Life at DrTom's: Mostly Humorous Anecdotes by a Mostly Retired Cornell Professor. Thomas A. Gavin
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you'd say bon chaussures.
So, three pairs of footwear left on three continents during a 3-year period. I had become a one-man TOMS shoes' representative. Although I was feeling a bit like a poor-man's philanthropist, I was more taken by the kind of story I might tell about this behavior. Of course, the idiom that came to mind was "walk a mile in my shoes". But that is an invitation for someone to see the world from your point of view or station in life, and literally wearing someone else's shoes does not accomplish that at all. Ironically, given that people in the countries I visited wanted to own MY shoes almost allowed me to walk a bit in their shoes, if you catch my drift.
I suppose it is not a coincidence that we focus so much on footwear. After all, you could walk around without a shirt or pants or dress if you really had to. You might be embarrassed, but you can physically do it. But try walking around Paris or San José or the tropical savannas of Africa barefooted and your physical metal would be sorely tested. In other words, shoes may have become a method of making a fashion statement in the modern, affluent world, but it is damned practical to have some protection on the bottom of your walking tools. I have stated this before but, after spending time in agricultural areas of tropical America, I have never looked at a banana or a cup of coffee without deep appreciation for the human sweat it took to produce those commodities. Similarly, I will never look again at the choices in my shoe collection with passive disdain, even if the selection of the day makes me look like a dumbass.
Thanks for everything! Anna Maria Alberghetti
It was the summer of 1967 and I was working as Assistant Tennis Pro at Scioto Country Club in Upper Arlington, Ohio. I played tennis for Ohio State in those days and John Hendrix was the coach at OSU. He was also the Head Pro at Scioto CC, so he hired me for the summer. I mostly played tennis with elderly women who needed company and who wanted someone to make them laugh on the court while hitting tennis balls. I also ran tennis clinics for kids, strung tennis racquets, and I got to play quite a bit of tennis when I wasn't teaching. Not a bad gig all-in-all.
One of the members of the club was a developer who was ready to have a Grand Opening of his housing development. He and Coach cooked up the idea of having a tennis exhibition at the development as part of a gala opening, and Bob "Harry" Harrison and I were given the assignment. Harry also played for OSU, so we were old friends. But the exciting part of the event was the planned appearance of a celebrity that the developer had hired, or bribed, or coerced in some way to show up and mingle for a while with prospective buyers of his houses while watching our tennis exhibition match.
The celebrity was Anna Maria Alberghetti, a woman who is well-known to those of my generation. Alberghetti started her career as an opera singer and a child prodigy at the age of 6, performed at Carnegie Hall at 13, and then starred in about a dozen movies in the 1950s and 60s. She won a Tony Award for her Broadway performance in Carnival in 1962. I specifically had remembered her in Cinderfella in 1960, where she co-starred with Jerry Lewis. And she was on the cover of Life magazine twice. Wow!
So Harry and I were to play a singles match in front of the famous Anna Maria and that was it--no other matches but ours, no other distractions for the movie star. She could focus on our talent and our Ohio personalities, she would enjoy herself thoroughly, she would raise our praises in Rome when she returned to her homeland, and she would giggle and tease and horse around with us after the match. In short, she would have an afternoon so entertaining that she would never forget it, nor would she ever forget us.
Anna Maria showed up in a limousine, exactly befitting a famous person. She was surrounded with 4 or 5 men who wore sunglasses; I assumed they were body guards. Anna Maria also wore large sunglasses and a huge, wide-brimmed hat. Her arrival was anticipated by the crowd with great excitement; Harry and I giggled like 3rd graders before the match. The only problem was that she arrived AFTER we had finished our match. She got there in time to see two tired, sweaty, and smelly wannabes gawking at the black entourage, and I mean black. The limousine was black. All the bodyguards were dressed in black. They reminded me of a scene from The Sopranos.
Anna Maria never said a word during the entire 30 minutes that she was there; I mean she never uttered a sound-not in Italian, not in English, not a moan, not a sigh, nothing. She signed autographs, while the ends of her mouth were turned up ever so slightly in what could be defined as a smile. It then occurred to me that maybe the guys in black were sent there by the tennis coach from Purdue, the only team in the Big Ten Conference that we could beat in those days, to whack Harry and me. This whole thing was just a setup to eliminate one-third of OSU's tennis team. By sundown, I realized that the entire episode was just another of life's disappointments. We had a lot of those in Ohio. Anna Maria came and she went. She saw nothing, said nothing, sang nothing and, I am sure, remembered nothing.
But I'm much older and more sophisticated now. I think that next spring I will go to Rome; I love Italy after all. I will call Anna Maria and have her meet me for coffee at the Piazza Navona. She can bring along those other hot Italian movie stars of yesteryear--Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren. I'm sure they all know each other. And Anna Maria and I can relive old times, and reminisce about Columbus, Ohio, and we will throw our heads back in gleeful laughter, and Gina and Sophia will wish they had been there with us. Ohhhhhhhhh hum.
A memorable New Year’s Eve in Mexico
About 20 years ago, my wife and I, and our 8-year old son decided to spend the holidays in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. We did most of the usual things one does there. We visited the Mayan ruins at Uxmal, went skin-diving in the Caribbean, sun-bathed on the beaches at Cancun, and spent a couple of days on Cozumel Island.
But on New Year’s Eve we found ourselves in the provincial capital, Mérida. We stayed in an old hotel, the name of which has now passed into the mist like the smell of tequila after a festive occasion. When we checked in, we realized that they were setting up for their New Year’s Eve party later that night. We asked if we could attend, and the desk clerk uttered a chipper “seguro”. All he needed to know was the kind of alcohol we wanted at the table, so I said tequila and my wife said rum.
When we were escorted to our table later that night, we found an entire bottle of rum and a bottle of tequila on the table, as we had apparently ordered. Ay, caramba! Our 8-year old might have to help us with this, because I refuse to leave food or drink behind at the end of an evening out.
The festivities that night resulted in the most memorable New Year’s Eve we have ever experienced in 42 years of marriage. There were choruses of dancing girls in colorful dresses performing a folklórico, there were bands of several styles, and a buffet of food the likes of which I have never seen. And it went on and on and on. Our son found young friends to hang out with around the swimming pool, so he was occupied, and we were happy, and getting “happier” by the hour.
Needless to say, the following morning my wife and I were moving and thinking very slowly. The desk clerk kept asking me for “la llave” as I was checking out and, for the life of me, I could not understand what he was saying. My wife acted embarrassed and yelled indignantly “The key. He wants the key!” Oh, of course. I handed the young guy the key and sheepishly scooted out of the lobby to the waiting taxi.
As we meandered down the narrow streets of Mérida in the cab, my wife perused the signs on the buildings as we passed. My head hurt too much to look out into the bright light of day. As we passed one respectable looking edifice, and because my Spanish was normally better than hers, she asked me what “Y—M—C—A” spelled. I looked as superior as I could muster, stared her squarely in the face, and told her it spelled YMCA. Touché!
Several morals to this story, but here is the take-home message for me. Drink bottled water, and don’t mix alcohol and the alphabet when traveling in Mexico.
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