November 5, 2008. Mexico. Second World War.

I have been spending a lot of time reading about the Second World War, and the effect of the ordinary people. First with the Snoring Bird, and now "The Spies of Warsaw", by Alan Furst. He is writing now, but writes about the spies and the espionage that want on before and during the Second World War. He is a very good writer but I only want to read about one book a year by him and now is the time. I have fifty pages to go to finish before we leave tomorrow, so I must read quickly. We will leave it here as Ken has not read it yet. Of course, I already read the last two chapters before I first began at the beginning.

Then when sitting by the pool, I shameless eavesdropped on a conversation going on two chairs away from between two men. Their conversation was not interesting, but the accent of the one older man intrigued me, because I could not figure it out. I knew the two men were Canadians, from British Columbia, but I could not tell whether the older man was Scottish or Italian. Of course, after the one younger man left, I just called over and asked where he was born. He was a very nice friendly man and came over to chat with me. Soon Ken arrived so we talked for quite a long time and got his whole life story, which brings me back to the war. He was born and raised on a farm in northern Italy in 1936. After the war the economy in Italy was bad, so he and one brother moved to Canada in 1954, married a Canadian woman and settled in Kamloops, where he lives today. He and his wife built and ran a motel for years, and turned it over to one of his sons. His other brother lives in Kelowna and has been successful too. His wife died two years ago so he is still recovering from the loss. You can tell he was lonely and eager to talk. The one brother who remained in Italy sold the family land and went into business and now is the most wealthy of the three brothers, which is interesting. In the mid 70's his Italian brother tried to talk them into coming back to Italy to work in the business, but he said no. But he told us that if the war had not happened, he would never have moved to Canada.

Now we move to Texas, to see those four little girls. They are quite a package.