and far away

 

         I recall living just outside of Madrid in the late 60’s.  It was a simpler time back then, having nothing of consequence in our lives like food or money, we stayed tucked away in our little apartment along the Rue Dimentry.  Time was not measured in days back then but in events.  The first-floor Pub could have easily housed a Hemmingway type at a table along the back wall.  Live snails never staying in the plates on the bar made feeble attempts to escape deadly toothpicks, as drunken Spaniards would eat them alive.

      News from the States came in bits and pieces.  Spanish newspapers and televisions were all government controlled.  The only thing that was completely free from any type of control was health and sanitation.  Deliveries of fresh meat was carried into markets by flies, and the fresh baked bread was dumped, unpackaged in the road in front of the Pub, where locals scurried to select the biggest loaf.

      These things I can remember.  Everything I learned in school, however, somehow never got filed alphabetically.   All of my mental index cards were either dropped at some point, or they were filed away willy-nilly from the onset.  In either case, my present day retrieval system suffers the consequences.  For example: I know that Washington crossed the Delaware, but when I mentally examine the next card to discover why, it says, “To see his friend Gregory Peck.”  This answer obviously should have been filed under chicken jokes. 

 

 zc

Pursue Noble Aims.