My people are a superstitious sort. It goes back to our ancestors, the Dacians, to their culture, and the influence that the Romans had upon them when they were colonized and brought into the vast Roman Empire fold. The Dacians had been a thorn in the Roman Empire's side.
Trajan defeated Decebalus, the king of Dacia, in 105 A.D. and reduced the Dacian capital Sarmizegetusa to ruins in 106 A.D., absorbing some of Dacia into the Roman Empire.
The superstitions and strange beliefs they held have traveled across the centuries into our modern society, i.e., turning around when a black cat crosses one’s path, not walking under a ladder, sprinkling salt over the left shoulder to blind the bad spirits at the dinner table, spitting three times to ward off evil and a bad fate, avoiding the “evil eye” of a blue-eyed or green-eyed person by wearing a red ribbon, not returning home to retrieve a forgotten object once one left the house, not stepping on the threshold when entering a house, and not stepping between cracks of tiled floors, just to name a few.
The one
superstition I never understood was the placing of a large and sharp knife
under the mattress of an unbaptized child. The knife was to protect the newborn
from evil spirits while they breathed the air on earth without the blessing of
a baptism. I have no idea how far back this superstition went.
One deeply
ingrained belief, still alive today, is that a person with wet hair and without
socks exposed to chilly air and draft can become sick. We are not talking about
hypothermia as the result of spending hours in the cold and windy elements,
just a short exposure to draft and chilly air. And pushing the irrational boundaries
even further, eating ice cream or drinking cold beverages with ice cubes would
certainly cause a sore throat; my people believe that to be true.
It was not
just the occasional nurse, teacher, engineer, doctor, or other professional who
held such beliefs, it went all the way to the top of the hierarchy.
After the
first President of the socialist republic returned from a Moscow visit with a
sore throat, those surrounding him determined immediately that he must have
gotten sick from a draft during his travels or from eating ice cream. Only
later did his doctors establish that it was a rapidly developing form of throat
cancer. The next president that followed him after his death was convinced,
according to his Gen. Pacepa, that the Russians had him radiated for
insubordination.
The next president
took precautions to preserve his voice and throat and drank lots of chamomile
tea, an herb containing traces of a mild antibiotic. His irrational fear went as
far as to avoid and prevent all drafts and chilly air indoors, including fans
and air conditioning. The modern conveniences were specifically banned and
removed from all his residences and offices. He went as far as removing the
central air conditioning in all public buildings.
On every
foreign visit the dictator requested that all air conditioning systems be
turned off for the duration of his stay. His employees had to seal off leaky
and drafty windows and air vents everywhere that he happened to lodge, sleep, and
hold meetings.
Drafts could
come under doors, so the doors were plugged if they did not reach the floor.
The president and his wife wore silk and cashmere socks, suede slippers, and
hunting boots with warmers in them. No chance that the president and his
demanding wife, their collective pampered feet, hands, and heads would ever get
cold.
They wore
the warmest clothes, gloves, finest astrakhan hats, smooth calfskin boots, finest
cashmere in every winter garment, while the rest of the population froze in the
concrete Soviet era apartments.
Both the
dictator and his wife had a wardrobe of 365 suits, 365 dresses for her, 365
pairs of shoes each, 365 purses, hosiery, one for each day of the year. Once they
were worn, every item of clothing was incinerated. They even traveled with
their own sheets, towels, and food, to cover all bases.
I also have a superstition. I believe that if a Democrat gets elected President, the country would head downhill.
ReplyDeletePaul, I hate to bring your "superstition" to reality, but a Democrat will be elected President in 2024.
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