Meep! Meep!

I saw one of these little guys crossing the road when I went out at lunchtime. It’s not as unusual as seeing a dodo or a roc, but they’re not exactly common in this part of East Texas, either. No coyotes giving chase, though.

I have been reading with interest some of the articles about the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Back in 1986, I had the fascinating and memorable experience of crossing through the wall at the infamous Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. I was on my way to Leipzig in (then) East Germany for a scientific conference. I first approached the US outpost near the checkpoint, uncertain of the protocol, but the bored-looking guy behind the counter said he had no interest in who went into East Germany. (I’m sure he was lying and that he recorded my every move!)

The Berlin Wall was an impressive sight. On the Western side, it was covered with graffiti. All of the brush was cut back from it, so it looked like a no-man’s land for about 20 yards. Depressing looking, actually.

Checkpoint Charlie was both an automotive and pedestrian gateway between the East and the West. The route for vehicles was a deliberate maze so that someone couldn’t just floor the gas pedal and break through. There were concrete barriers every few feet that required careful navigation to those who were permitted to pass through. For pedestrians, the course was no less daunting. Inside the Checkpoint, I had to pass through four different chambers. When you passed one stage, the door in front of you opened and then locked behind you, so there was no backing out once you were in play. I think that you could easily apply for a day pass to go into East Berlin, too, but I was prepared in advance with my visa for the conference. There were plenty of questions along the way, and at one stage you were required to exchange a certain amount of money into Ostermarks, East German currency that had no value outside the country. The money was cheaply produced. The coins were aluminum and the color on the bills came off if you rubbed it against something. While in the country you were required to convert a certain amount of money every day, and it was unlawful to take Ostermarks out of the country while you left. This guaranteed an influx of hard currency that the country needed to purchase goods.

After I made it through to the other side and was in East Germany, I had no idea what to expect. I thought that I would be stopped frequently and asked to justify why I was there and where I was going. I went to the train station in East Berlin and, after an arduous negotiation, figured out how to get a train ticket to Leipzig. No one would speak English. I had to take the U-bahn (subway) to a certain stop and then the S-Bahn (regular train) from that point on. Fortunately I saw a station stop that sounded like what I heard and guessed correctly where to change. Again, I expected that people would stop me and demand to see my papers, but no one did. I was free to travel inside the country without issue. However, when I checked into the hotel in Leipzig, I had to surrender my passport to the local police for the duration of my stay.

East Germany was drab and dreary looking. Pollution coated concrete and glass buildings that had been erected hastily after the war. Though there was nothing overt, I was convinced I was under constant surveillance. I tread carefully. I took absolutely no photographs during my 10 days behind the Iron Curtain. I got the impression that people crossed the street to avoid direct contact with me–I was obviously a westerner with my brightly colored clothing. I was a little surprised that the professors and other faculty at Karl Marx University spoke so openly about their dissatisfaction with the government. A couple of attendees from Czechoslovakia, when they discovered I was Canadian, wanted to know if I could help them join a hockey team.

It was a truly surreal experience that will stay with me as long as I live, I suspect. When the time came to leave, I traveled to Berlin with an American who had come in via India. He had a lot of things in his suitcase that interested the East German police when we made the reverse trek through Checkpoint Charlie. They opened his suitcase and spread out everything. I expected to get the same treatment. However, there was a shift change right at that moment and the guy who came on as a replacement seemed to assume that I’d already been searched, so I was waved through. The world seemed brighter and less oppressive once I was back in West Berlin, an amazing, ultra-modern city that seemed to be constantly partying in the shadow of the Evil Empire that completely circled it.

When the wall came down a few years later, I was one of the people who bought a little piece of it as a memento. Kitschy, of course.

An excellent season finale of Mad Men last night. Some shows choose to rip apart the status quo and leave viewers dangling during hiatus. On this show they managed to disrupt the status quo but give us the promise of a new beginning. Should be interesting times when the new season picks up again. I knew who Roger Sterling was going off to fetch to help them decode the arcane records of the business.