Annie and "Leena"

     ...Meanwhile, Annie and "Leena" (aka TigerAnn, aka TigerPants, aka TigerAss, aka Li'l Miss Bratty) are relaxing in Trabuco Canyon.
     Annie is fighting the great "Africanized bees" menace and learning new songs on her ukulele.
     Tiger has developed new relaxation techniques.
     In Poland, mom has renewed her passion for chocolate and the like.
     My dad? Well, he called me at 6:45 this morning. I know not why.
     I am researching post-war Stettin and figuring out how to buy a shirt.

Leena in the sun

See How We Are: Extended Play

Rebel Girl's summer travels find her much closer to home than her comrade B. von Traven. But she still has her adventures. Yesterday's perambulations, for example, found her at the Lutheran Thrift Shop in Orange.

Rebel Girl likes the Lutheran Thrift Shop for many reasons especially their unparalleled collection of boy's clothing, all in pristine condition, even the pants because, of course, those Lutheran boys are so well-behaved they don't even wear out the knees of their Levis so Rebel Girl's little atheist can have that particular pleasure for a couple bucks a pair.


Yesterday, at the check-out counter, where two, sometimes three Lutheran ladies often do the tasks that could easily be done by one, thus extending the check-out time exponentially, Rebel Girl admired the stash of the woman in front of her.


It was spectacular. A collection of old parochial school bulletin board pin-ups. Cardboard Biblical characters. Jesus in his robes, various bearded men, little lambs, shepards with their crooks. Faded construction paper silhouettes of Lincoln and Washington. A giant ziploc baggie of all the lost plastic playing pieces from all the old board games in the world: Stratego. Sorry. Battleship. Monopoly. Life.


Who would buy this eclectic hodgepodge? Other than, of course, Rebel Girl, who examined the jumble with some envy and wistfulness. Rebel Girl glanced up and saw that the buyer defied the usual clientele of the Lutheran Thrift Shop which runs to Lutherans, Latino women with children in strollers and disaffected high school students looking for clothing in which to cloak their anxieties.

Then she recognized her.

Exene Cervenka, lead singer of the LA punk band X. Could Rebel Girl count the number of times she'd seen X in concert in clubs, concert halls, demonstrations, festivals? No, she couldn't. Could Rebel Girl sing along, track-for-track to all of the X albums? Yes she could. In that moment of recognition, she resisted that impulse.

She said instead: "Excuse me, I think I've seen you before."

Exene smiled and said, "Do you come to this thrift store often?"

Rebel Girl said, "Yes, but that's not what I mean."

Rebel Girl tried not to gush too much but thought she should say something to this woman whose music has meant so much to her. So she did. Something like: Thanks for the music. It meant and means so much to me. She may have even said, it saved my life, metaphorically, of course.

Yikes.

Exene is older now, like Rebel Girl. They are two middle-aged women counting out their change and handing it over. Exene is in her mid-50s and was recently diagnosed with MS. But she still rocks and she goes to thrift stores and finds what she finds and, Rebel Girl imagines, makes her art of it all.


Before she left, Exene told Rebel Girl, "I'm playing this Saturday."

"I don't get out much," Rebel Girl said and by way of explanation, "I got a kid now, but yeah."

Rebel Girl wanted to say more, so much more, but she didn't. No need to tell Exene who she was and what she meant. She knew. Rebel Girl saved it for the ladies behind the counter and after Exene exited the store, she said, "Do you know who that was?" and launched into an adrenaline-fueled account of Exene's life and career which was lost, alas, on the trio of service-oriented Lutherans behind the counter.

See how we are indeed.



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From today's OC Register: Exene tells it straight on X, illness and O.C.

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Stettin (i.e., Szczecin)

Mom's dad: Hermann Schultz

     Well, we’ve made our way west, and we have now arrived at the Hotel Atrium in my mother’s birthplace: Stettin—now Szczecin.
     My mother was born here in this harbor town in 1933. Mom's mother died here in 1934—and that’s when mom was taken east to live with her Aunt Marthe in Bärwalde.
     Her father, who owned a small trucking company, died in Stettin in 1938.
     My mother, who was eleven or twelve when the war ended (in 1945), had made several trips to Stettin and remembers the “big city” well. But she hasn't been back here since 1944 or so.
     Strictly speaking, she last laid eyes on Stettin in 1945, when she fled westward on rail flatcars. Her group's train made it through the Stettin station, despite strafing. (The engineer was a Polish prisoner who was instrumental in keeping everyone alive.)
     The next train was not so lucky. Everyone on board was killed by Russian planes.

* * * * *

     The Polish name, "Szczecin," is pronounced something like this: SHTECH'-eena, with the “e” of shtech somewhere between a soft e and a hard i. Closer to the hard i (to my ears). So it's more SCHTIGHCH'-eena.
     The German name, “Stettin,” is pronounced shtettEEN, more or less

     According to Wikipedia:

     Szczecin … is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427.
     Szczecin is located on the Oder River, south of the Szczecin Lagoon and the Bay of Pomerania. The city is situated along the southwestern shore of Dąbie Lake, on both sides of the Oder and on several large islands between the western and eastern branches of the river.…
     The city's beginnings were as an 8th century Slavic Pomeranian stronghold. Over the course of its history it has been a part of Poland, existed as an independent Duchy, was ruled by Sweden, Denmark, Brandenburg-Prussia, was part of the Holy Roman Empire, German Empire, Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. It was the residence of the Griffin Dynasty from the 12th until the 17th century.
     While the city was ruled by Nazi Germany the Jews, Poles and Rroma were subjected to repression and finally during World War II classified as untermenschen with their fate being slavery and extermination. After Germany was defeated by the Allies in 1945, Szczecin was awarded to the People's Republic of Poland. The city was emptied of its German inhabitants, who either fled before the advancing Soviet Army or were expelled by the Polish government. Poles resettled and rebuilt the war damaged city, which became capital of the new Szczecin Voivodeship. It played an important role in the anti-communist uprisings of 1970 and the rise of Solidarity trade union in the 1980s.

The Hotel Atrium dining room: pizza and asperagus

The majestic Atrium entrance

Stairs. Dark woods

My room. High ceiling

A friend sent this: