Snow on April Fools Day

It's allowed to snow on April Fool's day in MT. It's allowed to snow on April Fool's day in Moscow. But Seattle? Bah!

The world passed another April Fool's day and, due to falling snow in Seattle, RantWoman's thoughts turned to...Lenin?

Um, yeah, on two grounds.

First once upon a time when RantWoman was a graduate student on a study abroad experience, spring break included a trip to great cities including Odessa, Kiev, and Moscow.

RantWoman optimistically thought spring break meant warmth and freedom from snow. Silly RantWoman packed for her trip and left her snow boots in Leningrad, as the place was still then officially known, and wore only her battered sports shoes. This worked tolerably well for a funky bus chase through the streets of Odessa. The tennis shoes were manageable for RantWoman's trip through snow in Kiev to an optician who approached a screw replacement request with the closest replacement he could find--and a wooden mallet to ensure it fit!

Then came Moscow and the kind of sodden barely frozen stuff that falls all too often in Seattle. Well, the temperature was just barely low enough for snow to accumulate, and April Fools Day brought an excursion duly coveted by all patriotic Soviets, a trip to see "The Stiff," the tomb of the great revolutionary leader V. I. Lenin.

Mere students do not simply walk to the door, present tickets and get immediately admitted. First, one must wait in a quintessentially Soviet line. RantWoman and her colleagues were slated to go on April 1, which in Russian is called Joke Day. It was snowing, but as much rain as snow. The line was a mere two blocks long snaking around Red Square. History records considerably longer, snakier lines but RantWoman's group was more than scandalous enough to make up for the lack of waiting admirers.


See, college students from the US are genetically incapable of waiting in the kind of tight, well-ordered lines prized by all Soviet pedagogues. Almost any time the group RantWoman was with had to wait in any kind of line, someone would come along and cluck about what an undisciplined group it was. This did not cause the group to tighten up; usually it caused someone to giggle briefly and then everyone went back to milling around in a clump.

RantWoman's group got to mill around in a clump inching toward the entryway for a good 45 minutes at least. That means everyone and everything, including especially RantWoman's glasses arrived at the threshold well chilled. Then as we neared the doorway, one of our group's chaperone's decided to summon some expertise gleaned from his master's thesis about The Lenin Cult, the cult of personality which grew up over the Soviet era about the father of the revolution. The problem was this this expertise had to do with the male anatomy and how the young men who guarded the hallowed halls surrounding The Stiff were selected and the expertise was shared just as the group crossed the threshold.

Here picture RantWoman in a very cold pair of glasses which of course immediately steamed up as soon as RantWoman entered the building. Picture RantWoman doubled over trying really hard not to giggle, half in amusement, half in embarrassment over the recently-imparted humor. Picture The Stiff lying in his glass sarcophagus and a completely undisciplined clump of students trying to proceed past in something as close to decorum as could be managed with extreme effort. Suffice it to say, RantWoman got only the barest glimpse of The Stiff and still less of any guards, say for purposes of verifying the theme of the humor.

Afterwards, RantWoman believes there may have been opportunities to buy souvenirs or to go visit some cathedral full of the crypts of deceased autocrats. RantWoman remembers getting separated from her group on the way to the Metro and meeting a clump of idle and slightly inebriated youth with commerce on their minds. "Sell us your tennis shoes, sell us your tennis shoes," one of them begged.


RantWoman briefly assessed the sanity of this request. The coveted tennis shoes were sopping wet and quite down at the tooth by that point anyway. RantWoman meditated on the logistics of either immediately acquiring replacements or going about the rest of spring break in her stocking feet in the muck and cold. RantWoman just shook her head and one of the chorus asked "where's your heart?" RantWoman had no heart that day and said so, to great mirth and merriment for all, and then RantWoman made her way to the Metro station withouth further incident.


Fast forward a few years. By this time RantWoman had decamped to Seattle, the Soviet empire had gone all splitsville, there arose intermittent talk of giving The Stiff a decent burial, and most especially, Lenin statues were meeting ignominious fates all over Eastern Europe while people eager to do business were parachuting in any way they could get there.

RantWoman is not quite sure about the details of how one of these businesspeople connected with one of these statues. Google Fremont+Lenin for multiple sources. When upright this was a fairly majestic figure striding forward out of some kind of socialist realist base. When the businessman first met the statue it was lying facedown in mud pit in Slovakia. Being possibly an impulsive sort with a knack for making things happen, the businessman decided that bringing Lenin to America would be just the thing.

Such are the evolutions of world politics that unlike previous decades, this venture probably did not even earn the guy a red flag in his passport file. Unfortunately, the businessman was killed in an accident shortly thereafter, and his heirs finally arranged to clean up the statue and deploy it to a prominent corner in a part of town known affectionately as the People's Republic of Fremont. Think aging militant longshoremen. Think earnest Birkenstock-wearing, granola-munching ecofriendly live and let live types. Think other works of public art such as "Waiting for the Interurban" and the Fremont Troll for Lenin to hang out with.

More importantly, picture the locals doing their level best to make the revolutionary figure feel welcome. Lenin often sports Christmas lights over the winter holidays, New Year's goggles, and big pink plastic cone bosoms in June for gay pride. The community makes a particular effort to make Lenin feel included on April Fool's day and often delivers a custom set of Groucho Marx glasses with the customary big nose and mustache.

Fast forward a few more years. Enter the ferrener husband who for several years worked at a factory not far from Lenin's corner. The first year ferrener husband was working on April Fool's day, he noticed the glasses on the way to work. On the way home he missed the bus and was doing the walk along the route thing done at times by all seasoned bus riders. Groucho's nose was still perched on Lenin's face and, as ferrener husband proudly reported when he arrived home, he climbed up all the way and succeeded in removing the offending facial enhancement. Then he climbed back down, caught his bus home and ruefully told RantWoman, thank heaven there was no cop around.

RantWoman laughed for 10 whole minutes about the story. She thought of all the bad things that could happen with a clueless cop and a deaf foreigner atop a revolutionary statue. RantWoman HOPES the cops would see the humor, but she is glad she never had to find out. And one of these days, RantWoman hopes someone will do a Lenin pinup calendar featuring the statue with seasonal decorations appropriate to every month of the year.