Chapter One
I do swear that I’ll always be there.
Damn! There goes the phone. “Hang on! I’m coming!” Rico shouts to the door as he struggles to move the grocery bags into one arm, while digging his house key out and trying to insert it into the lock. The phone kept ringing. “Don’t hang up Baba. I’m coming!” Rico continued to call through the door into the sparsely furnished bachelor apartment. Rico was sure it was his maternal grandmother on the other end of the impatiently ringing telephone. “Finally,” he breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the door give away under the pressure of his shoulder simultaneously shifting his load just in time to keep his dinner makings from tumbling out of the bag and scattering all over the floor.
Rico, quickly sat the parcels down on the table and lunged for the phone, “Baba, is that you? I just walked in.”
Rico, being a confirmed bachelor at the age of thirty-eight was raised in a very close Serbian family in central California, was especially close to his Baba on his mother’s side. Baba was planning a trip back to her home village in Serbia and Rico had agreed to accompany her. He knew that Baba wouldn’t have a lot of trips back to homeland left, and he wanted to make sure she was taken care of while he had the chance. He had arranged to take six weeks’ vacation from work to escort her to visit her brother who was still living in the former Yugoslavia. They were scheduled to leave in three days and Baba was getting so excited about seeing her family again for the first time in ten years. Rico, himself hadn’t been to Serbia since he was a teenager when his parents had taken his brother, sister and him just before his Jiedo had died leaving his Baba a widow. Rico had enjoyed seeing his uncles, tetes, and cousins.
Growing up the Radanovich family traveled to Serbia every four or five years to visit the family members who hadn’t immigrated to the United States. He was always surprised by the difference in the world of Serbia and the world of California. Many of his relatives lived in small villages in the hills of Serbia and had no electricity or running water, but were so accommodating and generous with their hospitality when their American relatives came to visit.
“Yes, Baba. I’m almost ready. I have to finish packing my clothes and then I’ll be ready to go. I have my passport ready, and have made arrangements to pick up the rental car in Berlin to drive to Yugoslavia,” Rico murmered distractedly into the phone.
I do swear that I’ll always be there.
Damn! There goes the phone. “Hang on! I’m coming!” Rico shouts to the door as he struggles to move the grocery bags into one arm, while digging his house key out and trying to insert it into the lock. The phone kept ringing. “Don’t hang up Baba. I’m coming!” Rico continued to call through the door into the sparsely furnished bachelor apartment. Rico was sure it was his maternal grandmother on the other end of the impatiently ringing telephone. “Finally,” he breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the door give away under the pressure of his shoulder simultaneously shifting his load just in time to keep his dinner makings from tumbling out of the bag and scattering all over the floor.
Rico, quickly sat the parcels down on the table and lunged for the phone, “Baba, is that you? I just walked in.”
Rico, being a confirmed bachelor at the age of thirty-eight was raised in a very close Serbian family in central California, was especially close to his Baba on his mother’s side. Baba was planning a trip back to her home village in Serbia and Rico had agreed to accompany her. He knew that Baba wouldn’t have a lot of trips back to homeland left, and he wanted to make sure she was taken care of while he had the chance. He had arranged to take six weeks’ vacation from work to escort her to visit her brother who was still living in the former Yugoslavia. They were scheduled to leave in three days and Baba was getting so excited about seeing her family again for the first time in ten years. Rico, himself hadn’t been to Serbia since he was a teenager when his parents had taken his brother, sister and him just before his Jiedo had died leaving his Baba a widow. Rico had enjoyed seeing his uncles, tetes, and cousins.
Growing up the Radanovich family traveled to Serbia every four or five years to visit the family members who hadn’t immigrated to the United States. He was always surprised by the difference in the world of Serbia and the world of California. Many of his relatives lived in small villages in the hills of Serbia and had no electricity or running water, but were so accommodating and generous with their hospitality when their American relatives came to visit.
“Yes, Baba. I’m almost ready. I have to finish packing my clothes and then I’ll be ready to go. I have my passport ready, and have made arrangements to pick up the rental car in Berlin to drive to Yugoslavia,” Rico murmered distractedly into the phone.
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