Every Picture Tells a Story: Bucharest, Romania (1989)

 

 

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY:
BUCHAREST, ROMANIA (1989)

I love this picture. Such fond memories of great people. That’s George and Betty, who were assigned with me to the American Embassy in Bucharest.

Behind them is my car, a 1985 Peugeot 505 Turbo Diesel two-tone with a stick shift. Man, I loved that car!

The location is the massive Piața Unirii district in central Bucharest which was a mega renovation zone under construction during the Ceausescu regime. This was taken sometime around the Romanian Revolution. Today, it’s one of the most affluent areas of the city, near the National Parliament.

George and Betty were good friends because we trained together at FSI before being assigned to Romania. So, we used to dine out together a lot back in Washington. They were from Plant City, FL which is near Tampa. Betty was selected to be a secretary (for the economic section, as I recall). George had been a B-25 pilot in WWII, so you can imagine how interesting he was to hang out with. Just hearing his stories was amazing. George was retired, but still was one of the regulars in our embassy poker game.

The happy couple was part of a (then) State Department program that targeted retired people for foreign service. For adventurous seniors who wanted to see and experience the world, serving overseas and working in an American Embassy may have been the perfect “twilight career.” Secretaries and other admin staff who were in their 60s were ideal candidates for service. They were hard-working, loyal, and usually established in their own lives. They were also mostly married, and the spouses got to train along with everyone else and even were sometimes given odd jobs within the embassy to keep busy, Contrast this with many 20-somethings who served overseas (like me) who were much wilder, less mature, and frankly, more risky hires.

Serving in Romania, a Communist country when we arrived was tough in many ways. But we also lived like royalty. The seniors program (hiring seniors to work overseas) was like an all-expenses paid multi-year holiday….like a stationary cruise ship in the middle of E. Europe….free housing, shipments of goods back and forth (including a car), an exciting job, and in the case of Romania–a fascinating place that was not only interesting, but also a perfect center point for weekend travels to the mountains, coasts, and other countries. I spend several three-day weekends with George and Betty. We also traveled together to Bulgaria a few times–Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna.

Some of the trips included George and Betty (in their 60s), plus me and the Navy Seabee (single guys in our 20s). We’d pile into the car and drive to Transylvania, or wherever. We used to joke that we were the “kids” traveling with mom and dad. “Mom, are we there yet?” That all gave us a good laugh, and it was true. I really enjoyed the camaraderie of traveling with people, and George and Betty were the best. We lost contact, and given their ages, I presume they died some time ago. Wonderful people.

I don’t know if that program exists any longer — hiring seniors for foreign service support staff — (probably not), but it was a terrific opportunity to serve, be involved in something new and exciting, and see new places that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible.

I took this picture of George and Betty (and my car) on a street corner on a really nice and sunny day.