A Czech Life Well Lived

I came across this New York Times story about a Czech glass designer who revived the Waterford brand in Ireland and wanted to share it in case anyone missed it. His work is appreciated worldwide. Click on the title to read the article.

Wacky Missouri History

While leaving central Missouri, I passed a community called Kingdom City. If I hadn't been told by Walt, my couchsurfing host, what the name referred to, I would have assumed the community got that name through a religious reference.

Turns out that during the American civil war, Calloway County, Missouri decided to succeed from the union and become it's own kingdom. Now that's wacky.

So can you guess where I'm going next? Here's two hints:

1) I'm not driving in a straight line to Colorado.

2) I'm going to learn about the human being, who second only to Jesus Christ, has more books written about him than anyone else in the history of world.

"An Iron Curtain has descended"

Driving through Missouri is a pleasure because the glaciers did not make it down this far from the North to flatten the earth. All the county roads are hilly and curvy. Walt, my Couchsurfing host, told me about a terrific one, Road WW, that I should use to arrive at my next destination. I felt like I was in a car commercial, such was the pleasure of the drive!

Just 30 miles from Columbia, Missouri, where daughter #2 goes to university, is the charming small town of Fulton, Missouri. It looks like the kind of community that would be terrific for raising children. It's small enough to be safe for riding bikes all over town but with intellectual stimulation for the community from the local college.

The Winston Churchill Memorial

It was here that the local institution of higher learning, Westminster College, took advantage of having a Missouri native son in the White House, to see if they could finagle Winston Churchill as a speaker for their annual address on international relations. President Harry Truman wrote a handwritten note on the bottom of the invitation telling Mr. Churchill that he would introduce him. Winston promptly accepted.

In 1946, in this small town in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill named and described what was happening to Eastern and Central Europe after WWII. It was forever to be known as the "Iron Curtain" speech.

This is the actual hard copy of Winston Churchill's speech describing "the iron curtain" that had descended over the ancient capitals of Central and Eastern Europe. It's impossible for me to look at the page without reading it mentally in my best Winston Churchill imitation. How about you?

Winston Churchill's life experience is shared through the exhibits. A recurring theme is the ability to foresee what would happen before others could.

The exhibit makes the point again and again that no Czech was present
when the Munich agreement was negotiated
between Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler.

Which immediately begs the question: what if one had been?
Would the outcome have been different?
Or would that poor Czech and his descendants have had to live with that?
What do you think?

It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway --
this was not the West's finest hour.

What is that quotation?
"Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it."
The museum described that when Churchill assumed leadership of his country,
it was exhausted by war and broke.
He had to decide if he could afford troops on the ground in Iraq
or mere influence. He accepted reality and chose influence.

To commemorate this important speech, Westminster College administration and trustees, pursued importing and reassembling an English church designed by the great Christopher Wren to memorialize the wisdom of Winston Churchill. There were so many churches damaged in the Blitz that the English could not restore them all and were happy to let this one go.

The stones, while marked, became all jumbled when they were used as ballast in the ship's hold coming over (using them as ballast lowered the shipping cost). Then they were jumbled a second time when they were transported across country. Walt's uncle was the lead stone mason on the project. He had the job of puzzling which stone went where.

Winston Churchill's granddaughter created an additional commemoration entitled "Breakthrough" utilizing a segment of the Berlin Wall.

The West German side

The East German side lacking any individual expression

Winston Churchill is my hero so I can't recommend this visit enough. I'm excited to know that I haven't read everything he has published. His writing gives me strength and inspires me.

Great leaders who have followed Winston Churchill to this site include Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, British Prime Ministers Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, and Sir John Major, Polish President Lech Walesa, and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Touring this site takes about three hours. Admission is $6. I would like to recommend a lively restaurant downtown with great value. A local told me about it. It's called Bek's.

Mizzou Parent's Weekend

Daughter #2 chose University of Missouri at Columbia as her university of choice because it's rated #1 in the nation for her major: journalism. She was not alone. The freshman class has experienced a double-digit growth rate with a record class of 5,812 students.

So on my way to Colorado, and eventually to Prague, I stopped in Columbia, Missouri for parent's weekend to celebrate her choice. And how do American families celebrate their university? Football!

On the way to the game, we walked by the new $50 million student recreation center, voted #1 in the nation by Sports Illustrated. That must have been an incredibly tough label to earn because student recreation centers have been a collegiate focus of investment nationwide. Mizzou students voted to increase their fees to pay for it.

One of the swimming pools -
students can swim inside to one of the other ones.

Beach volleyball, 1,500 miles from a beach!

Some of the tennis courts
There is much more to see inside the facility
But on to the game!

People put their tiger tails on their backside,
hanging out their car trunks,
from their car antennas, everywhere!

One year, Nebraska students changed the "M" to an "N."
Mizzou staff found it and changed it back before the game.
Those sneaky Cornhuskers!

Mizzou Golden Girls

The football team takes the field!

Every time the defense sacks a quarterback
or sets back the other team
they play a REALLY LOUD man-eating Tiger roar
throughout the stadium.

Truman, the Mizzou mascot (named after Harry Truman,
the American President born in Missouri) and the ROTC boys
(students studying to be military officers) do a pushup
for every single point the football team scores.
So by the end of the 42-21 game against Buffalo,
they've done a huge cumulative total of push-ups. Yea team!

Yes, that spells TIGERS!

Couchsurfing in Columbia, Mo!

An essential part of vagabonding is traveling inexpensively and learning and growing from the locals. As someone who's idea of roughing it is a Best Western in need of remodeling, my wariness of a new, inexpensive way to travel courtesy of the information age was considerable. Yet, young people have been adopting this new way of traveling in droves, saving all kinds of money, and having a fantastic time with the people they met.

What is this new way? Couchsurfing! There is a user-friendly website where people all over the world create a profile offering their spare guest bedroom or the couch for travelers who may be passing through. While there are other home stay organizations, such as Servas or Hospitality Club, I appreciate the speed with which you can get started with this website. I decided I was going to take the plunge and give it a try.

My first hosts - Walt and Mary Jean-Gerard,
they gave me confidence in the whole process
because we had so much fun!

The Couchsurfing Mission:

"CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance, and facilitate cultural understanding.

As a community we strive to do our individual and collective parts to make the world a better place, and we believe that the surfing of couches is a means to accomplish this goal. CouchSurfing isn't about the furniture-it's not just about finding free accommodations around the world- it's about participating in creating a better world. We strive to make a better world by opening our homes, our hearts, and our lives. We open our minds and welcome the knowledge that cultural exchange makes available. We create deep and meaningful connections that cross oceans,continents and cultures. CouchSurfing wants to change not only the way we travel, but how we relate to the world!"

Could you get a room like this in a hotel?
I think not.
Mary and Walt's house celebrates 50's funk
and it's so much fun to see.

Mary and Walt made my stay in Columbia so much more interesting because they knew so much about the local area and they have incredibly interesting lives to share.

I loved hearing about Mary and Walt's six children who are scattered over the globe doing interesting things - one son is the chef de cuisine at Tru, Chicago's top, top restaurant, another is a jazz musician in Chicago and has played the Green Mill (one of the famous historic jazz houses), another is an independent filmmaker in Edinburgh, Scotland. I share this because I think it's easy to be scared to try couchsurfing. I found it completely enriching and I'm just getting started!

Here's the story about how the service began from the Couchsurfing FAQs:

"Well, the idea solidified when founder, Casey Fenton, got a cheap ticket to Iceland for a long weekend one April. With his ticket in hand, there was one problem: he had no place to stay and no desire to rot in a hotel all weekend and play Mr. Tourist. So, he came up with the 'brilliant' idea of spamming over 1500 Icelandic students in Reykjavik and asking them if he could crash on one of their couches. After exchanging emails with many of the students, he had several groups of friends offer to show him 'their' Reykjavik. So, after spending an amazing, crazy weekend just south of the Arctic Circle, Casey decided he would never again get trapped in a hotel and tourist marathon while traveling. From that point onward, it was all about crashing on exotic couches and cultural exchange. And, thus, the CouchSurfing Project was born."

I've now stayed in four different homes through Couchsurfing, and hotels seem kind of impersonal and boring after staying with the people I've met so far.

Isn't it exciting what the Internet has made possible? There was a huge meetup of 200 couchsurfers in Prague this month. I'm so sorry I've missed it! Was it fun? What's been your experience with Couchsurfing? Link to the website via the title.

The Ants Go Marching In

After some time in Wisconsin, it was back down to Illinois. I had a very pretty day in the Chicago suburbs, with my friend from Cottey College, Major Jennie Olsen, USAF, retired. Yes! I have a retired college friend. How can that be? Where did the time go?

We had a great time exploring Morton Arboretum, a beautiful 1,700 acre park created by the man who owned Morton Salt company.



Jenny is now studying to be a massage therapist. Guess who got to volunteer to serve as guinea pig? Hey Cottey girls, Jennie is doing great and says hello!

"The Onion" can almost make me laugh until I cry

I want to make one last post about Wisconsin culture as I continue my slow tour of the American Midwest before moving to Prague.

As regular readers of the blog have already surmised, I love politics and all things political -- especially political humor. If the news gets too hard to take, leave it to our comedians to help us find the humor in our very human national predicaments. Paraphrasing American humorist Mark Twain, "Nothing can stand up to ridicule."

Every time I go to Wisconsin, I make a point of picking up The Onion, which facetiously calls itself “The Finest News Source Available.” It’s at least one of the funniest American fake news source available, along with John Stewart’s Daily Show, and Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect.

The Onion was founded in Madison, Wisconsin by a couple of college students and has free distribution throughout the city. It somehow must have a national presence though, because The Onion book products are sold nationwide and I’ve heard national pundits refer to the newspaper.

When The Onion misses on humor, it misses badly. Something that was meant to be funny turns out to be merely vulgar. But for the most part, this newspaper gives me the giggles.

Check out a sampling of the most emailed stories from this week that skewer American culture by clicking on this link. Some of this week's article titles:

"Wealthy teen nearly experiences consequences"

"Palin brushing up on foreign policy at Epcot"

"Bush goes Blonde for Remainder of Presidency"

"Report: 60 Million People You'd Never Talk To Voting for the Other Guy"

"John Kerry Actually Pretty Good at Windsurfing Now"