Every so often I’m unjustly accused of being anti-something or other. The other evening my wife, Barbara, a talented culinary artist, had again managed to set a delicious dinner before the king (okay, before her loyal attendant). I was about to dig in when I noticed something odd. “What’s that scattered through the salad?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s kielbasa, ” she replied. “I had some left over and I thought it would liven up the lettuce.”
“I love kielbasa, but I’m not sure I’d like Polish salad.”
“You don’t like the Poles?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve always admired the Poles, the way they stood up to the Axis invasion in 1939, fighting on despite great casualties and disrupting Hitler’s time table for his conquest of Europe. Then there was the heroic battle at the Warsaw ghetto.
“The Poles also broke the German military code and turned over their data to the British which was a tremendous advantage during the war and saved thousands of lives.
“Then of course, there was Lech Walesa and his Solidarity movement, encouraged by Saint John Paul II, our first Polish pope. That Polish workers union forced Communist Russia to loosen its grip on the country and was the beginning of the end for the despotic regime.”
“No, I hold the Poles in great regard and if some accomplished Polish-American ran for president I might even volunteer to help with his or her campaign.”
“And what if your Polish-American became president and asked you to join the administration”, Barbara asked and I replied that sounds far-fetched, but I would be honored.
“Then maybe we’d be asked to dine at the White House some day,” Barbara said dreamily.
“Wow! Dinner at the White House with our Polish-American president, that would be memorable,” I said. “But you must understand, I might not eat the salad.”
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Imagine That 