At last, queuing has come to my small Ohio town.
It's Saturday morning, and I sit here in my study, listening to the birds and the lawnmowers, feeling shock and awe at the merging of two worlds.
Not often do my Soviet experiences translate into my American life. I remember when I first arrived in the Soviet Union as a 21-year-old, and people asked me: "what did you expect to find? bears wandering the streets?" I would simply reply: "nothing. I had no expectations. I came to find whatever was here."
And it was a rich and sometimes bewildering experience. Recently my daughter wrote a graphic novel for history class about me. She needed a person to interview who had lived through a "historic event," so we chose perestroika and the demise of the Soviet system. Certainly my stories seemed exotic to her -- standing in line, being chastised on the street by grandmothers who thought I should be wearing a warmer hat, standing in line, having my mail arrive opened or missing a page of a letter, standing in line, learning the difference between a sovkhoz and a kolkhoz in the agricultural system in my Soviet society course.
Oh, and standing in line.
I wrote about queuing last fall in this blog after talking with a visiting Polish journalist about his grandparents' life in postwar Poland. And I suppose in one very small sense, this experience has translated to America, especially to bureaucratic America.
Over the years, I have stood in line -- physically and metaphorically -- more than once. My favorite moment was registering for graduate school at a large midwestern university in the days before wide-spread computer usage or even "touch-tone registration" (the big innovation in 1988). My first semester, we actually had to register in person, and we each had a time (something like "10:48") assigned to us. All very well and good, but how do you arrive at that precise time? The answer is: wait in line. So we snaked through the stock pavilion, slowly and patiently observing our fellow students and the hapless staff members in charge of getting us into our classes. I had never been to a livestock sale, and the simile of graduate students as cattle being led to slaughter did not feel particularly amusing on that hot autumn day. Apt, maybe, but not amusing.
After graduate school, I got a job at an even larger midwestern university, and my skills at standing in line came in handy again -- to get that first faculty i.d., to shake the college president's hand at a welcoming reception, to hood my PhD student at graduation in an enormous basketball arena.
Bureaucracy is not just limited to academia in America, though. I was excellent at "standing in line" to adopt my daughter from China, patiently jumping through hoop after hoop for months, from the original "home study" to discover whether I am a fit mother, to the FBI fingerprinting and the fire and safety inspection of my house. In China, we waited "in line" for five days after getting her to receive her Chinese passport for travel, and another five days "in line" at the US consulate on Shamian Island in Guangzho for her to get her INS permission to enter the US.
Again a few years ago, I excelled at "standing in line" to fill out all our Fulbright paperwork. The Polish Consulate in particular was a challenge, as we passed the thug-like security guy to get into the waiting room and perused Polish-language newspapers until we were called to our interview room. I listened to the other petitioners (yes, we felt like 19th century petitioners in a Dickens novel or maybe a Gogol story): this one had to repatriate her deceased mother's body, that one needed to find out how to renew his Polish passport. Then the scrambling -- as I sent my husband out looking for an ATM machine to pay for our Polish visas in cash, and I tried to justify not bringing my son's birth certificate by explaining that his US passport should prove his identity and that he was my child -- followed by the patient waiting back in Ohio for the passports and visas to be returned to us.
In our family, we like to joke that I am the most patient, with my specialized Soviet training in waiting in line -- for permission to travel, for train or plane tickets, for vegetables and bread. I can wait in line at a big box store to buy ceiling fans and lightbulbs, and at IKEA with all the other people who couldn't resist the bag of 100 votive candles for $3.99. The bureaucratic "lines" sometimes remind me of life in the Soviet Union, but on the whole an American line is an American line.
This morning, I went to our local farmers' market and experienced a truly Soviet line, albeit without the hostility or the stamping of the feet to ward off the cold.
It is an utterly idyllic summer morning, and I just needed to grab some fresh eggs and salad greens. But when I arrived at the market, I remembered that everyone had been talking about a new bakery, the Blue Oven bakery, which has begun to sell at the market. And then I saw the line.
For the length of the parking lot that serves as our market on summer Saturdays, people were standing patiently. Very patiently. So I got in line. The other vendors looked on somewhat nonplussed as we glanced at their organic pork shoulders and rows of beautiful herbs ... and continued to wait patiently in the bread line.
I wasn't standing by anyone I knew, but enjoyed the people watching around me. Yes, there is an acquaintance of mine picking out gorgeous Canterbury Bells at the flower stand -- he breaks into laughter, and for the first time I see in him his son, whom I have known and loved for some years. And there is another friend of mine, wending her way through the crowd with her bicycle, stopping to chat about her lovely daughters and their future plans. The woman behind me darts off to grab some lettuce and then asks "can I come back in line behind you?" Then the guy in front of me -- long graying ponytail hanging down his back -- disappears for a moment, and I see him rejoin the line at the end. "No, come back in front of me, that's how we do it here," I said. "Thanks," he responded. "I had forgotten my wallet in my car."
And of course, that's not how we do things here. That's how we did them in the Soviet Union. It is so American to insist that when you leave the line, you have left the line -- no cutting back in. But in Russia it was common to save someone else's place, even someone you don't know -- the necessities of standing in many lines at once in practice made lines stand still, as people went off and returned laden with produce or wallpaper rolls from another section or store altogether.
Today it felt positively neighborly -- all the Russian tradition with, as I said, none of the hostility. Chatting with friends and strangers, exchanging opinions ("I hear the rye is fantastic," says one woman. "Does it have seeds?" "Yes, caraway seeds. It's delicious." "And of course the French country loaf is chewy and delicious." "Will they run out of croissants, do you think?").
Everyone seemed content to wait, convinced that the reward was worth it. Much of my reward came from listening to the conversations in line. "Look at those people buying a white loaf. They are over 80 -- it must be that they know more about healthy living than our current generation." "I'm gluten-free, but I hear that this bread is delicious. Of course, I lost 20 pounds when I gave up bread and rice." "My grandchildren love the English muffins. I can always freeze them, but somehow they don't last that long." "We need a bread consultant, so that these novice buyers will be educated by the time they get to the front of the line." "Canelés? Feels like Bordeaux!"
Well, no. To me, it felt like Leningrad. Or a Moscow outdoor market without the Georgian tomato sellers ("Devushka, devushka, idite siuda." Wish I could render that classic Georgian accent!) Crowded but friendly, that funny mix of socialist patience and bourgeois capitalist purchasing.
Another friend approached me in line to say he was on his way to the traditional spring "work bee" at the elementary school my children use to attend. "Just like a subbotnik, a compulsory-voluntary Soviet Saturday workday," I said. "I tried to explain the subbotnik to my students using the work bee analogy, and they didn't understand what I was talking about."
"Oh," he replied. "Is a work bee not a normal American thing? Must be our socialist roots."
I spent many a Saturday at work bees when my kids were small. Now I can come home and dive into Blue Oven breads instead.
It's Saturday morning, and I sit here in my study, listening to the birds and the lawnmowers, feeling shock and awe at the merging of two worlds.
Not often do my Soviet experiences translate into my American life. I remember when I first arrived in the Soviet Union as a 21-year-old, and people asked me: "what did you expect to find? bears wandering the streets?" I would simply reply: "nothing. I had no expectations. I came to find whatever was here."
And it was a rich and sometimes bewildering experience. Recently my daughter wrote a graphic novel for history class about me. She needed a person to interview who had lived through a "historic event," so we chose perestroika and the demise of the Soviet system. Certainly my stories seemed exotic to her -- standing in line, being chastised on the street by grandmothers who thought I should be wearing a warmer hat, standing in line, having my mail arrive opened or missing a page of a letter, standing in line, learning the difference between a sovkhoz and a kolkhoz in the agricultural system in my Soviet society course.
Oh, and standing in line.
I wrote about queuing last fall in this blog after talking with a visiting Polish journalist about his grandparents' life in postwar Poland. And I suppose in one very small sense, this experience has translated to America, especially to bureaucratic America.
 |
| The stock pavilion at UW Madison |
After graduate school, I got a job at an even larger midwestern university, and my skills at standing in line came in handy again -- to get that first faculty i.d., to shake the college president's hand at a welcoming reception, to hood my PhD student at graduation in an enormous basketball arena.
 |
| A different kind of line in this sculpture at a quiet park on Shamian Island. |
Again a few years ago, I excelled at "standing in line" to fill out all our Fulbright paperwork. The Polish Consulate in particular was a challenge, as we passed the thug-like security guy to get into the waiting room and perused Polish-language newspapers until we were called to our interview room. I listened to the other petitioners (yes, we felt like 19th century petitioners in a Dickens novel or maybe a Gogol story): this one had to repatriate her deceased mother's body, that one needed to find out how to renew his Polish passport. Then the scrambling -- as I sent my husband out looking for an ATM machine to pay for our Polish visas in cash, and I tried to justify not bringing my son's birth certificate by explaining that his US passport should prove his identity and that he was my child -- followed by the patient waiting back in Ohio for the passports and visas to be returned to us.
In our family, we like to joke that I am the most patient, with my specialized Soviet training in waiting in line -- for permission to travel, for train or plane tickets, for vegetables and bread. I can wait in line at a big box store to buy ceiling fans and lightbulbs, and at IKEA with all the other people who couldn't resist the bag of 100 votive candles for $3.99. The bureaucratic "lines" sometimes remind me of life in the Soviet Union, but on the whole an American line is an American line.
This morning, I went to our local farmers' market and experienced a truly Soviet line, albeit without the hostility or the stamping of the feet to ward off the cold.
 |
| Kings Yard Farmers' Market in Yellow Springs |
For the length of the parking lot that serves as our market on summer Saturdays, people were standing patiently. Very patiently. So I got in line. The other vendors looked on somewhat nonplussed as we glanced at their organic pork shoulders and rows of beautiful herbs ... and continued to wait patiently in the bread line.
I wasn't standing by anyone I knew, but enjoyed the people watching around me. Yes, there is an acquaintance of mine picking out gorgeous Canterbury Bells at the flower stand -- he breaks into laughter, and for the first time I see in him his son, whom I have known and loved for some years. And there is another friend of mine, wending her way through the crowd with her bicycle, stopping to chat about her lovely daughters and their future plans. The woman behind me darts off to grab some lettuce and then asks "can I come back in line behind you?" Then the guy in front of me -- long graying ponytail hanging down his back -- disappears for a moment, and I see him rejoin the line at the end. "No, come back in front of me, that's how we do it here," I said. "Thanks," he responded. "I had forgotten my wallet in my car."
And of course, that's not how we do things here. That's how we did them in the Soviet Union. It is so American to insist that when you leave the line, you have left the line -- no cutting back in. But in Russia it was common to save someone else's place, even someone you don't know -- the necessities of standing in many lines at once in practice made lines stand still, as people went off and returned laden with produce or wallpaper rolls from another section or store altogether.
Today it felt positively neighborly -- all the Russian tradition with, as I said, none of the hostility. Chatting with friends and strangers, exchanging opinions ("I hear the rye is fantastic," says one woman. "Does it have seeds?" "Yes, caraway seeds. It's delicious." "And of course the French country loaf is chewy and delicious." "Will they run out of croissants, do you think?").Everyone seemed content to wait, convinced that the reward was worth it. Much of my reward came from listening to the conversations in line. "Look at those people buying a white loaf. They are over 80 -- it must be that they know more about healthy living than our current generation." "I'm gluten-free, but I hear that this bread is delicious. Of course, I lost 20 pounds when I gave up bread and rice." "My grandchildren love the English muffins. I can always freeze them, but somehow they don't last that long." "We need a bread consultant, so that these novice buyers will be educated by the time they get to the front of the line." "Canelés? Feels like Bordeaux!"
Well, no. To me, it felt like Leningrad. Or a Moscow outdoor market without the Georgian tomato sellers ("Devushka, devushka, idite siuda." Wish I could render that classic Georgian accent!) Crowded but friendly, that funny mix of socialist patience and bourgeois capitalist purchasing.
Another friend approached me in line to say he was on his way to the traditional spring "work bee" at the elementary school my children use to attend. "Just like a subbotnik, a compulsory-voluntary Soviet Saturday workday," I said. "I tried to explain the subbotnik to my students using the work bee analogy, and they didn't understand what I was talking about."
"Oh," he replied. "Is a work bee not a normal American thing? Must be our socialist roots."
I spent many a Saturday at work bees when my kids were small. Now I can come home and dive into Blue Oven breads instead.
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