My childhood in Romania was a long time ago. I’m not that old, but it’s pretty far back. Oh man, it was a different generation, I don’t even know how to approach talking about this. The system was so different. It was hard. I don’t know if I could live in that type of system anymore, I would be depressed. I remember one time in the ‘80s, they made a law that you cannot sell more than, I don’t know, 500 grams of bread a day to each family. Milk would be only for families, if you do not have kids you cannot have milk. Even meat, when they would put meat in the store it would be a five-hour line to buy it, and half the people would stand in that line two days early.
But then you get to the middle of the line, and the meat is finished. So you go back home, and wait for the next day to go back for another chance. People had little chairs that they would bring and put down, and get in line for everything. Even for beer. I would go two times a day from practice to my apartment, and I passed by a grocery store. Every time there was a line. I had no idea what the heck the line was for, sometimes it was nothing but people would line up just waiting for something to come. Most of the people who were retired, they stood in the lines. That was their job, it was their job to take care of the grandkids, to watch them at the park, and to stay in the lines. It was a crazy system.
