To all my frequent or occasional correspondents, please note that my contact information has changed to:
Deborah Diemand613-532-2634
Friday, August 26, 2016
Big changes for Deborah Diemand
613-532-2634
Friday, November 13, 2015
The Final Splat
Aging: it's a stealthy process that tricks you into thinking that, from day to day, nothing has changed, and as between today and yesterday, nothing really has. You cannot gauge the passage of time until you see somebody after a long time, say, your tenth high school reunion, and suddenly you are yanked back to reality and forced to realize that your old friend is just as shocked by your grey hairs and crows feet as you are by hers.
You soon forget this chilly reminder of your mortality, though, as you look forward to the next thing. The anticipation of what might come, possibilities good or bad, family commitments, career changes, maybe a divorce, an illness, a move. As time passes, faster and faster, you occasionally stop to fret about the increasing gray in your hair, aches in your joints, diminishing eyesight, reduced enthusiasm for late night parties. You catch yourself staring incredulously at groups of teenagers dressed in this year's chic and wondering "What are they Thinking!?"
But still there are things to do, plans to make for next year's summer cruise, for the birth of a grandchild, arranging for elder care for your parents in addition to the usual round of cleaning and shopping and cooking and fixing. You are fully booked and longing for two consecutive days with nothing to do.
By and by you get news that one of your classmates has died of breast cancer. Soon enough conversations with your contemporaries seem to start and end with a catalog of who has what disease, and who is still alive. Then Ted, your husband of 50 years, has a massive stroke out back trimming the privet hedge and is gone. Suddenly the world is a different place.
After the funeral, you realize that no one is asking you to do anything for them. You have no plans for next week, much less next summer. In fact, you have no future worth mentioning, in spite of the assurances of your children that you are a beloved and valuable member of the family. All that remains is your long past which you can only meaningfully share with your contemporaries who are rapidly diminishing in both faculties and numbers.
You long to reminisce with somebody else who was there about the little carnivals that came around in the summer, about the polio scare when your children were in school, about Rocky, your beloved little Schnauzer, Christmases when the kids were small, those anxious autumn days during the Cuban Missile Crisis. All the things that mattered to you are so far removed from the lives of those around you now, Harry Truman might as well be Odysseus.
You have lost the need to be thought successful. You have lost your interest in money, beyond your daily needs. You love seeing your grandchildren – you can see Ted lurking behind the eyes of Julius and Sally. You love your daughter and your sons, but don't know what to say to them. They resent your suggestions on how to raise their children or how to cook a chicken, but are polite, nod agreeably and then do what they want.
You want to return to places you used to live, expecting them to be the same
You start hearing voices faintly, as if from the other side of a wall, all your old friends along with Ted and your parents, just as you remember them, young and happy. Even the little Schnauzer in his prime.
As the end nears you mistake your daughter for your sister who died 50 years ago. You no longer recognize the children. You ask when Ted will be back. You want to go home.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Thanksgiving Storyteller
We have nearly finished gorging. Talk is desultory and largely
focused on gastric distention. The boys are still swallowing, but
even they are slowing down. The turkey remains are a raggedy tangle
of bones and skin. Frank, the patriarch, is winkling a nugget off the
the far side with the carving fork.
“This reminds me – did I tell you about my truck?” he inquires of the turkey.
“More beans?” asks his wife Alice, who has heard about the truck. “Alex? Benj? Helen? There’s lots of squash left. And potatoes. There’s more gravy in the kitchen. Are there any cranberries left?” No takers.
“It all started back in early October with a little clicking.” Frank proceeds, a bit louder so as to be heard over Alice’s desperate offers. “I thought it was something in the heater or the cooling system. Intermittent thing, you know. I would’ve let it go except with winter coming, I wanted it to be in good shape. Well, the best shape you can expect from an old truck anyway, heheheh. Well anyway I took it into the garage next to my office…”
“Could I get the gravy?” whispers Frank’s youngest, Alex, pointing at the jug next to my elbow which is firmly planted in a congealed puddle of the stuff, I now discover. I pass it across the table.
“…and got the mechanic to look at it and he told me the engine was gone – wouldn’t make it through the month, much less the winter. Told me what I needed was a new engine. Well, of course, for such a major repair I wanted to get a second opinion,…”
Helen catches Alice’s’s eye, and asks, sotto voce, if she could get her recipe for that wonderful snow pudding she makes at Christmas.
“…so I took it into the GM dealer and they put it up on the hoist and had a look and told me sure enough the engine was shot,”
“Actually, it’s not my recipe – Maggie brings it – it is nice isn’t it?”
“…cylinders so badly worn no amount of new rings and reboring would help. So I took it back to the garage next to the office to save myself a few bucks on labor,…”
Alex turns to Benj, who works at Killington. “Have they opened the east slope yet?”
“…and they got a reconditioned engine and put it in. Well, a week later, I was driving around town and it just stopped. Just stopped.”
Helen flags down Maggie at the other end of the table and puts her request.
“A brand new engine and it just stopped. Well you may be sure I mentioned this to the garage and they came and got it.”
“Yeah, we’ve been making snow every night this week, and there’s some natural snow too – really good shape,” replies Benj.
“No delays. And agreed to fix it, whatever the problem might have been, and quite right too. A new engine!”
“Of course,” says Maggie “it’s not a family secret or anything, haha. Just give me your address and I’ll mail it to you.”
“So they got it up on the hoist and found something wrong with the fuel pump. Pulled it off and were about to put on new connectors…”
Alex turns to me: “So I hear you’re taking courses up at UVM?”
“…when somebody 2 bays down, who was repairing an exhaust system, fired up a welding torch…”
“Thanks,” says Helen, patting down her pockets looking for a notebook. “I’ll find a piece of paper after dinner.”
“…lighting off the gas that had dribbled out of the fuel pump and lighting off a bonfire underneath my engine…”
“Well, don’t know about multiple courses, but I have found one that looks interesting.”
“…that rose from the floor up through the engine compartment completely destroying all non-metallic parts…”
“Are you finished Alex?” asks Alice.
“…and causing a mess that defies description. All the hoses and plastic fluid tanks, wiring harnesses…”
“Yeah, I’m pretty well done – why?” asks Alex warily.
“…everything melted and oozing down onto the floor. First I knew of it I came back to the office and saw the fire engines out front…”
Maggie, over by a side table, has scrabbled a pad and pencil out of a drawer. “Hand this to Helen, would you?” she passes it down the table.
“…and I thought the fire department had come to get their truck fixed or something, but then I smelled the burning plastic and spotted the smoke…”
“Could you clear off the plates down at that end of the table? Maybe Benj’ll help you. Thanks.” Says Alice, beginning to collect dishes up at her end.
“…and so I went over there and that’s when I found out that it was my truck that had been incinerated. Lordy what a mess.”
Benj picks up my plate and the leftover carrots and sidles out toward the kitchen. “You were done, right?” he smiles over his shoulder.
“Of course there was no question that the garage will fix the mess. Of course my office is right next door so the guy knows I’m a lawyer…”
Helen writes her address on the pad and passes it back to Maggie. “I really love that pudding – perfect after a big meal.”
“…and there’s some advantage in that, and I hope nobody tells him the closest I get to a courtroom is a title search…”
I peer up the table at Maggie. “While you’re at it, could you dash off a copy for me too?”
“…but still there are so many little bits and pieces he needs to find and get there’s no telling when I will actually get the truck back.”
Chairs scrape. Everybody lumbering to their feet, groaning with pangs of overeating. “Sorry about your truck,” I murmur to Frank on my way to the kitchen with the leftover cranberries.
“This reminds me – did I tell you about my truck?” he inquires of the turkey.
“More beans?” asks his wife Alice, who has heard about the truck. “Alex? Benj? Helen? There’s lots of squash left. And potatoes. There’s more gravy in the kitchen. Are there any cranberries left?” No takers.
“It all started back in early October with a little clicking.” Frank proceeds, a bit louder so as to be heard over Alice’s desperate offers. “I thought it was something in the heater or the cooling system. Intermittent thing, you know. I would’ve let it go except with winter coming, I wanted it to be in good shape. Well, the best shape you can expect from an old truck anyway, heheheh. Well anyway I took it into the garage next to my office…”
“Could I get the gravy?” whispers Frank’s youngest, Alex, pointing at the jug next to my elbow which is firmly planted in a congealed puddle of the stuff, I now discover. I pass it across the table.
“…and got the mechanic to look at it and he told me the engine was gone – wouldn’t make it through the month, much less the winter. Told me what I needed was a new engine. Well, of course, for such a major repair I wanted to get a second opinion,…”
Helen catches Alice’s’s eye, and asks, sotto voce, if she could get her recipe for that wonderful snow pudding she makes at Christmas.
“…so I took it into the GM dealer and they put it up on the hoist and had a look and told me sure enough the engine was shot,”
“Actually, it’s not my recipe – Maggie brings it – it is nice isn’t it?”
“…cylinders so badly worn no amount of new rings and reboring would help. So I took it back to the garage next to the office to save myself a few bucks on labor,…”
Alex turns to Benj, who works at Killington. “Have they opened the east slope yet?”
“…and they got a reconditioned engine and put it in. Well, a week later, I was driving around town and it just stopped. Just stopped.”
Helen flags down Maggie at the other end of the table and puts her request.
“A brand new engine and it just stopped. Well you may be sure I mentioned this to the garage and they came and got it.”
“Yeah, we’ve been making snow every night this week, and there’s some natural snow too – really good shape,” replies Benj.
“No delays. And agreed to fix it, whatever the problem might have been, and quite right too. A new engine!”
“Of course,” says Maggie “it’s not a family secret or anything, haha. Just give me your address and I’ll mail it to you.”
“So they got it up on the hoist and found something wrong with the fuel pump. Pulled it off and were about to put on new connectors…”
Alex turns to me: “So I hear you’re taking courses up at UVM?”
“…when somebody 2 bays down, who was repairing an exhaust system, fired up a welding torch…”
“Thanks,” says Helen, patting down her pockets looking for a notebook. “I’ll find a piece of paper after dinner.”
“…lighting off the gas that had dribbled out of the fuel pump and lighting off a bonfire underneath my engine…”
“Well, don’t know about multiple courses, but I have found one that looks interesting.”
“…that rose from the floor up through the engine compartment completely destroying all non-metallic parts…”
“Are you finished Alex?” asks Alice.
“…and causing a mess that defies description. All the hoses and plastic fluid tanks, wiring harnesses…”
“Yeah, I’m pretty well done – why?” asks Alex warily.
“…everything melted and oozing down onto the floor. First I knew of it I came back to the office and saw the fire engines out front…”
Maggie, over by a side table, has scrabbled a pad and pencil out of a drawer. “Hand this to Helen, would you?” she passes it down the table.
“…and I thought the fire department had come to get their truck fixed or something, but then I smelled the burning plastic and spotted the smoke…”
“Could you clear off the plates down at that end of the table? Maybe Benj’ll help you. Thanks.” Says Alice, beginning to collect dishes up at her end.
“…and so I went over there and that’s when I found out that it was my truck that had been incinerated. Lordy what a mess.”
Benj picks up my plate and the leftover carrots and sidles out toward the kitchen. “You were done, right?” he smiles over his shoulder.
“Of course there was no question that the garage will fix the mess. Of course my office is right next door so the guy knows I’m a lawyer…”
Helen writes her address on the pad and passes it back to Maggie. “I really love that pudding – perfect after a big meal.”
“…and there’s some advantage in that, and I hope nobody tells him the closest I get to a courtroom is a title search…”
I peer up the table at Maggie. “While you’re at it, could you dash off a copy for me too?”
“…but still there are so many little bits and pieces he needs to find and get there’s no telling when I will actually get the truck back.”
Chairs scrape. Everybody lumbering to their feet, groaning with pangs of overeating. “Sorry about your truck,” I murmur to Frank on my way to the kitchen with the leftover cranberries.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
The Great Entropy Wave of 1988
This is a true story.
As soon as my sweetie, Jim, found a job in Hanover, our arrangements for relocation from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Lebanon, New Hampshire, began. By spring of 1988 I had sold my house in St. John's, we had found an apartment in Lebanon, and all was right with the world. Meanwhile, there was the family house in Shoreham available for interim storage and temporary accommodation, so I loaded some southbound books and computers and clothes and such into my Honda and set off for this new adventure in, say, late April.
The first intimation of events to come may have been as I pulled out of St. John's. The first stop on the long trip was the Midas muffler place there on Freshwater Road where I had the obviously defective muffler replaced. The ensuing two very long days were therefore rendered quiet if not exactly fun-filled.
However, as I got closer to Vermont, the brakes began making increasingly distressing noises so when I arrived in Shoreham I rushed right down Valley Garage and had Red install new pads. When the old ones had been extracted both Red and a hanger-on loudly wondered how I could have survived the trip since there was No Material left on them which could conceivably have stopped the car. Well, I left the valley garage $50 lighter but easier in my mind.
Next project was the furnace which had been snorting and rattling and leaving a thin deposit of soot in the basement and the kitchen. This was remedied one afternoon by a brace of very large technicians and a generous infusion of parts.
Then the lawnmower, which I had hated passionately for years anyway, croaked its last (and good riddance, I say) and had to be replaced before the lawn went to hay.
After careful analysis of moving costs involving actual movers, rented trucks, trailers, etc., we concluded that our best and cheapest option was to buy a used truck and sell it once we were done, so the next step in this little drama was a trip down to Rutland to the truck place on Route 7 which sold me a Very Yellow Iveco Truck, which operated flawlessly right up until four days later when Debbie Norris wanted to borrow it to move some furniture into Middlebury, which having been accomplished, the brakes seized in front of her house and the thing couldn't be moved. It turned out to be nothing more than an idiosyncrasy of the operation of the handbrake, fortunately, and I was able to go pick it up the next day anyway.
Nevertheless, Jim, who had come down from St. John's for a quick reconnaissance, felt it would be worthwhile to crawl around under it to try to figure out why it might be doing this, and in the process the handbrake cable parted entirely due to a very old and corroded fitting. Well, naturally we rushed right back to the truck place with blood in our eye as it had only been driven about 30 miles before this happened and explained that we thought they should fix it now as they should have done before I bought it. Miraculously they did. Following which Jim went back to St.John's and I went over to Barneveld, New York, to visit my old friend Bronwyn in my old Honda with brand-new brakes.
While in Barneveld two noteworthy things happened: 1) I convinced Bronwyn that it would be loads of fun to drive a Very Yellow Truck up to Newfoundland on the July 4 weekend and 2) Bronwyn convinced me that my car was much noisier than it should be and probably had a busted wheel bearing. Thus, soon after my noisy return to Shoreham I took it in to Mike's Sunoco in Middlebury where I explained that there were noises in the front end. Mike himself took it out for a test drive lasting 2 to 3 microseconds and announced that he had seldom heard such readily discernible noises. He got it up on the lift the better to look and soon the whole staff there was gathered around exclaiming things like “Wow, what a death trap!” By and by I was allowed in to see the patient and Mike demonstrated that one of the tie rods was shot to the extent that it was hard to imagine how the thing was together at all, and also the other wheel bearing was positively rattling. It was arranged that I would get the tie rod and he would get the wheel bearing and I could bring it in in a few days for repair. So I oozed back to Shoreham, manure spreaders and bicyclists flashing by me, expecting a steering failure every inch of the way and parked it next to the sulky truck.
With a heavy sigh I then started up Thunderguts, the balky, dissipated, and heavily mouse-scented '71 Nova which was the only permanent resident at the Shoreham house. The first couple of coughs were accompanied by the eruption of pink insulation and other mouse nesting material from the tailpipe but after that all seemed as well as could be expected. The trip to Burlington to pick up the tie rod went blissfully smoothly, and then eventually I returned to Mike's in the ailing Honda, very very slowly, and spent six hours moping around Middlebury while repairs were effected. While I was paying up Mike happened to remark, “You know, you're going to have to have your brakes done pretty soon - they're almost down to the metal.” I breathlessly explained that he must be wrong as I had already done them not a month before. “Well,” suggested Mike, “then probably the calipers are gone, but I'd have them done soon.” After all the major surgery on the tie rod I had to get the wheels aligned, of course, and the man at the tire place said much the same thing, so two days before my scheduled departure for Newfoundland I limped back to Shoreham, brakes squealing and shuddering, AGAIN, and added oil to Thunderguts.
Meanwhile I had been in touch with Jim in St. John's and he explained that his elderly and ailing Corvette had succumbed to some sort of misery of the clutch and he wasn't sure he was going to be able to fix it before we got there.
The final arrangement with Bronwyn was that she would either get a bus to Rutland or a ride from somebody, maybe even to Shoreham, and we would leave from there. The day before our proposed departure she phoned with the news that her youngest son, Jeremy, whose own car didn't run for many reasons, had borrowed hers the previous night and had destroyed the transmission. Fortunately her eldest son had two vehicles, but unfortunately one of them was out of commission due to two flat tires or something, so the Final final arrangement was that her ex-husband Joey, who was in town for Jeremy's graduation, would drive her to Hudson Falls and I would pick her up there the next morning in Thunderguts.
On the way to Hudson Falls next morning while passing through one of several construction sites along the way a very major hole in the exhaust system was abruptly made manifest, so I thundered on through sleepy little towns causing heads to turn in, variously, alarm, envy, and disapproval, found Bronwyn with surprisingly little trouble and roared back to Shoreham where both cars were abandoned, hors de combat, in favor of the Very Yellow Truck into which we loaded our few selected belongings and uneasily set out for Newfoundland. The trip was very long but mercifully uneventful except for minor palpitations caused by missing our ferry by 15 minutes and later nearly running out of fuel around 3 AM in Western Newfoundland, and at long last we rolled in St. John's shortly before noon and pulled into a shopping mall so Bronwyn could go to a bank and I could pick up some beer. We then lumbered wearily back into the truck only to discover that the brakes were seized. Thinking that it was the old parking brake thing I yanked them around a bit to no avail while Bronwyn stood by looking unhappy. By and by a jolly municipal employee rolled up in a big orange dump truck and said a lot of things to Bronwyn who, between the snarl of the diesel and the picturesque accent could only understand about a 10th part of what he said, but the upshot appeared to be that this sort of thing happens all the time and the thing to do is ignore it and press on. So we groaned the last couple of miles to Bond Street dragging our brakes and had lovely baths and a nap.
Mercifully, Jim's Corvette was temporarily operational so the next day Bronwyn and I went on a toot around Greater St. John's while Jim scrutinized the truck to see if he could figure out what ailed the brakes, and reported that they were just fine. Bronwyn stayed another couple of days before she had to return to Barneveld and then the next three weeks or so Jim and I spent packing, discarding, selling, tying up loose ends, and saying goodbye to anybody we ever knew. In the midst of all this the Corvette's clutch suffered a serious relapse and was limped over to Ron's garage with Desirée in attendance in her car whose own clutch was making mournful noises, where it stayed until parts could be obtained. Jim's father, who was to help out with the driving of the truck and car back to New Hampshire was canceled, and all further transportation was accomplished on foot or through the kindness of miscellaneous friends like Bill who could be relied upon in the pinch until he blew out a head gasket and was reduced to the exclusive use of his motorbike.
Time passed rapidly and the truck, with the stated maximum load of 4000 pounds approached gross when about a third of the house contents had been inserted into it. We therefore shipped about 1200 pounds of books to Montréal for pickup in two weeks time and were more rigorous about what was to go and what was to be sold/donated/discarded. Careful scrutiny of the truck, its Vermont registration, and its owner's manual revealed that although the GVW stamped on the frame was 9995 pounds it had a registered GVW of 11,000 pounds and could be loaded up to 13,000 pounds if there was enough air in the tires, so we naturally took the latter is our limit and stuffed the thing accordingly.
We finally finished the job on Monday, July 25, having worked unremittingly all day without meals since the stove, fridge, and food had been dispatched long since. We ordered pizza and ate it sitting on the floor of the empty living room, and finally bid a final farewell to 25 Bond St. and climbed into the truck around 10 PM. The idea was to get a motel in Argentia near the ferry terminal so that we would be there very early in the day to check in for the ferry in case we had to argue since they don't allow large trucks on that ferry, and our reservation was for a van. Since our generous maximum load estimate was based on a great deal of air in the tires our first stop was to be the Petro-Canada truck stop just outside the city limit. It was drizzling and very cold and foggy. The truck was swaying and wallowing like a skiff quartering sea all the way there. We managed to top up the two front tires and the two outside rear tires, which were perilously low – say, 50 psi as opposed to the 70 we needed, but one of the inside rear tires had no air at all and wouldn't take any, being right off the rim, and the other was down to maybe 20 psi. This we filled, and phoned an all-night truck service to come repair the other. It being nearly midnight we checked into a motel next to the truck stop, say, 3 miles from Bond Street, and after Jim had coped with the repair we fell into an exhausted sleep.
In the morning, after a robust breakfast, we took the truck back to Petro-Canada and checked the tires again. The inside left once again showed no air. Clearly we could not proceed without repairs, so we set off for the tire place about a mile off, with what appeared to be becoming our customary drunken gait. About halfway there there was alarming POW! and we pulled off to look. The right inside rear had blown a 7-inch hole in its side wall. We finally crept to our destination and explained the problem. It was an unusual tire size of course but they miraculously had six on hand of which we took four to replace the four retreads in the rear, and $600 and an hour or so later we set off for Argentia again and arrived with no further excitement.
We got through both checkpoints at the ferry terminal with only minor argument about our “van,” a significant triumph since rejection from this ferry would mean a 500 mile drive across the province to the Port aux Basques terminal. So there we were, on, and deeply grateful for small mercies, in spite of the next 18 hours of epic discomfort we knew we are going to have to spend in the hands of CN Marine.
As I understand it, this particular ferry, the Ambrose Shea, was provided, as a young thing, with five diesel engines which drove four electric generators which provided the power to turn the two screws that pressed her doggedly through the sea. But that was a long time ago, and in line with their rigid policy of providing the worst ferry service possible CN Marine didn't squander a lot of resources on such trifles as maintenance, not to mention simple creature comforts for its hapless passengers. Thus
when one of the five engines collapsed sometime during the spring, it was simply abandoned on the theory that it might be useful as a source of parts for the other four. In this somewhat diminished state we steamed out of Argentia on Tuesday, July 26. Had we known this at boarding time we would not have been surprised when sometime in the middle of the night, following a very loud machine-in-distress noise, the ship essentially stopped moving. With half of the trip remaining, apparently one of the remaining engines had gasped its last along with two of the generators and we were reduced to half power, if that. Thus it was that we limped into North Sydney around noon, instead of 8 AM as scheduled. We were told that this would mean no further Argentia runs this season and were faint with gratitude and pleasure that we had slipped in under this wire.
As soon as we were allowed off the poor sick thing we pressed on south through the gentle warmth of a green Cape Breton summer, taking two-hour turns driving, and were somewhere in the neighborhood of Truro, Nova Scotia, when I awoke from a fitful slumber to the scrabble of gravel, a pursued-by-devils look on Jim's face, and smoke pouring out from under the truck. A number of concerned citizens from the lumberyard we had taken refuge in were rushing towards us armed with fire extinguishers. The brakes were Absolutely and Uncompromisingly Seized. After fairly lengthy conversations with many of our would-be saviors we were finally left in the hands of the proprietor of the garage down the road who took a look and concluded that due to the size of the truck there was nothing he could do anyway, but suggested that probably the brakes were seized because they were overheated and that if we just left it there for an hour or two it should turn itself loose and we would be able to press on at least as far as Truro where there was a truck place which might be able to help us out.
He kindly dropped us off at a greasy spoon 2 miles down the road where we had a leisurely supper. By the time we strolled back to the lumberyard, the brakes had sure enough let go, so we proceeded to Truro to discuss our misfortunes with the truck place which explained that they had no idea what could be wrong since all the trucks they had anything to do with rejoiced in air brakes and ours were hydraulic. So with a sinking feeling we pressed on towards New Brunswick. By divine dispensation, we got all the way through New Brunswick with no mechanical failures; the border crossing took a painless 20 minutes; Maine unfurled beneath our wheels; and there we were in New Hampshire.
One of the first landmarks to greet the eye of the passing motorist on The Interstate as it makes its way north into the Granite State is the largest liquor store on earth. Whole tour buses come up from Boston to stand in amazement at its portals and equip themselves with huge supplies of inexpensive intoxicants. Needless to say, us rubes, fresh off the boat from the most-expensive-booze capitol of North America could hardly be expected to pass up such an opportunity, so we pulled in and took on a few staples and a jug of Mumm's to celebrate our safe arrival. When we returned to the Yellow Peril, alas!, it was to find that the brakes had done it again. So we whiled away an hour sitting on the grass among the dog manure watching the happy citizens groaning out of place under immense loads of Party Fuel. We were only about two hours from Lebanon, so when we finally got underway again we very reasonably figured this was the Last Lap. But it was Not To Be. About 15 minutes from home we seized again and had to stop at a truck stop for another hour, gnashing our teeth and drinking Pepsi and looking at the magazines and souvenirs of air fresheners in the form of elves and all the ostentatious people just getting into their vehicles whenever they felt like it and driving away. But finally it was our turn, and we set off on what really was the last lap and arrived in the heat of that Friday afternoon (which was considerable) at Our New Home.
Our first act was to plug in the fridge and load a bunch of beer into it. Then the serious business of unloading the truck commenced. We labored mightily for as long as we could stand the heat and then went to reward our efforts with a nice cold beer only to discover that after an hour or two our so wonderful fridge was still warm. We told the landlady, drank a couple of warm beers, and continued unloading. Next morning a repairman arrived to fix the fridge and was at it for several hours. In the meantime, I had done a laundry and had slung it into the dryer. I was chatting with the repairman about the prognosis for the fridge when the dryer gave up the ghost with an ear-splitting squeal. Fortunately the repairman had the afflicted part in this truck and fixed it up in jig time before returning unsuccessfully to the fridge. The landlady promised us a new fridge Monday and we set off for Shoreham in a much lighter truck to offload goods to be stashed in the basement there.
In the ensuing week in Vermont we replaced the exhaust pipe of Thunderguts, many many parts large and small involved in the brakes and other front-end functions on the treacherous Honda, delivered up Her Majesty to the truck place to be FIXED and no kidding and arranged for the phone to be repaired which had suddenly died about 20 minutes after I had called some garage or other. We then made our way back to Lebanon where we have that phone repaired and then Jim went back up to Newfoundland with a new clutch under his arm for the Corvette.
Finally the Entropy Wave that pursued us for five months and six political units was exhausted. Jim drove all the way back (they fixed the Ambrose Shea long enough for him to get on it) in his antique Corvette and arrived unscathed in a timely manner, we sold the Very Yellow Truck a month or so later and I finally ditched the unspeakable Honda when its engine seized over the winter and that was that until the hot water heater blew.
But that is another story.
As soon as my sweetie, Jim, found a job in Hanover, our arrangements for relocation from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Lebanon, New Hampshire, began. By spring of 1988 I had sold my house in St. John's, we had found an apartment in Lebanon, and all was right with the world. Meanwhile, there was the family house in Shoreham available for interim storage and temporary accommodation, so I loaded some southbound books and computers and clothes and such into my Honda and set off for this new adventure in, say, late April.
The first intimation of events to come may have been as I pulled out of St. John's. The first stop on the long trip was the Midas muffler place there on Freshwater Road where I had the obviously defective muffler replaced. The ensuing two very long days were therefore rendered quiet if not exactly fun-filled.
However, as I got closer to Vermont, the brakes began making increasingly distressing noises so when I arrived in Shoreham I rushed right down Valley Garage and had Red install new pads. When the old ones had been extracted both Red and a hanger-on loudly wondered how I could have survived the trip since there was No Material left on them which could conceivably have stopped the car. Well, I left the valley garage $50 lighter but easier in my mind.
Next project was the furnace which had been snorting and rattling and leaving a thin deposit of soot in the basement and the kitchen. This was remedied one afternoon by a brace of very large technicians and a generous infusion of parts.
Then the lawnmower, which I had hated passionately for years anyway, croaked its last (and good riddance, I say) and had to be replaced before the lawn went to hay.
After careful analysis of moving costs involving actual movers, rented trucks, trailers, etc., we concluded that our best and cheapest option was to buy a used truck and sell it once we were done, so the next step in this little drama was a trip down to Rutland to the truck place on Route 7 which sold me a Very Yellow Iveco Truck, which operated flawlessly right up until four days later when Debbie Norris wanted to borrow it to move some furniture into Middlebury, which having been accomplished, the brakes seized in front of her house and the thing couldn't be moved. It turned out to be nothing more than an idiosyncrasy of the operation of the handbrake, fortunately, and I was able to go pick it up the next day anyway.
Nevertheless, Jim, who had come down from St. John's for a quick reconnaissance, felt it would be worthwhile to crawl around under it to try to figure out why it might be doing this, and in the process the handbrake cable parted entirely due to a very old and corroded fitting. Well, naturally we rushed right back to the truck place with blood in our eye as it had only been driven about 30 miles before this happened and explained that we thought they should fix it now as they should have done before I bought it. Miraculously they did. Following which Jim went back to St.John's and I went over to Barneveld, New York, to visit my old friend Bronwyn in my old Honda with brand-new brakes.
While in Barneveld two noteworthy things happened: 1) I convinced Bronwyn that it would be loads of fun to drive a Very Yellow Truck up to Newfoundland on the July 4 weekend and 2) Bronwyn convinced me that my car was much noisier than it should be and probably had a busted wheel bearing. Thus, soon after my noisy return to Shoreham I took it in to Mike's Sunoco in Middlebury where I explained that there were noises in the front end. Mike himself took it out for a test drive lasting 2 to 3 microseconds and announced that he had seldom heard such readily discernible noises. He got it up on the lift the better to look and soon the whole staff there was gathered around exclaiming things like “Wow, what a death trap!” By and by I was allowed in to see the patient and Mike demonstrated that one of the tie rods was shot to the extent that it was hard to imagine how the thing was together at all, and also the other wheel bearing was positively rattling. It was arranged that I would get the tie rod and he would get the wheel bearing and I could bring it in in a few days for repair. So I oozed back to Shoreham, manure spreaders and bicyclists flashing by me, expecting a steering failure every inch of the way and parked it next to the sulky truck.
With a heavy sigh I then started up Thunderguts, the balky, dissipated, and heavily mouse-scented '71 Nova which was the only permanent resident at the Shoreham house. The first couple of coughs were accompanied by the eruption of pink insulation and other mouse nesting material from the tailpipe but after that all seemed as well as could be expected. The trip to Burlington to pick up the tie rod went blissfully smoothly, and then eventually I returned to Mike's in the ailing Honda, very very slowly, and spent six hours moping around Middlebury while repairs were effected. While I was paying up Mike happened to remark, “You know, you're going to have to have your brakes done pretty soon - they're almost down to the metal.” I breathlessly explained that he must be wrong as I had already done them not a month before. “Well,” suggested Mike, “then probably the calipers are gone, but I'd have them done soon.” After all the major surgery on the tie rod I had to get the wheels aligned, of course, and the man at the tire place said much the same thing, so two days before my scheduled departure for Newfoundland I limped back to Shoreham, brakes squealing and shuddering, AGAIN, and added oil to Thunderguts.
Meanwhile I had been in touch with Jim in St. John's and he explained that his elderly and ailing Corvette had succumbed to some sort of misery of the clutch and he wasn't sure he was going to be able to fix it before we got there.
The final arrangement with Bronwyn was that she would either get a bus to Rutland or a ride from somebody, maybe even to Shoreham, and we would leave from there. The day before our proposed departure she phoned with the news that her youngest son, Jeremy, whose own car didn't run for many reasons, had borrowed hers the previous night and had destroyed the transmission. Fortunately her eldest son had two vehicles, but unfortunately one of them was out of commission due to two flat tires or something, so the Final final arrangement was that her ex-husband Joey, who was in town for Jeremy's graduation, would drive her to Hudson Falls and I would pick her up there the next morning in Thunderguts.
On the way to Hudson Falls next morning while passing through one of several construction sites along the way a very major hole in the exhaust system was abruptly made manifest, so I thundered on through sleepy little towns causing heads to turn in, variously, alarm, envy, and disapproval, found Bronwyn with surprisingly little trouble and roared back to Shoreham where both cars were abandoned, hors de combat, in favor of the Very Yellow Truck into which we loaded our few selected belongings and uneasily set out for Newfoundland. The trip was very long but mercifully uneventful except for minor palpitations caused by missing our ferry by 15 minutes and later nearly running out of fuel around 3 AM in Western Newfoundland, and at long last we rolled in St. John's shortly before noon and pulled into a shopping mall so Bronwyn could go to a bank and I could pick up some beer. We then lumbered wearily back into the truck only to discover that the brakes were seized. Thinking that it was the old parking brake thing I yanked them around a bit to no avail while Bronwyn stood by looking unhappy. By and by a jolly municipal employee rolled up in a big orange dump truck and said a lot of things to Bronwyn who, between the snarl of the diesel and the picturesque accent could only understand about a 10th part of what he said, but the upshot appeared to be that this sort of thing happens all the time and the thing to do is ignore it and press on. So we groaned the last couple of miles to Bond Street dragging our brakes and had lovely baths and a nap.
Mercifully, Jim's Corvette was temporarily operational so the next day Bronwyn and I went on a toot around Greater St. John's while Jim scrutinized the truck to see if he could figure out what ailed the brakes, and reported that they were just fine. Bronwyn stayed another couple of days before she had to return to Barneveld and then the next three weeks or so Jim and I spent packing, discarding, selling, tying up loose ends, and saying goodbye to anybody we ever knew. In the midst of all this the Corvette's clutch suffered a serious relapse and was limped over to Ron's garage with Desirée in attendance in her car whose own clutch was making mournful noises, where it stayed until parts could be obtained. Jim's father, who was to help out with the driving of the truck and car back to New Hampshire was canceled, and all further transportation was accomplished on foot or through the kindness of miscellaneous friends like Bill who could be relied upon in the pinch until he blew out a head gasket and was reduced to the exclusive use of his motorbike.
Time passed rapidly and the truck, with the stated maximum load of 4000 pounds approached gross when about a third of the house contents had been inserted into it. We therefore shipped about 1200 pounds of books to Montréal for pickup in two weeks time and were more rigorous about what was to go and what was to be sold/donated/discarded. Careful scrutiny of the truck, its Vermont registration, and its owner's manual revealed that although the GVW stamped on the frame was 9995 pounds it had a registered GVW of 11,000 pounds and could be loaded up to 13,000 pounds if there was enough air in the tires, so we naturally took the latter is our limit and stuffed the thing accordingly.
We finally finished the job on Monday, July 25, having worked unremittingly all day without meals since the stove, fridge, and food had been dispatched long since. We ordered pizza and ate it sitting on the floor of the empty living room, and finally bid a final farewell to 25 Bond St. and climbed into the truck around 10 PM. The idea was to get a motel in Argentia near the ferry terminal so that we would be there very early in the day to check in for the ferry in case we had to argue since they don't allow large trucks on that ferry, and our reservation was for a van. Since our generous maximum load estimate was based on a great deal of air in the tires our first stop was to be the Petro-Canada truck stop just outside the city limit. It was drizzling and very cold and foggy. The truck was swaying and wallowing like a skiff quartering sea all the way there. We managed to top up the two front tires and the two outside rear tires, which were perilously low – say, 50 psi as opposed to the 70 we needed, but one of the inside rear tires had no air at all and wouldn't take any, being right off the rim, and the other was down to maybe 20 psi. This we filled, and phoned an all-night truck service to come repair the other. It being nearly midnight we checked into a motel next to the truck stop, say, 3 miles from Bond Street, and after Jim had coped with the repair we fell into an exhausted sleep.
In the morning, after a robust breakfast, we took the truck back to Petro-Canada and checked the tires again. The inside left once again showed no air. Clearly we could not proceed without repairs, so we set off for the tire place about a mile off, with what appeared to be becoming our customary drunken gait. About halfway there there was alarming POW! and we pulled off to look. The right inside rear had blown a 7-inch hole in its side wall. We finally crept to our destination and explained the problem. It was an unusual tire size of course but they miraculously had six on hand of which we took four to replace the four retreads in the rear, and $600 and an hour or so later we set off for Argentia again and arrived with no further excitement.
We got through both checkpoints at the ferry terminal with only minor argument about our “van,” a significant triumph since rejection from this ferry would mean a 500 mile drive across the province to the Port aux Basques terminal. So there we were, on, and deeply grateful for small mercies, in spite of the next 18 hours of epic discomfort we knew we are going to have to spend in the hands of CN Marine.
As I understand it, this particular ferry, the Ambrose Shea, was provided, as a young thing, with five diesel engines which drove four electric generators which provided the power to turn the two screws that pressed her doggedly through the sea. But that was a long time ago, and in line with their rigid policy of providing the worst ferry service possible CN Marine didn't squander a lot of resources on such trifles as maintenance, not to mention simple creature comforts for its hapless passengers. Thus
when one of the five engines collapsed sometime during the spring, it was simply abandoned on the theory that it might be useful as a source of parts for the other four. In this somewhat diminished state we steamed out of Argentia on Tuesday, July 26. Had we known this at boarding time we would not have been surprised when sometime in the middle of the night, following a very loud machine-in-distress noise, the ship essentially stopped moving. With half of the trip remaining, apparently one of the remaining engines had gasped its last along with two of the generators and we were reduced to half power, if that. Thus it was that we limped into North Sydney around noon, instead of 8 AM as scheduled. We were told that this would mean no further Argentia runs this season and were faint with gratitude and pleasure that we had slipped in under this wire.
As soon as we were allowed off the poor sick thing we pressed on south through the gentle warmth of a green Cape Breton summer, taking two-hour turns driving, and were somewhere in the neighborhood of Truro, Nova Scotia, when I awoke from a fitful slumber to the scrabble of gravel, a pursued-by-devils look on Jim's face, and smoke pouring out from under the truck. A number of concerned citizens from the lumberyard we had taken refuge in were rushing towards us armed with fire extinguishers. The brakes were Absolutely and Uncompromisingly Seized. After fairly lengthy conversations with many of our would-be saviors we were finally left in the hands of the proprietor of the garage down the road who took a look and concluded that due to the size of the truck there was nothing he could do anyway, but suggested that probably the brakes were seized because they were overheated and that if we just left it there for an hour or two it should turn itself loose and we would be able to press on at least as far as Truro where there was a truck place which might be able to help us out.
He kindly dropped us off at a greasy spoon 2 miles down the road where we had a leisurely supper. By the time we strolled back to the lumberyard, the brakes had sure enough let go, so we proceeded to Truro to discuss our misfortunes with the truck place which explained that they had no idea what could be wrong since all the trucks they had anything to do with rejoiced in air brakes and ours were hydraulic. So with a sinking feeling we pressed on towards New Brunswick. By divine dispensation, we got all the way through New Brunswick with no mechanical failures; the border crossing took a painless 20 minutes; Maine unfurled beneath our wheels; and there we were in New Hampshire.
One of the first landmarks to greet the eye of the passing motorist on The Interstate as it makes its way north into the Granite State is the largest liquor store on earth. Whole tour buses come up from Boston to stand in amazement at its portals and equip themselves with huge supplies of inexpensive intoxicants. Needless to say, us rubes, fresh off the boat from the most-expensive-booze capitol of North America could hardly be expected to pass up such an opportunity, so we pulled in and took on a few staples and a jug of Mumm's to celebrate our safe arrival. When we returned to the Yellow Peril, alas!, it was to find that the brakes had done it again. So we whiled away an hour sitting on the grass among the dog manure watching the happy citizens groaning out of place under immense loads of Party Fuel. We were only about two hours from Lebanon, so when we finally got underway again we very reasonably figured this was the Last Lap. But it was Not To Be. About 15 minutes from home we seized again and had to stop at a truck stop for another hour, gnashing our teeth and drinking Pepsi and looking at the magazines and souvenirs of air fresheners in the form of elves and all the ostentatious people just getting into their vehicles whenever they felt like it and driving away. But finally it was our turn, and we set off on what really was the last lap and arrived in the heat of that Friday afternoon (which was considerable) at Our New Home.
Our first act was to plug in the fridge and load a bunch of beer into it. Then the serious business of unloading the truck commenced. We labored mightily for as long as we could stand the heat and then went to reward our efforts with a nice cold beer only to discover that after an hour or two our so wonderful fridge was still warm. We told the landlady, drank a couple of warm beers, and continued unloading. Next morning a repairman arrived to fix the fridge and was at it for several hours. In the meantime, I had done a laundry and had slung it into the dryer. I was chatting with the repairman about the prognosis for the fridge when the dryer gave up the ghost with an ear-splitting squeal. Fortunately the repairman had the afflicted part in this truck and fixed it up in jig time before returning unsuccessfully to the fridge. The landlady promised us a new fridge Monday and we set off for Shoreham in a much lighter truck to offload goods to be stashed in the basement there.
In the ensuing week in Vermont we replaced the exhaust pipe of Thunderguts, many many parts large and small involved in the brakes and other front-end functions on the treacherous Honda, delivered up Her Majesty to the truck place to be FIXED and no kidding and arranged for the phone to be repaired which had suddenly died about 20 minutes after I had called some garage or other. We then made our way back to Lebanon where we have that phone repaired and then Jim went back up to Newfoundland with a new clutch under his arm for the Corvette.
Finally the Entropy Wave that pursued us for five months and six political units was exhausted. Jim drove all the way back (they fixed the Ambrose Shea long enough for him to get on it) in his antique Corvette and arrived unscathed in a timely manner, we sold the Very Yellow Truck a month or so later and I finally ditched the unspeakable Honda when its engine seized over the winter and that was that until the hot water heater blew.
But that is another story.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Two Sweaty Weeks in Vietnam - Part 2
A misleading title, as soon after the previous installment we moved on to Cambodia, where the temperature was about 2 degrees celsius hotter than anywhere in Vietnam, for a few blistering days at Angkor Wat, followed by the long, long trip home to the blessed relief of frost on the windshield and ice on the buckets.
I have to say that one of the high points of this trip was the hotels. While it's true the promotional material describing the trip clearly implied that we could expect clean sheets and private bathrooms, the reality was that the places were pretty near palatial. There were spa services in some like exercise equipment and massages of various sorts. Our Vietnam guide coyly opined that “massage with a happy ending” would probably not be offered on site.
Most of them had people posted at the front door so that the guest could sweep through like crowned royalty, without having to break stride. In our first place, this job was taken by two gorgeous girls dressed in white ao dais, the national dress of Vietnam, and conceivably the most graceful and beautiful national costume on earth, especially when worn by the willowy young things who opened our doors and brought our orange juice.
I was commenting on the terrible heat to one such girl, marveling that people could live in this sweltering environment. She giggled charmingly and explained that this is is the cool season which is why there were so many tourists jostling through the scenic attractions. And what temperature might it be back where I lived, she asked. I thought about what you might guess for Vermont in the end of October, made a quick conversion to celsius, and suggested “Around zero, I think.” She blinked, considered this, and tried to decide whether I was teasing her, badly mistaken, misunderstood the question, or outright lying since she remembered from some nearly forgotten lesson at school that zero was where things turned to ice, so clearly nobody could live in such a place. The mangoes would freeze right on the tree, wouldn't they? She smiled uncertainly and went off to tend other customers.
I was especially keen to go to Angkor Wat because I remembered an article in Life magazine when I was young and impressionable showing massive ornate buildings peeking out from under jungly tendrils and massive gnarled roots. Images are still widespread in travel guides, websites, encyclopedias showing the same or very similar scenes of lavishly ornamented columns and walls, towers and archways. I wanted to see this for myself, smell the pervasive tropical leaf mold, listen for the rustle of tiny arboreal creatures, commune with the ghosts of long-dead monks and generals and concubines, stone masons and weavers, fishermen and mahouts.
The first intimation that there was disappointment in my future was when our bus approached the ticket booth in an area clogged with other buses, all patiently waiting for their turn to buy a busload-worth of tickets for Cambodia's most popular tourist attraction. When we finally got our tickets, a colorful card that we were to wear around our necks like a luggage tag, we parked in an area with a thousand other buses, and walked the rest of the way to the causeway into the temple grounds in the rapidly gathering heat at 10 AM.
Our guide cautioned us to keep together and to come back here (he pointed to the ground next to a statue of a 5-headed snake) should we get lost, which we were strongly encouraged not to do. Then we set off across the causeway, shoulder to shoulder with dense clumps of other tour groups from France, America, Germany, past a group of Japanese tourists photographing one another next to statues of dead generals. And then there we were inside the temple grounds, our guide shouting instructional material over the clamor of other guides doing the same in various languages, continually jostled along by tour groups coming along behind through the narrow passageways, struggling up steep stairways, a simple passage made surprisingly difficult by our sweat-soaked clothes glued to our legs. Then at the top we were each allowed a quick glimpse of The View, and maybe 15 seconds for a couple of snapshots. Then down another set of stairs to another photo op chosen by our guide who was not sympathetic to pictures from other locations.
Any tiny arboreal creatures that might once have made their homes among these historic stones had long since moved out and any ghosts of the long-past glory days were not doing any communing with the tumultuous throngs shoving their sweaty way through their old stamping grounds.
Meanwhile, my travelling companion had come down with some croupy infirmity, and I was feeling the first faint tentacles of the same, so I skipped the afternoon outing to some other heavily visited site in the Angkor complex so that I could muster the energy to go to Angkor Thom the following day. This site, one of the many secondary attractions in the Angkor region devoted to the glorification of one king or another, was constructed by a Khmer king named Jayavarman who, among other things, was a narcissist of the first water. At the center of the complex is the state temple called the Bayon which The Great King caused to be built with his face emblazoned 216 times on all sides of every one of the numerous (OK, 54) towers in the place.
We stumbled in and out of ruined terraces, passageways, chapels, and audience chambers, taking photographs when instructed to do so, pausing when possible in the blessed shade, trying to keep track of one another in the mobs of other red-faced, sweaty tour groups, and finally assembling at the front gate to wait for the stragglers in the broiling sun, always the same ones, whose need for yet another picture of something or other always superseded the need of the rest of us to get onto the air-conditioned bus.
But all things end, and finally it was time to make for home, first on Korean Airlines, which is the last vestige of what air travel once was. We were stripped of our water bottles at security, of course, because America declared that it must be so, but were spared that stupid x-ray machine, taking off our shoes, unpacking computers. 3 hours later we were in Seoul where we had a little nap in preparation for the 12-hour slog to Chicago in a clean, well-maintained, comfortable (well, as comfortable as a seat in steerage can be) aircraft whose bathrooms were as clean after 12 hours as they were when we left Seoul. And as an added bonus, the cabin attendants were exceptionally beautiful young women who, throughout the trip, were courteous, competent, and able to fix the entertainment modules embedded in the seat backs.
The final miracle was made manifest as we were beginning to descend for Chicago. One of the gorgeous cabin attendants sought me out way back there in steerage and explained that since I had a pretty tight connection in Chicago, and we were going to be a bit late getting in, they were going to move me up to first class right at the end so that I could get off the plane first and hustle right along to all the immigration and customs lines, and a good thing too since the lines were endless for both immigration and customs, my onward flight left from the other end of O'Hare, I just missed the shuttle train, security was a frustrating chaotic time waster including a false positive alarm from that stupid x-ray machine, and I barely got to my gate in time to catch my breath before boarding began onto the crowded, decrepit derelict that was to complete the journey. There was trash in the seat pocket from some previous traveler, we were late getting away because they were having trouble pumping out the toilets, and the cabin attendant was a bored middle-aged man who probably had karate skills, or could throw a knife with deadly accuracy, but had little discernible interest in attending cabins.
As for the croupy thing my traveling companion generously shared, it trumpeted its arrival on that last horrible leg of the trip and I spent most of the ensuing week blowing my nose, napping, and not unpacking. When I finally got to it, sorted sweaty laundry from fans and trinkets, it felt like Christmas. I could barely remember buying this stuff. I could barely remember the heat. I had forgotten the names of half the people we had spent two weeks with.
In a month's time will I be wondering if I went at all?
I have to say that one of the high points of this trip was the hotels. While it's true the promotional material describing the trip clearly implied that we could expect clean sheets and private bathrooms, the reality was that the places were pretty near palatial. There were spa services in some like exercise equipment and massages of various sorts. Our Vietnam guide coyly opined that “massage with a happy ending” would probably not be offered on site.
Most of them had people posted at the front door so that the guest could sweep through like crowned royalty, without having to break stride. In our first place, this job was taken by two gorgeous girls dressed in white ao dais, the national dress of Vietnam, and conceivably the most graceful and beautiful national costume on earth, especially when worn by the willowy young things who opened our doors and brought our orange juice.
I was commenting on the terrible heat to one such girl, marveling that people could live in this sweltering environment. She giggled charmingly and explained that this is is the cool season which is why there were so many tourists jostling through the scenic attractions. And what temperature might it be back where I lived, she asked. I thought about what you might guess for Vermont in the end of October, made a quick conversion to celsius, and suggested “Around zero, I think.” She blinked, considered this, and tried to decide whether I was teasing her, badly mistaken, misunderstood the question, or outright lying since she remembered from some nearly forgotten lesson at school that zero was where things turned to ice, so clearly nobody could live in such a place. The mangoes would freeze right on the tree, wouldn't they? She smiled uncertainly and went off to tend other customers.
I was especially keen to go to Angkor Wat because I remembered an article in Life magazine when I was young and impressionable showing massive ornate buildings peeking out from under jungly tendrils and massive gnarled roots. Images are still widespread in travel guides, websites, encyclopedias showing the same or very similar scenes of lavishly ornamented columns and walls, towers and archways. I wanted to see this for myself, smell the pervasive tropical leaf mold, listen for the rustle of tiny arboreal creatures, commune with the ghosts of long-dead monks and generals and concubines, stone masons and weavers, fishermen and mahouts.
The first intimation that there was disappointment in my future was when our bus approached the ticket booth in an area clogged with other buses, all patiently waiting for their turn to buy a busload-worth of tickets for Cambodia's most popular tourist attraction. When we finally got our tickets, a colorful card that we were to wear around our necks like a luggage tag, we parked in an area with a thousand other buses, and walked the rest of the way to the causeway into the temple grounds in the rapidly gathering heat at 10 AM.
Our guide cautioned us to keep together and to come back here (he pointed to the ground next to a statue of a 5-headed snake) should we get lost, which we were strongly encouraged not to do. Then we set off across the causeway, shoulder to shoulder with dense clumps of other tour groups from France, America, Germany, past a group of Japanese tourists photographing one another next to statues of dead generals. And then there we were inside the temple grounds, our guide shouting instructional material over the clamor of other guides doing the same in various languages, continually jostled along by tour groups coming along behind through the narrow passageways, struggling up steep stairways, a simple passage made surprisingly difficult by our sweat-soaked clothes glued to our legs. Then at the top we were each allowed a quick glimpse of The View, and maybe 15 seconds for a couple of snapshots. Then down another set of stairs to another photo op chosen by our guide who was not sympathetic to pictures from other locations.
Any tiny arboreal creatures that might once have made their homes among these historic stones had long since moved out and any ghosts of the long-past glory days were not doing any communing with the tumultuous throngs shoving their sweaty way through their old stamping grounds.
Meanwhile, my travelling companion had come down with some croupy infirmity, and I was feeling the first faint tentacles of the same, so I skipped the afternoon outing to some other heavily visited site in the Angkor complex so that I could muster the energy to go to Angkor Thom the following day. This site, one of the many secondary attractions in the Angkor region devoted to the glorification of one king or another, was constructed by a Khmer king named Jayavarman who, among other things, was a narcissist of the first water. At the center of the complex is the state temple called the Bayon which The Great King caused to be built with his face emblazoned 216 times on all sides of every one of the numerous (OK, 54) towers in the place.
We stumbled in and out of ruined terraces, passageways, chapels, and audience chambers, taking photographs when instructed to do so, pausing when possible in the blessed shade, trying to keep track of one another in the mobs of other red-faced, sweaty tour groups, and finally assembling at the front gate to wait for the stragglers in the broiling sun, always the same ones, whose need for yet another picture of something or other always superseded the need of the rest of us to get onto the air-conditioned bus.
But all things end, and finally it was time to make for home, first on Korean Airlines, which is the last vestige of what air travel once was. We were stripped of our water bottles at security, of course, because America declared that it must be so, but were spared that stupid x-ray machine, taking off our shoes, unpacking computers. 3 hours later we were in Seoul where we had a little nap in preparation for the 12-hour slog to Chicago in a clean, well-maintained, comfortable (well, as comfortable as a seat in steerage can be) aircraft whose bathrooms were as clean after 12 hours as they were when we left Seoul. And as an added bonus, the cabin attendants were exceptionally beautiful young women who, throughout the trip, were courteous, competent, and able to fix the entertainment modules embedded in the seat backs.
The final miracle was made manifest as we were beginning to descend for Chicago. One of the gorgeous cabin attendants sought me out way back there in steerage and explained that since I had a pretty tight connection in Chicago, and we were going to be a bit late getting in, they were going to move me up to first class right at the end so that I could get off the plane first and hustle right along to all the immigration and customs lines, and a good thing too since the lines were endless for both immigration and customs, my onward flight left from the other end of O'Hare, I just missed the shuttle train, security was a frustrating chaotic time waster including a false positive alarm from that stupid x-ray machine, and I barely got to my gate in time to catch my breath before boarding began onto the crowded, decrepit derelict that was to complete the journey. There was trash in the seat pocket from some previous traveler, we were late getting away because they were having trouble pumping out the toilets, and the cabin attendant was a bored middle-aged man who probably had karate skills, or could throw a knife with deadly accuracy, but had little discernible interest in attending cabins.
As for the croupy thing my traveling companion generously shared, it trumpeted its arrival on that last horrible leg of the trip and I spent most of the ensuing week blowing my nose, napping, and not unpacking. When I finally got to it, sorted sweaty laundry from fans and trinkets, it felt like Christmas. I could barely remember buying this stuff. I could barely remember the heat. I had forgotten the names of half the people we had spent two weeks with.
In a month's time will I be wondering if I went at all?
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