In September 1974 after being admitted to Tehnoton HS in Iași, my father drove me there.
At the end of school after the very last class, the physics/chemistry teacher, the sexy one with miniskirt, Mrs.Mezinu, asked me where i wanted to go after school and i said there was a professional school for phone techs in a nearby town. And she went, "You, professional school? You should go to high school!" (i was second in class).
I was really submissive at the time and ready to do everything teachers or people with some authority were telling me. So was my father. Though there was a good HS in Câmpulung (called Dragoș Vodă, or Lord Dragoș, the supposed founder of Câmplung and Moldova) from where most grads were admitted to a college (again didn't know what that was at the time), i wanted to learn electronics.
My preference was to go to Bucharest, after what i saw during that filming at the National Television.
School and sometimes boarding (if you could catch room) were free of charge at all levels during communist period, but it was an 8 hours ride by train.
He went there (later he told me he also wanted to get me out of the influence of my mother) and when he came back he heard from a guy in the train about a new HS tied to the new company Tehnoton in Iași (yes they were lots of technical HS in Romania besides professional which were shorter, 3 years only all tied to companies in order to prepare workers.
School and sometimes boarding (if you could catch room) were free of charge at all levels during communist period, but it was an 8 hours ride by train.
He went there (later he told me he also wanted to get me out of the influence of my mother) and when he came back he heard from a guy in the train about a new HS tied to the new company Tehnoton in Iași (yes they were lots of technical HS in Romania besides professional which were shorter, 3 years only all tied to companies in order to prepare workers.
Iași was at about 4 hours away only. So he went and filed my application. In late June i went for an exam and passed it. Can't remember what place i was on the list i was but not among last for sure. Though i did not have a real math teacher in grade. That teacher Popescu from Câmpulung proved to be wrong.
Tehnoton HS was about electronics and electrotechnics because Tehnoton firm was building radios. I will come later with details. They also had a 3 years only professional school but a (technical) HS also kept the door opened for college while a professional school was a dead end which i really did not care about at the time.
But unlike those guys at professional, i had to pay for the food at the self serve food court (they called them canteens).
But surprise. We got there late? and they had no more room in the dorms. Father had to scramble to do something. And he went to the nearby IPL (again, coincidence, wood processing plant), it was right in the back of the HS where, again coincidence, party secretary was a guy he knew from IPL Suceava.
To me, he looked again like Botnăraș (from memory and today's POV), this time in suit with gray hair.
But unlike those guys at professional, i had to pay for the food at the self serve food court (they called them canteens).
But surprise. We got there late? and they had no more room in the dorms. Father had to scramble to do something. And he went to the nearby IPL (again, coincidence, wood processing plant), it was right in the back of the HS where, again coincidence, party secretary was a guy he knew from IPL Suceava.
To me, he looked again like Botnăraș (from memory and today's POV), this time in suit with gray hair.
Anyways. He arranged for me to stay free of charge in a building between the HS and the plant, the so called non familyist dwellings, in a room with a supervisor from the factory. They were small rooms in a concrete block building and it was right across the always stinking common restroom and showers.
He was a short guy and again he looked like a Japanese man. Titi Pancu was his name. In his 40s, he was always smiling and had this peculiar, penguin like, hypnotic walk. They were two beds but can't remember if there was a table for my homework.
I remember the first day of HS. The class master (diriginta), a very short woman with a very strong voice was in the backyard or inner side of the L shaped new building on the stairs with a list in her hand and was yelling each of our names and i said to my self, i'm screwed, she seemed very "severe". (First cut, the deepest).
When i was in Lake Oswego, many years after (2010 - 2015), i somehow ran across this video with the Romanian soprano (of Greek and Russian origin, by name), Marina Krilovici who at the time was officially "escaped from the regime" in Germany and i said must have been her, who in turn must have been Hungarian soprano Gabriella Zsigmond.
A very short woman with lots of energy, heavy smoker, Mrs. Ionică (a diminutive of my last name), her husband was an agronomic engineer working outside Iași and was missing a lot from home. And in the end she proved to be not severe at all, almost human during an inhuman regime, though she always kept a safe distance.
Enough to say in advance, during the years when she acted both as class master and Romanian language teacher (not a lot of lessons i recon, we were more like free talking in the class) she replaced (and taught us all) in conversations the title "tovarăș" (comrade) with domnul or doamna, (Mr, Mrs) usually when naming other teachers, and i think it might have spread from there in other places if not all of Romania.
And so the show at Tehnoton HS began.
One of my first memories there? One night i was in line at the canteen and they seemed to be opening late (or was i too early) and the line grew bigger and it was then when i met what was about to be my friend and mentor for the whole time, a guy named Gabriel Ringhilescu, from Ștefănești Botoșani.
Lately i started to suspect he was the actor Adrian Pintea, who was 6 years my senior.
I remember on top of the 3 steps of the stairs of the canteen door stood a guy who now by visual memory i think was a young version of Miscavige, though with black hair who was acting as the "pedagog" or the ruler of the dorm. So now i recon, if i was given a bed in that dorm, i would have been under his rule.
He kept us there long enough for me to start talking to Gaby. I remember that night we walked together on the street going all the way to Podu Roș, a nearby neighborhood in Iași, then each going to his place which to him was a newly built unfurnished empty apartment in the west of Iași and me the non familyst cramped room.
He was very friendly though i was really scared during those first days alone in Iași. I remember one thing he told me that night. His purpose there was to learn how a computer works which to me then was an enormous impossible task though over the years, i myself did achieve that goal which helps me a lot with my writings here.
He was a short guy and again he looked like a Japanese man. Titi Pancu was his name. In his 40s, he was always smiling and had this peculiar, penguin like, hypnotic walk. They were two beds but can't remember if there was a table for my homework.
I remember the first day of HS. The class master (diriginta), a very short woman with a very strong voice was in the backyard or inner side of the L shaped new building on the stairs with a list in her hand and was yelling each of our names and i said to my self, i'm screwed, she seemed very "severe". (First cut, the deepest).
When i was in Lake Oswego, many years after (2010 - 2015), i somehow ran across this video with the Romanian soprano (of Greek and Russian origin, by name), Marina Krilovici who at the time was officially "escaped from the regime" in Germany and i said must have been her, who in turn must have been Hungarian soprano Gabriella Zsigmond.
A very short woman with lots of energy, heavy smoker, Mrs. Ionică (a diminutive of my last name), her husband was an agronomic engineer working outside Iași and was missing a lot from home. And in the end she proved to be not severe at all, almost human during an inhuman regime, though she always kept a safe distance.
Enough to say in advance, during the years when she acted both as class master and Romanian language teacher (not a lot of lessons i recon, we were more like free talking in the class) she replaced (and taught us all) in conversations the title "tovarăș" (comrade) with domnul or doamna, (Mr, Mrs) usually when naming other teachers, and i think it might have spread from there in other places if not all of Romania.
And so the show at Tehnoton HS began.
One of my first memories there? One night i was in line at the canteen and they seemed to be opening late (or was i too early) and the line grew bigger and it was then when i met what was about to be my friend and mentor for the whole time, a guy named Gabriel Ringhilescu, from Ștefănești Botoșani.
Lately i started to suspect he was the actor Adrian Pintea, who was 6 years my senior.
I remember on top of the 3 steps of the stairs of the canteen door stood a guy who now by visual memory i think was a young version of Miscavige, though with black hair who was acting as the "pedagog" or the ruler of the dorm. So now i recon, if i was given a bed in that dorm, i would have been under his rule.
He kept us there long enough for me to start talking to Gaby. I remember that night we walked together on the street going all the way to Podu Roș, a nearby neighborhood in Iași, then each going to his place which to him was a newly built unfurnished empty apartment in the west of Iași and me the non familyst cramped room.
He was very friendly though i was really scared during those first days alone in Iași. I remember one thing he told me that night. His purpose there was to learn how a computer works which to me then was an enormous impossible task though over the years, i myself did achieve that goal which helps me a lot with my writings here.
I think he and possibly his protectors had a dual nature though. Officially he was sent there by some nationalist patriots nested in the Romanian Communist Party, maybe Ceaușescu himself or possibly Soviets who were crawling at the construction site of Stânca barrage near Ștefănești to teach me things i was lacking from my family, and the other was secret sabotage of the first.
Among other things, he was an expert in yoga, doing things like rolling his stomach up and down and sideways and had a sculpted body, but more in the style of ascetic monks than body builders.
Among other things, he was an expert in yoga, doing things like rolling his stomach up and down and sideways and had a sculpted body, but more in the style of ascetic monks than body builders.
He was reading good literature and gave me numerous books to read when i became his roommate in first trimester of the 2nd year. and started a passion for Romanian poets of which i translated a few poems (32) in this blog though laely it turned they were heavily influenced by occultism. Yeah who knows what would have become of me if it wasn't for him. But it all was a plan.
Was it in the second year also when we got a new teacher, of sociology, who came from a different HS to ours to teach one class a week. He once even told me, he came there especially for me (where did he know me from?). That guy, prof Manea, turned out to have been none other than the musician known to us all as Elton John and there is little doubt in my mind about it.
There are many (juicy) stories with both i will tell later, but since i am at knowing Gabriel i have to write this one now.
In the summer or fall we went together swimming in different areas of the town, sometimes joined by the guy who was also my roommate for one trimester and looked like Travolta. One glorious summer or early fall day we went at Ciric Lake and were doing turns as one would row and the other would swim behind the boat along the lake.
After that he took me to Manea's apartment in nearby Tătărași (Doi Băieți), one of the two ten stories towers there where he gave us to drink brandy and made a few sexual allusions. This is so from the beginning one would not make false ideas about who Gabi was.
But about Man_ea i was warned by the master teacher (diriginta) Ionică though i did not understand what she meant at the time. "He is crazy and he and Gabi and others want to make you crazy too" she said one day when we were alone on the street when she became emotional.
One more story about Ciric Lake. I went there with Angela after we got married and i was still a college student and again rented a boat (they were cheap to rent) and i was swimming near the boat and my wedding ring fell in the water but i caught it while it was going down, inches away from the surface (they were very expensive, like one month wages for one ring).
Was it in the second year also when we got a new teacher, of sociology, who came from a different HS to ours to teach one class a week. He once even told me, he came there especially for me (where did he know me from?). That guy, prof Manea, turned out to have been none other than the musician known to us all as Elton John and there is little doubt in my mind about it.
There are many (juicy) stories with both i will tell later, but since i am at knowing Gabriel i have to write this one now.
In the summer or fall we went together swimming in different areas of the town, sometimes joined by the guy who was also my roommate for one trimester and looked like Travolta. One glorious summer or early fall day we went at Ciric Lake and were doing turns as one would row and the other would swim behind the boat along the lake.
After that he took me to Manea's apartment in nearby Tătărași (Doi Băieți), one of the two ten stories towers there where he gave us to drink brandy and made a few sexual allusions. This is so from the beginning one would not make false ideas about who Gabi was.
But about Man_ea i was warned by the master teacher (diriginta) Ionică though i did not understand what she meant at the time. "He is crazy and he and Gabi and others want to make you crazy too" she said one day when we were alone on the street when she became emotional.
One more story about Ciric Lake. I went there with Angela after we got married and i was still a college student and again rented a boat (they were cheap to rent) and i was swimming near the boat and my wedding ring fell in the water but i caught it while it was going down, inches away from the surface (they were very expensive, like one month wages for one ring).
In the first days and weeks i was wearing a type of cheap uniform, made of the same material as for winter military clothing, though navy blue in color. It was a nasty material, irritating especially when new and would wrinkle developing large ballooned knees and thin out in time, the kind i was wearing throughout grade school. I was the only one in class wearing that and diriginta told me to tell my father to buy the more expensive one, made of "tergal".
Yes i was very tall, almost the height and weight i've been through my whole life after until i got here and became overweight. I think it was the milk i grew with we were buying from our neighbors, the Erhan family (a Turkish name, left since Turkish rule of Moldova and Bukovina).
Soon after, i think in November 1974 ex two term post revolutionary (1989) President (of Romania) Ion Iliescu was officially moved through one of those shuffle like movements (rotația cadrelor) to be the Party General Secretary at Iași where he stayed until i finished HS (another coincidence).
I think in reality he was the famous Hungarian director György Illés who directed the whole political show in Romania starting with that time or possibly earlier, until he died, it is unclear when.
I think in reality he was the famous Hungarian director György Illés who directed the whole political show in Romania starting with that time or possibly earlier, until he died, it is unclear when.
(to be continued, it will be part of a series of posts)
