Yes its all pretty common place in america. A comfortable home we live in a car park to put down. The pike mechanical got to. Cool for every child has a right to expect out of your cage. Satisfying recreation for every 5. Americans you are. Here that on a day to be a. Woman every. Time. I came from georgia my dad had a branch at apapa shop and i distilled into a major what we call back marketplace. Taking years old i decided. Just walking downtown and i saw a sign says sam wants you to put me in Aviation Council in aviation back then i dont know but man you needed good grades passed along but we dont. The basic pass along this is that we have one road this is a dam on the beach so he gave me a chair. In order to notice. And thats why i have never said. On october 14th 1053. 00 i went into the countryside with a bicycle and some cattle and i saw a convoy of cars coming towards me. Hey stand back get off the road. Things were very authoritarian back then so i guess somebody important was coming to live in. The tapas on the i was working at my office in the castle. And suddenly i dont know. Franco is here so i said sister what are you talking about franco yes she said franco is here. So we went up to the keep and there he was. Franco was looking around and suddenly said could you please tell me where the salado reverse. And i said it was there behind those trees. Ok ok he said and that was it he looked around a while and then said ok very well. From the left and everyone was wondering what he was looking for and why he had come to rota but we had already read in the newspapers that spain had signed a treaty with the United States and what it was all about. Is spain was not in any condition to negotiate and this would become obvious in the agreements it signed because they did the country a lot of damage. If. Youre. Looking. At a foreign country attack the base we have to defend it and defend the americans. To defend their life but listen if you have the most impressive firepower in the world and aircraft and atomic bombs because there were atom bombs here what are we going to defend for you. Know im a live and then i was not there ok. Right here then for you to. Have it then youll not and that my father had a place on a plot of land near a computer. Used to store 4 or 5 girls of wine there to sell every year my eyes were swollen from crying when they drove me off our land and i was 17 years old and i told us we had to go and we left the doors open and all our stuff there. And nearly killed me let me play him up out of me for that i mean for there was a huge upheaval and hit everyone hard and some people took their own lives hang themselves and so on but the most remarkable thing was that nobody realised there were alternatives that only came later be no they put. You know what we were big media i remember the day i saw the 1st american jeep when i started surveying the area you know i was looking out my columns and watched the monster drive into a pond and sink to me like you. Mean my friends used to catch mackerel for a living and. One day we were at. The 5 of us and a big guy came into the bar and said hey guys do you know where we can find some workers around here do you want to work so we started building the jetty and after wed finished a dutch engineer id met asked me antonio do you want to join the navy. I didnt have any more work so i said i dont have any papers yet he said it doesnt matter my uncle is the commander do you want to join. I said of course man who doesnt you know so i was assigned to a tanker shipping oil from to the warships and. This was during the draft saw the trash can yes. You werent doing well in school you know theres a potential to be drafted theres a combination of nursing the girl for losing my job and talking to school so i said i have to do something and i dont want to go to vietnam so i was Walking AroundDowntown Portland oregon and to recruiters at a place you know tolstoy office and the Staff Sergeant set up from his desk he looked to be nice and you want to join the marine corps right son yes i sure do he said and you want to join for 4 years right and i said sure and it was one tunnel they kill over London England name course and here was very sure of spain are going to spain. So 2 times that i really. Could not have to go to vietnam during the sixtys. Army green. And. I came from the United States i was born in a small town of 5000 inhabitants in pennsylvania on. Electronics was my hobby but my parents couldnt afford to send me to college so i enlisted in the navy. During the final training sessions into Spanish Air Force sergeants told me just go to spain where there are a lot of pretty girls there will be this by use by you which im happy bunny that much of bonita so i said ok then ill go to spain lobby as luck would have it us where i was assigned to kano post a submarine support ship because i was a specialist in measuring equipment calibration and there was a laboratory on board to service the submarines are said. That. There were. Main streets there grand isle. Way downtown from the base and Everything Else we just think feels like. Special because it was like background they remind me of. People only different and notice that when i went to town in back in america i would have always found a hamburger but over here i couldnt find a hamburger top look at all the seats i didnt say that it was very Old Fashioned if you can i prefer to just say that it was very different cultures the cars the way people dressed the way the streets and buildings looked like they were all made from concrete and i came from pennsylvania where the houses were all timber and there were forests and things like that possible space ecosystem see. And they were about 10000 american soldiers and civilians in need that if you need to look at what it was he told her that i remember it like it was yesterday. We were kids playing in the street downtown and suddenly the jets flew over. We were all paralyzed by the noise what the hell was that. Took place today is because they were small helicopters we called them little devils. My mother was outside doing the laundry as usual and fled into the house yelling i saw a flying saucer. When the americans arrived they were 1st met with rejection mainly because some locals had lost their homes and land and were in a very difficult situation. And any kind of under iraqi when the americans arrived they didnt waste any time they threw coins and other stuff into the waiting crowd. Almost all of us on the dock bent down and tried to grab something that you think is the better way. To get you on your arm those were difficult years in spain. It was the postwar period and there was a shortage of everything. So when we kids saw the americans in the street we asked them for money to set up a center. And theyd say. Theyd give us coins are gone more candy or something because i could imagine that this was the tactic the americans used to build good relations with the spanish people and what i mean. That was that more. Than all right you buy all the horses so we can strike any target. That any. Watching. Through all of us here that wrote that the road to the base played a very Important Role in the cold war because it was on the atlantic and also very close to the entrance of the mediterranean that many there any silence. Did you see the list of missiles suffering the most survivable in our nations. Palermos Nuclear Submarines can carry up to 16 missiles with a maximum range of approximately 424500 kilometers. Still system from the usa it would have been too far to retaliate if the soviet union attacked. Stationing these submarines in rhode island and later in scotland made it possible. Bush. I think its may have there be considering it was a place where the ships could come in and a place where they could store whatever they want to store i dont know where they store their. Weapons. Have a good ear for us theres a place where they could do operations for. The thing. They have a submarine tender there were stationed there. Its just like a a transitional place for europe for the minute training and they are. 100 troops out of young people find of climate here. Growing good parents they do produce things which make life better in peacetime can be our greatest protection in time of war. The finish quickly became dependent on the military base it created new jobs in the Hotel Industry taxi business and leisure activities. So i got an ear when i became mayor and i worked to build good relations with the naval base. They were the ones who could help us and the spanish they hardly supported us at all. At 1st the americans couldnt believe it they said your mayor you must make a lot of money but i didnt do it for money. Other been a part of it i did it out of love for my hometown ties to the town develop quickly womanhood it was a time of great economic growth. The workers of the world folks. Believe that. My father took me to see a movie there was a scene where a plumber went to a house to fix a pipe he turned up in a car and then i said to my father. Did you see that the plumber with the car theres a feel my father said it was propaganda he really said we simply cannot comprehend the plumber could have a car long. Time so 49060 wonderful new world. Has this on a big car started appearing in town everyone believed that the americans were all millionaires. To be going to. Like. The signals the beginning of a new era. Before the 1st manned moon shot like nasa brought the space capsule they would be using for the lunar journey here to test how it landed at sea. Plane flew by and started dropping parachutists 14 or 15 of them carrying flashing lights sometimes 2 or 3 men went missing at sea because their lights and gone out. What could we do i took my boat out to sea and stopped the engine i could hear one calling there is yeah i did that several times one day they lost 5 men and i found all 5 of them can you imagine how it feels to be 7810 miles from the coast alone with a parachute in the middle of the ocean its incredible and then when they jumped into my boat they hugged and kissed me like it was their wedding day. That you guys are going to be. It was one of the little california my dad was in the navy and we moved from base to base to base and then we ended up in rhode spanking and i just remember getting off the plane and just hit by this wave of heat. It wasnt so much a Culture Shock for us at 1st because we were on the base and on the base we had all the amenities we were able to to stay on the base for the 1st few months that we were there and then we ended up moving off to school. When i got here in 1969 i remember we had a pet. Donkey and her name was chiquita and she scared the hell out of us we had to do a mood test every morning with a banana see she was going to bite us. When getting off base was just how Different Things were so there was a lot of places to explore and things to do but the people too i think you didnt have nearly as much as this thing today but i i do think. That thats humility that i think i mean in people being so friendly and reaching out even though i dont have much what i have i will give you and then are made her name was it was anna like so many families that had the mayes. We kids grew up and sure if we felt like we were all want you know she would care and pension that she can oh well. She just loved us thats why i would be so nice and my mother loved her as well to. Sink when the better better when they came into direct contact with american women. That broke the local moral code. All these women had their own cars something almost unimaginable for the girls from. Were talking about the early 1960 s. They could easily obtain certain contraceptives that were not available in spain at the time. You know women could do little more than read and write in your. Local market lately anything up of the dictatorship that took place in the late seventys began him much earlier. And a little woman in. What. I hear now thats when the base was opened i worked as an assistant to the nurses there one of them Mary Chisholm became my friend she asked me what my greatest wish was and i said joking i want to go to america on the agenda and so when i actually arrived in new york i was so impressed where am i am i in a theater ive never left wrote a before because they were the only one even the money then we went to northwood massachusetts. And most of. The country there were wide roads and i thought why dont they build roads like this in spain. That. I did as i similarly i looked at her parents house and went to high school. And today every week her mother gave me money but i didnt spend it i saved it all and i dont even know that our then no one then the other thing i want to thank you. I wasnt aware that when i came back to spain i bought my mother a television the 1st one on our street all the neighbors came to watch it the neighbor across the street came to watch a bull fight when she saw the bull on t. V. She ran out of the house because she thought it was going to attack her. No it recorded my brother was a famous bullfighter back then. When he had bought a cadillac and organized a party and. I never imagined id meet an american so when i saw this guy there i liked him immediately he was well built women dont miss that kind of thing when. We had a very nice wedding we were very well known because of my brother so a lot of people came a bullfight a system marries an american a black man he got a lot of compliments. And i did a few token freedom. So i invited. I decided to bring a new thermos look i brought a paper cut that matt in the gulf he was a nice friendly person but he was domineering. Intensified investigation up scene in my life so in a way he finally got down to what you want to know how much money do you make among. My pay was so high for him even to take into account he says i just want to know if people take care of you promise me you take a very very. Quickly but i remember a part of the golf course was almost in the village we kids used to go there you know there was a barbed wire fence there but there was 30 centimeters between the wires so we could slip through. A medium or into a loss so we told each other if the americans catch us theyll shave our heads and make us play the drums in the hot sun till we drop its not without. A doubt it was a whole different world for us back then there was a big gap between the backwardness in spain at that time in the American Standard of living. So bare ground there. Thats not when we went on base it was like being in an american movie. Because what we saw in the movies really wants their way of life. Played a lot of people feel when they played baseball they set up standards and we kids would go there and maybe get a pack of cigarettes or a beer. And they were like things from an alien world. Before going to see how we would have a 4th of july down we step forces you know we had a rodeo and we had a big rodeo right across from the drive in theater and thats where they would invite spanish to come on the base and experience a slice of americana with us just as they would share the feria with the americans so it was very cool that cultural exchange. Supermarket symbol of the High Standard of living in this country today. And that aside what interested the people in the outer most were the products in the socalled Navy Exchange the commissary which was actually the Americans Department store which the Navy Exchange just wanted to sell as much as possible they didnt care if you were american or spanish however they grew out of you severely in front of the base did. They checked us like they were running a customs checkpoint to come and. They had magazines like penthouse and so on which we didnt have and sports magazines here everything you can imagine every brand of tobacco a huge selection of food the meat for example was delivered from germany in refrigerated trucks it was fantastic meat if you could afford it and if. There was some American Products that you can buy everywhere today but at the Time Chocolate bars and cookies as well as rape and sunglasses were very popular in town the people who had access to the base put them in large quantities and then sold them out of their garages. In that case. Although i always asked 1st i did get a lot of things from the base here. I went so far that one day an american commander his name was captain yang said to me father if you go on like this and take everything with you will have to swim back to america ok i took everything i could people who know me knew that i didnt keep anything for myself it was all for the people of wrote. Me one day the chaplain told me he wanted to buy a stereo for a friend but he didnt dare take it off base because the civil guard would confiscate it he asked me to pick it up for him i said sure so he bought it on the base and brought it to me i told him to put it in the car next to me he said but how will that work theyll see the packaging what i told them just put it there because im going to tell them the truth as i drove to the gate the civil guard stopped me and asked me what i was carrying so i said im smuggling their reaction was oh youre always making jokes father and they let me pass. Him in. The mind of the el my brother a record player because it was very rare in spain back then he came from the base. Philco the american brand of phillips i loved music funnier when i mostly got. Back but i was mainly influenced by a black man who was married to a woman from toronto. His name was chase. He owned a bar and chases place place he took up he played bass guitar and i used to sit there and listen to. People and apparently he noticed that and that i loved his music and so he used to give me all the records he didnt want anymore. And thats how i started listening to blues jazz rock. I know theres other new music here. Surely used to look after the soldiers overseas to make them feel at home the records went on sale there at the same time as they did in stores in new york or chicago or london. And my friends used to buy them and then go home and listen to them until the cows came home. Because like a look at my level of the. Radio station to which we still have today theyre far ts. Back then they actually played great music throughout and that was picked up throughout the area that could be received just this is as it is today and i believe thats the same thing that happened when england played music from the bases and it was heard throughout back in t