WHEN FALL IS IN THE AIR

When I was a child we lived for summer.  It meant freedom from school, from the house, and from having to wear heavy clothing.  Somehow, though I know I got sun burned several times over the years, I began to tan easily.  Darkly.  Without lotions or oils.  Without trying.

Living in Southern California I don't need to try to get a tan.  It just happens being outdoors, without going to the beach.  

When I was a kid, the last weeks of summer, right before school started, were already cool in the mornings.  Maybe, right before the leaves fell, there would be something called "Indian summer."  (Why it was called that, I do not know)  This was a brief warming before it was no doubt autumn. Walking to the school bus stop, already I was wearing a sweater.  Soon it would be a hat and winter coat, gloves and boots.

Right before school started, when I was a kid, I used to start thinking about the school supply I wanted most: a new box of crayons.  The smell of those crayons - usually Crayolas - still reminds me of grade school. It was time to replace the tennis shoes - usually Keds - which at the time came in white, navy, or red, with a new pair.  Wearing them all summer mine were full of holes.  I would usually opt for a different color than the holey ones.  

People would see that their sunflower seeds and their garden vegetables in the back yard were done for the season. The earth began to smell different. They would sniff and say, "Fall is in the air." 

Fall is never in the air in Southern California.  Even before the too hot summers began a few years ago we had heat into October.  It didn't cool down too much until Thanksgiving.  People would spend Christmas at the beach.  In June there is something they call "June Gloom" which actually can happen in July too.  It's a time when the sky seems dull or shaded over.

But the other day I met someone from back east who had also transplanted here.  We both heard, when we first came, that after a while out blood would "thin" and then we'd start shivering when it was 50 or 60 degrees.  Neither of us believed this, but it happened.

C 2018  Magyar American BlogSpot

ADATBAZISOK DATBASE ON LINE - NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF HUNGARY

ADATBAZISOK ON LINE - SEARCHABLE DATABASES - HUNGARIAN GENEALOGY and HISTORY

Offered in five languages including English, but I'll be honest with you that once you get to the original documents you'll be reading Hungarian, though you may want to put the page through a translator.  Includes parish registers, charters, local histories.  Give it a try and see if it brings up anything of interest!

ARCHIVAL PORTAL - HUNGARY - COUNTRY STATE COUNTY CITY and SPECIAL inc RELIGIOUS ARCHIVES

/http://www.archivportal.hu/en/

INFORMATIONAL on HOLDINGS

DREAMING THE SUMMER DAY

INVISIBLE BRIDGE by JULIE ORRINGER : MAGYAR AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW

I promised myself  "No more World War II films or books."  There is just so much out there and I feel overexposed. Then I showed up an hour early for an event and near the waiting area was one of those little "libraries" that almost look like bird houses, stocked with free books from the neighborhood.  So I opened the little door and inside I found this book by Julie Orringer, and what was different is that it is a fictionalized account - that is to say an IMAGINED fiction based on her Hungarian Jewish Family's History.  On the covers and inside were such praises by various reviewers.  Could the book, published about 8 years ago, really be that good?
There is so much out there about World War II and the Holocaust, and frankly the Hungarian experience seems to be a rare event - as is, frankly, accounts by Christians in occupied countries such as Poland.  So, not knowing - until the end - that it was based on her Hungarian Jewish Family's History, I sunk into this book as I has not with any book in a long time.
Primarily it is a love story beginning in the late 1930's and her grandfather Andras' story.

Andras gets a rare scholarship to study architecture in Paris in the late 1930's, where he finds a lot of expatriot Hungarians living and falls in love with an older woman who has a devastating secret past. He has a brother who is going to study in Italy to be a doctor.  A brother who is supposed to inherit the family farm but would rather be a window dresser.  Their future experiences will make their early struggles for survival while young students seem easy.

In Paris Andras and other Jewish students stick together, though some come from wealth. The scholarship is good, but he still has to earn a living and so he works and lives in a freezing walk up. Some of the people he trusted in Paris prove to have their own agendas when they find themselves back in Hungary, unable to get the Visas to stay in other countries, their dreams abandoned.

The brothers are called up to support the Hungarian Army in Jewish only troops that are worked like slaves. There are brutal commanders and their are kind ones; does everyone allow their personal beliefs to dictate how they will treat others while in their official capacity?

As I turned the pages and read the story, my anxiety increased, as the characters lived increasingly limited lives.  As with any Holocaust/ World War II story, since most readers probably already know a little or a lot about how bad it was, there is and is not something new.

I value the greater understanding of Hungarian World War II and Holocaust history that I have now from Julie Orringer's story.

C 2018 Magyar American BlogSpot  All RIghts Reserved

THE SONG OF THE BUTTERFLY

From the video on YouTube:

While attending Everness Festival in Hungary we were invited by artist Istvan Sky Kék Égto to visit his Surya Sangíta Asram. There four beautiful souls met together and by improvising created the musical adventure you are witnessing now. Music made by Collaboration of: Istvan Sky Kék Ég, Estas Tonne, Pablo Arellano, Indrė Kuliešiūtė. Video made by Geri Dagys

NAPOZO SUMMER