A big, fat cloud of negative had amassed over my head arrested nearly two weeks of my optimism earlier this month when I found some inspiration in two rather small packages that helped me turn myself around.
I went to a reception celebrating 50 years of Fulbright scholarships between Spain and the United States. It was in a rather fancy building, in the fancier part of town in a high-ceilinged conference room with fancy chandeliers and waiters with fancy black ties passing around wine, champagne and caviar. As my 6th graders would say in their British-influenced English, "How cheeky!"
The reception was attended by former and current Fulbrighters (both Spanish and American), folks from the American Embassy, the US Ambassador to Spain and a random assortment of other interesting people related to the Fulbright program. There were multiple ex-Fulbrighters who spoke on their experiences, a former ambassador from the US turned Vice President of SUNY Buffalo who spoke on his time as an ambassador, and there was even a brief recorded salute sent to us from Hillary Clinton where she commended the program on 50 years of cultural interchange.
The speakers were good, but they didn't hold a candle to the moment where the host introduced the guests of honor: three of the first Fulbrighters from Spain to the US in 1958. She called on them to stand and slowly each of the wrinkled, white-haired
becarios came to their feet. They were two men and one woman and one of the men was seated with the woman. They didn't speak, they just smiled while the audience applauded and then they returned to their seats.
Later on during the reception my friend Mike and I sought out the old man and woman who had been seated together for some conversation about their year abroad. Turns out they met on the boat from Spain to New York; back then the Fulbright program relied on boats for their inter-continental transportation, picking up first Fulbrighters in Greece, then Italy and finally Spain. In NY, they both attended Columbia, she at the Teacher's College and he for an MBA, and shortly after their arrival home to Spain they were married and are now great-grandparents.
They gave us accounts of life in the United States of 1958 during their year as students and also of some of their adventures afterward. In true 'we've been married for almost 50 years' fashion, they often completed each others' stories and interrupted each other to add pertinent details of the tale that the other had left out. At the end of their year the husband told us how he hitch-hiked across the US, first from New York to South Carolina, where he was stopped at dusk by a trooper- only to spend the night in a private jail cell, have the trooper make him breakfast in the morning, and then drive him up to Tennessee and drop him off, as hitch-hiking in SC was illegal. He continued along, stopping off in Mexico before heading all the way out to California. His wife, shaking her finger, cut in with, "
Pero yo, no. Me fui a Puerto Rico- a la playa." ("But not me, I went to Puerto Rico- to the beach.") She did do a little Carribean island-hopping though, because they met up in Cuba for Christmas 1958, just days, they reminded us, before Bautista fled and the Communists took power.
We listened like two eager grandchildren asking for one more story before bedtime until finally after more than fifteen minutes of their anecdotes they, being two of the three Honored Guests at the reception, politely told us that while they had enjoyed chatting with us, they needed to move on. We thanked them for speaking with us and said goodbye with two kisses and off they went to socialize with some of the other guests. Mike and I smiled and decided we had fantastic luck to have been able to catch them at a moment where no one else had hold of their attention.
As one of the black-tied waiters walked by with more wine, I reached for a glass reflecting on all that was said, forgetting about all my earlier frustrations and hoping that one day, when I have white hair and I've shrunk to only 5'5, I'll be able to dazzle young people with the yarns of my life and the adventures I undertook, as these two golden-agers had just done.
erts. How happy he was when some more friends arrived later in the evening so he could get a second opinion on the turkey and the gravy as I am STILL (yes, grandpa) a vegetarian. The verdict was good and the rest of the dishes arrived at the house later in the evening along with the guests. The night went quite smoothly and everyone seemed to have a good time. Éxito.
