Travels With The Bear

STEPPING ON SKULLS HERE AND THERE

2010-05-12T22:55:00.002-04:00

This will wander from Indonesia to Peru, but it’s all about bones. Really very dry bones. Could be pig bones, cow bones, or human bones as a Polish Baroness once said to me. Let’s begin with Peru, Marilyn and I and an Israeli commando we’ve met back in Equador and been traveling with for three months.

Alon comes in and says we’re taking a trip out to an Inca graveyard. Marilyn is a bit dubious but goes along for the ride. Ha! The ride is a 15 year old Ford, four door sedan sans upholstery! Not a scrap of fabric and that includes the seats! Well at least ours. The driver has softness. Once we leave the main unpaved road, it’s also obvious why we have no springs, shocks or windows. This is not a road, it’s a Marine obstacle course! But some how we hold on and get to the graves.

It takes one glance to see they have all been looted over and over for their ancient weaving. We walk around until Alon points to a skull cast aside from a grave. Pretty soon we are discovering all kinds of bones. Torsos propped up against mounds of hardened clay. Most of them still possess a great deal of dried skin! Marilyn is not happy. Alon and I try to soothe things but our guide beckons and we go over to one grave where he picks up a child’s hand and fore arm and asks if we want to hold it and be photographed! UGH!

Actually Peru wasn’t half as much fun as Sulawesi, one of the larger Indonesian islands. The northern part is Christian, well with deviations. Yo have to sacrifice a great many water buffalo before your kin can have any influence in Heaven. So it goes. A burial up there can take a week and have a 1000 guests. Water buffs and pigs are slaughtered and presented to the guests. But the best part of this area are the graves.

The richer you are the higher up they are on the cliffs. And once you’re dead, the carve a effigy of you that’s two thirds normal size, dress it in your best clothes and stick it up on the cliffs with all your other deceased relations! It’s really cool, here you are with three or four generations! Everyone dressed in their best and surveying the degenerating world from above! Can’t beat it!

Well, Marilyn really got into photographing these graves. One day we found one of the most famous. There are nineteen effigies on the balcony about fifty feet up! So she’s using a 300 MM lens and sighting in when she feels something go crunch under her left foot. When she looks down, she is standing among perhaps fifteen human skulls a various other body bones. Seems that once you’re dead, your dead and your remains are unimportant. So they just put them in a wooden casket, sit it beneath the balconies and let the weather take care of getting rid of you.
Marilyn squeals. She’s frozen, trying to avoid stepping on another. It is difficult since there is really no place to step without crushing some poor soul's remaining skull. I sort of guide her out.

Later we see something really cool. There are no cliffs in this region so they cut holes in really large rocks and bury their dead in them. Outside they stack your favorite objects while living. Lots of empty booze bottles, a tennis racket and cans of pie filling. Wow! And best of all, if a child dies before it gets its first teeth, it is declared it has not had enough life. So they choose a lovely tree, carve a hole and slip a tiny wooden casket in it. A living grave. It takes a long time for the tiny casket to rot in there and meantime the infant enjoys the tree growing and expanding! Hey! That’s really cool! So it’s bone . . . . . After all, unless we are cremated . . . .See what I mean? Bye-bye for now.

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Memories of the End of the World

2010-03-31T16:33:00.001-04:00

Yeah, it sounds like Sci Fi, and it’s not the end of the world like planet explosions or plagues which kill us all. It’s Ani, a wonderful ruin on the very edge of the Turkish Russian border. In 1215 it was the end of the explored world; the gateway to The Uncharted East for Marco Polo. And in 1987 it was the end of The Western Free World and the beginnings of Soviet Sphere of Influence . . . . Whatever.
Marilyn and I arrived in this eastern area in late May. At the time 100 miles east of Istanbul or fifty north of the Southern Coast and it was 1200 again. Narrow half paved traffic empty roads. Lines of reapers swinging their scythes in unison. Storks roosting on high tension electric lines, and hospitality that shocked even us.
We took on Ani because it was there. We hadn’t a clue what it was. Our guide was a Turk soldier in civilian clothes, with an AK 47 tucked under his loose smock. He made us surrender all our cameras and passports. Then we had this brief lecture on what we could not do once we were there.
‘ Do not stop for more than five minutes at any site. So not sit any where within the zone. Above all, do not look at the guard towers on the Russian side of the border. They will be watching us the entire time we are there. If we break these rules they often fire at us. Marilyn gives me that look she reserves for me when I shove us into some life threatening event. But Ani’s tug is too much for her to end our tour. But I am warned I am not to flaunt the rules, “ Or else!’ I seldom get the Or Else!
Ani was the Capitol of the vast 12th century Armenian Empire. It held 200,000 inhabitants at its zenith and it’s Orthodox Churches are breath taking. Even in ruins. Come to think of it, some buildings do look better when they are in some state of decay. However, the domes and towers are all in good stead. The avenues are wide and the crumbled foundations outline the huge size of many building. This all ended when the Mongol hordes swept in. They were horsemen, mobile, there was no need for urban life. So they drove everyone they didn’t slaughter into the mountains.
Now, the USSR Traveler’s Aide Stations. Every 200 yards there’s this wooden tower, about forty feet high, with one side completely open. A low barb-wire fence keeps us back about a hundred feet from the Turk Border. And what a border! This shear 500 feet gorge with a nice green river slurping along at it’s bottom. It’s at least 500 or 600 feet across to an equally shear alabaster cliff; which is laced with strands of electrified barb-wire! And between the watch towers is a twenty feet high electrified fence topped off with more rolled razor wire. And there are guards armed with rifles and huge telescopes fixed on us. Oh, we’re the lone visitors. And how can you expect a bear to obey the rules? Especially a German Bear!
So, I took a seat after half an hour exploring and the Turk gave me a wink as he ordered me back on my feet. Then, I just stopped and stared over at one of the towers for a full minute. Marilyn actually laughed! Our guardian-guide shook his head and grunted. So, what the hell, I gave the Ruskeys a happy wave. And I could see two of them dropped their glasses and leaned on the railing.
Oh, there’s a red castle just inside the Iranian-Turkish border that you got to see! It’s 13th
Century and had central heat and indoor plumbing! Four full baths! It’s on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the gorge. Also, admire Mount Ararat. Speculate where Noah beached the Ark! Can’t climb its 14,000 feet. Packs of wild dogs’ll make short work of Gringos! Go! It’s the end of the world. I swear by all the gold at the end of the rainbow, it’s outrageously wonderful!!!!

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Stepping on Skulls Here & There

2010-02-21T18:19:00.003-05:00

This will wander from Indonesia to Peru, but it’s all about bones. Really very dry bones. Could be pig bones, cow bones, or human bones as a Polish Baroness once said to me. Let’s begin with Peru, Marilyn and I and an Israeli commando we’ve met back in Ecuador and been traveling with for three months.

Alon comes in and says we’re taking a trip out to an Inca graveyard. Marilyn is a bit dubious but goes along for the ride. Ha! The ride is a 15 year old Ford, four door sedan sans upholstery! Not a scrap of fabric and that includes the seats! Well at least ours. The driver has softness. Once we leave the main unpaved road, it’s also obvious why we have no springs, shocks or windows. This is not a road, it’s a Marine obstacle course! But some how we hold on and get to the graves.
It takes one glance to see they have all been looted over and over for their ancient weaving. We walk around until Alon points to a skull cast aside from a grave. Pretty soon we are discovering all kinds of bones. Torsos propped up against mounds of hardened clay. Most of them still possess a great deal of dried skin! Our guide beckons and we go over to one grave where he picks up a child’s hand and fore arm and asks if we want to hold it and be photographed! UGH!

Actually Peru wasn’t half as much fun as Sulawesi, one of the larger Indonesian islands. The northern part is Christian, well with deviations. Yo have to sacrifice a great many water buffalo before your kin can have any influence in Heaven. So it goes. A burial up there can take a week and have a 1000 guests. Water buffs and pigs are slaughtered and presented to the guests. But the best part of this area are the graves.

The richer you are the higher up they are on the cliffs. And once you’re dead, they carve a effigy of you that’s two thirds normal size, dress it in your best clothes and stick it up on the cliffs with all your other deceased relations! It’s really cool, here you are with three or four generations! Everyone dressed in their best and surveying the degenerating world from above! Can’t beat it!

Well, Marilyn really got into photographing these graves. One day we found one of the most famous. There are nineteen effigies on the balcony about fifty feet up! So she’s using a 300 MM lens and sighting in when she feels something go crunch under her left foot. When she looks down, she is standing among perhaps fifteen human skulls and various other body bones. Seems that once you’re dead, you're dead and your remains are unimportant. So they just put them in a wooden casket, sit it beneath the balconies and let the weather take care of getting rid of you.
Marilyn squeals when she discovers what is beneath her feet. She’s frozen, trying to avoid stepping on another. Gently she wiggles her way out without doing major damage.

Later we see something really cool. There are no cliffs in this region so they cut holes in really large rocks and bury their dead in them. Outside they stack your favorite objects while living. Lots of empty booze bottles, a tennis racket and cans of pie filling. Wow! And best of all, if a child dies before it gets its first teeth, it is declared it has not had enough life. So they choose a lovely tree, carve a hole and slip a tiny wooden casket in it. A living grave. It takes a long time for the tiny casket to rot in there and meantime the infant enjoys the tree growing and expanding around it! Hey! That’s really cool! So it’s bone . . . . . After all, unless we are cremated . . . .See what I mean? Bye-bye for now.

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OPEN ANOTHER BOTTLE OF BREAKFAST

2010-02-03T22:48:00.002-05:00

Marilyn and I retired on Friday, got married on Saturday and the following Thursday left on a 31 month honey moon. Not bad for starters, but this is about a trip into Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg with a former student who will remain nameless for ever.
We started down the Moselle River, the river of wine and cheese. The three of us in a Isusu truck. Camping all the way, we ran into Der Rules and German customs about what sort of wardrobe you wore on what certain day of the week. Tiers, Germany was fun. I was wearing knickers and it was Monday. We were told by dozens of eyes, this is not for today, dum koph!
Jarvis, our ex-student spoke German, French, Dutch and some form of American, and he never got use to waking in the morning in his tent and joining us for a bottle of cold white wine and cereal. ‘ God! You were such an academic tyrant, Mr’ R! How come you’re as loose as a goose now?’ I smiled and tilted another 70 cl. Marilyn had coffee. She had to drive.
We turned off the Moselle right after it entered France and headed east. Up the Rhine, one wine and cheese village after the other. German strudel, pancakes, and of course a beer now and then. Jarvis just shook his head and joined the party. And oh yes, we dropped into 1000 year old churches, abbeys, castles and did a few mussos on the way. But mostly we ate well and drank even better. Someone was always the designated drunk. And someone was always cold sober when driving.
Then we got to Luxembourg, land of PASTRY!!! In the capitol, there is an entire street devoted to nothing but! And, no one infringed on the next door neighbor! This place made only apple concoctions, and the next was plum. You might go down one side of the street, bleaching and struggling for the strength to U turn and come back the other way! This side is the Cake Aisle!
There’s every kind of cake your imagination has ever thought of! They’re single, double, triple and even four masters! Chocolate! Three kinds in one cake! Cakes with fruit in, on and around them! Cakes so heavy you need both hands to carry them to the truck! It’s a tough job but someone, who else but Americans, have to save the world from a sugar attack! We wade in, damn the losses! We’re here to save the world . . .again!
Marilyn finally steps over the line. I tell her to take twenty bucks and tell buy something. She proceeds to buy the street! She and Jarvis come back with two shopping bags! How can anyone manage to devour what’s lurking in those satin white sacks and stay sane? I CAN! WE CAN and we do! Well, not the last cake, the Two-Ton Tony! We gag when we think of finishing it off after we’re sprawled out on the ground, not knowing if we are going to throw-up or bow out on the sugar fix. It has to wait!
Next day we pull into a rest stop for a late Breakfast. Two bottles of Breakfast and The Cake. Marilyn cuts it into three huge chunks and we settle on the tail gate. Pass the breakfast and take a bite. Bow to the trucker’s horn as he flies by, waving his hand. We are saving the world. There is no doubt! My hand grows weary from holding the slice erect, so I forgo the wine and munch away. My beard reeks of cake and wine. My mind reeks of Marilyn and Jarvis. It’s the end of the excursion, but the beginnings of a impossible voyage which will take us into a Europe which is slowly dissolving for the third tioe in the 20th century.
We drop Jarvis off in Amsterdam and head out on what will be entitled Our Mad, Mad, Mad, Magical Misery Tour. You’ve experienced a bit of it. If you want more try my entries at www.wattpad.com. It’s called The Battles of Tibet., the M. M. M. M. T. And Not All Gates Are Pearly. I hope you enjoy it, or them. And Jarvis, we miss you. What the hell is going on in your life?
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Santa Claus and . . . . .

2009-12-25T12:54:00.003-05:00

Well it’s Christmas and I got to Blog that, right? Let’s start with the fact that more than likely we got the wrong date for the birth of Christ. It’s more than likely August or early September. So how come? Well, somewhere in the early fourth century a group of Arian priests, an early Christian sect which was declared heretical in 326AD, went up into the what is today Germany to convert others. When they found that the greatest holiday was Winter Solstice, i.e. December 21-25, they offered the fact that it was amazing that Christ was born at the same time and the rest is history . . .again.

Now to, St Nicolas and or Santa Claus. For this we go to Turkey. Yeah I know, but bear with me. Turkey is the wellspring of Christian doctrine and dogma. Paul did lots of his writings here and even Peter stopped by. So get in the rental car and leave Kas, Turkey via the coast road going east to Demre, the ancient city of Myra. You’ll never find a better coast road for 'ah & oh' views. You go over a nice gentle mountain road skirt along farms where you get waved at and then the Med. shoves its deep blue nose in your left cheek for 60 or so miles. Down for a couple thousand feet and stretched out at your feet is Myra. There’s a wonderful Roman archway where the ancient walls use to be. Stop, it’s worth a visit, and so is the old harbor with the old docks and crumbled ruins of long gone prosperity.

Once in town, head for the main square and St. Nicolas’ church. Park, get out and have an ice cream cone or some great yogurt while I tell you about this really cool guy who lived here about 1700 years ago, a prosperous merchant in a town that had, had its ups and downs. There were plenty of poor people. Originally, he anonymously gifted poor families with wedding dowries. Well, come Christmas Eve, this dude use to go around delivering gifts to the poor. Usually food and a coin or so if the plight there was really tough. He became the bishop of Myra and died in 342 C.E.

And guess what? Sure . . . he didn’t want the town folks to know who was dropping gifts on them. After all, he wasn’t going to do this except on this one date. So he thought of a great idea. He climbed up on the roofs and dropped them down empty chimneys. Most of the time it isn’t cold enough for a fire. Even now. And so that’s how that goes. All the red suits and stuff like that came out of Europe at a much later date.

For those of you looking for Roman and Greek ruins, or heart stopping scenery, lazy boat trips, nude sun bathing, and the best fresh fruits and veggie you are going to get for a long time, go to Turkey. Oh, and you will also meet some of the best behaved, friendly, kind and interesting folks you’ll ever meet along the way. Istanbul is cool, but it’s a two or at the most three day town. Get down on the south coast, winter summer spring or fall and you will be totally blown away. I promise you.

Last of all, may each and everyone of you have a very Happy Holiday, a Great New Year’s Eve and may 2010 give you all a better taste in your lovely mouths. Until we go on a trip to the ruins on four continents, peace, love and above all GO! GO NOW! DON’T WAIT !!!

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Hillside Stories . . . Flowers, Snakes & the Farmer's Daughter

2009-12-18T12:44:00.002-05:00

This is not just any hill. It’s The Mount Of The Beatitudes, the place where Jesus said the Lord’s Prayer for the first time and delivered the Sermon On The Mount. It’s just a hill. In West Virginia it would be a knoll but the crusaders never thought anyone would get here, so they gave out some strange names.
Once a year for about ten years , we went to the "mount" every March/ April to pick wild flowers. Let’s leave why for another time. There is a convent on the crest, the only holy place run by nuns in the entire Holy Land. The church was built my Mussolini, and Italian dictator from 23 to 45. The church is in five different styles. I guess he wanted to make all the sects happy. If there’s enough rain, the wild flowers stretch like Grand Mom’s quilt from here to the Sea of Galilee, about four hundred yards. It knocks you socks off. And speaking of that, there are a few other things which will knock more then those off.
Our first season picking, we take a present to the tenent farmer and meet his three daughters. They work the farm, grow wheat, herd about sixty sheep, harvest the wool, and go to college. They all speak, English, French, Hebrew and Arabic. Not bad for farmers, right? Bet your butt.
So we’re out in the mustard, a yellow flower which grows to about three feet. I’m wading in there, picking away, when one of the girls rolls by on her tractor and stops dead. She motions to me and I go over. She tells me it’s not safe to go in the mustard. ‘ There are three snakes here. A green, a yellow and a red. The first two will make you wish you were dead, and the red one gives you about twenty seconds to decided where you want to sit down and die’ sure. But I’m Emperor Of The Universe And Surrounding Areas. So once she’s out of sight, I wade right back in. I’ve been picking for an hour and nary a snake! They’re scared of me!
I’m bent over and something strikes my leather boot with the force of a small hammer. I look down and red is looking back at me. There’s a small clot of stuff dripping off my boot. Did I get out? Mark, my youngest son claims that he now believes I did play some major football. ‘ Dad , you came out of there like you were a star corner back!’
Another year Marilyn and I are picking and come across two kids sleeping in the mustard! It’s cold so they got about an hour before the boys come out to sun themselves. We tell ‘em. They hesitate. After all they are immortal! Besides they’re French! But somehow we do get it over to them and they pile out of there. We see two green ones about two hours later.
The flowers. Israel has some of the most beautiful wild flowers in the entire world. If the rains come, then the flowers suddenly transform a barren red clay hillside into some Impressionist painting in 24 hours. You can drive about and never really see more than two kinds again in any one place. We were very careful about what we picked. Mustard is abundant. So is Queen Anne’s Lace. You can not pick the poppies. That’s a national treasure. The purples come early. The yellows blend in about two days later. And then the poppies take over fields and you feel like this is where the Impressionist painters worked. Not Belgium!
So why? We gathered, pressed and dried them before we came home. Then we set them to hand lettered verses Christ spoke from the hill. For ten years we had a great time and made many friends over there. And then two people were murdered on the hill, and a couple of rockets from Lebanon came in. We weren’t there, but our Israeli friends told us it was too dangerous, so we haven’t been back since 2000. And oh that year! The Pope showed up. Thousands of tourists stole flowers, swipe rocks and generally tried to . . .oh well. It was fun. More on it later.
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A Timely Digression

2009-11-05T12:40:00.001-05:00

We are travelers, not the same as tourists. We go. We stay. We seek. We take in a place, deciding each day where our journey will end. If we choose to linger, we linger. Unlike the locals, if we do not like a place...most of the time...we can leave.

So in January 1990 we flew to Amsterdam and under the loving care of our Dutch family, bought a Nissan van on credit cards and set off with the hope of driving to Samarkand. Why we did not get there is for another time. We lived in the van for almost a year traversing eastern Europe, Turkey, and some of the Middle East. We ended our year with over three months in what had been the “Eastern Block” on what we affectionately call the Magical Misery Tour, a trip through the aftermath and wreckage of World War Two.

We had just completed a tour of Nazi death camps and returned to Czechoslovakia for a few more days in Prague when we decided that it was time to begin heading home, home being Amsterdam and preparations for the return to America. It was fall, cold and the dwindling of tourists apparent. We were late leaving Prague that day for some unremembered reason, but we were headed west toward what had been East Germany.

How to describe the evening of the day that East became West? The communist part of Germany had always been closed to us, but here we were headed for the border and a night in Dresden. It was the evening of the day before Unification. The following day would be the first day the former East Germany would cease to exist.

We approached the border well after nightfall. The guard towers, like alien space ships whose tentacle-legs stretched down under bright lights, appeared to hover menacingly. Fences. Dogless cages. Everywhere, fences. Tall fences. The lights aimed so meticulously gave the feeling of being in a mobile interrogation center. Strangely, there were no people. There was only an eerie silence and no other cars. We drove the length of the passage in total isolation. We passed into what had been for us a closed entity as if we were driving from some rural community into any city. No one stopped us. No one cared that we were driving from one dimension of the twentieth century into another, from one time to the next.

We found a campground but we had no local currency. There had been no expected “checkpoint” or money exchange as was customary at border crossings, just the towers and the fences. The proprietors of the campground were as perplexed as we. They themselves did not know what to expect and could not even begin to tell us where we would be able to get the needed exchange. Money would be a problem not just for us but for everyone. They were in limbo, caught between a world they knew and one they could not imagine.

“No one knows how it will work,” they told us. The next day the sun came up. We left a passport as security, drove to the international airport and obtained Deutsche Marks. This year is the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It took yet another year for those towers to empty, the fences to disappear. Unification is still a work in progress, at least the human part. I suspect the scar of the passage from one county to the next is physically gone. Other scars linger, though we did not.
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A Journey to the Top of the World..Huancayo, Peru

2009-11-04T10:11:00.002-05:00

It begins with a train which leaves Lima and reaches an altitude of 15,920 feet. It no longer runs. So it goes. On the way up there were attendants passing along the cars holding a three feet square white bag containing oxygen for the desperate. Marilyn, Alon ( the OAK) and I played Tavla, which is also called back gammon. He claimed he was the champion of Israel, but my Dwarf beat him all but the first game and I had a grand time laughing. When we got to the highest point and the train stopped to take on water, the Dwarf got off to photograph a soccer game!!!! She didn’t have strength enough to get back on though and we had to pull her up onto the train. Altitude is a funny thing. The players continued racing back and forth.

At first the Andes appear to be ragged jutting granite, devoid of all vegetation, gray and spotted black ingots like dark untrusting eyes. The land is dry, treeless and empty. The last word is hardly fitting. Nothing. Nothingness. Nada! Once and a while a man with his donkey or a wife trod the edges of the tracks. And oh yes, the train plods at about the same speed. It takes a hundred heart beats to pass the walkers. I guess they are invigorated by the coca leaf they chew from dawn to dark. Bare footed, the tramp toward . . .who the hell knows?

Then you crest the summit, the train begins to gain a little speed, the clothes on the walkers gets better and there’s a brooklet here and there. Then a few scrub trees, can’t define what they are, except they droop and have long thick very green leaves. And before you know it, 16 hours has past and you’re in Huancayo. Today you go up there by buss. Still no airport, but go. It’s something that stays in your head forever. But don’t go with obsessed shoppers like Alon and Marilyn! I always say that my wife can shop a phone booth for six hours and come out with packages.

We find a nice hotel, bed down and both of them are awake at the crack of day. I have no intentions of joining these hounds! I’m going to stretch out, drink freshly pressed coffee, read and think about writing some more of a novel entitled The Marys. They can go. Oh . . . the town is only 11,000 feet up. The market is approximately six miles of open air vendors hawking everything imaginable in local goods.

One more forgotten point. Eating at five miles on a moving train, even when you’re in the club car and there are tables is also fun! FUN! FUN!@!! The hot coffee is cold in a minute and the grilled sandwich is soggy and cold by the time it reaches your table. And there are loads of folks huffing on that oxygen bag. And a few others heaving their guts out the windows. And it’s cold!
Meanwhile the duo is off. Let me tell you what was there, and why it’s gone. The native weavers came in with burros filled with hand woven garments which ranged from shawls and ponchos to wonderfully enhanced shirts. They make the shirts from Guatemala look sort of crude and unadorned! There were pure llama wool coats, jackets and ponchos for ten dollars! Hats and scarfs piled three feet deep on a lurching table.

And food! There was food. Some of it was more than strange. Yours truly loved Che-Che. The women bite into a kernel of corn, spit it into a jar and in two or three days the corn and spit ferment. It’s the consistency of custard and tastes really good! Also about 120 proof. I liked drinking it and then playing trumpet in a marching band where I was at least a foot taller than all the other members.

Meanwhile Alon and Marilyn are pacing and grazing . . .more like stalking and sweeping . . .like a couple of English Setters. He’s taken his empty back pack. You can fit a normal sized native in it! And they’ve bought and bought! Later Alon’s wife will not approve of his twenty three Alpaca sweaters! She doesn’t want him to wear the poncho. But the Dwarf has enough to hold her until we get to Bolivia and that’s another tale of woe. One last thing. A guy was trying to cut into Marilyn’s hand bag with a knife, but when Alon showed him that his knife was five times as big, the poor guy quit! Alon and I make good body guards.

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SICK IN THE ‘ SICK MAN OF EUROPE’

2009-10-14T07:53:00.003-04:00

This is a historical reference to Turkey’s political status in 1914. It’s 1987 and once again my beloved has succumbed to the kidney problem. This all began in England almost two years before. We’ve been on the road since July of 1985, seeing Europe, Morocco, and hanging out with fellow travelers. Every so often the kidney yells and we seek medical aid, and encounter bliss, or:

THOSE YOU MEET ALONG THE WAY

We are in Bodrum, Turkey less than a week when my Dwarf wakes up with the same old same old. We were headed for Kas to see about spending the winter there. We had been told that young European intellectuals avoided Northern European weather there and it was a wonderful village. So we headed for Kas and set up in a hotel near the harbor. Yes, we were told, there was a good doctor at the hospital. So we walk up past the ruined Ionia theater, past the sagging fishermen’s shacks to the hospital. The emergency ward is in the basement. Cellar is a better term, and the place is filled with Turkish willagers. The attendant is middle aged, poorly dressed and totally confused when I try German. Marilyn then tries Spanish, then some French. We duck Greek. I’m about ready to fly her out when the door opens and in walks this short, bulky, guy in a white coat. His English is grammatically perfect. He motions us in and we meet Doctor S . . . We will know each other for the rest of our lives.

He sends me to the pharmacy for syringes and when I get back, he injects Marilyn and leaves the needle hanging out of her arm as he walks across the room to get some gauze. The women gasp! The few men stare, and I wonder. We are told to come back twice a day, knock on his door and he will continue the treatment. We comply. Several days later the three of us weld.

Dr. S . . . speaks French, Spanish, English, German, and Italian. Self taught. He graduated from the best medical school in Turkey, and decided he had to give something back. So he went into public health which pays nothing. He has been in Kas for five years. People bow to him and kiss his hand. (One day that will also happen to me. And he will be part of it.) We walk and talk about world politics, Turkey’s poverty, and poor public everything. How he uses his money for patient's drugs when they are needed. We meet the village through him. He sends his assistant to show us a place to rent for the winter and reminds us to “ Bargain viperously.’ We take him to dinner. He educates us on which food is delicious. And we spend hours arguing philosophy. He senses Marilyn’s unique talents and smiles when she tells him about how bewildered Turkish men are when they see her driving our truck.

Twice a week, he takes a team and goes into the villages dotting the mountains along the coast. We go only once. He heads up the team which inoculates, bandages, stitches, prescribes and carries the really ill back to Kas. The poverty is abject. I won’t go there. But his presence shines a light of hope for these people, and he always returns more satisfied. We fall in love. He is stand offish. ‘ You will leave and never come back.’ We assure him we will, and we do. And each time the friendship grows and expands.

The village comes to see us as his special friends, for he does not take tea with anyone, and tries to stay out of the local politics. Yet we sit n the tea garden, laughing. Each time we return, someone has telephoned him, ‘ The Americans are back S....Bey.’ and he comes to greet us. We kiss and embrace. He wants to know about our latest adventures, and we want to hear his latest miracles, which are many. And I admit, this is not the ordinary folk you meet along the way, but we would have never been so lucky unless we traveled. GO! GO NOW! Go before all of the planet is one huge shopping mall selling only T shirts! GO! There are hundreds of Doctor S's . . . waiting to show you behind the walls of Five Star Hotels and burgers.

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Murder On The Nile? Sick from the Nile!!!

2009-09-24T13:57:00.002-04:00

We are in Cairo trying to get tickets on the Luxury train to Luxor, garden spot for Egyptian antiquities. No tickets for a month! But the manager looks at my name and says I played football with his father in high school. Go figure. He gives two for the next day! I sign his father’s photo. The following night we are led to our plush compartment by uniformed porters, given free drinks and after a dinner served there, our berths are made and we climb in.

Next morning, Luxor! We hire a guide with cab and see the Valley of The Kings. He tells us when and how much to tip and what the real admission prices are. Amazing! Our luck just holds and holds! We hire a cab to go to the ruins at Abu Simbel. This has been moved to higher ground due to the Nile River dam. It’s awesome, beautiful and reminds me of Shelly’s poetic prophecy. We come back to Luxor and we have a lovely hotel and a nice restaurant, but Marilyn wants to cross the Nile and “Play kissy-face at the hotel for rich American tourists.” So over we go. Posh! Dinner is really good, service outrageous, but my Dwarf insists of Sangria and I can not get her to stay to our rules. No foreign drinks and drink only fizzy stuff opened in front of you! She believes the standards would be different in the push tourist hotels.

Three AM I hear our shower running, and there’s no delightfully soft dwarf beside me. I go in the bathroom and she is sitting on the shower floor, cold water pouring over her. She’s running a 103 fever! At five a.m. they turn off our water and I’m on the phone to American Express.

Side light. This is the best card for travelers. Believe me! Some nice guy in North Dakota gives me the name of one doctor with some training in USA. Off we go. The waiting room is full. It has no ventilation, and little cob webs hang from all four corners. We aren’t seated when the door to his office opens and we are greeted with open arms in English! He checks her fever, frowns and gives us a bottle of pills. Tells Marilyn to take two every four hours until her fever falls. We go back to the hotel, the desk clerks frown at us, water is precious! And she goes to bed. She’s in bed for over two days. When she feels better, I hire a horse and carriage to take us through the ruins of Karnak, but she is disappointed she can’t get out and see what she wants, when she wants. I’m happy her fever is almost normal. The fever goes up and down though.

When she’s better, I hire a cab to take us back to Cairo, and the promise he will stop at all the ruins along the way. He does, but Marilyn stays in the car and I visit. It’s a drag without her. Whenever she exerts herself, the fever returns. Half way our driver tells us we are going to switch to his cousin’s cab . . .Same make and year and he will take us the rest of the way. By the time we get back, she is almost okay.

We spend a few more days cruising the Nile, seeing some more sights and then shove off for Israel and our friends. And one more thing! When we come home, our doctor takes one look at the pills, tosses them in the waste basket and tells us, ‘ these things went out of use fifteen years ago. They’re for Typhoid fever! Well, that’s more than likely what she had! Trust Amex! We only had a Green Card! I used to have a gold one, but a retired school teacher in 1986 didn’t rate one. Now I can have any color I like, but Green is enough! And this wasn’t the only time Amex did us grand favors and charged us zilch! The little "call collect from outside the U.S." is really truth and the support they give is phenomenal.

One last thing. Travel alone! Tours are plastic coverings to protect you from reality! See the world for what it is becoming, not what you can tolerate. And go! GO! GO until you can’t!!!

Rethinking Socialism and the Price of Gas

2009-09-12T19:56:00.004-04:00

DEATH IN VENICE? SICK IN VENICE!
We are into the third year of our three year honey moon in Europe, etc, when Marilyn is called back to the States for family matters. I wait five weeks for her in A-Dam with our loving Dirty Dutch family. When she gets back, we take off the end of November for Italy to finish off that out door art musso. We cut across Germany, and arrive in Venice after the tourists have departed, park our van and set out to see this city. Italy is expensive. Gas is over $4.80 a gallon in U.S. currency. We are on a very limited income, restricted to about $30 a day. We camp, cook for ourselves and do laundry by hand, but it gives us two and a half years on the road through the cradle of western civilization.

The sight seeing lasts exactly one day. On the return trip by water taxi, my dwarf says she just doesn’t feel well. I wake to find her very ill and sporting a black tongue! She had thought it was her appendix but by the time I woke, she was sure it was a kidney infection. Kidney! My inner voice screams. I use German at the info center to the camp and find out there is any excellent hospital in Mestra, the large industrial center out side of Venice’s pollution zone. I pull into the ER area and three attendants come forth, take one look at Marilyn’s tongue and rush her in. I fill out the forms, and I am asked if we have eaten any sea food. Humm? Nope to that. This stay is going to last nine days! And the memories? A life time.

When I can see her, she’s in a ward with a bunch of women dying from various forms of cancer: kidney cancer, bladder cancer. She doesn't have cancer, but one kidney has entirely shut down. She was about ten hours away from needing dialysis when we got to the hospital. So now she is in a room with old women who are attached to tubes. Some talk. Some moan. We do not speak Italian but manage with Spanish which even the nurses say is "sympatico."

There’s ten beds, ten windows, five night stands, and ten straight backed chairs. I sit and she sleeps. Then in comes the drugs and the guy who gives them is announces that he is called “ The Barbarian.” He was. He used inhumane methods for administering drugs by injection. Marilyn is getting four shots a day. When her one hip becomes ulcerated, he alternates buttocks, but his method reminds me of a dive bomber. He rubs some fluid on the spot, reaches under a pile of towels, takes up a huge syringe and plunges it to the hilt. Then he slams the shot in, rips the thing out, wipes the spot and moves on. And by the way, they are still using reusable syringes! These are the thick kind that need to be properly sterilized. Wow! In six days Marilyn has ulcers on both hips and screams with each dose!

Then there’s the food. A rolling steam cart delivered by nuns. UGH! It’s mostly a one dish affair, a mystery dish which is accompanied by bread you can not eat. The patients place it on the widows for the birds, throw it to the winged beggars who come daily for the sacrifice, but The Barbarian snitches on them and the Mother Superior is infuriated! The birds love it and then go into mad protests when the meals cease. In the mean time my Dwarf is undergoing all sorts of testing, daily visits from a doc, and round the clock nursing care. Other medications and etc. etc. Oh yes, the chief doctor has almost daily consultations with us, but he only speaks to me. Marilyn might be an American, but she’s a woman! He places her care in his hands and my judgement. I LOVE It! He doesn’t know it but he dies the second she can rise up! My Dwarf slowly recovers but her hips are getting worse and The Barbarian consents to shoot her in the arms. When the doctor finally learns of the abscesses, he relegates her to pills.

There’s my side of this. It’s dropping into the low 30's each night and I’m sleeping in the van in the parking lot. Our sleeping bag would keep me warm at the North Pole, so that’s not a hardship. My routine is: crawl out at first light, go in and use the bathroom, then head for her room. Once the place is scrubbed and breakfast is fed, I am told to use the shower room, so I can clean up while the doctors make rounds and the patients are in their rooms. And when I get back, they give me what they get for breakfast. This is much better than the stuff Marilyn gets. Oh, I’ve begun bringing her food from outside. I usually sit all day until she falls asleep and then I roam. I walked the city, which is modern and just row after row of high rises and offices. Oh, there are adult movies everywhere! It looks like the entire male population spends their three hour lunch hours in these from the mobs who charge out and rush back into the Italian version of Stalin Cake sky scrapers.

The day she is released I go to the bank and get wads of Lira. I’ve got the American Express card at the ready. The final chat with the doctor is funny. He tells us about all the stupid women who are dying from cancer because they weren’t intelligent enough to read. I make Marilyn remain silent. Then I ask the key question. ‘ Where do I pay the bill?’

He gazes in rapt amused amazement for a second and then asks me if we have bought any petrol in Italy. We nod. ‘ Well, then you’ve paid your bill,’ he mutters as he hands us a prescription paper to be filled as we leave.

I’m trying to force Marilyn to skip the goodbyes and get a head start, since I know this joker is joking. But he isn’t! They copy our passports, fill the prescriptions and wave goodbye! I flee the city at top speed, glancing in the rear view to see when the police start to arrest us. Nothing! Absolutely nada! I figured they would bill our insurance. Nope! Maybe we’d be held trying to leave the joint. Nope! This is a case when socialism is not such a dirty word. When it saves the life of someone you love, you rethink your termanology. Who the hell can still resist National Medical care after this? Republican stalwarts!

It’s very cold. Venice is out. Marilyn is too weak to sight see and her hips are so bad she has to sit on a doughnut for the next three months. I decide we are going to Sicily where it’s warm and sunny and she can get her strength back. That’s another travail. Suspect the worst. It begins that way, but as usual, the worst mistakes and the most horrible days always become the best or at least the most lasting memories. That’s how Sicily was!

Those You Meet Along the Way: Suzanne

2009-08-22T19:42:00.002-04:00

It’s April in Paris. We’re in a camp ground. A trumpet wakes us . . .Every day.
We are enchanted. Nothing around us. Makes us forget how to play. Hey. I got no future as song writer. Anyway, we are in Paris and there’s a world famous trumpeter next door. Had a role in the Louis Armstrong movie about musicians in Paris. He plays a lot of Biderbeck. Then there’s a kid who sleeps until dark, goes in to the jazz joints, comes home at two AM and goes to the bathroom to run chords and standards until dawn. He is trying to master everything Thelonius Monk ever wrote. He came over following a girl, hoping to become a pro. She left him, he’s still following his dream.

Every day we take the train to Paris, have lunch on some bench and do the next gallery, or wander about one of the parks we haven’t visited. Sometimes we watch the police rounding up the illegal using mopeds and herding them like stubborn cattle off to the busses, then the planes or ships back to Algeria or points south. We meet a friend from Spain namedKarl and help him write a guide to cheap restaurants and good wine bars. There seems no end to each day, yet it comes so quickly. And suddenly we have five former students clustered about our tent and truck. Two came from Asia. One is photographing A Small Slice Of The Big Pie, and will become a well thought of pro. Two are from Amsterdam and still have traces of what that city is infamous or famous for. The last from England, following the other guy from Adam. It’s a good time for all except for one lonely girl who's boyfriend neglects her.

After they shove off, Marilyn and I run into Suzanne and her Finish lover-husband. She has a very good soprano voice and my dwarf is an alto who can bust down doors with hers. They sit around singing in the evenings while her guy tries to convince me that being a kept man is cool. I’ve been there and it ain’t at all. After a couple of days Suzanne disappears for the day, sometimes late at night. When Zeck asks her what’s up, she confesses she’s with kid. He refuses to work so she goes into the Metro and sings for their suppers. Suzanne likes the sound of Zeck’s voice as they sing duets and suggests that she come along the next day's for a gig.

Next afternoon they’re off and I followed later. When I got to their station, I had to pass a string trio, a Cuban Bongo player and a trumpet player trying to make like Dizzy. Stiff competition if you ask me. But Parisians have tastes. You got to be good or you get nothing. The open guitar box has lots of coins and a few bills. So I settle in across on a bench and listen. They do Kenny Rogers, The Gambler. "You've got to know when to hold 'em." My Dwarf stayed until she got hungry before folding, and Suzanne kept right on going. Later she tried to split money with Marilyn but got turned down. The Fin grinned and asked if I wanted to join up. We moved our site the next afternoon. And oh yes, she blew him off, went back home and had her son. We got letters and Xmas cards for a long time. But when I think of her, I can only see her no good husband, sleeping on a tarp in the mid day sun while she . . . .so it goes.

So it was April In Paris. We never got tired of sitting under a tree. We camped for six weeks at Maison Lafitte. We made friends. We became temporary family on the loop for the full timers.
It was wondrous in Paris. Lost in Ilse de Cite. Always believing we could forever stay free.
Wish we had more time. Seven weeks wasn’t long. Not to sing a song about Paree! Sorry.

Those You Meet Along the Way: Old Wealth

2009-08-08T09:10:00.001-04:00

I keep going back to Kas, Turkey. It’s a fun place. This is 1987, March. We’re spending the winter in this mild climate. Got a nice room, good view of the sea and lots to do. Over two and a half years on the road. Nice honey moon.

Marilyn is taking care of a carpet shop when a British couple come in just to speak their native tongue again. They are being chauffeured about the south coast in a private car. We’ll call them Shirley and Steven. Shirley entered the shop saying she was not interested in purchasing. Marilyn offered to display what she had just bought, and they the ones she did not buy. Shirley looked at one large carpet and announced, “I’ll have it. Come, Steven and see what I've just bought.” They buy two lovely carpets, which will save the shop owner’s economic life. There are few sales in March. Kas is very quite. They find out that next day is my birthday, 2-22, and insist on having us to dinner at their hotel. At this time there is only one hotel, all the rest are rooms or boarding houses.

Over dinner I am asked how long we’ve been traveling and I tell them since July. They are amazed. Eight Months! Then I add July 1985 and he almost chokes on his meat. He asks what I do and I say, “ nothing.” He says that’s lovely but what did I do before I retired and again I say, “nothing.” I tell him I haven’t ever done anything in my whole life and they are convinced we’re rich gringos. Later I tell my Dwarf that the only way you can impress this kind is to tell them you’ve never done anything and never admit you worked.

So, they have a lovely home on a Greek Island, fully staffed of course, and Steven thinks it would be wonderful if we went to it and wrote something while we were there. “ It would be a lovely addition to the history of the house,’ he adds.

Oh, and they have a small place in Buckingham Shire. They’d love to take us there. “It has a small garden but it keeps both our gardeners quite busy! And we love it. It’s not large but each of our 11 grand children can have a room of their own!” No, it’s not large. So it goes.

We hang out. They think we are the most interesting colonials they’ve run into in some time! They’re fair. We are allowed to pay every other time. She buys some more things. The owner is out of his mind with joy. We tell them ruins they can visit. We are thanked, but “ We really just want to relax. It’s been a really horrible year. We just sold the air craft factories and divorced ourselves from the entire industry. So it goes.

They left but not before they gave us their address in London and made us promise when we got there to give them a call and drop by and knock them up. Well, Marilyn had never been to Sloan Square so we did just that. We were in London trying to sell my novel. So that went. The flat only had ten rooms and since we came on Tuesday, the staff’s afternoon off, she served tea herself. It was very good! So were the scones and the banter. Steven snoozed. They were gracious and lovely company. We enjoyed a delightful visit before a play. Once we got outside, London had this weird tinge of green to it. I guess it was the 500 pound notes floating about in the breeze. Who knows? It was fun. And so were they. Wonderfully kind. Delightful to converse with, and most of all they understood American English almost to perfection! That’s a difficult attribute, take my word for it.

People You Meet Along the Way: Blackhead Bob & Baby Huey

2009-08-02T14:27:00.002-04:00

After the riot in my kids's high school, I decided to take them out for a year and travel. Mark and Dorsey anyway . . .Kurt was working. In 1967 we had found Pie de la Cuesta just north of Acapulco, and didn’t have enough time to investigate. So, in June of 1970 we headed out and for the next four months we became total beach bums! It was insanely wonderful. Act after act passed though the hotel where we had a cabana. Three guys who played bongos all night while they stripped a VW Bug and loaded the panels, spare tire, boot, under the fenders and dash board with drugs. We heard they got caught before they got out of The Pie. Then there was a group shooting adult movies in one of the cabanas.

So, this is about Baby Huey and Black Head Bob. Bob is first. Bob and his ex marine buddy had rented a cabana for a full year. The owner of the hotel, Don Manuel, told me no one was allowed to enter. Several nights, late at night, I woke to a truck pulling in and lots of grunting and muted cursing. Then one day the ex-jar head ran out onto the beach and started firing at a school of porpoises with a Colt .45. That drew some attention. I tried to tell him what he was shooting at weren’t sharks, but he seemed in another world. He was. He fired two full clips, 14 rounds and almost as soon as he unloaded the last round, the cops pulled into the drive.

Of course they handcuffed him and shoved him in the cabaña, where Black Head Bob was napping surrounded by piles and piles of stolen appliances from Sears Roebuck’s. ‘Seems they were fencing for a gang of Sears employees. Black Head and The Sarge were hauled off, and the cops took all the goods. Don Manuel told me that they sold everything in the market the next day for really good prices. So goes Mexican Justice.

Now, Baby Huey. He was six feet five, about 250 pounds, had a gut that hung six or so inches over his faded tattered swim trunks. His hair was long, unwashed and making a vain effort to become Dread Locks. You didn’t want to touch his hair. The other outstanding charming point about the Babe was his glasses. They were thicker than Coke bottle bottoms. Even then he had to hold a paper less than two inches from his eyes to read! When anyone spoke to him, he nodded and usually looked in the wrong direction. It was sort of pathetic he was so impaired, but since his vocabulary consisted of a series of grunts and muttering.

The beach crowd managed to ignore him. That is, until this one morning when I looked up and he was heading for the beach. Right then the waves were about twelve feet high and the rip tide could tow you out to China in a heart beat. No one was body surfing. Gerry asked what he was going to do and Huey told him he was going for a swim. I suggested he leave his glasses unless he had extra pairs and also that he should wait. I got a grunt. He said this was his only pair, he couldn’t see without them, so he was wearing them in. I told him he’d lose them in the first wave. He grunted and told me he could take care of himself. Five minutes later he was back. Soaked and glasses gone. He called out my name and asked me if I could help him up the stairs, but before I could get up off the couch, he ran face first into a three feet square pillar and knocked himself out. Gerry and Bruce got some ice, but it still took a couple minutes to bring him around. We helped him up to his room. About an hour later he was dressed, packed and heading for his beat up sedan parked under a palm and splattered with dove do. Mark yelled ‘ What are you doing Huey?’ and he waved, found the car after reaching around with both hands until he made contact and got in. He hit two of his fenders on the stone wall before he reached the street. Mark and Bruce ran after him, but once he felt the asphalt under his wheels, he screeched off. He disappeared at the intersection. So it goes.

The Better Road. . .I Guess.

2009-07-26T22:12:00.003-04:00

We are in Popayan, Columbia. We came by bus, on a narrow mountain road, which had no guard rails and at times a side that dropped off two thousand feet to the tiny thread of a river. My Dwarf hates mountain roads and so my right arm was filled with finger nail indentations. So here we were, on our way to San Augustine and the wondrous ruins no one can explain. But a 11,000 foot mountain stands between us. My first time there, the view from the bus was so terrifying my dog jumped to the other side of the bus, and snarled at me. It doesn’t help to learn a bus went over the side about a week before killing all aboard. And now the ticket master’s telling her, ‘ It will be okay. A bus went over the side a week or so ago. They’ll be careful for few more weeks. Everyone is scared,’ didn’t help. So we have another cup of the best coffee on earth and lo and behold, are told there is another bus route, which skirts the mountain! But this road is very bad. My Dwarf wonders how bad it can be if the other one has buses that go off the side and kill people. We are told this one is so bad it takes twice as long. The road is in such terrible condition that the bus cannot go very fast. We buy tickets. Another cup of Heaven and we’re ready, Freddy!

Next morning, two hours out, a rear tire blows and there’s no spare! The driver pulls it off, jacks us up, hails a truck going the other way, and says he’ll be back. We find a shady spot and I’m up for a good long nap. So’s my Dwarf until the gun fire starts. It’s machine gun fire. Lots of Blam Blam Blams! And then a helicopter sweeps in and starts spraying machine gun fire and rockets about half a mile to our right. Everyone huddles down. Six hours we are stuck on the road, listening to the army battling insurgents. Eventually the driver comes back, changes the tire and 11 that night we reach San Augustine. Our room has green mold on the walls, and the covers are damp. Next day we find a good hotel and hire horses for the trip to the ruins. The ruins are another Travel. This is not about the ruins. Or about a French doctor who has joined us. It’s about a bus trip. Actually a bus trip to end all bus trips! Gunfire is nothing!

We complete our adventure and climb on for the return trip. The bus is small and loaded with Israelis. One of them had met us when we arrived and I gave him a nasty shove off. His friend strikes up a conversation which became a nineteen year friendship. So it goes. Then the driver stops in the middle of nowhere. I look out and there’s this huge wall of red mud stretching across the road and disappearing into the jungle. Hay un rumbes, we are told. We are skirting a volcano and there is an earthquake that brought down a wall of mud. We have to take our baggage and scale it, knee deep in the muck, to get the bus waiting for us on the far side. Oh boy oh boy! We only have a couple heavy back packs and two hand carries! What the heck! We climb down, walk over and begin the ascent. The red mud sticks like Elmer’s Glue to our feet. Three steps and each foot weighs forty pounds. Three steps is all anyone can manage. As we stand gasping, we slide back two. The summit begins looking like . . . .Who knows . . . . Haven’t climbed a red mud mountain. So we end up dragging the suit cases through the red mud, sinking in up to our calves and screaming angry bad words, in about nine languages! But we all get to the top.

Going down is simple. Two steps and we suddenly sit on our butts and down we go! Whoopie! Sure! Oh how this mud stinks!!! And it will not come off! No matter what. Everyone has a red butt. I take off my boots, get out my knife and scrape off enough so I can raise my feet when I walk. Do the same for Marilyn. We are back on this other bus. There’s double the passengers. The Israeli leans on our seat and convinces his buddy that we aren’t the rudest people on earth. We will spend days together. Oh! Our French doctor stays and takes the big blonde away from the Israeli. He claims it’s a matter of National honor!!! Then, he’s off to join Doctors Without Borders. We have his Paris address. It’s stolen in Peru. We always hoped to run into him again.
And that’s how that goes too. I’ll do the ruins and the horse ride later.

Make-Up in Kruger National Park, S.A.

2009-07-11T09:23:00.001-04:00

This was our first trip in to this monster which is almost the size of Connecticut. You drive a lot, but it’s mostly paved roads. There are well spaced camping spots, air conditioned huts, hotels up to three stars and plenty to do. But to see it, you’ve got to drive! You have to be in a safe area by sun down, and can’t leave till dawn. If you get caught outside it’s a $500.00 fine. If they have to come looking, double it. We camped in the north which is wild and wooly; drew huts later on because they were always beside rivers for the rhinos, crocs and hippos. A view from the balcony, drink in hand and no TV!!!

Everyone is after the Big Five: Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Leopard, Lion and Hippos. Side light. Once we took a cruise and pulled up ten feet away from a pod of sleeping Hips that had to have been a hundred or so. Anyway, it’s the lions! God, where are the lions? Well, one morning we puled out of a camp, hit the main road and right there was a momma and two babies sound asleep on the nice warm asphalt. We pulled up ten feet away, turned off the motor and began making Kodak rich.She raised up, gave a huge yawn, big TEETH, and growled at the babies. They stepped off the road into two foot high rag wheat and disappeared! Even when I put glasses on them, they had vanished. Then I got a shot at two black spots just above the rags and damn if they weren’t ten feet away and invisible until you really knew where to look. We had them to ourselves for twenty-three minutes. Then the hordes came. Another reason to hate cell phones. She got up roared at the intruders and sauntered off like a lady caught blowing her nose sans handkerchief.

The greatest sighting is lions mating. They go at it for up to 72 hours about every half hour. Yeah, yeah, check goggle. He’s a frazzled dude when it’s over and she’ walks off like she won the beauty crown . . .again. We found a pair in another park. They were sleeping in a culvert and came out about five feet below us to the side of the road. More riches for Kodak! She was a real demanding lady. The one here in Kruger was a Southern Gentle lady. She only bit him once to get him to perform his obligations. We were quickly joined by hordes of cars. One or two got out to get better pictures. Honest. Everyone screamed at them, so they got red faced and climbed back into their cars.

When we got back, we told a South African couple where to go and they were out for a couple of hours. When they got back the husband hauled me off, cracked two beers and burst out laughing. Here it comes. ‘ we made a wrong turn. Wandering around on a dirt road and then I see eight or nine lionesses with five kiddies. I creep up and pull right in between six full grown female elephants on the other side of the road. The lions are roaring and the ellies bellowing and it looks like World War III is about to begin with me in the middle between combatants. As the volume grows I turn and Faye is screaming for me to get out and save our butts while she is frantically applying a total batch of fresh lip stick, eye shadow, rouge, and the stuff around the eyes. I gotta yell, ‘What the hell are you doing that for!’ as I gun the old Toyota out of there. She’s furious, tears running down into the new gook, but she waits till I stop. ‘Ian! You almost killed us!’ She sobs. And before I can ask, she adds, ‘And I had to get me make up on. I didn’t want to die ugly? I didn’t want to die ugly. Ian!!! Do you want me to die ugly?’

We drank four beers each. I only laughed once. Marilyn got the same story. So once we were up on the top of our truck, tucked in listening to the hippos bellowing along the river, she gave me a sweet kiss and promised me she would never drive us into something like that if she had even the slightest inkling. ‘ But if I do, Bar, I promise I won’t be interested in make up. Love that woman!

Love At First Sight...Etoshe National Park

2009-07-07T16:34:00.002-04:00

We’re in Namibia , South Western Africa. It’s a desert with natural water holes. The animals have to drink, so all you have to do is rent a car and go wait by various sights. The grazers come by the hundreds, ten or so elephants, a dozen giraffes, rhinos, elands, you name it. It looks like the contents of a new Ark on a field trip! There are three old German forts now wonderful hotels where the spots are lighted at night. And that’s what this is all about. But first there’s a short tale about a lion. Oh yeah, you get bored watching lions here! And another thing, the rent at the forts is very good $44.00 a double. Dinner is AN $11:00 ALL YOU CAN EAT DELIGHT.

So we’re over a water hole and fifty yards away we see the head of a lioness in tall brush. She’s still so long, we leave. But out on the main road we spot a pride of five females making for the hole so we double back. In they come, squatting in a single well spaced line to drink. We’re forty feet or less away! Rolls or film! My wife is . . . so it goes. Then the other lioness comes forth and we see why she has been still. She has a broken back leg and is slowly starving to death. She limps over and is about to drink, playing for mercy so she can join the pride and get left overs, but they drive her off. Isn’t that how lots of us treat those in need of help, not charity? We take three rolls of film, but that’s not the ones which stay with us.

Now, it’s night and we’re at the lighted watering hole. The elephants are there. They’re real bullies. They drink only the cleanest water and then they muddy it up for all the others. But they also bring safety from the cats. None of them dare come in when the elephants are bathing and drinking. We see a baby rhino, a pack of elders, hordes of zebra, and after awhile, the elephants wander off. Blink and in come the lions, cheetahs, and lo and behold a leopard! These are the most difficult animals to photograph since they are totally nocturnal.

The hole has a ten foot high stone wall. In front of it is a barb wire net and there are very bright spot lights which sort of blind the animals to our viewing. There’s couple hundred cameras clicking away. But over where the leopard is getting his drink, the wire has ceased and the lights aren’t that effective. Marilyn has to shot this beast. So she slips over onto the rocks and begins snapping away. I remain about a hundred feet away, protecting our prime seating. But I’m watching that cat! This is not Disney World. These are wild, usually hungry, beasts. Remember, ‘People from California and Germany do not listen so our lions and leopards eat them!’

After a few minutes the Leopard glances away from the water and spies Marilyn crouched about twenty feet above him, and only a big leap away. It moves further up to where the wall ends and gracefully leaps about fifteen feet in the air and lands on a nice round rock. Marilyn is already blowing out of there as I jump up and yell to her. Then I notice lots of other folks are vacating their perches and heading back to the compound. The leopard seems to settle in on his rock, laughing at the Exodus.

We are in the campground, which is not fenced but inside the fort grounds, which is. We sleep on top our truck in a very roomy tent. Six feet isn’t any real feat for cats, but they don’t bother you if you say in your dens. All is quiet. Oh, there are also nice stone huts for rent. Each has it’s own out door fire place, and patio, kitchen and screened in veranda. Next morning we hear that the boy is found sitting on one of the fireplaces waiting for some one to become it’s supper.

"Turks Do Not Steal!"

2009-06-20T22:26:00.002-04:00

So it’s spring and time to hit Eastern Turkey. In fact we did damn near all of Turkey in two months, but the East has the longest lasting memories. It started being constantly strafed by storks! They flew about five feet above the one lane road, playing chicken with us in our truck. At the last second, they zoomed just enough to clear the roof. A couple of them dragged their feet along the top. They also nested every fifth telephone pole for at least 100 Kms.

Then we had went to Ani, which is on the old USSR-Turk border. This is where Marco Polo stepped off into the vast lane. When we were there, the Russians had a block house every three hundred yards, and we were told we could not look at them or we might be shot at. I said BS to that! Oh, our guide was also in civies. It was a wonderful place, with really great ruins. Go there. And also to Mount Ararat where the Ark came down. But climbing it is pretty dangerous Because of the packs of wolves and wild dogs. It’s okay. You climbed one you climbed them all. Tiresome and boring. The villages are weaving centers for rugs and kilims. Go to as many as you can. Whoops. As many as you can and not get bombed on the local teas!

No matter where, you will meet a twelve year old boy who wants to speak English, but you will end up in his uncle’s carpet shop. That is fun. More tea, many rugs, good prices. We, err, Marilyn bought 31 pieces in Turkey and we didn’t have a floor to lay them on. We almost do now! And Van! Do not miss this place. 1000 year old walls, huge crusader’s castle on a high bluff, and a wonderful 10th century church out on an island. A US buck for ferry fare on a row boat/ guide.

Drive up Nemrut Daggi early so you can see the sun rise hit the statues. Before to walk a couple h hundred feet to your right when facing the first ones. The second is outrageous, but most tourists never know it’s there. Oh, it’s windy and cold at 11,000 feet. Even in August. We slept near the summit and the wind damned near blew our truck off the cliffs. A VW van with Hippies left. And the ice cream all over Turkey is YUMMM as is all the fruits and if you’re a melon freak like I am, this is Eden! Eight of them, all year long. Go! Buy cherries from the road.

Now, Turks do not steal. We are in Van. The campground is the high school compound, so you have a toilet bloc. It’s a a paved playground surrounded by ten story apartments. Maybe, that isn’t too clear any more, but it is a vacant playground. We bed down in the truck. It’s been a wet day. My sneakers are soaked, so I put them on the roof to dry. Marilyn objects, but what does she know? I’m the world traveler! So they stay. We’re awakened by a male child screaming in pain and a deep Turkish voice shouting the same phrase over and over; punctuating each crack. We look out the truck cap’s window. Sure enough, a male mature Turk is lambasting a kid. My shoes are laying on the tar. The kid breaks free and runs off. The Turk puts my shoes back on the top of the truck. And there are maybe fifteen or so other Turks milling about, smiling and gesturing at our window. They shake their heads trying to tell us Turks do not steal, Amja. That’s old uncle.

When we crawl out a bread vendor sells us some really fresh hot bread, and we see we have company. Another van, French couple. One spoke Turkish. We feast on bread and fresh marmalade, as he tells us he speaks the language a little and offers, ‘ He was yelling, “ Turks do not steal!”’ then we compared notes. They had been along the Black sea coast and told us not to miss it, so we didn’t. It was wet, rainy at times but outrageous. That’s why we go back. GO!
Ani Photos @ http://www.landmarksfoundation.org/projects_ani.shtml

Those You Meet Along the Way: Pepe

2009-06-16T20:40:00.000-04:00

We’re back in Kas, Turkey . . .first visit for Marilyn, 1987. You’ve had all the background about the town. We’re having coffee when a young British girl comes over and asks if either of us know anything about first aid. So off we go, up past the Roman theater to this slumping hulk of a house overlooking the sea. She leads us to a room in the back with a screened porch. There’s a late middle aged guy stretched out on a rumbled bed, ashy face, skin pealing off his cheeks and a huge bandage on one arm. One look and we both know this is at least second degree burns . . . very painful and apt to infection. He tries to smile and tells us to call him Pepe. Marilyn takes care of the facial pealing as I unwrap the bandages around his arm. It’s severe second degree, but not infected, and it reaches from his finger tips to his shoulder. He has seen a doctor, won’t stay at the hospital and seems a stubborn sort. He also has a strange accent which turns out to be Czech. And thus a friendship begins.

Pepe blew out of Prague almost the day the Russians declared it the capitol of a People’s Democratic Republic. His brother and mother stayed. He went to Auz, got married, had a family, retired and was now traveling the world . .alone. Seemed his wife did not want to go anywhere.
He bought a VW Kamper Van in England, and set out to see as much of Europe as he could until his money ran out. He drove to Turkey through Bulgaria which at that time was very poor. He related how people blocked the road, stopped him and stole only his food. Then they let him go. Turkey was cheaper than dirt at this time, so he spent lots of time there. Three days before he was camping on an overlook above Kas, preparing a noon day meal using a gasoline fueled stove called a soba. When he fired it up it exploded and blew him out the open side door. How he managed to get from there to the hospital was explained in one sentence. ‘ I am tough old bird.’

Kas has a wonderful doctor, who you will meet later on, but the hospital is not under his control and when a person is treated, often has family there to tend their needs. Pepe had no one to help. So Pepe blew out, found this room in an inexpensive pension and hunkered down. He had tried to get back to get his bandages changed but the pain was too bad, and the walk too far. He could not drive his van because of injuries and it needed repairs. So here he was.

We show up every day to tend to him. He heals real quickly for his age. After three or four days he can make it to our van and we take him to the hospital. He gets the VW fixed and we make a trip too the nearest big town so he can buy some clothes and we can see what that part of the coast looks like. He tells us how he fought the Nazis in the Czech Legion and how pissed off he was when the American let the Russians dupe them into believing that they would give it the right to choose its government. Well, after while he told us he also had a bout with cancer. That was why he took off to see the world. It was colon cancer and the old fashioned operation. Let’s end with a quote from the last letter we got from him. He was back in Auz, hoping something could be done, steadfastly believing in the magic of his doctors.

‘We shall see what will be. No point to make any plans, as they never work out. So I shall live from one day to the other. Taking it as it comes. Relaxed, keeping my mental hygiene. Lazing as much as possible. Plenty of time for that. Sort of playing the Good Soldier Svejk in many ways.
Naturally I feel full of zest in many ways and desire to travel, but I have to also consider, unwillingly, my age and general ‘touched health, and nature’s blessings. I may still have some mileage in me. Like my car. We fit well together. And it’s actually my real home. which I will miss now, leaving it behind. The car as a psychological unit-shell gave me a feeling of PRIVACY, safety and a total FREEDOM of movements. . . doing and choosing. Also a good chance for ESCAPE when I was fed up with my stay with boring people.’ Farewell lovely Czech. Farewell.

Paradise for $35 a day: South Africa

2009-06-13T17:08:00.004-04:00

We hit Johannesburg, paranoid to the hilt. Grab a car and take off at 80 Mph to get out of the most dangerous city on earth! . . .we think. Ain’t so partners. Anyway, we speed north to
Pietersburg to a Holiday Inn, and side walk dinner. Next day we find out there are no openings in the near by National park and nothing for a week in Kruger National Park. It’s the Easter holiday. So we decide to stay at a farm about 35 miles south. Thabaphaswa, Potgietersrus, Limpopo Province, Wow!

A Dutch African family own the place. He was a retired president of South Africa’s National Bank Board. The government gave him a handsome retirement. So they had this recreation area. The mistress piled us in a Land Rover and gave us the grand tour. Their campground, was clean, shaded and had open showers, closed pit toilets. It looked good. Then the cabanas, with private showers and toilets, even better. Prices were really good. After we toured the entire facility, took in the biking trails, the game viewing stands, etc, she drove up to this stone, thatched roof house called the Pomphuis Cottage, and sighed as she gave us their price for it. I decided to look inside anyway.

The iron bed was not as large as a football field. The bath tub seated three at least. The wagon wheel twenty candle lighting fixture seemed a little wonderful, and there was a modern kitchen, a stone patio for game viewing, a fire pit for grilling and we were two miles from any one else. ‘ You have to be careful of panthers and leopards . We have a cattle pen near here and they prowl the area all the time. I noticed there was as electrified fence surrounding us, Marilyn was chuckling behind my back. ‘ We’ll take it for a week,’ she smiled. ‘ can we give you Amex checks?’ Seems we could. Oh, wine was free, no end to the amount of hot water, and damn if the cats didn’t roam at will! We sat out at night as she got her first look at the Southern Heavens. The stars were the size of grapefruit, and the cats growled an excellent choral as we drank our fill.

For ten dollars for three hours we could ride horses at this other ranch and see our first Zebras, Giraffes, Wildebeasts, a Cheetah, and lots of little jumping beasts. Oh, free cold beer half way around, and the mounts were wonderful! We also got invited to dinner. The two huge lion dogs allowed us to pull up to the main house, but our matron rushed out and told us to be careful. ‘This time of night the grass is full of Puff Adders.’ Then she explained how their bite didn’t kill but let a huge crater in your skin where the flesh rotted. So it goes. Marilyn hates the word snake. I had to get out of our car each night and sweep the area with flash lights before she would take the two steps necessary to get into our house.

At dinner, he casually mentioned that the other morning he had to kill a cobra in their living room. He used a broom! ‘ Cobras like getting in here to get warm.’ I swear he said it like they were piss ants not deadly eight foot snakes. Oh, The young ones are the worst. No control over how much they inject!’ Dinner was half a side of beef and some game. Marilyn ate beef. Wines were excellent, and when I complimented them on their solid cherry furnishings, they laughed and said this beautifully grained wood was actually Stink Wood. ‘When you cut it, it really stinks,’ she offered. The week vanished so quickly. We enjoyed it so, we went back for two nights before we flew out. I hope it’s still there and someone is keeping the cats off the cattle and there’s a fire in the fireplace and the candles are lighted and the tub is filled to the brim! Try it young lovers.

Is a Motel a Hotel? Who Knows?

2009-06-07T13:33:00.004-04:00

This was Marilyn’s first trip to Mexico. It’d been eight years since I was there and things had changed. The traffic is terrible any where within a hundred miles of Mexico City. We are in it three days, and as usual it rained every afternoon. That keeps the pollution down but makes the sidewalks slippery. Fourth day, rain, and next morning my Dwarf snarls, Get us out of here before the dog and I go blind. So, I head over the mountains to Cholula. We take a room in the Motel El Solar.

I should have suspected something when we drove into the court and a woman raced out, pointing to a vacant car port, yelling for me to pull in. Once I did she slid the curtain closed to hide our truck from view. Oh, the bed had a mirror running its full length. We brought Lobo in and he liked it so we decided to stay. Even when the proprietor said we did not need a key, we figured we had the dog and so all was well. We carried everything with us in the truck anyway.

The valley is beautiful and interesting. There are over 100 churches, some 400 years old. A lot of artisan villages, good food and great milk shakes. Also a fax pyramid with a ancient church on top inhabited by a witch who can cast spells and correct birth imperfections. a few miles away is the largest pyramid known to man, but since the one in Cholula was a tourist stop for the 1968 Olympics, the one in Atlixco is off limits for diggings. But it’s there and overwhelming when you see it for the first time.

Our first morning I stepped out and there were all four snow covered volcanoes! You never see all of them at the same time. I picked a bouquet of roses and went in to get Marilyn. We had a cup of coffee sitting outside admiring the 2nd, 3rd and 4th highest peaks in North America. The manager and wife stood at the office doorway in total befuddlement. I went over and paid for two more days, he petted Lobo, and muttered something I couldn’t pick up. We were gone all day each day for the reminder of our stay. We came back late at night. Every carport was covered. Next morning we were the only occupants. Strange? I didn’t give it a thought until I was leaving. The manager came to us and in good English said how happy he was we stayed. ‘ You and your wife made us look legitimate again.’ I frowned, then the reality dawned! We were residing in a hotel where rooms were rented by frequent fliers! Well, actually it was a No-Tell-Motel whose only tenets were short stays. Oh well, that’s how it goes.

However, it was a very safe place. There were 24 hour armed guards and the rooms were spic and span. Sheets changed every morning, and the price was good. So guess what? We started using Motels every now and then, like late at night after following a bus for miles and seeing nothing. One does not drive at night in Mexico. I liked the one near Vera Cruz best...A round bed, mirrored ceiling, mirrored walls, Mi Corazon music over a good hi fi system. Great shower! Room for four! And air conditioned to the hilt. Needed a blanket! The door had a little slot through which drinks and meals could be served and maintain one’s anonymity . When the manger confronted me and I told her we were there for the whole night and Lobo was staying in side, she demanded double! Still more than reasonable. I told her the dog stayed no matter what she claimed. They turned the air con off at 5AM. In fifteen minutes we were all panting. We cleared out and headed back toward Gringo Heaven trying to out race the arrival of a hurricane threatening the Texas coast.

I am going to begin interspersing TRAVELS with THOSE YOU MEET ALONG THE WAY. I hope you enjoy them as much as we have . . .did and . . . WILL.

Sumatra & The Orangutangs: LIES, LIES, LIES!

2009-06-03T19:56:00.001-04:00

Marilyn and I had just come n from five weeks or so in Thailand, a civilized and honest nation. Where the buses and trains were safe, cool and cheap. Indonesia is none of the above. So it goes!

We never got use to getting on buses or in mini vans where the driver threw his fate into the hands of Allah and set off like a drunken mad man looking for karma.
The first night in, we rented a room with air con... condition. Okay, but it didn’t have a thermostat! If you turned it on, you froze and if you turned it off, you fried. So we crawled under the only sheet, cuddled and shivered it out. The next day after telling a guy I did not need his bicycle rickshaw seven or eight times, I reached out, grabbed his throat and told him in some bad words what he could do. Of course Marilyn was upset. She always claimed, one little push and all you education goes to hell and you’re a football player again! Two weeks later SHE grabbed a guy by his shirt front and told him where he could go. And I didn’t have a chance to tell her I Told You So.

Riding buses were . . . here’s it in a nut shell. A five year old Fin turns to Mom as they board our bus and asks,’ Mom are they going to try and kill us again? So it goes. Also there are no bus stations! When you pull into town you are told the only bus each day etc etc leaves from here. That’s a lie. But how the hell can you prove it?

We were in a very nice cottage by a lovely lake, you could not swim in because of major pollution and vicious snakes. B ut we could ride bikes, off the roads of course. The second morning we had toast and eggs. Marilyn’s toast had butter with mouse turds visible. Ah yes! And in another lovely cottage by a bubbling stream I noticed a large clump in a corner. I thought I was drunk when I noticed it was moving. But once I got close, I guess a clump of ants just move naturally. It really wasn’t any problem. The maid swept the entire pile out the door.

Then we set off for the adventure of our lives, wild Orangutans living deep in the forest. I quote the adventure guide. ‘ We walk along a bubbling stream for a few miles, enjoying the jungle. Then we take trip in a dug out canoe, then traverse a steep climb to the habitat.’ The stream bubbled with human wastes and stunk. The dugout canoe ride was exactly forty-two feet to the far shore. The climb was a real tough one. And the animals came. About ten of them swung in when the keeper beat his machete on an old oil drum, and gobbled up their daily ration of bananas. Seems no ape had been released to the wilds in 33 years. Oh, on the way down one of them tried to steal Marilyn’s back pack and she wouldn’t let go. I was yelling, ‘Let go! It’s an ape!’ The Dwarf wasn’t about to give in and before she was thrown into the thorny brush, the keeper yelled and the beast fled. And let’s not forget the shop in the hotel lobby selling gear to help save the rain forests while the chain saws woke you up at five AM sawing it down to build more bungalows so more folks could come and see the wild apes.

And one last thing. After two close calls, Marilyn made me go out and hire a driver and a very large SUV to take us across Java to Bali where she encountered a nice pale green scorpion nesting in her hat when I picked it up to hand to her. No problem! I stepped on it, kicked it out the door and by the time we got out of there, the army of ants were carrying it off for lunch.
Why she got upset is . . .Well you know how women are about bugs and stuff like that!

One cool thing. We were in an inn on Mount Bromo, the bed was great, the sky too. There was a three full sway earthquake and she never opened her eyes. I told her the earth had moved three times for us. She told me Hemingway wasn’t her cup of tea except for a few stories. So it goes!

Welcome to Paraguay

2009-05-31T10:18:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the long delay. Anyway I like to sub-title this: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
The good: Iguassu Falls. Three times as high as Niagara, 273 and separate falls, there are a few other assets. Like you can walk out along the very ridge of some falls. If you aren’t afraid of heights and shaking. You can hire a boat and shoot the rapids and end up getting a free shower under one of the highest falls. Most stunning is the Devil’s Throat; a small section of the main falls where more water comes over in a minute than over Niagara in an hour. When the rivers are at crest, you can feel the earth shaking beneath your feet as far as a mile away. GO!

Then get a bus; there are no first class buses, at least not as you envision them, and go north to “The Missions.” And before you leave home, rent the movie: Mission. It will help ready you for the beauty, awesome grandeur. The Jesuit order came here in the 16th century and founded mission sites for a group of Indians who were master carvers, builders, artists and whose popular culture included choral singing. So, being Jesuits, they built the largest churches in the world. They were beyond Papal control, so the ones you will see are longer and wider than St. Peters in Rome. Then decorations are stone carvings that rival anything you see in Europe. And just to add to the profits, the priests trained workers to produce wonderful musical instruments which were sold in Europe. And then they trained coral groups ranging from boy’s and girl’s choirs, to mixed adult choirs who toured Europe. And oh yes, since they converted, they could not be enslaved. (Oh . . the Missions are in ruins now, but such beautiful ruins. And, there’s virtually no tourists.) Of course everything changed when the Bad came into the area. Portugal took over the areas in a Papal Degree, deemed them all slaves and killed off lots of these ‘ignorant infidels.’ And one last bit, the Jesuits gathered up as many as they could took them down below Iguassu Falls and started new Missions in Brazil. The largest Mission in the world is there. GO!

The Bad. Paraguay was ruled by a dictator named Strossner for forty years. The country was totally corrupted. Ex-Nazis found refuge here . . .for a price. My first trip. . . there were long lines of kids three times a day in the capitol parks for free meals. The corruption still pervades, it’s like Indonesia. Don’t trust street vendor food and be careful that anything you drink is opened in front of you and fizzes. The main hotels are safe eating places. The towns around the falls are a harbors for pick pockets and beggars. Take a tour to the falls. It’s well worth it. So is the view from Brazil, because you can see all of it. And that’s just so damned cool! Whoops! Ice cream in Paraguay is OMG!!! and so’s the choc. Cake! And the Fudge! And . . . .food is good.

When You Really Want To Get Away

2009-05-23T17:00:00.003-04:00

TRY INDONESIA'S LOMBOK and its GILI Islands on its east coast. Oh, go to Lombok only on the Hydro Foil, or you are flirting with ferry capsizing and death! Once there, rent a taxi to the other side. Cheap. You go up over the volcano which is the entire island, and come down on the far side in sight of Eden, or whatever the hell you call Paradise. Take the first boat which isn’t leaking and has life vests. It’s less than a mile if you’re a good swimmer. Let them take your clothes.

Rent a cabana. If you go to your left when you land you can get chicken, fish and various sea food. If you got right, fish only. Left is good. Nice cabins, netted, breakfast served in bed as part of the cost... which is almost nothing. 6.00 US for two. Oh, I forgot. There are no gasoline powered anything here. You walk, take a bike, or donkey cart. We liked the last. It’s a quarter a person from one end to the other. Don’t bargain! Now for the best part.

Hire a cart that serves fresh pineapple. Also two bits each. Stop at the swim shack and rent goggles and snorkel, no need for fins and take the two kilometer ride out to the beginning of the reef. It’s about forty yards off shore, and the water is only neck deep. But there is a nice three mile an hour current carrying you back to where you set off. On with the goggles, swim out, get your mask adjusted and begin one of the most awesome drifts on the planet. And you don’t have to take a single stroke or kick. The current carries you all the way.

The reef is a fish hotel. Yellow, red, blue, all combinations of those colors, and add some really weird looking shapes. Size? There’s gropers out there that are five feet long and go about fifty pounds. And octopus, crabs of various sizes and . . . and, and, and, and, and! And coral formations which make you think you’re in OZ not back in a cubicle!

When you get back to the main beach, you crawl out, go to the ladies selling pineapples, mangos, bananas and other fruit that looks good , tastes good, but you can’t remember how to pronounce. Get a glass of juice, slurp down a pineapple, get out another half a buck and take the ride back up and do it all over again! And as the day progresses, the species changes! Bigger fish when the tide comes in, and smaller when it goes out. But the tide does not run in the reef area. Don’t ask me why. This is paradise! Things have a way of being perfect.

So you’re exhausted because all you do back here is watch day time TV or bar hop. Have lunch! Or dinner. Or what ever you want to call it. NOSH! Try the nine or ten kinds of fish. The spicy chicken is YUMMMM! And all of the veggies are fresh, right out of the garden so you may have some difficulty recognizing the real taste of a tomato or squash . . . . sorry. I shouldn’t blast away like this, but writing about it makes me want to get outta here now! Another almost forgotten fact. The closer you are to Auz, the better this nation is. Flores is also a great place, and if you can keep off of Kuta Beach, Bali is also cool. Lots of stuff to do on both. For us Kuta Beach was avoiding Aussie pub crawls and a scorpion in Marilyn's hat...which was lying on the other bed in our room. She saw the creature before she put the hat on thank goodness. In any case, get out of Kuta and Bali can be quite nice.

Maybe I should write a travel book for wild and crazy kinds of people. Get out there! Not on a tour or some eat twenty-four hours day oceangoing polluter, go on your own. Take a chance. Go up to Sulawesi and get into a week long funeral. That’s where I’m taking you later, sports fans.

Quran Bayram

2009-05-22T10:45:00.003-04:00

We are back in Kas ( KASH) and it’s our first of many visits. 1987 found us in Turkey from January until September. We spent Jan-May in and around Kas and then went east, came back in July and stayed the summer. We made friends almost at once. Lots of musicians and artists from all over Europe, but only three Americans. Tess True Heart was the other. More on her another time.

After a month or so Marilyn found a lovely little house in the village, and we left our pension. We had the first floor, a real kitchen and sit down toilet, oh and a cat, actually still a kitten named Miro after the artists. Miro didn’t like boiled goat lungs and rice seven days a week, so whenever he resisted, he’d go to the mouse hotel in the upper yard and eat his fill. This is all the truth. Honestly!

So, we’re taking in concerts at the local bar, there’s only one open, eating with Turks, going to ruins, meeting the smartest man in Turkey, Doctor Sakir Bey, and having a hell of a time.

We dine out three meals a day, Marilyn haunts the carpet shops that are open and becomes a budding expert on Eastern carpets and I start writing The Last Horseman. It’s Paradise! We buy dinner for friends, drink and drive here and there and at the end of the day, the total expense comes to about $11.00US!

Then Paradise is put on hold. You do not wear shoes in a Turkish home. There’s always a bunch of slippers at the front doors, and I just went bare foot. All too small. So one night we come home from partying and I open the door. It’s total darkness until we get two steps in. Too bad. Marilyn is barefooted, steps in and puts a foot right in the middle of some slippery mess. I turn on the light, she stares at the ceiling, and demands I remove what ever she stepped in at once. It’s a gutted rat. Ripped open and enthralls gone. A gift from Miro.

It takes weeks for her to drop the subject. Whoops! Be able to discuss it. And then come Quran Byram. All of a sudden goats begin appearing in the village. Just few, tethered to fences or penned in yards. But as the week goes on there are more and more. By Thursday the place is over run by bleating goats. You go to bed to their harmonies and you are wakened by the goat alarm clock.

Then Friday we awake to sound of chomping axes, and machetes. The side street where we live is running blood. The chopping goes on and on. We round a corner and five goat carcass are hung in a protesting lemon tree. The two males are hacking away, and dropping pieces of skinned goat on the pile at their feet. Goat lungs are a separate pile. When we rush to Dr. Sakir’s office he smile and tells us that this is Byram and the custom is to slaughter a goat and give the meat to the poor. We take that in stride. Sure we do. Later Mustafa asks if we can use our truck to take some meat up to the villages in the mountains and we agree. It’s wrapped in plastic and off we go. I promise to do a Turkish village view another time.

We come home after hours tracking small dirt roads and what do we find? The mayor has left a note. We head up to his office, a little afraid that maybe we’ve over stayed our visa. We haven’t. He just wanted to be sure that his gift, two bags of bloody goat meat has been delivered first hand. So it goes. So the question is, what the hell do we do with this meat, beside feed it to Miro? We can’t do that. It would be an insult. So again consulting Dr. Sakir, we head off to the mountains the next morning with him and make gifts which in his words, “ Will be remembered for ages.”

Down We Go In Ecuador

2009-05-08T10:53:00.002-04:00

Begin this in Otovalo
You can stay a week in this Indian enclave, but if you don’t have that kind of time, make it either a Tuesday or Saturday and do the sweater market. It’s about a mile long. Then stop in the pie shop on the corner of the main square for strawberry pie al la mode! YES! Then take the bus down into the jungle to Puno. It’s a start in a heavy sweater to just wearing sweat. But you go under three water falls! UNDER! Also you skirt drop offs to a rushing river sometimes 1000 feet below. The birds dive bomb you. Birds with so much color they look like carved pieces of wood you’ve seen in every market you’ve hit. Puno is no place you want to stay. It’s hot and humid and they don’t have much to eat but beans and rice. They tell you they have carne but it’s a lie. And the town is logs and grass roofs.But the tripis outstanding! Come back the same day.

Then next day take another bus to Ibarra and get a ticket on the autoferro going to Esmeraldas on the coast. You’re going to drop about 10,000 feet, travel from tropical highlands, to middle elevations and finally right to the steamy coast. But you have to get the seat on the train, not the truck that’s pulled behind it. Yes. A truck, but it’s South America and quaint.
It’s not a train, it’s a street car! And it does have a truck attached, and it is on tracks and I assure you that it is one of the most insanely wonderful trips you can do in this country. There’s only the front door. And the car is packed with people, goats, little pigs and kids, kids kids. If it’s not the rainy season, you might want to climb up on the roof. Still need a ticket. It stops at every little village and people climb through the windows to sell you fruit...GOOD! Fried Bananas . . . .BETTER and eggs anyway you want them. They walk across the tops of the seats to get to you, and never touch any part of you. No I don’t know how they can do this.

The car flattens out for a long run through jungle, lumber tracts, and weird wild animals sitting by hoping we run over something they can eat. Sometimes it’s an ambulance. (The day we rode, they carried on a woman suffering from what was probably malaria.) Always a school bus.

Esmeraldas is no gem. We took the hotel with the least number of holes in the mosquito netting. It was clean and the shower was out on the porch. The one dressed stands guard. Water was hot and shower great. And if you like sea food you’re going to die for the seafood chowder! If you don’t go for seafood, then try the chicken. Better still get both! A walk around the town is a fifteen minute thing. And then you hit the hay, for tomorrow you are taking la Launcha down the coast. It was the rainy season when we were there, so it was raining when we found la launcha. A long open dug out canoe, with two huge out board motors attached. And oh yes, a great big blue vinyl tarp to cover all of us from the rain. But that way you can’t see the coast, the jungle, the crocs swimming out to see what’s to eat and the herds of little deer like creatures roaming the banks. So I refused to use it and every one got soaked. So it goes!

Our stop at Limones, the rat capitol of South America was a gas! It’s a village on stilts sitting half a mile out in the Pacific Ocean. I know! Tidal waves and hurricanes! What the hell! You only live once. The boat did not stop long enough to go ashore. But we all had a great time watching the hordes of rats running up and down the pilings and leaping into the ocean whenever someone tried to catch one for dinner.

Other villages were on the shore, they didn’t have to slide down poles,so we pulled in and folks in their Sunday best hitched up their skirts or slacks and waded through the mud and climbed on. Once off, they dragged their feet in the wake, got the mud off and put on the high heels or boots. They all had an interest in The Gringos. Where we were from. What were we doing in this hell hole etc. But it wasn’t a hell hole at all. We did miss out on the boat which went up each and every river to pick up passages. I wish we had taken that one. Go! It’s blast! All of the country is.

A Most Dangerous Road in South America

2009-04-01T10:16:00.004-04:00

Marilyn and I have just come back from three years bumming Europe. After a couple months it’s off to South America, starting in Quito so she doesn’t have to duck bullets the first day. About a month later we cross into Columbia to see San Augustine, a very mysterious ruin in the Southern Columbia. To get there we go first to Popayán, and do the area. In the process, the Dwarf hears about the road to where I want to take her. Bus drivers race each other going down the mountain. “Señora, just a week ago a bus went off the side of the road, fell 300 meters in to the Magdalena River, killing forty two. Four were gringos,” the lady in the tourist office says.

Well first off, Marilyn doesn’t like mountain driving unless she’s at the wheel. And second she’s really skittish about sitting on the window side of busses going that way. So, we argue until we are having one of the best coffees in the world and she gets this from the owner. ‘There’s another road, but it’s very bad.’

“Bad,” the Dwarf asks. “How bad?”

“ The road is very bad. Lots of holes. The bus cannot go very fast. It takes twice as long. You go around the mountain that kills.’

Guess what? Guess which bus we took?

So the bus holds twenty people, all tourists, and the road is so bad the driver has to go very slowly! She’s in heaven. . .well until the back tires, both, blow out and guess what again? We sit under a banana tree while the driver hops a bus back to town with one tire. The other is in shreds. Oh, I forgot . . . There’s a fire fight going on between the police and drug dealers. Two helicopters hover overhead. Machine guns go rat-ta tat over an over. I don’t say a word.. I better not!

The driver comes back and we wind around the mountain, still climbing but the road is so bad, it’s like a turtle, and we only get up to nine hundred feet. Oh, the fight went on all around us until he reached the pass, and started down. I do admit, it was less steep then “The Road,” and unlike my other ventures to this area, we weren’t racing other buses to the next clients.

Let’s just say that San Augustine was all it was supposed to be, because this is not about a ruin. Maybe we can post a photo and give you reasons to go. It’s worth it. Unless you . . .well.
While there we meet an Israeli who will become part of our extended family in the Middle east. See? There are wonderful reason to travel and Tomer Zipori is one!

Different size bus, same route, different driver. We’re loaded. The little critters run up and down the aisles. Four legged ones and also two. Everyone passes food around. Smoking is allowed. The sun is out and the world is . . . All of a sudden we come to a halt which goes on and on. Oh, it’s getting warmer. Tomer asks what’s up and tells us,’ There’s a huge mud slide around the bend. He’s waiting for another bus. I envision one with huge tank tracks plowing through. Ha! Tomer finds out, the driver means there will be a bus coming the other way, and we can climb over the slide and take it back to Popayán!

I get out and walk around the bend. The slide is about fifty feet high. A lovely mountain of deep red mud. There’s no way to walk around. Off to the left you need a parachute and the right has a marsh that looks like the birth place for every nasty snake on earth.

So the diver calls out that the other bus is waiting. We all grab our bags, packs, satchels, native bolsas and start up. Easier said than done. My feet slide and sink. Two steps forward and slip back one and a half! Then I got a fifty pound pack on and if I’m not really careful, I’m going down backwards, with no steering allowed! I got Marilyn’s hand, more for me than to provide her any stability! Once we’re up, the real fun is sliding down on your butt in the nice red, slippery mud until you hit bottom. So it goes. And so it went. We all had a great laugh when it was over, and of course a memory that’s here for the rest of our lives.

Mobile Shopping on Three Continents

2009-03-27T19:53:00.001-04:00

Since we’ve been in Turkey, let’s begin there. Asian Turkey. The main thing the kids are selling along very narrow winding mountainous roads is fruit. FRUIT! It’s amazing the first time you bite into a peach, an apple, tangerine, orange, the nine types of melons, and they all taste exactly like you can remember them when you were a kid. Oh. Sorry. It was the 1930's when I was a kid. Anyway, the fruits are insanely addictive!

One fine day when as we topped a long climb and got this wonderful view of the Black Sea, a father and son stood under a tree, both waving branches at us. I was already to pass ‘em up when Marilyn screams, ‘ Those are branches filled with Black Heart Cherries, Bear!’ I slam the breaks and back. Sure enough . ..Cherries. Big, fat black as coal cherries! We buy baskets instead of branches. Marilyn doesn’t like cherry preserves, cherry pies, cherry cobblers of cherry upside down cake. But she’s a glutton for fresh ones. So I drive and she slides them in my mouth in small handfuls and after I suck and shew, I spit the seeds out the window like I’m a tail gunner again.

Oh, one last thing . . . Peaches! Be sure you got a hanky or a towel for the juice spurting out. And by the way, the roman Empire got their first cherry trees from Turkey.

‘Mexican roads are just as narrow, windy and mountainous, and there’s kids out on them. However, in most regions they’re selling ancient artifacts. Mayan deities, Aztec gods and goddesses, Olmec tiled inscriptions. It’s according to what part of the country you’re in. Now here’s the jolt. There’s no way you can date a clay artifact! If the kids find a mold, they fire up the clay, bury the statue for a couple of weeks and hawk it on the road. But also, if you take the time and walk the edges of the corn fields, you find real artifacts by the handfuls. The farmers say they’re good luck for the crops. So why can’t the kids do the same thing? They do. One of my friend’s sons found a unbroken statue about 18 inches high. It was real. The Aztec period. Worth about $20,000 in 1970! Appraised by the Mexican Govt.. Oh yeah, they said he couldn’t leave Mexico with it! Sure. Oh. In Mexico, the kids like to throw rocks at you if you don’t stop. And up in the Sonora Desert they sell caged birds. I got a short story coming on line about that.

Morocco’s kids are selling asparagus! Fresh and green! Long and thick and as tender as a ripe plum oh I forgot! Plums in Turkey will tear your heart out! The Moroccan kids also hawk flowers, potatoes, and oranges in season. Their roads are slightly better because their former colonial masters, the French, like to speed. So you’re going a little faster, and not so good a target as in Mexico. And there’s one really bad thing about almost any African country. German tourists like to throw candy out the windows and see if they can hit the kids. So there’s this
pathetic scene with five or so kids in rags, begging you to throw candy at them. So it goes.

In South African nations, there’s loads of roadside markets. Some have a mile of stalls and they’re selling wood carvings, ethnic clothing, and cooked food. Stay clear of the last, even though it has this addictive aroma seeping into your noses.

South America’s roads are really in good shape, so you don’t see kids on the roads. But in the city you have to slow down. They run out at every red light and test your luggage racks and if they’re really locked. And if not, out comes a suitcase or two as you wait at a light or crawl along with the traffic. Keep your important stuff on you at all times in Peru. Kids along the roads in the Andean parts of S.A. are just waking, toting heavy bags or bundles. Barefoot, wrapped in old worn out blankets and chewing coca leaves which numb them and ward off the cold and pain. It ain’t nice, but as the CIA use to say back in the 60's and 70's, ‘ We have to be careful not to disrupt the national economies.’ Try the Indian markets. Once you get into Chile and Argentina, ‘ We do not have indigenous cultures any longer.

It is not blessed to give too much!

2009-03-22T21:12:00.003-04:00

Marilyn and I have been in Turkey for three or four months. Mostly in a village named Kas ( Kosh) on the south coast. We make a life time friends here, but this is not about Tessie. It’s about how different customs are from here into central and eastern Turkey.

When it gets warm we start out on a two month swing that take us right up to the Russian border with it’s deadly looking watch towers eerie two hundred yards. This is where Marco Polo took off for China; at least that’s the myth. On the way we stop in villages, towns and a couple major cites. We ride around 1000 year old walls in donkey carts and stay in inns until we get to l Konya, the most conservative city in Turkey, in 1987. From here we across mountain ranges and stop to see underground cities, and visit mountain top tombs until we get to the furthest eastern city.

We’re really deep into the east and a different country. Two hours off the southern coast and you’re back in the 15th century. We had five scythe wielders, all pause as they cut an area slightly smaller than Maryland to doff their caps and bow as we drove slowly by. Or being told it was not safe to climb Mt Arart, so-called- sight of the Ark’s landing, because we could be attacked by wild dogs. And having people return objects we left on top of our van, and refusing a reward, even for a camera!

So we are walking around inn Van and a 12 or 13 year old comes and asks Marilyn if he can practice his English. He will show us around and there is no charge. Well, I tell her in the end we’re going to a carpet shop, and that’s correct. But he’s really nice and while we’re in the shop I mention that today in her birthday. MARILYN ALSO INSISTS THAT I TIP THE KID, WHICH I DO. Big mistake! He didn’t ask for one, but so it goes when you’re with my Dwarf.

Back in our hotel there’s a knock. The kid and his uncle are there holding a birthday cake with some unlit candles. She’s flabbergasted, accepts and thanks them. When they go she tells me she’s got to show how much she appreciated this I decide I m not going to warn her about Turkish customs. Marilyn doesn’t find out till later that her tip was used to buy the present.

So next day we show up at the shop with the cake, ice cream and cokes. We all have a slice and a drink. The uncle then runs out and buys some sweets and Marilyn . . .oh well. By and by we’re invited to dinner. I want to refuse, but . . . you got it. But I do tell her not to take anything except flowers, but she buys wine anyway. She’s far from being stupid. Just stubborn. When we arrive, we pull off our shoes and go in. There’s maybe ten people there. Four males and any number of female faces peering out of the kitchen. And the meal is four or five courses. I caution her to eat lightly and she does. But the six ladies who come out and stand with great respect watching us , helps me make my point. When we have finished our meal, I nod to the kitchen where the dishes have been carried. The ladies are now allotting the reminder of the food. Oldest the most and so forth.

So here’s the rule for Turkey, gang. You cannot give a Turk something and not expect something in return. Okay. But the Turk has to go last! Oh, and as a passing thought, these folks are really friendly. I mean honestly wanting to share their life styles and ideas. So if they invite you to share a meal with them, they pay. Be nice and pick as inexpensive a restaurant as they will allow. And another thing. If you’re a single traveling alone woman, Turkish males cannot take a seat on a bus or train beside you unless there are no other seats. Even then, they are not allowed to let any part of their bodies touch you. How’s that!

How I Became an Emir

2009-03-21T20:32:00.001-04:00

Isla Mujeres is an island about fifteen clicks from Cancun. At this time it was a hundred years from CC. A nice place with two story Mexican style hotels and curb side restaurants and as long as you didn’t long for beef, pork of veal, a fine place to enjoy the sea food and chicken. But the real lure for the island was SCUBA diving and snorkeling. This is about the second and Garafon, a beach area at the northern end of the second longest reef in the world. But first the circumstances. We, Marilyn and I are having dinner and there’s two young ladies sitting next to us. So close we hear that they’re disgusted by Mexican men trying to break into their room every night. We interfere and tell them to change hotels. To get out of the only multi-tired hotel and move into a tourist compound that is walled and has armed guards as well. So they do this and the next day we meet them out at Garafon, and now the tale gets going.

I rent a space, fifty cents per person per day. It keeps the riff-raff out, and the four of us take a dip. Their names are long forgotten so let’s call the Scottish lass, Helen, the Belgium babe Louise and add that the first had lovely red hair and the second was a typical blonde. We all get back from the swim about the same time and a waiter comes and takes our order. Then the girls spread out on mats and I flop under the umbrella. Drinks come, I pay and after they are drained, we have another, one of them pays. So goes the afternoon between more snorkeling.

The next day, more of the same. Except that for a brief time I am alone and decide I’m going to go to the bar. Our regular waiter comes over as I get a beer and asks if he can ask me a question. He’s not going to do that. Instead he claims the staff has figured out who or what I am. So having already been mistaken for Both Kenny Rogers, and Garcia of the guitar, I am amused enough to bite.

‘Sir, we know you are an Emir.’ That’s a guy in charge of a little plot of land in the Middle east that’s loaded with oil, and who is usually richer than sin! ‘ They are your wives, yes?’ Oh my! This is just too good to resist. I lean forward, speak almost in a whisper and ask him to not tell anyone, and I will see he is rewarded when I leave. He winks and nods, with visions of hundred dollar bills floating by his shaggy eyebrows.

So I go back and when the ladies come out of the water and are stretched out at my feet, I let them in. For a second, Marilyn thinks I’m telling another wild tale, but then the waiter comes and addresses me as Your Eminence, and she almost chokes. The other two are too stunned to do anything but gasps. Once the guy is out of ear shot they have a hissy-fit as they decide this could be the funniest gag they’ve ever been linked with.

So for the next three days, I am pampered! I can’t even pick up my towel! They spread out like a three course meal at my feet. I’m in some kind of Riefner heaven! Different waiters drop by. I should have charged admission! But I do have some fun informing our main guy that they are not my wives. Just a few of the concubines I take when I need a rest from "husbandly" obligations back at the palace. He winks and whispers that I must be the luckiest man on earth and I assure him, I am one of them. And so it goes until we’re cutting out.

The last day We gave him a forty dollar tip. At 8,000 Pesos, he was too happy for words. Being The Bear, I dropped my bomb. I told him I was just a teacher, Marilyn was my true love and exactly who the other two were. Then he bombed me! ‘ Sir, maybe you are what you say. But here you will always be the Emir. And your ladies will always be the most beautiful women we have ever seen.

Cruising Down the Nile. . .I Guess

2009-03-10T20:57:00.002-04:00

We rented horses and rode around the pyramids, chased by local cops because we hadn’t paid the entrance fees. We were assured that had been taken care of. And we also saw Saqqara, at least a thousand years older than the famous ones. Then we blew out. We’re on the over night luxury train from Cairo to Luxor. A private compartment, with wonderfully soft beds and dinner brought to us. How that happened is a tale in it self. I’ll do it later. Anyway we decided to go south on this wondrous train and then take a taxi down to Aswan, see the Nile dam, get a good look at Abu Simbel in Nubia and come back on a river cruise.

Luxor was great. We hired a guide, did the Valley of the Kings, the huge ruins of the royal palace at Karnak with three thousand year old lions glaring at us as we entered. This is where Ramses built his eternal city. It’s a blast! Then our driver took us down to Abu. Simbel. Wow! There’s a temple cut right out of the rock face with columns stretching up forty feet. All underground! The door is guarded by four sitting kings each about fifty feet tall. It’s awesome. The statues have since been moved to higher ground to save them from the flooding of a new artificial lake. So it goes.

We come back the 200 miles the next day and decided to look into the cruise. This is fun. There’s about twenty boats at the dock. Each one looking like a small time Cruise ship. You go from one to the other, bargaining! Marilyn loves to do this. I like to look around. Each boat is decked out with bars, slots and dance floor. But the main reason for the cruise is not stopping at all the wonderful ruins, it’s the food!!! Eat 24-7 if you want. We bargain five of them and are thinking about which one to take. We’re standing beside the richest looking boat when this guy rides up on a donkey, with two very large metal tubs straddling the beast. He climbs down and dumps two big clumps of raw bleeding meat on the dock. It’s about 95 degrees. The cement dock hasn’t been cleaned since Ramses IV, I guess. He rides off. We go to a café and sit. The meat’s there for at last two hours. He comes back twice more. Then two or three guys come down and cart it on board. We look at each other and decide we are not going to cruise the Nile.

But we did go out to the Hilton for dinner that night and Marilyn broke one of our rules for travel. Never drink anything that is not popped in front of you and does, fizzle. She had Sangria, made from Nile water and she really got sick. The "doctor" gave her medicine used to cure Typhoid fever and she sat under the shower trying to bring her fever down, until the hotel turned the water off. Another tale for later. I rented a Taxi to take us back to Cairo. It was air conditioned, and he drove very well. I told him if he scared us, no tip! On the way, I got to get out and see the various pornographic temples, but Marilyn was too sick, too weak to do anything but sleep. It took three days to get back to our hotel. By that time she was feeling okay again.

Looking back. Places to go if you make this journey. Philae Island, unreal. Everything in Luxor. Deir-el-Bahri, a huge palace carved out of a rock face. Plus all of the above. I wish I could put photos up, but go look for yourselves and plan to take in Egypt. February is good, avoid it in summer. And oh yeah, go to Alexandria. It’s a gas and a half. But be careful what and where you eat, and what you drink.

Golfing in the Holy Land and Turkey

2009-03-09T23:33:00.002-04:00

We have a dear friend living n Kas, ( Cosh) Turkey. She’s wonderful even if she is from California. Sorry Tessie! Kas was once a small fishing village. Now it’s a string of bars and tee shirt shops. So it goes.

On one of many tips, Tess suggested we get in some golf. I was amazed there was a course. Seems the Germans had one about fifty miles up over the mountains. So, off we went. Oh yes. Tess is one hell of a good golfer.

The fees were fifty bucks each, but because we were Americans, it was assumed we were staying at the hotel, so that was halved. The fairways were dry as asphalt. You got a hundred yards on just roll. The greens were also asphalt. Touch the ball and watch it scoot across the surface and fall in a sand trap. An un-raked, reddish brown dirt called sand. And oh yes, there was the ground’s crew. Fifty or so women and a couple of guys who stood around and smoked. Typical for Turkey. The ladies work, then men drink tea. They were cutting the grass with antiquated hand shears! I do not lie! Clip, put the clump in a cloth bag. Clip etc! Another feature were the rats running across the fairways. At first it thought they were cats. Tess pointed to the nude tails and raised an eyebrow. So it goes.

Now Israel. There was only one course then, in Caesarea, a very old beautiful ruin on the coast. It’s also a New Yorker’s sub division. When I got there, the parking lot was packed with Caddies and Lincolns. Most were convertibles. I met my transplanted New York lawyer , picked up my rental clubs, got in the cart and off we went.

This is a desert. Some rain once a year. The fairways were a faded green. Faded because they were astro-turf! Yeah! I teed the ball high and hit a low screamer. It must have gone 350 yards! I can’t hit a ball over 200 if my life. . .well. My partner drove our gas engine cart like the typical Israeli. Like an insane NASCAR retread! But the distance I got almost drove the panic away. Ever hit an iron on astro-turf? Well, neither did the fellow I was with. He stuck a rubber tee down, lined up his shot and hit away. Then he wouldn’t share the tee. Claimed I should have bought some when we got the clubs! I hit down and through and both my wrists screamed, OUCH! But the pain was bearable as I watched my shot rise much higher than I could usually hit it. What the hell! So it goes!

The greens were real grass. Well, some sort of something. Really stiff, tightly woven, but when I pulled at the edges, it came free with a bit of black earth. They weren’t as fast as Turkey. Actually they were slower than sand! I was only twenty feet away, but it took three puts for me to get close enough to make the fourth! My partner hit his ten footer with a slight pivot and was still a foot short.

I played pretty well. About the high eighties or low nineties. Can’t pin point that. But I can remember what it cost to play that nightmare or heaven, according to how you felt about artificial fairways and green sand like greens and a guy who was a threat to my life every time he managed to get the steering wheel away from me, after the second hole. $250.00!! That was his cost. The guest fee is $325.00. I guess he made a bundle back in good old New York.

I did want to play in Indonesia, but after they introduced me to my caddy, two fore caddies, they waved at a guy holding a twenty foot or so bamboo pole. When I asked who he was, I was told he was the SWEEPER. That’s the guy who goes ahead and sweeps the fairways for cobras and other nasty snakes. I got a refund, but I had to keep the glove. I had it on.

There Are No Songbirds Left in Italy Part II

2009-03-08T20:27:00.002-04:00

It’s still 1969 and my family’s in the Pension Balducci, right across from Hadrian’s Tomb. We have to climb a small ladder to get in the antique beds. Breakfast is more than coffee and rolls. Italian rolls are cute little round bricks you push the food around, not eat. I’m writing something when my daughter invades the room with, ‘ Boom Pa! You gotta come out here and meet this lady. Now!’

The lady is a very tall, rather stout all over, with a very aristocratic nose. She is in her fifties, maybe. She smiles, holds out her hand and introduces herself. She doesn’t tell me she’s an ex- baroness, that she holds a double Ph D in Physics and Biology, is a survivor of three Nazi murder camps, acquainted with three Popes, and the wife of the Polish commander who took Monte Casino, one of the toughest assignments in World War II until two days, and six shared meals later. She orders coffee for my wife and I; cocoa for our kids, whom she always describes as American Writer’s Children. When Wanda discovers we have a car, she volunteers to show us Rome after asking if we have good guide books. She laughs at the one we’re carrying. ‘ You cannot come to Europe without Books,’ is how our relationship begins. I have obeyed since.

Next day we visit Hadrian’s Villa and she takes us to a wonderful Trattoria for lunch. Four different cheeses and bread that melted in the mouth! So did her claim that she knew the Popes. I must have made a face. When we got back, she brought out the photographs with she and her husband appearing with each! ‘ My Peter grew up with this one. He is good one.’ she adds.

The next day it’s the Castle Gondolfo, the Pope’s summer home. I am learning. We’re visiting all the places from her honeymoon here, back before World War II. Peter and she stayed at the castle. They also had a couple of weeks with King Zog in Albania. ‘ He is bandit who called self king,’ was how she explained his status.

Then came the bomb. I’ve asked why she is living in a pension, and she says, ‘ Look into my eyes American Writer Father. What do you see.” I tried to punt. ‘ These are eyes of mad person.' she says. 'All people who survived Nazi camps are mad. Not crazy. . But it is furious mad. And a mournful mad. And a guilty mad. ..that we are here and so many others went to the gas or the firing squads or just starved to death before our very eyes. I’ve survived three murder camps because one, I was very attractive, and once very lucky.’ Stand for hours with Nazi Commander while fifteen people are machine gunned every five minutes. Machine gun is like clock. Only louder ticks.

After he is finished with me, I am put on train going to Auschwitz. Everyone knows this is end. ‘There is tiny window. The bars pulled out. If thin enough, who wants has choice of going feet first, head first, head up or head down. I say feet and head up. I land on body of dead man who has jumped from a train some days before. He is terrible stink. I roll over, to stand and run. I am hit in stomach and pass out. I come to. There is male naked baby crying beside me. Someone threw it out. It is unhurt. I left it by side of road. Woman with baby in prisoner dress is doomed and so child too. I have never forgiven myself for doing this. I move only at night until I am very sick. I hide in barn. Polish woman find me, with fever. She uses old cure. Buries me up to neck in hot cow dung. Fever break. Family hides me. I am human horse. Pull plow. When Russians come I think I am now free. Is joke. Russians worse in ways than Nazis. Nazi takes down whole family history before he shoots you. Russian looks at your furs and jewels and points to ditch. No records. My PhD in physics sends me to Russian A Bomb. Now am prisoner in white lab coat.
I escape. But will tell that some other time.’

Wanda brought me back to Italy three more times. Curing each time she revealed more of her history to me. My wife wrote a play about Wanda without ever meeting her. In 1986 a letter I had written her was returned. By then she was back in Warsaw. I could not read Polish but a former student could. It said, "addressee deceased." I shall miss her forever, but I will tell you more about her later.

There Are No Songbirds Left in Italy, but the Sistine Chapel Is

2009-03-05T18:43:00.003-05:00

This starts with my family having the Sistine Chapel to our selves for almost half an hour, then meeting a former Polish Baroness, who has left an indelible imprint in my memory banks. So this is going to be another continuation.. Sorry!

First off, this is 1969, about three worlds ago. This world is driven by kids who really believe they can change the world by singing, and traveling. Europe is full of them, even though it’s winter and they should be in school. Actually they more than likely were.

Vatican City is about a 100 acres; half taken up with its museum. People on tours often miss this, because you go in from the back, not a door beside The Pieta. I think it was free back then. There was a huge sausage market at the foot of the entrance. The aromas were undeniable! At the time I thought, ‘ What a great disguise for the Devil! We waited until we came out to buy. Yummy! But the inside was a bigger and longer lasting YUMMY!!

How did we get one of the most hollowed spots on earth to ourselves for so long? Thank Foder’s Europe On Five Dollars A Day. FIVE DOLLARS! See? It is three worlds ago! It said, When you get to the top of the first flight, step over the velvet rope on your left, and go down a corridor until you reach a small door on your right. Open it and walk in. We did, and there we were, almost thirty minutes before the official opening time! The guard looked up, from his newspaper undismayed by our entrance. I motioned to him like we were lost and he smirked. Then pronounced in perfect English, ‘ You may stay. But no pictures. Understand! No pictures of any kind.’ We all nodded. I offered our camera. He sneered at its cheapness and went back to reading. We instantly decided the way to see the ceiling was sitting on the floor or better still, on a little platform off to one side. Sitting saved creeks in our necks. My two kids were 16 and 13. It’s February and I’ve been dragging them across two continents for nine months and we still have six months to go! As my daughter often proclaimed, ‘ There we were in wonderful Acapulco and Daddy had to drag us off to dirty old Paris!’

Well, they both sat, and stared. I could hear the tiny gasps as they absorbed the wonders old Mickey Di-Angelo had put up there. Later my son asked. ‘ Is this was the reason we picture God as an old white bearded guy?’ I refused to answer. I let them drink it, then pointed out the wall and Mickey’s concept of how our world was going to end. Actually this is more powerful than the ceiling, but , well, so it goes.

The kids and my wife simply gawked, growled, muttered praises and didn’t want to let go.
My daughter knew that the skinned fellow in the middle was Mickey. Knew that he painted himself in there as a skinned dude because the Pope hadn’t paid him. They didn’t notice the morels along one side of the room until the first group of tourists entered. They all took f lash pictures, and apologized when the guard shouted, ‘ NO PICTURES!’ and went back to his paper. The first group stayed about ten minutes. Three others came and snapped while the first guide was describing the ceiling. He never got around to the wall. There are so many wonderful things to see here! We must almost run!’ He sighed with Italian pride.

Both kids wanted to came back the next day if we could sneak in, but the next time we tried, there was a guard with a long pike on duty. But no matter. All I have to do is close my eyes. No! Just look off and Mickey’s miracles flood my vision. The old smoked, varnished over and over ones. Fifteen years later Marilyn and I got to see it when it was half restored. That was amazing too. But we weren’t alone, and not sure which is what you should see. Maybe they should have left half of it alone. Oh, the little door was locked. Next. Golfing, goofing in Israel!

Adopting the "Dirty Dutch"

2009-03-03T14:59:00.002-05:00

Marilyn and I are exploring Mayan and Aztec ruins on the Yucatan in Mexico. We’re in the courtyard at Coba, one of the best preserved. We encounter two Dutch Hippies. Jan and Greta. He’s tall, thin and handsome. She’s tall, stacked and beautiful. Both are very bright. They also need a shower. Two weeks later we’re having dinner on Isa Mujeres, Island of The Women. Believe me, it is! Jan’s trudging down the sandy avenue. We hail and he tells us ‘ Greta fell from a step at Coba. She has a bad infection. We’re in the Youth Hostel.’ he says. I go over. The wound is on the top of her foot is badly infected. I dig out bits of sand, gravel even bits of glass with a tweezers. She never flinches. When we leave, Marilyn insists we pile them in the back of our truck, and care for her until the infection is gone.

We stop in Tulum where she strips down to bikini shorts and dives into the surf. Mexican men stare. So do I. Then to Kohunlich and huge Mayan masks on a long stairway. She has to sit in the truck. At Palenque we all dive into the crystal clear pool at the foot of a sixty foot waterfall. The ladies sit to dry. The guards ogle. The sixty mile gravel road to Agua Azul, (Blue Water) is dotted with signs proclaiming, ‘ Natural Park, Restaurant, Hotel, Camping.

It’s the rainy season so there’s no hongos to pick. The falls are muddy browns and the river is raging yellows.. An upturned V.W. Van rests on its banks. It’s pouring when we arrive. The restaurant is a cement slab with a leaky thatched roof. An old man sweeps the gathering puddles out with a worn broom. There’s one unshaded flickering electric light bulb. The hotel has six inches of water on the floor, six foot high walls between rooms. You can stand on the rumpled cots and look into the rooms on either side. There is one unisex toilet, sans roof. I sit holding an umbrella over me. It’s 1983 Mexico Amigo! The thunder rolls and the lighting flares behind the black low hung clouds. The Dutch swing their hammocks in the Restaurant with seven other nationalities. We are determined to drink the bar bone dry that night.

Before we start drinking Jan, Greta and I try to push our truck to higher ground. We’re up to our knees in rushing water. Suddenly I feel a slight shock, Jan jolts back and falls flat on his face. “I’M NUMB!” but not for long! The fire ants attack and he’s up, screaming and swatting. I run over and start blotting them off his barer legs. It’s difficult to stand on one foot in this current, but we manage.

There are seven languages around the table, yet it’s more effective in solving problems than the UN. The old man keeps sweeping. The German couple break out something to smoke. Marilyn and I take a pass. The conversation gets warmer almost instantly. Why can we elect someone as ignorant as Ronald RAY GUN!!!The old man keeps sweeping.

In the morning, the sun is out. But the mud is still ankle deep. However, everyone joins to push us out. Hooray! We shove them in the truck and head back of the Yucatan. Each night they sleep in our truck and we get a hotel. They use our showers. Her foot looks better after ten or twelve days, so we release them in Merida, and head north. But that’s hardly the end. As Marilyn says, ‘ Family are not only by blood or birth. They are also those who choose you or you choose them to become your family. These bonds can be very strong. The chosen family often become the closest family you have. In Amsterdam there are now seven Dirty Dutch in our family. We love them all and often visit to laugh walk the streets, have a coffee and remember. Much later Jan told us he and Greta thought we were a lovely couple, that it was too bad we wouldn’t last, that we argued too much. This coming Good Friday my Dwarf and her Bear will have been arguing for 32 years. So it goes. Next time Italy and the Sistine Chapel.

Observations On My Original Nationality

2009-02-09T12:30:00.003-05:00

Marilyn gave me a button which says, YOU CAN ALWAYS TELL A GERMAN, BUT YOU CANNOT TELL HIM MUCH. So it goes. This starts in Israel of all places. We’re in a camp ground and it’s Yom Kippur, so the place is mobbed. In pulls a German tourist- camper bus filled with the elderly. Marilyn calls them Traveling Coffins because the sleeping compartments are about seven feet deep, two feet wide and two feet high. You slide in. They reminded us of some ovens we’d seen a few years before. Anyway, the driver, in polished knee boots, black uniform and military styled cap gets out and walks over to a rather complex camp, housing an entire family. He doffs his hat, bows and asks the young men if they would move their sight so he could hook up to the power and water outlets. The two guys peer at each other , then the oldest one pointed to a camp dog sitting at attention about ten feet away. ‘ See that dog?’ he asks in English. The chauffeur nods. ‘ well if you go over there and ask that dog if you can.. . .(use your imagination), we’ll let you run a cord though our sight.’ The German did a slight bow, replaced his cap, muttered a thank you and the bus pulled off. The dog did not follow.

Now, we’re in a campground outside of Munich. I want to take a shower. It’s 7:22 AM by my watch, so I head off to the shower block. It’s locked, but the attendant is coming up the slight slope. He gets to the door, pauses, raises his arm and looks at his watch. I bend over and look too. His watch is about ten minutes slow. I show him mine. He grunts and continues staring at his. When it reaches exactly 7:30 it’s like a World War I movie and we’re going Over The Top to in a precisely timed attack. I look at him, and scowl as he looks at me and runts out in English, ‘ De rhules are de rhules!’before he unlocks the door and marches off. So it goes.

Then there’s the day I go to the shower and find a minute for hot water is one mark. I’ve got exactly one, DM that is. Plenty of paper money but eine Mark! I manage to soap up and rinse in one minute. And I’m so proud that I step out to towel off with my essentials in hand. ‘ How did you like that! We did it!” I proclaim to it. At moment I realize I’m being watched by two ladies and I’m in the women’s section. The one looks at the other and says,’ It’s pretty, but it’s not pretty enough to have a talk to. Right?’ They showed not the least embarrassment.

I’m having lunch at a picnic table at a cross road in Southern Germany. The north-south road has a stop sign. The other has the right of way. A car pulls coming south, slows, sees another car on the other road about fifty yards away and starts through. The other car speeds up and hits the rear of the other one, causing a lot of physical damage but no one is hurt. The driver of one car leaps out, climbs on his ruptured hood, crosses his arms and proclaims, ‘ Ich bin im richtig!!! Which means, “I am in the right.” The other driver nods his head and gets out his insurance papers. So it goes.

Lastly, we are in Trier. It’s Sunday and I’m wearing woolen lederhosen (Knickers, or Plus Fours) Every where we walk people stare at us and make nasty grunts. Or, they take their children’s hands and make a proclamation. It goes on even when we are in the art gallery, and the old Roman Gate. Finally I decide to ask one couple what the hell is going on, and the lady smiles politely and tells me, ‘ You are improperly dressed, sir. Your pants are meant for hiking in the mountains. When we reflect, we realize the Germans have a uniform for every occasion. And if you’re out of it, well, so it goes.

When Hitler proclaimed he was going to reunite Germany, he was asked how he would accomplish such a complicated task. His reply was: ‘ It is not complicated. To reunite Germany I need only three men. One to carry the flag, one to beat the drum, and one to count, one! two! three! four!' So it went.

Art played like a small town cat, but now he's right in there!

2009-02-01T21:41:00.002-05:00

SID CAESAR, AN ARTIST SITTING IN MY LIVING ROOM, ASKS THIS QUESTION, "DO YOU HAVE TO BE EDUCATED TO ENJOY ART?"

Marilyn says of course not. I nod my head to that. Hell, I used art to pick up beautiful women. Just stood behind them in galleries while they were gazing and muttered, ‘ It’s amazing how much his concepts of color and composition have changed, isn’t it?’ I didn’t have a clue what the hell is was talking about! Didn’t need t. It didn’t matter. Here was a bear of a man both sensitive and literate! Hoary. So it goes.

On a more serious agreement, an event in a little church in Creglingen, Germany with a altarpiece by Tilman Riemenschneider, the master wood carver, proves Marilyn’s point. We’re overcome by the 18 feet high carving in Linden wood. We stare. We gawk. We cry. The doors open and in come about forty 14 year old German boys, yakking, chewing, pushing. Then the first wave looks up and salience! It sweeps back through the line of pairs like a serpent’s tongue. Amazed, no dumbfounded, I watch them fall into the pews, apples neglected, mouths open but no sounds, and I know, really know for the first time, magic makes the world go forward!

We became addicts, and traced Riemenschneider across Europe for weeks on end, checked off each and every one of his works. Our tears flowed. Truly magical healing took place. So it goes..

Then David, that carving by Mickey de Angelo. The de Angeles lived next door to me in Baltimore. Fredrico was the shining star, no one figured on Mickey. So it goes. You enter the university’s hall, in Florance, turn to your right and fifty, seventy feet away, David leaps off his perch right into your bloody soul! Every thing else blurs. You lurch forward, stop below his feet. and how long you stare depends on how great the magic spell it casts on you . For most it’s much longer than they later like to admit. Hardly anyone, from casual tourist, to devoted art lover realizes that on either side of that hall are five or six more Micky's! Some of the best things he has ever done. And it’s the same in the Sistine Chapel. His final judgment rips all the Raphaels and Botticellis on the other walls right out of your vision. So it goes. The magic of those works just overpower everything in your path. You catch the other stuff on the way out. And if you’re really cool, you laugh, to yourself, of course, and shake your head. So it goes.

But since the world is my circus, my favorite is a Texas dude in the Picasso musso in Paris, a five or six story mansion. You start at the top, with his collection of other artists. The next floor down is his very early periods, then you drop a floor to the Blue, and Rose periods. From here the other floors become more and more Picasso; really abstractions, the familiar wonders of a guy who really revolted. I was at the bottom, staring at the statues, especially the bronze goat, when a female voice asked, ‘ So this wasn’t so bad was it, honey?” I turned and there is Tex, boots and ten gallon hat. He shakes his very handsome middle aged face and declares, ‘ Babe, the guys on the top three floors were good. Really good. But the ones down here, especially this one can’t draw a straight line or keep colors from over lapping. Let’s get something to eat.’ I smiled. It wasn’t a snide one. Actually that’s exactly how you should look at the growth of an artist. Once they prove they’re skilled craftsmen, then if they feel like it they can tell the world to go to where ever and do anything they damn well please. And when someone says, ‘ Hey, even I can do that,’ I reply, ‘ Well fine. So why haven’t you thought of doing it?’ That usually saves the day for the abstractionists. So it goes.

Into the Wild Blue Below

2009-01-28T21:08:00.002-05:00

This is the sixties, there is no bridge to Asia. Trucks wait days to cross on ferries from mid-night to five a. m. I am at The American School For Girls in Ushkadar. This is the oldest part of Istanbul, on the Asian side. In case you are geographically challenged, this is the border between Europe and Asia. So every day I get on a ferry and cross from Asia to Europe in twenty-five minutes and three cups of Chi (tea) to wonder and roam the Bazaar in the center of the old city established in about 330AD by Constantine the Great.

But this is about the school. It’s the elite school for young ladies from seventh grade through high school. They can board or day trip. The boarders are usually very bright but poor girls from the villages. The day trippers are the kids of parents who give great sums of money. So, of course some of them are not really bright, but they are powerful. Most arrive in limos with armed guards. So it goes.

All subject matter is taught in English. If you want to be a doctor, lawyer, etc, you have to know English. At least at this time, because all the textbooks for those occupations were only available in English. The school is staffed by educated church members. I want to forgo mentioning their denomination. So it goes. They’ve been there over a century. Doing wonderful work, but when I showed up, the government was trying to do away with all foreign schools. But . . .ah yes, there were too many politicians daughters going here, so the school had a break. There could be no outside improvements, so in time the place would fall down, but not while their kids were there. Typical of that breed, no?

Now to the meat. There was a math teacher who had a four year old son. Obbie was fluent
in Turkish, English and German. So he was the designated translator when you really wanted to buy things at the Bazaar. He and his dad lived on the third floor of the dormitory. They had a balcony overlooking the mall. There was inside construction in progress so there were piles of sand and dirt all about.

One day I looked out my bathroom window while shaving and I saw Obbie leaning over the balcony rail, and then slowly, like in the movies, tumble over it and fall three stories. Lathered and stripped to the waist I rushed down three flights contemplating death or mutilation. So I was amazed and angry when I saw the gardener holding the kid in his arms! ‘You never touch someone who has fallen this distance! I scream as I dash over to the bench where the gardener sits holding the kid on his lap. Obbie looks fine except for all the black soil in his hair and jammed in his ears and nose.

The gardener is terrified. I’m an American professor! His eyes plead. I glare, start investigating Obbie’s injuries. There seem to be none! But he’s gazing at me with pleading eyes. So I bend over and ask if he’s okay and he says he’s good but is there something I can do for him? Besides the hospital exam ? I mutter to myself. Then the gardener speaks. ‘ Sir. When I came to Pasha Bey Obbie, I thought he was dead, but he looked at me and smiled. Then he got up and I carried him over here. While I was doing this, he asked me if I would do a favor.’ When I asked what Obbie took over. ‘ Please don’t tell Daddy.’ Of course I did. Obbie was rushed to the best hospital in Istanbul. The next day he came home. Nothing! Not even a bruise! Not a scratch! Just nice black dirt in his thick eyebrows and under his little finger nails. So it goes. I spent maybe ten minutes looking at that balcony, then I went up to their rooms, stepped out on it and looked down. There was no way anyone could fall that far and not end up at least crippled for life. His father came out, said it was the work of the Lord. I kept my mouth shut. No matter. It was weeks before I could shave without staring at that balcony. Next up . . .Amsterdam!

Sandra the Witch. . .Oh, My

2009-01-27T19:38:00.003-05:00

Sandra was actually straddling the San Andreas Fault Line the first time I laid eyes on her. This is geographically true since the Mexican village of the same name was split down its middle by the fault. She was sitting on a tall bar stool and her blondness almost matched the yellow stripe painted the length of the Saltillo Bar. She had a half empty beer bottle in her left hand and a huge yellow tabby cat sleeping on her lap. She had a pair of legs that would make Betty Grable jealous.
She opened the conversation by telling me her name and that she was a witch in her thirteenth reincarnation, and she liked men who seriously admired her legs. I told her I’d never met a witch, but I admitted that line stole the show.

She went on to tell me she was a good witch, could not cast spells, or curses because she was too young! But she added that she did have total control over all animals. Later she took me into a zoo in Pueblo and called a Jaguar over to the fence and scratched its ears, then gave it a series of commands which were obeyed instantly. What the hell. . . .so it goes.

Sandra took me in. I can’t go into details, that’s not part of this tale. However, when I asked her why there was an offering of freshly killed rabbits, ducks, flowers, fruits and veggies every morning at her door she told me they were from the village women who thought she had the power to make their baby son’s penises larger. So it goes.

One day she asked me what age I liked to be treated as. I shrugged, totally amazed and confused. So she explained like this:

"Everyone has the right to select the age they wished to be treated from the time they are born until they are twelve.’ I still gave a shrug and she laughed, pinched my arm and went on explaining. How many people have you met who always wanted to be treated as if they were one year-olds? I mean, how many have you met who just think all they have to do is yell, shout or cry and they get whatever they desire? Man! She had just described most of the teachers I worked with!

So you mortals go from year to year, trying to decide what age you like, and it’s perfectly okay until you get to twelve. Once you hit that age, it’s all over, and you are now in an inescapable Hell for the rest of your life. I demanded she explain that.

You’re twelve, and the elevator doesn’t go any higher my Bear. So from now on you will have all adult duties and obligations. You clean the dishes, wash the clothes, cut the grass, and so on! You also get to pay adult prices for all entertainment, but you never allow yourself to see R-rated movies or enjoy adult entertainment, because in your head, you just aren’t old enough, mature enough to enjoy. It just makes you very uncomfortable.

Now that blew me away. That also covered lots of my peers as well as a few very close friends. I had to know, how old she thought I liked to be treated. She gave me a sly smile an told me I really didn’t want her to do that. I told threatened that unless she did I wasn’t putting out any more. She almost choked laughing at me, we were in bed just then. ‘You’re the classic four year old.’ I demanded to know why that age, and she laughed again.‘ There are many characteristics, but there is really only one that made you select that age. All your life, Bear, you’ve known you can go out without any pants on. Even though you know it’s wrong, you also know there are two reasons you can do this. And don’t consider your pants literally. First you claim you’re too young to know any better. And second, you’re smart enough to know they’ll believe you. And if there’s a doubt, you act real cute and they forgive you. So most of your life you have known that you can get away with anything you want to do, right? You have never had any rules forced on you. She was right. More Sandra tales later.

The French Lady of Carroll Highlands

2009-01-16T12:15:00.000-05:00

All I could do the first time I laid eyes on Coco was freeze. After all I didn’t really want to interrupt a lady when she was washing herself! But the wonderful brown hair, those soulful eyes and perfectly shape torso left me no choice but to call out. ‘Here girl!’ She trotted over, head up, fluffy eyebrows concealing the color of her eyes. Her gait a soft hippy motion, one foot in front of the other, always three feet firmly on the ground. She stopped, sat, raised her paw and I was in love!

Yeah, she was a French Poodle. But did you know the French didn’t breed this dog and the last name was not poodle but puddle. Yep, they were sired in Germany. I guess they got to France as part of the WWI booty. Anyway, this is to explain why Coco was the smartest dog I’ve met in many a day. Right now I got a German Shepard who’s so smart we have to spell certain words if we want to keep control of situations. But Coco was something else.

She was owned by my oldest and perhaps closest friends. At the time their four children ranged from nine to three; three daughters and one son. The boy was between the first two girls and the caboose. Their mother believes kids should socialize, so their back yard became the playground for up to ten or so kids every afternoon and all day once summer arrived. It was a freeking mad house, but mother is a freeking genius anyway, so the kids just had a blast. And no one ever came out to check on them because Coco was there, and she was the greatest supervisor, Nanny, Protectress the world has ever seen. Kids were not allow to fight. She just came over, grabbed the most aggressive by the seat of the pants and dragged them back. There was no nonsense in the wading pool. Coco loved water and had her Water Safety Instructor’s badge. Kids did not dunk other kids, or she dragged them out and made them stay out until she stopped growling when they tried to go back in. And she also had no tolerance for the older ones bullying the little ones.

But best of all is this. Across the street was a young man who was mentally deranged. By the time he was fifteen he was incarcerated for violent felonies. But at the time he’s about eight. Even then he liked to torture animals, eat nasty tasting bugs and strike out in blind rages when he didn’t get his way. Of course he wanted to join the circus going on in the back yard across the street. One day I watched him try to butt in at least five times and each time he reached the boundaries, Coco came over, took him by his sleeve, he had a long sleeve shirt on, and gently but firmly pulled him back into his yard. No matter how hard the kid struggled, she just kept a steady pressure and didn’t let go until he was back in his own yard. Then she went to sit under the nice elm tree in her domain, and resume her vigil. With her head turned slightly toward the crazy kid.

Last but not least, I watched her clean the clocks of two Dobermans who tried invading her territory. There was light brown fur all over the yard, front, back, and both sides. It was all Coco’s. But when I gave her the once over, she didn’t have a single cut! Meanwhile both Dobermans had to go to the vets to get some stitches taken in their sides and rears. And the Dobermans were the only barkers, snarls and growls. Coco just went about her work as if she had a Sixth Degree Black Belt in dog fighting! So it goes.

She lived a long and happy life. Faithful to the end, smart as a tack and trustworthy to a fault. But she was loved. Oh God, was she loved! She’s buried in the back yard, under the elm, and for years, I’d give that spot a wave as I either walked, jogged, trotted, or drove past. All three of my children attended her funeral. Man’s best friend, protector and , SO IT GOES!

A Real Web-Crawler...My Cub

2009-01-07T20:46:00.002-05:00

Usually I hide names, but this time I will use a real one, because Alan is My Cub. Someone I love. Perhaps you can’t understand this, but every once in a while teachers give birth to a son or daughter; no pain, not even aware. You just turn around and they’re there for the rest of your life. It’s really a nice event. It’s happened lots of times to me, but he is a favorite.

So one day I walk into my classroom, about five minutes before the next pack of wild animals need to be calmed and trained. I go over to the desk as the cub’s voice says, ‘ Good afternoon Mr. Reefer Man. ‘ and I tell him to come out from under my desk. When I look he’s not there, but a cynical chuckle follows me around the room as I look under all the larger desks. Finally his voice says, ‘ Hey, Mr. R, I’m up here!’I look up, he’s crouched over my door frame; hands gripping the sill and feet braced so he’s forming a perfect vise that holds him. I refuse to encourage any student. I’m the boss. I don’t need a chair , a whip or a gun. ‘ Get the hell off of there before you hurt yourself,’ I growl, and he let’s go and drops noiselessly to the floor.

Next: Marilyn and I take ten of my senior girls camping and caving. We also take four sturdy lads as camp cooks and general slaves. The men must do all the chores, and must sleep in one tent with me. In fact Marilyn started things by only taking the girls in the cave in the morning. I took a nap while the slaves got lunch and set up camp. When I came out two of them were squinting up at a very long and high face which was about two hundred feet high. When I looked up, I damned near wet my pants!

Harry, the brightest kid in the school was half way across the traverse, pressed against the white wall, about a hundred feet in the air. Perched above him, just as if he were over my door, was Alan! My imagination saw both plunge to their deaths and me in jail!!! So it goes! However, Harry was inching along and Alan was squatting just over him. It seemed like an hour before Harry was safely on the far side and Alan was beside him. I cursed them both out for ten minutes and confined them to my tent.

But . . . . What the hell . . .I called Alan out and he confessed he started over that thing, but had told Harry to stay put. ‘ Mr. R., Harry thinks ‘cause he’s smart, brains let him do whatever he wants. He can’t concede talent is alien to intelligence. So I forgave Alan, but only for half the crime. Harry remained in the tent for the entire day.

Next day we all went spelunking into Sennet Cave. It’s dry and fairly safe. There’s also a Civil war Salt Peter mine where the Rebs got stuff for gun powder. It’s the size of a football field and you have to scale about thirty feet to get in into it. I didn’t go up, but when Marilyn repelled down, then talked each of her girls to safety I was proud as . . .So It Goes!!! When the belaying rope snaked down, she suddenly hurled a curse at Harry. ‘ Harry I told you to come down last but on the rope, dammit!’ Harry was starting down and got stuck before he covered five feet. Dean drifted past him, gave Marilyn a nasty head shake and then Alan dropped over the side and talked good old Harry down. Again. As they touched the ground I reached out pretending to help Harry and punched him in his kidney. He went down like a tray full of dirty dishes! My Dwarf never suspected a thing!

The rest of the trip went well. Harry had to sit in a car. We locked all the keys in the other car. Harry also took his meals confined. And I decided my Cub was a pretty cool guy. He still is and now he’s a father of two sons, and well into middle age. Oh yeah. He just won a climbing contest!!! Next is the smartest French lady I’ve ever met! You’ll be amazed!!!

Lions and Tigers...No...Bears. Oh my!

2009-01-05T20:36:00.004-05:00

ALASKA! Go. Best time, the end of July, through the first week in September. Best way to travel, car, camper van, ( Runamucka, RV. , if you must.) Why then? The vast swarms of mosquitoes mostly disappear and you can move about outside your transport. Route, go up on the coastal ferry, try it from Prince Rupert, B.C. because you see more of the wondrous coast and come back the Alcan Highway to Haines Junction and then take the Corsair Highway to Hyder, Alaska. I’m leaving details of this for a later blog. This is about bears, BIG BROWN BEAUTIFUL BEARS!!!

Marilyn and I are hiking about in a state park about ten miles north of Anchorage, the city which shelters about 75% of Alaska’s total population and 99% of the sane ones. We turn a twist in the trail and there stands a wolf! Well only 15% female wolf its owner tells us. So we pet her and join them. About five minutes later, Daisy blocks our path, and her owner frowns. ‘ Can’t go that way, there’s a bear in there and I’m not armed.’ Just who the hell does he think he’s fooling!

I voice my disbelief, but Daisy won’t let me proceed, so we take a fork, get to the water falls, take pictures and start back. This time we can take the shorter trail and dammed if we don’t pass a very large still steaming pile of bear doodoo! Bears! Armed hikers, on the city limits! That’s Alaska, but Hyder, Alaska is where the real bears are, or at least the best bear watching I could ever imagine.

Hyder rests fifty feet from the British Columbia border. The paved road ceases as you cross to Alaska, but the adventure begins!. There’s a great campground on this side, two or three nice hotels, a luxury inn, and a couple of really good restaurants which serve local game plus excellent French food. But over in Hyder, there’s nothing but some log cabins, a general store and the dirt road to Fish Creek and the largest glacier in Alaska.

The deeply cut creek has no fences, it’s just you and the bears with a few park rangers standing by. Since the creek is swarming with fat salmon, the grizzes ignore humans. You can sit on the edge of the creek and the bears are about fifty feet out and ten feet down. Fishing all the time, with cubs, yearlings and the three-year-olds who have been cut loose from momma, but don’t know how to deal with life without her. So they hang around and eat too. There was a pair there named Bill and Monica, for Clinton and his cigar loving lady. Brother and sister, they pawed and sham fought while some of the world’s most famous wild life photographers shot thousands of feet of tape and hundreds of photos. One told us, ‘ You can make a couple grand for one shot of two bears going at it, or a mother feeding a cub a salmon so big it can’t hold it, and if it could its teeth are too tiny to cut through the fish’s skin. It keeps the little buggers busy while momma fattens up for winter.’

There are often ten or so bears on the creek, but carefully spaced, territory is very important to these monsters. We saw them in July and they were thin, agile, and faster than a NFL line backer. But when we came back in September, they were so fat, they just laid in the stream and snapped as the fish went by. By late September, they eat all the dead salmon, but when things are good, they prefer the roe, then the head, and finally the skin. To watch one hook a claw in the gills of a two foot long fish, hold it out and take another claw and carefully slit it open, then daintily feast is a wondrous sight. Oh yes, the locals say ,’ Give a griz a chance to think and he'll make the right decisions 99 out of a 100 times. And when they’re on their hind legs, they’re harmless, not about to charge you. You can’t run or out climb em, so stand still and smile. Smile alot! One ranger turned around and one was less than ten feet away. He smiled big time. Bear smiled back and sauntered off. He went home and changed his pants. So it goes.

The Shell Game

2008-12-31T18:59:00.003-05:00

Marilyn and I discovered Santiago de Compostela’s pilgrimage skimming a National Geographic publication while sitting out a English summer down pour. The more we read the more we were determined to make the journey; in a truck of course. Even though we had three years to see Western Europe, walking was out. After returning in 2008 for the French section, we would recommend it as a life long memory; even if you’re a bloody atheist, agnostic or C of E! I have no intentions of dwelling on the religious end of this, just the history, beauty and ancient architecture.

We began in Canterbury, England with it’s 1000 year old stain glass, and then jumped to France, where there are four routes which all merge at Puente de la Reina, the Queen’s Bridge, Spain. We did parts of three, but left out the very southern route. I’m not going to make this a grand travelogue. So this is a personal view of just a few highlights.

Starting with the outrageous windows in Chartres’ cathedral; enough magic to make you believe in Druidism! Sunny or overcast, the windows simply reach out and shatter your senses. So much so you ignore the neck ache. When you walk out you’re still looking up! And don’t forget all the Romanesque sculptured portals! Good and inexpensive restaurants as well! So. it goes

Now cross the Loire River, take a day or so to see some of the chateaus, get some ideas how to enhance your backyard gardens and then hit Vezelay, this insane mountain town with it’s outrageously wonderful cathedral. We met a French guy who bought us a bottle of wine because ‘ I’ve lived here 45 years and you’re the first Americans I’ve met who weren’t on a tour bus.’

Conques, Mossiac and Racomador, are three more French Medieval towns not to be missed. Great food, and views. Eight feet wide streets, wonderful bakery aromas and best of all no cars!! And the climb through the mountains to Spain offers not only Alpine vistas, grazing herds of sheep and goats, but also gastronomic delights at rock bottom prices. Oh, and I forgot, Cahors, with its fortified bridge and wine! Good reds! Well, my wife bought the good one, I got the cheapest one and threw up a lot. So it goes.

Spain was cold, we slept under goose down, but that didn’t lessen the wonders of Pamploma, they run the bulls in summer if you ‘d like to risk your life, and Burgos, with a cathedral’s interior that draws nothing but gasps. This is high country, so there are many ancient monastic places which still offer a night’s lodging for one and all. We stayed in one which dated 970! No central heat, but a nice big coffee and hot rolls; with butter and jam. Leon is a fairly large town with a huge cathedral, and a waterfall of Gothic sculpture falling from the ceiling to just above your head. Fantastic! So’s the grub! And you can stay in an 11th century inn, or camp. So it goes.

There’s not enough space to describe the many interesting, outrageous and down right insane folks we encountered. The tours, always stay where those who wish to absorb the local cultures avoid. So here’s St. James in his gold, bejeweled sarcophagus. Slide up, slip your arms around it, give him a great big hug; some add a light kiss. Today’s sins are on such a global scale, I don’t think James can forgive them. Maybe you’ve had no part in committing them. If so, you’re home free! Now, go to a shop and buy a scallop, ( Cockle ) shell and sew it on somewhere. And take these words as your personal crest: There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures. Shakespeare. Brutus from J Caesar. Don’t put off adventures. Life passes as fast as a snap of the fingers. Next Alaska, one of those places you don’t need your Blackberry. (If by chance you have that demon in your purse or pocket. So it goes. )

2008-12-31T18:40:00.000-05:00

A Step Back Into The Eleventh Century

2008-12-31T18:31:00.004-05:00

I swore to my self when I began this to hold all blogs to a page. This is too complicated and too much fun. So I’m going to do background and save the insanities for the next blog. Sorry but I can’t dwell on Medieval Civilization, Feudalism and the likes, this is a fun blog. But about 1000 Present Era, most of the people engaged in this would-be serfs; workers bound to the soil with a six day sun up to sun down working day. Hey! Some things never change! Right? But work was farming, without machinery and usually without animal power. You got less than half the food you grew to show for your efforts. Your land lord too his share.

Anyway, you had other choices in the latter half of the century. You could join a Crusade and go to the Holy Land to rid the world of . . .wait a second . . .no one needed oil back then and so it goes. Pretty soon too many of us were taking off. Walking a couple thousand miles bare footed was still easier than farm labor. So after the First Crusade, we could only give money and the nobility got to . . .see how little the important things never change? So it goes. However, no one could stop us from sinning! Yeah. Here Comes the Sin! There were thousands of them to choose from. And if you didn’t want to spend eternity on the last three levels of Hell, you could bribe, actually buy an indulgence, who had money for that? In fact, who had money, period? Your other choice to save yourself from eternal fire and brimstone was go on Pilgrimage!

Before the Crusades you had three major choices; the Holy Land, Rome, or Santiago de Compostela which is in North West Spain. Once the Turks took over the Holy Land we were told that was out. So, Santiago was a better deal for several reasons. It took longer, so we were away from that toil longer! Yeah! Rome was too expensive with few if any free places to sleep and get a hot bowl of whatever. Santiago had all of those, at bargain prices to boot! Gratis! It became the Cruise Ship Vacation of the Middle Ages! Well, maybe just a little tougher. The Romans had built some great roads, but the feudal system didn’t see any reason to maintain them, so pretty soon they were swallowed up by grass and weeds. For us poor slobs, transportation was walking barefooted. At dawn we rose from straw mattresses if we’re lucky, the stone floor more likely. Some warm gruel, a bit of bread and water, then off we went. On a good day we could cover twenty miles, but why be in a hurry? There were detours here and there to miracle sights. Lots of Black Madonnas! Springs that cured all sort of maladies and we’re all praying for immortality after death released us from endless toil and grief. Now we seek miracle drugs.

b So who was this Santiago? Saint James, one of the original twelve dudes! He got beheaded and according to legend, his remains were slipped on a boat and set sail from the Holy Land. It’s a long way from their embarkation to Santiago de Compostella, but in nine days the boat came ashore where a small shrine was built. Eight hundred years later, Christian knights were fighting for their lives, and they were losing, until a mounted warrior, encrusted in cockleshells, emerged from the sea. He slew so many infidels, our side won! To show their gratitude, a huge church was erected in James’ honor, and his remains were entombed in a huge gold and gem encrusted effigy. When the pilgrimage ends, you step up behind him, give him a hug, and get a cockle shell to show you’ve completed the pilgrimage. Every where we went for the next couple of years people honored our journey. I still wear the shell on my tam. It’s battered and chipped, just like its owner. It still possess some weird magical quality to see what’s over the next hill.

And for those questing magic, try the wonders of this adventure. It’s not for Cruise Ship folks, or those who travel in tour groups. But if you have ever stood transfixed by the beauty and wonder of church chimes pouring over you, or walked narrow lanes among ghosts of future past, then Santiago will stay with you, like that first real kiss of love, forever.

Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany

2008-12-10T00:10:00.001-05:00

I’ve made yearly Munich’s beer blast twice. Both were either outrageously embarrassing, hilarious or unforgettable. The first time, I didn’t know the beer was 23% and after two liters I headed for the men’s room. It was a stainless steel trough about twenty or so feet long and chest high with constantly running water. All the German males sang songs as they got relief. However, the amazing custom of urinating on any male who passed out on the floor was most amazing! I was informed that being that drunk was Un-German and deserved action. After about five or six liters, I proceeded to make a total fool, maybe an everlasting image of a totally sotted idiot.

It began when I decided not to go back to the men’s room and take a leak on Marie Teresa’s statue which stood in a lovely garden just as you entered the drinking area. Her marriage to Mad Ludwig, the King of Bavaria in the 19th century was the reason for this beer brawl. I was told a couple of Germans wanted to beat me up, but a bunch of Canadian ice hockey players came to my defense and cheered me on. So it went.

Next I got in a fight with a Doberman pincher and beat the snot out of him. I was told the Canadians cheered this also. Last were the electric cars. At home we call them bumper cars, and a ride is total insane crashes and wrecks. But in Germany, the rules are the rules, so they circle in carefully arranged pairs. I jumped over the rail, got in with a nine year old and proceeded to inject the American version. They turned off the current to get at me, but the Canadians saved my butt again. Oh, and the kid cheered me on as we wrecked car after car while the manager and irate attendants and parents screamed nasty Krout Curses at me.

My second trip was four years later. I figured it was safe to return by then. So I showed up for the last night and dammed if the Canadians weren’t there! Seems they were with the Canadian Army, stationed nearby. Well, we had a few laughs, a few brews and this time I paced myself, so when they started playing the last song of the fest I was ready to sing.

We were in the Lowenbrau tent, with about three thousand other souls, and at least half of them were Aussies. So the last song was Waltzing Matilda, which went on and on. The UmPah band slowly increased the volume until everyone was screaming the words. And as we all roared into the final go, one of the guys took my arm and calmly said, ‘ Get under the table,’ and he wasn’t smiling. ‘ Now,’ he snarled. ‘ Get under the table. Things are going to get real bad when this ends!’ Then he grabbed and shoved me off the bench, dropped down beside me and pointed to all his mates already crouched there.

“WE’LL GO A WALTZING MATILDAAAAH WITHHH YOUUUUUUUU! And when the final note was poohed, there was a mighty cheer. The Canuck pulled me deeper under the table. I was about to say something when there was this horrible clanging and clinking of broken glass. ‘They threw their bloody mugs in the air!’ my savior announced. I looked out and the floor was covered with shards of glass every where, while roars of glee and rage filled the tent. ‘ Stay right here. Keep out of the way. The fight’s about to get going!’ he shouted at me. But I had to sneak a look, as shiny boots poured past us followed by the thunder of billy clubs hitting tables heads and shoulders. The German Police won. Hundreds of Aussies were carted out, pushed on to waiting buses, and I heard they were taken right to the railroad station and deported. Oh yeah, to get back into the camp ground, five hockey players pulled the wooden bar out of its socket so I could get my VW Bug in. How all five of them got in something that small is another tale

Next trip is to the mountains of Central Mexico and a outrageous witch doctor and how all of us select an age we wish to be treated as for the rest of our lives. And the penalty for waiting past 12 years. She almost changed my outlook on life. But it was already too funny to give up.

Follow the Yellow Brick Wall

2008-12-07T20:53:00.002-05:00

When I began tracking urinals, it was in Europe in the late sixties, but let’s spend a paragraph in the USA, okay? If you run from Maine to Florida on scenic 95 , in Maine there are no partitions between fountains!!! by New Jersey you got a fan that reaches just high enough, but once you hit South Carolina, down, the partitions are six feet high and two feet wide!!! I guess you got to say, ‘ Family Values begin south of the Mason Dixon Line!

Now off to Europe. Paris, ah at last we’re there! Back in the 60's there were still some open men’s troughs. Passers by could saunter over and give you a glance, a nod, or a raised eye brow and smile. They’re all gone. Now it costs about a buck to step in to these booths, but they are furnished just like some expensive hotel! And when you step out, there’s this hiss, an aroma cloud and the sound of the entire interior being purged!

Some places in France have Squatters. This is for more than liquid relief. This is a hole surrounded by a metal plate with indentations for one’s feet, and you squat. An American male tourist turned tome jerked his thumb at the open door and asked,’ What the hell. Someone stole the other part.’ WHAT CAN YOU SAY TO IGNORANCE OR INEXPERIENCE?

The old section of York, England is surrounded by 13th century walls. You can take a Tour of The Town Walls. It’s fun, and so are the garderobes, toilets built into the walls which have a seat and an opening which allows one’s wastes to fall into the moat, or just a pile, which can be removed in times of peace, but can be a wonderful biological weapon!

My son-in-law tells me that the new schools have urinals which do not flush! He says they have some sort of oil pool which forces the lighter urine to flow around it and fall into the normal exit pipe. Hooray! No more clogging and yellow pools that have to be leaped over or waded through to get to your objective! That’s really advancement!

Indonesia had some of the most interesting alternatives. Even medium priced hotels had a pair of covered buckets; the rest rooms were always near the main office. Indonesia also has bamboo huts along the river’s edges, and open ditches sans H2O or with it.

The South America’s Andes do not have urinals. Part of their constitutions allow a male to urinate anywhere they so desire. Usually church walls are yellow up to four feet. And women always wear ankle length dresses, so they just squat. Once in Bolivia my daughter snapped nine native ladies squatting by the road. We thought they were waiting for the bus. Almost as soon as she finished, four of them rose, the spouts of steam told the true story.

But South Africa is hell on earth for most non African males. I stepped into the Loo . It was an exact copy of a good old British Men’s Room. Tile floor scrubbed to a shine and white tile walls. Stalls with locking doors and of course a line of half a dozen fountains, each with a four foot partition on either side. So I stepped up and began taking care of business. Almost at once an African male stepped into the spot to my left, leaned over and peered. I gave him a really aggressive glare and he smile and mutter, ‘ Pretty good.’ and stepped away! He wasn’t even there for business! Just to get a look at me! Two more guys did the same. Then another pair made it before I could zip up. I got two nods, one grin, a so-so shake of the head , and one verbal, ‘ Not bad for white man. It made me realize that ‘ I WASN’T IN KANSAS BABY!!!

I couldn’t understand why men weren’t more open about sex and their penises until one of my former students aid, ‘Well that’s because you never worried about yours.’ I didn’t understand that either. Why worry about it? It’s all you’ve got. So it goes. Next stop . . . . Oktoberfest in Munich, with about two thousand Aussies. Ta tah

The Legacy of Druids

2008-12-03T09:56:00.002-05:00

I saw Stonehenge for the first time in 1970. I walked about dreaming and smiling, knowing that this was another picture from my fourth grade geography book, that I could check off. There wasn’t a fence preventing entrance then, and even though I was smiling I was also serious. For I had a promise to keep.

The previous year I had converted 17 thinking humans to becoming Druids. If you are not aware, Druids have played a very important role in reaching that goal. As Pythagoras once said, ‘All that I know I learned from a Druid Priest’ and the Druids have left us with numerous sayings: YOU’RE A CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK. YOU’RE BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE. PUT DOWN ROOTS. AND THE FAMILY TREE.

I had sworn their names would be placed under the central altar, where they would be honored by the Druid gods twice yearly. Carefully I slipped the scroll of thick paper under the stone, stepped back and gave the Druid salute.

Marilyn and I returned in 1985 along with a former student. I had spent hours telling Dean, who wonderful it, was to walk among the stones; and since he was a professional photographer, he was chomping at the bit to get in there with his various lenses. We pulled up and there was the dammed wire fence encircling it, and uniformed guards evenly spaced and ready to repel anyone who tried to jump it or burrow under.

The guard nearest us explained they had to put the fence up because people had taken to coming in with hammers and taking bits and pieces away. He also told us that certain groups professing to be Druids were allowed on the sight, but only on festival days, and this was not one. He joked and told us one group arrived with ancient musical instruments and in dress to dance about the place, trying to pray the temple resting beneath the site up from its hiding place

So I told him about my list and he gave a nod and said, "Sir, we keep all artifacts left on site. If someone didn’t snitch it, it’s down at the visitors center." I was off in a shot as Dean set up with his strongest lens.

The only question I was asked was if I remembered the year and month, and I told them it was 1970 and July. The clerk nodded, went to a huge file , pulled it open, fished about, gave a grunt and turned with it in hand!!! She also told me that it had been displayed twice as the proper way to leave some sort of declaration, and that really helped. I was not allowed to touch it, but she laid it on the counter and I silently read those names again. And as I did, I matched each one to a very successful young person, in very diverse occupations doing what they swore they would do. And their oath? Simple. They swore that they would take their talents and use them to help man, not to enrich themselves. I mean, what the hell, that’s a nice foot print, ain’t it? Bet your bottom it is! See you soon, when we’re off to Mexico and a very wonderful witch doctor, bruja to those who are aware.

EASTER WEEK-END IN SEVILLE, SPAIN

2008-11-23T10:33:00.002-05:00

We took off from Javea as soon as it got warm enough to camp in our truck. That was the middle of march. So even after almost five months in the Drunken Sots Enclave, we left sober and popular. Since Easter is a special time in Spain, we thought we’d see the southern areas and end up in Seville on Good Thursday. And we did.
The town was mobbed. The campground had no designated camping spots. It looked like the parking lot for a rock concert. The gate keeper told us if we could find a space, camping was free. We found a space, under a budding tree, that was so steep we had to sleep backwards to keep from sliding out the rear door.
Our next surprise was in order to see the parade the next two days, we had to buy seats! We tried avoiding that, but there was no standing areas, so we went for the ten bucks each for seats which were at the edge of an alley, and about fifty feet away from where the parade was going to pass. So it goes. . And the next morning, not really hung over, we were in our seats and ready for the parade. Well, unless you’ve been here before, no one is ready for the parade.
We were almost alone until about noon when we heard the trumpets. In fifteen minutes all the seats were taken. The priests and nuns in habits were okay, but then came a fairly large group of guys, stripped to the waist and flaying their bare flesh with all sorts of whips and cat-o-nine tails. Blood ran down into their waist bands. Marilyn wouldn’t let me take a picture of that.
Once the flagellants had passed, we thought normalcy would prevail. When the first large float appeared, featuring a seated female saint, we were sure of it.. It was twenty feet long and about six wide, covered with blue velvet draperies and strewn with white and yellow flower petals. Marilyn snapped it and it came to a stop. A hush came over the spectators, when twenty or so rugged young men popped out from beneath the float. All they wore was a white sheet, wrapped about their loins, and a white turban. And each had a rolled towel fitted across their shoulders. Spectators rushed out offering wine or water. The first was drunk and the second splashed over the shoulders. They disappeared under the drapes, there was a huge animal grunt, the float rose very evenly, and moved off. About a hundred more yards the ritual began again. The route was about two kilometers long. We wondered if they would make it.
Back at camp, we were invited to another beer bash, bigger and better than the other. We drank listening to Auzzies and Kee Wees tell about Pamploma, running the bulls, and answering the same question over and over again. ‘ Just what the hell kind of Yanks are you? Yanks never travel rough, and never come here. So what’s up, mates?
Good Friday was the same old, same old except there were a lot more flagellating with meaner looking instruments. And there were more floats which were bigger. In fact, over the ten hours the parade passed, the floats grew. Thirty footers were nothing, and fifty or so sweating males piling out from under them became routine. When the floats ceased the guys dragging all sizes of crosses began. Whipping was also part of their act. The spectators moaned and wept. Some even ran out and offered to help. We decided to get out of there and head for Morocco.
The owners waved goodbye after shoving four wine bottles through the window. Christian charity, we guessed. And if we thought this was weird, well, Marakesh and Ronald Reagan would make this look like Sunday at the local baseball game.

CHRISTMAS IN SPAIN WITH THE DRUNK FOR LUNCH BUNCH

2008-11-23T10:33:00.001-05:00

I like to say, ‘ I retired on Friday, got married on Saturday and the following Tuesday left on a three year honey moon.’ Actually it was three weeks before we could leave on the honeymoon and it only lasted for two years and eight months. We spent three months touring England, Scotland and Wales, then over to Belgium and a small section of Germany. By November we were in Spain and it was getting very cold, so we headed for the east coast and found an apartment in Javea, pronounce hav-ve ah, which had a reputation for being warm, and a haven for English speakers.
Javea was an English retirement community where the bars were called pubs and titled, The Fox and Hounds, The Crown, etc. It had two English lending libraries, a British butcher who sold bangers and beans, two animal rescue groups and English speaking movies every Tuesday and Thursday. The first time we appeared in public, I ordered two glasses of red wine as Marilyn stared out at the large group settled in wicker chairs, letting the sun turn their faces a beet red. She wondered if we could fit in. I smiled and asked it she wanted that. Her nod led me to the pub’s porch. I raised my glass and called out ‘ Ladies and gentlemen, To The Queen!’ The portals opened with a loud bang. Or rather with a loud HERE HERE!
Our first friend was Frankie. ‘I’m a flamboyant faggot!’ was how he responded to our offering him a drink. He also said the drink was on him because he had money if nothing else. Turned out his mother ‘ Owns half of Brighton, and my accountant killed me off two years ago and by the time the tax fellows find out that’s a lie, I’ll be dead from all this drinking and fags anyway!’ Oh, a fag is a cigarette for the non English folks. It seems that cheap fags and cheap booze were the main reasons to settle in Spain. At the time it was not in the EEC and taxes were low.
There was another reason for lots of other folks locating there. They were minor criminals and at the time Spain did not honor warrants. Most were smugglers, mainly cigarettes into the EEC. Fags in Spain were 45 American cents. In the EEC they ran about $8.00 a pack. Booze was dirt in Javea, but very dear in the EEC. So it was a natural taxi area for anyone wanting to make a quick pound or mark. The bars had staggered hours so one could be drunk day and night, and most were. One retired ‘Bobby’ had a mobile home parked by their current watering hole. So it goes.
By Christmas, we were ‘ The best Yanks we’ve ever met, and Marilyn decided to give a Christmas lunch. ‘ Four or five should show up,’ she offered as we made meat balls, bought cookies, bread and rolls, and of course really cheap wine. Cheap . . .about $. 75 cents US got something you could drink. Somewhere over fifty crowded into our two bed room flat. ( See I’m a Brit again!!) They devoured everything in half an hour and pretty soon they were sending someone out to restock the wine. And here comes the joker in the deck. ‘ you know Rife, ( Rief was always mispronounced) you and Marilyn really went over board getting that expensive wine. So it goes. Juan Carlos Brandy ran about $4.00 for a full liter, but we were also chided after we broke out the two bottle we kept on hand. ‘ Rife! Have you tried XXXXX what ever? It’s half the price! So it goes. We left for Morocco in April by way of Seville and it’s insane Easter pageant.
Why would I ever suggest anyone would be stupid enough to eat a wooden pickle? Well, because wooden pickles seldom look like wooden pickles!!!!! Don’t get it yet? You will!!
On to the Easter Pageant! It’s absolutely, totally insane. And unforgettable.

Californians & Germans, Oh My!

2008-11-19T15:30:00.001-05:00

I know I promised foreign countries, but after thinking a minute I decided that South Carolina was too much cultural shock for the uninitiated. So it’s off to Kruger National Park in South Africa. Kruger is about the size of Connecticut and a really great place to spend a month or so tracking wild animals. We were there for over three weeks, but what this is about took place the morning of our first full day.

We had a rented British made Ford and were driving up a narrow paved road when suddenly two guys dressed all in black and carrying very large rifles slung over their shoulders came into view riding bicycles. When they motioned us to stop, Marilyn, my wife whom I call The Dwarf, was driving and muttered something about running for it. I told her it was very difficult to outrun a bullet so she pulled over. The two brutes blocked the road about fifty feet in front of us. I started mentally counting our money. We didn’t have much, but then you don’t need a lot of it in Kruger.

Meanwhile the other big guy, not African, came over to my side of the car. I swear he almost had to get down on his hands and knees to look in at us. His face seemed to fill the entire window frame, and I was ready to turn over every cent we had. From here, the rifle was about the size of a small cannon. Then I saw the badge. They were Park Rangers!

‘ Sir,’ he began in soft, perfect English,’ are you a German?’ I assured him that I was not, even though my national origin is German. ‘ Then you must be Americans.’ I nodded and started to tell him so was the Dwarf, but he went on. ‘ Are you from California?’ I denied that and told him we were from the other end of the country, Washington, DC. So he spent about a minute telling me how much he wanted to come and see all our art galleries, and were they really all free? I confirmed that. He smiled and motioned for us to proceed, ut I was too interested in knowing why it was okay as long as we weren’t either German or Californians to go on. So I asked him why ..

Now he really bent down so his head filled the window and his smile stretched from one sill to the other. ‘ Sir, Californians and Germans do not listen to us or obey our rules. They get out of their cars when ever and where ever they want, and our lions and leopards often eat them. The smile that creased across his face was so warm, Marilyn and I broke into laughter and went on our happy way.

However, that’s not the end of this take. About two weeks later we were in a very large camp ground and the talk of the place was about two Americans who got out of their car so they could take their pictures standing along side of a sleeping lioness and her two cubs. We were told that all the guards found were three canvas hiking boots. And guess what!!! We were told someone heard that they were from Santa Monica!!!!!

Next up . . . . CHRISTMAS IN SPAIN WITH THE DRUNK FOR LUNCH BUNCH !

Foxes in Paris

2008-11-16T11:42:00.002-05:00

Good Morning! I am still trying to figure this thing out. It didn't like my second post and after wrestling with a "content" tag, I am going to try again.

I promised to begin with Paris. Paris France comes later. This Paris is Paris Island, South Carolina. If you are not on board, it is the Marine boot camp. I don't know what it is like now, but when I joined The Corps, PI was a swampy, humid hell populated by various viciously biting bugs, snakes and alligators, which made it the perfect birthing place for the United States Marines. There's one more creature, the King Of Beasts, residing there: It's name is Drill Instructor. To the lowly boot he is just "The DI" which was the Corps' way for a boot to spell GOD.

At the time I arrived, the sole purpose of PI was to reduce all boots to shivering clean slates and redesign them into U.S. Marines. This was (still is?) the DI's role, and sooner or later he would humble and humiliate his charges to the nth degree, with the following exchange:

DI: Son! Do yuh know you are as screwed up as a fox on ice skates?
Boot: Yes Sit!
DI: But yuh don't know how screwed up that is, do you?
Boot: No Sir!!!
DI:Yuh're so screwed up, yuh not only don't know who you are, you don't know where you are!
Boot: Yes, Sir!!!!
DI: And that's pretty damned screwed up, son!!!
Boot: Yes, Sir!!!
And so the DI proceeded to tell you who you really were...A Marine, Damn it! And, a devout member of the Corps, Damn it again!!

Once a Marine, always a Marine is the saying. Well, even now, I wonder if that goes for Lee Harvey Oswald too? He did in John Kennedy. Oh, well.

And I also have found that there are some Foxes On Ice Skates who know who and where they are, were and well be. That there are a very few Foxes, like yours truly, who are only at home shoed on unstable blades and constantly on thin, slippery surfaces.

However, I also admit, that most foxes have never seen either ice nor ice skates. Most of them line in Texas, anyway.

One last incident which causes me to view the world as one continuous circus also involved the Corps. I was out of PI, granted Marine status and goofing off. I'd been caught at least five times by Corporal Shuck, a twelve year-lifetime-two-striper, and this time he was really angry.
"Riefner, you think I'm really horse shit don't you? Well, before I could confirm this, his face got even redder and he yelled, "Well, if you think I'm horseshit, wait till I turn you in to Seargent Lester! He's HORSESHITTERER!

I laughed. And by the gods that made me, I'm still laughing. So, farewell for now. But remember....Never eat a wooden pickle, because it will leave splinters in your throat!More on wooden pickles later. On to foreign countries!!!

Welcome to my world

2008-11-14T20:05:00.003-05:00

Today I take the first step into modernity. I still cannot use a cell phone and I do not know what a Blackberry is. I will endeavor to add thoughts from time to time about my travels, some recent, some many lives ago. I have slept under African moons, Andean mist, and the Southern Cross of Asia. I have traveled the world when all nations were different. There was no fast food. Luxury hotels were foreign owned and huge cruise ships never left Florida. That is all gone, but not my memory of what was there before and the insane gifted goat footed children who roamed the world with care free abandon. So come along. Let's start in Paris.