Life of Hardin Special No. 1

The Editors of Life of Hardin would like to apologize for the delay in this week's installment. Our reporter was on assignment. So we offer this Special Life of Hardin FLASHBACK from Saturday, June 7, 2003. (In other words, please don't cancel your subscription.)

VIENNA, AUSTRIA

Corey arrived yesterday (Saturday) morning. He has a beard and looks like an Italian. There are two other teachers living here with us--the Chamberlains from Virginia Beach. They are an older couple who are pretty cool. We threatened to prank their room sometime, and we are secretly hoping she will cook for us. Keep your fingers crossed.

Last night we went to the Volksoper (one of the opera houses here) and saw "Falstaff," Verdi's final opera and based on "The Merry Wives of Windsor." It was a comedy, but wasn't very good. The actors (?) sang very well, but the songs were not memorable and were in Italian with German supertitles (there was a projection screen above the stage). It's like a whole different language or something. It's so weird. Even the kids speak German here. I don't know how they got so smart so fast. Back to the opera. The setting was moved up to 1950's, which didn't fit well; but it made some of the scenes fun to look at because they were in garish technicolor and the women wore matching dresses. think a drama would have worked better, because we couldn't understand the words and didn't get any of the jokes. You know how when you tell a joke and little kids don't get it but laugh anyway? That was us. There were a few physical comedy bits that weren't that great. But we got in for 2 Euros, which is about $2.40, so who can complain?

Last night after the show we were starved. We got off the subway near our dorm and hunted for some food. What met us was a vast desert of schnitzel and shhhhtrudle and kaesesplaetze and wackenbrukers and bratwurst con serf--none of which were we brave enough to order on empty stomach's and 12 Euros. Suddenly a glowing light shone on us from above. Two gleaming arches rose in our path. Apparently the universal language is not Love, but "Two Big Macs and McNuggets, and make it snappy, man!"

Saved for the moment from hunger, we headed back to our dorm, only to find someone had moved the city while we were away. All Vienna streets look and sound exactly alike. We tried to align ourselves by locating a Starbucks, but apparently there's one on every corner here, proving that Starbucks has now cornered the market in corners throughout the world. In the meantime, we have tried to stop many people to ask where Mondsheingasse is. In doing so Perry, Corey, and I discovered that we are mutants whose latent superpowers are only manifested in Vienna--we can become invisible. We wound up down something-or-other-gasse until we found a map in a hotel lobby. While studying it at a corner, a Viennese couple walked up to us, asked if we needed help, and pointed us in the right direction. We concluded that our invisibility only works when looking directly at someone. Eventually we made it back and decided that we had gotten off the subway at the right stop, but had walked back up to street level via a different set of stairs and gotten turned around.

At the dorm, we ate and played cards until 4. We're learning a new card game each day, so we should be well versed upon re-entering the States.

Church this morning was pretty normal. There were fifteen of us, including a baby. The grape juice was ruined. In the middle of service a part-time teacher here delivered his opinion on world travel and soaking up new cultures and ideas and being open-minded. Oh, and he threw in that Jesus did lots of traveling Himself. Perry, Corey and I will be conducting services the next three weekends.

Dan conducted most of services. He is from Romania and is the Jack of All Trades here at the school. He is always . . . but I could spend a whole article about Dan the Man, so I'll save him for a slow day.

After church Linda Boyer took us and the Chaimberlains out to eat. She is very nice and very helpful and very glad that we are here. From listening to her, our classes can have an even more Biblical message than we supposed, although we also have to be sure and keep them academically sound. Corey ordered a form of Bratwurst. He got a plate full of saur kraut and about seven breakfast sausage links. He ate McDonald's afterwards. Perry and I both ate kaesesplatze, which is like macaroni with onions and bacon. I liked it, Perry didn't. It had a different kind of cheese on it that was a little fermenty.

We ate gelato afterwards. For those who have had it: It was good, but not all as advertised. Maybe it was just the kind I got (choco crunch). I liked it, but it certainly wasn't any better than Shakey's or homemade chocolate-chocolate chip. It was only 1 Euro, though, and the man serving it was Italian and very friendly (we think). He still thought Clinton was president and wanted to know about Monica Lewinski. We told him Clinton was out, a Bush was back in, and that Monica was making lots of money telling all. I'm not sure we got it all across the language gap, but we got our gelato, said "bueno" and moved along.

That's about it for the day. Isn't that enough? More bulletins as events warrant.

Life of Hardin Vol. III, No. 14

Beware of the Bears

Paupering is a perfectly legitimate and upstanding profession in Asuncion . By paupering I mean, of course, standing at street lights all day and asking for change from the cars that pass by. Good King Solomon said that it is good for a man to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun. Now all this asking for money may take place under the sun, but it is hardly toilsome and bears no resemblance to labor.

That is not to make little of the poor. A man in a down time may ask for his daily bread and expect some help from his fellow man. But here paupering has the respectability and permanence of a career that it was never intended to have. The willingness of citizens to scrape the crumbs of change out their windows makes it lucrative.

There are some who take their business seriously and in the proper state of humility. They understand their position of dependence. They appreciate what is received as a gift. Then there are others who do not. They often wear brand new soccer jerseys and brand new shoes. They frequent car windows when it is convenient, and take coffee breaks when their pockets are full. They ask for wages, not help, and file grievances when the payday arrives late. They frown and curse with malice in their hearts. The tools of their trade are a sorrowful look and a key to remove car paint. With them it is not so much, “Ask and ye shall receive,” as it is, “Trick or Treat.”

It is just this sort of disrespectful attitude with which the prophet Elisha took exception in a group of youths. On them he called down a curse in the name of the Lord, and two bears immediately appeared and mauled forty-two of them. Not killed, just taught them a lesson by chewing them up a little and spewing them out again.

Enoch and I encountered one such career pauper one evening dressed in an official Brazilian soccer jersey. He approached the window of the car and held up his hand in the “OK” sign, which doubles as a beg for a coin. Enoch gave him a few coins, about a dime’s worth. The boy (definitely a professional), pointed across at me and said, “And he owes me a quarter.”

Enoch said, “That’s for both of us.”

“No, he needs to give me something.” He crossed his arms and planted them on the window sill.

Money or silver I had none, so I gave him what I had. “Beware of the bears,” I said.

“What?” said the boy.

“Beware of the bears,” said Enoch.

“There are no bears here.”

“Beware of the bears,” I repeated. Had he read his Bible, he would have realized just how useful was the advice. It was only a warning. I called down no curses on his head in the name of the Lord.

“There are no bears here,” he said again.

“Yes there are.”

“Why didn’t the television tell me?”

“It was in the paper,” I said. “Didn’t you hear?”

“There are no bears here.”

“Beware of the bears,” said Enoch.

“There are no bears here.” The boy backed away from the car, his fingers clutched around the coin he had so desperately earned. “There are no bears here.”

I am sure he treasured that ten cents more than any other he got that night. It may have been the hardest earned of his short career. I hope he learned a lesson. I hope he heeds the warning. I pray that he rethinks his profession and picks up something that will give him a bit more career satisfaction, an appreciation of his toilsome labor under the sun, such as graft or larceny. This bold hypocrisy in broad daylight I cannot abide.