Chinese Grandson!

Spring of 2005 found me in China for the first time. In awe and amazement, I was thrilled beyond my wildest expectation. Two weeks of business in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Wuhan, left me fulfilled in great dining, sauna therapy, and a cache of great antiques. Surrounded by local partners and colleagues held together with Shaotang, my Chinese-American friend, this was not my normal rogue traveling way of getting around.
I was ready for a lot of me-time, alone in Beijing.

Equipped with two words ‘ni hao’ (hello) and ‘shi-shi’ (thank you), I was a bit concerned that I may be relegated to Club sandwiches and Chinese beer. I checked into the Beijing International Hotel brandishing its five stars where a travel agent tried to link me with 20 others for a trip to the Great Wall on the morrow. After a quick shower, I was ready to see Beijing or at least Tiananmen Square, not far from the hotel. Walking in the general direction, I sauntered through a shopping mall to avoid the heat. Fifty meters later a sincere young lady wanting to use her student English approached me. Ana saved Beijing for me. Appearing to be thirteen she was twenty-one and appointed herself to be my Chinese daughter. Moreover, I became her elder father. After learning my age, she was very cautious of my every move. We learned much about family and such on our way to the Square. Her student connections proved very useful. My request for tickets to the traditional Chinese Opera was met with her friend selling me tickets.

We had a snack with him then took a taxi to the theatre. As translations go, the show turned out to be a show of acrobats. It was very entertaining and admirable for the devotion to the trade, like a carry-over from Chairman Mao.

By the end of the day, Ana said she could arrange for a car and driver for my touring. At 9 AM the next morning they arrived at the Hotel and we were off to the Great Wall. Awesome! My next request was to visit a small village.

Ms. Li, a nurse in training and student friend, arrived with Ana and the car the following day. Her family home was an hour’s drive in a small town. The Li family was very cordial with grandpa, grandma, mom, pop, #1 daughter, with two children, and our Ms. Li. After a tour of his garden and the neighbor’s house, we were ready for lunch. This was quite an occasion, as people in this area had never seen a foreigner. All were honored but I more so.

Through email I learned of Ana’s marriage. I was in China three times in 2006 but not Beijing. Recently, I alerted her to a possible visit this year and just received photos of what she called my Chinese grandson.

Microwave Lady on Raratonga, Cook Islands

During a three week stay for Global Volunteers, I was testing the ideal scenario – telecommuting from an island paradise in the South Pacific. On Tuesday morning I had escaped duties to finish up some design work then started the 3K walk to the computer store to use the email. En route, the curio shop was opening for the first time since our arrival. Inside a lady in disarray was uncovering showcases. Her knowing the GV presence, asked of my function. I mentioned electronics and she promptly insisted I could help fix her microwave oven. Unyielding she closed the store and secured me into her old Datsun wreck to take me home.
In the islands, any vehicle was a luxury and maintained far beyond considered functional operation. Her pickup had no springs which put undue pressure on the rusted and disappearing cab floor. The passenger door could only be opened from outside and a flexible hinge combination allowed a tenuous latching.
On the way she told her life story as the widow of a New Zealander whose technical career left her with a pension, she had to fly to Honolulu twice a year to collect and do a little shopping. Two years ago she purchased a microwave oven that did not work in Raratonga. Some German had rigged up something that did not help and she insisted Americans were better than Germans to get things working. Thus in spite of my dissent, she was certain of my ability.
Her gated art deco mansion suffered major disrepair and neglect but at one point in a time worthy of the adoration, she reflected on. The expatriate had taken very good care of her. A perfect hostess emerged from this frenzied mistress with a cool fruit drink and conversation about her husband. Then presented with the microwave and a haphazard transformer connection, I said it was hopeless to fix without tools. She led me to her husband's den pilled with junk but with diligence, we found a meter and other electrical tools. Undaunted by my need for wire and terminals we loaded into the Datsun and off we went to see a cousin working at the electrical station. The power station was not exactly what I meant and further explanation led us to another cousin that owned an electrical store with all the solutions. Back to the mansion, I was able to get the microwave operational in a short time. Her undying gratitude would give her more than zapping a quick dinner but credibility to many of her cousins on the Island that I assume had scoffed at her misfortune. With such success she wanted me to meet another cousin, married to the Chief of our section of the Island. Back in the Datsun and down the hill she drove across the lawn of the Chief’s residence to the front porch but unfortunately, she was not at home. At that, I asked to be dropped at the library where I had promised volunteer duty that afternoon.

Mrs. S

I was in the midst of preparing for an early departure for sales, demonstration, and delivery to the east coast in August 2006. The phone rang. Lois, a classmate in the fourth grade at Leonard then again in high school, was just in town from her home in North Carolina. She called to say she was having a birthday luncheon for her mother at two tomorrow afternoon. Mrs. S’s ninety-sixth birthday was a ‘can’t miss’ situation. Apart from the fact that all of her friends were gone, I would deal with delays in my trip to attend.
Tribute was due for a lady that nourished the best in all her students and those around her. My dad fondly spoke of how she and her boyfriend gave him a ride in the rumble seat of their car when he was eight. Her third and fourth-grade teachings in my life founded an art and literature understanding in me. My daughter was four years old when she felt her warmth and has almost always been with me to take this grand lady to dinner or just visit. The two now share U of M as an alma mater and literary appreciation.
Mrs. S held on to a value system of those that came before us. Her son was editor of the Detroit News. Her daughter was a soloist for many years with New York’s Metropolitan Opera, then an investment banker on Wall Street.
In recent years, she has dropped her trademark red lipstick and let her hair go natural but her beauty will never fade. Her permanence is reinforced by maintaining her home at 123 Elm Street for the past sixty years and the past thirty alone. Passing there in 2000, I spotted her trimming around the trees with a hand mower. I stopped to ask but of course, she didn’t need help.
In 2003, her first book was published. It was written in the seventies. Over the past decade, she has revitalized her earlier writings. She was disgusted that publishers will not take handwritten manuscripts so her great-grand-kids have pitched in to get things on a computer. Her mind has clearly suffered little. Yet during my last visit, I had to correct her that it was my dad not me that rode in her rumble seat.

Changing of the Fish

For my second day in Ghana, I responded to an invitation to attend a lawn party at the U.S. Embassy hosted by Ambassador Shirley Temple Black to celebrate our Bicentennial on July 4, 1976. This somewhat epitomized my concept of colonialism in the Third World as I surveyed the expatriates nibbling hors d'oeuvres. In spite of my disdain, I took advantage of the opportunity to greet Ms. Black then promptly left to discover the wonders within the people of Ghana.
Good fortune and the friendship of a thirteen-year-old boy named Armahfio Tawiah lead me to a very fulfilling experience with the Ada people in and around the fishing village of Otrokper near Ada-Foah, Ghana, West Africa.
Armahfio and my Polaroid camera services were beneficial to my successful inroads to meeting the people but I feel an amicable smile combined with conveyance of respect gave me access to good ethnographic information. I have failed until now to state my evaluation of this experience.
I would spend about three days a week under Armahfio's guidance. After the first few weeks, he understood my interests and would direct me to "juju" happenings, local events, and my summons to photograph a local chief, or just visit family members in neighboring villages.
This one particular day in late August, he greeted me with, "Hurry, we must go for the `Changing of the Fish'." Off I drove with blind trust down the sand road leading to one of the remote eight or so fishing villages along a five-mile stretch of Atlantic coastline of white sand beaches. Six degrees north, on the Prime Meridian, was where mud huts with thatched roofs housed the pleasant Ada people.
Armahfio explained as we went that his father owned a net, which was loaned to a village for fishing, and he had to collect his father's portion of the catch for the use of the net. I recalled seeing a net being brought in by people onshore. It took about sixty people to retrieve the giant semicircle of the net from the surf being managed by men in long dugout canoes. It appeared as though the crew on shore was made up of everyone from the village, all in a very festive mood. I asked Armahfio about the participants, he confirmed the net was loaned to the whole village.
At Armahfio's signal, I pulled the Datsun off the sand road. We made our way to a cove outside the perimeter of the village. This departed from my normal entrance of attracting a following of giggling children to pave my way. Ahead of us was an assemblage of adult males who glanced up coolly at our approach. Until this moment I had been secure with the warmth of reception by women and children. We entered the area but I stood silently on the sidelines and only managed to get a couple of nod/smile acknowledgments. Within moments of my arrival, one of the principal men of the group rose from his log seat, muttered a few words to the two men seated next to him at a crude wooden table, and hurried off. To my relief, he returned carrying a chair.
A chair is a rare possession not used by the owner except for guests. It would not have the acclaim of an Ashanti Stool, which is held by the chief and is said to contain the spirit of the village and only used on ceremonial occasions, but I sense there is a distant relationship. The man placed the chair in the midst of the proceedings and gestured for my acceptance with a businesslike smile. I mutely displayed thankfulness and pleasure at his hospitality. As I sat down I received a cordial nod from the majority of the group. While I had their attention I displayed my previously shielded camera which found no rejection.
At this, the meeting came to order. Although the English language was taught to a privileged few such as Armahfio who were able to attend school. Their communication was in the local tongue, alleged by the expatriates to be discernible within a particular associated group of villages, yet trade and commerce seemed to have a universal language. Here, as in many third world countries, the evolution of their words stopped at the technical level and colonial words were intermixed in conversation. Armahfio had to explain most of what went on at the "Changing of the Fish".
This was an assembly of twenty senior males and four teenage boys. The first order of business was the proceeds from the sale of fish at the market. While the spokesman of the three told of the details of the sale, the accountant of the group placed on the table a presorted bundle of bills and coins taken from a box. The accountant used a pencil to check off his list tabulated on a steno pad as each individual of the group filed up to receive his bounty. As often happens through interpreters, points of confusion lead to my making some assumptions. I believe the equal money shares were allowed to a head of the family regardless of the number of members participating. The monies came from a wholesaler's bid for the marketable fish, rather than an individual effort at the marketplace, which I would have thought to be the norm other than in this collective operation. The real business of trade and marketing was earned by a demonstrative group of women who controlled the field very aggressively. I had observed them in action at the Accra wholesale center where fleet-fishing vessels entrusted their catch with them for barter. I could envision the head three men here taking what the women dealers offered.
Off to one side was non-marketable fish and octopus being sorted on a woven mat. The octopus was being cut into jelled segments and placed on a stack of three or four pan type fish. A broad leaf was the "grocery bag" used by the individuals to carry home the loot.
As the business end of things drew to a close a lighter mood took over. My "chair benefactor" brought out three packs of cigarettes, removed the wrapping, and offered me a smoke. I refused, as an ex-smoker needs to do, but I was concerned at dishonoring him. He shrugged and I was the only abstaining adult offered. Smoking here was a rare social happening. The expense left the habit-forming nature of cigarettes to government and police officials. I carried packs of cigarettes in the car to ease my passage through checkpoints. The first question of the heavily armed police was to bum a smoke, without gratuities long delays and harassment could be expected.
As the matches were being passed for a second round of cigarettes my host came up with three bottles of murky liquid which brought cheers from the crowd. He stood ceremoniously in front of me, poured himself a drink into a weathered four-ounce shot glass, and dumped it down his throat. This was a prelude to offering me, their honored guest, a drink from the one and only glass. All eyes were on us as he filled my glass. I held it in "salut" then took a drink, which caused me to gasp to their amusement. Holding the only glass, I had to finish my portion. My third gulp freed me to pass the glass; this received a cheer from the crowd. Obviously it was "bathtub gin" inherited from the "Brits", but I think it missed a few stages of distilling to have such a murky color.
With the "gin" consumed, the "Changing of the Fish" had ended. Armahfio spoke briefly with the leaders about future use of the net and we left. As I took Armahfio home, his share of the fish jiggling on the seat between us, I felt quite exhilarated at being accepted by this group of adult males.

Refro Valley Gathering

As a kid of thirteen and fourteen, I would be happy to go with Dad on Sunday morning to deliver the Detroit Free Press on his rural motor route. This was one of the few times as a kid when I would see my Dad. He always worked two jobs to make enough money to support a wife and four hungry kids. His usual afternoon shift at Pontiac Motors sent him off mid-afternoon until after midnight. The Willcrest factory in Leonard was a part-time job in the morning from eight to twelve. Maybe it was mom’s need to properly clothe four children in school but this third job was enough to only see dad sleeping.
Typically, I had volunteered the day before and he would half carry my lazy body to the car at four AM. He would let me snooze between stops but the thick Sunday paper was much for him to handle and my task was to drag a pile from the backseat, fold and ready the bundle for the next paper box. A highlight of dad’s route was when he tuned the radio to the six AM broadcast of the Refro Valley Gathering. Dad was never much for music or religion at that time. I think it was more the simple down-home nature of the people from Kentucky that he could relate to.
Given that memory, in 1974, I was traveling back to a job in Danville, Kentucky after a weekend adventure to see Mammoth Cave when the exit sign read Renfro Valley. A pristine bit of Kentucky lay before me. Thrilled, I pulled off I-75 to see if this had anything to do with those childhood broadcasts. A gal at the local dinner confirmed they held jam sessions on Friday night at about seven o’clock.
The next weekend I returned mid-afternoon to get tickets. In the short line next to me was a young fellow about my age bubbling with excitement. He first caught my attention with his size-too-big sport coat that had a quarter-inch of dust on the shoulders from hanging in the closet for years. In his down-home country nature where no one is a stranger, he shivered and said, “Isn’t this exciting! Been listening to this on the radio for years and now I’s here.” He went on to explain how his brother-in-law had a delivery to make in Arkansas so he dropped him and would fetch him on the way back on Sunday. I relayed my boyhood listening and this one was for dad. I was struck on my return at six forty-five to see such a simple theatre. The floor was flat of unkempt pine. The seating was backless benches with capacity for a hundred shoulder to shoulder. The stage elevation was two and a half feet off the floor and as open as a church alter. My memory is fading but I think only eight-stringed instruments were there – banjo, fiddle, bass, and guitar. They must have had a piano too. I sat in the second row on the right side. My favorite was an eighty-something gent that scuffled in with wooden cane who sat across the narrow aisle to my left. The tuning and tweaking of strings stopped at seven and the music started and did it ever… This was real bluegrass. The foot-stomping started and the whole building rocked. Talk about pickin’ and a grinnin’ this is where it was happening. The gentleman to my left had been pounding his cane on the floor and bouncing in a stoop. Then about midway into the third song, he sprang to his feet and began stomping with his good leg. At that, I had to try it myself. Most were in the joy of their own but I looked to those happy faces, feeling what they felt just being there.

Population 391

Given a heritage of Americana that stemmed from Mayflower beginnings, my family linage reached an evolutionary turning point before my birth. Grand farms and professions of the past had given way to soldiers of World War II. The returning warriors were transitioning into automotive factory workers. Granted the pride of workmanship of my father and love of my mother, our family excelled beyond our station set in the poverty of Leonard.
My growth as a child may have been most prominent in the twenty by twenty basement house built at the hands of my father and uncles. Can you imagine four suspended panels dividing off two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen? Water came from a hand pump on the kitchen sink. Baths were taken in the rinse water on Saturday after the laundry was done in galvanized tubs. The outhouse behind the shed was a difficult trip in the winter. We always had a dog that stayed outside and I have never loved another since the one that froze solid after a cold winter’s night.
Beyond our eighth grade school in Leonard, it was nine miles to Oxford for high school. My ’53 Ford took some of us as far as Pontiac and Ted’s Drive In to cruise Woodward Avenue on Friday and Saturday nights. Gee, that ’53 Ford cost $50.00 with a blown engine. My dad bought it for me, even though I had to work for my every penny since I was eleven, he wanted to do that for me. During my summer at fifteen, with proper fatherly instructions, I rebuilt the engine and had it running for sixteenth birthday in November.
I left Leonard for the US Navy on the day before my eighteenth birthday. At the time, I did not look back. Since then, I always look back to what brought me to where I am and what I will be because of where I came from.
I hope to display in this blog the components of life beyond Leonard to the sixty-some countries where I have lived and worked throughout the world.

The Rogue?

Please think of me as a gentleman Rogue Adventurer. I am not a scoundrel as the dictionary would say nor a vicious rogue elephant but one that broke from the herd and roams alone.
Okay, so the gentleman image does not always come through.

Step One

Given this opportunity of expression, I have a sincere desire to find a depository for my photos and footprints upon the world. We are all here to make a difference. In my sixty-fourth year, there is a position of seniority and accomplishment that lends entitlement.