Because You Never Asked

 

     (This essay was written in the mid 90’s.)

     On one of the more recent entries to this mass of dubious philosophical patter, I spoke of the suffering one might incur while booking passage in a modern travel agency (see essay “Technology”). Such effort was finally rewarded and I now write from a sunny isle in the Spanish Mediterranean.

     I first started coming to Europe more than a quarter century ago, having traveled from Greece to Ireland and almost all points in between. I’ve become somewhat of a “Latinophile”, with particular empathy for anything Spanish, Italian and French. There is a cultural-intellectual profundity here that I find somewhat less poignant in America, in much the same way the ancient Greeks may have viewed their muscle bound offspring, the Roman Empire. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the political arena, where all colors of the rainbow are well represented and the humblest citizen has a more intellectually rooted concept of “left” and “right” than their American brethren. In America, left and right generally has more to do with pitchers than politics.

     All nations, cultures, or groups with a particular identity, tend to overstate their worth against the rest of the world. The educational formation of just about anyone in “Occidente” is liberally spiced with insinuations tending to show that whoever they might be, they are at least as good as anyone else out there, and probably even better. Certainly, the United States is no slouch in this department, with competing, winning, and being the best at the core of its national personality. Such notions moderately applied can be a healthy exercise, but, like anything else, when it becomes a gluttonous compulsion, the end result can turn into a sickly slab of flabby ugliness. At this juncture in time, the whole western world (and the United States in particular) might be well advised to go on an ego diet in order to shed a few pounds of aggressive fat.

     As a typical socially indoctrinated American, my first trip to Europe was somewhat illuminating. My generation --- at least until we received our Vietnamese lobotomy --- was raised in an atmosphere of unquestioned optimism. “Cadillac” was the only thing that meant luxury to us, and we were the Cadillac of nations. We had the appliances, cars, gadgets, as well as the ass-kicking high speed freeways and color TV’s. Going to Europe was little more than a jaunt into some picturesque time warp, a care free trip to the “old world”, where we could condescendingly enjoy the quaint ambiance while smugly congratulating ourselves for our own superiority.

     This attitude was challenged as soon as I hit the ground in Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport. As an “innocent abroad”, I had little experience with the world’s airports, but I grew up in New York and knew Kennedy (Idlewild back then) and LaGuardia --- what else was there to know?

     In a word, plenty.

     Schipol was not only cleaner, brighter, and more attractive than my airport conception of that time, it was more “avant garde”. There were gadgets and contraptions that caught my eye. The written indications, the lighting, the baggage carousels, etc., seemed slightly futuristic --- and everything worked to perfection. I thought --- gee, this is pretty neat.

     Upon returning home 2 months later, Kennedy seemed a duller, danker, dingier place. (Then again, if we are to give equal time here, the airport in Madrid, namely Barajas, still isn’t worth a bucket of cholesterol).  But I also sensed that you cannot judge a country by its international airport. Even in the third world, I surmised, the airport is probably the one technological incursion in an otherwise backwards setting. Let’s see the rest of this place.

     As I rode the bus in from the airport, in spite of the grey ugliness of the urban landscape, I could not help but be impressed. The roads and highways were brilliantly marked and engineered, the buses and trains, like darts of light and color, slashed through the monotonous industrial suburbs, and there were little cars everywhere. I thought --- gee, this is just like home.

     After a week of looking for trouble in Amsterdam (which is one of the best places in the world to look for trouble) I bought a VW beetle in front of the American Express building ($150) and headed south. About a half hour out of town I was to have my true awakening. Up ahead was a long suspension bridge. Unlike the twin towered New York bridges of my youth, this bridge had a monolithic tower in the center of its span from which all its wiring gracefully swooped down in two majestic curves. The wiring itself was more delicate, almost threadlike, and its configuration was more fluid, as if it had a life of its own. The bridge looked like a huge, A-shaped harp. I could almost imagine a giant Harpo Marx sitting next to it plucking away ecstatically. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I thought --- wow! This is the future.

     After having grown familiar with Europe over the years, I am no longer surprised by the technological-creative abilities of these people. Perhaps we Americans routinely mistake power and strength, something we do possess in excess, with ingenuity and know-how, which is more equally distributed in the world. I believe my first trip to Europe was the beginning of my life as an objective person.

     I write this piece in the dreamy, indolent hours of the Spanish late afternoon. The ever-bedazzling Mediterranean light has seeped into every pore of the landscape, even changing the quality of the shade, and except for a black dog frolicking in the shallows by the beach, there is hardly a wisp of sound or movement anywhere. I find this sun-shocked tranquility an excellent environment to write in, and the ball point pen I am using is worth mention. The pen is completely bio-degradable, having been made from a derivative of corn plants. It is a vegetable product, not a petroleum plastic product. It was given to me by my good friend, Pepin Mari, cultured Catalan gentleman and devoted follower, like all cultured Catalan gentlemen, of the Barcelona “Futbol” Club. When I first used it, I thought --- gee, how ’bout that. It is a bit softer than plastic and has a slight flex that is almost not bothersome. It can use a little work --- but the thought is what counts.

     Post Script- As I put this essay up on my website in 2007, both Barajas and Kennedy are glittering versions of the latest in airport science, though Barajas is still very difficult to use, with very long walks to change planes amongst its shortcomings. Although I’ve been to Holland since writing this essay, I’ve not been through Schipol. I cannot compare it to the other airports of today, but it was in the vanguard when I wrote this essay and I’m quite certain the Dutch would not let it languish with the run of time.