The Herd Runs Wild

     "Da-le, da-le, da-le rebaño!" Jesús taught me this Chivas cheer before the game between the Chivas Goats and the visitors from Leon. "Go, go, go herd!"

      As we approached the stadium dressed in our striped Chivas jerseys we saw riot police organized at the entrance dressed with helmets, batons, bullet-proof vests and shields. There were even a few mounted policemen - it seemed like overkill, considering the  good-natured, well-behaved crowd. 

     We were frisked as we entered the stadium and then made our way to the seats in the top deck. The stadium was modern, comfortable and spotless - the owners were so health-conscious that everyone who sold food wore masks. Beer was sold right up to our exit after the game, but no one appeared to be under the influence. 

      Things might have been different on the lower deck, though, where the Chivas "barra" or fan group was singing, chanting, waving flags and pounding drums non-stop. They must have been pleased, though, that their team upset Leon, although the 1-0 match was a bit uneventful. 

      At the end of the match we were routed to the far end of the stadium in an effort to keep the Chivas fans separated from the rival fans - there had been problems in the past. 

     When we reached the end of the stadium, we found out why the police were there - this is where the rowdy Chivas barra exited the stadium. Everything was peaceful until a young couple wearing Leon jerseys wandered near the Chivas supporters. Taunts were hurled at them and someone tried to snatch a baseball cap. The police sprang into action and the peaceful crowd suddenly felt a little menacing. As I looked around, trying to see what was going on, my friends guided me away from the action, remembering the time that they had taken off their own Chivas jerseys so the women who were with them could put them on to cover up their visiting jerseys when the crowd had become belligerent. 

      Today seemed relatively tame, though, and I didn't leave Mexico feeling that attending a soccer game was risky. 

     At least that was true until I returned home and heard about the game the following week. 

     Chivas played their cross-town rival in the Tapatio classic at aging Jalisco stadium. Perhaps the security screening wasn't as thorough there and members of the Chivas barra were able to bring forbidden flares into the stadium. When dozens of them were set off, the security police intervened. The crowd of supporters attacked the outnumbered police, knocking them to the floor between rows of bleachers. Video shows young men dressed in striped Chivas jerseys repeatedly kicking and stomping on the defenseless police. Eight policemen were injured - two of them seriously - along with dozens of fans. 

     Since that game, 17 people have been arrested, Jalisco stadium has been closed indefinitely, and the Chivas barras has been banned from attending any further games. 

     Looking back on it, the game I attended was probably the last of it's kind - when fans could listen to chants and songs without imagining how a cheerful crowd could suddenly turn into an angry herd. 

Street Concert in Munich

The last weekend of Oktoberfest is crazy and a steady stream of beer-fueled attendees makes its way downtown to the pedestrian Marienplatz area afterwards. There was a classical quintet set up in front of a department store and after listening to them for several songs I made my way down the street to where this group was playing.
The local trio, called White, consisted of a guitar-player/singer, a stand-up base player and a drummer playing one of those wooden boxes that you sit on, called a cajon.
They were absolutely incredible, and had a crowd of about 75 dancing, clapping and singing along for an hour. Even though they were German, all of the announcing and singing was done in English and the - even though they were young and mostly German, seemed to know all of the words, even to the older tunes. The lead singer referred to us as "Publico" and often insisted that we join in. At one point the drummer passed out sparklers for us to light for the playing of
"Here Comes the Sun".
Behind them, inside the department store, the cleaning crew was enjoying the music as well. One guy kept driving in circles with a floor-cleaning vehicle and waving his arms over his head. A man and a woman appeared with mops, dancing as they buffed the floor. At the end if the song, we - Publico, that is - and they band advanced to the window and everyone applauded each other.
Someone in the crowd gathered everyone's spent sparklers and lay them neatly on the sidewalk. A group of police advanced during a final song, seeming to enjoy it as much as the rest of us. The front man acknowledged their presence, understanding that it was time to end the concert. Coins were dropped in the open guitar case, a few CD's were sold and everyone left with a smile.

Visiting the Ancestral Home in Germany

Yesterday, I visited the home and inn in Allendorf bei Frankenau Germany that was once owned by my great great grandfather Johann Daniel Krähling. His son, my great grandfather Conrad Krähling, emigrated to the United States in 1865, at the age of 19.
The timing of his emigration was fortunate as the American Civil War had just ended, and Germany was about to go to war with France. Luckily Conrad did not have to be involved in either of these conflicts.
Conrad arrived in Baltimore in September of 1865 and then worked for two years at a bakery in Washington DC in order to repay his uncle for his travel expenses. This must have been a tumultuous time in Washington, as it was only five months after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Amazingly, my father - who is still living, spent time with Conrad (his grandfather) who was a contemporary of both the brothers Grimm (who lived in the same part of Germany) and Lincoln.
In the family photo, you can see Conrad Krahling surrounded by his family at their home in Iowa. In the front row on the right (with the stylish striped knickers) is my grandfather, William August Krahling.

Creative Parking

Here's my rental car in the tight parking place at my hotel in Germany. It was my first day in years driving a car with a stick so putting in that spot was a bit of a challenge. It's actually sort of an elevator setup and when I got there, there were no spaces. A German guy driving a Smart Car arrived just after me and started fiddling with the hydraulic controls, trying to raise one if the cars, so he could park his on the platform below. I had visions of crushing someone's $80 K BMW and was all-to-eager to let him be the one to figure it out.
Fortunately for the BMW owners he couldn't get the controls to work and went upstairs to ask for help. He came back, saying that he had to exit the garage, which he accomplished with the kind of speedy U-turn that could only be managed in that space by a Smart Car and go to a different entrance where an even more bewildering car elevator could be used.
I began struggling to make a U-turn with my larger vehicle - usually remembering that I wasn't driving an automatic, when - much to my relief - someone vacated a parking space!
Twenty minutes later, with two or three exits from the car to check my clearance and extricate my suitcase from the trunk, thanking myself for having purchased the comprehensive insurance package, my car was safely and snugly parked.

The Astronomical Clock

A crowd began to gather in front of the Astronomical Clock in Prague's Old Town Square. I positioned myself in the back, just in front of a restaurant, where I would have an unobstructed view when the clock began to chime at 7:00. It turned out to be a prime eavesdropping spot as well.
A tall slim man with greying hair arrived with his blond son, about six years old, and found a spot next to me. We all stared at the clock face in anticipation, although it was very difficult to tell the time from the astronomical clock face with it's bewildering assortment of hands, numbers and symbols for the signs of the zodiac.
The small boy seemed more interested in the restaurant behind us. "Why don't we just eat at that restaurant, Dad?" he asked in American-accented English. The dad didn't reply, so every few minutes, the son would repeat the question, emphasizing the word "that" a little more each time.
The dad would only respond with a dismissive grunt.
Then the son began to ask, every minute or two, how long it would be until the clock chimed. "Five more minutes," the dad would respond in slightly British-accented English. "Four minutes." Each time his answer was a bit more curt.
"How much more time now, Dad?"
"You need only look at the clock on top!" the dad snapped, pointing to a traditional clock high above the astronomical clock which I had not noticed before. It wasn't clear whether the son could read this sort of clock any better than he could the bewildering astronomical one.
"What's it like, Dad?"
"Some figures come out and rotate," the Dad explained in a tired-sounding voice and then switched to what sounded like a Scandanavian language and delivered a livelier explanation.
"No!" the boy responded. Is that true?"
"To tell you the truth it's been so long that I can't remember very well. I just remember that it was a bit of a letdown. My advice is to expect very little so you won't be disappointed."
After hearing this enthusiastic buildup, the son returned his attention to lobbying for dining at the nearby restaurant. The clock explanation seemed to have brought on a didactic chattiness in the father, who perhaps sensed the possibility of delivering a life lesson.
"That's a nice location for a restaurant, don't you think?" They probably have a steady stream of customers, don't you think?" The son responded non-comittally.
"You see," the dad continued. "Every hour of the day, all day, all night, for the entire year, a crowd gathers just like this one. They don't really have to search for their customers, they automatically line up here at their door."
The son was silent, so the dad continued. "Do you think they would serve good food in such a restaurant?"
"Yes?" the son answered tentatively.
"Imagine two restaurants. This one, where the customers line up at the door and another one where the owners have to work very hard to entice customers to come to their restaurant. Which do you think would be more likely to have delicious food with a staff that is always trying very hard to please their customers?"
The son was saved from having to commit to one restaurant philosophy over the other by the sound of a small bell ringing repeatedly, which signaled that the clock was starting it's display.
"Look, the skeleton is pulling the rope!" the father called out in a voice a pitch higher than the voice he had been using pre-skeleton. "I forgot about that!"
The crowd oohed as they watched and filmed. The skeleton, representing death, I suppose, caused a parade of twelve apostles to appear, rotating in two different viewing spots a bit above the skeleton. Their facial expressions were only slightly more life-affirming than that of the skeleton. There were other figures whose heads swiveled in a way that seemed to be saying what we were all thinking - "What just happened here?"
Meanwhile the son beside me was largely silent. The characters stopped their movements and a grander sounding, churchbell-like bell began to chime. The crowd quieted down and began to disburse.
I heard the dad's voice one more time next to me.
"That was better than I remembered!"

Baci

I'm riding in a train compartment on a train traveling from Milan to Genoa, Italy. I just finished a late-morning snack, a kind of chocolate and hazelnut candy from Perugia called "baci", or "kisses".
Inside the wrapper of each piece of candy is little piece of waxed paper with a saying, relating to kisses, written in several different languages. Mine say, "Lovers can live on kisses and water." It doesn't explain whether it is referring to the kind of kisses made of chocolate and hazelnut or the ones composed of lips and saliva.
Our train compartment contains an interesting mix of people. There are two Russians who speak no Italian, but a little English. They have tickets which say that they don't have assigned seats so they are here until someone comes along to claim their rightful place. Although there is also a bona-fide Italian man in the compartment with us, it had fallen upon me to use my best guessing ability and limited grasp of the Italian language and train culture to explain to them why they have paid the same amount as me, but are treated as squatters here in our compartment.
For awhile we also had a cute Italian college student with us - my cute American college student daughter has been assigned to a seat in a different compartment. The Italian student had a shopping bag from a store called Stradavarius which had a symbol of a treble clef as a logo. I wondered if she had a small three million dollar 18th century violin inside but she informed me that Stradavarius is actually a clothing company. That explains the smallness of the bag.
The most interesting occupant of our compartment, who was only here for about 30 minutes, was a wild-haired Italian woman who had strong opinions about everything which she delivered in rapid-wide Italian regardless of the nationality if the individual being addressed.
Her observations included a disdain for railroad rules that required her to sit in railcar 8 when she was perfectly content with us in car 5, a dislike of restrictions in general, an apology for Silvio Berlisconi and a skepticism about his being removed from running the Italian government for good and an unrestrained (and unanticipated) enthusiasm for Americans.
"Viva l'America!" she said as she left us.
To which the American replies, "Baci per l'Italia!"

First Game

It was the summer of 1958 or 59 and my dad was taking my brother and me to our first Giant's game. I remember finishing a French twist donut at my grandmother's apartment on San Bruno Ave. and then catching the 25 Bryant bus on the corner.

      The bus fare was ten cents and you dropped your dime into a big metal hopper next to the driver. As the bus bounced along the driver would occasionally pull a handle on the hopper and you would hear this chugging, jangling sound as the fare box digested and sorted the coins. Sometimes as the bus lurched down Bryant St. the coins would noisily resort themselves without the aid of the driver.

      Soon we arrived at Seals Stadium at 16th and Bryant, across from the Hamm’s brewery. There was a giant pilsner glass atop the Hamm’s building with yellow and then white neon lights that lit up steadily from the bottom of the glass to make it appear that the glass was being forever filled and refilled with beer.

      To enter the stadium, you had to walk through a dank dungeon-like area under the grandstand and then open some swinging doors that brought you to the bottom of the stands. Instantly, your eyes were greeted by the brilliant green of a carefully manicured field like none that I had ever seen.

      My dad showed our tickets to an usher and we climbed to our seats, choosing not to rent an optional seat cushion - thousands of which we would later see being hurled into the air at the end of the game.

      The Giants were playing the Cincinnati Reds that day and Johnnie Antonelli was pitching for San Francisco. My dad told my brother and me to pay particular attention to the Giant's center fielder because he was a great player - I was so young that I hadn't yet become aware of Willie Mays.

      As the game went on I became distracted by a couple of black men sitting several rows behind us, with empty seats between them and us. They seemed like they were angry with each other and kept arguing.

     My hometown had a population of 1000, none of whom was black. I had once seen an itinerant black man in my neighborhood. In my small-town little-boy confusion, I was convinced that he was returning from the Civil War.

      I couldn't resist turning my head to watch the two men at the game. They were mad at each other, weren't they? They sounded like they were ready to fight, but they kept smiling while they were doing it. One minute one of them would be poking the other one in the chest just like my brother Jeff did to me right before he popped me one, and the next minute he was slapping the other guy on the back and they 

were both laughing.

      I turned my head all the way around to get a better look.

      "Don't look at me like that," one of the men shouted at me. "I'm gonna come down there and choke you!"

      I turned my head and aimed my eyes toward centerfield. Willie Mays made a basket catch, his hat flying off and landing on the neon grass. I didn't look back again and when the game was over, kept my eyes on the steps as we made our way to the exit, trusting luck that I wouldn't get hit by a flying seat cushion.

      I didn't look up again, except once, to catch one last look at the giant bubbling glass of beer before climbing back onto the 25 Bryant.