I write today mainly to put a stop to the incessant cards and letters asking why it has been so long since my last essay. This, I have thought, must be what it has been like for Kevin Costner and the producers of Yellowstone.
Why the radio silence? It is not that nothing has happened. Denise and I went to a six day music festival in Budapest. That was something. Clarity, our eldest, bought a bar in Alicante. That also was something. We flew to Texas and watched as Donald Trump was once again elected president of the United States. I am not sure what that was, but (and I think people of all political persuasions will agree) it definitely was something.
And yet, today I write about nothing. Just a brief anecdote that does not involve rock music, taverns, elections, or a Montana cowboy who brands his employees and has a secret place for disposing of his enemies’ bodies.
Yesterday Denise and I were walking along our little road, which should be a one-way street but somehow accommodates vehicles going both directions, and commented on the tower which is about a quarter or half mile from our house. It is a stone structure, maybe four stories high, that the owner recently improved, applying fresh mortar and a new roof. He also rebuilt the stone archway serving as a gated introduction to his property.
We were commenting on the improvements when the doorway opened and a small Spanish man popped out and introduced himself. He said he was Viciente, and has always lived in the house abutting the tower. He invited us to cross the threshold, under the archway, which we did.
Viciente spoke a little English, which was much more that our miniscule Spanish. He said that before retiring he was the mailman for this neighborhood. We were impressed.
I asked Viciente about the tower, but my questions hinged on an English vocabulary that exceeded his grasp. We nonetheless had a delightful conversation until workmen appeared. Viciente had been waiting for them.
Viciente’s house, the one attached to the tower, is a huge sprawling building that could have been two stories but, given how high ceilings tend to be these old Spanish houses, may have been only one. Viciente said the tower was 500 years old, the archway only 300 years old, and the house was built a mere 200 years earlier. Let me put that in perspective for my American friends. The tower was built about the time an English colonist was carving a date in Plymouth Rock, the archway predated the American revolution, and the house was built well before Abraham Lincoln started practicing law.
The tower was a place of refuge. Back in the day, Barbary pirates would raid the Spanish coast and steal stuff and rape women and enslave people of both sexes. Apparently they were upset about the Spanish queen expelling all the Moors so that she could have a uniformly Christian nation that adhered to the strict Catholic principles embodied in the Spanish Inquisition.
Today is different. A recent Forbes article ranked all the cities in the entire world according “livability.” According to Forbes, Valencia is the best place to live. Alicante is the third best. Spain has four cities in the top seven. This is because Spain, having resolved its problems with the Moors, is a pretty safe place to live. Nowadays, the Africans in Spain almost never enslave anyone.
Nobody is tearing down those old towers, however. No, sir. Viciente and his fellow tower owners are keeping these refuges in good working order.
I suppose you can’t be too careful.