SO I HAVE CUT AND PASTED THE ENTRIES TO MAKE A COHERENT CHRONOLOGY - THE YEAR, FROM 1 AUGUST 1974 TO 31 JULY 1975.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Blog Archive
23- 24 August 1974: Calcutta [Kolcata]
Thursday, May 25, 2017
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE BLOG ENTRIES WERE MADE OVER A PERIOD OF TIME WHILE EDITING THE HANDWRITTEN AND THEN TYPED JOURNAL AND INSERTING PHOTOS AND LETTERS. AS A RESULT, THE SEQUENCE OF THE TRIP IS CONFUSING, AS THE BLOG CHRONOLOGY REFERS TO THE YEARS AND MONTHS OF THE ENTRY RATHER THAN THE SEQUENCE OF DATES OF THE ORIGINAL JOURNAL ENTRIES.
SO I HAVE CUT AND PASTED THE ENTRIES TO MAKE A COHERENT CHRONOLOGY - THE YEAR, FROM 1 AUGUST 1974 TO 31 JULY 1975.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SO I HAVE CUT AND PASTED THE ENTRIES TO MAKE A COHERENT CHRONOLOGY - THE YEAR, FROM 1 AUGUST 1974 TO 31 JULY 1975.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Thursday, November 21, 2013
PART ONE: 1 - 12 AUGUST 1974 > Japan
1 August Thursday Aboard Pan Am Flight One
The unbearable months, weeks, days, became the night before. Ron's emotions showed in his eleventh hour ramblings. Frantically, we talked, played, drank, joked, as if to fill a year's fraternity into a couple of precious hours. All the years of taking-for-granted were consumed and now it was time to say things. We did, without saying them.
The airport was another matter. The trip had begun. New worries now consumed us: tickets, passports, money, boarding passes, luggage checks for bags that would surely end up in Omaha, Bea kept giggling nervously.
Our travel agent, who had all the “ins” finally arrived to see us off. He talked to bigwigs and proved his ineffectuality: no first class seating, as he had boasted, no "club." I wondered if his ineffectiveness would carry over to the later flights he so confidently arranged— one more item on the calendar of worries.
My parents and Bea's, my aunt Fran, Bea's aunt Manya, Ron. Champagne sprayed the area and lightened the air with its froth, but my mind was already in the air. Quick, almost perfunctory kisses—quickly suppressed flashes of ‘never again,’ camera flashes ...
On the plane, a new reality.
We were almost away... Over the familiar smoggy suburbs, mountains, golf courses, farms. We landed in comfortable San Francisco for a one hour layover, still nothing alien. We were on the “international” side of the airport, the only hint of what was to be a real difference in this travel. Now we were finally on our way. Still, new realities are hard to grasp.
2 August Friday Still Aboard Plane to Tokyo
This was the longest day, or the shortest, depending on how you look at it. Getting off the plane, I adjusted my watch to Tokyo time: changed it from 11:15 p.m. August 1 to 3:15 p.m. August 2. By our body's clock, we had been awake 17 hours, and it was almost midnight. In Tokyo, it was mid-afternoon.
The flight, 10 or 11 hours, had seemed a world of its own. They served lunch, dinner, breakfast, lunch, a movie, reading, looking at clouds, the sun. Traveling east into the sun, there was no night.
[Excerpt from a letter begun on the airplane to Tokyo and not sent until October to Ron and Laura]
2 August 1974:
... We have been on this blasted plane now for twelve hours. The surreal thought has occurred to me several times and with increasing frequency that we are on some Serlingesque fantasy flight, doomed to continue ... But wait, at this instant a cry of “land” from a fellow passenger. A glimpse through my port hole which forever has exhibited the blue of sky and sea and the boring white of clouds to the horizon, now reveals gray green land, glints from houses, beige strings of roads ...
My first impression of Tokyo Airport was an eerie view while taxiing, seeing Japanese planes with the Rising Sun insignia, like a Twilight Zone trip to a World War II movie.
Our plan for the trip was to find our own hotels as we went, to stay at moderately priced places, rather than the Americanized grand hotels. We had made just one reservation, in Tokyo, at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn, about which we had read so much.
The bus to the Keio Plaza Hotel for $3.20 went throughout the town: first shabby, industrial sections, then commercial areas, always gray, overcast skies, past huge apartment complexes. The Keio Plaza was enormous, pure. We were not to stay there, but at a ryokan nearb
y. We found a taxi, helped by the hotel clerk, for $1.13. The ryokan looks calm, a bit run down. We entered the lobby, somewhat shaken because, from all we had read about ryokans, there was not supposed to be one. The clerk was hard to understand... We have reservations... 650¥, no meals. Okay, we go up to our room: two beds, chairs, color T.V. that takes coins.3 August Saturday Tokyo
I woke at four a.m. I have slept soundly since seven p.m. It is still dark. The drab, worn curtains allow strips of light. The air cooler chugs on. It is moist air. When Bea woke up
, we began our day with love. I sent her out for towels and we showered.We were out before seven a.m. after a bout with the clerk. Apparently, when we left the key at the desk, he thought we were checking out, and he wanted to be paid.
Out in the streets: the air is heavy, a man sweeps the entrance to a store. Cars take workers, buses. After a few blocks we reach a large intersection. After a few more, we see alleys with cafés, restaurants, clubs, theaters, all closed now, fishy, humid garbage in fronts. We see two kittens scrounging the trash, and note that they are occidental.
Istean, a departmen
t store we had heard of and planned as an objective, was closed, as was every other store, including those serving breakfast. We sat until eight a.m., then decided to walk to the Shinjuku Imperial Gardens... Also closed.... But a coffee shop the guard directed us to had iced coffee and ham and egg sandwiches.... Then the long walk back to Isetan . . .The huge metal gates were now open, but the store would not open until 10 a.m. We sat and waited. A man began speaking to us. He was middle-aged, said he was from Toronto and had lived in Tokyo for 10 years, he was married to a Japanese woman. He rambled on with little encouragement: he was here during the war, was in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped . . . had gone back to New York, Chicago... spent $2,000 in two weeks . . . had been ill with two heart attacks and appendicitis . . . He taught English at the university . . . was a professor . . . had taught the president English . . . Funny thing, he spoke childish En
glish, with what seemed to me a Japanese accent . . .The store opened. We wandered about. It was huge, equal to Macy's, Gimbel's and Sears combined. 7 floors. There were lots of bowing uniformed girls, seemingly dozens of them at every aisle, register, display. Three girls package an item, while 3 more watch.
We then walked back to Shinjuku Garden, a large green park where the sound of cicadas
blots out the city rush.In the afternoon, we took a subway to Ginza and back. Going into the subway was tantalizing. I could see immediately how well organized the modern, clean subway was. I could easily figure out what to do, if only I could read the signs that gave directions on how to pay and what route to take. Our frustration must have been evident because a young student bowed and, in painstaking English, asked “May I help you, please?” He showed us where to buy tokens and which platform to get the train. We found our way to the electronics stores and bought a Sony am/fm radio/tape recorder.
We meandered back to the hotel, feet blistered, realizing we had walked for 12 hour
s. At this pace we will be carried home by Tuesday.A hot bath and a few hours rest made us ready to explore---at least as far as the nearest restaurant. We passed up crab ($5.00) for sushi and a combination dinner. It was mediocre. Bea was crippled with foot blisters from her wooden Dr. Scholl's that she had insisted were great for walking. We limped home laughing at our feebleness.
4 August Sunday Tokyo
Up early again to take a taxi to the Keio Plaza, which we entered envious and contemptuous of its luxury. The bus tour of the city was good for a quick orientation of all its sections, a historical and statistical sketch by the docent. After noon, we planned the next step, bought train tickets to Hakone with the trepidation which is now becoming usual. Each new decision requires several others. It has been so since we decided to take this trip. Doing it without tour, reservations, or timetable adds new problems, which create tension-producing anxiety. But it is the tension and excitement of exploration and daring. With each survival, our confidence grows ever so slightly.
4 Aug:Dear Ron and Laura,
We have been here only 2 days yet have seen and felt an enormous number of things ... ate at a restaurant where a waitress asked for our address. She is coming to LA in a year.... Many people have come to our aid when we look lost ....
Woke at 3:15 a.m. to an EARTHQUAKE, longer but less violent than an LA temblor, but you can imagine our fear exceeded only by our fatigue which allowed us to sleep again—we went down and the desk clerk laughed at our alarm, happens all the time—swell!...
...Prices are high and we have to get used to exchange values; glad to have my little calculator 1220 ¥ = $4.00, whew!... Today we took a bus tour ... saw the Tokyo Tower (Bea not impressed: “C’est n’est
pas Le Tour Eiffel”). ... Met an Italian businessman who complained that the Japanese cannot make decisions—they come to a meeting with 15 people and confer endlessly, then say “We’ll let you know.” The impatient Italian throws up his hands. From what I see, it is probably their politeness. ... Fashions here are very “mod,” very Western: lots of the kids wear American football jerseys with NFL team logos, some with meaningless words: “YARD 22".... We are glad we came here first. It is strange and foreign, hot and hassled, but should not be missed or glossed over. Each decision that works, each courageous step, like braving the subway, walking around without becoming hopelessly lost is a small triumph and provides great pleasure. I dig it.
...Tell Fred that Japanese cats look just like him. Mort and Bea.
5 August Monday Tokyo to Hakone / Myanoshita
We awoke at 5:30, paid the bill, got a taxi, arrived at the train station, boarded the Odakyu Limited Express to Odawara, changed to a one car train up the mountain to Myanoshita, walked to the Fujiya Hotel, explored for 4 hours until 2 p.m. check in.
To write those lines fails utterly to convey the experiences they represent. Doubts, fears, each resolved in turn and leading to others; the sights and sounds and faces, old, young, all different, some friendly, others foreign.... It has been only four days, remarkable how each reality has a life in consciousness so real, yet— when done, so dreamlike. It is hard now to recall the day before we left. Ron and Laura seem so distant. Even Tokyo seems a fading memory....
We have only begun, yet it is as if we are, and always have been and will be here forever.
Tonight we went to the Hakone Festival. We had trouble finding a Japanese food restaurant. But the festi
val was magnificent. 
It reminded me of the boardwalk at Coney Island: fireworks, beer, strollers, colorful costumes.6 August Tuesday Miyanoshita to Fuji to Miyanoshita
One thing we are learning is that the fabled politeness of the Japanese leads to many frustrations. At our hotel, we asked the deskman for the way to go to Mt. Fuji and the 5 Lakes area. We thought there might be a bus from the hotel. “So sorry, no.” Then we asked for directions by public means. He looked up schedules, consulted with others, and finally came up with the bus to Sengoku, change to Gotemba, then to Fujiyoshida. He gave no idea of the expenditure of time or yen this would demand. It turned out to be 3 hours and $6.00 each way, standing in buses jammed with Japanese vacationers for an hour. At Fujiyoshida we discovered it would take two more changes and another one and a half hours to get to the 5th station to see the mountain. But the day was so cloudy that it would have been a poor day to get the postcard view of the top. Slightly irritable, we lunched on a bowl of rice and seaweed and returned, a 6 hour investment.
We realized that there was no easy way to do what we wanted, and it wasn't worth the effort, so it just is not something that is customarily done. But the clerk was too polite to insult our idea by telling us, as a New York desk clerk would have, that we were nuts to try. He just told us how to do what we asked for. The evening was pleasant: a walk on the lovely grounds of the hotel and a Japanese dinner (at last), yakituri and tempura in a small restaurant, relaxing until sleep time.
On reflection, the day was worth it. In the bus on the way up the mountain, we had met a man and his son and daughter, and met them again on the way down. We struck up a friendly conversation with them. Bea gave the girl a quarter which she accepted with wide eyes as a strange foreign prize. They were nice people and we bridged something.
7 August
Wednesday Miyanoshita to KyotoGetting to the right train to Kyoto was a hassle, dragging the baggage in the oppressive heat. But we made it on to the train. The ride, itself, was a luxurious pleasure. Again it made me realize how nice it would be to have enough money not to be concerned about money. The rolling green, lush, peaceful countryside looked inviting from our air-conditioned, plush, roomy, reclined seats as we sped by at over 100 m.p.h.
At the station, the usual hectic, painful shlep and frustrations at movement, directions and reservations; the indecision, the uncertainty, heightened by the heat and crush of humanity and the fact that it is a time of Buddhist holy day, “Bon”, when people are supposed to return to their home towns.
Finally, Bea persevered, booked a ryokan.We taxied to it expectantly, after the disappointment in Tokyo we had been looking forward to a real ryokan. We entered a clean, if old-fashioned building. A nice old lady apologized continuously for her meager offerings. She pointed out the new fan, gave us some sweet cool water to drink and showed us around. The room was as advertized: mattress on the floor and not much else. Tatami mats, holy corner with a T.V.
Later, we ventured out to the avenue, found a sushi bar/grill and had tasty fish, squid, rice, beer, watching the chef juggle the sushi knife and the grill spatula amidst frantic shouted orders. There was a TV set over the bar, and a baseball game was playing. As we ate, I watched and soon became involved in the game. Baseball has always been one of my loves and I did not expect to have chances to watch any games during our travels.
The Japanese also love the game and they have adopted some American terminology to their references. A strike is pronounced “Steriku”, a ball “barru” and so forth. At one point, the outfielder made a diving stab at a sinking liner. I blurted out loud: “Nice catch!” The sushi chef and another man seated nearby jerked their heads toward me. At first, I worried that by shouting I had committed some unpardonable breach of politeness. But they both smiled quickly and grunted. The barman said “Nice-a catchu,” in a voice which I took to be appreciation at learning another American baseball expression. On the way, we had boarded a street car. The fare was 100 yen for two riders. I had only 85¥ in coins and the conductor could not change a1000¥ note. It was an impasse, and his patience was thinning. But once again, as so many times before, some kind person came to our aid with no expectation of reward. A man, an office worker coming home from work with his shirt collar undone and his suit jacket draped over his arm, for no reason, paid our fare. I gave him the coins I had, thanked him as best I could with pantomime. He sloughed it off.8 August Thursday Kyoto
While standing in a crowded street car at rush hour returning from the day of sightseeing at Kyoto's tranquil temples, gardens and castles, I saw a man who reminded me of my father, a small man with a sallow complexion furrowed deeply by years of anguished labor. My father had always seemed to me the epitome of the working man; a man who craved learning but forsook it for the need — both actual and psychological— to work. The need, a combination of the obvious need and a character flaw, a weakness, we may now snobbishly think.I have seen many such workers here. Men bowed with age and women wrapped head to foot in raglike uniforms, stooped in fields and carrying backbreaking packages, like ants with loads many times their own body weight. Opposed are the new Japanese generation, young people, clerks, students, white collars, with clothes and cars and radios bespeaking prosperity. But they also wear uniforms— neat clean ones. But all look alike. The young people seem not to see the old ones, pass them by as if they are apparitions, or shameful outcasts, or parts of a machine.
9 August Friday Kyoto to Nara to Kyoto
We spent the day “sightseeing,” the sights being Buddhist art, temples and gardens in Nara dating back to 600 A.D. Japan was then just coming out of the Bronze Age, much more primitive than the Chinese. Westerners were then forgetting knowledge they had long held.
The great bronze Buddha in Nara's Todaiji is an impressive, looming presence upon entry into the temple. To the people of the 700's to whom deities were a reality unimaginable to us, it must have seemed extraordinarily fearsome and powerful. The Japanese, a small people on a small island have a fear/fascination with large things, in fact, with all superlatives.We spent the evening chatting with the others in the ryokan: New Zealanders, an English couple who are working in the Foreign Office in Hong Kong, a couple of Swiss gentlemen, two French couples. The news that brought us together was that President Nixon resigned. Talk began with politics, went to societal problems we all shared in common, and ended with comparisons of legal systems. I can't get away from the law. Blast!
10 August Saturday Aboard Boat on Inland Sea to Beppu
Beppu, despite its name, is not one of the Marx Brothers, but a resort city on Kyushu, Japan's southernmost island.The day was a long one, beginning at 5 a.m. leaving our ryokan. The nice old lady bidding us farewell, bowing. Luck found us a taxi to the station, a small shlep to the right track and a long wait for the train to Kobe. The commuter train to the dockside, then a long wait in line with other second class passengers. I was irritable by this time, with the suspicion that “second class” was really” “fourth class”, since each category has a “special” sub category. This, I knew, would be like traveling on a cattle car.
The tour books, Frommer and Waldo, have so far been inaccurate on several details, not explaining enough about how to accomplish the task of doing it yourself. As a result, the energy we expend has been great and makes us tire of making decisions.
After a mad and painful shlep we reached our cabin, a rug 30 feet by 20 feet which we shared with 25 others. We left the luggage and found the first class lounge where we stayed all day— 14 hours long. We met a young couple. The guy, Yasuo, spoke English well and we had a long talk, mostly about trivial things. The Japanese are reticent to talk about personal things. They are very class-conscious. We had lunch. first class prices, second class food. Yasou and his girlfriend ate Western food, we had Japanese. For dinner, we ate second class, which was the same as the first class Western lunch, fourth class taste.
We disembarked and searched in the frantic hubbub for the information center. Yasuo intervened, came to the rescue, helped us through the bureaucratic language barrier, got us a room.
11 August Sunday Beppu
This is our last night in Japan, for this trip. On balance, I think there will be others. If that sounds like a cautious and not overly enthusiastic endorsement, it is because our visit has been a flawed enjoyment. Hampered by the many problems we have confronted. The next time we will not come here in the sticky summertime. The humidity, the crush of people in transit make the cities dirty and gray, people irritable who are naturally friendly.
I will try to learn to speak, understand and read some of the language, which will make travel much easier. If I come for a few weeks, I will carry all my goods in an easily transportable bag.Yet, despite the inconveniences of uncertainty, discomfort, and pain, the experience has been fully worthwhile. The countryside, the sights, the culture and the people have been rewarding in a way that promises even greater enjoyment on a return trip when we can put into effect the things we have learned both here and after our year's experience in traveling.
Tomorrow's dash to the airport will hopefully mark our last traveling day until we leave Hong Kong. It seems to me now that our goals should be to spend our money wisely and pace ourselves by cutting down expenditures of energy wasted in simply getting from place to place.12 August Monday Beppu to Fukuoka to Hong Kong
This was another of those backbreaking traveling days, hopefully the last for a while, in which we cover enormous distances using every imaginable means of conveyance. I feel like Phileas Fogg. Bea makes a much prettier though often as resourceful Passepartout.
We began by checking out of our hotel in Beppu, the Seifu - 400¥ plus a bath tax! I smiled, glad I had taken a bath because they would have charged anyway. A taxi to Beppu station, a long wait on the platform, then a 3 hour train ride across farm country in valleys between lush, wooded green hills and small towns to Fukuoka, a big small town, mostly industrial. Another taxi to the airport, a short hike to check in. We changed money and ate a Japanese airport lunch.
The JAL flight was short— four hours— by comparison to LAX to Tokyo. Our approach to Hong Kong, Kai Tak Airport was magnificent, an air tour of Hong Kong and Kowloon as the plane circled and dipped. At the airport, there was a hotel reservation service desk. We chose the cheapest on the list of hotels, the Royal, which Frommer described as high on his list of moderate priced ones. It turned out to be run down, the paint peeling, drapes worn and a noisy air conditioner in the window facing Nathan Road, with a decibel level equal to a 747 in flight.
We took a double decker bus and walked back after eating an ordinary meal and ogling at the frenetic sights and sweating from the humid heat.
PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
10 June 2002 MondayEncino California, USA:
On August 1, 1974, my wife and began a trip around the world that lasted almost a year. That day we flew from L.A. to Tokyo. We toured Japan, then went to Hong Kong, Thailand, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, Israel, Turkey, Greece, and Egypt. We spent the winter in Europe, living near Paris, exploring France, driving through Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Germany. We then went to London, flew to New York and drove across the U.S. back to L.A.
Bea and I had married in 1973 after living together for two years. I turned 30 and Bea was close, and choices for “Life” were closing in. We were both working, she as a teacher in Burbank, I as a public defender, and some of our friends had begun an “adult” version of “Life”: they began collecting Things, bought houses, had children.
But Bea had introduced me to the concept that real Living could only be experienced fully while traveling
to exciting places. She loved to travel, had been born in Russia and prized her “Russian soul.” She had spent her childhood in Paris until age 8 and had returned there several times to visit her uncle and cousin and to tour Europe; she had majored in, taught and spoke fluent French. At her urging, we chose foreign restaurants and foreign movie houses over the domestic. She convinced me that “real living” had to be done before “real life” began and trapped us beyond hope.Some friends, couples from the public defender’s office, had spoken of their “sabbaticals” — travels around the world for a year — and the exotic places they had visited. These tales were related over dinners in their houses, which they now seemed content to occupy after having their adventures abroad.
Bea had distant relatives in Israel who we could stay with. A teaching colleague was now living in Greece with his daughter, teaching at the American Community Schools there. He offered to put us up while there. When Bea’s uncle offered us his “summer cottage” outside of Paris to stay in while in Europe, and warned that he planned to sell it in a year or two, it was now or never.
We contract
ed to buy a new Fiat to be picked up at the factory in Turin in November. We bought “round-the-world” airline tickets which permitted us to take an unlimited number of flights on any airline during the year, within certain limits of latitude, direction and mileage. We read as much as we could about the places that peaked our interest. We outlined a budget for food, lodging, sightseeing, gifts, souvenirs. We mapped out a route. We gave notice to our landlord, sold most of our furniture and the things we had accumulated in a garage sale.On 1 August, 1974, Bea and I began the trip. It was planned to last a year, and did, almost. We began by flying to Tokyo and ended by flying from London to New York in May, and eventually driving across the country back to LA, where we bought a house, filled it with souvenirs from The Trip and resumed work.... Real life began. ... We inevitably involved ourselves with home, friends, and especially a child, all the essences of Life; and it was a good life after all, while it lasted.
Though we did travel again together for a short summer jaunt to France, and took many vacation trips with our son, The Trip was always our hallmark of memories. We often talked of re-visiting the most vivid exotic places we had seen. We never did. Bea became ill one Christmas vacation, and died sixteen months later,
April 18, 1992.
The notes that follow are from a journal I wrote contemporaneously with events. The book’s pages were 5" wide and 8" long, 26 lines each. Each night I wrote my reflections about the day’s events, trying to keep to a maximum of one page per day, because it was, after all, a “Daily Reminder 1974" calendar book issued each year in the LA Public Defender’s Office.
Some days were too full of thoughts and sights to cram onto one page. A few days required inserts of thin sheets of loose paper (mostly stolen hotel stationery), such as our first amazing day in Calcutta (22 August). A few days passed with so little occurring that I merely noted the passage of time. At other times, such as when I was too ill to write, I caught up by entering several days’ events in one sitting.
I wanted to do more than recite a travelogue of sightseeing impressions. Fancying myself a writer I tried to discipline myself by making each day’s entry a 26 line sketch, or short story like a sort of Haiku. Often, I tried to be too clever, too profound. Some of the entries are merely dear diary soul-searching ramblings, whining of an introspective lost boy.
If it seems that they are too full of negative complaints, blame it on my basically negative nature, which can find the flaw in any diamond. I needed the journal to vent, rant, whine about the obstacles we faced.
After some entries, I have included parts of letters which either Bea or I wrote to my brother Ron and sister-in-law Laura during our trip. They graciously saved them and returned them to us after we returned. The letters often supplement many of the experiences described in my journal. There are many references in the letters to Fred and Ginger, our cats which Ron and Laura generously agreed to keep in their house, along with their own two Siamese cats, Sherlock and Shadow.
I have also included some excerpts from letters Bea sent to me and those I sent to her during her trip to Europe in the summer of 1970. She had gotten her divorce; I had become a real lawyer, passing the Bar in June, working for the PD and finding my new apartment. Before the summer, we had been “involved” as our crowd used to say, but after our summer apart, things began to progress more rapidly as a result of our separate experiences, which these letters reveal.
I have edited the entries and letters as little as possible, except a few times for clarity when my grammar and shorthand which I resorted to in order save space now seem confusing. I have included some commentary in [] to supplement and explain some entries. I have left in some abbreviations I used, and expanded others. Mostly, I have left the entries as they were scrawled, grammatical warts and all.
Many of the earlier journal entries focus on more or less mundane observations about costs, lodging and travel modes. This is because one of our goals was to write a travel book that measured those we had relied on. We had bought several of the popular books like “Frommer’s Europe on $10 a Day” and its ilk. We carried them as a reference for each city to cheap hotels and restaurants, sights, oddities, etc. We also accumulated from other travelers both before and during the journey a trove of information about each place we might visit. Bea kept meticulous notes of such things for future reference, if only to assist other friends who might follow in our path.
We planned to and managed to avoid the luxury hotels and packaged tours most American travelers stick to while traveling in the Orient, Asia and even in Europe. We couldn’t have afforded them, but even if we could, it was not to be our style. Going on the cheap was a philosophy. Being “on our own together” was the goal. We would get to see more “real people,” get a far better understanding of the cities we visited, and gain confidence in ourselves. It sort of worked that way, though in the long run, it accelerated our fatigue, was often a source of friction between us, and eventually wore us down.
One of the laughable revelations in re-reading these entries so many years later is the incredible price inflation the years have brought. Our round-the-world-air-tickets were $1,500 each for seventeen (!) flights (including LA to Tokyo and London to New York) during the year. Our Fiat cost $3,500. Our daily budget in retrospect seems absurd: we tried to average less than $35 a day for everything: food, lodging, purchases, sights, so that our savings would stretch for the entire year. So we found hotels in Asian cities for $7 a night, meals for $2, and groaned when we felt fleeced by having to pay $14 to stay in a hotel. Ironically, the only cost that has not changed is gasoline, which in 1974 was between $1.40 and $2.40 per gallon, attributable to the gas shortage then gripping the world. When we returned, we bought our first home for $43,000, which seemed an enormous price at the time.
I am also struck by our preoccupation with weather. We knew that being in Asia in the Rainy Season and Europe in the winter would be problematic, but we had little choice; we thought that Asia should be first because it required the highest level of energy. We were right about that, but we severely underestimated the impact of the bad weather we would face all year. Our mood was so often dependent upon its vagaries: oppressive heat in Asia; cold, constant rain, snow in Europe. In Europe the winter never ceased, and we went in search of the sun finally finding it in Seville ... which so reminded us of LA that our chronic homesickness began to become unbearable.
It also reminds me about how often we suffered and complained of illness. Our frequent colds and tummy woes, probably exacerbated by the climate changes and exposure to new “bugs,” sapped our energies still further, contributed to our homesickness, the inevitable ennui, and put strains on our togetherness.
Our relatio
nship was the most crucial of the elements that required adjustment.On the very first day of the trip, we walked the crowded streets of Tokyo in excited awe for 12 hours. At one point, we bickered about something—I no longer recall what(probably my walking pace)—and the argument festered until Bea spat, “Don’t talk to me anymore!”
It was a common end to the first phase of many of our previous spats during the years we were learning to live together. Doors would slam, silence would follow, Bea would phone a friend to complain about my stubbornness, I would sulk before the t.v., time would drag, until eventually— the tearful confrontation, discussion, and finally, usually, resolution.
But now, I stopped dead in my tracks. I looked around. There were hundreds of strange faces and only one I recognized. “Who else am I going to talk to?” I whined.
We laughed and hugged. We realized then and there that if we were to survive the year alone together, we had to devise new rules.
Years later, we realized that all the other couples we knew who had traveled together on similar trips eventually separated. We came to understand why those other relationships eventually failed: the enforced closeness of the trip was equal to 10 years of a “conventional” marriage. The pressures were intense: 24/7 togetherness, hundreds of decisions to be made jointly, hours of tedium, fatigue, illness, aches. Being alone together was a crucible.
Most important, in reading these notes and reliving those times, I am grateful to be vividly reminded of Bea. The inspiration for the trip and for all that followed was hers far more than mine. She was the experienced traveler, the wandering soul who entered my life and altered it in so many ways. She dragged me into living life while I grumbled, whined, kicked and complained every inch of the way. Without her I would have endured my existence in the shell of my fantasies, imagining what living might be about, never daring to try to live it.
Now, so long after she has gone, it sometimes seems to me that the times we were together were all the good times I have ever known. Now that I am back inside my head, alone apart, I have these memories of living which transformed me, at least for a time—and which now seem more like fantasies as they recede. Re-reading the journal for the first time since Bea left has freshened my memory, and sometimes while reading the entries I find myself smiling (“God, I had forgotten that day”) or laughing aloud, or crying as an entry brings her face and voice a
nd her body to life once more.Puting these memories in a form that I pray will be more lasting and comprehensible may permit me to share them with others, especially the one person for whom I wish them to have the most meaning, our son Greg, who in his childhood heard many of the stories we told about the journey we once took, but who was too young when his mother died to now remember her joie de vivre; though he seems to have inherited some of her wanderlust.
Mort Borenstein
19 June 2002.
Monday, March 26, 2012
PART TWELVE: "REAL LIFE": 27 May - 27 July 1975; EPILOG
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| bangkok temple rubbing |
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.
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.
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| Greek flokati |
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 9th. 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.
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| Istambul copper tea set |
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.
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| Agra box |
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.
... I LOVE YOU COME BACK TO ME PLEASE. M.
C’est Finis....
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