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Title: Obituary Manolo Gonzalez Author: Lawrence Jarach & artnoose Date: 2004 Language: en Topics: AJODA, AJODA #59, Manolo Gonzalez, obituary, Spain 1936 Notes: Originally published in “Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed” #59, Spring-Summer 2004–5, Vol 23, No. 1.
Manolo Gonzalez was born in Spain in the late 1920s, escaped from Franco
with his anarchist family in 1939, and eventually settled in the SF Bay
Area, where he wrote, and taught at the University of San Francisco as
well as briefly at New College of California.
Nothing like this should ever happen. We found out that long-time
Contributing Editor Manolo Gonzalez had died when issue #58 came back to
us marked “Return to Sender. Deceased.”
I first met Manolo when we both lived in San Francisco. Jason gave me
his phone number, I called him up, and we made a date to meet at his
apartment. I spent the next five hours visiting as we got to know each
other. My then-partner joined us after her workday ended, and Manolo
served us tea and cookies. Hovering over us, among the stacks of books
and papers from his long career as an academic, was that famous
(probably posed) photo by Robert Capa of the Spanish Republican soldier
falling backward as he is shot. It was probably three feet tall and five
feet long.
We spoke of his early childhood in Barcelona and his experiences in
pre-school from 1936–38, of how one day a Basque friend came to school
with what Manolo thought was a toy gun and grenade; they turned out to
be real. Th e head of the school had some serious words with the little
girl’s parents (she eventually wound up living in the Bay Area,
“forgetting” the entire episode when Manolo brought it up while visiting
decades later). Another person who chose to forget those initially
exhilarating and then devastating times was Manolo’s mother, who can be
seen in another famous photograph — the one of the several women militia
members marching arm in arm in Barcelona. When I asked which miliciana
she was, he answered “Th e most beautiful one.”
A staunch anti-cleric (as befit his Catalan anarchist upbringing), in
later years he would find a job teaching Latin American history at the
University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit university. “Th e Jesuits
are all Marxists,” he told me. “Liberation Th eology is just a clever
way of continuing what Castro and Che started.” Not only that, but most
of them were gay as well. “When they go on vacations or sabbaticals to
Central and South America, they hang out naked on the beaches and have
sex with each other and with local boys.” While I don’t find either
story to be too far-fetched, knowing his antipathy toward the Church
makes me somewhat skeptical. At least regarding the part about the
beaches.
After I moved to the East Bay and started up the anarchist study group,
Manolo would often come to our weekly discussions, especially enjoying
when we studied the Spanish Revolution. It was wonderful to have as part
of our group someone who’d lived through it, whose parents had been
active militants. Th at kind of continuity is something that is sorely
lacking among today’s anarchists.
Manolo came to every party I hosted. He seemed to brighten up in the
company of so many younger people, temporarily able to forget the many
physical ailments and frailties brought on by his old age (kidney
trouble is what I remember most).
After he moved to Daly City, Manolo fell out of touch with most of the
things I am involved in. I had to call to remind him of the annual
Bookfair, and he was usually too exhausted after making it up to San
Francisco to attend the BASTARD conference. Last year before the
Bookfair, I called him to let him know about it, but there was never any
answer. I didn’t know whom to call to find out if he was doing poorly,
and that was how I left it. Seven months later, the last issue of the
magazine came back to the PO Box. As I said, nothing like that should
ever happen. I miss his laughter and his sly smile, his temper and his
graciousness, his generous and gregarious spirit.
As I used to say whenever we parted, salud y anarquia, compañero.
— Lawrence Jarach
I was at the Underground Publishing Conference in Bowling Green Ohio in
the warm, sticky, Midwestern summer of 2000. While socializing on the
front porch on the night before the conference, I found myself in an
only somewhat-interesting conversation. Out of the corner of my
half-listening ears, I heard someone behind me mention “...Anarchy
Magazine...” and “...made-up writers.” Abruptly, I disengaged from
whatever conversation I was in and turned around. I knew a couple of
people on the AJODA staff at the time, so I was interested in slyly
discovering what was being said about them.
“Oh,” I said to the guy doing the talking, “what magazine are you
talking about?”
“Anarchy Magazine,” he said, “Have you ever heard of it?”
“Hmm, yeah, “ I replied, “What about it?”
He had a couple complaints, but the one that grabbed my attention was
the accusation that all the articles in the magazine were really only
written by one or two guys who used pseudonyms to make it look like they
had a big editorial staff . “ ‘I mean, this guy ‘Manolo Gonzalez,’” he
ranted, “is a totally made-up person! He’s some young guy pretending he
was alive during the Spanish Civil War! His chronology is all wrong!”
I let him rant for a bit about Manolo, and when he seemed to be done, I
said, “Um, well, actually he is a real person.”
“Really,” he said, “and how do you know that?”
“Well, because I’ve met him,” I said, “He comes to my weekly anarchist
study group sometimes. And I’ve hung out with him at parties.”
“Oh, so he’s a young guy then, right?” asserted Mr. Skeptic.
“No, he’s a grandfather,” I corrected, “He’s definitely old enough to
have been a child during the War.”
“Well, his chronology’s inconsistent,” he added.
“Do you have chronologically consistent memories of when you were a
child?” I asked.
That was basically the end of the conversation that evening. After all,
I had kind of shut him up in front of the half-dozen people he had been
ranting to. Later on in the conference, the skeptic told me he had been
glad to have that conversation with me. I told him I would send Manolo
his regards when I saw him next, and that maybe they could get together
if Mr. Skeptic ever came to San Francisco. (Yes, I was laughing a little
when I said it.)
I did tell Manolo the next time I saw him. He laughed very hard at the
story. He tapped on his own arm — “Look! I’m a real person! How much
more real do I have to get? It was a war! I remember it! When you live
through something like that, you don’t forget it!”
And I never forgot this story.
— artnoose