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ENTERTAINING THE LADIES



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HOT DAY IN THE FIELD



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MOTEL FISH MARKET



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WE CROSS INTO SPAIN



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NEWSPAPER IN BARCELONA



My Story # 24

Since we were more or less traveling the back roads, so far in Spain, we hadn’t run into many people who could speak English, German or French. I remembered a little from my high school Spanish class and together with acting out, like in the parlor game of charades, between Rudi and me we could pretty well get answers or get our point across to ask questions.
I also carried a little pocket dictionary and then when some complicated phrase or technical stuff came up, the little book came in handy. It was fun to see their eyes light up when the little pocket book would solve the mystery of what each of us were trying to get across.

We had only been a short while in Spain, and I noticed the same portrait of a man in every café, grocery store, restaurant, motor garage, and bar. We had stopped for coffee our first morning out from Barcelona and there on the wall again was a sun bleached version of the portrait hanging among the out-dated calendars and soda-pop ads. So I thought I would ask who it is.

“Who’s that?” I asked pointing with my thumb to the poster on the wall. A lone man seated at the same long wooden table in a faded checkered shirt and worn-out striped vest who was drinking coffee from a tin cup looked at me and then slid down the bench until he was just across from me. He was bent over, unshaven and wore one of those berets.
“That’s Franco,” He mumbled, putting his hand on the top of mine and lowering his eyes. “Generalissimo Francisco Franco.”
“Who?”
He said it even quieter this time. “Generalissimo Francisco Franco.”
“He’s the boss here?” I returned his almost-whisper.
“He’s the boss,” He replied, surveying the rest of the room like he was Humphrey Bogart looking to see who was watching our conversation.
“How long has he been the boss?” I asked.
“Since the war,” He answered in a raspy voice, referring to the Spanish Civil War that ended in ’39 about twenty years ago.
“How long will he remain boss?” I continued
“As long as they remain,” He whispered, lifting his index finger slightly from the wooden table and pointed out the door and then looked away quickly.

I twisted and turned to look back across the table to see what he was pointing at. Opposite the tavern there was a vacant lot that had been vacant when we had arrived, but it was now filled with uniformed soldiers, going through drills and marching exercises. They were sloppy and in many instances didn’t have the same uniform on as the guy next to him.
“That’s the Spanish army?” I asked him.
He nodded, biting his lower lip, and slid back to his former place at the other end of the table, surveying the rest of the room to see if anyone in the small café was watching him as he moved.

When we left the café we watched the soldiers practice an exercise that was apparently designed for a visiting dignitary. As the officer instructing the exercise would pass the line of soldiers at attention, they would quickly fall to one knee, stick their rifle out to arm’s length, and kiss the back of their own left hand, all in the same motion.

The officer was having difficulty in getting them to do it in succession, like dominoes falling. It was funny. Like the kindergarten teacher trying to get kids in line to do some kind of dance routine for the school Easter play. There was always one kid that didn’t do it right, and it wasn’t always the same kid.
Rudi became impatient, “C’mon, let’s hit the road. These guys are never going to get it right!” He had seen better precision from the Nazi army.
We headed north now, away from the sea, into the hot semi-arid Lerida province. On the way north, a uniformed military motorcyclist came upon us from the opposite direction and waved to us. We waved back. In a few more minutes, two more passed, and waved also, a little more vigorously this time. We waved again vigorously. In the next few minutes three of them passed, waving to us frantically to get off the road. They were at the head of a column of eight or ten motorcycles, which escorted a caravan of five long black automobiles. We got off to the side of the road just in time to let Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his dignitaries pass on their way to Barcelona. We didn’t wave this time.

It happened so quick we didn’t realize what just happened. In one of those black limousines was the man who was victorious in the Spanish Civil War that ended back in ’39. That was the war that Ernest Hemingway was writing about and where all the American and Canadian young men and from other countries were volunteering to help out the “reds” fight against the “fascists”. Franco and his rebels were supported by an upcoming dictator, Adolf Hitler. The reds were supported by the Russians.
I know what Rudi was thinking. He had told me of the time his father had been working in the fields and this long motorcade of motor cycles and long black cars passed by with men in brown suits standing on the running boards and all. When his father got to town later that evening, people around town said that the dignitary was Hermann Goering, the head of the German Luftwaffe. He said his father was so proud of seeing Goering, that he told that story whenever he could, even to strangers all through the early ‘40s. But then when Goering committed suicide at Nuremberg after the war, he never told it again.
We learned later on here in Spain about how Franco’s regime sent people off to political prison camps in Seville and Leon and a couple other places when they didn’t agree with the censorship policies of his government. Some were never seen again.
It was interesting for me to see Rudi’s reaction to all this extreme military and secret police bullying going on in Spain.
He had no reaction. At least, he didn’t express it to me and I didn’t think to ask him about it unless he brought it up. He never did. Having grown up in the same kind of political atmosphere that was going on in Spain now like it was back in the 40’s, Rudi probably saw little difference in what he experienced as a youth and what was going on in Spain. We were seeing it with the people we met in Spain. And that is, you don’t divulge too much to your neighbors about your personal feelings about the government, you don’t join any cell groups. You don’t question your authorities. You don’t voice your opinion in public whether it’s at school, church or family gatherings. You don’t discuss anything about your parent's activities. You let the government make your decisions for you. The state knows what’s best for you.
It seems strange to me that a people could live that way, but then again, what do I know? The people must’ve been poor, really poor, before the war, especially the lower working classes and the farmers and almost starving in the previous regime, so this, for awhile, must have been good times for many of the working people and the peasants.
But one thing was missing and I had it in my growing up years in Ocean City, Maryland and most anywhere in the USA that I visited and I didn’t even know I had it. And that was freedom. My experience in Spain showed me the meaning of freedom.

It was easy to see why there isn’t much opposition from an oppressed people who are governed by an extreme ruler. The rulers probably rise to the top because they defeated the previous regime that was ignoring the peasants and lower classes. Any kind of oppression from the new regime was an easy price to pay if you got food on the table.

Whenever I brought up the subject of oppression from the Spanish police and government officials in our conversations, Rudi had no comment. He just shrugged his shoulders as if I were talking about Eskimos. That would have been a better subject anyway. Spain in June is sweltering, hot, hot. And sticky when you’re sweating all the time.

From Barcelona, through Lerida and Zaragoza, we struggled with the barren mountains and the Spanish secondary dirt roads for the next few days, sometimes stopping by the roadside to camp out and sometimes finding a friendly peasant family who offered us shelter for the night.

One evening as the setting sun had transformed that dry, pitiful arid landscape to a deep orange hue, we saw a small white peasant village in the deep valley below resting in the long purple shadow of the mountains. Three dark-suited men at the foot of the long mountain must have spotted our dust trail as we detoured off the main road. They were waiting for us when we wound down the rock road to the bottom.
“Guitar! Guitar!” shouted one, a lanky', rosy-cheeked farmer with a Sunday beard and a beret that cocked down over his forehead. He saw my guitar strapped to my back and asked, “You play guitar?” I think that’s what he was asking me. He held one hand up by his shoulder and with his other hand he flicked the buttons of his coat to demonstrate a strumming motion. A small crowd started gathering.
“Si, senor!” I said, returning his enthusiasm, and they began touring the scooter with great curiosity.
“You come a long way?” One of them questioned us.
“All the way from Rotterdam,” Rudi answered him.
“Where’s that?”
“It’s in Holland.”
“In Francia?” He questioned.
“No! it’s a country next to France, -Holland!”
“Oh,” He answered with almost a smile, not knowing exactly what we meant.
“Where can we sleep tonight?” Rudi asked, resting his head on his folded hands and closing his eyes, in case they didn’t understand his Spanish.
“You? Sleep? Come with us!” He said smiling in a sociable way.
We approached a long white thatched building and he said, “But first, some wine!” We entered the one-story hut and walked through a short, dark hallway, then stepped down into a dark, low-ceiling wine room with a dirt floor. It was filled with celebrating townspeople.
They saw our guitars. “Ole?!” they shouted all together when we entered. There must have been two-dozen men in the room, and more kept crowding in until it felt like a locker room after a football game. We stood flat against the wall to allow the other curious peasants to enter who had followed us to the building.

Our red-cheeked host who had disappeared for the moment, returned with three glasses and a leather bag full of wine . “Salud!” he shouted, as he sloppily poured us each a glass from the bota . The rest of the patrons joined us in a toast. A woman in dark garb and apron came through the crowd and lighted a candle in a metal holder attached to the side of the far wall.
“Good evening!” Our host nudged me, as if lighting the candle meant the day was over and the evening was on.

With finger talk and remembering some of my high-school Spanish, I was able to converse with our host. “My name is Rohn,” I said above the clamor of the crowded room. “What’s yours?”
As if trying to ring the buzzer in a crowded bus, he slipped his hand through the mass of arms and elbows around us to grasp my extended hand. “Miguel. Pleased to meet you!”
“My friend’s name is Rudi,” and Rudi reached over his shoulder to shake Miguel’s free hand.
“How come there are so many people is this tiny room?” I asked.
“This is a bar, and today is a holiday. There will be dancing later on!”
“Here?” Rudi asked, astonished.

NEXT:

The Spanish Countryside