The details you remember after an event are often fragmentary. What stands out may not be what you expect to remember.
Saturday is a damp and chilly 40 degrees after weeks of very fine mild fall weather in Copenhagen. Perhaps a harbinger of the daylight savings time changeover later tonight — it’s a weird idea to push sunrise earlier while moving sunset to before 5pm – can we stop doing this? — and the looming approach of a dark winter.
Thousands of miles away, in the place I went to University, in the city I came of age, the weather was a bit better than Copenhagen. The temperature was 10 degrees warmer even if it was drizzling there too. Fewer leaves on the trees, there than here, because Copenhagen is at a lower elevation and fall starts much earlier in the Alleghenies. So, Shady Street, in a gorgeous tree-lined neighborhood, a distinctive respite from the surrounding city, named Squirrel Hill bordering Shadyside, another pleasantly green neighborhood, would have been a misnomer on October 27th. Little shade is to be had from bare branches.
At noon, I headed to a football match between Valby Frem and Hillerød at Valby Frem at the invitation of friends. D’s a football mad Scotsman living in Denmark, with his lovely Danish significant other — both documentary filmmakers so you know they are truly and completely mad — who fell hard for Valby Frem Boldklubben, a team in Denmark’s Division II, 2nd group.
From Amager, where I live, it’s quick hop on the Metro to Norreport. An easy transfer to the S-train gets you to Ny Ellebjerg station. It always confuses me that the signage says Spor (track) 3 & 4 for the S-train. Where are Spor 1 and 2? The S-train slides me past Valby where my wife lived before we were married.
Much is familiar. Though like everywhere in Copenhagen apartment complexes are under continual construction. From the train, whole new neighborhoods are visible, though often with a depressing look of sameness. It’s not as bad as Malvina Reynolds’s song, Little Boxes — a big hit for Pete Seeger — suggests. This is Denmark after all and design does matter — but little boxes and ticky-tacky did enter my thoughts as the train passed complex after complex.
I arrive at the station. It sits high above the many new surroundings that feel almost finished, almost lived in. The platform is a monumental slab that looks the top of a slightly curved T.
I exit the end of the platform closest to the new and up taking the rather long way around to get to the Clubhouse – google maps has it all wrong but when you’re in an unfamiliar place whatcha gonna do? Walk more.
I recall walking to Squirrel Hill to find a good deli. I don’t recall Weinstein’s being a match for Famous 4th Street back home or Katz’s in New York. Nonetheless it was a half hour stroll rather than a 6 or 7 hour drive to get some comfort food. I usually crossed Schenley Park and cut through Carnegie-Mellon University’s campus though this detour added steps. In Fall and Spring, the park was filled with students from Pitt and CMU catching a few rays. You never know who you might meet. Plus, CMU’s campus was greener than ours. My goal was a hot Romanian Pastrami sandwich on decent rye bread not the Midwestern idea of rye bread, which was akin to darkened Wonder Bread. On more than one occasion Weinstein’s fit the bill whether it was for Pastrami or a smoked fish plate.
Across busy Ellebjergvej, I spot the Valby Shurgard Self Storage – even Danes acquire too much stuff – and a Bauhaus – not the German art movement of the 1920s – but rather the building materials store. Further down the street is the Valby Idrætspark – the Valby sports complex – that houses an indoor pool, an outdoor stadium, an indoor stadium, football pitches, a badminton club, an American football club, and more.
D. and I met at BK Frem’s clubhouse and chat over some beers. The clubhouse was filled with families and Frem supporters enjoying food and drinks before the match. The club’s traditional supporters were the working class of Valby. The cafe had that decidedly union blue collar feel.
Danes are generally prosperous so it’s hard to tell their actual circumstances as an outsider and after only a cursory glance. However, the price for everything was quite modest. Twenty kroner ($3) bottles of beer are exceptionally rare in Copenhagen. The typical price in most cafes is 59 kroner. The clubhouse is old-school in terms of being a bargain and high-tech in other ways.
Frem’s clubhouse doesn’t accept cash; it’s mobile pay only. Mobile pay seems like a pretty cool system. It’s an app – isn’t everything – tied to your bank account. You enter the establishment’s mobile pay number and pay the amount you owe into their account. Then you show the receipt to the establishment to let them know you’ve actually paid them.
Only one challenge for me – I did download the app – is that while I have a CPR number I haven’t received my CPR card yet. To open a bank account you need the card. Having a number isn’t enough. Mobile pay only works if you have a Danish bank account or a Danish-bank issued credit or debit card. So as cool as it is, mobile pay was in the future not in the present for me. So, D. bought the rounds.
The smokers stood on the patio and watched the team’s youthful second string work up a sweat playing 7 versus 7. Beers in hand observing intently, they reminded me of the touts at the race track watching the jockeys warm up their mounts to evaluate the horse flesh on display in the hopes of gaining whatever edge there might be to garner before placing your hard earned or ill-gotten cash on the line.
A few minutes before the game started everyone crossed the practice field and headed to the stadium. A quick pat down — when did security checks become universal at sports events worldwide? — before paying the admission fee – $12 for adults and $6 for seniors. The entrance was at a corner of the stadium that led us past the concessions on the right — beer, gløgg, mixed drinks, pop, popcorn, lakrids and other candies — and the end line benches on the left filled with ardent Frem fans towards the covered stands.
The Frem supporters behind the goal stood and sang club songs throughout the match. We sat about halfway up in the middle at what was a sparsely attended near end of season match. Two weeks before it had been sunny and in the 70s. It drizzled more as the teams entered the stadium making a raw day rawer.
Hillerød seemed less affected by the cold and damp. As the first fifteen minutes would prove, they came to play. Valby Frem seemed taken aback by the sudden onset of what is typical Fall weather for Copenhagen; their timing was off and organization lacking. Nine minutes in Hillerød scored a good goal on a well-placed shot that could have been easily defended against. Six minutes later, Frem’s defense fell completely apart. The goalie failed to control the ball after a weak shot and had to endure multiple instances of his team’s defense flaws, until on Hillrød’s third rebound, the ball entered the net.
Before the half ended, M. joined us. Preparing dinner for guests that evening had taken longer than she expected. The team seemed to have a bit more energy after M. arrived though the score didn’t change.
After the half, the sun came out. Valby Frem perked up and actually scored a goal to get themselves back into the game. That said, Frem played as though they were a team of midfielders. Lots and lots of dribbling and pointless short passes.
A couple of breakaways turned into nothing because the players liked to dribble the ball instead of attempting a shot and making something happen. Give them the benefit of the doubt and you’d suggest they were waiting for the perfect moment to unleash a shot.
Perfection is the enemy in football. A messy goal is always better than never having put the ball up. Sigh.
Frem’s fans became excited whenever their team came to life. The singing got louder on the end line and lots of cheering on the boys from the stands. Frem had multiple opportunities on successive corners but their set play performance was poor. Hillerød got their heads on the ball first. Frem were late to the ball or out of position. So it goes.
I had a great time hanging with friends, freezing my ass off, and enjoyed the game. On the way home, D. pointed out the shortcut to the S-train. He and M. went off on their bikes. A short walk led me to the S-train platform.
Then I looked at my phone for the first time since I’d left home. I saw the news. My heart sank. An armed gunman had just attacked a synagogue in Squirrel Hill. It was Saturday. Shabbat services were in progress. The paper mentioned a bris also.
I imagine the horror of going to Shul, to joyfully name your new infant — and do the snip-snip — surrounded by family and friends only to encounter a gun-wielding Anti-Semitic bent on massacre. Multiple deaths reported. Police officers injured. No additional information available yet.
I recall walking in Copenhagen earlier in the week and being startled to see what looked like young soldiers armed with MP5s, 9mm submachine guns, cocked and ready, guarding Copenhagen’s Great Synagogue. In actuality, they weren’t soldiers but members of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, an arm of the police. Given the history of attacks on the Synagogue and the congregation, I should have expected their presence. Armed guards outside a house of worship is always disconcerting. Prayer, worship, and guns do not belong in the same sentence.
Recalling the men and women from the Politiets Efterretningstjeneste with their 9mm machine guns brought back another memory from another Saturday decades before.
I was flying from Tel Aviv to Zurich. In those days, perhaps it’s still this way, there was no transportation available to the airport on Saturday. If your flight left on Saturday evening after Shabbat had ended, you had to arrive on Friday. I was too broke to afford a hotel close enough to the airport to walk there so the only option — to stay in the airport overnight. That meant sitting on benches next to young Israeli soldiers, who were around my age at the time, and watch them fall asleep at regular intervals. So what you ask?
All the soldiers were armed with loaded Uzis. I assumed the safety lock was on so that waking from a bad dream wouldn’t result in accidental carnage. Twitchy snoring soldiers sprawling on benches firmly clutching their weapons pointed at me and all the other unfortunates stuck in the Airport overnight made for a long uncomfortable 15 hours.
My new country feels safe. Though I wonder how safe it actually is given the presence of armed guards at a Synagogue. The Synagogues and Churches and Mosques in Philadelphia are all unguarded.
The worst attack on Jews in the history of the United States just occurred. Will there be guards with AR-15s loaded and ready in front of houses of worship in Philadelphia or New York?
That’s what the US President states will solve the problem. More guns. His rhetoric encourages deep-seated fears pushing some to take violent action against the enemies of the people. What were considered right-wing fringe ideas have become acceptable to the mainstream under Trump. It’s a page out of an old playbook. Adolf Hitler played on people’s fears until murdering your neighbors became a necessity to preserve his vision of society.
Despite the loss, Valby Frem’s supporters do what they do after every game. They shook the hands of the players to thank them for their effort on behalf of their club.
