Slovakia's Front Porch

I admire Slovak conservatism--they save everything and consume, by and large, much less than we do.

When Stearns and I travel, we travel very light--this is for the sake of convenience: moving place to place via train, bus and foot is much easier when your bags are light. We don't pack anything fancy, in case it's stolen or in case we want to throw it away at the end of the trip to make room for souvenirs on the flight back home.

It won't surprise you to hear, then, that the towels we bring are very old. They're threadbare ones from our childhood (and let it be known: the Leopard family knows how to use something until it really isn't able to be used anymore). Last year, on her trip to Slovakia, Stearns brought a Barney towel from our childhood. That's right--the big purple dinosaur. At the end of her participation in a seminar that took place in a seminary in Bratislava, she threw the towel away in the paper can (gosh, I think this is a central Pennsylvania-ism?--in the trash can? in the garbage can? in the waste paper can?).

Upon our return to the same seminar in the same seminary in Bratislava one year later, that very same towel was folded on her pillow. The seminary had inadvertently given Stearns back her discarded towel from the year before. As I said, I love Slovak conservatism.