On the plane to Warsaw, I sat next to a young woman who was leaving Marietta, Georgia for her hometown in the former Soviet republic of Georgia (which they pronounce so differently than I could not begin to comprehend). There is a Georgia-to-Georgia exchange, she said, but her scholarship had run out. She was near tears as she told me this, and very unsure about her future. I gave her my card, but I’ve not heard from her and probably never will.  Read More 

I was driving down I-75 on my way to play bridge when NPR ran another of its unexpectedly relevant reports. As you may know, hubby and I just returned from Eastern Europe, where I spoke at a conference in Poland that was near the Russian border. We visited four nations on the Baltic Sea and read guidebooks for all of them and more – and nowhere did we see or hear of any evidence of the radio’s exciting news: It turns out that we have the beginnings of a bike trail that follows the border of the former Iron Curtain. I’m too old to bike it, but maybe they’ll let us take an electric scooter. I want to go.  Read More 

I was a child in Minnesota during the 1950s, when US Senator Joe McCarthy of neighboring Wisconsin terrorized intellectuals with his accusations that many Americans – especially authors, actors, and diplomats – were communists. I didn’t know what a communist was, but I heard the radio news and was certain that the Soviet communist threat was real and that they soon would march down the street in our town of Jasper.  Read More 

Hubby and I are travelers, not tourists. We don’t play well with others in terms of wake-up calls, getting on a bus, and seeing predetermined sites. We’d rather do things the hard way to keep our independence, even if it results in some discomfort -- which usually happens.  Read More