Come Back Barbara Lewis

Do words, sounds and images enter your brain mysteriously and stay there?  Do you wonder where they come from?  And are you amazed at how long they stay?  I do.  It borders on creepy.   Here’s what happened Friday morning.

I was home minding my own business, doing the Chicago Tribune crossword puzzle at the kitchen counter and drinking coffee.  My smart speaker was off, my wife was sleeping, and it was a dead quiet morning when the notes of a John Prine tune popped into my head.  I had neither heard the song recently, read about it or John Prine, nor run across the lyrics or the theme they represent.

I had read the whole Tribune, cut out some articles, talked to my son on the phone, made myself breakfast, and settled into the crossword puzzle.  Nothing about that song was any part of my morning. 

And then out of nowhere I started whistling the tune, both verse and chorus.   It was Come Back to Us Barbara Lewis, Hare Krishna, Beauregard.   As I whistled, I could hear John Prine’s voice inside my head, and the lyrics line by line, word for word.  Not only that, I pictured the album cover the song was on, Common Sense.  I have it in the shack.

I tried to keep my mind on the puzzle.  It was an annoyingly difficult crossword. The puzzles get increasingly harder each day.  Monday’s is the easiest and Saturday’s can take most of the day if you let it.  As I pondered clues like “with diffidence” (answer: shyly) and “divination” (augury) John Prine’s 1975 song pushed the April 5, 2024 puzzle right out of my head.

A song, mind you, that played only in my head in a kitchen perfectly quiet except for my whistling.  The reasons for it invading my thoughts are unknown.  The song starts with Prine painting a portrait of a troubled woman, Barbara Lewis, in the first verse.  I could see her clearly.  Strung out perhaps.  Or mentally ill. Maybe both. 

The last time that I saw her
She was standing in the rain
With her overcoat under her arm
Leaning on a horsehead cane

She said, "Carl, take all the money"
She called everybody Carl
My spirit's broke, my mind's a joke
And getting up's real hard

 

I was traveling in Europe, then North Africa, and Europe again in 1975.  I probably encountered more new and different people that year, some call them strangers, than any other year of my life.  The 60’s weren’t far behind us.  Characters like Barbara Lewis, both men and women, crossed my path often.

 I call these persons characters as if they are on a stage or depicted in a novel.  Trouble is, they are real people living their lives, however difficult or jumbled that life might be.  When face to face with those living on the edge I was fascinated, a little fearful, and at the time worried for them.  They may not have wanted my concern, but it was there all the same.  Prine was concerned too.  The chorus he wrote tells us that. 

 

Don't you know her when you see her?
She grew up in your backyard
Come back to us
Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard

 

The confused and disheveled woman you see now?  With the horsehead cane that calls everyone Carl?  She was a girl you knew when you were a kid.  Maybe your friend.  Prine wanted that girl back, as she used to be.  Maybe you know a girl like that too.

 I had reserved a lap lane at the Ottawa YMCA for early afternoon.  While swimming a nonstop half mile the lyrics and music surrounding Barbara Lewis kept going through my head.  Lap swimmers can be antisocial.  In fairness, swimmers can’t talk when inhaling through their mouth and exhaling underwater through their nose.  It is a great time to think, though.  John Prine and Barbara Lewis soaked up my entire forty-minute swim and five-minute cool down. 

Remember the 1977 Spielberg movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind?  Richard Dreyfus plays electrician Roy Neary, an ordinary guy investigating unusual power outages at night for the power company near his home near Muncie, Indiana.  While pulled over on a blacktop road checking power lines three brightly lit aircraft fly over his pickup truck.  He becomes convinced the pilots are extra-terrestrials in UFO’s.  After that, Roy Neary appears very distracted to those who know him best.

 That wouldn’t have been so bad, but as strange things begin to happen in both Muncie and other communities on the national news, he develops an obsession with a particular shape.  One night at dinner with his family he used his fork to fashion his mashed potatoes and what was left in the bowl into a small model of a mountain.  Attempts to ask him what he was doing went unanswered.  His family was concerned.

 The next day he hauled a huge pile of dirt into the family room and constructed a giant model of the same mountain with even more detail.  By then he was ignoring his family, talking to himself, and acting truly crazy. His wife gathered the kids and fled their home. 

 Before you know it, Roy Neary is speeding northwest nonstop on the interstate.  He ends up outside Hulett, Wyoming where he skids his truck to a sudden stop. 

 Looming before him is Devils Tower National Monument where a majestic lava butte rises out of the western plain.  It’s famous. You’ve seen it.  Devil’s Tower matches the shape he first created with his mashed potatoes.  It was as if that mountain drew him to Wyoming against his will.  Roy Neary was totally controlled by a force outside himself that wouldn’t let him think of anything else.  You probably know what happened next and may even be hearing the five notes of the movie’s title song in your head right now.

 I continued thinking about John Prine and his song about Barbara Lewis as the day went on, but I wasn’t nearly as absorbed as Roy Neury was by Devil’s Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  I’m OK.  Don’t worry about me.  Retired people can do these things.

 After my swim at the Ottawa Y, I stopped at the Northside Kroger to pick up a few things off the shopping list.  As I was hunting for Thomas’ English Muffins a young woman stocking shelves atop a step stool spoke to me.

 “So, it was you doing the whistling!  What is that song?”

 I was embarrassed.  Sometimes I don’t realize I’m whistling.  And sometimes I’m loud.

 “It’s an old John Prine song, probably before your time.”

 “Try me.  What’s the name of it?”

 “Come Back to us, Barbara Lewis, Hare Krishna, Beauregard.”

 “Oh…yeah, I don’t know that one.”

 I spotted my English muffins and headed quietly to the next aisle.

 “Don’t stop whistling because of me,” she said.

 I did.  The lyrics that matched the tune going through my head, silently after being called out by the Kroger girl stocking shelves, were these two verses:

 

Selling Bibles at the airports
Buying Quaaludes on the phone
Hey, you talk about a paper route
She's a shut-in without a home

God save her, please, she's nailed her knees
To some drugstore parking lot
Hey, Mr. Brown, turn the volume down
I believe this evening's shot

 

Prine goes from describing Barbara’s appearance and demeanor to pointing out her behavior.  I never sold books in airports, nor bought Quaaludes, but I encountered people who did.  They were my age and younger, on the tail end of the hippie movement, possibly exploited, and appeared to be lost.  I could have been wrong, and they may not have welcomed my pity, but I felt sad when I saw people in those situations.  I wanted to help them find better ways to live their lives, but I didn’t know how. 

 I worked temp jobs through a government funded agency called Manpower in Bloomington-Normal during my senior year at ISU.  The day labor jobs they offered came mostly from moving company drivers needing last-minute help unloading the belongings of newly transferred families from a semi into their new homes.  I had to cut class to take those jobs and didn’t do it often.

 But when I did, I was often paired to work with alcoholics from the Home Sweet Home Mission.  Those able to work loved Manpower because it was close to the mission, and they always paid out at the end of each day.  I had a car.  When the job was over and I was leaving the Manpower office with my day’s wages, those guys I worked with would almost always ask me for a ride to the nearest liquor store.  I can see their faces still.

 It was that same earn and immediately spend economy that Prine described as selling Bibles for Quaaludes; bust your ass moving furniture into a newly built tri-level in the morning, buy a fifth of Old Thompson and a couple bottles of Thunderbird wine for the afternoon while living in a homeless shelter. 

 As for Barbara’s doings on her knees in that parking lot, I always shared John’s plea for a higher power, or anyone else, to rescue sex workers from their fate.  “God save her please” or him, or them.  Please.

 And in this verse, John Prine delivers one of his famous hooks, that line in each song that stands out to the listener because it rings so very true.  It’s italicized below.

 

Can’t you picture her next Thursday?  Can you picture her at all?

At the Hotel Boulderado, at the dark end of the hall

I gotta shake myself and wonder, why she even bothers me
For if heartaches were commercials, we'd all be on TV

The Hotel Boulderado, built in 1909, is still in business, no doubt updated since 1973.  Today on their website you can get a room with a king bed for somewhere around $350.  I hope they put some lighting in the dark end of that hall where John Prine caught a glimpse of Barbara Lewis.

 Prine claims not to know why Barbara Lewis bothers him, acknowledging his own troubles, but we all know why.  John Prine was able to feel and explain the pain of others in his songs.  That’s what made him great. 

 He applied that ability to so many songs and characters: Sam Stone, Donald and Lydia, the old couple in Hello in There, himself the jilted boyfriend in Far From Me, the beautiful and tragic song at the end of his career Summer’s End.  He made a career out of describing the compassion he felt for real life pain. His lyrics helped us see and feel that pain and be compassionate too.

 Unless you saw John Prine live and heard him introduce his songs, you didn’t get to know where they came from or how they came about.  We have the benefit of reading his thoughts about the song Come Back to Us, Barbara Lewis…in the liner notes of John Prine Live, released in 1988.  He explained that he began working on the song in the summer of ’73 during a tour of Colorado ski towns with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.  “What I had in mind was this girl who left home, did drugs, did religion, did husbands, and ended up doing diddley.”

 John Prine was taken from us by Covid in April of 2020 during the pandemic.  We lost something when he died that I don’t think has been replaced, an American minstrel poet who sows understanding and concern for others in ways that we cannot help but acknowledge.  We need artists like him that help us find acceptance and understanding of one another.  If you hear of one, let me know. 

Two Salvadorans

 I Care International did something new during its 2024 mission to El Salvador.  We were asked by our hosts to devote our first day of clinic to the residents, staff, and neighbors of a small congregate center for children and adolescents.  We immediately agreed to help.

The name of this small institution is important.  Hogar in Spanish is home, as opposed to casa which is house.  Agape is a Greek word which translates to unconditional love, a wonderful concept but one humans struggle to live up to.  I encountered that word before in my career as a social worker serving children and families.

The staff of Hogar Agape take pains not to identify their facility as an orphanage.  Orphan implies a child whose parents are deceased.  Throughout the world that is rarely the case for children who find themselves being cared for by those outside their family.  Most children in such situations have parents but cannot live with them for a variety of reasons; poverty, abandonment, abuse, and neglect among them.  

A turn off a well-traveled highway outside San Miguel took our bus up a steep and rocky dirt road.  As our bus climbed the hill, we were about to enter El Salvador’s child welfare system.

As we neared the facility, the road ran out.  The last two hundred yards were too steep and rutted for the bus.  Some walked the rocky path to the gate.  I rode in a 4x4 truck with big tires carrying our equipment.  The driver of the truck was a young woman with a great smile who had full control of its manual transmission, downshifting often and at the right times.  She was Hogar Agape’s superintendent.

At the top the path ended, a gate swung open, and we entered the grounds of Hogar Agape.  A sturdy fence surrounded a small group of brightly painted buildings and cottages.  Children of all ages and adult staff greeted us.  I sensed that they didn’t get a lot of visitors, especially those packing 6,000 pairs of used glasses, optical equipment, and several suitcases of donations. We figured if we were coming all that way, we could bring them more than glasses.

Their modest requests prior to the trip gave us an idea of their needs.  In the suitcases were toothpaste and toothbrushes, barrettes and hairbrushes, and various other personal care items.  When we relayed their requests to our I Care members and supporters we were floored by their response.  Many responded with gifts of cash.

They guided us to a small central building where we set up six stations: intake and eye charts outside, nurses, auto refractors, eye docs, and dispensing inside.  Though we anticipated serving only a hundred or so patients, and tried to limit ourselves to equipment and glasses which were absolutely necessary, I think we unpacked just about everything.

We gave eye exams to everyone; children, staff, neighbors, and the vehicle drivers.  Not our normal population.  When free clinics are advertised in needy communities, they attract people who struggle with their vision and have good reasons to seek help. At Hogar Agape we delivered a lot of good news.

“Enhorabuena, tus ojos son buenos.  No se necesitan gafas.”  (Congratulations, your eyes are good.  No glasses needed.)  At the same time, we encountered many whose vision needed correction.  For most, it was their first eye exam ever.

I fit a young woman I thought was a staff member with a serious degree of myopia who had never worn glasses.  She was so delighted when she looked out the window at the trees, she laughed out loud. 

But as much as she liked the new view, she was choosy about the style.  I have long since forgiven people of all ages who desire attractive eyewear.  Vanity is universal.  And as I told the young woman “Las gafas no te ayudarán si no las usas" (glasses will not help you if you don’t wear them.)

Styles come and go.  I had given her very small frames, which used to be in style, but she preferred something bigger.  I went back to our stock and found a larger frame with the same prescription.  She thanked me profusely.

After our work was done, we had hoped to present each resident with a gift bag of items volunteers back home had prepared for each young person served by Hogar Agape.  But a number of neighbor children were also congregated there, and the staff quickly realized it would be too awkward.  Also, quietly and without ceremony, we slipped the superintendent a check representing the generosity of I Care members and others who support their work.  We did what we set out to do.  It was a wonderful day.

I decided to try to walk down to where the bus was parked.  When the young woman I fitted with larger glasses for her myopia saw me doing so, and perhaps noticed my awkwardness, she quickly came to my side, took my bag, clamped onto my arm, and helped me.  It gave us a chance to talk.  We spoke in Spanish, but I’m reporting our conversation in English.  

“How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“How long have you worked here?”

“I don’t work here, I’m a resident.”

“Really?  How old were you when you came?”

“Ten.”

“And you have lived here since?  Only here?”

“Yes.  Some of the older staff who came here as children stayed as staff, but I’m going to leave.”

“What is next for you?”

“I want to go to school.  I like it, and I get good grades.”

“What do you want to study?”

“I want to be a lawyer.”

“Do you know where you will study?”

“No.  But I know I want to leave El Salvador.”

“Where will you go?  The United States?”

“No.  Everyone talks about the United States, but I need to study in Spanish.  There are good schools in South America.  I would like to go to Chile.  Maybe Argentina.”

“Be careful here,” she said.  She pulled me across a deep rut to a smoother side of the road.

“Do you have a plan?”

“I’m putting one together.  Agape wants to help.  There may be scholarships.  Perhaps the church will help.  And I’ll work.  It may take a while, but I’m young.”

My thoughts went to resources available to young people who have grown up in the child welfare system in Illinois.  Unfortunately, El Salvador’s system is largely local and supported almost entirely by charity.  I imagined the obstacles she would face, but I also felt her determination. 

We reached the bus.  She gave me a hug and thanked me again for the glasses. 

“You have your whole life in front of you, and you have a good plan.  Good luck.  I’ll be thinking of you.”

I’m still thinking of her, and all the young people served by Hogar Agape.  There is so much need in the world, yet so much potential. Sometimes you have the privilege of seeing both closeup.  It gives me hope.    

* * * * * * * * *

During the three days following our visit to Hogar Agape, we served the people of San Alejo and its surrounding area.  San Alejo is a community of about 20,000 forty-five minutes east of San Miguel.  In contrast to San Miguel, El Salvador’s second-largest city at just over 500,000 people, San Alejo is quiet, and the people are tranquilo.  It was a pleasure serving them.  In three days, I Care provided services to nearly a thousand Salvadorans in San Alejo.  Follows is the story of just one, Ami, a nine-year-old girl accompanied by her mother.  She was a special patient.

Ami was diagnosed with both myopia and astigmatism.  Myopia is also called near-sightedness, meaning those with the condition can typically see well close up, for reading as an example, but for objects farther away, their vision blurs and is indistinct.  

Astigmatism, a deviation from the normal curve of the cornea or lens of the eye, further complicated Ami’s vision.  Astigmatism distorts both near and far vision.  Ami’s astigmatism was serious.  So much so that the optometrist examining her knew we would not have glasses that matched her needs in our stock of 6,000 used glasses we brought for the clinic.  Pronounced astigmatism demands a nearly perfect prescription to be satisfactorily corrected.  Ami fit a small category of patients that required we make custom lenses back home and deliver them back to her in El Salvador.  It’s an expensive process.  I Care does because what is more important in the life of a nine-year-old than good vision?

Both Ami and her mother were surprised and a bit confused by this turn of events.  Ami’s mother explained that she brought Ami to the clinic because she noticed her squinting and struggling to make out street signs and the like but had no idea the extent of her problem.

“Is it true that children think their vision is normal and only realize what seeing well really is when they get glasses?  I feel bad I didn’t get help for her until now.”

She was speaking Spanish rapidly and I asked her to repeat it more slowly.  Then I understood.

“Yes, it’s true.  There is no way for someone with faulty vision to know what good vision is until it is corrected.  It can’t be helped without an eye exam.”

Her eyes began to tear up.  Ami looked at her mother with alarm.  I began a story I’ve told many times in past clinics.

” In the United States, it is normal that school children get their first eye exam in grade three when they are nine.  It happened to me.  I failed that eye test at school.  My eyes were like Ami’s.  I had both myopia and astigmatism.  When I got my first pair of glasses, I walked outside the eye clinic and looked down the street at a maple tree.  I could see every leaf on the tree when before I only saw green.  It was like the world opened up for me.”

“That’s what will happen to you Ami.  For people like us, the world is a much bigger place with glasses.  And, if you are like me when I was nine, you won’t want to take them off.”

Ami’s Mom put her arm around her daughter.  I handed her my handkerchief so she could wipe away her tears.

We bring empty frames to our clinics just for this purpose.  I asked Kelly, who makes her living as an optician, to help me.

“See that little girl over there?  She’s nine and we’re going to make her custom lenses back home.  Help me find some cute frames for her to choose from that will fit her face.”

From our stash of empty frames, Kelly found eight or so frames that she thought might work, but there was a special pair she thought were special.

“Kids her age really go for these.” Kelly held up a pink pair of Juicy Couture frames.  “I bet she picks these.”

I laid out all eight frames on our worktable for Ami and her Mom to see.  Ami’s small hand went straight for the pink Juicy Coutures.

“Put them on.”

They fit perfectly.  I showed Ami her face with the glasses using my cell phone.  She smiled broadly.  Her Mom, still misty-eyed, dabbed her eyes with my handkerchief a final time and handed it back to me. 

I measured the distance between Ami’s pupils, noted it on her intake sheet with the prescription, and then adjusted the frames so they fit a tad tighter.  I confirmed the family’s home address and a good cell number, wrapped the frames up in her paperwork, and secured it all with two rubber bands.

We estimate between four to six weeks before custom-made glasses make it back to the recipient’s home country.  It’s not making the glasses that takes the time, but making sure we can deliver them safely and securely.  Postal systems in the countries we serve are not always trustworthy.  We much prefer giving custom glasses to a traveler who can deliver the glasses directly to our in-country hosts who in turn deliver them in person.  Glasses for someone who needs them that much are very precious cargo.

The young woman at Hogar Agape who received her first ever pair of glasses at nineteen, and Ami, who got her first pair at age nine, are a study in contrasts.  Ami’s mother, attentive to her family’s needs, sought us out because she suspected something was wrong with her daughter’s vision.  It would be ten years after whatever storm blew the aspiring law student’s family apart and caused her to be institutionalized until she would realize a similar benefit.   Yet in both cases, I Care International was there to help them.

Thank you all, on behalf of the people we serve, for making such work possible through your support.

June is Three

We spent a long weekend in Chicago celebrating our granddaughter June’s birthday.  It was a doozy.  She can make the “b” sound but somehow has not connected it to the beginning of birthday.  When I walked into her house on Friday, she ran to me busting to talk.

“Papa, it’s my ‘irthday!  And I’m three!”

“You’re not a baby anymore June.”

“No. I’m big!”

June grows and changes every day.  Especially when it comes to vocabulary.  A popular phrase in her house, often spoken to her by her parents, is “use your words.”  She has command of more and more every day.  But there are times she forgets to use them.

The twos weren’t terrible for June as often billed.  But she does have difficulty when she doesn’t get her way.  She’s not screaming as often anymore, but she gets visibly angry. That’s when her parents say “use your words”, and then use their words back.  It’s beginning to work.  Every day she finds new words to express how she feels.  Not that speech and cognition are magic bullets. 

Consider this day earlier in the week.  My daughter Maureen, June’s mother, had to work early and Shannon, June’s nanny, arrived while June was still having breakfast.  Maureen left right away. 

When breakfast was over, June pointed to a cabinet and said “biden.”  Long i. 

“Biden?” Shannon repeated.  She had no idea what June was saying.  Couldn’t be the president.

“What is biden, June?”

“Biden,” June said louder, surprised that Shannon didn’t understand, and annoyed.

The day fell apart from there.  June wouldn’t let it go, and Shannon couldn’t figure out how to break the code.  She looked in the cabinet, tried to distract June, and did often, but throughout the day June would remember, go to the kitchen, demand “biden”, and melt down when she didn’t get what she wanted.  Shannon marks it as one of their worst days.

June’s dad Don goes to work early and gets home first.  As soon as he walked in the back door, June ran towards him, with Shannon close behind. 

“Daddy!  Biden!”

Don opened the cupboard, pulled out a bottle of children’s vitamin gummies from the back, and gave her one.  June looked at Shannon and gloated.

“Biden is June’s word for vitamin.  We give her one in the morning when she finishes breakfast.  She thinks it’s a treat.”

”You guys,” Shannon said,  “you have to tell me these things.  She’s been frustrated and mad at me all day.”

Everybody is doing the best they can.  Learning a language is not a smooth road.

The weekend was packed.  Saturday morning, we made pancakes.  June is always part of this.  She’s handy with the whisk, as long as the bowl is wide and deep.

“I do it,” she says, adding the ingredients her mom measures out; three tablespoons of baking powder to the flour, a bunch of chia seeds, and a measure of oat milk.  I mash a banana and slide it in the bowl, her mom adds sugar.  A little skimpy on the sugar, I think.  She’ll be skimpy with the syrup too when they’re served.  I always want to sweeten it up more for June.  Not my call.  When the ingredients are assembled, June does the whisking.  She’s done it before and considers it her job. 

These words “I do it” pop up often.  June likes to pick out her clothes, undress, and dress herself.  It’s faster for adults to dress her.  Sometimes June gets her underwear on backwards or gets one leg in a leg hole and the other in the waistband.  But I’ve learned to use my words, wait patiently, and let her do it.  Harder than it seems.  I have no idea how this all worked at our house thirty-seven years ago when June’s mom was her age.  Gone from the memory bank.  It’s parenting, or rather grandparenting, made new for me by the years.

After breakfast, we drove to Great Wolf Lodge in Gurnee, a giant water park with an attached hotel and more.  The parking lot is sprawling and full.  You can smell the chlorine as soon as you walk in the door. 

People are already waiting for the water park to open with all their gear: floaties, goggles, coolers, you name it.  When the park opens, those in line rush to get seats close to the action, where they set up camp, watch their kids, shout above the rush and noise of the water, and enjoy the day.  For us, it was find our room, get our swimming suits on, and get in the water as soon as possible.

Despite all that Great Wolf Lodge is: food stands, an arcade, a dance hall, a giant breakfast buffet, a ropes course, and more – in the end it’s all about the water.  Looming just past the lobby is a giant two-story-tall space with tubes and slides winding through it, towers of steps, a giant bucket that dumps every ten minutes or so, a wave pool, screams, crying, laughter, heat, humidity, and chaos.  The place was absolutely stuffed with kids and young parents.  Circling the whole kit and kaboodle was the lazy river, packed with inner tubes and people.  At least they were all going the same direction. 

We were there last year for June’s birthday, so she knew the drill.  This year she immediately disappeared.  Her parents assumed she would go to the little kid’s slides she enjoyed last year, but no.  June had other ideas.  June’s other grandma, Nona, who had trailed behind, caught up to us and pointed.

“I saw her go straight up those stairs.”

It was the tower leading to the big slides.  The rest of our group, June’s aunt and uncle and two cousins, friends of Don and Moe and their two boys, and Grandma Colleen, were carrying towels and gear to put down on chairs and mark our area.  I was empty-handed.

“I’ll find her” I said confidently and waded through the shallow water to the tower steps.

I arrived just in time for the giant bucket near the roof to reach its tipping point and send water crashing down on everyone below.  It felt like it all landed on me.  I put my hand over my glasses to keep them on my face.  Welcome to Great Wolf Lodge.

June was near the top sitting on the steps near the line waiting to go down the giant orange slide, not the biggest in the park, but close.  A nice young staffer, who looked to be about fourteen, politely told me she was too small to use it.  Not that I would have let her.

“Let’s go back down June.”

“OK, Papa.”

June ended up spending her day mostly on the pink and purple slides.  In height and speed, they were two notches above the yellow slides and never failed to make June smile when she came shooting out the pipe at the bottom.  If she went down those slides once, she went down a hundred times.  It was perpetual motion.  Shoot out the bottom, climb over the side, run through shallow water to get back to the steps, climb to the steps to the entrance, and do it again.  Over and over and over.  It wore me out just watching her.

We persuaded June and her four friends, all boys about her age, to stop for snacks and drinks.  But they wouldn’t stop long.  We got them to try the wave pool, which was hard to manage on their own without adults, so that was short-lived.  Even at three and four, they preferred the freedom of being on their own.  It happens so fast, doesn’t it?

We were successful in getting June to join me on some trips around the park on the lazy river.  She wanted her own inner tube of course, but latched onto my thumb and didn’t let go.  We traveled together, spinning around, navigating between the other floaters.  We pretended we were boat captains, navigating the current.  I hope I can get June on a real boat in Ottawa this summer.  Maybe a canoe trip down the Fox.  June’s to-do list is wide open.  I want to be part of it as much as I can.

When we left the water park and headed back to our rooms, we went into Birthday party mode.  The largest of our four rooms became the party room, we had the pizza delivered, got out the cupcakes Don and Moe made the day before, assembled presents, and when everyone arrived the party was on.  

What makes kids in hotels jump on the beds?  It’s universal.  It got loud, we had some drinks, and when we had eaten our fill of pizza, we gathered around June to light the candles, turn out the lights, and started singing her the Happy Birthday song. 

Those moments are June’s favorites.  Some kids are shy or embarrassed to be the center of so much attention.  June is not.  She glanced quickly at everyone singing and turned her attention to the three candles on the cupcake in front of her, doing everything she could not to blow them out before the singing stopped.  It was a repeat of the year before, with a taller June standing again in the midst of family and friends drinking in their love.

 When we got to the last “happy birthday to you…” June blew the candles out with a blast of air and led the yelling and clapping.  Another year in the books.  Will we all be here next year?  I hope so.

The next day after breakfast in the lodge at 7:00, June and her friends were hard at play in the water park until check out, when we went our separate ways.  We went back to June’s house to stay one more night.  She was asleep in her now front-facing car seat before we left the parking lot.

I forgot how deeply overtired kids can sleep.  When we were back at Don and Moe’s Hermosa bungalow June was dead to the world.  Lost in that kind of sleep where your arms dangle, your head rolls back, you don’t wake up for anything.  June’s Dad carried her to bed. 

Sometime later Don and Moe agreed that if they didn’t wake June up soon, she wouldn’t sleep through the night.  Those are discussions young parents have all the time.  Don opened her bedroom door, turned off the white noise machine, and opened the curtains.  Nothing.  We thought she would wake and come out to greet us.  June kept sleeping.

After a while I asked, “Can I go in there and maybe coax her awake?”

Moe answered.  “Go for it, Papa.”

I parked myself in a rocking chair by June’s bed and watched her sleep.  Then I started whistling as softly as I could “Dream a Little Dream of Me”.  I thought it was written by the Mamas and the Papas. That’s the sound I have in my head, Mama Cass’s sweet voice hitting those nice clear notes perfectly.  Turns out  the music was written by Fabian Andre and Gus Schwandt and the lyrics by Gus Kahn, in 1931.  It was later made popular by the likes of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Doris Day.

The whistling didn’t wake her up, so I sang the lyrics.  Most of them came back to me.  Even the second verse:

              Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you,

              Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you,

              But in your dreams whatever they be,

              Dream a little dream of me.

June rolled over, opened her eyes, and listened, but said nothing.  After a while she sat up, put the soles of her feet together, and held them with her hands.  In yoga that pose is “happy baby.”  June yawned repeatedly.  Then told me this, out of the blue.

“It’s OK a cry.  Like you get a shot?  You cry causa hurts. Know what Papa?”

June’s voice went up on the words know what Papa.  Just three years old and already uptalking.  She waited for me to respond.

“What June?”

“Doan hafta keep crying causa gone.  Hurt goes sway.  Doan hafta cry. ‘S gone.”

She held her hands out palms up beside her.  All gone.

Wisdom from a three-year-old, likely taught to her by her parents.  I can’t wait to hear what she’s thinking when she’s four.

Happy birthday June.

Back to the Farm

 Let's go back to that Midwest farm kid who went to Europe, dashed around the continent, quit his school teaching job, and stayed there to finance more travel.  So far, he has gotten turned down by the oil rigs in Aberdeen Scotland, landed a job on a gas pipeline, quit for a job that didn’t exist, and got screwed out of $100 US.  He went back to his roots and started work on a dairy farm.

 

I should have known the farm I hired onto was upscale when I stepped off the bus with my backpack.  Standing by a polished new vehicle and waving was a blonde woman in shiny shoes, a wool blazer, and skirt.  Looked like she was going to an office job.  I walked towards her.

Westerton was a bus stop but there was no town there.  I was one of two passengers who got off. 

“Are you Mr. McClure?  Dave?”

I hadn’t heard my given name in a while.  Maybe I was done being “Yankee.”

“Yes.”

“I’m Maitland’s wife.  You spoke to him on the phone.  Here, let’s put your rucksack in the back.”

I sunk into a soft leather seat.  The dash was real wood.  Burled maple I guessed.

“Is this a Land Rover?”

 

 “Range Rover.  Made by Land Rover though.  First made in 1970.  New line of autos for them.”

The Land Rovers I’d seen, in Morrocco, were rugged vehicles, four-wheel drive, suitable for rough roads, desert treks, and safaris.  Bare bones comfort with powerful engines, good suspensions, big tires.  This was plush and smooth, made for a country with good roads, and money.

“My husband tells me you grew up on a dairy farm.  We don’t get a lot of experienced milkmen in the dairy barn.  Sandy usually has to train them.  Sandy runs our dairy.  He’s looking forward to meeting you.” 

“I’ve never worked in a modern milking parlor.  Ours was a little farm.  24 cows in a stanchion barn, raised our own calves, made a lot of hay.  This is a bigger operation.”

“Bigger, but cows are cows.  I hope you enjoy being part of our farm.”

She slowed the car and turned into the driveway of a modern building that looked like a recently built fraternity house.

“Bridget and Colin will get you settled.  They take care of the single men’s quarters.  Just knock on the door.”

I thanked her for the ride, and she smiled broadly.  She had very white teeth.  When she offered me her hand, I shook it and realized she hadn’t told me her name.

Bridget, probably in her late fifties, met me at the door wiping her hands on her apron.  She was cooking lunch.  She had a nice smile too. 

“I’ll show you to your room.  We’re putting you in with Charles.  He’s new to the farm, an old friend of the Mannie who’s fallen on hard times.”

“The Mannie?”

“Mr. Mackie.  We call him the Mannie.  That word comes from “Lord of the Manor.”  He’s not really a Lord, as in the House of Lords.  But he’ll probably be knighted one day.  He’s a fine man, Mr. Mackie.  And a good Mannie too.  They’re not all gentlemen ya ken? 

I later learned that “ya ken” meant “do you get it?”  They spoke differently here.  I would learn a lot.

Bridget took me upstairs to a small room a little bigger than a dorm room.  Two of everything; beds, desks, chests of drawers.  I kept my stuff in my backpack and slid it under the bed.  I hadn’t unpacked since I left the States.  Bridget said lunch was at noon and would be a good time for me to meet the rest of the farm hands.  Until then I laid down and read my book, The Drifters by James Michener.  Much better beds than the YMCA hostel.

I was dozing off when Charles came through the door.

“Bridget told me I have a new Yankee roommate.”

He was loud.  About Bridget’s age I’d guess.

“Yep, I am a Yankee.  From a dairy farm in Illinois.  But have a name.  Dave.  I’m betting you're Charles.”

“That I am.  Welcome to Maitland Mackie’s farm.  It’s a good place to work, but you wouldn‘t want to live here.  I’ve been here about two months. So, we’re both just settling in.  How about a wee dram Dave?

Charles reached under his bed and pulled out a bottle of Dewar’s Highland Cream.

“I don’t often turn it down.  What’s the occasion?  Just day drinking or something special?”

“New roommates lad.  That and I usually have a jolt at lunchtime.  Makes the rest of the day tolerable.”

“How’d you land here Charles?”

“My wife kicked me out and we’re headed for divorce.  Maitland gave me a job with the beef herd.  I was most grateful.”

“Beef herd?  I thought it was a dairy.”

“It’s everything.  Confinement hogs, ten thousand laying hens, beef herd, land just enough sheep to keep Maitland’s sheepdogs in shape.  But the dairy’s the big thing.  All the rest is new since they’ve expanded the farm.  Big investment.  But they’ve been milking cows here for God knows how long.  They deliver to the area.  Package their own products.  Working on an ice cream line.  The Mackies have their fingers in all the pies.”

“Wow.  I had no idea.”

“It’s quite an operation.”

He had two coffee cups in his hand and poured them each half full of whisky.  Handed one to me and raised his.

“Here’s to ya, Dave.  May you make a lot of money and never get old.”

He knocked his whisky down in two swallows.  I took a little longer.

“Let’s get down to lunch.  The boys will be anxious to meet you.  It’s quite a crew.”

I followed Charles down the stairs to a new adventure. 

Santa Comforts a Friend by the Fox

 This was published in the local papers.  If you don't read me on Face Book you would have missed it.  Thought you might need one more Christmas message.

Sometimes I go to “the flats” on the Fox River after swimming laps at the Ottawa YMCA.  The area along the walking trail between the Y and the aqueduct is a ribbon of nature running through town.  Sometimes you see a heron, or ducks.  The flow of the river brings me peace.

I was there last week. I heard someone whistling “Silver Bells” and looked down the trail.  Walking towards me was a guy with a big white beard in a red coat.  I yelled out to him.

“Did you know I’d be here Santa?”

“C’mon McClure, you know I keep track of you.”

“I’m glad.  I was afraid I wouldn’t see you again.”

“I was visiting Opportunity School. Such good kids and teachers.  They have a schedule all organized for me.  Great way to connect with kids.”

“Have a seat, Santa.” 

He sat next to me.  Nothing better than old friends.

“How was your year McClure?”

“I figure you know that already Santa.”

“I got a pretty good idea. I just want to hear what you thought of it.”

“I had a few health problems, like most older people, but they’re minor really. My granddaughter June is almost three and turning into an amazing little person. My wife and I get to see her often.  Both of our kids are doing well.  Life is pretty good.” 

“I’ve been keeping up with June.  She’s a cutie.  She’s going to have a great Christmas.”

A fish jumped in the river.  Santa and I watched a ring of ripples spread out on the water.

“You sure there’s not something bothering you McClure?

“Isn’t that nosy Santa?”

“Just trying to help. You know the lyrics of that Santa song ‘he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake.’  They’re true.  I know you’re having sleepless nights, and it’s not just because of that cough you have.”

I kept my eyes on the river.  Santa kept quiet.

“Ok, if you must know.  I’m terribly worried about a future I won’t be part of.”

“But June will be.”

“Exactly.”

“It would be good to name those fears.”

I turned to face him.

“I’m afraid we’ll never create solutions for climate change.  And the calamity will make life miserable.  We need huge investments in alternatives to fossil fuels, but instead the world wastes its resources waging war against each other. The level of hate and violence between us, as Americans and global citizens, only grows.  We’re losing the ability to compromise.  That is June’s future.  And I feel powerless to stop it.”

Santa nodded.

“A lot of people feel like you McClure.  They feel as passionately about it as those who fear change so much they will do anything to resist it.”

”We’ve screwed things up terribly.”

“You know as Santa I represent hope and goodness, as seen in the innocence of children.  So, I’m glad you’re worried about their future. That’s why I exist, and I’ll continue to exist as long as children believe in me.”

Santa has a soothing voice.  He’d make a great therapist.  He went on.

“You know what kids have that adults risk losing?  They have an unmistakable sense of joy.  It lives strong and clear in their eyes.  Just look.  I’m sure you see that joy in June’s eyes.  You must find joy again McClure.  Cause you know what happens after you abandon joy?  You’re in the worst trouble there is.  You lose hope.”

“It’s hard Santa.  I get so tired.”

“I know it’s hard.  Lighten up and have some faith in the children.  You were once a child who grew to shape the world.  Let the children lead us out of this mess.  That’s what has always happened in the 1,743 years since I was created.  Work for change.  Have faith.  Hang onto joy.  Don’t ever lose hope.”

“Thanks Santa.”       

“Merry Christmas McClure.”

After Being Fooled

 In the fall of 1974 in Aberdeen Scotland, after being fooled, quitting a perfectly good job, getting cheated out a hundred bucks, and losing out on a job that never existed I retreated a bit.  It’s instinct, I think.  I slowed down, slept in, withdrew from most conversations, and stayed to myself. 

The old guys at the YMCA hostel, who by their age or infirmity had been granted the privilege of not being forced to leave the premises at 9:00 a.m. and returning at 4:00, watched me warily.  I think they thought I was going to fold up somehow after my change of fortune, get terribly drunk, and act out my pain and shame publicly.  But I didn’t.  Instead, I stayed away from the fellas and found my way to the public library.

Aberdeen’s central library wasn’t far from the hostel, or the harbor, but I’d missed it entirely.  It was a big stone building funded by Andrew Carnegie, a famed railroad baron and library builder back in the States.  He was born in Dunfermline, Scotland between Edinburgh and Glasgow. 

I just wanted somewhere quiet and warm.  But they also had a good map room, and the biggest globe I’d ever seen.  Libraries are good places to get your bearings; take stock of where you are, where you’ve been, and if you’re lucky plan where you’re going. 

Feeling warmth is a rare sensation during a Scottish winter on the North Sea.  Chalk it up to drafty old buildings, bad central heating, or if you wish the trite generalization that Scots are cheap.  But truth be told the cold is mostly a function of latitude. 

Aberdeen sits on the earth at 57.15 degrees North latitude.  If you strike an arc on a globe at that latitude by holding your finger at that latitude while slowly turning it toward North America, like I did, you’ll find your finger on the southern tip of Hudson Bay in Canada.  No wonder it’s so damned cold in Aberdeen.  It’s almost a thousand miles north of our farm in Danvers.  And the Scots claim the North Sea actually tempers their climate. How that frigid body of water helps keep them warmer is beyond me, but that’s the theory.

The Aberdeen library was uncharacteristically warm.  There in the map room, I would shed my pea coat and also a wool sweater I rarely took off, then soak up both the warmth and the silence.  The library had soft leather chairs where I sometimes snuck in a nap.  A librarian woke me only once that I recall and did so kindly.  I wasn’t the only indigent person sleeping in that library, and we clearly couldn’t pass as scholars doing research.  Most of us just wanted to escape the world outside.

When I was awake, I often moved a giant world atlas from its home on the shelf to a vacant wooden table to view the world in more detail.  When I reconstructed the route I traveled that summer and looked at it on the big pages of the atlas, my trip looked crazy.  I kept crisscrossing the continent.

I landed in Amsterdam and stayed up for 36 hours straight.  Caught a train to Frankfort, Germany to see an old Danvers friend in the military and from there went straight to Rome.  I learned that with a Eurail pass, one could board the train at night, sleep in those comfy enclosed European train compartments, and save the cost of a hotel stay.  Get tired, go to the train station, sleep all night, and wake up in another country.

From Rome to Vienna.  Vienna to Pamplona, Spain to catch the festival of San Fermin and the daily running of the bulls.  Seven days of bullfights, wine, and parties.  I pitched a tent in the park there and met people from all over the world; a Moroccan man trying to find a home in Europe, teenagers from Las Vegas, a girl from Alaska who wanted to cross the Straits of Gibraltar into Morocco.

First, she had to go back to France to meet up with friends and borrow money.  In ten days, she promised to meet me in Seville at the American Express office at noon. We would go together from there to Morocco.  

I went from Pamplona to San Sebastian Spain on the Atlantic coast.  There I decided on my immediate future.  I resigned from my teaching job in Ottawa via telegram, wrote my parents a long letter, and promised myself that I would spend at least a year, maybe longer, living outside the United States. 

I left the Basque country in northern Spain and made my way to Seville in the south but the girl from Alaska didn’t show.  No cell phones you know.  And no messages for me at the American Express office. For three days I hung out at a café across from American Express watching for her before going on to Morocco alone.  I tried not to take it personally but found that impossible. 

When I got to Morocco the world shifted.  I went from an orderly and familiar Christian continent to the Muslim world.  I loved the colors, the open markets, the crush of people in the streets, the kif, the mint tea, the exotic music, and the marked difference between that world and everything I knew before.

I met a ragtag bunch of Europeans on the boat from Gibraltar.  Together, after a few days in Tetuan, we went down the coast to a small fishing village called Targa and camped on the beach.  The locals greeted us with a gift, a bucket of fresh sardines.  They showed us how to cook them over an open fire.  It was wildly beautiful.  But I knew I couldn’t stay.  I went back to Amsterdam, sold my return flight to the States, took a tour of Germany, and then made my way to Scotland where there was money to be made.

Where would I go after Scotland?  I began to form a plan.  I decided to go back to Morocco in the spring and take it from there.  I consulted the big double-page display of North Africa in the atlas.  Even just a little planning would make my trip more linear and more economical than before.

From Morocco, I could follow the Mediterranean coast east to Egypt, passing through Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya.  At Cairo, I could go down the Nile River through Sudan, and head east to the port of Mombasa, Kenya on the Indian Ocean. I’d met a Portuguese couple who were heading that way to work on a boat, called a tramp steamer, from there to India.  Their goal was Goa, a former Portuguese seaside colonial state in India.  They wanted to be there by Christmas.  They might be on Goa’s beaches now, I thought, as winter approached in Scotland.  It was a plan.  But I’d need to finance it.  Maybe work along the way. 

The other resource I made use of in the library was the newspapers.  When all else fails, there are always the employment ads.  I scanned them daily.  One day this ad appeared for a job near Aberdeen.

Dairyman wanted.  State of the art milking parlor system.  Must be experienced.  Work with a team milking, feeding, and caring for 200+ cows daily.  Room and board provided.  Every other weekend free.  Apply in writing only.

As soon as I saw that ad I sat down and wrote a response.  I described the dairy farm I grew up on in Illinois, the cows, the types of milking machines we used, etc..  I laid it on thick, but I didn’t have to stretch the truth.  When you don’t know what else to do, it is comforting to fall back on what you know.

I gave the number of the pay phone at the hostel as a contact and told the old fellas in no uncertain terms to answer the phone if it rang.  It hardly ever rang.  The dairy farm owner called early two days later during breakfast.  I answered.

They hired me over the phone.  Not the best pay, but no need to spend a nickel of it.  I would take the first bus the next day to a small town northwest of Aberdeen, and they would pick me up at the bus station in a Land Rover to take me to the farm.  My unemployment didn’t last long.   Once again, I said goodbye to the fellas and assured them this time I wouldn’t be back. 

I went to bed early that last night at the hostel.  Sometime during the night, I was awakened by yelling from the day room.  Sound traveled well inside the hostel. The room dividers didn’t go to the ceiling, “so the heat can circulate better” the hostel manager claimed.

“What heat?” was the logical follow-up question.

I buried my head under the blankets, but the yelling continued.  Finally, I got up to investigate. 

It was Hamish, one of the older and perhaps frailest of the poor bastards who found themselves alone in their last years in that bleak facility.  He was sitting in the dark at a table in the day room, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, his back to the windows that faced the street.  The only light came from a streetlight down the block.  When I came out, he was quiet.

“Hamish, what are you doing up?”

He looked up at me with big eyes.  He looked scared.

“Who are you?”

“What do you mean?  It’s Yankee.  You know me.  What are you doing up?  And what’s all this yelling about?”

“They’re coming after us Yankee.  Here they are again! Don’t let ‘em see ya.”

With that, he hunched under the table and began yelling.  No words, just pure fear.  A light shined through the windows, fell on the wall nearest us, and then swept around the room till it was gone.

“Stop yelling Hamish.  It’s OK.  Those are headlights from a car on the street.  Nobody’s coming to get us.”

“The hell they aren’t.  Tell the others.  They’ll kill us all.”

The look on Hamish’s face made the hair stand up on my arms.  It was as if he’d lost his mind.

“Wait here.”

I went back to the sleeping rooms and banged on Archie’s door.

“Archie, wake up.  Something’s wrong with Hamish.  He’s talking crazy.  You gotta see this.”

Archie answered from inside the room. 

“Let me get my pants on.”

He stumbled out of his room rubbing his eyes.  We sat on either side of Hamish in the day room.  Archie spoke to him in his slow deep voice.

“What’s this Yankee tells me about us being in danger Hamish?  Looks safe to me.”

“They’re trying to spot us with the lights Archie.  Once they get us in their sights, they’ll start firing.”

“How long since you’ve had a drink, Hamish?”

“Canna tell ya.  Three days, maybe four.  Me check comes tomorrow.”

Like most old guys who lived there permanently, Hamish was on the government dole.  

Headlights entered the room like before.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph they’re back!”

Hamish grabbed us both by the arms, tried to pull us under the table, and howled.

“Yankee, go turn the lights on,” Archie said.

I ran to find the switch.  When I turned back to the table, Archie had his arm on Hamish’s shoulder and was talking to him softly in Gaelic.  As Archie talked, Hamish scratched his neck hard with both hands.  His long fingernails, the first two on his right-hand brown from nicotine in the roll-ups, had made red streaks on his skin.  Some of the streaks were bleeding.  I hadn’t seen that in the dark. 

“He has the D.T.s Yankee.”

“What’s that?”

“Delerium Tremens.  Comes from alcohol withdrawal.  He needs a drink is all.”

“Jesus, Archie shouldn’t he be in the hospital?  He’s old.  This must be so hard on him.”

‘I’m not putting him in hospital.  If he chooses to go, when his head is clear, he can go on his own but I’m not doing that to him.”

“So, what do we do?  We can’t leave him like this.”

“We give him a drink.  Do you have any whisky?”

“Yeah, I have a full flask, but that sounds crazy.  He’s out of his mind because of alcohol, and we’re giving him more?”

“He’s out of his mind because his body craves alcohol.  Once he gets it, he’ll settle down.  He probably hasn’t slept for days.  Give him a jill and have him drink it slow.  Once he gets it down, wait ten minutes or so and give him another.  Then make sure he drinks a couple glasses of water.  Get him to bed.  He’ll be all right Yankee.  Once Hamish gets a bottle tomorrow, he’ll be himself again.”

“How do you know all this Archie?”

“I went through the D.T.’s myself a long time ago.  But I was able to quit the drink.  I’m not sure Hamish ever has.  And at his age, he may never.  Though I’m afraid never may last just a short while for our friend Hamish.  Will you do this for him Yankee?”

“OK.  Yeah.  I’ll do it.”

Thank you.  I’m going back to bed.”

That was my last night in the YMCA Hostel in Aberdeen.  The last time I saw Archie or Hamish or any of the old fellas.

Travel enlightens one so.

Glad That Didn't Happen to Me

 As the pipeline job outside Aberdeen went on the weather and working conditions worsened.  More and more the talk among the workers turned to when the job would shut down. 

“Why don’t they tell us the plan?” I asked.

“They don’t want us to quit,” the old man who loved rainbows and watched out for me explained.  “They tell us now the job is over Friday, and they won’t have enough men to finish out the week.”

“Where would we go to find better pay than this Paddy? I’m staying till the end.”

I’d taken to calling the old man Paddy.  He liked it.

“And then what Yankee?”  Scrabble around Aberdeen for weeks finding something else?  You’ll make nothing at all for two weeks and spend down your savings.  If you were smart, you’d have a line on your next job now.  And to think I once took you for a smart Yankee, if such a thing exists.”

“What are you going to do Paddy?”

“I miss my wife and her cooking.  The bones are creaking with the cold and there’s a peat fire back home waiting to warm me up.  I’ve tucked away enough money to get us through the winter nicely.  You won’t find me looking for work till spring.”

It sounded so good.  Paddy went on.

“You’re a long way from home Yankee, but I imagine you could get there if you wanted.   Will you be heading that way soon?”

“I’m not going home.  I’m planning to travel more come spring.”

“Would be a shame not to be with family at Christmas.  But Christmas is far bit away.  This job will never last that long.  You know that do ya Yankee?”

“Yeah, I know.”

I didn’t know what would happen next.  Usually, I love that feeling.  But that’s not how I felt walking to the hostel in the dark with my friends.  It was Friday, we’d gotten paid, but I was down.

My young Irish friends, who got me the job, were happy.  They could see the end of the job coming and the prospect of hometowns, family, and girlfriends.

“Come down to harbor with us Yankee.”

“I think I’ll skip it tonight.”

We’d been drinking near Aberdeen’s harbor, bustling with activity from the North Sea oil boom.   Our favorite pub was always crammed with sailors spending money.  It wasn’t the sailors that drew us there, so much as the girls that hung around the sailors. 

“Come on ya cheap laggard.  How many more nights will we be together?"

 

At the pub my mates got into a game of darts for serious money, and I stayed put on my bar stool.  An older man took a seat beside me and ordered a gill (say jill) of Dewars whisky and a Guiness back.  Then (1974) as many drank whisky in Scottish bars as pints.  Many drank both.   I was nursing a gill of White Horse whisky with a Newcastle Brown Ale chaser.

A gill is four ounces.  Never saw a shot (1.5 ounces) back then in Scotland.   Scots are serious drinkers.  And no “e” in Scotch whisky.  Whiskey is made in America or Ireland.  Whisky is Canadian, Scotch, or Japanese.  

At the dart board, my mates won their match and ordered themselves and me another round with the winnings.  They were laughing and happy, but then they would be home soon.  I didn’t know where I’d be.  Or what I’d be doing for work.

The stranger on the barstool next to me said something.

“Pardon me?”

“I say where you from?”

“The states.  Illinois.”

“Are you here working on the rigs?”

“No.  I tried to get on but couldn’t.  I’m working on a gas pipeline, goes from here to Peterhead.”

“I’m surprised the weather hasn’t shut them down.”

“I think it’s about to.”

“You going home when the job’s done then?”

“No.  I came to Europe in June.  I want to work through the winter, save money, and leave in the spring.  Maybe to North Africa.”

“So, what’s next after the pipeline?”

“Haven’t a clue.”

He had a sip of whisky, followed by a swallow of Guiness.

“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in working in a ship’s galley, would you?  My cook’s helper up and quit on me today, and we shove off on Monday at noon.  If I don’t fill that job, I’ll have to cook and feed 30 crew members myself.”

“What kind of ship?”

“Platform supply vessel.  We shuttle supplies from the harbor out to the rigs, and stand by in case of fire or other emergencies.  Jack of all trades like.  We can move but the platform can’t.  We act as their legs.  Monday we’re hauling out a big load of pipe. You never know what they’ll call on us to do.”

I took a drink.

“So, you know your way around a galley?”

“Never been in a galley before but I know kitchens.  Worked at a roast beef sandwich joint in college.  Learned cooking from my mom on the farm.”

“Not much to it.  Lots of cutting up vegetables and washing dishes.  I’ll teach you the recipes.”

“How’s the pay?”

When he told me what a week’s wages were, I tried to appear calm.  They were nearly twice what I was making on the pipeline.

“I’m interested.”

“Well, you’re in luck.  The skipper authorized me to do the hiring.   He’ll do the paperwork with you on the ship, get you signed up all legal like.”

“Just like that?  Can I see the ship?”

“Sure enough.  It’s tied up right down the dock outside.”

We were standing in front of it within minutes.  I let out a long whistle when I saw it.

“My God, it’s huge.”

“It’s built to take on heavy seas.  The North Sea gets rough out there.”

“So, I just show up Monday?

“Yeah.  Be there by noon.  I’ll likely be on ship.  Ask for Sig Larson.  I’ll give them your name.  Oh my gosh, I don’t even know your name.”

“Dave McClure.”

We shook hands.

McClure. That’s a Scottish name.”

“It is?  I thought it was Irish.  My great-grandfather sailed to America from Ireland.  He lived in Antrim County up North.”

“Well, if he was born in Ireland some McClure before him went there from Scotland.  McClure is an old clan name.”

We talked more, standing there on the pier by the huge ship.  He asked about our farm, told me about his family which was originally from Norway.

“We should have another drink to celebrate.  How about one for the road back at the pub?  I’ll buy.”

He reached into his pocket.

“God help me, I left me money clip on the bar.”

He dug in all his pockets.

“I don’t have it.  I had nearly a hundred quid on me.”

“Let’s get back quick then.”

We went back to where we were sitting and flagged down the bartender.

“We were here not twenty minutes ago, and I left a money clip full of pound notes on the bar.  And it sure as hell wasn’t a tip.  Did you happen to pick it up did ya?”

“Sorry mate.  I don’t see many tips in here and I’ve not seen a money clip loaded with pound notes I can assure you.  That I’d remember.”

My soon-to-be boss pounded his fist on the bar and spun away facing the crowd.

“SOME LIMMER MADE OFF WITH MY MONEY AND I WANT IT BACK!”

The bartender was quick to respond. 

“Look here, mate.  Let’s not be yelling and scolding the customers.  You made a mistake and your money’s gone.  Now either have a drink or move on.”

“I’ll buy us a drink,” I said.

“No, let’s get outa here.”

I followed him outside as he stomped angrily out the door.

“I can’t believe I’ve gone and done that.  Here I am on a Friday night, with the banks not open till Monday, and I’ve let all my cash be blown to the wind.”

“I can lend you some till Monday.”

“No.  Lord, I’ve got a dinner date tomorrow night at a steak house that’ll cost me a bundle.”

“It’s OK.  I just got paid.”

The week’s pay was in my left pocket.

“What will you need?”

“Forty pounds or so.  But I couldna ask you for it.”

“No really.  It’s OK.  You can pay me back on Monday.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Forty pounds was almost a hundred dollars in 1974.  That was a whole lot of money to me then.  Still is.  But after all, the guy was getting me a job.  I took my week’s pay out of my pocket, counted out forty pounds, and put it in his hand. 

“I hate taking this from you.  But, I‘ll have it ready for you Monday when I see you on ship.  Noon, right?”

“Right.”

He shook my hand hard and gave me a big smile.  We parted ways, me up the hill to the hostel, and he down the street towards the ship. 

I had a lot to do.  I packed up my backpack for the first time in months.  Said goodbye to my Irish mates and asked them to say goodbye to Paddy and the foreman and the guys on the pipeline job.  I gave them the Wellingtons to return to the English foreman’s man. 

I checked out of the YMCA hostel and said goodbye to the old men.  They were happy for me and amazed I could get a job so easily as a seaman.   Archie, one of my favorites, was especially pleased. 

“I mean you have a way about you, getting these good jobs.  I’m proud of you for making your way through the world so well.”

Archie was from the isle of Jura, the least populated of the Hebrides Islands then, with somewhere around 200 people.  He was a simple man, and from what I could gather had lived a very simple life.  He talked slowly, laughed easily in a deep voice, and occasionally slipped into speaking Gaelic.  His most frequent expression was wide-eyed wonder, as if the world outside Jura was hard to fathom.  I’d always wanted to make it to Jura, where George Orwell lived for a time, and see firsthand its wild beauty.  Still hasn’t happened.

“By golly, Yankee I don’t know that I’ve ever met a man as lucky as you.  Who knows what you’ll be doing next?  I wouldn’t be surprised if you were elected to Parliament.”

Archie wore the same sweater every day and was always fiddling with his tobacco tin, worn and dented, filled with Old Holburn, which was cheap and rough to smoke.   He always offered me a rollup and I only took him up on it once.  Unlike the rest of the old boys Archie didn’t drink, although he may have in his youth.  Archie had a blank look about him at times.   How he ended up in that flophouse and what he lived on I don’t know.

“I’m proud of you Yankee, and I wish you all the luck in the world, though I don’t think you need it, what with talking your way overnight into a job as an able-bodied seaman.”

I checked out of the hostel after breakfast, took my time saying goodbye to the fellas, and killed time till about 11:00.  Archie walked me down to the door and shook my hand before I headed to the docks.  It was a sunny day, rare for Aberdeen.  I was excited to be going to sea.

When I got to the slip where the boat had been tied it was empty.  There were a crew of men working on the boat next to the gaping hole where it had been docked. I yelled out to them.

“What do you about the supply ship that was docked here over the weekend?”

A man yelled back.

”It left at first light.”

I closed my eyes and felt a rush of heat go from my head to my stomach.

“Who owns that ship?”

They gave me the name of a company and how to get to its office near the water.  I walked there straightaway and inquired of a desk clerk about Sig Larson.  The clerk stopped me and brought an older man from an office in the back.  I told him the story.

“I know most of the crew members by name and have never heard of him, but I’ll check the list to make sure.  Give me a minute.”

He came back quickly.

“As I suspected, no one with that name works for us.”

I just stood there.

“I hope you didn’t lend him any money.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Have you ever worked on a ship at sea lad?”

“No.”

“We’d never put you out there with no experience, even in this labor market.  You’d likely be flat on your back seasick for a week.  Sorry son.  I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do.”

I walked back to the YMCA hostel and climbed the stairs in a fog.  When I entered the room where the old guys hung out during the day, the few they let stay looked up at me in surprise.

“What are you doing back here Yankee?”

I told them all the story.  There was no job.  I lent him money.  The ship had sailed.

Archie was sitting there and looked at me with a long face.  In his slow low voice, he said…

“I’m glad that didn’t happen to me.”

With that Archie picked up his tobacco tin, walked past me, and went to his room.