quote:

Originally posted by Big John:
John Galt is a woman?

I'm really confused. Luckily you weren't around when I was pianolicious.

What country were your parents from?

Actually, I was lurking at the place that shall not be named when pianolicious became Big John. And yup, I was confused, too! Were you also USAPT?

I think you were busy in school and not posting a lot when it became news that John Galt probably should have signed up as Johanna Galt.

My parents were from Lithuania. You know, one of the three Baltic countries that were a revolving door for the Germans and Russians during WWII? My mom's family left Lithuania in late 1944; my dad fled about six hours ahead of the advancing Russian army in 1945, riding his bicycle from Lithuania to Germany. My parents didn't know each other at the time; they met in the DP camps in Germany.

Kind of an interesting story as to how my mom's family came to Chicago. My great-grandfather died at a young age, and his wife was pregnant at the time of his death (late 1890's). She delivered my grandmother the day of his funeral. Great-grandma met another man some years later and decided to marry him. He wanted to come to America to seek his fortune. The great-grandparents came to the Chicago area, leaving my 12 year old grandmother behind in Lithuania with her aunt. They were going to send for her later, but it never happened.

The great-grandparents had two more kids, and then great-grandpa decided to go to South Dakota to find gold. Great-grandma decided to stay put this time. She contracted TB in her early forties and died, leaving two children, a girl aged about 15 and a boy about 10. The girl lied about her age and entered the Sisters of St Casimir, a Lithuanian order of nuns. The boy went to an orphanage, and later was taken in by a family and raised to adulthood. This would have been in the 1920's.

Fast forward to the late 1940's. My family wants to come to the US and needs someone to sponsor them. My grandmother knew she had a half brother and half sister in Chicago. My mom was working for the UN refugee relief organization as a translator, and part of her job was to help people find their families in the US.

She wrote a letter to the Sisters of St Casimir, as she had done for many others, but this time asking for their help in finding her own relatives. The Mother Superior read the letter, recognized the names and history, and realized that one of their own nuns was one of the people they were looking for. Talk about serendipity. My grandmother's half-brother was thrilled to find his family, and he and his wife sponsored the four refugees, welcoming them into their tiny two bedroom home. They were wonderful people.

I live in the Chicago burbs; my mom is still alive and she lives about 10 minutes away.

That was quite interesting J'anna G!

We should know more about how America was populated. It is stories like this that make history real.

LL, I was a teenager when the phone rang one day and a woman asked for my mother. Mom wasn't home, and I asked her if I could take a message. She said she was a friend from Lithuania and that she would call back the next day. My mom was dying of curiosity as to who this person was; she didn't sleep all night.

The woman called back, and it turned out she had been my uncle's folk dancing partner. Her family stayed in Lithuania, unlike my family that fled to Germany. The friend came over and they spent hours comparing notes about their lives during and after the war. That was the first time I heard some of the really hair-raising tales about my family's wartime experiences; before that, it was just bits and pieces at family gatherings. It was really eye-opening.

We are not Jewish, so we were spared that aspect of the tragedy of WWII, but my family was on Stalin's list for deportation to Siberia, as were many other Lithuanians. My grandfather's sister and her family spent nearly thirty years in Siberia in terrible conditions. My mom, her brother and my grandparents were on the list to be deported during the next "transfer", and that's when the Germans pushed the Soviets out and occupied the country. One of those very strange twists of fate in the war.

Each person, native born or transplanted, has a lifetime of stories to tell. When it all comes down to it, we humans have more in common with each other than we are different. I try to remember that with each person that I meet.

Knowing what I know about how hard things were for my parents' generation, I am endlessly grateful for the riches that I have in my life! Compared to what they went through, my life is a cakewalk.

So presumably they collaborated with the Germans? (just kidding!)

Wow, WTG! I'm just reading through this thread. I love your story of your origins. There are so many eastern European immigrants from prior to the WWI era, but it's not that often that we hear stories from your parents' era. Sounds like your father was very smart or prescient or more likely, a combination.

I'm always curious about 2nd generation forumites - people who came here from somewhere other than PianoWorld. Can you tell us who your friend was, and how that came about?

quote:

Originally posted by kathyk:

I'm always curious about 2nd generation forumites - people who came here from somewhere other than PianoWorld. Can you tell us who your friend was, and how that came about?

The friend who told me about TNCR is not a member; she just sent me a link to something that had been posted that she thought I'd be interested in. I guess she was just lurking!

you are right wtg, I've had identity issues since I joined these internet forums in 2006. A large part of that is due to broadening my scope in terms of what I think my possibilities are going forward, which the people of the internet have helped me do.

I've decided that just being myself is the simplest solution.

Nice to know there's another Chicago-ish person around here!!

Ok WTG - you first chose a male name for your screen name, and now use a picture of a man for your avatar.


What do you think it all means?

One more question -

Hamilton or Jefferson?

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
Ok WTG - you first chose a male name for your screen name, and now use a picture of a man for your avatar.


What do you think it all means?

Sadly for the tabloids, not much! No National Enquirer story here.

I've already described how the choice of John Galt came about. Mysterious person and all that.

And unless you've seen Peter Sellers in Being There, you can't appreciate how clever OT's suggestion of Chance the Gardener was! The fact that Chance was a gardener and a quirky character trumped the fact that he happened to be a man.

However it does raise an interesting side topic, and could be why I didn't think twice about choosing Galt and Chance to represent parts of who I am, even though I'm a woman. The male aspect just wasn't in the forefront of my brain.

I don't tend to put people in categories like he/she, black/white, what-do-you-do-for-a-living when I first meet them. I try to relate to them as individuals, and build my view of them gradually through my interactions with them.

I think at some basic level of brain function, we are wired to identify Us versus Them right off the bat. In the past, it was probably handy for survival to recognize a saber-toothed tiger or a member of a tribe that was not One of Us and who might kill us in the next ten seconds.

While that can still be a useful skill in some situations, I think that it can work against us in our very different world, as we put others in an enemy camp automatically, before we consider them as individuals. Hopefully as humanity evolves, our intelligence will allow us to balance our more basic instincts, and we will come to see what is common as being most important.

Which leads me to the answer to your second question:

quote:

One more question -

Hamilton or Jefferson?

WTG's answer: Hamilton AND Jefferson. And everything in between. And all the arguments and tussles.

Much of my professional life involved data modeling. My brain is always modeling my world, taking in new information and trying to fit it into my model, revising the model as it fails to accommodate new bits of data. Constantly changing and evolving. People surprise me all the time when they do things my model doesn't predict. I hope that never stops.

Life is a network. Nodes (people) interacting with each other. The network cannot exist without the nodes or the interaction. And of course there's the meta-interaction of networks with networks. Our wonderfully complex, often fractious and perennially wacky world.

Because of how I see things, I rarely participate in political (or other highly charged) discussions. I would drive everyone nuts, because I tend to see all points of view and think everyone and no one is right, all at the same time.

Not a very fun counterparty in a traditional political discussion! Now when it comes to a "what is the sound of one hand clapping" or "when a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound" types of discussions, I'm your woman!

As every gardener knows, all the answers to life's questions can be found in the garden. Now I've let you in on The Secret. Don't tell anyone else. Or tell everyone. It's all the same either way.

And so we're back to Chance the Gardener...ya really gotta see Being There....

Do I get kicked off the forum for being a kook?

If you're a kook, there are some of us here who are kookier. It's been nice getting to know some more about you, WTG. Can you post some favorite pictures of your gardening activities in this thread for posterity?

The diversion into discussions of eating places in Chicago made me nostalgic. I spent about half a year on a plant start-up in the Inland Steel mill in East Chicago over 20 years ago. I still remember some of the places I visited and ate in around there. Zels roast beef was a favorite for lunch. There was a great little back alley Mexican place in Hammond. Pipes and Pizza was in business in Lansing, Ill. back then. The food was mediocre, but anything tastes good when accompanied by a theater organ. One golf club had "all you can eat" lake perch and frog legs on Thursday nights.

Maybe the next WTF reunion should be in the Chicago area. It certainly is near quite a few forumites and has a lot of attractive qualities.

Big Al

Some photos of my very monochromatic yard. Also pics of our screen room. A peaceful place to have a cup of coffee and look out onto the yard.

Made in the shade, WTG...

Looks like a pleasant place to relax and let the breezes blow.

Big Al

A cool one awaits you if you're ever in Chicago, Big Al.