Niño - 8 July 2024

El 9 de julio or the 9th of July is when Argentines celebrate their Independence from Spain. It happened in the city of Tucumán.

While I lived for many years in Mexico and have been in Vancouver since 1975, it is impossible for me to not have nostalgia for my place of birth.

I was born in 1942 and by 1948 we were living in the Cohglan barrio of Buenos Aires. It  was named for an English railroad engineer. My father’s father Harry was from Manchester but George Waterhouse Hayward (no hyphen) was born in Buenos Aires. He worked as a journalist  for the in English Buenos Aires Standard and Buenos Aires Herald. My mother often told me (and I developed a fear of dancing) that when she and my father went to dance at the cafés on Leandro N. Alem,  people would stop dancing to watch them dance the tango.

My father was very Argentine but in many ways he was awfully English. He did smoke Player's Navy Cut cigarettes and wore Harris Tweed jackets.

By 1950, when Perón was in power, the 9 de julio (dates are not capitalized in Spanish) was celebrated with a very large military parade complete with Sherman tanks. Our neighbour’s, on one side of our house, would turn on their radio full blast and I could hear Perón talking (almost shouting) until he went hoarse. Then his wife Evita would take over. Those two voices are permanently embedded in my memory.

But there was a pleasant side to the holiday. My father would enarbolar ( a nice word that means to unfurl a flag) his very large wool flag (perhaps bought at the end of the 30s) and he would display it with ropes tied to our large and tall garden palm tree.

At my age of 81, I understand that having that flag in my possession as well as his mate (from 1940), is a rare situation that will have no meaning to my daughters and granddaughters once I am dead.

It is a bittersweet  feeling that today 8 July, was ameliorated by seeing my Niño on the dining room table right on top of the folded flag. I was planning on doing some sort of selfie but it seems that Niño knew best.

My youngest daughter, Hilary who was born in Mexico, feels very Argentine and she follows fulbol closely. Tomorrow we are going to the Hollywood Theatre, around the corner from my house to watch the Canada/Argentina football game. Who are we going to root for?