On 23rd saw the direct transmission of the premiere of "Isus Hrist superstar" from Atelje 212. Tried to record the sound on the old club tape recorder, but didn't try it out in advance, so I got 50Hz broom sound, which was much louder and pretty much covering the music. Heard it a couple of times just to memorize things, but otherwise the recording was complete damage. The show was excellent - Zlatko from Korni grupa as Isus, Azra Halilović as Marija Magdalena, Branko Milićević as Pontije Pilat, Tića Petrović as Kajafa, Zlatko Golubović as Juda... all very good.
Next day uncle Staja and tetka went to their first smuggling trip to Romania. So I'd say the crossing at Crnja was finally open - back as far as 1969 I think we had to drive 200km around to get to the crossing at Vršac. Now it's only 100. At this occasion, the coffee table in my room was cut to size - the legs were shortened so that the bottom plate is just about 12cm above ground, and the overall height is about 40cm. A true coffee table, much nicer now, and much more stable.
Second part of the regatta, this time on the canal, east of town. Nothing much, just one girl whom I remember from this year's prom at Zmaj. Overdressed, and her bra was not tightened enough, so there was some interesting slippage below, which I noticed and she didn't.
In the evening at the dance, Gavra and I remembered how we lifted Tejka last time - she stood exactly between us, so our outer hands go behind her knees, inner around her back, 3, 4, lift. And she pranced in the air all of a sudden. The next victim was the Third Girl when we spotted her the other day, while passing Višnja's street. Two more fell... well, got lifted, since. This evening a fifth victim was... well, when he got two girls, one knows me from šećerana and I liked the other one, so we escorted them to my neck of the woods, and it could all be very ince and dandy, but two guys from my area, whom I used to be scared of (the fabled šećerana gang, allegedly), joined us, as they all know each other more or less, and the rest of the way it was all neighborly chat. And when the girls left, these guys said "did you mean to grab something? Won't work here, should have done that while you were still in town. And don't be here on saturday, sixteen of us are waiting by the railroad, for a fight, just to keep in shape."
It was getting cold so Gavra came to my place (two blocks from where we parted with those), to get him something to read, a jacket to wear and did not give him picture of Višnja.
And today I went to Zajač with dad, to get that "citizenship not recorded here" paper. Achieved nothing. Grandfather got bruised when he fell off a ladder. auntie Janja's brat is unbearable... not that he did anything, just has such a face. Of course, as soon as we left home, Dragana and Tejka came... and found granma alone.
We're slowly packing, leaving for the seaside in ten days.
On 27th did all the 170 shots dad made in the USSR. Gavra came to help around 21:30, left around 1:30 - the dryer is my bottleneck, takes forever. I finished at 3:55. Wanted to see the sunrise but it was cloudy. Next day took the regula to that guy in the basement of sdk to fix it. Tried to watch "Bube u glavi" again with a girl from II/2 (i.e. a friend of D.M. et al, and sister of a DC-99 member), but it was taken down, it's the wrong theatre, if it doesn't sell enough tickets first day, it gets replaced with some spaghetti western or monster movie (as in "Godzila protiv megafona" - yup, vs megaphone), so spent time with her until the dance (were probably going for the 19:00 show, that theatre had some special schedule). Then we split, and Gavra and I found Đica in Dom and lifted her too. We agreed that the thirteenth victim be dropped. Gavra, Čarga and Jozda went off to try to steal some apricots (which are still green at this time). Ah, yes, on 26th the mummies came without escort, date to be written in gold, and even this day I just met them there - didn't have to arrange anything, pick them up, wait for any of their friends, none of that. They did bring that third girl, which was already mentioned a year ago, and oh boy what a looker, she grew really nicely... but the trio stuck so tightly together, that even a worse nut than I would have given up.
On 29th the shooting was off, Gavra got dragged away by his brother to go install electricity somewhere and make some money. (They live in a funny little house in a yard behind some house quite downtown, an extension of one of the backstreets, so he's literally spitting distance from the center. There's no mother, don't know the reason - wasn't offered, didn't ask. The house (and the front one) was torn down soon, perhaps in 1974 or next year, when the fast road was cut through the city, and also zzzzz was built on their lot and two adjacent ones.)
In the evening again with random girls, some fun, lots of funny talk, but no dice.
And today there was finally some rain. Dimče came back from USSR.
Some time this summer, probabuly august (but it's busy there, more room in this article) there was quite a story about the director of firm where mom worked. The guy was cute on one side, resembled Kirk Douglas, what with the chin dimple (even stewardesses swarmed around him once he was flying over the puddle), on the other side a piece of work just like any other director, specially in commerce. True, the Ploughprogress wasn't exactly trade, they were supplying the kombinat with raw materials and the peasants, state farms and cooperatives with „repromaterijal“ (seeds, poisons, consumables), but then it's the same in the end. They had a driver who often drank, and were in the process of firing him when he crashed the third office car (his defence was „you're against me because I'm a Hungarian“). Don't know how that ended, but this director preferred to drive, if the other driver was taken. And so he was returning from the Temišvar road, and stopped at the traffic light at Žitni - the new one, that's where I was filming the congestions last year - waiting for the green light to turn right. A truck with cows from the Crnja cooperative stopped in the left lane, to go to Bek. The cattlers [or is animal husbands the proper expression?] know that the cows will not shit while in motion, and so they were feeding them fresh green stuff all morning, that has the most water, to gain some on the scale. The guys in Bek knew the same trick, and they'd keep the animals without food for one whole day before getting them on the scale.
He, then, is sitting in his office tristać, short sleeved shirt, elbow through the window, and cows looming above... This was the first time in this 50km trip that the truck stopped, and then... „it didn't crap, it peed through the ass!“. Of course, green stuff, being liquid, partly also ricocheted and stuck to the ceiling above his head, then dripped from there. Well, it is what it is, he just drove the remaining three minutes to the office, and snuck into the toilet to clean himself as much as he can. Nobody saw him, except he dropped by his trusted guy just to briefly explain the situation and to tell him not to spread the story but rather call his wife to bring him clean shirt and pants.
It was exactly Bek who broke away from the traditional rokovnik, badge, bottle opener, lighter and such paraphernalia to give to business partners, and had these long penknives, the blade being regular width but almost 20cm long. We had a couple at home, and this guy had one in his pockets, so he used that to shave off the bullshit of his shirt and pants. Took him some fifteen minutes to clean himself the best he could, and then snuck to his office, still unseen, so far so good. The moment he sat in his armchair, the phone rang. „This is the Crnja cooperative, just checking whether our cows made it safely to town“. He slammed the headset but it rang again, „This is the Elemir cooperative, is there some shitty director around?“... and so on. After about five he yanked the phone plug and went to his trusted guy. This guy couldn't dial with his fingers anymore, all in tears from laughter, dialed with a pencil, only halfway through the list of numbers to dial and spread the news.
(the guy remained a director there for many more years, and then later got hit with a serious Al Zheimer or some other terrorist brigade, ended up a complete unglue)
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*This was a prophecy. When we all parted ways after high school, I never saw her again, as she didn't come to anniversaries, and I didn't know her name until 2004, when all the matricular photos were distributed and I got them on a CD. Then, another decade later, it occurred to me that I may recognize her, and sure enough I found her and finally learned her name. Learned B's surname, too, and didn't like it. B. I saw again for the parastos 2019, and both for the next one in 2024.
8-I-2021 - 15-VIII-2025