Chris Horner Lost in Spain's Corner

In January of this year (2013) I submitted an entry entitled, “Lance and France.” I got quite a lot of commentary, enlightening and enjoyable. As a follow up I would like to report that last month, September 2013, Chris Horner, a 41-year old American won the Tour d’Espagne, an unexpected feat for a veteran cyclist. In fact, Horner was the oldest winner of any major tour in history.* 

This should have made headline news in our press.  But, alas it did not, as our press after having taken the wrong side in L'Affaire Armstrong would not talk about any other cyclist. If our journalists had done their homework they would have discovered that Horner had won fair and square.  For twenty years Horner had been reduced to the rank of domestique because he had never been earmarked initially as a potential champion.  Therefore, he had not been offered drugs like his leader, Lance Armstrong.

The magic portals opened for Horner when the cycling authorities succeeded in eliminating doping. Without asking anyone's permission, Horner decided to peddle his own race in the Tour d'Espagne 2013, a particularly difficult grand tour because of the many mountains that the cyclists had to climb.  Lo and behold! Horner showed that he was the best.  His win is all the more outstanding because he made it on bad knees. Following the advice of his son he decided to put off surgery and compete.  With only steroid injections into the knees -- which are allowed -- he won against much younger, fitter cyclists. One of these was Vincenzo Nibali, 28, who won the Tour d’Italie in 2012 and 2013. 

Just as we believe that the election of Obama made "race" a non-issue, we hope that Chris Horner's win will be the marker of a new era in cycling in which "doping" is also a non-issue. In light of Horner's victory we think the press should take a fresh look at a sport which is breathtaking on TV and exciting to the max.

*There are 3 big competitive races: Italy in May, France in July, Spain in September. Americans who are less interested in competitive cycling than Europeans, mostly only pay attention to the Tour de France. Maybe that should change. Ol’ JJ had a hard time finding any reporting on the daily progress of the Spanish race, but finally found Vuelta A España 2013. 

"Pensativa" - A Thoughtful Book

My 94-year old father is a retired dentist with the memory of an elephant. He use to tell his  stories to patients sitting in the chair with their mouths wide open so they’d be entertained instead of pained. Recently, he must have needed to tell a story because he said, “Say, Joanna, do you remember the one about “Pensativa?” The immediate truth was that I couldn’t recall. I really had to dig back deep into my memory. And yes, he was right, & there it was. 

First one needs to understand that when I was in high school I was a twit. I was clueless about so many things. Such was the case about learning Spanish. I just loved Spanish, but I could hardly scrape out a “B” & most of the time it was a C. My idea of Spanish was going dancing at the Pan American Club weekends with Conchita Chavez, and learning to sing intoxicating boleros. It certainly wasn’t about memorizing verb tense endings and churning out intricate translations. Yet, in Spanish IV, my senior year, I borrowed a book from my teacher, Senora Brown, that I could actually understand & I was quite surprised. The title character, Pensativa, was everything I imagined a beautiful Mexican woman could be, especially deeply pensive, as her name suggested. She was sultry but never vulgar. She was coy but never cruel. She smoldered with passion, ever so controlled. All the men lusted after her, but she was cool. Now I can’t remember what her problem was-- because she had to have a problem or else there would be no novel--but I just remember for a short moment in my youth she was my idol.

I have no idea how long the cherished book had been in my possession, but one morning I passed Senora Brown in the hall passing between classes. I said in my pitiful Spanish, “I’m the one who has the book “Pensativa.” Me le gusta mucho! (I just love it!) I just wanted to remind you that I have it.” She harumphed with a glint in her cold, ice blue eyes & replied, “ Lo veo.” (I see.) And that was that. Still, there was something discomforting in they way she had replied. Wasn’t she glad I told her? But, since I was used to being discomforted by her I just shrugged it off. 

Here I must digress because of the event later that day. Twit that I was, I had no idea about the grand scheme of things, especially time.  School time was based on tests & assignments. A six-weeks grading period seemed rushed because I never had enough time to raise my less than stellar grades, but, a semester was an eternity. & though I had borrowed “Pensativa” from Senora Brown, I honestly had no clue how long I had it in my possession. I was about to find out. 

At the end of the day about 10 minutes before school was out we always had announcements. Did I ever really listen to them? Suddenly I heard as loud as a megaphone: “Would JOANNA SEDLEY please return the book “Pensativa” to Mrs. Brown in room 208?” And just to be certain that JOANNA SEDLEY had heard the announcement the voice repeated: "JOANNA SEDLEY should return “Pensativa” to Mrs. Brown as soon as possible to room 208!”

Of course, I was mortified and furious.  Hardly Pensativa-like, I fulminated, “Why did she need to do that? After all, I  told her. All she had to do was say she wanted it back!” Well, have to say, this once she got my attention and her book back.