Chapter Eighteen - An Indiana Hoosier

Chapter Eighteen
An Indiana Hoosier
Indiana University is located in Bloomington which is a little ways Southwest of Indianapolis. Bloomington is a small university town in a hilly, wooded area of Indiana. At least it used to be a small town. It had its typical small town square that kids drove around on Saturday night to see who’s there and who’s not there. Our air force attachment stationed at IU was a small group of which I don’t think many of the locals were aware of and so we could blend in with the other university students.
Our housing and class facilities were in the post-graduate section of the campus. We lived in barracks and within those confines we were air force with a commanding officer. Otherwise, we ate in the grad students’ cafeteria and in off duty hours pretty much had a run of the campus and town.
Our training lasted about nine months. It was pretty intensive and some washed out along the way. At the end of the training session I wouldn’t say I was fluent in Polish, but I could read Polish newspaper articles and converse in Polish. We had four extremely interesting instructors all from Poland. Over the course of the training we came to have great affection for them.
The Count: Count Yablanowski was an honest to goodness Count who due to World II lost his position. He was probably the stiffest of the four instructor; after all a Count has to retain his stature. A couple of things I remember about him was he smoked a pipe and he would sometimes put the pipe in his jacket pocket still lit and forget about it. I don’t remember him having any bad experience due to this habit. The other thing I remember is his telling us about being in the Polish Calvary and during the German’s Blitzkrieg of the second world war they attempted to repel an attack of German tanks with their horses and sabers.
Pani Borowieska: Pani in Polish is Mrs. Pani Borowieska was a lady of class who lost her husband and her status during the German attacks and occupation. She was a nice, quiet lady.
Pan i Pani Soroka: The Soroka’s were a husband and wife team. They both were our instructors. They had a couple of children with them but I don’t ever remember meeting them. I think Pan Soroka was a professor in Poland. One of the things I remember about him was he told us that sometimes he dreams in Latin. (that gives you an idea of his intellect) He always had a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face. Apparently he and his wife were involved with the Polish resistance because he related a story about his home being surrounded by German tanks.
All four of these wonderful people went through much in their homeland of Poland. After the German’s were defeated in the mid 1940’s, they were then occupied by the Russians. That occupation lasted until 1989 the year Ann and I went to an International Convention of Jehovah Witnesses in Warsaw. We were there in the last months of the Russian occupation of Poland. Today Poland is a part of the European Trade Union of countries.
As I said earlier in this chapter we had a good deal of freedom in our activities in our assignment at IU. I remember early on a group of us airmen made the rounds of sorority and fraternity parties which were given to attract new pledges. I’ve never been much of a supporter of fraternities and sororities. I think they’re too much a distraction from the reason students are at the higher level of schooling – too much partying.
My air force language courses counted as college credits and I was able to take a history course while at IU for some more credits which could be applied towards the Pasadena Playhouse degree program.
A couple of more things I remember about Bloomington & IU, my first time to have pizza was at a little pizza place in town frequented by students. In my memory it’s the best pizza I ever had but that’s probably influenced by time and the fact it was my introduction to pizza.
Also, another first and so far my only time to go to an opera was at IU. They had a touring company appearing in their main theatre doing one of the Italian operas but I don’t remember the name. I enjoyed it; however, I’m not rushing out to see another. Some of the arias are beautiful but the singing of the dialog is a little too contrived for me and usually in a language I don’t know. You get a libretto in English which lets you know the story line so that you can follow the action. I don’t know but I think the origination of the Musical was American, and at least the music being interwoven with spoken dialog is more popular with us Americans.
The last thing for this chapter, it was in Bloomington that for a few minutes I was a millionaire. I had opened a savings account at one of the local banks (located at the town square of course). One time when I made a deposit of $100 the teller made an error in entry and credited me with $1,000,000.00. Before I left the bank the error was noted and changed. Ah well, for a fleeting moment I was a millionaire in a time when that was like being a billionaire.
More on my time at Bloomington in the next chapter – Chapter Nineteen – The Brown County Players.