My pal Marc had to chime in about Sydney- a town several colleagues waxed enthusiastic about. There is a reason for that, just as there is a reason the story today is late. This will address this. Marc recalls: (USS Independence underway out of Japan, 1992). “We took Indy-maru (CV-62) down to Sydney in 1992 […]

25 April 2005 There are some other things I could talk about this morning, but I am going to let the smart people read the tea-leaves, as someone said yesterday. This remarkable situation will either sort itself out or it won’t. I prefer to contemplate times when things made sense in the great cities on […]

It was Tokyo, 1980. I was taking a break from the military coup in Korea about halfway through my 14 month one-year-tour on the Peninsula, not that I was counting. The Generals had killed President Park the year before and Major General Chon Tu Hwan, pride of the Korean Military Academy’s Class 11, had taken […]

THE SNAKE RANCH YONGSAN SOUTH POST 11 May 1980 It appears that the bad Koreans are all out planting mines (a good sign, from what they tell me) or transplanting rice. They couldn’t fly their MiGs due to inclement weather. The telephone circuits were down because the lines that run on the poles outside the […]

Senior Executive Jerry and I stay in touch- he is still in the government, I am not, and it is fun catching up on the old colleagues who still labor in the madness. He is an avid reader and we compare book lists and new favorites when we get together at Willow. He also shares […]

It was summer in 1979. I had a list of things to do when I got to Bangkok, and a couple things to keep a weather eye on. I made the first liberty boat- local hire, painted pastel pink and watched the sliver of the new moon rising above the sunset as the gigantic gray […]

I don’t have it this morning, sorry. I was going to thrill you with a bag-dragging tale about Shanghai in 1997, but I can’t find the pictures that I had digitized years ago. If I get to it I will bore you with an integrated presentation It was a semi-busy week, a lot of thoughts […]

  I stood on the 50thth Floor of a proud new building on the bank of the river. She lay there below me, enigmatic. Her curves and contours were lit by the full-silver moon. She showed her considerable charms with an insouciant and aggressive charm. For a woman of her age she carried it well. […]

The Giants won the world series and there was widespread rioting. I missed that part, but it was a grand series for a change. I got wrapped up in some hazy memories about organizing the Pariah States Cool Hotels tour for Congressman Bill. The agony of the details and preparation had faded- the hotels were […]

(Evergreen Air- EVA- 747 at SFO, 1996). It was Spring of 1996 in Washington, and the first glow of sweat for the summer to come was under the collar of my Brooks Brothers shirt. The Cherry Blossoms were out. Life was good. Isobel, Congressman Bill’s Chief of Staff called me on my flip phon. I […]