"BOOOOOM!!!"

Part II of a series

(part I of this adventure is at dorucak na granici , there will more to follow)

"BOOOOOM!!!" My eyes were instantly open.  Instinct propelled me to drop and roll.  Of course dropping and rolling from a prone sleeping position placed me on the safety of the floor between the bed and the wall. My brain wasn't on yet.  I couldn't get it on.  My brain doesn't reboot from my sleep any faster than my computer reboots from its sleep.  

After that one single "BOOOOM!" everything was silent.  No dogs were barking. No cats were miauing.  No possums (we call them tlacuatches here) were rustling.  No night birds were clucking.  No bat wings were flapping.  I listened intently for the soft sound of my tarantulas scuttling through the grass.  Nothing.  Not a sound. 

No sound even of a truck on the freeway not far away.  Odd, even at that hour. I kept my head low as I eased over to the computers near the foot of my bed.  One was black.  The other had just rebooted.  The computer's clock told me that it was 0300.

I concluded that the "BOOOOOM" was not mortar fire.  By this time I was awake just enough to decide that it wasn't a shell from a cannon. I couldn't hear any AK47s firing and heaven knows there are plenty of those around here which people fire off on Christmas, New Years, Fourth of July and whenever else they get drunk.  Anyway, we weren't being invaded and it wasn't the sound of a border drug war like we hear the sounds from all too often  from just three or four miles away.  It was still silent as a graveyard.  It couldn't have been a katyuska - who on earth in their right mind fires off just one of those things and expects to do any damage?  

I was still groggy when I remembered that the Iranians were sending warships toward the coast somewhere. Maybe they had lobbed an atomic bomb at us.  People have always said that it would take an atomic bomb to wake me up in the night after I have gone to sleep.  That seemed logical then.  The Iranians must have bombed the Port of Brownsville.  I was way too sleepy to handle that, so I went back to bed and slipped back into a sound sleep from which I didn't awaken until late this morning.

A few weeks ago, Nenad Bach called me.  He was so apologetic and concerned that he had awakened me.  Nenad is a kind and considerate man.  I assured him that if I had been asleep, I wouldn't have heard the phone.  That was the truth of course -since it takes an atomic bomb to wake me up (see above).  Actually, that was not an atomic bomb last night.  I can't blame the Iranians.  Even so, the noise was so loud it was heard all over the city.  This morning on Facebook Brownsvillians were trying to triangulate the source of the sound until the weather service explained that we had some unusual lightening along with an inversion layer which amplified the sound.

Gotta learn more about how this works.  Imagine getting control of this phenomenon somehow and placing a rock band in the middle of it someway so the sound would go out over a whole city.  Awesome thought.  Someone should work on this sometime.  

Anyway, that night a few weeks ago, Nenad told me about "Ethnic Day" at the White House in Washington DC.  He wondered if I might be interested in being part of the Croatian - American delegation.  Of course I wanted to go.  There were a few details to work out and all that went well.  While I was in Houston for Ambassador Paro's presentation at the Holocaust Museum we planned for the delegates to meet with him at the Embassy while we were there, so everything was set. Washington DC here we come!

We have all heard stories about how the TSA sometimes gives people a hard time during their screenings.  I'm an old guy so too much hassle could be a problem.  I picked up the phone and called the TSA to find out what to expect and what to do.  The man explained everything to me and told me to be sure and let the agents at the airport know that I am partly disabled.  

At the airport, I was received with great dignity.  Security found a way to check me and my luggage out without any hassle at all.  I like the idea of flying safely and I like the idea of being treated with some decorum.  The TSA accomplished both.  I was so impressed that I called the TSA help line again today just to say "thank you" because somehow I doubt they hear a "thank you" very often.  Soon I was on the airplane traveling to Houston and on to the capitol city. 

There was one detail I learned after I was in the hotel in Washington.  The White House was insisting on two things:  1. That we present identification which matched the identification which we had sent in earlier and 2. That this identification be US Government issued.   

I was depressed.  I've been around the block a few times, in the US military and so forth.  I know that there is exactly such a thing as US Government issued identification.  There are military driver's licenses, passports, and border crossing cards.  I had given my Texas Driver's license number.  Texas is Texas and not the US Government.  There is a difference.  Here on the Texas border we are acutely aware that this is an important difference.

It wouldn't have mattered a lot really if the White House had refused my identification. Somehow seeing where the President lives was not nearly so important as meeting one of the greatest musicians of our time. Nenad Bach was live and in person there at the rendezvous point.  My purpose in being there was accomplished.  It was good to meet my friend for the first time in the flesh.  The rest of the adventure would be icing on the cake. 

The rest of the delegation are all especially fine people too - the sort that make a person extra proud to be a Croat.  We will talk more about them as we go along.

The Croatian - American delegation approached the first White House check point and it seems that our state driver's licenses were quite acceptable after all.  Apparently what the White House had meant to say was that we had to have identification issued by an official entity of the United States, such as one of our respective states.

One observation on this experience so far:  All of us hyphenated - Americans speak on english pretty darn good (except perhaps when I write miau instead of meow for sound cat makes) but it really might be helpful if the Americans would learn to speak on english also.    

There is more to this adventure, so do please stay tuned .......


do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,
David Byler a.k.a. Canovals
12. veljače 2014

Doručak na granici

"America."  Everybody in the world knows where is "America."  The fact, however, is that "America" is a continent.  Actually there are two of them, North and South.  Still, everybody in the world knows that "America" is the "United States."  Even that is a wee problem because in North America there are two "United States."   There is Sjedinjene Meksičke Države and there is Sjedinjene Američke Države.  Despite those little technical difficulties no one in the world is confused about which one is "The United States," or just "America." 

It wasn't always so.  When the first Croats showed up in the waters around America, America was still America in the broader sense.  Those early Croats shared the continents with Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Muskogee, the Cherokee, the Comanche and others.  What's more, Croatians, along with others,  helped build a few countries in North America like Texas, California, and even the Kingdom of Hawaii out in the Pacific.

With no independent Homeland back in Europe, these Croats were, for the most part, uninvolved in empire building or "colonialism" in the usual sense of that term, but they were having great adventures.  One of those adventures has to do with what I am eating this very morning. 

The histories all show that Napoleon III withdrew French troops from Mexico but hardly a word is written about the Croatian Hussars who were in Mexico with Carlotta's husband even though everyone loves Carlotta.  When the Emperor was captured and shot, the Mexican officers with Benito Juárez asked him what to do with all these soldiers.  Juárez is reputed to have said something like "We have cut off the head, the body of the snake is harmless."

So now, you are a Croatian soldier in a strange land far away from home.  You have no money in your pocket and no way home.  Besides, why would you want to go home? What is there for you? You have little future except perhaps to be a fisherman or a farm worker on some large estate owned by one of the Austrians who run the place.   

You are hungry.   Your belly is crying out to you.  You've managed to steal two eggs out from under a chicken, one stale tortilla, an onion and a tomato.  Beside yourself, you have three companions to feed.  What do you do?

You crack open the eggs and you put them in the mess kit you were issued by the military. As always, te dvije oči jaja su namigujući on you.  Those two eyes of the eggs are winking at you. What next?  You crumble up the tortilla into the eggs, you cut up the tomato and the onion and you mix everything all together in the pan over the fire.

The war was vicious as all wars are.  There is a shortage of young Mexican men. The smell from your cooking attracts the attention of a young Mexican woman carrying water home from the well. You try to explain your recipe to her.  There is laughing and giggling.  She tastes your meal.  The closest she can come to saying all that about the eyes of the eggs winking is just "migas."  Close enough.  A new dish, a new word, and a new love has been born in the same hour.  You are married and you have children.  Your neighbors love your music.  Eventually the community around you forgets that once you were a stranger.

Two generations later, Mexico cracks down on the Catholic Church.  Your grandchildren don't remember exactly why, but they are Catholic among the Catholics and they find themselves across the border in Texas.  They bring with them their Mariachi tradition also born in Eastern Europe. Your great grandson composes a song for his daughter for her wedding but he has been taught that it is not permitted for him to play and sing in church. But somehow a Croatian - American pastor who knows and understands what he is seeing insists that the father serenade his daughter at the end of the wedding service INSIDE the church.  Perhaps he will not forget that day the rest of his life.

I know his daughter has not forgotten because, you see, I was that pastor.  This happened about a decade ago.  My musician friend is Croatian - American in the wider sense of that term. Mexican culture has mostly but not entirely forgotten there ever was such a thing among them. Homero Prado's family knows, and a few other musician families know.  All the average Anglo - American sees when he looks at my friend is one more "Mexican." As a matter of fact, all the average Mexican - American sees is one more "Mexican."

My musician friend is one of those Croatian - Americans like those which Ambassador Joško Paro spoke of a few nights ago at the Croatian Embassy in Washington D.C.  My musician brother knows some about the Croatian part of his roots and he is interested in knowing more.  He is proud of his ancestry and he treasures that part of the culture he retains.  Is he, or any of his extended family interested much in modern Croatia and other Croatian people?  No, not especially.  He is content here in South Texas where he can live his life as he wishes playing his music on special occasions. His children and grandchildren however just might be tourists in Croatia someday.

My friend is an example of one of those ethnicities about which neither Mexico nor the United States have any awareness.  That's not surprising considering hardly anyone except us old ragged grey-haired historian types know about the Jews and the Arabs who also live in North Mexico and in Southern Texas - people who were exported from Spain and who lived under the thumb of "religious police" for several generations. Throw in the descendants of several Indian nations whose states disappeared long before they migrated into this area, a few modern Croats, some Poles, a handful of Polish Jews, and some "Anglos" and you begin to see that down here at the Rio Grande we are a rich and complex tapestry of "ethnicities" even though the statistics want to lump nearly everyone together as "Hispanic" just because almost all of us speak at least a little on Spanish.  

Being Brownsvillian is complicated.  We are not all the same, yet we share a lot in common.  Being Croatian - American is complicated.  We are not all the same, yet we share a rich heritage.  Being Croatian is complicated.  We are not all the same.  Being South-East European is complicated. Being East European is complicated especially when you hyphenate any of that with "American" and then you discover that the US National Security Administration doesn't even know where East Europe is, much less anything about South East Europe.  What hope do we have that they know anything much about Croatia or Bosnia.  God forbid that they should need to know about the Sandjak or the Vojvodina or anywhere else in our neck of the woods. God help anyone from anywhere else.   This is the start of another story ... its important, so I will write about that a little later.  Do stay tuned for more over the next few days.

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

David Byler a.k.a. Canovals

10. veljače 2014

Music from Home

Sixty-five years ago our music from Home was at home in our house.  Sometimes on a Friday night, Mama and Tata would take out their harmonike from the closet and they would play and sing to us.  Sometimes they teach me to sing along with them. Tata made puppets from wood and plaster and mother made clothes for them.  They presented little shows for people as a hobby. To dramatize the shows, Tata would play music the way he liked to play it.

 

I remember when the leather broke on Tata's harmonika how he cried.  Tata did not cry very often.  Mama had already tried to fix hers with artificial leather. Leatherette they called it - it was a good covering for chairs but not for use in Harmonike so it had not worked very well. They cried together  because sister needed money for piano lessons and so at that time we did not have the money to buy the material to repair any harmonike.

 

Now there was no music anymore that could go around places with the puppets and soon they went away in the closet forever.  Mama and Tata are gone now but I still have two or three of their puppets.

 

Sister wanted now to go to college so Mama and Tata had to sell her piano for the money for college.  Some years later when Tata had more money and he bought piano for mother, sister became angry and she would not sing anymore with us.  Too bad for her, we sang anyway when she was not around.

 

In High School I played clarinet.  Sometimes then we had a clarinet / piano duo playing while Mama and Tata would sing.  We had a little record player which would play big records.  We owned a few good records and when people came  from Home many times they would bring new records.  We would share records with other families we knew and they would share with us.  Mama controlled the record player.  When it was time to listen to music she would say to me what she wanted to hear and I was the "disk jockey."

 

In those years I bought a little radio.  Mama and Tata were afraid at first about what kind of music I would play on this radio.  When they discovered  that I tuned into KFRD Rosenburg and KULP in El Campo they were pleased.   These stations had early morning shows which were for all kinds of Slavic people.  One of the Disk Jockeys at KFRD was Croatian man so we heard good music now in the morning. 

 

I went away a long time to college, to the military, to work.  When I came back, KFRD is gone from the air. But KULP is there still in the morning with a Polka Show but for many years I was too far away to get even their broadcast. Lots of years went by when I was busy just trying to make a living.  I missed the old ways and the old music but there wasn't much time to do anything about that except just miss it in my heart - until I was at the end of the earth down here in Brownsville where the only radio or TV is Spanish or
English.

 

Then I had a terminally ill wife on my hands who dearly wanted to hear the old music.  Somehow it was comfort to her - and to me. We had a few cassette tapes and then we bought a few CDs from Home but with all the medical  expense we did not have money to buy very many. 

 

I set out to discover what to do.  On the internet I found Dennis Svatek. He is not Croatian but he plays a lot of good music and he makes it freely available to download and listen to it. 

 

Then I discoved Radio Narodna on the internet.  On Easter after Carole died, they played on croatian a song same as in Lutheran Hymnal "Jesus Christ is Risen Today."  I shall not forget that Easter.  I stayed awake all night for Easter Vigil and was rewarded at the top of every hour with the recording of those wonderful women singing that song.  Someday I will find that recording -
I want it.

 

Along the way, I discovered many other internet radio stations with croatian language broadcasts.  Most of these stations are based in Croatia but many  are or were based also in North America. 

 

I discovered YouTube and the world of croatian music to be found there. The ladies at Croatia Gifts in Ohio once asked me how I choose the music I buy and I answered that I go to YouTube and listen to a singer first. If I like the sound, then, when I have the money, I buy the CD so I can hear the music in my car when I am away from my house. Eventually I learned a  little about making videos and I am now a "broadcaster" on YouTube. I am grateful that almost all of the Croatian performers are friendly about the promotion of their material I try to give them there. 

 

If the performers can figure out how to do it, they could even run
advertising on my videos with their music and make a little extra money for themselves.  Right now the Germans are trying to claim their material and make this money but I keep chasing them away.

 

The learning curve on YouTube is interesting.  I've had an account on YouTube since 1999 but it was a couple of years before I understood the potential there.  Now I'm getting over 3,000 views each day and that number is growing rapidly.  I've been learning and experimenting with various things and I expect that number to be over 10,000 views a day by the end of next year.  So, in fact, I am broadcasting to a fairly large and growing community.

 

Recently, Nenad Bach asked me to work on a project with him. What an honor to be asked to do this!! The project was to discover all the Croatian language radio stations in the world outside of Croatia.

 

I discovered there are some broadcasts I knew nothing about before.  There is even a broadcast from China on croatian language.  There are internet broadcasts from Australia and New Zealand, and from Argentina.  In fact, there are broadcasts from every continent except Africa and Antarctica.

 

I discovered some changes in North America which surprised me, although I should not have been surprised at all.  These changes reflect the lives of  Croatian Americans and the changing realities of an interconnected world. Radio Stations like my old KFRD are gone now from the air because we all grew up and went away somewhere else.  I remember broadcasts in the southern Wisconsin area.  There was a "Radio Club" there, organized to raise the money to see to it that Croatians had at least a little sound from Home.

In Ohio there are still broadcasts but they are mostly one hour  "packages" from Home.  One is carried by a mostly Afro-American station which views us as a "minority," which of course we are, I suppose.  I would guess that over the next five  years most of these one hour a week broadcasts will disappear.

 

I found nothing at all in Seattle where there is a sizable Croatian community.  There is a station from Vancouver however, and one in Toronto and Ottawa.  Down in California where there is a large Croatian population, there are no longer any broadcasts. St Anthony's Croatian Catholic Church used to broadcast their mass on a Sunday, but no longer.  I spoke to a priest from  there and he was not interested in the idea even that I could help him either broadcast or rebroadcast the service for free on YouTube.

 

On the Gulf Coast region of the USA there are no stations that I can find broadcasting either on the air or on the internet in Croatian even though Croatians can be found strung out all along the coast line in various  communities.

 

When I put out an appeal on both YouTube and FaceBook to help me locate Croatian Radio Stations around the world, Marijan sent me a list of Croatian radio stations accessible in Germany - all are based in Croatia.  Ana wrote "David every Monday at 14:00 your time on Radio 105 songs on request and calls live from around the world for the Croats at Radio 105! [Selnica]"

 

Does the diminishing presence of North American croatian radio indicate a lack of demand for croatian language material?  As Croatians are assimilated into an english speaking world do we want less material on croatian?  I think that these would be incorrect conclusions. The demand may be higher than ever before. The fact is that now we are connected around the world via Facebook, YouTube and other media.  The radio stations, and some TV broadcasts, from the Homeland and various locations are only a few clicks away on the internet and the streams are usually reliable. At this very moment I'm connected to Vox Croatica down in Argentina, FaceBook, and YouTube simultaneously and my cellphone is right beside me so I can talk or text anyone anywhere.  I don't need a broadcaster located in my backyard anymore.

 

That leaves open the questions surrounding the unique needs concerning Croats in the diaspora.  I don't have an answer except that as always we shall make good advantage of all the tools which come available and keep on scrambling like we always have. There are new tools just now available on YouTube and G+.  Other technology will come along.  Mama and Tata's harmonike went away years ago, but we have what we have and we shall find how to make our way somehow.

 

If you don't mind, keep your ears and your eyes open for croatian language broadcasts of any kind outside of Croatia,  and let me know what you hear and see. Also, let me know what you would like to hear and see.  There are a lot of us Croats out here in the world away from Home.  What do we want available to us?  Talk to me.  

 

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac

 

9 svibanj 2013