Pictures While on Duty in Lithuania
Kaunas
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I went to Lithuania in the beginning of 1992. Only a few months before we
sat in Chicago on pins and needles while the Soviet Union was flying apart
— a process going on since 1990. It was a couple of years of stress
for me. I was assigned thru the Lithuanian section of the Baltic/Slavic
department at the University of Illinois at Chicago and by Vytauto
Didziojio Universitetas in Kaunas to be an instructor (visiting) of
English at the latter university. While I have relatives in Lithuania (third cousins/cousin aunts and uncles of the second order), and while I took tons of pictures in black-and-white and in color . . . my briefcase was ripped off in England of all places. Still irks me even now. On the way to Lithuania, I had to fly to France, then Berlin, then take a train to Warszawa (Warsaw), spend all day in Warszawa trying to get on a Russian military train to Vilnius. The Polish police helped me out big time at the station. Regarding the train, I got thrown off that due to visa problems (escorted off by armed guard in Grodno/Gardinas) and the Amerikanitz was ordered back to Bialwystok (tho, the orders were for the border only), Poland, where the Soviet customs personnel had informed me I could catch a bus. I ran around Bialwystok all evening trying to change dollars to zloty (Polish currency) with no luck. Finally, some Polish-American dude arranged an exchange with a cab driver. Two Baltic ladies (think one was from Estonia) aided me on the bus ride and had watched my luggage for me — though I didn't ask them to; I couldn't carry it (just set it in the bus station: I had a feeling, you might say), and they assumed the saintly responsibility (though I received a lecture about luggage safety and my negligence). The Lithuanian lady's husband was a police commissioner in Kaunas, and he located the university personnel on that weekend (after the delays, remember), and they got me in one piece to Vytauto Didziojio Universitetas. I unloaded the details of my trip (way more than I could elucidate here) to Mister and Misses Bowers, who headed the English department. They were from South Dakota. So here are pictures sent me by Lori Runkle of Humboldt, Iowa – one of the English department's visiting team — |
Now Then . . .
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Here's Most of us English Instructors |
| Raimondas Sidrys, who taught some kind of science classes (he was from California), Lori Runkle (English), me (business English). and Scott Bonk (business English). Unfortunately, one of the pictures ripped off along with my camera in bloody England (as explained above) was the one with Scott and I at the U.S. embassy when Vice President Dan Quayle and his wife came out. We had front-line positions. I hope the ass who found the film bothered to develop it. Appropriately, in the cage is Lori's horny cat, Tina. I think the damn thing was in heat almost the whole time we were there. Dealing with the thing was like getting a complete refresher class in sex education — maybe a degree in it. |
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View from Prancuzu Gatve |
| When we first had arrived, we were put in hotels in downtown Kaunas, almost right on top of the university. Later we (part of the compensation package) were set up in studio apartments for the most part. While the apartments had many more conveniences than the hotels, they were much farther away. We had to commute by bus or by foot (and that included Dubuque-style hill climbing). I rode the bus nearly all the time. |
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The Trolley Busses |
| The busses in Kaunas were phenomenonally packed back then. Efficient. They reminded me of Army "cattle trucks" during rush hour. There's all sorts of Jokes, spritzers, and spikers in town about those busses. One example (translated) was, "would you please keep your eggs out of my basket?" I really wonder what they thought of us. I'd hop on the sardine can drenched in cologne. No unmistaking us for outsiders, either. What a joke it must have been that we couldn't decipher — Americans riding the bus in Kaunas, "watered up" like French whores (so to guess the most biting assessment). Anyway, I'd guess this was photographed at Gelezinkelio Stotis (the train station). |
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Seán with the boom box |
| We were short on equipment at the time. Most of the official university audio equipment was only used for official tests and that sort of thing. For the daily grind, Professor Bowers brought this "boom box" along and gave it to me to use. I had to bring it back and forth every day. (Well, I did opt to skip the audio stuff many days.) As you can see, it interfered with my smoking cigarettes (or at least lighting one). Incidentally, would you believe I played the excerpts of the original "Jerky Boys" (as an example of slang and differing English accents)? |
| When I left Lithuania, I had to endure almost a reverse journey, but to Ireland to visit relatives there. To sum it up (most briefly), I took the bus to Bialwystok, took a train from there to Warszawa, caught the Russian military train to Berlin (with the needed help of a Russian woman), took a suburban train (I think) across Berlin and caught a train to the coast (with the help of some German kids going to Holland — they kept saying "Tennessee" on the account of the popular song at the time (which I had not heard of yet), so I showed them my Tennessee driver's license. What a roar. I missed my transfer point, so I had to ask the conductor what to do. Had to take a suburban around Rotterdam and then a train to the coast, a ferry to England, a train to London, a suburban train thru London, a train to Holyhead (on which my briefcase was stolen), a ferry to Dublin, then the arrangements with my relatives there; first with Angela Kennedy, then with Mary Hannon, who did the footwork for getting me back to the U.S.A., on schedule, via France — at a discount! Whew! was I spent after all this. Of course, I had no camera any more. |
