Our Passage to Istanbul... Adventures and Minor Revolutions!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:       Our Passage to Istanbul...  Adventures and Minor Revolutions!

It was a Tuesday, or maybe not...  Might have been a Thursday, even a Friday!  Trouble is, when you work shifts -- Days, Swings, Midnights -- the days not working became blurs of memory, blending or crashing into one another as if becoming single, enormous knots.  The year was 1962 or maybe 1963?  We were in the military, the US Air Force to be accurate, assigned to the USAF Security Service, stationed near the town of Karamursel, Turkey at an Air Force Station on the shores of the beautiful Sea of Marmara.  

This is a tale told not during the era of GeezerHood.  But recollected stories and memories recently shared have a way of insisting, inserting themselves into our consciousness, demanding that we put ink to paper and recall adventures frozen in a still-functioning psyche!  

The station was some 20 KM from the city or town of Yalova, a ferry port on the aforementioned sea.  We'd ride a bus, about a 45 minute to one hour trip.  We'd drink Raki, a licorice-flavored and highly potent spirit the Turks would pass around to those of us brave or stupid enough to take large swallows from the omni-present jugs that always traveled with us on the bumping blue busses.  

The Port of Yalova

Never entirely inebriated, but close, we'd step off the bus and walk the short distance to the ferry terminal, purchase our low-cost tickets, and cruise the 90-or-so minutes from Yalova to Istanbul.  We'd drink "Vodka-Lemones" or more Raki, crack their shells and consume large quantities of pistachios.  Sometimes the Marmara would be angrywould bounce the ferry vigorously aided by large swells delivering to passengers near the rails stormy showers of salty and cold sea water.

We'd sail past Buyuk Ada and Heybeli Ada, the former the island home of some Armenian - Turkish friends, the latter the site of a Turkish naval base and a branch of its naval academy.  

Turkish men would approach our table or chairs or, if we were standing, directly to our ears, in any circumstance, about an inch or two away, and state loudly, emphatically, "Deniz, Chok Fenah."  (Two of the words are printed phonetically for ease of pronunciation!). The phrase is translated, "The sea is very bad."  

We would respond, "Evet, effendum, chok fenah "  Meaning, "Yes sir."  Optionally, "Evet, akadaash."  Meaning "Yes, friend," always repeating or affirming the "very bad" addendum to emphasize and acknowledge our understanding.  And then we'd continue to drink the refreshing Vodka Lemones, or the more powerful and quicker-acting Raki.  

The ferry would enter the gorgeous port of Istanbul, past the Tower of Leander, finally into the quayside, depositing its complement of passengers who always rushed off, as if on missions of great import.  We, too, were eager to begin our days of leisure and entertainment.  We'd drink in the beauty of the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sofia and Topkapi Palace.  We'd board taxis or busses and head for the Pavion district  (possibly "Paveon," meaning tavern or bar or inn that sells spirits!) or other neighborhoods with which we had become enamored and intimate.  Some would aim their sights on the "Red Light" district, where "women of the evening" would pose seductively in what seemed like large-windowed "Store Fronts" to attract their clientele.

Leander's Tower

On one of our Istanbul forays, in a popular pavion district, a small revolution was gathering strength, the perpetrators "Young Turks" of student or military issue, displeased with the current ruling body at the time, and hoping to encourage more of the like-minded citizenry to join them in attempting to overthrow the government, or at least to demonstrate extreme antipathy.  We were trapped in the middle of the crushing throng.  A Turkish man, recognizing and regarding us as unlikeable or evil Americans -- or so we thought in retrospect -- thrust a knife, but was happily restrained and managed only to penetrate a shirt front slightly and cause a small wound in the soft flesh of the belly of one of us.

In the end, everyone survived.  As day surrendered to night, and traffic -- particularly taxi traffic -- increased dramatically, we walked the narrow streets to a favorite haunt.  Trying to cross a street, the feet of one of us were run over by a taxi cab.  They travel so fast, as if in a race, as if competing for a lucrative fare, as they all in fact were doing, all of the

time and everywhere in that great city. 

Miraculously -- most likely a memory drenched in a bit of hyperbole -- the feet were uninjured, owing perhaps to soft tires or the non-feeling result of strong drink.  In the pavion (or paveon), we spent the better part of the evening consuming more Turkish beer, raki and other boozy potables.  Eventually, we wandered the late-night and early-morning streets of Istanbul, scoring pills and cannabis along the way.  

One of us was "treated" to a bit of LSD, mostly ignorant of its often gruesome affects on both the human body and brain.  The rather bold if stupid half of a drunken duo took the LSD, experiencing the terror of being devoured by a giant cartoon rodent.  The other half of the duo wisely demurred, and would not sample his portion of the nasty potion that resembled, we remembered, a frozen dot of raki, at least in color.  

The Galata Bridge, spanning
the Bosphorus!

We woke in the morning in our respective beds at a clean but inexpensive hotel, ravenous and exceptionally hung-over.  Over a delicious breakfast of cheese, tomatoes, eggs, cucumbers, jam, honey, kaymak, sucuk (a spicy Turkish sausage), pishi (a kind of fried dough) and soup, having met up with our fellow travelers, we discussed the revolution, the stabbing, the taxi's attempt to assassinate one of us, and our collective adventures.  No one talked about the LSD incident.  

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Why the obscure use of "we" and "us," rather than identifying specific victims, fools and buffoons, we can only point to the cerebrum and memory draining effects of alcohol, and its extreme and often completely foolhardy misuse.  However, on balance, young men in military service, trying valiantly to experience every manner of frenzied and half-crazed behavior before death overtakes them, are often known to engage in activities that they'd never care to share with a mother or a father or a confessor, or any other sentient being with a working brain.  

What fun we had, though.  What adventures we can now share!  Long after the facts of them, of course -- with equally demented friends of similar, shared experience, grown children, perhaps even with grandchildren and grandnieces and nephews of appropriate ages, intelligence and temperaments.  But only if they'll listen, only if they're even moderately interested in the odd if true ravings of a Wizened Geezer!  

(Special Note of Dedication:    for Tad KM who listened so politely to my latest "historical blather," and encouraged the writer to fashion a posting or two on various topics, this one included...  I think?!...  The extraordinary young man, a superb writer himself, urged me to "write it all down..." for future generations and, of course, posterity.  As such, I was naturally compelled!  Thank You, Tad!).  

Humbly Submitted, 10-08-2021 -- By Joel K.