one and 1/2 escudos a day

A few weeks ago, my mother told me this story about my father's insistence on keeping in touch with her while they were dating. Back in the days that they were dating, all the men in Portugal/Azores had to go to the army for awhile. I'm not sure of the length of stay, but I know they all had to go to "become men". They all went to the "Castelo" in Terceira which is where my family is from. The "Castelo" was in the city and I can imagine that it was sort of a coming of age to head in to the city.

Anyways, my Mom was telling me that my Dad would always visit her and her family on Sundays even when he was in the Castelo. Every Sunday, like clock-work, he would be there. Then one Sunday, he didn't make it. She knew that something was wrong. And was of course worried about him. In those days, she couldn't just pick up the phone or check his Facebook status to find out what was going on. She said that her entire family was sending word out through the village to find out with happened with "O Numero Treze" (that will lead into another blog post).

When finally she got word that he was in the first-aid area, sort of like a hospital, because my father had a bloody nose that was not healing. Which, he continued to randomly get a bloody nose all throughout our childhood. Well, as you can imagine, she was relieved to hear that he was OK.

Flashforward to the next Sunday when he was able to make it to my mother's family's house. He asked if they did not read the letter that he sent. Of course, they did not know what he was talking about.

For being in the army, my Father recieved 1 1/2 escudos a day, which, in 2002 when the Euro came out, 1 1/2 escudos were about 75 cents. When he came down with a bloody nose and went to the hospital, he wrote out a letter to my Mom and gave it to a fellow soldier. He also gave this soldier his entire day's wages to deliver the letter. The soldier pocketed the money, and threw the letter away.

Guess my Dad was really upset. He wasn't ever good at being taken for a fool. From what I gather, he gave that soldier a piece of his mind.

At this point in the story, my Mom kind of drifted off in the way she usually does when talking about my Dad.