The Remarkable Surprise and Shock of Arrival!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

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

This Episode:  The Remarkable surprise and shock of arrival!

Sometime in 1961, it was, a crowd of young military chaps boarded an aircraft in Brindisi, Italy bound for Yesilkoy (now Ataturk International) Airport outside Istanbul, Turkey. 

The airplane flew noisily, as if it had been  recently refurbished by a plumber. It seemed "rickety" and as un-"air"worthy as something pictured in medieval, pre-aviation drawings. Many of the GI's aboard clung to seat rests, knuckles white with terror.

I'm not particularly brave, but I was fascinated, fear having been supplanted by

excitement, as I scanned each rapidly appearing and then disappearing plot of earth below from a window side perch.

The flight seemed to endure for hours, if not days...  It lasted perhaps six or seven hours, as I recall, the bounce and turbulence and the dips and drops making it seem like a week and a half in an air balloon or a dirigible during a cyclone!    

We landed safely, as many sighs of relief like yellow, deflating balloons wafted through the cabin replacing panic.  We quickly disembarked and were almost immediately greeted by a wormy little Turkish chap who wasted no time in asking our ultimate posting destination.

I stumbled up to him and answered, "We'll be based at Karamursel Air Station, west of Yalova, I think." The base is perched on the shores of the Sea of Marmara, not far from Golchuk!  

"You will love the 'fa-cil-ee-tees,'" the wormy little man announced, a smile revealing all of the yellow teeth he had in his rather large, sort of cavernous mouth. It seemed he had as many teeth as there are keys on a piano!

Several of the lads, stating mainly soto voce, they wanted to slap him silly! Those several

clearly didn't want to be anywhere near the Country of Turkey. 

"Can I go home now?" one of them whined.    

The Turkish man meant "facilities," of course.  I found his pronunciation intriguing and amusing, wondering if every Turk we'd meet would elongate words and syllables comically. Couldn't wait to find out. 

I thanked him for his rosy prediction and his "wild" enthusiasm about our destination.  Many of my military companions complained, wishing they could get back on the aircraft and go home, frightening as the flight had been, as well as the scary prospect of some two years in wildly exotic Turkey.

As a means of easing us into the next two years or so, the length of our upcoming assignment at Karamursel Air Base, we were billeted for an overnight stay at the fabulous Cinar Hotel outside Istanbul, (pronounced si-nar, an accent cedilla placed like a goatee under the "C," creating a soft sound like an "S.")

The U.S. Military probably financed our stay and the delicious feast we were served.  But the servers, all male, kept emptying our ashtrays the moment an ash was dumped from each of the preponderance of cigarettes every GI was smoking as if it were the last awaiting a firing squad. Coming from modest or underprivileged backgrounds, the hovering waiters made all of us a bit uncomfortable.

Cinar's rooms were lavish, a kind of ridiculous (planned... or unplanned?) ploy as if presaging with a kind of evil sneer our accommodations at the air base.

Karamursel's accommodations were anything but lavish.  We discovered that fact the following day. At least the rooms were clean, and we were ordered of course to keep them clean throughout our tour of duty.  A military, disciplinary mandate!  

"A quarter should bounce off of the top blanket of your properly-made beds," a nasty sergeant had announced during basic training.  That bounce never happened in my experience...

Finally arriving at Karamursel, after a bumpy and lumpy bus ride, uh we stared in some dismay at the stark and sterile look of flat-topped

barracks and quonset huts and dull grey buildings that dotted and populated the base.  It also sported huge antennas and a so-called "flight line," but no possibility an aircraft could land there. 

One guessed that every air base in captivity must have a flight line for visible or invisible aircraft. Strange!

Soon we were installed in barracks rooms, each with three added occupants.  Then off to our assignments via a dark blue school-like bus, along the so-called flight line, past rows of towering antennas, to our work places.  

A few of use, including myself, were asked if we'd prefer to be assigned to "Research and Development (R&D)" vs. the utterly tedious and boring duty of monitoring printers and their endless output of correspondence from "the enemy."

It was an excellent choice, R&D, that is. Our duty was to learn known electronic systems by sound, about 90 of them, and then search for new electronic systems, using huge and

expensive radio / monitors.  Finding something, we'd explore, via "space-age" equipment and brain power, decipher the coded, musically-warbling information they were transmitting.  Great fun!

We had success!  Even hear of the Poet, Pushkin?  

I write this sort of ancient memoir given the timing...  I began my military service on June 12th, was discharged honorably on June 11th, four years later.  

Readers are welcome to share their own memories and adventures in military service. Don't hesitate; space is limited!  Thank You!

Humbly Submitted, June 12th...  Joel K.  

  

  

  

 

 

    

     

TORN!...

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

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

This Episode:             Torn!...

We find ourselves, at this juncture in time, a short while removed from the Holiday Season that renders 
Christians utterly jubilant...  at least for a brief period just prior to, on the two special days of the actual event, and in some cases for the week that follows into the eve of and the start of a New Year. 

Decorated House!

Many of us, I'm certain -- myself included -- find reasons to decry the Season for its orgy of spending, its specious bloom of "good cheer," the multiplicity of artifices, idols, iconic representations, yes, and also that profusion of electric lighting intended, we're often told, to brighten the drabness of winter.   Or else to inculcate, many would
insist, a belief system with appropriate symbols of the "true meaning..."   

  

I was raised by a gentile father and a Jewish mother; a fact that to this day tends to confound and confuse my sense of self-identity, my psychic awareness!  I'm TORN!

I often tell SweetHeart, my life partner and the love of my life, that I intend to allow the Jewish side of my persona to prevail during the Christian / Christmas holidays.  SweetHeart demurs.  "You were raised Christian," she argues.  "You have the Christmas tradition in your bone marrow.  Whether or not you accept its mythology, its religious significance or the pageant of the Santa-infused idea of an anti-religious feast day...  Doesn't matter.  We're celebrating Christmas, as if we are true believers, or merely Santa-obsessed revelers.  And that's the end of it!" she states demandingly, and quite forcefully.

I groan acceptingly, if grudgingly!  But, still, I'm TORN, I tell you, and I tell her, and everyone in my family, myself...   An old friend told me often, "Your face is the map of Israel."  My neighbor who is a Jew and who understands my matrilineal heritage, insists, "Then you're Jewish, sonny (she's a bit older than me!).  If you wanted, you could

emigrate to Israel where you'd be immediately accepted and with full Israeli / Jewish citizenship."  I try to find my passport (but furtively!)...

A neighborhood rabbi, for whom I wrote a personal history (needed for a chaplaincy quest!), revealed my story, my lineage to his colleague, a proselytizing rabbi.  The latter appears at my door with some frequency -- mainly, I think, on Jewish feast days.  He tries valiantly to bring me into the light, into the fold.  I resist.  I've been too far down a different pathway, and, for the past many years, I've practiced no form of religion!  None! 

Undaunted by my failure to respond to the rabbi's inexorable efforts, he brings me Chanukah candles, boxes of them, "gelt" in the form of foil-wrapped chocolates, 

dreidels, boxes of matzah and other Jewish gifts and artifacts.  He once appeared at my door, invited himself in and placed tefillins (phylacteries) on my head and arm.  He blesses me.  He brings his children to sing Hebrew songs.  I continue to resist...  

(I have boxes of unopened Chanukah candles; of the opened boxes, I bring some of the colorful content to birthday parties...  just in case!  You never know...  possibly the party host is experiencing a regrettable paucity of candles!  One likes to come prepared!)    

Still, in all, I guess I must confess to a certain and thinly veiled delight in The Season, particularly when the shopping and the (ugh) mall visits and the spending have all  finally, at last!, yielded to the actual Eve and the family celebration that commences with song and greetings and expressions of love and welcome.  (I grumble and make sour faces to disguise my delight, however!).  

We order beautiful pizzas from our, and my, favorite parlor.  It's a once-a-year indulgence and our family's principal Christmas Eve repast.  And salad, loaded with pepperoni, spicy peppers and other tasty ingredients.  (I pick off the cheese cubicles...  I don't care much for cheese cubicles or other forms of that specific dairy comestible!)

We chat endlessly, share "What's new's...  and What have you been doing lately's and Tell me about your life and recent adventure's...  How's your work coming along's..."  We stuff ourselves with the aforementioned edibles, sing more Christmas songs.  Our daughters bring their ukuleles and song sheets, and we warble on, harmonizing to familiar favorites.  The house fairly rings with music and song.  Wonderful stuff, in all, a really terrific day surrounded by and among the people we love best in the world.  (I check my online bank balance frequently!!)

 

Finally, we remove piles of gifts from beneath the "gorgeously adorned" artificial tree and distribute them to the celebrants gathered round the drawing room and its wonderfully effective gas fireplace.  

Following the gift-giving element with its frenetic ripping and tearing of holiday wrappings (I try to salvage the paper like my mother taught me...  but to no avail!), we sing more tunes, drink celebratory artificial wine-like juices, toast one another again and again, walk the dogs (there are two of them, one each in our children's families -- Petey and Yoshie, both male canines!), or sit and sip and nibble the endless cookies and gingerbread effigies and salted nuts.  (I'm particularly fond of mixed nuts and Virginia peanuts...  I tend overdo the nut thing; a flaw in my character, I suppose...)  

As if the joyous celebration at SweetHeart's and my family home isn't enough, at approximately 6:00 PM we pack up our necessaries, our "dish or dishes to pass" and repair to the home of our niece.  She and her husband have a large dwelling with a subterrranean space where the younger revelers gather to "talk treason" and to remove themselves from parental interference.  The food is always plentiful and "nummers" as my dear departed mother-in-law would say -- her word for yummy.  

Eventually, following this grand reunion with hosts of cousins, grand nieces and nephews, other relatives and friends, as the clock alarms us (particularly me as "I should be in bed by now!"...) with its reading, we begin to "Welp," my brilliant son-in-law's coinage for "I've had it.  I'm tired and it's time to go!"  (Another translation is, "Well, I see by my watch or my Cellular time reading that's it way past time to get the hell out of here!"). 

As I now reflect on the Season just past, I smile, or, more accurately, effect a silly grin and remind myself it's over for another full year.  Hooray!  Next year, I'm adopting my Jewish half, and I'll brook no objections from any quarter.  I mean it!  (Fat Chance...  Yeah, like that's gonna happen Man, Dude, Bro...  I like to use all three!).  See ya next year, Santa, you fat old obnoxious, red-nosed bankrupting jerk!!  

Humbly Submitted, 01-05-2022 -- by Joel K.  

  

 

   

  

Nibbles to the Masses... or, Adventures in Food Delivery!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:      Nibbles to the Masses...  or, the Adventures of Food Delivery Professionals!


It began a year ago April.  They are now some 15 months into the process.  For those of us in "robust advancing age," we discover there are diminishing career opportunities for the greying.  Happily, there are organizations that will employ anyone who's breathing, slightly, and can produce necessary credentials, such as a valid driving license, for example!


This is a story about an intrepid couple who, joyously, accepted their fate, and secured employment in the restaurant food collection and delivery profession.  The experience has been suffused with adventure.   And they have learned, along the road, so to speak, a great many new and wonderful lessons about life and the fascinating individuals who populate our urban landscapes!

Some examples...  Delivering a "Bento Box" style meal to an Asian individual, the male component of the delivery duo stated confidently to the recipient:  "Wing Wei Woo?!  Your order sir!"  The man's name was Zhang Kao Ding.  The deliverer meant no disrespect; he merely thought he was uttering the recipient's correct name, trying valiantly to greet his customer with warmth and a kind of wisdom, certain he had the correct name in his memory bank!  The recipient looked confused,  but not the least offended.  He put it down to occidental ignorance!  

The couple delivers a great many food orders to residents in inner-city neighborhoods.  On one memorable occasion, the couple picked up two orders of fine cuisine, one a burger and fries from "Lard Man Lenny's" food truck, the second from a fine Asian restaurant.  The former was packed in a brown bag, dotted with grease splotches, the latter in a pristine white plastic sack.  The couple mixed up the orders, delivering the Asian food to a young couple.  The nice man who was handed the brown bag, immediately telephoned the delivery people, demanding his correct portion of far more expensive food stuffs. 

Undaunted, the intrepid duo, given a total of 15 minutes to correct the delivery error -- the restaurant was closing in those 15 minutes! -- sped crazily back to the restaurant, probably some 15 minutes away from the south side Milwaukee home of the recipient.   They plunked down $35.00 for the replacement food, and sped back to the originally intended recipient.  The trip was worth approximately $25.00 or so (time and mileage plus a generous payment "boost" available that particular evening).  The customer, now appeased by the duo's commitment to delivery excellence, not to mention admission of their error, their culpability, presented them a $10.00 tip!!  Proving, once again, the value of integrity and superior customer service!!

Here's another example...  Honesty is a Golden Policy!  The couple delivered a fine food package to an African-American woman, not greasy fast stuff!  She handed the male deliverer $65.00.  "No, no..." the man protested, "You've already paid for your food on the App (meaning the application on a SmartPhone)!  I can't take that money."  (The man likes to term it an "Ape," amusingly, he thinks!)  

The woman said, "Well then, here's $40.00...  your tip."

"Good gosh," said the man, "That's too much, that's too generous!"  

"I admire and thank you for you honesty," the woman replied.  "Here, you must take this."  She handed him $25.00.  She would brook no further argument.  He thanked her profusely and went on his way, with his wife and partner, of course, to the next summons, the next pickup and delivery!

Over the months of their new career choice, the pair has made many remarkable discoveries.

 Among them, in inner-city neighborhoods, the residents tend to receive their food packages and

generously tip the delivery drivers.  Not always the same in wealthy neighborhoods, where privilege seems to override the need for gratitude and courtesy.  There are of course exceptions.  Additionally, in the inner city, there's a wonderful sense of community.  People sit on their porches with friends, neighbors and family members, chatting amiably, often laughing, sharing both the day's trials and its triumphs.

The two, the "Dynamic Duo" (with apologies to Batperson and BirdBoy, and the people who created various comic books!), do not always earn as much currency as they'd like, even as in the not-too-distant past, but they do tend to make their "nut," or enough to sustain life and limb each working week...  sort of!!   The earnings downturn is due in large measure to the stinginess of the parent conglomerate.  Perhaps the aforementioned will loosen its hold on its coffers as summer surrenders once again to the icy bite of Winter!  

In the meantime, given the rampant ageism that infects our society, the pair feels fortunate to have a means of earning a few shekels, or geld, florins, dinars, pesos, pounds, francs, krones, birrs...  you know, MONEY!!  And they plan to soldier on until they are no longer termed "fiduciary imbeciles," or some such offensive name calling, by the monied set!!  The two plan to continue their quest toward amassing great sums of retirement income!!  Of course, death might well intervene before that happens...   Sigh!!  

p.s.  The "Sigh" is merely an empathetic gesture on behalf of, in support of and in honor of, too, the subjects of this piece!!  Thank You, and may all of your Delivery Take Away orders be fresh...  or Hot, or cold, maybe, if that's how you ordered the stuff??...!   

Please Note:    Other practitioners in the delivery trades are welcome to comment or share their own experiences.  Those who drive and deliver stuff to earn their livings deserve to be heard, not to mention, deserve respect and admiration.  Damn Right!!  











     

A Brilliant New Career...

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:             Adventures in the "Dining Car"...   (Act Two!) 
The Players:            Undine and Ulmer
Title of Act Two:      Embarking upon a Brilliant Career as "Goober Comestibles" 
                               (GC) Pick-Up and Delivery Transportation Professionals! 

A Stage Play (sort of...)!

The Settings:    A Vehicle Bumping along a Lumpy Roadway, Somewhere in the Midwest, at  various food purveying establishments and at the residences of varied food consuming recipients!)

Date and Time:    (scene One) Early Afternoon; (scene Two) Evening...

Scene One    (Character names have been modified in order to obscure true identities!!)

Undine:   "The whole darn business made me anxious!  First they want my Social Security

number, then our bank routing and checking account numbers!  I mean, what if it was a crazy scam to rob us of our worldly goods, all our possessions and paltry bank accounts?!"

Ulmer:    "Well, yeah, a bit scary, maybe, but in the end it all turned out alright, aina?  I mean, they have to have that information to set us up as legitimate Goober Comestibles delivery guys!  Right?"

Undine:    "Yeah, I guess, but it scared me silly at the beginning.  Didn't it bother you?"

Ulmer:    "Yeah, I admit it.  I was a bit trepidatious at first.  But then I had my panic attack and some gas pains and everything turned out fine...  Oh, and a couple of spasms from my hiatal hernia...!"  

Undine:    "Oh, wait, we have a ding!  Head for Pizza Palacio on Doobish Street!"  (The duo drives down lumpy, pot-holed streets, eventually arriving at Pizza Palacio!).  "We're here.  Make a U-turn to pick me up in front of the joint.  I'll go in and get the stuff, the pizza, or whatever the Goober guy ordered."  (She emerges with a large pizza pie and a paper sack 

containing garlic bread, we think, maybe salad...!)

Ulmer:    "Where do we go...  Where we headed??"

Undine:    "Be patient.  I have to get the routing directions on my app.  This is all done by smartphone and apps, you know.  I don't have everything in my head, and it isn't written on the pizza sack!"  (Undine places the large pizza pie in an insulated cooler sack, the paper sack on the floor to her right!).  Turn right and then go straight for a while.  I'll tell you when to turn...  Wait!  Where's Dibble Street?  Do we have a Dibble Street in this metroplex? I don't think the pizza people gave us proper directions!"

Ulmer:    "Hey!  There's an average man on the street!  Excuse me, um...  pardon me!  Average

Man, Do you know where Dibble Street is?"

Average Man on the Street:    "Yeah.  You're just a few blocks away...  It may or may not end at the intersection of Boswell and Binkley...  I think!  Just keep driving.  You'll find it..."  (Eventually, they find the destination, about 20 minutes later!)

Undine:    (At the high-rise apartment of the pizza recipient Goober guy who ordered the large pie!)  "Excuse me ma'am (to the concierge)...  Do you know the apartment number of George X.?  We have an incorrect apartment number!"  (Finally, with exemplary detection, they find the correct apartment!)

The Goober Guy Pizza Recipient:   (Opens door following loud knocking and bell ringing)  "Where were you.  This pie must be cold by now, for pity sake.  I'm not happy..."  

Undine:   "You could re-heat it.  Do you have a conventional oven?  Convection, maybe? A microwave?  A toaster oven?...  A box of matches?"  (Recipient slams door in the faces of Undine and Ulmer!  They ride down the elevator and jauntily bounce down a few steps to the waiting vehicle, its emergency flashers blinking importantly!!)

Ulmer:   "Hey!  Another ding!  We're really rollin'...  Where to?"

Undine:   "Um...  Wait, it's thinking...  Ah!  Head for the 'Great Wall of Fong' on Muggle Street...      (Pause to pick up order!) OK, now we've picked up the order.  Head for the University District, State Avenue just north of 18th Street.  The guy who ordered is, um, lemme see...   Zhing Woo W."

Ulmer:   "Here, let me pop out of the car and deliver the food into the hands of...  What's his name again...   (Hands a package of Emperor's ToFu and Chicken Lo Bong to the customer!)  Here you go...  Um, Wing Wei Woo??!"  (Customer looks at Ulmer as if considering him a Sinophobic buffoon!  Undine is convulsed with laughter and has to close the car window and turn away from the scene...). 

Undine:   "His name is Zhing Woo W., you bubblehead!  (Still laughing!) Isn't life grand?! Just a fine inaugural outing in the new but ongoing adventures of Goober Comestibles professionals!...  Maybe we should call ourselves, 'The Great Goober Gastronomic Team'! "

Ulmer:   "You know what I always say:  'Give the client what she or he wants, and put smiles on the faces of all and sundry... ' Is that a ding?  Where to, oh Chief delivery purveyor??!!..."

Undine:   "Hmmm...  Looks like a Mexican restaurant...  Las Uvas, or something like that...  Don't move!  Wait 'till Millie gives us directions!"  (The computerized voice of the GPS 'Goober' directions giver announces, 'Turn left, then turn right, then turn left, then make a U-turn, then arrive on your right, or, your left...' "  Undine and Ulmer call her Monotone Millie, sometimes Mechanical Mildred!) 

Ulmer:   "I'm getting hungry!  When can we eat our wrapped sandwiches?  Are there pickles...?"


(Special Note:   The perpetrator dedicates this writing to Bethie in honor of her milestone birthday, and to let her know how much he loves and honors her.  She is brave, strong, smart as the dickens and beautiful, an exemplary mother, sister and daughter, and he, the perpetrator, is privileged and always delighted to have her in his life!  Happy Birthday!!)

-- Humbly Submitted, 06-29-18 -- Joel K.