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Spain/España

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I wanted to create a web page dedicated to Spain, the country where I grew up in for two years.

I lived outside of Barcelona from 1975-1977.  My father was stationed there as an electronics engineer in the Coast Guard at what they call a "Loran" (Long Range Radar) Station.

Estartit, Spain in Catalonia, where my father worked in the mid-seventies. We lived in a town called Torroella di Montgri.e

We rented a house in a nearby town with a castle on the summit of the hill.  I remember climbing the hill several times and looking at the abandoned castle, which appeared to have had a moat at one time.  There was no roof and there was moss on the decaying walls.  I remember how haunting it was to me that without any real roads to speak of, nestled in the rolling hills toward France there was at least one Church-like structure.  I don't know how people got to and from it.  It could have been a mausoleum.

I was there when the tyrant-fascist Franco died.  I think it was his administration that was careless in the slaughter of many stray dogs by the indiscriminate laying of poison, which I remember caused quite a stench of many beloved pets.  I remember how laden the streets were with dead animals waiting to be picked up.

I also remember my parents telling me about how the people (who were not speaking Spanish, of course, but the Catalan dialect) were not supposed to do these ethnic dances that we all learned how to do.  These dances involved holding hands in a big circle in a town square (if possible) and dancing in unison with a crowd.  I later learned that Franco had made it illegal to dance these dances, because of the uprising he feared from the Basques and other ethnic minorities who consider themselves sovereign like the Catalonians, who speak different languages and have different cuisine and cultures.  When Franco died, however, they danced on his grave with veracity.  I couldn't help but be happy for them to be able to express their culture in this way, although much of this I learned many years after I left Spain.

Little could I have known also the modern day renaissance Spain would enjoy shortly after my leaving.  My memories are of a very poor country that always got the short end of the stick.  From what I understand and what I have seen in my trips back, that is far from the truth now, particularly since the Summer Olympics were held in Barcelona.

As an example of the country's lack of technology at the time, I remember the black and white television with only one government-run channel.  There was one show for kids to which my siblings and I would scream "Como estan Ustedes!!!" every night.

Since the base my father was working at was very small, I was taught at first at a tiny school room on base with some other American kids and then eventually from home by my Mom in an extra room of the house.  I took a correspondence course which thankfully kept me interested and at an acceptable level for resuming school when we returned to the United States (Governor's Island, New York) in 1977.

During my time in Spain my family also took numerous extended trips to visit our family in Southern Italy.  We would drive all the way through scenic Southern France and the entire length of Italy.  We had a little Fiat station wagon with curtains in the back so us kids could sleep.  My father was an excellent driver.  I used to ask him to drive around Naples (they did actually build a freeway that allowed for this among the times we traveled to Italy over and over again) so that I would not have to worry about the effects of the volcano should it decide to erupt while we were passing through.  I had been terrified by the pictures of people frozen in their tracks by lava I had seen in a text book and was certain the volcano would choose to blow when we were within its range.  Accordingly, I had various means of escape plotted, including jumping into the water off of Naples, since I saw that there was a body of water next to it in a painting my parents had of the volcano in our living room. How clever I was!

My siblings and me (in the middle) in Spain in 1975 or 1976. This was the picture included in our Christmas cards that year.