Arrival

I arrived at LAX on the third of July in 1985.  I don’t celebrate it as an anniversary, but it always reminds me about my first few months in the Promised Land.  There were Taxi reruns that summer and then high school began in September.  One of the things I remember most is the heat.  I had six classes that semester: four hours of ESL, PE, and math.  You’d think that it would have been the four consecutive ESL classes that got to me, but no, that wasn’t it.  In fact, I felt most at home during those four hours.  I didn’t feel embarrassed when I couldn’t answer a question or didn’t understand instructions.  None of us did.  PE, however, was the pits.  The class met at one in the afternoon and we did something outside most of the time.  Polish climate was much much cooler than it is even now, and definitely cooler than SoCal’s.  So there I was, playing softball during the hottest part of the day.  Adolescence is an embarrassing time of life, but add to that 90 degrees and a game this immigrant had never heard of, and you’ve got yourself one traumatized teen.  I’d look around and no one appeared to be bothered by the weather all the while sweat poured down my reddened brow. Then, manifesting all the color characteristics of a beet, I'd sit sweating it out in an un-air-conditioned algebra classroom. I may tolerate heat now (St. Louis + 90 degrees = midnight in July.  Bring it!), but I still don’t get softball.