Journeys: Bon VoyageTravel literature reveals the very core of the human experience. We all read Homer's The Odyssey as youngsters to learn about the foundations of Western civilization. In the Middle Ages, The Canterbury Tales depicted a collection of pilgrimages. The first "modern" novel, Don Quixote, recounts the misadventures of a pair of hapless travelers. Kerouac's On The Road launched the beatnicks. And more recently, Eat Pray Love and Wild deeply touched millions by unveiling the inner and outer journeys of two young women.
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In its essence, the travel story transports us somewhere we've never been or uncovers unknown details about a place we thought we knew. In my own journeys near and far, I have always pursued travel as an adventure, as a means to learn and discover. Only when we are outside of our element do we learn who we truly are.
These stories tell about some of the places I have visited and lived through the years. My mission is to show where tourists don't go, which the tour books fail to mention, as well as sharing a fresh perspective about better-known locales. |
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Photos from top left: Mt. Hood in Oregon; Roman ruins in Turkey; church in Ouro Preto, Brazil; man leaving mosque after prayers in Oman; bamboo forest on Maui; Italy's Amalfi coast; Mt. Baker in Washington; flamingo in Baja California; Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland; monkeys in Costa Rica
Motovun, Croatia: Visions of Elusive Paradise Before The Pandemic
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This story appears in the August 2020 issue of the online travel magazine Perceptive Travel I awoke in paradise before dawn on my birthday. It seems like half a lifetime ago even though it wasn't long before the coronavirus broke loose and upended everything. In the new reality as we lose our jobs or worry about getting infected, wondering when things will go back to normal as our lives seem stuck in perpetual neutral, we need a vision of paradise, even if only fleeting, to which we can cling. https://www.perceptivetravel.com/ |
Arrival of Electricity Changes Life In Remote Parts Of Rural Brazil
The area where my wife was born and grew up in rural Brazil lacked electricity until the early 1990s. This story, called “The Magic Wire” was published at that time.
The peaceful music of crickets and cicadas, the occasional bark of a dog, have been replaced by the shouting, moaning histrionics of nightly television soap operas.
Electricity, and with it the mesmerizing tube, has come to some of the villages around Virgem da Lapa, a remote town of about 10,000 people in central Brazil.
Millions of Brazilians still live without electricity, running water or telephones. The cost of hooking up to an electric line and buying a meter – about $125 – is more than two months’ income in many rural households.
The peaceful music of crickets and cicadas, the occasional bark of a dog, have been replaced by the shouting, moaning histrionics of nightly television soap operas.
Electricity, and with it the mesmerizing tube, has come to some of the villages around Virgem da Lapa, a remote town of about 10,000 people in central Brazil.
Millions of Brazilians still live without electricity, running water or telephones. The cost of hooking up to an electric line and buying a meter – about $125 – is more than two months’ income in many rural households.
There are now streetlights in the tiny villages outside Virgem da Lapa. Before that, Santana's 100 residents would pass their evenings chatting with friends around candles or kerosene lanterns, sharing homemade biscuits, sometimes sipping a fiery sugar-cane liquor called cachaça.
The tapestry of the night’s gentle noises used to be punctuated occasionally, but not disturbed, by the crackling of a battery-powered radio picking up a temporary signal from a faraway radio station.
Not now.
People cluster silently, almost reverently, in front of TV sets to watch nightly serials called novelas, which Brazilian networks beam from the Amazon to the Argentine border. In the box, lovers argue and flail their arms, lovers coo, lovers find new lovers.
People who don’t have electricity or television visit neighbors who do. Old customs, like gathering around the table for dinner while the last glimmer of daylight slips through the window, are losing ground. For Brazil's 45 million rural poor, nearly one-third of the population, life is a struggle that seems only to get harder.
The arrival of electricity is changing life all over Brazil. According to the census, 68 percent of Brazilian homes had electricity in 1980 and 87 percent in the early 90s. In rural areas, about 19 million people did without. There still is no telephone service to villages near Virgem da Lapa. Rural people often must travel for hours through the dry hills to reach a phone.
Most of the land in the semi-arid region is devoted to grazing livestock. Bananas, mangoes, coffee, oranges and peanuts are cultivated on small, hand-irrigated plots, and sugar cane grows along river banks.
Using electric pumps to irrigate the dry soil would make the land much more productive. “I’d put in a pump and plant lettuce, tomatoes and coffee,” said Deraldo Diamorin Bizerra, but the power line is half a mile away.
Movement to the crowded cities continues and probably will not be reversed. Seventy percent of Brazilians lived in the country in 1950. By the 90s, 70 percent were in the cities, often in slums. Even in the slums, however, they earn more money than on the farm. “Every day, the bus leaves full of people going to Sao Paulo to work in the factories,'' said Diogenes Timos Silva, a former mayor of Virgem da Lapar. South America’s largest metropolis is 775 miles to the south, a 22-hour bus ride.
In this poor region, electricity is a health weapon as well as a convenience. “Light scares off the insects” that carry the parasites of Chagas’ disease, the deadliest affliction of rural Brazil, Silva said.
His father, who also had been mayor, was among the millions of victims of the parasites, which destroy the heart and other vital organs. The parasites live in insects that hide in dark crevices and bite the victims, usually during sleep.
As for television, Silva said it was “projecting vital information people need to improve their lives.”
A former constituent, Santos de Sousa Teixeira, had another view: “What is this good for? People here can’t even afford televisions. They should put in a telephone instead so I could call my children in São Paulo.”
The tapestry of the night’s gentle noises used to be punctuated occasionally, but not disturbed, by the crackling of a battery-powered radio picking up a temporary signal from a faraway radio station.
Not now.
People cluster silently, almost reverently, in front of TV sets to watch nightly serials called novelas, which Brazilian networks beam from the Amazon to the Argentine border. In the box, lovers argue and flail their arms, lovers coo, lovers find new lovers.
People who don’t have electricity or television visit neighbors who do. Old customs, like gathering around the table for dinner while the last glimmer of daylight slips through the window, are losing ground. For Brazil's 45 million rural poor, nearly one-third of the population, life is a struggle that seems only to get harder.
The arrival of electricity is changing life all over Brazil. According to the census, 68 percent of Brazilian homes had electricity in 1980 and 87 percent in the early 90s. In rural areas, about 19 million people did without. There still is no telephone service to villages near Virgem da Lapa. Rural people often must travel for hours through the dry hills to reach a phone.
Most of the land in the semi-arid region is devoted to grazing livestock. Bananas, mangoes, coffee, oranges and peanuts are cultivated on small, hand-irrigated plots, and sugar cane grows along river banks.
Using electric pumps to irrigate the dry soil would make the land much more productive. “I’d put in a pump and plant lettuce, tomatoes and coffee,” said Deraldo Diamorin Bizerra, but the power line is half a mile away.
Movement to the crowded cities continues and probably will not be reversed. Seventy percent of Brazilians lived in the country in 1950. By the 90s, 70 percent were in the cities, often in slums. Even in the slums, however, they earn more money than on the farm. “Every day, the bus leaves full of people going to Sao Paulo to work in the factories,'' said Diogenes Timos Silva, a former mayor of Virgem da Lapar. South America’s largest metropolis is 775 miles to the south, a 22-hour bus ride.
In this poor region, electricity is a health weapon as well as a convenience. “Light scares off the insects” that carry the parasites of Chagas’ disease, the deadliest affliction of rural Brazil, Silva said.
His father, who also had been mayor, was among the millions of victims of the parasites, which destroy the heart and other vital organs. The parasites live in insects that hide in dark crevices and bite the victims, usually during sleep.
As for television, Silva said it was “projecting vital information people need to improve their lives.”
A former constituent, Santos de Sousa Teixeira, had another view: “What is this good for? People here can’t even afford televisions. They should put in a telephone instead so I could call my children in São Paulo.”
Freedom From 24/7: Are We Trapped By Our Reliance On Modern Conveniences?
We had finished dinner, enjoyed a long conversation and afterward were getting ready for bed. It was 7:30, bedtime in the pre-electric days, not that long ago, when we lit kerosene lamps after dark. My wife was sorting through sheets, blankets and mosquito nets, making sure to find a bedpan so we wouldn’t have to stumble over the rocky path to the outhouse at night.
I sat down on the corner of the double bed and it gave way, dumping the mattress and me with it to the floor. My wife and I lifted the mattress and support rack only to find that the thumb-sized chunks of wood that hold up the mattress were fastened with thin nails not fully pounded in. Besides the one that snapped off, another was loose and ready to give way. This needed immediate carpentry surgery.
If we were back home, we would have the 24/7 culture, the all-the-time economy, to fall back on. Light bulb burned out or hungry for Ben & Jerry’s at any hour? The closest supermarket is always open. Computer crash when you urgently need to send an e-mail to your boss or buddy? Call 24-hour tech support. Do you need a hammer, nails or piece of wood to repair a broken bed? Head for a 24-hour big box store.
None of the above applied. We were in the backwoods of Brazil, a place that didn’t even have electricity when our now-adult children were smaller. The closest phone, or store of any kind, is an hour and a half away over a dirt road that shakes loose your entrails and invades your nostrils with clouds of red dust.
Even if we ventured into town at this hour, the hardware closed hours ago. The only places open at this time would be bars. When my wife was growing up here, she used to walk six hours into town carrying a basketful of eggs, sell them for a few coins, then maybe buy some sugar or flour or cooking oil for the family and carry it another six hours back home.
Despite all the conveniences to which we’re accustomed back at home, I probably wouldn’t even bother to fix a broken bed immediately if I were tired. I’d simply put the mattress on the floor and snooze comfortably. But you can’t do that here. Sleeping on the floor would leave you vulnerable to the vector which carries Chagas’ disease. The thumbnail-size insect inhabits cracks in the red tile roof and adobe walls. It attacks in the dead silence of night, burrowing into the skin and laying eggs. The offspring hitchhike through the bloodstream and invade the heart and other vital organs. It might kill you soon or a half-century later. The disease might even lay dormant and never cause damage. Scientists throughout Latin America have been studying this illness for years, but there is no cure, although some treatments show promise.
So, we had to fix the bed. My father-in-law couldn’t find his hammer. It was probably at one of his son’s houses. Although there is now electricity, there are no street lights and going elsewhere would be arduous under a blanket of magnificent stars brushed across the jet black sky. In addition, there is a real danger of stepping on a rattlesnake at night.
That means we had to fall back on a different 24/7, what in Brazil is called “jeitinho,” figuring out a way to make things somehow work. Rely on your own ingenuity. My father-in-law found a fist-size rock outside, a few rusty nails in the shed, and we went to work. We stripped the frame, pulled out the broken nails and pounded in the longer, albeit rusty ones. It took a few attempts, replacing ones that bent, before we had the new supports firmly in place. A few minutes later, we had the bed back together, complete with fitted sheets while a mosquito net firmly protected us from minuscule enemies.
One might wonder why anyone would endure such a hard life. For most people, there is no other choice. With no marketable skills to offer other than tending cattle or raising subsistence crops, such as corn, coffee and sugar cane, many people are hard pressed to earn a living in town. Among the seven siblings in my wife’s family, none remain on the family farm. The rest moved into the closest town or even to São Paulo, 24-hour ride. My in-laws, ironically, did have a choice. They owned a house in town my wife bought for them. But every time they left – the municipal government sends a truck once a week for farmers to carry their wares into town and purchase staples – they can’t wait to get back. It’s too much noise there, with honking horns and people playing loud TVs and radios.
“I’m free to walk around in silence here, completely free,” my mother-in-law liked to say. Even though she endured a long, uncomfortable ride to get treatment for her various ailments, she felt secure from the trappings of modern life in her little corner of the globe.
I sat down on the corner of the double bed and it gave way, dumping the mattress and me with it to the floor. My wife and I lifted the mattress and support rack only to find that the thumb-sized chunks of wood that hold up the mattress were fastened with thin nails not fully pounded in. Besides the one that snapped off, another was loose and ready to give way. This needed immediate carpentry surgery.
If we were back home, we would have the 24/7 culture, the all-the-time economy, to fall back on. Light bulb burned out or hungry for Ben & Jerry’s at any hour? The closest supermarket is always open. Computer crash when you urgently need to send an e-mail to your boss or buddy? Call 24-hour tech support. Do you need a hammer, nails or piece of wood to repair a broken bed? Head for a 24-hour big box store.
None of the above applied. We were in the backwoods of Brazil, a place that didn’t even have electricity when our now-adult children were smaller. The closest phone, or store of any kind, is an hour and a half away over a dirt road that shakes loose your entrails and invades your nostrils with clouds of red dust.
Even if we ventured into town at this hour, the hardware closed hours ago. The only places open at this time would be bars. When my wife was growing up here, she used to walk six hours into town carrying a basketful of eggs, sell them for a few coins, then maybe buy some sugar or flour or cooking oil for the family and carry it another six hours back home.
Despite all the conveniences to which we’re accustomed back at home, I probably wouldn’t even bother to fix a broken bed immediately if I were tired. I’d simply put the mattress on the floor and snooze comfortably. But you can’t do that here. Sleeping on the floor would leave you vulnerable to the vector which carries Chagas’ disease. The thumbnail-size insect inhabits cracks in the red tile roof and adobe walls. It attacks in the dead silence of night, burrowing into the skin and laying eggs. The offspring hitchhike through the bloodstream and invade the heart and other vital organs. It might kill you soon or a half-century later. The disease might even lay dormant and never cause damage. Scientists throughout Latin America have been studying this illness for years, but there is no cure, although some treatments show promise.
So, we had to fix the bed. My father-in-law couldn’t find his hammer. It was probably at one of his son’s houses. Although there is now electricity, there are no street lights and going elsewhere would be arduous under a blanket of magnificent stars brushed across the jet black sky. In addition, there is a real danger of stepping on a rattlesnake at night.
That means we had to fall back on a different 24/7, what in Brazil is called “jeitinho,” figuring out a way to make things somehow work. Rely on your own ingenuity. My father-in-law found a fist-size rock outside, a few rusty nails in the shed, and we went to work. We stripped the frame, pulled out the broken nails and pounded in the longer, albeit rusty ones. It took a few attempts, replacing ones that bent, before we had the new supports firmly in place. A few minutes later, we had the bed back together, complete with fitted sheets while a mosquito net firmly protected us from minuscule enemies.
One might wonder why anyone would endure such a hard life. For most people, there is no other choice. With no marketable skills to offer other than tending cattle or raising subsistence crops, such as corn, coffee and sugar cane, many people are hard pressed to earn a living in town. Among the seven siblings in my wife’s family, none remain on the family farm. The rest moved into the closest town or even to São Paulo, 24-hour ride. My in-laws, ironically, did have a choice. They owned a house in town my wife bought for them. But every time they left – the municipal government sends a truck once a week for farmers to carry their wares into town and purchase staples – they can’t wait to get back. It’s too much noise there, with honking horns and people playing loud TVs and radios.
“I’m free to walk around in silence here, completely free,” my mother-in-law liked to say. Even though she endured a long, uncomfortable ride to get treatment for her various ailments, she felt secure from the trappings of modern life in her little corner of the globe.
Night Of The Grizzly: Inches Away From A Galloping Bear
It was not a dark and stormy night. In fact, it was a cool, clear and crisp summer evening a mile high in the Sierra Nevada as I dozed off into a worry-free, peaceful slumber, the kind you can enjoy only as a child or when on vacation, far from your everyday life, worries and the knot of always-unfinished tasks at home and work.
There was a downside to this idyllic scene: a lumpy sleeping bag, rocks beneath the foam pad, cramped quarters in our tent. But it’s worth the minor inconveniences to feel the majesty of nature. We were breathing pure mountain air, invigorated by the scent of trees and flowers, with no television or music except chirping crickets. A canopy of twinkling stars rarely seen in the city spread over Sequoia National Park, a view impeded only by trees. Despite the discomforts, my son, Joseph, was already snoozing as youth are wont to nod off in seconds while middle age adults need to settle more gradually into our fleeting slumber.
At the exact point my rest was dissolving into sleep, I heard the faint sound of silverware beating on pans from another campground far in the distance. Like a silly human wave at a sporting event, it moved closer to us and began echoing off the mountainsides until it became obvious that it was going to start sweeping us along.
This meant only one thing: A wild bear was on the prowl. You see pictures of the 1930s when national parks allowed bears to eat at trash dumps, to the delight of grinning shutterbugs. That policy has evolved. Nowadays, everyone gets the same detailed lecture when checking into a campground in bear country. Rangers explain how the beasts who get used to human food usually have to be destroyed because they become dangerous. For this reason, the parks have “bear boxes” with foolproof, heavy latches where all food must be stowed out of reach. Trash cans, likewise, are all bear-proof. The rangers take seriously their duty to protect bears, and so do most visitors. Negligent visitors are fined $500.
The rangers told us earlier that a year-old cub who weighed about 300 pounds recently was let loose by its mother and had been making the rounds frequently in these campgrounds.
It was nearly midnight, and this was not something I wanted to deal with in the dark. My arms and legs ached from strenuous hiking on mountain trails. Sure, bears are a joy to glimpse in the wild. The previous summer, we had spotted a whole den frolicking around Yellowstone. One had bolted up a tree to get away from the crowds who gleefully closed in and snapped pictures. At this hour, however, a bear was a nuisance at best; at worst, he posed a possible, even deadly, threat. This bear’s timing, however, was not my choice. It was his.
I wanted to stay snug in my warm sleeping bag, but suspecting that the bear was coming our way, I grabbed my flashlight, unzipped the tent and lumbered out clumsily just in time to see a black bear in the moonlight (it had brown fur but was classified as a black bear) – a little bigger than waist high – gallop by and graze our tent only inches from where Joseph peacefully snored, oblivious to the commotion.
Accompanied by another camper chasing the bear, I ran along trying to harass the critter away from the campground, as the rangers explained is their practice. Suddenly, the bear stopped a few feet away from us and rammed its nose into a cardboard box leaned against a tree in the camp spot next to ours. Honey? I shined my flashlight and saw that he was munching on yummy leftovers from a flat of strawberries.
I yelled out to them – just in case they hadn’t understood the rangers – that their sloppily disposed dessert was attracting the bear and that they were subject to a huge fine. A woman’s voice from the tent responded to me: “Go away, mind your own business.”
So it wasn’t a matter of not knowing the rules. They simply didn’t care. I yelled back that they might very well be responsible for this bear being destroyed and that I would report them to the rangers. At this hour, I couldn’t find any. The next morning, I saw this family sneak out at daybreak before 6. I took down their license plate and gave it to the rangers when they made their rounds later so they could find these folks if they stopped later in another campground.
My family went to national parks when I was a child. I first saw the beauty of Yosemite as a youth and was in awe of the natural splendor. Why do people bother to go to a national park if they don’t even have the minimum respect for nature?
The next morning over breakfast, I explained the importance of not feeding bears. Joseph, who had missed all the action, had only one response: “Gee, Dad. Why didn’t you wake me up so I could see it?”
There was a downside to this idyllic scene: a lumpy sleeping bag, rocks beneath the foam pad, cramped quarters in our tent. But it’s worth the minor inconveniences to feel the majesty of nature. We were breathing pure mountain air, invigorated by the scent of trees and flowers, with no television or music except chirping crickets. A canopy of twinkling stars rarely seen in the city spread over Sequoia National Park, a view impeded only by trees. Despite the discomforts, my son, Joseph, was already snoozing as youth are wont to nod off in seconds while middle age adults need to settle more gradually into our fleeting slumber.
At the exact point my rest was dissolving into sleep, I heard the faint sound of silverware beating on pans from another campground far in the distance. Like a silly human wave at a sporting event, it moved closer to us and began echoing off the mountainsides until it became obvious that it was going to start sweeping us along.
This meant only one thing: A wild bear was on the prowl. You see pictures of the 1930s when national parks allowed bears to eat at trash dumps, to the delight of grinning shutterbugs. That policy has evolved. Nowadays, everyone gets the same detailed lecture when checking into a campground in bear country. Rangers explain how the beasts who get used to human food usually have to be destroyed because they become dangerous. For this reason, the parks have “bear boxes” with foolproof, heavy latches where all food must be stowed out of reach. Trash cans, likewise, are all bear-proof. The rangers take seriously their duty to protect bears, and so do most visitors. Negligent visitors are fined $500.
The rangers told us earlier that a year-old cub who weighed about 300 pounds recently was let loose by its mother and had been making the rounds frequently in these campgrounds.
It was nearly midnight, and this was not something I wanted to deal with in the dark. My arms and legs ached from strenuous hiking on mountain trails. Sure, bears are a joy to glimpse in the wild. The previous summer, we had spotted a whole den frolicking around Yellowstone. One had bolted up a tree to get away from the crowds who gleefully closed in and snapped pictures. At this hour, however, a bear was a nuisance at best; at worst, he posed a possible, even deadly, threat. This bear’s timing, however, was not my choice. It was his.
I wanted to stay snug in my warm sleeping bag, but suspecting that the bear was coming our way, I grabbed my flashlight, unzipped the tent and lumbered out clumsily just in time to see a black bear in the moonlight (it had brown fur but was classified as a black bear) – a little bigger than waist high – gallop by and graze our tent only inches from where Joseph peacefully snored, oblivious to the commotion.
Accompanied by another camper chasing the bear, I ran along trying to harass the critter away from the campground, as the rangers explained is their practice. Suddenly, the bear stopped a few feet away from us and rammed its nose into a cardboard box leaned against a tree in the camp spot next to ours. Honey? I shined my flashlight and saw that he was munching on yummy leftovers from a flat of strawberries.
I yelled out to them – just in case they hadn’t understood the rangers – that their sloppily disposed dessert was attracting the bear and that they were subject to a huge fine. A woman’s voice from the tent responded to me: “Go away, mind your own business.”
So it wasn’t a matter of not knowing the rules. They simply didn’t care. I yelled back that they might very well be responsible for this bear being destroyed and that I would report them to the rangers. At this hour, I couldn’t find any. The next morning, I saw this family sneak out at daybreak before 6. I took down their license plate and gave it to the rangers when they made their rounds later so they could find these folks if they stopped later in another campground.
My family went to national parks when I was a child. I first saw the beauty of Yosemite as a youth and was in awe of the natural splendor. Why do people bother to go to a national park if they don’t even have the minimum respect for nature?
The next morning over breakfast, I explained the importance of not feeding bears. Joseph, who had missed all the action, had only one response: “Gee, Dad. Why didn’t you wake me up so I could see it?”
Blinded By The Lights Amid A Blistering Heat Wave And Energy Crisis
It was a summer day in California hot enough to roast marshmallows – which, in fact, happened inadvertently in our car – without the fun or work of a campfire. The endless Central Valley sizzled at 109 degrees that day, the hottest day of the year so far, and particularly noticeable to foolishly vulnerable folks riding in a rustbucket without the benefits of air conditioning. Even the starving classes on the cool Greyhounds traveled in greater comfort.
Violent heat wave or not, the heat overshadowed the energy crisis that gripped California at the time. Public service announcements shouted out about saving energy and not running air conditioning more than necessary.
Who’d have guessed that our marshmallows – some of which we had just roasted the night before over a campfire high in the mountains – would morph into a blistering, milky mush of primordial goop? I came upon the liquid mass when my fingers poked into the soft package while rummaging through the trunk when we stopped for lunch.
The only salvation that day was the distant hope, seemingly a mirage, of knowing that we were heading toward the relatively cooler California coast, albeit far slower than the Sonic Cruiser pace we wished for. My son and I gulped down water and soft drinks from our ice chest and rubbed ice cubes over our warm skin. Still, we had hours more of this hellish oven in front of us before we would feel even a remote sense of relief.
That morning we had left Yosemite National Park, where we camped at just below 10,000 feet; nights dipped down into the frosty upper 20s, even in the summer. It felt as if we had just gone from Alaska to Death Valley, when in a matter of hours we experienced the greatest of temperature extremes.
Our destination that afternoon was a surprise for my sports addled son, Joseph. He could recite arcane data about teams and players as well as any glib play-by-play announcer. You’d think he had tapped into the bowels of a sports almanac’s central database. My only contribution to his ravenous devouring of sports trivia was being able to recount my impressions of seeing the likes of my childhood favorites, Willie Mays and Roger Maris, play when I was a youngster. Still, I disappointed him by failing to recall all the facts and figures about their magnificent careers.
As a treat, between the high Sierras and North Coast redwoods, I decided on the spur of the moment to take Joseph to a ball game after spotting a news article saying that the Oakland A’s were playing at home that afternoon. Passing through Oakland was on the way and one of numerous routes we could travel. When we finally reached the ticket booth at Oakland Coliseum, I begged the clerk: “I don’t care what the tickets cost, and it doesn’t matter what kind of view we have. The only important thing is to get seats in the shade.”
By this point, we were in the relatively cooler Bay Area, where the thermometer was only 90 degrees. We had stripped off our drenching shirts in the parking lot and replaced them with clean, dry ones but still felt oppressed by the relentless sun. Shade was too much to ask for. The only tickets for sale were in the bleachers, directly beneath the sun that had punished all day as soon as we descended from the mountains to the lowlands.
We arrived at the stadium about 4:30 for a game that was to begin at 6. I had envisioned picking up some sandwiches, taking them to a waterfront park for dinner in the shade of trees and a waterfront breeze, then returning to the game when it began. But we had to pay for parking just to buy the tickets and could not leave the parking lot without paying again. Instead, we grabbed typical stadium fare to eat and headed for our seats.
There was no shade in the bleachers. The shady common areas below had no place to sit. We got the biggest drink cup available and lapped down some fruit punch. We splashed our faces in a bathroom sink. Nothing, however, could relieve the cruel, burning heat.
Joseph was oblivious to the heat, thrilled to see batting practice, while I suffered and prayed for the sunset that took too long to arrive. The first welcome, cooling gust didn’t reach us until the seventh-inning stretch.
Before the game got under way, we were subjected to a bizarre announcement. It was sort of like those disclaimers you hear on radio stations about not being responsible for the inflammatory opinions and remarks by the bigmouthed bigots they hire as talk-show hosts. In this disclaimer, however, the stadium announcer reminded us to save energy at home and warned that the Oakland A’s were not responsible in the event an unexpected rolling blackout plunged the stadium into unexpected darkness.
What darkness? We were enduring the brightest sunshine imaginable, while dozens of searing, powerful floodlights shone as if it were pitch dark. Hearing the statement under such conditions embodied a surreal oxymoron. If the players could not see the ball or fans could not see the field without the lights, something was wrong. The electricity sucked up by those floodlights could power a small town for days. The game ended about 8:30, and it was still light outside. The sun had just set by then, thanks to daylight savings time.
Before an announcer warns us about potential blackouts, telling us to turn off air conditioning on a day when it’s 109, perhaps he should look around him. Then again, maybe he didn’t notice because he was blinded by the lights.
Violent heat wave or not, the heat overshadowed the energy crisis that gripped California at the time. Public service announcements shouted out about saving energy and not running air conditioning more than necessary.
Who’d have guessed that our marshmallows – some of which we had just roasted the night before over a campfire high in the mountains – would morph into a blistering, milky mush of primordial goop? I came upon the liquid mass when my fingers poked into the soft package while rummaging through the trunk when we stopped for lunch.
The only salvation that day was the distant hope, seemingly a mirage, of knowing that we were heading toward the relatively cooler California coast, albeit far slower than the Sonic Cruiser pace we wished for. My son and I gulped down water and soft drinks from our ice chest and rubbed ice cubes over our warm skin. Still, we had hours more of this hellish oven in front of us before we would feel even a remote sense of relief.
That morning we had left Yosemite National Park, where we camped at just below 10,000 feet; nights dipped down into the frosty upper 20s, even in the summer. It felt as if we had just gone from Alaska to Death Valley, when in a matter of hours we experienced the greatest of temperature extremes.
Our destination that afternoon was a surprise for my sports addled son, Joseph. He could recite arcane data about teams and players as well as any glib play-by-play announcer. You’d think he had tapped into the bowels of a sports almanac’s central database. My only contribution to his ravenous devouring of sports trivia was being able to recount my impressions of seeing the likes of my childhood favorites, Willie Mays and Roger Maris, play when I was a youngster. Still, I disappointed him by failing to recall all the facts and figures about their magnificent careers.
As a treat, between the high Sierras and North Coast redwoods, I decided on the spur of the moment to take Joseph to a ball game after spotting a news article saying that the Oakland A’s were playing at home that afternoon. Passing through Oakland was on the way and one of numerous routes we could travel. When we finally reached the ticket booth at Oakland Coliseum, I begged the clerk: “I don’t care what the tickets cost, and it doesn’t matter what kind of view we have. The only important thing is to get seats in the shade.”
By this point, we were in the relatively cooler Bay Area, where the thermometer was only 90 degrees. We had stripped off our drenching shirts in the parking lot and replaced them with clean, dry ones but still felt oppressed by the relentless sun. Shade was too much to ask for. The only tickets for sale were in the bleachers, directly beneath the sun that had punished all day as soon as we descended from the mountains to the lowlands.
We arrived at the stadium about 4:30 for a game that was to begin at 6. I had envisioned picking up some sandwiches, taking them to a waterfront park for dinner in the shade of trees and a waterfront breeze, then returning to the game when it began. But we had to pay for parking just to buy the tickets and could not leave the parking lot without paying again. Instead, we grabbed typical stadium fare to eat and headed for our seats.
There was no shade in the bleachers. The shady common areas below had no place to sit. We got the biggest drink cup available and lapped down some fruit punch. We splashed our faces in a bathroom sink. Nothing, however, could relieve the cruel, burning heat.
Joseph was oblivious to the heat, thrilled to see batting practice, while I suffered and prayed for the sunset that took too long to arrive. The first welcome, cooling gust didn’t reach us until the seventh-inning stretch.
Before the game got under way, we were subjected to a bizarre announcement. It was sort of like those disclaimers you hear on radio stations about not being responsible for the inflammatory opinions and remarks by the bigmouthed bigots they hire as talk-show hosts. In this disclaimer, however, the stadium announcer reminded us to save energy at home and warned that the Oakland A’s were not responsible in the event an unexpected rolling blackout plunged the stadium into unexpected darkness.
What darkness? We were enduring the brightest sunshine imaginable, while dozens of searing, powerful floodlights shone as if it were pitch dark. Hearing the statement under such conditions embodied a surreal oxymoron. If the players could not see the ball or fans could not see the field without the lights, something was wrong. The electricity sucked up by those floodlights could power a small town for days. The game ended about 8:30, and it was still light outside. The sun had just set by then, thanks to daylight savings time.
Before an announcer warns us about potential blackouts, telling us to turn off air conditioning on a day when it’s 109, perhaps he should look around him. Then again, maybe he didn’t notice because he was blinded by the lights.
Flutes, Guitar Bring Echoes of the Andes to New York Subway
I was intrigued by the multiple buskers when I lived in New York City in the early 1990s. This story was published at the time.
Andean music, which for centuries has echoed off pristine South American mountain peaks, now fills gritty New York subway stations with haunting flute-and-string tunes.
Los Incas, a South American duo named for the Indians who dominated the Andes for centuries, are among a variety of musicians who perform every day in the underground subway stations, part of the city’s mass transit system.
The buskers’ style and quality range the world: a classical violinist from Moscow, jazz saxophonists, lilting Caribbean pan drums, Argentine “tangueros,” even a blind accordian player.
The Andean musicians, six-year veterans of subway playing, have learned that marketing savvy helps. “We feel the wind, we know a train is coming. We set up songs. By the time the door opens, we’re in the climax of the song,” says Geovanni, whose long, black hair flows over a vest made of old brightly colored blankets. “We have to turn the songs into the speed of how people are rushing out (of the subway),” the 35-year-old Ecuador native explains as he waits for another subway train to whoosh into the station. “If you play slow songs, people don’t stop and listen.”
Clunk. Someone drops a handful of change into a guitar case.
One fan is 68-year-old Natolio Kotliar. “This kind of music is 1,000 years old,” says Kotliar, who has heard many musicians from Argentina’s Andean region in his native Buenos Aires.
Walter Penaranda, known as “El Vate,” or the poet, plays alongside Geovanni with a zamponia, made of wooden flutes of different lengths bound together. Both men are versatile. Geovanni, who didn’t give his last name, mostly strums guitar but also plays wind instruments. El Vate, a native of Lima, Peru, also plays on other flutes which dangle from his neck. Their music consists of variations of “El Condor Pasa” as well as Andean folk tunes and original compositions. A half-dozen other Andean groups also work the same territory, Geovanni said.
Geovanni explained that six years ago he lost his job as a government employee and teamed up to play music with a friend who had lost employment as a carpenter. “We got laid off and hit the streets,” he said. He and his partner later split up.
El Vate said his lyrics sometimes reflect a brush with death he experienced after a motorcycle accident two years ago. “I was in a coma for 17 days. In my dreams I saw two doors. I went through one door, I chose life,” he said. He added that music helped “rebuild my life.”
A song ends, and a little girl puts a coin in a musician's hand.
It’s a fleeting kind of fame. Dozens of people sometimes crowd around. Some listeners leave the station or board a train, then a few passengers from the next flow stop a moment. Some musicians concentrate on midtown stations, where they can attract good tips from commuters and tourists. Others play in outlying neighborhoods. Latin American musicians often show up in stations where their co-nationals live. The same applies for and other ethnic music styles.
Subway musicians say the life is sometimes difficult. “What we do is pleasurable, but it’s also a hard job,” said Geovanni. “We're on our feet long hours ... extremes of weather, noise.” Also guards. Transit police remove musicians on occasion.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ban on begging in the subways, the high court did not ban musicians from performing. But officers may eject musicians if they’re on a crowded platform and people are having trouble getting around them or if they use amplifiers, which violate the city’s noise codes, said Bob Slovak, a spokesman for the city’s Transit Authority.
“Police feel that this is not a job,” Geovanni said with a touch of resentment. “Sometimes it's a seven-day, 12-hour a day job. We don't come here to make noise and fool around. We come here to earn and succeed.”
Andean music, which for centuries has echoed off pristine South American mountain peaks, now fills gritty New York subway stations with haunting flute-and-string tunes.
Los Incas, a South American duo named for the Indians who dominated the Andes for centuries, are among a variety of musicians who perform every day in the underground subway stations, part of the city’s mass transit system.
The buskers’ style and quality range the world: a classical violinist from Moscow, jazz saxophonists, lilting Caribbean pan drums, Argentine “tangueros,” even a blind accordian player.
The Andean musicians, six-year veterans of subway playing, have learned that marketing savvy helps. “We feel the wind, we know a train is coming. We set up songs. By the time the door opens, we’re in the climax of the song,” says Geovanni, whose long, black hair flows over a vest made of old brightly colored blankets. “We have to turn the songs into the speed of how people are rushing out (of the subway),” the 35-year-old Ecuador native explains as he waits for another subway train to whoosh into the station. “If you play slow songs, people don’t stop and listen.”
Clunk. Someone drops a handful of change into a guitar case.
One fan is 68-year-old Natolio Kotliar. “This kind of music is 1,000 years old,” says Kotliar, who has heard many musicians from Argentina’s Andean region in his native Buenos Aires.
Walter Penaranda, known as “El Vate,” or the poet, plays alongside Geovanni with a zamponia, made of wooden flutes of different lengths bound together. Both men are versatile. Geovanni, who didn’t give his last name, mostly strums guitar but also plays wind instruments. El Vate, a native of Lima, Peru, also plays on other flutes which dangle from his neck. Their music consists of variations of “El Condor Pasa” as well as Andean folk tunes and original compositions. A half-dozen other Andean groups also work the same territory, Geovanni said.
Geovanni explained that six years ago he lost his job as a government employee and teamed up to play music with a friend who had lost employment as a carpenter. “We got laid off and hit the streets,” he said. He and his partner later split up.
El Vate said his lyrics sometimes reflect a brush with death he experienced after a motorcycle accident two years ago. “I was in a coma for 17 days. In my dreams I saw two doors. I went through one door, I chose life,” he said. He added that music helped “rebuild my life.”
A song ends, and a little girl puts a coin in a musician's hand.
It’s a fleeting kind of fame. Dozens of people sometimes crowd around. Some listeners leave the station or board a train, then a few passengers from the next flow stop a moment. Some musicians concentrate on midtown stations, where they can attract good tips from commuters and tourists. Others play in outlying neighborhoods. Latin American musicians often show up in stations where their co-nationals live. The same applies for and other ethnic music styles.
Subway musicians say the life is sometimes difficult. “What we do is pleasurable, but it’s also a hard job,” said Geovanni. “We're on our feet long hours ... extremes of weather, noise.” Also guards. Transit police remove musicians on occasion.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ban on begging in the subways, the high court did not ban musicians from performing. But officers may eject musicians if they’re on a crowded platform and people are having trouble getting around them or if they use amplifiers, which violate the city’s noise codes, said Bob Slovak, a spokesman for the city’s Transit Authority.
“Police feel that this is not a job,” Geovanni said with a touch of resentment. “Sometimes it's a seven-day, 12-hour a day job. We don't come here to make noise and fool around. We come here to earn and succeed.”