When I listen to some songs by Judas Priest, I can almost feel the wind in my hair. The same wind which blows in your face when you ride a motorbike. And I do not mean the speed exercised by the ones who I call 'donors'. Just a casual ride.
In my early twenties, I was very much into motorcycles. I was interested in such details as bike engine capacity, its strength, and so on. Although I did not have my own motorcycle, I decided to learn to ride a bike (I had already had a car driving license). They had a rather big training motorcycle at the local driving school and my stepfather, who worked at that school, was also my bike riding instructor.
I very much enjoyed the motorbike riding lessons. I did circles, eights, and slaloms on the sandy training ground. Sometimes, two Chinese men who were waiting for their motorcycle class, cheered me loudly, shouting in broken Polish: "go, friend, go!". It was such fun! Once it happened, an older man who was passing by the training place, started reviling when he saw me ride: 'To the kitchen and to the pots, not here!'. It made me laugh and ride the motorbike even more vigorously.
At that time in Poland, motorbiking was an unusual thing regarding a woman's/girl's interests. One of our neighbors - a young woman a few years older than myself - was a member of a local motorcycle club. She was the one and only woman member at that club - among a few hundred men.
My mom was not happy about my hobby and biking classes. She found riding a motorcycle on a street in the traffic unsafe. Needless to say, she was pleased when I told her I would not take the riding license test as I had planned. Why did I change my mind? I got discouraged because the bike I rode at the school was too heavy for me - I was not able to keep it straight when I was taking a turn at a slower speed. I thought I would not be able to pass the riding test because of it. And I quit the classes. But I was happy I learned how to ride a motorcycle.
Anyway, since nobody in my family owned a motorcycle then, soon I forgot the bikes, and what I knew about them, and their engines. But I do remember the songs by Judas Priest and I like listening to them from time to time when I am in a more energetic mood.
K
Kraftwerk - why them? Because I enjoyed listening to early electronic music as well. Kraftwerk worked and lived across the border so they were quite popular in Poland. And their songs both in English and German too.
Krokus - I would say there is nothing revealing in the music by that Swiss band. In their compositions, you can hear the influence of other, more popular groups such as AC/DC for example. But I used to listen to their songs anyway. Just some solid rock music.
Judas Priest
Turbo Lover
Painkiller
Breaking the Law
Parental Guidance
Before the Dawn
Freewheel Burning
Kraftwerk
Trans-Europe Express - album (1977)
The Man-Machine - album (1978)
Computer World - album - (1981)
The idea for this alphabet post series comes from ' The Alphabet of My Emigration' by Dee Dorota L., a member of The Polish Ladies Abroad Club, who has relocated to England.
I have also decided to join the project and write about My Texas Alphabet twice a week.
Katydids/bush crickets are long-horned grasshoppers. Some of them are quite big (up to 13 cm/5 inches). Thanks to their sound-producing organs they can make a lot of noise and 'play' their own kind of music. In the area where we lived previously, there was a little wood - home to many various bags, including katydids.
Roesel's bush cricket
There must have been thousands of them as they were very loud when they sang their songs. And it lasted days and nights, especially in the summer. I found their sounds really amazing - it was like a choir of singers who never got tired of singing. Since the katydids were so incredibly loud (at least according to me), sometimes all the noise made by the crickets seemed a bit disturbing. I had never heard anything like that before. European grasshoppers are good musicians too, but I never heard so many insects of that kind, playing their 'instruments' at the same time. Not that many as in that Texas little wood. You can hear them in the video recording (included below) which I made, impressed by their performance.
Everything is big in Texas, including bugs. I am not an insect fan (with one exception). Most often, the bigger they are, the more disgusting I find them. One day, not long after coming to Texas, I was sitting outside - near the crickets wood - and reading a book. Suddenly, a big buzzing bug came flying and, to my surprise, sat on my lips. Maybe the insect was attracted by the flowery pattern of my red-and-white shirt which I was wearing on that day, I do not know. It was so unexpected and so awful - luckily my mouth was closed then :). Anyway, I jumped up, whisked the bug away with my hand, and hid inside our place. I had no idea what kind of bug it was - I only noticed that it was big, brown and ugly. I got scared and felt strange - did not know whether it had stung me/ tried to sting or what. All in all, I was done with reading outside for quite a long time.
Southern Yellowjacket
When I saw a yellowjacket for the first time I was surprised too. It looked like a wasp, but at the same time, it more reminded me of an insect helicopter than of wasps which I had known from northern Europe. Yellowjackets are a few times bigger and they do not look nicer because of that...
Well, talking about insects, I need to mention that I do like butterflies. The monarch butterfly, which is the Texas State Insect, is absolutely beautiful. And, as I have heard, when it happens to sit on any part of your body, it is supposed to mean good luck. It is also much nicer than my 'ugly bug encounter'!
Pictures: Bush cricket: By Charles J Sharp - Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38312313; Southern yellowjacket: By Bob Peterson from North Palm Beach, Florida, Planet Earth! [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
'K' entries by bloggers of Polish Ladies Abroad Club:
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