It’s Spring, the sun is shining (when precipitation is not pouring down upon us), and my best friend and spouse is refinishing the nest, applying ideas she has gleaned from a winter of Home and Garden TV.
It’s time to paint the garage, moving shelves, possibly making more usable space into which will, within months, funnel more stuff that needs stored. That’s the way with garages. You clear a path, and it fills itself in, like silt in a stream bed — nourishing to plant life but difficult for human passage.
I have a deeply rooted aversion to cleaning out the flotsam and jetsam I’ve acquired over the years. Now and then I poke into it, and some piece will trigger a flood of memories. Like the cigar box my wife found while clearing a path to the garage walls.
The box is what remains of an enjoyable supply of Vega V cigars by José Melendi. In it, there was a Polaroid picture of the remains of a 1940-something Aeronca 7AC Champ, a pipe and canvas two-seat aircraft with an engine about as powerful as a sewing machine.
The plane was one of two owned by the flying club at Naval Air Station Rota, Spain when I was stationed there over the winter and spring of 1967-68. I enjoyed flying it, until one day the “the rubber band broke” and the plane landed in an olive tree somewhere near Granada, Spain.
I saw leaves scatter as though trying to escape from the path of the craft settling into the branches. Then I was standing on the ground, alone, looking up at the stricken craft. Jimmy Buffett says any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. To be able to reuse the airplane is a bonus. No bonus for me, but I did walk away from it.
The night before, I had become lost in the mountains and decided it would be prudent to land someplace and ask directions. I found a convenient tractor path along the border of an olive orchard, near a small village, and set down. Within a few minutes, a pickup truck came by, loaded front and back with young people. I didn’t know much Spanish, and they didn’t know any English, but they invited me into the truck and took me to the village.
They introduced me to a hostel keeper, and went on their way in search of an evening’s youthful pleasure.
The hostel was a family affair, with mom and dad and a couple of late-teen offspring sharing their home with travelers. They treated me to a walking tour of their town, including a visit to the local bodega, where, it turned out, a very nice wine was available for local sale. of which a half-dozen bottles became my souvenirs.
And they gave me a warm place to spend the night.
Next morning, we shared breakfast, during which I attempted to learn what I owed for my room and board. The proprietor and his wife simultaneously would not accept my money, with looks I was slow to realize indicated I had messed up.
Still, I insisted. After all, it was how they earned their living, and back home, a motel clerk would have demanded I hand over my credit card before showing me to a bed.
Finally, one of the breakfast guests suggested I walk with him. He was a sergeant in the Guardia Civil — the Spanish national police force — and the sole law officer in the area. He explained the family had offered me a gift of hospitality.
“When we go back, they will take your money,” he said, “but if you pay them, you will not be welcome here again.”
A short time later, my pesetas still in my pocket, I climbed into the Champ and headed back down the tractor path.
I spent that night in a rural clinic, cared for by some pretty great doctors and nurses.
I don’t recall the name of the village, nor the names of the family or the sergeant.
But I remember the lesson, the first of many I would learn about residents of homelands other than my own.
To borrow from humorist Will Rogers, I’ve traveled quite a bit in 60-plus years, and many of the roads have been unpaved.
I wonder what else is in those cardboard boxes in the garage.
Readers may contact John Messeder at john@jmesseder.net.