December 21, 2006 by admin.

Ramblers R Us

At one point in my father’s car buying career, he purchased a wonderful little golden tank called the American Motors Rambler station wagon. The back part of the station wagon was my brother Mark and I, and when we traveled, the occasional 20 suitcases. I believe it was a 1966 gold-colored Rambler, with a luggage rack on top. When the family moved overseas or back to the States, the old Rambler was shipped to us by boat. That old car made it to three continents and ran like a top, wacky sometimes, but a great car. When we took our vacation to Barcelona Spain, we drove through southern France, with a roof full of luggage; two kids hanging out the back, and my poor father swearing his brains out at the lousy drivers. I am sure that James Bond never imagined cruising the French Riviera in a Rambler, with a wife and two kids. The food was either so expensive or so un-American that we ate French bread with peanut butter and jelly every day during that vacation. When we traveled in the mountains of Italy on another vacation, we had this huge steamer trunk strapped to the roof. We brought everything but the kitchen sink. So here we are flying down a highway in Italy, trying to keep up with the flow of traffic, and suddenly a terrifying sound hit our ears. The scrapping of metal on the roof was horrifying. I glanced out the back window of the station wagon just in time to see the steamer trunk hydroplaning down the highway. With an air cushion underneath it, the trunk bounced just off the surface of the road. It did not hit any other cars and finally it lost momentum and skidded off the road. We made a mad U turn and went back to check on the trunk, knowing that it was destroyed on impact. We had visions of our underwear scattered all over the Italian landscape. But miracles of miracles, the trunk was still in one piece, minus a few dents. That steamer trunk probably weighted at least 125 pounds, and was one lethal flying object that day. Thank goodness it did not hit anyone.

On another trip in the old Rambler in Italy, my brother and father were in a bad accident. A crazy Italian broadsided the Rambler because he did not feel like steering around the Rambler. My dad was taking a left when this Kamikaze came flying out of nowhere and crashed into the side of the station wagon. My brother got a lot of glass shards thrown into his back and it was very painful. When this Italian showed up in traffic court to explain the accident, his defense was that our Rambler was too long and he was not used to long cars like that so he miss timed his point of contact. The nerve of the idiot, I am surprised that my Dad did not take the guy for a long ride off a short pier.

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December 21, 2006 by admin.

Mom, Dad, I hate shots

When the Agency prepared an agent and his family to move to a “hostile” land, one of the first things to happen is a series of inoculations a.k.a. shots. As I recall, these shots were so toxic that a person could not handle all of them at once. The shots actually infected us with a little bit of the disease that we were trying not to get. This way our bodies built up immunities in case we came in contact with a full fledged case of the running crud, or whatever the shots were for.

So a few months before our first trip overseas, we loaded up the Rambler station wagon and drove to Langley Virginia from Fairfax Virginia. We check in with the guards at the gate, and then parked. As a family we walk into this great big lobby, with white pillars and a marble looking floor with some very impressive symbols on it. The giant eagle in the middle of this seal just fascinates me, and I stopped my Dad, and said, “What is that on the floor?” He did not answer and hustles the family down a corridor, to the section where the nurses are giving shots. We get our shots and we exited the building with no explanation. My curiosity was killing me, but the answers never came. One day when I was home from college, my mother happen to mention that it was funny how I was giving Dad fits over the seal in the floor of the lobby of CIA headquarters. Well I almost dropped my teeth. After all those years, my mother accidentally solved a mystery that plagued me for years but then forgotten. Sometime after we visited the CIA headquarters a few times for shots, the Agency got wise and starting having dependants (spouses and children) go to the State Department buildings for shots. It seems like they were blowing their own cover with dependants that did not need to know, like me! My poor Dad always had to fend off my barrage of questions. I was a pest, because I knew something was up and could not figure it out.

In case you were wondering, when we went to Laos, we had the full compliment of shots. I believe every shot known to man. Here is the partial list as I remember it: Diphtheria, Typhoid, Typhus, Cholera, Plague I and II, and several others for good measure. I recall the worst one being the Gamma Globulin shot. The nurse would have me stand at the edge of the examination table and hold on. She would then ask me to lower my pants as to expose one hip. The shot was kept in a refrigerator until the last moment and then a horse size needle was attached and then jammed into the hip. The nurses were all military nurses, so their tender loving care was all gone by that time in their career. They were use to giving shots in a great big assembly line. Slam, bang, thank you Mama. For about a week or so after the shot, I would have this great big ugly knot and bruise on my hip. We had to have to two Gamma Globulins before going to Laos. I still have nightmares about that needle. We also took Malaria pills every week in Laos, or at least we were supposed to, but that is another story.

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December 21, 2006 by admin.

The Human Lawnmower

At our second house in Laos, we had a tiny patch of real grass that needed to be trimmed from time to time. There were no lawnmowers in the country, since no one had a “real lawn”. The patch was about 12 foot by 12 foot and was situated in the middle of the front yard. As was customary in the Kingdom, we hired several servants to assist my mother in housework, kitchen work, laundry, shopping in the Morning Market, boiling water, and yard work. The gardener that we hired wore only white clothes and a little white hat. I did not see him much, because he slept all the day, after partying every night. Since opium was cheap and very available, he smoked it to excess. The side effect was that he had no inclination to do any yard work. At one point during the hot season, the tiny patch of grass started to really grow. So my mother asked the gardener to cut the grass. The next day at noontime I looked out the window and saw a white object on the grass. I looked closer and it was the gardener lying on the grass, holding a pair of hand clippers. About every 30 seconds he would squeeze the handle of the clippers and the distinct sound of the blades coming together could be heard. I stared at him in amazement. He was higher than a woodpecker’s hole, lying on the grass, casually hand clipping the grass. It was about 120 degrees in the sun, 100% humidity, and he must have been baking like a potato. But since he was already baked, in the mind that is, he really did not care in the least about the sun. At the rate he was clipping, it would take him about four or five solid days of “work” to cut that grass. Life in Laos moved at a different pace and the Laotians to a different drummer.

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