Lessons from the Home by the Airport

TROY, N.Y. - First day at a job. Awkwardness abounds.

For reasons I can't get into I was telling two younger workers a story about my travels in Iceland. Every night at the Reykjavik Youth Hostel, I would gather with six or seven other young backpackers in the living room. Every half an hour, we would put on our hats, scarves, mittens and coats and walk around to the back of the one-story building, where there was no outside light. Then we would look up.

About 15 seconds later someone would inevitably say, "It's still cloudy," and we would head back around front and back into the living. In six days, I saw no lights.

Just then, a woman of about 65, eating a cup of yogurt at the next table spoke up. "Excuse me," she said, her wrinkled lips softly speaking the words, "Did you just say you use to live in Iceland?"

"No, sorry," I said, "I just went there on a vacation."

She didn't look sad. "I used to teach there," she said.

"I worked in Keflavik," she said, pronouncing it with deep Scandinavian guttural sounds, not the warm grandmotherly voice she uses in English.

It was the early 1960's and she was right out of teaching school. An agency that provided English teachers in Europe said if she'd go to Iceland for a year, she could have her pick of assignments the year after.

"And that didn't sound like a bad idea," she said. "I thought, 'why not.'"

She lived in a tin-roofed apartment building. She spent half her time teaching blonde Icelandic children, the other half teaching American military children. Both spoke English at the same level. Icelandic is not a very useful language, so the natives spoke several other languages.

She found the Icelanders a proud but secretive people. Her window into the culture was a young university student she met, who would take her out to parties in Reykjavik on weekends. The city was small then, but the parties were legendary.

"They can outdrink anyone," she said.

There were other perks to the job. She flew free on military planes to England and Ireland during school breaks. She got to hang out on base, eating missed American foods and hearing a familiar accent. Soon enough her "hardship post" was over, and she flew to sunny Spain, where she taught for several more years.

"I'd love to go back," she said. "You don't hear too much about it. You're the first person I met that actually decided to go on a vacation there. That's very interesting."

Adventures in Post Industrial America

GARY, Ind. - I'm hungry. I want lunch.

I pulled off Route 90 at this city of 100,000. The name sticks out in my mind, not for any one particular event but as a archetypal Midwestern city. I wanted a sandwich and a slice of Americana.

I got off at the Broadway exit, because Broadway is always at the center of the city. Turning right, city hall and the local court building were in directly ahead. They were both imposing 19th century buildings, now a dark shade of brown from age. I turned on the street next to the courthouse, incorrectly assuming it would lead to an area of restaurants and little cafés. Instead the city ended after just two blocks, replaced by a winding two-lane road and small post-war homes.

"Tammy's Ice Cream Store. Now Open." read a large sign. As I passed the building, there was a much smaller sign on the building. It said "Closed."

I came to a baseball stadium, U.S. Steel Stadium. There wasn't a game today, and the idea of cheering for a mascot as strange as steel seemed prosperous, especially at a time when commodity prices are sagging.

There were no restaurants. There were no cafes.

I saw a gas station on the right side of the road. Unleaded was $2.09 a gallon, the best I'd seen in a while. I pulled in. A homeless man walked in circles in the parking lot, glaring at people pumping gas.

"Toxic Waste Clean Up To Cost $35 Million," the local paper headline read, taking up the entire front half of the newspaper. A man in a wheelchair rolled over to the country. "I want a Butterfinger bar," he said, fishing through a plastic and Velcro wallet for $1.

I went in the bathroom. It was disgusting, a clogged toilet and a sink full of grout. When I returned, the man in the wheelchair was still asking the Butterfinger bar.

I wondered if there was any reason I should stay in this depressed steel town.

Michael Jackson is from Gary, Indiana.

I'm getting out here. Without lunch.