If I ever do manage to visit Hungary on a March 15th--their independence day--I would hope to spend part of the day in a particular village in the northeast corner of Hungary. When I drove to Tarpa last summer, a very nice family there patiently listened to my poor efforts at speaking Hungarian, and they repeated slowly over and over until I at least partially understood. I didn't think to write down their names, and I have no idea which political chants they might endorse. But I keep thinking about the town square in Tarpa. I like the memorials there better than the ones closest to the parliament building in Budapest. With Tarpa's Rákóczi, both horse and rider have a calm, alert, dignified, maybe stoical pose. Behind them, on the corner of the town hall, are the names of Tarpa's leaders in the 1956 revolution. Given the event that took place in a Budapest cemetery a little over a month ago, it's nice to know that Tarpa has a wreath honoring the Hungarian side in 1956.
