Archive for August 2010

25 Aug, 2010 | Posted by: psnotes








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ROHN TAKES A MID-DAY SIESTA




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RUDI ENTERTAINS FIELD WORKERS




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ROHN BORROWS A SUN HAT





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WE ENTER PORTUGAL AT ELVAS









My Story


# 32




“O.K.” I answered timidly. Rudi had said we ought to try to see how much speed we could get out of the Vespa 150. There was this steep grade coming up on the highway and it would be a good testing ground.
Well, the answer is not something you sit around and debate about. It’s something you’re supposed to answer an automatic “Yes”, like “Wanna another beer?” At least with guys our age. And I guess it’s the same with girls. But our culture allows girls some leeway. I mean girls wouldn’t automatically say “yes” to something daring, usually. At least not the ones I’ve known. But not for guys. It stamps ‘sissy’ on your forehead if you say, “Wait, let’s stop and think about this.” That’s what I would’ve liked to say. Here we were in the middle of open country in Spain, on a lonely highway, not a soul around, except the railroad train we heard now and them somewhere in the valley or mountains we were traveling though. Not a bird or a donkey, could’ve heard me, and I could’ve said anything, and no one would’ve heard me. But Rudi has been putting me in situations like this recently and I guess this was one of them. I’d didn’t want to hear again, “You Americans are all alike.”
He looked at me again. “Let’s try ‘er out!”
But I knew he was asking a question, not telling me. I think he wanted to put some of the blame on me in case we crashed and got all banged up.
“Sure!” I said, like you’re supposed to.
Rudi gave it full gas and we sped down the mountain grade. Now I should mention that in Spain at that time the gasoline service was not always what you would hope it to be, and at the previous gas station we had suspected the attendant of not adding the full amount of oil to the gasoline-oil mixture or even forgetting to add the oil to the mixture. If this happens there is the chance that the piston will not be properly lubricated, and it will freeze in the cylinder chamber. This causes the rear wheel to freeze up.
So there we were, speeding down that hill at 80 miles per hour. I don’t know how fast we were really going. The speedometer only goes up to 50. I remember back in high school my classmate, Marion Baker, had his dad’s car and he and Bob Fletcher and Bobbie Campbell were also in it. We were on our way to a Saturday night dance at a roadhouse outside of Salisbury and Marion got this notion that he ought to see how fast his dad’s new truck could go and he told us “Watch this.” He just got it in his head that he was going to test out his dad’s truck.

I think it was a Studebaker one of those new pickup trucks after WWII. Pretty soon we realized he was giving it a test run like they do in the movies. I was watching the speedometer and it got up to 83. So I know what it feels like to go 83 m.p.h. None of us said a word. But we all left the car knowing we weren’t virgins anymore when it came to going really fast.
About a year after that, Bobby Campbell was doing the same thing with the car he had bought when he got his new job. He was alone, or drunk or something and he ran into a tree in Taylorsville right across from
Betty Anne McAliister’s house, and got killed. Every time I went by that tree I thought about Bobby. I was thinking about him now.
Well, as you’re probably thinking, something’s going to happen with that Vespa motor. It sure as hell happened.
We were going down that hill at eighty miles per hour, the rear wheel of the Vespa suddenly braked, it just didn’t move anymore. It was stuck. I could smell rubber, I think. The scooter began fishtailing. Rudi swerved to the left, and then counter-steered to the right, then when we slid to the left Rudi countered again, correcting the direction of the scooter before it reached the point where we could’ve toppled over and splattered onto the road. I gripped Rudi, shouting wild sounds of encouragement, but expected to go sprawling into the roadbed any moment with our heads bouncing like soccer balls. Neither of us were wearing crash helmets. And I just imagined two crosses being erected alongside that lonely Spanish road the next day.
This all happened in a matter of a few seconds, and if Rudi hadn’t been the quick thinker that he is, we probably would have had just that fate. As it was, he thought to pull in the clutch, which released the drive shaft from the frozen cylinder and allowed us to free-wheel the rest of the way down the hill. The reality of what had happened didn’t strike us ‘til a few moments after it was all over, and we pulled to the side of the road and took a good long rest.
I was the first to talk. “You’ve got to have respect for the machine,” I said after a while, recalling my own accident a few days ago.
“You can’t have respect for any machine!” Rudi scolded me. “If you do, and you start fearing a machine, it’ll sure as hell be the death of you. Machines aren’t responsible. You’ve got to make yourself master of them. The only thing you’ve got to have respect for when you’re driving this scooter is yourself!”
He took the posture of a professor or friendly doctor. He usually raised his jawbone and looked downward at me when he was in his lecturing mode. I didn’t mind feeling like a lowly student. He was right. And, I was alive. That’s what counted. This was one of the several times on our trip we almost met destruction.
I could tell Rudi had also been frightened by the near accident. But he wasn’t going to let the scooter get the best of him. He was right, you have to be the undisputed master of machines; if not, you become their slave. It gave me encouragement to realize this, and it began to dispel my fear that I had been starting to get of driving the scooter.

The next couple of days we mostly spent camping out. It was like we were exhausted trying to talk with the peasants who were poorer than we were and could hardly share a piece of bread with us. We soon passed over the border and were in the country of Portugal. No problem at the border customs. We were finished seeing posters with Franco’s face on it. No Guardias with rifles slung over their shoulders. But we were to find out the political freedom that I’ve been talking about was pretty much missing in Portugal too. Salazar, he was the big boss in this country and he ruled it just as strong as Franco. We knew we had to be on our good behavior here too.
And the people? Well, at least the folks out in the countryside that we encountered seemed to accept us more readily that the Spanish peasants people did. They would cheerfully wave to us in a fashion that indicated they agreed with our way of traveling. One farmer, for example was wheeling a wheelbarrow along the side of the road, took the time to put his wheelbarrow down when he saw us coming, and vigorously waved to us smiling as we passed.
Another man, in a general store, offered us bandages for my swollen hand. That was a surprise. He offered to fill our canteen with water. Nice guy.
And the language. I thought the Spanish we had learned would get us through. No chance. Portuguese was a new language for us entirely, and at farmsteads we had to finger talk most of the way, pointing to pictures or making drawings.
But the really nice thing was that our "lodging system" worked just as well in rural Portugal as it did elsewhere along our way. We would ask for lodging in a stable or barn. Get accepted. Get out our guitars and practice our songs. The children would gather around to listen. And then the adults and elders. And then Rudi and I would hear that favorite sentence, “Supper’s on the table, why don’t you come in and join us?” Later in the evening, the word would spread to neighbors and they would arrive on bicycles or donkeys for an evening of song. Some farmers would bring their own instruments. And all this without even speaking their language. We felt that despite the warnings of others that our “lodging system” would not work when we crossed over into Africa, we sensed it just might.

By the time we reached Lisbon we had decided we like the people of Portugal. It was early evening when we entered the capital and from a distance we could see the city lights flickering in the Lisbon harbor. It looked a lot like a post card for San Francisco.
It was a mid-summer evening, almost sundown, “There’s the city out there!” I shouted to Rudi. “Any place special you’d like to stay tonight?”
“It’s Saturday night! Let’s see if we can’t find some activity going on in town. Maybe there’s a German ship in the harbor.” Rudi was always looking for German ships. I think he considered them floating islands of bock beer, sauerkraut, and a good night’s sleep on a soft mattress. Heck, I didn’t want to spend the weekend on a German ship. We were in a new city. I wanted to see what Lisbon was like.
We were used to driving on lonely country roads in Spain so here we were dodging city traffic and pedestrians. We drove down avenues of statues and gardens and ornamented buildings with glazed tiles, and finally reached the Praca do Comercio, a plaza called “Black Horse Square.” At a stop light we drove up side by side to a young Portuguese man and a girl riding together on a Vespa motor scooter. It was the same kind we had except it was nice and clean. He looked like a young businessman and the way she was snuggled up against him it looked like they were pretty good friends. .
“Where are you going?” the guy shouted in French over the sounds of the city. I guess he recognized us as traveling troubadours. French was the international language at that time in Europe.
“On our way to Africa!” I shouted as Rudi wheeled the scooter closer to them so that we could hear.
“This time of night?” the young girl asked.
“Oh, no. We just arrived in town. We don’t know where we’re going. Just thought we’d look around.”


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18 Aug, 2010 | Posted by: bswenson





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RUDI SINGS FOR THE CROWD



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WE RE-GROUP AFTER THE ACCIDENT



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THEY HAD NEVER SEEN ONE



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THE GLEANERS by JEAN-FRANCOIS MILLET, -1857





My Story


# 31

Monday was our last day in Madrid. Before leaving town, we checked the post office where I found a letter to us from the central Vespa factory headquarters in Genoa, Italy. I had written them when we were in France, reporting that we were touring the world on a Vespa. I thought they might want to publish the news in their trade magazine. They thanked us for the story and even included a letter of introduction for us that we could use in our travels.
“Say, this is a good thing!” I said to Rudi, showing him the letter from the factory. “It asks the Vespa people around the world to give us any aid they can.”
“Well, things look bright again, Mr. Engh!” Rudi always called me Mr. Engh when he was in a especially good humor. The local Vespa factory in Madrid had run our machine through a fine-tuning process and our scooter felt brand new.
“Portugal! Here we come!” I smiled, as I looked down the main boulevard of Madrid, I thought I could see Gibraltar and North Africa off in the distance.

Somewhere beyond the great Toledo Mountain range that stretched out before us on the road to the west was the land of Portugal.

Portugal! Who knows anything about Portugal? We never heard anything about it back in France or Spain. No one asked us, “Are you going to Portugal?” It was almost like Portugal was left out of our history or geography books back in Maryland. It was almost like Portugal wanted to forget that it was once a powerful empire in Europe and in the world for that matter. We were going to the country that had once sent Vasco Da Gama to India, Ferdinand Magellan around the world. Portugal with its grand daughters in South America and Africa, the great commercial giant of the fifteenth century. And don’t forget Brazil. The whole country speaks Portuguese. What kind of language is that going to be for us?

The further we drove from Madrid, the more poverty we met when it was time to ask for a night’s lodging. Some farmers in western Spain, unaccustomed to seeing itinerants or anyone who traveled, like tourist people, simply couldn’t understand why we were asking to sleep in their barn or shed. Often they thought we were thieves, and refused to talk with us. I would show them my Diary and the newspaper articles –but they couldn’t read. The only people who could read were the children who had gone to school and were out in the fields working somewhere.
Other times, when they did give us lodging, they were suspicious until the moment we left. In some cases our music held fascination for them, and they thought to ask us if we’d had a meal. Other times, we would carry half a loaf of bread with us to a farm and ask if they could sell us some cheese or butter. This put us on an economical level lower than they, and they didn’t feel ashamed to invite us in for their evening meal, usually taken in a spare room with a hard mud kitchen floor.
We would sit on wooden stools with the light of a candle in the small adobe room, and share porridge and bread with them, and then retire to a sheltered stable until dawn. They spoke a Spanish dialect that was nothing we had ever heard. The only communication we could have with them was our guitars. Our music was our introduction but also something else we were to learn that we had to depend on when we got over into North Africa and the Arabic people and then later on down into black Africa and that was trust.
Yes, there may be cultural differences everywhere, but trust runs through them all. That’s what we found.
Now I can’t tell you how to look trustworthy. Maybe your mirror can do that for you. Sure, people who we thought deserved our trust have fooled us all. But whatdaheck, you win some and you lose some. The both of us must’ve looked trustworthy. Or we were mighty lucky.

The people we met in the countryside midway between western Spain and eastern Portugal seemed to be an angered people, almost bitter, just about to give up their struggle against nature. There didn’t seem to be much room for fun in their lives.
Since there was no fun to be had with the peasants, I thought of some fun I could have with the animals. We were on the long road to Lisbon, and I had spotted a field of grazing arena bulls. Yes, the kind Alfonzo had faced back in the bullring in Madrid.
We stopped near the wire fence, and I dismounted and took a couple of photographs of the rugged creatures out in the field grazing. Then I got the idea to try my luck at attracting a bull over to me at the fence. There were some field workers across the road and they stopped to see what I was doing.
I tied two of my red kerchiefs together, and stuck them in my back pocket, secretly hiding my red flag from a group of nearby bulls about ten yards away. One was nearby. On ground level with the animal, I could see he was almost as high as a horse and twice as wide! I imagined myself a matador, standing in the path of such a menacing animal that was charging at me and then I would swiftly but gracefully step to one side to let the death-dealing horns of the bull pass within inches of my body. The thought made me weak, and I silently complimented the courage of the matadors who had risked or given their lives for such a unique art.
“You better get outta there!” Rudi shouted. “He might see that red bandana, and that’ll be the end of you.
“Now just keep cool. I want to make an experiment.” I shouted to Rudi. I wanted to experience the feeling of being in the path of an onrushing bull. I was going to make him charge and then I’d run for the protection of the motor scooter.
“Keep that motor going, Rudi!” I yelled over to him. I cautiously drew the red cloth from the back of my pocket and then quickly waved my homemade flag at the nearest bull. He had been staring at me the whole time, and as soon as he saw the motion of my flag, he gave a quick snort and a start. My reflexes jumped to attention much quicker than I had anticipated, and I turned to flee at the same time the bull reacted. But the flash reaction of my brain had not synchronized with my legs, which tangled into a pretzel when I turned to sprint the distance between the scooter and me. I fell flat on my face, and lay there motionless, with my ear close to the ground. I could hear the stampeding hoofs of the charging bull. I imagine the bull crashing the fence, trampling me, and jolting Rudi and the scooter to the other side of the road.
When the charging echo had subsided, I could hear the sound of Rudi’s laughter. I looked up to see him shaking his head and pointing to the bulls, which had all stampeded to the other side of the field, apparently frightened by my red flag!
“C’mon, jump on here,” Rudi shouted. “Before they change their minds and come back after you.”
As we took off, the group of Spanish fieldworkers that had been watching me didn’t move. They just stared at us, especially at me, not daring to laugh, not daring to smile, they just stared.


On the following day Rudi and I had our first accident. Roads in Spain aren’t the worst we encountered in Europe, but few roads in Spain get much maintenance. They don’t need to. There just aren’t that many cars around.
About a hundred kilometers out of Madrid, on the road to Lisbon, out in the rolling hills of wheat and oats, we came upon a small grade. Traveling at about forty miles-an-hour I sped up over the top as usual, only to find a construction site on the other side. No warning! One half of the road was free, no cars coming, and I could have passed the barrier easily, except for a wandering donkey that was squarely in the middle of the open free passageway. There was no time to put on the brakes, and I elected to bypass him by going over to the side shoulder. The front wheel of the scooter sank into deep gravel and it whipped the scooter and us sideways and shot us back onto the road again. We slid sideways to the pavement making a loud metallic screeching noise and tumbled us about ten yards down the road We finally halted in the center of the macadam road. Like in the pileup of players on a football field, we lay in the debris a few moments and then got up from the entanglement. We didn’t say much. The little donkey made his braying noise as if to say “Whatdahell was that!?”

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11 Aug, 2010 | Posted by: bswenson








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THE MATADOR



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FRANCO




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VISTING THE VESPA FACTORY



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LEARNING THE NOTES







My Story


# 30




I’ve heard it said that even in the worst squalls out at sea with ships battling the waves and men falling overboard that if you were to descend only a few feet below the surface, the fish would be swimming calmly smiling at each other, and wondering what all the fuss was about.
That’s how Rudi and I felt in our time in Spain, whether it was out in the arid desert or the cities. What with the poster of Franco all over the place, and on postage stamps, and flags, we couldn’t help but feel we were being watched. You never knew if you were talking with a sympathizer from the left, or one from the right, or somewhere in between. All we could do was listen. It was usually from young people and students from the universities. I would ask a student to write some kind of protest message to the world in my travel diary that I showed along in our travels, but they wouldn’t do it. They didn’t want the authorities to trace the words back to them.
That always made me feel bad to know I was part of all that kind of thing when I was in the CIC back in Wuerzburg. I was a cog in the political wheel of the U.S. government getting its fingers into the community. I was one of those reporters of activity, a messenger of subterfugion. I don’t know exactly what that word means and it’s probably not in the dictionary but it sounds like a dirty, stinkin’ thing that peoples can get into when they deal with other peoples. Oh well, the experience in Spain opened my eyes to what I didn’t want to do when I got back to the USA. Maybe that’s the price of freedom, I thought to myself.

We really didn’t understand what the political fuss was all about in Spain ‘til we left the country. To the people, we represented the world outside of Spain. The people were curious about us. We were always on display at gatherings and events, at family gatherings and cocktail parties. (We bought some wash ‘n’ hang clothes with our radio money so we could have some “dress up” clothes...) But the conversation was never about politics unless it was in a low whisper. But then, with my faulty Spanish I couldn’t understand most of it anyway. And as far as Rudi, well, as I said before, what else was new? The transition from Nazi politics to Franco politics wasn’t much of a jump. I guess he thought political oppression everywhere was pretty much the same. Something you just lived with, like a wheeze or something. It was just there. You didn’t try to fix it. I couldn’t wait for him to get to America, and to experience the rumors all Europeans had heard that there really is a country with freedom as its base and it was there to enjoy and defend. I began to appreciate the USA more and more, despite all its misgivings like my involvement with its international intelligence systems. Ignorance is bliss, they say, but traveling the world, as we were doing, some of my ignorance was being demolished.
When we talked with the Spanish students, I got the feeling they wanted to be assured that some day they would also be free like they had heard we were in the USA. Few adults ever really discussed politics with us, not only because they could get thrown in jail for doing it, but also because it was too complex for us to understand. We only knew if the familiar Franco poster was hanging on the wall, or one of the uniformed “Guardia Civil” were nearby, their demeanor changed. It was like they were little children and a stern, uncompromising, dictatorial father entered the room. It truly scared me, really, to see that happening in a country of people that looked like people from any other country. And as I say, it made me appreciated our Bill of Rights in the USA.

The next few days we spent in Madrid, looking about the town, going to friends’ homes for parties and dinners.
On Saturday night we were attending a party at an apartment and one of the guests asked, “Why don’t you fellows go see a bullfight tomorrow?
This was something that interested me. Back in France, in Nimes, we had tickets to attend a bullfight but before things really got started for real, the rains came and lasted all afternoon. They cancelled the event.
Have you ever seen one?” He asked.
Rudi answered that he had seen one in a film and didn’t care to go.
“But a film’s not the same as the real thing,” He laughed.
Rudi said, “No, I don’t want to watch one. It’s a slaughter however you see it. You pay to see death. It’s ugly enough without paying to see it.
The guest interrupted, “I think death is very popular among those who don’t have to experience it. Death is the great mystery of our lives. We don’t like to talk about it, but we’re eager to learn anything about it we can. It always makes headlines, and next to sex, it’s the greatest seller of magazines. We Spaniards like to see it first hand. At your American and German boxing matches, I bet if you took those puffy gloves of your prize-fighters, and more boxers started getting slaughtered in your rings, you’d get more attendance at your boxing matches.”
“I can’t buy that,” Rudi returned.
“If they lowered the speed of your stock car races to, say, thirty-five m.p.h., what do you think would happen to the attendance?” He countered.
Another guest interrupted, “ I don’t agree with either of you people. Those people don’t come to see death; they come to see a man defy death. The bull and the man have only one symbolic significance. The spectator vicariously puts himself in the ring with the bull, and enjoys escaping death along with the matador. The noblest thing a man can do in life is defy death.”
Jeeze! They went on and on like this. I grabbed my drink and left to listen to some flamenco guitar that was being played in the kitchen.
The next day Rudi went one way; I went the other. Rudi elected to go to the zoo; I chose the bullfight and got a ticket up in the bleachers for a few cents. I thought at first I’d change it for a more expensive seat, on the shady side, but the man next to me struck up a conversation just about the time I had decided to leave.
Recognizing I wasn’t Spanish, he spoken to me in a combination of Spanish and French and a little English. “You like Spanish wine?”
That was a friendly way to start a conversation, I thought to myself. “Yes,” I answered.
He pulled a leather bota from a basket that carried his lunch and some bicycle tools. “Take a drink!” he offered with a friendly chuckle. He was a weathered guy, probably from the Catalan side of Spain where they spoke a sort-of-a-French dialect. I imagined him in a messy white apron behind a counter in a butcher shop but I don’t know what his profession was. He was around 50 and probably visiting a relative in Madrid, and like me, came alone to the bullfight.
I think it impressed him when I was able to allow the stream of wine to drop squarely in my mouth.
“You like the bull fight?”
“I don’t know. This is my first time,” I said, handing him the bota. He took a drink and then wiped the wine from his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
“You’ve never seen one before?” he grinned at me, the way you do when you’re holding a birthday present for someone behind your back.
“No. Just in the movies.”
“Well, you’re lucky you sat here beside me so’s I can explain to you what’s go to happen.” He seemed over-anxious. Not in the sense that someone lets you know what a movie’s all about before you’ve even seen it, but more so the symbolic significance of what I was about to see.
“Son, you are going to witness man’s defiance of the terrible power of a one-thousand pound bull,” he began in a whisper, almost as if he were telling a ghost-story, and when he came to one-thousand pound bull, his eyes squinted, and he said it with reverence - - as though he were introducing the ghost.
We each took another drink of his wine. The sun was hot. I hoped the affair would start pretty soon. My friend, his name was Pedro, was so intense with his attempt to brief me on the “right way” to look at a bullfight that he leaned uncomfortably close to me. I felt a spray of wine-saliva splatter my right-cheek.
“And you know why you paid those forty pesetas?” he asked in a monotone whisper that droned out like E-sharp major.
I shook my head, and he placed his hand on my wrist, whispering, “To have a human confirm its superiority over the irresponsible force of that mighty one-thousand pound beast. To arrogantly defy death!” and then in a crescendo, his voice gradually raising in pitch, “- - But sometimes we witness the price in blood of a man, too sure of himself, and too overconfident of his lot!” Pedro passed me the wine bag again. I could see there wasn’t much left when I finished my drink. We had drunk nearly a liter.
An orchestra of about five pieces, much too small for the size of the stadium and much too loud for their talent struck up a song. The loudspeaker blasted it out. People had packed the stadium to capacity. The sun was beating down on me. My head felt light. My companion kept talking; I couldn’t understand all of what he was saying. The band suddenly broke into a special song as a long line of men came parading into the arena dressed in the fashion of the 17th century Spanish cavalry. I remembered I had once seen such a procession at the beginning of a circus.

I couldn’t help remembering my companion’s words and wondered if any of those elegantly dressed men were going to be killed that afternoon. There were some horses, too, with things like mattresses that hung down from their sides. Pedro was entranced with the procession. I wanted to ask my friend what these mattresses were, but I was afraid he would begin talking at length again. I decided I wouldn’t ask him any more questions. I would just sit and watch. I would have more fun just gazing in awe at the whole colorful aspect - - it wasn’t like watching a baseball game and needing a scorecard.
The group paraded over to a special booth in the stands and each of the men, in Ivanhoe fashion, paid courtly tribute to a group of celebrities who seemed to be officials for the contest.
Just about that time, Pedro, my companion stiffened up in anticipation and offered me the rest of the wine and told me to watch the east gate of the arena. The band stepped up the music to triple time. Three or four costumed-men with long magenta capes darted about the perimeter of the arena.

Then the blare of a trumpet across the arena loudspeakers.

Suddenly a massive, black, snorting bull with a red flower tacked to its neck shot out from the shadow of the east gate. For a moment it pranced in the dust of the center ring - - slowly observing the figures with capes who were dashing about. It looked like a heavy armor tank slowly revolving its turret, attempting to get a victim in the sights of its canon.
Then, with the agility of a gazelle, it made a start for one of the costumed men who stood motionless in the center of the arena. The others had fled. At first, the man gave no sign of recognition that the bull was charging upon him. I wanted to stand up and shout a warning to him. I was tense. Pedro was tense. The crowd was quiet. Pedro was quiet too. It was like when the batter in a baseball game hit a high, long fly ball that might go over the fence and the outfielder is rushing back to catch it. Even the beer vendors are quiet.
In the path of the onrushing bull and at the last moment, the man out there artfully waved his cape. With crafty agility, he nimbly sidestepped and snapped the cape next to his hip, causing the bull to ridiculously gore the thin air. Pedro and the crowd let out with a frenzied, “Olé!” The man began lightly tripping off sideways across the arena, but the bull wheeled around, spotted him, and thunderously gave chase. The crowd simultaneously roared a warning. The man broke into a run and narrowly escaped the bull’s massive horns by quickly slipping behind a strong wooden backboard barrier. A cloud of dust went up as the bull came to a sliding halt to avoid running headlong into it. The crowd let out a loud sigh of relief and a trickling of laughter.
Before the dust settled, for a brief instant I fancied the costumed man was me. It was April again; I was still back in Wuerzburg, and the bull appeared as the Army Captain in my unit, my parents, and my army buddies who all teamed together to discourage me from going on this motor scooter trip. The strong wooden barrier was me. It was my determination and my curiosity all rolled into this wooden barrier that the bull was trying to bust down. It was my personal conviction that even this monstrous bull was not going to dissuade me. For a moment, like a flash, it really was encouraging to feel that way. But then the next flash that came to me was the thought that maybe something would happen to me that I should’ve avoided that would kill me or mutilate me. I tried not to let me see myself in the next picture: a vision of me walking away from the bull by disappearing into the long dark corridor that goes back into the interior of the stadium. This all happened in a matter of seconds, but as our world trip went on, the scene flashed before me several times when I was offered the opportunity to call it quits. Instead, like the bullfighter I would step back out into the open arena.

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04 Aug, 2010 | Posted by: bswenson





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CAMPSITE FRIENDS



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AT RADIO MADRID




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THE MADRID VESPA FACTORY



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LEARNING THE SPANISH GUITAR






My Story


# 29


There I was. It’s a funny feeling. You’re in a city you’ve never been in before. You’re talking to people you’ve never seen before. You’re wearing clothes you’ve never had on before (except your underwear), and it’s all in a language you hardly understand. And we are sitting there in the vestibule of the national Vespa Club of Spain. We got there an hour early. No one’s around and who should walk in but that bastard, Senor Moreno.

“Well, good evening, my good friends, Rohn and Rudi. I saw the picture of the two of you in the newspaper. Very good, very good, smiling showing his large group of white pearly teeth.
Ugh! I thought myself. That slimy ass-kisser now cuddling up to us. No wonder he’s the manager. He’s brown-nosed his way all the way up to manager of this place.
We’ll, what do we do in a situation like this? Punch him in the nose? Ignore him? Stand up? Sit down. ?
Rudi had it right. He stood up, saluted Moreno and stuck out his hand and shook hands with the slimy guy. I followed suit. I shook hands with the slimy bastard.
I was learning my first important lesson of public relations when on a world tour. If you want to survive, smile, even if it hurts.
I also learned that with hard-nose bastards like Moreno, you have to look tough, almost like you could snap your finger and two gangsters would come up behind him and stick a knife in his back. No kidding. These kinds of guys are all over the world. You never know when you’re going to meet one that’ll be a roadblock for you. And you’re never quite sure who is one and who isn’t. I guess if you exposed yourself enough to them, like we did, you learn to smell ‘em out.
This is particularly hard for me. I didn’t grow up in a dog-eat-dog environment like Rudi did. I’m kind of a softie by description. I’m trusting as hell. This doesn’t work when you’re meeting new people everyday. But whatdahell. I didn’t have any money to lose, or reputation, or girl friend, -all those things men usually try to be macho about. By the way, I looked that word up, macho. It means manly, virile, arrogant. -I’m not like that. And I guess I’m proving, so far anyway, you don’t have to always be that way if you want to travel on a world trip.
Anyway.
Moreno sat down in a plushy chair next to us. He sat closest to Rudi. You can learn a lot from a guy like Moreno. He sized both of us up. He knew Rudi was the less emotional of us and if he played his cards right he could twist things to even telling the president of the club that he, Moreno, was the guy that arranged for the newspaper reporter to interview us at the Vespa Club. The Law of Probability was on his side. No one would suspect that that wasn’t so. Now, mind you, I didn’t realize all this right there on the scene. It’s just that I’m telling you the kind of things I learned on a trip like this. I began to see a pattern in people. And it just wasn’t in one country; it was everywhere, even in black Africa.
I can’t remember what we talked about. My concentration was more on how I could prevent myself from offending Moreno.
Rudi on the other hand acted as though he had met Moreno for the first time and was unaware of the nasty way Moreno treated us the day before. . He was good at that.
Like that guy that tripped Rudi on the way out of the tavern back in Belgium. Rudi lay there for a split second and then started doing push-ups! Just two or three and then turned and stared at the guy doing a couple more push-ups at the same time, with one arm! And that stare! He gave that guy the stare. I saw it. It was like a couple of zaps that Batman or the Green Hornet could produce.
And then again, I’ve learned since then that if it were important to Rudi for getting where he needed to go, Rudi would’ve gotten up off the floor and bought the guy a beer!
I learned also this about Rudi as we traveled on through France. There were no rounded corners about his diplomacy. He always came straight to the point. He did exactly what needed to be done to smooth out some rough corners on our trip.
Yes, he had principles and he had respect for himself, but if he had to stoop to conquer, so to speak, he always chose stooping. It’s not that he didn’t have any pride or that sort of thing. He knew what to do if you want to survive.
Back to our waiting period with Moreno. How do you ‘small talk’ in a language you can’t speak, and with a guy who almost threw you out of the place you are now sitting? I don’t know, maybe I’ll learn that later on in the trip because Señor Ibarra arrived.

“Hello, Muchachos! I see you made it on time!” Señor Ibarra greeted us, as he entered the club a few minutes late. “Let’s have a drink, and then we’ll head on over to the hotel.
“You sure have a nice club.” I commented to him.
“Yes, motor scooters are very popular in Spain. People here don’t have money to buy cars like they do in your country, so they buy scooters. We don’t get much rain, and besides, they’re very economical.”
“Are they manufactured here in Spain?” Rudi asked.
“Yes, and oh, that reminds me. You fellows are invited to visit the Vespa factory day after tomorrow. Take your scooter down with you and they’ll make any necessary repairs.”
“Well, that’s wonderful!” I commented.
In an hour, we were in the lobby of the Emperador, waiting for the elevator to take us to the top floor to the gala banquet room.
Upstairs we found at least a hundred and fifty people mingling, sipping cocktails and talking motor scooter talk. The visiting club was from Valladolid to the north, a city of a hundred thousand or more and a center of the Castile country. Señor Ibarra introduced us to the President of the Valladolid club, and other dignitaries who were present for the affair. For dinner, we had chicken consommé, vegetables of all kinds, and a juicy steak with a fiery Spanish wine sauce. Pretty fancy for two guys who just 48 hours ago were grateful for a bowl of rice.
Near the end of the meal, the president of the gathering rang a little bell, made a few announcements, and then introduced various personages who were sitting at his table, including us.
“Let’s have a song!” someone shouted. They had probably read the story about us in the newspaper that morning. We got out the guitars and sang a few examples of songs we had learned in our travels. When the meal was over, we stood around in little groups for a while, and then retired to an adjacent room where an orchestra had begun to play. Señor Ibarra introduced us to some of his friends.
This all felt like I was back in Baltimore. You attend these kinds of things and your face hurts the next day from all the smiling you had to do. But for your career, it pays off.
“And this is José Bermudez. He’s Spain’s most popular radio comedian.” This guy had the twinkle of a clown in his eyes when he spoke to us - - a small, jovial man in his late forties.
“I sure enjoyed that singing, fellows!” he could speak a little English. “How about coming around to visit me at the radio station tomorrow?” he said, handing us his card. “Would you like to see what a Spanish radio station looks like?”
“Sure,” we both answered and then joined him in a drink at the bar that had been set up. He introduced us to other radio people friends.
Señor Ibarra came by, “Checkin’ up on you two. “You enjoying yourselves, boy?” he asked.
“Yes!” Rudi answered. “This isn’t much like the surroundings of a stable we generally know at this hour.
“Ha!” he laughed. “Which do you like better?”
“Give you one guess!” Rudi said.
At two o’clock the crowd began to thin out. “Let’s go have some coffee,” Señor Ibarra suggested.
Out in the street once again, it seemed that the city was living and moving like a noon rush hour. “Why are all these people in the streets at two in the morning?” I asked Señor Ibarra.
“We have a different day here than you have in America,” he began. “In the summer time, our working day begins at ten in the morning. At two in the afternoon we close our shops, have our midday meal, and take a siesta until four-thirty. The working day is over at eight-thirty p.m., which puts the evening meal at nine o’clock and the beginning of nightlife around eleven. So if you go to a movie, or a dance, or just sit around in a café, you can expect your evening to be over around two o’clock!”
“Why so late?” Rudi asked.
“It’s cool! It’s cool!” Senor Ibarra said. “No one likes the heat of midday in Spain in the summertime.”
Our evening was over at 3:00 a.m. After a coffee and a visit to a few cafes, we wearily bid Señor Ibarra buenas noches.

The next day we visited Señor Bermudez at the Radio Station.
“You boys want to take that tour now?” he asked after we were in his office a few minutes.
“Fine, we answered as we went out into the halls lined with studios and engineering booths. The radio station supplied most of Madrid and affiliate stations with everything entertaining over radio.
“Radio’s an important item in the Spanish home.” Señor Bermudez said, “We don’t have television in Spain,” he said as we passed into one of the engineering booths, where a technician was taping a program of some local singers in the adjoining studio.
“Will that program be played later on?” Rudi asked.
“Several times!” Señor Bermudez answered. “Not only here in Madrid, but in Barcelona, Seville, many places, all over Spain.”
“Are they paid for making that tape?” I asked.
“Sure,” Senor Bermudez said.
As we looked into other studios, getting an idea of the technical operations of the place, I got an idea myself.
Rudi and I had sung before- -why not at Radio Madrid- -especially if they paid for entertainment? I didn’t know how to go about asking Señor Bermudez; I hoped I wouldn’t make any blunders. I simply said, “Rudi and I are professional singers. We’ve sung together in Belgium, Holland, and France. How ‘bout if we make a tape for your station?”
Rudi gave me an evil look. He knew I had never sung over a microphone before, and before today, he had never even seen one.
Señor Bermudez paused for a while and then said, “Well, fellows it sounds like a good idea, but I’ll have to talk it over with my superiors, first. How ‘bout coming by tomorrow at this same time, and I’ll let you know their answer?”
I felt a sigh of relief that he didn’t turn the idea down, and also that he didn’t ask us to go into an empty booth and make a test tape that very moment.
We finished our visit and left the studio to return to camping site. As soon as we got outside, Rudi turned to me boiling mad, “Now what the hell did you go and do that for? You know damn well we’re not professional signers. I wouldn’t know the first thing to do when I got in front of a microphone. You’re not going to make a fool out of me in front of those studio people. After the first song they’ll tell us to come back some other day! No, sir! You can go up there tomorrow but you’re not going to get me to go!
“Now wait a minute!” I said. “This is a chance we might have to make some money.”
Rudi was pretty mad. “It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll go out and sweep streets before you get me to make a fool of myself in front of all Spain!”
“Who’s going to make a fool of himself? We didn’t do anything like that in the Rotterdam tavern, where we met, or in Paris, or in the rest of France did we?”

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