Blithe Amusement at Curious-looking People

These thoughts were running around my head today, on my way to work through a late winter wet snow drizzler. I don't know what reminded me, but the image came up of a droll-looking pair of twin sisters I encountered some months ago at a do-it-yourself market south of Berlin where I live.

I got out of my car and saw these two implausible, identical figures on their way into the place way in front of me there in the parking lot. They seemed to be female from their attire, but were tall, thin as sticks and dressed alike. They each had on a long, brownish raincoat-like affair. They were shiny plastic-looking things. that reached to below their knees. Of course I was seeing them from the back, but I could also see that each was wearing a light colored knitted cap too, covering her short hair. They reminded me faintly of witches. I was amused and wanted to get a look at them closer up.

I went in, took the escalator up and found what I was looking for after some searching. In the meantime I had glimpses of these two odd personages down this aisle or at the paint counter. I further saw they each had squarish dark rimmed glasses on too, each with a beak of a nose protruding out the middle. You couldn't say they were attractive in any sense but they sure were characters. They strode purposefully about in their dark green rain boots, grey leggings tucked primly into the tops of them. It was a wet day, after all.

They were so fun to look at. As one goes through life one encounters people who just have a look about them, you just have to smile as I did. They really made my day, and I got an especial thrill as I noticed one of the sisters in front of me, looking through the €1.00 bins near the registers when I was ready to check out.

I always check them out too anyway, so I went over. In a pleasant speaking voice she exchanged notes with me about the kitchen sponges. I think I started the desultory conversation. I often do that over here in Germany; most Germans won't give you the time of day on their own, but just to be contrary I often make eye contact and give them a 'Guten Tag' in passing. They often respond. But my new friend here seemed fine with talking to a stranger. She even mentioned something about her sister.

That was about it; we parted, she going into her little world and I into mine, a little brighter for our chance bumping into one another.


As I said up top, their image appeared to me while changing lanes in the light sleetfall. And then I thought of another person who'd struck me in a somewhat comical way. I got to thinking about Willis Conover.

Way back in the early 90's I became aware of a voice on the radio. We still had AFN here then, Armed Forces Network, and I started catching this jazz show while driving around. The announcer had this deliberate, slow delivery, and spoke in an ancient sounding, nasal kind of voice. "This is Willis Conover..." I sat up and listened, as the voice seemed so unusual for radio. What was this 198-year-old sounding guy doing? It seemed so funny to me at the time. I smiled to hear him, and by and by began getting into the music. His theme song was a sizzling rendition of "Take the 'A' Train", for example, and he seemed less to be about free form or experimental jazz and more about the traditional kind with a beat - Duke Ellington, Dizzie Gillespie and company. Right up my alley too, I realized, so I began to look forward to hearing him every week.

Not many folks in the States knew about him, but he was a huge ambassador of American culture especially in Eastern Europe all through the Cold War on Voice of America radio. His show introduced millions to jazz, and he thousands flocked to see him at appearances in Prague and at the Red Square. The molasses-slow delivery was a trademark of VOA, which they called Special English. Announcers would use simpler words and speak very slowly so non-native speakers would have a better chance of understanding them.

I discovered Mr. Conover near the end of his career, as it turned out. Some later shows I heard were made up of earlier recordings where he'd host the leading jazz lights of the day, and then his voice! It was a deep, resonant baritone, full of control, elegant and gracious, completely different from the now obvious wreck of that voice I'd become familiar with. I could no longer just think how droll it was that this ancient guy was still broadcasting. He now seemed to be one very sick man, and indeed it actually was near the end of his life that I'd discovered him, as he died of lung cancer in 1996.


Yes both of these encounters somehow touched my life at least initially in a funny way. I had to smile when I saw or heard them. But of course the second one I described ended tragically. I wanted to say something profound about it, something about the human condition. But now that I've gotten here I can't think how or what to say without making it sound trite or pretentious or preachy. I always say I'm not very good about being philosophical. But if I could formulate it, I would say something about the stories everyone carries around with them, tragic or otherwise. I would like to say that maybe I was too young to appreciate Mr. Conover for what he was and what he was going through. Little kids laugh, often cruelly, at people different from them. Not that I was being cruel, in either of these situations, no I don't think so. But perhaps a bit ignorant, maybe somewhat arrogant even, just looking at things from my own little bubble. OK, well what else can one do, one might ask. I think maybe I'm trying to get to a point to say one ought to understand where the other is coming from, to put yourself in their shoes for a bit. I'm confused on the point, because should one not find things to get a smile from in the world around one? Of course, and try to retain some kind of sense of childlike wonder. Are the two aspects mutually exclusive? I don't know, and as this rambling paragraph shows, I can't come to a real synthesis or even conclusion.

But as the little wet bits of snow came down as I was on my way to work, I thought "Hey, I'd like to write something about that." So there you are.

Remind me sometime to tell you the story of the Oracle of Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz.