This is what Lawrence B. Siddall of Amherst knew about Poland before the Peace Corps assigned him to teach high school English there in 1997:

Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland.
 

The Warsaw Uprising.

Pope John Paul II.

Lech Walesa and the Solidarity Movement.

Lawrence was a 67-year-old grandfather, a retired psychotherapist with couples counseling his specialty. He wanted to do something out of the ordinary for his retirement. His health was good, his children grown. He's always had a yen to travel.

Lawrence was born in China, the son of a medical missionary. When he was discharged from the U.S. Army while stationed in Munich in 1956, he and a buddy drove in a VW Beetle from Oslo to Bombay, a five-month 11,000-mile trip. Lawrence returned home working on a freighter - "clean sheets, hot and cold water," he recalls - and with folding money in his pocket.

"The Peace Corps offered the allure of the unknown," he says on a recent sunny afternoon. "You might say I was also looking to be something of a good-will ambassador."

Lawrence really wanted to be assigned to South America. He had never traveled there, and he wanted to learn Spanish.

"I was initially disappointed when I heard of my assignment," he admits. "But that quickly changed. Why? The people."

During his two years in Poland - much of it teaching high school English in Swidnica - Lawrence was one of 450 senior volunteers in the Peace Corps' worldwide force of 6,500.

"I would recommend the Peace Corps," he says. "It is a different kind of retirement. A very satisfying one. I know it affected me profoundly."

Lawrence recently completed a self-published book about his experience: "Two Years in Poland And Other Stories: A Sixty-Seven-Year-Old Grandfather Joins the Peace Corps And Looks Back on his Life" (Pelham Springs Press, $16.95, www.lawrencesiddall.com)

"It took me three years to write it," he says. "I wanted to leave a record of some kind."

He is now 77, still athletically trim, dressed neatly in a red print shirt and pressed khaki pants. Macular degeneration is gaining on him, but he can still read. He has a book about the Boxer Rebellion on his coffee table and a rack of Sunday New York Times Book Reviews by the side of his couch. He highly recommends Ian McEwan's book, "Atonement."

With a lifelong interest in art history, he is a volunteer at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. He remains an avid photographer. Thanks to Netflix, of late he has been on something of an Ingmar Bergman jag.

Lawrence's home smells of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The small brick house located within walking distance of the University of Massachusetts is decorated with Chinese art. There is a lovely view of the Mount Holyoke Range from the living room window. Three yards of mulch sit ready to be spread in flower gardens.

Lawrence arrived in Western Massachusetts nearly 50 years ago, as a college textbook salesman. He stayed after he decided on a career as a therapist. For much of his adult life, Lawrence lived in Pelham, but sold the family home when he moved to Poland. He has been back to Poland twice since his Peace Corps experience.

"Learning Polish turned out to be far more difficult than I imagined," he says. "I had studied German in college and learned to speak it fairly well when I lived in Munich. But as challenging as German was, Polish is a whole different league. At least it has the advantage of being a phonetic language, so, once you learn the rules, pronunciation is always the same. But it takes a good ear and some tongue twisting to get it right."

During his time in Poland, Lawrence had his moments of isolation and second thoughts.

"If anyone in my family thought I was nuts or naive to do this when I was 67," he says, "they didn't tell me. Thirty percent of those who join the Peace Corps leave early because of illness, loneliness. Why didn't I ever consider leaving? I didn't want to break the spirit of the whole thing."

Tom Shea can be reached at tshea@repub.com.