Luckily I wasn't getting invited to too many party meetings at mašinska. Perhaps three or four for the whole year. There were two interesting ones... one, when we were to suggest candidates for the delegation... to SIZ of education assembly or something such. Or maybe that one wasn't a party meeting but rather a zbrlj*. Regardless, we got a party recommendation that the candidate should be a Romanian, to satisfy the national key requirement (i.e. the proportional representation), and a Member (of the party, of course). I wonder whether they ever mentioned that one should not be a member. Now this was just a recommendation, and we'd be fully within our rights to push the other guy - because we had two professors who were Romanians, one of them a machine engineer and generally a good guy but not a member, while the other one was a sleaze who'd use any connections to get a gig on the side for either himself or his wife (he was a historian, and she... dunno, not science for sure, didn't work in this school). Several such stories were well known then, how he set this or that and came out with pockets full. Of course, he was elected, because there were enough party members among the staff to swing the vote.
The other was in spring next year, I think, when they wanted to shove me into the party school at Kumrovec. Oh, cmon folks... my main tool in my work is the clear language, and I'll protect that as I would my eyes, and you'd want me to go there and learn to speak like they do? Well no chance, that's not what I came for. Even before I got a distaste for any kind of political career, why would I need that, I slipped on that once already, thanks. I excused myself on being in middle of housebuilding and snuck out of it. The building of the house was stalled for two years now, though, but then what do they know.
The educational council's sessions were a completely different matter. These were work meetings, almost production grade, where the only fun was the consideration of students' and parents' complaints and requests. As a rule, these were heavily illiterate, and what they were asking was often between ridiculous and stupid. These were read, quite loudly, by one mean hag (whose son wrote articles in computer magazines...), who was a sort of doyen among the staff (by stature, not age), sharp of tongue, broad of figure and a voice from a barrel. The way she read it was comedy supreme. Hearing "I beg the upper title..." was enough to just stop breathing until the punchline. Of course, most of these were refused or dismissed. But sometimes they were justified and we voted to accomodate.
The rest of the session was routine, I don't even remember what most of it was about. There was a consensus to not smoke during the session, though in the staff room was permitted, simply because there were too many of us inside, both shifts being present. A smoke break will be declared. Except... there was always something important added to the daily agenda, which required a quorate vote. And the sessions were in the evening. The sixth class afternoon would end, the crowd would clear the building... and still there was no way to start a session before 19:20. Then the break would be delayed once or twice, and around 20:30 it's clear that the chief of staff dares not declare a break, because only half would return from it. As 20:00 approaches, the smokers are getting nervous, until the aforementioned doyen loses patience and lights one. Nobody dared tell her anything. And then the rest of us lit up in rapid succession - I'd wait until I'd be fourth or so, just to show some character. When there are about six or eight lit cigarettes in the room, Lj. would get up and exclaim "Didn't I say I'll not have it smoked** in here!", to which someone would mumble "who'd give it to you?". I'd go telling my first neighbor how smoking is bad for your health - it causes Lj*** to rant, and that raises my blood pressure tremendously. I'd, usually, smoke perhaps one cigarette per hour on the average, but at these times I'd go for three, just to spite him. In the end, there wouldn't be any break, the daily agenda would be roughly and quickly dealt with, the votes were held. Few weeks later the same circus would repeat, year after year.
Once the school's pedagogue held a lecture. He was a diarrhea of a person, somehow sleazily polite and condescending, I avoided him in a wide arc. He used to be in a camp, he even showed me the tattooed serial number.
So he holds this lecture, with no end in sight, about some research, of who knows which pedagogical methods, performed in Novi, bla bla bla. Since I knew the number of points each of us scored for just sitting at a session (20 per hour), and knowing the current price of a point, I calculated, on the margins of some leftover newspaper, the cost of each minute of the lecture. Wrote down the result on a sheet of cigarette paper. Gave it to the guy on my right. He read it, rolled his eyes, sighed, passed it on.
This is when I got into the habit of doodling on the margins - various gallows, daggers, sculls. Just to frighten the admirers of the cheap magazine psychology. IOW, I drew them for the case someone was watching. I used this technique to confuse the curious in one more occasion, years later (v. 02-XI-1990.)
When he finished, in the ending remarks he mentioned in which schools the research was done. Of course, two elite gimnazija in smack downtown Novi, where all the university's staff's and province politicians' children go. I even held trial classes there during the last semester, they're just as good as ours was. So I joined the discussion to say that "it's all nice and dandy, but I fail to see how this helps us here, this research on the population with the incoming average mark above 4,5... we need something appropriate for out situation, where the incoming average is 2,4". To this I got a murmur of approval, but on the way out some colleagues said that I have vastly exaggerated it. "Two comma four is a pipe dream, two comma two would be the best we can hope for".
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* zbrlj - zbor radnih ljudi, a congregation of working people - an assembly of all who work here, equivalent to a general meeting of all stakeholders
** smoking, in our slang, is a blowjob
*** On 22-VIII-2019., I happened to be on the new cemetery and found that he was buried at age of 71. I stopped right there and lit a cigarette. Made a bet that I'll outlive him. I'm almost 66 now, so we'll see in about four years - but I remember he kept complaining about this or that ailment, whereas I'm generally okay and consider myself healthy.
6-VI-2021 - 16-VII-2026