I have a festival of Blue Jays on the lawn- I don’t know what they are after, but the gone-to-seed garden plot seems to be of particular attraction for the members of the species Cyanocitta Cristata. They are big fellows, a kind we do not see up in Arlington.
There is a forecast for temperatures climbing to the 80s today- maybe the last interval of warm Indian summer- is that appropriate to term this delightful dreg of summer? I am delirious at the prospect of this magnificent day in the country. Maybe I will investigate the veranda of the Hazel River Inn on East Davis Street later.
In the meantime, I have been drawn to America’s terrible, horrible, very bad day last Thursday and recoil from the events in New York and Washington State and Northern California. I can’t bear thinking about the events this morning, and accordingly was drawn again into the world of not-so-long-ago when things made a modicum of sense and we were not expected to believe the impossible as a condition of everyday life.
I was occupied editing pictures from the two events Friday- the Annual Fall luncheon of The Professionals, and the Naval Intelligence Dining in- more about that sometime when I get to it- but in the meantime there is something quite marvelous I wanted to share with you.
I have a correspondent in Utah who retired from a distinguished career as an Air Force civilian. We went to school long ago and have kept in touch. We are part of a dying breed who used to write things called “letters,” which were actually extended narratives of places and people and things that happened. She is working on a splendid photo-journalistic account of a safari trip to Eastern Africa- a coincidence, since my pals Dave and Bev just did the same thing, and regaled us back here in the States with some real marvels of the natural world.
I am attempting to get both accounts compile in a user friendly manner so the broader group of you globe-trotters can share something special. In the meantime, my old recollections of 1979 sparked some commentary. Since those started as “letters,” with saved carbon copies, I thought this might be of interest to you as an example of a gone world where people wrote to one another:
“What’s so amazing, Vic, is your friend’s use of Harilela’s — the Hong Kong tailor!!! He was my tailor in Hong Kong!!! And I had shoes and a purse made out Thai silk at Dodge Shoemaker.
My uncle worked in Bangkok in the 1950s for Pan Am, as manager of the Pan Am flight kitchen… you do remember when eating airline food was a treat, when Pan Am’s food was prepared by Maxim’s in Paris, and everything was luxury????
Anyway, the Pan Am community was close, if spread out over many countries. He was single then, and became fast friends with a Pan Am pilot and his family who was based out of Hong Kong. In 1963, when my family was moving from Denver to Thailand, we stopped in Hong Kong and visited and had dinner with these friends, the Schaeffers, at their Hong Kong apartment and I’d never seen anything like it.
HUGE apartment, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking over Hong Kong towards Repulse Bay. Impeccably attired servants who served the cocktails and the dinner. What an elegant lifestyle, and what an impression it made on this very impressionable 16 year old.
During that first visit, the Schaeffers gave us all the inside scoop about where to shop, what to see in Hong Kong. And this is where we learned that Harilela’s was the place to go for tailoring. It wasn’t until we returned to Hong Kong in June 1964 that we visited Harilela’s and had clothing made. More on that later.
I need to tell you about our June 1964 visit to Hong Kong.
My dad was an electrical engineer, specializing in hydroelectric projects. In Denver, he worked for a consulting engineering firm, designing the powerhouse for the Bhumipol dam to be built in Thailand. This dam was going to be the largest dam in Thailand, supplying electricity to Bangkok and all locations between the dam and this huge city. After completing the powerhouse design, Dad was sought out by the contractor who was building the dam, and was hired to participate in building the powerhouse…. Every engineer’s dream come true: Build the item you’ve designed.
In February 1963, Dad moved to Thailand to begin work on the powerhouse. Mom, my brother and I followed in June 1963, after school was out. And this June 1963 trip was my first air experience, first trip to Hawaii, Japan (where Dad met us, and we all visited Yokohama, Tokyo and Kyoto — in fact, we stayed in the old Frank Lloyd Wright earthquake-proof Imperial Hotel… a fabulous experience – but that’s a tale for a different day), and then to Hong Kong, before flying to Bangkok.
After sightseeing in Bangkok (the dam’s contractor’s guest house, where we stayed , was on or very close to a main klong, so the sights were incredible. … and this was in the era when Bangkok had all of its klongs; they had not been filled in to make streets), we boarded our prop plane to fly up to Tak, a capitol “city” in the Tak province. And from there a long bumpy jeep ride to the dam site in the middle of the jungle.
I’ll digress…. On this prop plane – the kind where you walk literally up the aisle to get to the seat — remember? — I decided mid-flight I needed to visit the toilet. I walked back, opened the door to the only toilet and was astounded to see stashed on the toilet a crate of stinky, smelly Durion (for which I never developed an appreciation), a monkey in a cage, and our Siamese cat in her cage…. All there, stashed together. I’ll never forget that! So, I turned around and returned to my seat. Good thing it was a 16-year old bladder and not a 67-year old one!! J
For a year, we lived in a Thai style house, built of teak, on stilts, with gaps between the teak boards to allow easy entrance and exit of bugs, Tokay geckos and chinchuks (do you know these? They are a small version of the Tokay gecko, but they’re silent. The Tokay, would make a “wind-up” sound, and then spit out “to-kay, to-kay, to-kay” … hence its name. I loved the lizards that ran all over the walls and ceilings. Our house had no air conditioning (except in my parents’ bedroom), my brother and I had ceiling fans overhead, and our small living room was cooled with an evaporative type cooler/fan.
No hot water in the house… it was all river water, but was lukewarm. And we kids never thought anything about it. I was the only teenager in the camp. Lots of elementary aged kids, so my brother went to school using the Calvert system in a all-grades, one-room schoolhouse, with an Aussie teacher. I took my junior year of high school from the University of Nebraska via correspondence course… in hindsight, a great preparation for the independent study required of one in college.
Of course, no TV. We had a short-wave radio over which we received each morning a 1-hour BBC broadcast. And the Bangkok Post and Stars and Stripes were flown up twice a week from Bangkok on the same prop plane we’d flown up on. The Bangkok Post was full of articles showing the Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire in the streets of Saigon (Ngu Dinh Diem was still in power). And The Stars and Stripes was full of news from Asia. Not much info about the U.S.
To show how “backward” things could be… One morning, Dad took my brother and me down to the area where they were cutting down and moving teak trees as part of construction work associated with the dam. There was no yellow Caterpillar, no moving equipment. There were Thai elephants with their mahouts who guided them as they hauled the teak trees and moved them as easily as if they were trees, piling them on the ground. And another sight, was the relay of concrete up the face of the dam. This was done by “puyings” (Thai word for “girl” or “woman”), dressed in their pasins (ground length, wrap-around skirts), blouses, Thai bamboo hats, forming a huge line, and literally passing the concrete buckets up the line, and the empty buckets down the line…. While a man stood and watched, gave instructions, and didn’t lift a finger ……. That made a huge impression on this teenaged girl!!
OK… so you get the picture that we’re a bit isolated, a bit out of the mainstream…. And loving every minute of the experience.
The dam was finished and dedicated in June 1964, and we all got to “meet” King Bhumipol and Queen Sirikit when they came to dedicate the dam. We were in a receiving line and were presented (ladies curtsied) as they walked down the line. Queen Sirikit was stunningly beautiful, elegant and so royal… beautifully attired in Thai silk and jewelry.
By that time, Dad had been hired by his next consulting engineering firm, and we knew we were headed to Lahore, in what was West Pakistan (at that time).”
This is all one letter, mind you, but we are going to have to Meet the Beatles tomorrow. There is some life that still needs living this morning.
Copyright Vic and Beth 2014
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303