The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.2003, Side 7

Vol. 58 #1
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
5
Editorial
By Stephan Vilberg Benediktson
I retired from Alberta to warmer
climes in early 2001, over two years ago
now, and when trying to decide where to
retire to, I convinced Adriana to consider
Buenos Aires, Argentina. I lived there for a
number of years in the 1980s and love this
“Paris of South America”. I knew that I
wanted to retire in a Latin ambience; I love
the Latin spirit, their good manners, music,
eating late, etc. I told her that it would be
her call; if it did not work for her we would
look elsewhere. We were there for three
days when she announced “this does not
work for me”. We stayed for three months
but she never changed her mind. As a
result, we have retired to San Miguel de
Allende, Mexico, a fascinating town of
some 110,000 people, more or less 5,000
foreigners, in old colonial, central Mexico
some 250 miles north of Mexico City. The
climate here is almost perfect and if you
want to, you can drive from here to
Atlanta, Georgia, where Adriana’s children
live, or Calgary, Alberta where my children
and my roots are.
San Miguel has been known as a writ-
ers and artists colony since the 1930s. The
town was declared a national monument
in 1926, has an illustrious and sometimes
notorious past, refer info@portalsan-
miguel.com. The streets are lined with
fountains, monuments, churches and 18th
century mansions, many of which are
owned by interesting foreigners such as
Canada’s Olympic figure skating medallist
and artist, Toller Cranston. Its cultural
offerings are renowned ranging from liter-
ary readings, art shows, music festivals to a
running of the bulls through town. There
are a number of art schools located here,
most notably the accredited Instituto
Allende. I am taking a course in drawing
and painting and am discovering in the
process that art adds a whole new dimen-
sion to an otherwise “dull” engineers’
thought processes.
One of the few problems I have with
San Miguel is the apparent complete
absence of any Icelandic presence. I usual-
ly meet Icelanders whereever I go in the
world. Having said this, I must explain that
I have developed a very generous system
for classifying people as Icelanders. Any
drop of Icelandic blood is enough; ten per-
cent would be plenty in my system to qual-
ify as an Icelander. As you may recall, at
the time of the Gorbachev Reagan confer-
ence in Reykjavik it came out that one of
Ronald Reagan’s grandmothers was
Icelandic; Reagan was therefore clearly
Icelandic. In my system, I consider that any
one married to an Icelander is Icelandic, by
osmosis. I will continue the search here in
San Miguel.
When Lorna asked me to write an edi-
torial for this issue that contains some of
my mothers writings I was honoured. I am
and was very proud of my mother. She was
a lady of great integrity with the highest
personal standards. Rosa had the fondest
memories of her college years and educa-
tion was a priority in her world. She kept
the pressure on me to finish my education
which was an important factor in my deci-
sion to go back to high school at the age of
24 with a young family. Rosa was very
Icelandic and felt a great loyalty and oblig-
ation to her Icelandic heritage. She remem-
bered very well how the Icelandic people
helped her by sending a sum of money
when my father died suddenly in 1942 and
left her in very difficult circumstances; the
start of winter in an unfinished house on
the prairies with four small children and lit-
tle money. She managed, and the world
could learn a lot from the centuries old tra-
dition in Iceland of helping their people
through difficult times.
It had been suggested for some time
that a book should be written about Rosa
that would include her writings. It has been
said that she responded to the special