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Posts by KK4AXX  

Joined: 26 Jul 2017 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 18 Mar 2019
Threads: Total: 1 / In This Archive: 1
Posts: Total: 8 / In This Archive: 5 		From: Mobile, AL USA
Speaks Polish?: No
Interests: amateur radio, shooting, history, writing, Poland

Displayed posts: 6
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KK4AXX   
26 Jul 2017
Travel / Thanks for the Memories Poland [5]

This past April, while still mostly confined to a wheelchair, I finally took a vacation. The first in my 55 years. My wife planned a 10 day flash through Berlin and then through Poland by train to our true destination - Gdansk. From there we would set out and explore. My wife is fascinated by the Polish language and had spent a year learning all she could. (She is still studying to this day.) What a blessing that turned out to be!

While in the U.S. Navy in the early 1980s I had visited Scotland, Israel, and Thailand. Later jobs sent me to Canada and Mexico. Neither for much more time than the work required. This was different. On this trip I had the time to meet people and talk. Nothing about world events so much as daily life. In doing so I found something I never expected.

I found HOME.

I'm back at my house in Mobile, Alabama now. Right on the Gulf Coast. Chances are that I'll never again set foot in Poland. Yet I will never truly be at *home* again unless I do. Never have I met people with such depth, such soul, and such a taste for Freedom. Oh God, I do miss Poland!

Well, if I can't be there, perhaps I can read of Poland here. Thanks for allowing me to join in.

M.T. "Bull" Jones (KK4AXX)
Mobile, AL USA
KK4AXX   
26 Jul 2017
Travel / Thanks for the Memories Poland [5]

Thank you. Beth is quite a marvelous woman. She turned what would have been a great trip into something of mythical proportions. The Polish people are, in my opinion, the finest people on the planet. I miss them. Not a day passes that we don't talk of our experiences there and bemoan our inability to return. No kidding, if possible we would ex-pat to Poland tomorrow. What a nation!
KK4AXX   
26 Jul 2017
Travel / Thanks for the Memories Poland [5]

Yes! That's exactly how the people made us feel. We were a group of five, (me, Beth, and our youngest three children), that became six when our eldest son met us in Gdansk. He is spending a year in Poland. (I half expect a Polish daughter-in-law before he comes back to the States.)
KK4AXX   
27 Jul 2017
History / POLISH MEMORIES OF CHERNOBYL...April 26th 1986 [32]

I grew up near nuke stations in South Carolina and Pennsylvania. I was fishing across the river from Three Mile Island when it went down. I also served in a US Navy nuclear submarine (a "boomer", or missile boat). Nuclear power never scared me, (and the 'horror' stories about TMI are overblown by the anti nuke crowd). Not even when I was in the Navy and could only get a few meters from the reactor. Especially then! Even today I'd go back to sea in the oldest, most overworked boat in commission.

Chernobyl changed my outlook on nuclear power in the civilian world. The pains taken in the U.S. Navy (can't speak for other navies) to design and operate a reactor to "fail-to-safe" is unbelievable! Not so much in the civilian world. The horrors of Chernobyl and the Japanese incident have convinced me that, for civilian uses at least, we can and must do better.
KK4AXX   
18 Mar 2019
Life / Is it safe for Indians, Sikhs living here in Poland? Any Temple / Gurudwara in Wroclaw? [159]

I visited Gdansk for a week in 2017, and I'm a Sikh. Must say that the city treated my entire family wonderfully. Perhaps because my skin is white, perhaps because I'm an American, or perhaps that I tried to use as much Polish as I could pronounce.

My beard is white, and my back very slightly bent, yet had I been attacked by five or less they would have had a bad day! (Sikhs are a warrior, yet peaceful, people.) Still, this never happened. The Poles I met were more than friendly, of going out of their way to assist in any way.
KK4AXX   
18 Mar 2019
Life / Is it safe for Indians, Sikhs living here in Poland? Any Temple / Gurudwara in Wroclaw? [159]

I was warned NOT to ask a Pole "How are you?" lest you hear their entire life's story. It seems to be true! Being a people-watcher, I loved this! It also seems true of Polish veteran and serving police officers. (BTW: Are all female police officers in Poland as stunningly beautiful as those I met in Gdansk? I feared my sons would fight just to be arrested by them!)