A Tale of Two Mayors

Yes, it had to be Friday again, so a trek to Gamlitz was on the daily menu.

It wasn't momentuous. Got on the train as per usual, and had my book with me... The plot thickened, and some of the patter made me laugh out loud. (Which is gonna get me pegged as a nut job before I finish it, I guess. I save it for the train rides and the wait for the train back...)

Was fidgeting around on the main square in Ehrenhausen to get my bus to Gamlitz, and the mayor was sort of out and about glad-handing, and there were several children messing around across the way, and I suddenly realised they were playing 'follow the leader', and being very active, and having fun. I hadn't known that was a game kids here play, and it amused the hell out of me.

And suddenly, along comes the mayor, talks to the kids sort of sternly, or better said, authoritatively, and trundled on, and I was very surprised to see them get all active, picking up cigarette butts, and little pieces of paper on the square, and taking them to a waste basket they have all over, and they sort of made a game of it, seeing who could pick up the most, although there was little litter to speak of.... Task accomplished, they went back to playing 'follow the leader'. Later in the day, I learned that the schools down there had sort of an 'environment day', so I guess he had given the tykes a task, but in such a way, they had fun doing it, and they seemed to respect him. You gotta remember, this is a place a bit bigger than Gamlitz, maybe a couple hundred houses, but far more historic, so it surprised me.

My regular driver has the week off, so there was a sub, and I guess he was in his fifties... Got to Gamlitz, talked a while with Peter. He had gotten a bill for 15o Euros, so I had taken the money from his account to pay it. It was six week's co-pay for his prescription meds. If I have a prescription, I have to co-pay 5 Euros for each med I receive. So we went down to pay it at the administration window, and it was as I thought, a long list of 5 Euros for over five weeks.... He has to take a lot of different meds. And the nice young woman there told me she had a question for me.... later. Uh-huh.... (Where I am thinking, oh, good grief, what now???)

Well, I rolled him into the village for an ice cream after lunch, (very small one...) and got back, and it being Friday, they hold an RC mass in the dining room around three p.m., and went outside for my second cigarette of the afternoon... And up rolls the Smart with the mayor of Gamlitz in it, to attend the service with 'his' senior citizens, (and no, Peter doesn't attend them), and 'hizzhonor' was all spruced up, coming in from the parking lot...

Now, the mayor of Graz wouldn't deign to greet anyone on the street, and I would probably throttle him if he tried, because he is tha eptiome of everything I hate.

But as Elke would say, 'Things are way different in the countryside', and the mayors in these places seem to be omnipresent, and everyone knows everyone else anyway, it seems. (shudder) So, being the VIP, I didn't expect him to stop in front of me on his way in and want to shake my hand and greet me. So I did what you do here, and stood up, shook his hand, and said, 'Good day, Herr Bürgermeister'... with a slight nod, not an Obama 45 degree angle bow... He isn't the Emperor of Japan, or something... (smile). He smiled, said 'good day', and went on upstairs to Mass.

To be fair, Peter was sort of stunned at Easter when the mayor and his wife visited each and every one of the seniors in that place, and it is really very big, and everyone got an Easter Jause, and a chocolate bunny. (An Easter Jause is a snack of smoked ham, horseradish, hard-boiled colored eggs and sweet rolls with raisins in them. And the chocolate bunny, of course for after... Sounds weird, tastes very good.)

The substitute driver later asked me WHY I was in Gamlitz. (Toldja..... before, when you blow into a village, and are a stranger, you're just a corn of sand in the eye till they 'peg' you.... ) So I said, 'I visit an ex-colleague at the nursing home here once a week, he has no family.' Well, he did a double-take, and said, 'OH! That is so wonderful! What a kind thing to do...' (Thought, 'aw shucks, if ya only knew..')

Actually, it was embarassing.... So I changed the subject and mentioned that the mayor there had come in to attend Mass with the seniors shortly before. And the substitute driver said, 'Oh, that is one fine guy. He has done so much for the town.' My inner eyebrows reached my receding hairline.... And I thought, 'Now what is this about???' Because, you see, my regular driver pointed out his car last week and said, 'Oh, the mayor of Gamlitz!' and there was so much venom it it, I was taken aback. And since the regular driver is nice, and very funny, I really did wonder.

So now that I had a name for the guy, I googled. Bingo, the mayor is a Socialist... which must mean my regular is a Christian Dem, or worse, a Freeper. Seemingly, the last election there was vicious, and he had ideas about schools and education that sent the Christian Dems (who are our version of Rethugs), into rabidness, from a percursory view of a couple of articles.

'Murkin divisiveness comes to the Boonies, in other words... Something like that. Next week will be 'fun'. OMG, omg, omg... Google tells me that both mayors have to be related, or something, same family names. Karl is in Gamlitz, and Martin is in Ehrenhausen, both eight minutes' ride apart from one another. Brothers? Cousins? Very interesting, especially because the Ehrenhausen mayor is Christian Dem, and the Gamlitz mayor Socialist.

Picture me squirming with inner glee, hugging myself and smiling very snarkily and widely. This is beginning to sound a bit like Peyton Place down there. I never paid much attention to tiny places and their politics, but it looks as if this might be a fun story to tell. If I can keep my face straight and get the real facts of what they think down there. And the family name is sort of unusual, and I suspect, Slovenian in origin. And you know all that Slavic passion. Sounds like the stuff soap operas are made of, and in comparison to the 'big city', that stuff down there is really serious and divisive still.

Oh yes...

Whatever.... the 'question' was: Peter spilled a drink onto his telephone, and it was kaputt, they had to replace it, and did he have a certain sort of insurance, because they could not repair it, and it would have to be paid for. Well, he doesn't, and I can't figure out why they don't have that sort of insurance, and I am really NOT going to get into a fight about it. He's a charity case. I recently learned that the monthly cost at base is €2000,00 a month. He said, he can't remember, and that 'somebody' (read personell) knocked it over. But if it had been an issue, I think he would have told me, so I can't figure it out....

And as we all know... if he is at fault, he'll cover it up fast. Or he really doesn't remember. It was odd. I will have to call my local Communist and ask.

If my regular bus driver only knew.... but then he wouldn't let me on his empty bus.....