february 1983.
I smoked genuine Herzegovinian škija as fermented and cut in Zadar. That one doesn't stink. I know, a colleague of mine, in mašinska, had to quit smoking. He had a bad flu, which turned worse than he thought, but coming the 2nd semester he just felt he had to go to work. As his sense of smell returned, said "everything stinks... except that stuff you're smoking, that's the only one that's still nice".
It turned out he went back to work too early. He died within two weeks. Practically whole staff room came to the funeral, plus a lot of colleagues from other schools, his whole class and, of course, family.
I guess the year is 1983 because I remember the first floor windows behind him, not ground floor - and we didn't put schools together until fall 1983, when we moved into the big frontside staff room (actually two and a half classrooms put together, by those movable walls). At that time, we were still in the small staff room above the workshop. Unless my memory is quite off. I do remember a few more things from this semester, but that's in may.
This is how I went to work. The cap had a band above the shield and two fake decorative buckles, initially positioned at the ends of the band. I moved the buckles to the middle, so I rode under the sign of infinity.
The pavement being brownish in my, let's say lane, that meter by the curb, is frozen mud. If I made the series of photos „land, water, city“ three years ago, it was because I needed to, but really could do it any other winter as well.
The shot is actually a bit of a fake, this is me returning with a tote from the direction of šećerana, possibly visited the butcher beyond the park. Sufficiently authentic, still, just with a different bag and time of day. In this fog there's no notable difference.
The brown band by the left edge is the poplar, the only one in this wolffuck called „from the railway to kombinat“. The nonaligned pines, planted here by Učubić's order, are 22 year old already and are steadily growing, except the one in front of our living room window, which withered and dried. Dad went to city hall, checked for any permissions needed, got a clear go-ahead, yes you can replace the tree so we don't need to, and so he took out the pine and planted this. Don't remember which year was that, I see it's already twice taller than the pines.
Mentions: kombinat, MPSŠC (mašinska), šećerana, Učubić, Zadar, in serbian
25-VIII-2008 - 18-IV-2026