As we leave

do we leave

a trail

for those

we leave

behind?

Storms & Politics

A major storm in the area yesterday, high winds and several inches of rain, some power outages.  The backyard and the driveway are littered with maple leaves, some wetly adhering to the concrete and will, if the sun comes out and does its thing, leave an imprint of the leaves thereon, in a sort of natural photographic process.  Probably caused by the leaves' tannin, is my guess.

The President addressed the nation from the Oval Office yesterday, and held a press conference today.  I watched both these events on television.  The man comes across as a sincere human being who has strongly-held beliefs, and the determination to see his programs through.  I may not agree with all his policy decisions, but in this time of war, I support him as I do our troops.  Let's hope that the new constitution in Iraq will bring the country's many divergent factions together in a new, secure, and peacefully effective government, so that our men and women in uniform will be able in short order to return to their loving families.  Let's hope also that the divergent, and often vitriolically partisan, views of our legislators can come together to attend to the needs of our own country in the non-partisan manner for which they were elected in the first place.

Christmas Shopping

I've never been one for shopping.  My wife, on the other hand, loves it.  For me it's a trial and usually a waste of time.  For her, it's pure pleasure.

I sometimes accompany her on these shopping trips.  Usually when I have nothing better to do, or when after my wandering aimlessly through the shopping mall for an hour or two, there is the prospect of our having a nice dinner at some nearby restaurant.

Christmastime brings on added challenges.  The big ones being the crowds, the search for parking, the waiting in line at the cash register, and all the sound and the fury multiplied tenfold because it's holiday time and people are buying gifts at the last minute.

While my wife disappears into Nordstrom's, making sure that I have my cell phone turned on, I wander into a shop or two that might briefly engage my interest.  The first of these is a camera shop, where under normal circumstances I would be able to check out the latest digital megapixel marvels with extra-long optical zoom ranges, or to challenge the clerk on his mastery of electronic terminology and the gadget's operations.  

But there are dozens of prospective customers laying claim to his time, and it would not be fair to take up any of it unless I am intent on buying something. Which at the moment I am not.

Next stop is a bakery, to which I am attracted by the wonderful aromas, but here again the line is long, and the girls at the counter are so busy that it will be a while before they'll get around to my order, so I move on. I notice that at every food establishment in the mall, whether at the sprawling Food Court with its variety of mainstream American and ethnic food offerings, or at the many cookie, pretzel, and cinnamon bun shops sprinkled thoughout the complex, there are long lines of hungry young people.  Some quite overweight.

With Christmas less than a week away, it seems to me that everybody in the shopping mall is busy either buying or eating.  And every bench in the whole place is occupied.  People are seated on (or sometimes simply resting their bottoms against) every available surface.  The moment somebody vacates a seat on a bench, there is somebody else waiting to occupy it.  But I'm in luck.  Two older ladies leave a bench, having been found by a younger one, obviously the daughter of one of them. There is a brief verbal outburst that sounds like a scolding in a foreign tongue. They shuffle off, and I sit down.

This bench is located just in front of the main entrance of one of the mall's big 'anchor stores'. (I don't know if the term 'anchor store' is commonly understood, but it signifies a big name store that attracts a lot of customers, and so boosts mall traffic for the smaller stores as well.)  This one happens to be Macy's.

I like people-watching, and this spot is ideal for it.  With my MP3 player ear-buds in my ears, I settle in for at least a half hour of observing my fellow human beings as they go about their Christmas shopping, as I wait patiently for the expected call on my cell phone with the blessed news that my wife has completed her own.

Painting & Photos

Pictures from the Archive

House on Buena Vista Avenue

Old Oak Tree

Dis & Dat

Friday morning, and the gardener's leaf blower is the alarm clock for the neighborhood.  Good thing his lawn mower starts up on the first try.  The day is overcast and dull, and the outside temperature is around 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
.     .     .

The current issue of the New Yorker has a profile on our ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, whom the writer of the piece, Jon Lee Anderson, refers to as the 'American Viceroy'.  Khalilzad, an Afghan-American, is a problem-solver in a very difficult and complicated part of the world. On the success of his mission in Iraq will depend the future stability of the country.

.     .     .

I'm fascinated by the bloggers whose postings are in the form of poetry.

.     .     .

Books I'm currently reading: Bernard Lewis's "From Babel to Dragoman", "The Best American Essays 2005", Susan Orlean, Ed.

Signs of Hope

Another beautiful day in Northern California, and we trust that the skies over Iraq today were just as clear and beautiful, as the people there went to the polls by the millions to cast their ballots.  Thus far the news accounts have been good, with few reports of violent acts.  Sure, it'll take a while for the ballots to be counted, and there'll be the usual charges of wrongdoing by one faction or another, but that's to be expected in a country which has not seen free elections in decades, and this is the biggest one so far.

Let's hope the Iraqis will now have a stable government that's worthy of their nobility and their courage, and that the insurgency and the jihadists will fold its tents and quietly steal away, and most important, that conditions will allow the swift return of our brave men and women in uniform to come home and bask in the welcome of a grateful nation.

La Conchita

Reading has remained a favorite pastime of mine since early childhood.  I will read anything, whether they be nutrition labels on food containers or instruction manuals on household appliances.  Sometimes I even read the FBI warnings that come on the screen when I play a DVD.
  
But as a reader of fiction, I have generally favored the short story over the long novel.  At college, I took several courses in creative writing with the late Kay Boyle, whose own short stories I have admired, along with those of H.E.Bates, Jorge Luis Borges, and many others of that generation of writers from the middle of the last century.

When the New Yorker shows up in the mailbox, I first check the table of contents to see what is listed for the week's fiction offering.  (Only later do I read the magazine's coverage of the latest political revelation in Washington, or its investigation of the latest humanitarian crisis.)

In the December 12 issue, I am pleased to find T. Coraghessan Boyle's fast-paced short story "La Conchita", set against the disastrous mudslide on the Southern California coast last year. A wonderful read, it satisfies in a few pages all the elements of a good short story, with fine characterization, a clear point of view, a neat plot, and a very human message.

Photos

First Avenue, San Mateo
Sausalito
Long Island Railroad Tracks

Sanjuro

I saw the 1962 Akira Kurosawa classic "Sanjuro" again last night on DVD, for the first time in over 40 years. The humanity that the late director displayed in making this film shines through all that violent action and impressive swordplay.

Soon after its release in 1962 I took my mother to see "Sanjuro". My mother, who was 48 at the time, was a great fan of anything Japanese, and especially of samurai movies. We had seen Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo' previously, and we had both enjoyed it, but looking back now, I think we enjoyed 'Sanjuro' more.

The great Toshiro Mifune, who was then in his prime, again played the part of the ronin, or masterless samurai, and his action scenes were as perfectly choreographed as a ballet. But here he was to have a perfect foil in the Chamberlain's wife, played by Takako Irie, who provides a genteel counterpoint to the samurai's rough-and-ready manner. The humor in the movie derives largely from the brief scenes showing the interplay between the two.

It is well-known today that Sergio Leone and Clink Eastwood translated these Kurosawa classics to the American screen through the spaghetti Westerns which have also, in their own way, become classics of the genre. But with handguns instead of swords. In like manner, Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" was later to become George Lucas's "Star Wars".

For my money, Kurosawa's originals trump their Hollywood or Italian copies by a country mile.

Hair

Someone said to me the other day that my grey hair gave me a 'distinguished' look.  I thanked her, of course.  It was very kind of her to offer this spontaneous judgment.  

On the other hand, a good friend who was older than I by a few years (sadly he passed away two years ago), once stood on a bench behind me, and felt free to comment on the bald spot I had been trying to conceal with careful combing.  I did not thank him, and instead met his remark with a look that was a few degrees short of friendly.  He had a full head of wiry, dark hair, very little grey.  

Let's face it.  Men are almost as conscious of their hair, or the lack of it, as women are about theirs, and the state of it.  We've all heard complaints, usually female and catty, about this or that female newscaster or celebrity having a 'bad hair day'. And what about the millions upon millions of dollars spent on visits to hairdressers and beauty salons, not to mention the sale of shampoos, conditioners, body-builders, softeners, coloring agents, and the like.  Hair is big business.

Strangely, I find that though I am losing some from the top, new hair will grow, and quite quickly, in other places.  Take my eyebrows, for instance.  It seems that all of a sudden my eyebrows are undergoing a growth spurt which is quite alarming.  I have not yet come close to an Andy Rooney look in the eyebrow department, but many of the hairs above my eyes are getting longer and thicker.  

Now, eyebrows are something that a man should never trim or pluck, as women so often do.  It is just not the macho thing to do.  Not only that, but cutting the ends off long eyebrows tend to make them spiky and unnatural.  So my advice is: leave them alone.  Let them grow to their heart's content.

Another kind of hair that in men becomes more pronounced with age is that which grows in nostrils and ears.  Those on the outside of the ears may be a solitary few that are easily trimmed away while shaving.  But the ones in the ear cavity are harder to reach, and a guy may have to borrow a woman's cuticle scissors to get at them — a dangerous practice at best.  Much better to get one of those little cylindrical battery-operated ear- and nose-hair trimmers that are so ubiquitous nowadays in drugstores and specialty gift shops.

These small gadgets can do the job easily on nose or ear hair in half the time it would take with the old scissors, and with less chance of damage or pain.  They are well worth the small investment.

Places I've Been

Here are some photos from our travels

Beach - Costa Rica

San Andreas Reservoir

Acapulco - Mexico

Aide-memoire

I've been thinking about getting one of those small pocketable voice recorders.  

During the course of a normal day, items come to mind that I would like to write down for future reference — these could be unfamiliar words that I come across in my reading and can't immediately check in the dictionary; interesting news bits that I pick up from the radio or television; sudden flashes of inspiration that may take time to check out.  That sort of thing.

The ol' memory is not what it used to be, of course.  (Whose is, anyway, at our age?)  So any little help, electronic or otherwise, will come in handy.  For years I kept a small pocket diary that doubled as an aide-memoire.  I still carry one around.  But the act of writing in it may be inconvenient at any given moment (while driving, for instance), and oftentimes to be seen writing something down in a notebook in public may raise some suspicious eyebrows.  Especially nowadays.

So a small voice recorder that has a built-in or replaceable memory capability may do the trick for me.  Nothing fancy, not a handheld computer, or a PDA, or a cell-phone with all sorts of extras.  Just a palm-sized gadget with a tiny microphone and simple on-off and playback controls will do.

The advantage of using such a gadget is that, since so many people seem to be talking to themselves these days on cell-phones with midget lapel mics, anyone making a voice recording in the manner described would not attract undue attention.

Now if there is a simple means to transfer the voice recording over to my home computer, that would be perfect.

Christmas Concert

The parking lot was beginning to fill with cars by the time we arrived.  Our older granddaughter was waiting for us just outside the high school auditorium.  Her long hair, made into in a cascade of coppery-red waves down her back, contrasted against the dark velvet jacket and flowing skirt that was the uniform for members of her choral group.  She greeted us with kisses, gave us our tickets and we went in.

I don't believe, for putting oneself into the right spirit for the Christmas season, that there is anything to rival a concert given by a crowd of enthusiastic and talented young people.

The school's music director, a tall, broad-shouldered, balding man in his early fifties, welcomed the people in the audience, which was made up of the families of the concert members along with their fellow students.  He asked that cell phones be rendered silent for the concert, and cautioned that the names of the cast should not be shouted out by over-enthusiastic friends in the audience.  He had a way of bowing low from the waist that suggested he was an athletic fellow, and a teacher who would brook no untoward behavior from students in his classes.

The lights dimmed, and from the darkness at the rear of the auditorium came a susurration, soft at first, then increasing in volume, as the long procession came down the side aisles.  The boys and girls held candles. They were intoning "Hodie Christus natus est" a cappella, as they made their way to the front, their faces lit from below only by the candles, which were actually small flashlights in candle form.

It seemed to me the concert participants made up a large part of the student body. Of the program's 12 pages, of which one was the cover and another was blank, three-fourths were filled with the names of the several choirs, the concert band, the orchestra, the wind ensemble, and the percussion ensemble. There were over two hundred students listed on the program.  Just the time for each choir or musical ensemble to march on and off the stage in orderly fashion took many minutes.

They were very good, these kids.  Not outstanding, at least not yet, but very good.  There were no sour or missed notes that I could detect (not any these old ears would have picked up anyway) and what they may have lacked in polish, they made up for in grace and panache.

These young people are focussed and hardworking, and so committed to doing well, that they and their teachers have consistently placed their school among the top-ranked in the state, and even in the country.  

A respected music teacher was unable to be there, having had a serious illness from which she is recovering, and she was remembered in the course of the evening by her students.  A young substitute music teacher, brought in on short notice to take her place, quickly earned the kids' respect and loyalty, and succeeded in having them turn in a fine performance.

Besides the familiar Christmas songs and carols, there were songs celebrating Hanukkah, modern concert pieces, several talented soloists, and even a bit of kidding around.

The finale offered the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah, with the audience being asked to stand and join in, as tradition allowed.

A wonderful evening, and we have our two lovely granddaughters to thank for inviting us to it.

Images in the Shade

The Luncheon

Today I attended a Christmas (read holiday) luncheon organized by a dedicated group of people with whom I used to work, an event arranged for their retired former colleagues as well as for some who were still working.  They gathered in a restaurant located beside a boat marina right on San Francisco Bay, with a matchless view of the city. The planning as in prior years was flawless, the food wholesome if not inspired, and the company convivial. The master of ceremonies was a man who had for some years performed this office with good humor and a fine sense of timing.  He has lost none of his sparkle and his banter was much enjoyed by the crowd.

At our table were weathered old comrades who shared reminiscences of their working careers in various parts of Latin America, and who now, while still able, have been going on cruises and guided tours to distant corners of the world.  And most were happy to tell of their travel and career experiences, some of which proved to be quite hair-raising on account of close calls in some tight spots.

Many of the retirees brought their spouses along to the luncheon, and several of the ladies won prizes in the lucky draw, as did their menfolk. The prizes bore the corporate logo to emphasize the company's continuing connection to and solidarity with its retirees

The cocktail hour before lunch gave the attendees an opportunity to greet and chat with one another, as they circulated in a way that is customary at such parties, to try and say hello to as many people as they could in the short time they had.  It struck me that the shared experiences through their having been a part of the same giant corporation bound these men and women together in a way that one is not likely to see among younger workers today.  And perhaps may never see again after this generation passes on.

Halifax

Today is the 88th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion, a great tragedy which leveled part of this great port city of Nova Scotia, Canada in 1917.

In 2002 we took a bus tour of the Canadian Maritime Provinces with some friends. Among the places we visited was the city of Halifax. Its Maritime Museum contains some of the most moving photographic images of that disaster, along with others relating to the sinking of the R.M.S. "Titanic" in 1912.

The photo above is of the grave of one of the young victims from the "Titanic". Many other victims of that catastrophe were also laid to rest in the Halifax cemetery.

IHOP

It is invigorating to rise early on a luminous winter's morning and go about one's business — in this case a business as mundane as taking the car in for service. Yes, the freeway is clogged with workaday traffic, but the air is so clear you can hardly imagine any contaminants hanging about, since there's nothing disagreeable that's visible to the naked eye.

What we find attractive are the long shadows of wintertime, the shards of sunlight dancing on automobile chrome, the serene purple outlines of the distant hills, the cerulean blue overhead.

We have breakfast at the International House of Pancakes — the senior special. Decent coffee, crisp strips of bacon, hash brown potatoes, and toast. The menu tells us that the eggs are 'farm fresh', the hash browns 'golden'. Other clichéd coffee-shop sobriquets liven up the menu — 'garden fresh salad', 'cooked to perfection', 'fresh-squeezed'.

So what if they are overused, these restaurant terms. Who cares? The day is fine. The young Asian girl who serves us is gracious and attentive. We eat our breakfast and so we are ready for whatever the day has to offer.

You Must Remember This

Amazing how quickly the weeks and months go by — this is of course a nod in the direction of this blog's theme — as we approach the end of another year. In a few days I shall be attending a holiday luncheon (for thus it was announced) of various departments and units of the corporation where I used to work for more than twenty years. And, incidentally, from which I took early retirement a great many years ago.

Times change, people change, and corporations change. As do countries, philosophies, cultures, civilizations. There is a melancholy about it all that one senses at such gatherings at Christmas time. And, oh yes, this is an old line corporation where in the old days the luncheon would have been paid for from the corporate treasury and the greetings would have been "Merry Christmas", but today in keeping with the strictures of political correctness and keeping costs in check, one has to pay one's own way, and will more likely to be greeted with "Happy holidays". Ah, well, sic transit gloria mundi.

The friends I shall be meeting at the 'holiday luncheon' will be fewer and older, but they will be joined again this year by active employees, younger people who will give the gathering a smart new face. I shall be at table with several other retired persons, and perhaps one of the younger people to keep us company. We will sample our prime rib or salmon and chat about the old days, about the cruises we have taken, or the hobbies we now have time to pursue. We may ask about each other's families, children, and children's children. Politely we refrain from health and medical topics, unless it is to be about the new Medicare Part D provisions and how they may affect the coverage the corporation offers.

There will be speeches, some remembrances of departed members, a few jokes, genial applause. And then we will all go home.

P.C. & Tech Support

The weather has turned cold, though the days are once again graced with sunshine.  We motored to Palo Alto in the afternoon for shopping.  Christmas shopping.

How quickly Christmas returns, and what a furor in the media appertaining to the 'political correctness' of abandoning any reference to the Christian holiday.  Secular and humanistic though I am, I can see nothing in the least offensive about the use of 'Christmas', a term so deeply embedded in our history and culture that any mandatory removal of it, in response to the questionable agendas of those advocating its obliteration, seems absurd.  If it ain't broke, I say, don't fix it.  There are many other things that need to be fixed, not the least of which are our porous borders, and the sad state of the educational system in our country.

*          *          *          *          *

Technical support.  Time was when, after acquiring a new computer or peripheral hardware or software, you found you needed technical help, the toll-free number you called would get you a resident of these United States.  Not so today.  Chances are that a response from a vendor to your plea for technical help, whether on the phone or through online chat, would come from someone located in South Asia.  The same is true in the case of calls regarding non-computer issues, such as with medical billings, appliance warranties, and the like. So not only have U.S. manufacturing jobs taken a big, big hit through outsourcing to foreign countries, it's becoming clear that more and more of our service jobs are headed overseas.

Are the skills there?  To be honest about it, my experience has been that it's a mixed bag. You may occasionally get a guy or gal in India or Bangladesh who is reasonably competent, both in the English language and in technical savvy.  Or you may get someone who is deficient in both areas, which would almost certainly lead to much frustration.  Would a techie in the U.S. do better?  Again, it's a mixed bag, but the odds are in favor of his or her having better language skills to address the issue at hand.  

Now, whether a bored guy sitting in front of a computer on the graveyard shift in Bangalore, India or Bangor, Maine, will correct whatever your problem might be in the course of a five-minute conversation, after you have waited twenty-three minutes 'for the next available technical representative because your call is important to us' while listening to loopy Muzak is a question you may want to pose to the Intelligent Designer Somewhere Out There.

Iraq

In my more-or-less regular submissions to this online journal I have tried hard to refrain from commenting on the Iraq war.  I had supported the invasion, had thought that Saddam posed a great danger to the region and the world, had believed that he was capable, as he had shown in the past, of using chemical and biological weapons without compunction, whether on his own people or on his neighbors, and that he was for years sidestepping the many U.N. sanctions imposed on his murderous regime.

But now the more than two thousand American lives lost, not to mention the score of thousands more wounded or disfigured, some very terribly, has made me question the terrible cost of the war.  Yesterday ten young Marines died in one of the worst single roadside bombing tragedies in months.  Young men with families whose grief I cannot bear to imagine.

Is our President right in maintaining his unshakable position on staying the course?  Are our military brass sharing with him the true sentiments of the kids on the front line, if they know? Are the opinion polls reliable?  Is the so-called mainstream media politically skewed leftward as some pundits claim?  Who are the pundits anyhow, and how did they come to acquire this 'exalted' status?  Do they have sons and daughters in harm's way? What is their agenda, or that of those on the other side of the debate?

I have many questions, as I know many other Americans do.  And there are such deep divisions in the country, political, social, and ideological, that we can only keep wondering, and hoping.

After the storm

Friday dawned clear and bright with a scattering of clouds, and with visibility of better than twenty miles.  From where I stood in the San Mateo hills I could see clear across the Bay towards Mount Diablo beyond the eastern shore.  If the East Bay hills were not there to obstruct the view, I imagine it might have been possible to see all the way over to the Livermore Valley.  

And all this brilliance after Thursday's heavy rains and strong winds that caused minor power outages in the area.  At our house the loss of power was mercifully brief, just enough to keep me away from the computer for a time.

A walk up the hill led past an aromatic carpet of eucalyptus leaves, and bark strewn like giant slivers of cinnamon across the roadway.  The fifty-foot stands of eucalyptus at the top of the hill displayed naked trunks piled with torn bark at the base.  The clear morning air was filled with the mediciny fragrances of the post-storm debris: eucalyptus leaves and pine needles still wet in places.

I greeted the lady who lives a few doors down the street, and who also takes daily walks, rain or shine.  She is in her eighties, and admirably fit, making the uphill climb with small quick steps. Sometimes she carries a hiker's staff, but not today.

Another family dinner

Last night at we were our son's house for dinner, and his fiancée made several excellent dishes, of which the okra and olive dish was the one I liked best.  I love okra anyway, in any form — curries, gumbo soup, or just plain deep fried.  She also made a sole with white sauce, a dish with tofu and vegetables, and salad.  Dessert was a strawberry cheese pie that rounded out the meal perfectly.

Our older granddaughter is getting ready to apply for college, and had been working hard on her college admission essay, which she asked me to look at.  She did very well in several college preparatory exams, and we are sure she will continue to do well in whichever college she eventually attends.  In a couple of years her younger sister will also be ready to pursue higher studies.  They are wonderful young women, and we are very proud of them.

Bookmarks

The website bookmarks I have accumulated have grown so that they are today quite unmanageable.  Just to scroll through the lot takes time, and organizing them is a task, long overdue though it is, that just keeps my procrastination engine idling.  Shouldn't such things be done automatically on the computer?  Isn't there a sort of back up program that can immediately figure out what goes into which folder?  Why aren't the geeks working on the problem?  Or are they already?  Sheez!

Alcatraz from Green Street

Links

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Beat-up Blue Beetle

Gurgles etc.

As one gets older, one's eating habits can change, usually for the worse. We either eat too much, or we eat the wrong kinds of things. Fats of course are the most disagreeable, and sugars equally so. Yet oftentimes it's hard to avoid either.

Having punished my digestive tract with too much junk for more decades than I care to think about, I now have to do penance for my sins. Antacids are a necessary and frequently used item in my medicine cabinet, my intestinal growling after meals has become a commonplace, and a former steady regularity has taken on a more urgent and irregular turn.

What is especially interesting of late is that my interior noises have acquired a distinctive sort of sound. Quite different from the low rumbles and mild quakings of just a few years ago, they seem now to have adopted a higher-pitched, almost puerile, and — dare I say it — a quite noticeably feminine quality. It is as though my gut has been transmogrified from a baritone to a countertenor, or worse yet, a soprano.

I can be sitting in my easy chair watching the evening news after dinner, and there comes this small voice from the inside roughly between the sternum and the umbilicus. Sometimes it even surprises me during a nap. Is it my imagination or a dream? It seems to be calling my name!

My unease is compounded by the recollection of a story titled "Lukundoo" by Edward Lucas White. I first read this story as a teenager, and even today it can still give me the creeps.

http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/lukundoo.htm

English Pronunciation

The following has appeared in several websites.  Its authorship is uncertain, though it has at times been attributed to TSW (?) or George Bernard Shaw.


I take it you already know
of tough and bough and cough and dough.
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough** and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead — it's said like bed, not bead.
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat.
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for pear and bear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose
Just look them up--and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward.
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come I've hardly made a start.

A dreadful language? Man alive,
I'd mastered it when I was five!

Pictures

Day after Thanksgiving

Actually, I don't much like turkey, though everyone else at table at our house yesterday loves it.  Out of the goodness of her heart, my wife made a ham also.  I did have some  token slices of the turkey, just to show my appreciation.  Along with the meat, we had baked yams with marshmallows, chestnut stuffing baked separately from the bird itself, cranberry sauce, vegetables, and to round things off, three pumpkin pies. There was also ice cream for those who wanted some. There were eight of us at Thanksgiving dinner.  

The rain held off till late, and then gave our garden a good soaking overnight.  A wet carpet of birch leaves greeted me this morning as I went outside to fetch the paper.  

Here is where I go off on a tangent to rant about our newspaper.  It's getting thinner and thinner every day, and nothing but the most outrageously liberal diatribe and editorials show up in it.  Someone on the radio said the other day that most major newspapers in this country are losing their readership because of the internet and television.  The San Francisco Chronicle leads the pack by a country mile in this decline.

But as a longtime subscriber I am not going to cancel just yet, though the day may soon come.

River Cruise

This was written for for a club newsletter after our cruise along the Rhine, Main, and Danube Rivers, from Amsterdam to Vienna.

As you may know, these days in Europe they no longer use francs, deutschmarks, pesetas, escudos, or lire in those places where previously these currencies were legal tender.  The Euro is today the common currency over much of western Europe, and its use will no doubt spread as more countries on that continent join the union.

There are some things about the Euro that are worth noting, especially if you are planning to visit Europe.  The Euro started out a few years ago almost on a par with the US Dollar, or even a little below.  Today the Euro is a lot stronger than the dollar. (The Euro’s current relationship to the greenback is roughly the same as the greenback’s relationship to the Canadian loonie, so Canadians traveling in Europe have a worse time of it than Americans.)  On our recent trip through Germany, the conversion rate was about $1.35 to 1 Euro (my keyboard, unfortunately, does not have a symbol for the Euro).   A traveler from the U.S. would be wise not to fall into the trap of assuming that a Euro is worth about the same thing as a dollar. Checking out prices in European shop windows, a traveler must do some rapid mental arithmetic to come up with the final cost that will show up on his or her credit card.

The U.S.Dollar bill is still widely accepted for tips and such in Europe.  There is something about the greenback, some mystique, one might say, that makes people’s eyes light up overseas.  Never mind that it is worth less than the Euro today, our greenback is still a greenback, against which all other currencies are compared.  

There is no one Euro bill. The one Euro denomination is a copper-alloy coin, not paper.  They also have a two-Euro coin, and fifty-cent, twenty-cent, ten-cent, five-cent, and one-cent coins.  All that produces a lot of weight in one’s pockets. The lowest denomination paper money is the 5-Euro note.

In German-speaking countries, the Euro is pronounced ‘Oiro’, which sounds exactly like the Portuguese word for ‘gold’.  The German ‘eu’ sound is ‘oi’.  In France Euro becomes the Uhr-O, because of the French ‘eu’ sound.  

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Public toilets in Europe are generally clean.  But to get in you often have to pay.  Neither a tip nor a bribe, it is quite simply the Price of Admission.  A woman sits outside the door barring your entry until the right amount – which typically ranges from 20 cents to 1 Euro depending on the classiness of the facility – is dropped into the waiting dish or placed in the correct slot.  In some toilets, they even have coin-operated turnstiles.  No coins, no go.  (U.S. coins are not legal tender, but I imagine a sawbuck might persuade the woman to let you in.)

In out-of-the-way places, especially those in Germanic communities where the facilities for those of the male gender are marked Herren, toilets may not be as clean as you are likely to come across in the bigger towns.  Some may be labeled simply pissoirs, which needs no translation from the French.  Often such places do not require payment, which may be why they are not maintained in as hygienic and odor-free a state as those that do.  I recall a sign in the WC in a Bräuerei (beerhall) that read: “Bitte im sitzen pinkeln.”  No need to refer to my German phrasebook to understand that beer-saturated Herren were being politely asked to sit as a precautionary measure.

While we are on the subject of WCs, a couple of related matters are also worth noting.  Firstly, German toilet tissue is different than the American variety.  It is a dull grey, about the color of a Wehrmacht sergeant’s uniform, with a rough, pebbly texture, and it comes in small, firm, and unyielding rolls.  It is not the squeezable quilted stuff that you have seen in our television commercials, the kind that housewives are depicted as ecstatically fondling to sample its softness. German toilet tissue is no-nonsense: practical and functional.  It is, to coin a phrase, rigidlyTeutonic.  

Secondly, you will seldom find paper towel dispensers in German WCs. Instead there will be a metal box with a continuous cloth towel hanging below it, bearing the marks of much handling.  Though it is engineered to operate by pulling down on the cloth to reveal a fresh, clean section, the mechanism is usually so stiff that it does not budge, and the same cloth section gets used over and over.  Hygienically questionable, to say the least.  Safer to use the hot air blower instead.

Cigarette smoking is very popular in Europe.  There are few restrictions on smoking, even in the better restaurants, although some may set aside certain tables for non-smokers.  It is therefore not uncommon for wienerschnitzel to acquire a nicotine flavor, or weissebier to have a smokey aftertaste.  Airports are a joke.  They have an area for smokers, but cigarette smoke floats over the partition and permeates the air because there is no way to exhaust it.  You can be in a supposed non-smoking area yet be forced to inhale second-hand smoke wafting through.

Cigarette dispensing machines are located on many street corners all over Germany.  Anyone with the right coinage can buy cigarettes.  Kids as well.  No wonder so many people smoke.

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European public transport is efficent.  Their streetcars – called in Vienna the Strassenbahn as opposed to the subway, or Unterbahn – are smooth, fast, and some of them very modern, built in such a way that entrance (eingang) and exit (ausgang) are at curb level so that elderly riders do not have to negotiate a single step. A nice feature for some of us.

To pay the fare once aboard, an adult on the Strassenbahn puts a 2-Euro coin in the ticket-dispensing machine (no senior discount; but children pay only 1 Euro) in back of the vehicle’s operator.  Out pops a ticket.  But that’s not the end of it. The passenger has then to take the ticket to get it time-stamped at another machine in the middle of the car.  Since most first-time visitors may not know to do this, courteous Viennese fellow-passengers will show them the way so they don’t get in trouble should an inspektor materialize.

In northern Germany, the customary morning greeting is “Guten morgen”.  In southern Germany and Austria, they say “Grüss Gott.”  Seems people from different parts of the country can sometimes have difficulty understanding one another.

Viennese pastries are exquisite.  Viennese coffee is too.  But in today’s Vienna, McDonald’s now occupies the ground floor of the very house in which Johann Strauss Jr composed the “ Beautiful Blue Danube” Waltz. By the way, the Danube we saw is not blue, though it is beautiful still.

At a typical Viennese Konzert in a baroque former palace, we are treated to a touristic variant of what Walter Cronkite on PBS hosts each New Year in Vienna. But instead of the Staatsoper or the Philharmoniker, the orchestra that we hear is made up of young music students and performers and the conductor, though competent, is not top-rung.  Commercial though it undoubtedly is, the concert succeeds in capping a delightful Viennese evening, and the famous final Radetsky March by Strauss Senior, in which the audience is encouraged to join by clapping in unison on the downbeat, can still stir up memories of the glittering society of the Hapsburg era.

Bijou & Roxy

While the eastern and middle parts of our country are experiencing some arctic weather, we are fortunate here in, yes, sunny California to have had a string of gorgeous days, for which we are thankful.  The forecast for tomorrow is partly cloudy, and rain is expected on Friday.

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They were quite unique in their heyday, those oldtime movie houses with names like, Ritz, Roxy, Star, Bijou, Empire, Grand, Orpheum, Coliseum, Plaza, Rialto, Majestic, and Liberty.

Where are they now?  Well, physically, many still exist, having been transformed into art houses that show foreign or indie movies.  Some have been restored to their former glory, with their bright neon marquees and sculpted Art Moderne pylons.  Others, especially in blighted neighborhoods, have been turned into houses of worship and even skating rinks.

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Fence & Buttermilk sky

Fine Dining

We tried a new restaurant in town.  It looked very attractive from the outside, and even more so on the inside.  White linen tablecloths and napkins folded in tidy shapes, dark panelled walls and enough lighting for you to read the menu without squinting.  A fairly new place, one we had not noticed before on our visits to this street, this restaurant was described in elegant script lettering on the marquee as serving Persian cuisine.

The hostess was tall and elegantly dressed, fortyish, with brindled blond hair ('streaky' I suppose would be the term commonly used) tied back in an elegant bun; probably of Iranian heritage (though 'Persian' would be the preferred designation these days, as on the marquee outside).  The menus were nicely bound in leather, and the prices of the items offered would likely be classified in most newspapers' restaurant reviews as $$$.  There was a respectable wine list, the waiters and busboys wore dark slacks, white shirts and bow ties, the noise level was low, and the whole ensemble augured a fine dining experience.

A complimentary plate of cheese, walnuts, and herbs appeared, along with squares of unleavened bread, a dish of butter, and ice water in stem glasses.  The menu gave the Persian names of each dish, with a clear description of what it was.

And then it happened.  The hostess returned to our table after we had studied the menu for some minutes.  She said: "So, have you guys decided?"  [Italics mine.]

The anticipation of a fine dining experience vanished in a trice.

Late Fall

Another in a series of lovely Fall days with mild temperatures, clear skies, and colorful foliage, some of which have descended from their precarious perches to blanket the roads and lawns along my hour-long, three-mile walk up the hill and back.  It being Sunday morning, the route was only mildly trafficked, a few cars, a couple of bicycles, and only two or three pedestrians.  Accompanying me on the walk was Garrison Keillor and his Prairie Home Companion, which I listen to on National Public Radio on weekends as faithfully as I do the Newshour with Jim Lehrer on weekdays.

Yesterday my wife and I attended the annual general meeting of our social club.  It was an all-day affair that included a so-so lunch of overcooked chicken and ribs.  The meeting went off well, without major incidents or the heated dialogue that had in prior years been a defining feature of such meetings.  The main topics discussed were the the ongoing saga of a recently acquired property that was to be refurbished into a suitable clubhouse, the raising of annual membership dues, and a somewhat premature move to integrate several chapters of the organization into a larger entity.  Nothing of any significance was accomplished, which is about the way such events have devolved in the past.

At a dinner party to celebrate the birthday of their sixteen-year-old cousin, we saw our two granddaughters as we had hoped we would.

Carpe Diem

There are some days when everything seems to go right.  Today happens to be one of those days.

I awoke at 6:00AM, earlier than usual.  Did my three-mile exercise walk in weather that was just glorious even for this magnificent climate.  The Japanese maple provided a touch of brilliant color to our front yard. The oatmeal I made for breakfast in the microwave oven was of the exact consistency to suit my taste.

The FM radio I use on my walks was tuned to our local public radio station.  The morning program's host was interviewing Chuck Close, whose art I have admired over the years, and whose 80-plus self portraits are currently on exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.  Also at SFMOMA are sculptures and other works by Kiki Smith.  We plan to visit the museum after Thanksgiving.

Unusual for me, I accompanied my dear wife to the shopping mall. Once inside she went her way and I went mine.  Unusual for her, she met me back at the car only eight minutes later than the agreed meeting time, which was probably a record.  I bought a Christmas present for a close friend who recently had eye surgery.  It's a bit early for Christmas shopping, I know, but the gift is exactly the kind of thing he would appreciate.

My wife had prepared a dinner of boeuf bourguignon in a new slow cooker she recently bought.  After six hours of cooking the beef was of a sublime degree of tenderness. It was accompanied by linguini al dente.

And tomorrow we get to see our granddaughters again.

A perfect day, and likely a perfect weekend to look forward to.

Virus!

The anti-virus program in my computer announced this morning that an incoming virus had been detected and blocked.  I searched for the infected file and deleted it, without knowing whether that was really the right thing to do, whether the deletion might screw up another application or file.  So far nothing untoward has surfaced, and I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed.

Meanwhile I'm running another complete virus scan, just to be sure there's no more of the little boogers hiding in the hard drive.

That some people will spend valuable time cooking up these devilish viruses with intent to harm others is incomprehensible to me.  They are abnormal, these virus inventors, and Hell must have a special corner set aside just for them.

The Consulate

Two days ago I had to drive to San Francisco to pick up our single-entry tourist visas from the consulate of the People's Republic of China.

The consulate is housed in a large building at the corner of Laguna Street and Geary Boulevard, a short distance from St. Mary's Catholic Cathedral.  At the corner, behind police barricades which seem to have been set up specifically for them, were several Chinese women of middle age.  On top of the barricades some envelopes had been taped, and in the envelopes were a number of pamphlets.

One of the women was making some languid gestures with her arms which suggested tai chi movements.  The other women sat quietly on the curb.  One was eating her lunch. None of them made any effort to pass out pamphlets or to attract the attention of passers-by.  There were no banners protesting the treatment of Falun Gong members in China, nor any indication that Tibet was on the agenda, nor any sign of SFPD presence.  

The only security person in the neighborhood was a uniformed Caucasian man who was clearly on the consulate payroll who stood outside the entrance to the visa office directing the applicants to the various windows inside.  The applicants were so many that they had to stand out in the open on Geary Boulevard. There must have been well over fifty people in line.

Without having to join the queue, I was pointed in the direction of the pick-up window where a young woman accepted the receipts I proffered, checked them against her copies attached by rubber band to our passports, which she pulled from trays filled with passports beside her, accepted the cash (no checks or credit cards) for the visa fee, rubber-stamped my copies to show that the visas had been delivered, and without another word beckoned to the next person behind me in line to approach her window.

The consulate will not accept visa applications by mail, nor will it mail approved visas back to applicants.  The applicant has either to appear in person, or send a designated representative to deliver and pick up the documents.

The visas are valid for one entry into the PRC within the next three months.  They cost us $50 apiece.  And the consulate seems to be doing a land office business every single working day.

Bookstore Cafe

The café at our local bookstore has maybe a dozen tables, and on a Sunday afternoon, most of them are occupied.  The denizens are mostly young people with laptops or PDAs, and they sit there for hours, nursing paper coffee cups from which the lattes have long been drained.  Many look like college students, and they have several books laid out on the tables as they do their typing or writing.  Several have the shaven heads that are so much in vogue these days. One has an iPod with earbuds stuck in his ears.

The decorations on the walls are large posters of famous books ("Death of a Salesman", "Catch 22", "Tell It On The Mountain"). Above the coffee bar is a painted frieze with images of famous writers ranging from Joyce to Tolstoy.

Reading Material

Books I'm currently reading:

"From Babel to Dragoman" by Bernard Lewis.
"Best American Essays 2005"
"The Double" by José Saramago


Books I have bought and will read later:
"The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki
"Mao – The Unknown Story" by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday

Granddad

At the time the photograph was taken, in July 1921, he was thirty-four years old. He stands with his left hand in the pocket of his dark suit jacket. His right hand, holding a cigarette in a long holder, rests on a wooden studio prop made to look like a rustic bridge. The backdrop is obviously fake: the feathery tree on the left, the misty horizon, the foreground flowers, all look as if they might have been copied from a 19th century academic painting.

He is wearing very shiny patent leather shoes and what looks like spats (or else the shoes are of two-toned leather). His shirt collar looks to be of the stiff kind, maybe backed by celluloid, and he has a cravat, probably silk, with a stud just under the knot. In his breast pocket he sports a handkerchief, and under the jacket he wears a light-colored vest or cardigan with buttons.

He is a dapper man, seemingly very conscious of his appearance. His head is long and narrow. Already he is going bald at the crown. His ears stick out somewhat. He has a firm chin and a steady gaze, a fine nose and a full lower lip. Except that he has less hair and a darker complexion, he looks quite a lot like his fourth son (my father) at the same age.

It is quite likely that at the time the photograph was taken, he was already a widower, for otherwise his wife, the great love of his life, would have been in the picture. She died, reportedly from puerperal fever, following the birth of the last of their five children, and the only girl.

This is the only photo of Grandfather as a young man, as far as I know. He passed away in 1943.

Veterans Day

Can there be any melody so moving to the civilized ear as the sound of 'Taps'?   A lone bugler is all it takes, and then the ensuing silence fills its listeners with a sadness so profound it ignores the hollow words of politicians.

Sidewalks

We call them sidewalks over here. The British call them pavements. Just a small linguistic difference, of no great importance. They exist, the sidewalks, in most cities and towns, and they vary.

In Lisbon, Portugal, for instance, the sidewalks are made of stone, chiseled by stonecutters into four-inch cubes. This is generally true in other parts of Europe as well, where the historic town centers have been preserved.

The cobblestoned sidewalks can really be a menace if they are not kept in good repair. My wife had an accident in Lisbon in 1992 because of a hole in the sidewalk on the Rua Aurea, and an ambulance had to be called to take her to the municipal hospital. We almost missed our train to Madrid as a result. So be careful out there.

I usually pay attention to sidewalks. Sometimes they tell stories.

In the downtown area of this suburban community the sidewalks are, I would guess, on average about sixty or more years old. Every so often, at intersections, one is likely to find stamped in the concrete the name of the builder, and sometimes the date. American workmanship was something to be proud of back then, and the builder wanted his workmanship to be noticed and remembered. The same was true of manhole covers.

On some street corners in downtown San Francisco, the city fathers decades ago had installed ornamental brass or bronze plates with the street name on them. It was done probably as a matter of civic hubris and not for the benefit of the osteoporotic elderly who couldn't raise their eyes towards the street signs on the lamp posts.

On my walk yesterday in San Mateo I came upon a portion of a sidewalk which had several names scrawled into it, likely soon after the cement had first been poured. There were four names, one along each side of the square of cement. Two were boys' names and two were girls'. There was also a date, 1968.

Now, assuming that the writers were young people of junior high school age (which is probably the age when young people would amuse themselves with this sort of thing), the foursome, if they are still around, would be around the age of fifty by now.

Will they remember, I wonder, what they did back in 1968? Are they still friends? Or more than friends, perhaps? Were they, back then, already 'going steady', to use that archaic term? Did they marry, and if they did, were their partners any of the names scrawled on that sidewalk? And their children, would they have known that this particular section of concrete on a San Mateo sidewalk bore an inscribed memento of their parents' youth? Would this little fragment from their past be a topic of conversation at family gatherings?

What sort of life would they have led since they set their names in concrete?

And where are they now?

Waiting Room

The lab at this hospital is crowded most mornings, and so it is today, notwithstanding the inclement weather outside.  There is a number-dispensing machine in the waiting room, and newcomers are instructed by a sign posted on the wall to take a number so that their wait time will be shortened.  It is difficult to understand the logic of this instruction — taking a number does not in fact shorten the wait.

The patients in the waiting room range in age from their twenties to their eighties, and in ethnic diversity they appear to cover the entire demography of the Great State of California. They are there to have their blood tested, for whatever reason their personal physicians may have decreed that a blood test is needed.

There is a television set hung on a bracket at the end of the room farthest from the receiving windows, where three receptionists, each in her own window with a small privacy screen separating them, periodically call out the numbers that the waiting patients hold in their hands.  

The patient whose number is called then heads towards the designated window where he or she delivers the slip of paper from the doctor to the receptionist, is asked a couple of questions to confirm his or her identity and/or insurance coverage.  Once the formalities are complete, the patient is instructed to sit down and wait some more.

The television is tuned to a station which has a morning variety show hosted by a pretty blonde woman and a dark-haired man with a winning smile and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of quips.  The quips and the banter cause the audience in the television studio to burst into silent laughter, silent because the volume on the TV is set to mute.  This is so as not to interfere with the workings in this hospital waiting room and the sequential calling out of the numbers, and the calling out by the lab technicians of the names of those whose paperwork has already been processed and may therefore proceed to another room where the blood samples are drawn.

Among the twenty or so people in the waiting room, only one seems to be paying any attention to the television.  For all the entertainment value that the TV can provide for the waiting patients, it might just as well not have been there at all.  The remainder of the people are either reading outdated magazines (three-month-old copies of "People" or "The Smithsonian" or "Cosmopolitan"), or staring at nothing in particular (the old gentleman with the red socks does this), or watching the door anxiously in anticipation that the next number or name called will be their own. A couple of them sit with their eyes closed.

The next lab technician to appear calls out a name.  It is a Spanish name, and the technician, who is from Sri Lanka, has some trouble pronouncing it.  No one responds after she has tried to say the name three times, pronouncing it differently each time. Then, as she is about to abandon the prospective patient for another, a Hispanic man in his forties jumps out and says to please wait a moment.  He stumbles outside, and immediately returns pushing an old man in a wheelchair, who wears a baseball cap with the bill pulled down almost to his nose. It is clear that he is the father of the man pushing his wheelchair.  The Sri Lankan technician greets them, and leads them into the next room.

And then another technician appears, and another name is called.  And so it goes on for the better part of the morning.

Recovering

We're delighted to learn today that our friend, who had a health crisis that required a week's hospital stay, followed by another week in a nursing facility, is back home under the care of his dutiful and hard-working wife. He is able to get around on his own, but naturally he has to be a bit more careful as he continues to regain his strength.

The Block

I'm beginning to understand what 'writer's block' is.  You sit in front of a blank word processing document on your computer screen, tap a few keys to form a sentence, or maybe two.  Then highlight the whole business and hit the 'delete' key.  You do this a number of times in a period of time, say, an hour, and you realize that nothing will happen.  At such times it is probably wiser to get off your behind and take a walk, get a bite to eat, or attend to housekeeping.

On a good day, though, you can be sitting in this very same spot, and without much deliberate effort, the words will just roll out of you in a steady stream that might continue unabated for several paragraphs or even a whole page, until you breathlessly (figuratively speaking, of course, since pecking at the keyboard with two fingers is not physically demanding) decide that it's time to stop for a breather.  So you stop, but you remind yourself that you want to keep the creative engine idling, so that it does not shut off completely and leave you stranded once again in the middle of writer's block limbo.

So what have I written thus far?  Not a heckuva lot that anyone can consider halfway memorable. Because I have not posted anything in a couple of days, this bit of twaddle might suffice as a filler.  Until something else comes along.

British Phrasebook

My wife and I love to browse in bookstores. All kinds of bookstores, from small independents to the chains, and we can spend many hours in them. We sometimes buy books online, but not too often — usually when a book we're looking for happens not to be available at the local store.

The sections that interest me especially in a large bookstore (or in a library for that matter) are the language, linguistics, history and travel sections. If the bookstore has comfortable armchairs or sofas, as many of the chains now have, then the time just whizzes by while I check out what there is of interest.

A couple of nights ago we were at our neighborhood Borders. While my wife was looking for her knitting and crocheting books in the crafts section, I found in the language section a tiny book that is truly a gem of scholarship.

It's the "British Phrasebook" published by the the Australian company Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd. The title is, in my view, something of a misnomer, as it is not simply a phrasebook in the usual sense of such travel accessories (of which I have quite a selection already, incorporating many different languages).

No, the British Phrasebook is much more than that. Its 304 pages contain a wealth of information, from the very first line of its Introduction ("The English — in England — are among the most tolerant bigots on Earth") to the very comprehensive list of Suggested Reading (three sections General, By Region, and Academic) at the end. In between are an extended capsule history of the development of the English language; chapters on pronunciation, usage, and slang; Cockney and other accents and dialects; Scots Gaelic and Welsh; British Society; American vs British English; Government and Politics; the Educational System; People and Placenames; in addition to the usual pocket phrasebook material (food, drink, entertainment, shopping, around town, in the country, sports, going out, and so on).

I did not know, for example, that Durex, a brand of condom, is now the name for condoms in general, or the origin and meaning of "mews" as an address, or the dotty British practice of "letterboxing", a massive treasure hunt in Dartmoor that attracts people from all over, including America. Tips abound ("Never ask for just a 'beer', always specify the quantity, such as 'a half of lager' or 'a pint of Guinness'.")

When a football crowd wants to tease someone about being overweight, it will chant:

Who ate all the pies
Who ate all the pies
You fat bastard
You fat bastard
You ate all the pies

The authors of this small Phrasebook, scholars all, are to be commended for putting together a remarkably comprehensive and articulate (not to say hugely amusing) booklet that sums up the British character while providing insights into a society that Americans may think we know much about, yet often find quite baffling.

Once I built a railroad . . .

Well, actually, it was a model railroad, built on a sheet of 4x8 feet plywood that took up nearly a quarter of our son's bedroom. He was then about ten years old.

The locomotives, two of them, were built from metal kits by Tyco. Took me about a week to get the engines looking right, including painting a weathered look to them. Made the roadbed of a cork-like material, then laid the track on the plywood, which had been set on folding legs. Tiny nails were the rail spikes. Had pretty good eyesight then.

After the track was laid, and the switches, sidings, level crossings and other features were in place, my son and I did the messy landscaping with a plaster-of-Paris-like material called Hydrocal, using crumpled newspaper forms and strips of brown paper from grocery bags soaked in the Hydrocal and laid over the forms. We had a small hill through which a tunnel ran, trees made of twigs and rubbery lichen bought from a hobby shop, and finally buildings, including a hotel, a factory, several houses, a gas station, all from plastic kits that we glued, and then painted to give them that weathered realistic look. The tunnel entrance was a plaster cast that looked pretty darn good.

Rolling stock we bought ready-made from the hobby shop: hoppers, tank cars, box cars, a caboose, reefers. The hill was painted in varied earth tones and given a brownish green coating of a sawdust-like material to resemble spots of grass.

The power came from a small controller with a dial that regulated the speed of the locomotive, and had forward and reverse. For a kit-built locomotive, our 2-8-2 Mikado was a fine workhorse as it pulled a mixed lot of rolling stock round and round with a delightfully steady whir past the little village and through the tunnel.

In the end we disposed of our railroad through a want ad in the local paper, but my son has continued his interest in model railroading into adulthood and now has a stable of highly detailed brass locomotives in his collection. It's a fine hobby, this model railroading. Once bitten with the bug as a kid, you never let it go.

Once I built a railroad, I made it run,
Made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad, now it's done --
Brother, can you spare a dime?


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