Through the fault of my maternal Grandfather I’ve lived a life lusting stories to tell. Many of my lifes choices, good or bad, were made simply from that desire… to tell a story.
In the year 1917 my Grandad ran away from his home in Southwark , London at the age of 13 to find a temporary two or three year home with Gypsy’s . True Gypsy’s that existed throughout Europe at that time roaming the countryside in colorful horse drawn wagons to prey on the unwary townsman and villager alike. He was taken in by a gypsy leader known as King Ely who taught him the skill of hand carvng clothes pins for a living. And the unwritten Romany language . Not many years later he was trapped in a coal mine and though I’ve never really wanted to be trapped in a coal mine …. I envied that story of adventure he had to tell.
My endless quest of stories that would hopefully equal my Grandfathers finally brought the inevitable last month…. travelers diahrea in another foriegn land . Five days of not being able to stop followed by three days of not being able to go . I awoke that morning in South America feeling just fine but within fifteen minutes found my prayers to God for death going unanswered. Intestinal infection as it turned out forced my necessity to seek medical attention on the third day.
Cruz Roja , or Red Cross as we know it has a very professional and caring staff in Cartago Colombia . I sat impatiently in the waiting room as by 08:00 there were already 25 people ahead of me and knew all too well it would not be long before the need of the “bano”. { banyo}
In fear I raced down the hall to the door marked “bano” and on entry was immediately relieved at its sparkly clean appearance . I turned to quickly lock the door only to turn back to have that relief shattered by the fact that a previous occupant had stolen the toilet seat…… along with all the paper . And at that point, desirous of a story to tell or not…. I knew my life was suckin hard .
From the window of the taxi back to the house, and only moments from crapping my pants I noticed a man delivering numerous large burlap sacks from his horse drawn wagon on that very busy street . And it reminded me of the story my Grandfather told of how he met my Grandmother while he was delivering sacks of coal in London from a horse drawn wagon ninety five years ago .
