And Americans think Russia looks like a crazy place.
Driving along Alligator Alley in central Florida, I listened as a conservative talk-radio host ranted that "the pinko Mikhail Gorbachev" was going to speak at a Republican Party fund-raiser in Washington. Gorbachev should be stopped. Later, I lounged on a couch watching a television talk show hosted by some guy named Rush Limbaugh who has apparently become a kind of prophet of America's conservative well-to-do. He was explaining how nobody suffered in the 1980s. Astounding.
I can not wait to hear his views on Russia.
One day last week, I bought two newspapers, both of which were devoid of a single story about Russia. Neither of the weekly news magazines - Newsweek or Time - had the events of Oct. 4 on their covers. It was all Somalia and Haiti.
Not to panic. Tucked between stories about Spike Lee's wedding and Rick Nelson's daughter's fight against cancer, People Magazine had a story about Alexander Rutskoi. It quoted his mother, Zina. "Of course I'm worried", she said. "Mothers worry about their sons".
One night, CBS Evening News overlooked the Russia story, but made up for it with a long piece about girls playing American football.
Yes indeed. Your Moscowville correspondent is a long way from home, lost in America.
How had it happened?
The answer has import for you, dear readers, because for the next ten weeks, the closest I intend to get to a kiosk is a Seven-11 convenience store.
Forgive my digression, but it happened like this: At about 2 A. M. last week I received a telephone call from my wife, who was in Florida. "Honey, you better get here soon", she said.
I didn't get there soon enough. At 6 P. M. , I learned that I was the father of an eight-pound girl, born 3 1/2 weeks early.
So much for the birthing classes.
That night, my Russian friends consoled me in my disappointment at having missed the birth. Their efforts revolved around the same theme:
"It's just as well".
"You would have passed out".
"The women really don't want you to see them in that shape anyway".
One colleague told me that he'd rather serve four more years in the army than go through delivery. If you have ever listened to Russian army horror stories, then you understand that that is about as definitive an opinion as a man can offer.
I admit that at first I had not been keen to be in the delivery room during the birth. But after several classes, hours of videotapes and hundreds of pages of reading, I had actually succeeded in convincing myself that I was indispensable to the process.
But the quarterback went on the field without the coach, and nature taught me a lesson.
So here I am, on paternity leave in America, contemplating my homeland with the eyes of a three-year resident of Moscowville.
Rush Limbaugh and Cold War talk show hosts. Soft yogurt and discount warehouses. Signal light sensors and beer commercials. Fast-food and live baseball. Billboards for personal injury lawyers and check-out counter tabloid newspapers. Stores that sell nothing but coffee, and twenty bankruptcies per day listed in a small-town local newspaper.
I only hope I can stay sane until I return to Moscow.
Driving along Alligator Alley in central Florida, I listened as a conservative talk-radio host ranted that "the pinko Mikhail Gorbachev" was going to speak at a Republican Party fund-raiser in Washington. Gorbachev should be stopped. Later, I lounged on a couch watching a television talk show hosted by some guy named Rush Limbaugh who has apparently become a kind of prophet of America's conservative well-to-do. He was explaining how nobody suffered in the 1980s. Astounding.
I can not wait to hear his views on Russia.
One day last week, I bought two newspapers, both of which were devoid of a single story about Russia. Neither of the weekly news magazines - Newsweek or Time - had the events of Oct. 4 on their covers. It was all Somalia and Haiti.
Not to panic. Tucked between stories about Spike Lee's wedding and Rick Nelson's daughter's fight against cancer, People Magazine had a story about Alexander Rutskoi. It quoted his mother, Zina. "Of course I'm worried", she said. "Mothers worry about their sons".
One night, CBS Evening News overlooked the Russia story, but made up for it with a long piece about girls playing American football.
Yes indeed. Your Moscowville correspondent is a long way from home, lost in America.
How had it happened?
The answer has import for you, dear readers, because for the next ten weeks, the closest I intend to get to a kiosk is a Seven-11 convenience store.
Forgive my digression, but it happened like this: At about 2 A. M. last week I received a telephone call from my wife, who was in Florida. "Honey, you better get here soon", she said.
I didn't get there soon enough. At 6 P. M. , I learned that I was the father of an eight-pound girl, born 3 1/2 weeks early.
So much for the birthing classes.
That night, my Russian friends consoled me in my disappointment at having missed the birth. Their efforts revolved around the same theme:
"It's just as well".
"You would have passed out".
"The women really don't want you to see them in that shape anyway".
One colleague told me that he'd rather serve four more years in the army than go through delivery. If you have ever listened to Russian army horror stories, then you understand that that is about as definitive an opinion as a man can offer.
I admit that at first I had not been keen to be in the delivery room during the birth. But after several classes, hours of videotapes and hundreds of pages of reading, I had actually succeeded in convincing myself that I was indispensable to the process.
But the quarterback went on the field without the coach, and nature taught me a lesson.
So here I am, on paternity leave in America, contemplating my homeland with the eyes of a three-year resident of Moscowville.
Rush Limbaugh and Cold War talk show hosts. Soft yogurt and discount warehouses. Signal light sensors and beer commercials. Fast-food and live baseball. Billboards for personal injury lawyers and check-out counter tabloid newspapers. Stores that sell nothing but coffee, and twenty bankruptcies per day listed in a small-town local newspaper.
I only hope I can stay sane until I return to Moscow.