august 1963.
I still don't understand how we managed to go to the sea this year. May it be by the trade union, may it have been modest, but still...
We were in Milna on the island [of*] Brač. Wasn't my first trip on a ship, but this time I think that we rode a simple boat with an outboard engine, no need for anything bigger for those twentysome kilometers, there's a shot of us on it.
We didn't go alone, but rather with the family of some dad's pal from Kikinda, some Hatarić or other semihungarian surname, mostly bald and with a golden fang tooth. He had a daughter, much older than me (probably whole three years) and two twin sons one year older. The guys were real rascals, quite fun to be with, though playing by their force at times, even though they weren't much larger than I. His wife was sweet, pleasant and slightly plump, wore a dress of the same cloth and pattern as mom did, which was frequently a cause for some confusion.
We lodged at some upstairs room, above the boardwalk, in probably the strictest centre of the village. Room was simple and neat, floored by plain planks, obviously scrubbed and clean. I found many things strange - how, for example, they have a well in the middle of the house, and it didn't have a wheel like ours did, but the water had to be pumped by swinging some lever of half a meter some thirty degrees left-right. Wasn't easy to operate, but I managed to wash my face. And the toilet was in there, just behind the door, another miracle unseen - it's not any kind of novogradnja, this is old stone, built in who knows which century, yet it has all that. Also the door locks, they weren't the brass jobs with mechanism like we had, it was something done by village blacksmith, pretty much a better version of what we had on our pantry door, and it worked flawlessly.
On this shot that house should be the last on the left side of the boardwalk, the one which is partially obscured by the roof of a house on this side.
For meals we went to the trade union's mess hall, guess right behind the corner, mostly visited by folks from Vojvodina. The grub was really good, not quite mediterranean but not quite ours either. The breakfast was brilliant. For the first time I saw such yellow cheese in red wax, excellent. Butter, bacon, tomatoes... all the best. At the next table some baca from Melenci sat, who couldn't possibly force himself to use the plate. His custom is to break the fast out in the field, so whatever he needed - bread, bacon, cheese, tomato - he'd hold in his left hand, knife in the right one (and not the flatware we were served, but a pocket knife), and he'd cut off a bite at a time of each and eat so with great pleasure. The way he liked it.
The beach was a bit farther away, across the bay, we can't possibly bathe in the port between all those boats, and there was no way to walk out of it anyway. And this wasn't too far. Once someone told us that there's an even better one on the other side of the hill, behind this one. Well, it was better, but we were exhausted from thirst getting there, and return was worse.
One afternoon it must have rained, so we didn't go to the beach, but rather slumbered in the room and then went for a walk, around dusk. There were cute places for a walk, that mediterranean architecture being a bit weird, with all those stone paved squares and staircases, really an ambient, and wasn't crowded either, a beauty.
There dad found a kiosk and bought me a Kekec, and I got into reading, reading it, and after a while I saw mom and dad exchanging nudges and giggling and watching me and eventually had to ask what was it. Says dad, do you notice something different about this issue of Kekec? Nope. Look better. Looked, looked and found absolutely nothing that would be different, Kekec like Kekec, what. And I didn't find it until he told me. It's printed in latinic. Then I saw, it really was. How could I fail to notice that?
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* Brač doesn't have an island, it IS an island.
Mentions: novogradnja, in serbian