By John Toth
The Bulletin
It was a cold winter night in a country where I did not speak the language,nor knew anyone other than my mother, with whom I came here. It was the last day of 1967, and people were celebrating ringing in the new year.
New Year’s Eve was just another day for us. The temperature outside was near freezing and went below freezing at night. We were not planning to ring in the new year at Times Square. I don’t think we even knew at the time where Times Square was located.
We saved up enough money to buy a portable transistor TV, which was my window to the world, outside of going to school and trying to learn English as fast as I could.
This wasn’t my first rodeo. I had to do this a year and a half earlier in Vienna Austria, where I had to learn German in school as fast as I could, so that I would not be left a grade behind. We escaped to Austria from Budapest, Hungary, which was ruled by an authoritarian communist leader at the time.
By age 12 ( I just turned 12 on Dec. 13), I knew the ropes - what was priority and what could wait. Language was the top priority. I felt like I didn’t fit in until I could be understood like everyone else. It was awkward, but this was my second time around, and I knew what I had to do and what to expect.
I learned a lot of English from that little TV set. It was on most of the day. I didn’t care what shows we watched, as long as I could somewhat figure out what was going on. My favorites were the cartoons and half-hour sitcoms. Those were the easiest to follow.
My mother and I sat around after eating dinner and watched TV. I read a Hungarian or German book during the day, but I didn’t feel like doing anything but watching TV at night. I was fascinated by the New Year’s Eve programming. I was glued to the set.
Someone knocked on the door. It was a friend of my mother’s whom she met while shopping at A&P. I had met her a few weeks before when we visited her at her apartment. She was younger than my mother and immigrated here after escaping to Austria and then being given asylum in the USA.
She went through the same process as we did to get here, except only by herself. I want to say her name was Agnes. We must have called her Agi.
We let her in and asked if everything was alright. Neither of us had a phone in our apartments.
“I didn’t have any plans for the night, and I thought we could celebrate together,” she said.
I thought that we should go to her apartment because she had a bigger TV set, although the picture was hard to adjust. It kept rolling up. But, after a while, it would stay put, and I could watch her 19-inch TV. Ours was only 9 inches, but I wasn’t complaining. I was glad to have even that.
She brought a bottle of wine, and we started to play a board game and then some cards. The wine put the adults in the right New Year’s Eve mood, and there was plenty of Coke in the fridge for me.
We had a great time. They told jokes and sometimes laughed so loud it would hurt my ears. They shared stories about the escape from communist Hungary and experiences in Austria.
Agi then got serious while talking to my mother. “It was hard enough escaping on my own. How did you do it with a child?” (She was referring to me.)
“The only reason I did it was because of him,” replied my mother, pointing towards me. “After we got out, John and I worked together, made decisions together. We knew what we were doing and why.”
Agi had a good time spending her first New Year’s Eve with us. We were glad that she climbed four flights of stairs to our barely furnished brownstone walk-up apartment. We watched for the first time the ball drop at Times Square, and we agreed that soon we’d have to check out that place.
Agi watched me sometimes when my mother had to work, but eventually she went her way, and we went ours. She married a doctor, which probably meant that she had much more exciting New Year’s Eves than that first one in 1967. But that first one was special. Wherever you are, Agi, thanks for the company on Dec. 31, 1967. It was much-needed. I’m glad you decided to come over.
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