Damascene

Castles on the Rhine aren't there accidentally. The Rhine is a big river, and ever since boats were invented, this river has been Europe's most valuable means of commerce.  For millennial bends in the river provided ideal spots for bullies to build castles overlooking bends and tributaries to extract fees from merchants needing to go upstream and down.

Toledo was born with that idea in mind; but Spanish rivers are fewer and don't command much commerce.  Still, Toledo is imposing, looming over the plain to the north like a sentinel.  A military couldn't do much about Spain without controlling this city built on a huge rock.  It has the fewest level streets of any European city.

I didn't have an urge to dominate the Castile region, but I did want to spend  time in a city that has a cathedral that resolved its unfinished dome problem by having angels flying around the hole.  I wanted also to see El Greco's home. He couldn't marry the love of his life because, since she was a Jew, if he married her, his son would be ostracized. (You figure that one out).

Actually, I went to Toledo because I'd been told that it is the number one place in the world to see how Damascene is made. The number one shop is just north of the monster rock that is the city.

Damascene refers to Damascus, the probable city of the technique's origin.  The decorated steel figures appeared when Turkey, Syria, and the Caliphs of the Tigris/Euphrates were beating up on everyone in general and had established a lock on southern Spain. The world's best steel then was Persian made. The Caliphates tossed in stuff like Algebra, medicine, cotton, and were pretty good at building palaces and mosques. They became incredibly good at decorating things, including armor and plaster. Decorating their horse trappings and armor with delicate designs of gold on steel was the ultimate in their art.

When Isabella and Fernando rooted out the last of the Moors (who were mostly north African), some Spaniards had mastered this mostly secret art of welding steel to gold.

If it had been the high season, I might have been out of luck to learn much; but as soon as I showed interest in the torches, the supervisor of the shop I examined gave me a tour that lasted all afternoon. The lead welder   explained why the torches were of varying sizes, how they fused the steel and gold, and how the black is applied. I was allowed to meander everywhere, which was about the size of two tennis courts.  As you might expect, not the tiniest amount of gold ever hit the floor, or disappeared.  A little steel might be burned away, but very little of that either.

       

Once I commented on an interesting steel design high on a wall. The foreman instantly went ballistic.  "EL CID!!!" he yelled.

When he eventually cooled off enough to speak at a pace I could track, he led me to understand that a movie company (American) had produced the film "El Cid" on location near Toledo and contracted for all sorts of welding and weaponry and other props useful in the film. But they had not been very forthcoming with cash when due.

"Hollywood!" my tutor finally grumbled, drawing a finger across his throat.  When he eventually stopped sputtering, he murmured something that was probably just as well I couldn't translate.

At last he smiled. He pointed toward a large sign outside the shop that told visitors there was a forty percent discount on Damascene that day.

“For the buses,” he said. “Means nothing." Then he added, "Don't buy when the buses are here. When there is just you, then buy. Not forty percent... Eighty percent.”

I still have the bolo I'd watched him make from a blob of gold and a piece of steel.  AND I got it at eighty per cent off some price he invented because "the bus people" were not shopping.

La Sagrada

Barcelona has an admixture of citizens who think the rest of Spain is a pain, who aren't sure if they want to be Spanish, who love being Catalan, and who kind of like the idea of independence. They're certainly thinking about it. But I hope they don't. That would take some of the gloss off La Sagrada

The Basilica of the Holy Family is unique, not only to Spain, but to the entire world and through history. I've seen the Eiffel Tower, the Winchester House, St. Basil's in Moscow, Watt's Towers, Neuschwanstein Castle, and the Hearst Castle. None so totally boggles the mind as La Sagrada. “It's probably impossible to find a church building anything like it in the entire history of art.” (Reiner Zerbost)

Ground breaking was in 1882. When I saw it, construction had gone on for a mere ninety years, which doesn't mean that Spaniards, not just Catalans, don't love it dearly. They do. Possibly the strongest sentiment tying northern Spain to its south is this basilica dreamed up by their Catalan, Gaudi.

When I arrived at the site, it was good that I had read Michener's “Iberia,” or I'd have assumed that it was another relic of a WWII bombing. Ninety years had produced several massive gray walls soaring grimily toward the stratosphere, each interrupted occasionally by slits that might someday be windows. 

At street level among them were what seemed to be randomly distributed clutters of building blocks, saw horses, enough tarps to cover a football field, wire, hoses, and several power grinders ravaging the ears. The deck was barely discernible, as the flow of Mediterranean air stirred up the mass of powdered concrete. My impulse was to return at once to Las Ramblas, the wonderful “Street of Flowers,” which bubbled with color and happy faces.

Construction began in 1882. Completion is anticipated  in 2026, 100 years after Gaudi's death.

But I had come here to see “Gaudi's Cross.” Topping this massive basilica was the “Christmas Cross.” I had to see it.


When a laborer looked up at me and smiled, I promptly asked him how I might get to “the Cross.” He pointed to an opening at a tower base and pointed up.  So I began to climb...

…up.  And up.  And up

I'd hoped that the winding staircase would become somewhat less gritty by the first hundred feet. Instead, I learned that the Mediterranean breeze blew up as well as north. The only sensible thing was to hope for a bath some time later and to protect my camera no matter what.

Then, about the time I was wondering if I'd be getting the bends, I passed another window slot, and there it was: red and green and decorated, just as they had said.

I guess I'd expected something more or less Medieval; this looked more as if a children's Sunday school class had done a Christmas project.

Disappointed, though, I was not. It was just astonishingly different. And I had my camera and a close-up. My clothes were filthy. Even my teeth were gritty. But so what?

Someday, in 2082, perhaps, La Sagrada will be all shiny and filled with Catholics, and Gaudi can look down and say, “C’est mon.” But NO!!!  He wouldn't dare speak French, not even Basque. In every part of Spain, La Sagrada is personal, the same way “The Falls” and “The Arch” are here.

Train Travel

With my shiny new bars and a leave that would begin when my train out of Grand Central arrived in Oakland, I anticipated several days of sitting all by myself checking off time zones and just enjoying being a Navy officer. It didn't occur to me that five nights sitting up in a railroad coach might become uncomfortable. If I had, I'd have shrugged them off. Those five days were mine, the first I'd ever had with zero responsibility, and they'd be followed by a very iffy period in some part of the world where I'd be very unwelcome. Until my leave ended, all I needed was to wallow in being an actual officer.

Aboard the N.Y.- Chicago overnighter, everybody smiled, as I pretended not to notice. Furthermore, I was returning to heaven (the city inside the Golden Gate).

Why wasn't I flying? The only planes I'd even seen were the Catalinas passing overhead each evening from Hawaii. They carried mail and a whole six passengers. Daily cross country passenger airlines didn't exist yet.

I'd been smart enough to leave Grand Central on the evening run to Chicago, figuring I'd sleep through the night. I did, and it was well that I had, for when I transferred to the Union Pacific, I acquired a traveling companion who didn't have a ticket, not for the space next to me anyway. Pullmans were literally above my pay scale, and I had casually assumed that I could chair ride my way for the several nights and thousands of miles to home.

There were plenty of others who had scraped pennies together to head west the same way. Three of them boarded at Chicago: a mother and her two really small daughters, whom I guessed to be three and two. They had the seat directly in front of mine. The younger one clung to mother, a small, plump woman whose skin had obviously been toasted by the prairie.

Shy the older one was not. She leaned against the back of her chair, thoroughly studying me. Her eyes strolled over my uniform, sea bag, and cap, even pointing at the doodads on my collar, and squirming to check out my shoes. When, eventually, I smiled, she beamed, her eyes sparkling. Then, in a flash, she was out of her chair and onto the empty space beside me. She fished into my sea bag, holding up various findings for me to identify.

Her mother made a show of disapproval, but she relaxed when I waved her off. She smiled in relieved gratitude. I was about to get some lessons in coping with three year olds.

My friendly flea spent the rest of the day scrutinizing my insignia, my buttons, my pockets, and my cap, eventually wearing it for awhile. She gave an occasional glance out the window at Iowa, which seemed to bore her, then refocused on learning everything Naval. The conductor wasn't worth her time either.  She already knew everything about corn apparently, too. She was equally disinterested in the passengers strolling by to the bathroom.

I did realize that she wouldn't be returning to her mother any time soon. But I hadn’t yet caught on that she had staked all rights to me until the conductor smiled down at her, and she reached up to my arm and pulled on my sleeve. We, she was declaring, are a pair.

And I finally got it when she asked me to take her to the bathroom. Her mother overheard and did her motherly thing, except that I then had the younger child in my lap for awhile. My new attachment did nap occasionally, although her naps were curled up on my lap, or sprawled over my sea bag.

I kept telling myself that Omaha couldn't be too far away. But, actually, it was. By the time we were approaching Omaha, my entire food supply was gone, half in me, half in the child, and I was repeating to myself that this wasn't really so bad, as Omaha was the first major stop ahead. There would be the Rockies and Sierra Nevadas, which I loved. I could last this out.



The West, the real West, was where my heart was, and I'd be following the path of The Mountain Men. I could put up with “Little Miss Perpetual Motion” for a bit longer.

Iowa crept by. The wheels made their monotonous clickety clickety; but the hour hand barely shifted. Telephone poles and scattered trees inched past with no sense of urgency. Omaha seemed to be moving west, too. For a fellow who grew up with sea gulls, turbulent cloudscapes, and the deep rumble of surf, this endless repetition of gently rolling hills of the same color, flat blue skies, in company with dull, bored passengers, weighed heavier and heavier. I needed to close my eyes and day dream. Impossible when a three year old is using you for a playpen.

As I counted the long spaces between minutes, waiting for the conductor to call out, "Omaha," I consoled myself that I would at least have the rest of Nebraska and Utah to sleep until Ogden. I meant to be very awake by Reno where the Sierras would begin - my wonderful land of John Muir! As darkness closed in, the car window presenting only our reflections, the car lights eventually dimming, people slumped into their seats. Newspapers draped over some heads. The night actually passed.

And then it was morning.  Even my wiggle worm had slumbered. A soft pink crept over the undulating fields. The clickety seemed to pick up. My wiggle worm was stretched across my chair, head dangling over the edge, one foot jammed into my midriff. Her sister was mumbling through a dream. Mama was collapsed into a wedged position. From the far end of the car a deep male voice mumbled,

“Omaha.”

Our train slowed with the guttural grumbles of diesel powered pistons bucking the wheels. I leaned forward, telling the mother what lovely daughters she had and how I'd remember this trip.

Mama beamed beatifically as she wrapped up her little one. “Oh, thank you,” she said musically. “But we're going to Cheyenne.”

The crick in my neck hurt again.

Stanford Phone Call

When the Stanford library closed week nights, the campus coffee shop remained open for over another hour. It was routine for students to spend some time “warming down” over refreshments, rarely alone, of course.

I had arranged with a girl in one of my English classes to meet her at her sorority house for some reviewing, and I sat in the sorority lobby to wait for her. I had my notes and coffee change. 
As I waited, the lobby phone rang. Shortly it was answered by a girl who said into the phone, 

“Tri-Delt. Who? Oh, okay. Just a sec.” She then   called up the staircase a name I never paid attention to. 

After a bit, another girl appeared at the foot of the staircase. She picked up the dangling receiver and said, 
“Hello...... Oh, uh, hello.... No, I have a date Saturday night. Uh, yeah, Friday, too..... No, I’m going home the next weekend.... Uh, No, I’m busy the whole next week after that... No, the next.... Oh (bleep!). Come over NOW!”

My kaffee klatch partner arrived at the foot of the     stairs just then. I never had an opportunity to see who that idiot was who had called. I've imagined all sorts of geeks. I wondered if “come over now” meant the coffee shop. But then the girl would be seen with him. NO WAY!

One by Fours

  The intersection of Mission and Eleventh Streets in San Francisco was one of the most heavily trafficked anywhere on the Peninsula. Since the city’s streets are a hodge-podge anyway, laid out on steep hills, following old wagon trails, and loaded with confusing signs, there were no good options.

Probably the most challenging traffic of all took place around the clock at the confluence of Mission and Eleventh. It was like the onset of winter: you don't like it, but you can't do much about it. Sometimes you just have to put up with it.

Besides the natural inconvenience of too many vehicles milling through too little space, the street surfaces were outdated, uneven, too narrow, and clogged with a mishmash of businesses. Even as a child, I recognized that I would mostly be better off somewhere else.

But places are busy exactly because people have to use them.

 On one occasion I had to go from Palo Alto to a business on Market Street a distance from this ugly intersection. No alternative to crossing Mission at Eleventh was available. I shrugged and drove.

The day went well until, after passing San Francisco General Hospital, the string of “middleman” businesses meant vehicles popping out from driveways into traffic – pickups, heavy trucks, salesmen, delivery vehicles, and foot traffic, none of whom seemed to sense that they weren't alone in the city. 

I spent as much time tapping the brake as the gas pedal. I was glad I'd allowed plenty of time to reach my appointment...except that I hadn't.

As the cross traffic at Mission Street came into view, a big straddle-type lumber truck left a lumber yard and took over the spot ahead of me. It was holding enough one-by-fours to provide backing for plaster walls for an entire home. Now I could see nothing beyond the lumber. 

Why the driver had to hit the brakes suddenly and hard I never learned, but jam them on he did: hard and suddenly. The vehicle stopped so suddenly that I also had to slam on my own brakes. Only I was lucky, lucky because everything on my vehicle stayed on my vehicle.

Not so the truck's load. My view was no longer blocked. I could see Mission Street ahead through the straddler, as the load of one-by-fours was now decorating Eleventh for a considerable distance, nearly to Mission.

Naturally, the car behind me honked, as did several other vehicles. The Great American Problem Solver is to honk for any inconvenience. Oncoming traffic across the street stopped. In seconds the street just south of Mission and Eleventh resembled Times Square on New Year's Eve. Pedestrians were leaving shops, others exited parked cars. Most of them were laughing.

 Promptly, several were picking up loose one-by-fours. A few put the lumber on the sidewalk. A few tried to return them to the straddle truck, although they could not figure out where that should be. Some simply walked off with trophies.

I could see that I would be there until the straddle truck could move, as no one was able to go around it. So, I began picking up, too. The straddle driver was busy thanking helpers as he furiously handled wood. My guess is that perhaps most of the one-by-fours eventually got back onto the truck pallet.

When the truck could get to a driveway, I could finally proceed. At last I reached my appointment, definitely late. The secretary smiled.

“You were in 'the mess,' I bet,” she said. “We could hear the honking clear over here. Was it really bad?”

“Well,” I said. “It was this bad.” I showed her my splinter filled hands.

Today that strip is beneath a section of freeway, where cars now speed across Mission and Market to the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay Bridge, the City Hall, the city's downtown, the Park, and my old neighborhood. Dodging one-by-fours is passé.