What exactly is a kidney worth?

It depends, doesn’t it? If it is 7:00 a.m. and your left eye refuses to open to the world and you have to be at work by 8:00, a coffee, for example, seems worth quite a bit. Right? Or that slice of pizza at lunch? Before you say it’s not worth much, does it have Graziano’s sausage on it and Iowa fresh tomatoes? See, it makes a difference. And that 15th pair of open-toed heels? Well maybe, just maybe, they are the shoes that will boost your self-confidence, that will get you the new job, that will pay for the new BMW, that requires a stop at the gas station, that results in you buying a lottery ticket, that ends up with you winning six million dollars. See, it’s a tricky business this valuation thing.

But still, what exactly is a kidney worth? Especially when you’re on dialysis twice a week and both your kidneys have failed and the replacement kidney, a wonderful gift from your cousin, has gone south also. What’s a new kidney worth to you now?

“Jaime and I for 16 years did not like each other. We were complete polar opposites. She is not a musician, I am not an athlete. Different friends, different crowds, completely different interests.”

Tim Robinson grins at me, all the way over to where I am in Holland, large on my computer screen. 34 years old. A kindergarten teacher at Capitol View in Des Moines. Young, vibrant, bursting with life. The person you want teaching your child. This is a good man doing good things.

“As adults, we discovered that we had each other. She is amazing. I’ve always looked up to Jaime, and she’s two years younger than me. She is considerably brighter and more intelligent. I made my parents proud, but I had to work to get half-way decent grades. Jaime could be anyone. She chose working with kids.”

And Jaime . . . .

“Tim and I are similar in some ways and very different in other ways. I’d say we have a realistic relationship. If someone is going to call him out in my family, it would be me.  Same with him. We have a mutual respect. We both work with kids. We share that passion.”

Jaime Robinson, also an ocean away in Des Moines, gives me a slanted smile. 32 years old. School counselor and behavior strategist at Morris Elementary in Des Moines. Smart, thoughtful, understanding. Someone you’d turn to for a cool head in a crisis. She’s a good woman doing good things.

“It hurts seeing Tim struggle. Living with kidney disease. The anxiety and stress of living with that, with what he knows is coming. It almost puts his life on hold. Your sibling knows you more than anyone else in the world. It’s hard to see his life like that. No one is going through this but him.”

Brother and sister. Sister and brother. Peas in a pod? More like an all-star wrestling tag team that will bring on the hurt — or at least get you out of kindergarten and solve your behavior issues. These are serious folks doing serious business.

So I contacted Tim and Jaime separately to find out what’s going on.

Tim, of course, is a kidney short. Disease took his first homegrown ones. His third kidney, the well-appreciated one from his cousin, lasted five years. But it’s time for a new model.

For now, dialysis is making his life work.

“I did dialysis this morning. Basically, here’s my catheter.” Tim shows me his chest catheter.

Yup, sure enough that’s a catheter on the big screen.

“So, I went in at 6:30 this morning. 6:30 until 9:10. Dialysis is cleaning my blood. There is an ‘in’ tube and an ‘out’ tube. The ‘in’ tube sucks the blood out of my body. Puts it in this machine. It cleans that blood, and then it puts it back in through the ‘out’ tube back into my body.”

Tim is grateful for dialysis. He understands there are many folks with kidney issues that dialysis saves their lives. Three times a week for the rest of their lives. But even with all his gratitude, he is more than ready to be done.

“The dialysis is hard. The nurses and technicians say to me how lucky I am to leave. I know that. Wonderful people work at the dialysis center. But to be chained to a machine is not good.”

As for Jaime . . . .

“The first time Tim needed a transplant, I knew I was a match, good enough to donate. But our cousin was a better match. I kind of figured eventually it would be something I’d be doing for him. And here we are.”

Yup, here we are.

“He would do the same for me. It is an opportunity for me that you don’t get every day to give someone their life back. It is a special opportunity for me.”

Jaime believes this, that her donation is in fact a gift to her. But she is also aware that by the time this article is published, she’ll be fresh in the hospital, one organ less, even though she is totally healthy, and it will be six to eight weeks before she completely recovers. And, to make matters a little more messy, she had a bad hospital experience not so long ago. This is complicated stuff.

So, Tim, what do you think Jaime’s kidney is worth to you?

He gives a long sigh. Too much to measure. Too much to even grasp. He explains slowly.

“How can you ever thank a person enough for something like this. She’s giving me my life back. It’s not just a kidney. It’s what the kidney represents. I owe it to her to live life to the fullest. I owe it to the people at dialysis. I owe it to the people that take care of me at Mercy. To my surgeon. To my parents. How can I ever repay Jaime? I can’t. All I can do is show her by my actions that I’m going to live the shit out of life as long as I can.”

Tim takes a breath. A fierce line has been drawn in the sand. No return and no way out. A life well-lived in exchange for a kidney. A hard bargain.

And Jaime, how about you?

A small smile curves her mouth. A twinkle comes to her eyes. This is not a good thing. I wait for it.

“Heck, maybe Tim can give me a Starbucks gift card.”

There you have it. The value of a kidney.

Joe

“I’m not waiting in any more lines.”

His voice raises uncontrollably as he faces off with the bored Paris train attendant at Gare Nord, a major railroad hub in Paris.

“I’m not going back to the end of the line. Have you ever waited in a line? Answer me. Have you ever waited in a line? Hey, I’m going right in here. Get out of my way.”

The last comes out as a shout even though he doesn’t move. The 200 or so of us waiting in the security line watch passively. Even poor behavior can’t muster too much of our interest today.

An American, for sure. The loud voice. The accent. The beefy well-dressed look of a traveling businessman. Unmistakable.

“Quiet down, buddy, you’re going to be embarrassed about this tomorrow.” But I don’t say a word.

I think of the opening and closing scenes of Love Actually — where the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport is full of love and love stories. Not so much at this railroad station in Paris on a rainy late afternoon in June. Anger Really. Now that might be a better title. Everywhere my wife and I look, couples are arguing, people are upset and frustrated by delayed trains, even the wet dogs that have wandered into the station wish they were still with the homeless guys outside. Weary travelers sit on their suitcases, heads drooped, shoulders down, resigned to living and dying in Gare Nord. These are not happy campers.

Perhaps this was foreseeable, given our earlier ride to the station on the metro . . . .

The metro near our Paris hotel is hopping busy on this rainy early afternoon. But we are game. With our backpacks cinched tight, raincoats in hand, my wife and I head down the many stairs, weave our way through the labyrinth of tunnels, rush past tiled walls, and join the streams of people flowing beneath the earth. Finally, we make it to the subway platform, a narrow space in an arched vault. A place out of the 1950’s. We made it. Whew.

Almost immediately, a rumble comes from down the long dark tunnel. The waiting people surge toward the tracks as the approaching noise gets louder and louder. The train roars into the station and abruptly stops with a loud hiss.

“All aboard,” a conductor should yell from somewhere. But there’s only an indistinguishable tinny sound coming over a loudspeaker. In French.

There is a small problem, however, that is immediately apparent — there is no room. Sorry. Every car is jammed with standing people pressed up against the walls. The doors open with an empty promise, there is just no room. No one gets off, and there is of course no additional room. We obviously must wait for another train that actually has room. Bummer, folks, this train has no room.

Ah, but for my wife and everyone else on the platform, the crowded conditions, the fact that there is absolutely no room, is merely the starter’s pistol of a challenge.

My wife used to watch Sunday football with her father when she was a young girl. She knows everything there is to know about the game. So she follows the lead of every good quarterback with one yard to go. She heaves herself into the mass of people at the door, backpack high, head down, looking for the open slot. What determination. What drive. The crowd goes wild. And the door shuts, barely creasing her backpack. She makes it in the nick of time. Success. A touchdown for the good guys.

Well, almost.

I never understood football. What exactly is a halfback? And do they have to do additional schooling and maybe a special diet to grow into a fully fledged fullback? Are tight ends fiscally conservative? Do nose tackles ever tackle any other part of the body? Listen, I know a lot of other really good man stuff, no matter what my wife says, but football? Not so much.

Yup, you guessed it, I’m on the wrong side of the door. Left behind. It’s one of those slow-motion tragedies.

My wife turns too late to see my plight. We have a sad reaching out of hands towards each other, as fate inevitably pulls us apart, to live out our destinies with new families, always wondering what could have been. She stares intently, perhaps trying to memorize my face, as the train whooshes away, cold to the drama playing inside this metro station in the heart of Paris.

Now usually this is when the curtain drops, you take the rest of your popcorn, and try to find your car in the parking lot.

But for me, I have no popcorn. I really don’t know where she’s getting off. Our phones don’t work below ground. All I know is that we have to eventually show up at Gare Nord sometime before the day is over.

What to do?

This is one of those pivotal moments in your life where you have a real option. You turn one way, and you are a good citizen of Des Moines, Iowa, responsible, hard-working, raising a family, buying only from the organic section at Hy Vee. You turn the other way, and you are doing cabaret with your shoulders bare and feet high at the Moulin Rouge. I’m leaning toward the Moulin Rouge option.

But then I sit on the bench at the empty platform. It is dead quiet. No people. No train. No nothing.

And I sit.

And I sit.

And I get on the next train.

Several stops down the line was a spot we had talked about getting off to see a little more Paris. Nothing definite. Just a thought.

I get off. There’s my wife.

There’s a particular joy in being found. A speeding of the heart. A quickening of the soul. I see you. You see me. Everything is all right with the world.

Partners find you. Children find you. Family finds you. Friends find you. Dogs and cats find you. I think even a place can find you.

I was found.

But what about the angry American at Gare Nord? We ignored him. The train attendant ignored him. Paris ignored him. No one found him.

Although maybe luck found him, because he never got to act on his blustery threat to bust through the security line at Gare Nord. The train arrived, the security guards must have figured they could not get a security check done in time for everyone to make the train, and the gates were flung open. No security check. No line. A free-for-all.

The angry American, being at the very front where he was yelling at the bored train attendant, was the first on.

Joe

The Paris waiter stands immobile at the top of the sidewalk. Tall. Imposing. White shirt, black vest, white waiter’s arm cloth, black bowtie, white apron, black shoes. Everything is where it should be. His right arm tucked behind his back and left arm bent to drape his white arm cloth, ready to wipe a spill or wrap a bottle of wine. Cars speed behind him. He is unimpressed. This is his show. Eventually, a customer’s finger raises, a head nods, a glass is emptied. And the waiter, with measured dignity, not too fast — not too slow, comes to the table. Silently. Competently.

“Oui, monsieur?”

“Gunmen have shot dead 12 people at the Paris office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in an apparent militant Islamist attack.” BBC News, January 7, 2015. 

“The Paris area reeled Friday night from a shooting rampage, explosions and mass hostage-taking that President Francois Holland called an unprecedented terrorist attack on France.” The New York Times, November 13, 2015. 

“Rapidly rising storm waters across Paris have forced thousands of people out of their homes, while museums scramble to protect world-famous artworks and artifacts from the worst flooding seen in decades, officials say.” CNN June 3, 2016.

Shortly after midnight, warm light spills out of the Cafe de Flore. The heat lamps, high above the outdoor tables, can be felt all the way to the chilly sidewalk on Boulevard St. Germain. Giddy with the beauty of Paris, my wife and I are unwilling to let the night end. And of course there are those heat lamps and the lovely waiter and perhaps another glass of wine.

“Monsieur and Madame, of course you can have that table.” The waiter from the sidewalk responds to my bumbling French with a wide sweep of his arm, a ready smile, and good English. It’s late. Near closing time. The waiter must want to go home. But we are invited to stay. Really?

Cafe de Flore is a landmark cafe in the Paris scene. It is the old stomping grounds of Picasso, Hemingway, Sartre, de Beauvoir. Even today, it sponsors it’s own yearly literary award with a prize worthy of someone who enjoys the pleasures of life — 6000 euros and a glass of a fancy white wine at the cafe every day for a year. The reviewers say it is impossible to get a seat at Cafe de Flore because it is wildly popular as a Parisian  hangout. And be warned, they say, the waiters can be a bit snooty. “Aloof” is the word they use. “Best to speak French,” they all caution with some trepidation.

So we sit down at closing time at the Cafe de Flore, unaware of the traps and dangers and  unsophisticated things we might do.

“How about a creme brûlée to go with our wine?” I ask our waiter. Not in French.

The waiter stands before us. Respectful. Quiet. Smiling. There will be no introductions. There will be no inquiries about our day. Nothing will be said about the weather. He will never ask if we like the food. And I will guarantee that nothing will be written on the tablecloth in crayon. He is simply there to serve. This guy’s a pro.

“I always try to makes happy my customers, try to feel their moods. Some want to be quiet reading their books or working. Some want to come to have fun. Some pick up the same newspaper everyday. Some want their coffee very hot — so we put hot water in the cup before we serve. Some want their bread toasted at the same time as the coffee. Some want their orange juice filtered. These are many of the small details that makes the difference.”

Dany Sou, our waiter, is giving me a lesson in what it means to be a Paris waiter at Cafe de Flore.

“Cafe de Flore.” Sou brightens. “You can work in many different restaurants as part of the trade, but when you’re in Cafe de Flore, it is like you’ve never worked before in a restaurant. It is like a lot of small details. Like these are digestifs for outside. The plate is white for the outside. Silver for the inside. It is all small details. It is like a body, right?  It is like, I don’t know how to explain this, like this lady’s body is moving all the time and you have to respond.”

A moving woman’s body? Did he just say that?

Cafe de Flore is a professional waiter’s dream. “You start at small restaurants with two table and you finish at Cafe de Flore,” says Sou. People come for the waiters, all are hired for their personality. And the feelings of attachment are strong. “I love this place.” Sou says.

So, Dany Sou, what about the terrorism and the flooding and all the angry, scared people, doesn’t that change the Paris of old, even for a waiter?

It is also time for us to go. Sou shakes our hands. Why not? A large smile appears.

“You like Paris, I’m very happy.”

We smile back, also happy, and head off down the softly lit boulevard.

Of course, Paris is easy to like. Who doesn’t?  But a Paris waiter at Cafe de Flore after a hard year? The creme brûlée at the end of a long summer evening.

Joe

Do you have a moment today? I know you’re awfully busy. But why don’t you walk under the Crusoe Umbrella. That’s right, it’s downtown in Cowles Commons. No, it won’t be weird. In fact, you might be pleasantly surprised. Trust me.

Cologne. Up from the river we stroll in Cologne. Away from the renovated river walk, with its shops and restaurants. Past the early morning joggers with their early morning religious intensity. In front of the young couple pushing a stroller, where the reason for their forced march is happily sound asleep. Around the old man and old woman, with their aged hands sliding together in well-warn grooves. And above us, seagulls squawk, a foghorn moans, church bells ring. Yup, all is as it should be in on this Sunday morning on the river.

The Rhine flows Missouri River fast. Already barges are moving past the docked cruise boats, barely noticing the massive Cathedral on the banks. But we leave it all behind. Past museums and closed cafes and shuttered shop after shop, we search for a cappuccino. We are just too early. So up the valley we go.

Life slowly begins to unfold. Tables and chairs are unchained at the cafes and placed out for the upcoming crowd. The sound of shutters being cranked open echo down the cobblestone streets. The shop owners with their straw brooms sweep away items thrown by the wind or the drunks. We keep walking.

And then my wife says, “Look up, Joe.”

My oh my. A giant ice cream cone. Fallen from the clumsy hands of some careless god. It’s actually dripping down the side of a building. Unbelievable.

Rotterdam. The rain crests, then washes across the plain in front of the Rotterdam train station in a whoosh. It drenches the folks running just steps from the door. I watch from inside. Glad to be dry. This station is built like the prow of a gigantic ship. It’s not inconceivable that the building will unmoor itself and just float away on this rainy day in the Netherlands. It doesn’t.

I head in the rain towards the museum, maybe a mile down the main canal. Within a block, my jeans are bleeding bluish water, my feet float freely in my tennis shoes, and the attached hat on my raincoat has turned into the Saylorville Reservoir. I’m damp. I’m chilled. And I’m thinking about heading back to the train station. But when I look up through the mist, all I can see are those indomitable Dutch. They stroll hatless, hair wet, rain running in rivers down their cheeks — and affecting an infuriating nonchalance. I decide to move to Boone.

At last I reach the museum. As I’m trying to find the entrance, I’m reminded of the quirkiness of life. Yup, the sun comes out. I don’t smile. But then, straight ahead, a gigantic screw, bent, touching the ground. Really? Is someone messing around? This could be a sculpture memorializing every one of my failed home-improvement projects. Did my wife commission this? I’m in awe.

Des Moines. Des Moines has been sweltering hot, the newspapers say. Bad for the folks fishing the rivers and bad for the mid-day strollers along the river paths. Those paths were my old running and walking grounds. No cooling breezes came up the rivers in those days. I suspect they still don’t. But vendors would set up on the other side of the Civic Center and I would buy treats and lounge in the shadow of a crazy gigantic umbrella.

The Crusoe Umbrella. Tipped on its side. Questionable in a rainstorm. Reliable in a strong wind. A vision of whimsy, particularly when packed in snow. It’s truly Des Moines.

Okay, enough of all these sculptures around the world. Who’s doing this? Who made the Crusoe Umbrella? Who made the ice cream cone? And who made that bent screw?

And, since you’re asking, who made the Meredith trowel also in Des Moines? And the spoon and cherry in Minneapolis? And the shuttlecocks in Kansas City? And the bow and arrow in San Francisco? And the saw in Tokyo? And the lion’s tail in Venice? And the needle and thread in Milan? And the spring in South Korea? And the bottle of notes in England? And the match cover in Barcelona? And . . . on and on and on.

Yup, you guessed it, it’s our old friends Claes Oldenburg and his now sadly departed wife Coosje van Bruggen. They built the Crusoe Umbrella 37 years ago. Yup, it is both a beginning and an end. You can stand under the umbrella in Cowles Commons and taste the ice cream in Cologne, turn the screw in Rotterdam, light the matches in Barcelona, shoot the bow in San Francisco, and be back for supper. The threads of culture.

Isolationism? Build a wall? Ban a people? It’s too late to keep anyone out.

As for keeping our sons and daughters in, Robinson Crusoe said:

“When I took leave of the island, I carried on board for relics, the great goat-skin cap I had made, my umbrella, and one of my parrots.”

Mmmm, I can see him or her now, our young high school graduate from North or Roosevelt or Hoover or East or Dowling, umbrella clutched tight, goat-skin cap pulled down, parrot scolding energetically, as the whole menagerie heads east on Grand Avenue for the Interstate, following the outbound threads of Oldenburg’s and Van Bruggen’s creation.

Trust me. All this happens from walking under the umbrella.

Joe

The 160 acres of black dirt was near Stratford, Iowa. Corn and beans and cattle and chickens and a large garden made up my grandpa’s farm back in those days. I would wake before the sun and he would take me to the landing by the side door, where we dressed in coveralls and old coats and billed caps and dirty gloves and heavy rubber boots. Then across the road to the cattle barn. The old windmill creaked and groaned in the dark as my grandpa went to let the cattle out. And my job as a little boy? To break the ice in the water trough that had formed during the night as the windmill pumped the gurgling water.

He was small and grizzled and tough, my grandpa. And when I was older, he talked to me of the beauty of dark-haired, dark-eyed women. A song of joy, which I heard in my head against the creaking and moaning of the old mill as the wind slowly turned the blades high overhead. A cadence to set your life by.

It was like yesterday.

Today I bike along the cobbled streets near the North Sea in Holland, unhappy with the wind. It is a little strong. Okay, more than a little strong. This is not a gentle breeze pushing at your back with the smell of fresh-cut hay. Nope. I know this because my thousand-pound Dutch bike has the amazing ability to act as a wind sock by always pointing directly into a sturdy wind no matter which way I go or how calm the day. It is a scientific wonder that brings tears to my eyes.

No, I’m not happy with the North Sea wind. It sees way too much when it blows around with its inappropriate intimacies and unrelenting advances. And it’s fickle. One moment it’s bracing you up, the next moment it’s pushing you flat on your back. Yup, even on those days when it curls into your ear with a tickle, you know it will soon push you off balance with a whoosh.The North Sea wind is not your friend.

Okay, that might be a little harsh. There is another side, of course.

One-third of Holland’s land is taken from the sea. Yup, it used to be under water. Tulips now grow where the herring swam. Today, the wind blows over sand and black peat and the Red Light District rather than crashing waves and high surf. And why is that?

The picturesque windmill. A man-made device created to do the impossible — capture the wind and tame the water.

A little history. One of the first mills in Holland was in use around 1200 A.D., according to Windmills of Holland. Like most early mills, it was used to mill corn. But before long, the mills were used to drain the land, to move water from canal to canal, and, most importantly, to keep the sea over on its proper side of town.

“You have to be up there before the bad weather starts. Because if you’re up there when it is already happening, then you’re too late.”

Gently smiling. A husky laugh. Measuring eyes. Danielle Boer has worked at this active windmill and museum in Leiden — “Molen Museum De Valk” — for the past 24 years. She speaks three languages fluently, and understands three more. Today she speaks in English of the peril of bad weather hitting the windmill while the sails are out.

“It happened to me once that I was too late. The windmill starts to turn backwards. That isn’t good.”

When Boer speaks of going “up there before the bad weather starts,” she means UP THERE. Seven stages up. She climbs the many steep steps, then she goes out on a platform and grabs a gigantic pirate wheel to turn the sails, lock them down, and roll up the cloth.

“When I applied for the job, I had to climb into one of the wings to see if I was afraid of heights. And that’s what I did. And I’m not, no.”

I am, yes. But at the prodding of my sister-in-law, who’s also afraid of heights but braver than me, we went to investigate.

The stairs between stages are made for a Sherpa. Steep and narrow, a joke for my size 14 shoes. We climb past the ancient hoists, the main axle, the gigantic cogged wheels, the milling stones, the sacks of flour, the tools for repair. Up and up and up. At last we arrive at the platform. Stepping outside the mill, we can see over the city of Leiden. We smile with joy . . . until we both look down through the wide spaces between the floor planks. We can’t breathe. My sister-in-law kindly says, “Don’t look down.” Too late I’m afraid. We are at the highest point in any direction. This is not a comforting thought.

But then I look up at the gigantic framework for the sails. My goodness. The wings, the length of my body several times over, reach up into the sky. A raised arm into the heavens. Ready to take flight at the merest puff.

Those same wings capture the wind. Tie it down in their sails, carry it through the bearings and windshaft, past the brake wheel, down the main axle, to finally force the wind to turn the stone that grinds the meal, or cuts the wood, or makes the cloth, or lifts the very ocean off the land. Victory. The captured wind saves the day.

As I gaze into the sky, I feel something against my cheek. Whispering. Feathery light. A breezy reminder. The wind.

And I am soon lost in the cadence of the slowly turning creak and moan of an old Iowa windmill and my grandpa’s song of the beauty of dark-haired, dark-eyed women. It is a time long gone and a man long dead. But there it is, sneaking up out of the past. An Iowa reverie high in the Dutch air.

Okay, maybe the North Sea wind is your friend.

By the way, you might ask what my grandpa would think about these blond-haired, blue-eyed Dutch women?

Well, it was only years later, when he was 98 and both of us bachelors living together for a short time, that I discovered an important truth. According to my grandpa, all women, no matter the color of their hair or eyes, are dark-haired and dark-eyed. Obviously.

So, enough talk, now how do I get down from here?

Joe

Listen, I don’t have an actual gift. And of course I missed both parties. Not to mention seeing them walk across the stage. But I’m an ocean away as my friends’ boys graduate from Roosevelt High School in Des Moines. It’s a big deal. Will and Henry Gunderson and Eli Dotson are their names.

I’m the first to admit I’ve really never been part of their lives. But I was there at the beginning for the Gunderson boys. A wild time was had with those twins (and the third brother who followed so quickly he could have been holding their heels at birth). Those tiny babies took my friend to the mat. Hard. But she survived with grace and style. And my other friend’s boy of course had a health scare early on. Every family gets one it seems. But I wonder if the gods counted on my friend’s fierceness? I don’t think so. They won’t underestimate her again. Of course all the boys thrived. How could they not when they were wrapped in laughter and love? And now they’ve graduated from high school. Bright stars all.

But what now?

I have three stories to tell them.

The first is sobering as all first stories should be. While walking around Sarajevo, my wife and I came across a statute of man with hands cupped around his mouth, calling to someone. The statute was in a beautiful park that had been partially turned into a cemetery, as most open land was turned into in this town that was under siege for an entire war. He seemed out of place. Something was wrong about this statute being here. The grey and the mud and the hollow eyes were more of death than life.

My wife knew the story already, had reviewed the actual Serb video. But I read the sign posted off to the side. The man’s name is Ramo. He is in Srebrenica on July 11th,1995. He is a Bosnian Muslim. He has been captured by the Christian Serbs. He is calling to his son Nermin to come out of the hills and surrender to the Serbs. He is shouting that they will not harm him, that all will be well.

And Nermin comes out of the hills.

The end of the story is not hard to guess, especially when you know that hate loves to cloak itself in piety and nationalism and justice. The posted sign states:

“Exhumation teams found Ramo and his son Nermin in a mass grave near Srebrenica.”

The middle story is about work and family, as the middle has to be. It takes place in Holland. I was walking the cobblestone streets of Haarlem with my sister-in-law when we came upon a wonderful old bookstore hidden among store fronts from the 1500’s. The smell of ancient books and clutter and musk wafted out the door. A heady brew.

“I have been in this book store 50 years. It is a long time.”

Paul Vernout is thin and wiry and grey and tall. A long crease on each side of his face runs from the middle of his nose to his mouth. His chin is firmly set. A high, lined forehead and large, observant eyes peer out of glasses. A character out of a novel.

“It is a nice bookstore. I am a big reader about history and art and about Haarlem.”

Vernout smiles for the first time. He is unsure of his English. Clearly, he is exactly where he belongs. Happy among his books. In love with his work. My guess is that he will die standing behind the counter.

How did this job start for you?

“I was 21 when I started.”

And your father?

“My father worked here.”

Really? And his father?

“My grandfather worked here.”

Are you being serious? And his father?

“My great-grandfather worked here.”

Enough.

May I take a picture of you?

“Ahhhh . . . not important.”

Of course it isn’t when you’re one in a long chain of family and work and love. Or is it?

The last is about dreams as last stories ought to be. This time in Lille, France. We stumble upon a shop displaying hats of mesh and silk and ribbons and weaves and banana leaves and wool. Amazing creations. My wife and her sister are soon oohing and ahhing and trying on hat after hat. Sarazin Chapeaux the business is called.

So, Nathalie Sarazin, how did this start?

“My family with me and brother, we lived in the same rooms, and my father is the first to have a suit for work. I was three or four years old. I brought a pair of scissors and I cut the trousers because I imagined how the trousers should be. My father and mother say it was a little twisted. They give me the next day to see the doctors.”

Sarazin apologizes for her English, which is lightyears beyond my French, and then slowly smiles at the memory of her creative work on her dad’s suit pants.

And what did the doctors say?

“The doctors was saying, ‘No, she is not mad. But she has to play with the cloth.’”

So, after years of schooling and study and apprenticeship — “playing with the cloth” as the doctors ordered — Sarazin was ready to open her own hat shop.

“Once I had 23-24 age, I said I wanted to make the hats for myself. My father said ‘no’ because not enough money.”

Sarazin forged ahead anyway. Now, years later, Sarazin makes hats for the various queens of Belgium, for the children of the King of Spain, and, yup, even Princess Caroline of Monaco. And let’s not forget you and me.

And what of your father?

“My father does not think I’m mad any more.”

There you go, boys. Take the stories for what you want. They’re yours. A gift from me to you.

And now?

Don’t ask me. Go write your own stories.

Joe

“Where do you come from?” the young copper artists in Sarajevo asked.

My wife and I told them.

“But where in the United States?” they insisted.

We went into our typical patter that goes something like this: “A small state in the middle of the country called Iowa, it’s near Chicago, and a town in the middle of that state that you probably never heard of called Des Moines.”

The young copper artists of Sarajevo smiled as if we were all old friends.

“Oh, Slipknot.”

Really?

Listen, I have not heard much English spoken all day, the other visiting tourists are clearly not from Western Europe or America, I just heard my first-ever call to prayer from the mosques, and our young copper artists are perched in a tiny shop on a narrow cobblestone street in the heart of the oldest old town I’ve ever visited. And they’re Bosnian.

Of course they know Slipknot, the iconic heavy metal group from Des Moines. Why not?

Earlier we had wandered up through the old town. Eyes wide, mouths open, amazed.  “Bascarsija” the old town is called, a wonderful foreign name of hidden promises and intrigue, with narrow streets that curve and wind around shops and outdoor cafes and flow with people.

A bazaar of delights.

Here’s a jewelry street with fine silver and gold displayed in locked cases behind narrow windows, where you have to duck down to get through the shop owner’s door, only to find a secret cave of precious jewels.

And over there are shops selling hundreds of colorful rugs, draped on the floors and walls like the set of an old Hollywood movie about a Persian prince and a lonely American widow. I suggest to my wife that I am the Persian prince. She suggests that she is comfortable remaining the grieving widow.

And here’s a street full of the delicious smell of lamb and goat roasting over large pits of coal and wood. Head and legs still present. A salivating vegetarian’s losing dilemma.

And bakeries with circular Bosnian bread, miraculously airy and chewy and salty, stacked on shelfs like wood at a lumberyard. My idea of heaven.

Ah, and the copper shops.

Copper shops can be found all over Sarajevo. An ancient tradition that comes out of Persia. But the old town has an entire narrow street devoted to copper artists. And the most common item in these copper shops? A copper coffee container with a long handle that is used to hold the thick, dark, Bosnian coffee, a beverage that can give you a quick sense of purpose.

Our young copper artists, fans of Slipknot, just opened up shop on the side of a hill near this copper street. Admir and Suljaman are their names. Thirty-three and thirty years old. They have been copper artists for 15 years.

“We started 10 days ago in this spot. We are growing,” Suljaman says.

His partner, Admir, watches us talk with his soft, dark eyes that obviously know too much. Their narrow little shop is brand new. The young men decided it was time to make a go of it. They are both hard working and Suljaman is impatient with the many young people who are unemployed in Sarajevo.

“To live here is okay. If you want to work, you have a living. Most people want a salary immediately. Come on. Work. If you want to work, you have to work. If you don’t work, you don’t have nothing.”

Suljaman is tired of the complaints. But his voice changes midstream . . . .

“Most of the people are poor, really poor. Most of the people don’t have anything. They have no social help.”

How do they survive?

“I don’t know. Really, I don’t know.” He shakes his head sadly.

Admir is etching a plate during our conversation. Intent. Focused. Tourists trickle into the narrow shop. Suljaman works the crowd with a large smile and colorful language. Slang comes easily to his tongue. An aging skateboarder it turns out.

But the 1992-1995 war is never far.

“I had seven years when the war started. We both stayed in Sarajevo. I was in the worst part of town, Down near the airfields. It was weird. But at the same time for me as a kid it was a new thing. What the hell is going on? Now when I look back it is bizarre how we even survived. I think 10,000 children died in Bosnia.”

But Suljaman has no patience for the politics or the religious divides that were drawn by the war.

“Hey, Suljaman, are you Muslim?” He mimics a question from the crowd. “No, I’m a human!” he shouts back to himself.

Admir finishes his etching and gives us his work. With several gifts tucked in our purchases, and the last swallow of Bosnian coffee, we basketball-handshake our goodbye.

Down the valley that is Sarajevo we go, along the river that divides the city. The sun shines brightly as rain clouds skirt the ringing mountains. Families walk along the river. Children race ahead of mom and dad. Well-dressed grandparents stroll, arm in arm, with heads bent slightly forward. Lovers nudge each other with their open secret. Laughter and shouts and conversation drift down the banks of the shallow water and circle back up.

And in the distance I see a young man. Yellow and black sweatshirt. I approach his back, tap him on the shoulder, and introduce myself as from Iowa.

With a broad grin, Amar Karisik, resident of Sarajevo, cousin of Adi Feriz and Azra Feriz, residents of Urbandale, Iowa, says in a thick accent and a loud voice.

“GO HAWKEYES.”

Mmmm . . . they are us.

Joe

“Honestly, officers, I just forgot it was there.”

Words I have heard many a guilty criminal utter as they are hauled away to jail.

The five-inch, copper-cased bullet was wrapped in soft tissue paper and buried among the copper coffee grinders, the copper pan, the copper plate, and miscellaneous other souvenirs of our travels, which were all carefully placed inside shirts and sweaters and socks and underwear, deep in my backpack.

The bullet was retrieved from the foothills of the war, the copper maker had told us, and then converted into a pen. No kidding. Into our bag of copper items he placed it when I asked what it was. No charge, a gift from him to us. Which I promptly forgot.

A bullet from Sarajevo.

Unfortunately, the Austrian guard scanning my backpack at the airport in Vienna was not impressed with the copper maker’s kindness. Soon other officers were swabbing the linings of my belongings for gunshot residue and asking me to raise my arms and spread my legs for a much more thorough search.

How did this happen?

Surrounded by mountains, Sarajevo is the picture of a cosmopolitan city tucked away from the outside world, safe and secure. High fashion, art, the winter Olympics, a world-renowned film festival, all were here. To this day, a place where within a couple of blocks are a Croatian Catholic church, a Serbian Orthodox church, a Bosnian Muslim mosque, and a Jewish synagogue. And everybody accepted everybody. And everybody married everybody. And everybody got along. At least as well as people get along most places.

But then war. Under siege from 1992 to 1995 (officially ended in February of 1996), Sarajevo faced daily sniper fire, modified air bombs, mortar attacks, you name it. It is reported that on some days, up to 10,000 shells fell on the city. Market places were blown up. Bread lines were bombed. Rescue workers were shot. Fathers died. Mothers died. Children died. No food, no water, no heat. It was the longest siege in the history of modern warfare. It was horrific in every way imaginable.

My wife, working for the prosecution in the cases against several of those accused of crimes in this war, brought me to a high overlook of the city. It appeared that someone had spilled white paint down our end of the valley. A spill that ran meanderingly into the city in a lazy flow. A white spill of Muslim graves. Most killed in 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995. Born somewhere in the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s. Grave after grave. A generation gone.

And there were other Muslim graves in many empty spots around the city. Graves springing up around corners, down streets, across from a new shopping mall, past the burek stall, on the other side of the copper artists. No ground seemed untouched from the consequences of the bomb and the mortar and the Bosnian Serb sniper firing from the hills.

Ironically, given today’s politics of hatred against Muslims, it was Orthodox Christian Bosnian Serbs who were killing innocent Bosnian Muslim civilians riding the tram, or going to the market, or crossing the street. Yup, Christians killing Muslims.

The sniping in Sarajevo was particularly horrible. Judge Robinson, with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, talked in one opinion about the sniping in Sarajevo:

“John Jordan [a Rhode Island fireman who on his own volunteered to fight fires in Sarajevo while it was under siege — really???!] responded to a number of incidents over the years in Sarajevo where one member, often the youngest member of a family was shot. It was his view that, here I quote, ‘When you’re targeting civilians like this, particularly families, who may or may not be Muslim, shooting the child has the effect of literally disembowelling the whole family.'”

The taxi driver told us in a tour-guide voice, “And here is Sniper Alley.” An open spot of beauty that ran down the picturesque river that cuts the valley. And over there, gorgeous old buildings reflecting on their walls the war years of shrapnel and gunfire. 35,000 buildings were completely destroyed during the siege. Most buildings carry some scar.

And here is the bridge where Admira Ismić and Boško Brkić were shot by sniper fire in 1993, which resulted in the documentary, Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo. One a Bosnian Serb and one a Bosnian Muslim. They had been assured a safe exit from the city. He was killed immediately. She, also shot, crawled to his body, wrapped her arms around him, and died. Their bodies lay for four days on the bridge.

Then my wife pointed out the faded, red spots on the concrete. The Sarajevo Roses. Red resin filled cracked concrete and asphalt where mortars had landed, bringing death and injury to all around. Reminders of man’s inhumanity. God doesn’t rain down hell fire, we do. I wanted to throw up.

But then I noticed other Sarajevo Roses. They’re there. Behind the church corner. In front of that building down the block. Next to the market. You’ll see them. But they are fading. The red is gradually disappearing. The trams and cars and trucks and people are slowly wearing down the violence of the past. The city is rebuilding. New construction is happening. The great smells of Bosnian food cooked over wood fires and the buzz of the people is everywhere in the market. Young men and women speak of dreams and plans and a future. Things are on the move.

“So, why would you sell a pen made out of a bullet from the war?” I ask the copper maker. “Isn’t it horribly tragic? Isn’t it just a reminder?”

He doesn’t pause to argue the economy of the marketplace. Instead, he smiles and states, “It is better to write love letters than killing people.” And he slips it into our purchases.

I do not offer this explanation to the Austrian airport police, who, already shaking their heads at my stupidity, sternly return my belongings and send me on my way.

And I board my plane with my backpack lightened, of course, by one of the last vestiges of a horrible war — a bullet from Sarajevo.

Joe

Next week — Sarajevo, Slipknot, and the Hawkeyes.

“There are multiple ways of cleaning a herring. What I do is chop the head off, chop the belly off, make sure the skin’s off, the fins are off. Then I’m opening the herring by putting my thumb under the back spine, and then I clean the belly and take the organs out. My herring is done and ready to eat.”

Really? Is this evoking some warm and cozy Iowa memory for you? Nope, me neither. In my family, all eight kids sat around the supper table, pushing and shoving and bickering, waiting for the food to appear on a meatless Friday. My mom, in a patterned house dress and full apron, tiredly pulled open the oven door where the sizzling grease announced the arrival of a product found nearer to a factory than an ocean — the lowly fish stick. Considered a welcome relief from tuna noodle casserole, and greeted with high enthusiasm in my family, we fought over the last dried-out stick. And, by the way, this “fish product” had not a hint of a head or fins and certainly not an organ or two. Well, at least not visible.

But that is not Marie-Claire David’s experience.

“I was 18 years old and I needed a job. I was starting University. My dad said I found you a job, go out and apply at the fish shop. I went there and there was all men behind the counter. So I said, ‘I heard there was a vacancy here for Saturdays. Do you still need people?’ They looked at me like they saw fire burning. And I said, ‘So do you need anybody?’ They said, ‘Ya, you can start tomorrow if you like.’ Okay. From that day on I was unstoppable in fish.”

Customers are streaming into the fish shop as we talk. The shop is close to the harbor in the old fishing area of Scheveningen in The Hague, and is well-known to people who love the best fresh fish.

“The fish are purchased for the shop every day. Saturday is our most busy day. The family man is going out on Saturday to get the fresh fish to cook for Saturday evening because it is the weekend and his wife does not have to cook. But on the weekdays, it is all mommas.”

David pauses with a suppressed smile.

“That’s why I don’t have a husband or boyfriend, the men all coming on Saturday, I only see mommas the rest of the time.”

A low throaty laugh. Her eyes are actually twinkling with fun. Mmmm . . . I’m thinking she’s not lacking in suitors.

I tell David I only see men actually cutting and selling fish in the fish shops.

“The world of fish is really a man’s world. The ego. The ego is to the ceiling. As a woman, she needs to find a way in this circus. In my opinion, I did well. By being as a woman in the team, the men get softer. I am the catalyst — is that a good word? — for less ego in the team.”

Do you have a specialty?

“My specialty is selling. I can sell in an enormous way. Also, fast in a good way. While selling, I’m wrapping the fish in the most beautiful paper, with my words to the customer and with a smile on my face. People go out and enjoy their fish that they bought with a happy feeling. It is a mental way of pleasure doing groceries. That is what I provide. Nice chat, they go out with a smile, and the most beautiful fish that they eat tonight.”

And what about herring?

“Herring is one of my specialties. Herring season is coming up. At half of June the boats are coming in. 50 years ago, we had the only herring boats here in Scheveningen. From the whole Netherlands. Very important import/export. Now it comes from Norway and Denmark. Caught on the boats. Put in buckets and freeze at -18° Celsius. It goes back to shore and is exported all over the world. The last two years no official herring boats anymore in Scheveningen. The North Sea needs to recover. For now it’s done. That is better for the herring.”

Although not better for this poor guy I’m about to put in my mouth. I can’t stall much longer.

So how do I eat this?

“In every city in Holland they have another way of eating herring. So let’s start in Scheveningen. In Scheveningen, they grab the fish cleaned, on the tail, and they take a bite like this. Guts out, head off, no skin. No onions. Hold the tail and take a bite.”

I hold the slimy tail expectantly, my fingers having a difficult time getting a grip, then I clear my throat and . . . find out I’m not quite ready to take the plunge.

And how do they eat them elsewhere?

“When you eat a herring in Amsterdam, they always chop it up in pieces with onions and sour, pieces of pickles, and they add it on the herring chopped in pieces, and you eat it with a fork.”

Clearly, from the tone of David’s voice, Amsterdam can add this to one of many reasons it suffers as an inferior destination.

Anyplace else?

“In Rotterdam, they have the herring, they grab the tail with both hands and they split it in half, so that means that you have some kind of double pleasure, I guess. Why? I don’t know, but it is from Rotterdam.”

Of course, who can explain the actions of a small misbehaving child like Rotterdam? I nod in agreement.

So David demonstrates the right way to do it, the Scheveningen way — no onions, no pickles, tilt your head back, grab the tail tight enough that it doesn’t slip and poke out your eye, and take a bite.

And I do the same.

It is surprisingly textured, salty, mildly chewy, and not in the least reminiscent of breaded fish sticks.

I swallow with a large gulp. I have a quick sense of relief at surviving a death-defying adventure — but then I have the awful realization that there is a lot of slippery fish left. I panic and struggle for a way out.

“What about those Hawkeyes?” I am tempted to blurt out.

Okay, that may not be my best go-to for a rescue in a foreign land, but, heck, what would you do? I’ve got it.

“Boy, the corn sure is tall for this time of year.”

That doesn’t work either. My Iowa small talk does not provide an answer.

Ah, I have it, “You look really Dutch,” I actually say.

She laughs, shakes her head, and clearly wonders about crazy Americans.

“Joe, that is because I am Dutch.”

I shut up, tilt my head back, and take another bite.

Joe

Iowa cornfields in late August are a thing to behold. Sure, I’m biased. I love the long formations of parading stalks, their dark green leaves turned dry and hard by the approaching autumn, their tops swaying and rolling in unison with the warm winds, and, of course, their whispering, as hundreds of leaves touch hundreds of leaves, sharing secrets with each other, and, I imagine, making a few slanderous remarks. The promise of a good harvest comes with the smell of dry dirt and the retreating sounds of the Iowa State Fair. A cornfield in late August is a delight.

Ah, but a tulip field in early spring . . . .

Two weeks of cold and rain slowed the tulip blooms in Holland. Every day I bike for groceries with rain jacket pulled tight, stocking cap low to the eyes, gloves soaked to the skin, jeans sponging up the rain, and tennis shoes smelling more and more like wet basement. The Dutch don’t seem to care. Hats and gloves are for people of southern climates. Hundreds of bikes on the streets in the sun and warmth.  Hundreds of bikes on the streets in the rain and cold. Children, face forward in the front child seat, round cheeks bright red, water dripping off their chins, make not a complaint. They are bred to endure.

But even the Dutch are looking to the sky for a glimmer of sun this wet and cold spring.

Today, the clouds have vanished, the temperatures have climbed into the high 50’s, and the tulip blooms stretch high and wide. The bike trail my wife and I ride edges the fields in the countryside around Lisse in the Netherlands. The heart of tulip country.

Everywhere the blooms feel the change in weather. Keukenhof, the famous gardens near Lisse, are lined with buses and cars and bikes come to visit and glimpse the momentary beauty of the seven-million spring bulbs planted within. We also cannot resist their pull and spend a few hours walking the gardens with mouths agape.

But the countryside beckons us back to the farms. The narrow canals divide the fields, and the blossoms meld together into giant swaths of color. The last of the aging but still fragrant hyacinths with their muted purple flower and fading green stem are snubbed by the golds and reds and pinks of the vibrant youthful tulips.

We bike along field after field until there are no tourists left. A small cafe sits at the end of the road. No one is inside. The locals sit outside, faces turned to the sun, eyes closed, a glass of wine or beer or a cup of cappuccino on the table, the level marking their spot of last awareness. Two large cats sit on the periphery. Hoping for a mistake.

“Together with my husband we own this. He is standing here for 26 years, and I for 14 years.”

Jol, stylish with spiked hair and dark glasses, flashes smiles with comfortable ease as she takes our order. Her husband, Dick, works the grill and turns out loempias, kippenpootjes, bitterballen, and vlammetjes, among other things. With a deep laugh, he makes fun of the notion of me taking their picture, but then suggests their statute of a Native American as just the right spot for an American photograph.

After they get done laughing at the silliness of it all, Jol tells me that April and May are particularly busy.

“Flowers everywhere. It is very nice that the people are enjoying it very much. Last week was the flower parade. One million people in this area.”

One million people????

Perhaps that makes it less complicated to understand tulip mania. Tulip mania describes the time in Holland during 1636-1637, when the price for a tulip bulb went through the roof. Apparently, folks started buying and selling contracts for future bulbs, that is bulbs still in the ground, and those sales just went higher and higher. Stories are told that the price for one unusual species was equivalent to the cost of a house in Amsterdam or the salary of a skilled laborer for a year. People went nuts based purely on unavailability and desire. Then, in February 1637, the market in tulip bulbs crashed, and that was the end of tulip mania — except for economists and historians writing about its meaning for present day futures markets, option contracts, and the truth or falsity of the tulip mania stories themselves.

Back at the cafe, more customers arrive as the afternoon sun moves to the west. Jol, smiling of course, goes to greet the new arrivals, and Dick, watching her leave with a smile, soon returns to his kitchen.

So here we are, 380 years after tulip mania, sitting in a small cafe in Holland, surrounded by field after field of tulips. We drink our wine, smell the perfumed air, and admire the beauty. But now I can’t help but think, what IS a tulip worth? Or, for that matter, what IS the real value of an ear of corn?

Enough of that. We close our eyes, tilt back our heads, and follow the sun.

Joe