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jqcotten-blog · 6 years ago

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A Cotten Tale

On November 27, 1934 I was born in Hamburg, about 15 miles South of Buffalo, New York. We moved to Eden, about five miles South of Hamburg, before I was one year old, so I consider Eden my home. I was the fifth of six siblings, ergo the middle name "Quentin". Elmer was the oldest. We called him "brother". Then came Jane, Paul, Jack and me. We were all born in Hamburg. Nancy, the youngest, was born in Eden. Eden was a great place to grow up. It's a small, rural town about five miles from Lake Erie, surrounded by farms and rolling hills to the East. Our next door neighbor was a dairy farmer where we got all our fresh milk. I always, to this day, love the smell of cow manure wafting in the Summer breeze. The Buttses lived across the street. Kenneth Butts was a childhood playmate. He was my age and had the same birthday. Just down the road was the Minikime's farm. They raised vegetables for the fresh markets near and far. I remember the back-breaking work of cutting cabbage all day to fill an entire trailer truck for markets of western New York. I also remember picking corn in the early morning until I wore the prints off my thumbs, or so it seemed. Minikime had two large green houses to start seedlings in the Spring. In addition to his own farm, he supplied local farmers with tomato plants and other vegetables. We transplanted tiny seedlings into trays and filled the green houses with hundreds of trays to grow in a controlled environment until they were ready to go into the fields after the last frosts.

In addition to working for the local farmers, we raised our own vegetables too. We had two pigs, which I treated like pets. I used to ride them and swat their behinds to make them run. Pigs are very smart. It didn't take long for them to learn to sit down when they saw me coming. We also raised about a thousand chickens at one time. We had a two story chicken house. The chickens were Rhode Island and New Hampshire Reds that layed beautiful brown eggs. I'm partial to brown eggs to this day. I used to carry buckets of water from the old hand pump in the front yard back to the chicken house over a hundred yards away and over the little creek that ran through the property. That creek would over flow in the Spring, so along it's banks we always had rich black soil for our onions and prize celery. We used to win first prize with our vegetables at the Erie County Fair in Hamburg.

My father loved the country and his gardens. We moved to Eden for that reason, even though he had to drive every day to work at the Socony Vacuum in South Buffalo where his father was the Superintendent until his death. I never knew my grampa Cotten, because he died before I was born. But I inherited two pieces of furniture which belonged to him. They were always in our home in Eden. One is a beautiful, old-fashioned secretary desk with two glass doors on top containing an entire set of the Harvard Classics. The other piece of furniture, which I inherited and which played a very important role in my life, is the old Victrola and a wonderful library of old records of the great performers of the time, including Caruso, Tetrazzini, Galli-Curci, John McCormick, the Irish tenor, and the great Scottish comedian, Sir Harry Lauder. I grew up with this music and it inspired me to study voice with the intention of seriously pursuing a career in classical music and opera. But I'm getting ahead of myself. More on this later.

I mentioned my father's love for his home gardens because there's a memory that I want to share. Many an evening I remember watching my father polishing beautiful red tomatoes, fresh from our garden, and placing them with loving care into peck baskets so he could take them to work at the refinery and share them with his friends. An indelible image that stays with me to this day. My father was a strong influence in my life. He was a self-taught artist and also played the violin. His paintings, both oils and watercolors, are hanging in our home and also in the homes of others in the family. I can still hear him playing Dvorak's Humoresque and the exquisite double string harmony on the violin in the living room of the old house in Eden. Sadly, my father was not in good health. He had terrible migraine headaches and was loosing his hearing. He wore a hearing aid as long as I can remember. My father died in 1949 at 54 years of age. His autopsy revealed a large benign tumor in his brain, which was no doubt the cause of his headaches and hearing loss. Gramma Cotten used to tell the story of my father as a boy being injured while playing basketball at school. He was pushed against the wall and banged his head. She recalls that when he came home that day, he kept asking her the same question repeatedly even though she had answered him each time. We surmise that this injury may have been the cause of the tumor in his brain discovered after he died.

My father used to read to us at the kitchen table after supper. I remember him reading from James Fennimore Coopers "Leatherstocking Tales". When he read "The Last of the Mohicans" he did more than read, he would almost act the parts. His voice would change as he read the parts of Uncus or Hawkeye. He also recited stories from a book called "School and College Speaker", which I now have in my library. These were the days before television, when public oration was still an important part of education and entertainment. I particularly remember one recitation entitled "Spartacus to the Gladiators", a stirring oration in which Spartacus encourages his fellow gladiators to rebel against the Romans who have enslaved them. He cries, "if ye are men, follow me! strike down yon sentinel, and gain the mountain passes.....if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves; ...if we must die, let us die under the open sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle." What feelings this congered up in my young mind.

My father had also performed Shakespeare as a young man. I have a picture of him in costume as Macbeth, with leggings, feathered bonnet and sword. One of my proudest memories in grade school was when I performed Shylock from the Merchant of Venice. My father carefully taught me the entire soliloquy to Antonio, which I performed on the stage of the high school auditorium. My costume was an oversized bathrobe, a scraggly old white beard, that was once apparently part of a Santa Claus costume, and a bag of marbles which served as a money pouch. "You come to me and you say, “Shylock, we would have moneys.” You say so! — you, that did void your rheum upon my beard and foot me as you spurn a stranger cur over your threshold! Moneys is your suit. What should I say to you? Should I not say, “Hath a dog moneys? Is't possible a cur can lend three thousand ducats?” Or shall I bend low and in bondman’s key with bated breath and whispering humbleness say this: “Fair sir, you spet on me on Wednesday last; you spurned me such a day; another time you called me ’dog'— and for these courtesies, I’ll lend you thus much moneys?”

Down on the Farm

I can't leave this part of my young life without mentioning two of my favorite places. Gramma and Grampa Triftshauser's farm in Alexander, NY and the dairy farm in South Buffalo belonging to Uncle Raleigh and Aunt Ethel. Gramma and Grampa's place was on a gravel road at the time. It included a big two-story house with a wrap around veranda and steps coming down to a large concrete stepping stone at the driveway built to step up into a horse drawn carriage. I never saw it used for that purpose, because by the time I got to see it they were using a car to travel into town. Horses were still being used for farm work, pulling wagons and so forth. I remember riding on the front bench of the old wagon next to Grampa who held the reins to a team of big work horses that he called to by name. I always got a kick out of watching their big powerful haunches moving as they walked and particularly to hear them rhythmically farting as they trotted down the gravel road.

Other things that are indelibly imprinted in my mind are going down to get the cows in the evening. The cows would be waiting at the gate of the pasture. We'd walk down the road with our sticks, almost to the old one-room school house where my mother and her brothers went to school, and open the gate. The cows knew exactly where to go. We didn't need to do anything to guide them. They'd just slowly walk together up the road to the barn, through the doorway in the basement and right into their own stanchion as though their name were written on it. We'd then walk between the cows and close the stanchions. They were the type that permitted the cow to move its head up and down to eat its grain and hay, but the slats, when closed, were close enough together so the cow could'nt get its head back through. I was too young then to milk the cows, but not too young to enjoy warm, fresh milk right from the spigot. There was an old tin cup hanging from a nail on the wall of the barn. I would hold the cup and the guy milking the cow would fill it with warm frothy milk right from the teet. This would be frowned on today with all the concern with sanitation, pasteurization and all that, but it tasted great and never did me any apparent harm.

Gramma's gardens were uniquely beautiful. I particularly remember the old fashioned Hollyhocks. We used to pick the young seed pods while the seeds were still soft, white and packed in a neat circle so we could easily eat them. There were also red currants and gooseberry bushes. At one time gooseberries disappeared from western New York. I later learned that they got some kind of disease and were destroyed by the Ag people so the disease wouldn't spread.

The other fun place in my young life was Aunt Ethel and Uncle Raleigh's dairy farm. I remember going there for Thanksgiving all together in the old Chevy and singing on the way. Aunt Ethel would always have games for us to play, like a treasure hunt for things hidden all over the house, or drop the clothes pin in the bottle. We'd just stand holding a wooden clothes pin up to our nose and try to drop it into the narrow opening of a milk bottle. The one who got the most in out of a certain number of tries would win a prize. That was great entertainment in those days. The meals of course were great - turkey and stuffing and all that goes with it. We all sat down to the huge table together and sang the blessing - "We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing .... sing praises to His name, He forgets not His own." I don't remember all the words, and at my age, I probably didn't understand half of them anyway.

Sadly, both of these farms of my fondest childhood memory are gone. The Triftshauser farm burned down and the New York State thruway now runs right over the place where uncle Raleigh's farm used to be. The only thing that remains is our memories and a few old photos.

The Pine Grove

As I move on with my narrative and then briefly set it aside, my mind still dwells in the time period that I'm writing about and inevitably I remember things I should have mentioned. This is one of them. We lived in an area with farm fields and woods nearby. There was a beautiful, peaceful pine grove at the edge of the woods. When you entered the grove it was like entering an empty church. The ground was covered with a thick carpet of pine needles and it was serenely quiet. We would sit down with our backs against a tree trunk and not say a word. After a few minutes the little birds that were in the branches of the trees and were silent when we intruded into their cathedral, finally started again to chirp and sing. It was a serene moment one can only experience in nature.

We used to camp out near the pine grove where there was a marshy area with a little pond. We built a leanto out of pine branches and started a nice fire in a fire pit that we lined with stones. The fire attracted some large frogs from the pond. They came hopping right up to us. Little did they know that they would be part of our meal that evening. We stabbed them with our trusty hunting knife and cut off their hind legs. It's amazing how easy it is to skin a frog's leg. You just pull the skin right down over the toes of its feet, like taking off a pair of pants. The flesh of the frog's leg is pure white and makes a tasty treat fried in butter. To supplement the feast, we pick fresh sweetcorn from a farmer's field near by and roasted it in the fire. We left the husk on and just shoved it under the hot coals of the fire for a few minutes until the outer husk was charred. When you peeled back the husk the steam would rise and you could smell the corn that was steamed in its own husk. We left the husk on and used it as a handle to rub the ear of corn over the block of butter we had brought with us. A dash of salt, and you feast on the most delicious corn on the cob you can imagine. Frogs legs and fresh corn on the cob. A delicacy fit for a king and almost impossible to replicate without going back to that place...if it still exists...which I doubt.

There was also a large irrigation pond back by the woods which the farmers used to irrigate their fields. As a matter of fact, I learned to swim in that muddy old frog, snapping turtle and leach infested water hole. The fields in that area were separated by irrigation ditches which were lined with weeds and natural growth and made an ideal habitat for muskrats. They would dig their burrows into the sides of the ditches, usually below the water level to prvent access by other animals. My brother Jack trapped muskrats and other animals for their pelts. The pelts were the best in the late Fall and Winter so he'd set out his traps then. I didn't particularly like the idea of trapping animals, but Jack was my brother and I thought he might like some company so I'd go with him from time to time. We got up early in the morning and trudged through the snow to check on the traps. The traps were set under the water at the entrance of the muskrats burrow. In the Winter we'd have to chop through the ice and feel around to see if there was anything caught in the trap or if the traps had been tripped and needed to be reset. Sometimes we just found a leg in the trap but no muskrat. They would chew off their own leg to get out of the trap.

We brought the ones we caught back home, and in the cellar we skinned them. The skinning was done by hanging the muskrat upside down by its hind legs, cutting completely around each leg just where the fur begins, and then making a straight cut between those two cuts. You could then start pulling the pelt down over the muskrats body and head, cutting along the way to remove the skin from the body and then making a final cut around the wrists of the front legs. The pelt would then come off in one piece. We then pulled the pelt over a stretcher, skin side out, and rub the skin with corn meal or saw dust to remove the excess fat and oil from the skin. After they dried for a week or so they were removed from the stretcher and were ready to sell. Some guy would come out from Buffalo to buy the pelts for the furriers who made women's shawls and coats. The price for a pelt after all the work involved in trapping and preparing them was, if I recall, anywhere from 5 to maybe 7 or 8 dollars for a really prime pelt. I wonder what that guy sold them for?

Jack also set traps for mink and ermine in the woods. Ermine was simply a weasel in winter whose pelt has changed from a dark brown to pure white for camoflage against the snow. Trapping mink and ermine was a more complicated process because they were smarter. You had to find the animal trails through the woods, places that they frequented. Then you look for a dead fall - a branch or tree that has fallen across the trail, and you place the trap behind the dead fall. But the trap is buried just below the surface and sand sifted over it being careful not to obstruct the movement of the pan which the animal steps on to trigger the trap. You then place local material, leaves and such, so it looks natural. Then you disguise your scent by putting a few drops of animal musk from a bottle that is purchased from a trapping supply company. All that to catch a couple ermine or mink. There really weren't that many around. It was quite an accomplishment.

Canada

We had relatives in Canada and used to drive up in the Summer for a week or so. The relatives were from my father's side of the family - the Robertsons and the Burnhams. I don't remember exactly how they are related, but I do remember the places and some of the people quite well. I do have some old photos of May Burnham with mother and of my father standing next to Uncle Wilson holding a big pike he had just caught. Uncle Wilson lived alone in a little old house in Fallbrook, Ontario North of Perth. To get there, we drove East along Lake Ontario and North across the St. Lawrence. I can't remember exactly where we crossed - probably North of Watertown at Alexandria Bay. We then headed North to Perth and on up to Fallbrook. The trip would take a good six hours or maybe more in those days - in the late 1940s. The first section of the New York State thruway, between Utica and Rochester, wasn't completed until June, 1954.

Fallbrook was a nice little town in my recollection. A river ran through it and the main street was unpaved. Uncle Wilson's house was near the river and we drove into his driveway just after crossing an old steel girder bridge, if my memory serves me. Uncle Wilson was an old man in his 90s. That's old for a boy my age, around 12 or so at the time. The younger Burnhams lived in a newer house in another part of town. The drive from Fallbrook up to Robertson's Lake was on a single track dirt road in those days so it probably took an hour or so to get there. Now it's about half that time according to Google Maps.

We stayed in an old, one room cabin right on the lake. The Robertson's, after whom the lake was named, lived on a ramshackled farm up a steep hill behind the cabin, with a nice sweeping view of the lake. Robertson's lake was like heaven then. There were almost no other cabins on the lake and no noisy motor boats, just canoes and row boats. It was so tranquil, especially in the evening when you could hear the loons calling. The lake was long and narrow. From the cabin you could see the huge boulders and the woods on the opposite shore. I remember picking wild blueberries and strawberries that grew around the rocks at the edge of the woods. I used to paddle our boat into the lagoons and just lie still and watch the little fish swimming in the crystal clear water beneath the boat.

There was a square structure near our cabin built like a log cabin, but without a roof. In the winter, the locals would saw huge blocks of ice out of the lake and put them into the log structure and then fill it with saw dust. The saw dust would act as insulation and keep the ice frozen all Summer long. That was our ice box. When we caught a lot of fish, we'd wrap them in newspaper, and put our name on it, climb into the ice box, dig into the saw dust down to the ice, lay the fish on the ice and cover them up. Worked just like a refrigerator, but a lot more fun.

Life in those days in that part of the world went along at a slow pace. I often tell the story about the time we went to Canada, sometime after my father died. We stopped at the Burnhams in Fallbrook to say hello. Meryl had built his own house and, as a matter of fact, he built a lot of the tools he used. He forged the blades he used to shape the the molding for the doors and windows of the house. As we were about to leave, he asked us to help him with something. He was building a trailer for a friend, and had the wooden box of the trailer sitting on some saw horses in the yard so he could work on it. He asked us to help him turn it over so he could work some more on it. We helped him with that task and then said goodbye and got ready to leave. As we walked to the car, he said goodbye and then added, "when you guys come up here again next year make sure you stop by and help me turn this thing back over." I think he was serious. We continued to go to Canada from time to time after my father died, but more and more people discovered the lake as a vacation site and it changed. More houses and finally motor boats. I prefer the good old days.

Chautauqua

Summer vacations in Chautauqua are another fond memory. Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state only a few hours drive from Eden. One season the whole family went. We rented a house and enjoyed all the sporting and cultural events offered there. In those days it was a protestant institution and nationally renowned scholars and clergymen were invited to preach and give lectures. They would give the Sunday sermon in the huge amphitheater and then lecture in other open air venues during the week. My father was in Chautauqua with Gramma Cotten when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage in the Summer of 1949 when I was just 15 years old. I continued to go there however to take advantage of the rich culture it provided. Mother helped me advance my interest in singing by paying for voice lessons there one Summer. I studied briefly under Evan Evans, a renowned vocal coach from the Julliard School for the performing arts in New York city, who offered lessons in Chautauqua during the Summer.

During this period I was also interested in religion and philosophy and was attracted to Nels F.S. Ferre, Professor of philosophical theology at Vanderbilt University School of Religion, who was lecturing in Chautauqua at the time. He spoke on Sunday as usual and then gave a series of lectures on a new book he was writing, but which was not yet published, entitled "The Sun and the Umbrella". The book was published in 1953, so the event of which I speak was some time prior to that. I graduated from High School in 1953, so the lectures were probably in the Summer of 1952 and I was around 17 years of age. I had not yet discovered the Baha'i Faith which teaches the concepts of progressive revelation and the Oneness of Mankind, but I was already grappling with the problem of denominationalism within the Christian Church. How could a message of love and unity result in so many divisions? I grew up as a Methodist. We went to the Weslyan Methodist Church up town on East Church Street. We lived on West Church Street a little over a mile to the West so we could walk to church and often did. Across the street from our church was the Baptist Church. Our next door neighbors, the Buttses, were Baptists. On South Main Street was a United Church of Christ, and later on the "damn" Catholics built a church a little further down on South Main near the Kazoo factory. I'm not being derogatory when I say "damn" Catholics, that's just the way I usually heard the term used at home.

When I think back on our little town, it didn't have any particular claim to fame, except the Garden of Eden, of course. That was the name of the saloon uptown. We did have a great little cheese factory, built by a Swiss family, and...Eden was the place where the Kazoo was invented. We all played the Kazoo at one time or another, but you didn't need to know much theology to do that. The Kazoo did more to unite us than theology ever could.

Anyway, where am I. Oh yah! There I was at age 17, or there abouts, listening to Nels F.S. Ferre in Chautauqua telling his parable about these folks who were living in a barn with no windows, when someone came in from outside and told them about this amazing light outside. He told them they should come out of the darkness of the barn and see the light for themselves. They had been told about the light and they had formed various groups who thought about the light in different ways but couldn't quite agree on what it was. Some were afraid to venture out of the barn, but others, more venturesome, decided to build themselves umbrellas, and went out of the barn into the sunlight ... under their umbrellas. For me at the time of the lectures, the umbrellas were the variuos Christian denominations and the light was God. Unfortunately, for Nels F.S.Ferre, the light was the universal Church of Jesus Christ and he did not go beyond it. Today, the umrellas represent the various religions of the world and the light is the knowledge of the Oneness of all religions and the understanding that revelation is progressive. We must come out from under the umrellas of religious dogmas that divide us, into the Light of Unity.

I had not yet met the guy who led me out of the barn. But it was not long after Nels Ferre got me started thinking, that I met Fran Czerniewski. He was about my age. I can't remember the circumstances, but he was the first person to tell me about the Baha'i Faith. One of my best friends in Eden at this time was David Palmberg and we studied the Faith together. David and his family were Christian Scientists. They were a poor family and lived in a ramshakled house up the hill on East Church Street. Another close friend was Billy Englehart. He belonged to the United Church of Christ and went on later to study theology at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis. He married Judy Sherman and I sang for their wedding. Unfortunately, Billy was killed in a motorcycle accident. Judy remarried and we sort of lost touch.

But I'm getting ahead of my story again. While I was still in High School I started running track. I was a pretty good sprinter and ran the 100, 220 and relay. I won my share of events competing with other schools in western New York, and after an especially successful meet was elected co-captain of the team by my peers. Quite an honor.

About this time my sister Nancy was learning to play the violin. She started taking lessons in Buffalo with Mr. Rantucci, the first violinist with the Buffalo Philharmonic. I was still interested in singing and learned about an Italian vocal teacher in Buffalo through Mr. Rantucci. Her name was Jolanda Aprea Patton, married to a nephew of General Patton, and as it turned out, an amazing teacher of the Italian Bel Canto method. She had three degrees from the Conservatory of Music in Naples - in piano, voice and voice culture and she had a beautiful soprano voice herself. I couldn't have fallen into better hands for someone seriously pursuing a career in classical music and opera.

In my senior year at Eden Central School I was making good progress with Mrs. Patton and was asked to sing at an assembly in the school auditorium. Mrs. Patton came to Eden to accompany me on the piano. I remember the occassion well because I had to personally arrange to have the curtains opened before I started. Mrs. Patton sat down at the piano and I stood next to her and prepared to sing when she whispered to me to have someone open the curtains. She of course knew, as an experienced performer, that the heavy velvet curtains would absorb the sound of my voice and hamper its projection into the auditorium. So I walked to the side of the stage and asked someone to open the curtains. I then returned to the piano and prepared to sing. The whole incident impressed on me just how little the people at school knew about theater and sound management. Mrs. Patton started to play and I sang the German lied we had practiced - Schubert's "Ständchen". I regret that no one bothered to record the performance. Anyway, the singing went well, thanks to Mrs. Patton, and the performance was well received. Since I don't have a recording of my own, here is Jussi Björling, the great Swedish tenor, one of my favorites, singing Schubert's "Ständchen": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1epqEHoVE8 I almost heard Jussi Björling sing at Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo. Well, I bought the ticket and went to Buffalo for this highly anticipated performance only to learn that Björling could not make the performance and that George London, a Metropolitan bass-baritone, would sing instead. I learned later that Björling was an alcoholic and didn't show up that evening because he was drunk.

If it were not for Mrs. Patton, there would be no evidence at all that I ever did sing. Thanks to her, during the course of my studies, we went to a small recording studio in Buffalo and recorded two antiqua aria by Scarlatti, "Danza Danza Fanciulla" and "Gi'al Sole dal Gange". The reason for making the recordings was for me to be able to better hear my voice in order to improve the way I was singing. These recordings, made when I was just 20, are now the only evidence I have that I studied voice and sang. They started out on a disc, were eventually transferred to casette tape and are now in digital form on YouTube. Copy this link into a browser to play it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kpfjyv05qA

I graduated from high school and continued my education at the University of Buffalo (UB). I pursued a BA degree majoring in Philosophy and continued studying voice outside of school with Mrs. Patton. I also continued studying the Baha'i Faith. I attended "firesides" at the homes of Baha'is in Hamburg and studied with several of the families there. Because of my interest in philosophy and mysticism at the time, probably due to the loss of my father and all the questions that raised in my mind, one of the first Baha'i books I studied was "The Seven Valleys", a mystical work by Baha'u'llah. The works of Baha'u'llah are voluminous and I studied several during this period including the Kitab-i-Iqan, the Book of Certitude. Here is an excerpt from that Book to give the reader a sense of the beauty and power of Baha'u'llah's writing: "Consider the past. How many, both high and low, have, at all times, yearningly awaited the advent of the Manifestations of God in the sanctified persons of His chosen Ones. How often have they expected His coming, how frequently have they prayed that the breeze of divine mercy might blow, and the promised Beauty step forth from behind the veil of concealment, and be made manifest to all the world. And whensoever the portals of grace did open, and the clouds of divine bounty did rain upon mankind, and the light of the Unseen did shine above the horizon of celestial might, they all denied Him, and turned away from His face — the face of God Himself. Refer ye, to verify this truth, to that which hath been recorded in every sacred Book."

I studied the Faith for several years. The experience was truly an intellectual and spiritual adventure for me. One of the most amazing aspects of the Faith was its relative newness. It started in 1844 in Shiraz, Persia with the declaration of Siyyid Ali Muhammad, the Bab, which in Persian means the Gate, as the Qa'im, the promised One of Shi'ah Islam. His life was short and tragic. His purpose was to announce the advent of "Him Whom God shall make manifest", to an entrenched and fanatical ecclesiastical regime. But, it's not my intention here to recount the history of the Baha'i Faith, for it has been well documented by many, including Shoghi Effendi, the grandson of Abdu'l Baha, who was the eldest son of Baha'u'llah, the founder of the Baha'i Faith himself. Shoghi Effendi's seminal work, entitled "God Passes By", first published in 1944, is the most comprehensive history of the Faith, which is presently available as an eBook for anyone to study. Yes, that's how close the Faith is to us chronologically. Shoghi Effendi was still living at the time I started studying the Faith. As a matter of fact, I wrote him a letter with some questions about my search. His wife Rúhíyyih Khánum Rabbani, answered the letter in his name. I have produced a number of video documentaries about the Faith, including "What Hath God Wrought", which tells the story of the Faith from the point of view of the adventist movements within both Christianity and Islam. Here is the link to the YouTube site where you can view any of my documentaries in their entirety:

https://www.youtube.com/user/jqcotten/?disable_polymer=true

I made my declaration to become a Baha'i on March 18, 1956 in Hamburg along with my friend David Palmberg. As their is no clergy in the Baha'i Faith, the Local Spiritual Assembly of Hamburg officiated. Whereever at least nine Baha'is reside, in a local jurisdiction, an official organizational entity called a Local Spriritual Assembly is created. David and I were the first and only Baha'is in Eden at the time, so we made our declarations in Hamburg. One becomes a Baha'i by personal declaration after the age of maturity which I believe is 18. I was 21 at the time. Unlike the Christian Faith, where you can be baptised into the church at infancy, to become a Baha'i one must make an independent declaration as a mature person.

Before my final year at UB, Mrs. Patton moved with her family to Elizabeth, NJ. Mr. Patton worked for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and had to move there for his work. So, instead of finishing my final year for the BA at UB, I followed Mrs. Patton to NJ to pursue my first interest in classical music and voice. Mother helped me buy a used Plymouth coupe which I drove down to Elizabeth. I don't remember how I learned about the Thigpens, but I ended up renting a little room in the attic of their home. The Thigpens were a middle-aged, black, Baha'i couple, who were the most gentle and loving couple I had ever met. The room was very inexpensive and the Thigpens even let me share their kitchen. I got a part-time job in a local Super Market, stocking shelves and that sort of thing.

I don't remember exactly how I met Sam Jackson, but we became close friends. He was a black Baha'i - taller and a little older than I was, if my memory serves me. He had just gotten a new car, and he would pick me up and take me to different Baha'i events whenever I could get away. One evening he took me to Teaneck, to visit Mrs. Kinney, an elderly Baha'i who had met Abdu'l Baha when he visited the U.S. in 1912. Teaneck, N.J. is also the town where the famous Cabin is located, also visited by Abdu'l Baha. Saffa Kinney lived in a modest home in a quiet residential part of town on a lovely tree-lined street with concrete curbs and a sidewalk. The houses sat well back from the street with manicured lawns. Sam pulled his car up to the curb a few houses down from Mrs. Kinneys. Sam and I got out of the car and started walking down the sidewalk together. This is when I learned that racial prejudice is not only found in the South, but also in Teaneck New Jersey. A woman was sweeping her porch on the house where we had parked. She hurried down her sidewalk to the street loudly complaining all the way that we couldn't park there. I stood there, somewhat taken aback, while Sam confronted her and calmly explained that the street was a public thoroughfare and it was perfectly OK to park where he did. It soon became disgustingly clear to me from her reaction that her concern was not that we had parked the car there, but that a black man and a white man had occupied it. We left her standing there holding her broom stick, and walked down the sidewalk to Mrs. Kinney's. It was a wonderful "feast" that evening with a small group of local Baha'is sitting around Saffa Kinney and listening to her stories about Abdu'l Baha, the eldest son of the Founder of our Faith. The "feast" was what we called Baha'i gatherings, usually in the homes of Baha'is. It was a spiritual feast. The Faith was still young and every town did not have its own "church" or gathering place.

Elizabeth was only about 30 minutes by car to Teaneck and just a little over an hour by bus from the Port Authority terminal in New York City, so I could get to the city whenever I wanted. I soon learned what a great city it is. During the time that I was studying voice with Mrs Patton, I was able to enjoy the inspirational cultural life that New York City had to offer. I got tickets to the old Met for several memorable performances. Unfortunately I could only afford tickets high up in the Gallery for standing room only. I was so high up and to one side that I could only see half of the stage for the matinee performance of Maria Callas in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor". Luckily, the accoustics were great in the old theater, and her magnificent voice carried beautifully into the Gallery.

At another time I managed to get tickets for the entire Ring cycle, Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen", Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. I had bought the DVD of Die Walküre, performed by Lauritz Melchior and Lotte Lehman and played it often. That rendition is one of the greatest. So I was a little disappointed with the live performance at the Met. Wolfgang Windgassen was no Lauritz Melchior. Oh well, you can't have everything. I used to sing one of the beautiful arias from Die Walküre entitled "Wintersturme", during my lessons with Mrs. Patton. This rendition by Melchior will take you there. Of course, at age 19, Joel Cotten was no Lauritz Melchior. This is from the legendary 1935 recording with the Vienna Philarmonic under Bruno Walter, which is the same version I had on DVD. About 3 minutes in you'll hear Lotte Lehman. The quality of her voice was very similar to that of Mrs. Patton. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XQASPDdGQE

Another memorable experience in New York City during that period happened when I came across an announcement in the local paper about an evening with Chialiapin. I love the sound of the great Russian basso profundo, Feodor Chialiapin, who sang at the Met during Caruso's time, so I noted the time and the address and made plans to go. When I arrived at the address, I was surprised to see that it was a private townhouse. I walked up the front steps of the brownstone and opened the front door which entered into a foyer. If I recall the apartment door was numbered, so I knocked and was greeted by a woman who introduced herself as the daughter of Feodor Chaliapin. She invited me into a small living room where a few other people were gathered and she explained that she would play some recordings and talk about her father. It turned out to be a delightful evening. Only in New York.

So there I was, absorbing the cultural life of that exciting metropolis, and studying voice with a truly great teacher, in hopes that I might one day be a part of that life myself. It was not so far fetched. I was making great progress under Mrs. Patton's tutelage. There were times when I had control over the vocal mechanism, through listening and mimicing Mrs. Patton's perfect example. I inherited a singing voice, probably from Gramma Cotten, who also performed as a singer. But what didn't come naturally was the diaphramatic support and the proper placement or projection of the voice. If the air column passing through the vocal chords is pushed too high into the mask or upper part of the face, the sound is nasal and you have to push to project the sound. When everything works right the diaphram, which is a large and powerful muscle, supports the air column, pushing it through the vocal chords, and directly out of the mouth. There were times that I achieved this, and when I did, I felt as though I could sing any note and sustain it forever. It was a beautiful feeling.

But fate and the military draft board in Buffalo changed all that. I received a letter from Uncle Sam directing me to report for military service. I wasn't the first in my family to serve in the military. My oldest brother, Elmer, served in WWII, both in Europe and then in the Pacific. Luckily for him the war ended in Germany shortly after he arrived, but the war with Japan was still going on so he was shipped to the Phillipines. Not long after his arrival, the war with Japan ended with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My brother Jack served in Korea. I was inducted into the Army on July 26, 1957. There was no hot war going on at the time, but we were in the midst of a cold war with the Soviet Union. As a Baha'i, I requested non-combatant service, and received training as a medical corpsman. Basic training was rigorous, but I was never required to carry or fire a weapon. Following basic I was offered training in a technical specialty. I opted for training as a Medical Laboratory Specialist and was given 16 weeks of special training at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. I enjoyed the training and it served me well as an occupation after I left the army.

During this period I made the acquaintance of two other Baha'is who had also been drafted into the army. Unfortunately I can't remember their names, but one was a negro from the Southwest somewhere, I believe it was Arizona, and the other was from the West Indies, so they were both dark skinned. I mention this because there were several instances when I again encountered the ugliness of racism because of my association with these friends. We were, after all now in the deep South - San Antonio, Texas. The young draftees that I went through training with were all so-called "conscientious objectors", a term established, I think, by the Seventh-Day Adventists. As a Baha'i, I had requested non-cobattant service, and that was the category that all non-combattants served under. This included, Quakers, Menonnites, Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists, Christian Scientists, Baha'is and others who did not object to military service, but refused to carry a weapon to kill people with. I was surprised to learn, later on, that Baha'is from some countries, like Iran for example where the Baha'i Faith originated, were required to serve as combattants in the military, because there was no provision in Iranian law for non-combattant service. More about this later.

The guys I was training with were an interesting group from many different religious backgrounds. We had some thought-provoking discussions in the barracks during this period. One of the black guys, who had been selected as a leader in the barracks, was curious to know why the black Baha'i and I were such close friends, because most of the blacks who were from the South, kept to themselves. We explained that we were both Baha'is and what that meant.

At Fort Sam Houston I learned the basics of Medical Lab technology. It was pretty much hands on learning. I learned how to draw blood with a syringe and how to do some basic hematological and chemical tests using blood samples. We learned how to make a blood smear on a glass slide, stain it and analyse it under a microscope.

Needless to say, we tried to get away from the compound as often as we could. It was during our ventures into San Antonio that we first encountered the real world of the South. The country as a whole was grappling with the problem of racial integration and basic human rights. A majority of Southern congressmen in the U.S. House of Representative signed a document in 1956 which disavowed racial integration of public institutions such as schools, in opposition to the unanimous 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, in the Brown v. Board of Education case, which ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional. In 1957, Governor Faubus of Arkansas used the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine black students from attending the newly desegregated Central High School in Little Rock and President Eisenhower dispatched federal troops to escort them to their classes. That was the state of affairs at the time.

So we experienced personally the vestiges of racial segregation in the great State of Texas. There were still public drinking fountains on the streets marked "whites only". I was really upset when my black friend and I were stopped by a Texas Ranger when we tried to sit down together at a soda fountain in town. I argued with the trooper about what I knew was the law, but to no avail - he apparently enforced a different law. Another time I went to the movies with my friend from the Carribean. They wouldn't let him go into the main part of the theater, which was reserved for whites only, so I went with him up into the peanut gallery - so high up you could hardly see the screen. I don't think it crossed my mind at the time, but I can't help but think right now, what on earth was I doing sacrificing two years of my life training to defend a country like this. This was not my country. Sadly the problem is still with us today.

Somehow I got in touch with other members of the Baha'i community in the area and spent time with them as often as I could. One of the Baha'is was an elderly gentleman named Mr. Fry. He invited me to his humble home and we had long talks about religion and our lives. He told me he used to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. It was founded by Joseph Smith in 1830 in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. When Mr. Fry became a Baha'i he was shunned by the Mormon Church. So much for religious tolerance. He was a very kind, loving and generous soul.

I also enjoyed being with the Ruckers. Gil Rucker and his young family lived on a cattle ranch. He took care of the place for the owner and was given use of the ranch house as partial payment. I used to ride fence with Gil. I soon learned why cowboys wear leather chaps to cover their legs. There was a lot of mesquite and thorny bushes that the barbed wire fence ran through. When riding along the fence, the horse would just plunge through an opening in the bushes. I just had to hang on and hope I didn't get dragged off or have my legs cut by the barbed wire.

One day I went squirrel hunting with Gil. Gil gave me a 22 rifle and told me to head one way and he went another. I used to shoot at tin cans and stuff with a 22, so I wasn't a complete novice. I headed into the scrub, climbed a knoll and sat down under a tree. I soon heard a rustling in the bushes below, and there was a squirrel, slowly hopping up the knoll right toward me. I slowly lifted the rifle, aimed and pulled the trigger. Ping! I killed that poor little squirrel dead as a door nail. I went down and picked it up by the tail and headed back to the house. Met Gill on the way. He didn't get anything. So we skinned the squirrel and had it for supper. Pretty good.

I enjoyed spending time with Gil and his family, but my training at Fort Sam was coming to en end. Time for my OJT - On the job training. For that, I was shipped out to Fort Bragg, in the sand hills of North Carolina. That was the home of the 82nd Airborne at the time. Interesting how what goes around comes around, cuz I now live as a retired octogenarian in Fearrington Village in the Piedmont of North Carolina only a few hours drive from Fort Bragg. I worked in the medical lab there on the base - one of the largest in the United States. I was able to apply all the skills I had learned at Fort Sam Houston. I remember that one of the first patients I drew blood on was a prisoner in the brig at Fort Bragg. It went quite well. He never batted an eye - or me.

You dun made your speech, boy!

My on-the-job training at Fort Bragg lasted about four weeks. As usual, I got off base as often as I could and explored Fayetteville and got in touch with the Baha'is there. I like the topography of the region. It's near the area called the sand hills, which is characterized, as the name implies, by sandy hills and scrub pine. These were the early days of the Baha'i Faith in the United States. The institutions of the Faith were developing and individuals were learning and trying to accomodate to new rules and ways of doing things. Inevitably there were growing pains, and I experienced some of them, which I won't elaborate upon here. I mention this because it is relavant to the community in Fayetteville. The Baha'i community, as might be expected, was racially mixed. One of the Baha'is that I remember most vividly was a little black woman with a strong personality and vibrant spirit. Although she loved the powerful ideas of her new faith, and embodied the principle of the oneness of mankind, she was still active in her local church, which as one might expect in this rural setting, had a black minister and an all black congregation. I had heard other black preachers and was attracted to the power of their oratory and the energy of their delivery. It bothers me, that I can't remember the little black lady's name, but I'll never forget where she led me and what she said to me.

She asked me to go to church with her and I gladly accepted. We entered the little country church together and sat in the front pew. I was the only white person in that church, but I felt welcome and at home. The minister gave a powerful sermon. I wish I had recorded it. When the service was over we slowly left, stopping to talk briefly with her friends, shook the ministers hand, who told us to come back. As we walked home, I was full of excitement about the significance of that experience, and on the way, I asked her if she could arrange for me to give a talk sometime in the church and introduce them to the Baha'i Faith. I'll never forget her answer. "You dun made your speech, boy!", she said. She was right.

Croix Chapeau

When training was over, we awaited our onward assignment. I had requested European theater in the hopes of being sent to Germany. I always wanted to go to Germany, because my mother's parents were German. Triftshauser and Werner. Actually, Grampa Triftshauser was born in the States, but his parents were from Württemberg. Her mother, Magdalena Werner, was born in Alsace-Lorraine, but came to the States with her parents when she was 8. I spoke some German and even had some in school. I remember that I took a special "experimental" class in the 8th grade at Eden Central, taught by Mr. Bamberger. Why it was called "experimental" I'm not sure. Anyway, I was assigned to the 28th General Hospital in Croix Chapeau. That's on the West coast of France near La Rochelle.

This was 1957 and the Cold War with the Soviet Union was still on. The Soviets stayed in all the East European countries they had helped to conquer during the Second World War, and thought they would just keep moving into Western Europe, until we said no. At that time West Germany was what they called ADSEC and France was called BASEC, military acronyms for Advance Section and Base Section. ADSEC was where all the fighting troops, artillery, tanks, etc. were located to stop the Soviets from pushing West, and BASEC, was the logistical support area, where there were such things as ammunition depots and hospitals, thus the brand new 28th General Hospital at Croix Chapeau.

We shipped out of the Brooklyn Navy Yard aboard the USS Upshur, and headed for Savannah, where we picked up the rotating 82 Airborne. The bunks were stacked four high below decks. My bunk was the first or second, hung against the bulkhead. It was well below the water level and I could hear the water sloshing against the ship. They let us up on deck once or twice a day for some fresh air, and from Brooklyn to Savannah we had to pull guard duty at night. I was glad to get any chance to get out on deck for some fresh air. During the times I had to pull guard, the weather was great. The stars glistened in the sky and a couple times I saw porpoise swimming along with the ship. Unfortunately, guard duty only lasted until Savannah. The gung ho 82nd Airborne pulled guard duty all the rest of the way across the Atlantic to Bremerhaven, which took about a week. A lot of guys got seasick on the way, but I was lucky not to be bothered by the motion of the ship.

I remember seeing the white cliffs of Dover as we entered the English Channel. We sailed into the North Sea and along the coast of Belgium, the Netherlands and Northern Germany to the mouth of the Weser river. The port of Bremerhaven on the Eastern shore of the Weser is where we finally docked. Luckily the USS Upshur stayed up all the way. That was the only ocean voyage I ever took or hope to take - at least in a troop ship. They let us up on deck and I got my first up close glimpse of Germany. I was happy and excited. Down below on the dock there was a policeman slowly pacing in a long, darkgreen leather coat. He looked very German. I knew I was there, in the land of my grandparents.

I don't remember exactly how we got to the train, but they probably took us in busses. We had a long trip ahead of us. By train from Bremerhaven to La Rochelle, France would have taken at least 14 to 15 hours. I don't remember the route we took, but I do remember gazing out the window at the scenery and the towns as we went by. We were finally approaching La Rochelle, when someone said we were passing near Croix Chapeau where we'd working for the next year and a half or so. I knew they were building a new hospital complex, but I couldn't see any new construction. All I could see, at least on my side of the train, were fields and some tarpaper shacks. I soon learned that if we had arrived a few months earlier, we would have been living in those shacks. Luckily, the living quarters of the new complex were completed, and the guys who had been living in the tarpaper shacks had just moved into their new billets. The hospital itself was not yet finished, but all the living quarters, including sleeping areas, mess hall, library, EM Club and recreation facilities were complete. The 28th General Hospital complex was a typical military compound. Kind of a miniature Pentagon. All the different facilities, which were two stories high, were connected by long hallways. You never had to go outside to get from one place to another.

We all got settled into our living quarters and learned what the daily routine would be. Until the new hospital was completed we would drive into La Rochelle, about 15 kilometers away, to the old Aufredi hospital to work in the medical labs there. It was said that Napoleon was once a patient in Aufredi Hospital. La Rochelle used to be an old walled Huguenot stronghold. Huguenots were French Protestants who followed John Calvin or the Reformed tradition of Protestantism, as opposed to the German Protestants who followed Martin Luther. Protestants in France were persecuted by the Catholic majority until the end of the 18th century. The entrance to the harbor was protected by two stone towers between which a huge iron chain was stretched to prevent marauders from entering during the night by sea.

Shortly after I arrived at Croix Chapeau, I met Wolfgang Sydow. Wolf was a Berliner, who was orphaned during the war. He went to the States to contact relatives who had emigrated there, was drafted into the American Army, and sent to Croix Chapeau. We became good friends. I practiced my German with him. He spoke with a thick Berlin accent which was evident even when he spoke English. We spent time together in the EM Club after work, talking, drinking and smoking. I didn't drink beer or smoke cigarettes until I met Wolf. He told me about his friend Marlis whom he knew from the orphanage in Berlin. She had married, had a child, but was then divorced. I guess they were corresponding, because he knew she was then living in Dusseldorf. He showed me a picture of her he kept in his wallet. That evening we enjoyed listening to a German band that performed at the EM club, and we talked about going to Germany together when we had accumulated enough leave time.

The hospital at Croix Chapeau was now fully functional and we hired a local to assist in the Lab. Her name was Jacqueline Lavignone. She was young and newly trained, but learned quickly and worked out well. Sometimes I let her practice her phlebotomy (blood drawing) technique on me. I think it was about this time that bought an old Plymouth Coupe from a DAC (Department of Army Civilian) who was returning to the US. It needed some work so I got it cheap. It was good to have wheels to get around on my free time. Jacqueline invited me to her home for dinner one night to meet her parents. They lived in Châtelaillon, South of La Rochelle, not far from Croix Chapeau. I was treated to a typical French dinner. The entrée was soup or potage, the main course (le plat principal) was a local fish, then came a delicious selection of local cheeses for dessert. After the meal, Jacqueline's father invited me into the drawing room for a cognac and a cigar. He spoke perfect English, because he had worked in England, so I didn't have to struggle with my limited French.

Wolfgang and I explored the region around La Rochelle, known as the Charente Maritime. We drove mostly South along the coast as far as Royan. One of the most unusual things I saw during our little excursions, which I had never seen before nor since, was the "transporter bridge" across the Charente river at Rochefort. It is the only surviving transporter bridge out of five bridges that used to operate in France and one of the last eight remaining in the world. The "bridge" is a platform suspended by cables from a track running high above the river. Cars drive onto the platform on one side of the river and the platform is shuttled to the other side. Here's the website, with pictures, which tells the story of this amazing 19th century engineering wonder: http://www.thomasjamesholidays.co.uk/the-rochefort-transporter-bridge/

Royan was another interesting place. The town, built around a beautiful crescent beach, looked too white and new to be an ancient French town. It was new. It had been totally destroyed by British and American bombs, and one of the first uses of napalm in a bombing raid in WWII. Unfortunately, the raids killed more civilians than Germans.

Back at Croix Chapeau one day, Wolf showed me something interesting he had been doing. The Post Office at the hospital had received an unusual letter written in German and since no one there knew German, they gave it to Wolfgang to read and respond to. The address on the envelope was itself rather unusual. It was not addressed to an individual by name, but rather to a US soldier "being on the alert" at the hospital at Croix Chapeau, or something like that. It's amazing that it ever got delivered, but it did, and they gave it to Wolf to answer. The return address on the letter was from a Margrit Laue in Aachen, Germany. She had apparently visited La Rochelle on vacation with a group from the Kaufhof in Aachen where she worked. At the beach in La Rochelle, she had met a German-American GI and when she returned to Aachen, she wrote him the letter. Wolfgang discovered that the GI to whom the letter was addressed, had rotated back to the US and had left no forwarding address, so Wolfgang responded to Margrit's letter himself.

One evening when I went to the EM Club, Wolf waved me over to his table to show me something. He had been corresponding with Margrit in Aachen, and she had sent him a photograph of herself. Wolf said excitedly, "look at this!" He was holding two photos, one of Marlis, his girlfriend from Berlin, and the other was the photo of Margrit. They were so much alike, they could have been sisters. So Wolf and I started planning to go to Aachen and meet Margrit, as soon as we could get enough leave together. I don't remember exactly the date we left, some time in early February I think, but I do remember that our leave for some reason started at midnight, so of course that's when we took off. The trip took 8 1/2 to 9 hours, and I can remember that it was just dawning as we skirted Paris, then on to Reims, Sedan near the Belgian border, then Liege and finally Aachen, near the Belgian-Dutch border. As a matter of fact, there's a place called "Drei Länder Blick" or Three Country View, where there is a small monument. If you walk around the monument, in less than a minute you've been in three countries, Belgium, Holland and Germany.

Aachen or Aix la Chapelle, was the seat of Charlemagne, Charles the Great, or Holy Roman Emperor from the year 800, who had united much of western and central Europe during the early Middle Ages. Aachen is a unique city with the Aachener Dom, a magnificent cathedral, as its architectural centerpiece. Aachen is also called Bad (Bath) Aachen. It was a Roman bath, known for its mineral springs and healing waters. In the center of town is the Elisenbrunnen, an iconic neoclassical pavilion, built in 1827, that features sulfurous public drinking fountains. See this link: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisenbrunnen&prev=search

Wolgang and I drove into town, found a place to stay and bought something to eat. The food was different than the usual messhall fare. We got a couple large bottles of a local beer with porcelain, pop-off tops that could be resealed, and some rollmops. Rollmops are marinated herring wrapped around a sliced pickel and some other stuff like onion and red pepper. Boy, was that good! We rested until it was time to drive into town to meet Margrit. She was waiting under a street lamp near Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz. Margrit was Wolfgangs date, but I must admit I liked her when I first saw her. She was wearing a beret and dark stockings. She was beautiful, and very "European", kind of the ideal image of a girl I had in my imagination. I didn't know it then, of course, but I had just met my future wife and the mother of our two wonerful children, Glen and Niki.

At that time, Wolfgang wanted to visit Marlis, because, as I mentioned earlier, he knew she was divorced and living in Düsseldorf with her young daughter, Antje. Düsseldorf is about an hour's drive from Aachen, so I took Wolf there to be with Marlis, and returned to Aachen. I had arranged to see Margrit that evening. I don't remember exactly what we did that evening, but we had a chance to talk to each other alone and get better acquainted. Wolf and I had to get back to Croix Chapeau, but I wanted to see Margrit again, so I decided to return in April. She wanted to see me again also, and had even expressed an interest in coming to America. My tour in the Army would be over in June, so I had to move fast. When I returned to Aachen in April, I wanted to ask Margrit to marry me, so on the way to see her, I bought an engagement ring and popped the question. She accepted and took me to meet her family. We arranged to have an engagement party on May 10, 1959. This time I brought Wolf along, and he and Marlis, who had also decided to get together again, came to the party. I met more of Margrit's relatives, who came to help us celebrate. During that time Wolf and Marlis and Margrit and I took a Rhine cruise from Köln (Cologne) to Königswinter. The scenery in the Siebengebirge region, including the Drachenfels, was spectacular. We had a wonderful time together. Here's the Cruise link: https://www.getyourguide.com/cologne-l19/cologne-to-koenigswinter-siebengebirge-cruise-t43889/

Margrit and her family were of course affected by the war. She was born in Köthen, in east Germany, in 1937. She remembers hearing bombs falling on nearby factories as a child during the war. In 1949, at 13 years of age, she fled illegally, from what was then communist East Germany, to the West. A guide led Margrit, along with a small group of others, at night through the woods, crossing the border near Helmstedt. From there, she took a train to Köln (Cologne), where she stayed with her Aunt Elle and Uncle Karl and her two cousins, Werner and Rolf. After about two months in Köln (Cologne), she was finally reunited with her father in Schweringen, on the Weser river, in the District of Nienburg in Lower Saxony. Margrit's father could not return to East Germany, where the rest of the family still lived, because as a former Nazi, he would have been arrested by the Stasi and probably sent to Siberia. Margrit worked in Schweringen on a farm until her father found work in Aachen, in the Vaalser Quartier, through her Uncle Karl Benzine. Gradually, the rest of the family got out of East Germany and lived together for a time in very cramped quarters in what used to be an old chocolate factory that produced Sandeman chocolate. They finally moved into a small apartment on Weber Strasse in Aachen that was owned by the protestant church at the time. Margrit started working for Kaufhof, a large department store, in 1952 until she came to the States in 1960. That's where she was working when Wolfgang and I arrived in Aachen to meet her.

So I came to the end of my tour in France, and returned to the States, where I was mustered out of the Army, as a Spec 4, Medical Lab Technician. The medical training I received in the Army would eventually serve me well to help me complete my undergraduate schooling and to go on to get a Masters degree and eventually a PhD. But, I had not yet given up on singing and as soon as I could get things organized at home, I headed for NJ to pick up where I had left off with Mrs Patton. She had, in the mean time moved to Leonia, NJ, right where the George Washington Bridge crosses the Hudson River connecting Manhattan with Northern NJ.

I found a place to live in Englewood not far from Leonia, and got a job as a cashier at a night club called the Steak Pit - a plush restaurant with a violinist circulating among the tables, etc. It was an interesting job. Part of the pay was my evening meal. I could sit at an out-of-the-way table, before the evening rush, and order anything on the menu - veal parmigiana - you name it. Pretty good deal! I learned some of the tricks of the trade, too. For example, the rheostat controlling the lighting was in the cashier's area. In the early evening when you wanted a quicker turnover to maximize the clientelle, you kept the lighting up. But as the evening progressed, and you didn't expect any new diners coming in, you wanted to keep people you had as long as possible, ordering another drink, etc. So as it got later in the evening, the maitre'd would ask me to start lowering the lights slightly, over a period of time, so it wasn't noticeable to the diners. It worked. When the lights are low, people become more relaxed, and stayed longer.

I was again enjoying my vocal sessions with Mrs. Patton and making progress. I started learning operatic roles, such as Alfredo in Verdi's La Traviata, beginning with the famous drinking song in Act 1: Brindisi (Libiamo ne'lieti calici). Here's what it sounds like (copy this link to a browser): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu7zWrIMV_g The tenor is almost as good as I was.

I soon realized, however, with great regret, that I was not at a point where I could actually begin performing in an operatic company and make a living from it. I was almost 25, the age when many tenors are already beginning their careers. For me, two vital years had been ripped away by the military draft, at a most critical time in my vocal development. Furthermore, I had met Margrit and she was planning to come to the States for our wedding. I would have to find a full time job to be able to survive and not be a burden on anyone. I decided to return to Eden, turn my life in a new direction, and prepare for Margrit's arrival. I wanted to finish my last year at UB for my BA degree, which I didn't complete when I went to NJ instead to study voice with Mrs. Patton. Around this time I got a job in the Medical Lab at the VA Hospital in Buffalo. I met John Yates at that time. He was a Baha'i who also worked in the Lab at the VA. I later met his wife Pearl. Margrit remembers them both. They came to our wedding. Unfortunately, Pearl died unexpectedly, and we attended her funeral. Margrit recalls that it was the first time she ever viewed a dead person in an open casket ceremony.

Margrit arrived on April 8, 1960 at Idelwild airport in NYC aboard Sabena Airlines. Jack drove mother and me down to pick her up. The drive from NYC to Eden is over 7 hours by thruway, so we stayed over night at a motel near the airport, before the drive home the next day. We stayed at home in the old homestead until we got married. Before my father died, he purchased the Butts's place across the street. We rented it to Bob Feasley for a time after he got married. The Feasleys owned the dairy farm next door to the old house where I grew up. That's where we always got our milk. Anyway, sometime before I was drafted, we remodelled the Butts's house. I worked with Lester Shriner. We removed the old wrap-around porch and the door leading from the porch into the living room. It completely changed the look of the place. We also added a door and a small porch with steps at the front of the house facing the street. The largest new addition was a one car garage with access to the cellar and the stairs leading up to the kitchen. Margrit and I moved into that house after the wedding. After we moved in, I poured a concrete patio with a trellis for wisteria to climb up on. It was a pleasant place to relax outdoors and cook food on the charcoal grill. I think we also had a little vegetable garden just across a small patch of lawn.

Our wedding was on May 14, 1960. It was a Baha'i wedding which took place at the community center in Hamburg. Mrs. Holmlund, as Chairman of the Baha'i community, officiated. Most of our relatives were there. Mother made a beautiful wedding dress for Margrit. Dale, Jane's daughter, was our little flower girl, and Nancy, who was then studying music at Fredonia, played a beautiful selection on the violin, while her college roommate accompanied her on the piano. I also remember a Chinese Baha'i named Chung, who read a selection in German. Margrit says she couldn't understand him. I can't imagine why. Anyway, it was quite an international celebration. The Bahá'í marriage ceremony is done differently in each culture. The only compulsory part of the wedding is the reading of the wedding vows prescribed by Bahá'u'lláh which both the groom and the bride recite: "We will all, verily, abide by the Will of God". The whole affair was so unusual, as weddings go, that Margrit, to this day, isn't really sure she's married. Of course we've been in that state for about 58 years now, as of this writing.

Glen was born on Christmas eve, 1961, at Children's Hospital in Buffalo. I remember the evening well. Margrit and I were already in bed, when Margrit experience some distress and asked me to call Dr. Petzing, our Gynecologist in Hamburg. He assured us it was probably just gas, but told us to go to the hospital and he'd check her out. Well, the gas turned out to be a bouncing baby boy. Niki came three and a half years later on May 6, 1965, also delivered at Children's Hospital in Buffalo.

Again, as I write these memoirs, I inevitably recall things that I think are probably important enough to include, so I try to find a place in this narrative to include them. When I tell about our move to Morgantown, later on in this story, I mention the Buick we drove then. This recollection then brought to mind the fact that I drove a Volkswagen beetle for some time. Remembering the beetle, inevitably brought to mind a trip we took in that car to Little Rock to visit Wolfgang and Marlis who lived there at the time. Glen must have been about two and a half then. We had arranged the back seat of the VW like a playpen so Glen could crawl around. I guess this was in the days before seat belts. Anyway, I remember driving early in the morning through the still vacant streets of Cincinnati, with Glen sitting on the potty all the way through the city.

There are so many stories to tell about this trip that I have to pick and choose, but there is one happening that kind of says something about the country in those days. I'd like to think there are still people like the one we encountered on our trip home, but sometimes I wonder. We were driving home, when the car broke down. The spot welds broke on the pulley on the motor that operated a v-belt that ran a lot of other stuff. So the car just quit. It was dark out, somewhere in Illinois, I think, and we had to pull off the road. No cell phones in those days either, so we had to rely on the kindness of “strangers”. As I recall someone stopped to see what was the matter and offered to contact a tow truck in the next town. We waited, and sure enough, a tow truck pulled up and hauled us into town to a service station. But that's not the end of the story. The manager of the service station told us that he'd have to order parts from the nearest VW dealer. It would take until the next day to have the car repaired, so he'd have to take us to a motel. We didn't have enough money for a motel or the repair job, so the manager paid cash for the motel and gave us a bill for the repair. We told him we'd send him a check when we got home, and that was good enough for him. So in the telling of this story, I came to realize that in those days there were no seat belts, no cell phones and no credit cards, which are all ubiquitous today. Hard to believe.

Dr. Prezna, a pathologist at the VA, asked me to operate a clinical laboratory he had just established in a new Professional Center in Hamburg. I jumped at the chance, since it was closer to home, and I would essentially be my own boss. The Center housed the offices of several Physicians, who sent all their patients to me for their basic lab work. It was in a nice residential area of Hamburg, only about a 15 minute drive from Eden. It was a real improvement over the VA job. Furthermore, Dr. Prezna was a good friend, who offered to help me financially if I wanted to go to Medical School, but I wanted to do something else with my life. I was more interested in international relations and working overseas in some kind of development work, but a more immediate concern was finishing my education, so I started exploring the programs of various graduate schools.

My brother Jack, who also became a Baha'i around this time, was developing a business in wholesale plumbing and heating supply with a Baha'i friend from East Aurora. The name of the company was Walanee Associates, built on the Baha'i principle of profit sharing. Any tradesman, builder or plumber, who purchased materials from Walanee Associates, could avail himself of special discounts, if he became a member of the Association. The idea was new and revolutionary and also difficult to administer. In my spare time, I tried to help Jack with the business. I was still operating the Hamburg Clinical Lab which paid well, so I helped Jack out for nothing. I set up a mailing list of existing and potential clients and designed and distributed promotional material. Computer systems and digital technology had not yet evolved to what it is today, so I used what was available. I got my hands on an old discarded Addressograph-Multigraph machine. There were actually two heavy machines, one to stamp addresses onto a piece of soft metal, and a larger machine, that must have weighed a ton, for stamping these addresses onto a stack of envelopes. I also scrounged a silk-screen printing machine to do multi-colored promotional material for mailing. That was real automation in those days and quite impressive to see it all work.

During this time, Jack got married. This unfortunately gave rise to a controversy in the Baha'i community that was, in my judgment, a poorly managed over reaction by our national Baha'i institutions. It had to do with an obscure rule, not understood by the local community at the time, which required that if a Baha'i marries a non-Baha'i, and two ceremonies are conducted, the Baha'i marriage must be conducted first. In this case, my brother and his wife got married in her church first. This resulted in my brother losing his administrative rights, ie., being able to be elected a member of a local assembly and voting for the same. The clumsy manner in which the matter was handled by National, adversely affected an entire community, and of course the two families directly concerned. It also resulted in my voluntary withdrawal from active participation in the Faith, although I still considered myself a Baha'i.

I sent out applications for graduate school about this time and was accepted into the Masters Program at West Virginia University at Morgantown in 1966. Margrit and I drove to Morgantown so I could secure a job in the Medical Laboratory at the University Hospital and to find housing. We ended up finding a place to live in a community called Westover, across the Monongahela River from Morgantown. When we were ready to move our household, Jack, Paul and mother helped load our stuff into a truck and drove down to West Virginia, while Margrit and I led the way in our Buick Special, We settled in and I started with a full-time program in the Political Science department. I also worked full-time at night and on weekends at the hospital. Looking back it's hard to imagine how we did it.

I got my MA in Political Science in May, 1968, and went on for my PhD. While working on my Doctorate, I was offered a teaching assistantship and taught a couple undergraduate classes. Margrit also took a job at the Mountaineer doing office work. With both of us working, I could finally quit my night job at the WVU Hospital. During the Summers I managed to get an internship with the Agency for International Development in Washington, D.C.. As it turned out the internship was a wonderful opportunity to get my foot in the door with the Dept. of State and the associated Agency in which I ultimately built my career.

I finished all the work for my PhD, less dissertation, in 1970, and went again that Summer with Margrit and the kids to Washington for another internship with AID. We stayed in a nice high-rise apartment in Takoma Park with a big swimming pool, so Margrit and the kids could enjoy themselves. I took advantage of an opportunity that Summer, to start working full-time with AID in the Office of Management Planning.

During that time I met Bill Lefes, who was getting ready to leave for an overseas job as Program Officer with AID in Saigon. He was looking for a Program Evaluation Officer, and was impressed with some of the analytical work I had been doing, and asked me to come with him to Saigon. The only drawback of course was that there was a war going on in Vietnam at the time. I discussed the job with Margrit and we decided to do it. The Agency did not permit families to go to a war zones, so they gave us a choice of three so-called safe-haven posts for the families of AID officers who would be working in Saigon. The choices were, Manila in the Philippines, Taipei in Taiwan, or Bangkok, Thailand. We chose Bangkok because it was certainly an exotic place to live, but was also relatively closer to Saigon than the other posts, and would be easier to get to when I could take leave.

So I went to Saigon. On the way I stopped in Bangkok to choose a place for Margrit and the kids to live. When I got off the plane at Bangkok International Airport it was like walking into an oven. It must have been close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I took a taxi to Palm Estates, a gated community recommended for AID employees. On the way into town I got my first glimpses of Thai life and liked what I saw. When the taxi stopped at a red light, women with arms full of beautiful handmade leis of orchids ran up to the window of the taxi to sell me some. The taxi driver took off before I had a chance to roll down the window.

Palm Estates was quite a nice place and lived up to it's name. We drove through a gate into a lush setting of green grass, exotic flowers and palm trees. We drove past a little pond accented with palms and flowers and parked. There were large building each holding several apartments with beautiful balconies. The apartments that were occupied all had balconies overflowing with hanging plants and flowers. I was shown an apartment, I think it was on the third floor. It was quite spacious and the balcony overlooked the drive, the little pond and the flowers and palm trees. I could also glimpse a beautiful swimming pool next to the other apartment building.

I was favorably impressed and was quite sure that Margrit and the kids would be happy there. One nice thing about Palm Estates was that it was not an American ghetto. It was a diverse, international community. An Australian couple lived next door, and

an American who worked for ESSO lived on the floor above with his wife. I don't remember where or how long I stayed in Thailand, but it was not long. Just long enough to arrange with the Embassy to help Margrit and the kids get settled when they arrived later. I returned to Bangkok to help when they flew in from Germany.

So I flew on to Saigon. As the plane descended for it's approach to the airport [Tan Son Nhut] I could see bomb craters all over the place. Somewhat unsettling, to say the least. I don't remember too much about the drive into town, but it was definitely not like Bangkok. They put me in a single room apartment in the Peninsula Hotel downtown Saigon just off the famous Tu Do Street, a block or so from the river. On the corner was a bar frequented by American military which had recently been attacked by Viet Cong and some Americans were killed. During the time I lived in the Peninsula Hotel, I ate all my meals in a military mess in a building a block or so away that housed more military.

I knew the war was still on, because at night I could occasionally hear the dull thud of B-52 bomb drops in the distance. One night a rocket exploded quite near the hotel. It hit close enough that I could feel the impact and hear glass shattering. I remember that there was a small mosque across the street and my room was high enough that I could look into the courtyard and watch the men take off their sandals and wash their feet at a fountain before entering the mosque for prayers. The mosque was an island of tranquility in an otherwise turbulent setting. This link shows a picture of Tu Do street. https://www.cardcow.com/306971/tu-do-street-saigon-southeast-asia/

Founded in 1961 under the administration of John F. Kennedy (1960-1963), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) inherited a wide range of civilian assistance programs launched in Vietnam.

American assistance to the Vietnamese began before 1954, when Communist forces ended over a century of French colonial dominance at the Siege of Điện Biên Phủ. The Americans then continued to support civil society in the South after 1955, when the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) declared its independence and elected Ngô Đình Diệm as president. President Ngô remained head of state with American aid until his assassination on November 2, 1963 by a rival military faction.

By 1967, President Lyndon Johnson sought to improve counterinsurgency operations in Vietnam by officially coordinating many of these civilian assistance programs with military operations under an unprecedented inter-agency organization known as CORDS, or “Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support.” President Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974) subsequently continued the inter-agency effort, referring to the acronym as “Civil Operations and Rural Development Support.”

So the foreign aid program that USAID supported in Vietnam was somewhat skewed toward Security Assistance as opposed to a more normal Economic Development or Humanitarian Assistance program. In Vietnam, the need to maintain greatly expanded armed forces required a large portion of the country's total resources, resulting in large budget deficits and inflation, which required higher levels of imported resources.

At the same time that I was directly involved in designing and evaluating the implementation of projects which supported this effort, I was writing a Doctoral Dissertation on that very subject. My dissertation was entitled: Management Control of Technical Assistance Projects – A Case Study. The “Case Study” was in fact the implementation of a development support operation in Vietnam, in the face of an insurgency. In other words, I was involved in the creation of a new management process, which was the subject of my dissertation, while at the same time, using this new framework to actually design and evaluate projects in the field.

As usual I looked for the Baha'is in the community and found some who became close friends during my tour in Vietnam. My closest friend was a Vietnamese journalist named Nguyen Ahn Dung (pronounced win an yung). He spoke some English, so we were able to communicate from the start. There was also an eccentric older gentleman, called Uncle Chu, who always hung around with Dung. Dung called him the Pagoda man, meaning he was always freeloading. But he was a delightful person to be with, because he could converse about anything. He was obviously well educated, but I never learned much about his past. He always carried scraps of paper and a pencil and would be jotting notes continuously. They were in Vietnamese, so I never knew what he was writing about.

In my first year in Saigon, I was absorbed with my job and at night with completing my Doctoral Dissertation. When it was finished, I had it typed up and sent it in to the Political Science Department at West Virginia University. A time was scheduled for my review and I flew to West Virginia to defend my dissertation before a panel of professors. I defended the dissertation successfully and was awarded a PhD on December 15, 1973.

I returned to Saigon. The Paris Peace Accords, signed on January 27, 1973, ended direct U.S. military combat, and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam. The International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS) was created to supervise the cease-fire. It was composed of military and civilian personnel from two communist nations, Hungary and Poland, and two non-communist nations, Canada and Indonesia. Canada’s left the Commission in July and was replaced by Iran.

Iran was still ruled by the Shah. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi came to power during World War II after an Anglo-Soviet invasion forced the abdication of his father. During his reign, the Iranian oil industry was briefly nationalized, under Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, until a US and UK-backed coup d'état deposed Mosaddegh and brought back foreign oil firms.

The Shah gradually lost support from the Shi'a clergy of Iran as well as the working class, particularly due to his strong policy of modernization, conflict with the traditional class of merchants, relations with Israel, and corruption issues. Various additional controversial policies were enacted, including the banning of the communist Tudeh Party and a general suppression of political dissent by Iran's intelligence agency, SAVAK. Several other factors contributed to strong opposition to the Shah among certain groups within Iran, the most significant of which were US and UK support for his regime, clashes with Islamists and increased communist activity. By 1979, political unrest had transformed into a revolution which, on 17 January, forced him to leave Iran. Soon thereafter, the Iranian monarchy was formally abolished, and Iran was declared an Islamic republic led by Ruhollah Khomeini. Facing likely execution should he return to Iran, he died in exile in Egypt, where Anwar Sadat had granted him asylum.

Again I'm getting ahead of my story, but I thought it would be relevant to recall Iran's political position at the time, and the role it played in Vietnam at the time I was there. I met one of the Iranian officers, who was sent to Vietnam to monitor the cease fire. I can't remember his name, but to my surprise he was a Baha'i. You may recall that when I was drafted into the Army, I had just become a Baha'i and requested to serve as a non-combatant. I also mentioned that not all countries offered that option to citizens called into military service and Iran was one of them. The Iranian officer spoke English, so we had some interesting conversations about the Faith in the country of its birth. Persecution of the Faith was not as bad under the Shah as it is today.

I made a few more trips to Bangkok during my first tour in Vietnam, and Margrit and the kids were able to visit me in Saigon during the cease-fire as well. At the end of my first tour, as was the normal practice in the foreign service, we all went on home leave. Instead of flying directly to the States, we decided to take a vacation, and made some stops along the way. Our first stop was Hong Kong. We toured Victoria Peak and stopped along the way to see the little fishing villages. On another day we took a bus into Kowloon territory as far as the Chinese border, which at that time was closed to western visitors. Times have certainly changed since those days. Glen, who was about 12 when we visited Hong Kong, is now living in Shanghai and teaching at NYU there.

Our next stop was Tokyo. The flight over the coast was breathtaking. The hotel rooms were very clean and each guest had their own Japanese robe and slippers. We liked the robes so much we bought some to take home. There was a TV set in the room and it was interesting to see the commentators constantly bowing to each other. The first day we took a taxi to the Ginza, Tokyo's most famous upmarket shopping, dining and entertainment district, featuring numerous department stores.

When the taxi pulled up to the curb to pick us up, the rear door opened automatically. When we got in I noticed that the driver was wearing white gloves. Very impressive! The Ginza was amazing – like Times Square, only more so. We went to a department store just to look around. What amazed me most was the uniquely artistic packaging – paper and cardboard delicately folded like origami. In the food section, for example, I saw three eggs standing end to end delicately held with a straw harness with a little loop at the top for a handle.

We had lunch in a little restaurant on a side street near our hotel. Again a unique experience. When we entered, the waiter, noting that we were foreigners, beckoned us back outside. He pointed out a little display window containing replicas of the various dishes on the menu. They were artificial, but as it turned out, looked exactly like the real thing. I pointed to a delicate bowl of soup with Shirataki noodles and a quails egg. When they brought me that delightful steaming bowl of soup, with a spoon and some chop sticks, it looked just like the soup in the display window.

Our next stop on the way home was Hawaii. We rented a car and drove around the island of O'ahu. We saw Waikiki, took the boat to the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, drove into the interior and saw the huge plantations of pineapple, then down the Northern coast and around Diamond Head. We drove back to the airport for our flight home.

We flew to Chicago, then to Buffalo where Paul and Steve met us and we headed to Eden. After home leave we all returned to Saigon. We flew first to Germany for a brief stay, then to Karachi, where we visited some friends and bought some Pakistani rugs. It was fun shopping for rugs in Karachi. We sat in a shop on little stools and were offered some tea. The room was completely lined with hundreds of rugs of all sizes. A gentleman with a thick Pakistani accent, beckoned to his help to throw down one carpet after another, each one more beautiful than the next. The ones we liked best would be set aside. I remember this experience most vividly, because Glen was there observing the whole affair and listening to the Pakistani gentleman describing the different carpets and Glen would later mimic the Pakistani accent to perfection. To this day when ever we talk about Pakistan and our rug buying escapade, we recall the Pakistani merchant assuring Margrit, “Oh, this is the qvality, maam!”

We bought several rugs of different sizes, some of which are in our home now to remind us of our Karachi experience, and some in Niki's home in Minneapolis. The people in the shop rolled the rugs we purchased carefully, wrapped them in burlap, and tied them securely with cord, providing hand holds so they could be moved more easily. We had them shipped to Saigon.

With the ceasefire more or less holding, families with grade school aged children like Glen and Niki, were permitted to live in Saigon. We moved into new quarters in an apartment building on Hong Thap Tu street, across the street from the Cercle Sportif, a popular venue for swimming, tennis and other sports, dating back to French colonial times. We were on the third floor, which I think was the top floor of the building, so we could look across the wall surrounding the Cercle Sportif and watch a group of elderly Vietnamese and Chinese, doing their synchronized Tai Chi exercises in the morning. It was like watching a ballet.

During my time in Vietnam, I traveled extensively, as far North as Hue, which at the time was near the border with North Vietnam. From Hue to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) was about 50 miles. Huế was the seat of the Nguyễn Dynasty emperors from 1802 to 1945. A major attraction is its vast, 19th-century citadel, surrounded by a moat and thick stone walls. It encompasses the Imperial City, containing palaces and shrines. The Battle of Huế, during the 1968 Tet Offensive, was one of the longest and bloodiest of the Vietnam War. A lot of the old buildings were pocked with bullet holes from the fighting there. Other cities I visited included, Da Nang, Nha Trang, Dalat, Phan Thiet, Vung Tau, a beach area just South of Saigon, and CanTho, in the Delta. There are stories to tell about these places, but I'll try to fill some of that in later.

Our second tour in Vietnam came to an end a little sooner than expected. Americans were becoming tired of the war, of both the financial and human costs. President Nixon launched his Vietnamization program gradually withdrawing direct military support and Congress finally voted to cut off all funding for such support. The VC were gradually moving down the peninsula as well as through the jungles of Laos and Cambodia. Once a week or so I would go out to Than Son Nhut, airbase to be briefed on the progress of the war. There was a large map on the wall showing the movement of the VC in solid red. Each time I went there I could see the Red Tide advancing closer to Saigon.

It was time to begin thinking about our next assignment. I had been negotiating for my next post, which, though not my first choice, would have been Jakarta, Indonesia. We had already started to have our things packed in crates in preparation for shipping to our next post. As it turned out we were lucky to have a head start on most of the others, because the situation deteriorated quicker than expected. If it weren't for our anticipation of an onward assignment, our beautiful teak wall unit that we had built in Bangkok, would probably never have gotten out.

Margrit and the kids left earlier than me. They flew to Bangkok and then on to Germany. The atmosphere in Saigon changed, it seemed to be quieter, a little more tense. The roads leading into the city were blockaded with tank traps. The tension was heightened one day, when a jet fighter swept in and dropped a bomb on the Palace and flew out to sea. Shortly after that, I remember Don Hayes, a friend of mine at the Embassy with whom I used to play squash out at Than Son Nhut, asked what my plans were for leaving Saigon. When I told him, he replied that I'd better move my plans up a bit. I thanked him and moved my departure date up by about a week. I flew out of Saigon to Bangkok on one of the last flights of Air Vietnam. It's a good thing I did, because if I'd waited, I'd be taking off of the Embassy roof by helicopter. In those last days Than Son Nhut was being shelled, and planes could not take off.

I learned this story later, but it's worth telling. My friend Don Hayes, who was an admin officer at the embassy, was given the assignment in the last days, to take care of some local embassy personnel, who had been taken as a group to Than Son Nhut for evacuation. He was with them in a tennis court area, when a marine helicopter flew in and landed near by. He walked to the chopper and they told him to get on - alone. He refused, explaining that he was responsible for the safe evacuation of all the Vietnamese personnel assembled there. In keeping with his word, he stayed there until every last person was airlifted to the ships awaiting off shore. A true hero, in my estimation and I'm sure of those Vietnamese colleagues he looked after.

From Bangkok, I flew to Germany to see Margrit and the kids for a few days and then I flew to Washington, D.C. by myself. Two weeks later Margrit came with the kids. We decided to put them in school in Eden. I worked at the State Department during this period on the Refugee Task Force. We monitored the flow of refugees from Vietnam as they moved to Guam and other places and finally to the United States. We sponsored my Secretary to get her to Washington and get her settled. I've lost touch, but I think she did quite well for herself.

My next job was also in the State Department as a Desk Officer, on the India-Sri Lanka-Nepal Desk. I enjoyed this job very much. I was given a free hand in the design and subsequent implementation of an evaluation of our PL480 Food for Peace program in India. Although we did not have a bi-lateral AID program in India at the time, it was nevertheless the largest PL480 program in the world.

This was during the time that Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister of India. She was the first and, to date, the only female Prime Minister of India. She belonged to the Nehru–Gandhi family and was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian prime minister. Despite her surname Gandhi, she is not related to the family of Mahatma Gandhi. She served as Prime Minister from January 1966 to March 1977 and again from January 1980 until her assassination in October 1984, making her the second longest-serving Indian prime minister after her father.

Prime Minister, Gandhi was known for her political ruthlessness and unprecedented centralization of power. She went to war with Pakistan in support of the independence movement and war of independence in East Pakistan, which resulted in an Indian victory and the creation of Bangladesh, as well as increasing India's influence in South Asia. Gandhi instituted a state of emergency from 1975 to 1977 where basic civil liberties were suspended and the press was censored. Widespread atrocities were carried out during the emergency.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) was the lead voluntary agency (Volag) implementing the Food for Peace program in India. They were headquartered in New York City, so I traveled there to talk to them about their program in India and which of their projects they would like to have evaluated.

I worked with Ed Fox from the Office of Food for Peace, which is part of the Agency for International Development. We flew together to New Delhi and stayed at the Akbar Hotel. The hotel was a tall building, the only high-rise structure in that part of Delhi at the time. We had rooms quite high up in the hotel, and I remember looking down to a circular swimming pool far below. There were a number of Russians in the hotel and around the pool. The USSR and India enjoyed friendly relations during the Indira Gandhi regime. We stayed in Delhi for a day or two planning the next move.

Some of our planning involved deciding which four-star restaurant we'd go to in the evening. We'd order a taxi and go down to the lobby to wait. The taxi would arrive at the front door – all the taxis in New Delhi were little, black British Austins – we'd walk to the door, which was opened by a huge doorman in a uniform and a turbin – he must have been a Sikh – hopped in the taxi and we were off to the restaurant. I remember one of the restaurants we went to. The dining area was huge, and we sat next to the kitchen which was completely open, but separated by a low bannister, so you could watch all the cooks in their tall, white chefs hats preparing the food. Very impressive and very unusual.

I also remember that we ate once in the hotel restaurant. I only mention this, because it was a rather comical experience. We sat down and ordered. I was hungry, so I ordered a steak. After a short wait, we saw the waiter approach pushing a cart carrying our food and some other apparatus to prepare the steak right at the table. The waiter went through an elaborate procedure with my steak ending with a flaming pyre which caught everyone sitting near us by surprise. The flames subsided and there on the plate was an impressive, sizzling piece of meat. I thanked the waiter for his impressive performance and he withdrew with his cart. I wished Ed Fox “bon appetit” and started to eat. That elaborately prepared steak...was the toughest damn piece of meat I ever ate. But I ate it nevertheless.

The PL480 evaluation would take us to Calcutta (Kolkata) and Bombay (Mumbai) by plane and from Calcutta by train up into Gujarat. We flew to Calcutta to look at some sanitation projects in the slums of that city, which is located in West Bengal near the border with Bangladesh. The flight there was enjoyable and the view of the Himalayas of Nepal out the window was spectacular. We stayed in an old British colonial hotel. I remember looking out the window on the first floor of the hotel onto a street scene out of Rudyard Kipling. The street was bustling with traffic – ox carts, bicycles and women in saris. Immediately below the window was a man with a cart and a pile of sugar cane. The cart had a press on it operated by a hand crank. He ran a stalk of sugar cane through the press and the juice came poring out into a glass. People were standing around drinking fresh pressed sugar cane juice.

We took a rickshaw to the project site in a very poor area of the city. It was a Food for Work project to build latrines for a large community. The Food for Work Programme (FWP) in India provided a year's employment to almost one million people annually. The FWP was initiated to generate employment, create durable community assets and rural infrastructure, and utilise the surplus foodgrain available in the U.S. The program came under criticism as a development tool, because it tended to suppress local initiatives to produce food, but the primary purpose of FWP was humanitarian, and in that regard, especially in this instance, it worked well.

During this trip I also saw how important the cow was to the life of the people in India. Of course the cow is sacred in the Hindu religion, but in the slums of Calcutta, I saw other evidence of its utility. They used cow dung as fuel. Here's apicture of cow dung patties drying on a wall. The locals would mix a little straw into the patty and slap it against a stone wall in a nice pattern with their hand print clearly embossed in it.

One of my first impressions of India when we arrived in Delhi was the smoke rising into the air from thousands of fires burning dried cow dung for the evening meals. From my vantage point high up in the Akbar hotel I could look out over a wide area and see the smoke hanging in the air as far as the eye could see.

From Calcutta we flew to Bombay on the coast of the Arabian Sea. We stayed in the old Taj Mahal Hotel looking down on the India Gate, the ceremonial gateway built for the arrival of British Royalty and High Officials during the Raj. The British Raj refers to the period of British rule on the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947. The system of governance was instituted in 1858 when the rule of the East India Company was transferred to the Crown in the person of Queen Victoria, who in 1876 was proclaimed Empress of India.

I remember walking in front of the building with a large statue of Queen Victoria seated on a throne. Near there was a large green field where they no doubt played Cricket. Beyond that was a promenade along the shore and the sea beyond.

The project we were going to inspect was a boys school, run by CRS, almost a days ride by train up into Gujarat State.

At the train station we were met by a woman, whom I think was a Catholic nun, although she wore a normal dress. She knew about the school we were going to visit and told us about it as we rode. She was accompanied by a tall Indian gentleman who spoke perfect English - with a British accent.

The train ride was very pleasant and interesting. The coach we rode in had windows that could be opened by the passengers, and some of the windows were open as I recall. The engine was a steam locomotive and chugged along at a moderate pace. It was early morning as we pulled out of the station, and for several miles along the tracks you could see the bare asses of people squatting by the tracks taking their morning constitutionals. I remember the big Indian gentleman, seated across from me, exclaimed, obviously quite annoyed, in his proper English accent, “Don't pay any attention, their just making a nuisance of themselves.” I couldn't help but thinking to myself, the real nuisance was not having any other place to take a crap.

The train was definitely not an express. It made stops along the way, which actually made the trip more enjoyable, and gave us a chance to experience life of the Indian peasants along the way. We were riding along the coast, and in one area there was a huge expanse of salt flats, where they were harvesting sea salt. They had erected large walled areas where the sun evaporated the water leaving the pure white sea salt. In some places they had scrapped the salt into large piles to be put into bags to be sold in the markets. A very impressive sight.

Another glimpse of life along the tracks came into view as we approached a long bridge over an estuary. Along the banks of the estuary were several elephants, obviously domesticated, being washed by peasant boys in the river. So it was – one uniquely exotic scene after another - until we pulled into the little rural train station at our destination.

We were picked up by a middle aged gentleman who drove us into the country to the boys school. He told us the story of this unique school for adivasi children. Adivasi is the collective name used for the many indigenous peoples of India. Of course India's caste system is among the world's oldest forms of social stratification surviving to this day and some of these children were from the caste called Dalits - outcastes or untouchables. The system which divides Hindus into rigid hierarchical groups based on their karma (work) and dharma (the Hindi word for religion, but here it means duty) is generally accepted to be more than 3,000 years old.

The wonderful thing about this school was that it provided a means for these young adivasi to break out of their caste and go on to higher education. The young students even governed themselves. They elected their own officers and participated in the operation of the school. It was certainly heart-warming to note that our Food for Peace program was supporting this kind of activity half way around the world.

We returned to Bombay and flew back to New Delhi. Over the next several days we prepared our reports for AID/W, the Office of Food for Peace and for an oral report for the U.S. Ambassador to India. During this time we did a little sight seeing since there was so much to see near by. The Red Fort was the first place I visited since it was the closest. The Red Fort is a historic fort in the center of Delhi. It was the main residence of the emperors of the Mughal dynasty for nearly 200 years, until 1856. Constructed in 1639 by the fifth Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as the palace of his fortified capital Shahjahanabad, the Red Fort is named for its massive enclosing walls of red sandstone.

I also visited the Qutub Minar Tower. Qutb ud-Din Aibak, the founder of Turkish rule in north-western India and also of the Mamluk Dynasty in Delhi commissioned the construction of this monument in 1192 AD. Aibak dedicated the minaret to the Muslim Sufi mystic Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki. While some sources believe it was constructed as a tower of victory marking the beginning of Muslim dominion in India, some others say it served the muezzins who called the faithful to prayer from the minaret. The tower, made of red sandstone and marble is not only the highest brick minaret in the world, but also one of the most famous historical landmarks of India.

One of the most famous, world heritage sites is the Taj Mahal in Agra, just a short drive from New Dehli. It was a week end, and the Ambassador was indisposed, so we were offered a chauffer-driven car to take us to Agra to see it, It was a good thing we were given a chauffer because the road was clogged with traffic of all sorts – not only other cars, but camels and elephants as well, all demanding the right of way. When driving on that road to Agra, both the brakes, and the horn are in continuous use. Our chauffer was an expert on the horn.

Almost everyone has seen the Taj Mahal in pictures, but it is even more impressive in real life. It is one of the most perfect structures viewed from a distance, but what most people do not realize is that it is literally a gem when viewed up close. The white marble of the building is inlaid with semi precious stones which are only seen up close.

The mausoleum in Agra is India’s most famous monument, and a sublime shrine to eternal love. Built from between 1632 and 1647 by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, the Taj Mahal was dedicated to Jahan’s favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died during childbirth. But despite its iconic stature, much of its history is still shrouded in mystery. Here are a few things about the marble-clad marvel you might not have known.

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/eight-secrets-taj-mahal-180962168/#udzZQYpCXrLuoo05.99

We returned to New Delhi and briefed the ambassador on all our evaluation activities on the PL480 program in India. Before leaving for Washington, I took a trip to Kathmandu, Nepal, since that was also one of my responsibilities as the Desk Officer for the India-Sri Lanka-Nepal Desk in the State Department.

I arrived in Kathmandu on a weekend so there were only a few people around to fill me in on the USAID program there. They provided me with a car and driver to take me up into the mountains to a project site, which gave me an opportunity to see the magnificent scenery around Kathmandu. The mountain slopes were heavily terraced, as far as the eye could see. It was amazing the amount of terracing required to get a small plot of level land to till and plant crops on.

I also spent a little time walking around Kathmandu. There were numerous temples with monkeys climbing around on them, and a lot of little shops to explore. I also saw elaborate prayer wheels in operation. Very conveniently, you just have to give the drums a spin, and it does your praying for you.

Nepal is famous as the world's only Hindu Kingdom. It's about 80% Hindu, about 10% Buddhist, a little more than 4% Muslim, and the rest are other beliefs, some, like Kirant, is indigenous to Nepal.

So it was then back to New Delhi for the long flight home. The time in India was one of my most memorable, thanks to the unique charm, beauty and historical richness of the Indian sub-continent.

During the period of my career as a Desk Officer, from early 1975 until about November 1976, we were also in the process of planning and building a new house in Burke, Virginia. It was a little ways out of town, but it was nice to be in the country again. The area where our house was built used to be a horse farm. We moved in sometime in September 1975. I arranged with some colleagues at the Department who lived near by to participate in a car pool to get to work. There were four or five of us who took turns driving so we didn't have to drive every day and so we could use the express lane on the thruway into D.C. A real time saver.

There were of course other things happening during this Springfield period. I built a large deck on the back of the house with a big planterbox for herbs and a tree. The back lot sloped up sharply, with other houses at the top. I built terraces and gardens on this steep slope, sort of like the Nepalese. We were on a cul-de-sac and there was a wooded area at the edge of our lot. I remember dragging stones out of the woods with a wheelbarrow to build the terraces. Niki went to a school off Keene Mill Road and Glen at another school in Springfield. The small school in Burke was full. Margrit was busy housekeeping. Margrit's parents came to visit us from Germany during this time.

I was glad to have them with us, and that Margrit's father was able to see that his Kessi was happy and well taken care of.

The house was a split foyer. When you walked in the front door you were on the foyer landing and could either walk down a few steps into the family room with a fireplace, or a few steps up into the living room kitchen area. The family room level of the house was partially below ground level. The family room was in the front half of the house, and the room behind that was unfinished when we moved in. It also had an area with roughed in plumbing for a bathroom. I finished the back room myself and also finished the roughed in bathroom.

Here's a link to a Google view of our house at 6100 Lundy Place in Burke, Virginia:

https://goo.gl/maps/kYyhujKRNJp

Around this time I was approached to replace the Program Officer at the USAID Mission in San Salvador, El Salvador, who was scheduled to go on home leave in a few months. I had enough time to begin Spanish language training, and started a total immersion Berlitz tutorial class in D.C. right away. For the next 6 weeks I spent 8 hours a day with a single tutor, one-on-one, speaking Spanish. The Foreign Service language training approach consists of very little grammar, and almost “total immersion” in speaking. The text offers little written scenarios from every day life, and you use these as a guide to conversation on a variety of situations. The key is repetition and more repetition. In about four weeks I achieved level 2 in speaking and reading. Language proficiency in the Foreign Service is scored from 1 to 5, where 1 is beginner and 5 is a native speaker. So I had a ways to go, but at least I could survive if I found myself alone on the streets of San Salvador. I could always ask for a Pupusa and a Cervesa, making sure, of course, that I always said “por favor”.

The approach to San Salvador by air was quite impressive. Central America has a lot of volcanoes, and El Salvador certainly has its share. I don't remember how many I saw flying into the airport, but it seemed like a lot. One of the volcanoes of El Salvador is very famous. We actually saw it. As the story goes, there was this one volcano which was constantly erupting, not violently, but constantly spewing flame and ash over a perfect black cone. The eruption was so continuous and regular that its light was used by ships to navigate along the coast. So a guy got the idea that he would build a hotel near the volcano with a huge observation deck, and tourists would be attracted to the hotel to view this fantastic phenomenon of nature. The construction of the hotel wasn't easy. They first had to build a road to the site, which was very remote and mountainous. It took years to complete the project, but it was finally finished, and they announced the opening of the hotel and platform to view this unique volcanic spectacle. As if on queue, as soon as the hotel opened, the volcano quit. The hotel is still a place to go, to see the black cone of what used to be the volcano that never quit.

Glen, Niki and Margrit, and the volcano that never quit. Thought I was kidding?

We ended up living in an area called Escalon. You guessed it - on the side of a volcano, albeit, an extinct volcano. The USAID offices were in the Embassy building and I drove down the mountain, through town, to work each morning. I remember following the Ambassador down to work one morning. He was accompanied by two chase cars. It was quite an operation. All the way down the mountain, the lead car would stop at each cross street, blocking the traffic, while the Ambassador and his chase car would drive through. The chase car then took the lead, and so on all the way to the Embassy. The Ambassadors car never had to stop. There was a need for this special security, because there was guerilla activity in the rural areas of Central America.

El Salvador has historically been characterized by marked socioeconomic inequality. In the late 19th century coffee became a major cash crop, bringing in about 95% of the country's income. However, this income was restricted to only 2% of the population, exacerbating a divide between a small but powerful land owning elite and an impoverished majority.

On July 14, 1969, an armed conflict erupted between El Salvador and Honduras over immigration disputes caused by Honduran land reform laws. The conflict lasted only a few days, but had major long-term effects for Salvadoran society. Trade was disrupted between El Salvador and Honduras, causing tremendous economic damage to both nations.

I experienced the effects of this conflict even when I was there in 1977-78. I travelled with a friend, an archeologist from Harvard University, to Copan, a Mayan historical site in Honduras, while I was in El Salvador. Harvard University did archeological excavation in Copan. As a matter of fact, they removed artifacts from there, which are now on display at the Peabody Museum. I saw a place on the famous hieroglyphic staircase on one of the temples, where an entire stone step is missing. It's at the Peabody. Even at that time, we could not cross the border between El Salvador and Honduras, but had to go through Guatemala to cross the border there.

Evidence of the Mayan civilization is unavoidable in the region. Their art and architecture are everywhere. The Mayan Empire, centered in the tropical lowlands of what is now Guatemala, reached the peak of its power and influence around the sixth century A.D. The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyphic writing, calendar-making and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing amount of impressive architecture and symbolic artwork. Most of the great stone cities of the Maya were abandoned by A.D. 900, however, and since the 19th century scholars have debated what might have caused this dramatic decline. The best way to learn more about this amazing civilization is to follow this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization

Copan was an amazing place to visit. There was a small town near a jungle. We walked into the jungle to a clearing – a large plaza with stone monuments, called stella, in various locations around the clearing. Around the periphery of the plaza where the jungle was encroaching were a number of temples. There was also a stone structure that looked like a stadium open on two ends. We learned that this was a sports field for a special ball game.

Mayan art inspired me to develop a sculpting technique to replicate the Mayan stella and other stone sculptures. In some cases I actually scupted in stone, but I also used plastilina (modelling clay) to create the piece, and then painted a liquid latex over the piece. When it dried, I poured a plaster mold over that. When the plaster dried, I first removed the plaster mold and then pulled the stretchable latex off the plastilina scupture. I then put the latex mold back in the plaster mold for support. I experimented with different materials for the finished pieces, but finally settled on a commercial product called sculpta mold, I bought from an art supply house in the US. It was a white powder with cellulose fiber in it. I mixed it with water and poured it into the mold. When it dried it was hard, but light like a piece of wood. I then finished the piece with acrylic paint to get the effect I desired and usually mounted it on wood or framed it.

An example of a piece done using this process is the picture below. The subject is a Mayan prisoner bound for sacrifice. The circular piece was actually a relief carved on the top of a stone altar located in Tikal, a Mayan city in Guatemala. Frame: 31”x 26”

Another piece I did during this period was carved in stone. It's the head of a Mayan Lord. If you look closely at the piece below, you can see that there is a vein of fine pumis, almost like chalk, running through the rock into which I carved the head. Both pieces are displayed in our home in Fearrington Village, North Carolina.

Carlos Mejia was a local artist who exhibited his work internationally. We became good friends, and he arranged with a local bank to exhibit my work. Casa Bank financed the entire thing. They printed a brochure promoting the show at their Bank and paid for ads in the local paper. The only thing they required is that I open an account with them and deposit the proceeds from the sale of my art work in the account. The Bank of course received significant publicity from the event.

Another episode which relates tangentially to this period, and to earlier periods already mentioned, is my encounter with Leah Becker. This “small world” story has its beginnings in a Pan Am flight when I was returning home from my India – Nepal sojourn. We were at cruising altitude and I was just getting settled in for a long flight home. The plane was not full and I didn't have anyone sitting next to me. I was unexpectedly interrupted by a pretty face looking at me over the seat in front of me. She asked if I would get something out of the overhead bin for her. I got up and walked to her seat – there was no one sitting next to her either. I immediately noticed that she was a midget. She was standing on her seat – just tall enough to peer over the back of her seat to ask me for help. I got what she wanted from the bin and decided to sit down next to her, and we started to talk. Here's where we both discovered how small the world really is. She explained that she was returning to NYC from a trekking expedition in Nepal. She told me that she worked for ABC as a graphic artist. I told her about my work with AID and that I was returning from an evaluation of the FFP program in India and Nepal. Eventually the subject turned to music and I told her about my studies with Mrs. Patton and time I spent in New York. As soon as I mentioned Mrs. Patton, she looked surprised and said that a colleague of hers, who also worked for ABC, was named Lowell Patton. So there's a small world story for you. At 36,000 feet in a Pan Am jet, I meet a 4 feet tall girl, who works with the son of the vocal teacher I met in Buffalo over 20 years earlier.

But there's more to the convoluted story. While reporting to CRS in NYC on the findings of my FFP evaluation in India, sometime in the Summer of 1976, I decided to stop in at the ABC tower in the city to look up Leah Becker. She invited me up to her work place, an open office area, with many cubicles as I recall. She introduced me to some of her colleagues and showed me some of the work she was doing. We decided to contact Lowell and arrange to get together for lunch with him and his mother. Mrs Patton, as you may recall, lived in Leonia, N.J. , just at the foot of the George Washington bridge. So it was easy for her to catch a bus into the city. We all had a very happy reunion and a nice lunch.

But wait, there's more! Here we are now in El Salvador – it's 1978. I've discovered the Mayan civilization and am creating scuptures inspired by their art. It must have been at this time that I wrote a letter to Leah Becker in NY to tell her about my art work. In the process of writing this autobiography, I dug back through my files. In a folder containing pictures and material from my art, I came across an art brochure created by Leah at ABC for a children's TV program series about “ Animals, Animals, Animals”, a quality mixture of graphics, animation, and live action, focusing on a particular animal in each segment, as seen through the eyes of man, a series for which ABC received the George Foster Peabody Award. Inside the brochure was a letter from Leah, dated Jan. 15, 1978, which she apparently wrote in response to a letter from me. I want to rewrite the letter here, because it ties this story together so nicely. She wrote:

Dear Joel

It was truly good to hear from you and realize our friendship still stands after that incredible discovery of our small world on our Pan Am flight around the world. I too miss Asia. I have not returned to Nepal, although stay in touch with two Sherpas I made friends with. I write letters and send them books. They love novels. One never knows when one will cut all this off and decide to climb the hills again. Nepal so inspired me that it got me started on a proposal for a grant there. I'm waiting for an endorsement from Sir Edmond Hillary. Both of his literary agents read it and thought it merited realization. So, hope for me.

Lowell. Like me, is still at ABC. Occasionally he has been free-lancing, designing & constructing stage sets. He needs something more – but he will do it at his own pace, I suppose. He is rich in skill & talent, it's just a lack of “pushiness” necessary in this part of the world or perhaps everywhere on the planet. I'd like to think it's not a necessary requirement. Oh well.

Meanwhile, the work you describe to me sounds fascinating. Please do send me a brochure of the show and tell me more about it. Studying Mayan art must help you integrate some of the professional work you're doing. And even if it doesn't, I assume it's providing some happiness to the artist inside you.

Enclosed is the latest project I designed for a children's TV show. I had to use photos straight from 16mm film – make all sorts of collages & juxtapositions. It was fun. My favorite is the cover, because it's the most conceptual & all from inside me.

I wish you and your family a healthy and happy New Year. And do write when an occasion comes up. I'm going to revive some of my art history reading in the area of Mayan art.

Always - Leah

[The cover of Leah's Brochure about the ABC TV chikdren's program acclaimed by the Press.]

In spite of the political unrest in El Salvador, USAID carried out programs in public health, education, economic development and agriculture. Most of USAID’s assistance in health was directed towards reducing infant, child, and maternal mortality. Through direct support for health services, training of public health providers, provision of hospital and clinical equipment, and construction of hospitals and clinics, and capacity building in local health related NGOs, mortality rates dropped dramatically. USAID played a key role in keeping El Salvador’s economy moving during the war years and during the transition from war to peace, building or rehabilitating roads, bridges, and repairs to the electrical grid.

One of USAID’s greatest achievements was its dynamic role in the formation of key institutions essential for democratic governance and socio-economic development. USAID played a direct role in the establishment and strengthening of a number of local organizations, which today provide independent analysis, oversight and solutions to the major problems confronting the country.

We took a trip together by car during our tour in El Salvador. We drove into Guatemala to Antigua, Lake Atitlan, Chichicastenango and some other places.

Lake Atitla was spectacular as you can see by the pictures above. We were there in the off-season for tourists, so we had the hotel almost to ourselves. We walked into the little town nearby to eat, and found a small Chinese eatery. We sat down and looked at the menu. When the waiter came, we each ordered something from the menu, and to each the waiter responded with “no hay” (“don't have it”). We looked at each other, and asked for something else on the menu. The waiter says “no hay”. We thought this was pretty funny. Now this being a Chinese restaurant, I thought to myself, “what do all Chinese restaurants surely have?” Ignoring the menu, I asked for some steamed rice, “No hay”, was the reply. We all had a good laugh. So I asked the waiter, “What DO you have?” He told us …. and that's what we all had. It wasn't bad!

The other places we visited were also memorable. At one place that we stayed, we were serenaded by a mariachi band. I think it was Antigua, but I'm not sure.

If you want to experience the flavor of any of these places, all you have to do now-a-days is type the name of the place into your favorite browser and it will take you there.

It's amazing what technology gives us today, that didn't even exist 30 years ago, when we took this trip.

Chichicastenango was another fun place. Just to walk in the streets and visit the markets was a picnic for the eyes and sometimes an assault on the nose. The indigenous people in the area were probably descendant of the Maya. I'll never forget the brilliant colors worn by the native women. Here are some more photos I took during this trip.

After our tour in El Salvador my next assignment was Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere. We didn't go directly to Haiti, because I had accrued some leave time and we also had to make some arrangements in the States for Glen's schooling, because he was now in high school and Haiti did not have an accredited high school program.

We stayed in the Sheraton Hotel for a few days before we flew to Miami. I had made about $4000 from my art show, and we decided to use it to go to Germany to see Margrit's family. We actually flew to Luxemberg and Margrit's father picked us up and took us to Auerbach where they then lived.

Auerbach is in Hessen, on the Bergstrasse, a beautiful wine-growing region, between Darmstadt and Heidelberg, with the mountains of the Odenwald on the left as you drive South on the autobahn from Frankfort airport. This is like home to me now, because Margrit's siblings, two sisters and a brother, still live in the area, and we visit there whenever we go to Germany. As you approach Bensheim, which has now incorporated Auerbach, you begin to see the old castles perched on the tops of the mountains, and you feel like you're home. In the local dialect, “Ich bin da heim”.

After our visit to Germany, we flew Iceland Air from Luxemberg to Nrw York and then from there to Massachusetts. We had researched boarding schools for Glen and Northfield-Mount Hermon was highly recommended. We checked it out and decided that it would be a good school for Glen while we were in Haiti. We then went to Eden for a few days and from there to Haiti. It was now July, 1978.

A driver from the Embassy picked us up at the airport, and drove us to our apartment in Bourdon Park, high above Port au Prince, with a panoramic view of the city and the ocean beyond. The street we drove along on the way from the airport went through a poor slum area and was crowded with people.

We were only in the apartment for a short time, and then moved to a three story house which happened to be right next door. The house was really nice – plenty of room for visitors. I used the lower floor for my art studio. It had good light and a terrace to the back yard, which had several palm trees.

In September, Glen flew alone to Northfield to start school and Niki went to school in Port au Prince. I started work as Chief of the Research and Evaluation Division, designing and conducting evaluations of the various projects that were implemented by Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs). I was also the Project Manager for the La Gonâve Potable Water Project. La Gonâve is an island just off the coast of Port-au-Prince in the Gulf of Gonâve. In the picture above, taken from our house, you can see the dim outline of La Gonâve on the horizon right. It is 37 miles long and 9 miles wide, and has a present population of about 120,000.

At the time I became the USAID Project Manager for the potable water project there were two PVOs with activities on the island. Church World Service (CWS) operated a hospital there and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) also carried out health projects. I think it was CWS that led the effort to identify most of the natural springs on the island and put a concrete cap over the source (captage) to keep it from being contaminated, and piped the water to a simple fountain near a road for easier access.

We wanted to increase the availability of water, so the next phase of the project was to drill wells. I couldn't get either CWS or CRS to lead the new project, so I identified a new voluntary agency named Compassion International to implement it. They hired a young Dutch hydrologist, named Hans Spruitt, to do a geological survey of the entire island and identify acquifers we could access by drilling. Hans was a great choice. He lived on the island during his survey, where living conditions were pretty primitive. The Haitians in the Ministries responsible for La Gonave, could seldom be seen on the island. They might come for a meeting or a ceremony, but would usually return the same day.

Hans completed his survey, so we took his hydrological maps and overlayed them onto a map of roads and population centers, and in that way identified the best places to drill so the largest number of people had easy access to the water. USAID financed the purchase of a mobile drilling rig, and when it arrived, we had it transported to a place on the North coast where it was loaded onto a sailing vessel and floated to the island. As soon as it arrived we were ready to start drilling. We drilled nearly a well a week until all the prime sites were done. As soon as water was struck and the pipe capped, we installed a simple manually operated pump. We also organized the communities to manage the use and maintenance of the sites. Local organizations called Groupment were established, officials were elected and responsibilities assigned.

In my role as Program Evaluation Officer, I wrote up a special report on the Potable Water Project. Having sent many evaluation reports to AID/W to provide Congress with information to determine funding levels for our activities in the field, I know that they are seldom read. So for this project report, I decided to do a kind of comic book or picture book, which showed the impact of the project on the lives of the local peasants.

It was a big success. From that point on, I spent more time escorting Congressional Staffers to La Gonave to see this highly successful water project, than I spent managing the completion of the project. By then it pretty much managed itself anyway.

I received numerous awards and commendations in my career as a Program Evaluation Officer, but the one I think I was proudest of was a commendation from the Diredtor of Compassion International to the AID Administrator praising my work as project manager of the La Gonave Potable Water Project in 1981.

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