My rent in America was endorsed to the bearer, Abdülmecid

The story is long, but let me try to tell it briefly.

We respect and love the Ottoman Empire.

By establishing a serious empire with a doctrine that was grounded in the conditions of its time, it brought its rivals to their knees and made the Turks an important player on the stage of history.

Do not pay attention to those who sell tomato paste and wander around the enforcement offices for the real estate of the Turkish State with fake diplomas.

Unfortunately, the Ottoman Empire, which could not read the industrial revolutions well, collapsed.

Even though it was difficult, the Ottoman Pashas founded Modern Turkey.

Although a lot of progress was made thanks to Atatürk's revolutions, going to America for a master's degree was considered almost mandatory, if not essential.

Even though it was not essential, we set off for America in 1994.

After my master's degree at the Stevens Institute of Technology, I started working as a bid-proposal engineer at a construction firm owned by an Irishman.

I was going to Mount Vernon, just north of Manhattan, every day by passing through the Lincoln Tunnel.

I was both waking up early, paying the tunnel toll, and struggling in heavy traffic.

I wasn't complaining.

Even though the distance to the workplace was tiring, I was extremely happy.

I was walking around the streets of New York in a tie and filling my stomach at steak houses.

I won't write about my social life here; otherwise, there will be a row at home, and nothing I say will matter.

I would occasionally have coffee with Jerry, the Irish owner of the firm.

During a construction site visit, while we were chatting, the subject turned to the migration of the Irish to America.

They had migrated in the hulls of cargo ships, in very difficult conditions, along with rats.

I told him that the first Turks had rushed to the aid of the Irish living in difficult conditions.

Although I don't remember where I read it, I told him that under the pressure of the British King, Abdülmecid had secretly sent potatoes and other food supplies to the Irish—whose honor and chastity were in danger and who were about to die of hunger, as described in Mel Gibson's film Braveheart—even bypassing the British, and that he had even armed the Irish militia forces.

Jerry was shocked.

He didn't know what to say.

He stuttered, "Is that right Gökhan, Is that right Gökhan," and his eyes lit up with excitement.

It was clear that he was meeting a Turk for the first time in his life and hearing this story for the first time.

I also mentioned the Drogheda United football team, which played a friendly match against Trabzonspor last night.

When I said that the reason for the crescent and star on the Drogheda United emblem was a gesture in return for the aid of the Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid, Jerry hugged and kissed me like a Galata street tough who had had a few drinks.

The next day, Jerry called me to his office and said that I could stay in the company house just behind the Italian neighborhood, and thus I would be saved from the traffic and tunnel toll problem.

When I looked at the house, I thought the rent would be very high, but Jerry said I didn't need to pay any rent.

It was clear that the rent for the house I stayed in in 1998 had been paid 151 years ago, in 1847, by Sultan Abdülmecid.