Post your favorite Captain

[DFW]

28. An old Basque fisherman whose real name I never knew

As a teenager in the late sixties, I once was on a bus trip that stopped at an old town called Motrico, somewhere on the Basque coast between San Sebastian and Bilbao. The place looked almost unreconstructed since the late Roman times, and everyone was speaking Basque to each other--not something you heard too often any more, even back then.

A few friends and I wandered down to the tiny pier, where some old fishermen were hanging around, and we tried out our few words of Basque on them, which thrilled the hell out them. These guys were old enough to remember the Spanish Civil War and Franco's attempts to eradicate their language and culture. Out of nowhere, here pop up a few high school kids from "Norteamérica" right on their forgotten pier by the sea, and come out with a few words of their language.

The rest of our conversation was in Castillian, as our "Euskera" was exhausted after the first few phrases. One of the old guys then stepped on another's foot by accident, and the victim cried out "¡Coño!"

We laughed, recognizing the swear word in Castillian, and asked "¿Qué dijo, Capitán?" (What did you say, Captain?)

Quick on their feet, another of the old Basques explained, "no se perocupen. Este es su nombre. Este es el Capitán Coño." (Don't worry, that's just his name. This is Captain Coño.&quot

We only had an hour in this tiny village, and I never made it back there (I understand it has been built up in the meantime--a REAL shame). "Capitán Coño" is either long gone by now, or else he must be about 120 years old. His memory lives on with the five or so of us that were on that forgotten fishing pier that misty day.