The Eighth Tribe, 1976 (3. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1976-09-01 / 9. szám
Page 4 THE EIGHTH TRIBE September, 1976 SPRING 1973 Thank you Professor Grosz: Blue forget-me-nots are in bloom by the shore of the lake; sick am I, my heart is aching, soon my life will end. Therefore, will you wind a wreath of forget-me-nots and put it on my grave! No mourning wife, children or grandchildren were present when the tune of his favorite Hungarian song sounded at the memorial service, March 4, 1973, in the little town of Kezmarok, Czechoslovakia. Only a few friends, some of his former students and the volunteer fire fighters, whose diligent, faithful member he was for 65 years, doing his duty in sub-zero temperatures by night, even at the age of 73. No official delegation was present from the mountaineers or the rescue team. According to his will, his ashes will join the first spring flowers, crocuses and wild primroses in his beloved mountains—the High Tatras—a part of the Carpathian mountain chain in eastern Czechoslovakia. Alfred “bácsi” has to forgive me—he was so modest—for talking to the American people about him; but 1 want to share with them his ideal of honesty, fairness, and impartiality. I was first exposed to him in 1929 upon entering an almost 400-year-old high school (with eight grades). He introduced himself to us as our PE teacher. In the big sawdust-covered gym, he would line us up for gymnastics. Standing in front of us on a wooden table, following his carefully prepared, upto-date notes, with many drawings, looking down at us with those light-blue, kind eyes, he would demonstrate the exercises. Then we had to follow. We didn’t particularly care for these exercises, but they taught us discipline. When we finished them, there were rewards; monkey bars, a merry-go-round swing in the middle of the hall and Swedish ladders next to one wall. Weather permitting, we did everything possible outdoors during the PE classes. Evenings, during the week, we could go back to the gym to play and to relax. He was there, waiting for us. How proud he made me, when an important person visited the school and I was among the pupils chosen to demonstrate our skills—handwalking or pole climbing. The evening before St. Nicolas day, December the 5th, we gathered around a tree in the gym. Prof. Grosz accompanied our songs with his fiddle. Words of our favorite German, Slovak and Hungarian songs sounded. Our home town—part of the Austria-Hungary Monarchy until 1918, afterwards Czechoslovakia, with German and Hungarian minorities—was a trilingual region. Every year in late spring the school had its annual May festivity. It started with a drum parade along the cobblestone main streets and ended with a two hour walk through the fragrant forest. The pupils were joined by half of the townspeople. The round wooden dancehall, which had been decorated days in advance, was ready for the gay crowd. Mr. Hayde sold famous honey products in his tent, set up for the occasion. Juicy wieners were sold in another one. It was a picturesque sight. Picnickers sat on blankets or at wooden tables. In the afternoon a gypsy band settled into a corner of the dance hall, for the big dance. The couples, dancing a waltz or a “csárdás” didn’t get very annoyed with the 10-12 year olds, who got under their feet. And Prof. Grosz was everywhere, arranging games, visiting, joking. Everybody knew him. I remember especially one of those games, where two stronger youngsters lifted a board, just barely over the ground, a blindfolded one standing on it in the middle, his hands on the shoulders of a fourth one, who would slowly bend his knees. It gave the sensation of flying to the blindfolded one. Let me quote from the first letter Alfred bácsi wrote to me in Idaho dated August 1955. He remembered : Very vividly I still see the always smilling high-
