By the year 1968 I had stopped going to classes and spent my time reading the Encyclopedia Britannica (some 22 volumes and the yearly additional tomes) in the library of La Plata's Bosque. I had not inscribed myself in an exam for two years. Since I was so much ahead in my studies, no one noticed except my ultra-rich uncle Ivor. After a short discussion where I demonstrated that nothing of what I was supposed to study would ever be useful in life (I used him as my model: he was a carreer officer of the Austro-Hungarian K-und-K army, yet made his millions in the pharm business during the war in Argentina, when German firms like Bayer were shut out), he cut me short saying that I could come to collect an open Buenos Aires - USA ticket with a fat traveller cheque book attached if I finished my degree by September 1968.
To allow me concentrate, he gave me the keys to one his secret garconniere apartments. Among the luxuries in the place I found a box of six jugs of Old Monk Scott whisky, and many books, all which (whisky, books) I finished in a couple of days. Then I started a learning diary, to time myself and learn how to learn effectively. That is the grandfather of this learning blog. I had ten exams (out of a total of 33) to finish my studies, and I had less than a two weeks to prepare each one. I discovered that I was less distracted when tired. So I adopted the marathon method, studying three or four days without interruption, maintaining myself on cigarettes and bencedrine. I could not talk, I was trembling, became impotent for a while, but my girlfriend Dorli Koehler did not abandon me - German girls are very faithful, the best. By September I had passed all the exams becoming the first of my class in graduating. Most graduated two or three years later.
The учатся учатся учатся slogan is attributed to Lenin, and it was painted on the walls of my Gorkiy elementary school. It means: Learn, learn, learn. Repetition, Lenin knew, is the key to learning.
13 comments:
he was a carreer officer of the Austro-Hungarian K-und-K army
Ah, the old Kaiserlich und Koeniglich - you have reactionaries in your lineage. Even better that he liked scotch and books.
The place looked like a featureless airport hotel suite. Not what one imagines as a rich man's garconniere. Not even a grammophone. Only the bed was extra large and luxurious. I stole one book by Fray Mocho, not what they call picant literature.
What happened to Dorli?
Anon
Too painful to tell. One day, may be.
You will have to let us know. Several hundred million people are now intrigued.
Anon.
Well, I loved Dorli and she was the best girlfriend I ever had. Sweet Bavarian girl.
One Sunday I appeared at her home (a beautiful small house full of floweres like in the Swiss Alps) and found her parents and her uncle in the kitchen - drunk. She did not drink, but I was so shocked that I run away. I could not think. She was full of shame and timid like a dove.
Before I could work off the shock in my mind, I got a job far away, met new exciting girls and didnt call her more. My parents were not against her, but my Father half joking warned me that German girls tend to develope big fat asses. I dont know, she was the best girl I ever had, I loved her very much. I loved all my girlfriends.
PD.: They had arrived to Argentina after the war, like hundreds of thousand other Germans. Many of them were former Nazis and were escaping. Dorli's parents and uncle were very simple German lower middle class Catholic people who arrived to Argentina after the war escaping hunger in Germany. The fact I was Jewish never penetrated into their minds, and we never talked about it. They wee not people who is curious and inquiring. On the other hand, Dorli was an economist and had a top confidence position of handling the monies of a large German metalworking factory called Virason. She must have been very intelligent but I only remember her sweetness.
As Watson observed (referring to his own Scottish heritage), there is something terrible in Northern peoples hereditary tendency to drunkenness.
As Watson observed (referring to his own Scottish heritage), there is something terrible in Northern peoples hereditary tendency to drunkenness.
Yes, but why should you have been so shocked? Surely you'd seen people drunk before. Or was this a case of finally realizing how Jewish you were and how Gentile they were?
I see your point, Dennis, but at the conscious level, I assure you that the issue of Jewish vs Gentile was not on my mind.
In Argentina people drinks a lot, and when you go to the restaurant, they automatically they put a bottle of cold water on the table (there is a law for that) and a "pinguino" (a jug in form of a pinguin) of red wine. The population is of Mediterranean origin and they drink a lot, but there are no drunks fallen in the streets or elsewhere. The fact is that I have never seen drunken women at all, drunken as Nordic people and Russians drink themselves under the table or fall down in drunken poses. There is a great difference between Italians and Spanish people drinking wine with the food, which I was used to, or Hungarians who drink Sweet Tokay wine and walk in circles singing in the streets, and the way Germans and Russians drink joylessly to lose themselves and fall down in their vomit and urine. Watson, when justifying something he said about Africans, mentioned that his people, the Scotts, had this powerful thirst for demon alcohol. It was a shock for me to arrive unannounced that Sunday morning only to find the whole family in the kitchen in this terrible state. Today I have more experience and would react differently.
BTW, I think beer drinking Bavarians carry with less frequency that Nordic gen of indomitable thirst for alcohol. Nowadays we have in Israel a large population of Christian Russians, and we see this extreme form of street drunkenness. Each winter many die of cold in the streets.
I see your point, arriving on a Sunday morning and everyone in a Slavic state of inebriation. That would shock me too.
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