Until 1986, Lasarte-Oria was not recognized as a municipality, therefore, 25 years ago. Until then, their neighborhoods were divided between Andoain, Hernani and Urnieta. This partition became a fragmented puzzle, a handful of beautiful sites, and perhaps the character of this intermittent puzzle would infect our citizens. To put it in an epatant way of the 21st century, we had “liquid identity.” Because Lasarte
is not a nice place, you have to recognize it. But does it need a nice place for the child to build their Game Kingdom? None of that. We were surrounded by beautiful places, plus: What do you tell me about the Buenos Aires neighborhood? The one we have at hand to climb up to the graveyard and climb into the rocks of Santa Barbara? This town is the place where people are invited to flee from the center and their concentric circles reach far away. Lasarte may have a hole, but it's a hole in the middle of a golf course. Maybe he remembered that golf course earlier.

They carried in their hands the sporty leather clothing of the brands Adidas and Puma, which years later would re-fashion the retros. They were all men. Diagonally, the Michelin workers crossed Plaza Juan XXIII, towards work, with fiambreras in the hand (without ankles). Michelin bathed the town, Michelin employed the parents of many friends. Michelin had ping-pong champions, judo schools, a beautiful football field, tennis courts, pediment. Many of our improvised toys were from Michelín: I remember some elastic plastic rolls, from the springs, from the black rubber mark to make tirachines that threw stones very far and at high speed (good... Michelin! ).

Next to the river Oria is Plaza Juan XXIII, our playground, our theater, where non-existent sports are invented and basketball is practiced on skates. This is the place where we looked at the stars when the Space Challenger Plaza Juan XXIII broke out in the sky. In the old plaza of Juan XXIII there was nothing: only banks and cement. Currently, a small playground of games, full of color and swings has been installed. Now it's cleaner, needless to say it has. But soon everything has its reverse: now it would be difficult to play baseball, as was done against those of Zumaburu. Capulets vs. Sharks vs. Jets. Each neighborhood was proud of it.

Al Hippodrome

The old bridge over the Oria was torn down and the new bridge was built, the stream widened; now it is clearer, the flood is no longer overflowing, the face of the cows killed by the flood of water. In the past, a circus was installed next to the racetrack, at a time when there were no adequate asphalted parking spaces, painted with straight stripes, a day stop for dusty trailer cars abandoned by the routers, an ideal dark place for junkos and lovers, at night. Sometimes they were both one, junkie and lover at a time. The syringe and syringe are held by your hand. The large and neglected turf was then surrounded by the trees, piled up by the ground, which often landed. I remember when the circus arrived, the elephants had hooked up to the tree in front of the Dana la Buena tavern, with some thick, precarious iron links. Also a rhinoceros, locked in a narrow cage, so that the children who return from the ikastola can enjoy and enjoy: Without an expedition to Africa, the harsh surface of the rhinoceros, which we could touch playing without anyone bothering, we would touch it with our own hands. The most naughty of us, Mikel, friend of Buenos Aires, introduced the compass needle into the poor animal. He didn't move. Maybe I was drugged like the famous lions we saw in the cages. We were not yet in Europe. It was the time before the European regulations came into force. Today I find it hard to imagine that possibility of going into the kitchen in the newly arrived circus. And yet, wasn't this the children's paradise? Today there are no fields or mud. A scratched and tidy parking lot.

Horses and football

Following the racecourse, the ikastola was next to the training camp of the Real Sociedad in Zubieta. The camp was then much simpler: first of all, it was one and one, and not the multitude of fields that are now, as organized as illuminated. The Real Sociedad says that the “dependencies” of the club txuri-urdin are incompatible. It was then the “external fubolus.” I had a single ray of light at the tip of a long pole, if I remember very badly. That “outside fubol” looked like a cement pirate with a net. What is true is that in times of recess we saw the Real trainings from the hill of the ikastola Landaberri. Surprisingly, how many things we learned in the ikastola: the horse herd, the trot of footballers. When it snowed, we would open the doors of the racetrack and walk across the bleached blasting, and then they would train in the jogging program to play snowballs with the Real players: Zamora, Arconada, Bakero, Uralde, López Ufarte, Periko Alonso... It was a golden age. As we went home on foot on the Hippodrome Road, sometimes the players who headed from home training stood and approached us to the bridge. How can you not always be realistic when your idol takes you in the car? The white Volkswagen Golf was the peak of the glamour of that time, and the most striking was the Loinaz Renault, with its interior filled with Salton dolls. Do the players of the Real Sociedad continue to receive the early highways on their way home? I do not agree. First of all, they could be considered early paedophiles.

Near the sawmill “Yoko garbia”

We have already said before that Lasarte is an ugly village, on 29 February rainy, an intermittent municipality, a ghost. It promotes flight to concentric green areas, racecourse or Buenos Aires. However, instead of going to Horita, which we used to do the weekdays on the way to the ikastola and back to the ikastola, we could take the escape point from the town of Zubieta, not to confuse the camp of the Real de Zubieta with the town of Zubieta, which was the destination of the cyclists. We would walk just a kilometer to the right of the racetrack and play on the pediment Yoko Garbi, drowning us against the wall, until the artasoro or the church canalón devoured our last tennis ball. And now, instead of corn? More parking lots. Aging can be something like this: they make you a parking lot for your childhood.

Along the bridges, the sawmill often saw a gigantic pile of leftover, capriciously looking woods, ideal for Christmas Bethlehem. And when they added fire to the bunch of firewood -- winter tour with the parents, where we burned the raw potatoes picked up on silver paper. I've never tried a hole in the bellows or as good as those grilled potatoes.

Zubieta has changed a lot, of course. Young people will stop thinking about the bunch of statues that were stacked behind the church: headless marble statues, better than the cutouts of the trade shows so you could settle down and believe it was Napoleon. From horses to marble statues, all novels start in childhood.

We left behind Zubieta and continued our cycling stage to Alkorta Enea, which we had previously made a profile on a folio like the Tour, pencil and more or less topographed. From there, we had to go up to San Esteban or get closer to downtown Usurbil. And above Usurbil, in a steep slope (Hors Catégorie! ), so that you can take some apples on the way and go down to Igara. For the first time we walked the periphery of San Sebastian, away from the beach: the place where currently is the editorial Elkar and the warehouse of Correos, just below what we then called “Gurelesa Aldapa”, where we were only familiar with the scrap and milk factory.

Are we Romanians in the fog?

Every time I watch Romanian films, I come to the Lasarte memory of 25 years ago. Less street light, less merchandise in stores. We have seen for the first time horse racing, paid. It's not the same thing. At that time, we were allowed free to enter the Sundays races. The wager depended on the horse's name. It is not surprising that philosophers and poets are fond of horse racing, as they usually have fascinating names: I remember one Pink Panther. When he won “our horse” we celebrated him with joy, hugging each other. The elders around us were staring at us. "Have children earned money?" they wondered, when we saw that we were pulling the hand sheets out of wagering. None of that. Ours was a virtual victory.

We didn't play money, but we were happy more than playing.