The Flying Camel of Pisa

One of my few lapses of adult decorum ...

My wife Carla took the photo above. I can actually pinpoint the day it was taken, as the event is documented in the journal I kept during our 1987 European trip. The date was October 16^th and name of the journal was/is "France in My Pants." However, those in the know, know that the photo wasn't taken in France, but in Italy. In Pisa, to be exact. The photo is of the famous leaning tower. And the nimrod seen on the first balcony is none other than your humble author. Here's a bit from my journal entry that day about our visit to the legendary tower after seeing the nearby cathedral:

"Lastly and certainly not leastly, off to the tower. Along with the Eiffel Tower and great pyramids, it is one of the most recognized structures in the world. It’s also very tall—about 150 feet—and it leans like a mother. No questions here, just pay the man and climb up the stairs. There are six balconies between the entrance and the top of the tower. One has easy access to climb out on any of the balconies and walk around the tilting diameter. Why there aren’t bodies strewn about on the ground below is beyond me. Up on top the view of Pisa: cinnamon-colored tile roofs, distant hills, and misty greenery. On the way down Carla took a photo of me performing the famous 'flying camel.' Could be the start of a new trend ..."

It the years following our visit, local authorities put the kibosh on tourists cavorting around the balconies for the reason mentioned. Otherwise, my choice of a pose, the flying camel, merits some back story. First, Wikipedia, the pasta colander of all human knowledge, defines the camel, or camel spin in ice skating as the following:

"The Camel Spin technique was named after an Australian skater by the name of Campbell. He is credited with performing this move and it got its name from there. Other names for this trick include the “Campbell” spin and the bow Tuck spin."

There's more. The flying camel has the skater elevating a leg/skate straight behind them while stretching both arms out front in the superman pose. Hence, the flying part of the description. Otherwise, the flying camel, or an approximation of it, entered my weltschmerz in graduate school at the University of Michigan. For whatever reason, there are photos of groups of trumpet students holding the pose. One photo even features famed Armando Ghitalla, our trumpet professor, joining in the flying camel fray. Forty years after the fact, it remains a mystery. I should also add that there was a variation of the flying camel pose at the time called the drunken statue. The addition to the menu was letting a mouthful of water dribble slowly out of your mouth while you held the camel pose. Need I say it had the intended dramatic effect and was popular at music department parties?

All that aside, when I asked Carla to take my photo that day on one of the balcony of said famed leaning tower, the flying camel pose was a spontaneous reaction. I can't say it's my best effort as my extended leg is half-cocked. Which is not a stretch as the whole idea of doing a flying camel on the balcony of the leaning tower of Pisa is completely half-cocked, as they say in the vernacular.

It makes me think that there's an inverse ratio in young men having to do with mature behavior and doing things that fall somewhere on the dumbass scale. Hopefully, said activities are legal and non-life-threatening. Cue the consequences software, which neuroscientists tell us isn't fully installed in our brains until the late 20s. For some, it may never completely load. It may even be missing from the install menu. That's another story.

That cloudy day at Pisa was just one of countless highlights on the '87 European trip. It was my first time abroad, unless you count the times my family went to Juarez when I was a kid so my parents could stock up on 1.75 liter bottles of Osso Negro hooch. The large glass jugs with handles would be stored under the blankets in the back of the station wagon along with the gaggle of us kids, who had received instructions to mum's the word at the border crossing if questioned by the guards. Afterwards, we'd fight over who got the little black plastic bears on the cheap key chain units that came with the bottles. My two older siblings usually won out.

The '87 European trip with Carla changed everything for me. It was the first time I got to see other cultures and hear other languages beyond Spanish, English, and bad English. It was also the first time I traipsed in historic places and got to see great art. And after dining in French and Italian restaurants, I made the life-altering change from eat to live to live to eat.

The flying camel at Pisa was one of my few lapses of adult decorum during the trip. Otherwise, I tried to fit in as much as possible. I even had a couple of people come up to me in Paris asking for directions in French. My response "je ne pal pas Francais" sent them scurrying off with a mix of shock and embarrassment. "Je suis shocking!" Now you know the extent of my non-wine French.

Finally, in regards to that first European tour, I have to mention the day trip we took to Perugia. Carla had gone to summer school there some years before. One morning we took the train from Florence, disembarking at the Perugia station. We climbed the steep stairs and roads and made our way to the town's center. We found the pensione and school where Carla had lived and studied. Afterwards, we perused the town square and then found a bistro for lunch, which included a bottle of vino rosso. Afterwards, we strolled through the town and found an ancient Romanesque church with a spacious lawn. Soon gravity and ethanol worked their magic and vertical became horizontal. I'd never taken a nap on a church lawn before. I probably never will again. But it was a good nap. At least it wasn't a flying camel.

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Thanks for reading. Enjoy more posts about wine and other musings on my blog at timgaiser.com.

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