In 1975-76 Spain was a cheap, cheap, cheap place to take a vacation. That made it attractive for college-age people to go walkabout in those days as part of their coming-of-age experience. Armed with backpacks and Eurail passes, you could find them in every town in Europe.
You could especially find them in Torremolinos, which had a cachet to it thanks to James Michener’s book The Drifters. First published in 1971, was a hugely influential book, translated into at least ten European languages. Five translations, Dutch, Finnish, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, featured the name “Torremolinos” in their titles. It would have been the answer to the Chamber of Commerce’s prayer, if only the Hippies brought more money with them.
Many of the young people traveling in Torremolinos on the cheap were university students during the fall, winter and spring months. They wore tee-shirts all over the street advertising this university or that. I suspect there were far more university tee-shirts than university students, but I’m of a suspicious nature. I think the expectation was that Ohio State people would see each other and hang out together. But why you would go all the way to Spain to hang out with someone from your own university? I never understood the thinking there.
Confounding the scheme, however, was the practice of exchanging tee-shirts. After a few brewskies there would be a round of tee-shirt exchanges and someone wearing an Oxford shirt might not even speak English. He might be a Heidelberg student and the person he exchanged with spoke no German.
We saw lots of Oxfords and Sorbonnes, lots of Georgetowns and Ohio States. Didn’t see too many Bob Jones Universities. The most popular tee-shirt of all was UCLA’s. You could probably get two Sorbonnes and a beer for a UCLA shirt in good repair. Free market economy, nothing like it.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The Guys with the Funny Hats
The guardia civil are those Spanish cops who wear the silly little patent leather hats and carry the silly little Schmeisser machine pistols. One look at these guys and you know that there is not a gram of humor there.
They and their families live in their own community called a cuartel. Single men live in smaller, bachelor quarters. All the rooms face inward. Four massive walls and a few guarded gates present the outward face to the public. Why mince words? It’s a fort.
In those days members of the guardia never served in a part of Spain where they might have extended family. Police from Galicia service in Andalucia. Police from Andalucia served in Murcia. This reduced the strain of having a family member want a break when apprehended in a no-no.
Here’s a guardia story about a man who owned the bar where McConnell and I dazzled the Icelanders with our many repetitions of Battle Hymn of the Republic. He told me he was at home one afternoon when a loud knocking sounded at the door. Two guardia civiles stood there, silly hats, Schmeissers and all. They told him that the commandante requested the honor of his presence at headquarters at the cuartel immediately. He accompanied the policemen, of course, and upon arriving at police headquarters encountered--a plumber.
The bar owner had hired this particular plumber to do some work at the restaurant and paid him in advance in the form of two checks. The plumber did not complete the work. The owner asked his banker if he could cancel the checks. The banker said of course he could. But the banker say what would happen next. So much for don't-ask-don't-tell.
The commandante listened to both our hero's and the plumber’s stories. Then the commandante told the plumber that starting the next day he would work and complete his job in a satisfactory manner. The alternative was to be put out of business. This was not an idle threat.
Then to my friend he said, “You may not know this, being an American, but when you write a check in Spain, it is a contract. When you cancelled that check, you breached that contract. Now here’s what you are going to do, señor. You are going to write the plumber another check right now, and if it bounces, I will put you out of business.” That was not an idle threat, either.
The guardia civil never made idle threats. That’s why people didn’t mess with them.
They and their families live in their own community called a cuartel. Single men live in smaller, bachelor quarters. All the rooms face inward. Four massive walls and a few guarded gates present the outward face to the public. Why mince words? It’s a fort.
In those days members of the guardia never served in a part of Spain where they might have extended family. Police from Galicia service in Andalucia. Police from Andalucia served in Murcia. This reduced the strain of having a family member want a break when apprehended in a no-no.
Here’s a guardia story about a man who owned the bar where McConnell and I dazzled the Icelanders with our many repetitions of Battle Hymn of the Republic. He told me he was at home one afternoon when a loud knocking sounded at the door. Two guardia civiles stood there, silly hats, Schmeissers and all. They told him that the commandante requested the honor of his presence at headquarters at the cuartel immediately. He accompanied the policemen, of course, and upon arriving at police headquarters encountered--a plumber.
The bar owner had hired this particular plumber to do some work at the restaurant and paid him in advance in the form of two checks. The plumber did not complete the work. The owner asked his banker if he could cancel the checks. The banker said of course he could. But the banker say what would happen next. So much for don't-ask-don't-tell.
The commandante listened to both our hero's and the plumber’s stories. Then the commandante told the plumber that starting the next day he would work and complete his job in a satisfactory manner. The alternative was to be put out of business. This was not an idle threat.
Then to my friend he said, “You may not know this, being an American, but when you write a check in Spain, it is a contract. When you cancelled that check, you breached that contract. Now here’s what you are going to do, señor. You are going to write the plumber another check right now, and if it bounces, I will put you out of business.” That was not an idle threat, either.
The guardia civil never made idle threats. That’s why people didn’t mess with them.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Juan Wayne and the Bicycle Thief
One of Sunnyview school's high school students lived with his parents and sister in one of the many high rise “tower” apartments of Torremolinos. I believe they lived on the fourth floor, but that’s only an approximation. One day he looked out the window and saw someone trying to steal his bicycle. He grabbed a bb gun and made a citizen’s arrest on the miscreant, marching him to local police headquarters. The police were not gratified to see a civilian taking such a pro-active crime fighting stance.
They weren’t very happy with the bb gun either. After Franco took over as undisputed dictator of Spain, he tried to ensure that civilians did not have guns. That way, his dictatorship could remain undisputed. In 1975, the last year of Franco’s life, rules had been relaxed a little and people with clean records could own small caliber rifles and air guns. But the police were not happy.
As the boy left the station, the police asked him, “Hey, Juan Wayne, do you mind if we make our own arrests next time?”
They weren’t very happy with the bb gun either. After Franco took over as undisputed dictator of Spain, he tried to ensure that civilians did not have guns. That way, his dictatorship could remain undisputed. In 1975, the last year of Franco’s life, rules had been relaxed a little and people with clean records could own small caliber rifles and air guns. But the police were not happy.
As the boy left the station, the police asked him, “Hey, Juan Wayne, do you mind if we make our own arrests next time?”
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The Barbers of Torremolinos
Shortly after we arrived in Spain our son Eric and his friend, Victor DeGroot, stormed into the maid’s quarters, a tiny room of our house where I had set up my writing shop. It was a good room in which to write. It was so small you couldn’t do anything else. You’d bark your knuckles shaking martinis.
The two boys were livid, enraged. They verbally fell over each other trying to tell me their sad story. It seems that they had been riding a motor scooter the wrong way up a one-way street. Something junior high school boys do all the time. Suddenly the cops stopped them. The boys expressed their indifference to receiving a ticket but were taken aback when the cops expressed their indifference in writing them one.
They said writing a ticket to the children of rich foreigners was pointless because their foolish fathers would simply pay it for them. Instead, the police said that if they caught Eric and Victor being bozos again, they would CUT THEIR HAIR! And no razor cut hair style, either. Buzz cut.
The boys both sported shoulder length hair. Eric’s was straight and blond. Victor’s was dark and curly. Both boys were outraged. They were sure their civil rights were being violated. I wanted to point out that as foreigners living in Spain, we didn’t have very many of those, but I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
Finally they paused for breath. “Can they do that, Dad?” Eric asked.
“Do it?” I replied. “I’ll help them. I’ll sharpen their scissors.” The boys stormed out in anger and resentment. That was good. The cops got the boys’ attention. Let’s hear it for anger and resentment.
The two boys were livid, enraged. They verbally fell over each other trying to tell me their sad story. It seems that they had been riding a motor scooter the wrong way up a one-way street. Something junior high school boys do all the time. Suddenly the cops stopped them. The boys expressed their indifference to receiving a ticket but were taken aback when the cops expressed their indifference in writing them one.
They said writing a ticket to the children of rich foreigners was pointless because their foolish fathers would simply pay it for them. Instead, the police said that if they caught Eric and Victor being bozos again, they would CUT THEIR HAIR! And no razor cut hair style, either. Buzz cut.
The boys both sported shoulder length hair. Eric’s was straight and blond. Victor’s was dark and curly. Both boys were outraged. They were sure their civil rights were being violated. I wanted to point out that as foreigners living in Spain, we didn’t have very many of those, but I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
Finally they paused for breath. “Can they do that, Dad?” Eric asked.
“Do it?” I replied. “I’ll help them. I’ll sharpen their scissors.” The boys stormed out in anger and resentment. That was good. The cops got the boys’ attention. Let’s hear it for anger and resentment.
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