The other day ... I had the idea of sitting down in the park of the Jesuits (yeap, they did lend it to the town for 95 years, just to have it used by the comunity) to reapeat my Spanish verbal coniugation.
About 20 minutes that I am sitting there and ...
it happens again 
An older man sits down on my bank and, more or less without a bigger "foreplay" is beginning to speak. I do not know what I have as a face or else but elderly people love to speak to me. And to tell me about their life. Very often they are very lonely. Since this is happening quite often, I do not have the heart to block them. Generally I patiently listen and when I feel it is too much, I just say I am sorry and leave. But what happened this day was....surprising.
So this elderly person
begins to speak about his past began to speak and told me tat he had recently and accident that was threatening his life. He had quite luck he told me. "Sabes, tenia mucha suerte". He speaks in perfect castiglian Spanish, good pronounciation, it is easy to follow his thoughts. Astonishingly clear for a person that judging by his aspect is about 75.
Well, he speaks about the more and the less, his familiy and then he comes to the war. So I ask, well the second WW should have touched you since Spain was less involved, wasn't it? "Oh, well", he replies, "I was not speaking about the WW, but about the Spanish civil war". "Because you know, in the first WW I was only 15 years old, so I was not touched by it". I was suddenly realizing that either I had a problem of count or that there was something special to be asked.
"One question senor, how old are you...?" The answer was somehow stunning. The man beside me, walking with the help of his stick around the park, meager but in apparent good condition looked at me and not without a certain pride he did let me know what I already suspected:
"108 years".
The second question was about his health: where you ever sick?
The answer nearly discounted: "No, not one day of my life". He continued with his history, how he did find a work during the civil war and other events.
The thing is that he was in perfect condition, could recall every streetname, office number and what so ever. For a second I was trying to immagine how would it be to have access to his live experience. Maybe we would have a lot of advantage to speak more to who lived time ago. And especially to speak to them differently. About politics, about how did certain things appear to them during the period of war.
Of course with the necessary distance and prudence, but some of this descriptions help to understand a lot of things better.
See history through the eyes of a simple person living at that time.
Unpayable.
Just wanted to share this experience, so next time somebody sits down maybe you will have some idea about what to ask
Aug 18, 2007 @ 10:59:54
what an amazing guy! History is so much more interesting when told through a persons own eyes.
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