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| May 21, 1979 |
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| May 28, 2007 |
Thanks to my Rosemary I have no financial obligations or worries. I do feel isolated. Friends, family and people I worked with, either younger than my 82 years, or older are dying. Those that are alive have all kinds of terrible diseases. I am healthy even though my daily statins and baby aspirins cement the idea that one day soon that important valve in my chest will cease pumping blood.
Until then I have come to realize, in the last few weeks, that I live to write my daily blog, take photographs with my film and digital cameras, and garden now that spring has arrived.
I have one obligation, a pleasant one, which is to wake up early in the morning and feed my cats Niño and Niña. Important, too, is, weather permitting, I walk with Niño around the block. I miss the presence of Rosemary but my cats do their best to shower me with warmth and affection.
The above gives me a lot of time to think. I do read, but thinking is paramount now. I feel like a second-class pre-Socratic philosopher. This thought process takes me to my many memories and I associate them with one another.
A friend came for a visit some weeks ago & I showed him my Sting files. He said, “Your daughters must know you are cool as you have an autographed photograph that you took of Sting.” I am not sure of that.
My association with Sting takes me to the Denman Inn (no longer exists as either a hotel or a movie theatre) where Sting posed for me without his band members. As we left writer Les Wiseman said to me, “Imagine this, he said his band will be the next Beatles. He is fu….. crazy!”
From the memory of that picture, a few years later, I would go to the Number 5 Orange Street bar to see strippers. My favourite was Little Mary Arnold. Why? She danced to Message in a Bottle.
In the second scan here is a strange 45RPM record given to me by Sting that contains two versions of that song.
When I finally met Police guitarist Andy Summers we connected. He was and is a very good photographer. He was interested in my use of a Kodak film called Technical Pan which was the sharpest film ever made. I gave him a roll.
The group shot of the Police I took at the Coliseum when I was obsessed in using a beautifully corrected 20mm wide angle lens. Should have I gotten closer?
Besides Message in a Bottle my other absolutely favourite Sting song is An Englishman in New York.
While my father was born in Buenos Aires, his parents were from Manchester. To me he was a paragon of Englishness. He drank. I would accompany him on the bed and we would sing together My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean. In my neighbourhood I had two friends. One Miguelito was El Tano (Italian) Mario was El Alemán and I was El Inglesito (the English boy).
My mother taught me to smell behind the ears (this I did often with Rosemary when we were in bed). My mother told me I smelled like an Englishman.
During the Malvinas/Falklands war, because I am an Anglo Argentine I was undecided on my loyalty. In the end, because I had been a conscript in the Argentine Navy I rooted for the obvious underdogs.
While in the navy we were told that the lines in our sailor collar represented Nelson’s victories. When I donated blood to the British Hospital, knowing that Argentine Navy regulations said I could take the next day off I indulged in the hospital’s Thé Completo. This was tea with sandwiches and scones.
Our two daughters, Alexandra and Hilary were born in Tacubaya a Mexico City neighbourhood. Why? Because Rosemary gave birth to them at the British Hospital.
It took 52 years of marriage with Rosemary before she told me she did not like my famous (with other folks) English-style cucumber sandwiches.
It would seem that when meet my oblivion, seconds before, if I am compos menti, I will have to decide if my death will be an Argentine or and English one.
