Fox’s Game Chapter 7: Jimi Hendrix and the Polish Immigrant’s Beer

Lenox Village
Nolensville, Tn

Understandin’ understandin’
Lord that’s all in the world I need
Understandin’ and a little bit of lovin’ baby
That’s all in the world I need
Misunderstandin’ an’ I know get a woman
Yeah, Lord they both have caused my heart to bleed

 Jimi Hendrix’s bluesy guitar played in the background as Kristof Tulowitzki carefully placed two steamed hotdog buns onto his plate. He then carefully grabbed his mixing bowl full of fresh broiled lobster, mayo, celery, scallions, spices, and his secret ingredient–pan fried Polish sausage. Tulowitzki enjoyed cooking more than most people enjoyed eating, especially when done to a 60s soundtrack.

Tulowitzki neatly set the table in his dining room and poured a bottle of local beer in a custom glass. He sighed satisfactorily as he sipped, swirling it in his mouth with a flourish before swallowing.

The 59 year old Chemistry professor was a mass of contradictions. His love of beer revealed not so much a desire for its affects but his appreciation of its complexities. Like all chemists he saw science everywhere, and like many chemists he saw beauty and poetry, not simply mixtures and equations. He saw food and beer as practical examples of science in use.

“We take something we use for sustenance and make it pleasurable. Some of the tastiest, most creative foods in the world come from the poorest societies in the world. Why? Because we are all scientists. Some of us just understand it better than others.” Tulowitzki’s friends heard him say this often. So did his students. The flavor combinations that animal fat, plant leaves, ground up roots, and heat could create was every bit the marvel he saw whenever he settled under his microscope to study the movement of atoms.

And though he also had a passion for beer, his love of that drink came not through chemistry but through pride in his homeland of Poland. He grew up watching his father Marek come home from work and before he would say a word to anyone, his father would open the icebox, pour himself a stein of homemade beer, and ease into his chair. It was like after that first relished sip, his family would become visible. Tulowitzki associated beer with fun times and his father’s kindness. For him beer was a connection to his past.

* * * *

On March 28, 1968, Marek Tulowitzki moved his family from Warsaw, Poland to Philadelphia, PA. He was a code breaker for the Russians during World War II. After the Eastern Bloc was formed, he worked as a high level statistician at the Polish state department. He slowly accumulated secrets and realized that if he didn’t leave, he and his family would eventually be the target of the persecution and suspicion that permeated Communist Europe.

Kristof inherited his father’s penchant for math as well as his distrust of government institutions. A week after they arrived in the US, James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN. The 18 year old Polish student never forgot the violence and paranoia that would follow. And he never was able to fully disconnect what he’d experienced in his native country and what he witnessed in the first days in his new one.

Kristof became obsessed with the King assassination, trying to understand how something like this could happen in America. He followed the story, and his interest led to his fascination with US assassinations. He began to see that though the US was safer than Communist Poland, it certainly had its secrets. Tulowitzki spent his one and only year in American high school solving complex math problems and studying political conspiracies. The former shaped his future by ensuring him a scholarship to MIT, the latter shaped his worldview by showing him the possibility of the improbable.

Now a tenured professor, Tulowitzki spent his free time making the symmetry and logic he found through a microscope with his offbeat political theories. He loved discussing them, and although he articulated himself clearly, his Polish accent often made his ideas seem like the ramblings of a crank. Tulowtizki’s tall, thin frame and gray hair made him look authoritative. And his stern demeanor belied his gregarious personality. He loved to talk. And people often mistook his intensity for anger.

The chemist rinsed his dishes and placed them in the dishwasher. He then glanced at an unopened envelope on his kitchen table. His lips curved into a smile. “Fresh grilled Polish sausages and locally brewed beer, huh? This Dr. Benjamin Hoek must really want me to come.” He sat down the paper and wondered if this new research committee had anything to do with the Chemistry and Cooking course that he’d proposed for next spring’s semester.

Wisdom Wednesday: Bonus Craig Mack Edition

“With stamina like Bruce Jenner / the winner / tastin’ emcees for dinner / You must be crazy like that glue / to think that you could outdo / my one-two that’s sick like the flu” –Craig Mack, “Flava in Ya Ear”