Patting Pappa's Head

As promised I wanted to return to the Gastronomic Odyssey and try and describe another cosmic coincidence that happened for Jason, Eric, and I on our grand adventure to the 2003 Jazz Fest. We spent our first night of the trip in San Francisco where we had a wonderful evening with friends at Cha Cha Cha in the Haight. Their college friend Kristi put us up that night. "Thank you lovely lady for the ham." Our plan was to drive as far as we could the following day. After getting a late start we made good time over Donner pass and into Reno early the next afternoon. Jay remembered a Mexican place that he had eaten at years prior, so we decided to try and find it. After about a half an hour getting lost in the industrial district we were all about to give up when we saw a sign for Louis' Basque Corner. As soon as we walked in we new we had discovered something special. It was early and the long bar to the left of the entrance was lined with patrons. We asked our hostess what folks were drinking and she told us that the Picon Punch was a local favorite. The place had an authentic feel right away, with dark mahogany paneling and walls covered with grainy black and white portraits of Reno's history. At Louis' everyone sits at picnic tables covered with red checkered, plastic table cloths. Before we even had a chance to look at the menu our waitress had two carafe's of red wine at our table. Besides the large crowd at the bar the place was almost empty, except for a couple of older gentleman sitting at our table. They both had distinctive noses that I recognized from spending time in the Basque region of Spain. I had known that parts of southern Oregon and northern Nevada had a large Basque presence from stories my track coach had described years past. He had found what he called "Arborglyphs" in the Steens mountains. Old carvings in the Aspen trees left from the early turn of the century sheep herders who had previously lived in those areas. I didn't realize that any real Basque's were left. We struck up a conversation with the fellow and he was quick to engage with us. As it turned out, his name was Anastasio Landa Burro. He had been a merchant marine, unlike his three older brothers, who had all been sheep herders. His parents were first generation immigrants and had raised Anastasio and his brothers in the old way. "My father gave all my brothers American sounding names. Like Michael and John. Then they go and name me Anastasio. So people call me Dego." Anastasio described how he had made the trip back to the Basque region only one time, to as he said, "pat pappa's head." A reference to the statue of Ernest Hemingway that you can find in the Plaza de Toros in Pamplona Spain. Both Jay and I had just finished reading a "Sun Also Rises" for our book reading club a month prior. What was even more amazing is that he had been accompanied on his trip by his young nephew who was a English professor at Tulane in New Orleans. We ended up getting his nephews number and Jay called and left a message when we arrived there. We asked Anastasio if he'd ever return to Spain. "Yes", he said, "if my nephew would accompany me again." That is exactly what Jay urged Anastasio's nephew to do on the message he left a week later when we got to the Big Easy.