Galena

      Paul was Romanian, I think.  He came to America as some kind of petroleum engineer.  He became a citizen and retired. 

     Paul complained about the company he worked for, how they cheated him.  I forget the details.  He wasn’t well-off, which explains why he settled in a small town in Western Kansas.  Housing is pretty cheap.

     Paul spoke Russian, which is probably how he came to know Galena.  What random chance occurrence led the Goodwife to strike up a conversation with Paul I don’t remember.  It’s been a while ago. 

     Paul and Galena showed up for supper one night, and we had an interesting, if somewhat laborious conversation.  Galena spoke very little English.  Paul got a workout translating our comments to Russian and Galena’s to English.

      Galena was a journalist.  She wrote stories from America and sent them to a paper in Russia.  She did a story on the Goodwife.  She showed the Goodwife an English translation for her approval before she sent it off for publication.  I’m not sure how it got translated.  Paul?  A computer program?

     I don’t think Galena got paid very much for her efforts.  When we met her, she was working as kitchen help in a hospital.  Later she worked in the kitchen at the Good Sam.  She finally landed a job as head cook at the hospital in a town west of us.  She must have had a green card.

     I don’t remember much about our conversations, which we held on two or three occasions, except one time when we tried telling jokes, in English which Paul translated to Russian, and then Galena would tell one in Russian which Paul converted to English.

     We were trying to see what jokes translated well.  Ones with a moral, or an understandable punch line, worked.  Ones that relied on an idiom for their humor fell flat.

     We got together a few times, especially as Galena, with Paul’s help, interviewed the Goodwife and wrote her story.  The Goodwife invited Galena to come to the farm and they would go on to Denver and go shopping and look at quilt shops and the like.

     Paul didn’t understand that he was to bring Galena to the farm in Colorado.  He called us from our Kansas “farm” and said nobody was home.  About three hours later, they showed up to “The” farm.

     I was in the process of flushing drip irrigation lines for my tree project.  Paul made the trip down to the trees with me.  I unplugged a line and caught water in a five-gallon bucket until it ran clear.  To start irrigating without flushing would mean removing every nozzle and cleaning crud out them.   

     It sometimes took ten gallons to get the water to run clear.  When it was clear, Paul stuck his hand in the stream and tasted the water.  Tasted good, he said, but too much sand!  As far as I know, he never suffered any ill effects from that exercise.

     After two or three hours, Paul took off for home.  No talking him into staying the night.  He might have had pets at home.  I don’t remember.

      The girls left for Denver the next morning and stayed for a couple of days.  I don’t remember how Galena got home.  Maybe Paul made the trip again.

     What I do remember was another time (the last time) Paul and Galena came to our house.  We were getting along with our conversation, and Galena was confident enough to speak some English on her own, relying on Paul when she ran into difficulties.

      I don’t know how the subject came up, but the Goodwife mentioned how great a guy Gorbachev was.

     KABOOM!

     Galena exploded.  He was not a good guy!  He was a traitor to Russia.  He presided over the fall of the Soviet Union!  He should be in jail, executed, etc., etc.

      But Galena, the Goodwife asked, don’t the Russian people appreciate the freedom Gorbachev gave them? 

     Assuredly they do not!  Personal freedom is nothing.  Having a strong country is most important.

     You don’t want Russia to be a democracy?

     No!  I want a Czar again!  We need to be a strong country in the world!

     Galena calmed down a bit (she had risen almost to standing and flailed her arms over her head during some of this).  The Goodwife asked the obvious question:

     If you feel that way, why do you stay in America?  Why don’t you return to Russia?

     No answer.  Before long, Paul and Galena decided it was time to leave.

     We never saw them again.

     Two or three years later, we learned that Paul had died from some sort of cancer, and that Galena had given up whatever job she held at the time to nurse him through his final weeks of life.

     What became of his meager belongings, an old car, a mobile home and its contents?  What became of Galena?

      The recent death of Mr. Gorbachev brought this episode back to the old frontal lobes (maybe).   I reflected when this happened and I reflect again.

       Are there really people in the world who would prefer to live under a dictator rather than a democracy?  Apparently so.

     Democracy will never work in such a world.  Have we been deluding ourselves to expend so much time, effort, and capital in trying to grow something where it can never grow?