We went to dinner at a local Denny's-type place--you know, mashed potatoes and pie--, and had a waitress who kept forgetting parts of our order. She apologized profusely and told us it was her first day. She had an accent--my first guess was Ukraine or Russia and was, other than the forgetting, perfectly nice.

Towards the end of the meal, a new party was seated near us. Most of them were wearing purple UW sweatshirts (it was Apple Cup weekend), and one man at the table started a conversation with the waitress in a fatherly tone. He asked her where her last name originated (Poland/Lithuania), and later, what brought her to the US.

"Well, you know Chernobyl," she started. "We lived near there, and after that happened, my sistered developed leukemia, so my mother and grandmother started trying to apply to all different places to go to, and this is the first one that said yes."

Nervous laughter.

"Oh," someone choked out. "That's nice."