Between glasses of wine, Patrick explains how he came to learn Spanish.

JP: Tengo una pregunta

Ivonne: Y dos, y tres, y quatro, y cinco!

JP: Did you know Spanish before you came here?

Patrick: Well, let’s see…. In high school I took a year of Spanish in Winter Park with Miss Pickens. That’s the only reason I went, because I really liked Miss Pickens.

JP: She was not slim pickins?

Patrick : No, she was just right. Anyway when I got to college I decided to take French. I kept speaking French with a Spanish accent until the professor actually threw the chalk at me at the back of the room. He had written the text book and …

[pouring more wine and talking to Ivonne] I’ll have to share this glass with you because I don’t have a glass.

Ivonne: So much for me. Thank you.

Patrick: Actually, when I got to Galilea I had to start learning, really learning Spanish. Let’s see…. my first classes were in plaster, roof, tar paper, cabinets for the kitchen with a carpenter, and my father was a carpenter, and he said ‘That’s pretty good.’ I went to his carpenter shop and it was nothing like… his starts with a log.

JP: Like Donna’s father. He built a house starting with the logs.

Patrick: Saw it into what they need, then make the kitchen cabinets. So construction and gardening and all that stuff was the first big chance to learn Spanish of that sort. Then, let’s see… When I had a choir in Deya I had to speak Spanish and I learned the musical terms and all of that. Then, as I was getting government subsidies, I had to learn enough Spanish to talk to the bankers and the government people. Little by little I learned enough Spanish to get along.

JP: Y espanol de amor?

Patrick: That…. I wasn’t with a Spanish woman. American, then another American, then a German, then a couple of Catalan, then Ivonne.

Ivonne: And more! Sure!