Last Call For Alcohol

The bar is closing as the clock nears three,

And the waiter sings his very last phrase

To the guys and dolls in the very last phase of life,

Strife and dissipation.

So the waiters speak again,

And the drinkers seek again:

Another bar to outlet all their blues.

“Last call for booze!”

“Last call for alcohol!”

So the waiters sing their mournful cry

To the men and women who want to die,

Cause they can’t continue their supply of alcohol.

How quite unfortunate,

As you listen to their importunate pleas of,

“Please, buddy, can’t you spare another drink?”

How ominous that last phrase sounds

As the realization hits them

That they can’t get any more rounds

Of whisky or gin,

Or anything else that’ll let them in

To the land of Oobladee.

When you ask them why they drink,

They stop, they pause, they think.

And what excuses they all give,

Such as, “This is really livin’ “

Or, “The job’s a bore…’

‘Can’t take no more of life!

What strife!

So they’ll stay as long as they can stall,

Until their weary faces fall

And Jimmy utters his last call:

“Last call for alcohol.”

“Last call for alcohol.”

©Last Call For Alcohol 1953

Lyrics; Our Times, Our Culture;

Arlene Corwin

(1922-2001) Militar de carrera, el coronel Kopácsi había sido nombrado en 1953 jefe de la policía de Budapest. Aliado de Imre Nagy, se comprometió activamente con la insurrección de otoño de 1956 y colaboró en la organización de la Milicia Nacional. Formó parte de la comisión gestora del Partido Socialista Obrero Húngaro presidida por Kádár. Procesado en 1958 como miembro del grupo de Nagy, fue condenado a cadena perpetua. La amnistía de 1963 lo dejó en libertad. En 1975 emigró a Canadá y sólo regresó a Hungría en 1989 al desplomarse el sistema socialista.

“Call me Madam” is a drinking game of a 1950s musical.  Charming leading actors (Ethel Merman and Donald O’Connor)?  Drink.  Charming supporting actors (George Sanders and Vera Ellen)?  Drink.  Fun music?  Beautiful dance sequences?  Everyone falling in love?  Drink.  Drink.  Drink.  If “Call Me Madam” were any more cookie cutter, you’d be boozed to your ears.  If “Call Me Madam” were any less cookie cutter, it wouldn’t be charming at all.

In “Call Me Madam”, Ethel Merman and her brassy, air horn voice play a rich oil widow, Sally Adams, who becomes an ambassador to Lichtenburg.  Donald O’Connor and his glorious comedic talent, plays Kenneth, the press attaché to Miss Adams.  Sally falls in love with the handsome, baritone foreign minister (George Sanders), and Kenneth falls in love with a princess.  And everyone lives happily ever after.  There’s nothing new or experimental in “Call Me Madam”, and that’s precisely what makes it so great.

It works like this:  Every 1950s musical is meant to give you a world of sunshine and roses with just enough conflict to give reason for comic misunderstandings.  “Call Me Madam” is a film you watch because it stars Ethel Merman.  “Call Me Madam” is a film you watch because you want to see Donald O’Connor and Vera Ellen perform two beautiful dance sequences.  “Call Me Madam” is a film you watch because you want to spend two hours smiling, and spend the rest of the night smiling, too.

If you like the formula of the 1950s musical, if you appreciate the talent and the fun you can find in them, see “Call Me Madam”.  If you’ve no interest in the 1950s musical, skip straight out, but try to do it on the beat.

And a touch of bonus content:  Donald O’Connor’s big solo sequence in “Call Me Madam”.

Nagin was one of the earliest and biggest musical blockbusters in Bollywood movies. And this movie coincided with the beginning of Binaca geetmala countdown show. The nagin been music had the entire nation swaying like the nagin in the movie.

The sond “jaadugar sainya chhodo meri bainyya” was one of the immortal songs from this movie. This song was 14th in the Binaca geetmala final of 1954 and its pied piper like tune still has the ability to charm people as much as it was supposed to charm the nagin in the movie.

Hemant Kumar, then a newcomer to Bollywood movies tool Bollywood by storm in this movie. Lata has sung this song so wonderully, and Rajinder Krishan shows his versatility by coming up with one wonderful song after another in this movie. Overall, listening to the music of this movie has always been an ethereal experience.

Song- Jadugar sainyya chhodo meri bainyya (Nagin 1953) Singer-Lata, Lyrics- Rajinder Krishan, MD- Hemant Kumar

Lyrics

jaadugar sainyaa, chhodo mori bainyaa
ho gayi aadhi raat, ab ghar jaane do
jaadugar sainyaa, chhodo mori bainyaa
ho gayi aadhi raat, ab ghar jaane do

jaane de o rasiyaa, mere man basiyaa
jaane de o rasiyaa, mere man basiyaa
gaanv meraa badi door hai
teri nagariyaa ruk na sakun main
pyaar meraa majboor hai
teri nagariyaa ruk na sakun main
pyaar meraa majboor hai
zanjeer padi mere haath
ab ghar jaane do
jaadugar sainyaa, chhodo mori bainyaa
ho gayi aadhi raat, ab ghar jaane do

jhuki-jhuki ankhiyaan dekhengi saari sakhiyaan
jhuki-jhuki ankhiyaan dekhengi saari sakhiyaan
dengi taanaa tere naam kaa
aise mein mat rok bedardi
le le vachan kal shaam kaa
aise mein mat rok bedardi
le le vachan kal shaam kaa
kal honge phir ham saath
ab ghar jaane do
jaadugar sainyaa, chhodo mori bainyaa
ho gayi aadhi raat, ab ghar jaane do

(1913-1994) Entre 1953 y 1971, durante prácticamente dos décadas, formó parte de los Gobiernos de Hungría, y hasta 1980 permaneció en el Comité Central del Partido Socialista Obrero Húngaro. Durante la revolución del otoño de 1956 estaba al frente de la Comisión Militar del Comité Central del Partido, cuyo objetivo era terminar con las partidas de insurrectos, tarea que no fue respaldada por Imre Nagy mientras fue Primer Ministro. También entró en el Gobierno “revolucionario y patriótico” formado por Kádár el 4 de noviembre.

1972    

Allman Brothers Band
Muore Berry Oakley della Allman Brothers Band. E’ vittima di un incidente motociclistico come il cantante del gruppo, Duane Allman – e quasi nello stesso punto in cui l’amico era deceduto un anno prima.

1953    

XTC
Nasce Andy Partridge: con gli XTC darà vita a un gruppo per vent’anni amatissimo dalla critica ma meno gratificato dal grande pubblico.

1985    

Jefferson Airplane
Anni dopo l’epoca “acida” dei Jefferson Airplane, lo storico gruppo di San Francisco, passato attraverso parecchi mutamenti (anche di nome: erano diventati gli Starship) torna al n.1 negli USA con “We built this city”.

1970    

Bob Dylan
Esce “Tarantula”, con cui Bob Dylan debutta in campo letterario. Il romanzo non è precisamente salutato da un successo di critica e di pubblico.

(1921-1994) Escritor y periodista. En 1945 ingresó en el Partido Comunista y en la Alianza de Escritores Húngaros. Comprometido con la reforma del sistema, desde 1953 estuvo al lado de Imre Nagy. La derrota de la insurrección de 1956 lo llevó al exilio; instalándose en Londres, colaboró con Irodalmi Újság. A partir de 1966 fue profesor universitario en los Estados Unidos.

(1898-1959) Durante los primeros años cincuenta dirigió la actuación ideológica del Partido y ejerció el control sobre todas las actividades culturales del país. En 1953 abandonó el Comité Central del Partido y el Ministerio de Cultura Popular, y desde entonces hasta 1958 fue vicepresidente del Consejo Presidencial de la República. En julio de 1956 volvió al Comité Central del Partido, en donde se mantuvo hasta su muerte en 1959.

(1922-1999) Representante cualificado de la línea estalinista del Partido Comunista húngaro, en 1950 entró en el Comité Central del Partido y entre 1953 y 1955 fue Vicepresidente en el Gobierno de Imre Nagy. Al ser destituido éste el 8 de abril de 1955, fue designado Primer Ministro. Fue Hegedüs en calidad de responsable del Gobierno quien el 28 de octubre de 1956 solicitó formalmente, mediante nota diplomática, la intervención de las fuerzas armadas soviéticas para sofocar la insurrección. Con el tiempo se hizo muy crítico con el poder soviético y en 1968 condenó explícitamente la intervención armada del Pacto de Varsovia en Checoslovaquia para terminar con la “Primavera de Praga”. Pocos años más tarde, en 1973, fue expulsado del Partido Socialista Obrero Húngaro por planteamientos contrarios al régimen de Kádár.

(1892-1972) Personaje vinculado al internacionalismo socialista de obediencia soviética desde los años de la Gran Guerra, colaboró en la primera experiencia socialista húngara: la efímera República de los Consejos dirigida por Béla Kun entre el 21 de marzo y el 1 de agosto de 1919. En los primeros años veinte trabajó en el Komintern y a partir de 1924 regresó a a Hungría para organizar en la clandestinidad el Partido Comunista, pero un año más tarde fue encarcelado. Una vez en libertad, en 1940, viajó a la Unión Soviética para ponerse al frente de los comunistas húngaros. Al regresar a Hungría en 1944 como persona de confianza de Stalin fue hasta 1956 el máximo dirigente del Partido Comunista húngaro; entre 1952 y 1953 desempeñó el encargo de Primer Ministro. Abandonó Hungría durante la insurrección del otoño de 1956 y murió en Moscú en 1971.

This is supposed to be a comedy song sung by a lesser actor in the movie, and comedy is sought to be introduced by singing a semi classical song.

Under such circumstances, Manna Dey was the singer to turn to. And Manna Dey it was who sang this song.

But as things stand now, this song, that was there to provide comic relief to the audience is perhaps the most remembered part of this movie. This song has indeed effortlessly entered into the hall of fame of immortal Bolywood songs.

The lyrics were written by Shailendra and the music was composed by Shankar Jaikishan. And their collaboration with Manna Dey led to this unforgettable song. And it is difficult to believe that this song is 55 years old. This song still sounds as fresh and refreshing as it has always sounded.

Song-Lapak jhapak tu aare badarwaa(Boot Polish 1953) Singer-Manna Dey, Lyrics-Shailendra, MD- Shankar Jaikishan

Lyrics

lapak… jhapak
lapak jhapak
lapak jhapak
lapak jhapak
la la la la la la la
lapak jhapak
lapak jhapak tu aa re badarwaa
lapak jhapak tu aa re badarwaa
sar ki kheti sookh rahi hai
sar ki kheti sookh rahi hai
baras baras tu kaare badarwaa
lapak jhapak tu aa re badarwaa
lapak japak tu
lapak jhapak tu aa re badarwaa
baras baras tu kaare badarwaa
lapak jhapak
lapak jhapak

jhagad jhagad kar paani laa tu
akad akad bijli chamkaa tu
jhagad jhagad kar paani
paani
paani
paani la tu
paani la
paani la tu
jahagd jhagad paani laa tu
akad akad bijli damkaa tu
tere ghade mein paani nahin ho
tere ghade mein paani nahin ho
panghat se bhar laa sakhi ri
panghat se bhar laa sakhi ri
panghat se bhar
panghat se bhar laa
panghat se bhar laa

lapak jhapak tu
lapak jhapak tu
aare badarwaa …
ban mein koyal kook uthi hai
sab ke man mein hook uthi hai
ban mein koyal koo
koo koo koo
koo koo koo koo
ban mein koyal kook uthi hai
sab ke man mein hook uthi hai
bhoodal se tu baal ugaa de
bhoodal se tu baal ugaa de
jhat pat tu barsaa re badarwa
jhat pat tu barsaa badarwa
jhapat tu bar
jhat pat tu barsaa
jhat pat tu barsaa
lapak jhapak tu aare badarwa
lapak jhapak
lapak jhapak
lapak jhapak
lapak jhapak tu aa
lapak jhapak tu aa
lapak jhapak tu aa
lapak jhapak tu aare badarwa
barso
barso
garaj garaj ke barso
akad akad ke barso
garaj garaj ke barso
barso barso

1953 was the first year of the F100 and the last year you could get a Flathead in a Ford pickup. The new 53 F100 was uniquely styled with a slant cab window, fat fenders and larger cab space than the F1. 1953 was also the 50th anniversary of the Ford pickup. The horn button on the 53 F100 is unique and displays the anniversary year. Differences were minor when compared with today’s truck options. A fresh air cab option on the 53 F100 was available. Deluxe 53 F100 trucks had 6 chrome teeth mounted in the grille – 3 on each side of the center chrome emblem. Deluxe trucks also had a chrome gull wing on each side of the hood surrounding the chrome 53 F100 emblem.

3 Engine options were available: O.H.V. 6 Cylinder-215 cid, L-Head 6 Cylinder-254 cid and the L-Head 8 Cylinder-239 cid (Flathead). Most 53 F100 trucks came with a 3 speed transmission shifted on the column. V8 trucks had a chrome V8 emblem on the center of the grille while 6 cylinder trucks had a chrome 3 pointed star.

Turn signals were not standard equipment. Seat belts were also not available. Vacuum wipers were used and only worked when you let off of the gas to free up vacuum from the engine to run the wipers. Front suspension was a straight axle with leaf springs. Brakes consisted of a single master cylinder with drum brakes on all 4 corners. These are fine for speeds below 45, but hardly safe on today’s roads.

Most parts on the 53 – 55 F100 trucks are the same or will fit. These years are basically the same except for trim and engine options. The grille on the 53 F100 is unique to that year. Front parking lights are the same on 53 and 54 F100 models, as well as the lower valance that runs below the grille. Gull wing chrome and the F100 hood emblems are the same on 53 and 54 F100 trucks. Taillights were also the same on 53 and 54 models and were the round version rather than the shield shape lights found on the 55 and 56.

En este repaso a los discursos que, desde la primavera de 1953, pronunció Robert Schuman no podía faltar la referencia a Alemania. Esa pieza clave de la futura Unión fue en su día la nación –por lo menos legalmente- del Padre de Europa, que siempre se consideró galo de la Lorena. Sin embargo, su admiración por la nación germánica y sus deseos de paz hacia ella distaban mucho de los sentimientos de otros franceses de la época. Esa fe en el papel de Alemania empapa las siguientes líneas, en las que Schuman habla de un Estado que casualmente, a día de hoy, ha tomado el timón de Europa.

“Cuando, después de la guerra, pusimos los primeros jalones de la política europea, todos los que participaron en ello estaban convencidos de que el entendimiento, la cooperación, entre Alemania y Francia era para Europa el problema capital, que sin Alemania, igual que sin Francia, sería imposible edificar Europa.

Alemania nunca fue más peligrosa que cuando se aislaba, fiándose de sus propias fuerzas y de sus cualidades, que son grandes, embriagándose en cierto modo con su superioridad, sobre todo frente a las flaquezas de los demás. Alemania tiene más que cualquiera el sentido de comunidad; en el seno de la Europa unida podrá desempeñar plenamente su papel”.

Bibliografía:

[1] La Unión Europea: guiones para su enseñanza; Antonio Calonge Velázquez (Coord.) - Comares - Granada - 2004.

[2] El proceso de integración comunitario en marcha: de la CECA a los Tratados de Roma; Guillermo A. Pérez Sánchez - Comares - Granada - 2007.

[3] Por Europa; Robert Schuman - Encuentro - Madrid - 2006.

[4] Robert Schuman, padre de Europa (1886-1963); René Lejeune - Palabra - Madrid - 2000.

Artículo publicado por Historia en Presente el 10 de julio de 2008.

La semana pasada publicaba un artículo sobre la Historia de China entre 1800 y 1949. En esta ocasión, teniendo en cuenta la intensa relación entre el gigante asiático y sus vecinos nipones, me he decidido a escribir algo acerca de Japón en esas mismas fechas. Como se comprueba a lo largo de las siguientes líneas, las referencias a China son constantes.

Japón a comienzos del siglo XIX

Japón era a principios del periodo contemporáneo un país agrícola. Sin embargo, aunque era heredero cultural de China, no estaba tan lastrado por la tradición como esta. La estructura japonesa, que presentaba rasgos propios de la jerarquización feudal, estaba abierta a un rápido desarrollo; tan sólo era necesario ponerlo en marcha. Hemos dicho que Japón debía buena parte de su identidad a la aportación del gigante continental; no obstante, a diferencia de los chinos, los japoneses no despreciaban las virtudes militares, sino todo lo contrario. Además, aunque existía un rechazo al extranjero, veían con buenos ojos la práctica del comercio, que era controlado por el grupo de los daimíos.

La evolución japonesa es análoga a la de China. A lo largo de este periodo Japón hace concesiones a los países industrializados: cede una base a los holandeses en Nagasaki, permite la entrada de los norteamericanos en 1853, y otorga privilegios a Rusia tras ser derrotada militarmente. No obstante, en lugar de cerrarse más sobre sí mismo, tal como tendió a hacer el gobierno chino, Japón se sume en una profunda crisis. El final de esta marcó el comienzo del desarrollo de los nipones hasta llegar a convertirse en una gran potencia industrial, diplomática y militar.

La formación del imperio japonés: ruptura del aislacionismo.

Tras la crisis originada por las derrotas y concesiones comerciales de la década de 1850, Japón emprendió el camino del desarrollo; un avance que le iba a equiparar en pocas décadas a las potencias occidentales. De esta forma, en la guerra que le enfrentó a China por el control de Corea y Manchuria (1894-1895), los japoneses obtuvieron un rápida y sorprendente victoria. El éxito militar se repitió en el conflicto de 1904-1905 con Rusia por idénticos territorios. Cinco años más tarde, en 1910, Japón se anexionó Corea, y en 1914, aprovechando la Gran Guerra, las posesiones alemanas en el Océano Pacífico. Finalmente, los japoneses presentaron a China en 1915 una lista de veintiún peticiones. La aceptación de la misma suponía de hecho el control de la nación nipona sobre el gigante continental.

Las causas del imperialismo japonés que acabamos de describir hemos de buscarlas en la Revolución Meiji, que afectó a casi todos los campos de la vida política, económica, social y cultural de Japón. A este hecho hemos de añadir la explosión demográfica experimentada por el país, el aumento de la producción de arroz y las consiguientes ganancias vía exportación, el rápido desarrollo industrial de esos años, las indemnizaciones de guerra aportadas por las naciones derrotadas… Además, los japoneses tomaron conciencia de que la escasez de materias primas en su propio territorio les obligaba a importarlas y, por tanto, para equilibrar la balanza de pagos debían exportar productos manufacturados. En definitiva, este desarrollo le permitió a Japón llevar una política de rechazo a la presencia occidental en extremo oriente algo similar a la Doctrina Monroe norteamericana.

El expansionismo japonés.

Tras la Gran Guerra (1914-1918), Japón se integró en las corrientes políticas de Occidente. Fue uno de los protagonistas de los tratados de paz, en los que, como potencia victoriosa, sacó compensaciones; eso sí, no tantas como las que esperaba, lo que le llevó a formar bloque con la irredenta Italia. Los japoneses se vieron arrastrados también por la oleada democrática-liberal que sacudió el globo tras el conflicto. Esto obligó al gobierno imperial a introducir ligeros cambios en su propio sistema político. No obstante, esos ideales democráticos fueron barridos por la crisis de los años treinta. En esos años, el poder militar, que nunca había llegado a someterse a las autoridades civiles, tomó el poder tras un breve periodo de rumores y “ruido de sables”.

Con un gobierno semifascista en el poder, los japoneses invadieron Manchuria en el año 1931, estableciendo en este territorio un estado satélite. Posteriormente, envalentonados con el progresivo repliegue británico en el Pacífico, presentaron nuevas exigencias a la China de Chiang Kai-shek, a la que finalmente declararon la guerra en 1937. Este conflicto se solapó con la II Guerra Mundial, en la que Japón se integró en virtud del pacto Antikomintern firmado con la Alemania nacionalsocialista y la Italia fascista. El declive de la potencia japonesa en la guerra se inició con el mayor de sus éxitos: el bombardeo de Pearl Harbour. El enfrentamiento con los EE.UU., caracterizado por numerosos enfrentamientos en las numerosas islas del Pacífico, terminó en derrota tras la batalla de Midway y los ataques atómicos sobre Hiroshima y Nagasaki en verano de 1945. En los acuerdos de Potsdam y Yalta se sancionaba la pérdida, por parte de Japón, de los territorios ocupados en China, Formosa y Corea. Además, los norteamericanos ocuparon varias islas en el Pacífico a costa del poder japonés, que era obligado a desmilitarizarse y a establecer un régimen democrático de estilo anglosajón.

Bibliografía

[1] Historia Universal Contemporánea I y II; Javier Paredes (Coord.) – Barcelona – Ariel – 2004.

[2] La guerra del mundo: los conflictos del siglo XX y el declive de occidente (1904-1953); Niall Ferguson – Barcelona – Debate – 2007.

[3] La creación de Japón 1853-1964; Ian Buruma – Barcelona – Mondadori– 2003.

[4] Historia del Japón I. El fin del shogunato y el Japón Meiji, 1853-1912; J. Mutel – Barcelona – Vicens Vives– 1972.

[5] Japón en el siglo XX: de imperio militar a potencia económica; Luis Eugenio Togores Sánchez – Madrid – Arco-Libros– 2000.

[6] Historia del nacionalismo; Hans Kohn – México – Fondo de Cultura Económica – 1984.

Artículo publicado por la web Club Lorem Ipsum el 13 de abril de 2007.

El final de la II Guerra Mundial trajo consigo la división del mundo entre las dos grandes cosmovisiones. En contra de lo que esperaban los occidentales más optimistas, Stalin y su régimen no habían cambiado -salvo en el incremento de su poderío- a raíz de su estrecha relación con británicos y norteamericanos durante el conflicto. La URSS mantenía su antigua aspiración de llevar a cabo la revolución comunista a escala mundial. De esta manera, a lo largo de los años 1945 y 1946, las diferencias entre los miembros de la triunfadora Gran Alianza –anglosajones y eslavos- fueron ampliándose. En 1947, como demuestran los documentos oficiales de estas potencias y las declaraciones de sus dirigentes, la brecha resultaba ya insalvable: había dado comienzo la Guerra Fría.

El “Telón de Acero”, descrito magistralmente por Winston Churchill en Fulton (Missouri), había caído sobre Europa. Sin embargo, cabe preguntarse cómo llegaron todos los países del Este a formar parte del sistema planetario que giraba en torno al gran sol del Kremlin. Es cierto que así lo habían acordado los vencedores de la II Guerra Mundial en las conferencias de Yalta y Potsdam. También es verdad que el Ejército Rojo ocupaba, con la presión que ello suponía, esos territorios. No obstante, lo más interesante de todo el proceso de sovietización de la Europa del Este no son estas cuestiones fundamentales para el triunfo comunista. Lo curioso, el aspecto en el que se va a centrar este artículo, es cómo se las ingeniaron los soviéticos para dar un ropaje de aparente legalidad a la revolución política que llevaron a cabo en esos países; cómo trataron de hacer creer al mundo –aunque en el fondo todos sabían la verdad- que eran esos pueblos los que habían escogido la senda del marxismo-leninismo.

Mientras el ejército de los soviets iba liberando la parte oriental del continente del yugo nacionalsocialista –es curioso ese fenómeno de cambiar la esclavitud parda por la roja-, desde Moscú se preparaban para transformar estos territorios en estados-satélite. Cientos de políticos y propagandista comunistas de nacionalidad húngara, polaca, checoslovaca, búlgara y rumana caminaban detrás de las divisiones rusas con la misión de organizar el partidos comunista de sus respectivos países. Sándor Márai, al hablar de ellos en ¡Tierra! ¡Tierra!, dice que llegaron demacrados y sin nada que llevarse a la boca. Sin embargo, con la ayuda de las autoridades soviéticas, lograron ocupar los principales puestos de la administración del Estado en pocas semanas. Dejaron de ser unos miserables y pasaron a disfrutar de las comodidades y lujos reservados a marqueses, empresarios y mariscales. Así, más o menos, describe el literato húngaro la llegada de estos personajes. Ahí estarían comunistas míticos como Bierut, Rákosi, Gottwald, Rajk, Pauker… políticos que en pocos meses, bajo la supervisión y auxilio de Moscú, tomaron el control de media Europa.

No obstante, resultaba evidente que, de cara a los primeros comicios de posguerra, estos misioneros del internacionalismo no iban a lograr el respaldo electoral necesario para gobernar. Por esa razón, Stalin decidió resucitar la figura del frentepopulismo para formar grandes coaliciones de izquierdas. Los Frentes Populares habían funcionado ya en el periodo anterior a la II Guerra Mundial -en especial en Francia y España-, y su finalidad principal era contener la expansión del fascismo por Europa. El Kremlin favoreció en los años treinta la consecución de esos pactos porque veía en ellos, no sólo un arma eficaz para evitar el surgimiento de nuevos hitleres, sino también porque aspiraba a instaurar el comunismo a través de ellos. En los gobiernos frentepopulistas los comunistas estaban destinados a ocupar los principales resortes del control estatal: la seguridad y la propaganda. Podían no ser numerosos, tampoco hacía falta que ocuparan muchos ministerios; tan sólo hacía era necesario que se situasen en los puestos claves. Desde esa posición de influencia los comunistas miembros del ejecutivo tendrían que ir eliminando legal o moralmente a sus rivales. Seguían la llamada “táctica del salchichón”: iban minando poco a poco a los enemigos, después a los aliados, y, finalmente, era en el propio partido donde se llevaban a cabo las purgas. Este manera de extender la revolución bolchevique se ensayó al final del periodo de Entreguerras, pero su gran éxito como modelo de actuación política llegó con el final de la II Guerra Mundial.

Entre 1945 y 1947 fueron desfilando por las cárceles y juzgados de la Europa del Este miles de personas acusadas de apoyar al fascismo. Las primeras víctimas de estos procesos fueron los políticos de la derecha, pero más tarde les llegó el turno a la izquierda moderada. A todos se les tachó de fascistas, tan sólo se salvaron los miembros de los partidos comunistas. Quedaba un pequeño paso para establecer regímenes totalitarios de partido único: su proclamación. A la altura de 1948 todos los países ocupados por el Ejército Rojo, con la excepción de Austria y Alemania, habían cumplido ese requisito. En apenas tres años el frentepopulismo había abierto a los soviéticos las puertas de la “revolución legal”. Habían eliminado toda oposición, incluso la de los antiguos aliados de la izquierda. A partir de ahí comenzaba un camino aún más tortuoso: el de las purgas internas. Entre 1948 y 1953 el pecado ya no era ser fascista, sino revisionista.

Así fue como, bajo el amparo del Ejército Rojo, se operó el cambio político al otro lado del “Telón de Acero”. Fueron necesarias la presencia militar de la URSS y la, hasta 1947, aquiescencia del mundo occidental. Sin embargo, la operación nunca hubiera llegado a ser tan perfecta sin el frentepopulismo y la “táctica del salchichón”. Gracias a estos dos elementos el comunismo construyó en estos países un edificio político que logró mantenerse durante cuarenta años en pleno corazón de Europa.

Bibliografía:

[1] Historia Universal Contemporánea II; Javier Paredes (Coord.) - Barcelona - Ariel - 2004.

[2] La guerra del mundo: los conflictos del siglo XX y el declive de occidente (1904-1953); Niall Ferguson - Barcelona - Debate - 2007.

[3] Postguerra. Una historia de Europa desde 1945; Tony Judt – Madrid – Taurus -2006.

[4] La Batalla de Budapest. Historia de la insurrección húngara de 1956; Ricardo M. Martín de la Guardia, Guillermo A. Pérez Sánchez, István Szilágyi - Madrid - Actas - 2006.

[5] ¡Tierra! ¡Tierra!; Sándor Márai - Barcelona - Salamandra - 2006.

Tesouros da Ópera que começou esse mês nas Bancas com La Traviata do Verdi. E Maria Callas como Violetta! Serão 25 edições duplas por 19, 90.

Para quem quer conhecer e entender de uma vez por todas: ópera, é indispensável!!! E para o que é, está praticamernte de graça por esse valor.

Boreli

Wir schreiben das Jahr 1953. Der 33-jährige amerikanische Schriftsteller Ray Bradbury veröffentlicht das Buch “Fahrenheit 451″. Der Titel bezieht sich auf die Temperatur bei dem Papier anfängt zu brennen, denn in dem Roman wird eine Gesellschaft beschrieben, in der es ein schweres Verbechen ist Bücher zu besitzen oder zu lesen.

Das selbstständige Denken ist in dieser Gesellschaft ein Tabu. Um dies zu verhindern, konsumieren die Menschen den ganzen Tag lang verschiedene Medien, die sie mit seichten Inhalten vom Nachdenken über sich selbst und die Welt abhalten sollen. Auch Drogen tragen dazu bei dieses Ziel zu erreichen.

Beeinflusst durch die 17-jährige Nachbarin Clarisse beginnt der Hauptcharakter Guy Montag sich den Normen dieser Gesellschaft zu entziehen und wird so zum Feind derselbigen. Verfolgt durch die Staatsmacht schafft er es sich in die Wälder zu flüchten und sich letztendlich einer Gruppe Menschen anzuschließen, die Bücher auswendig lernt um sie vor dem Vergessen zu schützen.

Dieses Buch haben wir zu Abiturzeiten im Leistungskurs Englisch behandelt und als ich heute eine Meldung in Fefes Blog gelesen habe fühlte ich mich sehr an diesen dystopischen Roman erinnert.

Das US-Militär ist nämlich gerade dabei eine Ausschreibung für ein “Multi-Robot Pursuit System” starten. Was sie wollen ist also eine Gruppe von Robotern losschicken um nicht-kooperative Menschen zu jagen (”search for and detect a non-cooperative human”).

Die Elemente aus den Dystopien um Systemgegner zu jagen werden werden immer mehr zur Wirklichkeit und ein Szenario indem unliebsame Zeitgenossen (seien es Verbrecher oder Gedankenverbrecher) automatisch von den tausenden Kameras in unseren Straßen, auf unseren Bahnhöfen und an unseren Häusern entdeckt und automatisch von den elektronischen Hunden (”mechanical hounds”, wie sie bei Bradbury hießen) gejagt werden scheint mittlerweile nicht mehr unrealistisch.

Beängstigend.

The mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the fire house. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber padded paws.

Nights when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound and let loose rats in the fire house areaway. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat caught half across the areaway, gripped in gentle paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine.

(Aus Fahrenheit 451)

I got in from school around three-thirty. At a quarter to four, the phone in the living room rings. “Oh shit,” I thought. As my mother moved to pick up the receiver, I shouted downstairs from the landing, “tell them I’m not home, Mom. Tell them I’m not home.” I knew who was on the phone. It was Rudy Bederman, the assistant manager at the A & P on Fifth Street, and I knew what he wanted. It was Thursday. I wasn’t supposed to work until the next day, Friday. 

Somebody hadn’t shown up and they wanted me to fill in. I had nothing on my afternoon agenda other than walking over to Fairhill Street to hang out with the crowd at Geever’s candy store. My mother was not to be trusted in these matters. To impart a sense of urgency, I kept up my chant. “Mom! Mom! Tell them I’m not here.”  Unfortunately, in the seconds that my mother hesitated with the receiver in her hand, Rudy Bederman heard me shouting that I wasn’t home.

When Bobby Mulford, a kid up the street, got drafted in the Spring of 1953, and gave his notice at the A & P, he told Charlie Watson, the manager, that I wanted a job there. The A & P supermarket on Fifth Street was, by the standards of the day, a supermarket. Actually, it wasn’t much bigger than the suburban super-convenience stores that have sprung up in the past few years. Bobby had worked in the produce department, but I was hired as a grocery clerk and told that if things worked out, I might be trained to run a register.

I was fifteen and not unhappy with my paper route. But I had begun to feel that delivering newspapers with the twelve and thirteen-year-olds was somehow demeaning. Even though I felt I had mastered the codes of teenage hoodlum posturing and costuming, how could I maintain my credibility if I was still a paperboy? So I came in out of the cold, and in out of the heat and the rain and the snow. I freed myself of the seven-day-a-week commitment that was the big downside of having a newspaper route. At the A & P, I went on a part-time, fifteen to twenty-hour-a-week work schedule, working Fridays after school until closing at nine, all day Saturday and two afternoons a week. At a then serious pay rate of seventy-five cents an hour, I grossed under fifteen dollars a week, which after deductions; taxes, social security and union dues, netted me about twelve bucks. That was about four dollars a week more than I made serving papers. On the numbers alone, it seemed a good move. I went in only four times a week and made half again what I was getting for tying up parts of every single day on a paper route. What I quickly learned, however, was that life is about more than numbers. I hated working at the A & P. 

I had made a bad trade. Serving papers, I had been a free agent. I had been on my own. Eight times a week, I would walk the almost four miles of city streets - Six afternoons and Sunday mornings delivering papers and a couple of hours on Saturday mornings knocking on doors and ringing bells and buzzers to collect from my customers. I moved at my own pace and smoked whenever I damned well felt like it. Whenever I wanted, I stopped and talked with whomever I had happened to bump into. I stopped for sodas and to browse comic books in various corner stores. I daydreamed. I unconsciously participated in the changing seasons, getting rained on, slipping on ice-crusted steps and sidewalks, nearly collapsing under the weight of seventy or eighty fat Tuesday papers in plus ninety-degree heat. 

The A & P, an entry-level introduction into the adult world of work, confirmed everything I suspected about being a grown up. Adults, it seemed, existed in a kind of voluntary form of mercenary penal servitude. They spent long hours under close supervision, faking it, having to look busy even when they weren’t. It was just like school only you had to pretend you were a willing participant. In exchange, you got paid, never enough, but not so little that you could do without it. A bad bargain, I concluded. 

On a different level, my part-time job was my first interaction with grownups on anything like a peer level. Although I was still a kid, there were unstated rules of engagement. This is the real world, a workplace, not a hangout. If you didn’t want to do what was expected of you, if you didn’t pull your weight, there were no special considerations, no pleadings. If you didn’t want to accept the conditions of your employment, so be it. Goodbye. Having failed abjectly at high school, for reasons I still can’t adequately explain, I felt a sort of compulsion, if not to succeed or excel in a retail grocery career, then to at least stay the course and function on some kind of acceptable terms – Until something better came along.

On the day following the phone call from Rudy Bederman, a Friday afternoon, I pushed open the big front door of the store a full ten minutes before my starting time. It had been pointed out to me that a four p.m. start time meant being aproned and ready to work when you put your card in the time clock. You didn’t punch in and then go into the back room and get ready. As I headed past the four checkout counters, I heard one of the older lady checkers giggle, and then the kid bagging for her, Freddie Cadden, stage whispered, “tell them I’m not here, Mom.” As I passed the canned fruit and vegetable aisle where Tommy McLaughlin was stocking shelves, I heard it again this time loud enough to carry over to where the produce guys could pick it up. “Mom, tell them I’m not home,” rose in a chorus from behind the counters filled with potatoes and onions. The supercilious dairy guy, Walter, couldn’t bring himself to participate but smirked at me as I ducked into the darkened back room. As the door closed, I caught the start of a three part harmony rendition of  “hey Mom, tell them I’m not…” from the singing butchers at the meat counter. Inside the back room, Rudy Bederman was waiting for me. 

I didn’t get fired and I didn’t quit. I stayed on at the A& P for another two years, always a part-timer. After high school, there was some pressure both at home and at the store for me to go full time. I sensed that the summer between high school and my going into the Army just might be my last time of true freedom. I didn’t want to spend anymore of it in the A & P than I absolutely had to.  

For twenty hours a week, a few more whenever they could catch me, I watched the clock. I stood out front cranking the long, striped awning up or down. I snuck smokes in the back room. I mopped up broken jars of pickles, pushed hand trucks loaded with bulky cases of toilet paper, or heavy with five-pound bags of sugar or flour, or cases of soda. I spent an eternity of afternoons stocking shelves with canned goods, stamping the price on each individual can; Ann Page Fruit Cocktail, three for forty-nine cents; Campbell’s Cream of Chicken, two for thirty-nine cents. Even more mind numbing was going back with paper stickers, covering the stampings when prices changed. I cleaned the foul toilet in the back room and swept the aisles timing my pace to make sure I wouldn’t be too available for further assignments before closing time.

Most of my tenure was spent up front, at one of the four checkout counters, first as a lowly bagger and then working a register as a checker. As a bagger I learned that the best response to an unpleasant customer was to plant a “time bomb.” A time bomb was the strategic placement of heavy, hard-edged items like number ten cans in proper proximity to eggs, bread, tomatoes or any other soft fragile item. Ideally when the bags were moved, the full weight of the hard items would inflict the maximum damage on the soft ones. The ultimate time bomb was the positioning of a wet or potentially leaking item near the bottom of the large brown paper grocery bag with heavy items pressing down on it. Done properly, the offending customer would just make it out the door before catastrophe struck. 

I was sixteen when Irene Rudinski replaced Mrs. Bailey in the cage. The cage was the store manager’s small, elevated stand-up office along the wall at the end of the checkout counters. Irene’s job was to handle all the store’s administrative loose strings; payroll, schedules, keep track of cash and generally help out the manager, the hopelessly mad Charlie Watson and the wise-guy assistant manager, Rudy Bederman. Irene was probably twenty or twenty one and newly married. She was a diminutive cutie, button-nosed and red cheeked and I was smitten the moment I saw her. 

I had come in grudgingly for a three hour, mid-week, after school stint. As I punched in at the time clock on the outside wall of the cage, the door opened and there was Irene in a white coat apron standing next to the open safe counting stacks of tens. I looked at her and it was instantaneous. I was in love. For three hours that afternoon, I kept finding excuses to go to the front of the store, to walk past the cage, anything to get another peek at this wondrous creature. Just before closing time, on my fifth or tenth or twentieth walk past, our eyes met. I immediately betrayed myself, my face flashing the colors of a Key West sunset. Before she could lower her eyes, Irene Rudinski, so much older than me, married or not, turned a shade of crimson equal to my own. Distracted as I was, I didn’t notice Rudy Bederman standing next to her in the office. He’d witnessed the whole scene. 

My five-hour, four p.m. to closing, shift on Friday and the full day Saturday were now spent in a kind of deliciously sweet torment. I couldn’t stop mooning over Mrs. Rudinski, and neither of us could stop blushing. The word had gotten around the store and everyone but the two of us were having a grand old time with it. At first, I couldn’t believe my good fortune. All afternoon on Friday, Rudy Bederman kept sending me on errands to the cage. Oblivious with infatuation, I didn’t notice that every time I came to the front of the store to stand red-faced and stammering in front of an equally discomfited Irene Rudinski, all four checkers and their baggers had stopped what they doing. Nor was I alert to the fact that the produce clerks were poking their heads around the end aisle, or that Rudy Bederman and one or more of the full time grocery guys always happened to be at the front end of one of the aisles near the office. 

By Saturday morning, I knew that I had, as my father repeatedly observed, allowed myself to be carried away by my enthusiasms. But at that stage of my life, the tortured pleasures of being in love with being in love had become a central factor of my existence. If on that previous Wednesday afternoon when I clocked in, Irene Rudinski hadn’t been there to knock me off my feet, there just might have been some other sweet young thing coming into the store and creating a similar emotional dislocation in my volatile consciousness. At the age of sixteen, I was in love all of the time. I could be in love with one girl or with many more girls than one, for weeks or months on end.  During those same weeks or months of serial or concurrent emotional fixations, there would also be an infinity of short features, momentary infatuations, interesting possibilities that stimulated, excited and held my attentions. I had become an absolute master of romantic multi-tasking, almost all of which took place entirely within the confines of my own mind. My self-absorbed attractions to Irene Rudinski, unlike the objects of most of my warm daydreams, just happened to spill out into a limited public domain.

Just before lunch on that Saturday, I was in the back room stacking cases of Del Monte canned fruit on a cart when Charlie Watson came in and motioned me away from where Big Stan was chopping the ends off cabbages.  Even then, I had to give Charlie his due. He could have cared less if Irene Rudinski and I were carrying on like a couple in a smoker movie.  Charlie had a store to run. “Listen,” he said to me. “We’re both grown men.” I was sixteen and flattered. “Mrs. Rudinski,” he didn’t call her Irene, “is a married woman.” That was all he said. I nodded my understanding. Until then, I’d regarded Charlie as just another pathetic, stressed-out lunatic clinging to a job beyond his capabilities. His tactical implications that I had even the remotest chance of consummating any kind of serious relationship in the matter under discussion were calculated to let me slip easily off the hook, and I knew it. I also recognized how much I had underestimated Charlie both as a person and as a manager, and I never did that again. By the following week, Irene Rudinski and I were able to smile and nod at each other without embarrassment. And as time passed, she even began to kid me about the state of my love life. 

What little room for maneuver I had as a grocery clerk; ducking out back for a smoke, dawdling while I brought in carts, hiding in the back room, evaporated when I was called up front to work a register. My selection by Charlie Watson to become a checker was touted as if I was being promoted. There was no additional money that went with the added duties. The problem of working one of the store’s four registers is that you were trapped, a captive locked into your checkout booth, and the row of booths stood directly in the line of vision of Charlie’s office. Monday through Thursday, it wasn’t that bad. Customer traffic was light or sporadic and my usual work stint was three hours at most. And, by being up front, near the door I could get a look at every girl who came into the store. Better yet, there was that flattering rush when a girl would choose my line even when it wasn’t the shortest. Friday and Saturday were different. The store was crowded and busy until the nine p.m. closing on Friday night, and the action on Saturday was non-stop all day.

The big electro-mechanical cash registers chugged, clacked, banged and chimed, producing long paper tapes listing each figure we entered. There were no scanners, no bar codes. We read the price of each item and entered it, doing the divisions when a customer bought one can of LeSuer Peas at three for forty-nine cents, a seventeen-cent charge. I got to know which sour-faced housewives would challenge my display of flash and dash on the register’s big buttons by demanding to go over the tape item-by-item in hopes of catching a pricing mistake. One woman who had a reputation for doing it every week did catch me up one Saturday. I had undercharged her significantly on a large ham. When I smiled, apologized for the mistake and thanked her for finding it, she was pissed. For a few moments I was a hero among my peers, but the following Saturday she had the checker next to me doing another item-by- item recount. We had to weigh and price the fresh produce that was sold by weight, using daily price schedules for string beans or cabbages by the pound. Instead of powered conveyor belt surfaces, the counters had wooden handled frames that we used to pull the groceries up to our registers, and we had to know how to make change. In over two and half years, my till came out wrong only twice. Once, a buck-thirty short and the second time, twelve dollars over. 

Sometimes you had a bagger working with you, most of the time you didn’t. On a Saturday working from eight in the morning until the five p.m. closing time, you got a ten-minute break in the morning and afternoon and an hour off to go home for lunch. It wasn’t anything like “breaking rocks in the hot sun,” but I was sixteen years old, and spending all day Saturday cooped up and supervised while I worked a cash register non-stop for seventy-five-cents an hour sure seemed like kind of a drag. But then again, nobody was coming around to offer me anything any better.

Right or wrong, by the time I was at the A & P, I had begun to feel like I was always on the outside looking in. Other kids got these desirable jobs; carrying mail at Christmas time, construction labor jobs all summer at three fifty an hour, city jobs where you painted fences or didn’t, and still got paid. Even then, nobody would tell you how they happened to get those plums. It seems we didn’t know anybody in positions to look out for us. What I couldn’t see was that there were kids in the neighborhood who probably wondered how I had gotten my job at the A & P.

I was sweeping the cereal and cookies aisle when Charlie Watson came up to me. With see-through seriousness done entirely for effect he said, “Peter, can I ask you to stop what you’re doing for a moment.” I think “yeah right, Charlie. I’m busy sweeping the floor.” Charlie also always called us by our proper names as if we were all equal partners in the fate of The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company. “Walter is going to be out for a while. I’m going to promote you and Edward and Thomas to handle his duties while he’s gone.” I’d already had a couple of Charlie’s “promotions,” a term understood to mean more work, but no more money. Walter was a full-timer with a wavy hairdo and a horse toothed, on-and-off smile that only the women ever got. He ran the store’s dairy counter, a job generally considered a soft deal. Between Eddie Ricks and Tommy Ward, both of who went to North Catholic, and me, all of us part timers, we’d take turns covering the dairy. At least it would keep me off a check-out register for as long Walter was going to be out. At seventeen, I had no curiosity at all why charming Walter was to be out. We learned later it was for a hemorrhoid operation. 

The dairy counter was in the back of the store near the butchers and the back room door. The centerpiece of the counter was a tall, red double-batch coffee grinder with selection handles like the bridge controls on a great ocean liner. The A & P sold its own brand of coffee in one and three-pound bags; basic Red Circle in yellow bags, richer Eight-O-Clock in red bags, and the seriously strong and aromatic Bokar in black bags. Charming Walter, who always wore a necktie and a white smock instead of an apron, would grind customer’s coffee to order, selecting the right setting on one of the big machine’s two control handles. The area around the dairy counter would fill with the efficient sound of hidden machinery and the delicious smell of freshly ground coffee. A customer’s “thank you,” particularly an attractive woman’s “thank you,” would be Walter’s cue for an oily, leering recitation like “it’s my pleasure dear, I like to do everything I can to please my customers.”

Along the wall next to the coffee counter and running to the back of the store was a brightly lit refrigerated case where milk, eggs, butter and cheese were kept. The dairy person was responsible for stocking and maintaining the display. Behind the counter itself were glass cases filled with cartons of cigarettes. The dairy counter also had its own cash register, a convenience for customers who came in for cigarettes or coffee, or with small orders, could have their purchases rung up and bagged right there. 

During my second week on the dairy, a Thursday after school, I was out of smokes. It was still a day till payday. At quitting time Friday night, Irene Rudinski would hand us the small brown envelopes that held our pay, the bills wrapped around our time sheet vouchers and the change loose in the envelope. I thought, “what the hell.” I’ll just grab a pack of cigarettes from behind the counter. I’ll ring up the twenty-seven cents on Saturday. Looking around to be sure nobody was watching me, I did the old drop down and pick up something from the floor routine. Squatting behind the counter, my right hand went into an open Camel carton and slid one pack of cigarettes into my pants pocket. 

A solid pack a day smoker, I ran out again at work on Friday night, smoking the last of the purloined Camels during a soda break in Leon’s Luncheonette across the street.  Again, it was the old “what the hell.” I’d ring up fifty-four cents tomorrow. On Saturday, Doreen, one of the checkers called in sick. I was given a till and had to spend the entire day up front. Tommy Ward worked the dairy. It was Tuesday before I was due back in, and by then I was broke and out of smokes. 

The slide into allowing the A & P to finance my cigarette habit was inexorable and seemingly inevitable. Within a week, I was copping Camels two packs at a time. I mean, I still needed smokes even when I wasn’t working. I knew it was wrong. There was never any doubt, but it wasn’t like I was stealing from anybody, not from any real person who needed the lousy twenty-seven cents a pack. It was just too easy. With reliable if erratic periodicity, a news story will appear on TV or in the paper about a trusted employee caught with their hand in the jar. Or it’s the toll taker playing one for the bridge, one for me, or the devoted dad or mom who rips off the kids’ hockey or soccer club for fifty-grand. People always react with “he was good guy” or, ”she had a good job. Why did they do it?” But I know why. I know exactly how it can happen. 

At closing time on a Tuesday afternoon about a week before Walter was due back, Charlie told me to come in at four the next afternoon. I wasn’t scheduled to work, but he said he wanted to talk to Edward, Thomas and me together. I don’t believe I slept that night. Wednesday in school took a month to pass. I felt sick and wanted to go to Argentina, anywhere but over to that A & P at four. I considered not showing up, but in the context of who I was and where I was, that wasn’t an option. 

I didn’t bother going home from school. I sat on the low wall of the store’s tiny parking lot smoking stolen cigarettes and worrying. Eddie Ricks showed up. He looked angry. I didn’t say anything. He started absentmindedly kicking the cinderblock wall and assuming I knew what was going on, he said, “What the fuck are they going to do, send us to jail?” I thought, maybe they will, and I felt even worse. Again I didn’t say a word. 

Four-o-clock and no Tommy Ward. Eddie and I went inside. Irene, who knew everything that went on in the store, didn’t even turn to face us. “Mr. Watson’s waiting for you in the back,” she said. It felt like a death march. Charlie was talking to Big Stan who took his cue and left. Silence, a long silence with Charlie just staring at us. “I think you know why I asked you to come in,” he said in his best serious manager’s voice. “Where’s Thomas,” he asked us. It was every man for himself. Neither Eddie nor I gave a shit where Tommy Ward was. “Good enough,” said Charlie. “He had his chance.”

“Edward, you know why you’re here,” said Charlie. He waited and waited and waited and waited. The pressure of the silence was awful. I was ready to blurt out, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it. I’m sorry.” But before I said anything, Eddie Ricks looks at Charlie and says, “how much do I owe you, Charlie.” Charlie had a number that he said was the average difference between Walter’s receipts and Eddie’s.  “Eighty-two dollars,“ he said. Eddie dropped his head. Charlie went on. “It’s your choice,” he said pausing. “If you agree to return the money you’ve taken, fine. If not, you wait right here until the police arrive. Your friend Thomas outdid you, and because he isn’t here he is not going to get the chance I’m giving you.” 

Neither Eddie Ricks or Tommy Ward smoked cigarettes, but they each had found the unsupervised cash register too much of a temptation. Over the seven-week period when the three of us had been working the dairy, the receipts for Eddie’s and Tommy’s shifts had kept coming up noticeably shorter than when Walter had been running the ship. Now it was my turn. I stood with my stomach fluttering and my muscles beginning to twitch. “Oh shit,” I thought. “How could I have gotten myself into something like this.” Charlie turned to me and said, “Peter, did you know anything about any of this?” Rays of sunlight began to peek out from behind the clouds, birds started to chirp, feeling slowly began returning to my extremities. My sphincter unpuckered for the first time in almost twenty-four hours. “No I didn’t Charlie,” I heard myself say. 

What had happened was that while I was lifting a half dozen packs of Camels every week, my register tapes were close enough to the Walter standard that I was assumed to be on the up and up. But only up to a point. Once again, Charlie demonstrated a managerial savvy beyond general appreciation. I had been scooped up in the same net with Eddie and Tommy, just in case I had anything I might have wanted to get off my chest. Charlie did send the company’s security people to Tommy Ward’s house, and since nothing more was ever said I figured either he or his parents made good. I walked out of that store that afternoon with a clear understanding of the nature of moral imperatives, an understanding that’s continued to guide me now for over fifty years. 

Not long ago, we began buying bean coffee and grinding it fresh as a weekend indulgence. It soon became a daily entitlement. Every so often, early in the morning, when the scent of the pulverized beans comes up at me, I’m back behind the big red grinder surrounded by colorful stacked bags of eight-O-clock, Red Circle and Bokar. I believe now that what I experienced at the A & P dairy counter in 1954 was nothing less than a very close call with the Devil himself.

Deugddoende mails van Magda en Wilma, zussen van Wilfried SIMONART (Lat. Gr. 1953) op deze zonnige zondag 12 october 2008 :

Dank je wel, Magda, zowel voor de waardering als voor je constructieve bijdrage.  We hebben meteen recht laten geschieden en de naam van Martha ROEGES ingevoerd. Maar kennen jij of Wilma niet die beide mooie jongedames die we totnogtoe met een vraagteken moesten aanduiden ?  We doen graag verder beroep op jullie medewerking.  Doe de groeten aan Wilfried.

———–

En toen kwam ook nog het bericht van Wilma :

“Hallo, Hier ben ik weer. Bedankt voor de foto’s die ik heel goed heb bekeken. De naam van Wilfried zijn vrouw is wel Astrid. Hier heb ik nog een paar fototjes die sommigen wel zullen herkennen.  Ik heb er ook nog van het afscheid van Leo, maar die moet ik eerst eens opzoeken. Nog hartelijk bedankt en de groetjes aan iedereen die mij nog zou kennen. Wilma“

Ziezo, Wilma, al wie jou nog kent, is meteen gegroet.  Ze sturen aan jou en Magda een dikke kus terug.  We rekenen op die foto’s van Leo MANNAERT’s afscheid, want deze die we hebbben, zijn een beetje wazig.

Leo MANNAERT (Lat. Wet. 1952) en Wilfried SIMONART (Lat. Gr. 1953) voor hun fietstocht naar Denemarken en Zweden

Wilfried, Leo en Hugo MARTENS (Lat. Wisk. 1951) bij ons in de tuin

]]> http://atheneumbrussel.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/mysterie-opgelost-het-is-wilma/ Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:59:44 +0000 willem van cotthem http://atheneumbrussel.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/mysterie-opgelost-het-is-wilma/

Met spanning keken we uit naar het antwoord op onze vraag : “Van wie kan WS dan wel de zuster zijn ?” (zie een voorgaand bericht).  Hier is het dan :

Welkom, Wilma !  Het doet ons genoegen via deze blog weer wat banden te kunnen aanhalen.  Dat is trouwens het hoofddoel van de “Gildebroeders van het K.A.B.” : de band met de schoolgenoten verstevigen om in volle vriendschap nog vele jaren met elkaar te kunnen omgaan.  Vandaar ook onze jaarlijkse reünies en deze website om met regelmaat wat nieuwsjes te kunnen verspreiden.

Welkom ook omdat we via jou  een hernieuwd contact kunnen leggen met onze sympathieke makker Wilfried, die we toch zo graag eens zouden terugzien.  In afwachting daarvan laten we je reeds genieten van enkele foto’s (die van de Lichting 1951 vind je elders op deze blog en die van de Lichting 1952  zijn op komst). Hou verder contact en overtuig Wilfried om met ons werkgroepje eens een lekkere trappist te komen drinken in Den Boomgaard in Wolvertem.

Speciaal voor jou, een bundeltje herinneringen :

1951 - Met Flam in Antwerpen : Schümmer-Mertens-Mannaert-Knops-Flam

1953 - Afscheid van Leo Mannaert (Lat. Wet. 1952): Van de Vondel-ouders van Leo-Godelieve Simonart-Hugo De Keukelaere en Hugo Martens (geknield)

1953 - Afscheid van Leo Mannaert: Martha ROEGES-Wilfried Simonart-?-Paul Van Nitsen-Willy Spittaels

2005-04-21 - Willy DERKS op de reünie in Wolvertem

2004 - Willy SPITTAELS

1951 - Wilfried SIMONART - Astrid VERBEECK

Wilfried SIMONART, 70 en glunderend bij een trappist

]]> http://atheneumbrussel.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/een-fiere-zoon-vertelt-over-zijn-vader-frans-mertens-lat-gr-1953/ Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:48:10 +0000 willem van cotthem http://atheneumbrussel.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/een-fiere-zoon-vertelt-over-zijn-vader-frans-mertens-lat-gr-1953/

Lichting 1917 van “den Athenée Royal” !

Op het einde van de XIXde eeuw besloot het gezin Mertens (François)-Heyvaert (Rosine) hun geboortestreek (St. Katherina Lombeek in het Pajottenland), waar vooral aan landbouw gedaan werd, te ruilen voor Brussel, waar er meer kon verdiend worden. Ze vestigden zich meer bepaald te St. Jans Molenbeek, toen bruisende voorstad waar verschillende KMO’s actief waren. Denken we bvb. aan de brouwerij Vandenheuvel, die na Wereldoorlog II de markt overspoelde met de pils Ekla, denken we ook aan de brouwerij Van den Stock, die er zijn eerste gebouwen had langs de vaart, nu vervolledigd door de installaties aan de Steenweg op Bergen, denken we bvb. aan een houtzagerij Royer Alro, die op de Merchtemsesteenweg gevestigd was, in 1954 verhuisde naar Dilbeek om zich daar in twee of drie fasen te ontwikkelen tot de grote “Brico Royer”, die voor het ogenblik een moedige concurrent is voor andere bekende brico’s in de streek, denken we ook aan de drukkerij gesticht in de Kempenstraat door niemand minder dan de vader onze overleden schoolgenoot, Roger Van de Vondel.

In deze omgeving belandde de familie Mertens-Heyvaert als de migranten van toen: hij was actief in een schrijnwerkerij, zij runde een horecazaak. Zij hadden het naar hun zin en kochten er een huis, waar in 1899 hun enige zoon, Maximiliaan, geboren werd.

Alhoewel ze goed opgingen in de economische ontwikkeling van hun gemeente, wensten ze voor hun zoon een intellectuele carrière. Hij bezocht eerst een lagere school in St. Jans Molenbeek en vermits zijn ouders (toen al!) geen werkman wilden maken van hun zoon en deze het goed had gedaan op de lagere school, raadde de Directie hen aan hem naar een atheneum te sturen. Er moest wel rekening gehouden worden met het feit dat er toen in het Brusselse geen Nederlandstalig middelbaar onderwijs bestond. Hij moest dus in 1911 naar het Athénée Royal de Bruxelles en… zijn plan trekken in het Frans.  Hij behoorde dus tot de Lichting 1917 !

De jonge Maximiliaan was er zich nochtans van bewust dat zijn ouders een ernstige inspanning deden om zijn studies te bekostigen en tot overmaat van ramp kwam Wereldoorlog I op de proppen. En zo gebeurde het dat Maximiliaan, die natuurlijk te voet naar de “grote” school ging, op een winterse dag op het ijs uitgleed en viel. Hij hield er een blauwe plek aan over maar, vooral, er was een gat op kniehoogte in zijn gebreide broek. Ze was pas nieuw; hij durfde niet naar huis gaan. Toen kwam de ingeving: voor hij de school verliet nam hij zijn pennendoos, stak zijn pen verschillende keren in de inktpot en wreef de inkt uit op zijn blote knie. Moeder zou het verschil niet zien tussen de zwarte broek en de donkere blauwe inkt…

Vermits men soms spreekt over het verder verloop van de carrière van studenten, nog dit: Maximiliaan kon zijn ouders niet overtuigen nog meer financiële inspanningen te doen. Pas later, toen hij juist gehuwd was, behaalde hij in het avondonderwijs (en ook in het Frans) het diploma van Licentiaat Economische wetenschappen. Zo komt het dat hij een van de eerste Stadsontvangers was van de Stad Brussel, van Vlaamse oorspong, en dit van 1960 tot en met 1964.

Laat mij hier met enige overdrijving eindigen en een deel van een vers van Victor Hugo aanhalen: Mon père, ce héros…

Mertens Frans

2003 - Frans op de reünie in Wolvertem

PS: In deze tijden van geweld, in de films, op TV, op straat, waar het bijna normaal is een oudere mens die u tot rede wil brengen in de tram af te tuigen, of waar een jongere op straat wordt neergestoken omdat hij zijn mp3 niet wil afgeven, kan ik me niet bedwingen de rest van het gedicht van Hugo aan te halen, waar de context meer uitdrukt dan een persoonlijke bewondering. Voor mij steekt de levenshouding hier ver uit boven het poëtische…

Après la bataille

Mon père, ce héros au sourire si doux,
Suivi d’un seul housard qu’il aimait entre tous
Pour sa grande bravoure et pour sa haute taille,
Parcourait à cheval, le soir d’une bataille,
Le champ couvert de morts sur qui tombait la nuit.
Il lui sembla dans l’ombre entendre un faible bruit.
C’était un Espagnol de l’armée en déroute
Qui se traînait sanglant sur le bord de la route,
Râlant, brisé, livide, et mort plus qu’à moitié.
Et qui disait: ” A boire! à boire par pitié ! “
Mon père, ému, tendit à son housard fidèle
Une gourde de rhum qui pendait à sa selle,
Et dit: “Tiens, donne à boire à ce pauvre blessé. “
Tout à coup, au moment où le housard baissé
Se penchait vers lui, l’homme, une espèce de maure,
Saisit un pistolet qu’il étreignait encore,
Et vise au front mon père en criant: “Caramba! “
Le coup passa si près que le chapeau tomba
Et que le cheval fit un écart en arrière.
” Donne-lui tout de même à boire “, dit mon père.