Poznan, Professor and Family

In 1985, while getting our Polish Visa in Vienna, we had made a phone call to a college Professor's home in Poznan, Poland. He had been one of Daughter Linda’s professors at Cal. State Northridge. Imagine that! A marketing professor from Poland, teaching at a University in California in the early 1980s. Incongruous! The Professor said his family was leaving for the US the next day, but we should keep his phone number since a friend who would be staying in his apartment, was the Dean of the School of Law at the University in Poznan. (Our visit with the Dean and his family, is told elsewhere in these Tidbits.)

When we arrived in Poznan in 1991, I called the Professor's home, talked to his son Leonard, and made arrangements to meet at Hotel Merkur. At 5:00 PM we met the Professor, his wife Christine, and their son Leonard at the restaurant in the Hotel, and ordered ice cream and Pepsi. The Professor is building a new home, and since he must leave early in the morning for a trip to Brussels, he wanted to show us the house that night.

The Professor remembers the beautiful home on the hill, where they lived near Los Angeles for a year, and the rather nothing view from the home where they lived in Texas for two years. The front of the house in Poznan faces the street, with a “nothing” view, so this is called the Texas side of the house. The back of the house, with a beautiful view over the city of Poznan, is called the California side of the house.

When he returned to Poland, after teaching in the US for three years, he was a “rich” man. The lot and building material cost about $40,000, and the house would sell for about $200,000.

It was late evening, and very dark, but it appeared to be a large, beautiful house, with the thick cement interior and exterior walls. Wish we could have seen it in the sunlight. The biggest problem they have is to find workmen who will work hard and do a good job. That lack of a work-ethic has been a problem for years, and will now be a really big problem as Poland tries to rebuild its economy and the country.

Since West Germany spent billions of DMarks to help rebuild their country, I said that Poland’s problem is, there is no “West Poland.” The Professor, an economist, said there were plenty of Poles with plenty of money, but they must invest in Poland, and they must invest wisely. An interesting visit.