A little about Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer, at 15, became youngest international grandmaster in chess history. he was the only American to hold world championship (1972-75)chess title. He was stripped of title in 1975 after refusing to defend against Anatoly Karpov and became recluse; re-emerged to defeat old foe and former world champion Boris Spassky in 1992.

Remember Bobby Fischer?

Yahoo! News - Chess master Bobby Fischer plans to abandon US nationality: lawyer

Anybody Remember Bobby Fischer?

He beat the Russians for the World Chess Championship during the cold war and put chess on the map in America.

But here he is today, hiding in Japan, annoucing he'd rather abandon his U.S. citizenship than be prosecuted in the States for playing a chess match against world champion Boris Spassky in the old Yugoslavia in 1992.

How low he has fallen.

How petty the American government and how ungrateful, toward the man who became a national hero and symbol of the fight against Bolshevism

Fishing for the first time

I just gave Nagy Blog a new skin. I wanted to give this journal a little color so here it is.

Yesterday afternoon, I took off for the marina for a change of air and maybe an evening sail. The wind was blowing easterly. That means a big swell from the open sea and a bumpy ride at best. I decided to wait an hour or so until the day breeze would die with the lowering sun. It was pretty hot as usual in August in Spain, so I opened the bimini sun awning over the cockpit to shade the cockpit. I took a fanta and a slice of watermelon from the fridge and settled down to relax and take in the sea air and listen to the sounds of the port.

After a time, my dock neighbors arrived, bait and cooler in hand, ready to go out fishing with their grandson. They have a small cabin motorboat with 95hp Evinrude motor on the stern. They like to catch squid off shore.

The Levante wind was still blowing strongly, so they thought better of it and began setting up fishing from the cockpit of the boat. Their grandson began playing on the dock with his spiderman figurines, letting them down into the water on a string so they could "swim".

I have a fishing rod that I got with a few flies and paraphernalia at a sports store, but have never fished anything.

We began chatting and they agreed to show me how to fish dockside, what fishing gear to get and a good fishing spot close by. I got my gear out of the boat and showed the man what I had. It's a trolling setup, he commented, for fishing while the boat sails along at a slow pace, not very practical for the dock. But, even though the rod was too long, they helped me set up my rod with some of their own bait frozen shrimp, a small weight and a line with several small fishing hooks.

Was I elated to finally find somebody to help me get started! Sometimes the weather won't let just get out of port, but just enjoying the sun and sea at dock can be fun if you think you just may hook something! I let the line down to the bottom, about 25 ft. at dock. After a short time, on my neighbor's boat, the lady got a tug on her line, the rod bowed and she towed in a silvery squirming fish, big enough for the frying pan. He'd swallowed the hook and line so it took a little jogging to get him off. The grandson got excited, dropped old spiderman, asked if he could fish.

I didn't catch any fish, but someone did eat the bait off the hook. I was really just happy to be fishing for the first time.

August, head for the beach!

August is vacation month in Spain when for four long hot delirious weeks everybody slows down to working half-day or closes shop and heads for the sea. The city streets empty while the beach towns become home to half of Spain and northern Europe.

Naturally! The beaches here are covered with beautiful white sand running miles up and down the shore. They are equipped with showers to rinse off and water fountains to get a drink. Sun umbrellas and hammock chairs can be rented for those that haven't brought their own. A little off shore, a floating dock equipped with slide invites the better swimmer to break away. Most people hardly venture away from their sun burning beach towels, content just dipping and playing where soft warm waves drift up and across the sand.

A megaphone touting lifeguard rules over this small world from high atop his towering flag crowned throne.

When you need a bite, or when your beer cooler goes dry, just walk to the beach walk, where you can find hotdog and hamburgers stands, bars, and outdoor cafes with shaded patios.

Alongside these permanent establishments, newly arrived immigrants and gypsies sell pirated CDs, sunglasses, jewelry, African, Indian and South American craft items. Their wares are laid carefully at their feet on blankets so as to be swept up in a wink, and thrown, knotted over their backs to flee, should a policeman show up.

White sandy beaches along the Levante coast 

One hand for yourself

When I sail past the port entrance lighthouse out toward the open sea, I feel a sense of independence and a unique freedom. When the sails fill and the ship begins to run, I listen to the murmuring, babbling sound of the sea moustaching on her bow. I watch the waves come to embrace and flow over D'Artagnan's flanks to her stern, drawing paths where there can never be any roads. Sometimes, I take a run across the bay. Sometimes, I stop to anchor off a sandy beach shore. Sometimes, friends come aboard to sail and share.
The first thing I teach newbies after they get wobbly-legged on board, is an old sailors' rule "One hand for the ship, one hand for yourself".

Did you call the fire department?

Since the gypsies’ family moved in, I began to notice that plastic supermarket bags, broken toys and appliances were accumulating in the lot at the end of the dead end. Could it be someone was throwing their garbage over there instead of taking it to the corner dumpster? The fact that I had seen a gypsy lady chucking bulging grocery bags out the window of their apartment at various times over the last months made me wonder. Their apartment is situated on the 4th floor at the corner of the building, overlooking the abandoned property at the dead end. The property, an old ceramic factory workshop, is overgrown with grass, vines and trees, awaiting city planners’ decision to tear down the wall and extend the street. The problems of piling up household waste in an urban setting, the consequent flies and bugs breeding under the hot Spanish sun, as well as the accompanying odors shall not be discussed here. In the meantime, the gypsies had found a solution to any and more of such imagined problems.

I thought I did smell wood smoke as I came into the building one noontime. Seeing nothing coming from over the wall at the dead end though, I went upstairs to the apartment and began putting away groceries, forgetting about it. Minutes later, shouting and insulting somebody, the very upset voice of a lady in my building, brought me back to reality. The gypsies had set fire to the garbage pile and the whole abandoned lot was ablaze. "Did you call the fire department?” I called to the upset neighbor. Hardly catching her reply, hearing loud popping noises of exploding spray cans, I moved down the hall to my living room on the street side to witness tall flames and clouds of black smoke leaping up from the lot and completely blackening the view from my 3rd floor windows. Sirens soon announced the fire truck’s arrival. They then worked for the next half hour dowsing flames under the watchful eyes of the whole block of neighbors, except for the gypsies, who were nowhere to be found for comment.

Neighbors

Where to begin... Mmmmm....
When I raised the blinds in the living room the other morning at a quarter to eight..I looked out to see a neighbor asleep on a folding chair on the sidewalk in front of the apartment building across the alley...and when I looked accross to the 4th floor windows, they were gone. Well I should say they had removed all the windowpanes.
That's just a wink at daily life with gyspies for next door neighbors here in Spain where I make my home now.
More to come of course.