East Side Gallery, October 2008
My mom and I were recently arguing about the Berlin Wall. Well, first we were reminiscing about coming to America nineteen years ago on October 16. I don't remember much about the actual trip, just that soon after arriving in Bethesda, MD, my parents took me to Toys "R" Us where I got my first Barbie and an Etch A Sketch, and it was all wildly exciting.
So then I say, "Isn't it crazy that it's the twentieth anniversary of the Berlin Wall falling?" Here I was relying on credible sources saying the official date was November 9, 1989. And she goes, "No . . . the wall must have fallen after we came to America, not before. Your grandfather read five different newspapers, he followed the news, he would have been upset if he knew." I gloss over the part about him being "upset" and say, "No . . . I've read that it was 1989. It must have been before we came." We go back and forth. And then it dawns on us. "Maybe they didn't report it in Russia at the time?" "I guess not," she says.
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