Satu Mare (Szatmárnémeti) is only anonymous to those who have not been there. I discovered this while researching my itinerary for the lost lands beyond Hungary’s borders. I went looking for the legacy of Trianon and instead found reminders that familiar things are much closer than they seem. Sometimes the familiar appear as unexpected guests. Like a bit of latent magic, I discovered connections to the city while filtering faces and names through my memory. Trianon would have to wait, first I had to follow a bouncing ball to and from Satu Mare.
Taking one for the team – CSM Satu Mare in action
Wandering Eye – Spot On A Map
What did I know about Satu Mare? That was the question I asked myself after placing it on the itinerary. My answer was not much. Satu Mare was a blind spot in my travels across Eastern Europe. I came close to it on numerous occasions, but I always tried to ignore it. There was good reason for that. Satu Mare was not on the way to anywhere I was going. I did not feel that it was worthy of a detour. In the Crisana region, Satu Mare was obscured by the sparkling gem of Oradea (Nagyvarad). It was also off the beaten path to Transylvania. The latter has such a magnetic attraction that it literally pulled me across Crisana without giving Satu Mare much thought. To be honest, if it was not so close to the Hungary-Romania border, I would probably never have noticed this mid-sized provincial city on the map. Satu Mare was a world within a world. My experience with Romania consists of Bucharest, Transylvania, Oradea, and Timisoara. Precisely in that order. Everything else is just a spot on a map denoted by various sizes of font. Satu Mare caught my eye because of its size. A detail that led my eye to wander its way. I did not think much else of it. And why would I?
Satu Mare does not have name recognition outside the region where it is located. Further confusing matters, another city an hour’s drive east of it goes by the somewhat similar name of Baia Mare. Telling one from the other, without visiting either, is difficult. Satu Mare would have been just a place on the upper left-hand corner of a Romanian map if not for a single memory. The kind of forgettable secondary interaction I have witnessed countless times while traveling. It baffles me that I can recall this one. Perhaps it was a bit of delayed destiny. I would like to think that every interaction has the potential for deeper meanings. That certain connections are waiting to be discovered. If not in the moment, then weeks, months, or even years later. There are innumerable interactions lodged deep in my memory that remain there until reactivated. I have no idea why some of these interactions come back to me, while others fade into oblivion. Maybe it has something to do with the intersection of memory and belief.
Hot shots – CSM Satu Mare
Keeping Score – For Love Of The Game
My lone experience with Satu Mare did not come in Romania, nor anywhere in Eastern Europe. Instead, it came in the Netherlands at the only place in that small, soggy, and prosperous country I have ever visited. A decade ago, I was waiting on a delayed flight from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam back to the United States. This was the second of three flights on my journey home. The first leg had been an early morning flight from Budapest. On that flight, I noticed an athletic young African American woman wearing basketball gear. Like the other passengers she looked bleary eyed. Checking in at 6 a.m. can do that to anyone. We all had a long day ahead of us. With nothing else to do other than wait for a boarding call, passengers began to make idle chatter among themselves. The usual banal exercise to pass time. Airports are full of strangers either staring listlessly forward or engaging in talk therapy among themselves. Misery finds plenty of company during delayed departures. It is a sublime sort of meet and greet where you can hardly remember a person’s time within ten minutes of them telling it to you.
I was considering a conversation with the woman because I wondered if she played basketball professionally. My main interest was where she might have played college basketball in America. I grew up in the heart of college basketball in North Carolina’s Tobacco Road. Unfortunately, I did not speak up in time. A fellow passenger started talking with her first. Their conversation answered my question. When asked where she had been in Europe, the woman replied, “Satu Mare.” This elicited a predictable “Where’s that?” from her inquisitor. It turned out that the women played professionally on a team in Satu Mare. I knew that basketball was popular in parts of Eastern Europe such as Lithuania and the Balkans but had no idea that women’s professional teams were in Romania. The woman was asked what she thought of Satu Mare. She replied that the city was nice and so were the people. She was heading back to America for a break. The same listlessness everyone waiting on the flight felt soon ended the conversation.
Hoop Dreams – Starry Eyed Surprises
I did not envy the basketball player in her chosen profession. She had to travel far from home to earn a living. While the world of professional sports looks glamorous, the reality is very different for those who play professionally. Athletes spend an inordinate amount of time living out of suitcases and in strange places far from family and friends. The allure of travel wears off when you must do it for a living. Sport at its highest level takes such a high degree of dedication that professional athletes spend most of their time either practicing or resting. Her team, CSM Satu Mare, was just one more stop on that woman’s career ladder. She ended up being the first person I ever came across who had spent time in Satu Mare. I imagined it was not much of a basketball hub, but later research revealed an even deeper and more famous connection to the game.
Ernie Grunfeld, who starred at the University of Tennessee and played professionally for the New York Knicks, was born in Satu Mare to parents who survived the Holocaust. The family emigrated to the United States in 1964. Grunfeld’s basketball skills took him just as far. I can recall watching Grunfeld play during the 1980’s for the Knicks. He went on to have a long career as a professional basketball executive. I was astonished to discover he was from Satu Mare. A couple of basketball connections to the city were one of those improbable instances that feels like destiny. Strange things happen when you believe.
Coming soon: Losing Proposition – A Sense of Dread In Satu Mare (The Lost Lands #10)