and pine. Christmas in lands of the palm tree and vine." Christmas is to be celebrated wherever we find ourselves. Yes, we all enjoy familiar trappings, but none are really necessary.

Family customs are meaningful. Our family lights the candles and sings carols around the tree. Also on the tree are a wide variety of ornaments - crude plaster of paris ones made by two years olds, "Gods' eyes" done by grade-schoolers, a glass Santa I had as a child, two tree-candle holders which were my parents'nearly 100 years ago and new ones purchased in the Czech Republic, three of the annual White House ornaments and other elegant pieces which were gifts from friends, cross-stitched personalized ones made by a daughter, bits and pieces used on the farm tree in Africa.

Many people, even my own family, think one verse of a carol is sufficient, whereas I feel every verse should be sung. We compromise. What's important is getting just as many of those carols as possible into children's minds, where words and music can simmer and bring them to celebration. "There's a song in the air, There's a star in the sky, There's a mother's deep prayer and a baby's low cry..."
(editor's note: what my mother fails to mention is that while we are singing, there are candles burning on the tree. we want to get through these carols before the tree is alight)

My husband and I ate oyster stew for a meager supper before the tree, while the children had Campbell's chicken dumpling soup. We all liked little round oyster crackers. I don't bother searching for those things here, but we stick to our tradition of a meager supper. I did do the carp route - once - shivering in line, bringing carp home to the bathtub, husband slaying it, me breading and frying it. I'm glad to have had the experience. [After tree and gifts we eat cookies and chocolates.]

Some of our traditions came about because family members are hither and yon.
Christmas parcels include some stocking gifts. Members not with us delegate their carol choices. The telephone rings either after we've opened gifts on Christmas eve or on the next afternoon. Twice a daughter was given a free conference call - this is quite a funny occurrence, with everyone, or no one, talking.

A separate decoration box holds angels and stars for the chapel tree. If we're really lucky one of our priest friends will have some free time during Christmas week to say mass and eat a meal with us. Otherwise we just go to the town church for the 5 p.m. "midnight" mass. I've tried the "real" midnight mass in the nearby monastery - lovely, but I fell asleep more than I was awake.

Our adult children, hither and yon, with their families and friends are developing their own special traditions, but they like knowing almost exactly what we at the Zamek are doing on Christmas. All of them find great joy in the celebrations; I wish the same for you and yours this season.

November 2005 - Prague Impressions

2005-11-01T22:27:00.000-05:00

Our visitors at the Zamek also visit Prague. I’ve interviewed some, to share memories.

Louel: I’d love to go back to Prague. I really think Cinderella lives there. You know “The Golden Key”, the Peter Sis book you gave our grandson? He can’t get enough of it. When I ask what book he wants he picks that and goes slowly through the wonderfully detailed drawings of the streets of Prague. At first I just talked about the drawings, but lately have been reading him more and more of the text. It brings back my memories of Prague.

Colin: I think of the architecture, the old and the new. There are stillmany cobblestones, and yet there are modern ideas, too, such as the Fred and Ginger building. Prague keeps its old roots while adding new. People were very friendly, and Czechs I’ve met elsewhere are always friendly.

Bonnie: My lasting impression is the roofs. You took me on a walk up the hill to the Prague Castle; we were looking down and around at all theroofs, the lines, the colors.

Sandy: The music, the concerts

Lyn: The artistic-ness of the city, the buildings, the layout of the city.A variety of restaurants, excellent meals, reasonably priced. We stayed at the Ostriches – I loved the antique furniture, but especially being able to walk everywhere and being next to Charles Bridge – yes, we could sleep, it wasn’t too noisy. It was great going to concerts in churches. We enjoyed the trolley to the Hradcany, but kept our fingers crossed that we would know when to get off!!

Caroline: Ohhh, it’s a magical place, far removed from everyday worries. Five or six times while I lived in Prague I ran into people I’d known before; seeing them in this magical place has strengthened my relationship with them.

Edna: I loved the sense of antiquity which Prague has more than other European cities. Walking on Charles Bridge, visiting Prague Castle, being shown around St. Nicholas Church by Aunt Hana and hearing its history. As an artist, I enjoyed very much the Gallery in St. Agnes Cloister. Remember we went to a concert there in St. Barbara’s chapel?

Tim: The progress over the years I’ve visited thrills me. People used to drive rickety trucks and old Skodas. Now the cars are upbeat. The crowds are upbeat. The food is better. Capitalism is working! There’s Opportunity!

Vivian: Magnificent, old, charming. I absolutely loved it.

Sharon: It’s a jewel of a city. It’s very walkable; we walked everywhere. People are very friendly. When we asked for directions, they’d take us there, or find someone who knew the way. Great shopping, great places to eat.

If you are new to Prague perhaps these visitors’ impressions might give you ideas for making your acquaintance with the city. If you have lived here awhile you could be alerted to seeing this ancient/modern milieu anew. Happy exploring!

October 2005 - Forests and Wood

2005-10-01T23:17:00.000-04:00

Most of our forests, and thus most of our products, are spruce. Spruce has to be at least 60 years old before it can be harvested. Rina, my mother-in-law, remembered when she was taken by coach when she was a new bride, to our Lipi forest being planted with young spruce. They were turning a meadow into a forest, in her honor. When she came back to the Czech Republic after the Velvet Revolution we began to harvest those spruces.

Visiting the woodshop, you'll find some of these items being constructed: balcony, fence slats, stair components, beams, wine racks, bookcases, tables with chairs, cradles, king-sized beds, luggage racks, kitchen shelves, pegged coat or key holders, Adirondack chairs, or a special order for a single dining table or a garden gate.

Forest protection laws go back to Maria Theresa: felling trees is always followed by replanting baby trees. The first thing we did with harvested trees, after they had been hauled to the road with horse, and then tractor, was to sell them as is, as logs. However, raw lumber prices are low, so we began making products.

Driving through Austria or Bavaria you immediately see wide-spread use of spruce balcony and fence slats. Thus began one of our early products. Austrian company Holtz Schneider purchased these, but most are sold in the Czech Republic.

Several products were made mainly by one employee who worked at home. If we gave him too much wood, or didn't keep close track of him, we'd end up with a great surplus of whatever he was making, all beautifully done. We asked for two cradles for our expected grandchild. A few weeks after her birth we asked, "Why the delay?" Well, he was making 16 cradles, not just two. Two cradles are in America, two are in Holland. Several were given as gifts here, or purchased. We still have three or four.

We have a couple dozen extra luggage racks made of beech. Initially a friend with a hotel ordered some, and then another hotel. Our upholsterer put on canvas tops. We use them for guests, and daughters in America have some. But, suddenly one day, we had many more. I've sold a few of these.....

Another overflowing product was king-sized beds!!! An impetus to the order was a request from a former manager of a California rock-band, who'd moved to Prague, and wanted one delivered to her apartment in a small street near the British Embassy.

My husband came from the carpenter's shop one day, "Do you know he's making seven?" "Yes, but four are single beds." "I don't think so," he replied. So I went. "Oh, all the beds are king-sized" (i.e. 80" X 80 inches), this carpenter assured me. (Never mind what I'd ordered.) "Of course we can't change now. See, the head and foot boards are already shaped fit for a Zamek!" As I walked out his gate, our son arrived. He also counted seven king-sized beds....
I had to go back to the upholsterer/mattress maker and change my order a little.

Every working day a transport company picks up most of the bulky orders, which consist of large numbers of balcony and fence slats, along with, usually, wine racks and bookcases which customers assemble themselves with included screws; pegged key & coat holders; small spice shelves; and sometimes knife blocks.

Adirondack chairs were a new product last year. After the floods, Stephanie Vyborna urged us to make these while people were replacing their possessions. Finally we did; several have been ordered by people who tried out the one we have in our dining room, along with its separate foot support. We too think that it is very comfortable. The chairs are made of birch, a hard wood which takes finishes very nicely.

I have a small forest of my own: "Barbie's Oak Forest". For several years I heckled a former forester to plant a few oaks for me. He always said, "Oh, I can't plant oaks". Finally my husband told him, "Plant oaks!" I was thinking 20 to 50, planted here and there. One day they came to tell me, "Your oaks are planted!" Great! They continued speaking, "It's a little forest, only 1000 oaks." LITTLE forest! ONLY 1000 oaks! When you look at the small area it's hard to believe there are 1000 oaks there, but they must be planted closely, so that they will grow straight and tall. I help them when I drive past, encouraging them, "Grow straight and tall little oaks".Harvesting must wait at least for our grandsons.

Czech Moravian Highlands

2005-06-01T02:02:00.000-04:00

Our area is the Czech-Moravian Highlands, a classical vacation area, especially for people from Prague. It's cooler here. It's also cooler in the winter, but that's another story.

It's an area of rolling hills, fields, streams, woodlands, small towns. Every side road traveled and every hillside climbed open vistas of fields of ripening crops set off by dark green woodlands. Many people have vacation cabins near a fish pond; others spend time with relatives in the villages and towns. There are rooms to be had in pensions and small hotels, also.

Living is easy after you've taken care of your guests, weeded the garden, and bought more refreshments. When you've sat long enough, with a glass in your hand, on your lawn furniture, or your neighbors' you might go for day trips to visit castles and fortresses - Cesky Krumlov, Cervena Lhota, Orlik, Tabor, Lipnice. Or you might just enjoy the countryside, going for picnics, gathering basketfuls of fresh fruit, especially bilberries, cherries and blackberries, going swimming or wading.

Did you ever have opeceny bonbony [roasted bonbons]? That's what several little girls named toasted marshmallows after I'd introduced this treat to them at our Fourth of July party. I love fireworks and really enjoy that there is no problem in their private use here! It does make me nervous so I issue a stream of cautions to the already careful and responsible persons who are setting them off. As well as planning food, moving furniture around, decorating with flags and patriotic themed tablecloths, I have learned to have handy several vases, with water; many guests bring flowers with a clever red/white/blue theme.

Everything is easier to get to in the summer. Daylight lasts long; roads are ice-free. The Pacov zamek chapel has an exhibition of crafts done by inhabitants of retirement homes; we go and buy a few presents. The Zeliv monastery has an evening concert and I go. There are special festivals. Goat Mountain - Kozimberk - a hilly section of Pacov, itself a small town, has a parade of real and papier mache goats with carts, and people in dress of long ago; a campaign for the [spurious] mayor of Kozimberk; dancing and an evening in the pub on the hill. When we first came the festival occupied one afternoon and evening. Now it's three days - 13-15 of August this year. Lipnice, near Svetla nad Sazava, has a medieval festival every year in its fortress castle. There's a parade, marvelous costumes, medieval music, maybe lunch in Hasek's Inn where he wrote "Good Soldier Svejch".

From the end of April until late September or early October is the season of the "pou't". As each person has a svatek, a namesday, so each church has its svatek called the pou't, or pilgrimage, when everyone comes home for an excellent lunch at grandma's after mass in a completely packed church. Any largish town plot boasts bumper cars, merry-go-rounds, and other rides, while up and down the streets and covering the town square are tables of goods for sale. There are always a few handmade items - decorated gingerbread cookies, maybe some wooden utensils and toys. But I want to tell you about a pou't where everything is handmade. [Well, except for the ice cream.]

The village of Mlade Briste will have its pou't on Sunday, June 27th, one day only unlike most pou't (s). Masses are at 7:30 and 10:30 in a little church originally decorated by [or, "after"] Mikolas Ales. There should be special music on the fine, recently renovated organ. The lawn between church and parish hall is filled with handmade items and their craftsmen and women - there's leather, ceramic, knit and crocheted lace, wrought iron, painted works, straw ornaments, wooden objects. Every time I've gone I've purchased Christmas gifts - straw bells and crocheted snowflakes for daughters, small stick puppets of leather for a granddaughter, a typical Czech block puzzle, but hand painted. A knitted lace tablecloth is a perfect wedding gift. Take the waist measurements of your menfolk, in order to be able to purchase hand-tooled belts. [I forget to do this.] Somewhere, probably in the shed at the back, you should be able to find sausages, gulas, and drinks. Village children give a playlet. The one I saw was about a vodnik, a water sprite, presented right at the edge of the pond. You might hop into a horsedrawn carriage or a wagon for a ride.

How to get there: Take Dalnice 1 to Humpolec. Get off at Exit 90, turning in the direction of Pelhrimov. Take the first left turn, about 1 km, and go three more kilometers almost directly south to Mlade Briste. Find a place to park, and enjoy yourselves!

May 2005 - Travel

2005-05-01T23:00:00.000-04:00

Here at the Zamek, most prospective travelers send an e-mail. Friends,relatives, strangers write that they would like to visit. I write back detailing ways to get to us and asking when, actually, they're coming.

Before I travel, I like to read up on the place I will visit. When I leave a hotel or my hosts' home I feel very tuned to any possible nuances in the air. Mostly I try to go along with hosts' plans, discussing with them their ideas. Sometimes I ask to be taken to a store, or to make a phone call and I do demand a drinking glass, preferably plastic, for the bathroom. What else might I see or do on this visit? I talk to the people aroundme. If I simply can't do all I wanted to do, I keep the leftovers in mind for a future visit. And/or buy a book on the subject.

When you travel, you notice some things that natives are not very aware of, and conversely, don't notice things under your nose. One family of four threw themselves into experiencing local possibilities - they went for walks, picked cherries and bilberries, visited a saw mill and a small
castle. They even washed dishes, which at that point required heating water on a wood stove. But about the third day with us, they said, "You know, someone has a carpenter shop and lumber yard at the end of your farm yard". "Yes, we know!", we said, "It's ours, and it's how we
make money, or, at least, hope to make money, to support this place."

Gracious hospitality is always appreciated. Some guests expect us todrop everything to attend to their wishes. While a pair of American priests had lunch we discussed a Norbertine monastery. "We'll go visit it this afternoon", they announced. I just looked at them. How did they think they were going to get there? Czech summer hikers do take this 12 kilometer hike, but the two priests did not have in mind that mode of travel. Of course I took them and they actually were welcomed to the rooms of our then, very dear, old abbot, Tejovsky.

Sometimes you hesitate to impose on your hosts. Irish friends saw other guests when they arrived, so, after lunch, in order "not to bother"us, the man demanded a rental car for exploring. Easier said than done. The rental place is over 20 km away; arrangements must be made. Sorting this out, our newly arrived guests agreed to take over the rental car of people leaving in the morning. The couple contented themselves with being shown around the estate, garden, fields, workshop, zamek by family members.

You might imagine yourselves able to do much more than is possible during your stay at your travel destination. In a box of old clothes,available for guests who want to help on the farm, I still have work pants left by a friend who'd planned to do whatever he could to help our
renovation. However, he had an academic conference to attend in Budapest and train connections were not good. It seemed they needed to spend the night in Vienna, and that train left the following morning.So he left his work clothes for the next volunteer. In case you want to
borrow them, I'll let you.

April 2005 - Mostly Music

2005-04-01T21:59:00.000-05:00

Literature written here at the Zamek is so scarce as to be almost
non-existent. We do have the original, and only, copy of "Report from
the Adriatic", by George, age 9. Maybe I'll be noted someday? Some
newspaper, magazine, and TV reporters have visited over the years,
writing articles and doing a couple programs. A visitor did show us a
book with a "old" map of Komensky's/Comenius's travels indicating
that he dwelt here for awhile. Did he live in a cottage in the village? Did
he live in the Zamek? The book was only about 100 years old, though,
& Jan Amos Komensky's dates are 1592-1670. [I guess I needn't
mention that no one remembers this....]

It's possible to find many more musicians in our history, including into
recent years. At the end of the 1800's, Bedrich Smetana, then a young
man, lived in an area zamek and, according to the local historical
society, came here for hunting parties. They said he once gave a
concert at our zamek and that he set "The Bartered Bride" around the
fish pond in Posna, a nearby village. Wouldn't it be fun to interview
people there, asking if this one's or that one's grandmother or
grandfather were the prototype for a character in his opera?

We've liked inviting musicians to help us in our celebrations, but the
first group, about six people, invited themselves on December 24,
1991. They were dressed in folk costumes and gave a little talk saying
they were reviving the ancient Czech custom of caroling from place to
place. We shared "Good King Wenceslaus", greatly pleasing them that
English-speaking people remember him. When they'd left for a
retirement home snow fell furiously for about fifteen minutes covering
the bare ground and sealing the thrill for us of that magical, musical
afternoon.

Weddings are perfect times to invite musicians. There's music for the
wedding ceremony, a folklore group to perform local wedding dances
and songs, and a band for dancing. I'd wanted a bilingual ceremony.
Fr. Max accomplished this at the rehearsal in one sentence: "Now,
Petr", he directed our organist cousin, "your family please sing all the
responses in Czech." And they did. Hymns were in English, some
scripture was in Czech, some in English. Fr. Max did the ceremony in
English with the bridal couple reciting their memorized vows in English.
The congregation chose their own participation language! Our violinist
friend played Bach's "Sheep may Safely Graze". Afterwards the folklore
group was enjoyed and then dancing began with the classical Czech
circle around the newly-married couple.

At another wedding a couple funny or off-beat incidents took place. We
pushed two guitarists, who'd gotten off an airplane three hours before,
to take part in the rehearsal. They survived, barely. The flautist did not
come to the rehearsal, quite to our surprise. He did come to the
wedding, not particularly early, but instead of the flute, he played the
saxophone for the offertory to everyone's astonishment! Between when
I'd talked with him and the wedding, he'd decided that he knew the
French chanson better than he knew the flute music.

During the reception I found a few of the folklore group just hanging out.
"What are you doing?" "Waiting for the others." Long afterwards I
realized that I'd forgotten to send the bus for them! Others picked them
up in several loads, so we did have the show after all.
****************************

March 2005 - Wellness

2005-03-01T21:57:00.000-05:00

Since "The Bridge" theme this month is wellness and health, I thought it might be fun to talk about people who have come here to convalesce, not all of whom realized what they were doing, perhaps! One who came on purpose to convalesce was a visitor in the 1930's who made a little photo album of zamek and scenery as a thank-you gift for the time she spent recovering here. We had this little book in America; it contained some of the first
pictures I saw of the Zamek.

A Czech general, made a general by Havel after the Velvet Revolution, was a fellow bridge player with my in-laws in Africa. When he decided at nearly 90 to move to the Czech Republic friends suggested that he try a few months in an apartment before actually moving his household, but the general liked to make up his own mind; he moved with his pit bull dog. We found him a room near Petrin and visited him. He soon came down with a serious flu for which he went to the military hospital. When he was out of the hospital my husband and son went to fetch him one day to convalesce at the Zamek. This took two trips, because the first time he refused to go while he was ill. He said he was "walking my dog". He sat in a lawn chair, with the dog tied to a chair leg. The second time he came along.

He used to sleep very late - 10 or 10:30. Irina who worked here and I used to sneak in to see if he were still alive. Since he liked to sunbathe I noted that he had very blue legs. I caught an excellent doctor acquaintance, a former military doctor, for him. He checked him over, ordered whatever medicines needed, and most importantly made friends with
the general. Since he had been fellow military he was willing to trust him.

We and the general felt differently about the friendliness of the pit bull. One day I thought I'd take the dog for a walk, but trying to put the leash on him made him so angry that I left out the window.

The general walked along the highway everyday for exercise - west in the morning, east in the afternoon. He kept this up after we had snow and ice, one day slipping and falling. "Just a sprain, just a sprain." But the doctor came by, took a look, and had him taken off to the hospital for an operation. The ankle was broken.

He finally moved to a small apartment in a residential facility not far from Prague. He liked being closer to Prague acquaintances and to various military ceremonies. Several of us visited him, but we had to listen to complaints about the cost, and uselessness, of a computer course, and the cost of sending someone shopping for him. He died about 1 1/2 years later.

A couple years ago after Christmas a young women arrived from Philadelphia. We soon noted that Bonnie was not in a good state. She'd planned to have fun, but most of that visit she spent in bed with warm drinks and antibiotics. She had had two weeks vacation scheduled after a very rigorous working year. She set about filling this time with just as much vacation as was possible - possible for the airlines, but obviously not for herself!
First she went skiing in Colorado with friends. Next she visited her suitor in Scotland. Bonnie then returned to Philadelphia, to spend Christmas with her parents, afterwards flying to Prague. All this was in less than two weeks. When she reached us she started talking changing her ticket so she could celebrate New Years in London. "How about going to bed with an antibiotic?", I inquired. "I'll phone our doctor." But she said, "Oh, I
brought my own antibiotic along. I thought I might get sick."

Another young woman tried to help her fiance with the sheep, but after we'd carted her to the emergency room late at night to get treatment for asthma we barred her from the nnimals. But she was determined to keep working at something, even though their top goal at the Zamek was rest and relaxation in the countryside before returning to California. She amazed me by removing old, old rust off cream tiles on a bathroom floor. It took her nearly a week: she just worked until it was clean.

I took a sick three-year-old and her dad to the doctor, but to our regular doctor, not to the pediatrician whom I don't know as well. It turned out that the child is allergic to penicillin, and the GP had to PHONE the children's doctor to ask the correct dosage of another medicine. I heard, "I have Mrs. Homolka in my office with a visiting child, etc......." This I found embarrassing. The medicine was not very pleasant as it was chalky.
The child however recovered quickly.

Now if you are planning to come here to recover from something please stand advised, that, as soon as you are able, you will be holding a carrot peeler and knife, helping prepare supper.

October 2004 - Interior Decorating

2004-10-01T22:49:00.000-04:00

Interior Decorating? I wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cry. Let'sassume, before one begins decorating, that the heating, plumbing,electricity are already in place, that any fungi which had invaded woodwork has been removed (along with superfluous walls blocking doors, or sitting on a sprung parquet dance floor) and that sawed-off stair cases have been replaced.These are huge assumptions. Never mind.

First throw out junk - 13 hard moldy loaves of bread, fermenting canned strawberries, stacks of Communist youth magazines, old torn clothes, mouse nests. Save the crosses, the horseshoes, tiles from ancient tile stoves, grandfather's architect's drawing, some handmade nails.
I'll skip lightly over the repair of windows; additions of toilets, sinks; renovating floors etc., etc., since that is already covered completely in the first short paragraph. [See above!] Moving on to real interior decorating, I realize that I have actually done some decorating which I like.
Color pleases me very much & I think about the placement of rooms under consideration. A north-facing room needs warm color. My painter & I mixed & stirred paint to copy a scrap of pinky-coral tissue paper for paint on the large dining room walls. The woodwork is a warm cream, & striped tablecloths, hand-loomed by a friend, are a happy mix of cream, green, forest, pink, gold, & orange.

Two south-facing rooms could take cool colors. The library is white & gray with the same cream woodwork. A red couch & chairs done in a William-Morris-type print along with all the books add color. The bedroom next to it is red, white, & blue, but rather subtly done, with only touches of red. There's a quilt on the large bed. On the sleigh bed is a deep red blanket & a heart-shaped blue & white pillow edged in white eyelet. The pillow is "modra-tisk", the ancient technique of printing cloth with indigo dye [See Czech Handicraft shops.] Wardrobe shelves are lined in red, white, & blue paper. The walls are light blue & white, the pattern rolled on by cut-out rubber rollers. This technique was widely used here 10 or 15 years ago; neighbors loaned me rollers, but perhaps some paint stores might still have some buried in their storeroom.
Fabric comes from a nearby factory & I have gladly made friends with my amiable neighborhood upholsterer. As well as sofas, upholstered chairs, & wooden chair seats, he also puts tops on folding birch luggage racks which all my bedrooms have, & which I also sell, one of the products of our woodshop.

Collections can go on shelves, which our shop also makes. My collections are all accidental - I was left things by relatives & many were gifts. I have four - bells, pitchers, little boxes, & fish. If you have collections, purposeful or accidental, your travels give you the chance to add to your collections & the new pieces decorate your house. The little boxes are in my bedroom & the bells in another bedroom. Pitchers sit on a kitchen shelf; fish are on a bathroom wall.

I take pictures - posters, family photos, friends' paintings - to a very reasonably priced workshop close by. For years I've been wishing for non-reflective glass, which is finally available here.

Thinking "out-of-the box" is so important. What color should a floor be? Brown? Black? Well, I stained the floor in a dull small hallway a rich blue. Nice! We had to build one bathroom in front of a bedroom, because the bedroom had a great arched & molded ceiling plus there was no reasonable place to put the door. We finally put the bathroom on one side of the first room, a closet in the corner, & a sitting area with an easy chair, a captain's chair, & a hassock in the other, leaving a very adequate passage to the bedroom.

Furniture moves from room to room, according to need. A table/desk in a guest bedroom is now an accountant's desk. An extra buffet in an extra wide hallway, holds a family member's bits & pieces. Rattan furniture, awaiting eventual repair of a veranda, makes a conversation area at the end of the big dining room.

Writing this article has encouraged me to think hopefully of the next stages, when more basic renovation will let me decorate further.

September 2004 - Transitions

2004-09-01T22:46:00.000-04:00

Absolutely no getting away from transitions in life. Even a stone so many million years old sometimes gets picked up to edge a rock garden or to be put into a wall. We have many more feelings than that stone!

Attitudes towards upcoming transitions can vary from joyful anticipation to feelings of dread & terror. We might have a mixture of these feelings, or vacillation between extremes. Is it true that...? Will it be wonderful? Will it be terrible? Will working hard crack & solve any difficulties?

Advice is forthcoming in all the helpful magazines. Have a good night's sleep. Wear clothes you're comfortable in. Eat a good breakfast, or at least have something to drink. Learn all you can about the situation
you're about to enter. Make a list. Think positively. Greet everyone with a smile.

Actually everyday brings transitions, minor or major. You or a friend are moving; a new baby is born; the street in front of your house is dug up; a new school year starts; a visitor leaves with the enthralling book
you're reading; someone is in the hospital with a broken leg - or a terminal disease; a big storm changes your plans; conversation with neighbors & repair people requires you to learn some Czech.

About two o'clock one afternoon in our early years here I was writing to an English friend [This was Neil]: "We are usually exhausted by mid-afternoon. Six strange things will have happened. Today we already have our quota, so I still have energy to write to you." At that point I was interrupted while three more strange things began to
happen! First, we were asked to make a phone check for a neighbor without a phone who had been tricked by other neighbors, who disliked him, into believing that his brother was at death's door in the
hospital. [Stanek] [His brother was really staying with a drinking buddy.]
Then a friend, grandchild in tow, arrived to say she needed to sell family goods, & that her husband might be very ill & what could we do about these problems? I made coffee; provided paper hankies. My
husband listened to her story. Finally, we had to chase away a couple rough guys who tried to come inside to look around for furniture they could buy.

Recently our 2 1/2 year old granddaughter was very well prepared for the birth of her baby sister, but I began to perceive she believed that
carefully not bonding closely with me, would prevent her mother from leaving for the hospital. On the actual morning that mother & daddy were gone she was amazingly calm. It was not nearly as bad as she'd imagined - her house was still there, her Elmo, her breakfast, her wading pool. Soon daddy came home to tell her about her new little sister with whom she is very gentle & sweet.

A new experience I had while in the States was taking a friend sightseeing in Boston, where I'd only ever spent several days, & that years ago, & they've dug up lots of Boston since then. Discussing restaurants with my son-in-law, picking up some maps of Boston, & having a cell phone made the excursion nearly painless. My friend & I greatly enjoyed our day eating at the Union Oyster House, visiting Paul Revere's house, & talking with people in Boston's North End.

Magazine advice is not all bad, but I'd like to add a few things. Grin & Be Grateful. Do not add Gritting Teeth to this, or you will have to find a dentist before you are settled with your other changes. You may kick the door - if it's strong enough - or, better, dance around the room. For twenty minutes or so, dance, & avoid looking at the remaining things to be done. Next, so many Prague churches are open through the day. Sit in a church. You are not allowed to kick the pews, but you may pray. This needn't be a "nice" prayer; freely list all your complaints. Then, just sit. Finally realize that your perceptions are greatly heightened right now because of your new situation. Take advantage of this. Get a notebook, and begin to jot down things you notice - strange experiences in moving, a few lines about interesting people seen in your daily trek to & from the school or the hospital or your new job, or a complete description of the progress of the road diggers as observed from your window.

Nevertheless you miss the book your guest walked off with?? IWAP office will sell you another book - possibly even a copy of the same one you were reading. Profits to charity.

March 2004 - Stained Glass

2004-03-01T21:41:00.000-05:00

How often do you re-lead your stained glass windows?

In our Blue Room is a bay window whose inner panes are decorated with brilliant red and pale gold stained glass. Several small missing panes would again let in drafts in the approaching cold winter of the Southern Bohemian Highlands. A tower's deer's head windows also needed repairing.

A Prague friend faxed us information on a firm at Novy Bor in Northern Bohemia.Bonnie, a friend visiting from New Hampshire, would make the journey with me.

First, I asked a worker to lay all the windows in my car, wrapping them carefully in blankets.
"You must stand them upright, or they will totally smash."
"There's not enough room."
" Wrap them thickly, and wedge with the styrofoam pieces."
"Can't be done." With a few more comments, he walked away.
So, Bonnie and I did it.

We set off: north to Prague, on to Melnik, and further north through hidden river gorges to Novy Bor. The town is replete with glass factories, firms, stores. Finally we parked near a store which had the correct name, and sold some stained glass windows amongst other glass objects, but the saleswoman sent us around the corner, to the main yard. Upstairs in an office we consulted with a somewhat doubtful manager (whom I had, however, telephoned). He did consent to call the head artisan, whom I will term Pan Sklo.

Downstairs we went again and across the yard to unwrap our treasure. Only a few of the cracked panes had jostled out. Pan Sklo watched with interest and assisted us. "Yes. Yes, we can do this work. But the repaired windows must remain upright."
"A truck will come," I said.
"We shall re-lead them all," stated Pan Sklo.
"Re-lead all!?!," I exclaimed. "No. Just needed repair......these pieces of broken glass......and the lead is gone there......."
Pan Sklo was firm. "Lead glass windows sag. Old lead ceases to bond to the glass. Don't you know stained glass windows must be re-leaded every One Hundred Years?"
No. No, I did not know. This fact was not part of my store of knowledge. Now I know. Every One Hundred Years: Re-lead your stained glass windows.

Pan Sklo showed us around the workrooms. We gazed at pretty things, imaginative, exquisite, striking, very modern, antique, small, large. Designers drew in one room. Special single-piece orders were in another. A third room had Obecansky Dum windows laid out, dismantled, arranged on paper patterns for re-leading. When a young apprentice spoke with us in English, we told him he would one day be as skilled as Pan Sklo.

Later we heard they'd done the beautiful blue and green windows for the mosque in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Twice. Pan Sklo said they'd told him a fork-lift had crunched the first windows. He was appalled. [Actually they had been purposely crushed - someone thought Americans were building a church!]

Leaving our windows in this fascinating firm, we returned to Novy Bor's main square for lunch and shopping. We looked at unusual art glass. I bought painted glass Christmas ornaments for gifts and China trays for guests' toiletries. Bonnie found a bowl to take to America: a globe shape with the top sliced off, slightly engraved.

When we had returned to the Bohemian Highlands we informed my husband that the windows would be finished in two weeks, but that they must be re-leaded every One Hundred Years.
"My grandfather didn't think to tell me", he said, and turned to our son: "Write it in your will. 'Re-lead stained glass every One Hundred Years'".

Interesting Hitchhikers

2004-02-01T00:58:00.000-05:00

On my way to Prague for the IWAP meeting I passed a woman, laden with shopping, trudging from a small town. She wasn't hitchhiking and I didn't stop for her, although this is the sort of person I sometimes do stop for. I soon felt guilty when I saw how far away the next village was.

I've become something of a pick-up artist, you see. Often buses don't run, at least not at convenient times, to all villages, so often little old people trudge along country highways, lugging heavy bags of groceries. Some entertaining guests have shared the passenger seat in my car.

Such as the old woman who started talking about how terrible life is today: "There is something called the C-O-L-D W-A-R going on." She was very firmly told the Cold War is Over, and the communists Lost. "Ha. If the communists lost, how am I getting my pension!?"

A young woman was walking to her village, 6 km. from the long-distance bus route. We chatted - a bit - and she told me that for someone who's lived here for over 10 years I speak very bad Czech! I thought, "Just a minute, chickie, I'm giving you a lift!" Luckily for my ego, another Czech later told me that my command of his language is great.

My husband has also played the good Samaritan. One day he saw, he thought, two young women whose skirts billowed in the breezes. As soon as he'd stopped however, two travel-soiled monks wearing supposed-to-be white robes entered the car. He delivered them to their monastery.

Another time he picked up a man on the way to Mlada Boleslov who immediately informed him that he had just been released from jail. The man said that he at least had not had to string tiny glass beads on wires like the junkies; he'd only had to sweep up all the spilled beads. When he heard my husband was going farther south, he wanted to go there. At that town, he wanted to go to a village, 20 km, more. My husband delivered him, and then went for a very late lunch at a nice hotel in Sazava, and thought about his day's experience.

Just once I hitchhiked. In our first or second week of living here in August 1991 a daughter & I hitched to the nearby town. A little tiny driver, dressed all in brown, drove an old, old car. A large basket of mushrooms sat on the back seat. After we got out we stared at each other: "Do you think he was an elf?"

Our riders sometimes muse over us as well. There's a summer disco about 2 km. from our Zamek, and one evening we gave two girls a ride. Realizing we were a bit different, maybe from Prague, they asked if we had "some kind of a cottage in the village". "Ah, yes, some kind of cottage", said my husband, casually. We did live in the Zamek, although at that point -- back in 1991 --it was nearly unlivable.

Or there was the snockered father and son on their way to a funeral. Usually men go to the pub after a funeral, but these had obviously gone beforehand. They wanted to be dropped at another pub. I think they're still trying to figure out how a foreigner had given them a ride.

You get plenty of advice, too. One day a friend and I stopped for a man who lived in a nearby village. After I dropped him at the turn, she told me, "Don't ever give him a ride again. He lives next to my relatives, and he's always stealing things!"

We've even had hitchhiker stay beyond the ride.One came in for coffee. He told us his uncle, a research scientist in Corning, NY, where my husband and I had lived would sponsor him to the States when he finished studying. Later we talked with Corning friends, a PhD. ceramist and his wife, a curator at the Glass Center. They know this Czech-American scientist very well. What a small world.

Students are the biggest group of hitchhikers, I think. One beautiful spring Friday the roads from Humpolec were lined with students out for the weekend. I stopped for three boys. One said, "Hello, Mrs. Homolka, it's nice to see you again. Thank you for stopping." I did a doubletake; he had changed so much in three or four years. I remembered him snooping all over the Zamek when he'd come with his parents for tea.

We often pick-up young soldiers. They have a weekend, say, but are far from home Their military salaries are too small to pay for buses or trains. Now that the draft is one year, instead of the former two years, it's easier for them, but still not easy. And the roads are still lined with soldier boys heading home for a visit on their free days, so I suppose there will be plenty more opportunities to stop and give a ride to strangers.

Disclaimer: Now don't think that I recommend that you go hitchhiking, or that you pick-up hitchhikers. Personally I have passed by many who really seemed to be just fine - such as the laden-down woman I passed on my trip to the IWAP meeting. Obviously I am a little nervous about hitchhikers. On the other hand people do things which I think are highly dangerous and which I would never do. Hang-gliding and rock climbing come to mind. These are often written up, with pictures, in perfectly nice magazines.

November 2003- Pitfalls in Learning Czech

2003-11-01T21:35:00.000-05:00

We'd found some old horseshoes around the place, and since I'd learned "Shoes", "boty" and "horse", "kun", I figured I could say horseshoes in Czech. So I did. When everyone finished laughing, they explained to me that the word in Czech is not horseshoe - how very funny! - but under-metal. German has the same construction with different words, naturally. Horseshoe is podkova in Czech.

Another day I wanted to explain I was planting flowers near where ancient narcissi come up every year. Flowerbed would be Kytky-postel, no? No, not at all. Flowerbeds, herb beds, small vegetable gardens are each designated with the word zahon. It took me awhile to learn, so I caused laughter anew each time I asked, "Now, what do you call kytky-postel?"

Pole was another word I had trouble remembering. Spelled sloup, pronounced slope. Well, for the most part, poles should not slope. They ought to stand upright. Such words are called false cognates.Here's another false cognate - protoze. I was quite amazed that Czechs spent so much time talking about proteges. That is, until I found out that protoze in Czech means "because".

A couple of us have had problems buying matches. One daughter asked for "srdce", "heart" while everyone in the store stared. They cracked up when she finally pantomimed striking a match, saying "ohen", "fire". Elsewhere, I asked for candles enough times, that the owner would automatically ask me if I didn't want matches, sirky, rather than svicky.

This same store was kind to me when I first arrived, inviting me behind the counter to pick and chose. They were especially kind, because I sometimes knocked things over in that crowded area! One time, though, I just pointed at the plum butter, demanding svesky povidky. The woman was puzzled, but gave it to me. When I got home I realized I'd demanded plum stories, rather than plum butter, sveska povidla. How did she keep from laughing?

A favorite English-speaking-person-in-Czech-store involves an IWAP friend, Linda, the ballet teacher from South Africa. She didn't take a dictionary, but asked her neighbor how to say her grocery list in Czech. By the time she was in the store, she'd forgotten the words, of course. So she pantomimed, and being a ballet teacher she was good at this. It must have been quite a sight the day she'd forgotten "vejce", "eggs". She tucked her hands under her arms, flapped her wings, and cluck, cluck, clucked.

November 2003 - The Point-lace Handkerchief

2003-11-01T21:34:00.000-05:00

I carried the point-lace handkerchief twice this summer.

It resides in a handkerchief box from the late 1920's - a flat cardboard box with a picture of flowers on the cover - There's a piece of blue tissue paper around it to keep it from yellowing. It was at the Philadelphia daughter's house for a few years in a dressing table of about the same vintage as the box, and now is at the Boston daughter's house in the guest room desk drawer. For several years it was here in the Czech Republic in my dresser.

In the box with the handkerchief and the blue paper is a letter, written in 1930 or 1931, by my great Aunt Iva Clark, to "My dear niece Ruth", my mother, wishing her happy birthday.

She says that she is working on something "just for you", but had not yet finished it. [What? Maybe the off-white knitted coat which my mother wore every summer for over 50 years.] Aunt Iva apologizes that she is sending something used, and starts explaining that "Years ago I used to do fancy work..."

This is an ironic statement to the rest of us, because she really never stopped doing fancy work. I know of at least six family houses which have her handicrafts - knitted things, crocheted things, embroidered things. I have a photo of our grandson Benjamin, now 10 months old, wearing a sweater Aunt Iva made for me in 1938.

The point-lace however required younger eyesight and fingers.

I would imagine Aunt Iva did it in the late 1890's, perhaps when she & another woman had returned to Kansas after homesteading, on their own, in the Dakotas. She made two.

One she made for her sister, Anna, and the other for her mother, Catharine Anthony Clark. She said that my great grandmother Catharine Clark had carried it in the wedding of my grandparents, Herbert Anthony Clark to Dora Markham, in 1901 and in the wedding of Aunt Anna to Mr. Jillson in 1912.

My mother penciled notes at the bottom of Aunt Iva's letter, "I carried it in Dorothy Jillson's wedding to Walter Bailey in 1941 and at Jim's [my brother's] to Emmy Hoffman in 1966. I forgot it at yours & Julie Bailey's.

Now I have added my own penciled notes - I guess I could write that I forgot it at the weddings of our son and our daughters. But what I did write was that I had carried it during the christening of Benjamin and in the wedding of my niece, Becky Clark Hunt to John Monroe both in the summer of 2003.

And, I tell you, it was a lot of work! It kept falling out of wherever I tucked it! But I'm glad I did it.

May 2003 - Traveling with Children

2003-05-01T22:29:00.000-04:00

Now that summer is coming with promises of travel, I want to pass on hints for traveling with children which I've garnered over the years.

You find yourself making new rules. When we went to Africa for the first time with a 5 1/2 year old, a 3 year old, and a just-turning-two year old, I made a rule: "No crawling on floors of train stations and airports".

This was an on-the-spot solution, but for many problems certain to crop up, advance preparation does help. On that first long, long plane ride not a drop of any drink was spelled by a child..... It only happened when another woman carelessly slammed into me as I was transferring an airline drink to one of our Tupperware sippy cups. So glad I'd bought those cups.

Clothes.

It's best to pull out all clothes you might want for each child a week in advance of your trip. If it's a baby you can put stacks in his/her room, but if children are older, put stacks in your room, so they don't get used. You will find spots on the clothes, missing buttons, rips. You have time to repair perhaps, or switch. Further, you cannot plan your life with children.

Once, All FIVE Children came down with a bug that week! Thank goodness for those piles.

Include some nearly out-grown or worn-out clothes. Thus when the child gets new things, you abandon the old, keeping luggage down. If worn-out, well, maybe your sister-in-law can use a new rag. If items are still good, find a Salvation Army collection bin or give them to someone. Once I had a dreadful time getting rid of a bright flowered sundress, size 3, being worn by a 5 year old. She kept rescuing it. Finally, I tucked it behind the flower pot on a small balcony in a small hotel on the Greek Island of Kos.

The maid thanked me later. After she'd tried to return the sundress!

Suitcases.

For several reasons, I usually found it a good idea to give each child his/her own suitcase. You might be able to move as a group, each person carrying his own luggage. The smaller the child, the smaller the case.

Caution: you don't include the dress Tiffany is going to wear as a flower girl; you'd likely find her playing princesses in it. Baby clothes you can put with your own, but if they're separate it's easier to say to husband or older child, "Get me Sammy's yellow playsuit". You probably foster independence with these separate cases, besides the fact that each is carrying his own. The child chooses his own clothes each day, you only stepping in as necessary. I mean, you don't want them looking too weird when you are going to Janet Young's weaving establishment for tea. They can learn to judge what article is dirty and which can be worn again. And after you look the kids over, you can always say, "Go back for your sweater". If one child stays with Grandma in Oneonta, NY, while the rest of you move on to Corning, you have minimal sorting to do.

An obvious problem is the losing of one suitcase. Alice's once was delivered to her in Golden Valley, Rhodesia a week after it disappeared in Nairobi.

But the daughter didn't suffer much. We'd loaned her things, and she had acquired a couple new t-shirts, and a new dress.

Plastic bags

Don't give these to 2 year olds, but teach others how to store underwear, best shirt or dress, shoes, bathing suits. Yes, you should check that the wet bathing suit comes out of the plastic bag when you reach your next destination. I usually packed toiletries in one case for all, and passed out toothbrushes and so on when in the next hotel or at the next relatives. If older children collect little shampoo and lotion bottles in hotels, teach them about the uses of plastic bags, preferably zip-lock. Take AT LEAST ONE RAG! Several rags, rather. Kids mess up things fast! Relatives don't always have rags out for your use.

Carry-on luggage

Everyone has his own containing her very favorite doll or stuffed animal, security blanket, little toy cars, crayons, pencils, a few books. If you have a baby, EVERYONE'S bag has some disposable diapers, including your HUSBAND'S BRIEF CASE! That's being part of the family. You have glue, metal bandaid [plaster] or other small boxes containing cheerios or other cereal, costume jewelry, or other small things. Lots of costume jewelry fits in one bandaid box. Scissors must unfortunately be in a suitcase. The children's bags have some tiddly toys, a nuisance at home, but with which you can help them on an airplane, or in a hotel. Examples are sticker books, stickers, plastic forms to stick on pictures, paper letters and numbers.

The notebook, from a stationery store

Every kid say, three & up, gets one of these. On the front pages is glued a map. You can glue this there ahead of time. But you can also cut/tear maps from airline magazines. You mark "Prague", and later places you stop, unless the child is old enough to do this her/himself. One three year old insisted that her father "X" our hometown - she felt out of her element after visiting Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Seychelles, and Nairobi. The child is supposed to write in the notebook everyday. [They have never been known to do this, but they are thrilled now, in their thirties, to have those notebooks.] They're wonderful things to read later. Sri Lanka by 7 year old Alice: "I saw a boy with a cobra in a basket", with a darling sketch of boy, cobra, basket, and flute. AND on the next page: "I saw a fairy under a mushroom." Picture of fairy and mushroom. My husband and I puzzled over this for years. Alice was a child who might see fairies, but perhaps she felt that a boy with a cobra was so strange, why not see fairies? The children cut and glue pieces from museum brochures, whole or parts of postcards, and add a sentence or so. If they are bored in the hotel you can always hand over the packet of tourist info, and say, "Go work on your notebooks"!!

March/April 2003- Czech Easter Foods and Customs

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Some Czech Easter Foods

Colored eggs - Barvene Vejce – (Eva Zimova) Materials needed
Raw eggs - brown-shelled eggs are fine
Greenery to make the decorations
A small bowl of water to wet the greenery
Old nylon stockings to hold greenery fast & strong thread to tie it
Onion skins to color the eggs
These are the dried, brown, outer onion skins
One year we used red onion skins - the effect was only slight
A pot and water for simmering the eggs
Some cooking oil to polish the eggs after they are cool

Cut the stocking in lengths to cover an egg. Tie one end tightly with thread.
Collect some greens - garden plants or weeds you know are harmless, or chives, parsley, or other herbs.
Use only things you know are not poisonous! Although you discard the greenery, egg shells are porous. If you have dandelion plants or violets in your yard, you may use them. If you have lilies of the valley, DO NOT use those!

Put the greenery in a small bowl of water. Wetness makes it stick to the egg. Chose pieces of greenery for your patterns and arrange on an egg. Cover the decorated egg with a nylon stocking sack and tie the other end with thread.

Put it in the pot on some of the onion skins and continue decorating other eggs. Tuck more onion skins on and around eggs and add water to the pot. Bring to a boil and then simmer seven minutes. Lift eggs from the water with a slotted spoon and rest on a rack until cool enough to handle. Gently snip the piece of nylon stocking and remove the greenery.When eggs are completely cool, you may put a little cooking oil on a small rag to polish them.

The eggs in a basket are a lovely table decoration. You may eat them for breakfast, lunch, supper, or a snack! But, put the eggs in the refrigerator overnight, and when you're gone all day.

Fried lamb or kid and spinach - Smazeny jehneci nebo kuzleci a spinat - Rina Homolkova
In older times this was the typical lunch on White Saturday, the Saturday before Easter. The pieces of meat were breaded and fried. And what do you do with the little head? Well, you make, to eat on Easter day:

The Little Head - Hlavicka The "Little Head" has two meanings, one secular, one religious. Long ago the small animal head was simmered and the meat used in the following recipe. However, already 80-90 years ago, most cooks had switched to using smoked meat. The Easter meaning is that the Risen Christ is head of the church, and this dish is a small symbol of that.

Hlavicka - by Eva Zimova
Smoked meat. Simmer. Remove the elastic net at once, while the meat is still hot.
I find I can remove the elastic net easily if I cut the meat in half with a big knife, and then pull on the strings. Cut into bite-sized pieces.
10 rolls, cut or tear
Dried garlic, salt, pepper
BABY nettles - wash & cut up. You don't have nettles in your garden?! How strange. Use chives or parsley.
One cake of yeast
Three tablespoons, or one large handful,
EACH of the following four ingredients -
1.Hladka, 2.Poloruba, 3.Hruby flours (mouka), 4.children's porridge
(detsky kase) (I guess in USA, just use flour & porridge)
10 eggs

Turn the oven on to high heat. [400-425 F.] Mix everything together, put in a greased baking pan, and let sit 15-20 minutes.
Bake 20 minutes on high. Turn to medium [350 F.] and bake about 25 minutes more.
You can test as for a cake.
I do recommend making a third or fourth of this recipe the first time. It is extremely hearty food, and not everyone will eat much of it. [Don't worry about trying to use half or third of an egg. Just put the whole one in - it's a flexible enough recipe.] Cut in squares. May be eaten warm or cold.

Easter Bread - Mazanec - Barbara & Rina Homolka

The meaning of the word mazanec is the 'thing that is spread', as it's painted with an egg glaze before baking. The round loaf represents the stone rolled away from the tomb when Christ arose.

Bakeries and grocery stores carry this bread year round, but at Eastertime there will be better loaves with lots of sliced almonds and raisins. If you wish to make it yourself, use a recipe for sweet bread.

Knead in the raisins and nuts after the first rising. Before baking, spread with an egg mixed with a little water, and mark a cross on the top with a sharp knife.

You may make small snail buns with some of the dough before you shape the round loaf. These are "Judases" - "Jidase", because Judas was twisted.

Another food, very typical for Easter, is the lamb cake you see in the grocery stores. It's made from the usual babovka dough. I surround mine with other Easter decorations. If you should wish to bake it yourself, look for ceramic molds in a kitchen supply store.

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Some Czech Easter Customs

Easter in Czech is Velikonoce, The Great Night

What our family calls Palm Sunday, Czechs have named Flower Sunday. In church, rather than palm branches, pussy willows are blessed. You may take a piece or two from the array, or you may bring your own to be blessed.

Setting grain or grass seeds to have fresh living greenery with your Easter decorations.
Courtesy Eva Zimova.

Where do you get seeds? Often pet food stores have sacks of grain, from which you might buy a little. The drogerie near me is selling special little packets of a seedling mixture for Easter. Maybe you have a bag of grass seeds for sprinkling on your lawn.

Line a dish or a tray with paper towels; add water; spread out the seeds; set in the light.
Always keep your seeds wet and you will be rewarded with fresh green life.

An Easter egg tree.
Hang a sturdy branch with the hollow decorated eggs you get in handicraft stores.
Wooden noise makers which you see pictured on Easter postcards.
Children run around with them outside on Good Friday and White Saturday to scare away evil spirits. These are sometimes for sale in souvenir shops.
[Babicka saw me thinking about buying Charlotte one. "Don't. Don't.] A decorated whip plaited from willow shoots.
During caroling for eggs on Easter Monday, boys try to whack girls with whips if girls do not hand out eggs fast enough. On the other hand, girls often fling handfuls or cups of water on the boys.

Easter Caroling

Caroling days are Saturday, Easter Sunday, and Monday, but only on Monday do carolers knock on doors asking for gifts of colored eggs.

In a small village all of the children might go caroling, but in a larger place, just the boys go, demanding eggs of the girls. Every fourth year girls go caroling. [On leap year?? I don't know.]

Here is one of the favorite songs.

Hody, Hody do pro vody
Date vejce malovany
Nedateli malovany
Date aspon bily
Slepicka vam snesa jiny

February 2003 - My Czech Treasures

2003-02-01T19:10:00.000-05:00

In the operetta, "Cikansky Baron", the protagonist returns home to a ruined estate, and after many adventures, finds a treasure, a trunk of gold coins. I came with my husband when he returned to his ruined estate; we continually have adventures. I found an old trunk his family had used for outdoor shoes; chickens had been nesting in it. Believe me, it was not filled with gold coins.

My treasure I have found elsewhere. That it was so unexpected intensifies its value for me. My treasure is our good relatives. Some my husband knew as a child, with some few we corresponded, and some, even fewer, we met in England & Germany. Of course, many were not born yet when my husband & his parents left.

In April 1990 my husband, our junior high daughter, and I went to Litomerice to see Uncle John and Aunt Irene whom we had met once in Oxford, England.Uncle John used to send us things - phonograph records, the lovely J.J.Ryba baroque Christmas mass, and a Karel Gott 45; a Lada calendar and Lada prints for the children. From that April '90 visit I have a wonderful photo of Uncle John showing my husband the surrender papers which had been given him in 1945, and which he had kept hidden for over forty years. Aunt Irene was rushing out to buy ham, cheese, and rolls for us.

In August 1990, I arrived at the Pilsen train station with four of our nearly adult children, and my mother-in-law. We were looking out of the train, to see who was meeting us and wondering if we would know them. Suddenly I realized that almost all the people stretched out along the

platform were there for us. There was a little old lady I was certain was someone special. Later, I found out how very special she is. She's my husband's aunt and, with her husband, his uncle, had facilitated their route out of Czechoslovakia. There were 3 of my husband's first cousins, and some spouses; 5 of my children's second cousins. We hardly knew these people existed.

In cars and on a farm truck, we were carted off to the village mill which my husband's grandmother had run. I actually had the address in my address book, but had no idea what it meant. We saw the weir island with its ancient huge hollow tree where every year the children put on a play, "fairies" emerging from the hollow tree. We ate and drank, laughed and talked, in a mixture of languages - Czech, English, German. Peter, a second cousin took us to see an ancient castle ruin, which once was a beacon, when fires were lit, on the route to Prague. In the evening we sat around a fireplace & sang. We all learned "The Mill Doesn't Run Any More", "Nemelem nemelem". But my husband's cousin, Joe, was trying; he is producing electricity. One of my daughters went to bed first. She was highly startled when her second cousin walked through, the rooms being interconnected, as typical of a Czech house. "WHY is my eldest sister here?!!" "No, she's your second cousin, Katya,. You know she's here."

There's Jane, who is a loving homebody. Before I learned Czech we communicated just with smiles, and appreciation of her meals. She and Georgiana both like to try new recipes. Another Jane speaks English, and is sensible, outgoing, and, also, caring. There's Olga, who is full of enthusiasm and loves adventure and was in the big Sokol parade with Havel. There's Eva, with whom I used a dictionary to speak together in German, hers much better than mine; years later I was her confirmation sponsor. Her husband, Thomas, still later, did a reading at our daughter's wedding. There was Vasek to whose retroactive Charles University medical school graduation we went. Havel instituted these graduations for people who had been thrown out of university in 1949. There's Cousin Irene, in poor health, who's very precise, organized, and interested in art.

There are cousins Slavoj and Milada, who scurry around introducing people to each other. Our women's group long-time support of the Zbraslav childrens'home is a result of Slavoj's introductions because another cousin who works there asked me for help. There's Hana who was one of the first signers of Charter '77. There's Joe who's a computer genius. There's Margaret who brought her boyfriend to visit last summer, remembering our girls took her on a picnic for her namesday, when she, only 8, had been dropped off with us to practice her English; she's now an elegant student, a careful babysitter, and an accomplished hostess. There's Kathy, and Peter, Paul, and Katy, who thank us for visiting, as if we, not they, had provided the hospitality.

And of course, there is Aunt Hana, about whom I wrote earlier, who plies us with constant tidbits of the art and architecture of Prague, and whose family in Prague & Munich make certain she is well looked after.

I treasure all of these people. Certainly I could use a trunk full of gold coins; oh, yes, I could. However, my Czech treasure is truly more valuable to me, and truly more solid and lasting.

December 2002- Christmas Celebrations

2002-12-01T22:46:00.000-05:00

December celebrations?? In a strange & faraway land?? Is it possible?

How about if you set up a computer which prints out decorations, greetings, menus? You may also input local customs to download ways to make these traditions comfortable to you and your family plus a list of locations for buying items. You have this computer, indeed you do. It's you!

You know the basis of your celebration whether it's Hannukah, Id al fitr, or Christmas. From your security in this base you build your particular celebration. I'm addressing myself to Christmas, since that is what I celebrate.

In a mid-eastern country we bought the three & six year olds spun aluminum pots & a tea kettle - not very pretty but the "adult reality" children love, and the pots lasted in the sandpile for years. Trees there were pruned in December. A large banyan tree branch decorated with my Mexican tin ornaments made a fine Christmas tree.

Here in the Czech Republic take notice of some of these things. Christmas markets, especially in Old Town Square often have some handmade items. Concerts and caroling fests take place in every locale. Glass vases, candlesticks, & bowls you have been collecting may be displayed with some red & green ribbons, some of the plethora of Czech manufactured Christmas ornaments, bits of evergreen branches. Every neighborhood grocery store & paper store has holiday items for sale. You might not have to brave crowds at huge department stores except perhaps for some special gifts.

If you get an expensive creche set for a keepsake for goodness sakes get a paper set children can touch & you can toss out if it's terribly tattered.Will you have stockings on Christmas morning, as usual, or on St. Nicholas [Mikolas] Day. Or both? You choose & explain it to the children. Those explanations are themselves part of celebration.

Will you open gifts on Christmas Eve as Czechs do, or on Christmas morning, or split as our family does for the sake of children's staying power? Choose for a reasonable reason, not a nostalgic one: "Let's open tonight. The guests will still be having jet lag in the morning", or, "I think we better do presents in the morning. If the baby isn't in bed by 6:30, he'll be miserable all day." If you have no reason for either, take a family poll.

Christmas is a moveable feast, certainly not on the calendar, but on the globe. It's celebrated from country to country. Your celebration happens becaue you bring it, make it, let it happen. You could be surprised. No one in my family will ever forget the Czech Christmas Eve afternoon eleven years ago when we had costumed folk musicians singing & playing Christmas carols, "reviving," they explained, "the old customs". Followed by a snowstorm, a blizzard, a torrent of snow, finished in a quarter hour, leaving an inch - or a couple centimeters - of enveloping powdery flakes.

Happy Holidays!

October 2002 - Dozinky, the Harvest Festival

2002-10-01T20:00:00.000-04:00

Now, I'm adding a few things that are not in the article - little David Adam was born at the end of March, the 85 year old lady is Rina Homolka. The people speaking French are French Canadians. The plum cake was made by Eva Zimova. Seyfrieds are Jane & David with Christopher, 4, (and Adelle, who was in the baby pram at the wedding. Korakov is the name of their estate, 7 km from Tyn, but by itself, not in a village. Dave Seyfried's parents, Pat & Jan, were here again from Canada.

Dozinky, the Harvest Festival

Autumn brings turning leaves, ripe apples lining highways, and thanksgiving days. Canadians celebrate in October, Americans celebrate in November, but Czechs have festivals farm by farm after each finishes harvesting. The name of this Czech celebration is DOZINKY.

Our family attended a dozinky near Tyn nad Vltava on a September Saturday.

The day was gorgeous. The setting was sunny, warm, but not hot, with blue skies and puffy clouds. Cattle grazed peacefully on nearby pastures, coming for drinks of water to a trough under huge old trees. The celebration was within the large square yard formed by houses, some of the barns, garages, and the grainery. We parked our cars on the side of the square.

The guests were a wonderful mix. The youngest was our five month old grandson, and the oldest was an 85 year old lady. Friends, acquaintances, new acquaintances greeted us. People spoke English, Czech, French, some conversations switching from one to the other. The baby got passed around, rewarding everyone with his lovely smile, the universal language. One little girl, about nine years old, asked me why there was a band she didn’t realize she was at a dozinky, or what it was. And it took me awhile to figure out in what language she wanted me to answer her!! My mother-in-law heard about the lives of some people she had known in refugee camp. I offered several people free kittens.

A canopy shaded a sitting area. You strolled to the grainery for drinks. Two young men greatly enjoyed dispensing beer from a keg, or you helped yourself to coffee and other drinks. Bread, rolls, fresh leafy salads, pickles, mustard awaited the roast pig on a spit. Two men tending the pig, basting it with a marvelous sauce, slicing off succulent slices, greeted me, glad I’d come again to the dozinky. I was pleased, although surprised they had recognized me.

A four piece band played and sang, mainly folk songs, and fulfilled requests by guests. A little dog stole a big piece of pork from a plate prepared for a guest, laying it near his owner’s chair for protection! This was after he had eaten a tiny frog from a mud puddle! Little boys aged four to seven or so played with toy trucks at the stone doorstep of one of the houses, but their favorite activity was catching frogs in the puddles. They did this with their hands, getting quite muddy.

Many people took advantage of horses and coach and farm cart. "Rides leaving the yard every few minutes!" This was a favorite of Kristyna, our granddaughter. But she wanted to stand up, and I wanted to grip her firmly around the waist, leading one of the nine year olds to ask if I were the grandmother.

Another favorite activity was visiting piglets, sows, and cows in various barns. I had done this at another dozinky, so remained with conversing guests this time.

The eating part of the dozinky finished with a plum cake and bought cookies all freely and individually chosen by each guest, so we left satisfied, but not overstuffed. It had been a pleasant, relaxed afternoon.

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September 2002 - Rina Homolka

2002-09-01T21:26:00.000-04:00

Would you like to meet the first commercial air passenger from Vienna to Prague? I can introduce you to Rina Homolka, my mother-in-law at an IWAP meeting.

For their wedding trip, Rina and Jiri Homolka rode by train to Vienna, but returned by air. Cargo had already been transported for some time, but they were the first paying passengers.

Rina was from Koterov-Plzen where her family had a flour mill and bakery. Katherine, her mother had died several years before, so Rina and her father, Josef Hucl, head of Bank Slavia, lived in Prague and spent most weekends near Plzen. Jiri Homolka was from Brezina, the estate his father, Antonin, had purchased in 1908 upon Jiri's birth. Jiri attended and graduated from the agricultural university in Prague and was helping his father run the the farm.

Jiri and Rina had met as children while on family visits to Karlovy Vary. Later aquaintance, as young adults was at parties and with relatives in Plzen.

They were married on March 30, 1937. The wedding was at the Srobeck Hotel (later Hotel Europa) on Vaclav Namaste. Mr Hucl had booked a suite where the bride and bridesmaids dressed before proceeding to St. Gotthard Church in Bubenec for the wedding ceremony. (I can also introduce you to two of those bridesmaids, also IWAP members, but that's another story.)

After the church ceremony, the wedding party and guests returned to the Srobeck Hotel for an elegant dinner. Wine poured was Ludmila, from Lobkowitz vineyards at Menik. Naturally when our daughters had their weddings here, Alice in August 97 and Caroline in July 2001, we also served Ludmila.

Originally Jiri and Rina planned to ski in the Slovakian High Tatras for their honeymoon, but decided there was not enough snow and decided to go to Vienna. A train compartment and hotel room were reserved and travel was pleasant.

The next day the weather in Vienna was absolutely lovely. Jiri and Rina enjoyed seeing the refined, luxurious city. The weather quickly turned and day after day, it rained. They visited an art gallery or two, emerging into gray and chilly downpours. Finally one morning while Rina went to get her hair done, Jiri went to buy tickets for home. Rina returned from the hairdresser to fined her new husband waving tickets. "Would you like to fly to Prague? The plane leaves soon." He was doubtful that she would be willing to go on an airplane, but Rina surprised him with her eagerness. She kept her eyes shut for much of the trip.

When the plane landed in Prague, a crowd stood around with notepads, pencils and cameras. Jiri and Rina didn't pay much attention as they were busily chatting and planning a surprise. They checked into a hotel and planned to meet Rina's father at dinnertime at his club.

Later, when they arrived at the club, Josef Hucl sat at his usual table with a big stack of newspapers. "Where have you been, for goodness sake?" he asked. "I''ve been expecting you all afternoon!" Each of the newspapers in the stack had a story and photo of Rina and Jiri Homolka, returning honeymooners on the first commercial passenger flight from Vienna to Prague!

July 2002 - Hana Huclova

2002-07-01T19:07:00.000-04:00

HANA HUCLOVA

Hana Huclova is one of the longest-standing members of the IWAP, and perhaps, at 91, our oldest member.

Many a time walking along Prague streets with her I've heard interesting stories. Her family had the same house in Pankrac for 3 generations, until it was confiscated by the Communist Party in 1948.

The history she knows would fill volumes. "Here is where Kepler lived when he was continuing Tycho Brahe's work for King Rudolf."

The most interesting aspect is her stories' immediancy, often bringing over 100 years into one's awareness.

"When my father was a young man, he watched the building of the National Museum."

"When my father was young, the tunnel through the rock below theVysehrad had not yet been made, and they would ask the fishermen of Podoli to transport them towards the center."

"Ema Destinova had such a voice! Our family stood on the river bank below the Vysehrad listening to her singing so clearly & beautifully. Of course it was before microphones."

At an International Women's Group meeting, in the hotel behind the Powder Tower,

"I went to my first New Year's Eve party here with my sister & parents. I was 15 years old.

There is the niche where our table was. The hotel owners were my parents' friends."

"Our governess used to take us to visit the children in this home, because my father's factory had given them the kitchen equipment. Afterwards, I had a penpal here." (The home is now reopened.)

Hana has also shown me all around Kaiserstejn Palace, where IWAP has often met, telling me about the paintings and their artists.

An amazing thing Hana did was to wheel a disabled friend all over Prague, up hill & down. I heard this early on; not until later did I realize that disabled people were neither to be heard or seen in the Golden City during communism.

Three children were born to Hana & her husband, Josef Hucl. Igor, an engineer, & Hanicka, a Charles Univeristy language professor, live in

Prague with their families. Her daughter-in-law, Mirka, lives in Munich and has two children, Daniella, & Martina. Their father, Hana's oldest child, Josef, an architect, had gone to Munich to work on the Olympic

housing in 1976 & stayed behind. Josef died in 1981. Hanicka has two children, Josef & Hanka. Igor's children are Katerina & Marketa. Granddaughter Marketa is married with three little boys, Matous, Prokop, & Mikolas, Hana's greatgrandchildren.

As many of us, Hana had been a stay-at-home mother. With the advent of communism she began to teach school because the salary of her husband,

a lawyer, was automatically lowered. At Christmastime some of the children begged her to let them sing the well-known carol, "Nesem vam

Noviny", which she allowed. Soon afterwards the principal told her some parents complained of the religious, not marxist, topic and Hana was dismissed.

The only available post for the political opposition was a manual one.

So Hana shoveled coal into a large central furnace of one of Prague' factories.

Later Hana began working for Prague Information Service. Her specialties, with her sister, Mimi, were Bethlehem Chapel & St. Nicholas Church on Mala Strana. She guided at one of these almost every day. She still worked part-time until about 8 years ago! If there was a

group of French scholars, for instance, Hana would show them around St.Nicholas. Once when we were in Prague, before moving here, she told the office, "NO! 11 o'clock, not 9! I've got American relatives staying with me!".

A frequent visitor to tour sites was Vaclav Havel, because his mother was Hana's co-worker. He was always extremely friendly to everyone.

Once he brought invitations to his new play, "The Garden Party". Hana and all of her family attended its premiere.

Hana took all the courses at Charles University for a degree in Art History. For political and economic reasons she could do it only as Distance Studies. She chuckled, appreciating her colleagues, "They liked to call me 'Professor'. Sadly, she had no time any more for achieving her B.A.thesis......

Hana & Josef Hucl liked to travel. In the thirties they had visited France & Italy, Yugoslavia, Germany.

During communism, they spent time with the family in Munich and visited many places in the former Soviet Union. Josef died in January 1990, happy that their dissident daughter's activities had been rewarded.

Now, after the Velvet Revolution the whole world was open to Hana's travels! She has been to France & Austria; Crete; Malta; Majorca with her cousin, Milada Cernokova, also an IWAP member; Africa to stay with her sister-in-law Rina & go on safari; Israel with PIS; Transcarpathian Ukraine of Eastern Slovakia with her grandson, Josef; America with Mirka, visiting our daughters in Philadelphia; on a French art & architecture jaunt with Marketa; Turkey with a friend.

The German nanny of their son came here & miraculously found her & Hana later visited her. Tourists she & her sister had helped out in Prague became friends & she & family members have visited them in Germany & England. Of course, every year she visits our zamek in the village of Brezina in the Czech-Moravian Highlands.

Several years ago Hana & I were on a tram, heading for the School for the Blind, to leave a Christmas tree from our forests. The driver made a warning announcement about the area we were in; Hana asked me how to say "thief of the pocket" in English. We might all hope to be learning new words, doing
new things, making new friends when we are also in our 80's and early 90's!!!

(editor's note - Hana Huclova passed away in 2006)

Return to a Bohemian Past

2002-02-03T21:29:00.000-05:00

Many of us who live in the Czech Republic have myriads of guests – the invited, the uninvited, friends, business people, family, seasoned travelers, the curious, the innocent. From time to time I will tell you about some of my guests and experiences I’ve had with them.

Edith is in her 80’s. I’ve known her most of my life, but had not spent many hours with her since she was my Brownie Scout leader. I found her as I’d always thought of her: urbane, direct, kind, perceptive, warm. I learned, while she renewed some of the roots of her childhood.

Old country practices enchanted her. She hastened to snap photos of what I’d also recently considered storybook life. She snapped my helpers, Helenka and Jana and I holding up braided onions and strings of sausages. Edith was again excited when the women grated cabbage and began stomping it into a crock for sauerkraut. Helenka felt Edith was concerned with sanitation. “Tell her Jana’s got plastic bags on her feet! Tell her she’s not barefooted.” But Edith only wanted photos of the ancient process.

Edith’s parents were Czech Jews from Ceske Budejovice and Pisek who had moved to Vejprty in the border regions. Edith grew up speaking German and continued in this language when she met Dr. Hans, her future husband. But when we visited some dear neighbors here, the Czech she’d heard as a tiny child began coming back to her.

She told about the small glove factory her father had with the first telephone in town. Our neighbors told us that all those small knitting industries in Vejprty had been consolidated and moved to our town in Southern Bohemia.

The next day was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. We ate breakfast and afterwards went to a nearby town to visit a large empty synagogue and a cemetery. It was a day of mental and physical exploring and of spiritual focusing. During the morning Edith said her Day of Atonement activity would be to write a letter of her experiences to a rabbi friend.

An older woman living beside the synagogue thought it should be torn down before it fell on their houses. A younger one, on crutches, hoped someone would repair it as it would be a pity and a loss if it were torn down. They both pointed out the “Jewish Pastor’s” house on the corner. After the war, another Jew lived there, but then he moved to the USA… or was it Argentina? Edith asked about looking into the synagogue. They said the mayor had the key.

The mayor welcomed us to his office, but said he did not have the key. The owner in another town had it and was about to sell the synagogue to a German who was going to make it into a library and a study center. (editor’s note – 2007- this never came to pass)

He showed us this German’s visiting card and Edith wrote down the particulars. I asked about the Town Chronicle. “Well, I don’t really have all the good Chronicle,” but he found a section which had a page on the “Jewish church” history and made us some copies. It is about 150 years old and on the site of an earlier synagogue. Every third house here had a Jewish family, he said.

We asked about the cemetery. “The Prague Jewish Community owns it and Mrs Omackova on Reka St. has the key.”

Edith and I thanked his Honor and left. “Did you know him?” she asked. “Not before this morning!” I replied.

On the gate to the cemetery was Mrs. Omackova’s house number, but we’d had enough of building relationships with strangers for the morning, and went around to the back, climbed up the bank and over the wall! Then we began exploring. The names on the stones brought memories close to Edith, of this aunt, of that uncle, of her parents. Many stones were standing. A few, the oldest, had aged and sunk. A number had been vandalized, pushed over, long ago. Inscriptions were in Czech, German, Hebrew or a combination. Edith talked about her family and relations.

We emerged from the long ago loves and sufferings we’d shared with each other and those not physically present to return home. It is a life of anomalies. We drove in a Ford Escort to a modernized ancient kitchen where we ate a typical Czech lunch.

In the afternoon before Edith caught her bus back to Prague, we visited another cemetery but it was only a footnote to the intensity of that morning.

“Dumov moi”, (My house) she wrote in our guest book. A hostess can have no greater compliment.

Her grandson has horse chestnuts she gathered under our trees. Helenka, Jana and I have photos of ourselves with onions, sausages and sauerkraut. Back in America, all over my hometown, Edith is talking to other friends and showing the slides of her experiences here.