Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The Driving Test

We didn’t really want to drive when we first moved to Spain. Spanish traffic was scary, even though we had driven the Los Angeles freeways. I mean, those guys are nuts. Someone coined a phrase for the Spanish driver’s attitude. Viva Yo!

But after a month of watching the traffic flow we realized that we weren’t going to see very much of Spain without a car. We bought a car, El Flojo, and set about getting international drivers’ licenses.

We made applications and appointments to take the test at the central complex in Málaga where all drivers written and driving tests were administered, We showed them our Guam licenses to demonstrate that we had some knowledge pertaining to automobiles. They regarded the licenses with a little suspicion. What’s a Guam? What planet is that on? But eventually they accepted the licenses and the examiners informed us that the written test would be waived. This was good because the test was in Spanish and I’m not sure we would have passed. We handed in our applications and waited for an examiner.

At that point we had a chance to examine the physical layout of the test center. There were obstacles all around us, artificial hills on which to stop and start up again, places to parallel park, slaloms to go through in forward and reverse gears. You name it, if it was an obstacle, they had it. And in the center, right next to the written test center, was a large bar. If you blew the driving test, you could knock back a couple of brandies and go out and try again when your confidence had been restored. In a way, it makes sense. You want your examinees to drive under realistic conditions, and many people drove over there with an alcoholic ballast in their bellies. But it did give me a whole new slant on the phrase “passing the bar.”

We finally drove out with our examiner. We each drove forward, stopped, backed up. That was enough! We passed. Surprise, surprise. Nobody really wanted to give money-bearing foreigners a hard time. Real Spaniards had a much more difficult time with the test, because the government was just as happy if they didn’t drive.

Friday, November 27, 2009

The Haircut

At the time I placed myself in a situation to have our family’s passports stolen, we intended to take a holiday in England. At that same time the man of the hour, as far as France and all of Europe were concerned, was Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, aka Carlos “the Jackal.” I looked a lot like his pictures that were being circulated.

Just my luck. Could I look like a famous, sexy movie star? Or a brilliant writer or noted politician? No-o-o-o-o. Were people going to ask me for an autograph? No, but they might ask me to put my hands up and then shoot me anyway.

So I got a haircut before I got my passport photo. That would show them. Unfortunately, Carlos “the Jackal” also got his hair cut before his latest photos were released. Now I really looked like Carlos.

I thought I might be safe because I didn’t speak English with a heavy Venezuelan accent. But the subject never came up as I went through various customs. And that worried me even more.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

7-Up Commercial

The 7-Up Commercial

In the fall of 1975 I published an article in Lookout, the Costa del Sol’s English language magazine. I discussed how to speak Spanish without knowing any words and to illustrate the article Joanne took pictures of me making faces and hand gestures. Thumb and little finger of right hand raised up, rest of fingers clenched, tilt hand towards mouth. “Let’s have a drink.” Hand held in front of you, fingers together and extended, wobble hand back and forth. “Maybe, maybe not.” Upraised -- well, never mind. They were universal gestures you could use anywhere in Europe.

At about that time a Chicago advertising agency showed up on the Costa del Sol with a contract to film some 7-Up commercials for use in theaters around the world. They hired a film production company owned by Eddy Vorkapich. Eddy had worked as an art director and cameraman in Hollywood but had moved to the Costa del Sol where he had a really cool villa complete with movie theater and a studio with wonderful northern light.

Eddy filmed during the day and the film was flown overnight to London to be developed. Later it was sent to New York for editing and music. After that, the commercials were sent to the intended country of use for voice-over. Spanish is different from country to country. Costa Rican “ticos” would not enjoy listening to a 7-Up commercial in Castilian Spanish. They would much prefer Tico Talk. A few years later I met people in California who had seen the commercials in Singapore. Spanish of any sort would have been ineffective for that audience.

The plots of the commerecials involved the 7-Up hero, a pair of hands dressed formally in white gloves who lived in a green box. On the basis of the published article, I got the job as a pair of hands. The hands would execute whatever deed of derring do was required, and then pour everyone a nice drink of 7-Up.

One of the scenarios involved outlaws in the Old West who tried a hold up but were handcuffed by the hands emerging from the green box. First, there was the matter of getting guns in for the outlaws. You can’t have them using wooden guns or pointing their fingers. However, even though the Spanish Civil War had been over for 36 years by the time we were actively promoting 7-Up, the authorities were still reluctant to allow handguns into the country. Spanish citizens were permitted to own small gauge rifles or shotguns if they had a clear police record, but no handguns. No no no no no. That was strictly a prerogative of the police. So when our earnest young production assistant picked up a load of six guns at the airport, she had some heavy explaining to do.

One of the outlaws, a Spaniard, wore a Mexican suit, complete with big sombrero, fancy jacket and conchos down the pants legs. He had a Kodak Instamatic® hung over the revolver in his holster and whenever there was a break in the shooting snapped pictures right and left. The bandido spoke no English and the other two outlaws, a Brit and a Belgian, translated for the director when Eddy’s desires exceeded his Spanish.

The other “plot” involved a beautiful girl and a beautiful boy running along the beach in beautiful bikinis, wanting a cool, refreshing drink. Green box to the rescue. He parachutes to the beach. The top of the box opens, the hands come out, drinks are poured, the day is saved. For the parachute drop the company hauled a tall crane to an inlet so they could film on a sandy beach with the Med and blue sky behind and not attract hundreds of tourists. They had just hauled the chute and green box up the crane and were set to make their first drop when a small Spaniard interrupted the works, loudly. He, it seemed, was the mayor of the small town where they were working, the alcalde, and no one had cleared this chute shoot with him. He wanted things stopped right now until the matter of permisos was cleared up.

The company went ahead with their work while the production assistant, a South African lady fluent in English, Spanish, Afrikaans and Swahili, the same one who picked up the guns at the airport, attempted to pacify the mayor. She succeeded in doing so and as the mayor was leaving the two shook hands. Unfortunately, she had been painting the green box in case there was a need for a second drop. She had green paint on her hand and, by the time she and the alcalde finished their demonstration of undying affection, so did he. He expected his palm to be crossed with something green, but I don’t think it was paint.

The first day of the actual beach shoot dawned. The beautiful Canadian girl model and the beautiful Belgian boy model showed up in their beautiful bikinis and looked at the cloudy, rain drenched beach. Did I mention that we were shooting in January? Couldn’t work that day. The company was dismissed with an early call for the next morning and the senior advertising rep from Chicago went to work on a bottle of vodka.

The next day was beautiful and sunny. People talk about Sunny Spain but not necessarily about Warm Spain. In January it’s cold. The poor bikini clad models had to run up and down the beach pretending they were having fun. I was tucked inside of a large box buried in the beach and covered over with sand. Someone placed the green box on top of my box through which my hands could appear to work their magic. I was the only warm person on the set. And the shoot took two days.

The commercials took up four weeks of my time for which they paid me 50,000 pesetas, about $1000 US. That money kept our family of three going in relative comfort for four months. And the work was easy. I was merely the talent. All the thought, the organizing, the networking, the bribing, had been done by others.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Smugglers’ Cheese

Feeding our teenagers always presented difficulties whether we lived in California, Guam or Spain. Spain had government subsidized bread, milk and fish provided real help in filling teenage maws. Another boon to the Harris household was Smugglers’ Cheese.

Smugglers’ Cheese was processed cheese packaged in five-pound blocks and smuggled in from Holland. This cheese provided a tasty and nutritious morsel for our kids and the piranha pack who would periodically descend upon our kitchen.

The black marketer sold his cheese under the stairs of the front of the British Embassy. It was a great location because everyone knew where it was. (The embassy is actually in Madrid and Torremolinos has just a consular office.)

People probably put up with the black marketer because everyone liked the cheese including the embassy employees and the beat cop. However, I imagine he crossed a few palms with pesetas as well.

One day the embassy moved its consular office. A teacher at Sunnyview School complained, “Now where will we get our cheese?”

“Same place,” a Brit teacher replied. “The Embassy isn’t selling the cheese. It’s the black marketer.”

We were all reassured about our source of cheese and the solvency of Her Majesty’s government: they didn’t have to sell to smuggled cheese to pay their embassy office bills.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Satan's Cat

It was outside of a bar in Torremolinos, near the beach, where Joanne and I met Satan’s cat. Just like that. Satan’s cat was neither small nor large, but he gave off an aura of a saber toothed tiger. Missing left ear. Right eye, gone. Several major scars adorned his face and front end, none on the back. Satan’s cat obviously faced his troubles squarely. And loved it. Even a casual inspection from ten yards away assured you of his gender. He swaggered down the middle of whatever path he chose, this gato del Diablo, this jefe of Andalucia. He was an El Máximo.

Neither Joanne nor I would have approached him with anything short of a .357.

Suddenly two Dalmatian pups bounded out of the bar and, sighting the cat, decided it would be fun to chase it up a tree or, even better, in front of a car. They charged, but the cat, rather than fleeing, sat down in the middle of the road and eyed the young dogs speculatively. I could almost hear him think, “Shall I blind the one on the right and castrate the one on the left, or vice versa?” The cat did not run, but waited calmly and with fell intent. I smelled brimstone. The cat smelled blood.

The pups realized that something wasn’t quite right and stopped bounding and prancing. They surreptitiously looked at each other. Neither would retreat first, but for damn sure neither would attack first either.

So there the three sat in the middle of the street. They would be there yet, but the pups’ owner came out of the bar and called them to follow him. The pup followed their master. Gladly. Quickly.

And Satan’s cat went on his way, his afternoon paseo undisturbed.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Saloon Singers

Our neighbor, David McConnell, and I shared an interest in guitar playing and folk music. We soon agreed to sing and play together and maybe do something in public, should the occasion arise. To my surprise, thanks to McConnell, the occasion soon arose.

One of Sunnyview’s parents, Jeff Rich, ran a local Italian restaurant and bar. The restaurant and bar were on the main floor of a hotel and so, when approached by McConnell, Rich agreed to anything that might draw patrons into the bar.

I wasn’t so certain that all this was going to work out well because it had been at least four years, maybe longer, since I had taken guitar in hand and actually tried to entertain someone. But after the first few bars of music, everything was fine for me. I could remember the words, the chords, and manage to finish up at the same time as McConnell. What more could he ask?

Most of our audience were tourists for in those days you could put together six weeks in Spain cheaper than you could stay home. On Friday nights we rowed Michael ashore, sympathized with Tom Dooley, and cast longing looks at our empty tips jar.

Sometimes, to rest our voices, we would have a wine at the bar while one of Rich’s waiters put on a show. He was slim and dark haired, wore his shirt open to the navel and his pants were so tight I think he sprayed them on. He could have used his shoes as a mirror to pluck his eyebrows. He only knew the chord of E major, but he stomped his feet and wiggled his hips, shook his hair, spun the guitar like a top. And. My God, how the man got tips. The little old American ladies loved him.

One American lady, while admiring the waiter, chose to compliment me on my language. “You soitny speak good English. Wheredja loin?”

(I’m overstating her accent here. She definitely did not talk like one of the Three Stooges, but there were strong traces of New Jersey in her speech. She was fun to listen to.)

“Well, ma’am, I’m an American.”

“No, ya not. I’m from New Joisy, and I know an American when I hear one. Now where yah from?”

It hit me that this lady didn’t come all the way to Spain from New Jersey to meet Americans. She could have done that at her local McDonalds. So I confessed. “You got me, ma’am. I’m a Gallego. I come from Galicia.”

“Well, you soitny speak good English.” She was totally happy having met a native Spaniard, and such a talented one at that.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Robert the Bruce’s Heart and the Macho Bus Driver

We were returning from Carratraca to Torremolinos by bus once. We had gone to Carratraca from Torremolinos on the same bus with the same driver the day before. A solemn group we were, many recovering from their exertions at a discothèque the night before. Livelier than porch furniture, but not much.

` Our driver stopped the bus on the berm of a hillside road and directed our attention to the plain below. Silhouetted on a hill on the other side of the plain rose the ruins of the castle of Teba. “Here,” our driver announced, “is where Robert the Bruce almost lost his heart to the Moorish army.”

Some of our group were familiar with the story, but for others, including myself, it was totally new information. What was Robert the Bruce doing in Spain?

Actually, he wasn’t in Spain, our driver went on to explain. Just his heart was in Spain. The rest of his body had remained behind, buried at Dumfermline. The Bruce had always wanted to go on a crusade or at least make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But, what with fighting the English, he just never had time to go. (Subsequent research informed me that Robert the Bruce changed allegiances five times in the course of his political career and spent some of his time fighting other Scotsmen as well. Politics was a murky business in those days and many Scottish nobles also held lands in England.)

When the Bruce died he begged his friend Sir James Douglas to carry his heart to Spain to fight the Muslims, or even to Jerusalem, if they got that far. The Good Sir James (also known as The Black Douglas in England where mothers used this name to scare their children to bed) set out with some soldiers and some other nobles set on adventure carrying the Bruce’s heart in a silver box. There Sir James joined forces with a Spanish army. The combined armies found themselves facing a sizable Moorish force on the plain below Castle Teba.

The Moors feinted a retreat and the Scots charged. The Spanish had seen this trick before, and so they didn’t charge. The Scots were soon surrounded, but the Douglas fought his way free. But looking back, he saw the Sinclair surrounded and fighting for his life. The Douglas rode back into the fray and soon found himself hopelessly surrounded.

He thereupon threw the silver box containing the Bruce’s heart among the enemy and charged. Both the Sinclair and the Douglas died in the battle. The box containing the Bruce’s heart was found under the Douglas’ body and returned to Scotland where it was buried at Melrose Abby, not Dumfermline.

I have gone a little overboard in telling this story, considering this is a memoir and I wasn’t there at the battle, and I’m really glad for that. It’s a fascinating story, a real story. If it were fiction, it would make more sense. I especially like the story because it demonstrates that other people besides Plains Indians can find a way to die gloriously but stupidly on the field of battle.

As the driver concluded his little story of Moorish mayhem and Scots vainglory, one of our female tourists loudly complimented him for giving such an interesting tour. “Besides,” she added, “you’re so macho.”

We burst out laughing because macho in Spain has a different meaning than it does in California or Arizona. In Spain the word refers more to endowment rather than behavior. Some less than generous people wanted to know how she knew and when she knew it. Our lady tourist, now vermillion, said, “Oops!” and sat down.

True story. Well, I don’t know about the Robert the Bruce part, but the macho bus driver, certainly.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Rabies in Spain

A rabies epidemic broke out in Málaga Province in 1975 and the Spanish government responded in three ways. First, they issued an edict that all dogs would receive rabies vaccinations. Second, they required that all dogs wear muzzles, with a $250 penalty per violation. Third, an order came down that all stray dogs be shot.

The first edict produced curious results. But to keep veterinarians from profiteering on the free, government-issued vaccine, all the vaccine was concentrated at a government building in downtown Málaga. The result was a monumental traffic jam as everyone and his dog from all over the province converged on this one spot. It was our experience that Spaniards culturally resist lining up for anything, preferring a great seething mass instead. A milling mob at the plaza de toros creates quite an impact after the last bull has been slain. But ten times that many people, assisted by their dogs, can tie up traffic in all directions for miles. And so it happened. It even interfered with siesta.

Eventually the traffic cleared, the dust settled, and the whimpering, barking, whining, shouting, honking, fist shaking all became things of the past. Muzzles were another story.

For one thing, there was no legal definition of a muzzle that anyone would admit to knowing about. One woman shopper in a bakery, seeing a policeman standing right outside, borrowed a white ribbon and bow, tied it around her dog’s nose, and walked right by him. Actually, she didn’t walk, she marched. She paraded. Even her dog pranced. In Spain, you get points for style. I think her short skirt helped also.

Another lady took clippers and clipped where a muzzle would go. She got away with it. In those days in Spain women expected to “get away with things” as their natural right.

Most of the Málaga dogs were unenthused about the muzzles. There was nothing in the new law that said anything about fit and sometimes small dogs tangled their feet in the contraptions hanging from their noses, while large dogs tried to wear muzzles that would barely fit over their noses.

One previously well-mannered German shepherd, Hilda, didn’t want to go for walks, something she had loved to do in pre-muzzle days. After a week of enforced promenades with the hated muzzle, she rebelled. As her owner stood at the doorway calling sweetly and holding out the leash and muzzle, Hilda ran into the dining room, leaped on the dinner table, scattering dishes everywhere, stole a whole roasted chicken, and retired defiantly to the bathroom. “I don’t understand,” the woman complained later. “Hilda’s always had perfect manners. She’s never done anything like that before.”

Toby, an Irish setter by trade, lived with an English journalist and his family on the third floor of an apartment building. He was naturally exuberant, gregarious, and loved parties. He wanted to be near to every guest and he never met a canapé he didn't adore. He was sometimes a pest, but his great charm overcame his other negative qualities.

Toby saw little use in a muzzle which interfered with his smile, the angle of his tongue droop and his ability to scoop up stray pieces of food from the street. After his first walk, he grabbed the muzzle, took it to the balcony and dropped it into the swimming pool four stories below. (This was Spain. The first story was on the second floor.)

It was the third edict condemning stray dogs to execution that I found most unusual. In the States dog catchers would be mobilized, dogs scooped up, their owners given the chance to reclaim them and pay their fines, and only as a last resort would the animals be “euthanized.” Spain had roaming firing squads.

We lived at the foot of a hill and walked to the top to our work at Sunnyview School every day. We grew to know and appreciate a saggy, mangy bitch who lived in the fields and whelped litter after litter of puppies, most of whom were eaten by predators or fell victim to passing automobiles. But though her pups died with regularity, Old Bitch, for so we called her, always survived.

But one morning as we walked to work we saw a team of government dog shooters, their official status proclaimed by their same color coveralls, creeping through the fields, hiding behind some old walls and vegetation and slowly surrounding Old Bitch. She lay in the weak winter sunlight, asleep after a hard night of raiding garbage cans, oblivious to her danger.

“It’s all over for Old Bitch,” I whispered to Joanne. “I’ll miss her.” I had grown to respect her as a survivor.

But that afternoon, as we walked home we saw Old Bitch snoozing by a thornbush. There was no sign of the dog shooters. They had her surrounded. Maybe they shot each other.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Passports and Taxes

In early 1975 someone stole our passports, not just mine but Joanne’s and the kids’ as well. Joanne’s and mine would have fetched more from the fence because adult terrorists are more common than child terrorists. (At least, that's the way it was back then.)

Mine was more valuable than Joanne’s because there are more brunette, male terrorists than blond, female terrorists with freckles. But all of our passports had histories, visa stamps, exit and entry stamps, from a variety of countries, really fine platforms for artful forgers.

It was all my fault, really. I was very taken with the straw bolsos that I saw men and women carrying around town. Large bags they were, with straps so you could carry your purchases over your shoulder rather than dangling them in a hand held bag.

Bolsos also made life easier for thieves. They could just dip in and take what they wanted without fiddling around with confederates or pocket slitting. And dainty dipping had so much more finesse about it than the standard snatch and run street crime.

On this particular day I was going to the American chargé d’affaires to do something with the passports. I think they were up for renewal. In any event, I had them all with me in my trusty bolso, and they were all stolen.

I continued on to the chargé d’affaires office, but with a slightly modified mission. I wanted to report stolen passports and request their replacement. As I entered the phone rang. A pretty young lady at the receptionist’s desk did not pick up the receiver. Instead, she called into the chargé d’affaires’ office, “Señor, el teléfono.” Except when she said it, it came out, “sehn.YOR, ehl tehl.uh.FO.no.” I thought, “Dear God, I’ve lost our passports and now I’m dealing with someone’s niece who’s spending her summer vacation in Spain. Someone’s niece who flunked Spanish.”

In spite of this dubious beginning, my report was accepted and they furnished me with forms needed for replacement. Joanne took passport photos, which she then developed and printed in the family dark room. We returned the forms and sat back to wait.

Within a few weeks our children had their new passports, but ours did not arrive. So we waited and we waited some more.

After a while it became apparent that we weren’t going to get new passports, and so I wrote a letter to the chargé d’affaires stating that we didn’t mind being persona non grata, but being permanent persona non exceeded even bureaucratic bounds. What was the problem?

It turns out the feds had a question about our income taxes. They wondered why we hadn’t paid any since 1970, five years before. We hadn’t even filed. But God forefend they should actually ask. Instead, they just moved our applications from the bottom of one pile to the bottom of another.

The answer was simple enough. On Guam we became voting citizens. We filed our 1040s with GovGuam and paid our taxes accordingly. In Spain we didn’t have to pay taxes on the first $50,000 of our annual income, and we were profoundly below that level.

I realize now that even if you don’t own Uncle Sugar any money, you need to file. It simplifies matters so much. How’s Big Brother going to keep his spotting scope on you if you don’t show your bushy tail once in a while?

Eventually our new passports arrived and I only had one problem. In my passport photo I looked like Carlos, the terrorist who was running wild all over Europe at the time. Ah, well, no solution is perfect.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Our Second Car (El Coche Segundo)

After we got rid of our first car, El Flojo, we still needed a car and one day we met an Australian photojournalist who sold us his Canon® camera, lenses and bag as well as his green Volkswagen station wagon. He was gathering up some funds to finance a foray into the United Kingdom before he returned to Australia. This particular car had Dutch plates and was registered to a Brazilian.

In Spain a foreigner bought a used car for cash and didn’t bother to reregister it. So, who knows how long ago some Brazilian imported that car and registered with the government. Who knows when he sold that car for cash and left the country. Or to whom he sold the car. Or why he left the country. Maybe he wasn’t even a Brazilian, but just some guy with a stolen passport. You could write a novel about this guy. But what the hay, I had a bill of sale in case anyone asked me how I got the car. But no one ever did.

The car had a white oval decal, ringed in black, with a black “NL” on the left rear. That identified me as a Netherlander. Many, many cars sported these decals announcing their country of origin. Great Britain was fairly straightforward with their GB. But D for Germany? Well, yes, Deutschland. My favorite was CH for Switzerland. Congress of Helvetia.

It suited me to have Spaniards think I was a Netherlander. I spoke a reasonably good Spanish at the time and people would believe I was from the Netherlands. Spaniards believed that all Americans were tall, blond, blue eyed, and spoke only English. When the American Club, which Joanne and I had joined some time earlier, asked us if we would like to put an American flag decal on the car, we replied no, no, a thousand times no. I could just imagine how much the prices of things would go up if the Spanish vendor thought I was American. It was also common knowledge that Americans were all rich and dumb. So I thanked the American Club member as graciously as I could and declined her kind offer.

About the time we bought the VW we also received our international drivers licenses. Not easily come by. Required the services of our friendly gestor. We had to fill out forms and furnish our California drivers licenses as evidence of something or other.

We didn’t have to take a written test. Good thing, too. The test would have been in Spanish. In those days the Spanish government made no attempt to deal with foreigners. If you wanted to do something that involved the government, you did it in Spanish. My spoken Spanish was reasonable, but I’m not sure how well we would have done on a written drivers test.

Then we had to demonstrate our competence at the official testing area. It was a large compound involving short roads with curves, S curves, places for parallel parking, slalom courses and precision braking. And right smack in the middle was a bar. Just in case you needed a good, stiff brandy before strutting your stuff.

They really made the test difficult for their own citizens, almost as if they didn’t want them to have drivers licenses. But us, ridiculously easy. Drive forward a little ways, Stop. Back up a few feet. Congratulations, señor, you have passed the test. Vaya con Dios.

We drove until June, 1976, without mishap and when we left Spain we sold the car to Gino Hollander, a local painter with galleries in many different cities. He paid for the car with two paintings, a deal we found more than satisfactory. We just parked the car at the airport when we left and put the key under the doormat along with a bill of sale. I believe Gino’s older son used it to take some paintings to Israel. I wonder if the Brazilian was as well traveled as his car?

Monday, September 7, 2009

Our First Spanish Rain Storm

Our house, Villa Medellín, was within walking distance of Sunnyview School to the north. Uphill, but within walking distance. We set out to walk to the school just to try things out, see if we were up to the task. It was a beautiful, sunny day without a cloud in the sky. How Spanish. After all, this was the Costa del Sol, Coast of the Sun.

To the north of the school lay some hills, and within the hills lay an active rock quarry. As we walked we heard a dynamite explosion from the quarry and watched as a cloud of dust rose into the air. Within minutes the dust reached a proper altitude and clouds began to gather round. Within an hour clouds covered the sky and it began to rain. It rained for several hours.

I recalled stories of the rainmaker going from town to town and setting off explosions, but I always thought it was fiction, something the Wizard of Oz would try. But no, it really works.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Burro Safari

One day Jane Barbadillo, Sunnyview elementary school principal then and school director now, invited us to visit the hamlet of Tolox (tō.LŌS, more or less). You’ve never heard of the village? If you Google it, you still won’t know much because it sits in isolation, off the beaten path, surrounded by other villages you’ve never heard of. We left Torremolinos and drove and drove, and then drove some more, until we came to a turn in the road that took us off the main “highway.” Then we drove and drove some more.

We finally found Tolox in the foothills. Like many old villages, Tolox looks in on itself. Central buildings face the plaza mayor from which little streets designed for burro traffic spread out. You couldn’t drive comfortably on those streets, not even in the small European cars, because they’re too narrow. You couldn’t skateboard comfortably because the streets were cobbled. Walking had its perils.

We parked in a lot outside of town and walked to the plaza mayor where we met Señor Sanchez, bar-restaurant-burro safari entrepreneur. For 200 pesetas he offered to furnish a light breakfast of chocolate and churros (or brandy and churros if you preferred), a burro trek into the surrounding hillsides ending at a waterfall, a paella luncheon cooked over an open fire by the waterfall accompanied by beer, wine or soft drinks, a return to his stables and a sangria party. At the time 200 pesetas equaled $3.00 and change.

We enjoyed ourselves so much that we set up a field trip for a few 6th-, 7th- and 8th-graders. My part in this scheme, besides being a chauffeur, was to make arrangements for the safari with Sr. Sanchez by telephone. I don’t like talking on the telephone even in English and I really disliked doing so in Spanish. For one thing, they always answered my questions. Then what to do? My Spanish is usually good enough to say anything I wish, but I fall short at understanding rapid replies. And Spanish seems to be spoken at automatic weapon speed everywhere but Madrid. Madrileños pride themselves on clarity, but this concept has not caught on anywhere else.

I phoned Sr. Sanchez. To do so, I had to use the operator and ask for “Señor Sanches, Tolox 50.”

“Tolox cincuenta?” the operator asked unbelievingly. She was obviously used to putting phone calls through to the United Nations Headquarters or Buckingham Palace and now I show up with an obviously bogus number. I was probably some kid or a drunk tourist up to a prank.

After some hesitation, she put the call through and Sr. Sanchez sounded like he was next door.

Once we were all mounted and headed into the hills, things quieted down, at least from my point of view. The kids proceeded nose to tail on their burros and presented no difficulties. Once we got to the waterfall, they went swimming, clothes and all. Again, no problem. I wasn’t going to be the one wearing blisters in sensitive places by riding home in damp clothes.

The paella was almost ready when Sr. Sanchez broke out the beer and soft drinks. Guess which ones the kids wanted. Now we had a teeny bit of a problem that I solved by sitting on the cooler.

In due course we returned to Tolox where the children led their burros to their stalls. Sr. Sanchez had arranged for a sangria party for us all. Fortunately, one of the jennies had just foaled and the kids all wanted to be in the barn with the newborn.

It was really a great field trip, saving for the fact that Sr. Sanchez kept trying to pour booze down our kids’ throats. I later saw Sr. Sanchez burro safari as a regular offering by the Wiley Coyote Tour Company in Torremolinos. They wanted 2000 pesetas. I hoped Sr. Sanchez was getting more than 200 of that.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

My Stamp Collection


Foreigners who stayed in Spain for any length of time were required to leave the country every six months and re-enter, acquiring an entry stamp on their passport at that time. We had spent some time in England in the summer of 1975 and Joanne had spent the previous Christmas in Morocco. I, however, needed to add a stamp to my collection.

A passenger ferry regularly connected Málaga and Genoa. However, a second option presented herself in the form of our neighbor, Claude deBretteville. Claude led tour groups for one of the largest tourist companies in Europe. She regularly took groups to Morocco and offered me the opportunity to tag along. I leaped on the opportunity. Morocco would cost far less than Genoa and would be a lot more fun in the company of someone I knew who could explain things to me.

Claude was a striking looking woman, around six feet tall with raven black hair and the brown complexion of a pied noir, a French-Algerian. But she was Danish. She attributed her appearance to a Gypsy not too many generations back, but some of her tour clients insisted that she must be American Indian. She spoke Danish, of course, because she was born in Denmark. But she married a Norwegian and carried a Norwegian passport. She spoke English and Spanish idiomatically, and Arabic as well. However, she claimed that her best language was French.

I looked forward to the trip because Claude possessed one of the most equable natures I had ever met. A month or so earlier she had come home from a trip to somewhere or other when she found our son, Eric, and jumping up and down on her car while her two sons, Suki and Mino, watched. She screamed at them and they scampered off.

She soon came to our house, not to complain about our son’s behavior but to apologize for screaming at him. Once I understood the situation I told her that she shouldn’t have screamed at him: she should have thrown a rock.

But just because she didn’t throw rocks at my son didn’t mean I wouldn’t go to Morocco with her.

On this trip Claude was conducting a group of Norwegian salesmen to Morocco. They worked for Philips Electronics and had won some sort of sales contest, a week on the Costa del Sol, courtesy of their company. We picked them up at their ocean front hotel at 8:00 o’clock in the morning. There they were, a dozen of them, ready, willing, and drinking brandy.

We motored down the Málaga-Cadiz highway on our way to Algeciras (ahl.hay.SEE.rus) where we caught the ferry to Ceuta (say.YOU.tuh). We had to stop halfway there for a brandy break, but eventually boarded the ferry. The salesmen disappeared in search of a bar. During this interlude Claude told me what I might expect to find in Morocco.

Joanne had spent the previous Christmas there and she advised me that if I bought from a street vendor to never take the first offered price but to make a 10% counter offer. This would give both of us plenty of wiggle room. Claude thought that was an entirely reasonable approach since street prices were notoriously elevated.

We had lunch in Ceuta with Moroccan red wine. Surprisingly, it was not all that bad. Perfectly acceptable at a formal dinner with hot dogs and sauerkraut.

After lunch a street vendor soon offered me a wallet, hand tooled, made of genuine camel leather, for only 1000 pesetas, about $20.00 U.S. Remembering Joanne’s advice in time, I smelled the wallet as carefully as a dog on a fire hydrant. Camel leather, if not properly cured and tanned, will smell like a camel, a smell only another camel could love. And it will smell that way forever. Leaving the wallet out in the weather or perfuming it with sheep dip does no good. It just enhances the camel smell. And if the wallet gets wet, it smells like three camels.

I sniffed and snurffed. Nope. No camel smell. So I made my counter offer. “I’ll give you a hundred.”

“Pesetas?” he asked.

“No. Diram.”

“No way. This wallet cost me more than that.”

We discussed the matter further and he came down to 800 pesetas, but I bargained from a position of strength. I didn’t want his stupid wallet. I already had a perfectly good wallet, one that wasn’t even coming apart at the seams. I walked away and, as I walked, the price of the wallet came down and down rapidly until it reached one I could live with. I believe I paid 100 pesetas, about $2.00 U.S.. Friend Claude said that was about right.

I’m not really sure where we were in Morocco after lunch. I believe it was Tétouan (TEH.twahn), far enough inland so the Norwegian salesmen couldn’t see the ocean. We weren’t in anything as formal as a soukh (sook), but more like a field with lots of people selling things. Including snake oil.

I kid you not, this Arab type gentleman stood with a 3-foot boa constrictor draped over his shoulders. He had a few cans of salve on hand and I could hear him chanting, “You say you’re not convinced, you say you’re not satisfied, you say you want more. Tell you what I’m gonna do.” But in Arabic. Probably a dozen men surrounded him, paying him undivided attention. Probably most of them were shills.

His presentation would have gone well if his boa hadn’t peed on him. Perhaps snake oil is good for stiff, arthritic joints. But snake pee?

I moved on to Omar’s Camel Rides. Joanne rode a camel the previous Christmas and had her picture taken. I could do no less.

I’ve always been fascinated by camels, liked watching them at the zoo, admired the way their feet spread out so they can walk on sand. Omar brought me a camel, a creature of such gentle refinement that they had to use ten yards of jute to muzzle him. In the picture I have, neither one of us looks very happy.

But all good tours must come to an end and as the sun slowly sank in the west our Norwegians drank their way back to Algecires. Aboard the bus they passed the brandy bottles back and forth with the dexterity of professional jugglers. A Norwegian setting next to me explained that they don’t drink that way all the time. In fact, in Norway liquor costs so much they hardly drink at all. So when they get to a place like Spain where “plonk” is cheap and abundant, they do a year’s drinking all at once.

And Spain is certainly a place of cheap booze. Claude later informed me that Scandinavian countries have alcohol tours to Spain. Tourists start drinking when they get on the charter plane and don’t stop until they’re poured off a week later, safe and cirrhotic, back where they started from.

I got my stamp for my collection and I learned something on that trip. I learned that I didn’t ever want to be a tour guide, herding a bunch of drunks through customs and trying to not lose any of them.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Mierde Suave

One day a major sewer backup occurred on one of the streets leading into Torremolinos. The resultant spill covered the roadway with effluent. But Spanish drivers are bold souls and were not to be deterred by a slippery roadway. They splashed through anyway, covering the sidewalks and buildings with a rich, aromatic and colorful spray.

Finally, one store owner could stand it no longer. He posted a large sign in front of his shop for the motorists to read and heed. Despacio. Mierde Suave.

I shouldn’t have to translate beyond despacio means “slow” and suave means “soft.” When I left Spain “Despacio, mierde suave” became one of my favorite expressions. It's a motto to live by.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Joanne at the Post Office

Freelance writing in Spain had both advantages and disadvantages. It was easy to get my query letters read. The envelopes would arrive in an editorial office adorned, festooned even, with Spanish postage stamps. These envelopes always got opened and the contents read.

Mailing manuscripts was another story. For me, at least, a mailed manuscript meant a trip downtown to the post office, walking of course since there was never a place to park, and they never had stamps in the exact denomination I needed. Also, a Spaniard has a built in aversion to standing in line for anything. Instead a post office crowd consists of many unruly people, a seething cluster, a scrum, as each person tries to be served first. It’s fun to watch, but not to participate in.

On this particular overcast day, gray with precipitation, a cross between a fog and a drizzle, Joanne was taking a manuscript to the post office for me, and then going to pick up something at the office of Lookout, the English language magazine for the Costa del Sol. She made her way to the window and the clerk calculated the postage. Joanne always likes to pay to the last penny, pence, centavo, sous, dirham, whatever, so she fished out a handful of coins and began to carefully count them into the clerk’s outstretched hand. She was very pleased to have the exact change and pressed the last coin into his hand in triumph. Then she thought to herself, “Oh, oh, that was suggestive.” In Spain, everything a female does is suggestive.

“Oh, well,” she thought, and then left the post office for home. Several minutes into her journey she remembered the Lookout mission. With a mental, “Oh, darn,” she wheeled and found herself face to face with a little man who looked vaguely familiar. The little man was not short by Spanish standards, but he was several inches shy of Joanne’s six feet. He smiled shyly as she walked by him on her way to the magazine.

But halfway there she realized it was too wet. She had no car with her and it was beginning to rain. She wheeled again to go home after all, and there stood the same little man, same shy smile. Just a little wetter.

Joanne brushed by him again and returned home. It wasn’t until after she got home and was telling me the story that she realized that the little man was the post office clerk. Apparently Joanne’s pressing the coin into his hand drove him mad with passion and he just closed up his window and followed her out the door.

Such behavior would be bizarre here, but perfectly understandable in Spain.

Monday, August 3, 2009

House Warming

Our house had rubble walls covered with stucco and a clay tile roof. This is standard Spanish construction. For all I know, it may be standard European construction. The house didn’t even have a mud sill or any sign of a vapor barrier anywhere. As a result, during the winter months when it was cold and rainy, the house walls wicked up moisture the same way that a cloth strip wicks up kerosene in a lamp. It got colder than a teacher’s wit in our house.

Our only source of heat was a fireplace and we used it a lot. Most people who had fire places bought their firewood. The favored fuel was olive, dense, oily, wonderfully scented, expensive olive wood. We never felt good about burning olive wood. The expense bothered us a little bit, but the knowledge that we might be burning wood from a tree that was planted before Jesus was born bothered us a lot. We decided that we would burn trash wood that we could find in our neighborhood.

The neighbors thought we were crazy, but we persisted and over a year-and-a-half period we cleaned up our entire neighborhood. We couldn’t find a stick of junk wood anywhere. No broken chairs or picture frames or anything. So. Principles be darned, we bought a load of olive wood to see us through our final spring.

Some of the junk wood we harvested was very dirty, but we burned it anyway. Also we never cleaned the chimney, nor did we hire a chimney sweep.

One afternoon we were surprised to hear the sound of a rumbling freight train running through our back yard even though we had no tracks there. Joanne thought it was more like a jet engine, but we had no airport in the back yard either. What we had was a chimney fire.

There was very little about our house that was made of wood. Some of the doors and the dining room table just about exhausted the inventory. Our clay tile roof had wooden supports. Everything else was relatively fireproof.

The chimney was covered with brick and stucco with holes for the smoke to escape from four different directions. This time it was flame escaping, leaping out at least three feet, so we had a pyrotechnic display to go with our rumble and roar.

There was no way we could get close enough to the fire to deal with it. We did the only thing we could. We stood by and watched and felt thankful that our house was relatively fireproof.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Ham Wine

After I completed my article on Málaga wine, I was still left with the nagging question, was there really a vino de jamón, a ham wine? Other possibilities presented themselves. Could ham wine be an urban myth? How about a practical joke on a guileless foreigner, or maybe even the combined product of murmured Spanish and waxy ears? Who knew? Only one way to find out.

Into the field, to the campo, on our quest. It wasn’t the Holy Grail, but we didn’t have to go all the way to Jerusalem, either and we could drink some wine instead of fighting Saracens.

With Claud deBretteville as our trusty guide we drove into the hinterlands, hilly land that farmers worked with rototillers to grow sweet grapes for Málaga wine. Our road was paved, but that was its sole virtue. Curving. Not banked very well, you needed both hands on the wheel here.

We stopped finally at a small ventorilla, a little restaurant where Claud thought they might sell some ham wine. A small building with a whitewashed exterior (of course) isolated from any nearby village, it sported the old Coca Cola® sign on the wall. You know the one, red with a big, fancy C. And directly underneath the Coca Cola® sign, embedded into the wall, was a manger and hitching place for a burro. I tell you, this was a full-service ventorilla.

Claud, Joanne and I seated ourselves at an outdoor table in a shady spot and soon a woman came out to ask us what we wanted to eat. We chose a homemade paella and I then asked her if they had any ham wine.

“O sí, señor, of course we have vino de jamón. Why, that is our specialty. How could you ask?” Soon we were sipping on a glass of dark, sweetish liquid that tasted vaguely like some wheat beers.

Shortly after our wine was served the same lady returned to our table holding a large grey hen. She extended the bird to Joanne. She asked that la señora approve the day’s entrée.

While we no longer bougtht our meat pre-packaged in a Styrofoam® box and sealed with Saranwrap®, we were used to at least having the animal dead and hanging from a hook in the carnecería. It was quite out of the ordinary to inspect our own dinner while it still clucked. Still, after Joanne realized what was being requested, she made a great show of touching the legs and breast before signifying her approval.

The woman nodded agreeably and went about twenty feet away where she wrung the bird’s neck, whirling her arm round and round several times like a berserk windmill. It looked spectacular, but it did a quick and apparently merciful job on our chicken dinner.

Soon the woman set herself to plucking the bird and gutting the bird and dismembering the bird. Four or five admiring dogs surrounded her and snagged various pieces and scraps of unspeakable and probably unidentifiable stuff as they flew through the air. Claud, Joanne and I concentrated grimly on our wine.

In an hour or so, she presented us with a fine paella that we enjoyed greatly. With more wine. But as we drove away, I reflected on the country sense of humor. It is possible the woman could have gone to the kitchen and yelled out, “Hey, Carlos, we’ve got another one asking for ham wine. Third one this week. Three glasses of dishwater, please. Thanks.”

Lookout published my article and a British lady wrote me afterwards to say that, yes, indeed, it was really true, there was a ham wine actually, and it tasted very much as I’d described. But I still wonder, could she have been another part of a vast Spanish conspiracy?

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Malaga Wine

Lookout Magazine, the English language magazine for the Costa del Sol, assigned me an article on Málaga wine. To be frank, I didn’t think much of Málaga wine. Or Spanish wine of any type, including their famous dry sherry. Come to think of it, I don’t much care for wine even today.

So, why me? Why did I get the assignment? Simply put, the editor needed the article and I needed the income. Freelancers can’t be choosers.

Armed with the assignment, I began to visit the bodegas (wine bars) around Torremolinos. There were some good points. The drinks were cheap. The bodegas had ambiance. The bartender filled your glass directly from one of the barrels behind the bar. Neatest of the neat, you could take your own jug to the bodega and they filled it for you.

But one day I saw a tanker parked outside a bodega. Huge hoses connected the tanker to the barrels. I wondered if the wine had ever seen a grape, or was it the liquid product of some chemical plant in Asturias or Extremadura.

We visited several local wineries. Our first was a combination bottling plant and retail sales outlet. The owner showed me barrels of wine, the oldest holding 20-year-old batch he called la madre, the mother. As new wine came in, it would be decanted into barrels with a little la madre mixed in. After it sat and mellowed for a while, it would then be mixed with more new wine. After four or five years, you had a wine with a little, a very little, madre.

All Málaga wines came from the Pero Ximen (Pedro Ximénes) grape. It was processed in different ways and came in several different flavors. Their chief virtue is a high alcohol content. Málaga Dulce, Lagrima del Cristo, and, most impressive of all, Vino Quino, a special mixture of Málaga wine and quinine, all come from this grape. Vino Quino is supposed to be a curative, but if you aren’t ill, it was a sure fire sickative.

When for sheer nastiness, Vino Quino was right up there with Cynar®, a wine I first sampled at an American Club meeting. They make it from artichokes. I can’t think why.

On another occasion Joanne, our daughter Pat and I were doing some firewater experiments in downtown Málaga. (We let Pat have some wine with lots and lots of water in it.) Pat and Joanne were both coming down with the flu and Pat returned home on the bus while Joanne and I remained behind and killed the bottle. The next day Pat was so sick with the flu that she was bedridden for a week. Her self-winding watch stopped. It’s kind of like if your votive candle goes out. You wonder how much time you have left. Joanne, on the other hand, felt fine. Here’s another cure for the flu. Perhaps we need a government study.

On another occasion we visited a bottling plant that actually had vats of frothing must. “Must.” That’s what they call squeezed grapes, with the seeds and skins not removed with a nasty looking froth floating on top. The plant was surrounded by high walls, the tops of which were lined with broken glass. That kept thieves and tax assessors out unless they wanted to give themselves appendectomies.

The plant manager spoke English with a heavy German accent. I asked him which wine he favored. “I only drink Scotch,” he replied austerely. There we go, folks. Suspicions Confirmed.

Somewhere in my peregrinations trying to nail down this story, one purveyor of fine Málaga bubbly used the phrase “ham wine,” vino del jamón. That’s funny, I thought to myself. I thought my Spanish was getting pretty good, but I would have sworn he said “ham wine.” But that’s exactly what he said.

Sometimes a farmer will have a batch of wine that isn’t quite up to snuff, and also have a Serrano ham that doesn’t quite make the grade either. A Serrano ham is cured on the snowy slopes in the mountains near Madrid. When it is cured, it is purple. I’ve seen these hams hanging in bars and when you ask for a tapa they slice it microchip thin. It’s very expensive and people put them on layaway for Christmas. Another thing, when they hang in the bars they didn’t draw flies. Curiouser and curiouser..

Anyway, you make ham wine by throwing a sub par Serrano ham into your vat of not very good wine and, after about six months, you withdraw the bone, all that is left of the ham, and enjoy the fruits of your curious chemistry project.

But I didn’t know if I really believed the story. It could have been an urban myth or a national put on. I resolved to make a field trip into the campo and see for myself. And thereby hangs the next tale.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

More Granada

Skiing

The next day Joanne and Pat climbed into El Flojo and set out for the ski resort in the mountains. Eric and I, in a rare moment of sanity, realized that we might not have a very good time at the resort since we couldn’t ski. Pat and Joanne couldn’t ski, either, but it was all downhill, right? And there were people who gave lessons, right? What could be so hard about that?

Off they chugged into the mountains. It was a pale, sunny day with intermittent clouds in Granada. Winter sunlight. But in the mountains the weather worsened. Snow flurries showed up and slick roads. But, thanks to the magic of front wheel drive, El Flojo came through.

Joanne and Pat spent much of their morning and early afternoon on the bunny slope mastering certain techniques calculated to help them maintain verticality. Then they took the chair lift to the top of the slope, intending to enjoy the view and ride the same lift back down to the resort. But the wind came up to foil their plans. Management shut the chair lift down and they had to go down by the inelegant but aptly named “snow plow.”

There’s great truth to the old proverb: It’s all downhill from the top of the chair lift.

The Alhambra

Meanwhile, having no ski slope to confound us, Eric and I decided to visit the Alhambra, a combination palace-citadel and the residence of Boabdil, the last Moorish ruler in Spain, expelled in 1492. We found all kinds of stuff there, chambers, baths, a mosque. I’ve got to admit that much of what I saw was lost on me. I can take only so many arcades, fountains and reflecting pools before my architecturally uninformed psyche ODs.

But the gardens, now, they were something else. Immaculate. No twigs, no leaves. The hedges lined the walkways with angular symmetry, each leaf standing abreast with its neighbor with military precision. “Dad,” Eric said, “you can’t tell me those hedges weren’t trimmed with a machine.” At just that moment we turned a corner and discovered a Spanish gardener carefully snipping privet leaves with a pair of scissors.

We had not seen very many power tools at the Alhambra. Then we thought of how Rafa, the man of all work at Sunnyview School, mowed the lawn. With scissors. Fortunately, it was a small lawn, so it only took him two days. After that recollection, the gardener at the Alhambra didn’t seem quite so very strange. Just a little strange.

The Luthiers

The day after Eric and I visited the Alhambra and Joanne and Pat exerted themselves so valiantly on the ski slopes, we decided to return to Torremolinos. But first we decided to visit a few luthiers. I played a little guitar, mostly like a bass drum, but I could do a little finger picking. I thought I might like a flamenco guitar.

The flamenco guitar is expressly designed to play Flamenco music. Now there’s a news flash for you. It is lighter and a little smaller than a classical guitar and has a more percussive sound to it. It has a tap plate for the Flamenco guitarist to tap his fingers, a part of the playing technique.

I could get a very good handmade flamenco guitar, quite playable, for $200.00, quite a lot of money in 1974. But there would have been an eight-month waiting period. I didn’t buy one because I could never have been able to do justice to the instrument and certainly never match the standards of the players I had been listening to in Granada.

But as we left, I felt good about a city where luthiers were backordered eight months and could make a good living.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Granada

Granada

Many of the parents and children of Sunnyview School, and the instructional staff as well, took their 1974 Christmas holiday to ski in the mountain resorts south of Granada. At that time we had only been in Torremolinos for a few months and really didn’t know anybody. So, why not go to Granada with the rest of the lemmings?

We packed up all our cares and clothes in our car, El Flojo, and headed north and east of Málaga, over the mountains To Granada. We made it in one piece without a breakdown, contrary to our expectations, and checked in to a no-star hotel in an older part of town recommended to us by our neighbor, David McConnell.

We had one room to be shared by all four of us, 7th-grade Eric, 9th-grade Pat, and we two parents who were beginning to have second thoughts. The room was clean enough, but dark, illuminated by lamps with 39-watt bulbs. Clearly, we were not meant to spend a lot of time in our rooms reading.

We left our hotel to procure a late lunch and soon came upon a tapa bar open to the street and an adjoining alley. We bellied up to the bar, for we found no little cast iron chairs and tables. Pretentious it was not. It was a stand up-eat up-drink up-pay up-go away bar.

We ordered chicken wings in a rich tomato sauce. By exercising great care we consumed the meat and left the bones sitting on the plate and did not decorate our clothes or persons with the sauce. Very much. We pushed the plate to the bartender’s side of the bar. He disgustedly picked up the plate and turned it upside down on our side of the bar, dumping bones and sauce on the floor. Soon a couple of dogs who had been lurking in the alley sidled up to crunch and lick the site clean.

And I thought I knew all about garbage disposal units.

The Toast

It was after dark, but early evening on my first night in Granada. David McConnell and I were drinking mediocre red wine in one of Granada’s no-name bars and listening to an elderly man play the hell out of his flamenco guitar. Cigarette smoke and the smell of wine provided a proper ambiance for the musician’s brilliance. I played a little guitar myself in those days and his technique dazzled me. His fingers were all over that neck like pigment on a Jackson Pollack canvas. The thing is, I didn’t recognize anything his fingers were doing. I couldn’t even figure out what key he was in. So I asked him. He didn’t know either. He had no clue. He just knew how to play his instrument like a champ.

It was at just this magic moment that one of the bar’s patrons approached us. Convivial. Jovial. Happy. Drunker than a whole herd of skunks. He wanted to tell us how much he liked the English. McConnell was from North Ireland and I from the States. Between my slow and his slurred Spanish, we had us quite a conversation.

At last he wanted to propose a toast to our eternal friendship. I agreed because he was drinking his own wine and I didn’t think it would cost me anything. We grabbed our wines and linked right arms at the elbow. But I was several inches taller than he and when we drank, finally, after a long and flowery toast, my new friend missed his mouth completely and poured his red wine all over his white shirt front. The mishap didn’t seem to bother him much. He brushed off the excess wine with his hand as best he could and returned to the bar for a refill. He then suggested we all meet together on the following night at the same time and bar so we could drink more toasts. I said it sounded like a fine idea.

As we left McConnell asked me why I had agreed to such an obviously dumb plan. I told him I wanted to know where our friend was going to be at that time tomorrow night so I could be somewhere else.

More next week.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Eric and Chile

We have always risen reasonably early by most peoples’ standards. Sometimes on Sunday mornings we might sleep in, but usually we rise and shine by seven. And we almost always managed to get up before our son, Eric.

With some surprise, then, I woke up around 5:30 one Sunday morning to find Eric dressed and leaving the house. He said he was going to church. And that was probably true, I thought, because there’s not much a teenage boy can do at 5:30 Sunday morning besides go to church. At the same time, since we never participated ourselves, I couldn’t help but wonder what motivated the boy.

Later investigation revealed it all had to do with Chile, a bartender at Tres Barriles (Three Barrels). There was absolutely nothing for young foreigners to do in Spain except study or hang out with each other. No youth clubs, no soccer leagues, nada. And, being foreigners, they couldn’t get jobs.

Eric and several friends got to know Chile as he was setting out tables for the evening trade. They called him “Chile” because that’s where he came from, Chile.

Chile let the boys help him set out tables and bought them a soft drink in exchange. But he had a proviso. They couldn’t help unless they went to church with him. “He even gave me a hundred pesetas for the collection box, Dad,” Eric said as he ran out the door.

“My God,” I thought as I rolled over and went back to sleep. “My son’s bartender is a better influence on him than I am.”

Eric’s newly discovered piety didn’t last very long, though. Six o’clock mass is early for anybody, let alone a teenager.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Dining Out in Torremolinos

As we walked into Torremolinos from our home on a more or less daily basis, we passed by a Danish restaurant. I noticed they offered a five-course meal free to anyone who could eat the whole thing. “The whole thing” was the key. If you passed out halfway through the meal, you still had to pay for the whole dinner, even though you had only eaten half. No doggie bags. Joanne and I let this temptation go for a year, but eventually succumbed.

We ordered the meal with some wine and prepared ourselves for the inevitable food fest. Salad first, right? Wrong. Salad did not appear on the menu. A little bread, but no salad.

The first course was a fish course. Pickled herring in sour cream, fish fillets served with rich sauces, bacalao, lobster, salmon, shrimp, eat, you fools, eat.

` The second course was a hot meat course. Hot roast beef, hot roast pork, ham, meat loaves, enjoy, enjoy.

The third course was a cold meat course, more beef, more ham, meat rolls stuffed with pimientos. Having a little difficulty? There are two more courses to come.

I wonder what Circle of Hell we’re in?

The fourth course was the cheese course. If there is one thing the Danes do well, it is cheese. And the French, the Spanish, the Italians, the British. And all the countries had representatives in the cheese course. It was a regular cheesy United Nations.

There was no way we could make any serious indentures into the cheese course. To this day, we have no idea what the fifth course might have been. Nuts? Peanuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts, cocoanuts? As it was, we walked home and didn’t have to eat again for a long time.

If the Danish dinner was an experiment in applied misery, my favorite fish restaurant was a joy forever. Torremolinos extends to the beach as does it’s neighboring area, the Calvario. The two places are separated by a finger of land jutting into the sea that happens to be devoid of vegetation. Hence the name “Calvario”, which means something like “finger of land devoid of vegetation” or “bald place.” The Calvario had no beach to speak of, but hundreds of little stores and restaurants stacked on top of each other.

I don’t even know if my favorite fish restaurant had a name. Certainly it did not blazon into the night with the aid of neon. Nor did I ever see a menu, for there were none. They didn’t know what was going to be caught that day, and therefore didn’t know what they would have to sell that night. You had to learn the names of the fish.

We could take our friends there and each order a fish dish in which we could all share. They served deep fat fried elver eels by the basket. Their little eyeballs looked like flakes of black pepper. Most of our guests ate them without asking. They may have suspected, but they didn’t ask. They served deep fat fried herrings that we ate bones and all. Don’t ask, don’t tell dining. Instead of onion rings we had squid tentacles fried a la Romana.

We also had individual salads, bread and wine. Usually people ate and enjoyed. They especially enjoyed when it was time to pay up because the cost was around $2.00 per head.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Claud's finca


Claud deBretteville, our neighbor in Urbanización Colombia, owned a small finca in rural Málaga province. What sort of pet or applicance is a finca you are probably asking yourself. It’s a small farm. At least, it was in 1975.

Now, thanks to Google, I learn that they are villas with indoor plumbing and everything. You can pay everything from 250,000 euros to over two million. The current exchange rate today (January 24, 2008) is $1.27 to the euro. Indoor plumbing costs a lot.

But in Claud’s day, a finca was a farm house. We had to drive through a tiny village to reach Claud’s finca. As we chugged up the main street leading through the village, we met what must have been the entire population walking the other way. They were on their way to the fútbol field to support their local team’s efforts against a neighboring village. Our progress was slowed. Impeded. Stopped. Everyone was good-natured about it. We couldn’t run over all of them, so why run over any?

Eventually traffic cleared and we drove a short distance out of town, probably a half mile, and parked under an olive tree by the side of the road. We could easily see the village sitting uphill of us. Her finca itself laid downhill of us, perhaps two hundred feet down a ridge, a small, whitewashed house with a thatched roof. Claud invited us in.

The first thing I noticed about Claud’s house was the floor to ceiling bookcase just inside the front door. I don’t remember any windows, but there must have been. I don’t remember any indoor plumbing, either. In the States, Claud’s finca would have been a “cabin.”

Her stone floor was unsealed so that she could use “Spanish air conditioning.” This involves wetting the floor with buckets of water and opening the doors and windows so the wind can blow through. The house is cooled by evaporation. It works great and doesn’t use any electricity.

The house had two doors, a front and back door which gave out onto a walled enclosure with walls four feet high. There was no way in or out of the enclosure save through the house. Smaller harder stones than those that paved the rest of the house led from front to back doors providing a path for the finca burro to take because it lived in the enclosure behind the house. The small stones had to be harder than the others so the burro’s hooves wouldn’t wear them out too soon.

Burros were very valuable and had to be registered in town. You even needed a pink slip for your burro. When he was in his enclosure, there was no way a thief was going to get him out unless he lifted him over the wall. If the thief was strong enough to lift a full grown burro over a wall, you probably didn’t want to interfere anyway. “Si, señor. Go ahead and take my burro. Bon apetít.”

Joanne has always had the gift to “witch” water, at least ever since I’ve known her. Don’t ask me how it works or why. I have no idea. But Claud persuaded Joanne to try to find her a well. If water could have been found, that finca would have increased in value tenfold.

It didn’t happen. Así es la vida. But even without water, it was a nice little finca.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

An Unnamed Cave

Several caves in the Málaga vicinity (if you define “vicinity” broadly) are noted tourist attractions, or should be, with natural wonders or prehistoric paintings. But other caves have no claim to fame. They have no prehistoric paintings. They are not remarked in tourist guides. Fodors has nothing to say about them. They are tubes in the ground, unlit, unmarked, and fit only for teenagers to explore. Those are the good ones.

Our son, Eric, and his friend, Victor deGroot, decided to camp overnight in one such hole in the ground near Torremolinos. The boys hitchhiked to their chosen cave with cans of food and bedrolls, prepared for a great adventure. It was cloudy and threatening rain. All the better. More adventure.

Night fell darkly. Rain fell heavily. The cave leaked wetly. The boys decided that their adventure was uncomfortable and they would be better off home. But it was harder to hitchhike on a dark, rainy night and the boys met with no success. Finally some policemen pulled up in a car and made the boys stand in the rain while they played Twenty Questions. At last the police told the boys to go home. The boys asked for a ride but met with a resounding, “Nope.”

Teenage years are hard. And sometimes wet.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Carratraca

We made an overnight weekend trip to Carratraca with the American Club in the spring of 1975. Who or what is a Carratraca? For that matter, what was the American Club?

Carratraca is a village of fewer than 1000 permanent residents and the site of a sulfur springs. For millennia people have believed that sitting neck deep in stinky water is healthful and restorative. For extra money, I understood, someone would pack your entire body with mud. It would probably make you feel healthy and restored just to get that nasty stuff off your body. Apparently people have wallowed in Carratracas’ sulfur baths since the Romans.

The American Club was founded by Americans who moved to Spain and decided that the thing they most wanted to do was to associate with other Americans. We had joined the American Club because someone invited us to, attended a meeting because we had nothing else to do that evening, and joined the group because we couldn’t think of a graceful way out of it.

And that is how we found ourselves on a bus loaded with American tourists headed into the hills, bound for the sulfur springs. We weren’t all old. Our daughter, Patricia, a high school sophomore, went with us. Another young woman, a college undergraduate, gave her someone to bond with. There was at least one young man who probably hadn’t seen 21 summers yet. As I write this I’m looking at a group photo and I must admit they look much younger to me now than they did 32 years ago.

Carratraca itself looked like a typical Spanish village with it whitewashed buildings, rough streets and dark interiors. We had arrived at our hotel at lunch time, pre-siesta time, The village seemed to have gone into a nothing-much-happening-right-now-folks mode.

Our room was on the first floor, which is really the second floor in genuinely civilized countries, at the back side of the hotel. But when we reached our room and looked out the window, we saw not a drop not a ten-foot drop but another street. Our hotel was dug into a steep hillside, hence our hotel front facing a road and the back facing another road one story up. People familiar with San Francisco architecture will have no trouble with this concept.

Disco was the big thing in those days. There was even a song about a disco duck. Our hotel clerk informed our daughter and her friend that yes, indeed, Carratraca boasted a very fine discoteca, one in which they took great pride. The two girls set off to find this emporium of music but Pat returned an hour later to report that though they had looked high and low and in between, they could discover no discothèque.

Apparently the girls had not gone on their quest unaccompanied, but were joined by the young male I mentioned earlier. That evening before dinner he bought me a glass of wine, which I thought very amiable of him. Then he asked, “Do you mind if I marry your daughter?”

I thought the matter over for a few seconds, swished the wine around in my mouth savoring its taste, then replied, “That depends on your health, your morals, and whether you can fix Volkswagens.” I don’t think he really wanted to marry my daughter. I think he wanted to see if I’d spit up my wine. In any event, he didn’t look like a Volkswagen mechanic.

We learned at dinner that Carratraca’s famous discothèque was located inside our very own hotel. This suited me since I didn’t want my nubile daughter cruising the streets of Carratraca, a village inhabited by a hell hound bent on (he said) matrimony. (Hell hounds might have changed since my day – but they couldn’t have changed that much.)

Some of the older members of the American Club said that they would go to the discothèque just to “keep an eye on the youngsters.” Who, I wondered, was going to keep an eye on them?

Joanne and I went to bed and Pat went out to disco. At the witching hour, I believe 9:00 but it may have been 10:00, the band struck up and the party was ON! Joanne and I were out of bed like someone had hotwired it, for the famous discothèque was located in the room directly under ours. Our room had become an echo chamber. I said to Joanne, “I can’t handle this. I’m going down there. It can’t be any worse.”

But it was worse. It was far, far worse. For one thing, the band was far, far louder. Few people danced. Instead they shouted at each other and still couldn’t hear, drank cheap wine and pretended they were having fun. So I returned to our room, buried my head under my pillow regretted not having drunk more at dinner.

But eventually, mercifully, the “music” ended, Pat returned, and I settled in for some well deserved sleep. But not to be, for some lusty lad had parked his motorcycle on the street directly outside our window some time during the day. He had danced his little toes raw and now it was time to crank up his Bultaco motocicleta.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned Bultaco only had two cylinders and it didn’t always use both of them. Vroom vroom cough vroom fart spit vroom splutter. But after five minutes of vrooming the machine ran to our young dude’s satisfaction and he drove off. Thank God it was downhill or he’d probably still be there.

At last. After two in the morning, but it was as quiet in Carratraca as it had been when we arrived at noon the day before. To sleep, perchance to dream. Who cares if I dream. To sleep. Bring it on.

Copyright Ken Harris 2009

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Ben the Baker on Spanish Taxes

Although it was difficult if not impossible for a foreigner to work legally in Spain, they were encouraged to go into businesses that would provide employment for Spaniards. One could own a book store, a restaurant-bar, a souvenir shop. Ben, a burned out Philadelphia attorney, owned a bakery outside of Torremolinos. He specialized in gourmet breads that he sold to various hotels.

Oddly enough, he could do this because he had purchased a centuries old house with an attached centuries old bakery equipped with a centuries old oven. It looked like don Quixote’s breakfast rolls might have come out of that oven.

Bread was baked on a huge stone wheel inside the oven that rotated by means of a hand crank. The wheel was around four inches thick and at least ten feet across, perhaps twelve. Ben’s bakers loaded the loaves that needed the longest time to bake on the inside of the wheel, gradually turning it as they loaded more loaves. When the wheel was fully loaded, then with a few more turns baked loaves were unloaded on a first-in-first-out basis. The heat came from an olive wood fire that had been started early in the morning. Set scientifically, the fire gradually burned itself out and no refueling was necessary. And the whole thing happened without computers.

It happened without the use of fuel oil, either. And that’s where the gourmet bread comes in. We lived in Spain during the last year of Francisco Franco’s life and the first year of Juan Carlos’ reign. During that time, food was available to everyone by means of subsidized bread, milk, and fish. People of very limited means could still put food on the table and didn’t have to watch their families starve. It kept them from slipping across the border to France to work as illegal aliens. Also, wine was cheap and everyone seemed to have a television set. There were only two or three channels, but it was something. I’ve always felt that Franco kept the lid on things and there were no revolutions because everybody had something to lose. The subsidized bread had to be baked by bakers who used government subsidized fuel oil to heat their ovens. They baked the bread and sold it at a loss or at best broke even. Since Ben didn’t use the fuel oil, he didn’t have to bake the cheap bread.

But Ben still paid the price. Olive wood was very expensive fuel. He thought it was a trade off.

And Ben had to pay his taxes. Spanish taxes and American taxes have a curious difference. In the U.S. everyone knows who’s going to pay. We just don’t know how much, and the government couldn’t say within billions of dollars just how much money they’re going to get. In Spain, the government knew to the peseta, but they didn’t know who was going to pay. But, then, they didn’t care, either.

Here’s how it worked. Each year the government would tell the bakers’ of Torremolinos sindicato how much they were going to cough up for taxes. The sindicato would then meet to determine how the tax would be paid and who would pay it. Ben said he always attended that meeting. Otherwise his colleagues might vote that he pay it all. It was the same way with all the other sindicatos in Spain. "Here's the revenue service hat, amigos. Fill 'er up."

He baked great bread, by the way.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Amphitheater of Italica and 8th-grade (Male) Students

Scipio Africanus founded Italica, north of present day Seville, as a place to retire soldiers wounded in Africa. It became a reasonably important settlement with 8000 people in its heyday. It was the birthplace of Emperor Trajan, the town’s most famous son.

Although Italica only had a population of 8000, their amphitheater seated 25,000, third largest in the Roman Empire. (Little strange, that. I didn't question those figures in 1976, but they don't seem quite right now.)

Moving right along, we saw the remains of the mini-coliseum on a trip in the spring of '76. I thought it was a pretty dinky amphitheater when I saw it, but I was thinking chariot races, naval battles, Cecil B. DeMille.

As we watched, a bus load of 8th-grade boys with their harassed teacher pulled up. Close to 40 boys crammed into the bus, 40 eighth-grade boys. In the center of the amphitheater’s arena lay a pit, maybe for lions or Christians, who knows. Maybe it was a green room for the gladiators.

The teacher shouted to his students, “Don’t go near the pit!” He must have been a new teacher who didn’t realize what happens when you tell eighth-graders not to do something. As soon as the words left the teacher’s mouth everyone of the boys ran to the pit and hung ten. They all jostled for position in the front row and it’s a wonder they didn’t all fall in.

Maybe I misread the situation. Maybe the teacher was a burn out case who was hoping the kids would all fall in and he could go out for a glass of wine.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Calle San Miguel

Like many cities and towns in Europe, Torremolinos had a walking street, Calle San Miguel. No cars or any other wheeled vehicles allowed, no cell phoning drivers, no bicyclists wired into I-pods, no skateboarders or in-line skaters. You can walk in any direction you want any time you want providing no one is blocking your way. Just pedestrians. Sweet. As a maraschino cherry topping, Calle San Miguel was paved with yellow bricks.

The people on Calle San Miguel were cosmopolitan and raffish all at once. Torremolinos was no longer the Hippie Haven it was when James Michener wrote The Drifters, but many young people sported longer hair than Spanish custom dictated, and some played guitars as though they held a species of bass drum. Many of them, it seemed to me, were either passing through or not, but either way waiting for something to happen. Anything. Many wore tee-shirts with the names of American universities. UCLA’s shirt was the most popular in Europe. However, the shirt didn’t mean they attended that school. Some young people didn’t even speak English and somewhere else was a young Southern Californian wearing a Heidelberg tee-shirt who spoke no German.

People kept Spanish hours, surprise, surprise. During siesta time you could have gone bowling except Calle San Miguel had a very definite tilt downhill toward the Mediterranean. The street ended in a steep stairwell to the beach named Calle del Peligro, Street of danger. The danger was if you fell on the stairwell, you’d go a long way.

No one ever lost a bowling ball, but once a soccer ball got loose. Before it was recovered by the boy who owned it every foot on the street had touched it at least once including a nun in her habit. Caught the ball beautifully in the sweet spot on her foot. Nice shot, sister. Europeans play that game well.

In the evening the tourists came out to play. That’s when Calle San Miguel revealed itself in its true colors, a glorious tourist trap. You could buy post cards, sleazy little ash trays with “recuerdo de Torremolinos,” written on it, oil paintings of Spanish villages mass produced in Morocco. Every third door opened onto a bar. We stopped in one once to listen to some music and absent mindedly ordered a sangria. The bartender slopped in heavy dollops of vodka and gin before he even reached for fruit and wine. We stopped him in his tracks. We wanted a drink and he was mixing a prescription.

Life went on like a Old West gold mining boom town until 3:00 or so. Then the store owners aimed their guests out the door, cleaned up after them, weighed their day’s money, and got ready for the next day’s business. We didn't have to watch television. There was more entertainment on Calle San Miguel.

Copyright Ken Harris 2009

Monday, April 27, 2009

Spanish Coffee

One Saturday morning Gail Meredith-Smyth, one of Sunnyview School’s two office staff members, arrived at our house. It was early Saturday morning, in fact. Joanne and I were still in bed.

Gail did not come to our house on a whim. It had been pre-arranged that we would all go to the village of Antequera together by bus. The bus left early. Gail knew that. We had not internalized that information.

To go to Antequera by bus we first had to go from Torremolinos to Málaga by bus, and that bus was leaving soon. She brightly announced that she would “put the kettle on,” and she did. I don’t know why she put the kettle on. We certainly didn’t have time for a pot of tea before we caught the bus for Málaga. Maybe it’s something in the British DNA.

We dressed in a hurry, turned the kettle off, and left. We arrived two buses later in Antequera shortly after 9:00 a.m., too late for breakfast. Spaniards are not big on breakfasts anyway. A slice of bread dipped in olive oil and freshly minced garlic (delicious) and a shot of brandy, and they’re good to go. Or if not brandy, aguardiente, “toothwater”, a really disgusting licorice flavored booze. Joanne and I were not raised that way, and we wanted some real food for our breakfast. Too bad. So sad.

We did promote some coffee. You could tan leather with Spanish coffee. For a demitasse of coffee you run steam through a demitasse of grounds. The result is mixed with milk and a generous helping of turbinado. Turbinado is the brown, lumpy sugar you find in some health food stores. It’s about all we used in Spain. The resulting beverage was almost as effective as mainlining caffeine and it kept us on our feet and going all morning.

And go we did. We climbed up the tallest hill to visit the Moorish castle ruins. Then we walked over to the local palace to visit the museum. Then we walked out of town to see the dolmens, burial chambers dating back to the Bronze Age. No bodies in the burial chambers. No bronze, either.

We walked everywhere until 1:00 p.m. when we could wrap ourselves around some pork chops and wine. I had drunk Spanish coffee before, but this was the first time I had ever put it to a real test. It’s amazing stuff. Jet fuel.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

A Boy (Spanish) and a Girl (Canadian)

We met our boss, David McConnell, in downtown Torremolinos for wine one night. When we arrived we found him ensconced at a table with a nubile Canadian girl celebrating her 18th birthday. Our friend Ina Robinson once said that all women either had bosoms or bazooms. This bazoomy girl from Canada wasn’t sure what was going to happen on her 18th birthday, but she was sure it was going to be wonderful.

Our own children were not much younger than this girl and Joanne was heard to call McConnell “cradle robber” under her breath. He retorted, “Easy, ‘Mom.’” And to be perfectly honest, we didn’t know what plans McConnell may have had for the evening, but they were complicated by the presence of a third party, a young Spanish male dressed most stylishly. He wore his shirt open to the navel. A gold colored medallion dangled from his neck by a gold colored chain. We knew he was no spy because there was no room in his pants for even a microdot let alone a secret message or stolen state paper.

Joanne took exception to the boy’s style, or lack thereof. If you’re going to be a sophisticated seducer, you should have more than two squiggly little chest hairs. She decided that if he was going to run with the big dogs then he should learn to drink like them as well.

She bought him a wine. And another. And another. We spelled each other so we didn’t have to match him drink for drink. He soon began to make trips to the men’s room, from which he returned with water dripping from his face, hoping a cold splash would reduce dizziness. It doesn’t. I speak from experience here. He frantically suggested we adjourn to a discoteca magnifica where we could dance. We wouldn’t hear of it. By Jove, this wine is splendid. Let’s have some more, shall we?

The young Spaniard was game but eventually lurched home. He probably had a head as big as a soccer field the next morning, but maybe he learned something. I hope he learned that if intended to run with the big dogs he should button up his shirt. Or at least paste on some phony chest hairs.

We went home shortly after the Spaniard’s departure. Never did find out what happened with McConnell and the girl. None of our business.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

The Haircut


The Haircut

The time was late 1974 or early 1975. Our son, Eric, and his good buddy, Victor Degroote, together ruffled far more feathers than either could have hoped to have done individually. Wherever they went, the boys brought with them a whole
new level of meaning to the word “synergy.”

The biggest problem I had with Eric and Victor was keeping a straight face. Once the two boys invaded (they never quietly entered anywhere) my “office” where I was working on some travel articles. They were outraged.

It seems they had been riding double on a motor scooter. Nothing wrong with that, actually. It's done all the time wherever I've lived. But they had been going the wrong way on a one-way street. They might have thought they could see traffic better that way. But I suspect they just didn't think.

Surprise, surprise, the Spanish traffic cops picked them up. The boys were fearless and defiant. “Go ahead, issue your tickets.”

I don't remember which boy issued the challenge. Maybe I never knew. But the cop's response was great, I thought. “No, we're not going to write you tickets. Your rich American fathers will just pay them. Instead, we'll cut your hair.”

That got their attention. At that time long hair was “in,” and every teenage boy with any idea of style wore his hair as long as or longer than the girls did. Tickets? No problem. Daddy fix. But the loss of their hair would have been an unsustainable outrage. “Dad, can they do that, just cut your hair like that?” demanded Eric.

“Do it? I'll help 'em. I'll sharpen their scissors.”

Well, no nurturing parent there. They left muttering to each other about life's basic unfairness and Eric's bad luck in having a father who actually sided with the law. Actually, I would have liked to see him wearing short hair. I used to tell him that the reason he did such strange things was because his hair sucked all the blood away from his brains.

Copyright Ken Harris 2009

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Grog

When we lived in Spain we met a huge, black, vile-tempered cat named Grog. Grog had a family, the Hickeys, a man, a woman, a teen-age boy, a pre-teen girl, each one of them the soul of sweet reason and amiability. Grog took it upon himself to be ill-natured for all of them. What a guy.

The first time I met Grog I discovered that he permitted his person to be touched only by members of his immediate family and such others individuals as he had personally inspected. I failed the inspection.

Grog’s mama apologized, but I told her not to worry. It was my fault entirely for attempting to pet an animal without a formal introduction. Anyone that rude deserved to bleed a little.

The next time I visited, I decided to leave Grog alone. I studiously ignored him for almost an hour. But Grog, disagreeable creature that he was, decided that we were going to be bosom friends. He plonked himself on my bosom and demanded to be petted.

Grog was, in a word, difficult.

The family decided to return to the States, but before Grog could go with them he had to receive a battery of shots. Somehow he was enticed into his kitty cage and, accompanied by his mama and his pet girl, off he went to the vet. Unfortunately for everyone, Grog’s family spoke little Spanish, the vet spoke less English. After several hectic minutes of a curious mixture of Spanish, English, French and German words liberally laced with hand gestures, the vet understood that he was to stick needles into Grog. The family warned the vet that the cat would probably object to being pierced and offered to help. The vet, however, declined all offers of assistance and told them to come back at five o’clock to recover their pet.

When they returned they found a disturbed cat and a disturbed vet having a stare down. Grog was still in his carrying case, well toward the back so he couldn’t be scooped out by surprise. The vet’s arms were decorated with iodine and Band Aids. Grog wore a defiant look, tinged with contempt, while the vet’s eyes expressed a combination of anguish, frustration and loathing.

Grog’s girl reached into the carrying case and gathered Grog in her arms. The vet grabbed his needles and quickly gave the cat his shots. “There’s the Grog monster, all shot,” murmured the girl.

“Ojalá” muttered the vet under his breath. That’s Spanish for “so mote it be.”

Mrs. Hickey informed me recently that Grog lived for several years in the States but eventually succumbed to coyotes. As big and assertive as Grog was, I'm sure there was more than one coyote involved, and I'm dead certain that he did not go gently into that good night.



Copyright Ken Harris 2009

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Wrestling with Spanish

The French have a wide reputation for being rude to people who do not speak their language perfectly. If you did not have the forethought to be born French, you probably speak the language imperfectly, perhaps to a stunning degree.

The Spanish, on the other hand, have the reputation of being cordial to anyone who even tries to use their language. But cordiality is not guaranteed. The Spanish have their “French” moments.

I had driven to Madrid in the summer of 1975 to take our daughter, Patricia, to the airport to catch a flight to the States. Besides Pat and me, we had our son, Eric, and his friend, Mino deBretteville, along for ballast. Pat’s plane left Madrid early, so we arrived the day before and set up in a hotel. When we sat down to dinner, and Eric ordered for us in Spanish.

Eric had a wide circle of acquaintances from all over Europe, and their only common language was Spanish. He and his friends had been jabbering Spanish at each other since the fall of the year before. However, Eric’s Spanish was that which he had heard on the streets, Andalucian, the Spanish version of Terminal Hillbilly. So that’s basically what it was, jabber, at least to everyone else in Spain. They called it “andalú” and it was spoken by leaving off the beginnings and endings of all the words and shouting the middles.

The waiter listed to him order for us and answered, “Cómo?” Eric tried again, this time trying the time-honored strategy of speaking louder. “Cómo?” the waiter repeated, looking at me and shrugging.

The dirty rat. He understood Eric. He was just tugging on my son’s chain. I then ordered for all of us in my slow, measured Spanish and he smiled and said, “Claró,” a Spanish word for “But of course, how could it be otherwise.” He understood me perfectly because I was the guy leaving the tip.

On another occasion we were in a village, somewhere, somehow, and needed to use a telephone. Joanne asked a local traffic cop where there might be a telephone. She spoke in English and the cop pretended not to understand the word “telephone.” She tried a Spanish pronunciation. Several of them in fact. “Teléfono, telefóno, telefonó.” He wasn’t even a very good actor. He just wasn’t to tell her. I asked him and, since I was a man instead of a woman, I could have asked in Swahili and gotten results. He told us where the phone was and we went on our way. I was sorry I didn’t have any nails that needed bending, because Joanne was angry enough to bend them with her teeth.

I’ll tell about one final occasion, I promise it’s the last. I was in downtown Málaga doing some shopping and I needed some iodine. I whipped out my trusty English-Spanish dictionary and identified the word “yodo.” Into the apothecary’s shop I went and asked for yodo. The druggist made me repeat my request and then came back with some sanitary napkins.

“No, no, no, no, no,” said I. I whipped out my dictionary and pointed to the word. “Oh, yodo. Of course we have yodo. All apothecary shops have yodo.” Well, he had his fun, but the only tip I gave him was to floss daily.