Life at DrTom's: Mostly Humorous Anecdotes by a Mostly Retired Cornell Professor. Thomas A. Gavin
to dance with someone? Mark came stag. What in the world was he supposed to do? We ate our reubens, drank some beer, and listened to one set of the band, which was excellent, by the way. I hate about 90% of the bands I hear these days, but these guys (Giant Steps) were really good musicians. I barely had to break dance at all, but I understand why the word "break" is included in the name of that dance form.
Management and I left about 10:30, so maybe the youngsters came after that. Baby boomers, the custom these days is not to even go out until 11 or so. If you come before that, you look desperate. You have to walk into these places like you don't really care if you are there or not. Then, order a beer like you were asking to borrow a pencil. No big deal. You don't really care if you drink or not. Look around like you don't really see anyone but, in actuality, you are scoping EVERYONE out. Very kewl. You might leave at any minute, and they would hate to see you go. Your leaving would be a big loss. Everyone would follow you out the door, bar revenues would collapse for the night, and the band would take an extra long break. In the old days, you could smoke a cigarette during this initial phase of your night and you would look very James Dean-like. Now, you have to chew gum and you look very Goldie Hawn-like. But these are the times in which we live.
Fender-bender in Costa Rica
I stayed remarkably calm throughout the entire event; my wife was a bit less so. When I saw that motorcyclist fly off his cycle onto the trunk of a parked car, my heart stopped for a minute. I was turning right into a parking space without my turn signal on, he was passing me on the right, so there was plenty of blame to go around. Fortunately, he was physically all right.
The damage was minimal, mostly lights on all vehicles concerned, but the official reporting took half a day. We waited in the center of Uvita, a coastal Costa Rican town, until the police and an insurance guy from a town 90 minutes away arrived to fill out all the reports. I was instructed by the transito that I could show up in court in Ciudad Cortez within eight days, but my car rental company told me that they will do that; that is why I signed all those papers when I got the Nissan 4x4 on day 1.
After all these years of driving in my favorite country, it finally happened. Nice that it didn't occur during one of those times when I was driving over the Cerro de la Muerte in the dark, in the fog, with trucks passing on blind curves, with a thousand feet of drop off the side. That would have ruined my year. I guess this is why I have never been a fan of cars or of driving. I learned at an early age how these machines can change your life forever.
When a fender-bender happens in the states, it is inconvenient, but it is really not that big of a deal. If your vehicle is undrivable, we take it to the shop and we get around some other way for a while. We take a cab or a bus or our neighbor who has a car delivers us where we need to go. Heck, most of us have a second car anyway, so we use that one until the first one is repaired. But in places like Costa Rica, it is a big deal to have your only mode of transportation down. Bus transport in the capital is great, but not out here in the boonies. Most ticos do not own a car or truck, some have a motocycle or a bike, and most walk nearly everywhere. So this guy who richoched off my rental car will not be able to drive his “moto” until he gets the money to fix it properly. Life gets instantly more difficult---to get to work, to get to market, to conduct business at the bank. (He will apparently receive insurance money, but it will take months. I will have to pay for damages to the rental car up to the deductible amount.)
You could gauge how important this incident was in the daily life of a tico because of all the locals who stopped by to get the story. The cyclist must have described his version of what happened a dozen times to friends and relatives while we waited for the authorities. When gringos passed by, they barely noticed. I didn't get to explain to anyone what happened. There was an American eyewitness, however, who was drinking coffee only a few feet in front of where the accident occurred. Terri Peterson gladly came to my rescue and volunteered to be a witness, if necessary. Turns out she runs eco-tours from the southern part of the country, so this is my chance to give her a plug.
But from the crowd of ticos, you would have thought there were 2-3 bodies lying on the pavement instead of some pieces of broken glass and plastic. Fortunately, the owner of the parked car was a guy named Eddie that I had just met 15 minutes before at the nearby gas station. He had lived in the states for 16 years, so he served as my interpreter with authorities. My Spanish is perfectly fine in a bar or restaurant, but explaining a car accident to the police is another matter. All in all, I guess it made for an interesting morning for Uvitans.
In the mid-80s, we lived in a mountaintop village in Costa Rica with our three children for a year. We had no car, so we walked everywhere. It was really work to get food and to do errands. And then, whatever you bought, you had to carry home. After a while, we bought a horse, and life got immensely easier. I lost 25 pounds that year, and I was not overweight in the least when I got there. Can you say emaciated?
So I feel badly that I caused, or was involved, in a disruption of the normal flow of events in this man's life. The accident gave me something to write about; it only gave him a problem. I wonder how often this is the case. We tend to weigh our economic setbacks against our own standard of living, not against those for whom the event is much worse. It even seems there are parallels here with the effects that U.S. international policies have on millions of less fortunate people in other countries. But that is an issue too complicated to begin here.
Pura vida, Costa Rica!
It was about as romantic a day as you could ever expect. Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and my wife and I are in Costa Rica. This is the only place I have ever been, other than my home in Ithaca, where I feel true homesickness when I am not here. There is something special about the country that stays with you long after you leave, especially if you have experienced the richness that the place and the people have to offer. Maybe there are dozens of other countries about which I could say the same if I knew them, but this is the place where I have a professional and a social history going back nearly 25 years. I have memories of friends and family and habitats and organisms here that run wide and deep, and that is not easily duplicated in another place in a short lifetime.
In the morning, Robin and I met the guide from Southern Expeditions at Playa Piñuelas near Uvita. We received our nautical instructions, along with four other couples, and we boarded the smallish skiff for our tour of Ballena Marine Park. I awoke the night before almost regretting that I had agreed to this trip. I am one of those who suffers from motion sickness; I don't have a pretty history of being on boats in the ocean. Twice I went salmon fishing off the coast of Oregon years ago and I was the only one who got sick out of 20 passengers--both times. I must be in the tail of the statistical distribution with respect to this particular affliction. It is simply no fun vomiting for four hours in front of perfect strangers, and it is embarrassing. I wanted to see this park, I needed to do it, I dreaded doing it, and I felt like a coward all at the same time. It is like seeing a bare section of electrical cord leading from a wall outlet to your table lamp. You just want to touch it to see if you get shocked. And when you feel that ZAP!, you have your answer and you are good to go for another 20 years.
The skiff sped away from the beach and we headed for the open ocean to look for whales and dolphins. I had tried medications before, and they never helped, so I didn't even bother this time. I couldn't remember what the sailors advise to avoid sea sickness---watch the horizon, don't watch the horizon, focus on something in the boat rather than on the water. I decided I would keep my eyes closed as much as I could. With sunglasses on, no one would notice. Even my wife, who was holding my hand, must have assumed that she and I were enjoying the same view of the ocean, and the sun, and the islands. Wrong! I wasn't seeing a thing. From past experience, I would know soon enough if this was going to work, or if I was going to spoil the trip for that German couple who was sitting downwind of me. Gott in Himmel, let this "eyes closed strategy" work.
I don't believe in the American god, but I guess the German god really exists, because an hour passed on the boat and I still felt fine. I decided to open my eyes and look around. Pretty nice. We saw no marine mammals, but we did some snorkeling, looked at some sea caves, and learned something about coastal topography. At the end, my wife was happy, I was happy, and the German couple sitting behind