TODAY IN AFRICA...April 5, 2014
I'm in Addis Ababa. It is pretty much the lap of luxury (in some ways) for Africa.
I saw a streak of red-gold out of the airplane window, looking out towards Asia as we flew into Ethiopia today. Light came slowly to the morning, as the mountain mist rose from this mountainous part of the country. Addis is at 8000 feet I think, but unlike the Sierra elevation, you get that early morning scent of burning garbage... a developing country special effect. The birds weren't bothered by that, however, and their songs are sharp, bright and melodic.
Finding my own way from the airport to the Hilton was easy and 1/6 the price quoted by my tour company for a so-called airport transfer. Hmmph! The shuttle offered at the Hilton kiosk in the airport was $6 and the driver grateful for $1 tip.
For $50 a night, I upgraded to the executive floor...which comes with 24 hour access to their top floor lounge (all the Aljazeera you can watch), two meals per breakfast buffet and happy hour buffet, and comfy reading chairs. I'm headed there shortly with one of the 5 books on Ethiopia that I brought along to read. Am already done with autobiography of Haile Sellassie, Lion of Judah, the Emperor who brought Ethiopia into modernity before he was murdered. His mythology is still strong... the military rulers who replaced him waited 25 years to hold his funeral. That was in 2000. Between the end of his monarchy and the present day came land reforms and the horrors of revolutionary days until the Workers Party government collapsed in 1990, and then the sad war with Eritrea. Ethiopia is still on the mend, but buildings are rising rapidly here in the capital city, the airport has a jetway instead of roll-up-to-the-plane steps, the potholes in the roads are not so very large, and the coffee.. oh my goodness the coffee!...is fantastic.
So life is good today.
I always feel this sense of coming home when I come to Africa.
After all, scientifically, it is the Mother of Us All. And Ethiopia is where were found the 3 million year old remains of Lucy, an upright walking woman, Australopithecus afarensis, in 1974 in the Afar desert of Eastern Ethiopia. I won't be going there on this trip, sadly...but spiritually, historically, genetically, I've been there. And so have you.
I opted to save $15 a day (that's the laugh line, so go ahead...) and take a room that looks toward the mountains and not the Ethiopian-cross shaped pool. The check in clerk said that the pricier pool-facing rooms were quieter. What he meant was that I would not get the two hours of the Moslem call to prayer several times a day...and THAT would have made me sad. So I can brew a cup of tea in my room and listen to the faithful being summoned from multiple loudspeakers on minarets I can't see but know are there in the shantytown on the mountainside. Wouldn't have wanted to miss that for the world!
This is not exactly roughing it. There are roses on the end table near the fresh fruit platter, multiple bottles of water, a Samsung TV larger than my whole desk area in San Francisco, 6 pillows on the bed and 3 housekeepers have already looked in within the 2 hours I've been here to make sure all is well.
I hope the going gets a bit rougher, or I shall be sorely disappointed. I mean, where's the STORY without that?
Letter to my Grandchildren About Africa
Almost 40 years ago, long before you were born, there was
hunger in the land – great hunger and great drought – and that land was Africa.
It was 1974, the time of the great drought in the Sahel, and
I was seated cross-legged at the edge of a campfire in the middle of the
Sahara, with nomads who don’t share a similar spoken word, but whose soft
singing in the desert night touches my soul.
I smile; smiles are the
universal word, and the young man rises and gives me a simple bracelet he’s
been working on as he rests around the campfire singing. It’s formed of braided leather and a few bits
of hammered metal. The leather is from
either cattle, sheep or camel, all of which these nomads herd when they are not
on caravan through the desert, when they are with their families in the few
villages near a well or oasis.
When I slept that night, all I heard was the sound of my own
blood beating a soft tattoo against my eardrum.
All I saw is a black sky and clear stars. All I felt were soft grains of sand drifting
against my face. I was completely at
peace, and I had the knowledge that all are one.
Somehow, it is always easy to realize these things in this
great continent, the birthplace of humankind.
The next morning, our band of rag-tag travelers got back in
the three 40-year-old Bedford army trucks that were abandoned in Tangiers, on the shores
of Morocco after World War II. Some of
us piled into one of the two Land Rovers which were old enough to have no
shocks left. Our Tuareg guide took us
deeper into trackless desert.
We passed skeletons of camels then, and dead goats
also. Nothing much was alive during this
drought as we crossed the rock trails of the big Masif in Niger.
In Agadez, roused early by the call to prayer, we saw the
women draw muddy water from the old well in the middle of this oasis town.
Near Kano, in northern Nigeria, the Fulani women had taken
their emaciated herds to an almost-dry well.
An unwritten rule of first-come first-served meant that many women and
children waited all day in the hot sun for their turn. When at last they could lower their poor pails
made from gathered-goat-stomach skins into the well, the skins came out of the
well only half-filled with murky water.
Our group was almost out of water too. We’d filled up in Morocco, because crossing
over the Atlas Mountains into southern Algeria, and we’d rationed ourselves
with only a cup of water a day for bathing and 2 quarts for drinking. Still, at this point, the jerry-cans were
empty.
The head driver of our group gathered us around his Land
Rover and said he knew of a source where there was water near where we were headed in central Nigeria, but the source had
bilharzias parasites in it.
It was a somber day of traveling, and then a miracle! A sudden cloudburst, the kind that runs off
the parched earth quickly and by no means nourishes the land. But the children in the nearly village
inspired us, and we held up the jerry cans to the edges of tree branches and
gladly took the run-off.
We arrived in Cameroun at the onset of the wet season. After a difficult day of driving on
rain-rutted roads, we pulled our Bedford trucks and Land Rovers into a somewhat-dry meadow at the last light of the day. We stationed them at the four points of the
compass – north, south, east, west – with a clearing in between, much like a
wagon train crossing the west in the United States in the 1800’s. We turned on the headlights of the trucks to
make camp.
Suddenly, the meadow was filled with men, women and children
with brooms, rakes, and bush branches.
Just as suddenly, the locusts and grasshoppers rose from the damp ground
toward the truck lights. The villagers
swatted and gathered the insects into their baskets, eating a few as they
worked.
The next day, passing through a village large enough to have
a good-sized open air market, we stopped at the clearing in the packed-mud road
to buy shrunken bananas. By then, the
night’s bounty had been roasted. So too
were a few monkeys, sold by halves – top half, and bottom half. We passed on the bush meat and the insects, in favor of the vegetables.
When we crossed into Zaire, now called Congo, we traveled
through pygmy lands for a few days.
There was hunger here too. In a small jungle clearing with a few shelters built mostly of branches, a
mother with two small children offered to share her bowl of cassava gruel with
fat juicy wriggling grubs in it.
Despite the hunger, the pygmy and the other peoples of
Africa survived this and other droughts.
In Congo, they called on their nature gods to help. They sent up their chants not only with their
voices, but with the help of the sacred patterns they traced in the ground around
their mud brick and thatch houses.
The people used their water wisely, shared what they had,
and helped each other.
Our band of travelers
dispensed what medicine, food, money and clothing we could spare along our way
across Africa. By the time I reached
Nairobi, I had these items left for my trip back to the United States: one piece of cloth that I could wrap for a
skirt, two teeshirts, some underwear, and a pair of torn sandals.
I saw and experienced all these things I've written about here, and I did what I could to help. That was 1974, when there was great hunger in
that land of Africa. But those people survived
because they had each other, and now, the world has you.
Inshallah. Do what
you can to be kind.
Love you,
BaBa
BaBa
GOING HOME 2014 - My 50th High School Reunion: Nappanee, Indiana
Go Bulldogs!
I was a nerdy kid in high school, more interested in Science Club and Latin Club than Pep Club, so the "Go Bulldogs!" school spirit was something I indeed felt, but not likely to be the first greeting out of my mouth to my classmates.
Our Class of 1964 reunion was held in the multi-purpose room of Heritage House, a newly-built retirement home a few miles east of Nappanee. There were 60 in attendance from our class of 90: 40 classmates and 20 spouses. Twenty-five of the classmates had already died.
Here are the participants in that reunion:
I was a nerdy kid in high school, more interested in Science Club and Latin Club than Pep Club, so the "Go Bulldogs!" school spirit was something I indeed felt, but not likely to be the first greeting out of my mouth to my classmates.
Our Class of 1964 reunion was held in the multi-purpose room of Heritage House, a newly-built retirement home a few miles east of Nappanee. There were 60 in attendance from our class of 90: 40 classmates and 20 spouses. Twenty-five of the classmates had already died.
Here are the participants in that reunion:
I'd asked my Cousin Don's wife Betty's cousin, Wayne Klotz, to be my buddy for the reunion. Wayne and I were always friends; he'd stayed in Nappanee after college, teaching elementary school and going up the administration line to Principal in almost 40 years of work. I'd left at age 18, and except for trips back to see my cousin Don, to go put some of my Dad's ashes, and then some of my Mom's ashes in the Brumbaugh family graveyard out there on County Road 15 south of US 6 and just a tad beyond the railroad tracks, I really hadn't returned. Wayne was a great companion for the whole weekend!
The initial socializing was a bit awkward. Truthfully, the guys had changed a lot, and the gals were mostly identifiable. Some of our Amish and Mennonite female classmates attended even though most of our Amish classmates were pulled out of school at age 16 by their religious parents. Our Mennonite classmates, some of them, went on to college and taught. Many of our classmates stayed in farming or other trades. The call to supper was not ignored, and Del-Mar catering did a good job with the meal: chicken in a white cream sauce with poppyseeds was the favorite on the buffet. (We'd see this one again the next night...) Everyone got chatting over supper, and then there was that silence after the organizer, Linda Reed Corwin, asked for folks to share their stories.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do I. So, I stood up and started talking. The rule, I explained, was that whoever was mentioned in the story had to stand up NEXT and tell their anecdote.
"Well," I said, "Many of you know that I live in San Francisco, but I want to preface my story with the information that I am not Gay."
"When I was a first grader at Central School, I noticed pretty quickly that the boys seemed to have all the fun during recess. They ran around everywhere, yelling and screaming and shoving and doing all the fun stuff. The girls gathered in little groups and pointed fingers at other people and whispered.
I marched over to the boys and said I wanted to play with them. NO, they said, You can't play with us because you are not a Boy. I am too a Boy, I stamped my foot and proclaimed. The Boys laughed at me. I assessed the situation pretty quickly, and determined that Gary Hollar was the biggest, tallest and most substantial boy. So I chased Gary around the playground and caught him and pushed him down and sat on his stomach and pummeled him until he said, OKAY OKAY You Are a Boy.
Playground time was so much better after that."
The initial socializing was a bit awkward. Truthfully, the guys had changed a lot, and the gals were mostly identifiable. Some of our Amish and Mennonite female classmates attended even though most of our Amish classmates were pulled out of school at age 16 by their religious parents. Our Mennonite classmates, some of them, went on to college and taught. Many of our classmates stayed in farming or other trades. The call to supper was not ignored, and Del-Mar catering did a good job with the meal: chicken in a white cream sauce with poppyseeds was the favorite on the buffet. (We'd see this one again the next night...) Everyone got chatting over supper, and then there was that silence after the organizer, Linda Reed Corwin, asked for folks to share their stories.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do I. So, I stood up and started talking. The rule, I explained, was that whoever was mentioned in the story had to stand up NEXT and tell their anecdote.
"When I was a first grader at Central School, I noticed pretty quickly that the boys seemed to have all the fun during recess. They ran around everywhere, yelling and screaming and shoving and doing all the fun stuff. The girls gathered in little groups and pointed fingers at other people and whispered.
I marched over to the boys and said I wanted to play with them. NO, they said, You can't play with us because you are not a Boy. I am too a Boy, I stamped my foot and proclaimed. The Boys laughed at me. I assessed the situation pretty quickly, and determined that Gary Hollar was the biggest, tallest and most substantial boy. So I chased Gary around the playground and caught him and pushed him down and sat on his stomach and pummeled him until he said, OKAY OKAY You Are a Boy.
Playground time was so much better after that."
 |
| "I am too a Boy! |
At that juncture, Gary spoke up and said, "I bet I have a better way now of figuring out if you are a girl or a boy!" (Thanks, Gary, for the great ice-breaker!) After the laughter died down, Gary stood up and the good times and good memories really did roll.
I had two cousins in my class, by the way (my father, Howard Brumbaugh, was one of 10 children). My cousin Denny Miller was the Salutatarian to my Valedictorian. Denny has Parkinson's and did not attend, sadly. My cousin Keith Blosser was always mechanically minded and had a great career as a manager of one of our local trailer factories (read: RV, recreational vehicle = trailer) and married Shirley Fisher in 1964. They have a wonderful family.
The challenging part of this reunion event was the fact that Betty Fervida, my cousin Don's wife, had sweet-talked me into giving the keynote speech the next night, and also Emcee-ing, the all-classes reunion. I didn't realize what a big deal this way until Linda Reed Corwin informed me that 270 (Two Hundred Seventy!) people were attending.
I was terrified I'd make horrible gaffs…I’d been away so long. So, I asked Wayne if he'd help Emcee the program and we created the Wayne `N Barb show. (It was very well received; jokes helped!)
But the Keynote required a lot of thought. (in retrospect -- belatedly publishing this blogpost in 2021 -- after my 10 months of living fulltime and working for Democracy and against Trump in 2020-2021 back home in Indiana, I didn't do myself {or the Democratic Party} any favors with this presentation. The town really hadn't changed much since the 1960's EXCEPT to become more Republican and conservative. But you don't know what the culture of a place really is until you've lived there for almost a year. More on that experience, later. There is a lot to process!)
I had two cousins in my class, by the way (my father, Howard Brumbaugh, was one of 10 children). My cousin Denny Miller was the Salutatarian to my Valedictorian. Denny has Parkinson's and did not attend, sadly. My cousin Keith Blosser was always mechanically minded and had a great career as a manager of one of our local trailer factories (read: RV, recreational vehicle = trailer) and married Shirley Fisher in 1964. They have a wonderful family.
 |
| Keith Blosser, my cousin, and his wife Shirley Fisher Blosser: both 1964 classmates. |
The challenging part of this reunion event was the fact that Betty Fervida, my cousin Don's wife, had sweet-talked me into giving the keynote speech the next night, and also Emcee-ing, the all-classes reunion. I didn't realize what a big deal this way until Linda Reed Corwin informed me that 270 (Two Hundred Seventy!) people were attending.
I was terrified I'd make horrible gaffs…I’d been away so long. So, I asked Wayne if he'd help Emcee the program and we created the Wayne `N Barb show. (It was very well received; jokes helped!)
But the Keynote required a lot of thought. (in retrospect -- belatedly publishing this blogpost in 2021 -- after my 10 months of living fulltime and working for Democracy and against Trump in 2020-2021 back home in Indiana, I didn't do myself {or the Democratic Party} any favors with this presentation. The town really hadn't changed much since the 1960's EXCEPT to become more Republican and conservative. But you don't know what the culture of a place really is until you've lived there for almost a year. More on that experience, later. There is a lot to process!)
But here is the keynote I gave then:
I loved Latin, and beginning the summer after my 1st year of Latin in 1961, she’d occasionally invite me to her house for tea. Back then, a teacher could do that. We’d look at her scrapbooks of her trips to Italy, and she’d talk about her travels and fill my mind with image after image, story after story.
Sel set me on the path of a guiding principle -- figure out how to get to “YES” . And with certain exceptions, inevitable roadblocks and stupid mistakes along the way, I’ve been able to get to YES a lot in my life. As I am sure you all have too.
Wayne Klotz, my co-host later this evening, talks about how his teacher, Mary Metzler, inspired him to teach.
Because of the preparation of these great teachers in part, I was able to get into Harvard Business School. I’ve joked for years that I got in because of the poet and socialist quota. Truth is, my application essay on organizing tenants in the ghettos of Newark New Jersey to hold rent strikes against slum landlords was probably not a show stopper. But the essay on my belly dancing classes at the Boston YWCA probably made the application reviewers sit up and say, “We’ve got to have HER here!” That education enabled me to start a business that required a lot of travel. I was able to take my kids with me often, too.
We were lucky at Nappanee High School to have great and dedicated teachers. Coming back for reunions reminds us of that.
For entertainment, I thought I’d tell you a bit what it is like to live in the most liberal city in America, where I’ve lived for the past 10 years. That is San Francisco. Just a few glimpses of daily life.
I don’t live alone, I have BOB the Dog as company. He’s a rescue, 65 pounds with black on his
tongue and his own FaceBook Page. (I
help him with that.) Bob and I were
walking past city hall the other day. I
was stunned to see friends and relatives celebrating a just-married couple
right there on the steps of City
Hall. There are always marriage celebrations,
but this one was for a MAN and a WOMAN.
In true liberal fashion, they were throwing bits of rice paper squares
printed in various colors with non-toxic ink, there were flowers from organic
sustainable local farms; and there were
toasts with unfiltered non-sulfated wines.
Why was I surprised? Well,
usually it’s a MAN and a MAN or a WOMAN and a WOMAN who just got married. The constant is the rice paper, the flowers,
and the wine choices.
Our huge homeless population is a well known fact. You see, nobody dies of the cold in San Francisco. We pay incredibly high income taxes in California, but the social nets still have big holes in them.
If you have leftover food from a restaurant meal, you almost always take it with you. There’s always someone within a block’s walk who is grateful when you hand them a meal.
My friend Nicole buys pairs and pairs of clean thick socks and hands them out to homeless people who panhandle or sleep in doorways on the street. Many homeless don’t have access to even elemental medical care and foot problems are rampant.
Many of us take a dollar from our pocket every day to buy a copy of THE STREET SHEET, sold by folks trying to preserve some dignity while being homeless. A short walk anywhere in San Francisco will take you to a STREET SHEET seller.
We leave piles of clean clothes folded on street corners for those who can’t afford a thrift shop.
All of these people are somebody’s son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father.
When Bob and I walk on the Embarcadero in San Francisco, I see the great container ships coming into San Francisco Bay every day, piled high with goods from around the world. I like to take a minute to reflect on the trend of globalization. But the real core knowledge from those reflections, is that we are all connected. That’s why we are here today… we’re connected by the values and the education that we got at Nappanee High School.
So today we celebrate each other, the school, and the great teachers we had. God bless. Enjoy the fellowship! Wayne and I will be back after dinner with the Wayne N’ Barb show. “
#
Wayne and I kept it light, and Betty had sent a folder of jokes as starters. We talked about things we miss, like those little wax bottles filled with sweet liquid, and sitting in the balcony of the Fairy Theater and throwing popcorn at the folks on the main floor, and Christmas Club savings accounts at the bank.
We joked about foods we never thought we'd eat, like artificial crab, soybean burgers, hummus, Kimchi, guacamole, enchiladas. We had a lot of jokes about diets, weight gain, hair loss, exercise programs.
And then we asked the classes to stand up, one by one.
To help people reminisce about the changes in our lifetimes, there were two handouts I prepared. Here they are:
Oldies but Goodies (That would be US and our Music both!)
All in all, it was great fun. I think I'll go again when I can. In Shallah, as they say in many places of the world... God Willing.
“It’s great to see such a turnout today,
and it verifies a truth I’ve figured out since I left Nappanee in 1964: ALL ROADS LEAD TO HOME.
JULIA MILNE, my beloved Latin teacher at Nappanee High School, would
wonder at that turn of phrase. She knew
it as ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME. It really
is Mrs Milne’s fault that I’ve been on so many roads in the last 50 years – she
instilled me with an interest in other countries. I loved Latin, and beginning the summer after my 1st year of Latin in 1961, she’d occasionally invite me to her house for tea. Back then, a teacher could do that. We’d look at her scrapbooks of her trips to Italy, and she’d talk about her travels and fill my mind with image after image, story after story.
It’s her fault, you see, that I did take all the roads I could. I’ve made it to Rome and to Istanbul,
Khartoum, Mandalay, Bombay, Beijing, Mendoza, Cairo, Sao Paulo, Algers,
Guatemala City, Johannesburg, Melbourne,
as well as Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta and a few more places. Ten years after I left Nappanee, I hitchhiked
from Mombasa to Nairobi in Kenya, alone.
On other travels, I’ve been hassled by Russian soldiers on a train
across East Germany, before The Wall came down. I’ve seen a villager shivering from malaria alongside
a trail on a mountain in Papua New Guinea. Most recently, I shared a hotel room with a
large rat that paid a nighttime visit in Ethiopia. Lots of adventures in those 70 countries….
and still traveling. All Julia Milne’s
fault.
SEL COPELAND played a part too.
He taught me how to think. I can
remember being in his chemistry class, staring up at the Periodic Table of
Elements before he pulled the cord and rolled it up. “You don’t need that,” he’d say. “You don’t need to memorize it. You use it enough, you’ll learn it
anyhow. Instead, think about how to get
to the final answer.”Sel set me on the path of a guiding principle -- figure out how to get to “YES” . And with certain exceptions, inevitable roadblocks and stupid mistakes along the way, I’ve been able to get to YES a lot in my life. As I am sure you all have too.
Wayne Klotz, my co-host later this evening, talks about how his teacher, Mary Metzler, inspired him to teach.
Because of the preparation of these great teachers in part, I was able to get into Harvard Business School. I’ve joked for years that I got in because of the poet and socialist quota. Truth is, my application essay on organizing tenants in the ghettos of Newark New Jersey to hold rent strikes against slum landlords was probably not a show stopper. But the essay on my belly dancing classes at the Boston YWCA probably made the application reviewers sit up and say, “We’ve got to have HER here!” That education enabled me to start a business that required a lot of travel. I was able to take my kids with me often, too.
We were lucky at Nappanee High School to have great and dedicated teachers. Coming back for reunions reminds us of that.
Reunions or not, there is always a way
to get back home to Indiana. Admittedly,
things have changed here and elsewhere. How much they’ve changed you can see in
the basic NEWS AND EVENTS sheet I prepared for tonight.
For entertainment, I thought I’d tell you a bit what it is like to live in the most liberal city in America, where I’ve lived for the past 10 years. That is San Francisco. Just a few glimpses of daily life.
I don’t live alone, I have BOB the Dog as company. He’s a rescue, 65 pounds with black on his
tongue and his own FaceBook Page. (I
help him with that.) Bob and I were
walking past city hall the other day. I
was stunned to see friends and relatives celebrating a just-married couple
right there on the steps of City
Hall. There are always marriage celebrations,
but this one was for a MAN and a WOMAN.
In true liberal fashion, they were throwing bits of rice paper squares
printed in various colors with non-toxic ink, there were flowers from organic
sustainable local farms; and there were
toasts with unfiltered non-sulfated wines.
Why was I surprised? Well,
usually it’s a MAN and a MAN or a WOMAN and a WOMAN who just got married. The constant is the rice paper, the flowers,
and the wine choices. Our huge homeless population is a well known fact. You see, nobody dies of the cold in San Francisco. We pay incredibly high income taxes in California, but the social nets still have big holes in them.
If you have leftover food from a restaurant meal, you almost always take it with you. There’s always someone within a block’s walk who is grateful when you hand them a meal.
My friend Nicole buys pairs and pairs of clean thick socks and hands them out to homeless people who panhandle or sleep in doorways on the street. Many homeless don’t have access to even elemental medical care and foot problems are rampant.
Many of us take a dollar from our pocket every day to buy a copy of THE STREET SHEET, sold by folks trying to preserve some dignity while being homeless. A short walk anywhere in San Francisco will take you to a STREET SHEET seller.
We leave piles of clean clothes folded on street corners for those who can’t afford a thrift shop.
All of these people are somebody’s son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father.
When Bob and I walk on the Embarcadero in San Francisco, I see the great container ships coming into San Francisco Bay every day, piled high with goods from around the world. I like to take a minute to reflect on the trend of globalization. But the real core knowledge from those reflections, is that we are all connected. That’s why we are here today… we’re connected by the values and the education that we got at Nappanee High School.
So today we celebrate each other, the school, and the great teachers we had. God bless. Enjoy the fellowship! Wayne and I will be back after dinner with the Wayne N’ Barb show. “
#
Wayne and I kept it light, and Betty had sent a folder of jokes as starters. We talked about things we miss, like those little wax bottles filled with sweet liquid, and sitting in the balcony of the Fairy Theater and throwing popcorn at the folks on the main floor, and Christmas Club savings accounts at the bank.
We joked about foods we never thought we'd eat, like artificial crab, soybean burgers, hummus, Kimchi, guacamole, enchiladas. We had a lot of jokes about diets, weight gain, hair loss, exercise programs.
And then we asked the classes to stand up, one by one.
To help people reminisce about the changes in our lifetimes, there were two handouts I prepared. Here they are:
News
and Events Info courtesy of www.infoplease.com
1934
US Population: 126,373,773
President: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Federal Spending: $6.54 billion
Unemployment 22.0%
First Class Stamp: 3 cents
WORLD:
Hitler becomes Fuhrer
US:
Lawmen ambush Bonnie & Clyde in Louisiana
SPORTS:
St. Louis Cardinals d Detroit 4-3
1939
US Population: 130,879,718
President: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Federal Spending: $9.14 billion
Unemployment 17.2%
First Class Stamp: 3 cents
WORLD:
World War II begins; Roosevelt
proclaims US neutrality
US:
New York World’s Fair Opens
SPORTS: NY Yankees d Cincinnati 4-0
1954
US Population: 163,025,854
President: Dwight D Eisenhower
Federal Spending: $70.86 billion
Unemployment 2.9%
First Class Stamp: 3 cents
World: Dien Bien Phu falls to Viet Minh
US:
Senate condemns Sen McCarthy for misconduct; Supreme Court bans racial segregation in public schools
SPORTS:
NY Giants d Cleveland 4-0
1959
US Population: 177,829,628
President: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Federal Spending: 92.10 billion
Unemployment 6.8%
First Class Stamp: 4 cents
World: Fidel Castro assumes power in Cuba
US:
Alaska and Hawaii become 49th & 50th states
SPORTS:
LA Dodgers d Chicago White Sox 4-2
|
1963
US Population: 189,241,798
President: John F. Kennedy/
Lyndon B. Johnson
Federal Spending: 111.32 billion
Unemployment 5.5%
First Class Stamp: 5 cents
World:
There are 15,000 military advisers in South Vietnam. Pope John XXII dies. Cold war continues
US:
President Kennedy killed in Dallas; Supreme Court rules that no
locality may require recitation of Lord’s Prayer or Bible verses in public
school; “March on Washington civil”
rights rally
SPORTS: LA Dodgers d NY Yankees 4-0
1964
US Population: 191,888,791
President: Lyndon B. Johnson
Federal Spending: 118.53 billion
Unemployment 5.7%
First Class Stamp: 5 cents
World:
Krushchev deposed; China detonates its first atomic bomb; US Congress
approves Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
US:
Three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi; Jack Ruby convicted in slaying of Lee
Harvey Oswald
SPORTS: St. Louis Cardinals d NY Yankees 4-3
1969
US Population: 202,676,946
President: Richard M Nixon
Federal Spending: 183.64 billion
Unemployment 3.6%
First Class Stamp: 6 cents
World:
Nixon begins “Vietnamization” in SE Asia; US, USSR +100 countries sign
the nuclear nonproliferation treaty
US:
Apollo 11 astronauts take first Moon walk;
NYC Stonewall riot begins gay
rights movement
SPORTS: NY Mets d Baltimore 4-1
|
Oldies but Goodies (That would be US and our Music both!)
1964: Top 5
I Want to Hold Your Hand (The Beatles)
She Loves You
(The Beatles)
Hello, Dolly! (Louis Armstrong and the All-Stars)
Oh, Pretty Woman (Roy Orbison)
I Get Around
(The Beach Boys)
1934: Top 5
Moon Glow (Benny Goodman)
Continental, You Kiss While You’re Dancing
(Leo Reisman)
Tumbling Tumbleweeds (Sons
of the Pioneers)
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes ( Paul Whiteman)
Cocktails for Two (Duke Ellington)
1939: Top 5
Over the Rainbow (Judy Garland)
Moonlight Serenade (Glenn Miller)
God Bless America (Kate Smith)
Strange Fruit
(Billie Holiday)
Body & Soul (Coleman Hawkins)
1954: Top 5
Mister Sandman (The Chordettes)
Secret Love (Doris Day)
Sh-Boom, Life Could be a Dream (Crew-Cuts)
Little Things Mean a Lot (Kitty Kallen)
Hey There (Rosemary Clooney)
|
1959: Top 5
Mack the Knife (Bobby Darin)
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (The Platters)
Venus (Frankie Avalon)
Lonely Boy ( Paul Anka)
Battle of New Orleans (Johnny Horton)
1963: Top 5
Devil in Disguise (Elvis Presley)
If I Had a Hammer (Trini Lopez)
Hey Paula (Paul and Paula)
Be My Baby (The Ronettes)
Louie Louie (Kingsmen)
1969: Top 5
Get Back (The Beatles)
Sugar Sugar (Archies)
In the Year 2525 (Zager & Evans)
Honky Tonk Woman (The Rolling Stones)
Suspicious Minds (Elvis Presley)
Right Now -Summer 2014:
Fancy (Iggy Azalea and Charil XCX)
Problem (Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea)
Rude (Magic!)
Turn Down for What (DJ Snake and Lil Jon)
Stay with Me
(Sam Smith)
|
All in all, it was great fun. I think I'll go again when I can. In Shallah, as they say in many places of the world... God Willing.
Trips from my passport that expired in 1978 (1978-1983)
Trips taken on this passport: (not so many...busy raising children!)
1978 UK/England, France, Germany
1979 Bahamas (Rugby tour)
Trips from my passport that expired in 1978 (1976-78)
 |
| I have to wonder why any country would let me in... |
1976 Santo Domingo, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Bahamas, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador,
1977 Belgium, Germany, Netherlands
1978 India, UK/England,
Trips from my passport that expired in 1978 (1974-75)
|
| My passport Photo
Trips taken on this Passport:
1974 UK/ England, Kenya, Rwanda, Zaire, Niger, Nigeria, Morocco, Central African Republic/CAR, Chad, Cameroun, Algeria, Tanzania, Burundi, Zanzibar, Denmark,
1975 Luxembourg, France
|
Sudan trip starts with scuffle
November 15, 2003
It would have been titillating if it weren’t so unfair. I don’t mean the fact that I was seated in
the very last row of the airplane from Frankfurt to Khartoum…that was the
result of booking my flight so late, waiting waiting for a sign that my husband
would return to our marriage because I got the slightest glimmer that he would,
I would gladly have scotched the whole trip.
It just felt so strange getting on the plane in San Francisco without
knowing if I’d ever be able to share the learning of this trip with my husband
of 27 years… so strange… so unfair.
But unfairness is all around us in this world. The unfairness of the haves and the have-nots
is the biggest unfairness of them all.
The lot of the “have nots” has nothing to do with how educated they are,
or resigned to their fate, or how hard they work, or how their path through
life gets all twisted. No, their lot is
simply their birthright, their birth mark, their marking of time on this earth
in a grinding everyday existence.
Lufthansa was very discreet in the way they boarded the
Sudanese prisoner. I didn’t realize that
the two passengers in front of me were an unusual couple. The black man with the short curly hair, his
tall companion next to him on the aisle seat.
When we stopped in Cairo to offload most of the passengers
and to take on fuel, the tall guy stood in the aisle for a few moments to
stretch. Overhead vent air circulation
in the plane ceased when the rear exit doors opened for the various service
modules to be loaded. Then I smelled it –
anxiety, fear – not an ordinary perspiration of a passenger on a 4 hour
flight. The movement was so rapid, I
hardly knew what was happening. The
Sudanese literally dove out of the rear exit door and reached the first few
steps of the platform stairs that had been rolled up. His companion lost a few seconds due to surprise,
but tackled him quickly. Then the second
guard reached into his briefcase and took out a pair of handcuffs so rapidly
that I almost missed the move, but it was impossible to miss the resultant
scuffle happening just 3 feet away from me in the airplane aisle floor. Once cuffed, the Sudanese was led back to his
seat, and sat bowed forward for the rest of the trip.
What was his crime?
Being poor? Overstaying his work permit?
Or worse?
I will never know, but I suspect that the root cause was
poverty.
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