Fall 1999

[TEXT ARCHIVE WEB-PUBLISHED MARCH 2002.
ORIGINAL PRINT PUBLICATION DATE: FALL 1999.]

Houby Hunter

By Raymond Wiggers

If the accomplished houby hunter Tony Jandacek ever tells you that mushrooming can transform your life, believe him. Born in Prague in 1934, Tony describes himself as "genetically predisposed to become a mycophile." While being of Bohemian descent is probably genetic predisposition enough — it's claimed that half the inhabitants of the modern Czech Republic are dedicated mushroom enthusiasts — Tony's interest in the national pastime was also carefully cultivated by his father, who took him and the rest of his family on collecting trips in their country's magnificent woodland habitats.

During World War II, when Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Germans, the Jandaceks' houby-hunting skills proved an especially valuable asset. At a time when meat was severely rationed by the Nazi overlords, mushrooms collected on forays provided needed protein and kept the family out of hunger's clutches.

Within three years of the war's end, Czechoslovakia fell to a Soviet-engineered, communist coup that placed the nation firmly behind the Iron Curtain. Tony's father, a prominent pro-Western journalist, was fired and forced to emigrate first to West Germany, then to Chicago. The rest of the family prepared to follow suit. One member of the Czechoslovakian border patrol, though officially charged with preventing the escape of "deceitful enemies of the people's democracy," was sympathetic enough to the Jandaceks' plight to show the fourteen-year-old Tony the forest trails that would lead his family to West German territory.

On September 14, 1948 — a grim, drizzly day at the Czecho-German frontier — a mother and her three youngsters, all casually dressed, faded into the forest. Even in a land now infested with informers, the group excited no suspicions. After all, the mother carried a large wicker basket, the sure sign of a family houby hunt. Though intent on reaching the border, the little group repeatedly paused to collect mushrooms from the forest floor. It was probably as much an expression of an unconscious ethnic imperative as it was a way of providing plausible cover.

The Jandaceks made it safely through, but they had to surrender their "contraband," their basketful of choice mushrooms, to the German guards. Months of internment in a variety of European displacement camps followed, until finally, at the end of 1950, the group reached the United States and was reunited with Tony's father.

Nor did Tony's passion for mushrooming wane when he left his native land. Having led a busy and rewarding life as a Chicagoland high school teacher, translator, and Czech-language instructor — and having taught a series of courses in the field identification of mushrooms at Triton College, the College of DuPage, and other institutions — he now pursues what he rightfully describes as a highly active retirement. A frequent participant in forays sponsored by the North American Mycological Association, he's still as much of a houba"r" — an avid mushroomer — as he was decades ago, in the forests of Bohemia.