Today, I found photos of a land, I thought I could never turn to. 39 years ago, I stood in Trieste, Italy at the edge of the meeting of ideologies wall. I could not get in, they could not get out. That is what walls are for.
None-the-less at age 22, in the year 1979 BC (Before Computers) I did hope some day people would find more ways to meet than part. For me this was my first foray into foreign lands, having just graduated from university in the midst of a recession, I took to travel.
As it was with this type of travel then and now, it was nice to meet and engage with people I met on the way. In this case it was two people from the USA who shared the train with me to the Walls edge. She was from Indiana and after getting her fill of my puns, (yes, I was born punning) she pinned a punful poetic retort, which included apples of one’s eye, elbow grease, peas in pods, an ten toes in a tin etc. expressing her pun filled feelings for me from head to toe. The poem is lost but not the memory. I do not remember her name, just that she was from Indiana and the three of us had heartfelt discussions of life now and into the future. The next day we all parted on different trains to different places and lives. While contacts may have been exchanged, it would have been done so with pen or pencil on scrap of paper and not on a phone keyboard, like today. Back then one would need a typewriter for that and phones were attached to walls. What was to come, was beyond our imagination, but not the imagination of others our age like Bill, or Steve.
If anyone does recognize the guy or girl next to me, it would be fun to see, if they still pun. As for me, I have aged since the taking of this photo, but my desire to engage with the world around me, knows no bounds.
When I operated my hostel in Ireland, I had two helpers from Trieste, Sonia De Boni and Cris Razza. How time flies, they not born when I first came to their birth city. I, meeting them at the age I was, at this time, and now Cris living married with two children in England, and I with family and friends, on both sides of a wall that is no more. It is nice to experience the open movement of peoples and ideas and not have them boxed in behind walls of fear and distrust.
Her name just popped into my head, I think, it is Joan ‘Hippensteal’, if any of you recognize her photo or name please send her my way. I am sure we can add some puns to the fun.
Having arrived via the snowcapped Alps in the morn, the day finished with the most wonderful sunset I had seen in my life, not to be surpassed, until a sunset witnessed in England about 12 years ago.
