The Memories Linger On!

Diario di Roma Dué (Rome Diary 2)
Tuesday October 27, 2015
Partly Sunny 70°F/21°C in Roma
Partly Sunny 82°F/ 28°C in Rancho Santa Margarita

Buongiorno,

  To borrow a Mark Twain quote from the home page of my website www.mikebotula.com... “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” 

   I heartily second that motion, Sam! Travel has definitely changed for the better my personal

Bridge of Sighs Venezia

outlook on the world. I’ve also watched changes in the outlooks of my fellow landsmen after they’ve been on the road to destinations far away. Travel has certainly broadened my son’s outlook. Michael went to London in his twenties, met a pretty girl from Rome, and not only is still there, but applying for citizenship. Laura and her family made him feel welcome, taught him Italian, and a few days ago he called me and asked “dear old dad” to FedEx him his birth certificate to complete his Italian citizenship application. (I kind of figured this might happen when he came home from his “holiday” showed his mom and I a picture of Laura, packed the rest of his clothes and went right back to Rome). Now I see more of him when I travel to Rome myself.

Michael, Laura, MikeBo in Selci

   The first time I landed at Fiumicino International, a whole new world was waiting for me. Now, on each succeeding touchdown I feel more like I’m coming home again. The city has really grown on me, especially after my last visit, when I moved into my own little studio apartment and became part of a new neighborhood. In August when Michael and I drove past my old apartment building in Mostacciano, I asked him to check with my former landlord on any vacancies when I come back the next time. With each visit, Michael and Laura introduce me to new places and new people all over Italy. On the last trip, in 2013, we went to Pompeii, Napoli and Firenze (Florence). The trip to Florence introduced me to the wonderful world of high speed train service. Roma to Firenze in an hour-and-a half, then to walk the streets where the Medici’s presided at the dawn of the Renaissance. We toured the Uffizzi, the stupendous art gallery that was once the corporate world headquarters of La Famiglia de Medici  and walked across il Ponte Vecchio, a 14^th century Florentine slaughterhouse that is now one of Europe’s most famous

Ponte Vecchio Firenze

market places for gold and silver artifacts and jewelry. We toured il Duomo, the famous cathedral, where I bought several watercolors to adorn the walls of my home back in California.

  I learned to get around town on Rome’s modern Metro, and unscrambled the mysteries of the Atac transit system’s network of bus lines. I went to the market on my own, weighed and tagged my produce for the checker, and bagged my own groceries while transacting all of my business in Euros. ATM’s in Rome work just like the ones in San Francisco, and so do our credit cards. Travelers checks are almost a mere curiosity these days. And spending Euros has long ended the madness of changing your money into a different currency each time you cross a national boundary. Among my souvenirs is a collection of Deutschemarks, Francs, Austrian Schillings, Guilders and Lira, a reminder of post war European travels.

   My first overseas adventure was in 1975 when my wife and I went to Germany for a month. We stayed with my Air Force pilot kid brother Packy and his then-fiancé Sue. It was the first overseas journey for both Donna and I – LAX to Frankfurt in a Lufthansa Boeing 707 with an hour stopover in Amsterdam. It was in Germany that I learned my first lesson in overseas travel – wherever you go on your first trip, if at all possible, make sure you have a good friend who lives there to be  your guide.   Packy and Sue were terrific hosts and tour guides. We started in Frankfurt and spent ten days on the road all through Austria and Bavaria, including a weekend in Mϋnchen for Oktoberfest,  and

Kehlstein Haus in the Day!

Berchtesgaden where we hiked and visited Hitler’s retreat and the teahouse he built for his first lady, Eva Braun. (Everytime I see shots of Der Fϋhrer strutting along at his mountaintop lair on The History Channel, I tell everyone within earshot that Hey!  I had a couple of beers right where Hitler’s walking!) By the end of our second week, I was ready to move there. As we traveled with Packy and Sue, we found our hotels at random. Around 3 in the afternoon we’d start looking at the front windows of the gӓsthausen or pensionen along the highway. If we saw a sign that read zimmer frei, and it looked OK to us, we’d pull in and check it out. The rooms were always clean and cozy and frϋstϋck was always served first thing in der stϋbe.

  The following year, I was sent on assignment to Guatemala…just a few weeks after the catastrophic 1976 earthquake, that dwarfed LA’s Big One, the 1971 Sylmar quake. That’s where I learned to pay attention to the local advice for staying healthy in a strange land, and became famous on our return flight for being the only journalist on the press plane not to become a victim

Guatemala 1976

of the traveler’s Green Apple Quickstep. (Jimmy Carter called it Montezuma’s Revenge). A few years after that, I went back to Germany as a guest of the U.S. Air Force to cover Reforger, one of the annual Fall NATO war games. That trip gave me the opportunity to visit East Berlin while it was still firmly behind the Iron Curtain, and, I got to go because I was the only person in the newsroom with a passport. That is my second bit of travel advice. You gotta have a passport. If all goes well my son will have two, US and Italian.

  In between my last trip to Germany and my first trip to Rome, all of my adventures were domestic. That is if you call traveling all over California and the rest of the United States on assignments, business trips and vacations with side trips to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. In all, I have made four trips to Rome, staying longer each time. My love affair with the Eternal City got its start way back in high school in Morris Diamond’s Latin class. We spent the first year translating Julius Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico, his account of his campaigns in Gaul from Latin into English.  It was Mr. Diamond who inadvertently taught me my own first rule of foreign travel – learn to understand at least a little of the language in the country you are traveling to. The second rule is at least teach yourself to count in the language of the country you are going to. Since my third  rule, and  my son the tour guide’s first bit of advice to his tour customers is if your waiter gives you a menu that is translated into four languages beside English, get up and run for the exit. It’s a tourist trap!

 

Inside the Coliseum

Its hard to believe that I made my first trip to Rome in 2005. Looking back now we worked hard to get ready for the trip.  I checked my passport to make sure it was current, and Monica applied for hers in plenty of time before liftoff. I signed up for an Italian language class through the Italian Cultural Center in Sacramento. Our teacher, Patrizia Cinquini Cerruti, is a native Italian who operates a successful travel service specializing in tours to Italy. Her textbook Buon Viaggio, A Travelers Guide to Italian Language and Culture is a great primer for travelers. If you live in the Sacramento area, I heartily recommend it. One huge difference in the travel landscape between my first trip to Europe and my first trip to Italy is the currency. Italy is now one of 28 members of the European Union. No more fumbling with deutschemarks, Austrian schillings, lira, guilders or francs. No sir! Sole currency for just about every nation in Europe is the Euro! Britain and the Pound Sterling being the sole holdout!

   On the trip I just came back from, Michael and Laura once again took me on new adventures, one of which was another high speed train trip on Italo to Venezia, fabled Venice, the longest surviving

Morning Traffic in Venezia

republic in history – over a thousand years. We spent two long holiday weeks at Laura’s family’s mountain retreat in Selci in Sabina… and explored a number of Medieval fortress villages nearby: Tolfa, Bagnoregio, Rochettine and a host of others. We returned to one of my particular favorites, the 12^th century Benedictine abbey at Farfa, also in Sabina. I went to work with my tour guide son and revisited Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius, joined a group going through the catacombs and toured the crypts of the Dominican Church in Rome where the monks of old decorated several of the crypts with the bones of other monks who had predeceased the artists. That’s where I was welcomed back to Roma by the lovely Alba, the manager of the museum gift shop. We also took a short Metro trip to Ostia Antica, Imperial Rome’s ancient seaport. And, when we  returned to Galleria Borghese, Michael was leading our tour. He amazed me yet again with his knowledge of art and his grasp of Italian history. He’s on a first name basis with just about all of the ancient Roman emperors. Then, just before I left Rome to come back to the states, I flew to Amsterdam on a very sentimental journey.

   Joan and I had been steadies right after we both graduated from high school. I was from Riverhead. She was from Westhampton. Our romance lasted until she trundled off to New York

2 BR w/canal view Amsterdam

University on a full scholarship and it wasn’t too long after that, we went our separate ways. But we managed to stay in touch over the years, and now, in both our Golden Years, she was living in Amsterdam and I had moved from New York ultimately settling in California. So, as I made plans for my latest Rome trip, I called Joan and made a date to fly up to Amsterdam and take her to dinner for old time’s sakes. An Easy Jet non-stop put me practically on her doorstep. At her suggestion, I booked into the Wilhelmina and was given the keys to a fourth floor room, which I found at the top of an excruciatingly long, winding stairwell.

  After a short walk to Joan’s apartment, and a reunion chat over coffee, we decided that since neither one of us could walk around like we used to, she called a cab and we headed off for a boat tour of the canals of Amsterdam. It was a preview for me of our upcoming trip to Venice.

  Amsterdam, especially the older sections on the canals is quite charming, and there is a lot of history there. After all, my birthplace, New York was once Nieu Amsterdam almost 400 years ago. And I could just visualize the early Dutch governer of Nieu Amsterdam, Pieter Stuyvesant clomping around Manhattan on his wooden leg growling out his distress that the British had just told him he was being evicted. But, the canal boat ride gave Joan and I the perfect opportunity to catch up on old times. At one point, we reminisced about the different directions our lives had taken us and we realized that we had six marriages between us. (At the end of seven innings, the score is 4 to 2 with Joan leading Mike by two!) We had already passed the Van Gogh Museum and the national treasure, The Rijksmuseum.

Joan and Mike Again!

But Amsterdam also has a lot of other museums which might interest you: Museum of Bags and Purses, popularly referred to as the Coach Museum; Foam Photography Museum; Diamond Museum; Bijbels Museum which boasts the oldest Bible printed in the Netherlands-the 1477 Delftse Bijbel; The KattenKabinet, an art museum devoted to works depicting cats; Verzetsmuseum, the Dutch Resistance Museum, tells the story of the Dutch people between 1940 and 1945 in World War II. The city also boasts the Cheese Museum and the everpopular Marijuana Museum. There is also the Anne Frank Museum which radiates a certain solemnity which could be felt even at a distance as our tour boat passed by. As our boat pulled back into its pier we agreed that a boat tour was a great way to spend a first-date-in-over-a-half-century kind of afternoon. And, it reminded us of another boat ride we took long ago as we explored New York City together – our 25 cent ride on the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor and back to Battery Park.

  After another day of catching up, Joan called a cab for me and I headed back to Schipol to catch my Easy Jet return flight to Rome and our next adventure – our Italo high speed train ride to Venezia. But that is a tale to be told another time. Halloween is right around the corner and I have a story of my own to tell about that before we travel to Venice.

Ciao,

MikeBo

PS: Check me out on www.mikebotula.com or  MikeBotula.blogspot.com

© By Mike Botula 2015 

No Funny Stuff In: “JFK’s Swimming Pool!”

Diario di Roma II (Rome Diary 2)

Wednesday October 14, 2015

Cloudy 68°F/20°C in Roma

Sunny 90°F/32°C in Rancho Santa Margarita

Buongiorno,

   One of the highlights of my entire Roman Holiday this time were my moments with No Funny Stuff, my son, Michael’s new Jug Band. That’s right, a down home aggregation of musicians who join

Michael Botula and NFS

in the singing and play not only the traditional instruments but also some unusual ones. Here’s the line-up: Michael Botula on voice Ukulele, Kazoo, and slide whistle. Giuseppe “Beppe” Cassa on Guitar, Mandolin, Oil can guitar, Dobro guitar, Saw, Watering Can-o-Fone, and Glockenspiel. Gabbo Hintermann plays Double Bass, and Cello.  Rounding out the NFS line-up is Giuseppe Petti who plays Washboard, Bells and Whistles, Olin (whatever that is), cymbal, and bicycle bell, among others. It’s a down-home bluegrass ensemble transplanted from the mountains of Appalachia to the Seven Hills of Rome, and they are turning the Eternal City on its ear. Starting as one of Rome’s Busker bands, or street musicians who set up one step ahead of the cops and leave Gabbo’s top silk hat on the ground to collect tips, No Funny Stuff has progressed to music festivals all over Italy as well as a few other European countries. And, based on the track record of Michael’s old band, Inbred Knucklehead, No Funny Stuff is now doing a lot of pub dates and club gigs around Rome. Their unique sound has now been heard on several popular Rome radio stations.

No Funny Stuff at the Coliseum

No Funny Stuff - Tolfa Busker Festa

  The day after I arrived in Rome on a hot August night, Laura loaded me into her car and we drove north to the medieval town of Tolfa for a Festa that had attracted Buskers from all over Italy. It seemed that every piazza in that 12^th century mountain top village had a soundstage set up for the many bands of all types who were scheduled to play that weekend. Where the music of the Buskers left off, an art festival continued. Italians really know how to throw a Festa and the Busker Festa was first cabin. It was here that I met Rachel, who was auditioning live that night for washboard and vocal, to temporarily replace Seppe Petti, who had been unavoidable sidelined. Laura and I arrived just as the band finished its sound check and we all sat down to dinner in a nearby piazza before the show. We finished with plenty of time to spare because No Funny Stuff didn’t take the stage until well after 1 a.m. It was my introduction to Michael’s new band, and I became a die-hard fan quicker than you can ring a cow bell at a Sacramento Kings game.

   Naturally, I kept a keen ear on Mike Jr.’s performance. He plays a mean guitar, and is a solid vocalist but I had never heard him play the ukulele at a performance, much less the kazoo and slide whistle, and I listened proudly. Then Beppe Cassa stepped to the front to solo, first with his mandolin, then with the electric guitar he built out of a one gallon olive oil can. Finally, Beppe soloed on Over the Rainbow on his carpenter’s saw using a violin bow to make the saw sound like the music from It Came From Outer Space, or some other old ‘50s science-fiction movie. Rachel, meanwhile was kickin’ butt on the washboard with its bicycle bell and cymbal and belting out This Train is Bound for Glory, This Train! They were rocking the walls of the medieval village. By the time the band finished, it was well after 2:30 in the morning but the piazza was still packed with fans, and several other bands were lined up to play. The sun was high in the sky before the last group left the stage. Even the Oktoberfest in Mϋnich closes up before Midnight.

 

At Dinner in Tolfa

Earlier over dinner as everyone at the table was munching their pasta or Caccia and getting acquainted, Rachel, who has a day job on the staff of the U.S. ambassador to Italy, invited Michael and Laura and I over to the home she was “house-sitting” while its occupant was away. Michael quickly accepted her invitation, and suggested that he bring Beppe and his guitar along with a few other instruments so they could jam after dinner. We’ll be out by the pool for our barbecue, Rachel said. The boss and his wife are away so we can’t be in the house, but the garden and the pool are very nice, and there’s a country kitchen next to the pool that we can use for the barbecue. It’ll be fun!

  To be honest, I didn’t give this much thought beyond, That’s nice, we’re invited to a friend’s house for a barbecue! I didn’t even think much about the invitation until Michael asked me for my US Passport number. Why do you need that? I asked. Because, he replied, Rachel is “house-sitting” at Villa Taverna, which is the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Italy. They need your passport information for security! Whoa! I thought, does my kid have friends in interesting places, or what? I remembered Rachel saying she worked for the government. And was house-sitting for her boss. But, I was new in town, how am I supposed to know stuff like this.

   So, a few days later, Michael, Laura, and Sofia and I (Sofia is their dog, a black Volpino) with Beppe

The Earlier Houseguest(L) and Il Papa

following behind, arrived at the main gate of Villa Taverna, which was flanked by two soldiers with automatic assault rifles. One of them spoke into his walkie-talkie and they were joined by a third soldier armed with a Beretta pistol and a clip board. After giving him our names, (Sofia doesn’t have a passport, but she has an honest face) he gestured to another guard in the booth behind him and the huge steel gates swung, silently open. Beppe Cassa, the guitar, mandolin and musical saw virtuoso followed right behind. To me, the whole thing seemed Medieval. Rachel was waiting in front of the 15^th century palazzo, and greeted us like long-lost relatives. After the appropriate number of Ciao’s, salve’s and buona sera’s she showed us to the garden where an Olympic size swimming pool and a barbecue grill awaited. During dinner, she told us “the interesting story” behind the swimming pool.

   Villa Taverna has been the official residence of our ambassadors since 1933, she told us. On his visit to Rome in July, 1963, President John F. Kennedy stayed here as a guest of the ambassador.

NOT JFK and Rachel

That’s normal protocol when the President travels. He always stays at the residence of the American ambassador. Mr. Kennedy spotted the garden on his way into the villa and concluded that the ambassador’s swimming pool must be right there. Early the next morning, as the story goes, J.F.K. slipped past his Secret Service detail, clad in swim trunks and bathrobe and slippers and went down to the garden expecting to take his usual early morning swim. But when he got there, all he saw was the vast expanse of lawn. Just then, his security detail, accompanied by the ambassador caught up with him. Mr. President, they asked, why are you down here in your bathrobe? With a puzzled look, JFK explained, I – er – was headed to the pool, to take a swim! But, sir! The ambassador responded, Villa Taverna doesn’t have a swimming pool. Just this big yard! Still in his bathrobe, slippers and swim trunks holding a towel over his arm, the 35^th President of the United States intoned, Well, gentlemen, I intend to visit Rome again in the near future, and, while this beautiful residence does not have a swimming pool at this moment, rest assured that there will be a swimming pool in this garden when I return! The pool was built right after the President departed, but he never returned to Rome or the Villa Taverna. He had an event in Dallas to attend in November, 1963.

  After our barbecue, Mike and Beppe retrieved their instruments  from the car, set them up under the garden lamp, and the jam session got under way. Every few minutes, an armed security guard strolled through the pool area as he made his rounds of the villa. I couldn’t help but wonder how he felt about the music he was listening to. No Funny Stuff’s sound isn’t exactly the music that’s played at state dinners in the East Room of the White House. Listen for yourself - No Funny Stuff is on YouTube and Facebook. Next time, I'll include a song or two.

Ciao,

MikeBo

PS: Check me out on www.mikebotula.com or  MikeBotula.blogspot.com...

© By Mike Botula 2015

 

 

The Tour Guide Who Wasn’t There! UPDATE!

Diario di Roma II (Rome Diary 2)

Monday October 5, 2015

Clear 68°F/23°C in Roma

Cloudy, Scattered Showers 63°F/17°C in Rancho Santa Margarita

Buongiorno,

(Contains updated information)

  Back in the 1950s before Elvis and the Rock and Roll Revolution, pop singer Patti Page had a hit song called Learning My Latin! I had actually heard the song first as part of arranger-composer-conductor Gordon Jenkins’ classic Manhattan Tower, which I stumbled across recently on ITunes. It

Morris Diamond

made me think about my very first trip to Rome in 2005, and my first visit to The Forum, guided by my son, Michael. We walked from the Coliseum past the Triumphal Arch into the very heart of the Roman Empire. The Senate was located here along with other ruined marvels from Rome’s glory days. Then, Michael pointed to a desolate patch of ground and told me, Right on this spot is where Julius Caesar was assassinated. He smiled, Et tu, Brutae?  Yikes! I replied, Of course! The Ides of March 44 BC. March 15^th.  

  As a professional guide, my son loves to punch holes in historical myths. This was the first time I had been treated to his particular talent. I thought it happened on the grand stairs of the Senate, I said. No dad,  he replied somewhat condescendingly. It was right here, behind the place they used to execute the Vestal Virgins who strayed from the straight and narrow. In spite of Shakespeare’s depiction and Hollywood’s numerous movies, this weed patch amidst the ruins of the Forum marked Julius Caesar’s demise. Ālea iacta est! I said, The die is cast! It was then that I remembered my high school Latin class at good old Riverhead High School. Then I said, Omnes Gallia divisa in partes tres! What are you saying, dad? My son asked. All of Gaul is divided into three parts. It’s the opening line of Julius

Two Mikes at the Forum

Caesar’s “Commentarii de Bello Gallico.” That is Caesar’s narrative of his military campaigns in Ancient Gaul. Remember “Veni, Vidi, Vici?” It was Julius Caesar’s after action report on his Gallic war, “I came, I saw, I conquered.” I still remember some of my high school Latin. I sure wish we could show this to Mr. Diamond. On that trip and the subsequent visits to Italy, I found myself time and again seeing a place for the first time, with the definite feeling that I had been there before. And I owe that to Morris Diamond.

  Who’s he, my son asked. Morris Diamond was my high school Latin teacher, I replied. To this day he is a legend to any kid who went to high school in my home town in the ‘50s and ‘60s. This is all coming back to me now, because I had a teacher who brought a dead language and an almost forgotten history lesson to life in living color and stereophonic sound. It’s true! Everywhere I’ve gone in Italy, the Coliseum, the Forum, the Circus Maximus and along the Tiber in Rome, I first visited in Mr. Diamond’s Latin class. We spent the whole year in Latin I translating Caesar’s commentaries. We learned how to use Roman numerals. He drummed Latin grammar into our young brains so firmly, that I still tend to go back to the original Latin grammar structure when I need help with French, Italian or Spanish. Mr. Diamond’s Latin class was a combination of language study, Ancient History and Political Science all rolled into one class period.   I was with Roosevelt BEFORE 1928! He would announce as he got started on his frequent commentaries on politics. That would usually herald his analysis of the day’s hot political story. FDR before ’28, was his way of saying that his political loyalties predated FDR’s first term by four years. He definitely was a New York product. Jewish, degree from New York’s City College, married to  Elsie, an Irish Catholic lady and on a mission to make his favorite class, Latin a well-rounded learning experience for all of us brave enough  to darken his classroom’s threshold. You lucky kids! He would exclaim frequently as he call our class to order. You lucky kids! It was his way of saying it was time to settle down and learn, because it didn’t take us long to find out that he was a very demanding teacher and very strict about teenage classroom antics. Every once in a while when he saw that one of us wasn’t paying the proper amount of attention, he would launch a blackboard eraser in the miscreant’s direction. Invariably, the missile found its mark. Well, I finally got your attention, Blodgett! We’re on page 51. Your turn to read aloud! And the target of Mr. Diamond’s eraser toss would start reading, first in Latin and translate as he or she went along. To this day, I think of him as Mister Diamond. Even his own daughter

Janice Diamond

Janice, another of his students, addressed him formally as Mr. Diamond, never Dad or Pop! Latin is supposed to be a dead language, he would often remark. It is your job as my students to keep breathing some life into it! You lucky kids!

  We learned Roman history, from the city’s founding in 753 BC by Romulus and Remus, through the early republic, the building of the empire, the grandeur of Imperial Rome and the division of the empire into east and west, and of course, Rome’s decline and fall, and Europe’s descent into the Dark Ages. Time and time again Mr. Diamond would lecture us on the accomplishments of ancient Rome in medicine, political structure, military capability, the inner workings of conquest and how the empire not only conquered but maintained the integrity of its political structure. Everything that we students had come to believe had been developed within the two hundred year life span of the United States, Mr. Diamond would drum it into us that the Roman Empire did it first, and frequently did it better. Our laws, our constitution, the structure of our congress and state legislatures. Another favorite tirade of his, When your European ancestors were living in huts in the forest and swinging by their tails through the trees, Roman citizens were living their lives in a highly advanced civilization. Don’t you ever forget that.

  We learned about Roman expansion, the rivalry with Carthage and the Punic Wars. Hannibal

Our Hero Julius Caesar

crossing the Alps in mid-winter. The slave uprisings, and the Roman dole system-Pane e circo, bread and circuses, the Coliseum and the games, the rise of Christianity, the sacking of Rome by the Barbarians and the inevitable fall of the empire. And all through our halting translations of Caesar’s Gallic Commentaries, Mr. Diamond carefully drew the parallels between the ancient history of the Roman Empire with the contemporary history of World War 2 and the rise of the American Empire. He was an ardent critic of the influence on Americans by Hollywood and Madison Avenue. At a time when television had not  yet become the force it is today, he was extremely wary of the impact on Americans’ minds wielded by the Hollywood movie industry and Madison Avenue’s advertising agencies. If the Russians ever decide to drop the A-bomb on us, he would say, I would hope that the first two bombs fall on Hollywood and Madison Avenue! That, in my opinion, would solve a lot of our problems! Yes. For a teacher of a long-dead language, used only in churches, our Latin teacher spread his wings in an effort to open our young minds.

  So now, after four visits to the capital of the old Roman Empire, and in anticipation of future visits, if not a permanent residence, I still think about Morris Diamond, my old Latin teacher. And, to end

Il Colosseo

this little creative effort, I’d like to relate a story from one of my other classmates, Shepard Scheinberg, who is now a Westhampton attorney. Scheinberg had brought back a stone that he had picked up at the Coliseum on his vacation trip to Rome in 1959. The following year, Scheinberg went to Rome a second time. When he got back, he visited Mr. Diamond, who was still teaching Latin up until the 1970s, and presented him with the stone as a souvenir of his visit, remarking to his old teacher that Mr. Diamond’s class made him feel like when he had visited Rome for the first time, he felt as it he had been there before. Years later with Mr. Diamond’s health failing, Scheinberg went to visit him at a nursing home. That’s when he asked his teacher if he had ever been to Rome. Mr. Diamond said he had not. As Scheinberg related in a “Letter to the Editor” of the local paper, the Riverhead News Review in 1985, “He was like his namesake, Moses. He too, saw the Holy Land only from afar, but never set foot therein.” Morris Diamond died in November, 1984. His wife, Elsie, followed him on his journey to the Elysian Fields just a few days later.

  I still find it hard to believe, because our teacher, Morris Diamond made it all so vividly real for us. I’ve seen with my own eyes what he taught us about and I’m still scratching my head over his admission. But, then, we all considered him a great teacher, one of our most memorable, and, I guess that is what makes a good teacher a great teacher. You lucky kids! We sure were.

Ciao,

MikeBo

(Thanks again to Tim Holls for the RHS yearbook photos and the update information)

PS: Check me out also on www.mikebotula.com or  MikeBotula.blogspot.com

© By Mike Botula 2015

[ 1527 words]

The Tour Guide Who Wasn’t There!

Diario di Roma II (Rome Diary 2)

Sunday October 4, 2015

Partly Cloudy 77°F/25°C in Roma

Rain 61°F/16°C in Rancho Santa Margarita

Buongiorno,

   Back in the 1950s before Elvis and the Rock and Roll Revolution, pop singer Patti Page had a hit song called Learning My Latin! I had actually heard the song first as part of arranger-composer-

My Latin Teacher, Morris Diamond

conductor Gordon Jenkins’ classic Manhattan Tower, which I stumbled across recently on ITunes. It made me think about my very first trip to Rome in 2005, and my first visit to The Forum, guided by my son, Michael. We walked from the Coliseum past the Triumphal Arch into the very heart of the Roman Empire. The Senate was located here along with other ruined marvels from Rome’s glory days. Then, Michael pointed to a desolate patch of ground and told me, Right on this spot is where Julius Caesar was assassinated. He smiled, Et tu, Brutae?  Yikes! I replied, Of course! The Ides of March 44 BC. March 15^th.  

   As a professional guide, my son loves to punch holes in historical myths. This was the first time I had been treated to his particular talent. I thought it happened on the grand stairs of the Senate, I said. No dad,  he replied somewhat condescendingly. It was right here, behind the place they used to execute the Vestal Virgins who strayed from the straight and narrow. In spite of Shakespeare’s depiction and Hollywood’s numerous movies, this weed patch amidst the ruins of the Forum marked the place of Julius Caesar’s demise. Ālea iacta est! I said, The die is cast! It was then that I

The Mikes at the Roman Forum

remembered my high school Latin class at good old Riverhead High School. Then I said, Omnes Gallia divisa in partes tres! What are you saying, dad? My son asked. All of Gaul is divided into three parts. It’s the opening line of Julius Caesar’s “Commentarii de Bello Gallico.” That is Caesar’s narrative of his military campaigns in Ancient Gaul. Remember “Veni, Vidi, Vici?” It was Julius Caesar’s after action report on his Gallic war, “I came, I saw, I conquered.” I still remember some of my high school Latin. I sure wish we could show this to Mr. Diamond. On that trip and the subsequent visits to Italy, I found myself time and again seeing a place for the first time, with the definite feeling that I had been there before. And I owe that to Morris Diamond.

  

Mr. Diamond

Who’s he? my son asked. Morris Diamond was my high school Latin teacher, I replied. To this day he is a legend to any kid who went to Riverhead High School in my home town in the ‘50s and ‘60s. This is all coming back to me now, because I had a teacher who brought a dead language and an almost forgotten history lesson to life in living color and stereophonic sound. It’s true! Everywhere I’ve gone in Italy, the Coliseum, the Forum, the Circus Maximus and along the Tiber in Rome, I first visited in Mr. Diamond’s Latin class. We spent the whole year in Latin One translating Caesar’s commentaries. We learned how to use Roman numerals. We learned why our modern railroad tracks are the width that they are. They are the distance apart as old Roman chariot wheels. He drummed Latin grammar into our young brains so firmly, that I still tend to go back to the original Latin grammar structure when I need help with French, Italian or Spanish. Mr. Diamond’s Latin class was a combination of language study, Ancient History and Political Science all rolled into one class period.

   I was with Roosevelt BEFORE 1928! He would announce as he got started on his frequent commentaries on politics. That would usually herald his analysis of the day’s hot political story. FDR before ’28, was his way of saying that his political loyalties predated FDR’s first term by four years. He definitely was a New York product. Jewish, degree from New York’s City College, married to an Irish Catholic lady and on a mission to make his favorite class, Latin a well-rounded learning experience for all of us brave enough  to darken his classroom’s threshold. You lucky kids! He would exclaim frequently as he call our class to order. You lucky kids! It was his way of saying it was time to settle down and learn, because it didn’t take us long to find out that he was a very demanding teacher and very strict about teenage classroom antics. Every once in a while when he saw that one of us wasn’t paying the proper amount of attention, he would launch a blackboard eraser in the miscreant’s direction. Invariably, the missile found its mark. Well, I finally got your attention, Blodgett! We’re on page 51. Your turn to read aloud! And the target of Mr. Diamond’s eraser toss would start reading, first in Latin and translate as he or she went along. To this day, I think of him as

Daughter Janice Diamond

Mister Diamond. Even his own daughter Janice, who also took his class, addressed him formally as Mr. Diamond, never Dad or Pop! Latin is supposed to be a dead language, he would often remark. It is your job as my students to keep breathing some life into it! You lucky kids!

   We learned Roman history, from the city’s founding in 753 BC by Romulus and Remus, through the early republic, the building of the empire, the grandeur of Imperial Rome and the division of the empire into east and west, and of course, Rome’s decline and fall, and Europe’s descent into the Dark Ages. Time and time again Mr. Diamond would lecture us on the accomplishments of ancient Rome in medicine, the arts, law, political structure, military capability, the inner workings of conquest and how the empire not only conquered but maintained the integrity of its political structure. Everything that we students had come to believe had been developed within the two hundred year life span of the United States, Mr. Diamond would drum it into us that the Roman Empire did it first, and frequently did it better. Our laws, our constitution, the structure of our congress and state legislatures. Another favorite tirade of his: When your European ancestors were living in huts in the forest and swinging by their tails through the trees, Roman citizens were living their lives in a highly advanced civilization. Don’t you ever forget that.

Our Hero Julius Caesar

   We learned about Roman expansion, the rivalry with Carthage and the Punic Wars. Hannibal crossing the Alps in mid-winter. The slave uprisings, and the Roman dole system-Pane e circo, bread and circuses, the Coliseum and the games, the rise of Christianity, the sacking of Rome by the Barbarians and the inevitable fall of the empire. And all through our halting translations of Caesar’s Gallic Commentaries, Mr. Diamond carefully drew the parallels between the ancient history of the Roman Empire with the contemporary history of World War 2 and the rise of the American Empire. He was an ardent critic of the influence on Americans by Hollywood and Madison Avenue. At a time when television had not  yet become the force it is today, he was extremely wary of the impact on Americans’ minds wielded by the Hollywood movie industry and Madison Avenue’s advertising agencies. If the Russians ever decide to drop the A-bomb on us, he would say, I would hope that the first two bombs fall on Hollywood and Madison Avenue! That, in my opinion, would solve a lot of our problems! Yes. For a teacher of a long-dead language, used only in churches, our Latin teacher spread his wings in an effort to open our young minds.

   So now, after four visits to the capital of the old Roman Empire, and in anticipation of future visits, if not a permanent residence, I still think about Morris Diamond, my old Latin teacher. And, to end this little creative effort, I’d like to relate a story told me by one of my other classmates at our 50^th Class Reunion a few years back. It seems that one of our other classmates, Shepard Scheinberg, had brought back a marble chunk from one of the ruins in the forum on his vacation trip. When Shep got back, he visited Mr. Diamond, who was still teaching Latin up until the 1970s, and presented him with the marble as a souvenir of his visit to Rome and a memento from one of his former students. I was stunned by what I heard next. Because Mr. Diamond told his ex-student, You know, I’ve never been to Rome and I always wanted to visit there because the history means so much to me. But, I never got the opportunity to travel there. I still find it hard to believe, because our teacher made it all so vividly real for us. I’ve seen with my own eyes what he taught us about and I’m still scratching my head over his admission. But, then, we all considered him a great teacher, one of our most memorable, and, I guess that is what makes a good teacher a great teacher. You lucky kids! We sure were.

Ciao,

MikeBo

(Thanks to Tim Holls for the RHS class yearbook photos)

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© By Mike Botula 2015