Spanish views from a small town

Some who have studied European history superficially in school know that the few countries that remained neutral in World War II were Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, and Spain. They will have learned that after the Spanish Civil War, Franco decided to maintain neutrality because Spain was in no condition to participate. And so ends our link to that war, with German bombers having helped Franco pummel Guernica, giving free reign to Picasso's imagination, and nothing else. Few have ever read about the División Azul , the Blue Division, a group of soldiers that Franco sent to help invade Russia. Fewer even, have heard about the thousands of Spanish who perished at Mauthausen. Yesterday my eye happened to run over a small news story a group on Facebook that I follow put up, talking about how the acknowledgment of history is something that is discouraged in Spain. It was an article telling the story of a survivor of Mauthausen who happened to die on the evening of this past January 5th...

It had to happen. Eventually, there was no way out. The good things is, we're in Spain. People might hem and haw for a bit, but the stone bridge will remain as it is. Which is good, because it's a monument. I suppose up till now no one had decided to deface it with railings because it is quite wide and old, probably from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. It used to be the route along which the carriage went from the manor house to the church, some streets away. It's about as wide as a one-way street, and it's now pedestrian. No one has to step to the side to let a carriage go by these days. What they should put up all around it, though, are signs at phone level to warn pedestrians.  Those signs should be low down on the ground, really. Or at the right height and distance that anyone looking down at their phone will catch the sign out of the corner of their eye. Otherwise they won't work. Then again, if the person is so wrapped up in his phone, the same thing wil...

Winter days are too short for far-away travel, so yesterday I went for a shorter drive to a couple of places about an hour and a half away. My husband and I had already visited them together almost twenty years ago. I had expected them to have changed dramatically in the interval, but they haven't changed that much.  Driving from Vigo to Ourense, Melón is practically at the halfway point. There is no sign on the highway that there is a monument of any sort nearby, just the off-ramp sign for the town. And when the local road drops you off in the middle of the town, you find yourself staring at a strangely square large church with the ruins of a large monastery to one side.  Santa María de Melón was a Cistercian monastery founded in the twelfth century. It grew in lands and wealth until the rising feudal lords put a stop to it. After the fifteenth century it gradually lost most of its grandeur, until in 1835 it was seized by the state in an attempt to take away some of...

Janus has arrived, showing us his backward-looking face at the moment. Not until a couple of weeks from now will he show us his other face, when we finally realize we are in another year and already have a few "this year" moments under the belt. As usual, I am the first one up. Not even today do I sleep late. At nine, I dutifully get up to check on my father next door and feed the animals. There are three indoor cats, and three new outdoor cats, and one dog, that don't care what day it is. They expect to see their food bowls filled every morning no later than nine thirty.  The morning is cloudy for the first time in a week and a half, at least. There are no human sounds anywhere. What late revelers there are, are probably still inside the partially closed (or recently opened) bars eating churros dipped in thick, hot chocolate. Those that haven't dipped their livers in pickling juice all night, of course. Towards midday there will be more traffic, but not much.  ...

This year is playing with us. After I wrote about people who brought back childhood memories dying, Carrie Fisher died. And just this early morning, her mother, Debbie Reynolds. Most people just can't wait for this year to be over. The deaths of famous icons, wars, refugees, terrorist attacks, earthquakes, mass murders, botched referendums, and nightmare elections all seem just too much to take in one single year. This is the worst year ever. But, is it? It certainly seems so because it has concentrated so much public bad news. However, as a n opinion article in The New York Times has suggested, perh aps not. T o me, other years have been watershed years. 1991 and 2005 are two such years in my personal life. I'm sure that this year is the best in their lives for those who have undertaken very successful endeavors in these past twelve months. Perhaps we should categorize when we mention "best" and "worst".  Those of us who lived through other years mig...

The last day of the year is Saturday. Till then, most of us have our fingers crossed that nobody else famous whom we grew up with, dies. Our ch ildhood and teen idols all see m to be disappearing this year. Granted, some of them were old, such as Leonard Cohen and Zsa Zsa Gabor. They had reached the threshold of death after many years of life. Still other s were taken by insidious illness, such as Alan Rickman or Muhammed Ali. But some were too young to die, especially for those of us who aren't so far away from the ages of so me of those we have lost , like S unday 's death. Geor ge Michael was only 53. He came to fame when he was b arely into his twenties, and most of us w ere still teenagers. I found a list of notable deaths that is not complete, and is limited to either people well-known from the Anglo-Saxon world, or peop le from other o rigins whose fame has transcended borders. I mention those whose names bring back memories. To begin, G eorge Michael. How...