by Marivi Escobar Santo Tomas,
Grand-niece of Pepito, the Spanish Clown (Jose Escobar Perez)
What a pity Pepito and Joanne aren’t here anymore. So long I have talked to Joanne for years and never could I comment anything of all this appearing in the newspapers. I had only her narratives from the past. She was so fond of her family in Spain she had known at her 74! She always phoned and greeted me for my birthday. I miss her card from abroad that day. But she has brought me in knowledge to you!
Here in Spain, when somebody is speaking from anyone absent at that moment we say his or her years will whistle. Didn’t yours whistle a fortnight ago (on Pepito and Joanne’s wedding anniversary)?
Raymond and Annie, his wife, came home at the beach for almost 6 days. My husband and I have just come back home in Terrassa last Wednesday. I sent you an SMS from my phone when Raymond was with us, but maybe it didn’t arrive, because I’m sure “we” had got an answer.
We spent a really good time. We visited the roman Tarragona and the villages around. Not in a hurry. There was time for everything.Bathing, resting, walking… We have got an age!!
He took photos everywhere and when we sat relaxed at the restaurants our conversation was for Melani.
He said he would do a monument of you, for letting us be known each other. As we didn’t get an answer to the phone message Raymond told me that on going back home, he would write to you. So all that will be a good anniversary for Pepito and Joanne in heaven, since the day you found us, the family in Spain, and later my cousin Escobar.
I love you and expect to see you personally one day. Maybe when your book appears.
It was the week from the 16th September to the 20th, 2013. We could still bathe at the beach and visited the roman walls of Tarragona and its Gothic cathedral. One day I’ll show them to you. I’m sure.
Last year Raymond and wife came to Spain to visit the places he had discovered where our ancestros had lived. All that he has discovered in these four years. He is always sending me more and more information about my grand grand grand parents, etc. Where they got married, who with. Where the graves from my grand-grandmother is … incredible !!
And driving back to France I told him we would join him on his way back home. We met in Zaragoza, where I introduced three more cousins to him, who live there. Two brothers and one sister. Now in their 80s. One is the highest degree from the army, (general) the other is second degree (coronel), and the sister is mezzo-soprano. She sang in Teatro del Liceo of Barcelona. He was so proud to meet those important cousins. He spoke long about opera with our cousin Celia and they drove back home happy to know more family. They thanked me of going and introducing the cousins because, if they had gone alone, maybe they wouldn’t have had such reception.
So, this year, by chance, on Saturday 21st September 2013, my eldest cousin General Jaime Esain Escobar (you can see about him in the web), celebrated his 85th anniversary. My husband and I were invited to Zaragoza for the occasion, and knowing Raymond and his wife Annie were with us, they invited to them too. So on Sunday 21st, we travelled together to Zaragoza and stayed at the hotel where my cousin celebrated the lunch. Raymond was on the clouds, because he met all the second and third generation below us. Most of them of the army too and studying the highest courses to get into the headquarters in Madrid. So he joked on saying when somebody would annoy him when he was in Spain he would say he had some important authorities in the family. My cousin Jaime offered them a CD of Spanish music and his sister, another one from herself singing opera. We offered them a lot of Spanish eating products.
We had still time to go around Zaragoza and take the tourist bus, and the next day they drove to San Sebastian and we, back home. ALL THESE DAYS WERE FANTASTIC.
Pepito & Joanne 