After
descending from "cloud nine" I had to face the
insurmountable obstacle that continuously was looming on
my horizon: my horrendous accent. I was afraid that when
I began working at Britannica my heavy accent, in no
time, would bring me down. Thus, my plan for Britannica
was as follows: when I would arrive I would say to
everybody "Good Morning", when I would leave I would say
"Good Evening" and, in the interim, I would bury myself
in my work and to everybody and everything that came into
my way I would use only the "ah-uh" routine. But this
plan never materialized!
It was Monday,
April 20, 1970 --my first day of work at Encyclopaedia
Britannica. As I arrived there and I was shown where my
desk was, minutes after I sat down, a guy came to me and
stated:
"Hi,
I am Marvin, I am an Editor in Egyptology and I am
a homosexual!
To this, following
my script, I said: "Ah-uh!". But the guy did not let me
off the hook as he again stated:
"Hi,
I am Marvin, I am an Editor in Egyptology and I am
a homosexual!
From Romania the
only thing that I knew about this subject of
homosexuality was that those people were treated in
various psychiatric hospitals. Thus with this knowledge
and understanding of this subject and, recognizing that I
could not get rid of this guy with my "ah-uh" routine, I
stated:
"Marvin,
you are very lucky that you are here in America. I
am sure that with proper medication and therapy you
soon will be back to the mainstream of
life."
Absolutely stunned
and transfixed by the whole thing, he became almost
instantly transformed from a lively person into a
statute-like figure. As he was still staying motionless
and speechless, I stated:
"Marvin,
I think that we should keep the proper distance
between us, as I heard that many homosexuals have
this neurological reaction of jumping on people
without knowing what they are doing."
To this in
disbelief and laughing rather hardily, he asked me in
total bewilderment "Are you OK?" to which I said: "I am
fine. Are you?" From that very moment my enlightenment
period in America began! I realized soon that he was a
normal human being and that what he did in his bedroom
was his business. We became friends, but we always kept,
just in case, the proper distance!
Soon, I recognized
that my place of birth, Communist Romania, where I had
been locked up until I was 24 and was able miraculously
to escape from, was in fact a very different place from
the real free world. It was this new free world that now
I had to get accustomed to. For the next two (2)
years, there was not a day that I would not have a
question to ask as the contrast between where I had been
and where I had landed was indeed immense. And
fortunately for me I was in the best place on earth to
ask questions. There was no imaginable question that
could not have received an authoritative answer from the
11th Floor of Britannica where the Research Department
was located and where also was my place of
work.
Almost every
morning when I arrived at Britannica my friends and
colleagues would ask: "Hey Kalman, what's today's
question?" Some of my questions were downright funny as
the episode described below.
Soon
after my arrival in Chicago, I noticed a rather
large sign not far from where I was living stating
"We Sell Hot Dogs." Looking in my small pocket
dictionary, I saw for the word "hot" one meaning
and for the word "dog" also one and only one
meaning! I knew that in China and other parts of
the world people ate cats. That sign for me
automatically triggered the reaction: "Oh, my God!"
In fact, I remember writing home to my mother this:
"You may not believe this, but in this great
civilization there are places where people eat hot
dogs!" For weeks and weeks I avoided passing near
that place as the whole thing made me sick just to
think about it. One day, a neighbor with whom I
became recently acquainted, teased me by saying
"So, you are from Romania. I have never heard of
that country. Do you have hot water there?" to
which I responded "Of course, we have hot water. We
have TVs, we have everything, perhaps not the
latest models but we have them." After some
chitchatting, this dialog took place:
[Neighbor]:
"Let's
go across the street and have a hot
dog!"
[Me]:
"Are
you out of your mind? We would rather die of
starvation than eat hot dogs! What do you think
we are? Look on the map: Romania is part of
Europe. No matter how poor we are we do not
touch that stuff!"
Baffled by my
answer and recognizing that perhaps I did not
understand his question, the neighbor asked me:
"Why don't you look in your dinky dictionary and
see if you find an entry for franks or
frankfurters? To this after looking in my pocket
dictionary, I responded: "Oh, we have those in
Romania. They are delicious with sauerkraut and
mustard. But why do they call them Hot Dogs
here?
Unable to get an
answer from my neighbor to my Hot Dog question, sure
enough on the next day when I went to Britannica, that
was the question that I wanted to be answered. After I
told them of the story with my neighbor,
everybody
including my boss was laughing almost uncontrollably.
Then, I said:
“OK,
you had your laugh. Is there anybody here who can tell
me how the word Hot Dog become part of the English
language?”
To this, an English
Editor (for whom I had the greatest admiration and envy
of his mastery of the English language) replied: "We are
pleased to let you know that the word Hot Dog has been
coined in Chicago!" In disbelief, I interjected by saying
"No kidding!" to which he continued:
"No
kidding is right and this is the official story of
the word 'Hot Dog'. At the turn of the century the
fashion for ladies in Chicago was to wear big hats
and walk along the street with dachshunds --small
dogs with long bodies 
that
were extremely popular at that time. And when this
item, which we call now the Hot Dog, was first
introduced at Wrigley Field with baseball games,
kids who would sell it called it the Hot Dog to
parallel it with the popular dachshunds. Thus
"hot", in this context, was referred to as an item
of fashion to be seen with and not as something
that was spicy or hot in terms of temperature.
Similarly as dachshunds, hot dogs were
portrayed and marketed as a "hot" item to be seen
with!"
Thanking him for
the explanation, I began wondering how many people from
Chicago, from America, or for that matter from the entire
English speaking world knew about the "official" story of
the Hot Dog! I was happy and fascinated to know the story
behind the story! And speaking of the story behind the
story, almost all Americans know that the nickname of
Chicago is the "windy city" but very few know how and why
it got that name. The great majority of Americans believe
that Chicago got its "windy city" nickname because it is
windy there! In fact, however, Chicago's nickname has
nothing to do with weather. As I was told at Britannica,
the name was coined in the 1920s with politicians
"blowing hot air!"
Fascinated with
having at my disposal the story behind the story of every
imaginable question, I was confident that I had a
question that no one from Britannica could answer. Boy,
how wrong I was! 
As
I have mentioned in my story, Pall Mall cigarettes with
no filter were by far the most famous American cigarettes
in Romania. On the other hand, here in Chicago, I noticed
that the Pall Mall brand was one of the many brands of
equal "stature" with many other "Class A" cigarettes. In
fact the cigarettes with filters, as a general rule, were
more popular here than the ones with no filter. All this
baffled me as to why in Romania, Pall Mall cigarettes
with no filter were reigning supreme. I was confident
that no one from Britannica could have a logical
explanation for this but, to my surprise, someone from
Britannica had the answer right away! I was told that for
a number of decades Pall Mall cigarettes with no filter
were the cigarettes of choice among American sailors. And
when an American ship entered into a port anywhere in the
world, sailors, as was customary, exchanged their
cigarettes for the ones offered by the locals. And this
is how Pall Mall cigarettes became synonymous with
American cigarettes! Wow, I liked that answer. Day by day
my appreciation for Britannica grew, myself being happy
to be part of this unmatched center of knowledge.
With
the help from Britannica, it took me some two (2) years
to get integrated into this great American city --Chicago
which is by far the most American of all American cities!
Not many people recognize that anything, but absolutely
anything that has to do with mainstream American culture
was either born or cultivated in Chicago. Look at these
items one by one: Jazz, Blues, Mafia, Hot Dogs, Politics,
Baseball. Each and every one of these items is synonymous
with Chicago itself! When you talk about each of these
items you also talk about America at its core. Anything
that you want to study of "pure" Americana you will find
it in Chicago in its "purest" American form. Do you want
to study American architecture? Well, there is no better
place than Chicago. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 wiped
out the entire city which was rebuilt from scratch the
American way! And in that American architectural
revolution, the skyscraper --this American architectural
wonder was first introduced here in Chicago. You cannot
study American politics without studying Chicago
politics. You cannot established yourself in Jazz or
Blues without making a name for yourself in Chicago. In
short, Chicago is and has been for a long time the
epicenter of the entire mainstream American
culture.
This American
culture many times conflicted with my own culture as
illustrated from this example of the many available. In
Romania since you were 3 years old, you were taught that
when you saw a woman in public transportation to offer
her a seat. You did not size her up if she was old or
not, you just simply gave her the seat. Well, here I was
in a bus in Chicago and I saw a woman standing not far
from my seat. Upon seeing her, immediately I rose from my
seat stating to her in my heavy Romanian accent: "Please
sit down." The woman came to me in a charging fashion
with one of her arms placed on her waistline and stated:
"Don't be funny!" Bewildered by her behavior and
recognizing that somehow I had offended her, when I went
to Britannica, I wanted to have an explanation for this
and said: "I clearly have offended that woman, but I have
no idea what I did wrong."
Someone from
Britannica upon hearing my story came to me to console me
with this explanation:
"Kalman,
we are glad that you came here to tell us about
that experience as we want you to know for the rest
of your life or for as long as you will live in the
United States that it is the cornerstone of our
entire American culture to mind your own
business! We all applaud you for the fact that
you felt compelled, for whatever reason, to offer
your seat to someone else. But this is where you
need to stop. You never ever give a command to
another person as to what to do! And your heavy
accent may have indeed sounded like a
command!: You better sit down, or
else ..."
Enormously grateful
for the explanation, I began appreciating the fine tuning
that was needed on my part to complete my integration
into my beloved city of Chicago --a city with
c h a r a c t e r
like no other city in America. Yes, more than anything
Chicago is first and foremost a city of great and
unmatched character! As in humans, the
character is not something that you are born with. The
character is the result of a particular struggle that
shapes one's character. And in a way, it is like a piece
of marble that is continuously chiseled to its present
form. Thus, to understand, to see, and to appreciate
Chicago's great character --as a city, you need to look
at Chicago's entire history. And that history is a
history of continuous struggle to catch up with New York
for the supremacy of the greatest American city.
Chicago,
in this contest, was always the underdog and this
struggle to catch up with New York gave Chicago its
extraordinary character. If you live for a while in
Chicago, you will hear Chicagoans saying "Whatever New
York has, we are going to have it but BETTER!" It is this
continuous struggle of Chicago to not only catch up with
New York, but to do it better that has shaped the
character of Chicago as no other city on this planet. I
remember in the seventies when New York was bragging and
bragging about its Empire State Building as being the
tallest building in the world. Chicago had enough of
it: its answer was the Sears Towers which was made
to be sure to be taller than New York's Empire State
building!
I was privileged
and happy to know and be part of Chicago --unquestionably
the greatest American city, a city which was so good to
me and opened so many doors for me. Like any first love,
Chicago will always have a special place in my heart as
it was this city that made me love America for what it is
and for what it stands for as the greatest experiment in
democracy ever created by mankind.
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