Feb 27

November 13, 1984
Lech Walesa addressing the hundreds of thousands that
came to mourn Father Jerzy.  He said, "Father Popieluszko
died so that Solidarity may live."

February 27, 10:00 AM
I am sitting in Paul's office at Digital Video Arts waiting for Caitlyn to pick me up.  Our flight for Dulles Airport in Virginia leaves at 2:48 PM.  At some time tomorrow afternoon we'll be landing in Warsaw, Poland.  Just over a month ago I was fresh out of college and working three jobs to get by.  Tomorrow I'll be in Poland.  My friends say I'm lucky.  I think I'm blessed.
When people ask me what I'm working on I have an internal debate with myself.  Do I tell them the long story or the short story?  I find myself starting with the short story, but I can't help telling the long one.  It begins with, "the Poles have been treated like dirt by Europe for centuries," and it ends with, "and now he's this close to becoming a saint."  I love telling this story.  It's a story that needs to be told because people need to know his name.  He was a hero for human rights, a holy man, a common man, and a martyr.  
Now I get to see where he lived, where he walked, and where he preached.  I'll stand in the square that 35,000 people flocked to 28 years ago to hear him speak.  I'll get to talk with his friends, the ones that miss him the most, and shake their hands.  I'll be able to connect in so many ways to the man I've only known through words and pictures.  As I said before, I feel blessed.  
I'll try to keep this blog up each day on the trip to keep you up to date on where we are and what we've done.  I hope to help connect you to this story and maybe it will touch you the way it  touched me.  We will learn a lot on this trip.  We'll have some setbacks, as with any venture, but we'll have more than our share of success too, and maybe, if we're lucky, a little fun.
Thanks for reading.
-Mike Masson