Jutta, Who at 17 was my penpal, has turned 70!

 Yesterday, for Jutta's 70th birthday, I sent her the following video, which I also put on Facebook:

https://youtu.be/I8QYPfCSBlU

CCSF Doesn't Really Owe $39 Million, Does It?

http://www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/City-College-can-t-prove-it-taught-16K-10791949.php?cmpid=sfc_em_topstories

Here's a response from Madeline Mueller:

While I was in the middle of writing a letter tonight to the Board of Supervisors for tomorrow's meeting regarding Proposition W,  I was alerted to the nasty piece of work just coming out in the Chronicle. A negative hit piece on the eve of an important vote to support City College. What a coincidence--- NOT!!

We really must sue that newspaper. We can afford to.  After all, Prop B will earn the college around $20 million extra a year in parcel tax money for  the next 15 years. We also have an additional  similar  amount coming in annually forever due to our local sales tax income. 

It doesn't  seem quite logical to me that we are supposed to accept how fragile  the College is fiscally, yet we have two very generous streams of local support which no other college has (and which Sacramento  hates!)

I'm  sending this to many lists. Please  excuse multiple emails.

Here is the personal part of the letter I just sent to the BOS.

"The results of last month's election showed that City College remains the single most supported and trusted public entity in San Francisco despite unfair and frequently illegal attacks against it by various governmental and privatizing forces, along with much completely spurious negative publicity coming from some highly suspicious media sources. This especially includes the latest ludicrous hit  piece in the San Francisco Chronicle regarding CCSF's  online education, considered a model of excellence in the State.

 Shame on the Chronicle  for sinking  again to publishing false news about City College. It would seem, however, that San Franciscans  know better (!)

Over 200,000 San Francisco voters (an astonishing number!) recently passed Proposition B for CCSF by  a "super majority" of almost 80% of the vote. This vote of confidence is unique in San Francisco and indeed in any California city. It should serve as a warning to anyone who tries to NOT support City College. 

Breaking the promises made to help CCSF  students, which led to the passage of Proposition W, will not likely be tolerated by San Francisco voters. They will no doubt correctly view  not following their vote as an attack by Mayor Lee against a much beloved Institution.

 In the late 80's, City College won 3 campaigns against anti-City College challenges  attempted  by the then Mayor's Office,  which also led to that Mayor's  defeat in retaining his position. With current voter numbers still so strongly in favor of City College, this could certainly happen again."

Madeline Mueller 

Music Department  Chair

CCSF

A Christmas without Joseph?

   Joseph's gone missing!
I'm not doing much decorating this Christmas--just a yule log in the fireplace  (2 over-sized battery-run candles), a wreath on the door, and the Nativity scene, which I got out a couple of days ago to follow Advent.

The tradition is to have Mary, Joseph, and the animals in the manger awaiting Jesus, who won't be there until December 25, followed by the Wise Men, arriving from the East on January 6.

Last January 7th, I wrapped each figure of the Nativity scene  in a separate piece of paper--the same paper I've wrapped them in for years--and put them in the red square box labeled JOY.

 So this year I unwrapped each figure...but no Joseph.      To Be continued

Salutations: The Society for Conventional Correspondence

I had a great time last night at Salutations, the "Society for Conventional Correspondence." (They're talking about LETTERS. Remember those--from back in the days when Facebook and Twitter didn't exist?)

Those of us participating read a letter we'd received or one we'd written on the topic of travel. 

I read my letter to LIbby--the cut version. I'd already sent the full letter to her, but I had it in my computer too--all illustrated--and I left out about three minutes, reading five.  

Of course it was about my vegan pilgrimage, and after it was over the two young women you see in this photo told me, "We're with you on the vegan.  We're both vegans."  So nice to hear!

The guy you see is William, who had a lot of funny things to say about the way we'd imagine Paris.  He wanted us to imagine while he read his mother's postcard from Paris:

"Dear William and Michelle.  Everyone here speaks French, even the children."

I told him about Jean Cocteau's belief, when he was a child, that people speaking a language other than French on the Metro were just pretending and making it up as they went.

Lovely Alexandra Brown  from Chronicle Books was the MC.  (They're promoting some physical letter merchandise created by Lea Redmond.)

The person in charge at Green Apple made an announcement about an  upcoming community read at 7:00 PM on Friday about the election, or so I thought.  But now I think it may just be a discussion of Angela Davis' book Freedom Is a Constant Struggle.

 Someone named Ana Lisa read s.t. she wrote about her dad's advice after making 50 flights in less than 3 weeks. 

Someone named Erin read a letter from her college boyfriend--very short.  (The letter, not the boyfriend as far as I know)

Someone named Erik read a letter he'd written while in Vietnam after rescuing a biker left on the road.

Someone whose name I didn't catch read a funny piece answering the letters to the Corinthians. 

For some reason, when he spoke right after me, he presented a riddle:  "How do you find a vegan at a dinner party?  Don't worry.  The vegan will find you." 

Someone named Rickie, whose dad writes letters and encloses $125 towards her student debt and a gift card for Whole Foods, read a note her dad wrote her before their trip with her sister to Capetown and  the note he wrote following it.

Someone named Matt, who works at Green apple read a letter from 1937--one that had been on The Road Show and included a description of his grandfather's dinner with Amelia Erhardt., 

Alexandra read a letter from her buddy from elementary school; the letter was written from Nicaragua.

William read a brief postcard "The people all here all speak French, even the children"  and made lots o funny commentary.  

These readings are at the Green Apple annex on 9th Avenue, where le Video was for so many years.

http://hoodline.com/…/salutations-the-society-for-conventio…

The next topic, coming up around Valentine's Day, will be love.

In Memory of Andrea Pannal Goodman Ptolemy on Her Birthday, November 23

Today is the birthday of my friend-for-life, Andrea Pannal Goodman Ptolemy, the perfect example of the adage "With a death, a life ends, but a relationship continues."

We trained together for the Peace Corps Tonga V on Molokai, Hawaii, where we bonded because we were both almost de-selected--she because she had once chased a Tongan with a frog and I because I lived in a dream world.  ("That's your greatest asset," Andrea said.)

We were assigned to different villages on the same island, Tongatapu, where I discovered that in addition to being a natural as a teacher and teacher-trainer, she was a mesmerizing re-teller of Twilight Zone episodes.  She shared my love for Dorothy Parker's verses.

We celebrated Christmas Eve 1970 together in Fiji, where we had our first Indian food, and then on New Year's Eve we were together  in New Zealand, where she woke me up to tell me someone we'd met earlier in the day had just passed a roasted chicken for us through the window of our room at the YMCA.   "Oh, I was hoping he would," I said, and that was another story Andrea told well.

She forgave me for writing the address of a New Year's Eve party on a paper bag and then recycling it before we could use it to get there.

She hitch-hiked with me through New Zealand, marveling at the friendly people and beautiful sights and seeing 32 movies since we didn't have electricity or current movies in Tonga--although we did see the film version of Romeo and Juliet in Nuku'alofa, where the second reel was shown before the first, leading Romeo and Juliet to die  before the star-crossed lovers had ever met.

Andrea was a Super Vol (Super Volunteer) and even extended for a year, visiting me in San Francisco, where she, my mother, and I had drinks at a place on the Embarcadero where the bartender gave us the "rests" of every drink he served to the other customers. (Not from their glasses, mind you, but from his shaker.)

Andrea taught at the United Nations among other places and made me really want to be an ESL student because she was so gifted as a teacher!

Andrea was the one who told me, when I returned from Algeria after two years, about a new talk show hostess who made you want to be a fat black woman--Oprah Winfrey, a name I'd never heard before.

Andrea shared my love for musicals and put on the album of Pippins almost the minute I walked in the door of the home she shared with Mark Goodman in 1976.

I missed both of her weddings--something I wouldn't do today--but I was there soon after the birth of her daughter Jenny (Jennifer Elaine Goodman), who turned out to be as extraordinary as her mother.

Andrea welcomed my son Jonathan and me at the Durango Airport in 1989 with champagne and tapa cloth spread out in our honor, Tongan style.  When Jonathan told her he'd thrown up three times on the rocky flights over, she responded, "Only three times?"  I have a video of that!  Andrea knew how to capture and preserve memories.

She also had warm and wonderful friends like Cathy Contreras, Betty Foley, and Debi Orr.

In 2003 Andrea organized a trip for a small group of  these friends in New York City, where we saw five musicals and  toasted to Dorothy Parker at the Algonquin Club.

Andrea invited me to join her, her husband Roger, and daughter Jenny on a cruise of Turkey in 2005, and when she told me that Jenny couldn't go on the cruise because she'd received a grant to study folkdancing in China, I said, "Okay, let's go to China with Jenny."

We couldn't do that, but we did go on an incredible cruise of Turkey on the yacht of Donna and Suat Gulec.

In 2006 we had time together at Electra Lake.

I was last with Andrea in April 2010, shortly before she died of pancreatic cancer.

At the airport, after I went through security, she led her daughter Jenny and friends Cathy and Betty in singing, "So long, farewell, auf weidersehen, goodbye" from the Sound of Music. , but as you can tell, she will be with me forever.

Worse than a Terrorist Attack?

We're getting and sending out messages of alarm and sorrow following this upset win (of the electoral vote) by Donald Trump.  (I started to write "sorry," which is how I feel.  Remember how people sent that message after George W. Bush's "win"?)

I got this from my son:

I just wanted to connect with you after the election results. I'm at a conference in Austin, fortunately a more liberal part of Texas than the rest. I'll be flying back tomorrow. 

I feel worried about the future, but I'm glad we have each other and the other people in our lives. I love you and value our relationship, and that feels very important right now. 

Doesn't that sound like the kind of message people send out after a terrorist attack?

Is this our greatest national tragedy since the attack on the World Trade Center--perhaps even worse because this tragedy was elected?  (The other one might have been brought on by us, but it wasn't by popular vote.  Hmm.  Now that I think of it, neither was this one.) 

Tina Martin San Francisco Vistas: In Memory of Alcides, Javier's Brother--about a Pilgrimage from Nicoya to San Jose, Costa Rica

Tina Martin San Francisco Vistas: In Memory of Alcides, Javier's Brother--about a Pilgrimage from Nicoya to San Jose, Costa Rica

From Nicoya to San Jose on a Mission, 1958

                                                                       

In memory of Alcides and with love to his brother Javier, who cared for him at a distance as well as on pilgrimages like this one.

For most of  his life Javier’s brother Alcides had epileptic seizures, but there was no doctor to help him in Nicoya, and there was no money to go to San Jose until 1958, when Alcides was twenty and  Javier was twenty-two and had saved six months of his salary from his first job.  Then he, his brother, and their mother set out for San Jose.   

           

 This involved a horse, an ox-driven cart, a raft, a train, and a taxi over about 95 miles, most on land and about five miles on water.  They had to leave in the morning because there was a change of tide, when there wasn’t enough water to take the raft on the river between Puerto Jesus and Punta Arenas.  So they first took two horses from Nicoya for about seven miles through the bush and hills and mountains to a wider space, where they took an ox-driven cart to Puerto Jesus.  Then they took a raft for four hours to travel about five miles to Punta Arenas, where they spent the night.  The next day they took the train—electric, not charcoal-fueled--from Punta Arenas to San Jose, where they took a taxi from the station to Pension Palma.  There he asked his mother and brother to stay inside so they wouldn’t get lost, and he set out to find a doctor.  He found an eye doctor close to the pension and offered to pay if the eye doctor could help him find a doctor who could help his epileptic brother.  The doctor refused the money but directed Javier to a Doctor Cuevas, and once everything was arranged, Javier took his brother and their mother to see this doctor, who gave them three medicines for his brother.  The pills worked like magic. For a year all seizures stopped.  When they started again, Javier telegrammed Dr. Cuevas to find out what to do, and the doctor told them to wait two days until the body had forgotten that it “knew” the medicines and knew how to fight against them.  Then, after the body forgot, the medicines would work their magic again.  

The next time Javier took his brother to San Jose, they went by plane—a DC-10--and it took fifteen minutes instead of a day and a half.

This story represents to me part of what I love in Javier—his spirit and his way of finding a solution.  The journey to San Jose seems almost heroic and mythic to me, but there are other things Javier has done that also impress me because they show an individual, brave approach—actually a way of bravely approaching individuals he didn’t know.  For example, finding a parking place near City College was almost impossible and certainly stressful until one day he noticed an elderly woman out in her yard and saw that she didn’t have a car parked in her driveway.  He explained that he was a teacher and would pay her $30.00 a month if she would let him park in her driveway.  She was very happy to get the money and to make it look as if someone was coming and going from her house, and it reduced the stress in Javier’s life.  Also for several years, he had a break between classes and wanted to rest without having to go home.  He spoke to a janitor who gave him the key to a tiny storage room where Javier could lie down and rest among the mops, brooms, and brushes. 

This “finding a way” goes way back to his childhood, when in order to see movies (Perils of Nyoka and other wonders) he became the drummer boy, walking around the square in Nicoya and beating on a drum while another boy followed behind with a sandwich board giving the address of the man who showed the movies in his home for the five cents that Javier the drummer and the sandwich board kid didn’t have to pay because they worked for the establishment. In 1944, when he was 8 years old, he had a lucrative year.   He worked as an altar boy and made more money than his teacher because he served at marriages, funerals, and every other rite of passage, and the teacher just taught.  Javier made $150 a month.  The teacher made $120.   But the priest who hired him moved on, and Javier lost his position as the altar boy.  Once, when he saw a man repairing bicycles, he told the man that he could do that and showed the man, who then gave him a job repairing bicycles.   He gave the money he made to his mother.  After all, he didn’t need money if he could play drums and get into movies free.   He says that while they were growing up, his brother got all the attention because of his special needs, so Javier learned to fend for himself.  When he was sent off to high school in Liberia (Costa Rica), he was only twelve, and he was scared, but he had no choice because there was no secondary school in Nicoya.  He had a partial scholarship, but that paid only for bed and board.  He and his family had to come up with $10.00 a month at a time when he wasn’t earning $150 as an altar boy.   He cried whenever he was alone.  Other people were accompanied by their parents, but he didn’t have anyone to go with him.  His father, who had never married his mother,  had another family and  wasn’t around, and his mother had to stay in their home and run the small store, the pulpuria, to make enough money to send ten dollars a month for Javier’s schooling in Liberia as well as to make ends meet at home.  So Javier just found groups and joined them without waiting to be invited.  His anatomy teacher, a doctor, saw that Javier was just scraping by financially, so he gave Javier a job collecting the fees that patients hadn’t paid.  Soon Javier was able to write home to his mother, “You don’t have to send $10.  Just send $5.”  Javier was making half of his tuition on his own.

 Over the years, Javier tried other ways to help his family in Nicoya.  His mother and sisters were washing all clothes and bedding by hand, so he bought them a washing machine.  They became hysterical because they couldn’t stand change.  “No!  No!  Take it away!” they all cried.  But Javier begged them to give it a chance, and a few days later, when he offered to take it away, they said they’d keep it after all.  They also screamed in protest when he bought them a TV, but sometimes he’d come home and feel the warmth of a TV recently turned off.  When he sent money to his mother, she bought a second house.  After the death of his second sister, the math wizard who had taught him algebra when he was a little boy, he found out that she had fifty-thousand dollars in her bank account.  She hadn’t left the house for years, but she’d done business!

Later it was clear that Javier was blessed.  When he had a wife and four children to support, he went for an interview at Los Gatos, and the director turned out to be a Mormon missionary who had served in Costa Rica.  Once he found out that Javier was from that country, he conducted the whole interview in Spanish and offered Javier a job on the spot.  He also got Javier credited for previous teaching, and with that extra sum of $5,000, Javier made a down payment (25% of the cost-$20,000!) on a house in Fremont, one of the homes where he now lives.    The second year at Los Gatos, when the Mormon director couldn’t offer Javier any classes, he contacted the director at Terra Linda and told him about Javier and what a good teacher he was.  Before Javier arrived at Terra Linda, he had already been hired.  Then, a couple of years later, there was one full-time position open for a Spanish instructor at City College and 122 applicants.  Javier got the job! 

 He says his philosophy in life is “Sé amable, y pone mucho esfuerzo.”  Be kind and try hard.  He seems to live by his philosophy.

Alcides, Javier's brother, passed on October 31, 2016. 

People along the Camino(s)

In Cebreiro I almost immediately met and talked to a woman from Brittany, where Annie is from and where the Anminroti spent a week together in 2003.

Then my walking partner Bill and I met a group of Koreans.  People come from all over the world, so our second day we met a very nice couple, Paul and Mary Beth, from Marin County, over GGB!

 The next day we met a French woman, Therese, and her friends Nadine and Claud

 Here are the people we got to know while waiting for the dryer in the laundry room in Portomarin.

Alberto traveling with his son Afredo 

I've shared this in an earlier post, but I want to keep Rosa and Annie with me!

 A Costa Rican family--three generations--Annie and I met at the Puerta del Sol.

Agnes and Annie giving directions to two lovely young women.  (Usually we're the old women asking directions!)

 Agnes drove us around Paris.

 Catherine joined us at our first vegan restaurant in Paris.

Jutta and I wished her son Jan a Happy 40th birthday.

Jutta, Annie and I met Betsy and Sal at Angelina's.

 Karl came in from New Jersey, and Isabelle and Thomas came in from Brooklyn.

Jim came in from Connecticut.

We took the NYC group picture on the roof of The New York Towers, where Barbara Occionero, Matteo's grandmother, lives.

Great people!  Great Trip!  And even a successful vegan pilgrimage!  I found good food, and I successfully used Spanish in Spain, French in Paris, and English in New York!

Why I Was Dreading Being with Friends I Love--and the Happy Ending!

Why I Was Dreading Being with Friends I Love--and the Happy Ending!

As much as I love Annie, Rosa, and Jutta, I had a feeling of dread before the trip.  They're multi-lingual, and even though I speak French and Spanish as well as English  (I mean in addition to!),  I speak French and Spanish in a way that could annoy the French and Spanish, AND before meeting them I was writing messages in English like this in  an e-letter with the subject "Coming Out of the Cupboard:  I'm Vegan."

As for what I'd like to do, seeing you two is my number one "objective" since I went back to my former (1972) homes in Madrid last September.  But I do want to try all the vegan restaurants in Madrid that I can find, and I will understand if you two don't always go along. 

Yesterday I had a vegan potluck.  I didn't provide name cards saying, "Hello.  My name is Vegan Freak," but I know that's the perception of many non-vegans, so I'm going to be as polite but as assertive as I can be.  I'll be happy to go to non-vegan restaurants, too, but I don't want you two to suffer because of my being a "veganist."

One of my vegan friends thanked us all for the potluck saying that she was so happy to be at a gathering where she didn't have to ask "Is there meat in it?" about each dish.  Now it's "Is there meat or dairy?"  and  I know this can mean  culture-shock for some people.  The vegan authors of Vegan Freak:  Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World Jenna and Bob Torres suggest that non-vegans think of vegans as some kind of exotic tribe found deep in the Amazonian jungle who haven't yet discovered fire or the number zero.  

I now have a Vegan Passport, but it's a little bit unrealistic.  For example, it explains the concept of vegan (in lots of different languages including Hausa, Igbo, Xhosa and Zulu)  and suggests that we ask the servers to read the page!  Servers are very busy people!  Also, it has a page showing what we vegans can eat so we can just point, but I'm afraid that if I pointed to a head of lettuce, they'd bring me the whole head on a plate!

To my surprise,  the response of Rosa, who had posed the question, "What would you like to do in Madrid?" was, "I'm bringing a list of all the vegetarian restaurants,"  She did!  Instead of rolling their eyes in exasperation, these wonderful friends joined me on my continuing pilgrimage to find good vegan meals! Here Rosa, Annie, and I are at Vivaburgers the night of our arrival in Madrid.

In Paris, Annie, Jutta, and I continued to go to vegan and vegetarian restaurants.  When I told Annie how much I appreciated their openess to this, Annie said that it actually simplified decision-making because there were so many restaurants in Paris!

As for my fear that I would annoy the Spanish and French people with my Spanish and French, they were very receptive!  They recognized the language I was speaking as a version of their own and responded warmly and helpfully to comments and questions!  

I would say that this was a dream come true, but I hadn't yet gotten around to dreaming it!

In Awe of Madrid, In Awe of Fresh Air and Friendship!

I have always been in awe of Madrid, so when I saw the series of posters and banners showing awe-struck people, I assumed they were, like me, marveling at Madrid.

But at after a closer look, I realized that these were banners similar to our Spare the Air--part of the European week supporting alternatives to vehicles.

But Rosa, Annie and I all took our turns being awe-struck, as I still remain--by Fresh air, of course, by Madrid, but also by Rosa and Annie!

Annie and I missed Rosa, who had to go back to her job in Barcelona, but we were happy to have Jutta join us in Paris and stay in the charming studio overlooking the cemetery of Montparnasse.  Here is Jutta, first my penpal in 1963, reading the latest book by Alex Capus, a favorite writer Jutta and I made a pilgrimage to see in September 2014.  His latest, Life Is Good, is autobiographical, and his wife's name is Tina!

Pre-Camino Vegan Treats in Northern Spain

The first evening in Bilbao, before Bill had arrived, I went back to the Plaza de Miguel Unamuno, the square, the Casco Viejo (Old Quarters) Metro stop, and found  Cerveceria,  where the man in charge was willing to make me an eggplant sandwich, which I had with a beer, and it was delicious, but the next day another man in charge could not or would not make it.

The next morning Bill and I had breakfast at a beautiful train station, where I discovered tomaca, toasted bread spread with Spanish tomatoes, which are much better than any I've had in the past decades in San Francisco, which is ironic because tomatoes were brought from the Americas to Spain, and the word tomato, I've just found out, comes from a Nahuatl word!

A tomato is pureed and then added to the toast, which has been rubbed with garlic.  Olive oil is drizzled over this, then salt and pepper added to taste.

To their delicious tomatoed toast  I'd  just add pine nuts or sunflower seeds, and I had enough to sustain me until lunch.
I loved their Pimientos de Padron--more than the canned asparagus that was so prevalent--and their grilled-in-olive-oil vegetables were delicious.

A Vegan Pilgrimage from Restaurant to Restaurant

My walking partner Bill and I went to the office of tourism the first day we were in Bilbao, and I asked for info on vegetarian restaurants or at least a place where I could get dishes without meat or dairy.

The woman didn't look very hopeful, but she did Google restaurantes vegetarianos and gave me a print out of what she found recommending  "4 vegan sandwiches that you have to try in Bilbao at --at Muga, Kurbrick Bar, and Deluxe."

But when we investigated, this is what we found:

 Kubrik's was open--with a side that wasn't shattered and patched--but the music was really loud.  Muga was closed both times we looked.  I don't think we ever made it to Deluxe.  A nice woman recommended La Carmelia, but it looked more like a storage room when we went by.

But I really loved what we had at the Guggenheim Museum:

Isn't it wonderful that wine and sangria are vegan?  So are olives,  potato, and sweet peppers!  So it is possible for a vegan to eat in the Spanish Basque country! 

In Memory of Alcides, Javier's Brother--about a Pilgrimage from Nicoya to San Jose, Costa Rica

From Nicoya to San Jose on a Mission, 1958

                                                                       

In memory of Alcides and with love to his brother Javier, who cared for him at a distance as well as on pilgrimages like this one.

For most of  his life Javier’s brother Alcides had epileptic seizures, but there was no doctor to help him in Nicoya, and there was no money to go to San Jose until 1958, when Alcides was twenty and  Javier was twenty-two and had saved six months of his salary from his first job.  Then he, his brother, and their mother set out for San Jose.   

           

 This involved a horse, an ox-driven cart, a raft, a train, and a taxi over about 95 miles, most on land and about five miles on water.  They had to leave in the morning because there was a change of tide, when there wasn’t enough water to take the raft on the river between Puerto Jesus and Punta Arenas.  So they first took two horses from Nicoya for about seven miles through the bush and hills and mountains to a wider space, where they took an ox-driven cart to Puerto Jesus.  Then they took a raft for four hours to travel about five miles to Punta Arenas, where they spent the night.  The next day they took the train—electric, not charcoal-fueled--from Punta Arenas to San Jose, where they took a taxi from the station to Pension Palma.  There he asked his mother and brother to stay inside so they wouldn’t get lost, and he set out to find a doctor.  He found an eye doctor close to the pension and offered to pay if the eye doctor could help him find a doctor who could help his epileptic brother.  The doctor refused the money but directed Javier to a Doctor Cuevas, and once everything was arranged, Javier took his brother and their mother to see this doctor, who gave them three medicines for his brother.  The pills worked like magic. For a year all seizures stopped.  When they started again, Javier telegrammed Dr. Cuevas to find out what to do, and the doctor told them to wait two days until the body had forgotten that it “knew” the medicines and knew how to fight against them.  Then, after the body forgot, the medicines would work their magic again.  

The next time Javier took his brother to San Jose, they went by plane—a DC-10--and it took fifteen minutes instead of a day and a half.

This story represents to me part of what I love in Javier—his spirit and his way of finding a solution.  The journey to San Jose seems almost heroic and mythic to me, but there are other things Javier has done that also impress me because they show an individual, brave approach—actually a way of bravely approaching individuals he didn’t know.  For example, finding a parking place near City College was almost impossible and certainly stressful until one day he noticed an elderly woman out in her yard and saw that she didn’t have a car parked in her driveway.  He explained that he was a teacher and would pay her $30.00 a month if she would let him park in her driveway.  She was very happy to get the money and to make it look as if someone was coming and going from her house, and it reduced the stress in Javier’s life.  Also for several years, he had a break between classes and wanted to rest without having to go home.  He spoke to a janitor who gave him the key to a tiny storage room where Javier could lie down and rest among the mops, brooms, and brushes. 

This “finding a way” goes way back to his childhood, when in order to see movies (Perils of Nyoka and other wonders) he became the drummer boy, walking around the square in Nicoya and beating on a drum while another boy followed behind with a sandwich board giving the address of the man who showed the movies in his home for the five cents that Javier the drummer and the sandwich board kid didn’t have to pay because they worked for the establishment. In 1944, when he was 8 years old, he had a lucrative year.   He worked as an altar boy and made more money than his teacher because he served at marriages, funerals, and every other rite of passage, and the teacher just taught.  Javier made $150 a month.  The teacher made $120.   But the priest who hired him moved on, and Javier lost his position as the altar boy.  Once, when he saw a man repairing bicycles, he told the man that he could do that and showed the man, who then gave him a job repairing bicycles.   He gave the money he made to his mother.  After all, he didn’t need money if he could play drums and get into movies free.   He says that while they were growing up, his brother got all the attention because of his special needs, so Javier learned to fend for himself.  When he was sent off to high school in Liberia (Costa Rica), he was only twelve, and he was scared, but he had no choice because there was no secondary school in Nicoya.  He had a partial scholarship, but that paid only for bed and board.  He and his family had to come up with $10.00 a month at a time when he wasn’t earning $150 as an altar boy.   He cried whenever he was alone.  Other people were accompanied by their parents, but he didn’t have anyone to go with him.  His father, who had never married his mother,  had another family and  wasn’t around, and his mother had to stay in their home and run the small store, the pulpuria, to make enough money to send ten dollars a month for Javier’s schooling in Liberia as well as to make ends meet at home.  So Javier just found groups and joined them without waiting to be invited.  His anatomy teacher, a doctor, saw that Javier was just scraping by financially, so he gave Javier a job collecting the fees that patients hadn’t paid.  Soon Javier was able to write home to his mother, “You don’t have to send $10.  Just send $5.”  Javier was making half of his tuition on his own.

 Over the years, Javier tried other ways to help his family in Nicoya.  His mother and sisters were washing all clothes and bedding by hand, so he bought them a washing machine.  They became hysterical because they couldn’t stand change.  “No!  No!  Take it away!” they all cried.  But Javier begged them to give it a chance, and a few days later, when he offered to take it away, they said they’d keep it after all.  They also screamed in protest when he bought them a TV, but sometimes he’d come home and feel the warmth of a TV recently turned off.  When he sent money to his mother, she bought a second house.  After the death of his second sister, the math wizard who had taught him algebra when he was a little boy, he found out that she had fifty-thousand dollars in her bank account.  She hadn’t left the house for years, but she’d done business!

Later it was clear that Javier was blessed.  When he had a wife and four children to support, he went for an interview at Los Gatos, and the director turned out to be a Mormon missionary who had served in Costa Rica.  Once he found out that Javier was from that country, he conducted the whole interview in Spanish and offered Javier a job on the spot.  He also got Javier credited for previous teaching, and with that extra sum of $5,000, Javier made a down payment (25% of the cost-$20,000!) on a house in Fremont, one of the homes where he now lives.    The second year at Los Gatos, when the Mormon director couldn’t offer Javier any classes, he contacted the director at Terra Linda and told him about Javier and what a good teacher he was.  Before Javier arrived at Terra Linda, he had already been hired.  Then, a couple of years later, there was one full-time position open for a Spanish instructor at City College and 122 applicants.  Javier got the job! 

 He says his philosophy in life is “Sé amable, y pone mucho esfuerzo.”  Be kind and try hard.  He seems to live by his philosophy.

Alcides, Javier's brother, passed on October 31, 2016. 

Introducing the Beloved Friends I Was Dreading to Be With

In an earlier posting, I expressed my love and appreciation for the friends I was leaving behind in San Francisco, but now I'd like to introduce two sets of friends I love and appreciate at a distance, through letters and, in the case of Jutta, throught a shared diary.  (We're now on Volume 3.)

Annie and Rosa are part of a small group of long-distance friends I call the Anminroti

Annie is from France.
Minako is from Japan.
Nicole is from San Francisco
Rosa is from Spain
and the ti stands for Tina.

I already knew Nicole from City College of San Francisco, where we taught from 1982 to 2014, when we both retired.  (We got our full-time jobs and our tenure the same year too!)

I met Annie in 2001 through Jean, a French man I met and dated when I lived in Algeria 1974-76.  He introduced us through letters he wrote both to Annie, who was living in San Francisco at the time, and to me.  Then through Annie, I met Minako and Rosa, who were classmates at City College, where they were all taking Nicole's Current Events class.

After all of them had moved back to their native countries, we corresponded through e-mail as a group.  Then in 2003 Annie hosted us all when she and her husband Jean-Paul were celebrating their fiftieth birthdays.  Before the rest of the Anminroti arrived in Brittany, I spent a week with Annie and her family in Andresy, outside of Paris, where Jutta (whom I'll introduce soon) joined us.

Rosa hosted Annie, Minako, and me in 2014 in Sant Cugat del Valles.

Both Annie and Rosa were extraordinary hosts, creating memories that would last a lifetime even if our lifetimes were not closer to the end than to the beginning!

Jutta, who joined Annie and me, was my penpal back in 1963, and I still have all her letters--so beautifully hand-written and often illustrated.

We met for the first time in 1997, when she, her husband, and their three almost-adult children came to San Francisco on what they thought would be their final trip as a family.

My meque (mejor que un esposo--better than a husband) Javier and I stayed in Bremen, Germany with Jutta and her husband for a week in 2011,and in 2014  Jutta and I also took a trip to Switzerland together to meet our favorite Swiss writer, whom she's met at book readings in Germany.

She and I have shared a diary--with  hand-written entries--since 2001.  We have "emissaries" bring it back and forth, and we are now on volume 3.  Nicole, at a music festival in Mali in 2010, got the diary from Jutta, who was in Mali working with teachers.  I used their photo on one of the cakes at my 70th birthday celebration!  Jutta, my penpal form 1963, and Nicole, a member of the Anminroti, had met!

So why was I dreading to be with these beloved friends?

Introducing the Beloved Friends I Was Dreading to Be With

In an earlier posting, I expressed my love and appreciation for the friends I was leaving behind in San Francisco, but now I'd like to introduce two sets of friends I love and appreciate at a distance, through letters and, in the case of Jutta, throughta shared diary.  (We're now on Volume 3.)

Annie and Rosa are part of a small group of long-distance friends I call the Anminroti

Annie is from France.
Minako is from Japan.
Nicole is from San Francisco
Rosa is from Spain
and the ti stands for Tina.

I already knew Nicole from City College of San Francisco, where we taught from 1982 to 2014, when we both retired.  (We got our full-time jobs and our tenure the same year too!)

I met Annie in 2001 through Jean, a French man I met and dated when I lived in Algeria 1974-76.  He introduced us through letters he wrote both to Annie, who was living in San Francisco at the time, and to me.  Then through Annie, I met Minako and Rosa, who were classmates at City College, where they were all taking Nicole's Current Events class.

After all of them had moved back to their native countries, we corresponded through e-mail as a group.  Then in 2003 Annie hosted us all when she and her husband Jean-Paul were celebrating their fiftieth birthdays.  Before the rest of the Anminroti arrived in Brittany, I spent a week with Annie and her family in Andresy, outside of Paris, where Jutta (whom I'll introduce soon) joined us.

Rosa hosted Annie, Minako, and me in 2015 in Sant Cugat del Valles just outside of Barcelona.

Both Annie and Rosa were extraordinary hosts, creating memories that would last a lifetime even if our lifetimes were not closer to the end than to the beginning!

Jutta, who joined Annie and me, was my penpal back in 1963, and I still have all her letters--so beautifully hand-written and often illustrated.

We met for the first time in 1997, when she, her husband, and their three almost-adult children came to San Francisco on what they thought would be their final trip as a family.

My meque (mejor que un esposo--better than a husband) Javier and I stayed in Bremen, Germany with Jutta and her husband for a week in 2011,and in 2014  Jutta and I also took a trip to Switzerland together to meet our favorite Swiss writer, whom she's met at book readings in Germany.

She and I have shared a diary--with  hand-written entries--since 2001.  We have "emissaries" bring it back and forth, and we are now on volume 3.  Nicole, at a music festival in Mali in 2010, got the diary from Jutta, who was in Mali working with teachers.  I used their photo on one of the cakes at my 70th birthday celebration!  Jutta, my penpal form 1963, and Nicole, a member of the Anminroti, had met!

So why was I dreading to be with these beloved friends?

Friends on the Post-Camino Trail--Madrid & Paris

As much as I love Annie, Rosa, and Jutta, I had a feeling of dread before the trip.  They're multi-lingual, and even though I speak French and Spanish as well as English  (I mean in addition to!),  I speak French and Spanish in a way that could annoy the French and Spanish, AND before meeting them I was writing messages in English like this in  an e-letter with the subject "Coming Out of the Cupboard:  I'm Vegan."

As for what I'd like to do, seeing you two is my number one "objective" since I went back to my former (1972) homes in Madrid last September.  But I do want to try all the vegan restaurants in Madrid that I can find, and I will understand if you two don't always go along. 

Yesterday I had a vegan potluck.  I didn't provide name cards saying, "Hello.  My name is Vegan Freak," but I know that's the perception of many non-vegans, so I'm going to be as polite but as assertive as I can be.  I'll be happy to go to non-vegan restaurants, too, but I don't want you two to suffer because of my being a "veganist."

One of my vegan friends thanked us all for the potluck saying that she was so happy to be at a gathering where she didn't have to ask "Is there meat in it?" about each dish.  Now it's "Is there meat or dairy?"  and  I know this can mean  culture-shock for some people.  The vegan authors of Vegan Freak:  Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World Jenna and Bob Torres suggest that non-vegans think of vegans as some kind of exotic tribe found deep in the Amazonian jungle who haven't yet discovered fire or the number zero.  

I now have a Vegan Passport, but it's a little bit unrealistic.  For example, it explains the concept of vegan (in lots of different languages including Hausa, Igbo, Xhosa and Zulu)  and suggests that we ask the servers to read the page!  Servers are very busy people!  Also, it has a page showing what we vegans can eat so we can just point, but I'm afraid that if I pointed to a head of lettuce, they'd bring me the whole head on a plate!

To my surprise,  the response of Rosa, who had posed the question, "What would you like to do in Madrid?" was, "I'm bringing a list of all the vegetarian restaurants,"  She did!  Instead of rolling their eyes in exasperation, these wonderful friends joined me on my continuing pilgrimage to find good vegan meals! Here Rosa, Annie, and I are at Vivaburgers the night of our arrival in Madrid.

How to Dress for the Camino as Shown by The Pilgrim Virgin Mary

The Pilgrim Virgin Mary!

Michener's 1968 book Iberia (with it's final chapter on Santiago de Compostela) is one of the three books I've read with the greatest interest during three stages of the Camino--anticipation, the moment, and reflection.  (The other two are Grandma's on the Camino by Mary O'Hara Wyman and The Art of Pilgrimage by Phil Cousineau.)

Thanks to Michener, this image has become a part of my experience even though  we never saw it or the town it's in on our walk from Cebreiro to Santiago.

It represents a myth and a way of dressing for the Camino!

Apparently, seeing that the virgin Mary wasn't enough of an icon on the Camino, the little town of Pontevedra took action.  Michener writes that, "a new cult grew up around a legend claiming that the Virgin Mary had been the first pilgrim to the tomb of Santiago, who had given his life for her son. "

In 1978 a gingerbread sanctuary was built in the form of a combined cross and scallop shell, housing this statue.  (I can't find this; the picture of the statue only says that it's inside a baroque church in Pontevedra.)  This is what Michener writes:

"It was the Pilgrim Virgin, representing her as a primly dressed eighteenth-century taveling lady in stiff German brocade, a comfortable shawl  with tassels, long black Restoration curls, bejeweled staff and gourd, and a positively enchanting Jesus dressed like a child's doll.  Atop the Virgin's head stood a jaunty cockaded hat festooned with cockleshells."
'

The Botafumeiro and Sailors' Knots

I feel duty-bound to report on the Botafumeiro--almost the culmination of our walk of 110 miles from Cebreiro on the  Camino to Santiago de Compostela.  (I say almost because we had a wonderful meal afterwards at a Parador just around the corner, and then we met Camino friends!)

Here's the shot I took (not during mass).  The Botafumeiro looks a little bit like my samovar, but it's filled with incense and swings, which my samovar does not!   The swinging may fumigate us pilgrims.

There have been accidents.  In 1499 Catherine of Aragon was at a service when it swang/swung (?) out of the window.  But there were no mishaps for us, and I read just today that the ropes are secured with sailor knots--better than my shoe laces!

I don't want to sound too glib.  I'm really glad I took this walk.  I love Spain, and I love to walk.

But I didn't really want to hug St. James even though I once went to an Episcopal Church that bore his name and I wish him well--but maybe not for the deeds this "Matamoros" was "seen" doing during the crusades, when he was slaying Moors.

 I think I'm more inclined towards a pilgrimage a group of pilgrims have made retracing the route of the First Crusade,  asking for forgiveness from the Jews and Muslims and Eastern Christians.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_cru1.htm

I will soon move on to my plate-to-plate pilgrimage.

The Camino de Santiago de Compostela

Here are the pictures in case you want to read no further.
    
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/ovrdg0w70zyj7gp/AADxszREKIzc95otKg-t9_vRa

First, there is beauty, yes, and I'm not yawning.  The world, as you may have noticed, is a very beautiful place, and the Camino gives you a lot of time with it.  So on the Camino we walked with beauty--rustic, old, natural--starting with the sky in Cebreiro, pictured and the first steps we took on road from Cebreiro.

We also saw the famous scallop shells leading the way to Santiago de Compostela, although if you click on the photo showing a closeup of those shells at our starting point, Cebreiro, you'll see that they lead right into the gift shop!

Notice, too, that once you leave town (see the Cebreiro sign), the town ceases to exist, disappearing less romantically than Brigadoon.

The paths are lovely, and the REI poles (once the pilgrim's staff) can be used not only to take weight off knees and feet but to reach the blackberries that grow along the path, as Bill is illustrating here.

You can see, too, that Jesus was my roommate at one place of shelter, at Casa David in Triacastela.  Are those the keys to the Kingdom I'm holding in my hand?

I regret that I am the one you see in rain gear.  I didn't have my camera for four days  and missed what would have been incredible photos of people in black garbage bags over what looked like grand pianos.  Other people looked so elaborately mounted that they resembled floats in Macy's big parade (or pasos during Semana Santa?) --engineering and architectural feats.  I saw a man in what looked like fluffy blue bedroom slippers, but of course they turned out to be blue cellophane over his shoes.  (So disappointing!)   Some people were covered with what looked like white table cloths--all ready for a picnic when the rain stopped.

I was almost never lost, but if I had been, I'd have been quickly identified as "The woman with the  funny hat."  And it was from REI, which I never thought had a sense of humor.  I think it's my tiny head that creates comedy even with REI merchandise.

I don't know why all those things were hanging from trees.

But I do know that one of the most memorable hours on the Camino was one in a laundry room at Hotel Villajardin in Portomarin while we were waiting for a dryer.  There was  Yasmin from Australia, a woman from Denmark, John Charles, an actor from New York, another John, who'd recently participated in a bicycle run to raise funds for cancer.  (His wife had died of pancreatic cancer eight years ago.) Fernando from Spain told us he was on the Camino with his teen-age son Alberto.

Bill and I later spotted Fernando with his son Alberto, who was wearing a Grease tee-shirt, something close to my heart because a close friend of mine was in the original cast of that musical. Alberto, Fernando, and I started to sing together from Grease and other musicals we knew.

We met again just before reaching Santiago, when I saw the signs on the pavement for the Walk to End Alzheimer's, something of special significance to me too because I walk that walk every year--usually in San Francisco--and I felt my last steps towards Santiago were in memory of my mother.

Then, once again, Bill and I were waiting in line for our certification, and John Charles The Actor wanted to know the Spanish words for "Tomorrow" from the musical Annie.  I spotted Fernando and Alberto in another part of the line and went over to ask Albert.

Mañana mañana te quiero mañana  Pues, eres un dia mas!


And mañana  I'll reflect on Santiago itself and that famous botafumeiro!

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/ovrdg0w70zyj7gp/AADxszREKIzc95otKg-t9_vRa