PART TWELVE: "REAL LIFE": 27 May - 27 July 1975; EPILOG

bangkok temple rubbing

27 May Tuesday: I went to see John M. [head of the L.A. Public Defender’s Office]. I found the reception less than open-armed. But I expected that from him, "The Minister." He did rehire me at the same grade but wants to assign me to Juvenile, a let down at first. But then I thought, maybe it’s a good thing— don’t know much about Juvy and maybe I won’t have to work hard for a while (no jury trials to sweat in Juvy).  Meanwhile I said Hi to Adashek, Chaleff, Rappaport, Demby, Barish; no one has changed either in appearance or attitude, conversation or concern. One good thing about getting away from trials [the felony trial division] is to escape that kind of stifling repetitious daily routine, that sense that while "things happen" nothing really changes. They treated my appearance as if I had been on a "vacation." Some curiosity about the unusual places, but mostly they were too wrapped up in their own dreary lives to really care that much. Barish, always the needler, smiled and said: "Well, welcome back, your freedom is over."
So the total effect was a vague sense of deflation. 

28 May Wednesday: We began in earnest the business at hand: to find a house. The problems confronting us became immediately clear. How much, what kind, where?
What we want may not be available at the cost we are able to carry. The prices for the houses we have seen have been discouraging. It seems that inflation in the last year has crushed our hopes to afford the kind of house we admire in the areas we have dreamed of living. Before we left, it seemed that we could have managed a little house nestled in one of the canyons, woodsy and isolated, but close to action. Now, those prices are way prohibitive. We have to look north, over the hill, into the Valley.
We are only beginning the process, but I don’t like the instability. 

29 May Thursday: Bea and I went with a broker to see some houses in the Van Nuys area, far from downtown which means a long freeway drive to work, my dread. One was nice, two fireplaces, but the asking price was way high and there was nothing inspiring about the layout of the house itself. Looking did allow us to focus on the things we want; they are hard to explain, but we felt that we would know it when we see it. We felt pretty sure that when the right one appeared, we would both agree; though I can see lots of debates and friction en route.
When we think that during the last year we have made so many decisions together, each critical to our enjoyment of the moment, we have a deep down faith that we can make this one, though the stakes seem so high.
I spent the afternoon sleeping off a hayfever / cold and went to AAA to try to register the Fiat in California. In the evening Bea and I met Jules Katz [our accountant] and went to dinner with him and Lillian. They are a sweet older couple who work together and they were parental in their reaction to our harrowing tales of travel to exotic places. 

31 May Saturday: A very frustrating day looking at houses which were too expensive. What made it worse was that even such high priced places were boring or even depressing in the contemplation of living in them.
Bea has been dogged in her pursuit of brokers. She has made lengthy lists of phone numbers, enlisted battalions of them to search for us. I don’t know where she finds the energy, the patience; it must be akin to the shopping urge which for her is developed to an art. 

Greek flokati

2 June Monday: ... Bea went to town to see her mother while I tried without success to have a PCV inspection on the Fiat, without which we can’t register it. Even the smallest chore is a hassle.
Gerry came over for dinner and we all went out. He is the same guy with the same problems, though maybe he is showing insights: he now admits that neurotic Jewish women are best and that his allergies are psychosomatic.
I have a respiratory infection as in Israel and I am wheezing so badly that it is scaring me. 

7 June Saturday: The last few days have been very tense, due mostly to the frustrations of house hunting — which is to hotel searching as $45,000 is to $10.
After seeing many houses over vast areas of the SF Valley, most of which were uninhabitable or dull or downright seedy, all of which were priced far beyond their intrinsic worth, we narrowed our search to North Hollywood / Van Nuys. Not exactly the Where we had hoped for, but at least a Where where we can afford and to drive to and from.
We made an offer on one house, a harrowing experience itself because of the uncertainty in value. The offer was rejected and so was our counter offer and we left deflated. On the same night Ron chose to tell us about his client who just bought a "fabulous" Bel-Air house for $285,000 which completed our dejection.
Yet, the next day, Friday, when the new listings came out we were on the run again.
We have become familiar with all the "terms of art" in the real estate lexicon, including the euphemisms. A "fixer-upper" is a pile of junk that can be turned into a "charmer," a "dream house" with a "little imagination and vision," And a lot of money.
While I was getting my hair cut by a pro and my body examined by a doctor — both for the first time in 10 months — Bea was out scouring "the new listings" with the broker who we have had the most contact with. When I got to my parents (to pick up my suits for work), Bea announced she had found "The House" — drop everything and come immediately to the broker.
Which I did.
The House turned out to be a neat little tract home in the northern part of Van Nuys. It has a pitched roof with exposed wood beams and a high and wide brick fireplace—all of which are painted a disgusting shade of yellow. It has a quality known in the real estate sales trade as "possibilities" meaning that if you don’t like the way it looks now but pour enough money and aggravation into it, you may come out with something approaching what you hoped for.
Speaking of aggravation, that is what we have had more than anything else. We made a bid which was countered and we countered back after much discussion and soul searching—I was luke warm and my innate annoyance with being forced to make more compromise than the seller was willing to make— but I yielded to Bea’s persistent certainty that this is The House.
She loves it. She wants us to live there and make it our home. That settled the issue for me, despite my qualms and grumbles.
When you get right down to it we both want to live somewhere—a place we can say is Ours—our responsibility and our earned pleasure. It won’t be our last house and the extra couple of thousand we pay will not break us. We never have been "Smart" about money. If we were, we never would have made our trip which was a financial disaster, if security was the goal. 

18 June Wednesday: I haven’t made any entries the last ten days even though they have been very eventful days.
Ever since we returned to LA my health has been rotten. While at R&L’s I kept waking in the middle of the night coughing, choking, congested and unable to breathe. I didn’t know if it was a virus, allergy or hayfever. Then Friday it emerged in a full flowered cold with sweats and sneezing. I had to use a vaporizer to breathe. This is too reminiscent to asthma to be temporary; is it back after 30 years?
My first day at work in 10 months was Monday the 9^th. Juvenile—the court is at Juvenile Hall, near USC-County Med. Center. It doesn’t seem to have changed since I worked there as a PD Clerk in ‘68 or ‘69. Lonnie Sarnoff is here—a bureaucrat, behind Gibbons and Ken Clayman. Jo Kaplan is here and John Ryan, old colleagues all. I didn’t know any of the others here. They are all younger—have been PD’s a few months, makes me feel like the old veteran, returning after a wound.
There is some anxiety because I really know very little about Juvie Law.

I found that Mark Horton died this weekend of cancer. Horton had been my very first contact in the Office; I interned with him while I was still in law school. His iconoclastic cool had been one of the lures that kept me there. He hired me as a clerk and then as a lawyer. I spent many hours around his office listening to stories, soaking in atmosphere. When I came back two weeks ago I had discovered that he had been out three or four months with a "bad back." No one said anything else about his absence and he had not had any visitors. In his typical private, withdrawn manner he simply never returned.
The next day I did very little—familiarizing myself with Juvenile Law and procedures. Somehow I am having trouble taking it all as seriously as everyone else down here does. The fatal flaw in Juvenile justice is immediately obvious. The system is undecided whether to be a means of determining guilt and meting out punishment or a manner of discovering delinquency and straightening out the children. The more fundamental problem which is probably insoluble is that the cause of most crimes is rooted deeply in society—its values, poverty, disenchantment, incapacity of parents to control adolescents.
As a result, our presence is a thorn in the system by insisting on legal"technicalities" which were designed for adult guilt determinations, asserting rights which children have never been accorded in our culture. They file the charges which they refuse to call "criminal" "in behalf of" the minor and then appoint a lawyer to face them: fouling up their plans for the minor is "child’s play" for us.

Istambul copper tea set

We had dinner with Roy Ulrich.
On Wednesday I made my first court appearances—detention hearings, the arraignments. The cases range from runaways to knifings with the expected GTA and burglary thrown in. The "judge" was Nate A’s son, Bob, just as officious, ignorant and arrogant as his father.
The general philosophy of our office here is to take everything to trial which makes sense here because a "petition" can be found "true" whether guilt is proved on one or all charges—whether murder or disturbing the peace, the same result will ensue. So plea bargaining is useless. There is also a value in giving a kid his day in court with a strenuous defense—in most cases, these kids have lost all faith that any adult will voice their side of any issue. At least it instills some respect for The System.

Thursday, Bea and I had our interview with the loan officer for Coast Fed. We were nervous and brought all our documents to try to explain our situation to him. Turned out he was just a functionary and was there to see we filled out forms properly and didn’t want to know anything that didn’t fit in a rectangle. The loan "committee" would decide our fate.
We went to the movies that night, saw "Scenes From a Marriage" and "Prisoner of Second Avenue" had a fight with some fat old people and caught a cold from the on and off air conditioning.

Friday I woke up in the morning with a full fledged cold. During the day it got worse and worse yet. By the end of the day I was bathed in sweat. I should have stayed in bed but I had a trial scheduled.
Timothy P. charged with sales of 4000 Valium to an undercover narc. The defense was entrapment and a smokescreen I have tried before ... that did not work but enough probing got the cop witness caught up in some stupid lies which exposed the entrapment issue, and the judge was confused and embarrassed enough to cut my kid loose. The kid left the court knowing he was lucky to have gotten off and I left knowing I would be in bed sick.
I didn’t know how sick I was. Instead of all my congestion breaking up and coming out as I had hoped from past experience, I became more clogged. I spent the night unable to breathe at all. 

19 June Thursday: After being sick for five days I went back to work. I had four cases set, two for trial. Both trials were losers
The loan for the house has been approved and we are much relieved but quite antsy to get into the new house and out of this one. 

3 July Thursday: We went to sign escrow papers and pay closing costs. Later we heard from Bill T. who had gone to the house for a walk-through with the sellers. They have been bastards to everyone including both brokers, escrow, and to us. Bill revealed that on the night he went to them to give them our offer, the owners made some anti-Semitic remark, showing they did not want to sell to Jews and if they did, it would only be for a higher price.
Bea and I were furious that he did not tell us at the time; he pointed out the truth: that we would have canceled the deal and not have the house that we, especially Bea, is by now completely committed to as our first home. 

9 July Wednesday: I got a full paycheck—in fact, fuller than expected—$910 net, for two weeks work, slightly more than usual because there were no deductions this time for retirement, etc. Still, it helped, with our expenses so high. House payments will be over $400 per month.

10 July Thursday: We had some disappointment: the sandblasters canceled for the weekend because workers refused to work. This means our move will be delayed a week, which means another week of driving in the heat from the West Valley. This week was no better than before, if fact the heat results in being sweaty and exhausted by 9 a.m.. 

15 July Tuesday: Another busy day. At 8 a.m. the sandblasters called and said they could start today. I went to work and Bea went to the house. By noon I finished my court calendar and drove to meet her. The house was covered with sand.

16 July Wednesday: My birthday, 32 years old. I do not really feel it and tonight I felt especially young—we went to dinner with R&L and Jim&Elaine. We had Chinese and Ron, Elaine and Jim exhibited a closed minded attitude toward new tastes that I associate with aging people.

Both Bea and I felt it and it was disappointing and at the same time made us feel better, as if we really had grown away from some of the things we had outgrown and toward a new, better direction that was ours alone..
At night in bed, I blessed her for having made me a little different than what I would be without her. I told her that she was my "George Bailey" and that I was more like Donna Reed—without her I would be a monk shriveled up in my lonely room.

19 July Saturday: I must still decide whether to be serious about my work or to concentrate on other interests—my writing and our home. I am torn between the desire to get re-involved in a search for excellence in a "career" as a lawyer and the desire to skate through and get out early each day and enjoy new challenges.
Today, my full concentration was on affairs of the house: the work and money outlay seems endless. Paint, brick sealer, lacquer, ladders, door locks, a clothes dryer, kitchen goods, tools. It just goes on, including the work required to make our vision come true.
Exhausted after a full day of work we went out with Roy, his latest "Shiksa" and Gerry and his latest love non-interest. We really needed the release and relaxation. We got pleasantly ripped and also had some good Italian food. 

Agra box

26 July Saturday: We spent the day as we have since we moved in: working slavishly on the house. Out with Stu & Ann to an Indian restaurant. Stu is very ardent about traveling and being open-minded about everything and Ann spent much of her time carping about her neighbors in Hidden Hills who, she decided, are rich and decadent.
We have a lot in common with them except for their children, their wealth (inherited); we share a fascination with things out of the LA ordinary which circumscribe the lives of most of our other friends. But we do have one quibble with Stu and Ann; we can’t find it in our hearts to tell them how often we think they are full of shit. 

27 July Sunday: We spent the day in our house which is becoming a home entertaining my parents and Jim & Elaine. They were very complimentary about the work we are doing, and Bea and I felt proud of what we have accomplished so far. We showed them most of the souvenirs we collected on our trip and are now all around the house. The temple rubbing from Thailand, the print from Hong Kong, pots and flakati rug from Greece, Tibetan rug from Kathmandu, the copper from Istambul, all those flea market buys that I had ridiculed Bea for being so persistent about gathering.
When they left we were exhausted, and went immediately to bed. I felt lucky to be alone together with her.

EPILOGUE

8-17-70

Dearest Bea,

I hope this letter reaches you in Rome—I’m sending it there but I don’t know if it will get there in time—I rather doubt it. This whole summer has been so frustrating for me as far as you and I are concerned. I haven’t been able to go to you when I needed to—and I needed to, often. Its been lonely and upsetting—especially during this period of change and transition.

Beginning work—these first few months have often been insecure and required analysis and moments of perspective which your love and nearness has so often provided for me. I don’t know if you realize how good you are for me in that way. I have been inadequate in some ways, the worst not being more verbal with my "problems" and your help. But you have helped me open up in that way more. With you, I opened up and exposed more of myself than I have ever done with anyone...

... Writing has been a terribly inadequate way to try to touch you ... maybe its because I never know if my letters will ever reach you, or if you will really care to read them now that your senses have been exposed to a continent of important, beautiful and exciting things and people.

I have found myself envying you, hating you missing you and wishing you would enjoy yourself immensely—it is weird, all those mixed feelings. 
... I LOVE YOU COME BACK TO ME PLEASE. M.

C’est Finis....

PART ELEVEN: SEEING THE USA IN A SPUTTERING FIAT: 5 May - 26 May

 

Grand Canyon, USA

5 May Monday ... Tenafly to Guilford, Conn.
We took off today for a drive through New England. First through The Bronx and suburban New York and Connecticut, through towns that first brought the word "suburban living" to the culture: Scarsdale, Westport, Rye, New Rochelle. After that, we were in New England and the greening Spring country closed in and the towns became small, slow, pretty and Colonial.
Ron and Sue D. are renting a house on 2 acres near Guilford. Ron is finishing his Psych. residency at Yale. Sue, formerly Jordan Jr. Hi. Art teacher, is now working and selling her crafts and artwork. They have always been very hip, very judgmental, slow, uncommunicative when we used to see them in LA. I wondered how they would be now. I had always felt uncomfortable, insecure, too conventional for them. I am too loud, too argumentative. They are too structured, too slow for me. I feel as if I am to them as Phyllis is to me.
Sue’s greeting to us was, of course, "cool" and hesitant, and of course made me feel unwelcome, which turned into frost; I tried to be "cool" and it was not me so I sulked. Bea felt as if we had intruded on one of their fights, which tended to be like fights between most uncommunicative couples, periods of cold stares separated by grunts and longer moments of silent avoidance. It went bad from the beginning and we left in the morning, as glad as they were to see us go.
[Note: It came as no surprise when, not very long after, they separated. Bea of course heard all about it from Sue and remained good friends with her. MB 18 June 2002.]

6 May Tuesday Guilford to Cape Cod, Mass.
That experience left me depressed all day and I remained so until we reached Cape Cod. We found a $12 motel in Hyannis and drove to Hyannisport and walked along the beach near the Kennedy homes. It was blue, mild and very consistent with my mood. Driving back we stopped at an antique shop where Bea fell in love with a basket and I with a hat block form, intending to make it into a mirror frame.
We had dinner on broiled Maine lobster and clam chowder, while I tried to remember the words to the song about Old Cape Cod ... We went to see "Shampoo" which was semi-disappointing.

Old Ironsides

7 May Wednesday Cape Cod to Plymouth to Boston to Worcester
The weather held firm—sunny and mild for most of the day. Plymouth was interesting with The Rock and the Mayflower, the wood frame houses on quaint tree lined streets, the kind of slow small town feeling to it all that was comfortably relaxing.
When we got to Boston, I realized the duality of my feelings: a big, modern traffic snarled city, somehow, though it was more familiar—I felt more like a stranger, a foreigner, an alien—than I do in small quaint towns. I do not know why that is, having lived in, near and identified all my life with big cities rather than small towns.
We walked The Freedom Trail for two hours, light-heartedly enjoying the easiness of touring—it was a much easier form of what we have been doing for 10 months. Having solved —of at least survived— the problems of Asia and Europe, an American city was a lark. But it turned cold and we drove to Worcester and stayed at a Holiday Inn, luxuriating in room service dinner, color t.v. and a big, bouncy warm bed for the rest of the night. 

1521 East 7th Street, Brooklyn

8 May Thursday ... Worcester to Brooklyn, NY ... to Tenafly, NJ
This was the most remarkable and enjoyable day in a long time.
The drive from Mass to NY was quick and gave us time to explore Brooklyn, something I have been promising Bea and myself for many years. I was filled with a queer sense of elation driving past my old homes on Colby Court and 7^th Street, my high school, and the neighborhoods of my adolescence. I was pleased that they have not changed much over the years and to see that comparing them with the life of my future, the places hold up with a pleasant aura of familiar warmth. Finding my way to the familiar places was a fond confirmation that my foggy memories were real, not just an imagined, falsely constructed dream.
We went to Coney Island and had hot dogs and chow mein rolls at the original Nathan’s, drove to 35^th Street searching for the haunts of the first 12 years of my life, to find that the time machine had ground out that memory. My entire neighborhood was no more, replaced by a low cost housing project. Yet even that fact produced an odd feeling of pride at having progressed and grown, of having had roots and being (mostly) proud and comfortable with the memories of my past.

9 May Friday through 11 May Sunday ... Tenafly
We decided to stay here for the weekend and start for DC on Monday. Phyllis has been extremely friendly and cordial, making us feel as if we are not intruding, and not beholden for which we are grateful; we have had hospitality with strings before.
My ambivalence about returning to work and Life continues, but my mind is subtly and slowly adjusting to the change, the idea of what may come becoming more clear and more acceptable. I am pre-experiencing going back to being a lawyer, finding a house to live in, moving in, writing in the evenings, establishing new friendships, renewing old ones on a new basis of equality, confidence and certainty about where we have been and where we want to be. Looking forward to getting on with it.

10 May: The weather is very beautiful these days, the way May is supposed to be. Bea and I went for a long walk around the winding streets, critically viewing the homes we passed: this one has a nice look to it, welcoming; that one is too formal; the other one has pretty flowers and trees ... house shopping, which in this area is not exactly antiquing, and surely not a flea market.

Poor Pammy. We played catch and she was doing very well, smiling and feeling good about herself. Then Wendy joined in the game, her self-assurance overwhelming Pam’s fragile confidence. The result was that Pam suffered miserably, pouted and sadly went off to be by herself. 

11 May: Fredi came out to visit today. After the vitriol Phyllis has been spewing all week about her mother-in-law, it was interesting and a bit fatiguing to watch the two of them together. Fredi is a tiring proposition under any conditions, but the tension between she and Phyllis was terrific. Bea couldn’t tear herself away.
Bart and I spent most of the time avoiding the fireworks, watching NBA playoffs.
Tomorrow we start our trek across the USA.

12 May Monday ... Tenafly to Washington, DC
We finally left today and fairly quickly crossed 5 states: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. The countryside was green, lush, forested and beautiful, comparable to many in Europe, and enhanced by the decent weather. The highway was fast and expensive as the autoroute, autostrada, autopista ... etc.
The northern suburbs of Washington with brick colonial houses and graceful shade trees gave way to the slum tenements of the city core and soon we were among the maze of federal buildings, monuments and symbols of all our institutions. There they were—all the familiar landmarks that give us both a goofy sort of thrill: Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, White House, Capitol Dome.
We drove through and finally came to a gas station across from the Watergate where an attendant told us his opinion of the mess and more important, how to get across the bridge to Arlington.

13 May Tuesday ... Washington
Last night we found a motel near a Fiat dealer and put the car in for servicing. At 1 p.m. we picked it up and drove into DC. We drove up Constitution Ave. to the Capitol and walked around the building—saw Father Drinan walking through.
A thunder storm moved in and we drove to the Lincoln Memorial via Pennsylvania Avenue, passing the White House. We walked to the Washington Monument along The Mall in the rain and back trying to count the number of such long walks in the rain we have taken together. We couldn’t even count them. Across the bridge to Arlington to the cemetery which we toured, feeling quite melancholy at the Kennedy site, especially.
Later, we had dinner and went back to the motel room to prepare for the long haul to come. It was a beautiful day which made me realize how much we have seen this year ... so many things I never really thought I would ever get to see in my life, which is telescoped in my mind these days, with all the events folding over in there like the trip tic book we have, maps and names and sounds, smells, sights, images crushing each other in a jumble, from Brooklyn to Kyoto to Kathmandu to Korinth ... and now to Kansas ... or Oz?

14 May Wednesday ... Washington D.C. to Zanesville, Ohio
Last night we called Ron & Laura at 2 a.m. and wound up arranging to meet them in Las Vegas for the Memorial Day weekend.
In the morning we began the drive west. Again over 5 states, almost 400 miles. If we keep up this rate Bea says, we will be in Hawaii by the time we are supposed to be in Vegas! It turned out to be a long hard day’s work, but pleasant still. The countryside unraveled evergreen, gracefully sloping hills, farms and grazing land.
The sky stayed powder blue all day and the sun drilled the highway. It was hot, not unbearably hot but hotter than I expected from the midwest in mid May.
We stopped at a motel, had dinner in the next door diner and a Dairy Queen, romped in the nearby playground until sunset. We are enjoying these American motel rooms, so luxurious by comparison to their counterparts in other parts of the world, though we are not paying very much by any standard. At least they are quiet, cozy, clean, all have plenty of towels and hot water, clean bathrooms and showers. We enjoyed messing up the sheets, fell asleep in our arms.

15 May Thursday ... Zanesville to Dayton to Terre Haute, Indiana
A little tension today. The car began protesting all the work by holding its breath and threatening to refuse to go. We coaxed 15 miles to Dayton— the "Birthplace of Aviation" where the Wright boys made a crucial mistake for humanity by forsaking their bicycle shop for the invention of the airplane. Maybe the car wanted to see the town. A guy at the local Fiat dealer fixed it without charge and we went back on the road. 
We passed through large farms and green grazing land that continued endlessly over flat and gently rolling hilly land. As the day wore on we tired and bickered with each other until finally we found a motel and collapsed in a heap.

16 May Friday ... Terre Haute to Columbia, Missouri
The car again gave us misery. This time we took it to a dealer in Terre Haute who raised the specter of a possibly expensive carburetor job but we got away with a few bucks and the continued worry that the problem was not really solved, merely delayed. It is contributing to the tension between us because the anxiety about the car brings on uncertainty and decisions, each of us suggesting possible solutions, neither confident of the ideas or aware of what aggravation may be coming.
We went through Indiana, some of southern Illinois and across the Mississippi into St. Louis to see the Gateway Arch. [For once Bea did not say, "It is no Arc de Triomphe; she too was coming home.] The detour took us into a one hour traffic jam and was expensive in terms of energy which is waning rapidly. When the road again opened up we were very tired. An hour later we found a luxurious motel room in Columbia and that eased some of the pressure.

17 May Saturday ... Columbia to Hays, Kansas
Another one of those days that are better forgotten but are quite impossible to. The car continues to give nightmares.
We stopped in Independence, ate lunch and I pretended to be an auto mechanic and manged to get the car going well enough to get us across the Kansas prairie. More farm and grazing land, flat and green, horizon to horizon. And more. And more.
We were able to get a feeling for what it must have been like when the pioneers came through in the last century. My only conclusion is that they were either very desperate or were crazy to have done it. If they were not crazy when they started, the slow motion months over the endless prairie under the endless blue sky, white hot sun must have made them nuts.
We barely made it without oxen and wagons. We drove with the anxiety of whether our car would continue to go 60 or 70 mph; they went a couple of miles a day, if lucky and we had no Indians to worry about.

Bea in four states

18 May Sunday ... Hays to Colorado Springs, Colorado 
[This page was written in ink, with blots, smears and stains all over it, the product of a leaky fountain pen, one I bought in Hong Kong, made in China. 15 June 2002.]
The appearance of this page is an indication of the run of misfortune that has befallen us recently. The car trouble continues to mystify us in its temperamental nature. For a while no problem. And other things begin to go wrong. My watch (my Omega, with the Italian day window, got stuck on ‘Sab" until I tapped it into "Dom". Now I unscrew the cap of my pen and ink comes pouring out onto this page. Then again if I could be sure there was some mystical connection, I would gladly sacrifice the pen on an altar of flames to keep the car working. 
The countryside was a miracle of beauty—plains rising 2000 feet to the dry scrub of Colorado grazing land and Colorado Springs at the foot of Pike’s Peak is a cool clear town.
But Vegas is ahead and with my luck we will probably make it just so that this mystical cloud that follows us will make sure I lose all my money. Maybe I’ll bet the car and win a bus.

19 May Monday ... Colorado Springs
I woke up to the alarm at 8 so that I could take the car to the dealer early. By 10:30, the problem was partially solved and I went to a bookstore to buy a Thorp. That made me feel better about going to Vegas.
By mid-afternoon it became obvious that the car was going to continue to haunt us. So I finally but the bullet, put it back in for work that has more of a chance of solving rather than delaying the problem.

20 May Tuesday ... Colorado Springs to Montrose, Colorado
I took the car back this morning without much confidence that the problem was solved. By 1 we were on our intrepid way—eyes glued to the road, the mountain greenery and the dashboard dials, ears fixed to the drone of engine, waiting for the certain to come "sputter".
The sputter never came but the fatigue of waiting for it wore us out.
We stopped in Montrose, a small town with motels and a Kentucky Colonel. We had some of the latter and a room in the former and spent the evening practicing Thorp’s system for winning at "21" our hearts already in Vegas.
At midnight we trotted out to a pay phone and called Ron, who told us the reservations at a hotel were impossible to attain, so he made tentative ones in a motel.

[That was okay with us. We thought of previous trips to Vegas. When we first went it was with a group of our friends. Bea was paired with her later to be first husband; there was Barbara, David and me. We had all studied "the system" for untold hours, driven all night to gamble continuously for two days, and drive back without sleeping at all. We did win. Later, when we were together, Bea and I went, a couple of times with Ron & Laura and other friends, and still always won, not a lot but consistently the Thorp way. Now we really looked forward to the craziness. MB 15 June 2002.]

21 May Wednesday ... Colorado Springs to Grand Canyon, Arizona
This day turned out to be an exercise in awe at geographical and geological superlatives. We drove through a blizzard in the Rockies, the scenery matching the prettiest we recalled from Switzerland and Germany (though probably not Greece), the hazards of driving blinded by snow, on snow, ice-covered roads, far greater than Europe’s worst.
Then we slowly descended through green moist grazing land until we found ourselves surrounded by the red mesas, green and red brush and clay of the high desert.
We crossed the Ute and Navajo Reservations, stopping to shop for rugs and other goods, then across interminable miles of arid, desolate wastes with the beauty of ruined but proud and noble civilizations. Crumbling and subjugated but still awesome and dignified grandeur.
Then the spectacular display of the Grand Canyon under the cloudy blue sky.
A motel room and dinner and the cold closed in with the always following snow, again our companion like the ghosts of the roads past.

Whoooops!!!!

22 May Thursday ... Grand Canyon
It was nice to be able to sleep late this morning but by 9:30 I was ready to get up and go. And I was not sure how far I wanted to go—maybe to Vegas where the siren call was screaming at me. But Bea showed few signs of life for another hour and a half so I read Thorp and won vicariously.
When we finally were up simultaneously it was too late to check out. Snow flurries began to fall from quickly shifting clouds and after eating, we toured the canyon’s south rim.
From the watchtower we were treated to the impressive paradox of the canyon. It appears so quiet and solid and timeless, but it is really constantly changing, always turbulently tearing itself down and building up—but so slowly that the change appears to our impatient senses to be static.
It seems lifeless, dull, and forbidding to human life, yet it is brilliantly colorful, throbbing with animal life and with the ghosts of past lives far back into the Earth’s history. In fact, in the layers of its rock, man is an insignificant mark near the top, so stupid and small that for 300 years, he looked at the canyon and saw nothing but an obstacle to his narrow-minded view of progress.
Maybe the very bigness and stillness of the canyon is what makes it so intimidating to look at. It bespeaks of great forces which make people feel small and of minor impact by comparison.

23 May Friday through 26 May Monday ... Grand Canyon to Las Vegas to Canoga Park.

26 May: Well, it is over, the dreams and illusions in one explosion of fantasy.
We drove Friday from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas, from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the best of nature’s random design to the worst of man’s planned irrationality.
By Sunday, we were beaten down, and ready to find our own, new life.
On the way to Vegas we drove through some of the most beautiful yet desolate land we have yet seen. The Kaibob Forest led quickly to high desert scrub which continued for many flat miles. Finally we came through Hoover Dam—actually over the dam itself, and came into Vegas.
The place has held me in expectant thrall since Ron brought up the idea. The lure of danger, the thrill of the possibility of winning and the risk of losing great sums of money was irresistible. The feeling is somewhat akin to the exploratory urge to travel that propelled us on our trip.
In a sense, the danger of losing money is more threatening to me. I have lived most of my life with a conservative fear of money and with reverence for it, much stronger emotions than my interests in history, art or other intellectual pursuits.
Of course, after our two days of almost non-stop gambling ... and losing ... much of the urge has gone. In fact, I was relieved to find that my losses of $300 meant so little to me: a slight frustration, regret, a dull flatness, in fact sensation at the end was really an absence of any feeling, a numbness that left me with little desire to ever return there.
On the other hand, I felt myself cleansed and ready, eager to get back and begin Real Life.

When we got back to the Valley and Ron’s house I felt a momentary melancholy on seeing Fred and Ginger, who of course, failed to recognize us—these are cats, not dogs. Bea was at first crushed. These animals were the first pets she ever really had in which she had invested love (her parents had only permitted her to have a parakeet). She had felt guilty for almost every minute of the entire year for abandoning the pets to their uncertain life in Ron & Laura’s house, where other animals ruled the territory. R&L’s letters detailing the miseries of the occupation for them as well as for F&G, had made the guilts all but unbearable. Now we both realized that patient nurturing might earn the right to reclaim their affection but that they might be permanently damaged by the experience. The emotional attachment had been severed.
Dom&Mimi came over, as did my Mom and Dad. We drove to Bea’s parents and I spoke to Gerry Chaleff about the Office.
The net feeling we shared, that is Bea and I, was that we were somehow separated from all the others, hovering above them, not superior but "better" in some indefinable way, practically free from the entanglements of it, still feeling independent from the trap. We had gone for the year without the company of our friends and family, had left them behind and in a real sense we felt as if we had grown up; we still loved and cherished them, but together we were our own "unit" apart from the others.
We were like battle veterans who return to their home town feeling that it is very small, and to families and friends who they still love but who cannot hope to understand them now that they have been altered so much.

PART TEN: AMSTERDAM, LONDON, NEW YORK, TENAFLY: 13 April - 4 May

Big Ben

13 April Sunday Villeparisis to Amsterdam
On the road for the last—again that word—time in Europe and God, we are tired. Neither of us slept very well last night, the emotions of leaving from ... and going toward ... were holding our minds too firmly to allow easy sleep.
The road north was dull and green, but gray—the skies still wintrish though the cutting edge in the air is dulled. We drove to Brussels and it didn’t welcome us, so after stopping to see the statue of the Manikin Pis, a fountain of a little boy peeing water into a pot, we went on to Holland which also didn’t exactly throw its arms open, but it didn’t reject us either. At the border, a go-go tourist office lady dangled a hotel reservation before us and in our travel-weakened state, we bit against our better judgment.
We drove through the lowlands into Amsterdam and found our hotel which to our disappointment was somewhat shabby for $15, and our exhaustion was not aided by our room being on the 3^rd floor, requiring a painful and awkward shlep with our now heavy bags up narrow and steep staircase.

Later, after a brief rest revived us, we hopped a tram and went to the center of the colorful but slightly sleazy town for rijstaffel (a mild version of Asian, actually Indonesian, spicy dish) with some curry and red sauce which made us laugh, recalling the many "red sauce" meals we have endured and their attendant memories.

14 April Monday Through 18 April Friday Amsterdam to Boat

14 April: At American Express (outside of which hang many of the "hippies" of this open port town) we inquired about car shipping and went with an American guy who wanted to ship his Porsche to the US to De Groot, out in the harbor where we finally assured ourselves (almost) of shipping our car to NY.
Tomorrow we will leave it off and pay the money and hope.
Back at the Am Ex we got our tix for Friday night’s trip to London—via train, boat, train again— it should be one of those frenetic days we barely survived in Asia, BC (before car). But the tix were less than half the price for a plane flight.
We then walked through the Old Town, along the canals and the narrow tilting neat townhouses, through the red-light district with hookers sitting in bay windows like salami; and sex shops with their devices for the more technologically minded. The homosexual sex shops are located on the street which we were told, used to be "the dikes." No comment.
The weather made the town look dreary and the rain became heavy, so we retreated to our hotel room to invent some of our own sex games, to read and to dream of sun once more.

16 April: Last night we went to see "Tommy" which proved to be pure Ken Russell. Vividly imaginative. Visually bold, very exciting and more than a little unnerving. The audience was weird and interesting, too. Very young, as one would expect at a rock musical, long haired and working real hard to be different looking. The crowd was liberal and reacted loudly to a newsreel showing police brutality.
We slept late missing breakfast having instead ham sandwiches and cappuccino at a little shop and spent the afternoon in the new Van Gogh Museum. In spite of his popularity, he remains a miracle for me which Bea shares, constantly exciting and new; each painting conjures something, some strong emotion.
In the evening we had rijstafel at a different place. It was good, but as Bea said: "Nothing to write at home." She is forgetting her English.
My impression of Amsterdam is that it is one of the most interesting cities we have explored. A city of bourgeois comfort and placidity and commercial ugliness as well as tidiness. But also exotic, Eastern and youth influenced; permissive and liberal in sexual attitudes with the most visible red-light district of any city we have seen; and many "drug freaks" wandering the parks and streets. Today I stepped on a heroin cooking spoon on the street.
17 April: Surprise. We woke up to sunshine glowing from a smoky blue sky. We walked across town to the Anne Frank house where she was hidden and wrote her diary. The displays, on the same subject as those of Yad Vashem and Dachau were effective in the argument for humanity. The Dutch are justly known for their defense of Jews and resistence to the Nazis. The town itself has many Israeli and kosher restaurants.
Later we took a tour boat around the canals for an interesting hour, then the tram from the Central Station to our hotel. The day, which had begun in sunshine, had turned gloomy and dismal rain fell as we went to our hotel. It was still falling 3 hours later when we emerged for dinner and continued through the night.

18 April: During dinner tonight at the Rembrandt Restaurant near the Rijksmuseum a few blocks from our hotel, we listed all of the cities in which we have spent at least one night.
It came to 72!
That does not include cities or towns in which we have spent days or parts of days before going off to sleep somewhere else; like Agra, which we visited after a back wrenching bus ride; or Nara, a day’s excursion from Kyoto.
Nor does it include several towns that we drove to and through after deciding they were too dismal or too crowded or too expensive or too arrogant or too much for Bea’s map reading skills or my patience.
Nor does it include the night we lost forever when we flew across the International Dateline to Japan.
And it does not include the two bone-jarring nights on trains in Egypt.
Bea was all too familiar with the joys of that mode of transport, having traveled by Eurail and bus many times in previous trips to Europe. With those experiences we dreaded for a week our night aboard the ship from Hoek van Holland to Harwich, part of our nightmarish train-boat-train itinerary to London. Schlepping our bags was enough after our months in the car, but to confront a sleepless night was adding a ghoulish specter to our nightmares.
So we began the day with angst. We packed after breakfast and carefully eased down the narrow steps to the desk. We paid our bill and were allowed to leave our bags, and walked to the flea market (yes, another one) on Waterloo Plein, bought some block initials from an antique printer box and ate lunch, saw a movie and strolled the town in the afternoon which had become, finally, on our last day on the continent of Europe— SPRING. Balmy and fresh.
We sat in the park and did the crossword, were offered hashish only once and had dinner at the Rembrandt again. At the hotel, the lady called a taxi and we made the hop to the Central Station, gave up our few guilders for cigarettes and chocolate and boarded the train.
We conversed with some Americans and the train ride was swift, leaving us directly at the dock. Through passport to the boat and down to our cabin and it is lovely: clean, neat—not quiet, too near the engines. Bit better than many of the hotel rooms we are used to.
There is an English ambience to the boat and I feel more than a little excited about going there—not just because the next stop is home—but because it is England.
Then again, I remember the Titanic was English, wasn’t it?

19 April Saturday through 20 April Sunday Boat to Harwich to London

19 April: The boat didn’t sink but I wish it had. I would have gotten more sleep. The bed was very comfortable; it couldn’t be nicer, but the vibration and loud noise of the engines kept both of us on edge all night. When we finally dozed, we were awakened 10 minutes before docking with our coffee, giving us no time to take fresh clothes or even wash more than a mere splash on our faces to wake up.
A painful shlep to the train, a long wait and an hour’s train ride across the green county to Liverpool Station. Another shlep, confusion with the phone (the fact that it is in English this time still doesn’t seem to help with phones) a taxi ride to a hotel and our day was to begin.
We found ourselves hungry and went out for ham and eggs. Bea then collapsed in exhausted sleep. But though I was tired and aching, I was too keyed up to sleep. Haven’t felt like that for a long time. Remarkable that this late in the trip after all this time ... But this is England, London! Something so close to my romantic sense of history, identity with values and admiration for culture that it is hard to believe I am here at last.
Bea woke; we took the Tube to Picadilly Circus and walked the streets: Saint James, Lock’s Hatters (who made hats for Nelson, for Crissakes!), Whitehall, Parliament, Westminister Abbey, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, and the day turned sunny and mild and we were completely disarmed and charmed.

20 April: After our breakfast of ham and eggs and toast we hit the Tube for the—of course—flea market. Another outdoor market—no second hand stuff but lots of people everywhere. Then in the Tube again and ½ hour bus wait "in a cue" to a double decker to the zoo, the largest collection of animals I’ve ever seen. The day was beautifully spent, again, and in the late afternoon we walked through Regents Park for the Tube back to the hotel.

21 April Monday through 24 April Thursday London

21 Apr: Last night at Bea’s urging (spelled n-a-g-g-i-n-g) I called Chris Dawson, who we met in Greece. We had spent several boozy nights in his and his wife Denise’s company among the other revelers there, including his sister, Nora. When we had last met, they had said: "Call us when you get to London. We’ll show you our town." I felt it unlikely that the offer was sincere, and considering our and his state of inebriation at the time, I thought it unlikely he would even remember us. His response to me on the phone was less than enthusiastic and made me apprehensive about the appointment we made to meet him and go to their house.
We walked through the ground floor of the British Museum ogling stuff we hadn’t seen in Egypt and Greece (the Elgin Marbles, looted from the Parthenon) and then awed by the manuscript room with letters, autographs, etc. by every one I had ever heard of who had written anything important in England; the Magna Carta; first editions of great and famous books; and stuff like that.
We had lunch in the Museum Tavern and went to Haymarket to Am Ex to pick up our money needed for the next leg of our trip. We wanted to see a session of Commons and waited for 2 ½ hours in a cue while a Bobby kept us amused with one-liners. When finally allowed to enter the Chamber, we could stay only a short time for a stirring debate between Lever and Sir Keith Joseph (who Bea kept calling Keith Richard) about the budget.
We had to scramble to get back in the Tube to meet Chris. He was at the rendezvous and drove us to his house in a suburb, Garard’s Cross. The house is new and has 1/3 acre which Chris gardens. We went to a local pub (where I stupidly ordered "a pint of Bitters" — appalling the innkeeper and corrected to a pint of "bitter") ale, that is.
Chris is an executive with a plastics company. He is conservative in attitudes, but a nice fellow. After the beer, dinner with wine and brandy after, the conversation began to get a bit heavy; Chris is morose, dissatisfied with his lifestyle and disagreed with Denise about every subject.

Churchill Statue

22 April: Awoke this morning with a huge head and ate breakfast in a daze.
We then took the Tube to The City and walked to the Old Bailey and watched a criminal case (which I was amused to see was not very different from all of my cases, complete with bored judge, low life witnesses, struggling barristers, confused looking jury; only differences, aside from the almost incoherent accents of the witnesses was that the defendant is seated with his solicitor, far from his barrister— a fine seating arrangement from my perspective, because the damn client cannot pester his trial lawyer while he is working—client’s are a nuisance in trials, anyway).
Bea has had a cold, surprise, and was feeling faint, so we ate and then strolled through St. Paul’s, then decided it was foolish to waste such a beautiful day at the Tower. It was more like a rare perfect Southern California day and almost unheard of in London.
We went back to the hotel, changed clothes, bought some food and spent the afternoon in Russell Square Park reading, watching the many Londoners in the park who had the same notion. We sat on beach chairs which are provided gratis, what a civilized place this is.
After a nap, we ate at an Indian restaurant and then bought tickets for a show for tomorrow night and saw a movie, "Young Frankenstein" in Picadilly. The atmosphere was neon and excitingly active, the film lacked something for us. There was too much of an expectation of laughs without Mel Brooks earning them and the jokes, some of them, were stale and predictable. The hunchback says: "Walk this way." Wilder does a take. "Huh?" The line is repeated. Wilder shrugs, walks like a hunchback. William Powell did the same gag in one of the Thin Man films, imitating an old butler.

23 Apr: Amazingly, I am writing this entry with my newly purchased Mont Blanc Diplomat pen. Our search for one at a possible price has continued through Europe ever since Risë put the idea into my head by writing and asking that I look for one for her. That we have finally done, splurging in Burlington Arcade, getting also fine bristle hairbrushes for ourselves. Now we grab a bite and meet Chris and Denise for the show.

...We are back and it was quite an enjoyable evening. We walked to the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane, through the theatre district along narrow streets, alleys, passing a dance school and a carpentry shop making props. We waited at the theatre entrance as the audience arrived for the performance. Chris and Denise arrived. The show, "Billy" a musical adaptation of the film "Billy Liar" was fairly good, entertaining with a lot of cute business by Michael Crawford, who sings passably and can’t dance, but does a lot of it.
We then went to eat at an Italian restaurant and the Dawsons drove us back and we said goodbye to them fondly, deciding that they are very nice and try hard, especially Denise.

Dickens House

24 Apr: This was our last full day in the Old World and we spent it fully.
We took the Tube to Oxford Street and strolled down the crowded shopping district all the way from Marble Arch (Hyde Park Speaker’s Corner), stopping at Marks and Spencer to buy sweaters for each of us, and Foyle’s, the largest bookstore in the world, for an English copy of "The Little Prince" for Barbara. The weather continued warm and sunny summery rather than merely springy. We then tubed to Baker Street and toured Madame Toussaud’s which was something quite eerie and surprisingly a pleasure.
We were tired by then but walked to Doughty Street and toured Dickens House which has been turned into a museum of Dickensiana. It was 5 blocks from Bernard Street and we went back to the hotel for dinner and packing for our long long day tomorrow.

25 April Friday London to New York
Like many days in the past 10 months, this one began in one country and ended in another. And also, as in other days, this one is long, tiring and a test of nerves and endurance.
We awoke at 7:30 and had a last English breakfast, checked out and hailed a cab for the TWA terminal. After a long wait at Heathrow and a 7 hour flight we arrived at JFK. My feelings were at once, anxious, anticipatory, pre-experiential, nostalgic and melancholy.
Some of those feelings quickly faded on the ride from the airport through the gray, cloudy streets of Queens and the grimy streets of Manhattan by bus and taxi. NY which had once been my home, now seemed alien and threatening; until we came to Eileen, whose hospitality was overwhelming, and then Fredi came with her brand of exuberance and we chatted the night away.
So here it is midnight (5 a.m. London time for us) in muggy, rainy NY.
After all of our fretting over the customs, we declared $350 of our $900 in European buys and wound up paying $6.

Trinity Church, Wall Street

26 April Saturday through 29 April Tuesday ... in New York

26 Apr: I awoke at 7:30 this morning. Bea and Eileen were still asleep and stayed that way for 2 hours during which I peed, made and drank a mug of coffee, smoked 2 cigarettes, read part of "The Feminine Mystique" and clumsily broke a leg from one of Eileen’s toy elephants. When they did finally stir, I went down and bought a Times and six bialeys. We consumed everything then slowly began to move until we were out into the street.
It was a nice Spring day for NY, sun and clear blue sky because of the wind. We walked to the West Village, Washington Square, Bleeker Street, McDougal Street. The park was cheerful and lively. Bea and Eileen toured the antique shops and finally we bought some food and went to look for a film to see, but there was a daunting line, so we retreated to Eileen’s apartment and watched a bad one on the tube.
Eileen is very sweet, a bright and creative girl / woman with a severe "meeskite complex" which creates the usual vicious cycle and as with most circles it is hard to say which came first, the cause or effect: She is plain looking, has no confidence, no success with men, is lonely and depressed which shows on her face which makes her less attractive ...
She has built up a failure psychology which makes it hard for her to get out of the cycle. She has had many years of psychoanalysis but it not likely that she has gained much insight, not enough to break out. Still she is a generous and good person—and tries hard.
We also went to the Auto Club, got info about our car and a trip tic for New England, DC and across the country, which made me anxious to get under way again.

27 Apr: The Sunday Times. The Guggenheim, the East 80's, a New York Chinese restaurant (won ton soup, egg rolls, fried noodles) a bad film, "Funny Lady."
The most vivid impression was how "dear" everything has become. $4 for the film, 35 cents for the subway, etc. We continue to feel like foreigners, not just out-of-towners but Rip-van-Winkles.
We are marking time until we can get our car and begin traveling again. Meanwhile I am enjoying the novelty of showing Bea a city that I am more familiar with than she. At one point we went into a deli; I ordered my old favorite NY specialty: a corn beef on "club"--- thick Italian bread. Bea ordered a pastrami on white bread with mayonnaise and cole slaw. I gave the counter man a look that denied any responsibility for the alien who stood next to me. 

28 Apr: The weather was a little warmer today, quite pleasant. We explored a healthy mix of Lower Manhattan. The car shipper was on Trinity Place, so after our business we walked over to Trinity Church and walked through the graveyard with its tombstones going back to the 1600's, just about the oldest thing you can find on this continent. The magnolias were in blossom.
Back at the apartment, Eileen arrived and we all went out first to Nathan’s (the Manhattan branch) for hot dogs, lobster rolls, fries and root beer. (It was like Ella Fitzgerald—lost something over the years, but still the best.) Then through Washington Square to Soho, the newest "in" district; its old corroded graystone warehouses and lofts now are studded with artist studios, galleries and chic apartments. Some of the facades are interestingly ornate and the lofts are high ceiling and free form, but basically it still looks like a renovated ruin, like much of Manhattan. 

29 Apr: This was a day for much needed rest. We have been staying awake or half awake until the early hours talking and waking at the crack of noon. Today I spent just doing nothing while Bea went shopping for shoes and socks and discovered The Village for herself.
In the evening we went over to Fredi’s apartment for dinner. Bunny was there—to me she looked shockingly older and tired; Harold (who we had seen in Paris) still compulsively gabbing about his business; Fredi’s cross-the-hall neighbor, a young girl of 24 who went from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., to Yale to CBS as a research assistant and was very bushy-tailed and absurdly young.
It was a fun evening in which Freddi’s sparkling sociability shone at its finest; and Bunny performed some of her old, very funny stories which have become in the many retellings, polished routines.
Bea looked stunning and Eileen suicidal. 

30 April Wednesday through 4 May Sunday New York to Tenafly, New Jersey
[Bart, Laura’s brother, offered to take us in with him at his home in Tenafly, across the river from Manhattan. We had been imposing on Eileen and Bart and his wife Phyllis were insistent. At this point we were pretty aware of saving expenses, knowing how high everything in Manhattan was we decided to accept the offer. We spent most of the next 4 ½ days at their house, doing not much of anything except listening to Phyllis’ views and examining her way of life. Hester is Laura’s sister, who was and is a writer of comic fiction.MB 15 June 2002.]
I have been reading Hester’s book, a strange experience knowing its author and some of the the people on whom the characters are based. There is a scathing caricature of her brother Bart and his wife Phyllis, particularly Phyllis and their way of life. It is a cheap shot. Like a joke about cripples it goes for the easy laugh, without compassion or humanity. It is a caricature of a cartoon of a stereotype: a cheap trick. 
In a few particulars it is right on target. Phyllis is "a trip" in her own little world: unambiguous about her tastes, prejudices, opinions and chosen lifestyle. By our liberal, hip, aware, modern, educated, young standards her taste is awful, her prejudices unbearably backward, her opinions about virtually every subject are wrong headed, dogmatic; her lifestyle sickeningly bourgeois, suburban, regimented and mind-dulling.
Her house reflects her taste: Black velvet iridescent Tijuana paintings in gilt frames in the bedroom, colorless contemporary furniture in a living room where no one lives, a t.v. in every room, and the pre-occupation with constant t.v. watching; parochial views about sex, violence, Blacks, politics, schooling, religion. Reads only best-sellers, gossips about neighbors, bad mouths friends and relatives. The whole bag of values that are so cavalierly demeaned by our crowd of superior thinkers. She accepts all the values that we have rejected and come to take for granted as wrong.
Yet, for all of that, she is an often generous person. Her very certainty is disconcerting for we who have replaced her values with no values that we are sure of. She at least is honest. She freely admits her bigotry, understands it is "morally wrong" but admits that she feels threats to her security—admits she is rich and "they" are poor and desperate and she does not want anyone to take away what she has. She does not try to mask her bigotry. This is much more honest than the "liberal" who spouts slogans and lives in fear—the closet bigot. He is threatened, but feels guilty about these feelings. Phyllis feels no guilt.
She has a built-in bullshit detector which is aided by her skepticism about everyone. She sees through false modesty, pseudo-intellectuality, phony artsiness, super-sensitivity. She can be a brutal castrator. Yet she is aware of her power and does not stoop to gratuitous destruction of weaker people unless she is crossed in some way. Then she can be merciless, crafty, devious, has a strong memory for slights and takes great pleasure in venomous revenge.
Over all, she has a healthy sense of humor, sometimes self-deprecating, often showing an honest self-appraisal, often surprising insights to the truth about other people, events, the world around her.
She is devoted to her children, house, and husband (probably in that order) in an aggressively protective way. Bart seems the perfect husband for her. Relaxed and satisfied, he defers to his stronger wife on almost every whim. On several issues, politics, crime, race, he should know better but he parrots her extreme and often idiotic statements for the sake of keeping peace in the house. He does not want to cross her. The attitude I gather is inherited from his father, Max, who by all accounts allowed his dynamic and vocal wife, Fredi, who was in turn devoted to him. Phyllis knows she has a good thing going with Bart and treads a tightrope, playing on his good nature, prodding him into action and involving him in her battles.
The children are at awkward ages. Wendy, a slim and virginal boy-conscious child. Pam, 14, is not as pretty as her sister, quite shy and sensitive, artistic, doubting. Both girls are wedded to their mother’s interests for them. They are raised to have her attitudes and echo them. Phyllis encourages them to read—what she reads, "safe" best sellers which are "appropriate" for children. One day Phyllis criticized a teacher’s assignment regarding the symbolism of poetry, revealing her own insecurity about her intellect and education. Bea was aghast.
Bea observed that it will be interesting to see what becomes of these kids. She recognized herself in each of the girls. Bea always felt like Pam the outsider, awkward (though in her case it was skinny and tall. She idolized her parents and accepted all of their values. Until she began to seek her own identity, a process which for her came later than adolescence; not until she was mired in a miserable marriage that her parents thought perfect for her.  For these girls the rebellion will come and when it does, look out.
...Our car is ready, only a few problems, like a stolen tool kit, and locked brakes ... But we got the kinks out and are thrilled to be free again.

PART NINE: RON AND LAURA, AU REVOIR PARIS: 1 April - 12 April

1 April Tuesday through 4 April Friday Viileparisis-Paris Villeparisis

1 April: Another exciting day. Shopping for food in the supermarché, depositing various items for repair and waiting for the man to come and fix a radiator which was cold, some reading and a lot of staring out at the bleak weather which continues to resist the inevitable tide of Spring. Bea and I are talking a lot about the future. If given a choice, I tend to prefer the past and the future to the present. For some time now I have been looking forward to Ron and Laura’s visit. But Bea asked me if I was "excited" and I don’t think I am.
Excitement is the wrong word to describe my anticipation of the future. My vision of what a future event will hold includes a fair amount of anticipated enjoyment as well as apprehension of what may lie ahead. It is a dark tunnel at the other end of which may be bright sunshine and green fields ... but also may be another dark tunnel.
Still, I do see their visit as an infusion of positive enthusiasm, a point of view which my brother is famous for.

3 April: Some signs of Spring. A little warmer and sun and blue skies between the clouds and spurts of rain. But there was a feeling, vague and probably more hopeful than real, but there nonetheless, that the seasons are changing.
We went into the City, tromped around from Opera, Galeries Lafayette, to the Netherlands and Belgium Tourist offices, again preparing for the future, and then over to St. Germain to "Fair Play" and spent some time with Raymond and Max.
Raymond is not very demonstrative in his affection, but exercises his family leadership with the solitude of a sea captain, with a high sense of his responsibility for and enjoyment at any show of pleasure by family members. But he is by nature also an enjoyer of life, himself, and he doesn’t quite fit the part of burdened patriarch.
Max took us to Atrium for coffee and gossip which he greatly relishes.
We watched "The Towering Inferno" which starred the special effects team whose great achievements competed with the love scenes between the blue eyes of Paul Newman and Steve McQueen.

5 April Saturday through 11 April Friday Villeparisis-Paris-Meaux-Villeparisis

11 April: Ron & Laura left this morning. Their week here turned out pretty much as I had expected. We enjoyed their friendship, up-ness, enthusiasm, cameraderie, good humor and pleasurable gamesmanship. And on the other hand, also expected: the overindulgence, too much drinking, too many games, too much enthusiasm, too much food. On the whole, the infusion of cheer overcame the negatives and both Bea and I enjoyed their visit which provided us with a new outlook.
With Ron the single minded determined enjoyment of all of HIS pleasures is both admirable and irksome. Laura’s obsessions too become irritating after a time: the food neurosis continues, the slavish dependence on Ron, the self-grooming preoccupation, constant "health" concerns that make you want to shake her sometimes.
Yet both Bea and I feel that they are the two people with whom we feel the most sympatico and enjoy the best laughs with and feel closest to. There is a bond between us, because of the strong relationships involved, that causes a great deal of warmth between us.
While Ron is my brother, Laura and Bea have developed a very "sisterly" bond which almost parallels mine with Ron. Bea both envies and feels superior to Laura. She can swing from efforts to mimic her traits to complete frustration with them. She can enjoy endless hours of mutual interests, and then grind her teeth with exasperation at the shallowness of Laura’s chatter.
The week was a blur of frantic going.
When they landed they were tired having been on the plane for 12 hours. Laura seemed unchanged, Ron looked heavier, was wearing an open necked LA shirt and appeared to me to be a little older, a little more wedded to a Beverly Hills look that I associate with middle age.
They brought more luggage for their 1 week than we took for a year in part due to our communicated confusion about the weather (which is still cold). We drove them to VP—I listened to the tales of the cats and Mom and Dad and business and the house we bought together as an investment and was able to get in snatches about our trip—had to remind myself that they were not very interested to hear our stories.
After settling in they napped and Laura had called Harold Weisenthal [Laura’s aunt Bunny’s beau] who was in Paris to buy films for US distribution. We dressed in suits and drove to the Champs Elysees, parked near the George Cinque and went into the Prince de Galles next door and had drinks with Harold.
Ron reminded me of his irrepressible impulse to impress others he admires. Laura said the Bar at the Hotel was "really Paris." Bea restrained a scream and I looked around at the other people there: all British and American upscale tourists, not a Parisian in sight.
The Barman knew Fernand, an old barman friend of Harold and we went to Fernand’s Bar for dinner. Fernand greeted Ron (who he knew for several days in ‘68 as a customer and acquaintance of others) as though R had saved his life. Cheerful bullshit flowed freely and a convivial atmosphere prevailed, and we had dinner, lots of drinks and came home very late.
The next day, Sunday noon, Raymond, Max and the Rosenbergs came with food and Raymond hit it off immediately with Ron—Ron made his special effort to charm though hampered somewhat by the language barrier.
After a walk along the canal we went into Paris (again in suits), this time into the George V, where we had been invited by Fernand and his mistress, Danielle. At the Bar, I became rigid with martinis which Fernand covered, and we heard Danielle’s life story and more bullshit flowed and we went to Calvados for dinner—very expensive and not extremely good.
Fernand had invited R to gamble at the Aviation Club and R gleefully accepted for me too, orally committing 1000 francs each to a pool for him to gamble. When I showed less than terrific enthusiasm, we spent 3 hours in deep discussion of R’s philosophy of Life: "Live for today; live on your (meaning his) own terms."
Monday we woke up in the afternoon and went to the Marché au Pus at Porte de Clignancourt and shopped and browsed among antique furniture shops. R&L shopped for ideas for clients. We went to Montmartre, and returned to VP, dined on patés, baguettes and tartes with creme fraiche. Early to bed.

Tuesday was R’s day to allow L to see some of the sights. Eiffel Tower, back on the Seine (the sun swapped places with heavy snow, sleet and hail), walk to Les Invalides (Rodin was closed). Then we went to the family stores. R&L met Lola and Hélène, both of whom were very friendly (Hélène is getting more so). Ron and I walked to a toy store then to a café and Laura and Bea bought clothes at Sagamore. We then went with Hélène to her house. She drove and was more ebullient and talkative with Ron & Laura than she had ever been before with us, which pissed Bea off no end.
Hélène has been arguing with her father who disapproves of the way she runs her store (which he financed) and spends their money. She admitted to us that she is bored when business is bad. She likes buying but not selling and working. Since we have been in Paris (November) business has been bad, but she was off on vacation in Switzerland most of the time (without inviting us, which also pissed Bea off).
Gerard was also a little better than his usual snotty self and they involved R&L in a discussion of decorating. R shmoozed and displayed his "expertise", which is hard for him because G&H think they know everything too: not Ron’s sort of pigeons. We left the Helvassers and drove to Fernand’s where we had another dinner and evening of drinking. An Englishman who was quite a colorful character traded jokes and bull with Ron.

By Wednesday, Laura was complaining of a tender tummy—like Marilyn she is out of touch with her body and at the same time so in touch with it that every groan and creak alarms her. But unlike M, Laura wants to eat everything—inside there is a chubby girl scratching and clawing to get out of her svelte figure. Ron of course is merciless with criticism for her "michigas."
We drove away from Paris for a day in the country—my idea because I didn’t want to wear my suit again. To Meaux and through it, along RN3 east to Chateau Thierry passing the US WWI cemetery and the pretty valley. We had lunch in the town and Bea and Laura bought fruits de mer to bring back for dinner. Oysters, mussels, bigourneaux—neither Ron nor Laura caught our enthusiasm for these delicacies.
Ron does not experiment with food. Like his lifestyle he is very definite about what he wants and does not want. Laura is a vicarious eater and a food pusher. She and Bea bickered because Laura wanted to buy everything and then nibble a little from each. Bea said she couldn’t afford that and was peeved because she knew that she, unlike Laura, would not be able to resist gorging on the tempting food, which Laura would encourage her to do, while she herself ate little.
Ron chimed in on Bea’s side, ruthlessly and unnecessarily pummeling Laura with cruel truth about her failings. We all went to sleep early.

Again on with my suit Thursday. Before this week, I had planned to take it with me to London and NY for shows, but now I vow to ship it home at the first opportunity. We drove to Galeries Lafayette where, after lunch across the street, we separated. Ron and I, Laura and Bea. Ron and I went to the toy department of the store. I love it because it is a pretty, fun world without responsibility, and Ron loves it more, because he needs games like a drug. The night he came we began playing our old familiar card game, Klabberjazz, and he has since bought a piste and dice and we have played dix milles ad nauseum.
Later we met the girls—after rescuing the car from an imminent tow truck and collecting the inevitable souvenir parking ticket— drove to the stores where Bea picked up her clothes and we met Max who had insisted on taking us for a drink.
He took the girls in a taxi and through Bea, gave Ron and I directions which were incomprehensible. Using my nose I got to the Champs Elysees quite easily anyway. Max regaled us with his own brand of joie de vivre—reminding us of Papa Hymie but in a far more garrulous manner. We strolled along the Champs, Max an aged bon vivant in his glory with Laura and Bea draped on each arm, then said goodbye.
We drove to G&H’s. I gave Pascal the book I bought for him—a big picture book about American Indians—since he loves cowboys and their myth, maybe he can learn the truth and the other side. He loved it and beamed in his open face way.
We went to dinner, finally finding a restaurant after 1½ hours waiting and the dinner turned out to be superb and lots of fun. Even Girard was cheerful.
Hélène was amazing—she drank wine and let herself get high—out of control, loud, giggly, flirty, chatty, even silly. And she was charming and interesting for the first time as a result. Until the end when it became very obvious that Girard was not amused by his femme’s lack of "decorum" and dignity. What a drip!

Friday morning R&L made sure we were awake by making plenty of noise and we drove them to the airport. It was reminiscent of Marilyn’s departure in a certain respect— all relieved the visit was over, and in a way a let-down, though in this case I was not let down to the same degree. I have learned.

12 April Saturday Villeparis to Paris to Villeparisis
On Friday we both recuperated a bit, using our last ounce of energy to send 3 boxes of clothes home (including my suit). We spent the rest of the day relaxing—Bea sleeping, and later watched our last "Cine-Club." At this point in our trip I am aware of many "lasts."
Saturday morning we furiously cleaned the house and Bea packed and we went in to Paris, another "last." To "Fair Play" then a walk down St. Germain, a sit in a café, and then out with Raymond and Lola and the Rosenbergs and Max for dinner.
We are glad to be away from the family intrigues which for such a small clique are remarkably complex: Raymond vs. Girard, Lola vs. Mme. Rosenberg, Max, poor and ineffectual and gentlemanly M. Gustave, Lola against Girard, Lola against Raymond, Hélène against her father and fighting her husband. Bea has been drawn into all of these conflicts and complications, has walked a fatiguing tightrope, still had sucker marks from Lola’s tentacles.
Still, the house, the privacy and the freedom and opportunities it afforded us can’t be demeaned. These people so contradictory: so generous in their selfishness, so alive in their murderous bitterness, such crude and healthy Polish peasants in their subtle bourgeois French way. In sum, they were wonderful to us. They opened the doors of Paris—and Europe, for us

PART EIGHT: NO SPRINGTIME FOR GERMANY: 15 March - 30 March

Munich Clock Tower

15 March Saturday through 18 March Tuesday Villeparisis to Paris to Villeparisis

18 March: One of the expected pleasures of this trip was the anticipation of experiencing the change of seasons. That is something we don’t have in LA where there are three changes that occur at no particular interval. Most of the year it is just hot, sunny, smoggy with each day a duplicate of the preceding one—it lends a certain security in knowing when you wake up exactly what the day will be like. Then there is winter when it rains for a couple of months day after day—that leads to the same sort of predictability in a depressing sort of way. Occasionally, there are Santa Ana’s with blast furnace temperatures that dry up your sinus cavities. Two or three days a year are perfect: air light and fresh, warm and pleasurable. But there are no seasons as we know them, no summer, fall, winter spring.
Of course, from our experience Asia has one season: the damp, steamy one. And it was Autumn in Greece, but that is predictably, unpredictably Mediterranean, warm to cold to warm.
But in France we have expected the change to be more precise: you know, "winter—it drizzles; summer—it sizzles...April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom...etc"
It has been a long winter, drizzled plenty though we have been told it is a "mild winter" one of the calmest in many years. But when we returned from Switzerland in the middle of March we expected to find at least the first hints of Printemps. Driving back was disappointing: the entire country was smothered under clouds on the deck that drizzled unmercifully and continuously for days.

Everyone we speak to has had enough winter and begins every conversation with: "Where is the sun?!" But I know better. Outside our frosted window, buds have sprouted all over a tree like an infection and sparrows are conspicuously noisy all day long.
Then Monday we woke up and found the sun shining bright.... SPRING HAD ARRIVED.
We dressed with light sweaters under our coats—to show our cautious confidence in Nature—and drove to our customary place of parking at Porte de Bagnolet. But when we got out of the Metro the sky was ominously gray and it drizzled for much of the day. With the evacuation of the sun, the cold took away all the illusion of winter’s premature demise.
By evening when we returned to VP it was obviously below freezing once more.

We had spent a frustrating day trying to accomplish necessary business, getting some done and wasting lots of time doing it. We chatted with Lola and Hélène and reached an unstated rapprochement and got ourselves entangled beyond niceties and into an invitation for dinner at Hélène’s which we did not want. We saw a lousy movie and cursed ourselves for our irresistible impulse to get dragged into doing things we do not want to do.
The evening turned out to be bearable, due to the presence of Gerard’s parents, who at least talked to us as though we were fairly acceptable human beings who were more than curiosities.
When we awoke the next morning there was a blanket of fresh snow over the buds. It would melt with the sun but it reminded us our winter is not yet over.

19 March Wednesday Villeparisis
It snowed Monday night and there was snow on the ground when we woke up Tuesday. But it warmed and most of the snow melted during the day. But then Wednesday there it was again and it continued to fall and swirl all day under gray skies.
It was pretty here in the country. The grass, trees, housetops, stayed white and did not turn brown or black as in the city. It brought back a melancholy nostalgia for winters of my New York boyhood, Christmases spent watching the silent snowflakes swirling in the air. 

20 March Thursday ... Villeparisis to Verdun to Strasburg
21 March Friday ... Strasburg to Munich
22 March Saturday through 23 March Sunday ... Munich
24 March Monday ... Munich to Rothenberg

24 March: During the days in VP we really do not do a great deal, wash our clothes which have become grimy from constant wear during our sorties on Europe, I write or try to and Bea diets or tries to, and we read and wait for mail and prepare our next travel.
Right now I am sitting in a hotel room—a Gasthaus overlooking the Kobellenplatz in Rothenberg, another of Europe’s walled medieval towns that have been converted into a tourist pilgrimmage.
I have been doing a lot of reading and thinking lately about scattered things and I want to put them down so I can look back on them later and see how naïve and wrongheaded I was. I am reading "The Best and The Brightest" which after "Burr" confirms my cynical conclusion that governments–countries—run by people are hopeless and that since people are the only things we have that can run governments, forget about justice, peace, or that kind of crap.
About myself I have been very down as well. My mind is like the economy, a vicious cycle and a downward spiral—one insecurity leads to others, one failure leads to fears of others; an outlook which looked so positive a few days ago becomes filled with dread after one ego setback. Omnipotence becomes impotence, talent appears dull, brilliance that a day ago was so clear now seems absurdly mediocre.
And so it goes. Confidence flows and ebbs, inadequacy, constipation prevail. Luck turns against me in ironic joy at my misery, changing weather, raising prices, spoiling food, even damaging my car, forcing my face to break out, making me lose things, changing signposts.
The conspiracy is overwhelming.
Here in Rothenberg, I will give a summary of the facts of our trip so far in chronological order which plan is now boring me and then get on to other things I want to say.

20 March: drove east from VP—snow had stopped falling—left the world looking black and white—farms covered in snow. Through Verdun—wanted to stop at battlefield but could see nothing—would be covered in white. Drove to Alsace-Lorraine, reached Strasbourg and decided to stay.
We found a hotel with a surly woman at the desk who was annoyed because we wanted to see the room. It turned out to be warm but noisy, thus above average for a French 1 or 2 star hotel. We walked around the town a little in the late afternoon—it was very cold. The usual river through the town with the usual cathedral and gray stone handsome buildings. We had a poor dinner at a cheap restaurant and were looking forward to leaving France.

Munich

21 March: crossed border to Germany and changed money—they took our Swiss francs and Italian lire that we had previously neglected to change—bought gas—Germany is supposed to be the cheapest petrol in Europe—we calculated it at $1.45 per gallon. The skies had clouded up so we drove through small gloomy towns into the Black Forest which was very snowy and icy. Visibility was practically so we felt robbed of the view of the countryside which is the only great compensation for the hassles of driving.
We meant to stay in Tubingen but it was gray, cold and dull looking—partly our outlook, partly the weather. We went on to Munich. Found a pension—one of the cheapest ($17) and walked to the main Platz and had dinner at the Hofbrau, the beerhall, which is the thing everyone does. The meal and even the beer was disappointing—mine, at least—overcooked roast pork and the beer watery and flat. The waitress annoyingly hurried.
But a German man dining was kind to us despite the language impossibility and the atmosphere was pleasantly hectic and fruitful for people watching. The Germans look like healthy prosperous decent people—indistinguishable from the way average Americans look.

22 March: We spent most of the day at the Deutches Museum, walking through most of the city, shopping at an outdoor market, department stores, etc, just touristing and by afternoon were very tired and angry at each other. In the evening we went to another restaurant-beerhall and had another mediocre dinner and went to bed early and made up.
23 March: Sunday: most every store was closed and so we drove to Dachau and walked around the concentration camp and museum which we decided was not half the impact of Yad Vashem even with the ovens, wooden bed slats and rows of gravel rectangles, the lifeless chill colorless air.
Bea became very incensed at a plaque on a wall of the museum to the effect that the place was dedicated to the people who perished, "sacrificed their lives" ... She angrily and truthfully observed that the people who died, at least the Jews rather than the political prisoners, did not voluntarily sacrifice their lives, they did not fight and die for a cause. They were murdered for who they were, not what they believed. There is an important distinction which the Germans still do not seem to get. She took one of the suggestion cards, filled it with her anger and stuffed it into the box. On the way there and back, we kept noticing how close the towns and roads were to the camp. How could the townspeople not know what was going on there?
We read the rest of the afternoon and had a good dinner in the pension.

Random thoughts: Reading "The Best And The Brightest" the impression is the one I think the author intended: that the mistakes which caused Vietnam were inherent in the weaknesses of our institutions; government, schools, and also in human nature: ambition, conformity, manliness, bravery, power hunger. The fact that none of these things are changeable is discouraging. It confirms my own view that the very things which make a politician attractive are also those which make him dangerous: certainty, ego control, strength, charisma.
This trip has given me the temptation to think I know something about the countries and the people we have visited. I fear the opposite is true. I know less than when I started. I know about food, cheap hotels, churches, museums, some of the countryside, but little about the people.
Whether I know more about myself—I don’t know. I do know that my observations in this book have not been very profound, because we have experienced only the mundane; and also because I probably wouldn’t recognize the profound—my one conclusion about the world is trite: that people by and large all want and strive for the same things—prosperity, comfort and peace.

24 March: I am writing this entry while lying in a bed in a hotel room in West Berlin [on the 25^th] . I am looking out of the window at the snow which seems to be in a big rush to fall. I know this opening sounds familiar, not original. In fact I have used it several times recently. But that is explainable. Looking at snowfall is the way we spend most of our time these days, because it has snowed more or less continuously since 17 March.
We drove north from Munich to Nurnburg through a blizzard much of the way until we reached Rothenberg which was very cold and it began to snow as we walked around the village. We had dinner in our pension and watched the snow fall again. The snow is now our only reality, and the cold. It is like punishment because it is so harsh, stark, beautiful and mysterious.

Rothenberg

25 March Tuesday (Our second wedding anniversary) Rothenberg to Berlin
We drove off after cleaning the snow from the car. Snow fell and coated the car as quickly as we cleaned it off. A few miles away the snow stopped, the clouds parted and the sun shined. Further on, it snowed again, big flakes pelting the car like locusts. Then it stopped, then started, then stopped and the sun shone. Then the snow fell and the sun kept on shining. Every possible combination of weather—like one of those time lapse films of clouds racing across a sky.

East Berlin Mort & Worker

We crossed the East German border after the painfully slow formalities and drove a long, dull and less well paved autobahn to Berlin. The weather continued to be "changeable" to say the least. The road is broken up and "Portuguese" and the countryside brown farmland, forests or industrial towns.
We passed the exits for Leipzig and Dresden and entered Berlin. We found a pension and went out to the Great White Way, found a Chinese restaurant and had one of the best meals in a long time. We wanted to go to a movie and make a special night of it because it is our second anniversary, but we were disappointed. So we went back to our room, huddled, cuddled, snuggled, first in our clothes under the covers, until bravely peeling little by little.
Bea cried, sad for herself on our anniversary in dreary room in scary old Germany. Kissed away tears, talked, then whispered about warmer things for a long time, until we laughed and sweated and shivered again.
The next morning we woke up and it was snowing.

Bea in East Berlin

26 March Wednesday Berlin
We tried to walk today but were defeated by wet snow and vicious cold that tended to steal any enjoyment away from promenading Kurfurstendamm unless we wore snowshoes. We had planned to go to the zoo but the specter of frozen giraffes shivering against the cold chased us away. Instead we retreated to the car.
In doing so we seemed to have solved one of the problems that had been plaguing us since we began our trip: the frustration to each of us of the other’s bad habits: my careless driving and Bea’s frustrated attempts to read maps.
Reading German street maps is especially infuriating. Looking for a particular street, you have to distinguish among all the finely printed very long names: "Kafurstendammerstrasse and Kafurtendammerplatz..." as the streets go whizzing by and the horns blare at you.
At one point, we were screaming so furiously at each other that a pedestrian stepped from the curb and offered to help us without our asking; very embarrassing.
This time I let her drive overcoming her fear of city driving and my urge to control everything mechanical. Miraculously, we made our way about town in relative ease this way; . I managed to navigate and Bea to drive sanely, all over the city, west—from Brandenberg Gate to Charlottenberg Palace where we toured the Greek and Egyptian Museums (the famed Nefertiti bust), to Courbosier House in the British sector and back to our penzione.

27 March Thursday Berlin
We crossed over to East Berlin, after driving to Checkpoint Charlie. We decided to walk because despite the cold which persists, we were unsure of extra hassles involved and besides, walking is the only way to gather impressions of details.
So we walked. Down Freidrichstrasse, past construction, dull houses, some still remaining shells of bombed-out buildings from WWII and many new equally dull houses. Unter Linden to Alexanderplatz and a pretty bad lunch in the town hall, a walk through the Central Department Store and back the way we came. Pretty dull, unexciting and not very informative, just a shabby part of touristland.
Time to go home; our heads are already there.

28 March Friday Berlin to Celle to Hannover
We left Berlin just in time; before an invasion of Easter weekend travelers that caused a tie-up for 20 km’s on the Autobahn. The traffic our way, west, was slight by comparison, only a one hour trip through the maze at the border for transit through East Germany.
As it was, it was a frustrating, difficult day. After the cold, rain and snow, the sun was shining in the morning and we took off without coffee or anything else, all stores being closed for Good Friday ruining our plan to buy road food.
We then proceeded—got lost trying to find the Autobahn out. Once on the road, we made another wrong turn and headed in a panic for Poland before being able to turn around, after several kilometers.
I teased Bea that if we were stopped, she might be detained as a spy, because her parents were born in Poland and her passport says she was born in Russia. I would then have to return to Paris, and make every effort to get her out, though it might take me years. I am after all a lawyer, but of course would have to learn French and some other languages first.
Through East Germany on the crumbling pavement and across another border; we headed toward Celle, another "picturesque" town. It did seem that way, what we could see of it through a bitter cold blizzard and we found a hotel that was open. They had one room—the garret, but after 2 hours it was the same old story—frozen solid, no heat.
Muttering, we left and drove on icy roads to Hannover. In the blizzard with the confusing snowed over road signs we almost missed the town and drove toward Cologne but found an exit and made our way to a hotel—with heat and a shower in the room!! What a find.
We ate at a café which had "American style" grilled steaks, conversed with a German guy who spoke passable English and had a decent night’s sleep.

29 March Saturday Hannover to Cologne
Had coffee, bought nuts and raisins and after the usual snafu, got on the autobahn for Cologne. Sun and blue skies became cloudy but nothing like the days before, and we drove through the white pasture land and black and white forests to Cologne. Found a hotel near the Hauptbanhof and walked to the famous cathedral, a Gothic monster, and the shopping center among the pre-Easter crowds.
Later, we napped and went out for dinner, bought two mugs and came back to the hotel to listen to train whistles and church bells all night. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday.

30 March Sunday Cologne to Villeparisis
Just another driving day, 3 countries, 2 tanks of gas, rain, snow, some sunshine and the house at the end, welcoming us to its frigid arms.
There were letters from Bea’s mother, Steve, Karen Dominy, a card from Ron&Laura, and a letter from the car shipper in Amsterdam.
R&L and Steve want to know if we are enjoying Parisian Spring ... "chestnuts in blossom." What suckers we are for the Chamber of Commerce propaganda, romantic song lyrics. Our image of everything is distorted by expectations. Paree is not "gay" these days, just cold, gray and full of people hustling other people, just like everywhere else in the world.
I feel as if I have grown old on this trip, spent my last energies searching for clichés until now I am tired, worn out, "world weary." Still insecure. No problems solved— only delayed, suspended. No worlds conquered, only endured, outlasted, but barely.
And now the numbers are catching up with me. I am 32 and rootless, uncertain, feeling foolish and naive, abused and useless, mediocre and inept. Bea has been unable to help this mood. She too is feeling the ennui, the angst of anticipation and the sheer fatigue of travel.

31 March Monday Villeparisis
The kind of a day we have needed for a long time and haven’t been able to have. Sleep late, have some coffee and sleep and cuddle all day. No alarm clock. Dressing for breakfast, no packing, no driving, no checking out.
The weather seemed to improve a bit, some sun and a little warmer, but the prediction was for more clouds and cold.
The news was full of the South Vietnam retreat and the tone was shock and disgust at the cowardice of the South Vietnamese army which fought panicked civilians to escape. Why this should have been a surprise is the shock to me. It has been known since the beginning 20 or 30 years ago that the South V-N army was a reflection of its government and society, merely a corrupt puppet nation wholly dependent on Western money and values with none of their own. They had no reason to fight because they weren’t a nation, just an anti-nation built on no foundation, first by France, then by the US.