Eulogy to Mrs. Stoddard

This majestic lady spanned five generations of my family. Her influence touched my father, my daughter, and particularly me. She was my teacher in second, third, and forth grades then again in the eighth at Leonard School.
My signed copy of her book, The Leopard’s Changing Spots says, “To My Favorite Student” but I know she favored all of us. Mrs. Stoddard never had a bad student. She found the good and brought out the best in everyone. Because her expectations were high, our achievements followed.
Beyond the arts and sciences, her inspiration by example came from a total absence of prejudice. There was no gender, racial, socio-economic, or intellectual advantage that impacted her principles.Shortly after her ninetieth birthday I stopped when seeing her trying out a new push-mower around a tree at her home. Of course, she did not need my help. Her independent spirit never faded. Mrs. Stoddard provided stability throughout my life knowing I could always find her at 70 Pontiac Street. I am going to miss that.

Vinkeveen

Early calculations with a ten am flight, eight am boarding, and being five hours away from Amsterdam, any attempt at sleeping that night would be detrimental. Half way through the EMO Exhibition with my German partners and my early departure merited a party on my final day. After that evening of food and drink, two cold showers were sobering enough to get me on the road at two am. A couple short naps along the way put me an hour away at 7:05 am. Open windows, loud radio, and a large coffee made little difference at this phase of sleep deprivation. My dreary eyes focused on an exit sign for Vinkeveen. My mind rolled back to 1973 when I stopped there to visit Ad Bemelman, the European sales manager for my Kaiserslautern Germany work assignment. Ad had become a very special figure when in an earlier meeting he told me of his father’s involvement with the grandson of Theo Van Gogh, Vincent’s brother, to establish the Musee Van Gogh, soon to be opened, in Amsterdam. Hey, he was talking to a kid from Leonard where a library card was a level of sophistication. Here, Ad and his link to Vincent made him an icon. Moreover was his association with this community. He took me on a mini tour of Vinkeveen that day. First was a stop at a wooden shoemaker’s shop. Too touristy but an effort to explain the practical nature of a device intended to keep the farmer’s feet dry. The second stop was to meet eccentric but essential members of the community – The Recycle Siblings. Two brothers and a sister, who were unmarried and devoted to collecting garbage, sorted the valuables into piles of metal, paper, and plastic. I likened it to Dung Beetles in the play Insect Comedy where they were protective of their balls of shit. Ad was concerned who would be around to carry on after the aging siblings were gone. I now wonder. Last and most memorable was the Dutch vegetable auction. We took our place in the theatre of bidders built over a canal where boats loaded with fresh vegetables floated in with contents available for sale to the highest bidder. The uniqueness came from a descending clock on the wall. Each seat in the theatre had a button to stop the clock. There was no competitive bidding only a single stoke of someone’s button to stop the clock and buy contents at a Dutch Guilder per kilo figure.
That thought process on that Starry Night overcame the heavy early morning truck traffic and transpose me to Schiphol Airport in time for a dash to the gate for my flight home.

Man of La Mancha

A bubbling young lad sitting next to me on the A330 to Amsterdam glowed with the excitement of his third flight and his first to Europe. His company from Escanaba was sending him and two others to Hamburg Germany to learn about power generating windmills from the Germans. I was impressed by the young man’s enthusiasm and zest but moreover as a representative of an American kid. He was clean cut, well dressed, and had good manners. I was curious to know but would never ask, if he came from a two parent family, attended church on Sunday, and dined with the whole family most evenings.
We talked a little about alternative energy. I said he could consider himself our ‘Man of Escanaba’, as Don Quixote to meet the challenge of the windmills. He nodded with a grin but I wasn’t sure he knew the story. I loved the lunacy of the Knight of the Woeful Countenance and his plight to win the heart of the lovely Dulcinea.
Later that day I was driving to Berlin. Windmills nearly dominate the landscape in some areas. At night their blinking red lights fill the horizon. The sight may tweak the heartstrings of some environmentalists but I think it would be better to have an isolated energy plant fed from an underground source. I have heard our prized windmills near Palm Springs California have decimated the eagle population.

Kingdom Of Cambodia

It is a bit chilling when thinking about Cambodia of the sixties and seventies with Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge that led to the Killing Fields. The Khmer Rouge still has some strongholds today which have deterred Yanks like me from playing tourist. Two prior attempts to get here were a timing problem the other was misinformed Chinese agent in Guangzhou telling me there was too much unrest for Americans to travel there. The Kingdom of Cambodia today has Norodom Sihanouk, another echo of the past, in his eighties still enshrined as father of the King.
In my plight to get here, I had confirmed my plan by phone with the agent back in Bangkok. As language problems have it, my paperwork noted tour arrangements which explained the seemingly high price when all I asked for was plane fare and a hotel. So be it. Upon arrival in Siem Reap, the swarms of Japanese tourists were looking for their respective guides. I felt I would locate my Pink Rose Tour just to get to the hotel but I saw no funny pink flag waving. As I made my way to find a taxi, I spotted my misspelled name on a banner held by a concerned guide. I was his only client so this might work after all. His name was Vishnu and he was quick to say he was Buddhist not Hindu as the name might imply. He struggled to pronounce my name, so I said, “Call me Raja but I am not Hindu.” Driving from the airport I saw fields of rice being tilled by water buffalo, this was the classic sight I had sought in Vietnam in 1994. Before me was the Orient I had expected to find in prior travels. Cambodia is emerging from fifty years of war torn oppression such misfortune gives us a glimpse of their time lapse.
My Sofitel Royal Angkor was the best hotel to continue my indulgence. It’s too much of a contrast to those in the rice paddies, sorry. The appreciative staff was so good in every way. You can tell those that find gratitude in having a job – it is not servitude. The food selection and preparation put it outside its environment. I doubt the owners were seeing a return on their investment with such a minimal guest list but then it was the off-season.
The sight and feel of the ruins were, in a word, fulfilling. I may have been more enraptured with the aspect of just being there. In trekking through England several years ago, I overheard someone say “Another bloody castle and another bloody cathedral.” Not to belittle the majestic sight of such a wonder but once the awe subsided Angkor Wat, Thom, or the Leper King did not matter. Maybe when the heat and humidity are at 100, little matters. Drenched in perspiration, I took liberty to tell Vishnu that we will not change Angkor but Angkor will change us unless we succumb to vendors selling cold beer.
Princess Diana’s land mine campaign will continue in this country for years to come. A group of mine victims played music for the cause in the ruins of Bayon. Shamefully the United States never took up the cause as we were the origin of so many. Our flight from Vietnam led to Cambodia’s destruction by the Viet Cong and the ascension of Pol Pot. Time seems to have healed the wounds we left in this area. It is probably given from the nirvana of Buddhism or just a generation looking forward.

Faced with a 6 AM flight out of Bangkok, I had chosen the last flight from Siem Reap at 8 PM. Of course, I wanted the most time in Cambodia there was no way I could get a hotel with 10 hours transit time. At 10 PM, a sign on the Northwest desk said check in would begin at three AM. I rolled my luggage into a baby changing stall and got into some fresh traveling clothes. A floor above the departure counters was the nice Sky Lounge Restaurant that fit my situation. Once I staked my claim with a grilled salmon dinner and a bottle of red wine in a setting made for six, I sipped Perrier for three hours with my laptop. Call me ‘the Bobble-Head on the Balcony”. Who needs a first class lounge?

Kingdom of Siam

It took the usual thirteen hours from Detroit to Narita in Japan to get me in striking distance to most anywhere in the Orient. This time it is six hours to Bangkok Thailand for installation of a Labtap System. Thanks to my Gold Elite status Northwest upgraded me to Business Class but this breached my consumption moderation outlook. I had to partake of their good offerings of French Bordeaux with Japanese prepared salmon and who could resist a little cognac. My midnight arrival made for easy passage to a potential sales representative’s recommendation of SC Park Hotel. Now, slipping a day, it was Tuesday and an afternoon meeting with their staff. The orientation went well but pointless as their entrance to my customer was denied. That evening I had a nice dinner with the owner, her husband, and daughter. I had picked up small Harley biker shirts at the airport as gifts for people unknown. Having adopted the thought of Chinese women being so small, this is not the case with affluent Thai people. The shirts found a home with the daughter and another sister.
Wednesday at 8 am I was picked up by my customer for an hour and a half drive to their R&D lab. Truly an impressive facility fitting of a petroleum company with a government owned majority. Machine setup and general introduction to the system with the crew was plenty for the first day. Lunch and dinner were hosted at local restaurants by managers and crew. Both meals held similarity to Vietnam’s Tan Hiep Pot as a soup dish with a variety of other foods fired by charcoal on your table. My quarters were at the company hotel within their compound. It was a stately room in the manner of hospital construction with teak furnishings and marble bath. I was probably the only guest. I was handicapped without the Internet or cable television but I did get some productive work and writing done.
To generate some background noise I had the TV on. Their language was not comprehendible and in no time became nauseating. A State dinner was on all of the eleven channels. The King and Queen must have felt it was important for all to witness. Silence was better for me. I would not say in Thailand there was any resemblance to portrait presence in the days of Chairman Mao or Saddam Hussein but you got know the Royal Family in hotel lobbies and the King extended blessings all along the highways. My host company wore uniforms of yellow in respect to the King. They call this a constitutional monarchy. And yes, the King is definitely a Figure Head.
The second day with classes for four or five chemists left me a bit unsure of where they would be a month from now but I gave it my best. My last dinner was the best. The young lad from the lab and a lady chemist hosted me. At the local town of Saraburi, we ate at Fuku Garden Restaurant which had much the same food but it just tasted better.
My work was complete. As anticipated, I had two days and three nights before my return home. Now I was free to carry out an awaited option. With a little help I was able to secure flight and hotel in Cambodia for a 40 hour trip to Angkor Wat.