La Rue Sans Joie

“Sometimes, there occurs an almost irrelevant incident which, in the light of later developments, seems to have been a sign of the gods, a dreamlike warning which, if heeded, could have changed fate – or so it seems.

One such incident occurred to me in October 1953 in Cambodia, at Siem-Reap, not far away from the fabulous temples of Angkor-Wat. I has been in the field with the 5th Cambodian Autonomous Infantry Company and was now in need of transportation back to Phnom-Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Siem-Reap, a quiet and pleasant little place with two hotels catering to the tourist trade and a few French archaeologists working around the ruins of Angkor, might as well have been a small garrison town in southern France, such as Avignon or Nimes.

A few French officers were still around, mainly as advisers to the newly-independent Cambodian Army. Their chores were light; there were no Communists in the area and the handful of obsolescent Renault trucks and World War II-type weapons needed a minimum of maintenance and care. An assignment to Siem-Reap was as good a sinecure as could be found in Indochina in October 1953 and the officers made the most of it.

When I went to the Transportation Office that afternoon at 1530, the Cambodian orderly told me apologetically that “le Lieutenant est allé au mess jouer au tennis avec le Capitaine” and that they might well stay there for the rest of the afternoon. Since a convoy which I expected to catch was supposed to leave at dawn, I decided to stroll over to the mess in order to get my travel documents signed there.

The Siem-Reap officers’ mess was a pleasant and well-kept place; with its wide Cambodian-style verandahs, its parasol-shaded tables and the well-manicured lawns and beautifully red-sanded tennis court, it was an exact replica of all the other colonial officers’ messes from Port Said to Singapore, Saigon, or even Manila, wherever the white man had set his foot in the course of building his ephemeral empires.

I found the two officers at the tennis court, in gleaming white French square-bottomed shorts (no one in Europe would be caught dead in the ungainly Bermuda pants called “shorts” in the United States), matching Lacoste tennis shirts and knee-long socks. Their skins had lost the unhealthy pallor of the jungle and had taken on the handsome bronze of the vacationer engaging in outdoor sports; their wives, seated at a neighboring table, were beautifully groomed and wore deceptively simple (but, oh, so expensive!) cotton summer dresses clearly showing the hand of a Paris designer. Both officers played in the easy style of men who knew each other’s game and were less bent on winning than on getting the fun and exercise of it. Three Cambodian servants, clad in impeccable white slacks and shirts, stood respectfully in the shadow of the verandah, awaiting the call of one of the officers or women for a new cool drink.

Since the men were in the midst of a set and I had little else to do, I sat down at a neighboring table after a courteous bow to the ladies and watched the game, gladly enjoying the atmosphere of genteel civility and forgetting for a moment the war. At the next table, the two women kept up the rapid-fire chatter which French women are prone to use when men are present. The two men also kept up a conversation of sorts, interrupted regularly by the “plop-plop” of the tennis ball.

Then emerged from the verandah a soldier in a French uniform. His small stature, brown skin and western-type features showed him to be a Cambodian. He wore the blue field cap with the golden anchor of the Troupes Coloniales – the French “Marines” – and the three golden chevrons of a master-sergeant. On his chest above the left breast pocket of his suntan regulation shirt were three rows of multi-colored ribbons:croix de guerre with four citations, campaign ribbons with the clasps of France’s every colonial campaign since the Moroccan pacification of 1926; the Italian campaign of 1943 and the drive to the Rhine of 1945. In his left hand, he carried several papers crossed diagonally with a tri-colored ribbon; travel orders, like mine, which also awaited the signature of one of the officers.

He remained in the shadow of the verandah’s awnings until the officers had interrupted their game and had joined the two women with their drinks, then strode over in a measured military step, came stiffly to attention in a military salute. and handed the orders for himself and his squad to the captain. The captain looked up in surprise, still with a half-smile on his face from the remark he had made previously. His eyes narrowed suddenly as he understood he was being interrupted. Obviously, he was annoyed but not really furious.

“Sergeant, you can see that I’m busy. Please wait until I have time to deal with your travel orders. Don’t worry. You will have them in time for the convoy”.

The sergeant stood stiffly at attention, some of his almost white hair glistening in the sun where it peeked from under the cap, his wizened face betraying no emotion whatsoever.

“A vos ordres, mon Capitaine.” A sharp salute, a snappy about face. The incident was closed, the officers had had their drink and now resumed their game.

The sergeant resumed his watch near where the Cambodian messboys were following the game, but this time he had squatted down on his haunches, a favorite Cambodian position of repose which would leave most Europeans with partial paralysis for several hours afterwards. Almost without moving his head, he attentively followed the tennis game, his travel orders still tightly clutched in his left hand.

The sun began to settle behind the trees of the garden and a slight cooling breeze rose from the nearby Lake Tonlé-Sap, Cambodia’s inland sea. It was 1700.

All of a sudden, there rose behind the trees, from the nearby French camp, the beautiful bell-clear sounds of a bugle playing “lower the flag” – the signal which, in the French Army, marks the end of the working day as the colors are struck.

Nothing changed at the tennis court; the two officers continued to play their set, the women continued their chatter, and the messboys their silent vigil.

Only the old sergeant had moved. He was now standing stiffly at attention, his right hand raised to the cap in the flat-palmed salute of the French Army, facing in the direction from which the bugle tones came; saluting, as per regulations, France’s tricolor hidden behind the trees. The rays of the setting sun shone upon the immobile brown figure, catching the gold of the anchor and of the chevrons and one of the tiny metal stars of his ribbons.

Something very warm welled up in me. I felt like running over to the little Cambodian who had fought all his life for my country, and apologizing to him for my countrymen here who didn’t care about him, and for my countrymen in France who didn’t even care about their countrymen fighting in Indochina…

And in one single blinding flash, I knew that we were going to lose the war.”
-- Bernard Fall

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

When I got sent to La Rue Sans Joie, twenty years after Fall, the French were gone and I had forgotten to bring my tennis racquet.   That was okay.  I wouldn't need it.

Here Comes the Judge

Years and years ago my first grownup IT project was to help the City of Independence, Missouri, set up a scheduling system for its municipal court cases.  Utah was the promised land, but Independence was where the Mormons expected Christ to return to earth.  Competing Mormon factions had staked out claims on the spot where Christ was expected to land.  Who knew there were competing Mormon factions?   All the things you learn about America by travelling west of the Hudson. 

When my neighbor Paula ran away from her husband, I inherited some of her furniture and used it to replace the things I'd been renting.   Later, I'd tell people I'd slept in the bed of the great-great-great-grand daughter of  Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet.  What I left out of that story was that I never got to sleep in the bed while Paula was in it.  Too bad for me.  Paula was a really hot redhead.  Imagine, redheaded Mormons.  Another thing you don't know when you grow up east of the Hudson.

Harry Truman was the town's other claim to fame.   Outside my office window, there was a big statue of him.  Only one of two in the country.  Truman's house was just down the street.  He liked to take morning strolls around the town square.  A simple life that I'd missed by getting hired a few years too late.

The ladies who administered the small court weren't thrilled about the computer project.  "How will it change our lives?  It will just be more work for us to set up and administer.  There's barely enough time in the day to do the work we have now and you want us to help you?  All this work to put speeding tickets and Fight Day on a computer."

Wednesday was Fight Day, the day when misdemeanor cases were handled, often domestic disputes that got out of hand and required police intervention.   The nasty stuff -- murders, robberies and serious beatings -- were handled by the Jackson County Court.  Even so, Fight Day drew a large crowd.

The police were more enthusiastic about the project.   The scheduling part of the system would cut down the time officers spent in court (you might have been able to achieve the same thing with a more effective manual scheduling system) and it was a resume builder -- "While working for the Independence Police Department I implemented a computerized court scheduling system for my patrolman."  Plus we could make site visits to St. Louis and Kansas City, which was very exotic being five miles away.  Technology transfer was the buzzword of the day.   Take a system from another city and make it work for yours.

The St. Louis trip was, in fact, interesting.  The head clerk, a tall and courtly black man, ex-military, treated us to lunch and did a good job showing us around and explaining the mechanics and benefits of his system.  I got to spend some serious face time with the police chief and his second in command. For some reason they amused themselves trying to get me drunk at dinner.   You'd think they'd have done a background check and discovered that in a prior life my job,  in addition to sowing mayhem among the North Vietnamese,  had been herding drunken commodores at officers' clubs throughout the Far East.  We ended up selecting the St. Louis system for Independence.  The chief and his assistant couldn't out drink me.

The police chief had gotten his job by taking on a special assignment for the city manager.  A little before I arrived, the city desegregated the public swimming pool.  Chief went in undercover to finger any troublemakers.  (Wearing a swimming suit at pool in a small town where everyone knows everyone, isn't exactly undercover, but that's the best I can do.  If you don't like, it write your own story.)  The new police chief wasn't asked to desegregate the police department.  Affirmative Action consisted of the city manager hiring young black man from Kansas City to be his assistant.  That was the extend of it.

The city council consisted of people who represented the best of small town America:  a college professor, a newspaper reporter, the League of Women voters.  They were about to be deposed.  Maybe it was the pool?  Maybe it was because the city manager, who was an outsider from California, raised the sewer rates by a dollar a month?  Maybe it was the city manager's black assistant?  It was thirty years too early for the Tea Party, but the sentiment was close.

The third project stakeholder was the municipal court judge.  He had a fearsome reputation.  After spending some time as observers at the court, the other systems analyst and I were certain he deserved it. 

The city planned to build a new court building, but for the time being the court still used the second floor of the old jail house.  There were rumors members of the Jesse James gang had once been locked up there.  Possible.  The building looked like it hadn't been painted since the days when the Jesse James terrorized Jackson County. 

Our first Fight Day as observers, the judge walks into court and takes his seat.  He eyes the crowd.  "There's a lot of you folks here today.  Please stand.   Thank you.   Now all of you line up along the far wall in front of the windows.  Thank you.  Very good.  The reason I've asked you to line up along the wall in front of the windows is that the building is condemned.   If the floor begins to collapse, I want to be sure that I'm the closest one to the door and the first person out."

The WAVE and a Man with a Gun

We're very proud of my mother.   She was one of the U.S. Navy's very first women officers.

It was an exciting experience, especially for a young woman who was the first in her family to go college and was having trouble finding work as a teacher in the Depression years.

After completing training at Smith College, she asked the Navy to send her to Hawai'i,  close to the action in the Pacific war and lots of handsome Navy pilots.   Instead they stationed her at the Boston Navy Yard where the Navy didn't have to provide her housing.  She lived at home in Cambridge and commuted to work on the MTA.

It wasn't all glamour.  The old Navy chief petty officers refused to salute the young women officers.  In retaliation, the women refused to salute anyone.   When the admiral walked into a room, everyone stood up and snapped to attention... except my mother an the rest of the girls.




Eventually the issue of carrying secret messages around the Navy yard and Boston came up.   "You're carrying secret messages.  You'll need to learn to fire a .45 caliber pistol, which has a big kick and you'll need to hold with two hands,  and wear the weapon whenever you're carrying secret messages. Or you'll need to be accompanied by an armed Marine."

My mother thought about this for a moment and replied:   "Give me the man with a gun."

Real Mafia Types

Dedicated to Ed Montini, Arizona Republic

and

My Uncle Louie, "The Greek"

I can't remember which came first, Andre House or the Casa.  Going to church at the Casa and helping make chili for the homeless on Sundays had something to do with each other, but I don't remember which was first.

Anyway, the Casa became a problem when we got married and had our first child.   The Casa didn't do baptisms.  Who knew.  It was technically a chapel and you had to go over to its "mother" church way over in Scottsdale for a baptism.  That seemed like a lot of trouble since there was a perfectly good church just down the street from where we had set up housekeeping.   We'll just join the parish down the street and do the baptism there.  Silly us.

It wasn't hard to join the parish.  Everyone welcomes dues paying members.  The baptism was another thing.  My wife goes to the deacon who's in charge of baptisms, a civilian not a priest, and the guy starts giving her the fifth degree.  It started to really get out of hand when the guy notes we just joined the parish.

Where did you go to church before joining our parish?
The Casa.
They're not Catholics.

When I got home from work my Latin lover was not in a good mood.  I told her to calm down and that I'd call the guy the next day.  So I call the guy and it's peaches and cream.  No problem, Mr. Mac, we'll get the baptism scheduled right away.

Round Two

My wife is a nurse.  She started as a candy-stripe nurse assistant tending to demented veterans.  She visited invalids in Boston's North End when it was still an Italian ghetto, before it became fashionable housing for yuppies and millennials near Quincy Market.   After graduate school, she worked as a sole practitioner in the Bridgeport ghetto.   In Arizona she joined a group of women who had broken the glass ceiling and ran one of the state's largest Medicaid health plans.

The health plan reported to a board dominated by Catholic nuns, the chairman was a Catholic priest, Ed Ryle, the bishop's right hand man and legislative liaison (and Janet Napolitano's longstanding opera date).   Since my wife and father Ryle were chummy, she asked him to perform the baptism.   He'd love to.

My wife goes back to meet with our friend the deacon.

I'd like to have a friend who's a priest do the baptism.
We don't let outsiders perform baptisms.
But he's a good friend.
All right, but you'll have to provide me with his credentials before we allow it.

When I got home from work my Latin lover was not in a good mood, again.

How can I ask Monsignor Ryle for his credentials?
Calm down, Dear.  (time for a long overdue lesson in handling bureaucrats)
Just go over the guy's head.  Talk to the priest who's the pastor.

This worked.  The priest's reaction was OMG!  Of course Ed Ryle can do the  baptism.  I was his alter boy.   He built this church.  He's always welcome here.

Round Three

We are ironing out the baptism details with the deacon.   Among other things even though my wife and I had gone to years of Catholic school, we needed to attend "reeducation camp" for several weeks.  Then the matter of the priest came up again.  I tried to be conciliatory and say having a priest (instead of using the deacon) was important for my wife's parents who are very traditional Italian Catholics.  The guy drops the bomb.

Oh, I understand completely.  I've dealt with that before:  real Mafia types.

It was at that moment that a homicide was almost committed inside a Phoenix church. I managed to keep control and remained composed.  No sense spoiling the baptism over some old guy whose filter got turned off.   The baptism went fine and we joined a parish run by the Jesuits a few blocks further down the street.

The Irony of It All

My wife's father was an electrical engineer who built nuclear power plants.  His mother was Spanish. My wife's mother was a crackerjack legal secretary for a prestigious Waspy Boston law firm.  Her mother was Portuguese.   That plus the grandpas not being Sicilian meant they couldn't be Mafia even if they wanted to be.  However, her last name was enough to let her rent an apartment in Boston's North End during her college days.  "Just don't bring any of those long-hair MIT boys around again. Ever."

On the other hand... my grandmother lived in Long Beach, New York.  You may remember Long Beach as the setting for Mario Puzo's The Godfather.   Every Sunday on the way to grandma's house, we drove past the tollbooth where Sonny got rubbed out.  Don Corleone's name and character were adapted from a real-life enemy of my family.   I'd like to position us as the good guys; Tom Dewey was Aunt Margaret's protege.   But the feud probably predates Dewey putting Luciano in jail.   My Great-Uncle George, along with his friends the Maras and Rooneys now of NFL fame,  was prominent in off-track betting.   George had a run-in with Arnold Rothstein, Luciano's mentor, and Rothstein came off the worse for wear.

Never Threaten Strangers

Eg,  tell a stranger over the phone that he wouldn't say something offensive to your face.

My neighbor, a sweet young thing who works at the Mayo Clinic, waved me over one day.

I read your letter in the newspaper.  Aren't you afraid the friends of Russell Pearce will come to get you.

She was a taken aback when I replied,

They should be afraid of me... and if I don't frighten them, I'll introduce them to my "uncle",
Louie "The Greek."

Postscript

For awhile we received anonymous packages in the mail containing copies of the Arizona White Aryan Resistance newspaper along with vaguely threatening notes.  But none of the cowards ever showed their faces.

Trump Medal of Honor

Awarded to brave Americans, like Russell Pearce, who have served in defense of America.

(Mexican Border Service Medal)


NEVER TO BE CONFUSED WITH
THE
VIETNAM SERVICE MEDAL



or

COMBAT RIBBON

Uncle Ned's Purse

Uncle Ned knitted purses for his sisters
ornate and uniquely Celtic in design.
careful work that took some time...
he had the time...
three years to be exact
the time he served in Kilmainham Gaol
for following de Valera one Easter Sunday,
1916.

He was on the run awhile
before they could hunt him down.

The priest refused Grandpa Michael absolution
unless he gave him up.
I'll see you in Hell padre if that's the case.

The Black and Tans took away the seed and tools...
a crop that went unplanted.
Pa wouldn't give him up.
They locked him in the village jail
Pa wouldn't give him up.
I'll see you Brits in Hell as well.

The Dragon Meets Einstein... and Tensor Calculus

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/science/a-century-ago-einsteins-theory-of-relativity-changed-everything.html

What a shame that Dennis Overbye's story about the General Theory of Relativity didn't mention the mathematical foundation for Einstein's work. The General Theory could not have been developed without Tensor Calculus, which makes possible modeling of complex motion in uneven space. Tenor calculus is so difficult even Einstein needed a tutor, his friend mathematician Marcel Grossman, and "Between the years of 1915 to 1919, Einstein held a correspondence with the Italian mathematician Tullio Levi-Civita – who in 1900 published perhaps the most important work on tensor calculus to this very day - who desired to help him [Einstein] fix some mathematical errors he had found in Einstein’s work."

* * * * *

A few years back I was cleaning out some old things my father-in-law had left behind at our house. These included some old engineering workbooks that he worked with out on our back porch to pass the time in his retired years. Hey Julie! Says I, look at this. All that time you thought your dad was doing crossword puzzles in the backyard, he was working on tensor calculus problems for fun. What's tensor calculus, says my loving wife. Says I, math so hard to understand that even Einstein needed a tutor to figure it out so he could invent the Theory of Relativity. Smart guy your dad.

Quack, Quack

Quack, quack. We were on the way to Civil War night at Madison No. 1 Middle School, and my daughter who is dressed up like a transgender Abe Lincoln to do a skit on the North's strategy asks: "How do you do the duck, daddy." This was a tough one. My Uncle Tom used to do the duck to distract and amuse his anxious pediatric patients. So I somehow learned to quack like a duck, too, and have been able to do so for years. I really have a good quack. So we had a quacking lesson all the way to school. It's a lot easier to do than explain. Mary's still got a long way to go before she can quack. Maybe it's a guy thing.  Think Donald Duck.

Uncle Sam Wants You!

Why I Might Vote for Bernie

For want of a better choice, I might end up voting for Bernie, even if he is a gun rights guy. We met Janet Napolitano lots at the Arizona Opera. Her "date" was Monsignor Ed Ryle, who baptized our little Jimmy. One day in the airport in Boston there she is sitting right next to us, waiting for a flight back to Phoenix.  Doesn't even say hi, even to Julie. You think Bernie would "forget" people he's met at least a half dozen times? No. Like any old time New York politician he'd be working the room and remembering people he's never met. Janet had an entire captive room of constituents and ignored them all.  We could use some old time politicians.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/bernie-sanders-mayor/407413/

Do you get the story about Janet Napolitano?   I knew you would.  It isn't just about her.

*  *  *  *  *

Nah.

Manhattan: How to Build an Atomic Bomb

I can neither confirm nor deny my involvement with America's nuclear weapons.  When I left my last Navy job they told me to forget everything.   I wish it were that easy.   I can tell you this story, though.

Thanks to the infinite wisdom of the United States Navy I found myself studying physics at Holy Cross College.   The professor was a very nice Vietnamese man who illustrated most of the topics with bullets and bombs examples.  He had allegedly studied at Princeton with Einstein, an interesting claim since the faculty at Princeton's Institute of Advanced Study didn't teach any courses.   They did, however, lead seminars and work with students, so I may in fact have studied physics with one of Einstein's students.

One day in class someone asked a question about atomic bombs.   The professor lit up and said:  Oh, they're easy to make.  Here's how.   Then he drew illustrations of the mechanisms for the first two U.S. atom bombs and explained how they worked.   He said in the beginning the bomb builders had trouble with the triggering explosives, but that it would be easier today (1967) to find electronics to set off the bombs.  Then he smiled,  There you go now you know how to build the bomb.   Then he smiled again.  Good luck finding weapons grade uranium and plutonium for your bomb.  That's the hard part... and staying alive after you start playing with plutonium.

I did very well in that course.  Straight As going into the final.  Must have been all the bullets and bombs examples that kept me focused.  Unfortunately,  I lost focus the night before the final and had a terrible hangover in the morning.   I rolled the dice and went into the professor's office.   Professor T, I have straight As in your course.  Is it really necessary for me to take the final?   Professor T eyed me carefully, perhaps noting that I appeared under the weather,   Ok, Jim, enjoy your summer vacation (it appears you've already started).

Arizona: Like Living in a Foreign Country

I was with my son on the way back from a baseball game.   The tank was on empty so I stopped the car at the gas station not far from home.  After inserting my credit card in the gas pump, I let my son watch the tank fill, and went to the convenience store door hoping to buy a lottery ticket.   The door was locked:  Be back in 15 minutes.   I returned to the car, and after the tank had filled, put the hose on the pump, put the cap on the gas tank and got ready to leave.   Out of the corner of my eye I saw a middle-aged woman tugging at the store door.   Her accent and clothes suggested she was from India.   They're gone, I said.  Be back in 15 minutes.  She was distraught.   I need gas.  What will I do.  I'd have said: be patient.   But in Arizona 15 minutes might mean an hour.  (Or drive down the block to the next gas station)  Instead I said:  Let me buy you some gas.

I walked over and pulled out my credit card.  I have money, she said, and handed me a twenty.  I took the twenty and started pumping the gas.   Then she said:   I hate Arizona!   Everyone's too laid back.  No one wants to work.   I'm from back East.   ARIZONA IS LIKE LIVING IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY!  She said angrily.

I started to giggle, and she told me to stop laughing.   The pump stopped.  The tank was full and the meter read $27.   She offered me more money.   Da nada, said I, in Arizona we like to buy people free gas.  I'm so laid back.

Full Moon Hike

McDowell Mountain Park, Arizona

The Dragon Meets Madame Chiang Kai-shek

Long ago T. V. Soong proposed to Aunt Jo, who was quite an Irish beauty in her day.  The proposal was problematic.   Aunt Jo was a devout Catholic and Soong was a Methodist.

Later Soong's sister married Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Soong became an influential Kuomintang politician.   Soong negotiated somewhat successfully with Stalin for support in the early days of the Sino-Japanese war.   Apparently, Stalin wasn't as tough a nut to crack as my grandmother when it came to letting her  Catholic sister marry a Methodist.

The Endless Summer

Ripp, Fallon and I went to the Hamptons one weekend and slept on the beach to catch some early morning waves. Ripp was really nearsighted, but a handsome kid without his thick glasses. My life-long friend, Fallon went to BC.  For some reason in high school he'd started affecting Dobie Gillis and Dick Cavett.   He looked out of place with the surfers, not having a baggy pair of swim trunks.  I was driving a taxi cab for the summer, making pretty decent money and spent most of my time day- dreaming about pretty girls who got into my cab and clever ways to ask them out for a drink after work.

When we woke up on the beach we were fogged in, but the waves were beautiful so we went out anyway. After riding waves for awhile, I met up with Fallon back on the beach. Where's Ripp? I thought he was with you.  I thought he was with you.  Damn. I better go back out and find him. So after paddling around for awhile, I finally catch up with Ripp somewhere in the fog. Where are you going, Ripp?  Back to the beach says Ripp. Ok, says I, but you're headed for the beach on Bermuda if you keep going in that direction. Follow me.

http://easthamptonstar.com/Books/2015827/Surfing-Life

No Country for Old Men

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
 To the holy city of Byzantium.
 -- Yeats

There have been days and nights when I've looked and felt just like the guy in this picture.  Cormac McCarthy's spiritual battle takes place in the West Texas desert.

Driving Ms. Daisy

I did a lot of hitchhiking in college, thanks to Jack Kerouac convincing me that being On the Road was a romantic adventure.  Kerouac ended up a drunk and hanging out in Gunther's Tap Room,  Northport, Long Island, not far from where I grew up.  I never got around to buying him a beer.

 

A college buddy and I made it to Big Sur one year.  After a summer in California with the Navy near LA, we hitchhiked up Route 1 and got stuck in Santa Barbara where scores of other hitchhikers were trying to score a ride.  We drew ourselves a phony sign with [destination] Boston on it and a guy in a VW van stopped for us right away.  You guys going to Boston.  No, we're from Boston.  We're headed for Big Sur.  The guy replied, sorry, we're going to San Francisco.  We'll drop you off in Salinas.  Ok, thanks.  [Where's Salinas].

Salinas is forty miles from Big Sur, a little north of Monterey.  It's surrounded by miles and miles of vegetable fields.  It was dark and late when we got there so we found a motel to sleep for the night.  We were on the road, but not on the road enough to sleep with the lettuce or real hobos and migrant farm workers.  One of us even had a credit card.

In the morning, my friend, who could strike up a conversation with a refrigerator, comes back to the motel room and announces he has found someone from Holy Cross College, like us, and he's taking us to Big Sur.  Luck of the Irish!

In fact the man has a nephew who went to Holy Cross.  He works for the Diocese of Monterey and has friends who are camping at Big Sur for the weekend.  The Diocese had a Big Sur chapel and since his friends work for the diocese, too, they're using it for a campground.  You can stay with them.  They'll be delighted.


Our host had a lovely family.  They pitched us a tent and we stayed with them on the chapel grounds.  Big Sur was beautiful.  Big trees, big cliffs, big ocean.   Not a hippie girl a la Kerouac and Neal  Cassady in sight.  But we ate well and at the end of the weekend our hosts took us home to Monterey, fed us again, washed our clothes, took us to the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium and then put us on the bus for San Francisco and our ultimate destination in the Canadian west.

*    *    *    *    *

Most of the time, though, I travelled alone on shorter trips.   One night on a trip from Holy Cross back home to Long Island, I got picked up by the head basketball coach, Jack Donohue, a minor celebrity who'd coached Lou Alcindor (aka Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) in high school.    He said he could take me as far as New Haven, where he was spending the night with a friend's family.  Then he launched into a fatherly diatribe about what a bad idea it was to be hitchhiking, especially at night.  I allowed that I was unafraid.  I was experiencing an adventure.  He was blunt: "You don't have to shoot yourself in the head with a .45 pistol to discover it's a bad idea."

He dropped me off on the New England Thruway outside New Haven.   I waited a while for a ride and then three black guys pulled over.   I hesitated, but then thought:  I'm not going to let them think I won't ride with them.  All the trouble is between the old people.  "What a Wonderful World."



We weren't back on the road two minutes when the guy next to me in the backseat says:  "I am Dr. Death and I am going to operate on you."   This was pretty disturbing, but I pegged them for some college guys on the way to NYC from Brown or Yale.  Dr. Death would not let up,  though.  Open up your bag.  Give me your money.  Says I, If I had any money would I be hitchhiking.   In fact I had some money, but if I gave it to Dr. Death, I wouldn't have train fare out of New York City, where hitchhiking was impossible.   Dr. Death is thinking he's having fun with a soft white suburban kid.  I'm thinking if the car gets off the thruway or if he shows a knife I'm going to break his neck before the guys in the front seat can do anything.  I wasn't as tough as I thought I was, but I'd been in street fights before and survived being on the wrong end of knife before.  I was determined to go down fighting.   After about 20 minutes of this, the driver, who's wearing a Joe College tweed jacket, tells Dr. Death to stop bothering me.   There's nothing but silence for the rest of the ride.  They drop me off at the Throgs Neck Bridge and drive off into the darkness without saying a word.