The Old Spaghetti Factory, Midvale, Utah, Summer of 1989. Two young men, a study in relaxed masculine elegance, wait patiently for a table in order to enjoy an institution of Western American family dining.
I had spent the school year at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, sharing a small room in a large concrete block dormitory with two local students. Our three beds lined the wall in an L shape, forming a complete U with our three desks, leaving just enough room to stand. Every room in the building was similarly populated, as were the several other dorms throughout campus. As you moved down the peninsula and into the city proper, the population density increased to the highest levels in the world. The only time I was by myself that year was either in the shower or on the toilet.
I was looking forward to having my huge bedroom over the garage, quietly separated from the rest of the house and larger than the inside of a 747 when compared to my digs in Hong Kong, back to myself. I was planning to lounge, lay about, lolligag and loaf as much as possible before heading back to my final year of college.
So I got a little worried when I was told, on our way from the airport back home, that a friend of my aunt in Spain had a son near my age who would like to spend the summer in the U.S. and oh, by the way, he was going to be here in a couple of days and would be sharing my room.
What I learned before he arrived: His father was Spanish and his mother German. Depending on which country he was in he was known as either
Cristóbal, Cristophe or, presumably for his trip to the U.S., Cristopher. He was just a couple of years younger than me and spoke English well (in addition to Spanish and German, of course).
What I found on that first day was a polite, enthusiastic yet slightly reserved intelligent kid with an easy smile and an engaging laugh. We picked him up at the airport and went to the Utah Arts Festival - the warm dry air of a Utah summer evening and the orderly, good-natured Salt Lake City crowd providing the familiar comfort I had thought about during my humid last days in Hong Kong of 1989, when millions of people had filled the tense streets in support of the Beijing Spring.
In a few short days his reserve waned and his enthusiasm grew.
He was fascinated by American life, but in a way I hadn't expected. The details he delighted in were sometimes a mystery to me. For example, he once stopped dead in his tracks at a motorcycle in front of an old brick house, the lawn sprinkler spraying away in the early desert evening. "Could you take a picture of me please, with the chopper?" "Really?" I thought, this being long before the advent of digital photography, meaning one only had a finite number of pictures one could take. "Okay, sure, if that is what you'd like."
At the time these were the things I had worked to get away from. The "chopper" was just some loser's motorcycle in front of an old house in the suburb I grew up in and had come to take for granted. Why would anyone, particularly someone from Europe, where I had not yet been but imagined was far, far more interesting and beautiful than where I had now returned want a picture of something like that?
But his enthusiasm only increased as the summer days passed. Food, music, television, cars, girls, architecture, police, children, their parents... he took all of it in. His enthusiasm was infectious and everyone who met him caught his fever. He could ask almost anyone a question and get a sincere answer, regardless of the situation.
In what I consider the ultimate expression of his immersion into American life, he became a devotee of two of the greatest cultural hallmarks of late 20th century Murray, Utah: the Big Gulp and the Slurpee. Most people were limited to either one or the other, a Big Gulp fan or a Slurpee lover. But Cristóbal, he was both.
We spent the summer doing Utah things: the swimming pool at the Sports Mall, barbecues at my uncle's or brother's house, This is the Place Monument, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park and, yes, Vegas.
My concern about sharing my summer was unfounded. I still had plenty of time to myself, to appreciate the quiet and the space that likely very few in the wide open West realize is the luxury it is. But I also got something else out of it. Cristóbal's enthusiasm also helped me appreciate all of those little things about my hometown and people that I had taken for granted. It is a rare privilege to be shown your own life through someone else's eyes.
But before long Cris headed back to Europe and I back to college. I was terrible at writing letters, and by the time I graduated and moved to Seattle we had fallen out of touch.
Thanks to Facebook (yes, give credit where it is due) some 20-odd years later we got back in touch. Much had happened - each of us had gotten married, moved around a bit, lost our fathers, and on and on. But we re-connected as if 1989 was yesterday and looked for an opportunity to see each other in person. It took a couple of years but, ultimately, my cousin in Madrid, daughter to the same aunt who had a friend whose son wanted to come to the US in 1989, was getting married. And Cristóbal and his wife Rosa, who now lived in Zurich, were to be in Madrid at the same time.
That first reunion was brief - a lovely, long Spanish lunch, complete with at least three desserts, an afternoon with Rosa, his mother and mine, strolling through Madrid, with a stop at one of its free museums, followed by an evening of cocktails and tapas.
It was a brief visit, but enough to see that his enthusiasm for life had not waned. And Rosa proved not only pretty but clever and funny as well. We had to go back home the next morning, but promised we would not let another 20 years pass.
Did I mention that Cris and Rosa now lived in Switzerland, a country I have been wanting to explore since looking out the window of a flight from Rome, seeing high, snow covered peaks towering over verdant green valleys?
As I mentioned in my previous post, Cris met us at the airport and accompanied us the next day on a truly epic trek across Lake Luzern and up the Rigi. He and Rosa also hosted us for two days at the end of our trip, showing us around Zurich and feeding us some of the finest food and drink I have ever enjoyed. Those two days will have their own post as well.
So there we were, 25 years after buying his first Big Gulp at the 7/11 on State Street and 59th, eating several varieties of Swiss mountain cheese, slices of uniquely Swiss cured meats and two kinds of pâté. It was a delight for Marissa and me. I can only hope Cris saw some of his life through my eyes and felt just as fortunate as I had 25 years earlier.
All photos from 1989 courtesy of Cristóbal.
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