Madrid …Continued from Friday:
The first time I visited Spain with the UNICLAM tour back in 1972 (see posts from 6/4/ and 6/5/2015) the country had been under the military regime of Generalissimo Francisco Franco for almost 33 years, since his Nationalist army defeated the Republicans in 1939 at the end of the Spanish Civil War. But I was 20 years old, what did I know from fascist dictatorships? I found the cities we visited enchanting and the people friendly, and I scarcely noticed the discreet presence of the policia patrolling the streets in military-style uniforms, rifles slung over their shoulders. Except for one night in Madrid, where we spent a couple of days on the first leg of the trip on our way south to Andalucia. I believe it was on our second night in Madrid that Sin, Guenaele, Cato, Cato’s girlfriend Dominique and I were in a restaurant together eating dinner when our waiter struck up a conversation with Cato who, being Peruvian, spoke Spanish. The waiter (whose name, sadly, I can no longer remember) was a sociable youngster probably in his early twenties with black-rimmed glasses and straight red hair with bangs that fell across his forehead almost to his eyes. He looked like a typical American 70’s kid. As we were getting ready to leave the restaurant our waiter hurried over and told us, with Cato as translator, that if we came back at the end of his shift at 10 o’clock he’d take us to a place called The Caves that tourists seldom found and where we could see some real live flamenco dancing. We all thought this sounded like a splendid idea, so at 10 pm we returned to the restaurant and picked up our enthusiastic waiter then began following him through the streets of Madrid. I don’t remember how long we’d been walking before we were approached by two policemen. They looked to me like soldiers, and for all we knew maybe the police and the military were one in the same. In any case one of the policemen gestured to our waiter to step aside and began grilling him on what he was doing with these foreigners. Our waiter began talking fast, nervously gesticulating while explaining that everything was fine, we were all friends, he was just taking us to The Caves to see the flamenco dancers, he meant us no harm. The police officers then came over to us and asked us if everything was all right. Cato explained that what the waiter told them was true and that everything was fine. Satisfied that this group of young tourists in their city weren’t being led into any danger, the police/soldiers saluted us then walked off and our poor temporarily shaken waiter led us the rest of the way to The Caves, where we were, in fact, treated to an enthralling evening of watching wonderful live flamenco dancers in the company of our good-natured new Spanish friend. In truth I didn’t think much about the incident with the policia until that tense moment in the poncho shop in Seville ( see post from 6/5/ 2015) when the image of those no-nonsense, rifle-toting constabularies flashed through my brain and compelled me to jump into the fray and buy myself a poncho.
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…Continued from yesterday: “I’ll buy it!” I cried. The angry shopkeeper, her surly companion, Sin and Guenaele all turned to look at me from where I’d been standing off to the side. “It’s pretty,” I cheerfully chirped, “I like it. Well, I didn’t really think that poncho was pretty. And I didn’t really like it. I was just scared of what might happen if somebody didn’t shell out 80 pesetas and buy the darn thing. So I enthusiastically pretended I that liked the poncho and shelled out the 80 pesetas. Subsequently the recently truculent shopkeeper and her buddy forgot their grievances and turned friendly again, ceremoniously slipping my newly acquired poncho over my head, smoothing out the material on my shoulders and arms, and seemed to be commenting in Spanish how nice it looked, though for all I understood they could have been saying what ever they felt like about me. Then Sin, Guenaele and I left the shop with me feeling a little dumb but greatly relieved in my new poncho and we headed off to explore the rest of Seville. We hadn’t gone very far before we ran into several members from our tour group, who immediately began ooohing and aaahing over my striped poncho. They were amazed that I’d paid only 80 pesetas for such a cool poncho. One of the group asked if there were any more ponchos like mine at the shop and I replied, “Mais bien sur, il y en a beaucoup! J’y t’amenerai si t’en voudrais un!” Which is French for: “Oh sure, there’s a bunch! I’ll take you there if you’d like one!” Well, all three or four of them in the group decided they’d like one and on our way back to the shop we met a couple more of our fellow tour groupers who, when they learned of our destination and purpose, decided that they, too, would like to be stylin' an 80-peseta poncho. “But no bargaining with the shopkeeper, okay?” I beseeched them, “I assure you, She won’t like it.” So Sin, Guenaele and I returned to the shop where the happy shopkeeper’s eyes lit up, probably with peseta signs, when she saw all the customers we’d brought her. Our fellow tourists cleaned the shop keeper out of 80-peseta striped ponchos, with Guenaele nabbing the last one off the rack. And it was at this moment that Sin decided that he did want that poncho after all. But of course by now all the ponchos were gone. However the eagle-eyed shopkeeper was on top of the situation. But then we were all young, a little silly and in Spain; what wasn't to be happy about?
Anyway, a few more of our fellow tourists admired the look sported by those of us of in the poncho crowd so I pointed them the way to the shop where they bought up the remaining shirts like Sin’s, so Sin didn’t have to feel like a ponchoesque outlier and it was all good. Epilogue: I ended up loving that poncho. It was loose and afforded freedom of movement and could be worn for just enough warmth in cool weather or as a layer over a sweater or coat when it was colder. I wore it for years. I don’t remember when or why I stopped wearing it. Maybe I thought I was getting too old to wear it anymore. I thought I might even have thrown it out but a few days ago, when I was thinking about writing about it I looked through my closet and there was my poncho, still hanging around and looking not a day more worn than when I bought it for the equivalent of eight dollars 43 years ago. I wonder if I’m old enough to start wearing it again? That's me on the right with my friends Sin, on the left, and his girlfriend, Guenaele, in the middle, when we were in Granada, Spain back in spring of 1972 (see post from 7/3/2014). Note my poncho. Guenaele also had a poncho similar to mine but had slipped it off a few minutes before this picture was taken. I don't remember precisely, but I'm betting that the person who took the photo was also sporting a poncho. At the time that photo was taken there were half a dozen in our tour group wearing matching ponchos, though none of us arrived in Spain with the intention of leaving the country with this article of attire. Note that Sin is not wearing a poncho, but a ponchoesque shirt. Which is actually the punchline of this story. Anyway, the chain of events that led to the poncho proliferation within our tour group really began before we even arrived in that country. Now, some of you might recall Sin and Guenaele from my July 3, 2014 post, when I told the story of how I met them in 1971 when I was 20 years old and spending my junior year of college studying French language and culture at the Institut Catholique in Paris. There was at that time in Paris a Latin American Student organization, UNICLAM, (where I had become one of a number of regular hanger-outers at their office/hang-out) run by a couple of fun Peruvian guys named Cato and Lalo. They'd organized a 2-week bus tour of Italy over Christmas break which I'd gone on and during which I met Sin and Guenaele (again, see post from 7/3/2014). The Italy tour was such a success that Cato and Lalo decided to organize another 2-week trip over Easter break, this time to southern Spain. Sin, Guenaele and I decided to go. It turned out that so many people signed up for the Spain trip that Cato and Lalo oversold and then realized that there weren't enough seats on the tour bus for all the passengers. But the bus they were using had a few backless fold-down bench seats that hinged down from the side of some of the seats into the aisle and so a few days before the trip Cato called me in a panic and asked me if I'd be willing, in exchange for half-price off the trip, to take one of these fold-down benches instead of a bus seat. I jumped on the deal, as did Sin and Guenaele when Cato asked them, too. And so it came to pass that Sin, Guenaele, Cato, Lalo, and I rode all the way from Paris to Granada, Spain, over 1,000 miles with many stops along the way, crammed onto little fold-down benches in the aisle of the tour bus. Fortunately for us, though, many of our fellow passengers, most of whom were young foreigners like myself studying in Paris, were kind enough to switch seats with us aisle-riders once in a while to give us a little break. Ah, to be young, good-natured, and flexible! But back to the poncho story. There was much excited discussion on the bus about what everyone was looking forward to seeing and doing while in Spain. One subject that seemed to be generating a lot of interest and chat within the group was bargaining. It was said that in the south of Spain bargaining with merchants was a locally-practiced art. Many within our group were looking forward to trying their hand at it and picking up some great bargains. Not me. To me arguing with a shop-owner over the price of something sounded nerve-wracking. I'd rather just pay the price than have the stress. But the chatter went on and on as our trip progressed through France, then into Spain where we zigzagged south, briefly visiting the cities of Burgos, Madrid, and Toledo before reaching our destination, the Spanish state of Andalucia, where we'd be visiting the beautiful cities of Seville, Cordoba, ...and Granada Anyway, by the time we reached Seville, our first stop in the famed bargaining territory of southern Spain, people were so pumped from all the build-up they'd given each other over how they were all going to bargain their way into the annals of acquisition history, that it seemed that we no sooner hopped off the bus than people were off in all directions in search of a little shop or market place.
No me. All that bargaining talk sounded like the preface to a big headache. I wanted no part of any of it. Still I followed my comrades Sin and Guenaele through the lovely little streets of Seville until we came across a cute little clothing shop. We entered and began inspecting the wares under the watchful eye of the woman shop keeper. Ironically, Sin wasn't really interested in anything in the shop and so had no intention of initiating a bargaining session when, while idly leafing through a rack of stripped ponchos, he casually said, "200 pesetas (Spanish money before the euro, about 10 to the dollar at the time, so 200 pesetas was about $20) for these? That's too much!" The shop keeper, who apparently understood some business French, immediately stepped up and offered a price of 150 pesetas. Sin, though he had no interest in a poncho, bit the bait and said no, 150 was still too much; which was a mistake, because, as he soon realized, he'd unwittingly entered the bargaining ring and now didn't exactly know how to get out. The shopkeeper continued lowering the price and Sin's strategy was to just keep telling the shop keeper that the price was too high. But she wouldn't give up, lowering the price until it was down to 80 pesetas, or $8. When Sin said no to the 80-peseta price the woman caught on that Sin had never been interested in the poncho in the first place and had been merely trifling with her. She turned hostile and pushy, shaking the poncho at Sin and repeating 80 pesetas! 80 pesetas! Then a big guy came out from behind a curtain at the back of the shop and she began yelling to him and waving her hands at us, and though at the time I didn't understand a word of the language I had a pretty good idea what she was saying. The guy looked none too happy. Sin and Guenaele looked scared and started wandering towards the door. As for me, I was so nervous my heart was pounding, as I was sure that even if we ran out of the shop the Seville policia would track us down and collar us for, I don't know, breach of bargaining, or something. I couldn't stand it. To be continued... A couple nights ago Tommy, Theresa, Randy and Anusha were hanging out after Sunday supper, ...when Anusha asked if she could see our photos from our Hawaii trip (see posts from 4/1/2015 - 4/14/2015). I said, "Sure," let me go find them, I think they're in the dining room cabinet." "Oh, you printed them?" she asked. "Well, yeah," replied I. "What you're gonna put 'em in an album, or something?" asked Randy. "Yeah, soon as I get around to it," I said. The youngsters then proceeded to reminisce about how much they liked flipping through the old photo albums at their parents' and grandparents' house when they were younger. "Well," I offered, "if you wanted to you all could start printing your photos and putting them in albums." "Doesn't that take, like, a day to get them printed?" asked someone. "Or two weeks?" asked Theresa, remembering how her dad used to send our photos in the mail to be developed. "Then when you got them back sometimes they weren't all that great," recalled someone else. "No, it takes minutes to get your photos developed at Walgreen's or CVS," I corrected them. "And you can stick your camera's memory card into the store computer and choose which photos you'd like developed so you're not stuck with any bad ones. And it is nice to be able to be able to look at prints and pass them around." Except, of course, when you can't remember where you put your prints. I scoured every shelf in the house ...but not the envelope of our Hawaii photos. "Well, that's all right, " said Anusha graciously, "I'll just check out your blog." And the moment for sitting together in the family room and passing around photographs had passed, just as the sight of my random jumble of envelopes of photos from who knows where or when had dampened the spark of interest in the youngsters for prints that would eventually have to be somehow organized and stored. "Wow, this is really a lost art, isn't it?" said Theresa, referring to us sifting through old forgotten photographs.
"Well," said I, "I guess your generation will always have all your photos electronically stored, dated and organized on your devices." "But these old pictures are so fun," she sighed. "They are," I agreed. "Until you have to figure out what to do with them." Epilogue: I spent much of the next morning wracking my brain trying to remember where I could have put our Hawaii pictures. Later in the day at a moment when I'd forgotten about the pictures and was preoccupied with some completely different subject the light bulb flashed on in my mind: I remembered where the Hawaii prints were: I'd already put them in a album. Over the weekend Tom and I attended four graduation parties, which got me to thinking that, along with all the many words of wisdom, insight, advice and encouragement that will be proffered to young graduates at their commencement ceremonies, perhaps I can offer a few more that might not have been covered by the keynote speakers.
So, young graduates, here is my commencement speech to you: 1. When you are in social situations be sure to steer the conversation towards others: ask them about themselves before you jump in and start talking about yourself. And whatever you do, don't be a conversation hog who talks and talks and talks, making it impossible for anyone else to get a word in edgewise and boring them to death. 2. Remember that good conversation is a two-way street. 3. Remember that the rules for turning at a two-way stop sign differ from the rules for turning at a four-way stop: when two cars are facing each other from opposite directions at a two-way stop, a car going straight or making a right turn always has the right-of-way over a car making a left turn even if the car making the left turn was at the intersection first. 4. Be sure and finish up your prescription of antibiotics. Don't just take your meds for a couple of days then stop when you're feeling better. What this practice does is kills off the weaker microbes but allows the stronger ones to live and develop a resistance to the antibiotic. This stronger, antibiotic-resistant microbe is the one you're now spreading around and the people you're spreading it to are likewise spreading it around so now a new, stronger antibiotic must be used to kill this stronger microbe. This misuse of antibiotics has been going on for so many years that it's caused the proliferation of stronger and stronger microbes until we now have super-bugs like MRSA that are on the verge of acquiring resistance to every antibiotic in the human arsenal. So don't turn the microbes into invincible monsters! Finish your prescription! 5. You can't tell if a cantaloupe is ripe by its feel or color; the only way to tell if a cantaloupe is ripe is by sniffing the end opposite the stem end. If this end smells like cantaloupe then the melon is ripe. I learned this at a cantaloupe farm in New Jersey. 6. If none of the cantaloupes in the supermarket produce section are ripe but you're hankering for cantaloupe anyway, buy the melon then cut it up in a bowl and toss in a can of pineapple tidbits in juice. The pineapple will sweeten the melon right up. 7. If you become good enough at what you do it generally won't matter how you dress. 8. If someone introduces you to their big, scary, aggressive dog by saying, "Poochikins is just a big old sweetie, he would never bite anyone," be prepared to be bitten. 9. No matter how miserable you're feeling or how scared or upset you are, never be rude, surly, or demanding to the doctor, nurse, or therapist who is taking care of you or your family member. Despite our high expectations, medical people don't have all the answers and are just trying their best to save people's lives, which is more than most service providers are trying to do. So be patient, polite, and respectful to health care providers. Besides, you never want to give a hard time to the person who has your or your loved one's well-being in their hands and who's in charge of distributing the pain-killers. 10. Don't beat yourself up too much if you try something that ends up falling flat and you come away feeling like a big honking idiot. Instead remind yourself that this was something you wanted to do, you did it, and this is just how it turned out. Besides, people who've never failed at anything haven't tried very many things. People who try a lot of things fail now and again. 11. Although it's been preached to you since you were knee-high to an i-pad, I'm going to say it again: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA! 12. And most important: Always remember that no matter how great and indispensable you may become at what you do, no matter what a respected expert you may become in your field, no matter how rich, famous, or important you become, still be nice to people. |
"Tropical Depression"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa or from The Book Loft of German Village, Columbus, Ohio Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
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