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When I was writing yesterday's blog, I forgot about about another incident that told us that the wall between east and west was about to crumble.
In September 1988, my elder daughter - just turned 17 - asked if she could skip school with seven or eight of her friends (all final year highschool students) to catch a train from Vienna to Budapest to go listen to the Bruce Springsteen Amnesty International Rock Tour to promote human rights. Budapest was the only Communist destination that agreed to be on the world tour route.
How cool is that? To play hooky by crossing the border between East and West. To go to a concert on human rights in a Communist country. To hear Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Youssou N'Dour - and the relatively unknown Tracy Chapman, all in one 8 hour concert.
Of course I said no.
Just kidding, just kidding. I said yes.
The school (Vienna International School) took a very dim view of the whole thing afterwards, and wrote - as I recall - a very snippy letter about it to the parents concerned, telling us - in effect - that our kids would fail their finals if we let them behave in such reprehensible manner, and what kind of lousy parents were we, blah-di-blah.
My daughter received the only detention class of her life and was heartily unimpressed with the school. (She went on to Oxford, so somehow I don't think skipping a day's class affected her career.)
Last night I asked her on Skype what she remembers about the day. Mostly, it seems, gadding about Budapest with her boyfriend and other friends before the concert! Oh, and Tracy Chapman.
One would have thought hearing The Boss sing Born in the USA in front of the Prime Minister and other Communist officials would have left some impact...
Ah, youth. Wasted on the young.
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About Me
- Glenda Larke
- Malaysia
- My life has been described by one of my editors as “impossibly exotic” – although really it is not my life, but me, that’s the exotic. I’m the uprooted plant, the exotic who doesn’t belong, always living in someone else’s backyard...
An Australian living in Malaysia. Writer, traveler, environmentalist. Author of The Isles of Glory trilogy (The Aware, Gilfeather, The Tainted); The Mirage Makers trilogy (Heart of the Mirage, The Shadow of Tyr, Song of the Shiver Barrens) and, writing as Glenda Noramly, a stand-alone book Havenstar. The latest trilogy is called The Watergivers in Australia and the Stormlord trilogy elsewhere: THE LAST STORMLORD, STORMLORD RISING, STORMLORD'S EXILE
Havenstar
You can buy my first published book (now out of print) as an eBook for your kindle, most ereaders, iPad etc.
CLICK ON THE COVER for the link to buy.
2 comments:
That last comment is so very true Glenda.
Yeah, GBS got it in one. When we're young we take energy and good health for granted and think "I'll do xyz later", only to find that "later" that energy isn't there any more.
But what a day to remember, even if their memories aren't what you'd expect!
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