Homer J. Rockwell

As it so happens I teach English to a some adults. The group is mainly composed of a country and western band called "Duha". One of the members, Pavel, works at the nearby nuclear power plant. He is one of the safety engineers. So he offered to give me a tour.

Look, lots of buttons, schematics and gauges. What's not to like?

ah, that's better, nothing like a good sit.

More like Homer already. Just missing the donuts. I really wanted to put my feet up and act like I was sleeping... but I didn't want to offend my host.

Prior to exiting the secure reactor area, one must be scanned by the objects on the left that take a reading of how much radiation you might have received.
I guess if you're a safety guy you don't have to change your clothes. As one of the brave core workers, you get to wear...yellow. I guess this means that when you go home and put on your regular clothes, they won't glow and upset the family. If these glow, who would know?
Honestly, I would have loved to take one of these home. For those of you who have seen "Bottle Rocket", this is a nice homage.

Ah, the core... where all the magic happens.
See the black object on my chest? That is a miniture gygercounter. I scored a .0001! I beat Pavel! Maybe I have latent nuke powers?
Hmmm to use my powers for good or evil... that is the question.

"Look out Radio Active Man!"
Hmmm, a big red button. Buttons are for pushing. That's my philosophy.

Look! Another scanner! Something is flashing
"Neurodny"
Wonder what that means? Whatever it is, I'm sure it's over rated.
Oooo, it's funner than it looks. Weeeeeeee

Now really. It was a great trip and really fascinating. The complexity of the design and implementation of such a system is really impressive. My thanks to Pavel who went to a lot of trouble. He certainly was informative. Actually, it was a good test of his English. He speaks quite well, but explaining the plant pushed the limitations of his English. But he did a great job. I'm sorry I don't have a picture of him... he was taking all the pics. It was his camera.

Biking for Pork

Sunday here in Moravia is family day. It is not unusual to get the fam together and go walking or biking. So we joined Tom and Svetlana and their two kids on a ride through the forest.

What could be better than riding 15 km through a Moravian forest?

A stop at Budkov.
After 15 km through the forest, it's all down hill...wind at your back.

Hmmmm, a restaurant. Svetlana is happy not to have to cook Sunday dinner.


Now the truth comes out. We biked here because of the local delicacy...

PORK KNEE!

Drool on you slack jawed yokels...

Actually, I must confess. This is a picture of Tom's Pork Knee. I meant to take a close up of mine when it came. ...and plumb forgot. Slightly diverted.

Now I must say something I found funny. I will chalk it up to cultural proximity... this isn't the right word really; what I mean to indicate is that sometimes you are so close to your culture that you can't see its presumptions.
Here is my case and point: This pork knee, which goes great with beer, is probably 50% fat. Those in the know will understand just how good this makes the meat. Now, I ate the meat and left all most of the fat. Tom finished his, all of his. Then he chided me in a friendly manner that I must eat the fat with the meat and I should eat all of it. I made a comment about thinking this is unhealthy to consume so much fat, by way of saying that in America this would be considered quite unhealthy. This inadvertently turned the conversation to how fattening American food is. I promise, I have never consumed so much fattening food in my life as living here... and by fatting I mean specifically in terms of fat and carbs. These seem to be staples here and hence almost unavoidable. I have the kilos to prove it. Let me put it this way, if you're going to bike 15 km to get some great pork knee... take the long way home and add another 50 km. The knee is worth it.

Svitavy

One of the main reasons I applied for the Fulbright award was to experience European history first hand. Maybe that doesn't logically work, since one cannot really "experience" history. Regardless, history confronts us here daily, and our trip to Svitavy was no exception.


Svitavy is best known as the town where Oskar Schindler was born and raised. If you have not yet seen Steven Spielberg's Holocaust film "Schindler's List," then you might not have as much appreciation for this entry as you would if you had seen it. I would then suggest that you rent the film, for while it is a difficult movie to watch, I do think it demonstrates the redeeming qualities of humanity in spite of great evil. Sometimes we need to be reminded of the strength, courage, and selflessness humans are capable of - traits Oskar Schindler demonstrated by the end of WWII.

Behind the memorial is the childhood home of Oskar Schindler

Now - again - a bit of a history lesson is needed here I think. Svitavy is a town that was once part of the Sudentenland - Czech land that was largely settled by Germans for centuries. Hence the reason why Schindler, a German, was born in a Czech village. You may recall, but probably not since many textbooks conveniently leave out this piece of history, that after WWII all Germans were forcibly deported out of Czechoslovakia. Since Svitavy was 85% German, the town was pretty much abandoned and inhabited only by the remaining 10% of Czechs. The missing 5% was the Jewish population, which were all killed in the death camps. In 1948, the Soviets took over and because Svitavy had available housing, it became a stronghold for the Communist Party. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Svitavy has been able to look at its past a bit and to claim its German Native Son - Oskar Schindler.

Svitavy has a lovely museum with one floor dedicated to Schindler's life and at the end, there's a small section that highlights Spielberg's film. One of the many moving scenes in the film comes at the end, when the actors accompany the Jews they portray to put a stone on Schindler's grave, which is located in Israel.
Interestingly enough, the very factory that Schindler owned and operated for the sake of those 1200 Jews is just south of Svitavy, but there is absolutely nothing that commemorates this history. The factory is still in operation and now makes industrial fabrics instead of defunct artillery shells. We walked down the same ally, stood next to the same gate that swung open for the Jews, and looked at the very building that housed Schindler's office. Here they are below.

The ally

The gate
And Schindler's office

Here are-what was once-the living quarters for Schindler's Jews.
One last picture - the very railroad tracks the Jews traveled on from Auschwitz.
OK - maybe I'm being silly to show such mundane images. But I tend to believe that it's the small, tangible things that help us better grasp the gravity of history - of our own small, seemingly benign actions towards people. A simple train track can symbolize anything, but in this case, it symbolizes the path to redemption for not only the 1200 Jews, but for the one soul who risked his life and fortune to save them.