(summer notes)
I couldn't believe my eyes.
So I closed them.
I threw the newspaper (what a pleasure it is to read old newspapers - and especially economy sections - deep in the countryside! It gives you a tangible sense of timelessness) on the lawn, took another sip of tea and enjoyed the Silesian sunshine.
While browsing through what I thought was a broadsheet, I had come across a half-year-old story about a Polish authority arguing with an Austiran contractor about how to build a motorway. Clearly, I must have grabbed something satirical by mistake, which I was in no mood for. And I went back to following my compatriots, the Burgundians.
But after a few days the story was still lying there, just slightly changed by a passing shower. I picked it up (what a pleasure it is to read old newspapers - and especially economy sections - deep in the countryside! It gives you a tangible sense of timelessness), where I'd left it off and read on about a legal suit involving the construction of a bridge. And I wished I was the judge hearing that case - how easy a job he had!
Will we, Poles, never learn?
You can debate German-speaking peoples about the idealist philosophy (or positivist, if it's the Austrians), stage an occasional war or uprising against them, quarrel about the Neisse-Oder border, question the merits of their cheap sausages (none) or their Weltanschaung.
But you DON'T argue with them about how to build motorways.
You humbly copy them.
*I bet it's just a question of time for the Polnische Autobahn to fill the gap left by
the Polnische Wirtschaft, which was killed by Polish entrepreneurs** despite heroic efforts to thwart them by our successive governments and Parliaments.
**RESPECT!
PS What a pleasure it is to read old newspapers - and especially economy sections - deep in the countryside! It gives you a tangible sense of timelessness.
(Picture found at: okosmos.blogspot.com)
