A few years ago, I was at Brigid’s in the Art Museum area when I noticed that half of my beers had been comped by the bartender. I didn’t question or think too much about it until the next time I went back and was greeted with, “Hey, you’re not Carl’s brother!” Apparently I looked a lot like this guy Carl who was a regular at the bar, so the staff had sent over a few free brews figuring I must be his brother. Years have gone by since, but still whenever I go to Brigid’s, the bartender greats me with a wink as Carl’s brother. These are my personal “Norm entering Cheers”-esque moments where sometimes I want to go where everybody knows my (albeit fake) name.
Fast forward to the present. Christine and I walk into a bar in this little town in Hungary called Porva fully expecting everybody to know our (Gartner) name. After all, there’s only something like 600 residents in this town and over the years a few dozen of them were named Gartner. A friend of my grandmother’s had once told me that my Dad’s family immigrated to the US from Porva in the early 1900s and that all of the men in the town looked just like me. (I know, I know. Hard to imagine such a good looking town) I had also tracked down information that there were still some Gartners living there, but whether they were related to me or not was a mystery since Gartner is a pretty common name in the area.
No need to worry about all that. We had a plan. We would walk in to the town bar, the music would stop and we’d all do a double take as everyone would think they were looking into a mirror (everyone except Christine that is). There would be no need to explain. This time I wasn’t going to be Carl’s fake brother, this time I was going to be Carl and eveyone would know my (real) name.
…What really happened.
Ok so this guy looks nothing like me… and he was the best looking guy in the bar! I guess things have changed a bit in the last 100 years. Or maybe they haven’t changed at all and that mean little old lady was trying to tell me something. Regardless, it soon became obvious that our task at hand was going to be a bit more difficult. Our new friend didn’t speak English. In fact nbody spoke English. We had drawn a family tree anticipating this and after a little pointing at the chart and then at me, he seemed to understand and acknowledged that he knew the Gartners. He bought us a shot and gave us directions.
When we got to the house the Gartners were outside. Now imagine what you would do if a complete stranger showed up at your doorstep and you couldn’t understand a word they said except for them repeating your last name and pointing back and forth at you and them. Well you’d invite them in for dinner wouldn’t you! Luckily we had our trusty family tree and a few pictures and even more lucky, they had a 17 year old daughter who spoke some English. Before we knew it they had gone and got the grandmother from next door, pulled out a bunch of lists of their own geneological research and started comparing notes with me. Although not on their list, the grandmother confirmed my version of the family tree and the fact that her husband’s father had a brother named Joseph who left for the US. That Joseph was my grandfather. So for those of you keeping score at home these are my 3rd and 4th cousins! It was actually kind of exciting and I know they were glad to see us because they wouldn’t let us leave! They said it was like a dream that we were there. Considering they were also researching the family name I can see that it was kind of like Google showing up on your front door and hitting the “I feel lucky” button. Now none of this can really be proven. All of the confirmation came from an 88 year old woman who didn’t speak English, translating through 17 year old girl who spoke just a little English. Either way, we had a nice evening with a nice Hungarian family.
