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SOUTH AFRICAN GIRLS
We had two young women from the country of South Africa. They
were middle class whites and they held some strong views on blacks and race
relations in their country. It was a whole new view of the world to listen to
them with their racist theories on power in the politics in Africa. They seemed
to be nice people other then the brainwashing they had received from their
parents and their government about blacks.
I told them that someday they would have blacks running that
country and that all those laws about blacks would become history. I hoped that
it could be done with as little as violence as possible. They told me it would
never happen in a hundred years and certainly not in their lifetimes. I could
not see how it could endure to the end of the century. We would not discuss
politics again for the rest of the trip together.
We took them to Pisa to see the leaning Tower and enjoy the
beauty of the Italian Riviera. We ended going to the French Riviera area and
stayed for a short time in Cannes and Nice.
We went to the beach one day while we were there and I could
see French Naval ships on the far horizon of the ocean. I decided that it would
make a great swim and told the group that I was going to swim out to them. They
of course did not believe me and panicked later when I had disappeared for a few
hours.
I ended up reaching one of the ships out at sea. The people
on the ship could not believe it and the Captain made his crew get me out of the
water and took me to his cabin. He made me drink brandy wine and then lowered a
small boat in the ocean to take me back to shore. I was ready to swim back to
the beach but they felt that since they could barely see the shore off in the
distance that I would not make it.
My friends had already alerted the French Coast Guard so I
had to take the boat back. When it got to within two hundred yards or so of the
beach I jumped off. I said good bye from the water and swam back to the shore.
My friends were mad at me and did not understand that this was something that I
did once in awhile and that it was not a big deal.
We drove down the coast of France towards Spain. We stopped
at another beach to see a strange sight. There was an Arab riding a horse on the
beach. He had on all the robes and head gear that you see in the movies and he
had a long sword in his belt. This proved to be too interesting for us to just
drive by.
It was decided that I should take the camera out and shot a
photo of him on the beach. I walked out to do this and when he saw me he yelled
something about wanting money for his picture. I did not want to pay him. He
then charged towards me on horseback with his sword drawn in his hand.
Meanwhile my friends thought the whole affair was funny and
had locked all the doors on the taxi and had begun to pull away from the beach
as I came running after them with the horse and Arab at my heels. I jumped on
the baggage compartment that was next to the driver seat and just stayed within
inches of this crazy mans sword. Everyone in the car thought it was funny except
me. I think they were still upset about the swim I had taken.
We finally got enough distance between the horse and the taxi
and they let me inside the taxi. I never did think it was funny as I came close
to getting hurt or killed.
We had great difficulty getting across the border into Spain
with the two women having South African Passports. They made it as hard as
possible on them and we got delayed waiting for paperwork to be processed and
for approval for them to visit Spain.
We finally entered the country and drove down the Costa Brava
coast stopping to enjoy the beaches and the sun as we went along. We spent the
night at cheap hotels and found the cost of living a lot easier to deal with
then France had been.
We headed across the desert to Saragossa and then from there
on to Madrid. We ran into some Americans who had car problems and needed help in
the middle of the desert. When we stopped to help them we learned that they were
from the Sunnyvale area and went to my rival high school. They also worked at
the Sunnyvale movie theater with several of my class mates and my friend Jim
Miller, who took Carol to the Senior ball. They were lucky to run into us since
the road had little traffic on it and no one was stopping.
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