Czech ambassador visits town for music, big key
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by Cara Pesek/Lincoln Journal Star
PRAGUE — Mark Nemec doesn’t usually prepare duck in the middle of the week, but because it was a special occasion, he cooked 15 of them Wednesday night.
His dad, Adolph Nemec, was in charge of rounding up flags — both American and Czech — for the evening.
Musicians drove up from Crete and Milligan.
Tonette Kliment baked extra rye bread.
The village of Prague made one of those oversized keys, the kind you give to dignitaries.
Because they had one coming.
At 5:45 Wednesday evening, a tall, slender man named Petr Kolar stepped into the Kolache Korner in Prague.
Kolar, the Czech ambassador to the United States, had been in Omaha, attending a conference for foreign diplomats.
Wednesday afternoon, he visited the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, spending time with a Czech class and giving a lecture on transatlantic relations to an audience of about 100 people.
But Kolar described his time spent in Prague Wednesday night as the best part of being a diplomat.
It was the part with the food, the music, the traditional Czech costumes, the language, the shared humor and that giant key.
“You must have a very big door,” Kolar said, as he accepted it from Village Board Chairman Edward Ourada Jr.
“That isn’t really the most important key to the city,”Ourada said. “The important key is the one that gets you into the dump on the weekend.”
Kolar greeted the standing room only audience speaking in Czech. They answered, also in Czech.
“I am quite a long distance from my home, and suddenly I am really back at home,” he said. “It’s something very special.”
Kolar told the crowd inside the Kolache Korner he was proud of them. Their ancestors, he said, helped build the United States but never forgot their roots.
John Kastl, who grew up in Bee but now lives in Lincoln, made the 40-mile drive to Prague just to see Kolar.
Kastl is a fifth-generation Czech. From his grandparents, he learned to speak some of the language. Four visits to the Czech Republic improved his speaking skills. And years of eating the food and hearing the music have kept his connection to his roots strong.
Kastl can’t quite explain why he’s felt it was so important to stay close to his heritage.
“It’s just a heritage you don’t give up,” he said.
John Petrzelka, who at 95 claimed to be the oldest resident of Prague, was there, too.
He came for both the ambassador and the polka music, even though there was bingo down the street.
Matt and Arlene Wachal of Schuyler had been away on a trip in Kansas but rushed back to see Kolar.
Kolar’s visit was a big deal, they said.
Kolar and his wife had met in Prague, Czech Republic, which, he joked, was part of the reason he wanted to visit Nebraska’s Prague.
This summer, Kolar said, his assistant had been in Wilber at the Czech Festival as one of the judges for the Miss Czech-Slovak USA pageant.
“I was jealous,” Kolar said.
So why Prague instead of the nation’s Czech capital, Wilber?
“This is in the heart of the district,” said U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R.-Neb., who is seeking re-election in the state’s 1st District and who helped arrange Kolar’s visit.
That, and he knew Prague residents would love it, he said.
Watching more than 100 people eating, singing and talking, some in costume, some in T-shirts bearing messages like “Jak se mas?” it was obvious they were loving it.
“They know how to celebrate,” a jovial Kolar said.
Some would say that’s true of Czechs everywhere.
Reach Cara Pesek at 473-7361 or cpesek@journalstar.com.
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evp wrote on November 2, 2006 11:28 pm: