Spanish views from a small town

It's June and summer is here. Between last month, this month, and at least the first half of next month, is the best time of year. We are enjoying the high point of the year; it's light at six in the morning, twilight stretches to past eleven in the evening, and the weather is beautifully warm. Another sign of summer were the four buses that passed by me as I went to take out the trash this morning, taking various groups of kids on their field trips. Exams are over, and now it's time for the end of year field trips. This year, they're back, to the kids' joy. They are the true hallmark of summer vacation, the foretaste of a summer of play and fun for many. My memory of primary school tells me that we did have field trips that were fun. I remember one to an amusement park, another to a bowling alley, one to watch Pippi Longstocking at a small theatre somewhere in the Back Bay. There was one during the school year to local businesses, to see how they were run. I also r...

A piece of my childhood died yesterday. Anthony Martignetti, of West Roxbury, died at age 63. I didn't know him personally, but I, and everyone from a certain age up, knew him as the boy running home on Wednesday because Wednesday was Prince Spaghetti day.  The commercial was filmed in 1969, in a North End that was still redolent of working class immigrants, and close-knit families. A North End where Italian was more common than English, and small squares reminded one of quiet corners in a European city. The  commercial shows a boy running home through the streets of Boston's North End, past the Haymarket vendors, past what seems to be the John Eliot School, through probably the Paul Revere Mall, and up a dead end street to his apartment in an old tenement. As he runs, the scene sometimes cuts to his mother's kitchen, where she and others are preparing vegetables and a large pot of spaghetti. Meanwhile, the voiceover talks about Boston traditions, and ends, as Anthony ente...

This Sunday was Universal Children's Day. It's the day that marks the anniversary of the UN's Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959, and the adoption of the Convention of the Rights of the Child in 1989. It is meant to promote awareness and improvement of children's welfare. We have come a ways in the Western world from the pit of child labor, where the schoolhouse for too many children were the twelve hours they spent in factories over a hundred years ago. But there is so much more to be done. In Spain, almost three million children find themselves at ris k of poverty. Of those, almost a million are experienc ing it. Only Romania has a worse situation. This is mostly as a result of the crisis Spain has gone through these past years, th ough there ha s always been poverty. Despite all the new jobs created, and the assurance from ou r go vernment that o ur economy is recuperating, these children are at serious risk of remain ing in poverty for th e rest o f t...

This afternoon I had a trip to the airport to pick up my brother-in-law who was flying in from Barcelona to spend a couple of weeks visiting his parents. It's August, the month for vacations and visits home. More than half the tourists visiting Galicia are emigrants who have come to visit family. There has been a new airport terminal in Santiago since September of 2011. It's a large, white box of a building with a slightly domed ceiling and plate glass windows stretching from floor to ceiling. It's divided into two main floors and three basement parking garages, including the rental cars. The bottom floor, where the taxis wait in line, is dedicated to arrivals. It's a long, empty area broken by two elevators and staircases, and a small café. There's only one arrival gate with opaque sliding white doors into which you can see baggage carousels only when passengers come out. That's where everyone stretches their head, trying to see if they can see who they'v...

Anyone who has had a childhood blessed with books will always remember a few with nostalgia. They will become touchstones with the past, in which when we conjure up the story, we will remember our surroundings at the time we read it, though we won't remember most likely how old we were or what year it was. We will remember every detail about the book, even where there were stains, or a blurb from the jacket if it had one. But the frustration will be in the titles. There are a few I remember from childhood, but I don't remember any of the titles except for one or two. I remember there was one about a Nebraska girl who lives on the Oregon Trail with her aunt and uncle. Her parents have left her there with them for some reason before continuing the Trail. They promised her they would send for her at a future date. The girl is desperate and tries to join a wagon train once or twice as a stowaway. She is caught and returned. The last time she runs away she is found, but accepted a...