My new home in Woodland

I was too excited, scared, and anxious to sleep. Every object, smell, landscape looked utterly unfamiliar and scary. I did not know how to act, the English I learned in school did not resemble at all the Southern slang I was hearing. I had to ask Bill to explain to me what people said all the time. I felt lonely, isolated, and did not trust anything or anybody. I was expecting a knock on the door any moment to take me away to jail. Every time I saw a policeman, sheriff, or a State Trooper my heart would race and I fully expected them to ask me for my papers. I was finally free from communism but did not understand anything around me. I needed time to explore my new found freedom. I could not understand why the population could come and go as they wished without the government giving them permission and without legally notarized papers , why they could move from town to town, state to state, change jobs, own property, or do anything for that matter. Surely, there must have been some centralized power that pulled the strings to make this society run so smoothly. My understanding of how capitalism ran so successfully without any centralized interferrence was minimal.
The next morning the constant parade of visitors began - I was a novelty, almost like a new circus act in town that everybody had to come gawk at, touch, and ask question of, marvelling at my foreign accent and my "exotic" looks. If I had to hear the word exotic one more time, I was going to explode. People would ask stupid and insensitive questions out of sheer ignorance. "Do they take a bath in Romania?" "Sure, once a month, whether we need it or not." I felt compelled at first to answer the idiotic questions truthfully, but, after a while, it got old, and I had to improvise by being sarcastic or cocky. I had as much fun with it as I was legally allowed to do so. "Do women drive in Romania?" Not really, we still use wagons with oxen." That was not so far from the truth in country areas where people were still pretty backwards, riding wagons with wheels made of car tires, pulled by horses. I was fascinated by the fact that even the most remote farms in the boondocks had plumbing and indoor bathrooms. That was so unbelievable to me, the septic tank was a novelty since my grandparents and the family at large that lived in rural areas still used a hole in the ground covered with wooden slats, good luck trying not to fall in the big goo of poop. I still remember my grandparents' water source - a hand pump that resembled the 1900s water pumps. As a matter of fact, my paternal grandmother took her drinking water from a well about two miles up the mountain. It was fun coming down, but way too difficult climbing with a big wooden bar over your shoulders, balancing two heavy buckets, one on each end. Has anybody seen a bathtub or shower in the country? Not really. My maternal grandfather, ever the enterprising engineer, had rigged a rusted bucket over the outhouse for impromptu showers when the August sun was strong enough to warm the water. We would pull a string, tilt the bucket, and the entire content would rinse the pre-soaped body. That was our shower. Did we take showers in winter? Noooo! They still had Turkish baths in the city. Villagers could bathe once in a while for a meager fee - the interior looked positively medieval, dank, dingy, dirty, dark, and quite smelly. It was alwyas frightening to go with my mother when the communist government would cut our hot water off in the city in summer time or cut water off period for reasons of rationing. The official excuse was that they had to clean the large vat of mineral deposits. This process took three to four months each summer. You can imagine how spoiled and priviledged I felt in the backwoods of Mississippi having a hot shower, runing water, and an indoor commode. I felt positively rich. Gone were the summers when we pooped in the corn fields because the outhouse stunk. Grandpa always lectured us on the bacterial sins of befouling the corn crops. The corn looked greener and healthier to me and it tasted even better.
The next dog and pony show was going to the Baptist Church with my new "family." I did not know what to expect since my mother-in-law believed I was pagan since I was orthodox. She considered our marriage in an orthodox cathedral with four priests non-existent since it was not performed in the Baptist Church. Never mind that the Orthodox Church was one of the oldest religions in the world, she insisted that we had to marry again, otherwise our children would be bastards. I learned not to object much so as not to raise the ire of my new in-laws. I agreed with her, or pretended to, but I did what I thought was the proper thing to do as an orthodox christian.
The most ardent defender of my new status was Tom, Mr. Johnson's hired hand who had a heart of gold but was poor as a church mouse. I could never understand what he said, I would have needed a dictionary for that, and he was pretty much toothless on account of his smoking habits, but he did teach me a few choice idiomatic expressions and introduced me to wild game, especially fried snapping turtle from one of the farm's many ponds - it tasted like chicken.

Arrival in New York

The flight was long and amazing. Everything around me was a source of wonder. I felt like a princess when the stewardess would cater to my every whim - in 1978, flying was a real class act, people actually dressed up to fly and were treated with respect, not condescension as it is often the case today. The food was equisite and served with stainless steel silverware, real napkins, glasses, and marvelous little containers filled with food. I did not have to stand in line to be told often times at the head of the line, "sorry, we just ran out, come back tomorrow." I could not believe my eyes! I looked around with fear, wondering when the police would come to pull us off the flight or ask for our papers. Uncle John had managed to bribe one of the border guards with a carton of Kent cigarettes so I can keep the modest diamond ring that Jean had given me. Cigarettes were a desired commodity money during communist Romania, along with soap, shampoo, chocolate, pantyhose, and makeup. The most popular brands of cigarettes were Kent and Chesterfield. Twenty dollars bought a whole carton. Some jobs required just one package of Kent, others an entire carton. This bribe required more since it involved keeping our own property, a $100 gold ring. Visits to doctors, lab work, and other medical interventions required both bribes of money and commodity money. Twenty-four hours later and after stop-overs in Hungary and Germany, we arrived in New York. I was penniless, hungry, thirsty, bewildered, tired, and apprehensive. What have I done? Where was I? Who were all these people? Will I be able to survive on my own? I have no money, no home, no job, no family, no friends. I wanted to run back home to my family and everything that was familiar and made me happy. But I was 8,000 miles away, separated by a vast ocean. I did not even have 10 cents in my pocket to buy a soda or make a phone call. Jane and Bill were my salvation now, I was clinging to them for dear life. After going through customs and having my meager belonging rifled through, we boarded another flight bound for Mississippi. I watched in horror as the lights started to disappear and all I could think of was, where is the city, where are the lights? I grew up in the city of Ploiesti, over 650,000 inhabitants and I was moving to a town with a little over 3,000 citizens. We landed in Memphis were we boarded yet another flight to Golden Regional Airport (GTR), a small local airport servicing three adjacent small towns, located in the middle of cow pastures. I was totally depressed and crying by now, doubting my sanity and wishing that I had listened to my daddy who had tried valiantly to warn me that I should not go with such high expectations to a strange country and state that I knew nothing about. He said that my high expectations might turn out to be a big disappointment. How was I to know that I would leave a third world communist country and trade it in for a developed republic with agricultural, deep south flavor? Once we landed at GTR, we embarked on a two hour drive through lone highways to the Johnson's farm in Woodland, MS. The ranch house was modern and luxurious by any Romanian standards, with indoor plumbing, running water, flushable toilettes, electricity, and lots of space. Jean's closet was as big as our kitchen. The darkness was scary but the soothing sounds of farm animals was calming. Mr. Johnson did not say a word and offered everyone hot chocolate except me. I was too bewildered to care or even have an opinion. I was finally in the land of opportunity, free of communist oppression, and all I wanted to do was to go back home to my poverty and my family.

American paradise - January 13, 1978

January 13, 1978 - My march to freedom began on a Friday the 13th early in the morning in my parent's concrete slab, government issued apartment, cracked and decaying from lack of maintenance and the 1977 earthquake. I had packed my modest suitcase the week before with my spare pair of shoes, my one dress, favorite books, and my freshly issued Romanian passport. Many people would have killed to possess it and the blue stamped visa from the American Embassy. My mom had packed another suitcase with handsewn sheets and doillies, wedding dress, and wedding presents from various relatives. I had no money in my pocket, I was going to the land of plenty, who needs money there? We had this vision that money grows on trees in America and all you have to do is reach up and pluck it. My wedding guests had given my parents gifts of money but they barely covered the cost of the wedding and I did not want my daddy to go into debt for giving me such a beautiful wedding - I gave him all the money. I was full of trepidation and anxious to start my new life in America but fear was beginning to grip my heart as I looked pensively at my very few possessions around the room that had been my bedroom, my study, my livingroom, my library for 19 years. I could not take any of it with me. Objects did not define me but I wanted to take a small part of my past life with me, to remind me of who I was and were I came from. Most of all, I wanted to take my parents with me - they had worked so hard to make sure I was safe, I loved them with all my heart, and now I was abandoning them. Uncle John was driving us to the airport in his beatup Dacia and other relatives were following by bus. It was a relatively short trip, 65 km, but it might as well have been a long drive to the scaffold. The closer I got to the airport, the more I regretted my decision and was doubting my sanity. Will I be able to get on the plane and fly away from everybody and everything I held dear and loved? The customs officers were very rude and attempted to confiscate my modest engagement ring since only wedding bands were allowed to leave the country. There was a shortage of gold and nobody could "export" any gold jewelry unauthorized. Certainly this thin ring worth maybe $100 had to stay behind. Jean, who had given the ring to me as a family hairloom, was beside herself with outrage. She took the ring and put it on her finger. As an American citizen, she could leave the country with any gold jewelry she wore. Problem solved!

I felt so lucky to leave the country and cursed at the same time - I was torn between the love for my family and the yearning to be free in America. It was an icy cold January morning but I was trembling from fear and anxiety - part of me could not wait to go and part of me wished that the plane stalled, or my visa would be recalled at the last minute. Bill was nervous and irritated with all the communist red tape he had endured for the past year - he was bubbling over with impatience - he felt trapped and imprisoned in this third world country that did not respect any rights a human being had in America. He felt humiliated and emasculated. The plane took off late and I said my last goodbyes to my parents, my uncles, my aunts, and my cousins. It felt more like a funeral, with all the tears and constant hugs. I had no idea the amount of pain I had caused my loved ones and the longing and suffering I and my parents will experience for years to come. I was just happy to get out, to be free. Freedom but at what price? A phyrrhic victory?