We joined Richard Winckler to row his gondola from the boat-launching area up the Main River toward Frankfurt. It’s not a bad combination: one of the oldest forms of boat in the world in a certified “alpha world city” which lives and breathes the future. Not only is Frankfurt a mere 40 kilometers (24 miles) west of the geographical center of Europe, it is the largest financial center in continental Europe, and the home of DE-CIX, the largest internet traffic exchange point on the planet. It’s also the tenth most expensive city in the world, though maybe that’s not something to be so proud of.
That title doesn’t actually mean “report on the hot dog,” though it would be easy to misconstrue.
Anyway, I made it up; I don’t know German. I studied it for a year, but it rejected me, as if I were a foreign body somebody had tried to transplant into the corpus of what is, in fact, a hugely expressive language.
However, you might be interested to know that “Frankfurt” means “the ford of the Franks,” therefore the various people who named their town Frankford, who I used to think were embarrassingly ignorant, totally nailed it.
There was a mixture of rowers who came for the three-day “Days of Venetian Rowing” on the Main River, organized by the Comitato Internazionale di Voga Veneta (CIVV). Some from France, some from Venice, some from Treviso and Padova, and some individuals from here and there around Germany, a few of whom brought their own boats. The rowing club at which the CIVV is based, the Germania Frankfurter Ruder Gesellschaft, provided a very glamorous and historic base of operations.
We went, we rowed, we ate, we basked in what we were assured was spectacularly unusually beautiful weather, and we saw some interesting things. Lino drank beer, I drank enough apfelsaft (apple juice) to drain all of upstate New York. It was the simplest non-alcoholic option: cheap, ubiquitous, easy to pronounce.
Here are a few snaps of what went on, and who went on with it. I’d have made many more, but that would have cut into my eating, drinking, and seeing-interesting-things time. Choices have to be made, and they were.
Soon I will return to your regularly scheduled Venice.
The Canottieri Sile from Treviso brought a gondolino and this unusual craft, a four-oar s’ciopon.Launching and pulling the boats out of the water was simplified by the roller on the dock. Unfortunately, then we had to pull the boat across the park, up a ramp, and across a two-way street.
This view from the terrace of the Germania Frankfurter Ruder Gesellschaft club, our home base, ought to give some glimpse of the distance we had to cover taking the boats to the river every day. It’s not that it was so far, it was just more complicated than one normally expects. Even if one normally expects things to be complicated.
We were also earnestly urged to keep our ears open for the sinuous sound of one of these barges which might very well be coming up behind us; their braking capacity is measured in miles. This picture shows the first half of the vehicle.This is the second half. This would be the nautical version of the 500-pound gorilla: Wherever it wants to sit…We had a surprising three gondolinos, perfect for a race. Getting the boats lined up takes time, though.Two minutes after the start, we could see how the boats were going to finish. Rowing upstream means that the boat closer to the shore will almost certainly do better than the others. Victory to the white gondolino of the Canottieri Sile; the red was second, and the blue was third.Having only two mascaretas meant holding a series of quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final. Here the rule about being closer to the shore also applies, added to the fact that the boats were not equal. The longer boat would have gone faster in any case. Luck of the draw was taken to new heights out here.This jaunty little coracle took the serious edge off the proceedings. It’s a floating barbecue, the food being cooked in the middle.Comment would be superfluous. Or however you say it in German.We rowed up the river to another rowing club where we sat and rehydrated. This young woman told me the flowers weren’t for any particular event; just prettying up the place. I’d certainly say so.The locks at Griesheim handle 60 honking big barges every day. They made room for our jaunty little fleet, rowing down to Hochst for lunch on Sunday morning.Just to show the comparative length, beam, and tonnage of our respective vessels. I was told that the lock-keeper (automated, somewhere else) was going to empty our lock verrry slooooowly, so that the force of the outrushing water wouldn’t hurl the boats to kingdom come. I freely translate from the German, which I don’t speak but which looking at the lock I could completely understand.And as you see, it worked.Hochst is like a three-dimensional postcard.Jurgen Hoh, a geography teacher from Bamberg and a good rower, as well, explained that one amazing thing about the slate roofs (and even walls) of many houses is that this stone isn’t local; historically, that has all sorts of importance. Me, I just kept thinking about how much the whole thing weighs.
The financial center retains a few 19th-century buildings which survived bombing in World War II.
And who says Germans have no sense of humor? Unless some heartless non-Teutonic person went and stole that doll from its innocent little owner.So farewell, Frankfurt. Your airport’s spectacular and your history is first-class, but my happiest memory may well be the firemen on their mid-day ice-cream break.
I’m about to shimmer away for a few days in Frankfurt for a big boating event on the river Main, so I won’t be posting till next week.
Here are a few of the things I saw today, just to keep you in the mood.
The morning started with this not-unusual news: (Left) CAR TURNS OVER ON THE PONTE DELLA LIBERTA’ (the only bridge connecting Venice to the rest of the world) TRAFFIC STOPPED FOR TWO HOURS. This is repeated by its neighbor newspaper on the right: PONTE DELLA LIBERTA’ TRAFFIC PARALYZED. May I note that whenever this happens, I wonder why the city doesn’t concentrate more on making an improvement which would help everybody all the time — unlike a certain acqua-alta project I could mention — by constructing a breakdown lane on the freaking bridge already. When the bridge is blocked, everything stops — sometimes trains, too. As a bonus, we see on the left: TRAIN STATION: A PICKPOCKET LIFTS 35,000 EUROS FROM A JAPANESE WOMAN. And she was carrying that much cash because………?? All I can say is, the person who stole that much money must be an instant legend among his friends and family. All Lino can say is, “It was probably a put-up job.”This little sylph was already so beguiling in her summer garb, up to the color-coordinated hairband with bow,that the ice cream seems almost de trop. But not to her. She has evidently discovered some flaw that requires closer analysis, and perhaps immediate correction via her nearby father.I suppose if the world is divided between cat and dog people, it must also be divided between sunrise and sunset people. I personally go for both. This is the latter, but it looks just as good at dawn.But I have to say that I do sleep better knowing that the great Bartolomeo Colleoni is always on watch.
I toil for two weeks every May in the registration office of the Vogalonga. And every year, something interesting occurs. This year, that “something” was more than usually diverting. It had to do with the search and rescue of a foreign oar.
Everything started with an e-mail a week before the event, sent to the office from an English rower, Dr. Adrian Hodge; he was planning to come with his Thames skiff, “Cherub,” and a group from his rowing club (Norfolk Skiff Club). As it was the first time they were undertaking this little quadrille, he wanted information on the parking and boat-launching facilities, which I took it upon myself to supply, along with a batch of my usual unsolicited observations and comments, no extra charge.
Technical digression: “Cherub” is 8 meters/26 feet long, is said to date from the 1890s, and was built at Richmond on Thames. Unfortunately all the records of the company which built her were destroyed when the boat yard was sold in the 1960s, so Adrian doesn’t know who was the original owner.
The oars with monogram.
So they came, they rowed the Vogalonga, they pulled “Cherub” out of the water, loaded it on the trailer, drove the 1,700 km (1,056 miles) home to Norfolk, and unloaded the boat.
Following is a highly condensed version of the most pertinent of the numerous e-mails that ensued.
Dear Erla,
The journey back to England was uneventful, apart from the weather, and I have just inspected the skiff to make sure that she had returned unscathed. To my horror I discovered that we have lost a scull (oar). A moment’s thought and I remembered that we had used a scull to position the lifting strops for the crane on Monday. I suppose that someone put it down on the ground and we simply left it behind. It was beside the orange painted fixed crane and Michele was in charge of the crane team. I’m sorry to lose it because it is antique and carries the monogram of a previous owner of the boat, so, if you have the opportunity to put the word around, and if it turns up, keep it somewhere and I hope that it can be repatriated next year. I’m sending you a picture too, so that if you see it decorating a bar, you will know where it came from! Since the photos it has lost its copper end and had some repairs to the tip.
Although I dislike disasters, I do enjoy a challenge, so I leapt into action.
Dear Adrian:
I have spoken with the organizers of the Vogalonga and they say they know nothing, and have heard nothing, about your oar.
However, they did suggest that you tell me where you took the boat out of the water. If you would tell me this detail, I will attempt to contact whoever is responsible for that area.
He replied: We lifted the boat out at the quay just before the bridge to Tronchetto. There were three cranes and we used the centre one which was painted orange and had Scalo Fluviale and a number 2 on it. Michele was in charge. He was driving the forklift truck.
I called the Scalo Fluviale, and they knew all about the oar. “Sure, we have it,” they told me. Why should there be panic, stress, visions of mayhem? “It’s right here.”
OAR FOUND!!!! I e-mailed Adrian. I love good news, especially when it’s unexpected.
You are incomparable, he replied. (I liked that bit.) My prayers to St. Anthony of Padua have been answered. My next plan was to get some real Catholics to pray to him too.
On the practical front, the oar is 290cm (9.5 feet) long and weighs 2.0 kg (in fact, a bit less). Normal parcel post is restricted to 1.5 meters (4.9 feet). I think that the most practical method will be for me to fly out and collect it, but first I must make sure the airline will carry it and that I can get it to the airport.
That was an interesting aspect of the project. How was that going to work? Simple: It wasn’t, as Adrian quickly discovered.
The airlines put it in the same category as a vaulting pole and won’t carry it. (I haven’t found time yet to satisfy my newfound curiosity about how vaulting poles make it from home to the Olympics.) DHL will carry items up to 300 cm long, so that must be the default method. I can fly to Venice Tuesday morning, collect the item, wrap it, and deliver it to a DHL collection point, then fly back Tuesday evening.
The day before his arrival, I went to the Scalo Fluviale to locate the oar. There it was, propped against the office wall, looking pensive.
Some phone calls had already revealed that the nearest DHL collection point was at Piazzale Roma, a mere few minutes away. This was another happy surprise; I had had nightmare visions of some storefront in the heart of darkest Mestre. I went by to check on the details of the consignment. On the way home and I bought an exaggerated amount of bubblewrap (nightmare visions of coming up two inches short); unfortunately the bubbles were small, but there was no alternative. I wasn’t up to rigging a splint, and figured if we used enough (but not so much as to exceed the length limit), it ought to work.
Yes, I had become “we.”
Tuesday morning I went to Piazzale Roma to meet Adrian and his wife, Lynne, as they got off the bus from Treviso airport (sure, let’s add another hour and ten minutes each way to the day’s schedule…).
This was our peak moment.I’m holding 500 square meters of bubblewrap, or so it seems, while we examine the patient and plan our attack.
We walked to the Scalo Fluviale; the oar was brought out, we wrapped it, we distributed bottles of wine dripping with gratitude to all and sundry (for the record, it was Enrico who had found the oar). We carried the oar, like some titanic assegai, back to Piazzale Roma and the DHL office, where we created a moment of consternation.
Paperwork completed, payment made, oar consigned, deep sighs of relief and satisfaction breathed, we went to a nearby trattoria where Adrian and Lynne treated me to a sumptuous and princely lunch.
On our way toward Piazzale Roma, we presented Enrico (center) with a bottle of wine. Unfortunately not vintage, but I think it was probably amusing nonetheless. The bubbly oar is still standing at attention.
But hold the happily-ever-after. “We must expect reverses, even defeats,” Robert E. Lee remarked, though not to us personally. “They are sent to teach us wisdom and prudence, to call forth greater energies, and to prevent our falling into greater disasters.” I’ll make a note of it, because…..
The oar arrived at 3:15, Adrian e-mailed me, but the end, complete with monogram, was smashed to pieces. I tried to fit it together like a jigsaw, but the wood was crushed too much….It must have been crushed under something heavy, because the wood is deformed. I can’t save this limb and must amputate. I’ll make a sloping cut straight across where the wood is sound and glue on a new piece of wood. Then I’ll shape a new end. Many oars are made like that from new. Unfortunately the monogram will be lost. I’m debating with myself whether to fake that. In general my policy is one of honest repair rather than renovation, preserving as much of the original as possible, but clearly showing any new material.
Adrian is currently involved in some other, more urgent projects, so I haven’t seen the final version yet. But as any pulverized oar will tell you, the worst is clearly over.
I guess now you could say we’re at happily-ever-after. In any case, the adventure has been immortalized in a clip which is on the club’s website (and on YouTube) — set to the tune of the irrepressible Jimmy Durante singing “The Guy Who Found the Lost Chord.” For e-mail readers, here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Kby8OYXyUtQ
Lynne is holding the oar and the delivery-driver seems at peace with the world. But now that I look closer, the part of the oar that’s touching the ground looks a little wrong. As indeed it was.It hurts me too much to say anything.And yet, the oar, rising phoenix-like from the woodshavings, will row again.
As you well know, if you’ve stuck with me, I am driven to gnash my teeth more often than is dentally advisable at the uncivilized, un-neighborly behavior of certain people around here.
But then I come across something that demonstrates that I personally am still in the safe zone, because “neighbors” to me is a vague, general term that means everybody and nobody. On the other hand, some residents define “neighbor” as the ballbuster who lives next door who (A) annoys me or (B) annoys me. According to whichever neighbor you are.
Here is what I discovered: two signs attached to what evidently was once a shop (as is the case with many closed doors and windows) and which has become someone’s garage/basement/attic/storeroom, here generally called a magazzino.
I am now going to file this in my TAKE THAT! folder, just as soon as I make it.
I WANTED TO THANK THE PERSON WHO WITH SO MUCH ZEAL REGISTERED AN ACCUSATION WITH THE ATTORNEY GENERAL BECAUSE OF MY CANARIES. BECAUSE DUE TO THE OFFICIAL INSPECTION IT HAS BEEN SHOWN THAT I AM AN ACCOMPLISHED AND DILIGENT BREEDER. A TRUE, AND I UNDERLINE TRUE, ANIMAL LOVER. THEREFORE, AS SUCH, THANKS FOR HAVING BEEN ABLE TO DEMONSTRATE THAT. BUT I HAVE TO REPRIMAND YOU, AS A TAXPAYING ITALIAN. BECAUSE THE COMMUNITY FUNDS WOULD BE BETTER SPENT ON THINGS THAT ARE MORE SERIOUS, AND NOT TO GO TO SEE WHAT SOMEONE HAS IN HIS MAGAZZINO. ANYWAY, I HOPE THAT YOU REAP WHAT YOU HAVE SOWN IN THIS WORLD. (signed) TO ANYONE WHO UNDERSTANDS (along the lines of “He who has ears to hear, let him hear”).ITALIAN FEDERATION OF BIRD BREEDERS/RAISERS: THE ITALIAN FEDERATION OF BIRD BREEDERS (F.O.I.) RECOGNIZED BY D.P.R. 15/12/1949, N. 1166 IS INSTITUTED FOR THE IMPROVEMENT, DEVELOPMENT AND CONSERVATION OF THE ORNITHOLOGICAL, ENVIRONMENTAL AND NATURALISTIC PATRIMONY. ITS PURPOSE IS TO PUBLICIZE THE LOVE AND KNOWLEDGE OF BIRDS AND THEIR HABITAT, AND BY MEANS OF ITS ENROLLED MEMBERS TO PROMULGATE THE SYSTEMS OF CORRECT NURTURE — WHETHER FOR ORNAMENTAL OR DIDACTIC PURPOSES — REPRODUCING IN CAPTIVITY EVEN BREEDS WHICH ARE IN DANGER OF EXTINCTION. IT IS CONCERNED THEREFORE ALSO WITH THEIR PROTECTION AND THE ASSOCIATED ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS. TO RAISE IS TO PROTECT.
