TIDBITS FROM ‘ROUND THE WORLD

TROOPSHIP

Speaking of unusual forms of transportation, let me tell you about my ocean voyage from New York to Germany on, of all things, a troopship.

Now this ship was an old WW II Liberty ship. The kind that Henry Kaiser used to put out in five days, but converted to carry troops. Its ancient reciprocating steam engine was capable of a bare 9 knots, and it pitched, yawed, and rolled all at once in any kind of a sea. Sailing on it through North Atlantic storms in the dead of winter, like we did, was kind of like riding a mechanical bull in a Texas saloon. In the troop quarters, the bunks were four high, troops were packed in like sardines, and most of the guys were seasick. So this was definitely not a place where you wanted to spend much time. Everyone, of course, was assigned some kind of a stupid make work job, mostly, I think, to take their mind off their physical troubles. Checking things out, I decided that the two best jobs were probably Chaplain’s Assistant, or KP Pusher. Chaplain’s Assistant was out, as I had already spent too much time in that environment, but KP Pusher did have possibilities. First off, nobody in his right mind wanted anything to do with KP, so there was no competition for the job, and second, it wasn’t really KP at all. Basically it consisted of checking on the poor troops assigned to KP, and keeping an eye out to see that they didn’t screw off too much. Since I was an Air Force Corporal, and the KPs were for the most part doggie (Army) privates, the job was a natural. Another important consideration was that the galley was at the exact center of the ship, thus minimizing the pitch, roll and yaw problem. Also the place was warm, there were lots of cozy storerooms in which to sack out, and the food, particularly that cooked in the kitchen serving the officers, was great. So I got through the sea voyage without too much physical or mental discomfort. That incidentally was my first and last troopship ride. By the time I came back from Germany this mode of transport had been phased out completely, and I flew home in style.

MIDWEST ELKS CLUBS

On my assignment as a Minuteman Program manager, I was traveling almost constantly between Seattle, a Kaiser plant at Mexico Missouri, Minuteman bases in four states (Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Missouri), and Minuteman headquarters at Norton Air Force Base near San Bernardino CA. Interspersed with trips to the antenna range near Denver, various subcontractor and Air Force offices, and appropriate waypoints. For instance, a Seattle, Denver Cheyenne WY, Denver, Seattle trip in one day, was not unusual. It got to the point that on several airlines, after I had settled into my seat, the flight attendant, without being asked, would hand me a Scotch, and ask me how my day was going. In the towns near the Minutemen installations, Grand Forks, ND, Great Falls MT, or Minot ND, for instance, there was not much going on except at the local Elks clubs, so I joined the Elks. Seems though that the booked entertainment had about the same travel schedule through those towns as I did, because I would often see the same entertainers in three or four different Elks clubs in the course of a couple of weeks.

BASQUE SMUGGLERS

My job to develop sources for 777 structure turned out, among other things, to be a free ticket to travel most anywhere in the world I wanted to go, to chase down a potential supplier. I made the most of this, and managed to hit most of East Asia, as well as such interesting places as Pakistan, Indonesia, Morocco, and even Gibraltar a couple of times, along with multiple trips to most of the major European countries. I spent a lot of time in France working with potential French companies, particularly Dassault, which was located in a real nice resort area on the French Spanish border. In my wanderings along this border, incidentally, I met some interesting Basque smugglers, and some real picturesque Basque fishermen. The Basques, incidentally, all seemed to love Americans. In fact, it was really hard to buy a drink in a Basque bar. And yes, the Dassault guys several times provided me with a plane and pilot. No wonder that I spent so much time around Dassault

SWISS GUARDS

Seems I was wandering around Rome with nothing particular to do.  Actually, in those days I spent a lot of time wandering around Italy with nothing particular to do, since the Italians were not very efficient about scheduling meetings back to back, to accommodate busy foreigners.

Anyway, as I said, I  was wandering around Rome, and eventually my footsteps led me to Vatican City, and face to face with one of those Swiss guards who have done security duty there for hundreds of years.

Anyway, after eyeing each other for a couple of minutes, I asked him to lighten up, and smile a bit.

He replied that he had no particular reason to smile, but that if I told him a joke, that might help.

So I then launched into a long complicated story with what I thought was some pretty good European humor, and guess what, he was actually starting to laugh.  But then, just in time, he caught himself. 

Don’t get the mistaken impression that I was laughing at your story, he told me, I was actually laughing at your bad German.

Well. Win some, lose some

Swiss guard in service uniform and dress uniform

MEXICAN RABBITRY

Once when Pat and I were driving around the countryside near Guaymas Mexico one afternoon, we found an interesting farm. The main building was a large shed full of rabbit hutches, of all things. The farmer proudly showed us around the place, explaining that these were purebred stock, used for breeding, and worth a fortune. He had all the American breeds, and then some. The cages were carefully marked and the whole place was scrupulously clean. It would have put and American rabbit farm to shame.

But where did the guy live. In an old broken down shack across the road, sporting an outdoor kitchen in even worse shape.

You can tell where his priorities were.

PARIS HOTEL

I’ve spent lots of time in Paris, but this one little excursion really took the cake. It seems that my good friend Don Hufford and his charming wife Bobbye were going to be in Paris on a certain day, and had reserved a room in a quaint little hotel on the Left Bank. Coincidentally, I was also passing through Paris on other business, and Don, being a nice guy, offered to let me crash in his pad for a few hours. He said that if I got there before them to just check in and make myself at home. Well, I did get there before them, and that’s when the fun began. The clerk insisted that I take two single beds while I held out for a double. A combination of his Gallic attitude, my very poor French and his almost non existent English led to a major misunderstanding culminating with his announcement that “If you and Mr. Hufford want to sleep in the same bed, it’s no concern of mine.” At this point, I thanked him profusely, got the key, went to the room, and crashed on a blanket on the floor.

JAPANESE BIG SHOTS

And speaking of hotels, let me relate this one last sorry tale. When I was running our company’s Japanese production activity, and happened to be in Seattle, I would have a constant stream of Japanese visitors, some of whom were really heavy breathers. Anyway, it was considered a sign of respect, for the host to personally pick up these super big shots at the airport, and escort them to their hotel, which was always one of the best in town.

At this time I had a company car, at least most of the time, which I used on these errands of mercy. I also laid hands on a Boeing chauffeur’s jacket, which really looked like a sports coat, and would not have been out of place in the better Country Clubs. Also, our company cars had an unobtrusive decal on the windshield, which identified them to company security, etc.

So I would collect my hi value cargo and wheel up in front of their hotel. The doorman, recognizing the company car, and seeing me in uniform, would put two and two together, decide we must be high tipping big shots, and really snap shit. I would help this charade out a bit, by whispering to this official that my charges were high Japanese officials, but didn’t speak English well. Which caused the doorman to really turn up the charm, as well as rally his other minions to the cause. The Japanese, of course, really ate this up, and thought that I must be a real big shot which the hotel staffs knew by sight. And as far as I know, they never did tumble to this scam.

VANCOUVER ROOM SERVICE

One day in the distant past, when I worked for Boeing Computer Services, they had just bought a small outfit in Vancouver, BC. Since the Board had to be predominately Canadian, it consisted of previous owners Tennant and Song, along with a tame Canadian who we thought we had in our pocket, and two BCS headquarters big shots.

Since we didn’t really trust the Canadians to handle money, I became the Vice President, Contracts of this company, on a part time basis, with sole authority to write checks and collect bad debts. How this actually worked went something like this. I would grab one of our kids, jump in the car and head for Vancouver. Upon arrival, I would check into one of he best hotels in town, either turn the kid loose in town, or take him or her to the office, depending on the kid’s age, then spend a couple of hours signing checks. That was enough work for one day, so we would take a leisurely swim, and treat ourselves to an expensive dinner. If there were no deadbeats to hassle, we would sleep in late the next day, then head back for Seattle. If collections were required, I would make a couple of calls, goof off the rest of the day, stay overnight again, and then hit for home.

The kids loved this, especially after they discovered hotel room service, and I actually managed to run this scam for a couple of years, till we shut the operation down.

The only downside, was that every time I had coffee or lunch with one of the ladies in the office, whatever kid was with me would duly note same, and could not wait to breathlessly tell his or her mother about dad’s romantic interlude.

AN IMPROBABLE CHURCH SERVICE

Our good friend Betty’s son in law Arndt, who was poor as a church mouse, was a part time Lutheran lay preacher in Austria. Now Austria is something over ninety percent Catholic, and being a Lutheran, let alone a Lutheran minister, is a tough go. Anyway, once, while Betty and I were staying with him and his family, he got a call to preach the next Sunday in this remote mountain hamlet. When I offered to go with him to hear him preach, he got visibly nervous and said he didn’t think that would be a good idea. I finally figured out that he didn’t know how he could explain that his mother in law was traveling with a strange man. Anyway, we got this sorted out and he agreed to take us, mostly I think, because I was the only one with a car, as he was too poor to own one. So, on Sunday morning, away we went. Since separation of church and state is not so extreme in Austria, the “church” was really a room in the Rathaus, or town hall. The room had a small lectern, a beat up bellows organ, and benches for about twenty people, and there were maybe about fifteen souls present. Well, Arndt got through the introductions of Betty and myself OK. He then announced that in honor of John, the first song would be an old Martin Luther hymn, Ein Festung Berg ist Unser Gott, (which in English translates to A Mighty Fortress is our God.) which he assured the audience was one of my favorite hymns. At this point one of the parishioners stood up and suggested that since I liked the hymn so much, why didn’t I sing a solo. I replied that I didn’t really like it that much, but would be glad to join her in a duet. At this point the church erupted into gales of laughter, things went downhill from there, and Arndt never did regain complete control of the situation. I suppose that my interactions with the parishioners, in my bad German may have had something to do with it. All through this, Betty, who understood NO German, didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, and thought, perhaps, that everybody was laughing at her. Anyway, Arndt struggled through the rest of the service, the parishioners turned out to be really nice people, and we got several invitations to dinner. I’ll bet that the crazy American was the subject of much conversation, for days, around that village.

JAPANESE TOUR GUIDES

And speaking of travel, let me relate this tale. Usually when we traveled in Japan on business, some agency or company we were working with would assign us an official guide, or guides. These guides, who were invariably junior executives or management trainees, served two purposes. The first was to keep the foreigners from getting lost, and the second, and most important, was to report back to their handlers any intelligence they could pick up. These kids really took their jobs seriously, but weren’t always real knowledgeable about the nuts and bolts of traveling in Japan. Often it seemed, we the foreigners had to take charge, to keep everyone from getting irretrievably lost.

And sometimes we deliberately lost our handlers, but let me explain. There were no mainline train tracks through Tokyo, so if one were traveling by rail from South to north via Tokyo, (or north to south) One had to detrain at Tokyo Station, then take surface streets (or transit) to Ueno (the north) station, there to entrain again for the north. Our handlers would have a limo or limos standing by for this surface run, but we would give them the slip in Tokyo station, then grab the elevated, which was three times as fast as a limo, make our way to Ueno, hide out till thirty seconds before train time, then jump aboard. Our handlers meanwhile were running around Tokyo Station, about to commit Hari Kari because they had lost their charges, and we would have a peaceful ride to our destination in the north. No matter how many times we pulled this, they never did catch on. They always thought they had lost us.


TOKYO BARS

Tokyo bars were an interesting institution. They were tiny, and there must have been 100,000 of them in town. And everyone, pretty much patronized his “own” bar.

There were several good reasons for this, which I will get around to in a crowded

 moment.

First, the regulars  were known and made welcome in their bar of choice by the Publican, or Mamma San, as she was known in Japan.  Second, pricing was an interesting exercise. With the exception of some tourist bars, which charged an arm and a leg, how much one got charged was based on an undecipherable formula, carried in Mamma San’s head, which considered, among other things, how much you drank, how long you  stayed,  (space was expensive, and therefore limited, so had to be efficiently utilized)  how you treated the bar girls, how well Mamma San liked you, and perhaps the phase of the moon.  Then there was the business of payment.  Most everyone ran a tab, which was paid twice a year on  bonus day.

But let me explain.  Japanese workers generally got paid by direct deposit to their bank, this giving the wife, who effectively ran the household, control of the purse strings.  There was an out though.  About fifteen percent of a guys pay was called a bonus, and was paid directly to him, in cash, twice a year. This money was used for drinking, carousing, and supporting a mistress, if the guy was lucky enough to have one. 

Anyway my bar, appropriately named the “Come In” in English, was in downtown Tokyo not far from the Okura. And it was a “Salaryman’s” hangout.  Salaryman being the Japanese name for lower or mid grade professional businessmen. 

This bar was run by Toshiko, an attractive lady of forty something, with the help of her ancient mother and younger sister.  Along with a semi floating population of around six barmaids, or “hostesses”, thus qualifying it as a “hostess” bar.  A Japanese hostess bar, incidentally, is like nothing else in the world, and is impossible to describe, so I won’t even try.

Since the patrons, as mentioned before, were generally working stiffs, and I was the only foreigner who ever went near the place, I was kind of the tame American, and a real celebrity.  Accordingly, I got some real discount rates, sometimes even paying nothing at all for an evening of drinking and entertainment.  Needless to say, I knew a good thing when I saw it, and never let another American near the place.

AN AUDIENCE WITH THE EMPEROR

One fine Saturday morning, Pat and I were wandering around Tokyo with nothing much to do, when I remembered that it was the Emperor's birthday. And that he was having an audience. Hirohito, at that time, was still Emperor.

So off to the palace it was, an into an endless line. But after what seemed like hours, the next 500 of us were issued Japanese flags, and ushered into a courtyard. After standing in the blazing sun for what seemed to be more hours, the great man appreared. Wherapon we were all instructed to wave the flags like mad, and holler BANZAI at the top of our lungs. At that signal, Hirohito waved, and I snapped this pic just before he disappeared.

It became a bit tense though, when a couple of Japanese army veterans, in their WWII uniforms, asked me what army I had been with.

AROUND THE THIRD WORLD

The diverse cultures, religions, and people in third world countries made my life really interesting at times. I even found the Moslems in Pakistan and Indonesia, although sometimes challenging, to be reasonably easy to work with, and willing to tolerate western ways.

For those of you who have not had the experience, the roads in the third world, even those that pass for highways, are something to behold. Camel and donkey carts abound, along with monster trucks, bicycles, stray livestock, and wandering pedestrians. Everybody drives with their horn, and they pass on the left, right, blind corners, hills and so forth. In Moslem countries particularly, everyone puts their faith in Allah, relies on God’s will, leans on the horn, and puts the pedal to the metal. It’s bad enough during the day, but at night it’s impossible.

One time in Pakistan, for instance, the local guys insisted that I visit some kind of an army depot that was about 60 miles out of town, on the main road to Islamabad, the capital. I believe, though, that the real reason was to introduce me to Pakistani driving and to scare the Hell out of me. It was a pretty good two lane road, and traffic was heavy, particularly monster trucks. But this didn’t faze our driver. I finally got used to his propensity for passing a large truck, when another was coming from the other direction, thus causing a three vehicles abreast situation on a two lane road. What I never did get used to, though, was him passing a truck, when a car coming in the opposite direction was also passing a truck heading toward us. This effectively put us four abreast on a two lane road, which was really kind of scary. Of course there were no seat belts. Why would anyone want seat belts when Allah was looking over us?

To give an example of how much trouble one can get into in a third World country, let me relate this tale. Seems that one of my guys in Indonesia became infatuated with a local lady, and ended up marrying her. Unbeknownst to any of us, and all in accordance with Islamic law. And, to top it off, he had her ensconced in the best hotel in town. The fact that he already had a wife in the US seemed irrelevant to him, I guess.

Pretty soon though, one of the American wives over there became suspicious, called my boy’s American wife, and suggested that she might want to come over to investigate. Needless to say, the lady hopped on an airplane forthwith, without announcing her travel plans, and upon arrival, stormed into the hotel room, and confronted her husband and his Indonesian wife.

This put the guy in a tight spot, to say the least, and it was instant decision time. But the dual husband rose to the occasion, chose the American wife, and sent the Indonesian wife packing. I sent the guy home of course, where his wife promptly filed for divorce. But the story isn’t over yet.

His Indonesian wife, who seemed to be legit by Islamic law, did not take kindly to being left in the lurch, refused to leave the hotel, and was raising hell with everybody up to and including the US State Department, while running up horrendous telephone, room and bar bills. Anyway it was a Hell of a mess, which I had to straighten out, and we ultimately bought her off with a generous cash settlement,

After all this, I was going to fire the guy, but my boss didn’t agree, telling me that when he found out that the guy was sixty years old, he kind of admired him. So the guy stayed on, but never again so much as crossed the County line, on company business.

SUEZ

One day at work, a long time ago, with nothing much else to do, several of us thought up a really improbable scheme. We would use our construction and system integration expertise to clear the Suez Canal of ships sunk there during the then recent Arab Israeli war. The more we brainstormed this, the better it sounded, and we proceeded on to detailed planning

Now we were working for a big company, along with people from everywhere with all kinds of expertise. So we started investigating, and guess what, we found a painter in the paint shop, who had been a lieutenant in the Egyptian Navy, and a Suez Canal Pilot. This guy really thought that lightning had struck when he got pulled out of his painter job and made a manager in our operation. He, needless to say, was a big help, particularly with the on site surveys, and things were proceeding smoothly.

But then we made a fatal miscalculation. We invited the Egyptian ambassador to the United States to visit us and listen to our plan. This visit went fine until the ambassador happened to mention what we were doing during a courtesy call on the President and CEO of our company, a crusty old Missourian named Wilson.

Wilson, of course, when hearing of this cockamamie scheme, was not pleased at all. Particularly as the company was trying to sell airplanes to these same Arabs, and any misstep on our part could probably queer that deal. His subsequent discussion with us started out with “You assholes….” and went down hill from there. The only guy who emerged relatively unscathed was the Egyptian lieutenant, who retained his management title and ended up in some engineering organization. At least though, Wilson now knew my name, and with any luck, he might someday forget the connection.

LIFE IN THE PRIORY

If you have read my memoirs, you will remember that one of my best friends during the Seventies was Father John Fearon, a Dominican priest, teaching at Seattle University.

Among other things, he became the Assistant Scoutmaster of my scout troop, was a frequent attendee at our parties, and we shared many interesting experiences together, including joint tenancy in a houseboat which was illegally moored in Seattle’s Lake Union. Even after leaving Seattle, his paths and mine often crossed, and we had many more interesting experiences together. He even returned to Seattle from time to time to participate in our families major life events.

I could, in fact, write a whole separate book about my adventures with Fr, John, but some bizarre examples do come to mind. Like the night we found the guardhouse at Benicia Arsenal (CA) where General Grant was imprisoned for drunkenness when he was a young Lieutenant. Or the great dinners we had with the Christian Brothers at their lodge in Moraga (CA). Not to mention the sailboat races from our houseboat to the Elks club, when we were all three sheets to the wind.

Well, in the course of time Father John became the Parish priest in the small town of Benicia, on San Francisco Bay north of Oakland.

And just a little bit later, I found myself spending a lot of time in the Bay Area while solving a problem at the Kaiser materials labs in Pleasanton CA, just down the road from Benicia.

Anyway, after a few (or maybe more than a few) drinks one night, Father John and I agreed that since his priory had good food, good booze, intellectual stimulation, and was essentially free, it made eminent good sense for me to stay there, rather than a hotel.

So, “Father John” from Seattle moved into the Bishop’s room at the priory for the duration. Problem was, since I would disappear right after work, and not show again till the next morning, I couldn’t convince my traveling companions that I was not shacking up with some woman. But hey, maybe they were just jealous.

Of course, none of the other priests at Benicia were fooled for a minute by all these shenanigans, but went along with them, because I was a good friend of Father John’s.

But all good things must come to an end, and our friendship unfortunately ended when Father John, a few years later, drank himself to an untimely death.

DOG NOT

Once upon a time, when I was spending considerable time in southern Spain, I ran across a neat little coffee shop on a hill overlooking The Strait of Gibraltar. The proprietor was a really interesting guy, although his command of English was somewhat limited. Anyway, on the wall of the shop, he had posted this sign, a representation of a dog with an X through it, and the caption “Dog Not”.

When I asked him what was with the sign, he explained that it was to keep dogs from coming into the establishment and causing problems. When I further enquired why it was in English, he explained that since Gibraltar (a British colony) was right next door, he wanted to make sure that dogs wandering in from there, would get the message.

I was kink of taken with the sign, and offered him the equivalent of ten dollars US for it. Without batting an eye, he turned me down, explaining that if he sold me the sign, then for sure that dogs would wander in and mess in the place.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and I was back in the shop again. The sign still wasn’t for sale, but the proprietor did take me up on an offer to trade me his sign for an American “No pooping” placard.

So next time I was back in the States, I located such a sign and bought it. But when I returned to Spain, I found that the shop, sign and all, had been blown away by a hurricane.

But some time before, a friend had taken a picture of me standing beside the sign, and my crew, understanding my disappointment, found this picture, and had a new “Dog Not” sign made up. They presented me this sign on my birthday, and it now hangs proudly in the office at our Edmonds home.

INDONESIA

When working in Indonesia, I was pretty much involved with Suharto's number two guy, B. J Habibie. Habibie was a real zealot, intending to take over the country, which he eventually did. This guy was so focused that it was scary, when he would go off onone of his two hour monologues. Just exactly like they say dictators are wont to do.

Anyway, he had his own personal Boelkow NBO-105 CB helicopter, with this machine having been assembled in Indonesia, from German parts.

One day, as a personal favor, he loaned me this aircraft, along with pilot, for a trip from Bandung to Jakarta. Was supposed to be a quick trip, but turned out to be an all day sightseeing excursion over most of Java.

When relating this adventure to my bosses, the only response I got was. "Did you know that helicopter was made in Indonesia?"

DESERT FOUR WHEELIN’

While living in Palm Desert CA, we managed to do a little four wheeling in the Mojave Desert, looking for ghost towns, old mines and so forth. Sometimes alone, and other times accompanied by our friends the Butlers. Butlers were from upstate NY, and the idea of driving for hours across the desert without seeing a house, a car, a person, or even a coyote, really blew their minds. One really exciting time was when we strayed onto a Navy gunnery range, and a Navy F-18 fighter took a practice strafing run at us. He was so low that he had to jink up to get over the truck. We also tried four wheeling once with our next door neighbor, but had to abort the trip when she complained of the rough tracks jiggling her boobs.

OVER THE HILL CONSTRUCTION COMPANY

During the summer of 1985, Bayne Lamb, John, Al Baker, Harold Kush, and Bill Spence teamed up to build a trailer storage shed, at our place on the river, near Arlington.

It was a real unlikely bunch. Bayne, a senior executive at Boeing, in charge of nothing much, John, a Boeing Materiel Senior Manager, Al, a retired Seattle cop, Harold, in charge of facilities at Boeing Commercial Airplane’sEverett plant, and Bill a 747 flight engineer.

Anyway, it kept them busy all summer, and on Labor Day they had a grand Dedication, christening the shed, the H. R. Kush Building. And even affixing a brass plaque. Ruth, Harold’s wife, got to swing the champagne bottle.

 

John was the keynote speaker

And Ruth did the honors with the champagne