Just me, just me

Writing about Yosuke yesterday made me think of another great moment in Peter History with broken English. Badly broken English. Compound fracture English. You get the point. I worked at a country club for two summers doing all sorts of jobs. I cleaned the members' golf clubs, got carts ready for them, set up for tournaments, drove a shuttle around, etc. Almost everyone I worked closely with was a native Spanish speaker, and the English skills ranged from quite good to "I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Fortunately, my Spanish at the time was good-to-quite-good, so we spent a lot of time helping each other out. I knew textbook Spanish, which was close but not quite what my co-workers spoke. For example, I once used conducir for "to drive." "Conducir," my colleague repeated as snobbily as possile, indicating that I used too lofty a word. I asked what I should use instead, and he told me manejar. I knew those two were synonyms, but the textbook didn't tell me the subtle differences. Another time, I used estacionar for "to park," pleased with myself that I recalled it from the little yellow vocabulary box in my textbook years back. "Estacionar," the same man repeated in the same my-shit-don't-stink tone. He said to use parquear instead, which just sounded made up to me.

As a side note, I really like the "shit-don't-stink" phrase. It's a very accurate way to describe an undeserved holier-than-thou attitude. I wonder though how it stuck with "don't" instead of "doesn't." And why isn't it "holier-than-you" while we're at it? Ah, the mysteries of the universe.

Anyway, one of my closest associates at the country club was a guy named Rodrigo. His English was less refined than all of the others, but he really seemed to be putting in the effort. I remember him coming up to me once and asking, "Who was first pres-dent of United State?" I replied, "George Washington was the first pres-i-dent of the United States." "Jor Washeenton," he said, then asked, "A-raham Leencone, he second pres-dent?" "No, he was the sixteenth pres-i-dent." This thoroughly confused him, but I briefly explained why he knew Abe's name and not John Adams'.

Rodrigo would listen to English-language radio all the time to help him learn, and much to my delight, he'd attempt to sing along. He once came up to me, proudly belting out the words, "Olee mullomee!" By the tune, I gathered that he meant "Only the Lonely," and I corrected him and gave a brief summary of the song in Spanish.

And then one day, my favorite interaction with Rodrigo happened. He approached me and said, "Hey, how come your name in a song by Michael Jackson?" Normally there were enough contextual clues that I could figure out where he went wrong, but I was at a loss here. "Which song is that, Rodrigo?" He then began singing, "Just Peter, just Peter, just Peter, just Peter," and I eventually recognized that it was the tune of "Beat It." I told him that the King of Pop was not in fact saying my name, but rather "Beat it." He asked me to define that term for him. "Well, that could mean a lot of things. It can mean 'leave' or 'win' or 'to hit something' or it's a way to make an egg...or 'to masturbate.'" He asked which one Michael Jackson meant with the song, and I guessed that he meant "leave," but now I'm not so sure.

When I left the country club after my second summer there, I asked Rodrigo if I could have one of his work shirts that said "Rod" on them, thinking that would be cool to wear from time to time. I also got a "Jose" one for Greg and a "Sergio" one for Jon. These ended up being our "drinking shirts" in college, and we wore them to many a shindig. It turned into a whole group thing, where everyone had drinking names, and if you screwed up and called someone by their real name, you'd get slapped on the arm. I know, we were stupid drunk boys, but it was a lot of fun at the time.

So Rodrigo's legacy lived on way past my two years working with him. I still bust out that shirt from time to time, and with any luck, you'll find yourselves singing "Olee mullomee" next time Roy Orbisson comes on.