Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

A while ago I spoke with a friend of mine about senior discounts at grocery stores. The same discount is also available for veterans, at least at one of the stores I frequently go to. Every Tuesday, seniors and veterans get a 10% discount. I was doing my shopping this past Tuesday and, while checking out, the cashier ‘toldasked’ me, “You are too young to be a senior. Did you serve?”

“Yes,” I said, “but not in the US Army, and I don’t have any proof, so it probably doesn’t count.”

“Well, the store policy doesn’t specify that you had to be in the US” and he gave me 10% off.

I wanted to give him a hug; he kind of made my day.

Actually, even if the store policy doesn’t specify, they want to see a Veteran ID, which, of course, I don’t have. When I left the Motherland 30 years ago, I had to surrender all my Army papers and pinky promise that I would never talk to anybody about The Brave Romanian Army.

And this made me remember the only time I went to see a NASCAR race with some good friends of mine.

I don’t remember precisely what day it was (I think Veterans Day, actually), and there were lots of veterans. The guy to my left, man, Mister Americana; I was very careful not to make him angry. It was quite difficult as I wore a Ferrari Formula 1 hat, and I was talking with my friends in Romanian. Strike one, strike two, strike two and a half: I was in my weight loss phase, and I was eating fruits and veggies. Everybody else was drinking Bud and eating … well, I looked at some photos, saw what they were eating, and I started drooling.

While I was contemplating what to do to miss strike three, I fell asleep. At a car race! A NASCAR race! Engine noise, like crazy, cars, vroom, vroom, to the max. Spectators yelling, cheering, booing. Yours truly, sound asleep, snoring like a lumberjack!

And the guy from the left, when I finally woke up, said: “Man, how can you sleep in this noise?!”

“My friend,” I said, “I served in the Brave Romanian Army and I was trained to sleep anywhere, in any position, and noise really doesn’t disturb me.”

I cannot emphasize enough the level of respect I saw in his eyes!

And because the world is such a small place, he told me he was chatting on WhatsApp with his good friend, a Romanian sergeant, in Romania, of all places, and he was telling him about that Romanian who sleeps at NASCAR. As fate would have it, he too had spent some time in Romania while in the army, so he recognized the language. Of course, I had to talk on the phone to a guy I had never heard from before, and I will never hear from him again. And if you think this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, no, it wasn’t. Once the race was over, we shook hands and went our separate ways.

And because I cannot write without some pictures, here they are: