I arrived with a friend, Paul Lacey, by ship at Lisbon, Portugal in the early Autumn of 1972. We brought with us a Volkswagen camping van. We had heard that Malaga, Spain was a good place to winter in and so we turned up at the Malaga camp site a few weeks later. We stayed there until May of 1973 at which time we began a journey through Spain, Italy, Switzerland and ended up in Heidelberg, Germany in August.
Prior to arriving in Heidelberg, I had applied to teach Sociology courses with the University of Maryland, European Division, which had their European headquarters there. I was hired as a lecturer in Sociology at that time and thus began an odyssey, which has continued to the present day.
As I began teaching in Germany Paul went to Holland to stay for a while with his girl friend, Judy, who was Dutch and whom he met while we were in Malaga. When I was assigned to teach in Turkey and Italy, they decided to travel with me. A year later Paul returned to the states, Judy to Holland and I continued to teach for Maryland. My first Spanish assignment was in the fall of 1975 at the Torrejon Air Base about 20 miles east of Madrid. During the summer of 1976, I was assigned for the first time to teach at the U. S. Naval Station at Rota, Spain. From that point on until 1983, I alternated between teaching at Torrejon, Rota and Germany. In the Spring of 1983 I was assigned to Rota and have remained there ever since.
Much of the action that follows takes place is in Gaucin, Spain where I purchased a house in 1977. Gaucin is about a three-hour drive east of Rota and so is a convenient place to go to on weekends.
Gaucin is one of a few thousand "white villages" (pueblos blancos) of Andalucia. It is situated in the hills above the Costa del Sol in Spain. From the village, there is a panoramic view of Gibraltar and beyond into Morocco. On a clear day the Atlas Mountains are visible. None of the other "white villages" of Andalucia has such a spectacular view. For many of the Spanish living in Gaucin, the view is nothing special. They have seen it all their lives and they are accustomed to it.
It is because of the view and the quaintness of the village that many foreigners have been attracted to it. Along the Costa del Sol there are areas where the predominant foreign community is composed of Germans, or Dutch, or Swedes; however, for some reason Gaucin has been attractive to the English and so the majority of foreigners in Gaucin are English. For many years, I was the only American in Gaucin and even now, many years later, there are only a handful of Americans here.
The following is a compendium of experiences, recollections, encounters, happy times and bad times that I have experienced for almost a quarter century in Gaucin, Rota and Malaga.