Boyhood Empire
12. Spain: To catch Entonces
I have lizards to thank for teaching me to accept loss and disappointment on a daily basis. They taught me that some efforts will [...]
13. Spain: Batido boy
Oh, how I loved Calle de Serrano, the nearest bustling boulevard to our house on Calle de Nunez de Balboa. Aside from loving Serrano [...]
14. Spain: Fallen Salt
When I asked my father why we would be boarding a giant car headed to a place far outside the city, and after that [...]
15. Spain: O Rey
When two young women behold you standing stark naked and upright in a bathtub, and after their ritual sudsing of the whole of your [...]
16. Spain: Telefonica
The road to Telefonica began with a seemingly benign afternoon walk. My father, restless on a Saturday in September in Madrid, insisted I detach [...]
17. Spain: A word on bikinis
A critical part of my father’s job in Spain was to promote tourism using the many contacts he had accumulated in decades of newspaper [...]
18. Spain: General Ohio
We first visited the American air base at Torrejón in the weeks following the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was an edgy time for many, [...]
19. Spain: The End of the Affair
Ah, girls. What little boy under age ten, however partisan to his lizardly reptilian tribe, could simply pretend they did not exist? I certainly [...]
20. Female Trouble: Things Fall Apart
If the end of the Jurassic Period marked the beginning of the end for the dinosaurs, my twelfth birthday (two years after our return [...]
21. Female Trouble: A Post-mother life
The surge of female trouble that culminated, at least for me, in my mother’s decision that she would not be returning from a vacation [...]
22. Female Trouble: Samantha the Wise
After I interrupted Tony and Sarah in their anatomical machinations in my garage, and was humiliated as a result, I worked hard for Sarah’s [...]
23. Father Knows Best: Misunderstandings
With my mother now a resident of Neverland, camped out in Europe by choice and what she might do next as ambiguous as the [...]
Author
Christopher P. Winner is a veteran American journalist and essayist who was born in Paris in 1953 and has lived in Europe for more than 30 years.