Tuesday, May 31, 2005

A Sidewalk Cafe

To experience a sidewalk café on a Saturday afternoon in a German town is to enjoy the cheerful indifference of passing strangers with their many illusions and delusions, and know that none of life’s troubles mean anything in the long run.

We marked the Memorial Day weekend with a low-profile in our small Bavarian village. For many Americans this is just another long and boozy holiday. Of course this is an observance for fallen military members – dating to 1868, though older folks also visit the cemeteries to lay wreaths at family plots.

In some ways, this is like the Mexican tradition of Día de los muertos, which follows the day after Halloween – better known as All Soul’s Day in the Roman Catholic world.

On Saturday, my wife and I wandered about eight miles away to Tauberbishopsheim – a
modest city on the Tauber River. The place is quaint and tranquil and charming.

The Germans – and perhaps many Western European cultures – have the pleasant custom of sidewalk cafes. Like the Middle East, there is no rush in a restaurant. Pick a table, and it’s yours until you decide to leave – for hours on end. In America, a waiter hovers around like a 10-minute vulture – trying to get you to scram for the next customer and the next tip.

A sidewalk cafe allows one to consider recent circumstances without distraction.

My career, such as it is – really hit the wall when I arrived in Wurzburg less than a year ago. A few months back, I did have one interview for a public affairs spot. This entailed laying out pages of a newspaper – which is not my forte. When asked my opinion of the current layout design, I said it was mediocre at best. Hell, all these generic publications reinforce conformity. I guess I was supposed to affirm its cutting edge superiority.

So, my answer was dead wrong and ultimately I was shown the door with no invitation to return.

I just don’t feel like eating a mile of shit, anymore.

My recourse virtually all year has been to be a substitute teacher, which means baby-sitting and nothing more. Students have no respect for the replacement; teachers are really no better.

Since this is the end of the year and students are fed-up with the usual classroom twaddle, I feel like a misplaced animal trainer in the pit with a raised chair and a whip, snarling at insolent miscreants and appalling boors who find it necessary to talk at the top of their voices like deranged simians.

Perhaps I should take my cue from one tenured married teacher, well-liked by students and peers, who does nothing to seriously earn a $50,000-plus pay check and writes unbefitting letters to a former – yet still underage female student.

From the student:
"hey mr X.!!!

well i finally got into my house and everything here is so different .... i just want to be back in germany so bad!!! it's insane here. and it's even harder trying to catch up with everything... my XX class is CRAP!!!! i mean my teacher has us do the easiest assignments and it makes me worried i'm gonna lose my deep thinking when it comes to XX .... but i miss your class so much.... you are like my most favorite teacher in the whole world!!! i'm so serious. well, as long as we stay in touch it's all fine with me!!!

miss and love ya, mr. X!!! – H."

From the teacher:
"Hey, sweetie,

Man, do I miss you too. I knew it would not be as good there as it is here, although this place is not perfect either. So why does nobody notice someone as gorgeous as you? Tell me that! People there must be blind and stupid, but my guess is in time everyone will notice you, and not just for your beauty but for your heart and soul and character. If not, then you need to come back here and stay at my house until you graduate. I will adopt you. You should send me your address and phone number so we can talk. You can write to me every day; in fact, I think you should. So write, write, write to me and we'll figure out a way to communicate this summer, promise ....

love ya .... Mr. X."

This third-rate Humbert Humbert - adept in self-deception - has it made: job security, a very generous salary and multiple planning periods. This allows plenty of time for e-mails to a young, female high school student, now stateside. This mediocre, clumsy, aging hippie is a furnace of bullshit.

Maybe I should become a man of elastic scruples, like a Rousseau of the gutter. Maybe I should consider epistles to a Lolita candidate. Maybe teaching is not really my forte, either.

Based on a recent application and curriculum vitae to the American School in London (ASL), I was contacted late last week about an interview for a public relations position. After 20 years in journalism, a stint as public affairs officer, a master’s degree in education, and four years teaching experience …. well, who better to fill the slot?

I specifically mentioned that I will relocate to Cambridgeshire by early August. A 45-minute commute one-way every day into London, and then hopping the tube to St. John’s Wood on the west-side of the city would be a little daunting. Although I’m aware that folks in Brighton commute regularly to London every day.

My ASL contact suggested the school would pick up the interview expenses and fly me to London from Frankfurt. Yet there was the notion that a daily commute from Cambridgeshire was my obligation entirely.

I didn’t feel like wasting time trekking to London and second-guessing whether my answers should be straightforward or politically correct, so I asked about the general salary range and the possibility of a modest housing allowance. My contact said only another colleague could provide these answers. He was in a meeting and would call me back before the end of the day.

No call late Thursday. No call or e-mail contact Friday.

Well, so much for the blown opportunity. No free trip to London. This will teach me to keep eating a mile of shit and not to ask impertinent questions.

So, back to the sidewalk café; a great way to spend the afternoon; a great way to let all miserable memories slide away: momentarily forget the senseless loss of life in war; the degenerate, dog-eyed teacher undermined and inflamed by Lolita fever; the undeniable career frustrations and austere, ugly madhouses to follow.

Of course none of this matters.