“Back in the USSR,” begins Arnold Trampe’s mobile-phone text message, which I received just as I woke up this morning. He and his wife, Monique, must have just arrived in Motovun, where they have a house, and where they will most likely stay for the holidays. The first line struck me as funny. And pertinent, given all the givens. I immediately remembered the 1968 song by the Beatles, too. But the second line baffled me entirely: “You don’t know how lucky you are, boys.” What could he possibly mean?  Are we lucky to live in the sticks? Does it have to do with the fact that Arnold and Monique live in the Netherlands, as well as quite close to Amsterdam? And why “boys” rather than, say, “boys and girls”? It took me a few minutes to realize that this must be the next line in the song, for it rimes with the first. I googled it, and there it was, except that it ends with “boy,” not “boys.” Anyhow, this bit of the lyrics I blissfully forgot after forty years.