On ruža on 11th, just to register new couples. Dragana with Gradivoj, Rencika with Patak, Duca with one of the Ž. twins (doesn't matter which one, I can't tell anyway). Of course nothing else written down for the day.
On 13th, the big ekskurzija to Tara. Gathered around school, then the buses picked us up and took us to the puppet theatre (why there?). Took a few shots. Then off to Fruška Gora, where we just milled around the space between the big lawn where the road crosses over and the monument. More shots, nothing much going on. Further, the trip to Tršić, birthhouse of Vuk Karadžić (qv), couple of hours in the backseats of the bus - Miljka, Tejka, Rencika, Milica. It was a weird courting between Tejka and me - very loud, very funny, borderline violent. Guess we were both nuts and did and didn't want to get involved at the same time. The opposites wouldn't reconcile... resulting in all kinds of wrong styles, ruffled hairdos, fooling each other and vice versa, and "that all happened while she was still normal". Comes from macadam road and empty bellies. Then it was more mountain roads, with long curves where we'd just roll onto each other. We made more stops at Banja Koviljača (I wrote Bara, puddle, instead of spa, must have been the joke of the hour), Bajina Bašta, Peručac (which is wrong, it's Perućac, but looking at the roadmap I found it so - not actually a typo, it's a map printed in Slovenia and in their language there's a č but no ć, so they miss the difference often).
The classmaster of VIII1 (VII then) managed to grab the beds in the hotel/motel for them, and Ivka got us into a mountain home, well, fend for yourself. The girls got the rooms upstairs. I was a witness to the scene when a waiter sold five liters of ružica to the gang for 60 dinars, and guaranteed that teachers won't know, no worries. Sounds bloody cheap, but any amount is relative to the pockets, and needs to be compared... Still, we were only 14 at the time, and there weren't enough of us to safely down five liters... Ružica is the light red, rosy, so alcohol content should be around 11%. Few guys must have got really drunk.
Around 23:00 I went to the middle house (it seems we boys were in the surrounding buildings, kind of bungalows). One of the guys waited for me at the door, with a sharpened knife (his pocket was all cut), promising to kill me if he sees me here again. The others were also pretending to be very drunk. I went to the other house and someone had a binocular. I swear Tejka's sleeping gown was translucent. He'd first pose, framed in the window, then sit and stay so. We kept shouting to the girls, and they to us, and of course Ivka heard it all.
Around midnight, Zvojko and two other guys come to my room and say "the girls wait at midnight". He improvised a ladder and had them agree on the timing. There was a stretcher behind our house, so he leaned it against their building, and then was supposed to step on a beam, wooden. However his soles were flat, the beam was all wet and there was a layer of water on top of it - this is about 1km altitude, and water condenses on everything overnight. He didn't fall, I caught him. Then we all dispersed except him, he stayed on that terrace. I came back to check on him and he said just "bring a liter". But couldn't pass the bottle, the rungs on the fence were too close. We came back around midnight.
Second attempt was even more difficult. He was getting conquered by that state of "crap in yer head when you don't know even your name". Two other guys were in tow. One didn't complicate things, because he'd run away at the least of sounds. The other one, however... Zvojko climbed up to some point, when it occurred that his legs aren't quite firm... so we urged him to come down. Which he did by jumping, 1,20m height, with a wham of his feet on the concrete. The first guy vanished in a second, Zvojko hesitated a little but I told him I'll take care of the other guy. Which was a problem, he's about 60kg (looks exaggerated now, but the number can be correct, he really was the heavy guy of the class). I tried to lure him by his running joke, about his imaginary friend/fiend Pera, because he was standing point blank, lit by the light from the terrace, on a background of some linen hung up to dry (I was hiding right behind it). He started going toward the light. I tried to push him back and he fell. Tried to lift him but he wouldn't go. Cursed him and kicked him the best I could, didn't move. Left him so and he came by himself a few minutes later.
I think I didn't drink anything. I not only didn't want to be guilty of anything (again), also didn't want us to get caught, so I was a kind of guard on our side. Later I developed a theory that anyone who gets drunk enough to be unable to get to his own bed does it on purpose, counting on help from others. Which I supplied many times, with lots of harsh words upon the fool. I wrote down that I gave 2 dinars for the wine even though I drank none. One guy gave half of the money, and then we collected contributions to refund him the best we could.
Meanwhile, it was tense in the girls' house. Ivka was pacing the corridors, entering the rooms at times, shouting... until it all settled around 2:00.
24-VI-2020 - 10-XI-2025