I Remember: Hernán Ronsino
Thinking of Joe Brainard's "I remember" [whose model was followed by Georges Perec and so many others], we asked Argentinean writer Hernán Ronsino to share with us some of his memories. This is what he sent us.
I remember Uncle Paco, his laughter, the way he was welcomed at our home when he visited on Sunday, just before lunch, with that happiness for those who tell stories.
I remember public phones. I was twenty when I first had a phone at my house. But before that, when someone had to be called –and calling was an extraordinary event–, the calling was done from the bar at the Cerámica club. There was a public phone there. I remember the sound the tokens made as they went in, the effort it took to dial the numbers, the broken panting sound before the other person picked up. All of that produced a shiver in me. A slight cardiac alteration.
I remember a swim meet. It was in the city of Bragado. I was competing in breaststroke. And that time the guy who always won didn’t compete. There were three of us and I won. It was the only time the winner got a diploma and not a medal. I felt some frustration. And I thought that in some way, by not giving out a medal as the first place award everyone knew that the winner deserved to be the guy who hadn’t been able to make it. That is, the guy who always won.
I remember when my brothers, some friends from the neighborhood, and I built a raft in a town in the Pampas which is very far from the ocean. We spent a whole week going outdoors in order to choose the right wood. My brothers were the brains behind the operation. The plan was to navigate down the Salado River until we reached the estuary, the place where it met the sea. We were eight years old.
I remember the feeling of boredom. Being bored in a town means going around and around your own shadow, it means ceasing to perceive time. That’s why I remembered Cioran. To get bored is to chew on time, he says.
I remember when I’d go to the Chivilcoy bus terminal on afternoons to see the buses arriving and departing. I’d sit on some stairs and spend hours there. Observing, as one says, the movement. I once saw Negro Granados. He was with his wife, ready to travel to La Plata. I went up to him and said hi. I said: I’m Lito’s son. He didn’t understand very well what I was talking about. He didn’t know who I was. He was nervous about the trip. And dressed up in a different way. Negro Granados was the protagonist of many of the stories my dad told again and again. He was a kind of myth. Suddenly he went into a corner store and when he came out, taking the wrapper off a piece of gum, he said: Here, kid. He gave me tokens to play flippers. I took the tokens and thanked him but decided to remain sitting. I first wanted to see him leave. Because I liked that –observing the arrivals and departures– more than the crazy little sound of the games.
I remember the Falklands War every time I sing the national anthem. Every time I hear “Hail the great Argentine people” I conjure up a fantasy I had in school while the war was taking place. One day they had us do a bombing emergency drill. They told us that when the firemen’s siren was heard in the whole town –that was the signal– the town could go completely dark, if it was at night, because the bombing would be imminent. Then, after saying that, Miss Mercader had us all get under the stools with our hands around our own necks, as practice. Every time I hear “Hail the great Argentine people” I imagine the ghost of a British airplane up in the air and ready to strike.
I remember the time I first mounted a horse along with my brother Javier. My brother knew how to ride, he even knew that I was scared. So he insisted, insisted so much that he said to me: I’ll take you. And I trusted him. Once up there I held on to my brother’s body with everything I had, smelling that rough scent that comes from the wool, and suddenly he darted across the field. We rode through the field. While in movement, things look as if they were something new.
I remember when Walter Perruelo riled me up on a rainy day in the San Lorenzo club gym: I remember my reaction and what that did, unexpectedly, to his face. I remember my hand was driven by a strange force. I remember what I felt on my knuckles when my hand smashed against Walter Perruelo’s face. It didn’t take long for one of those typical dark circles to form around his left eye.
I remember the texture of the light showing up around the domes of the church in spring, around seven in the afternoon.
I remember reading a book by Haroldo Conti, Mascaró; I remember that a summer rain was falling on the field and that what I read and that air, that strangeness surrounding me, were almost one and the same.
I remember Mercedes Varela. She was the person in charge of reciting poems at school. When she read she seemed like someone else. Instead of saying, in an Argentinian way, yuvia, she’d say liuvia, because, according to Mercedes Varela, when a poem was recited for an audience one had to speak well.
I remember this dream. I dreamt, once, that a strange smoke was coming out of the foundations of my grandmother’s house in Italy. Two days after that dream which worried me, a kerosene lamp caught fire in a room in the house of that same grandmother in Argentina. The firemen had to be called. I never understood if there was some connection between those two kinds of smoke.
I remember the night Uncle Paco died. That night, far away from his wake, I learned how to tell a story.
Other entries:
Ezio Neyra
Carolina Sanín
Andrés Felipe Solano
Carmen Boullosa
Sebastián Antezana
Martín Kohan
Sergio Chejfec
Margo Glantz
I remember Uncle Paco, his laughter, the way he was welcomed at our home when he visited on Sunday, just before lunch, with that happiness for those who tell stories.
I remember public phones. I was twenty when I first had a phone at my house. But before that, when someone had to be called –and calling was an extraordinary event–, the calling was done from the bar at the Cerámica club. There was a public phone there. I remember the sound the tokens made as they went in, the effort it took to dial the numbers, the broken panting sound before the other person picked up. All of that produced a shiver in me. A slight cardiac alteration.
I remember a swim meet. It was in the city of Bragado. I was competing in breaststroke. And that time the guy who always won didn’t compete. There were three of us and I won. It was the only time the winner got a diploma and not a medal. I felt some frustration. And I thought that in some way, by not giving out a medal as the first place award everyone knew that the winner deserved to be the guy who hadn’t been able to make it. That is, the guy who always won.
I remember when my brothers, some friends from the neighborhood, and I built a raft in a town in the Pampas which is very far from the ocean. We spent a whole week going outdoors in order to choose the right wood. My brothers were the brains behind the operation. The plan was to navigate down the Salado River until we reached the estuary, the place where it met the sea. We were eight years old.
I remember the feeling of boredom. Being bored in a town means going around and around your own shadow, it means ceasing to perceive time. That’s why I remembered Cioran. To get bored is to chew on time, he says.
I remember when I’d go to the Chivilcoy bus terminal on afternoons to see the buses arriving and departing. I’d sit on some stairs and spend hours there. Observing, as one says, the movement. I once saw Negro Granados. He was with his wife, ready to travel to La Plata. I went up to him and said hi. I said: I’m Lito’s son. He didn’t understand very well what I was talking about. He didn’t know who I was. He was nervous about the trip. And dressed up in a different way. Negro Granados was the protagonist of many of the stories my dad told again and again. He was a kind of myth. Suddenly he went into a corner store and when he came out, taking the wrapper off a piece of gum, he said: Here, kid. He gave me tokens to play flippers. I took the tokens and thanked him but decided to remain sitting. I first wanted to see him leave. Because I liked that –observing the arrivals and departures– more than the crazy little sound of the games.
I remember the Falklands War every time I sing the national anthem. Every time I hear “Hail the great Argentine people” I conjure up a fantasy I had in school while the war was taking place. One day they had us do a bombing emergency drill. They told us that when the firemen’s siren was heard in the whole town –that was the signal– the town could go completely dark, if it was at night, because the bombing would be imminent. Then, after saying that, Miss Mercader had us all get under the stools with our hands around our own necks, as practice. Every time I hear “Hail the great Argentine people” I imagine the ghost of a British airplane up in the air and ready to strike.
I remember the time I first mounted a horse along with my brother Javier. My brother knew how to ride, he even knew that I was scared. So he insisted, insisted so much that he said to me: I’ll take you. And I trusted him. Once up there I held on to my brother’s body with everything I had, smelling that rough scent that comes from the wool, and suddenly he darted across the field. We rode through the field. While in movement, things look as if they were something new.
I remember when Walter Perruelo riled me up on a rainy day in the San Lorenzo club gym: I remember my reaction and what that did, unexpectedly, to his face. I remember my hand was driven by a strange force. I remember what I felt on my knuckles when my hand smashed against Walter Perruelo’s face. It didn’t take long for one of those typical dark circles to form around his left eye.
I remember the texture of the light showing up around the domes of the church in spring, around seven in the afternoon.
I remember reading a book by Haroldo Conti, Mascaró; I remember that a summer rain was falling on the field and that what I read and that air, that strangeness surrounding me, were almost one and the same.
I remember Mercedes Varela. She was the person in charge of reciting poems at school. When she read she seemed like someone else. Instead of saying, in an Argentinian way, yuvia, she’d say liuvia, because, according to Mercedes Varela, when a poem was recited for an audience one had to speak well.
I remember this dream. I dreamt, once, that a strange smoke was coming out of the foundations of my grandmother’s house in Italy. Two days after that dream which worried me, a kerosene lamp caught fire in a room in the house of that same grandmother in Argentina. The firemen had to be called. I never understood if there was some connection between those two kinds of smoke.
I remember the night Uncle Paco died. That night, far away from his wake, I learned how to tell a story.
Other entries:
Ezio Neyra
Carolina Sanín
Andrés Felipe Solano
Carmen Boullosa
Sebastián Antezana
Martín Kohan
Sergio Chejfec
Margo Glantz
