Aug. 29--The town was Weimar, part of the old East Germany, the town of Liszt and Goethe and, to my great surprise, Michael Jordan too. I turned a corner and there was Jordan, life size, on the other side of a store window.
It was more than a year after the Berlin Wall came down, but freedom and prosperity had yet to come to Weimar. The citizens scuffled along close to the buildings and lined up in the street to make telephone calls. Dim street lamps made it all the more depressing.
And yet there was Jordan, the bright and grinning American capitalist, his cutout-cardboard self selling shoes to foreigners who could not afford them.
Except one thing was missing. The shoes. The store sold very little of anything, some tourist stuff (I think I bought a beer mug with a lid on it) and a few staples, such as soap and canned potatoes.
Maybe the shoes were in shipment from Nike. Maybe they weren't coming at all. Maybe the display got through customs first. I don't know. I did not speak German and yet we had a common language. I pointed to the display.
"MJ," I said. "MJ."
"Ja, ja, MJ," said the clerk. He smiled and I smiled and we agreed without speaking another word that MJ was someone we had in common.
I suppose it is still possible for Jordan to sue the little German store that used his likeness without his consent, used it to attract customers to buy very little, and if he is interested I'll try to remember where it was. Just down the street from Liszt's house, I think.
Jordan always will be the greatest basketball player ever, certainly as long as he is around to remind us so himself. Jordan never has known how to take a compliment. Admiration is his due; it is ours to oblige and his to agree.
He has been sullen and selfish and a wonderful basketball player, as it is possible to be all three at once, maybe even necessary. His tiff with Dominick's was petty and typical and did nothing to enhance the image he said he was trying to protect.
But that's Jordan. He knows how to carry a grudge, to recall every slight, real or imagined.
Lots of us have profited from Jordan, and for my part I would like to thank him for several hundred columns that made my day easier. And I apologize for using his name without asking him first.
The machinery that made him famous, whether it was the organized promotions of his sponsors or the simple recounting of his feats in the media, had selfish and commercial motives. Of course it did.
I don't remember Jordan ever saying thanks. Even for being selected to the Hall of Fame, which started this whole thing.
Many newspapers, magazines and television networks paid tribute to Jordan without his permission. I wrote a piece for ESPN recalling his flu game in Utah. I was paid, not enough, $1,200 I think it was, and I will write Jordan a check if he insists.
I didn't do it for the money, nor do I think a grocery store did, either, using him to sell meat at a discount. We did it as a compliment to someone we admired, and still do, all in all.
The town was Foix, across the Pyrenees from Spain in France, soon after the Barcelona Olympics when Jordan and the Dream Team had reduced world basketball to compost.
In a roadside bistro, we had the only waiter who spoke English, probably the busboy, late teens, very perky, and happy to practice his English.
"The Olympics?" he asked.
"Oui," I said, exhausting my French.
"The Drim Tim," he said. "You saw it?"
I said I had seen the Dream Team.
"He is my favorite," he said.
"Don't tell me. Michael Jordan," I said.
"Oh, yes, he is very good. But he is no Pippen. Scottie is my favorite." And he kissed his fingers as Frenchmen are apt to do.
For years I have known that in at least one heart of one young man in southwestern France, Michael Jordan is not the first option.
So sue me.
Lincicome is a special contributor to the Chicago Tribune.
