Spain 1993

Within a year after being hired at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I decided to continue my education by taking night classes offered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).  While taking an economics class, I became friends with a guy named Dave who I would later call by the name ‘Senor David.’  Dave worked for the Federal Aviation Administration.  He and I became friends and would often meet for drinks after work.  I told him that I’d been reading books by Ernest Hemingway and developed a fascination for Spain.  He told me that his family had taken in a Spanish foreign exchange student named Juaquin several years earlier.  When I told him that I would like to travel to Spain, he suggested taking a Spanish class.  He and I started taking Spanish classes in the fall of ’91 and continued the classes year-round until my trip to Spain in the spring of ’93.  Our friendship soon included our other classmates in the Spanish classes.  As everyone advanced to the next class level, the Spanish instructor did her best to stay with us by teaching the next level.  As part of the educational and cultural experience, everyone usually went out for dinner together after class at a Latino or Spanish restaurant. 

I met Martha right after the Inauguration of the most famous alumnus from Wellesley College who had just been elected President of these United States.  By this time, I had already planned a two-week trip to Spain and had been taking Spanish classes for almost two years.  Martha provided inspiration as she had studied in France and spoke French fluently.  I planned to spend my 29^th birthday in Spain.  This added a tinge of excitement as I wondered what my birthday would be like while in a foreign country.  Senor David asked his parents to contact Juaquin who lived in Marbella to see if he could meet me in Spain.  Marbella is a blueblood resort located on the southern coast of Spain adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea.  Juaquin wasn’t available to meet because he was away at university, but he said his sisters Miriam and YeYe could take me on a tour of Marbella and possibly Sevilla too.  They had another sister Margarena who worked for the Sevilla Exposition for five years and she might join us in Sevilla.  My excitement grew in anticipation of the trip as everything came together. 

When I arrived at the airport in Madrid, the first thing I realized was that very few Spaniards spoke English.  The Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, had banned the teaching of English in Spain until his death in 1975.  My visit was only 18 years removed from his death so very few people spoke English other than some young people.  With the help of a college age American girl who was studying in Spain, I was able to communicate to a taxi driver where I needed to go.  Before leaving the States, I made a reservation at a pencione, a guest house similar to a hostel, in Madrid located near the Plaza Mayor.  Senor David gave me the phone number of Juaquin’s family in Marbella to call and introduce myself before leaving the States.  When I called, I spoke to Joaquin’s mother Senora Souviron who everyone called ‘La Madre.’  She didn’t speak any English and my limited Spanish made for a difficult conversation.  I was able to give her the phone number of the pencione in Madrid where I would stay.  

Miriam called the pencione my first night in Madrid while I was out enjoying beers, ham, and green olives at the Plaza Mayor.  She left a message with the owners that was almost entirely in Spanish.  Senor David had told me that Miriam studied English in England.  Unfortunately, she hadn’t practiced much since that time and forgot most of what she had learned so she left a message in Spanish.  The owners didn’t speak English either so I couldn’t understand most of the message.  Again, luck would strike as another American woman from California who had been teaching English in Spain for over a year just happened to be staying at the pencione.  The owners asked her to translate the message.  She told me that Miriam couldn’t take me on excursion because of a prior commitment but she had arranged a ticket for me to take the bus to Marbella on April 3^rd.  All the trains were already full because of Procesion or Semana de Santos—the week-long celebration in Spain during the Easter holidays. 

I needed to call Miriam to let her know that I received her message.  To make the call I had to pay a small service charge to the pencione owners.  The pencione had one telephone.  No one had cell phones.  I gave the owner the number of the Souviron family in Marbella.  He called the number and then handed the phone to me.  Again, Senora Souviron answered and the only word both of us understood was Miriam.  After hanging up, I decided to ask the American woman if she would be willing to translate again?  She agreed.  I paid the small service charge again and the owner dialed the number and spoke to Senora Souviron.  After a brief conversation, the owner handed the phone to me.  I immediately handed the phone to the American woman.  She spoke with Senora Souviron and confirmed all the arrangements.  I was definitely ready for another beer!  The American woman and I clicked and decided to hang out together for a couple of days before I left for Marbella.  She and I enjoyed authentic Spanish food while washing down the food with plenty of cervezas and sangria! 

Politics and Prose: Gloucester

Not long after returning to Washington DC, Martha and I returned to our regular routine without hardly skipping a beat.  She enthusiastically told me about the trip she was planning to Gloucester, Massachusetts around the Labor Day holiday.  But before that could happen, she and I both had to endure another situation.  Inspired in part by Martha’s international travels and overseas studies, I took my first international trip in April just a month before the trip to Atlanta.  I spent two weeks and my 29^th birthday in Spain.  While there I met a young Spanish girl who became a tour guide of sorts.  I promised I would do the same for her if she ever came to the States.  Unexpectedly, she decided to come just a few months later that summer.  Martha tried to keep an open mind as that was the modus operandi of the well-traveled and cultured, but her jealousy got the best of her.  The Spanish girl was not too fond of Martha either.  This episode kept the summer interesting as the time for the Gloucester trip quickly approached.  

Martha’s father picked us up at Boston’s Logan International Airport in the late afternoon.  The cool crisp New England air greeted us with a touch of warmth from the sunshine.  This was not my first trip to New England.  I had a work colleague from Connecticut who had become a close friend.  He invited me up to New Hampshire several times to stay at the cottage owned by his family.  His family got a kick out of my Texas accent.  Hence, they called me “Tex.”  I had become familiar with their dry humor, but this trip to Massachusetts provided new challenges.  Martha lived in Gloucester, but you could walk a short distance down the road to Rockport.  As her father pulled into the narrow road that led to their house, he stopped at the corner to check the mailbox for mail.  I looked at the mailbox on the other side of the road that said Updikes.  Martha smiled and said that’s where the author John Updike lived.  I had read a few books from Updike’s “Rabbit Run” series.  I couldn’t help but be impressed.  I realize now that those books by Updike influenced my own thinking and writing. 

Her palatial home not immediately visible, I enjoyed the short drive with the beautiful scenery along the way.  As the home came into view you could see a vast expanse of water that must have been a bay or inlet.  The backyard, if you want to call it that, included a quarry of stones that bordered the water.  I felt like I had just entered the Kennedy Compound.  Martha and I climbed over the big rocks of the quarry and stood next to the water.  She pointed at the shadow of land across the inlet and said that’s New Hampshire.  I found the whole experience exhilarating.  This was just the beginning of unexpected surprises.  Her father cooked a special dinner that included delicious grilled meats.  As Martha and I sat down for dinner with her father and mother in the dining room, her father pointed to the dining room walls lined with the wall paneling from the bedroom of English historian Arnold Toynbee.  He purchased the wall paneling through an auction after the death of the historian. 

During the meal, her mother mentioned that they had been invited to a wedding the next day.  She asked if I didn’t mind attending with them.  Their friends from their Unitarian Universalist church were getting married.  Her mother then asked me if I had any religious affiliation.  I told her that I had been baptized in the downtown Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas.  She gasped a short breath then said, “Oh, you’re southern Baptist?”  She then said that she was going to ask me for the first dance at the wedding but maybe I was not allowed to dance.  I told her that I rarely attend church and wasn’t a very good dancer.  She then asked, “Didn’t your mother teach you how to dance?”  Being naïve, I didn’t immediately catch the sleight of hand dig at my mother by her statement.  Unshaken, I said “No, but she tried to teach me piano, but I was too interested in playing sports to focus on piano too.”  Martha and her parents chuckled as I continued on like nothing happened.  After dinner, the four of us played a spirited game of badminton in the backyard as the setting sun glistened over the waters enveloping the quarry and finally streaking across the estate.  I’ll never forget that moment. 

Martha would later call me a Simple Man. By her New England standards, she might have been right. I thought, if I’m simple then what do you call a person who squats down and talks to a frog? When the frog hops away she follows the frog while walking like a duck. I had been exposed at work plenty of times to this New England opinion of those from the south. I also realized that Martha and her mother had decided that some degree of retribution was in order given what had happened in Atlanta. Completely unfazed by their gestures, her mother became impressed and took a liking towards me. A true friendship began to develop between her mother and myself. I don’t know what she saw in me, but she saw something. Even after Martha and I quit seeing each other her mother still wrote beautiful letters with pictures from our time together that weekend. Her letters truly touched me as I knew that they were sincere.

The next day after the wedding Martha planned for us to go into the port city of Rockport to eat seafood and then go on a whale watch tour.  While whale watching off the Massachusetts coast, an art class spread all over the grounds of her residence painting the landscape, the house, and even the laundry room located in a separate miniature cabin.  Just another one of the tiny details planned by Martha and her mother.  Before leaving for the whale watch, I washed a small load of clothes and put them in the dryer.  After returning from the whale watch, I went to the small cabin to retrieve my clothes only to discover an aspiring artist painting inside the cabin!  I apologized for interrupting her painting, but I needed to get my clothes out of the dryer!  The aspiring artist apologized for being there.  Both of us kept apologizing.  Finally, the artist got up out of her chair and walked towards me.  Then she bowed!  I started to think to myself, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’  She treated me like I was some sort of royalty.  I was embarrassed.  I grabbed my clothes out of the dryer and marched back to the main residence. 

By the end of the trip, I realized that almost everything that happened had been choreographed down to the finest detail.  Her parents did everything possible to show that one day this will all belong to Martha and to you too if you marry our daughter.  My relationship with Martha was no longer about some unfortunate erectile dysfunction.  I had to now consider what do I really want out of this life.  I was 29 years old and stood on the precipice of having the world handed to me on a silver platter.  If I accepted, I would never have to concern myself with financial matters again for the rest of my life.  I would still have to work but probably in a far more prestigious position where admiration and honor would freely flow my way.  After returning to DC, I seriously considered the idea of being grafted into the landed gentry.  After much reflection, I decided that choosing this path lacked the integrity that my life deserved.  How quickly would I become bored with this lifestyle?  Her parents probably thought I could be properly molded because of my naïve and genial personality accompanied by my seemingly simple nature.  They were mistaken.  The time had come to end the relationship with Martha.  The charade had gone too far. 

Ironically, here I am 29 years later at the age of 58 being chased by religious myth walkers and cultural fairytale talkers with similar designs.  But just as I’ve remained faithful and loyal to the carefree and spontaneous life without wife or child these past 29 years, I plan to do the same for the next 29 years!  How sweet it is to divide one’s own life into thirds.  You can glean so much understanding of yourself and others as you transition from one third to the next.  While my life has been anything but orthodox the past 29 years, I’ve been surrounded by those who constantly exhibit those same themes of invariable conformity with the exception of a few outliers.  As I transition out of the Politics and Prose series into the next phase of my journey, I will examine some of those exceptional experiences. 

Politics and Prose: Atlanta

Our trip to Atlanta took place in the spring of ’93 to coincide with the 50th birthday of my mother.  A celebration that no one would soon forget.  The feminine mystique cultivated at Wellesley College was about to encounter a political firebrand forged in the hot flames of southern feminine culture.  Northeast establishment Republican meet rock-ribbed southern Republican!  My stepfather had a PhD in Ceramic Engineering from Rutgers University where he also received Bachelor and Masters degrees.  He spent many years interacting with people from the northeastern part of the country while in school and throughout his professional career, but his deep southern roots from North Carolina with familial connections to Robert E. Lee formed his identity.  My stepfather and mother picked Martha and I up at the airport.  They were driving the van which had plenty of space and a cooler of beer on ice.  I loved this gesture of hospitality whenever I arrived in Atlanta.  Martha passed on the beer. 

Despite her travels and overseas studies, Martha had lived a sheltered life.  The saying ‘When in Rome do as the Romans do’ only applied to her when she felt she was elevating herself.  Her whiny voice had the resonance of an east coast snob, but she wasn’t a snob even if she came across as one.  My mother knew that Martha graduated from Wellesley College and the most famous alumnus of that school had just been elected President of these United States.  When Martha arrived on the scene with her whiny voice, hairband, and her unintentional air of superiority it was as if that famous alumnus herself had just come to Atlanta.  Like when a volcano emits steam before erupting, I could see signs of a future eruption coming from my mother.  Martha also loved frogs.  You could call it one of her quirks.  She had frogs on everything.  Her clothes, earrings, rings, sandals, purse, hairband, hairclips, and frog stickers on things that she couldn’t find that came as a frog.  My roommate called her Toad.  He would say, “Are you going to dinner again tonight with Toad?”  I couldn’t help but laugh every time he said that.  He said all you two do is eat and read.  I tried to explain that I was in an intellectually curious phase of my life. 

During the 1980s and 90s, one of the feminist concerns being addressed was how men didn’t have to worry so much about their appearance, especially their hair, while women had to fuss unceasingly with their appearance, especially their hair.  A feminist response to this inequity embraced by the Wellesley intelligentsia was to make sure to have wet hair when the occasion called for a more polished appearance.  Martha did this often.  I didn’t care because I wasn’t physically attracted to her anyway.  I could care a less if her hair was wet or dry, but this would not go over well during our visit to Atlanta.  My stepfather made a reservation at a nice restaurant for my mother’s birthday.  As everyone got ready to leave Martha came out of the bathroom with wet hair.  My mom took this as an insult.  She made a comment about Martha’s hair and then Martha became upset.  The atmosphere became toxic.  Tensions ran high during dinner.  Hardly a word was spoken during the drive home. 

After arriving home, my mom went straight to her room.  The rest of us tried to maintain some sense of normalcy until my mother called for my stepfather to join her in the bedroom.  After about 10 minutes, my stepfather came back downstairs and told me and Martha that we needed to go back to DC.  Essentially, my mother could no longer tolerate the presence of Martha in her house.  Martha became even more upset and started to cry.  I scheduled an earlier flight and called my brother to ask him to take us to the airport.  Martha and I collected our things and went and sat on the curb outside to wait for my brother.  Martha was sobbing.  My mom was screaming inside the house how her birthday had been ruined.  Amazingly, I started to feel like I was getting an erection.  Then my brother drove up saving all of us just in time! 

As my brother drove us to the airport, Martha continued to sob while asking what she did to make my mother react that way.  My brother seemed to understand the situation better than I did.  He grew up living with my mom while I spent my early teen years living with my dad.  My brother dropped us off at the airport and wished us well.  Martha and I boarded the plane and found our seats.  She was still quietly sobbing.  After getting ourselves squared away, she said “Your mother is not invited to the wedding.”  I looked straight ahead in shock while saying to myself, ‘Whoever said anything about a wedding.’  Next stop…. Gloucester, Massachusetts! 

To be continued 

Politics and Prose

In 1992, my roommate and I decided to move from the Glover Park area along Wisconsin Ave in Washington DC closer to the city center in DuPont Circle.  Even in 1992 this area was known as a place primarily influenced by the homosexual community.  The restaurants, art galleries, bookstores, and central location offered the finest in inner city living.  Of course, the area had a much sharper edge than the highbrow Glover Park location where I lived for the previous year and a half.  During one of our after-hours extravaganzas at one of the local bars, we met a couple of girls who would change our friendship.  Actually, my roommate and the girl he met were the main attraction, but her friend would become the object of my attention for the next couple of years. 

I’ve given her a pseudonym name of Martha to avoid revealing too much.  She actually had a name that I liked and found attractive, but Martha is a much more fitting name.  While my roommate and his girl were hitting it off Martha and I began to spend time together.  She came from a Massachusetts family that I would describe as eastern establishment and very wealthy.  She had recently graduated from Wellesley College and wore a hair band just like her famous alumnus who had just been elected President of these United States.  As our relationship developed, Martha and I began to spend more time together.  My roommate and his girl had by then split and gone their separate ways.  He wasn’t too happy with all the time I was spending with Martha, but I was moving into a new phase of life wanting to explore more of what DC had to offer. 

Martha and I would have dinner at one of the fine restaurants in Dupont Circle either before or after our time spent at the Politics and Prose Bookstore.  Our time spent together at the bookstore, listening to presentations by excellent speakers and authors, sifting through mountains of books, choosing a few to buy, then reading and discussing them was a favorite pastime and one of the highlights of my time spent in DC.  Martha became my reading partner.  She consumed three books for every book that I read.  My roommate commented that what Martha and I were doing is what married people do in their 70s.  I scoffed at his comment but looking back I can now see his point.  Despite our good times at dinner, the bookstore, and art museums, the enthusiasm didn’t carry over when I was alone with her either at my place or her place. 

Even when undressed I felt nothing on my part.  She became totally frustrated.  She wondered why I couldn’t get an erection.  She told me that I had a problem called ED or Erectile Dysfunction which I had not heard of until then.  She recommended that I seek counseling.  The funny thing was that as I walked the streets of DC during the daytime and saw the beautiful girls dressed smart and sexy, I couldn’t keep my erection under control!  I asked myself, ‘Why am I stimulated by the girls walking the streets of DC but with Martha I shrink up like a dried-out prune?’  This exercise in futility continued until the end of our time together.  I came to accept that our relationship had no future beyond enjoying the company of each other while experiencing life in DC. 

Martha had a cute appearance with very little sex appeal.  She came from a background that emphasized education.  Her father had both a Bachelor and Masters degree from M.I.T.  He invented or developed the film most widely used by dental offices for X-rays at that time.  This led to the great wealth of the family.  While at Wellesley, Martha majored in French with an emphasis on the French Revolution.  She studied in Paris for a year as part of her degree program.  She could easily pass as Parisian speaking the language fluently with all the subtle nuances.  Her educational background only added to the quality of our discussions.  The mindset that Martha acquired through her educational and familial experiences was offset by her detachment from the lives of regular people and certain personality quirks.  These things didn’t bother me as I always found the oddities of people interesting.  I had plenty of opportunities to meet people like this during my time in DC and, for sure, I was one of those people myself.  Martha came along at the right time in my DC experience.  I enjoyed our friendship even though I couldn’t see anything beyond that.  I don’t think she saw our situation in the same way. 

Our relationship continued to develop without intimacy.  We took an excursion to West Virginia staying in several bed and breakfast establishments.  Martha wanted to see the place in Seneca Rocks where the feminist movement supposedly took root.  I think the women who took part in this historical event were graduates of Wellesley.  I looked at our relationship as a great friendship.  Martha had other ideas.  She was already planning a trip to Massachusetts for me to meet her parents.  When she brought this up, I suggested a trip to Atlanta to meet my mom, stepfather, and brother.  I think I was trying to preempt her by going to Atlanta without much consideration of what these trips actually meant.  She agreed to go to Atlanta first.  Being a student of the American Civil War, I would later come to understand the trip to Atlanta and the subsequent trip to Massachusetts as experiences that highlighted the differences between southern and northeastern cultures. 

To be continued