Spanish views from a small town

I love ghost stories. The unnatural, the uncommon, the unexplicable, has always fascinated me. Spain does not have much of a history of literary ghost stories, however, because the Catholic Church preaches that a soul that does not go to Heaven or Hell goes to Purgatory to await redemption for its sins. So, officially, earth-bound entities cannot exist. It was a different case in other countries, such as England. For Protestants, there is no Purgatory. Logically, an earth-bound entity can exist and be written about. Hence the legion of ghost story writers, with M.R. James and Sheridan LeFanu at their head.  But the common people in Spain have always had strange encounters, especially in rural areas, and especially before electricity was introduced fifty years ago. Even twenty years ago, streetlights had only recently been placed on our road. Before that, we could step outdoors and see the Milky Way above us. There were less cars and people walked almost everywhere, including at n...

This week there was a roundup of thirteen people for weapons trafficking in Spain. They would buy weapons that were no longer in working order on the internet from other countries. (It's legal because the weapons cannot be fired and therefore do not need a license. They are treated as collectors' items.) The problem is that once on Spanish soil, they would take them apart and tweak them to be able to fire (it's more difficult that it sounds). Then they would be sold. That part was illegal. Among the people arrested was Alejandro Cao de Benós from Tarragona. The only reason he was mentioned is because he is the volunteer "ambassador" of North Korea. When he first popped up on the news, a Spaniard dressed in North Korean military uniform, attesting to the people's glories of North Korea, most took him as a joke. Others thought it only right that the only Western person who voluntarily embraced the shuttered society of a country that revolved around the persona...

The new elections are at the end of the month, and the electoral commercials and publicity have been doing the rounds already. The four major parties each have a different way of expressing their intentions to voters. The PP, Ciudadanos, and PSOE all have commercials that are national. The only thing that might change from one region to another is the local language. Though I think that is only in the spot by the PSOE. Podemos, which has joined with Izquierda Unida for this election in a coalition called Unidos Podemos, has a national spot, and individual spots for the regions where they are allied with other parties.  However, Podemos also has a catalogue that can be ordered from their web page. I believe that by donating seven euros to their campaign, they mail you a glossy catalogue where the major candidates to the Congreso are shown in their houses or offices. Each of them is introduced along with the campaign platform they all defend. From the beginning the catalogue has b...

Wanted: One shepherd. Preferably one who will not fall asleep on the job. Must also have a sheep dog with a loud bark. All those interested apply to the local flocks in Huesca.  The shepherd passing with his flock outside Huesca last week, on his way to the summer pastures in the Pyrenees, was lacking in those attributes. The sheep, probably with a longing for a night on the town, decided to go off on their own while their shepherd slumbered. So, someone who was probably having trouble sleeping decided to get up and look out his window at the sleeping town and started counting sheep. Literally.  Huesca police got a call at four thirty in the morning saying that a large number of sheep were travelling into town. The large number was around thirteen hundred sheep. Slowly, the police rounded up the herd and took it outside town, where they found the slumbering shepherd, probably dreaming of the sheep he thought were still surrounding him. At seven o'clock the town was cleared...

In U.S. cities and towns there's an invention that has facilitated life enormously. It's the street sign. Reach any corner, look up at the top of the pole stuck there, and you'll see at least two signs, each reaching down a different street, with the names of those streets. Searching for an address is child's play. Don't expect that in Spain. If it's difficult enough to find a road sign that will tell you what town you're in, it's impossible to find a street sign that will allow you to pinpoint a location. What has been done is to affix plaques on the corners of the buildings with the names of the streets. Normally, you just have to look up at the building on the corner and search for a plaque that looks like it has the name of a street. Which is not always easy, because some streets are named for people. With that person's entire name. So sometimes you might not be too sure if you're looking at a street plaque or the sign of an establishment...

LGBT. That's a new term here. Before that it was "gays" and "homosexuales." Long before that it was "desviados. " But in this new century Spain has become one of the European countries where the LGBT community is most accepted. It became the third country to allow same-sex marriages in 2005 and the first to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. Discrimination on basis of sexuality is against the law, though the law can be flouted in so many ways. Still, society here has accepted different sexualities, especially in the larger cities.  In our town there are quite a few young people who are openly gay or lesbian. But older people have never really shown their true colors. Except for one man, a local pharmacist who had a long-standing feud with the town hall over a ruinous building at the entrance to the town. He never hid himself once Franco died. At first he was mocked and laughed at. Some idiots openly humiliated him. Now he is living his life ...