I found the phrase above in a video, unfortunately I forgot to save the link but I recommend searching for it. The man depicted there is a well known French writer, much admired worldwide. Some of you may not know that I was born in a small town (back then populated by about 5,000 souls) called Esquel, a name that means “valley of thorns” in the local native language, a tongue now forgotten to all but a few. The little town was not much more than an army post for many decades until Welsh settlers arrived. The winter weather lasted most of the year and made access to Esquel rather difficult.
My grandparents moved there in the 1920’s running from the so called Spanish Influenza that killed my great-grandmother, Catherine Hayes-O’Callaghan whose parents had moved to Argentina seeking shelter from the Black Famine that affected Ireland in the mid 19th century.
Soon my grandmother joined a small group of teachers in the local school. Nothing but good things can be said about those generous souls that went for ages without pay and taught the whole town to read, write, and a lot more than one can learn in schools these days. Grandma was special because she had been educated at home in the old British way. She spoke (read and wrote) in English (her first language), French and Spanish. I was told that her French was quite good. She used to exchange letters with her cousin Ricardo (Sáenz Hayes) who was one of those truly educated Argentines of his time, a friend of young Jorge Luis Borges and other intellectual contemporaries. Grandma and Ricardo corresponded in French for many years while Ricardo was assigned to various diplomatic posts in Europe.
It was also about that time that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a French pilot, delivered the mail to the isolated little town. “There is a teacher there who speaks French,” he was told and that forever tied “el francés del avión” [the Frenchman of the airplane] to the story of my family. A great honor if you ask me. Unfortunately photographs were not that common in those days and no proof exists of contact with the famed aviator and writer. Se non è vero, è ben trovato, some would say.
In a few days I will be 69 years old. The seventh decade is looming in the horizon and I find myself remembering the years I lived in my hometown. The house was a warm island in the windswept Patagonian high plains. From the back window one could see the Andes mutating from gray to white, and then to blue with green spots of forest as the seasons progressed. It was a happy time shared with uncles and aunties and my mysterious grandmother who I thought knew everything and taught me to say Merci Jésus before gulping one those delicious scones faster than a starving orphan. What a sweet time that was.
At night the short wave radio could sometimes catch the BBC and one could dream of being right there with Furtwängler or Toscanini in one of the famed opera houses of Europe. The sound quality was awful but the soul was avid for more. Some of us in the real peripheries of the world were watching towards the inside eager to grasp a little bit of a world were so many things were changing rapidly while our own environment moved deliciously at the rhythm of a different drum.
Going back to those days I can say that was the last time I lived a dignified life. The innocence of those years was solid and God was talking to that little boy with a distinctive voice. I have recently returned to praying the Our Father in Spanish with the same exact words I used to pray back then in pre-conciliar times:
‘… danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día y perdona nuestras deudas como nosotros perdonamos a nuestros deudores …’
Which sounds very similar to the ancient Latin:
‘ … panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris …’
It really sounds like something Jesus would say, in my humble opinion which almost no one shares. And so the song goes, going back, going back… year after year. I often imagine Heaven as being again a seven year old, sitting at the kitchen table with a steaming cup of tea and milk, reading The Pirates of Malaysia. While the wind blew outside, my young mind visited the other side of the globe.
What was this post all about? Reminiscing? Perhaps my mood was somewhat altered by the news in the Buenos Aires newspapers today: a high ranking government official was caught vacationing in the Mediterranean with some local starlet. Champagne, Rolex watches, and Louis Vuitton handbags piled behind the nearly naked bodies enjoying the Mediterranean sun while half the children of Argentina live under the poverty line—which is not, I insist, the opulent American poverty line— That was an immoral sight that cannot be denied, showing a level of corruption that could be better defined as a putrid disregard for the common men and women that struggle all life under the powerful Peronist boot.
This morning I had some words with one of my neighbors, a man who managed with several others to grab the controls of the condo association. Following the example of the local politicians, those poor souls are eagerly maneuvering to steal pitifully small sums with the help of creepy administrators. A miniature representation of what nearly half the country lives off: stealing. To my shame I must admit I turned a blind eye to those practices in the years before my conversion: “it’s only a crime if you’re caught” goes the saying but what can we do when nearly everyone steals? Could a country of knaves survive long?
Prophecies of a brilliant future for Argentina are common but all of them signal to a previous short bloody hour of purification and then a great conversion, a return to Christ. I am perhaps too old to offer anything to that future —I don’t think it is far ahead of us— but I would like to see it.
A few years ago I had a dream in which I found myself in my room in total darkness. At some point a tiny sliver of light started coming through the edge of the curtains. In my dream, I rushed to the window and opened the curtains wide. Instead of the usual cityscape I found myself looking at a vast expanse of green with tall grasses and flowers extending as far as the eye could see. Birds and small animals crossed the landscape. Then I knew I was looking at the world renewed by the Holy Spirit after a few days of darkness.
Well … this is my blog and I can ramble aimlessly all I want. I am almost 69 years old and frankly, my dear I don’t give a rat’s tail. Prepare for a change, prepare for the demise of the current crappystocracy. The times, they are a-changin’! Going back, going back! and soon enough I will be pushing 70 which is nothing more than seven in the company of a zero. In a way, soon I will be seven again. Indescribable better times are ahead of us.
Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?”
For it is not wise to ask such questions. — Ecclesiastes 7:10
Quod scripsi, scripsi 