Freedom & Bananas

Like a lot of people around the country, I was glued to the television on Inauguration Day. 

I was struck by how our passing of leadership, from one administration to another, goes rather smoothly when compared to some parts of the world.  While many people now debate all the little hiccups of the day, I continual to be struck by how a gracious and graceful exchange ushered out and in a new leader and accompanying administration.

When I was younger, I had a pen pal in what was the called East Germany.  She was a teacher behind the Berlin Wall.  Our letters were full of stories about work, life, and love.  I’d share my vacation adventures in Hawaii and she’s share her adventures at the Black Sea.  Despite having lots of questions to ask her about what it was like to live in East Germany, I was always very careful to say nothing that would cause her harm should the letter be read by anyone else.  I have absolutely no reason to think that our mail was censored, but my imagination ran rampant.

Years later, when the Wall was down and she moved about more often and freely, I asked her a few more specific questions about what life had been like growing up.

She said that she a change in leadership meant a tank would roll down the street and there would be military men marching in the street.  As a child she’d look out the window happy, because it meant that there would be no school that day.

When I asked her what freedom now meant to her, she said bananas and pineapples.  Behind the Wall, she said, the fruit wasn’t very good.  And now she had more shopping options and she loved the bananas and pineapples.

She and I lost touch over the years.  But on many times on Inauguration Day I thought about her several times.  Now that a unified Germany is a little more mature, I wondered what she thought about a change in leadership, and how freedom looked and felt to her now. 

On a day of historical significance, I thought about freedom and what it means to me, and has always meant to me.  And I thought about bananas and pineapple.

 

Photo credit:  wikimedia