February 5, 2020 at 4:01 p.m.
Emails offer a lot to catch up on
Back in the saddle
It’s been a week of international emails.
First came a note from an old high school buddy.
Smitty and his wife have business in China. She’s Chinese by birth but is now an American citizen. Because of that business, they travel there a lot.
That’s what prompted my wife to ask one morning at breakfast, “Do you suppose Smitty and Mary are all right with all this coronavirus concern going on?”
I posed the question via email about a minute later and heard back almost immediately.
Smitty and Mary were in fact in Beijing at that moment, preparing to leave for Japan. They were OK, but the situation was very much in flux. Things were changing every minute. Some places were taking everyone’s temperature to check for the virus. Other places seemed unconcerned.
That was Friday. By Saturday, things had changed dramatically.
The couple was due to fly from Beijing to Japan on Saturday afternoon, and procedures at the airport were pretty tight. Temperatures of all the passengers were taken as they boarded.
Then, while the plane was still on the tarmac, the flight crew started scurrying around, taking more temperatures, focusing on just a few passengers.
Three people were removed from the flight. Then everyone was asked to get off so the plane in order to “de-germify” things, as Smitty put it. (He’s always had a way with words, particularly when it comes to making them up.)
That was followed by removing all the food onboard the aircraft and replacing it with a fresh batch. Finally, all but the suspect three passengers re-boarded and the airliner took off for Japan.
All in all, pretty scary stuff.
We’d barely had time to digest that news, when another email zipped in from the other side of the world.
This one was from Helsinki, Finland, and came from a scholar/researcher I hadn’t heard from in years.
Salla and I met in 2003 or 2004 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. I was there to work with newspapers for the International Center for Journalists, and Salla was there on a couple of journalism related programs. We were brought together by a couple of old lions who were leaders in that field, my friend George Krimsky and the irascible Mike Stone. Both George and Mike have died since then. But the fifth person at the table is very much alive.
That would be my interpreter and great friend Denis.
Salla fell hard for Denis. It was understandable. He was handsome, funny, articulate and charming.
He just wasn’t grown up. If they ever need a poster boy for arrested development or Peter Pan syndrome, Denis is the right guy. He’d also be the first to admit that.
He would also probably argue that his approach to life is rooted in his childhood. He was about 4 or 5 years old when the Chernobyl disaster happened, and his father was an engineer at the doomed nuclear plant.
The family escaped immediate danger — his father had the flu that day and stayed home from work — but they continue to be monitored for the effects of radiation. You have to admit that an event like that so early in your lifetime would shape countless decisions later.
I was with the two of them the night they met, and I suspected from the start that the relationship was going to be a problem. I knew Denis well enough by then.
The last time I saw the two of them, they still hadn’t figured things out.
We were partying at some ridiculous post-Soviet disco with a couple of other friends. Salla and Denis had been fighting. Denis was interested in one of the other women we were dancing with.
Salla was pregnant with Denis’s child. I knew, and Denis did not.
Not surprisingly, it’s taken some time to sort all that out.
They married, moved to Salla’s homeland of Finland, had a second child and divorced. But they’re on good terms with one another, and I still count both of them as friends.
Still, it was a surprise to hear from Salla. It was an even bigger surprise to learn that we may be able to get back together after a decade and a half.
She’s still in Helsinki, but she’s become romantically involved with a professor in Chicago. And she says this is the guy she wants to grow old with.
Chicago’s not as far away as Helsinki, and the guy has a sister in Indianapolis.
So, after all these years, we may be able to reconnect.
As to Denis? I told Salla to give him a swift kick next time she sees him and tell him to send me an email.
We have a lot to catch up on.
First came a note from an old high school buddy.
Smitty and his wife have business in China. She’s Chinese by birth but is now an American citizen. Because of that business, they travel there a lot.
That’s what prompted my wife to ask one morning at breakfast, “Do you suppose Smitty and Mary are all right with all this coronavirus concern going on?”
I posed the question via email about a minute later and heard back almost immediately.
Smitty and Mary were in fact in Beijing at that moment, preparing to leave for Japan. They were OK, but the situation was very much in flux. Things were changing every minute. Some places were taking everyone’s temperature to check for the virus. Other places seemed unconcerned.
That was Friday. By Saturday, things had changed dramatically.
The couple was due to fly from Beijing to Japan on Saturday afternoon, and procedures at the airport were pretty tight. Temperatures of all the passengers were taken as they boarded.
Then, while the plane was still on the tarmac, the flight crew started scurrying around, taking more temperatures, focusing on just a few passengers.
Three people were removed from the flight. Then everyone was asked to get off so the plane in order to “de-germify” things, as Smitty put it. (He’s always had a way with words, particularly when it comes to making them up.)
That was followed by removing all the food onboard the aircraft and replacing it with a fresh batch. Finally, all but the suspect three passengers re-boarded and the airliner took off for Japan.
All in all, pretty scary stuff.
We’d barely had time to digest that news, when another email zipped in from the other side of the world.
This one was from Helsinki, Finland, and came from a scholar/researcher I hadn’t heard from in years.
Salla and I met in 2003 or 2004 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. I was there to work with newspapers for the International Center for Journalists, and Salla was there on a couple of journalism related programs. We were brought together by a couple of old lions who were leaders in that field, my friend George Krimsky and the irascible Mike Stone. Both George and Mike have died since then. But the fifth person at the table is very much alive.
That would be my interpreter and great friend Denis.
Salla fell hard for Denis. It was understandable. He was handsome, funny, articulate and charming.
He just wasn’t grown up. If they ever need a poster boy for arrested development or Peter Pan syndrome, Denis is the right guy. He’d also be the first to admit that.
He would also probably argue that his approach to life is rooted in his childhood. He was about 4 or 5 years old when the Chernobyl disaster happened, and his father was an engineer at the doomed nuclear plant.
The family escaped immediate danger — his father had the flu that day and stayed home from work — but they continue to be monitored for the effects of radiation. You have to admit that an event like that so early in your lifetime would shape countless decisions later.
I was with the two of them the night they met, and I suspected from the start that the relationship was going to be a problem. I knew Denis well enough by then.
The last time I saw the two of them, they still hadn’t figured things out.
We were partying at some ridiculous post-Soviet disco with a couple of other friends. Salla and Denis had been fighting. Denis was interested in one of the other women we were dancing with.
Salla was pregnant with Denis’s child. I knew, and Denis did not.
Not surprisingly, it’s taken some time to sort all that out.
They married, moved to Salla’s homeland of Finland, had a second child and divorced. But they’re on good terms with one another, and I still count both of them as friends.
Still, it was a surprise to hear from Salla. It was an even bigger surprise to learn that we may be able to get back together after a decade and a half.
She’s still in Helsinki, but she’s become romantically involved with a professor in Chicago. And she says this is the guy she wants to grow old with.
Chicago’s not as far away as Helsinki, and the guy has a sister in Indianapolis.
So, after all these years, we may be able to reconnect.
As to Denis? I told Salla to give him a swift kick next time she sees him and tell him to send me an email.
We have a lot to catch up on.
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