Sometimes, I find myself gazing out the window and drifting away into memory land where I time travel back to certain parts of my youth that now seem so far away they could have been on another planet!
The beach near where I spent my late teens (Photo by me, 2008)
We don't really travel much these days — both from financial restraints, and then there was Covid — but back in the mid- to later 1970's I traveled a lot.
Well, I actually lived in the south of Spain between 1972 and 1981, when I headed to the US for University. But during those nine years, I was shuttling back and forth between Spain, Denmark and the UK on a frequent basis.
It was really a very different life, not only because I was a Danish kid in a foreign country, but also because I was a KID in the middle of what was essentially a retirement area for expats from different parts of Europe.
Main street in the village near my parents' apartment, circa 2008
I have never really looked back at those years with any particular sense of longing, although there were definitely some good parts to it.
At the time, I was mostly troubled and depressed because I felt like my parents had basically "stolen" my teenage years from my by choosing such a location to bring up a teenager... heck, I had few friends because I had few peers.
There are not a lot of teenagers in a retirement area!
In some ways it is almost a misnomer to say that we "lived in Spain" because we largely "self-segregated" into clusters of homes that were all occupied by retired non-Spanish nationals... and I went to an English language school.
The apartment complex where my parents spent their retirement years. I lived in the same complex as an 18-20 year old.
You might wonder why Spain... the answer being that after my parents' divorce, I went with my mom to live there, because she had taken up with the Englishman I eventually came to think of as my step-dad. He had a house there, so off we went.
It's one thing to be raised by your grandparents (for example) because you'd likely have that experience in a reasonably normal environment. It's quite another to grow up as a teen in an area where 95% of the people around you are your grandparents' age and there are practically no kids around! Suffice it to say, my socialization process was far from the norm!
So what does a quiet kid do with such a situation?
Well, I learned to play golf. It was a way for me to engage with all the "old people" on a level they could relate to, while it also kept me out of reach of my mother for hours at a time. Besides, who doesn't enjoy long walks in nature.
The rock of Gibraltar (foreground) and the Rif mountains in North Africa (background)... trash on the beach, as always!
I actually got pretty good at it. Not a lot of people know this, but I actually got very close to trying to qualify for the European pro tour in 1980. Alas, "other things" got in the way...
A lot of my love of walking on the beach also was born during "the Spanish years."
We lived about a 10 minute walk from the Mediterranean, and I would take myself on long solitary walks. I just wanted to get away from the world... but — in retrospect — maybe I just wanted to get away from myself.
Regardless, what I remember most about those years was the solitude, the aloneness of it. Not that there weren't people around; they just weren't people a 16-year old would relate to.
My parents' cat... even though they didn't like cats, they ended up caring for this cat that just showed up one day.
I learned a lot about death and illness in my teens... which is not unusual, given the circumstances. I was surrounded by people who talked about their bad backs and sciatica, but knew nothing of what was popular on the radio.
Thankfully, I had one of the great things of the time: the English language transmissions of Radio Luxembourg, which could be picked up on the portable radio in my little room, all the way down in the southern tip of Spain!
It served as a tiny "window" to a life I knew existed, but that it was unlikely I would ever have.
When I finally left, on January 8th of 1981 — 44 years ago, today — I felt a great sense of relief that this part of my life was finally over.
Street in the nearby town of La Linea
After my step-dad passed away — at 92 — I returned for a final time, but enough years had passed that I had no more feelings towards this place of my youth. Things had changed so much I barely recognized the place... and I left with the sense that I was finally done with a particular period of my life.
And I really was!
It was less than a year later that I suddenly realized that any residual anger and bitterness I had harbored over having "missed" my teenage years was gone.
Thanks for visiting, and have a great week ahead!
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Created at 2025.01.08 01:53 PST
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