Terrence Coen

Terry's memoire, Retirement Italiano: Adventures and Misadventures in a Foreign Culture, is available in print ebook formats on Amazon.com.The author donates profits from sales of the book to UNICEF to support the world's children.

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The Third Daughter

Giuseppe wanted a son. I don’t know that for certain. I wasn’t there in Rome, when his wife went into the delivery room. I am an American, who never left his homeland until 28 years after Giuseppe’s third daughter was born. So I never really got to meet him. Let alone discuss the matter with him. I suspect as a father, who already had an eight and a six year old daughter, the idea of a son would have been nice.Most men want to have a son. I think they see the idea of a son as a bit of an an incarnation of themselves. A son who could rise higher than they could. Or maybe fill in some of the gaps in their own existence. Get the top job. Make the team. Deliver the winning run. Or in particular, in Giuseppe’s case, excel in his sport; the bicycle races that were such grand events in Europe at the time. Or at least to help in, and some day take over his butcher shop.As it turned out only his third daughter got to help in the shop. And only with her did a special bond develop around his tool box as she took a proprietary interest in the small repairs he made around the apartment.I can only imagine how much he must have missed her, when the Fascists forced him to go off to the army, and the joy he would have felt upon his return. And the fear, when he evaded the Nazis, who tried to re-conscript him and pull him away from those he loved once more.By the time the third daughter turned nineteen, that love, as love can do, had to have grown so much. And then she announced her plans to go to America. When she returned four years later and announced that she had fallen in love with and planned to marry an American, his sense of loss had to intensify. But he accepted and blessed the union with an unknown foreigner and made plans to visit when he had saved enough to buy an airline ticket.Sadly he died prematurely, never seeing his third daughter again. I am glad Giuseppe didn’t have that son. She has lived with me for over half a century now.I would like him to know that I have been a caring, responsible partner to her. To take joy in the joy she has brought me.

The Performance

I don’t think of dawn as breaking. Rather it slips in gradually. And with it comes the first and best performance of the day. It starts slowly, as one or two players survey the stage from atop the Wilkie’s Inn on the back street. Then they cautiously approach. First, they stop on a telephone line or a limb of the ornamental olive tree. No danger in sight, they descend upon the stage. Soon others hesitantly join them, and the garden is transformed. It explodes with life.My wife built their stage and is responsible for attracting these star performers, although at this early point in the show, she is sound asleep. Oblivious to it all.Reflecting, I think of John Locke describing the tabula rasa, the blank canvas that is filled over time. That was the back yard when we first saw the property. It didn’t always attract man’s fine feathered friends. When we bought the property it was roughly a 50 by 50 foot hill. All that the eye beheld was steep and barren, with the exception of a deteriorating staircase built from old railroad ties, a few calla lilies scattered about, and one nondescript tree. All on a background of dull gray textured soil, framed on three sides by a weathered redwood fence. My wife, over time, turned the blank canvas into a true work of art. One plant inspired the selection and planting of another and then another. Just the way Locke described the development of the person.Those first responders are most often the blue birds. Referred to as California Scrub Jays or Western Scavenger Blues. Unflattering names, more reflective of their behavior than their sleek good looks. Handsomest are Stella’s Jays, but they don’t come on a regular basis. The Jays are hardly scavenging now, but rather feasting on carefully selected, especially recommended bird food or their seemingly favorite…peanuts. These, they snatch away and carry to another spot and crack open.Now the garden designer is awake, riveted to the window. Fixated on the show while periodically referencing her birds of Central California charts. The blues leave the feeder. Now it is any bird’s game. Often the warblers lite on the feeder. They seek strength in numbers and scatter fast if the larger blues return for a second helping. As soon as the blues leave, the warblers return. And maybe the finches join them. Neither seem totally secure and will quickly surrender their place on the feeder should the blues return. When this happens, they content themselves with scrounging for seeds that have fallen to the ground from the blues shaking the feeder.I marvel at the artistry, thinking that now days the back yard would make a fitting subject for Claude Monet. Centered about a stone work, a small water fall cascades, drawing the attention of both large and small visitors to the garden. It is a bath for the birds during the day and during the summer months, an oasis for the raccoons and probably other nocturnal creatures at night. To the right of the water feature a patch of roses are on the verge of blooming and will add to and contrast with the color of the bold red camellia. The redwood fence is still there, posting a background for two decorative olive trees and a pink ruby-hearted “tea tree” (leptospermum), and supporting two large mirrors positioned to create the illusion of a larger space.Now the blues are back, but soon take off in the face of two woodpeckers. They are magnificent birds with their red crowned heads and black and white wings and tail feathers. The woodpeckers never land on the rim of the feeder the way the other birds do. They rather hook their feet on the lip of the rim and furiously peck through the lower window at the seeds. I think what it was like to be a young construction worker operating a jackhammer.Now the doves descend. They are a familiar pair, several times the size of the fleeing woodpeckers. Always together… No birds challenge them. They own the feeder now. The warblers and finch continue to settle for bottom feeding. Crumbs from the table. In a way Darwinian.The stone stairs crisscross the garden from a narrow patio at its base to a pocket patio in a corner at the top. Most predominant is a cup of gold vine (solandra maxima) covering a pergola above a simple dining table. Outside the cover of the pergola, a seating area surrounds a small fire pit. In the other corner, the stairs bring the visitor to a small spa. Both areas invite a view in the distance of another geography. It is the Monterey Bay, which sometimes sparkles in bright sunshine and other times disappears, shrouded in fog. It is a window into the world of occasional fishing boats, lone sailboats, whales and whale watcher tour boats. A very different world.The hummingbirds don’t go to the feeder. They don’t need to. They feed off the white and the shades of orange and peach alstroemerias and the purply blue echium that grow on the other side of the garden. Stars of the show, hummingbirds are in a class by themselves. Darting and flitting about, they appear to defy the laws of nature. Their speed nearly defies this human’s eye, as they produce spectacular aerial feats. Hovering in place, they seem to defy gravity. Like none of the other visitors, they can throw themselves into reverse gear and fly backwards. The garden is home to three varieties of hummers; the orange and gray, the bright, almost translucent green, and brilliant red.Not known to drink water, more than the other birds they relish the cascading waterfall. They flutter and splash about and then resume the aeronautical performance. They don’t fear the larger birds. I have learned of their self-discipline, which allows them to go right up to the point of expiring for lack of nutrition before ingesting the nectar from the flowers that serve as their source of energy. It is their food and water.It is time to leave the bedroom to make our morning cappuccinos but I am still drawn to the window. Still reflective, I find myself thinking of Thomas Aquinas, the Natural Law and the magnificent design in the universe.Even this little speck of universe.A Year LaterMid-May and the garden is abloom. Birds frequent the feeder to our enjoyment. The squirrels tightrope along the power lines, switching their tails side to side. Balancing like circus performers.The birds change the garden from a photo to a delightful video. The squirrels entertain, but we can take them or leave them, and they are not welcomed to eat from the feeder.Deterring them had been a constant problem until the wise old-timer at the hardware store recommended coating the pole that supports the feeder with a product inappropriately named Bird.B.Gone, a gelatinous, gooey substance originally designed to discourage birds from nesting.“It will discourage them from shimming up to the feeder,” he confidently declared.It worked, and it does them no harm other than forcing them to scamper about in search of food elsewhere. It functioned without incident for over a year until that spring morning.That sunny, lazy morning we watched as first the Blues breakfasted early, as aggressively as they always do. Then followed the smaller birds, until it seemed all were satisfied and ready to go about whatever they were to do for the remainder of the day.Since the hummingbirds had finished sipping flower nectar and bathing in the mini pond, I decided it was time to get on with my day.“Oh. Look. Look quickly, a woodpecker. First one.”I turned back to the window just as the beautiful creature was about to alight on the feeder. Woodpeckers had always been special for me. My earliest memories are of Great Aunt Dal coming from the city with birthday presents. She told me the woodpecker left them for me. The woodpecker was very special. My bird. Unlike Santa Claus, who brought presents to all children who behaved themselves, the woodpecker only brought presents for me. Some Native Americans might have seen him as my spirit bird.“Oh, he is stuck. Do something. Quick, quick! “Probably to check it out, he had landed sideways on the vertical pole that suspended the feeder and could not free himself. Why? None of the other birds did that. Still in pajamas, I hurried out the back door and up the little hill to try and help the entrapped creature, hoping he would free himself and fly off.Up close, I was stunned at how regal the bird looked. I had never been this close to a woodpecker. The crowned head, a brilliant red, contrasted so starkly with the white and black body. His penetrating gaze focused on me. It seemed to suggest betrayal.Obviously, my presence added to his fright. No way was I able to calm him. He flapped his wings rapidly until like both feet, one got stuck on the pole. His efforts to free himself had the same effect as Br’er Rabbit punching the tar baby. I needed to free him without hurting him.Carefully, I reached under him and tried to gently slide him off the pole. I could feel his rapid heartbeat. Instructions shouted from the house increased my anxious, helpless feeling. Probably his too. Then the noise from the house was drowned out by the staccato sounds of large black birds gathering on the cable wires that were suspended over the garden. And over me.More birds came. Their cawing grew louder. I remembered the unforgettable Hitchcock film. They appeared to be crows but maybe ravens. I didn’t think so, but ravens made me think of Poe. Was I staring to feel a bit of nerves? I reminded myself that both dealt in fiction.Now “Be careful. Watch out. Hurry,” came from the open window along with instructions as to how I was to free the poor bird.It didn’t take that long. It just felt like it did. Slowly, I freed him and softly placed him on the ground beneath a flowering impatient plant. Would he be alright? Be able to recover and fly? The whole thing shook me a bit as I wondered if I had betrayed the special bird of my early childhood. Silly, be real, I said to myself, but the thought persisted.Somewhere a fuzzy recollection of the woodpecker as a symbol of change entered my mind. Not happy change. In Eastern cultures, ominous change. After all just two days earlier, I had entered my ninth decade and it was still top of mind. On top of that the whole world was reeling with the COVID-19 pandemic. The cawing grew louder as, uncomfortably, I returned to the house.After showering, breakfast and sharing my feelings with my wife, I returned to the garden to be sure the woodpecker had managed to get away. He had. But the crows had not.The next day I ventured into the garden thinking all had returned to normal. Pretty soon the cable wire was shaking from the weight of about a dozen crows looking down at me. Cawing at me. Working to keep my imagination in check, I went back into the house.Eventually they left. The garden was quiet again, but no other birds came back. Not for over a week.But now they have returned. And my neighbor told me he has seen the woodpecker.Hopefully the same woodpecker.

A Good Foil

It scarcely made the e-news. It wasn’t the kind of news that would pop up on your smart phone as if it were Roger Federer or even a mid-ranked player. Declan O’Connor was, at least at this time, not ranked among the top one hundred professional players on the ATP Tour. He had been there once, the short article in the back section of the sports section in the Washington Post read. And while it did not dedicate a great deal of space, it did mention the corpse found in the river and assumed death from drowning. It did include highlights of his life and career.Declan S O’Connor, son of Michael D. O’Connor and Sandra O’Connor, the former Liu Woo, died earlier this month from apparent drowning. Mr. O’Connor was born in Beijing, his father American and mother Chinese. He grew up in Hingham, Massachusetts, attended Philips Exeter Academy, and graduated Cum Laude with a degree in linguistics from Dartmouth College, where he served as captain of the two-time Ivy League championship tennis team. After Dartmouth he played on the ATP, achieving modest success. More notable achievements included wins in Miami, Cabo San Lucas, Dubai, and Uzbekistan, as well as making it to the round of sixteen in the Moscow Open. He had been scheduled to play an exhibition in Iran as part of a diplomatic effort to help thaw relationships with the US.He was briefly married to Soheila Rajavi and leaves no heirs.Not a great career nor a great life. Sadly cut short at a time when insiders in the tennis world felt his career might be on the cusp of a rebound. That, in his thirties, he would realize the astonishing potential coaches, tournament officials and most of all we opponents unflinchingly said he possessed. It seemed that all who knew him on tour—and that was virtually all who were on tour—saw him in a special light. Whether dealing with the media, hanging in the locker room or hoisting a few cold ones with some of us, he had a way of standing out. There was a lot more to him than the obit reader would know. It might start with his poster boy looks. A Eurasian, Declan was blessed with what I’ll call prime DNA. Then there was his personal magnetism, the manner with which he drew attention while giving the feeling that at the moment nothing, not anything but you mattered to him. Then of course there was his game.... unparalleled in many ways. He didn’t have a strong serve. No way he would have broken the speed gun. In fact, a number of women on the tour hit harder. And really, there wasn’t a great deal of power on display in his ground game. Since he was hardly six feet tall, he was hard put to hit either the smoking forehands or backhands his larger, taller opponents were known for displaying. What did make him so competitive can be attributed to two things. On the physical side it was his ability to cover the court. One sports writer commented that he “possessed the speed and reflexes of an NFL corner back and the endurance of a Kenyan marathoner. “Fans would marvel at his indefatigable court coverage. The other was the mental—or maybe I should say psychological—side of his game. Not just chasing down shots, but returning deep time after time until he would catch his opponent ever so slightly leaning in one direction and would unload in the other, surgically nipping the line. Often resulting in the opponent challenging the call only to be overruled and frustrated. He took a very cerebral approach to the game. Saw each match as one would a chess match. Not just to anticipate the opponent’s next ball strike, but to discover and exploit the other guy’s most subtle weaknesses. He seemed to be best at breaking the adversaries’ rhythm. Such an ability to get inside his opponent’s head, which led to surprising mistakes or—in tennis talk—unforced errors.And kinda strange: He did not seem to obtain much satisfaction from his winning. Not even from the couple of tournaments where he had come out on top.To Declan it was not so much that he had won but more the fact that the other guy had lost! Dec once said that to him “tennis was a modern, although more civilized, form of dueling.”As I said he was cerebral. The obit didn’t mention his gift for language. Nor how many he spoke. It could be that not even he knew. One thing about professional tennis is that it is played on an international stage and it seemed wherever the tour took us he was able to converse with the locals. And so often he did.There is so much about who he was that the obit did not say. But then, we were never sure who he really was. I believe I was closer to him than anyone else on the tour and maybe even closer than the woman who was briefly his wife. It was a strange marriage to begin with for he had hardly known her long before they tied the knot, and it must have been a slip knot because the marriage only lasted a few months. From what I know, she was older and moved among the highest-ranking officials in their government. Some said he was just her toy boy, and she quickly tired of him. Others said such a marriage became unworkable given their respective nationalities, once the US took out their nukes.Anyway, he was matter of fact about the breakup. No discernible sadness or disappointment that he shared with me. But there was a point, not too deep, that seemed impenetrable no matter how long you knew Dec, nor how much time you spent in his company. In fact, that even held true no matter how many tall ones we threw down together. And Declan could throw them down with the best. Which leads me to disavow one of the oft circulated rumors, that tried to explain his erratic attendance on the tour and sometimes erratic preparation and focus. They ascribed it to incompatible DNA. They said his Asian side was not constituted to deal with alcohol, while his Irish side just wasn’t constituted to leave it alone. I had ample up-close evidence that Dec could hold his drink.Friends in private and sports writers in public would try to drill deeper to solve the enigma, or at least fill in the blanks. Why did he wait two years after college before joining the pros? One rumor had it that he spent the time in third world countries, working as a volunteer with a Jesuit mission program designed to alleviate poverty. Others, less kindly, suggested he was drying out. I knew it wasn’t the latter but never could get an affirmation or denial out of him concerning the gig with the Jesuits.And equal mystery often surrounded his seemingly random presence or lack of it on the tour. As one broadcaster—I think one of the McEnroes—put it, “Now You see him. Now you don’t.” I remember going through most of the summer months when he had canceled out of a number of events. I hadn’t heard anything from him and then he showed up looking more like a just beaten prize fighter than a tennis player.Then there were times when he would just absent himself from the tour for months at a time. Sometimes there would be no news of his whereabouts. Other times word was that he was wintering in Doha, Bahrain, Dubai or some other seemingly remote place, while working to perfect one or another aspect of his game or seeking to mend ailing tendons. Then he would pop up at a tournament, often needing to first play in the qualies to earn a spot in the draw, as if he had seen me just yesterday.What probably stands out most to me was the second round of the next year’s French Open, because I was scheduled to play him in the last match of the day. And what a day that turned out to be. It was ten or twelve minutes from the time we were scheduled to take the court. Per usual the butterflies had set in. In fact, playing opposite Declan and his unorthodox game always made me more anxious than usual. Knowing me as he did, Dec could really get inside my head, so I feared not only defeat, but what would appear to be defeat at my own hands. I imagined the press next day. “Fell on his sword”. The anxiety intensified because there was as of yet no sign of Declan in the locker room.I was engaged in a conversation with myself on the subject of focus, interrupted by thoughts of what my friend and opponent was up to anyway, when a third party interrupted in the form of a tournament official stating that I was about to win by default. I would proceed to the next round. And then the major interruption came. The security personnel began to scurry about the stadium as a loudspeaker blared, first in French and then English. Everyone was to proceed to the closest exit and leave the stadium and its surrounds. Pretty soon I saw the first bomb squad.Next day it was the news media that exploded with the narrative of the bomb threat, stadium evacuation and elimination of a potentially deadly terrorist cell with connections to Iran. A number of gendarmes were cited for their acts of bravery, but of course the French government gave no indication of how they had learned of the potential attack.I was still distracted the next day when I arrived at the players entrance of Roland Garros Stadium quite early to prepare for a rejiggered schedule, when I ran into Declan, who acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. “He was probably on another bender yesterday,” buzzed the locker room undercurrent. About our match? Well I showed why I was the favorite in the first two sets. Easy wins before he took the the next two in tie breakers. Then it was my game that imploded in the fifth set, while Dec held steady.Just a week or so after I had learned of Declan’s death, I sat at breakfast still shaken by the loss of someone I really cared about. And puzzled over how my friend’s life had suddenly come to an end by drowning. I knew him to have been a strong swimmer. Frustrated as well as saddened, I picked up the newspaper and caught the lead article on the death of an Iranian spy and the speculation that the CIA was responsible and had thwarted a terrorist attack at Roland Garros Stadium. I then caught the words that Iran claimed retaliation. And then I understood. I understood the unexplained absences and the politically expedient marriage. Tennis seemed trivial compared to the larger game that Declan O’Connor played.

Life Has Its Ups and Downs

“Mornin.” He said with a polite nod.“Uh.”It was more of a mutter than a greeting, and there was no effort to make eye contact.“Floor?”
“46”“K, up we go… Weird sound. It stopped. I’ll hit the button ... Nothin. It just stopped. We’re stuck here between floors.”“Well, let’s try the intercom.”“Hello. Hello! Anybody there fer cris sake? Hey the elevator stopped. The elevator must a broke. Ansa please!”“This is building services. How can I be of service?”“We’re stuck in this elevator. It made loud noises and then it just stopped. Kablam!”“Which elevator car are you in?”“How would I know. And it is kinda dark in here.”“Ok. Just stay there”“Huh? You tryin ta be funny or somtin?”“I am contacting engineering. This may take a bit”“This is exasperating. Excuse me, but I have an important meeting to attend. In fact, I should be there right now. I am going to hold the building management responsible for this. This can be very costly for me. Somebody will have to pay for this. And besides, I am perhaps a bit claustrophobic. This is absolutely unacceptable. Do you hear what I am saying?”“Easy, Suit. He musta gone fer help. We’re just goin ta have ta hang here an wait. Ya know what I mean. No problem. Anyways, fer me, I’m on the clock.”“Well the only clock I have to do with is a meeting that should have started minutes ago. There is no way I can miss this. Don’t you understand?” This is critical. Absolutely critical. ““Sorry, Suit. Let’s stay cool, huh? You must do private equity or some other a that stuff. Hate ta see someone lose a chance to make a buck or more. Ya know what I mean?”“I am not ‘Suit’. I am Donaldson Farmington III, Harvard ‘98, thank you. Let’s try the building man again. No way can I miss this meeting.”“Hello down there Building Services, I have an important meeting that I must be at. You need to have this fixed post haste... No response at all.”“Hold your water, Suit. A buck is a buck, but don’t get all worked up about i’. Jeez ya are sweatn like a pig.”“Doubt you would understand. Let’s just keep after the building chap. And ‘Donaldson’ will do, thank you.”“Yeah ok, Donnie. And by the way, I’m Frank, Frank Waffers, Midwood High. No Graduation number though.P leased to be meetin. I guess.”“How long is that fellow going to take?”“Relax, Donnie, ya whimpering. We’ll get outa here soon. No sweat. So what ya meetin about? Maybe a hostile take over or some a that kinda stuff, eh?”“I wish that’s what it was about. I am beside myself because my wife is in critical need of a blood transfusion. It is a matter of hours and that is what this meeting was to be about. Her blood type is the rarest, AB negative. Only about .06 percent of the American population has that type. And now I’ve missed the meeting and the blood supply will have gone to someone else. I fear I will lose her and the baby too.”The elevator lights come back on.“Do you think it will start to rise?”“Na. I hit the down button. I am AB negative. What hospital? My Harley is parked on the first level.They had expected a boy to be named Donaldson Farmington IV. It didn’t work out that way. Instead they named him Francis Waffers Farmington. They named him after his adoring godfather.

Life on Planet Earth; Unintended Consequences

Photos from Surrounding Towns and Day Trips

Photos from Farnese and the Borgo

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