Ciao Alessio

April 15th, 10:00 A.M. 3.6 Kilograms. 52.5 Centimeters. Ciao Alessio. Welcome to the world.

I got a wonderful call from my friend Angelo to tell me that Alessio had arrived, and that he and his mother were doing fine. At the time of the call, Alessio was all of an hour old. I decided to wait five days to pay him a visit, and here he is, doing what he likes to do best right now, sleeping. Jim Boeheim of Syracuse University had already stopped by, seeing if he would sign a letter of intent to play for the Orangemen in a few years. They could use a tall good looking guy like Alessio as center.

Franci suggested that Alessio would probably wait a few years before making up his mind, and thought that if he wanted a career in sports, he might be better off with a soccer career, as he had done a really good job kicking while inside, and he even would kick as soon as he woke up, before he was feed. Besides, look how well Luca Toni has been doing, first with Palermo, then with Florence, and now with Bayern Munich. So there is a market for tall good looking soccer players here.



Angelo, his father, said it did not really matter to him what Alessio decides to do, as long as he is happy with his life.

When I arrived, Alessio was of course sound asleep. He woke up slowly, with his feet trying to find the soccer ball, and his arms waving around to make sure that he was not called for a hand ball. He looked at me with his beautiful blue eyes, and smiled and said: 'Hi Zio Steve.' Well, maybe he did not really say that, but he and I were in the room together, alone, and I will never deny that he said that, and I will just suggest that perhaps he does not remember if you ask him.

Seriously, while I may not really be his uncle, Angelo and Franci have already told me that I will be called Zio Steve by him, and that I have the responsibility of teaching him to speak English. Nonna , who grew up in Switzerland, will teach him German, and everyone else will teach him Italian and Sicilian. It is our plan to have him quatrolingual by the time he starts school. Well, maybe not that early, but we will get him to speak some words in a bunch of languages.

I welcome Alessio to our world, and hope that we can make it a better place for him and his generation, and that he will grow up strong and smart, with a warm and caring heart, and that he will be a credit to his wonderful parents, and his kind and friendly grandparents. Ciao Alessio, it is good to have you with us.

Fairwell to Germany

After spending a delightful few days with my friends Gene and Nancy in Lamperthiem, a period of time where for some reason I left my camera sleeping in my suitcase, I headed back home. The time with them was spent partly going onto the base where Gene works supervising the repair, maintenance, and upgrading of US Army helicopters (he works for one of the good contractors of the DOD), and on Saturday taking a five K Volksmarch in a small part of the Pfalzwald, which I mentioned in the previous post. The Volksmarch was fun, and I had seen Gene's alpine hat covered with small medals from Marches he had been on, and I wanted to get my own first Volksmarch medal. However, apparently things have changed. This time, we got little plastic cars instead of medals for having completed the hike, and Gene and Nancy were thus able to complete the first part of the Christmas shopping for nieces, nephews, and other kids needing little toys. I was able to buy a Hey Lands Beer truck (Give us this day our daily beer), which will serve as a fine souvenir of the day in the woods. And yes, we did see a lot of windfall as we walked through the woods, a reminder of the previous weekend that had all the warnings about not going for a walk in the woods.

A nice thing about Volksmarching is that there is a check point about half way through the march. This is not only to stamp the card to show that one is well on their way to completing the prescribed distance, but it is also a chance to have a seat, rest, and drink a (good German) beer or two. Ah, they seem to know how to do it right.

From Viernheim, I took the train back to Munich for two nights. Munich is an interesting city, and I suppose someday I will go back in September to take part in the Octoberfest. But for me, the highlight was seeing the carillon clock in the city center, with two layers of dancing figures. It reminded me so much of the clock of nations at Midtown Center in Rochester. Well, it should have, as the clock in Rochester was designed with the clock in Munich in mind. The Munich clock is better. I do remember my mother describing the Rochester clock by saying that at noon, all the little doors open and all hell breaks loose. The same is basically true in Munich, except that it happens at eleven o'clock.

When I first moved to Europe, and indeed, when I first visited Germany, I did not think I would like Germany much. Militarism, antisemitism, that whole bit. However, I have come to enjoy my time in Germany, and am fortunate to have found good friends there. I will be returning to see them in December. Meanwhile, I like to keep in mind something that Klaus told me. He said that it is a matter of pride for him that he may live his whole life with Germany not having gone to war once. He is sad that there are German troops trying to help keep the peace in other parts of the world, but he considers that different from going to war. I thought about America during the same period of time. Korea, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Granada, Kuwait, and on and on and on and on. So sad. Again, I am pleased to have the friends I have, who have helped me know Germany as a country of great beauty, intersting history, and wonderful cuisine.

Mannheim

Following my jaunt in Frankfort, I took the short train ride to see my friends Klaus, Lutz, and Petra in Mannheim. They are the folks who rent an apartment here in Sciacca year round, and I can usually count on seeing at least one of them almost every month for about a week. While I truly do enjoy the serenity of having this 72 apartment complex to myself during the winter months (when I am smart enough to be home) Klaus, Lutz and Petra are the kind of neighbors I want if I am to have neighbors.

I do not want to suggest that I was not well fed by my friends in Frankfort, as indeed I was very well fed. However, the folks in Mannheim seem to know special places to eat, and always steer me in the right direction when I ask what I should get. I think they like the idea that I really do want to eat German food when I am in Germany, as they have seen far too many tourists from Italy heading for Pizzerias, and far too many tourists from America headed for that chain of stores that begins with either a Mc.... or a Bu....

My first day there, Klaus took me with him as he went to a small town in the Rhinepfalz area, and I enjoyed riding in the car, looking at all the vinyards, passing wiengut after wiengut (winery). Klaus told me that the woods that started at the east of the valley were the beginning of the Pfalzwald, the largest uninterrupted forest in western Europe, and the woods extended on into France. Little did I know that in a few days I would be walking through a part of the woods as I participated in a volksmarch with other friends. But then, I am getting ahead of myself.

That night, Klaus, Lutz, Klaus's son Stefan and I went to Moehlenbach to a country restuarant that I had eaten in the last time I was in the area. It is here that I get my favorite meal, done perfectly. It is not just pork hocks (schwienhochsen?), but it is schwienhochsen Sigfried. If you have had pork hocks in the US, forget what you know about them. These are long and meaty and cooked on a rotisserie, and are, simply put, wonderful. They are a meal in an of themselves. If I were a younger man, I think I would start travelling the fair circuit in the US, because I am sure once someone tried them, they would love them. Of course, then the US would end up with a lot of pigs with no legs, but then again, there is a market for ground pork.

Sorry about that.

The next day, I went in to Mannheim from where my friends live in Viernheim. I got to see the local museum, which had an exhibit of police photos from the forties and fifties, which were very interesting, as well as a display of old German wooden hand crafted furniture and gowns. The furniture almost knocked me out. There was a wonderful docent on this floor of the museum, and although I speak next to no German, and she spoke next to no English, she made sure that I saw the entire exhibit, including drawers that were filled with antique clocks and watches, and all sorts of other interesting things.

In front of the museum, was the last great exhibit of note, at least as far as I am concerned. At first I thought it was just a bike parking lot, and that for some reason the good citizens of Mannheim liked pink bicycles. However, closer inspection showed me that the bikes were probably not usable, even if you took the one best part from each of them trying to built a single bike, so I realized it was a rather neat bit of conceptual art. Bravo.

And across the street from the museum was what should be the most famous building in all of Mannheim, far more important than the Mannheim water tower (which is a neat building in and of itself, with a beautiful garden around it), and indeed, more breathtaking than the Cathedral, which was bombed during the war, and has been lovingly restored. The building I am talking about is, of course, the building that my friend Klaus attended high school in, and which was designed by the same architect who designed the art museum. And I should hasten to add that the design was not done using the computer aided design software that my three friends sell and support.

When I finished wandering around Mannheim, I decided to take a trolley back to Viernhiem. I read the map carefully, bought my ticket from the machine, asked the trolley conductor if it was the right trolley for Viernheim, and off I went. It was the right trolley, but only in a round about way. First, it took me to Heidelberg, and then started to return on the other side of the Neckar river, and then I had to change trains. When I finally got to where I was going, Lutz had called twice to make sure I was alright, and he met me at the stop for the next bit of adventure.

First we crossed the Rhine from Mannheim to its sister city Ludwigshafen. The owner of BASF had grown up in Mannheim, and had wanted to build his plant there. However, the town fathers in their wisdom said that it might cause too much pollution and congestion, so instead he built the plant in Ludwigshafen. Now Ludwigshafen gets all of the development, but due to the prevailing winds, Mannheim gets all the air pollution. Oh my, sometimes one gets the elevator, other times one gets the shaft.

Anyway, we came back across the river on a little ferry boat, and headed toward Schwetzingen, where Lutz and I wandered on the grounds of a huge summer palace (there is a picture of part of it at the top of this entry. Another view appears just above. What a place, and what beautiful gardens. Nadja had explained to me the difference between French (formal) gardens and English (natural) gardens, but I did not expect to see extensive examples of both tucked away in this small town. I also very much appreciated Lutz's sensibility, as he kept saying that as this palace was built for the summer enjoyment of the royalty, the townspeople starved.

Then we were off to Neckarsteinach, just beyond Heidelberg, where there are four wonderful castles on the hillside overlooking the Neckar river.

For dinner, we returned to Heidelberg. Frankly, Heidelberg is not my favorite town. Yes, the castle is over the top gorgeous. It is also, like Taormina in my beloved Sicily, and like Florence and Venice to the north, a tourist town done right. However, I am not really fond of tourist towns. However Lutz reminded me of something Fran used to say. Trust local knowledge. On a little side street, Lutz knew where there used to be an old biergarten, and it has been renovated, and is now a new biergarten. The same great beer, and wonderful food, and the old walls and paintings are still there to be seen. Also, there were not too many Americans there having dinner, so I really did enjoy myself.

The next day I moved on across the river to visit my friends Gene and Nancy Mehlenbacher in Lamperthiem. Thank you Lutz, Klaus, and Petra, for a wonderful stay near Mannheim.

Frankfort

After spending just a few days at home, I was off to Germany, where I flew into Munich, and then took a train the next morning to visit friends in Frankfort. And what better way to visit Germany, and in this case, on a day trip outside Frankfort, Bavaria. And if one goes to Bavaria, then one must, of course, stop and have a beer or two. The picture above shows my friends Nadja, Thomas, and Kirsten, trying some of the beer we stopped to buy in Aschaffenburg on our way to Lohr. You may remember Thomas and Kirsten from their visit to Sicily almost a year ago. The beer store was incredible, with a wonderful local beer named Faust (fist), which has as a slogan: World wide, tell no one; Regionally, drink quietly; At home, drink the best. I think that may be a way to keep the beer high quality for the small local breweries that are all over the region. The other favorite beer, in terms of name, was Hey Land beer, which is a play on Heiland, which means savior, and their slogan is: 'Give us this day our daily beer.' The one person who could not make this trip with us was Nadja's husband, Ralph. Poor Ralph had to teach on the day of this trip. He teaches at a local college that is designed to help workers further their education.

When we got to Lohr, we stopped at the Spessart Museum, which had wonderful exhibits regarding the preindustrial and industrial history of the area. Lohr had been the largest manufactury of bell clappers, and they were basically hand made by the artisans in the town. They also had major wood working projects, and the museum carefully traces the evolution of the work from artisanal production, when each craftsperson was responsible for a piece from start to finish, to the first manufacturies, where the products were made by teams, with specific job skills, but still mostly hand made, to the full industrial production model, where there was not the individual ownership of production that one sees in the earlier models.

The logo of the museum was a medieval woodsman, and most likely a poacher. Nadja had done a lot of research on the lives and culture of the woodsmen in the area, and was full of interesting information. They were in many ways the downtrodden, who could not longer stay in the feudal system, and so went to live in the woods. It was an interesting, yet very hard life for them. One thing that she mentioned that I found interesting (and many things she mentioned were indeed interesting) was the fact that it was the first sort of German society in which Jews were treated freely as equals.

The museum included examples of the local pottery, glass making, ship building, metal working, and wooden tool making. It was a wonderful museum, and talked a lot about the work of the individual workers, rather than about the later industrial model. Bell clappers were made in Lohr as recently as the 1980's.

There was a high wind warning all over Germany during this day trip, and the radio and television announcers were telling everyone 'Don't go into the woods today.' It seemed a funny announcement, until I later spent a Saturday on a Volksmarch through a wooded area. It seems a popular thing to do in Germany on the weekend. At any rate, we did go into the woods, and found a tiny hamlet where deer are raised, and there was a small, beautiful church, locked up so we could not go inside. It looked like it could have been almost a hermitage, and the town, with a population well under 100, I think, if you do not count the deer, nestled in old growth forest, reminded me of some of the small towns in the Adirondack mountains of New York.

We later drove through the woods some more, seeing many downed branches, as well as places the woodsmen had been harvesting trees, and ended up and a wonderful small guest house restaurant for dinner.

One night in Frankfort, the five of us got together at a wonderful apfelweinwirtschaft which is a restaurant where the specialty is their own apfelwien, which is apple wine. They have a huge pitcher of apple wine at the bar, and use it to fill liter pitchers of apple wine to bring to the tables. The food was wonderful, the apple wine was great (far better than apple cider, or hard apple cider, in my opinion) and the waiter, who had been mentioned in the guide books as particularly friendly, was very grumpy. When asked for something, he would look at you and say: 'Wait your turn. I have work to do.'

Nadja and Kirsten work putting out a paper representing some of the thinking of the political left in Germany, and it was in the offices of the paper that I got this shot of them holding up likenesses of Chairman Mao and Mr. Bin Laden. Oh my.

It was a wonderful visit. I am so lucky that it was Nadja that I asked to translate an announcement at the Stuttgart train station a year ago when I was on my way to visit friends in Mannheim, and that we were able to sit together on the train and talk about Marxism in the US, and other political things, and that she then sent Kirsten and Thomas to stay with me for a few nights, and now I have met Ralph. What a great group of people. What a fun visit. They help me count my lucky stars.

Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

I mentioned that security was tight to get on a place flying from Cologne to Tel Aviv, and that my friend Joan had rehearsed me as to what to say at the passport check when I arrived. I thought she was kidding. She was not. They asked me all the questions she said they would, and I answered them all correctly. Finally I made it through security, picked up my bag, and met Joan in the reception hall.

The weather was beautiful as we drove into Tel Aviv, a thoroughly modern city with glass tower after glass tower. One could see where the Zionists had made the desert bloom with green, and they were now destroying the green to make it bloom with green glass towers. I just hope that in a few decades they do not run out of good land to farm, as it has all been built on. But then, Tel Aviv is a modern city, and like most, is being increasingly surrounded by suburbs, where the penduli live as they go into the city each day to make their living.

I really did not know what to expect from Israel, or Tel Aviv, or Jerusalem. Indeed, I did not know what to expect at Joan's house, other than the fact that along with her PR Matchmaking business, she is a 'cat lady', who may get calls at any hour to rescue a cat that has been hit by a car, or had some other untoward incident disrupt its and her life. Also, as a cat lady, she takes care of a number of cats in a park down the street from where she lives, as well as about fifteen cats that have taken up residence on her terrace, and I could never get them all in one place long enough to cound how many were inside the house. I do know that I had to be agile at the doorway in order to get in and out without letting the inside cats out or the outside cats in.

With all of her cats, Joan still managed to keep a clean house, and it was amazing to me that the litter did not smell, but then she changed the boxes twice a day. It was strange for me, waking up in the middle of the night, to find four or five, and maybe six or seven cats sleeping with me. They occasionally would want to play with my toes, or sleep on my chest, and one took great delight in pawing at my nose as I tried to sleep. Joan had been kind enough to give me her bed as she slept on the couch in the living room, and once I got up and noticed that there were another seven cats sleeping on top of her. Amazing.

After touring around Tel Aviv for several days, I took a bus to Jerusalem, where I stayed for two nights at a hostel sponsored by the Church of Scotland, or the Presbyterians, as the church is called in America. It was close to the old, walled city, which is where I spent most of my time. While I walked through most of the old city, I did spend hours just sitting and watching the life of the old city for hours. It was amazing to me, and in many ways represented for me what I found disturbing about Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Israel.

The old city is separated into quarters for different groups; Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Armenians, Jews, Muslims, and on and on and on. And the quarters are indeed different. The shop keepers try to guess the ethnicity or religion of the tourists passing through, and try to call to them with the appropriate greeting. I found a number of people to be camera shy, so eventually I just stopped taking pictures altogether.

As my time in Jerusalem was getting short, I took the city tour bus to see parts of the city outside the walls. Again, it was interesting, mostly because of the divisions of the city. They do have a law that states that all buildings must have facades of white Jerusalem stone, which makes the city all one big color, which was startling at first, but then I must admit that I found it rather uninteresting. What was interesting was that the city was divided not only by religion, and not only by country of origin, but also seemed to be divided by sect. So certain sects of certain orthodox groups would be in one area, and others in another. And when I say orthodox, I am not referring just to the Jews, but also to the Muslims, the Evangelical Christians, the Copts, the Eastern Rite, the Roman Rite, and finally, on the tour bus, we passed the new Mormon Tabernacle, high on a hill overlooking the old city. Just what Jerusalem needed, another religious presence. Ah well.

Back in Tel Aviv, I began noticing more how it was also sectored along the same lines as both old and modern Jerusalem. What a shame. Of course it is not helped by the idea that new walls are being built, for protection, security, or to enforce separatness. What a sad state of affairs. The picture was taken near the original mandate border of Israel, and near where Joan is building a new home. For something that is supposed to provide protection and security, I found it a bit scary.

Finally the dander got too much for me, and I moved to a hotel on the beautiful beach that Tel Aviv has. I felt luxurious on a high floor of a hotel, facing north along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Then I watched the news, and the bombing death of Hezballah's Imad Mugniyah was just being announced, along with Hezballah's statement that they now had the right to attack Israel. Following that, the great Humanitarian George W. released a statement that while the US was not responsible for the bombing, we were none the less happy that Imad Mugniyah was no longer alive. My sense of security dropped another point, and later, when on a walk, I noticed that just to the south of my hotel was the US Embassy, and I realized that if Hezballah had any strong missles, and if they wanted to fire them at the Embassy, then my hotel room would be directly in the line of fire.

I should not make this seem as if I did not feel welcomed in Israel. Not only was Joan an excellent hostess, full of interesting information about her adopted homeland, but also, it seemed, at just about every street corner, the government wanted to give me an official,if somewhat metallic, high five.
Joan gave me a magnificent over view of the city, and it was wonderful walking through the Arab flea market to the south-west of Tel Aviv. I got a real idea of how the city and the country worked from her, as well as an idea of how they did not work.

All of my misgivings were, at least in my mind, further justified in leaving Israel, and having my papers checked and re-checked first at the entrance to the airport property, then at the entrance to the airport, then at the entrance to the area used to check into my flight, then at the baggage inspection area (where half of the checked baggage was being searched - although my baggage was not gone through), then where I picked up my bording pass, then before I went through security, then when I was going through security, and finally, when I was bording the plane.

The flight to Cologne, with another overnight there, and then on home to Palermo and finally Sciacca, was without incident. But I must say, I am happy to be home from that trip, and I mourn the state of affairs that has created such disharmony in what could be a beautiful and shared land. The worst part is, I see no solutions. Of course there are no easy solutions, but it seems that there are no difficult solutions either. If ever our world needed a mulligan, I think it would be in the middle east.

April Fish

Well, I guess it is not as bad as getting some weird sort of prank pulled on you in the US today, and becoming an April Fool, but here in Italy, one becomes an April Fish, usually by someone taping a small picture of a fish on your shirt behind your back. I am just glad they do not use the real thing, like the guys above, who were waiting at the fish auction in the port last night, and were selling for five euros per box, which is not a bad price at all.

April Fish everyone.