The Zdravko Blues

June 22, 2009

I’ve been here a week and things are going slow. There is still no running water at either house. I set out last Tuesday to check out the village, Psarjevo Gornje. As Zdravko told me, it only has about ten families. The center has a store and a stop sign. In a quarter mile radius is an elementary school w/ playground and about 13 houses. That’s it! The store is like a corner store or a Seven Eleven without all of the takeout fast food options. It has fresh bread every morning and some fresh fruit and vegetables not always locally grown.

Tuesday afternoon we went up and checked out the house 2. Zdravko had already cut much of the bush that has grown up over the past fifteen years that it has been vacant. He has started painting the interior and we are now waiting for the village to connect the water. The water was supposed to be connected three weeks ago but we are still waiting. The village leader had said possibly Wednesday, but Wednesday passed with no connection. It’s in the nineties and too hot to work so we went back to the farm house and Zdravko took a nap to rest his back which continues to bother him.

Tuesday evening we visited Zdravko’s nephew and his family who live a couple of villages away. There I was introduced to the Croatian national drink, three parts white wine mixed with one part mineral water. The spritzer, as they are called, is offered and poured for you as soon as you sit down in someone’s house. Now I’ve never been a wine drinker, but these are pretty good drinks. Zdravko drinks them like they are water, which often leads to the problem of him being drunk.

He also chain smokes when he’s drinking and it was really a problem that night sitting in a small kitchen alcove with the constant smoke. Later while driving us home I told him no more cigarettes. I can’t stand the constant smell of smoke. To my surprise the next morning he said he was not smoking anymore and he hasn’t smoked in almost a week. I continue to encourage him.

Wednesday we needed showers and headed off to the “eco-spa” as Zdravko calls it. In the 1960s a gas company drilled a well looking for natural gas and hit a pocket of water. They abandoned the well and capped it off but the locals hooked up a pipe with some nozzles and have been enjoying the hot mineral water ever since. Of course there are stories galore about the magical healing power of the water. It’s a popular late night hangout for teenagers and the aphrodisiac effect of the water can be measured in the number of children conceived in the surrounding corn fields.

Just down the hill from house 2 is the farm of Zdravko’s cousin Joza and his wife Dada. Dada is truly a wonderful woman. She seems so at home on the land. I often see her out in the fields picking berries and checking out the fruit trees. Enter her house and she offers you wine or coffee and a seat at the kitchen table. She reminds me of my paternal grandmother, always working in the house or in the fields.

Even the healing power of the eco-spa water has not been able to cure Zdravko’s back as it is bothering him again today. The slow life is starting to get to me and I feel the need to get away.

Thursday morning we were going to go to the flea market but Zdravko said his back hurt too much for the drive there. I didn’t want to spend another day sitting around the house and decided to take the 7:45 bus for the hour-and-half ride to Zagreb.

Zagreb may not be one of the great cities of the world but it’s got things to do and any city is fun to explore if you’ve never been there. I got my chores (map, phone chip, money exchanged, etc) out of the way and by then it was almost noon so I headed for food. Walking through the big farmers market (Dolac) above the city center I found a little Italian restaurant. Seems like the universal food of the world is going to be pizza, it's everywhere. Not that I mind, I love it!

One thing every city in Europe must have is dueling church bells at noon. I thought they were never going to end. There are a lot a churches here. I ate directly across from a large church that was St. Stephen's Cathedral, but is now called Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was built in 1899 and is known for its neo-Gothic twin spires. I went to look inside. It looked like every other church to me but there sure were a lot of people praying for 1 PM on Thursday. I guess maybe they were getting ready for the weekend as Zagreb is becoming known for its growing night life.

I then headed for the Galerija Klovicevi Dvori which the tour book says is "Zagreb's Premier exhibition hall where superb art shows are staged." I was expecting to see some contemporary art by Zagreb artists that I’d seen a little of in Frankfurt but this was mostly pre-nineteen hundreds with a lot of stuff from local archaeological digs. It was interesting to see the history of the region and it was presented in a lively multimedia environment. After a few hours though it all starts looking the same, how many rusty hatchet heads can you look at.

I sat in the central square watching people for a while and listening to a Gypsy boy with a dog playing the accordion. I wished that I would have brought my accordion with me so I could have learned the song he was playing. The music reminded me of a street musician I saw in New Orleans in the 1970s, an old man with a dog playing blues on a guitar. Then like now, the donations and people who stop to listen are the tourists.

I walked back to the bus station and saw a pair of cool shoes in a store window. Hit the internet café at the bus station and checked my email and caught up on some news. I got the bus and headed home which depressed me thinking of no water and no prospect of getting it fix soon.

To my amazement Zdravko had a friend there checking out the problem with the water line when I arrived. He said it’s possible we will have water in the old farmhouse by tomorrow. It made me feel better that something was happening, Zdravko even went and got tires for the car so now we can drive on the highways without out fear of a blowout.

Unfortunately several hours of work on Saturday confirmed that the problem was a broken pipe under the house and not a problem with the pump or incorrectly priming the pump. There will be no water here with the current plumbing.

The person who was helping check the plumbing was Yasa, a childhood friend of Zdravko’s. He lives with his wife up the mountain about half a mile, but has a small but beautiful cabin he built himself another mile up. His cabin is not much more than 7 X 7 meters but is very cozy and comfortable inside. We spent Saturday afternoon there drinking wine and discovered we were able to communicate in Spanish well enough to enjoy the time. Yasa has a collection of pitchers from all over the world that he has acquired in his travels and he is very proud of them.

Sunday we headed back to the eco-spa. God, the unlimited hot water is so nice. After the spa we went to visit another childhood friend of Zdravko’s. He is a sculptor Isiet Garosizic. He was having a party for his daughter’s first wedding anniversary. We arrived at their country house about 10:30 before the guests so that Zdravko and Isiet could have some time to catch up on things. We had a brunch of wine and beef heart soup which was very tasty. Isiet has acquired much land over the years and has set about to create a beautiful park- like estate. He has planted over 10,000 trees, mostly pine but also has a garden with trees from all over the world. (Sequoia, from seeds he took from Sequoia National park in the 1980s.) He spends much of his time here building small houses using old building methods. He acquires lumber by purchasing old houses and disassembling them. I believe his goal is to build houses on this land for his children and hopefully his grandchildren.

Their vineyard produces some of the strongest and best wine in the region, they told me. By early afternoon when family and guests started to arrive the wine was working well on Zdravko. Vena, the wife of Isiet, is an English teacher in the local school and speaks with a charming British accent. Her son Mark and daughter Dana are also good English speakers. It was a nice change to be able to talk to someone in English.

Dana and her husband Tony, who have both worked as airline flight attendants and aboard cruse ships in the southern U.S., were not only celebrating there first wedding anniversary but also made a surprise announcement that they are having a baby in the fall.

Isip asked me if I cooked, and when I told him I’d been a cook in the army he made me “guest cook” and I got to stand and stir the cutlet goulash - for three hours. I met many interesting people, including one person who said I should protest that NASA is trying to kill the alien colony living on the dark side of the moon.

Twelve hours and many courses of food and drink later I drive Zdravko home. As I get in bed I remember asking Mark about the portrait of the army officer on the fireplace mantle. All day I had thought it was Marshal Tito but before I left I looked at it closer and it wasn’t Tito. I asked Mark if it was a relative who fought in the war. “No it was the true leader of Croatia during WW II, Ante Pavelic,” head of the fascist Ustasa movement.

The heat of the last week has given way to a cool breeze tonight and as I doze off I can hear thunder in the distance.

June 16, 2009

Remember that trip you took to Europe the summer after you graduated from high school? You and a friend catch a cheap flight to Paris and spend the summer backpacking around where WW II happened. Well for me it was like my fiftieth birthday party. It never happened. In fact it never even occurred to me that I could go Europe after I graduated. The only kids in my high school class who went to Europe did it on Uncle Sam as members of the U.S. Army or Air Force.

Forty-six years later I’m doing it. I sold my business last July and now have the time to do it. The only rub is I can’t do it on the 1963 “Europe on $5 a Day” which is what my income is. To help solve that problem I’m spending time with some friends and relatives who live in Europe. My wife Nora and maybe some friends will be joining me later and we’ll travel around together. I’m posting this so those of you who wish may check in on me from time to time. I will warn you now, don’t expect this to be anything profound. I’m not searching for the meaning of life, my roots, or much else. It’s just an experience that I feel I should have. I’ll use it to try to improve my writing ability but it has been a struggle for decades so I don’t expect it to change much now.

As I sit writing this I have been gone a little over a week. I left San Francisco on June 8th after cashing in some United Mileage Plus Miles on a ticket to Frankfurt. I spent four-and-a-half days there with Nora’s cousin and her family. It was good to see them and they were very gracious and kept me busy. I toured the Opel auto plant, attend a high school music program, and sports award night; spend two afternoons in downtown Frankfurt seeing sites and museums, saw a soapbox derby, Chagall’s stain glass windows in St. Stephan’s church, a restored Roman fortress and ate some good food. It was all very enjoyable and fun.

Sunday morning June 14th, I boarded the 8:20 train for a twelve and one-half hour ride to Zagreb, Croatia. The train ride was pleasant if somewhat long. I enjoy trains, it seem like you always meet interesting people on them. Two cute little Russian sisters (9 and 11) were in my compartment for about 39 Km. When I told them where I was from they wanted to know if I knew Kelly Clarkson. I also met a woman from Slovenia who was returning home from a trip to the U.S. that started in NYC and ended in San Francisco. She wanted to know what time of the year it’s warm in San Francisco.

Customs was no problem except in Slovenia where they questioned and searched the luggage of my three compartment mates because they were Croatian and Bosnian. Put them through the hoops like immigration does with Latinos in the US. Slovenia is in the European Union but as a country they don't have much to offer. Mostly they are a place Europeans go through to get to Croatia. They have opposed Croatian membership into the EU and harass their citizens at every chance. They want Croatia to give them about 20 more miles of coastline so they will have a deep water sea port but Croatia refuses.

My friend Zdravko met me at the train station and we drove the 15 miles Northeast of Zagreb to his house. We had a dinner of Sauerkraut soup, ricotta cheese and bread.

Zdravko is one of my excuses for taking this trip. Zdravko lives with his wife Julia in Sonoma County, California. Summers he comes back to Croatia where he was raised to maintain his family’s farm house. Last summer he bought another piece of property and wants to do some repairs on it. He has been asking me for the last few years to come visit him and help him in exchange for room and board. This year I took him up on it.

Zdravko has two pieces of land with houses. The old family farm house where we are staying now (I call it House 1). The problem here is no running water because the pipe to the well froze last winter. We take water from the well by bucket for our needs. Unfortunately the pipe broke under the kitchen floor which is tile so he doesn't want to tear it up now. The house needs some other work to be sure but if the water was working it would be fine.

This is the house he lived in as a youth. The barn was his dad's woodworking shop where he made furniture for the villagers. The house was built in the 1890s by a royal family for their stable hands and the large barn was for their horses.

The other property is the new one up the mountain about a mile away. It has two houses (House 2 and the old house). House 2 is newer, about 1960. The old

house next to it is wood construction and is over 100 years old. He is waiting for the village to turn on the water to house 2 and then we will move up there and work on clearing the land which has grown up since no one has lived there for 15 years. He has made a good start on the clearing. The property has pear, apple and walnut trees. The Village has to have their person come out and connect the water to the main line. There is one person for the whole district and Zdravko has been waiting three weeks already. I find it hard to believe they have water lines out here; this is not in a village it’s out in the country.

The old house he wants to restore. Most of the wood support is in good shape but it will take some work for a few years to get done. Zdravko is very much into starting an Eco or self sustaining community. He wants to eat only fresh grown fruit and vegetables, raise his own chickens, turkeys, pigs and goats. No TVs. I have found so far that Europeans are much more informed than many in the US about "green issues".

I think Zdravko is glad to have some one to talk to after spending several weeks alone. He said he has been getting up at 5 am to start work because he goes to bed so early. There’s no TV or internet. I told him that I brought a deck of cards and to my chagrin he informed me that he does not play cards. That does not bode well.

It is very hot today so we are not working. Tonight or tomorrow morning I will go out and look at the Village. In the house it’s cool and comfortable this afternoon. There is a slight breeze that blows thru the open windows. The birds are loud outside and an occasional car or tractor drives by. Zdravko is taking a nap because his back is sore.