Personal site of journalist, baker, and storyteller Tony Ganzer.
Information and insights from and for those interested…
With this Spring I will have experienced all 4 seasons in Europe. That seen only on a calendar means little…but in reality, I consider it a feat worth noting.
I saw a guy experiencing homelessness this morning, and I have seen him before.
Often he has a shopping cart with 4 or 5 suitcases on it. He dresses in brown, or maybe his suit jacket is just covered with the product of months or years of street life.
There were no suit cases this morning.
The man sat against the base of a concrete box in the train station, rocking with his hands between his thighs for warmth.
My cheeks were pierced with cold, so his must’ve been numb–his beard looked thin and disheveled, not helpful.
His rocking was sad; his posture like a vertical fetal position wishing for the comfort of the womb.
[An expanded version of this essay appears in my book Kneading Journalism]
Continue reading “Back to Reality”
“Sure!”
Four hours later we arrived in Munich, and loaded a taxi. Our new home was waiting, and, now, the glass cathedral has a new place to glow and spin.
But this is my first Winter in Europe, and soon to be my first Christmas in France, growing to a list of “firsts” for all of us.
President Obama isn’t here yet, but the city is breathing anticipation–not all of it positive. For 99 Norwegian Crowns one can buy an Obama t-shirt with “Hope” across the bottom, and for 0 Crowns one can enjoy Greenpeace’s characteristically aggressive campaigning for environmental issues.
So in just a few hours the President will board Air Force One and begin his 26 hours in Oslo, to accept a controversial and arguably confusing peace prize, just days after ordering the deployment of 30-thousand more American troops to Afghanistan. This is an uncomfortable time; an insecure time; and this is the time in which we live.