A Land Where Chairs on Wheels Don’t Exist
Monday, May 17th, 2010
Spaniards are the longest lived people on earth
said Enrique, our nimble tour guide,
and who would argue with him, telling us
Spanish olive oil ranked Number One too,
much of it carted to Italy so Italianos
can slap their red-white-and-green label on it.
The Spanish speak four different languages,
each incomprehensible from the other,
making it burdensome for a tour leader
to move around easily and convey knowledge.
But it’s easy to see why the Spaniard lives
so long – he and she walk! Walk briskly,
everywhere, striding like marathoners,
thinking while ambulatory, only good thoughts,
for frowns are rare, perhaps even forbidden.
The Catholic Church finally gave up
its Inquisitional ways long ago, and cathedrals
are everywhere, offering mass every hour
some days, the godly on strudy bent knees,
defying the church’s supplication to give it
more children, the godly more interested in
the fun part of sex rather than the reproductive.
We did see one rather young fellow in a
mechanized wheelchair, though he seemed
more interested in speed rather than recovery,
probably one of Spain’s many NASCAR nuts.
There is little fault about Spain and the Spanish -
the streets are pristine clean, the highways
uncrowded, maneuverable, the food in great
variety and tasty, the women slim and
fashionable, the men….who gives a shit?
But one fault: few, very few, speak English.
Imagine that: we go all the way over there,
toss our dollars at them, and they don’t speak
our language. Makes you wonder, eh?
Note: Irene and I are recently back from Spain – Madrid, Toledo, Avila, Salamanca, Zaragoza, Laguardia, Bilbao, and Barcelona – loving every minute of it. Spain is clean, underpopulated, proud, polite, p0lished, and healthy, both in mind and body. Immigrants are welcome, to do the unpleasant jobs the natives prefer to hire out. Think about that a minute. Their life expectancy is something like 88 years. So, what’s wrong with us? Nothing really, and it’s always good to return home, even after a two quick weeks. We stayed abroad nearly ten weeks once, and I came home, kissed the ground at the airport, immediately went off for a juicy cheeseburger. Did about the same this time, too.
