MY MATERNAL GRANDFATHER (November 2, 2009)

I just walked out of the headquarters of the top Croatian institution dealing with organized crime. Having written to them less than a week ago on advice of one of the Commissioners of the European Union, this morning I got a phone call from one of their officers. Thus I was invited for an interview on the first day of my visit to Zagreb. I talked about golf development in Motovun for more than an hour, and the officer took everything down: names, places, dates. We will keep in touch concerning further development of the case.  And I must report that I feel great about all this. At long last, the ball is rolling. With a little bit of luck, we will put another dent into organized crime in this country. But the strangest thing that happened to me immediately after the interview was that I remembered my maternal grandfather. He came to me out of the blue. To my pride, he was the last chief of police in Pazin under Austro-Hungarian rule. And he lost his job as soon as Italy grabbed Istria in the wake of World War I.