Vietnamese Teachers

In February 1995, the thirty-year American trade embargo with Vietnam was lifted. In July, Clinton announced full diplomatic relations saying, “Whatever divided us before let us consign it to the past.” I arrived in October to a country in transition from communism to capitalism. Volunteer work was my way to get there, but my goal was for a deeper understanding of communism, their people, and the effects of the war. I rolled this into an independent study program in the course of International Studies at Oakland University. The following are formal interviews performed under the guise of that study.
A teacher of English in Tan Hiep, Nguyen Thi Phuong Chi, had positive feelings toward her father’s bee cooperative. He was assigned as Bee Master in 1983 to the Ho Chi Minh Bee Company. It was since separated into a ‘private’ company with the government owning fifty percent. I asked Ms. Chi if they want the help of the government, she said they need it. I would say they need it. Honey is made for export, and the government controls all exports. She was secure with the situation, and an older brother was in the process of creating a new hive to expand the business to another area.
This family of six lived in a masonry house on the main road. Ms. Chi, at twenty-three, taught school twelve hours a day, six days a week. She also managed two girls in a cottage industry of finishing conical work hats purchased in bulk from Saigon. Her young brother, Tam, age twenty-five, had a concession stand selling goods by the road. A retarded sister with another stayed in the kitchen with two more hired help cooking food for another commercial venture. The older brother was forty-six and had long since taken over the bee mastering from her sixty-six-year-old father. Father, who appeared a little feeble, was busy planting seedlings for another cash crop. The mother had been dead for ten years.
I would say this family is very exceptional but typical for this area in the Mekong Delta. Teachers in Vietnam are motivated by a passion for the work, not money. I think wages are amongst the lowest for any University profession.
Another teacher in Tan Hiep, Mr. Tien, told me of his struggle. He was from the North. His family was part of the dispersion of Catholics from North Vietnam. In 1954 and 1955, eight hundred thousand Catholics went south after the fall of the French. Mr. Tien’s father, who served with the French, was killed, and his family joined the exodus. These refugees fled the Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh and were able to settle in the South thanks to the Ngo Dinh Diem regime. This opened another struggle that consumed the nation with a Buddhist-Catholic rivalry. The wrath of South Vietnamese Buddhists destroyed the Diem regime and lead to the civil war with the North.
Mr. Tien’s mother worked on a successful farm and sent her two sons to the University. His brother, an officer, was killed during the American war while the younger Mr. Tien worked the farm for his mother. After the war, in 1975, Mr. Tien saw the corrupt leadership consuming the government and decided he had to try to make a difference. With disgust for the system and people in it, he gave up the farm and became a teacher. He said it was necessary to start building a new Vietnam with its children.
There was a privilege afforded me to hear the stories of these teachers.
Pardon me, but I had never thought of Vietnam and intellectuals in the same context -- wrong. I met a teacher in Vietnamese literature. In my ignorance, I said, “Huh?” She quickly gave me a dissertation on a lot of people that were important to her and Vietnam. My apology was for stupidity in not relating their substance of character with a base of intelligentsia and history.

Iron workers

My first exposure to the iron and steel industry was at a Kelsey-Hayes plant in Detroit. I worked as an electrician when I got out of the Navy. We had built controls at our shop in Pontiac. One project was for a shaker conveyor to separate iron brake drums from the sand castings. My boss wanted me to come along for startup, should there be any problems. I was awe struck by heavy industry. There were so many people, so much machinery and equipment functioning in the biggest building I had ever been in, to produce iron castings. A huge cantilever dumped the mold pallets of sand and red hot castings on to our system intended to separate the two. The shaker conveyor was not breaking things up as planned so they summoned a big black dude with a twenty pound sludge hammer to strike the stubborn pieces. This was long before OSHA and our only safety gear was a hard hat. The dust made breathing a challenge while the noise battered you senseless. To speak with someone you plugged his ear with your thumb and screamed out the words two inches away. Most of the Kelsey people were black because the high pay compensated for the hazardous environment or so they thought. After one day there, it took two weeks for my sinus mucus to clear.
During my eight year tenure as a customer service rep for the material handling company, I had several steel mill and foundry projects. My first was at the Ford Flat Rock foundry. Ten years since the Kelsey episode, this modern facility lessened the dangers to man, I thought. A Roll-abrattor machine with an enclosed chamber propelled steel balls to clean castings inside. Somehow it got turned on while a man was inside.
A rolling mill is where steel rod is made. Beginning with a red hot ingot, rollers gradually form small rod from an ingot three feet in diameter. As the diameter decreases, the speed of the rod increases. The red glowing rod becomes propelled through this mile long building at over sixty miles per hour. Out of the hundreds made in a day, at least one would escape the rollers and become a twisted mess atop the mills. At the end of the line, the rod was coiled onto a bobbin forming a six foot spool weighing a ton. Our project was to convey the spool to a compactor-bander, making a form so that it could be shipped. There is no way that I can explain to the reader my predicament and near-miss. I had only a bruised hand instead of losing my forearm to a ton of steel inside the compactor-bander. I consciously gripped my forearm for several years thankful it was there.
One cool two weeks in May, I was assigned to a foundry project for Kohler in Wisconsin. Rather than bunk at a local motel, I took my tent and lived at a State park on Lake Michigan, a great way to clear cast iron dust from your lungs.
Iron workers are a unique breed. Hardy, hard working, and heavy drinkers they were always good for a laugh or head-shaking grin. Typically they partied late into the night, always got to work on time; were blurry-eyed all morning. They saved the tough work for the afternoon when a shot and a beer at lunch got them back on an even keel. The supervisor on a project in Pennsylvania promised to show a new iron worker a good time in town that night. The next morning the new recruit was holding his chest and all laughed at his misadventure. He had kept drinking with the boss at the bar till midnight. Then the boss looked over and he was gone. He bellowed, “Where is that light-weight?” After finishing his beer, he jumped off his bar stool and landed both feet on the recruit’s chest that had fallen to the floor.
At a steel plant in Lackawanna New York, one tough iron man was nursing a swollen jaw, not from brawling but his abscessed tooth. Whiskey was the only painkiller he knew. I doubt if he lived very long in that condition.
On my first day at a small casting plant in Connecticut, I asked an old maintenance guy where I could get a sandwich for lunch. He said to follow him. He walked with a bad limp. By the street where we walked were signs of a canal that drove paddle wheels extending into industrial buildings to drive machinery before electric motors existed. A block away was a dingy basement pub where I ate a beef of rye and he had a beer. I asked of his limp. He knocked on his hollow wooden leg and smiled. He said, “You will see a large dairy farm on the north end of town? My brother runs that now. When I was four years old my mother sent me to fetch my father for supper who was scything wheat in the field. I ran through the tall wheat. Sure enough the scythe took off my right leg. I go the farm on weekends and tinker but I was never able to work the farm.”

France for Katrina

The pursuit of excellence has always been an attribute of my daughter Katrina. With as challenging a curriculum available to her in high school, she graduated second out of 495 students. Rewards befall those that excel. It was only fitting that my reward be to take her to France as a graduation present. The destination had much to do with her six years of French language study. Places and history are a large part of lesson plans. Katrina’s Paris agenda began formulating with French 101. Trip preparation began with testing her use of French by phone to hotels from a guide of small places to stay.
Jet-lag had no effect when we arrived in Paris. The Metro station near our quaint hotel gave access to the wonders we sought. This was my forth visit but being with someone who did her homework made it seem like the first time. Along the Seine to savor Notre Dame and Palais du Justice, Katrina was able to find clothing boutiques en route for those all important very European outfits and accents. Her street-side glace cacao (chocolate ice cream) will go down in her memory as did my peche melba (peaches and ice cream) on my first trip to Paris. The following day the wonders continued with Sacrê Coeur, L’Opéra, Place de la Concorde with L’Obelisk, the Louvre, Mussée D’Orsey, and then we climbed to the top of L’Arc de Triomphe and Tour Eiffel before walking down Champs-Élysées. A late evening taxi to the Moulin Rouge made the sights complete.
Maybe I should not have been so anxious to leave Paris. I later found in her journal, “Did I mention how much I love Paris? It’s more beautiful, more welcoming than I imagined. I’m so incredibly happy I’m here. I’m on the verge of tears. I could stay here for ever… awe, I can only hope.”
We rented a cute lime green Peugeot convertible and headed for the Loire Valley. At Pontlevoy we stayed at the most darling L’Hôtel de l’école. Their restaurant rivaled our best meals in Paris. This is Châteaux country with Chambord, Amboise, and Chenonceau. The surrounds were as adorable as you would ever desire.
Who am I to know that a young lady would not appreciate the burgundy wine country of Dijon? We got there by way of sun flower laden country roads but the vineyards and wine tasting was for dad. The next test of her resilience was a thirteen hour drive to Germany. In addition to calling this a business trip for the IRS, I wanted Katrina to know there was more to Europe than France. The Swiss Alps differ from the Rockies; bratwurst is just as fattening as filet au beurre; and mad Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein is as opulent as anything Louis XIV ever did. It was probably not until we booked a suite at my favorite Hotel Hachinger Hof outside of Munich that Katrina readied for our new experience. My good friend and business partner Klaus was able to show Katrina the merits of Bavaria and Munich.
Next our arrival in Strasburg gave solace to our quest and the village of Krumeich allowed her to parlé vous again. It was renowned for ceramics and we found gifts for those back home.
Our final point of interest was the Champagne region of Reims. Our stay in a four room addition to buildings at the vineyards of Guy Delong near St. Euphraise et Lairiyet could not have been better. Guy proudly gave us a tour and insight into the work of his great-grandparents farm. With his help we were able get reservations to the four star restaurant L’Assiette de Champonaise. The best champagne and six courses of the finest food and most lavish service our money could buy was a great way to end our ten day pursuit of excellence.

Iban of Borneo

Last year, I was in Breckenridge Colorado for niece Jill’s graduation party. Brother Gary and I skated out of one of the ceremonies to sit around the house trading travel stories and sipping wine with another guest. Randy was a clever mountain man with a boisterous flair. He made a small fortune developing land in the area and for many years and had set aside one month out of the year for a major adventure in far away places. Between the three us there was little left of the world we had not seen. As the evening continued our conversation became a bantering of abbreviated tales of good natured one-up-man-ship. We had much laughter and too much wine by the time Randy’s wife came to drag him home. He rose, sported a grin, pointed his finger at me, as if he were dealing a coup de grâce and said, “How about a dugout canoe ride upriver to the longhouses of the Iban people in Borneo?” I retorted with, “You mean the one outside of Kuching.” We all burst out laughing at our common ground. His wife grabbed him by the ear and took him home.
A few years before I booked a side-trip to Malaysia after a three week volunteer project in Vietnam. Short flights from Saigon to Kuala Lumpur to Kuching put me in the Sarawak portion of Borneo. I was not expecting such a modern city so a four star hotel was welcome for cleansing and refreshment after Vietnam. At dinner that night I met a German couple who planned a trip to see the Iban saying there was an extra seat if I wanted to go. My thoughts of seeing orangutans in the wild had subsided and this seemed more attainable.
Early the next morning our party of four took a three hour van ride to a river. Indeed there were four slats in a long canoe with an outboard motor, a man at the helm, and a pole-lady sitting forward. The motor took us most of the way before the river narrowed and the lady with the pole pushed us another mile or so in the shallow water. The helmsman was constantly bailing water in the after-end of the canoe. Indeed this remote village was quite authentic and our intrusion was welcome for supplemental income. The stilted longhouse was elevated about 15 feet above the rainforest floor and extended over one hundred yards. Construction was axe-hewn timber tied together with natural fiber. The roofing was corrugated steel. This domicile consisted of a series of individual ‘apartments’ with lofted sleeping quarters. Meeting rooms and common ground areas were central. I would guess there to be one hundred people residing. We were quartered on the opposite side of the river in a less elevated four room dwelling. Our helmsman now guide, provided a cooler with box-lunches and bottled water for our overnight stay. A bit touristy but interesting as an old tattooed Iban warrior gave a blowgun demonstration in his Hornbill headdress. We were free to wander about the longhouse to see the crafty residents weaving baskets and cloth. That evening there was more showiness with dancing and local dress for their four guests. I would have felt duped under similar circumstances but here the Iban were able to lead their traditional life in this remote village while earning a little cash on the side. The importance of traditional art, costumes, and agriculture was being passed on to their children. I trust the one shrunken head had been around for a few generations.
I woke at dawn in this misty rainforest and bathed in the river along side the locals.

The Amish

It should be time for the Spring Auction in the Amish country of Kidron, Ohio. Years back, my brother-in-law, Johnny, had quite a side business dealing in horse drawn farm equipment. His dawn to dusk job was raising pigs and growing corn. It was a constant search but the off-season winter months gave him time to accrue the non-motorized equipment. The forgotten marvels that came an era before electricity were amazing by any measure. Johnny had a real affinity for clever vintage gadgets. One that comes to mind was an apple peeler. A hand crank turned an apple on a spindle that generated a continuous unweaving of peel in seconds.
Johnny had naive innocents that fit the Amish community but he was still an “Englishman”. He was befriended by a family that permitted him to sleep in their barn and breakfast was bought to him by one of the children. On one occasion, after years of association, he was allowed to break-bread with the family in the dining room. Tradition demanded they protect their children from the influence outsiders. A bigger threat was that one of their own would break away and then return.
My fascination with Johnny’s exposure to this community led me to witness it first hand. The Spring Auction was a rare occasion for the children to come to town and see what lay beyond the farm fence. My Nikon camera was held out of sight for fear of violating their humbleness. I stole many pictures without aim while holding the camera by my side. Many young ones noticed my sly shots and were willing victims for candid photos.

Our Children

A few years ago, I was doing some volunteer work in the Cook Islands but more so indulging in the serenity of this South Pacific island. I made a limited attempt to take care of business at home by telecommuting some design work and administrative duties via e-mail. Then there was a message from my daughter in high school telling me briefly what happened at Columbine that day and wondering why. I could only telephone to console her grief. In her fourteen years of life, there is no why; above all there is no guilt.
The events of this week have probably led most of us back to that day. There for the virtue of our children and the blamelessness of victims. I worked on these thoughts in writing of Auschwitz without conclusion. There is no presumption on my part to understand any of this. Mine is a reclusive behavior to dwell in the innocence and beauty of the world. Purity I have found in the indigenous peoples and most children of this earth. I have no contention to sway others but let us nourish our children and not glorify violence. Preserve the splendor of our environment. Pachelbel’s Canon is playing in the background as my thoughts of indulgence turns to fine wine, haut cuisine, and great works of art. It is that of creativity not destruction.

Children Incorporated

I am certain we have all wondered about the Sunday morning infomercials from the Christian Children’s Fund. There are many looking for our bleeding hearts and pockets in that God-forsaken Third World. I was never much for organized religion so I selected Children Incorporated many years ago. I sent my twelve dollars a month directed to Gloria in Guatemala and received pictures and hand-made Christmas cards. After the second year, I received a letter that Gloria had moved away and my new benefactor would be eight-year-old Silvia. This made it more real and I was encouraged. I submitted additional gifts and received pleasant thank you notes.
My plans for returning to Brazil were coming about so I booked a stopover in Guatemala City. My pronouncement by telephone to the president of Children Inc. was met with encouragement. What an amazing sojourn! I arrived mid-morning, rented a car, and miraculously found their little school. Contributions were going for her schooling. Here I met a devoted trio of teachers working with fifty assorted students. Because of my visit, Silvia was the celebrity of the day along with her brother Luis. After an hour or so of indoctrination about the programs, the teacher took us to see Silvia’s home a block away. Modest and warm, the struggling mother of four in their two-room wooden structure was very gratified. At this, I thought my mission was accomplished but I had two more days before departure. The teacher suggested Luis and Silvia were free and I should not leave Guatemala without seeing Antigua. The following day was great fun pointing and grunting through our language barrier at sights of their ancient capital ravaged by earthquakes. Wonderful people in this marvelous country, it was a great contribution.

Manneken Pis

I could not pass through Brussels without linen for my grandmother at Le Grand Place but more importantly to pay my respect to Manneken Pis. Brother Gary and I could outshoot this guy in our youth, particularly after a couple glasses of Kool-Aide. Understand, we were only four and five years old but whizzing was a lesson in Physics – wind direction, projectile, and all that stuff. Locating his fountain was difficult in the narrow streets but there he was --- or was he? No way! This guy was dressed in fancy clothes and a funny hat. Had the Puritans taken over Belgium? A crowd surrounded the fountain so it had to be him. I stood back and wondered what was going on. About that time a uniformed fellow with a briefcase leaned over in front of me and opened a steel hatch in the sidewalk. He turned off a valve to stop the Dandy’s stream, pulled a ladder from the hole, excused himself to the people near the fountain, and extended the ladder to the Manneken. He proceeded to remove the fancy garments and place them in his briefcase. He returned the ladder to the cavern in front of me. Then he uttered something in French at the crowd but no one listened. He shrugged, looked at me with a grin, bent over and turned the valve. The stream shot out into the crowd who scattered and a few screamed, much to the delight of the city servant. He chuckled as he replaced the cover and walked away with the suitcase.

Normandy

On many occasions, an itinerary was made or altered for my dad. Other than his tour of duty in Italy during WWII, he relied on National Geographic and me to bring the world to him. In 1973, my trek from Paris to London made a very necessary sojourn through Normandy. Up to this point, I had noticed France was still showing scars of the War. On occasion, a section of a building was in the rubble where the other part was being lived in. Germany had no such signs. I recall the story of Saarbrucken Germany where the city was completely destroyed except for a drug store in the town center. The current city is built on top of the ruins with the original drug store in operation but at a level ten feet below the surrounds.
My first stop in Normandy was Omaha Beach – the bomb craters and bunkers are still there. It was as if there should have been shelled landing craft as well. I sat in the turf and wrote dad a postcard. Just up the road from the beach was Pointe-du-Hoc. This was the landing site of a combined British and American Ranger group that was stalled by 100-foot tall cliffs while taking German gunfire. Inland my map showed several crosses for memorial cemeteries. I stopped at one. Thousands of white crosses brought me to my knees. Beyond there the ferries to England sailed from Boulogne-sur-Mer and Calais. I was told German pillboxes that shelled London were still in the area and I found one. Concrete walls four feet thick shielded the guns inside.
I was part of the Naval Amphibious forces; one vintage sailor aboard my ship was part of the Utah Beach invasion. Reverence would describe his attitude for the fallen and mine as well.

Camargue

During my assignment in Kaiserslautern, my German language teacher became a good friend. She was going for a vacation to the south of France. I am thinking about the Riviera but I was corrected that German people make fabulous holidays at a minimal cost. Their destination was west of Marseille in the Camargue. Good enough for me and I could come to visit for the weekend. Their modest hotel was near the fishing docks in a little village of Le Grau-du-Roi. Le Menu was always fresh fish. There was only one bathroom for the ten hotel rooms but Hey, I‘m new to this travel game and what works for Europeans will work for me. The bathroom was also for the restaurant but it was not clear why they kept the basket of baguettes behind the door.
The Camargue is the windward side of the Riviera at the mouth of the Rhone River. This low flat rough land is likened to the Wild West with white horses and black cattle ranging free. Saintes Maries-de-la-Mer, like a frontier town, is the home of the Gypsies. They have annual pilgrimages there which are certain to be the most colorful time to visit. We went to the bullfighting ring where activity seemed to be non-stop. A snorting bull was in the ring and teenage boys were sporting by sneaking up behind, swatting him on the rump or pulling his tail, then running for the fence. Their leap over was timed for their risk and adrenalin to narrowly miss the pursuing horns. Not exactly Pamplona but close.
Van Gogh fits this torrid place and more so Arles. While there I could not recall the specifics of his work in the area, the landscape well suited a mind in distress – like a sunflower.

Kaiserslautern

I was on assignment for four months in Kaiserslautern Germany. My heart and mind were open to absorb the culture of this new experience. It was 1973 but for this ‘war baby’, Nazism and WWII memories were not that far removed. My first month managing a crew of German electricians fell short of expectations. The translator was actually running the show. I enrolled in a language class but progress was too slow to resolve the workplace control. I enlisted new recruits with some English knowledge and progress at work was in the offing.
From that point, my interaction gave me a personal depth of involvement with the crew. Morris Weinberg was a veteran SS soldier that was captured by the Russians. He was quick to raise his arm and show the scar where his SS number was cut away as a POW. Morris pushed my interpretation of an American coffee break into a 10 am beer break. Most of the crew handled it well but Morris failed to function very well beyond two in the afternoon. The small bottles jingling in his shop coat, he said were medicine. I knew of Jagermeister and accused him of being a drunk. His German pride was hurt. A turnabout left his drinking habits to later in the day and the rest of the crew became more responsible.
Lutz Fruenel was a good electrician and always had a joke to tell me. The content line always seemed to have a tricky English word that resorted to sign-language and a guessing game. One such thing concerned an organ grinder at Notre Dame, he waved his hand above his shoulders and I guessed – a monkey on his back? “No. No. No”. It turned out to mean the Hunchback of Notre Dame but that was irrelevant. Waving a hand above the shoulders always evoked a hilarious laugh. We took a weekend together to visit his wife and family near Dusseldorf. The joke after that trip was my contortions to see the Castles of the Rhine. Lutz came here to visit me in 1986 from his work in some mining camp in Liberia Africa. This was part of the company's benefit to send him once a year to wherever he wanted to go. His wife had left him so he would not go home. Our goodbye salute was to wave a hand above our shoulders.

Sharecroppers

Family history has always been of great interest to me as generated from the vivid stories my dad would tell. He had endearing respect for family and I do not recall a negative word of blood relatives. Motherhood commanded total reverence, as he lost his mother to cancer when he was ten. His dad, Jay was resourceful but basically a sharecropper and subsistence farmer. Before marriage at thirty in 1916, he had been to twenty-three states and five provinces of Canada. Traveling to Saskatchewan for the wheat harvest, of the weather, he had told of a newspaper blowing against the side of a building and staying there for three weeks. His new bride, Mina was only eighteen. Within a year she bore a son Earl and my dad came four years later. About the time my dad started school they lived in a cabin west of town. In the winter months, Jay worked in lumbering down the road. With his team of horses, he would pull cut logs out of the woods. His day started before dawn and he returned after dark. At night Mina would have hot stew prepared and the wood stove ablaze. My dad and his brother stood vigil listening for the team, run to meet their dad, and take the team to the barn. My dad was too small to hang the halter up so Earl had to do it. Typically, after tending to the horses their dad had fallen asleep in his chair by the stove when they returned to the cabin.
The boys had a cash crop of potatoes which they sold roadside near the cabin. On one Saturday they had two dollars and fifty cents after a few good days of potato sales. The family loaded into the old Ford coupe and headed to town to buy groceries with mom holding coins in her lap. It was routine to have a flat tire on such a trip. Jay had stopped just past the last curve going into town and called for a tire check. He checked his side and Mina got out checking her side. When they got to town the money was gone. In tears and panic, they returned to the tire checkpoint and searched until dark along the roadside. My dad said he returned to that sight for many years thereafter. I sigh of their hardship when I round that curve.

I would expect lessons in life were by example. Work for what you get and be thankful for what you have.

72 Hours

In jest, I have said, “It’s Friday! One hundred dollars in my pocket and a full tank of gas, let’s go.” In my youth, it may have been five dollars and a dollars worth of gas in my ’53 Ford. In the Navy, I may have had twenty bucks to hitch-hike from Norfolk; arrive home mid-morning Saturday; grab a few hours sleep; enjoy a night out with friends; sleep well the rest of the night; enjoy breakfast with family, and thumb my way back to Virginia. Bumming a ride was easy and safe back then – especially in uniform. On one trip home it was bitter cold. A guy with a load of West Virginia hams picked me up on the PA turnpike. He regretted dropping me off in the cold of Toledo so he handed me a mayonnaise jar of white-lightning. He said, “If it takes too long to get another ride, this will keep you warm.” Later with a milkman coming out of Pontiac, we talked about the cold and I told of my jar. His eyes widened and his Southern drawl became apparent when he said, “Reeeally? Can I see it?” He glowed and gave it the shake test. He would take me home if we could stop to have a taste at his house with the wife. It had all the formality of uncorking a bottle of 1961 Lafite Rothschild.
One memorable 72 hours started with a local charter flight operation advertisement in September of 1995. Round trip to Frankfurt for their last weekend of the season was going for 24 hours at $99.00, 48 hours for $199.00, and 72 hours for $299.00. It was a happy flight. All aboard had seen the ad three days before and now we were on our way. About six people took the 24-hour jaunt which gave them eight hours on the ground – enough for a shopping spree in Frankfurt. A friend and I rented a car and drove six hours to see my memorable Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria. Of course, we had no hotel reservations and with our late arrival, the Schlosshotel was full. At the posh four-star Vila Jagerhaus I meekly asked for a cheap room. Nein! But they had one suite left for a bargain. Wunderbar! A great German dinner with local wine and a good sleep in a luxurious room. In the morning we needed to get back to Frankfurt. Come to think of it, those 4,000 some miles to Germany were about as exhausting and time-consuming as the 600 some miles of thumbing home from Virginia. In my viewpoint, it’s the thing to do.

Czech, Slovak, and Auschwitz

I have some dear German friends, particularly those over the past ten years with my partnerships in Munich. I travel there once or twice a year and on occasion have brought friends along. One such time a couple years ago, a good friend of Slovakian decent accompanied me. We drove to Prague for an extraordinary time. Any Lonely Planet Guide will get you prepared for the city. I did not keep any notes on our journey so my recall is a bit limited. A must-see is the unique Black Theatre where the artistry of mimes is awesome. There was also the Old Jewish Cemetery and surrounds that captured my empathy for their long history.
After the Czech Republic, we drove into Poland then back through Slovakia to the birthplace of my friend’s father. As planned, we made contact with her uncle. He was a proud man living in the demise of the collapsed communist state. More so the economic hardship evoked from the separation of what was Czechoslovakia. He had retired from a communal factory with a subsistence that kept him above poverty. An enduring benefit was his union pub where we enjoyed a fine beer for twenty-five cents. He proudly exulted our presence to his comrades. He later led us to the former family homestead. Well kept and in new hands the owner courteously gave us a tour of his house and outbuildings. In the midst of saying our goodbyes, he raised a finger and signaled us to wait. After ten minutes he returned with an old frame. He explained that it was from a handmade mirror left by the original owner, probably her father’s. We carried this treasure back to her family.
Her uncle directed us to visit an ancient landmark on our return. Bojnice Castle stood majestically in the High Tetras. We arrived for the pageantry of a princess and her court. Later was an amazing performance of birds of prey with falcons, hawks, and owls. I was awed by such a spectacle. At a Christmas party last year I was introduced to a young Slovak girl, the fiancée of another friend’s son. For the sake of conversation, I mention my Slovakian experience at a castle with birds of prey show. She beamed to say that she played the princess there in the summer after high school days. How small is this world?
I did not expand on our side-trip into Poland nor did I mention it to my friend before we arrived at the gates of Auschwitz. It was just something I needed to see. My feeling is not connected to religion or the sanctity of beliefs. I have witnessed most all believers and respect their rights. To condone or condemn is not what happened there. I reach back to colonialism, rights of indigenous peoples, power of the sword, and just plain barbarianism. It is not something to explain or least of all attempts to justify. How can it be? There were mounds of human hair. Does it really matter whether they were Russian prisoners of war, German homosexuals, or Jews? The history of man and his inhumanity to man should not exist in like content but it does. I think of you and me at levels of our evolvement. Be there a Hitler and such followers in our midst? Yes. Are most of us at a higher level of coherence with our souls? Yes.

India Phase 3

The passion of the Hindu was never more apparent than in Varanasi, the Holy City on the Ganges River. The dead or dying came for cremation and ashes dumped into the river just upstream from the pilgrims spiritually bathing in the Holy water. The gnats leading to the river were commercial centers for flowers and food as offerings. The open-air barber shaved heads as a unit of grief for the suffering. Firewood to feed the pyres came from miles around. We hired a boat for a better view of the activity.
Silk saris were a major item that caused most taxis to detour tourists into silk galleries for the sake of a sponsored commission. Silver and gold craftsmen had an exquisite trade for ornamental piercing. We joked about chimed ankle bracelets to track their ladies. Sacred cows seemed more prevalent here and the narrower the street the slippery the walk. Not a good place for flip-flops. Such deposits were fair trade to be scooped up by the hands of the untouchables and splattered for drying on a building wall. When dried, it would burn as a fuel for heat or cooking stove.
Our flight to Agra was entertaining when weather conditions did not allow for a scheduled interim stop on the itinerary of a Japanese tour group. The leader ranted and raved up and down the aisle to no avail. We arrived at dusk and the ebb of a full moon. The taxi driver said the Taj Mahal grounds were closed but he would pass by an area of access. We climbed an embankment and approached the fence. Someone shouted in the background but clouds were about to expose the full moon on the Taj. The ratchet of a carbine got our attention as the guard came swiftly towards us. No one was above reproach so a few rupees made him happy to show us to a better vantage point.
For such a special place, we returned early in the morning to enter the legitimate grounds. Breathtaking, awesome, and all you can imagine this was a premier destination. Because of the disputed Kashmir region, the carpet business came to us and shopping struck our fancy. It was more intense at our next destination of Jaipur.
Agra to Jaipur was a short distance so going by rail made sense in spite of the last derailment. A train in the state of Rajasthan seemed to put you in touch with Rudyard Kipling and The Man who would be King. This arid region was the invasion route of Genghis Khan, Persian, and others invaders. The Amber Palace had displays of weaponry from an imagination afar of our concept. A scissor/sword reeked of sadistic creativity and would have left little intact of the victims' innards. The marvel of Asia is that it takes you beyond our precept given in Western civilization. We stayed at the Palace Hotel with a life-size chessboard in the garden where you could envision the ancient Maharaja playing with lives. Peacocks frolicked and screamed in the evening and at dawn, bazaar but in place here. Camels, burros, and elephants were new modes of getting around.
Because of the cloudy day, our flight to Delhi was canceled. As a matter of routine, the airline commissioned a fleet of taxis for the near 200-kilometer road to Delhi. We had little hope of getting there with this suicide taxi driver. The roadside was filled with tragic vehicle crash remnants. We counted on Hare to seek help from the many Hindu gods to get us to Delhi. Transportation tested our resolve throughout this journey. Our Air India landing at Heathrow was severe and the 747 blew a few tires. Comfort and contentment are not the measures of good experience and a great adventure.

India Phase 2

With the wedding behind us, Hare was off to visit other family members while Rich and I hopped a train with plans to meet up later in Bhubaneshwar. Another cousin accompanied us. The First Class car was full so we packed into a crowded car. Here we met three young American girls in dire straights, plagued with dysentery. This was not the best place to be stricken as the facilities were deplorable. We gave them our meds and sympathy then bedded down in an overhead rack holding onto our luggage for the overnight journey. Just before dawn, the train stopped in the middle of nowhere. Rumor had it that a failed switch caused us to be on a collision course with another train. The engine reversed and all were wondering what next. A very abrupt stop as the car behind use fouled and derailed on the broken switch. It was obvious this train was doomed. Though cleared from any oncoming train, we had no intention of waiting for the repair crew. With luggage in hand, we sweated our way to an intersection some two kilometers back. The word was out so some three-wheeled motorized rickshaws were waiting for passengers. Three grown men with bags in a seat for two made for a painful fifteen-kilometer ride into town.
We played tourists at the Sun Temple of Konarak and the Temple at Puri for a long day. Calcutta was next. The drive brought us by a dump of unspeakable stench with numerous people picking through it for substance. In the crowded city, we went to the National Museum but the treasures were overshadowed by filth and every corner was purple from the people spitting their beetle juice cud.
At this point, it was time to change plans and punt this town for something better. Kathmandu was mentioned and we headed for the airport. We left Hare behind with plans to link up in Varanasi after our three days in Shangri-La. We booked into a great Japanese owned hotel for indulgence and excess of thick steaks of beef, hot water, wine, soft beds with fluffy pillows, and laundry service. We rented a car with the intention of seeing the Himalayas. The skies were overcast but the countryside was amazing. After enjoying a medium-rare filet mignon that evening at the hotel we were told of excursion flights for seeing Everest. The next morning we were told the flights were full. Now judging this part of the world we knew there should be another way. At the airport ticket counter, he was about to give the same story when I flashed a US twenty dollar bill – well, there may be seats in first class. First Class it was in a new 737 we were invited into the cockpit and had a panoramic view of the spectacular mountains. This was just the departure necessary to cleanse our systems and return to India.

India Phase 1

On a cold January day in 1990, Hare came into my office to say he would be going to the wedding of his niece next week without his family. I said adopt me and I’ll go along. The rush was on to get a visa, shots, and shuffle other plans. At the news, my brother Rich was intently interested and Hare agreed to make it a tour India. Hare had never seen much of his native country. Having left after college, he returned only for family events.
The short plan was to fly into Bombay and fly out of New Delhi three weeks later. The reality of this strange place came after our landing in Bombay. The interior carrier, Indian Airlines did not have a computerized ticketing system and flights were visual, limited to daylight hours and cloudless skies. This taught patience and flexibility. Good weather the next day got us to Madras. A taxi ride to get us to Mamallapuram taught us the roadways were the most dangerous in the world. This seaside area got us oriented into the color, caste system, and temples of the Hindu. A roadside magician/snake charmer was an intro to the bazaar. Water consumption was out of the question so it was tea in the morning and beer thereafter. Sanitation did not exist. Out of necessity, I became ‘potty trained’ to contain myself throughout the travels of the day and find relief only in the hotel room. We were very fortunate to have Hare at restaurants to query and dictate food preparation and freshness.
We flew from Madras to Vishakhapatnam. We were picked up by Hare’s nephew for a 190 km drive to Rayagada, the home of the bride’s family. The wedding was into the first of a three-day festivity. Hare’s brother, a doctor, and father of the bride was hosting a major celebration. His third daughter and dowry would financially cripple most fathers. Yes, the nuptials were arranged by their families for a proper match. The extended family and community members in attendance were witnesses to extend the responsibility of the couple to make it work.The following evening the procession of the groom, his family, and friends arrived with music, pomp, and circumstance. This doubled the size of the party. The bride had been secluded with a group of women for an extensive homily on marital responsibilities. The groom was shuttled off for his orientation in sessions by men and then women. It was four AM before the priest bought the two together and performed a lengthy dissertation that left me nodding off. Preeti and Kumuo disappeared before sunrise but the food and guests remained well into the next day.
We had brought some clothing from home to hand out and a family member agreed to help direct our gifts. It turned out to be a twenty-kilometer hike to a remote village. Isolated tribal settlements are common throughout this country. This agrarian group had a distinctive nose ring. Woven baskets were a small commercial enterprise but subsistence farming was the base. I would guess their numbers were one hundred in about ten thatched-roof mud huts. Most of the men were out working in the fields. Amongst the women and children, we handed out our western clothing. Looks of dismay made me realize they were much more comfortable wrapped in cloth. We were beneficiaries of their hospitality.

Arrowheadin’

I have always allowed history, archaeology, and anthropology to occupy much of my time. As a kid, my mother put a stop to my assembling the skeletal remains of a cow I found in my refuge ’down the tracks’. Indian lore was a big component. A little later in life, I was a new member of the Michigan Archaeological Society where I found my first real artifacts in a bean field near Frankenmuth. Other awakenings came with visiting Mound Builders and Flint Ridge in Ohio. In spite of my ramblings and imagination around the home, I never produced a real arrowhead for my rock collection. Unlike Michigan where rocks are everywhere, in some areas of the country rocks found were generally brought in by man.
On assignment in Danville, Kentucky, I struck up a conversation with a secretary concerning Indian arrowheads. She said they were everywhere in the area. Not to let it stop there I asked her if she would tell me where. Her explanation of landmarks did not suit my county map so we concluded she would need to show me on Saturday. At a streambed on a farmers plot not far from town serendipity -- flint chips and arrowheads were everywhere just as she had said.
Sharing my findings with dad back home, he asked if we had seen geodes near the river bed. My later query from this local lady brought a blank stare when I said geodes. I explained of the hard surface and holler crystalline interior. She gave it some thought, then said, “Oh, you mean nigger heads.” Ah, yeah.
That following Saturday we combed a freshly plowed field where the farmer would be pleased that we took away a dozen geodes. Their quality was poor but gems none the less.
Elated by such discoveries, I told this young lady her reward would be a fabulous dinner. Being a dry county, it was necessary to travel twenty miles to find a good restaurant. She gave me directions of down the road and up the hollow to the third house on the right to pick her up on Saturday night. When I arrived her family was assembled in another room in front of the TV. Her father waved then her mother came to say hello. The restaurant was nice. I was overjoyed to be a part of her nice dining experience. At which point, she explained it was necessary to break up with her longtime boyfriend in order to be with me. Gulp. My intentions were only to reward her but it went a little beyond that. When I walked her to the door, I could see her father and some of her siblings sleeping in the other room by the flicker of the TV. Afterward, I was her window to the world and sent postcards from my travels but lost touch after about ten years.
Last year I received a call from an old Navy buddy concerning a planned reunion for our LST-1175 crew. I asked, “How did you ever find me?” He explained all the avenues on the Internet for finding people. Curiously I plugged in a few names. I was surprised to find my arrowheadin’ buddy listed. Ladies get lost with the name changes caused by marriage but she was still there up the holler. I called to find her having never married and living with her widowed mom in the family homestead. She said the local jobs had dried up so she went back to college and got a degree in English. "Can’t speak it but I sure can teach it," she said, now at the University of Eastern Kentucky. Since then I have been concerned that the break up caused by my arrowheadin’ reward may have caused her to miss her opportunity for marriage.