When my family and I crossed the Czech/Austrian border in September 1068, as we were fleeing Soviet tanks, I only had one desire. I wanted to stop and get a bottle of Coca Cola. My parents were distraught and in shock. I was fifteen, and although that was old enough to grasp the gravity of our situation, I still had plenty of exuberance despite the somber mood. I insisted on getting my Coke. After we entered Austrian territory, with my mother bawling in the front seat, my dad pulled into a gas station a few miles past the border, gave me a few Austrian schillings and I bought myself that small, cold bottle of Coca Cola. I also bought a pack of Wrigley’s spearmint gum and - surreptitiously - a pack of Marlboro cigarettes (yes, I was a cigarette smoker at 15. Quit at 34) All three items were unavailable in Prague, except in exclusive foreign currency stores and all three were powerfully American symbols - especially the Coke.
I don’t think many people today can understand what America meant to us in the 1960’s behind the Iron Curtain. There were banners all over Prague shouting “Yankees, Hands Off Cuba” and exhorting “Forward To Socialism. We Shall Defeat the Imperialist West” - personified, of course, by the United States. America was portrayed as a place of lynching, of grinding poverty in cities, of criminal inequality. On the other hand, our socialist homeland was the workers’ paradise. There was no poverty, no misery, no want, just happy factory workers and smiling collective farm comrades.
As years passed, the United States has lost its shine in the eyes of many Europeans. The reasons for this are many and it would be a subject for another piece. But make no mistake: for a youngster, as well as for the great majority of the population, in the 1960’s America was the land of promise, of opportunity and of wealth. As kids, we even played a game called “My uncle came back from America” in which we had to try to outdo each other by inventing the most outrageous gifts the uncle would bring! Most of all, America was fun. While our home seemed bleak and monochrome, everything American that we came across was shiny, colorful, enticing, exciting as hell. The Soviet Union and the regime it imposed upon us, including Russian classes starting in 5th Grade, was despised or, at best, tolerated with a smirk. My father had a lot of respect for the Red Army - he had fought alongside them in 1944 and no matter what happened later, they were his liberators. But as the early 50’s dawned, with their show trials, economic and currency reforms that brought ruin to millions, all the illusions had disappeared. It was clear that the Marxist regime foisted on the republic was a cruel, tyrannical sham.
When the Beatles came along, a huge wave of Anglophilia swept the nation. Britain was closer than America, they produced amazing bands and they did speak English, after all. I adored the Beatles. Every single song was a treasure of love and light and awesome music. Rock’n’roll - both the original form by Elvis, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly as well as the British Invasion iteration - was freedom. Just like America. It was fast, it was loud, it was colorful, it broke rules, it was in-your-face - everything we dreamed of and never could be.
And so, when the Soviet Union occupied us (they never failed to use their favorite method of governance, sending in the tanks) - we fled across the Austrian border, and it was Coca Cola that was on my mind. It would take another 53 years for me to become a US citizen. 53 years of wandering, searching, loving, divorcing twice, marrying three times, fathering two daughters, playing music on three continents, writing, translating and traveling, always traveling, always driving or flying, moving like a nomad, like a vagabond, like the Wandering Jew that I am…but I have made it. I could have continued living in the US happily as a “legal alien” with my green card* but becoming a citizen had too strong a symbolic meaning for me to pass it up. Back in Europe, the gum-chewing, toothy-smile-flashing, generously tipping, naïve and happy Yankee was a strange creature to be admired. Because whatever else those Yankees may have represented, to us they symbolized the ultimate in the pursuit of happiness. And make no mistake: that is one of the most apt phrases to be applied to human striving! Americans were citizens of a country where you could be anything, do anything, settle anywhere, become anything. No throttling rules, no show trials, no exit visas, no tanks in the street. And what do you know? Now I’m one of them. Who woulda thunk it!
* when I first arrived to play music in the US, my Visa designation was “alien of extraordinary ability” Sounds like a talented Martian, but I was proud of it
https://killercoke.org
America was born in a world of nightmares while dawning a land of dreams, where the freedom to pursue the future allowed it to come true.
Darkness never ceased to creep upon its promise but never before has it been so threatened.