Las Vegas Boulevard

                    Las Vegas Boulevard

   “When I sin, I like to sin clean.”  This is a quote from Ernest Hemmingway’s mistress and is applicable to our family trip to Las Vegas because, in Vegas, it is all about the cash.  There are no pretensions to altruism and everything was exactly as it appeared to be.  It was all surface stuff.  There were party girls who would do anything for you if you bought them a drink.  These girls did not believe in healthy living; they were loud, immensely overweight, and looking for a good time.  There were other women, the ladies of the evening, thin and hard and muscle-bound, who took their craft more seriously.  They looked me up and down, trying to decide if I was worth the effort, knowing that their time being young and attractive was limited so they were trying to make their best deal while they still had the time.
   I have a hard time sleeping at night and, since my sleep schedule was still on Eastern time, I was up and ready to go when many people in Sin City were just winding down their Saturday night.  Let me take a few minutes, Jack Kerouac style, to describe what I saw on Las Vegas Boulevard as I took my walk at 4:30 am.  The homeless population made an impression.  There was a guy who was taking a dump in front of Caesar’s and was singing at the top of his lungs so that the pedestrians walking by could not but help to witness his natural act.  Another homeless guy blocked the stairs leading to the pedestrian bridge, clearing enjoying the temporary power that he held over the tourists, while a casual observer said, “He’ll move” to the couple that was climbing the stair case.  I took an escalator up to the “Denny’s” that was on the second floor but when I reached the top a young lady barfed up all of the contents of her stomach.  Instead of waiting in line, standing in someone else’s puke, I immediately took the escalator back down again to the ground floor and exited to the boulevard.
   Joseph Conrad wrote, in “Heart of Darkness,” how civilized adventurers journeyed into the African bush to see how the savages lives.  Similarly, I am a rich white guy from Kentucky so I walked Las Vegas Boulevard at 4:30 in the morning to see how the other half lives.  I wasn’t looking at the drunks with a disapproving glare of a saint.  No, I gave each participant a quick glance, without judgement, and then moved on.  Keeping my head on a swivel, I was careful to be aware of my surroundings, but sensitive enough to take note of anything unusual.  For example, I saw a man in a wheelchair at “The Venetian” who had locked himself in the stall in the public bathroom and who was using the toilet to wash out his clothes.  There were fake showgirls who wore nothing but pasties, a thong, and a feathered headdress who charged you twenty dollars to have your picture taken with them.  The homeless were passed out on the sidewalk or laying in the decorative bushes.  Meanwhile, there were police officers outside of “The Flamingo” who were sweeping the ground with their flashlights, looking for evidence.  A large black man was bending wheeled out of the casino on a stretcher.  He was well dressed and looked high class but the paramedics were taking his to an ambulance for what was probably dehydration.  
   This is not a “there but by the grace of God go I” type of story.  No, these people deserved their fate.  They were the lowest form of humanity, black or white, hugely overweight, dull and simple and willfully uneducated.  The people who lurked on Las Vegas Boulevard at 4:30 in the morning were my worst nightmare; dull and simple and content to remain that way.  They were satisfied to wallow in their own filth and interested only in making a buck.  There were no winners on Las Vegas Boulevard at that time of the morning, only losers.  Many of the partiers were young but they they had already let themselves go; the women wore cheap Lycra body suites that revealed an over-flowing gut, spilling over their waistline.  The young men had already developed a slight bend to their posture, the weight of their lives had been a burden. They must have know, deep down in the recesses of their minds, that they were only young once so they may as well burn through their youths while they could because their bodies, and their minds, would degenerate soon.  Looking through the situation in that lens the whole thing was just so sad.

Not everything that I saw fit into a paragraph form.  I have written some bullet points on the other things that I saw on Las Vegas Boulevard.      

1. A Couple of little kids following their parents at 4:30 am
2. Cannot tell, by the way that they are dressed, if the women are prostitutes or if the men are pimps
3. Openly smoking marijuana because it is now legal in Nevada
4. Keep your distance, don’t gawk, and they will leave you alone.
5. Garbage picker looking in canisters for aluminum cans to recycle
6. Compare clientele of the Flamingo to the clientele of The Wynn.
7. “I like the energy,” said the white guy, encouraging the black girls to continue to yell at the traffic, hoping to get some play
8. A drunken woman sitting next to me blurted out, “I’m going to sleep right here!” And then passed out at the bar.
9. Whores were looking me up and down, trying to decide if I could be their last trick of the night before their evening’s work was done.  Most of them couldn’t be bothered to look up from their iPhones
10. A couple had just finished with their tryst.  The woman said goodbye to her partner before leading him to a cab.  After she was sure that he had left, she called a cab for herself.
11. A bachelorette party was winding down and the girls were twerking with absolute strangers as they danced up to the hotel bar.
12. A bunch of fraternity brothers were egging each other on by yelling, at 4:30 in the morning, “Do you want to go to bed or do you want to see some strippers?”  It was a rhetorical question because the answer was so obvious.
13. Wannabe rock stars pressed home made CDs into our hands in the hopes of getting five dollars for each copy.
2. The Buddhist monks, who wanted five dollars for a beaded bracelet and a prayer, weren’t even real monks.  “Everything here is fake!” Said Grant.  I replied with, “the beauty and the tragedy of Las Vegas is that everything is fake.”















































































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Hemingway

  “Hemingway” is the new PBS series by Ken Burns.  It is nice to know that I have so much in common with the great man; not that I could begin to compare my writing skills with the author but because we share some of the same attributes.  For example, he liked to be at his desk to write before 5:00 am while the air was still cool, and he could watch the sun come up.  Once he was finished working, he would start to drink, sometimes as early as 10:00 am.  Hemingway had his favorite bar, whether his was living in Havana or Key West, and when he wasn’t drinking at a dive bar then he would get loaded on his boat, the “Pilar.”

   Hemingway believed that an author must experience life in order to write about it.  His books, whether non-fiction or novels, were about his personal experiences.  For example, “A Farewell to Arms” is the story of an ambulance driver in WWI.  “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is about the Spanish Civil War and, even though Hemingway didn’t actively fight in the war, he was in Spain to see the devastation.  “The Old Man and the Sea” witnesses a fishing expedition and “The Sun Also Rises” is about bull fighting, which he never participated in but did go to watch.  “A Movable Feast” chronicles his experiences as an expat in Paris after WWI and, finally, “The Green Hills of Africa” summarizes his safari excursions.  Similarly, I have written three books about my experiences with triathlon, traveling, and growing up in Louisville.

   Even after he became a world-famous writer, Hemingway had difficulty supporting his exorbitant lifestyle.  To solve his financial problems, Hemingway married money.  It was the only way that he could afford his big house in Havana and Key West and to staff his private fishing boat.  While my wife and I aren’t rich, we’ve inherited money from both of our parents and can retire into our expensive condo.  The difference between Hemingway and me is that I have managed to stay married.  One of the best quotes from the miniseries is, “good fortune is as light as a feather but very few are strong enough to carry it.”  Unlike Hemingway, I am strong enough and intend on holding onto my good fortune with both hands.

   Hemingway's final act was to commit suicide, just as his father had done twenty years before.  He moved to the middle of nowhere, away from his fans and the sea that he loved so much, and took pout a gun to pull the trigger.  This is where Hemingway and I part ways as sometimes I have dark moods but I have never reached that level of despair.  Why would he do such an awful thing?  He was a complicated man, and for much of his life, he was a great man.  Of course he was vane. An author has to be vane if he is going to believe that the public would be interested in reading his work.  Maybe he couldn't stand the thought of being second rate as he watched his abilities leave him.  Maybe alcohol could no longer help him to escape the "black dog" of depression, as Lincoln called it.  I think that he was tired of being Ernest Hemingway and that his final act had to come to self-destruction, much in the same way that it came to Elvis and Prince and Michael Jackson.

Larry and Misti

After high school, Cheryl, took a gap year and worked as a cashier at Target.  To her way of thinking, it was time to make a change, to separate herself from her past, and the way to do it was to drop a lot of weight.  It was now or never, and Cheryl got skinny quickly by refusing to eat.  It was not the healthy way to lose weight, but it was hard to argue with success.  Cheryl suddenly became thin and beautiful; her frequent trips to the gym gave her a tone body and she bought dresses that showed off her new form.  Then, once she had transformed herself, she enrolled at Eastern Kentucky University.  To prove to others that she had separated herself from her past by becoming attractive, she ran for homecoming queen.  Cheryl joined the Little Sisters of Kappa Alpha, the most popular fraternity on campus, and they sponsored her bid.  After campaigning hard, and giving away a couple of hundred suckers with stickers that said “Vote Cheryl Frazier for Homecoming Queen” taped to them, she became the first runner up; no small feat at a major university with a student population of twelve thousand people.

Part of the reason why Cheryl campaigned so hard to become homecoming queen was help her social life and that worked because she was young and thin and beautiful and attracted the eyes of a lot of young men.  One of the guys who caught her eye was Larry Burnett, a member of the fraternity that sponsored Sarah’s campaign, and who brashly introduced himself to her at a press conference.  The two fell in love quickly and started dating each other exclusively.  Larry never left her side and even drove the car that carried Cheryl through the homecoming parade that the university put on for the Parent’s Weekend.

Larry was originally from Baltimore.  Cocky and self-confident, he was a rebel while growing up but was the kind of kid who never got caught doing anything bad.  His parents were middle class; his mother worked at a department store and his father worked on the line in the local factory making large kitchen appliances.  Since they were gone from the house a lot and weren’t around when the kids came home from school, they left Larry in charge.  Larry even took on the job of protecting his older brother, the class nerd, from being picked upon by the school bullies, and made sure that his younger sister wasn’t getting any unwanted attention from the class Lothario. 

After high school Larry served four years in the Air Force and was among the airmen who flew in the final flights over Vietnam in the last year of the war.  The community college that he attended after he was discharged was not challenging for him, so he transferred to Eastern Kentucky University because it had a good law enforcement program.  While pursuing his studies, Larry worked part time, played intramural Lacrosse, and joined Kappa Alpha, the fraternity that sponsored Cheryl for homecoming queen. 

Larry Burnett was the man of Cheryl’s dreams and she couldn’t believe that she had landed him.  He was of medium height, not much taller than Cheryl, and had an athletic build with broad shoulders and muscular arms and legs.  His thin, black hair was parted down the middle and he had penetrating brown eyes that sparkled with fun and energy.  The strong brow above those eyes gave him a severe look and, when he became angry, Larry’s whole face flushed.  In short, Larry was a man’s man, carrying himself with confidence by throwing his shoulders back and keeping his chin up.  Some thought that he was arrogant, strutting around like a peacock, but his cockiness was like a shot in the arm to the Frazier family.  He was a winner, and the Fraziers never had a winner in their family up to that time.  When she was feeling saucy, Rita liked to say that Larry added strength to the gene pool.

Jeff, especially, liked Larry.  It wasn’t just because of his dashing good looks, it was mostly because he brought the Frazier children a new outlook on life.  Larry taught Cheryl’s siblings that they shouldn’t put each other down; that they should support each other.  It was a take on the family’s dynamic that they hadn’t considered.  He set a good example by always complimenting his own family by saying that his brother was smarter than he was or that his sister was more athletic than he.  Another new thought for the Frazier children was that Larry openly declared that he would never do anything wrong because he wanted his parents to be proud of him.  He even cleaned up the basement and did the yard work on Trinity Hills Lane without even being asked.  It was almost like seeing the sun come through a stain glass window for the first time; up until then then family dynamics had been dull and matte.  Now the Frazier family had a real hero as its new member.

Larry had grown up deprived and he was determined to treat himself to the finer things in life once he started to make his own money.  He liked to dress well in name brands:  Polo shirts, Calvin Klein khaki pants, and leather shoes made by Dockers.  His future brother-in-law, Jeff, had never owned more than one jacket at a time but Larry had an overflowing closet full of them.  Larry had more several watches and wore a different watch for different occasions, which was another concept foreign to Jeff, who had never owned more than one watch at a time.  Also, Jeff had never seen a man put on cologne and thought that wearing it was somehow feminine, like putting on perfume.  But after seeing Larry’s dresser crowded with many name brand colognes, Jeff bought himself a bottle and never left the house without wearing it.  Jeff began to hero worship Larry, and it wasn’t just because of the cologne.  After watching everyone else in the Frazier family dress in t-shirts and sweatpants, Jeff decided to step it up a little and began to dress like his future brother-in-law.  Even his casual shirts were cleaned and pressed before he went to school.

The two enjoyed each other’s company and began to think of each other as blood brothers and not just brothers-in-law.  They were in each other’s weddings, played tennis together at the Louisville Boat Club, and shared an interest in watching football and baseball.

                        Misti Flynn

In high school, things began to turn around for Jeff because he earned a lot of self-confidence through personal hygiene.  For the first two years in high school, he still had his bangs growing past his eyes, but once he was in his junior year, he could drive himself up to the barber to get a decent haircut.  No longer would his hair be too long, waiting for his mother to take the time to take him up to the barber, or too short because she shaved it off so that she wouldn’t have to take him back up for a few months.  Also, Jeff learned how to shop for clothes.  He got a job at a men’s store at the mall so that he could build up a wardrobe full of name brand clothes that fit.  Slowly, over time, he gained self-esteem because he looked good and the girls began to notice.  He became determined to smell good too, mostly by showering every day and wearing cologne.  The other members of the Frazier family commented that this change in hygiene and wardrobe must have come about because of a crush.  They were not wrong.  Jeff had fallen head over heels for Misti.

They met at the parish youth group.  Jeff saw in the church bulletin that there was a parish youth group and he decided to attend the weekly meetings.  This was a big leap for him, and he felt awkward and out of place at his first meeting, until a little blond-haired ball of fire rushed up to him and introduced herself.  Her name was Misti and, even though she didn’t have a title, she was the queen of the youth group and everyone else was just a member of her court.  No one had explained this to George before the meeting; he was taken aback at how forward Misti was, and he didn’t react well.  Later, once they started seriously dating, Misti told Jeff that she thought he was “an obnoxious asshole” because he was so aloof toward her.  The truth was that he had never met anyone like her and was smitten from the time that their eyes first met.

Misti represented a major change in Jeff’s life because she was the first girl whom he truly loved and, more importantly, she loved him back.  Of course, Jeff had crushes before, but he loved Misti because she accepted him for who he was as a person.  Jeff was always hungry for the approval of others.  Misti made Jeff believe in himself, and for that reason alone he fell hard for her.  The two spent hours on the phone and hung out together as often as they could.  For the first time in his life, Jeff didn’t feel alone.  The couple were as innocent as teenagers could be and, because they were too young and inexperienced for sex, the forbidden and unfulfilled desires drew them even closer.  They never took the leap.

If the adage of “opposites attract” had any living examples, then it was Jeff and Misti.  All the way up until his junior year in high school, Jeff viewed himself as a mental depressant who could never do anything right.  While Jeff wallowed in gloom, Misti was volatile and frothing with energy.  She was effervescent while his personality was low wattage.  Her moods could swing wildly to different extremes; Misti would become overwhelmed with happiness over something as simple as a field of daisies, but then plunder down to fits of misery because of her period or money problems.  She was fun and exciting to be around, and Jeff fell hard for her because he had never met anyone like her.  Also, she was beautiful, with long thick blond hair and eyes that sparkled with fun.  Misti was blessed with perfect skin, an infectious laugh, and her vitality provided a shaft of light into what had otherwise been a dark world for Jeff.

In the afternoon, when her parents were at work and she was alone, Misti cranked up the music in her living room and danced.  The faster the beat and the more incoherent the words, the better for her private dance party.  Jeff couldn’t get enough of her and watched as Misti whirled around and sang at the top of her lungs.  She was wonderful because she was in love with life.  Misti found everything and everyone interesting.  The world was new, and alive, and vibrant to her and Jeff found her high energy very attractive.  He was satisfied to fade into the background; to witness her radiance and to stand in awe of her personality.  The teenage girl’s soul was unblemished, and Jeff thought that he was nothing but a mediocrity while standing next to her.  It was like Misti was the star of her own television show and she surrounded herself with lesser lights.

Jeff and Misti only dated for a few short months but continued to stay in touch.  Over time Jeff came to realize that he loved the idea of Misti more than the actual person.  A lot of these ideas were made up in his own mind.  In a moment of pure honesty Misti said that Jeff “admired her too much” and that put too much pressure on the relationship.  Because she was so pretty and smart and personable, Jeff put her on a pedestal and that killed the relationship.  It is hard to love someone who is kissing your ass all the time.  Also, they were both too young to commit to a long-term relationship and there were a lot of guys who wanted to date Misti.  She enjoyed being the object of attention and didn’t want to be tied down at sixteen years of age 

They stopped dating and grew apart, but Jeff could not let his idea of the perfect teenage girl go.  He had to settle for being friends and he watched as Misti drifted from one boyfriend to another, but Jeff had always hoped that they would get back together.  He called her every day to listen to her boyfriend problems, wishing himself into the scenario, all the time sure that these new guys in her life were not good enough for her and that his time would come again.  Misti’s romantic interest in Jeff was perfunctory at best.  When she did trouble herself to ask Jeff about his life, she lost interest quickly, and turned the conversation back around so that she could talk about herself again.

In the end it was the things that Jeff loved about Misti that would ultimately keep them apart.  She had volatile mood swings and was flighty.  She was spontaneous and could find something fun to do at even the most mundane events.  For example, one summer afternoon, as the two were taking a walk in the park, Misti suddenly jumped into the creek that paralleled the footpath.  There was no reason to jump except that she wanted to be silly.  It was that image, the one of Misti drenched from head to toe in creek water, and looking up at him like she had just done the craziest thing ever, that stayed with Jeff.  Clearly, she wanted him to jump into the water with her.  “But the water is dirty,” thought Jeff, “and I don’t want to get wet and smelly.”  The moment defined their relationship, with Misti wet and wild and Jeff staid and dry.  It was how he wanted to remember her.  Jeff often wondered if their relationship would have turned out differently if he could have only jumped in the creek and learned how to play.

At that time of their lives, Misti was unfocused and rudderless and Jeff was somber and determined.  He wanted to make something of himself.  She was the peacock and he was the crow.  The attributes that he used to love about her, those that he used to find charming, began to annoy him.  Also, her constant need for attention was exhausting and Jeff could never be at her beck and call every moment of the day.  The two lost touch.  The years went by and as they did, Jeff washed the older Wendy from his memory, leaving only the young girl, the one he fell in love with.   She remained the icon of unrequited love in his memory.  Jeff knew that Misti could never live up to the idealized version that he had built up in his imagination.  She had moved on before Jeff had learned that Misti was a person, and not an idol to be worshipped, so she would always remain perfect in his memory.

 

Book 3 Chapter 13: The Wake

 There was a sense of relief, now that the visitation, funeral, and the burial ceremony at the cemetery were over.  The whole group of family and friends should have been able to let their hair down and enjoy each other’s company.  It was time to hang out and have some casual conversation and get to know each other again. That was the plan, anyway, until Brette rolled in the baggage cart which was filled not with luggage but with alcohol.  She stopped by the liquor store after she left the cemetery and stocked up on so much alcohol that the concierge had to help her bring it all into the party room.

            This was to be Brette’s show and she had a captive audience.

Now that all of the official parts of the funeral weekend were over, Brette decided to get drunk.  After a couple of whiskey sours and a lot of wine, Brette felt like her shackles had been taken off and she could really let loose with her offensive comments.  “Hey, Darlene!” she said to her cousin. “You have a great butt!  A teenager’s butt!  How in the world do you keep it up?”  Darlene demurred that she does a lot of walking in her neighborhood after work.  The alcohol blocked all of Brette’s social cues so when she said to cousin Gina, “you are so thin.  I’ve seen beanpoles with more weight on them than you have on your body.  Do you think that is healthy?”  Cousin Gina didn’t take that comment so well, having struggled with her body image for her whole life, so she refused to acknowledge Brette’s questions.

Brette had no filter when she was drunk or high and curses a lot by dropping the f-bomb.  Her cussing and lewd remarks came out of context and she would not be deterred.  For example, when Gina tried to change the subject and talk about something safe, she decided to talk about the election.  Brette blurted out, “one of the benefits of being a politician was that you get a lot of blow jobs.”  Darlene’s lip curled when Brette said it and the conversation came to a grinding halt.  After a few quiet moments, Brette loudly stated, “I think that grandma was gay!”  

      George knew that there was no way for him to compete with his drunken sister, especially since he had been nursing his only beer for the after party, so he left the party room to get away from Brette.  He needed some space and knew that if he spend any time at all with his sister that he was sure to blow up at her.  Three of his cousins were standing around in the foyer and George visited with them.  As he was talking to Billy, the group heard a guttural noise coming from the party room.  “What was that noise?” asked cousin Billy.  “Oh that was my sister.  She makes that noise when she is in heat.”  The comment fell flat and even George had to note that his joke wasn’t funny.  Billy let him off the hook by saying, “I don’t know.  She could’ve made that noise because she was in heat.”

After a few minutes of idle conversation, one by one, everyone who had been in the party room with Brette came out to join the smaller group in the foyer.  Cousin Bobby marched up to George and asked, “What are we going to do about Brette?”  Apparently, she found the conversation was lacking, and decided to put her favorite CD in the player and then cranked the volume up as high as it would go, driving all of the other guests from the room.  When she realized that everyone else had left, she waddled out to join the family in the foyer, and tried to pick up the conversation where she left it before she blasted the music out of the speakers.

Brette had such a tin ear when it comes to picking up on social clues that she had no idea that everyone had left to get away from her.  She had become a caricature of herself: drunk and high and prattling on endlessly about how she was a genius in saving money by buying everything on sale.  She was a lousy companion because she was only interested in herself.  For example, she will ask a question only because she wants to answer it herself.  If George tried to answer then Brette quickly loses interest and changes the subject so that she can focus on her problems and interests. 

Outside of the party room, in the foyer, it appeared as though Sarah was holding court, but really she sat in one place because getting up and moving around her bulk was too much of a chore.  Sometimes people would go and sit next to Sarah to keep her company, and then the oldest sister would take a lot of pot shots by speaking in a low voice.  “Did you see the ring that Madison wears?  Isn’t that the same piece of jewelry that Mom owned?  Do you think that she stole it?”  If she was talking to someone who was close to Madison then she would change her target for fear of being found out that she was the one who was spreading the rumors.  “I don’t see why George had to send Mom to the most expensive nursing home in Memphis.  There are plenty of others that didn’t cost as much.”  What Sarah really meant to say was that the upkeep for her mother was costing so much that she wouldn’t inherit a lot of money and that upset her since she was always talking poor. 

Brette gets high first thing in the morning.  On the day after the funeral she sat in the smoking area outside of the hotel and took out her kit.  On one side of the box was the marijuana and on the other side were the tools and pipe to make smoking the weed quick, easy, and without mess.  She was clearly hung over after dancing the night away at a gay bar that Matthew and Madison had introduced her to.  

Now, on the morning after, Brette was still boozy; completely without energy and looked like she might throw up at any minute.  She hadn’t bothered to shower or change clothes from the day before, believing that the family could either deal with a “Stinky Brette” or a “Late Brette.”  George would have liked a “Brette who didn’t show up at all.”  

Still, she was able to summon up the energy to blame George for our families not getting together for the holidays.  She claimed that because George wasn’t getting along with Terry and Sarah that he had ruined Thanksgiving and Christmas.  This was a significant rewriting of history and so George didn't even bother to reply.  He didn’t want to get bogged down in an argument in a public place.

The parry and thrust continued.  If Brette couldn’t get George to take the bait about the holidays, then she would continue to probe for more sore points.  “You know that you have a huge stie on your eye.  Don’t you think that you should have it removed?”  “Thanks for pointing that out.  I would have missed it if I hadn’t seen it in the mirror every time that I look in a mirror.” Then said, under her breathe, “You has gotten fat!”  George has seen this show before and refused to let any of the barbs take hold  

Brette had one last punch to throw, and she had been saving it up for a while.  She has no filter between what she thinks and what she says and has a long history of embarrassing George in front of friends and family members and then blowing it off like she didn’t do anything wrong.  “If someone were to stick a piece of coal up your butt they could come back in a week and pull out a diamond.”

She wouldn’t back down and George had to find a way to dissuade his sister from this train of commentary or he may punch her.  He knew that Brette and Wendy were friends in high school and he told Brett that he still loved Wendy even though he hadn’t seen her in years.  It was a revelation; a gift that George could give to Brette.  He had opened up about something very private to assuage any hard feelings that Brette may still have.  What could have been a nice moment turned into something ugly as Brette’s only acknowledgement of George’s secret was to give him a sly smile.  It wasn’t a smile that meant that George had entrusted her with something so personal; it was that now she had something on George that she could tuck away and use against him another time.

    

Trilogy of Books

 My proudest possessions are the book series that I have read, and reread, over the years.  It all started with Shelby Foote’s trilogy on the Civil War, which was so good that I have read it three times, and then I moved onto Caro’s books on President Johnson, Atkinson’s trilogy on the battles that America fought in Europe in WWII, Toll’s trilogy on the battles that America fought in Asia in WWII, Chernow’s books on Washington, Hamilton, and Grant, Morris’ trilogy on Theodore Roosevelt, and now the John Erikson books on the Eastern Front in WWII.  These authors take an honored place on my shelves, their tomes neatly shelved, patiently waiting for me to pick them up again.  The books are sacred texts to me, allowing me to learn the secrets of the past.  They contain knowledge that no one else is interested in, or cared enough about, to take the time to learn.

I enjoy the struggle of reading a challenging book.  It is like a bulldog biting into a bone and refusing to let go.  There is joy in grappling with a new subject and it is immensely satisfying to turn the page, having the story unfold in my mind, and watching the bookmark move from the beginning to the end of the book, from the far left to the far right.  To continue with the simile, it is like watching that same bulldog whittling down that bone from something to nothing.  The point is to take it slowly, to study the book and not just breeze through it.  Sometimes, when the book becomes too dense, I will take a break from it.  Chernow’s book on Hamilton was especially tough so I put it down for a couple of months and then I coaxed myself back to it, reading just a couple of pages at a time, until my interest was reignited.  My persistence is rewarded as Alexander Hamilton’s becomes real, and I begin to understand.  The goal is to unravel the complexities of a story that has many angles.

The Erickson books on the Russian Front in WWII were challenging because I knew almost nothing about the epic clash between the Nazis and the Soviets.  My constant thought was, “why was I never taught this while I was in school?”  The answer is because the Eastern Front is almost incomprehensible.  Three million German soldiers invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and, since the front stretched for over two thousand miles, the sheer scale of the war makes it hard to understand.  Also, most Americans have no knowledge of the geography of Russia, so they have to learn history and geography at the same time.  For example, the Dneister and the Dneiper were instrumental in winning the war but Americans would have a hard time pronouncing the names of these major rivers, let alone finding them on a map.  To make it more confusing, the names of the cities are spelled differently on different maps.  Lvov was spelled three different ways depending on the source.  The names of the fronts and the names of the armies kept changing.  The Voherenzh Front became the First Ukrainian and Army Group Center became North Ukrainian.  Finally, Stalin kept shuffling his generals around to different armies and, even if you could keep them straight, trying to pronounce and spell their names is challenging.  (Chernyakhovskii and Rokossovskii)

The complex subject of the Eastern Front is worth the effort.  Stalingrad is the most important battle in world history and yet most teachers have only a rudimentary idea of what happened.  Even after the bloodletting at Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, there were still 6.7 million Soviet soldiers to face off against 3.5 million Nazis.  Compare those numbers to Normandy, where 1.2 million Allied soldiers fought against 350,000 Nazis and the Russian Front dwarfs its counterpart in France.  Another example of the scale of the fighting was that in the first few months of the war there were three separate battles where the Nazis captured over 200,000 Soviets and then sent the POWs to concentration camps.  Since 12 million people were killed in the camps, we have a pretty good idea of what happened to the POWs.  The numbers are incomprehensible and the longer that the war went on the more brutal the fighting became.  It is ceaselessly fascinating to me.  How could man do this to his fellow man?  No apology or explanation can atone for the sins of the Fascists and the Communists in WWII.  Morally, Americans could not pull for one side over the other.

I have learned not to talk about the books that I am reading because most people do not care about the finer points of history, especially if the subject matter doesn’t include the U.S.  And yet the topic is important because the Soviet win over the Nazis is the beginning of the Cold War.  Stalin wasn’t about to give up all of the land that he won in Europe and Asia when it had cost him so dearly in lives and treasure.  After Berlin was captured and Hitler shot himself, Stalin still had six million battle hardened troops in Europe and there wasn’t a lot to stop him from marching to the Atlantic.  Truman’s response to the Soviet threat was underwhelming.  He joined NATO in 1947 and instituted the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Airlift in 1948.  Eisenhower used the threat of nuclear arms to stop the Russians, but the threat was diminished after Stalin detonated his own atomic and hydrogen bomb.  The two superpowers settled for a proxy war in Korea and Vietnam, and they almost came to blows over Castro’s Cuba.  Meanwhile, the European countries who were under the thumb of the Soviets rebelled; Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland in 1980.  Even though America didn’t fight on the Eastern Front, the Russian victory had long lasting consequences for the United States.

When I delve into a new and complicated subject, I like to take my studies well beyond the book that I am reading.  For example, since the geography of the Eastern Front is so difficult to understand, I look up the maps on Google Images and then redraw them on paper that I tape into the book.  Blue, red and green markers are used for troop movements, geographical features, battle sites, and cities of interest.  I like to make the book my own by taking notes in the margins and using highlighters to reference people and terms that I think are important.  Also, the History Channel has documentaries about Kursk and Stalingrad and YouTube there a series of animated maps which vividly show how the armies attacked and defended positions.  Finally, I have several boards on Pinterest and use them to keep pictures of the famous generals so that I have some idea of what Rokosovskii, for example, looks like.    

    

Caribe Hilton

     The Caribe Hilton in San Juan has a large patio area right on top of the breakers, or the rocks set up to prevent soil erosion, so not only can Tracey feel the sun on her face and the wind in her hair, she constantly gets sprinkled with the mist produced by the surf.  Because of the CDC warnings against traveling  during the COVID crisis, there were very few people at the hotel, especially before the New Year’s weekend, so Tracey had her pick of chairs.  Marisol was the main pool attendant and she greeted us with a smile and a warm towel every day.  William was the man in charge of maintaining the pool and he offered to save Tracey a chair by the breakers.  He was the first to arrive and could save Tracey’s special place before the other guests arrived.  My point in mentioning these two people is that the Caribe Hilton was the nicest hotel that I have ever stayed at because of the amenities but also, and more importantly, because of the service.                     

         “I know that I don’t deserve it, but I am going to enjoy it” was a line that I said to myself throughout the week.  After all, if we can afford it, then we might as well use the money for a luxury vacation because “that’s what the money is for.” This was the second line that I constantly whispered to myself to justify spending so much on a week in Puerto Rico.  To my way of thinking, it was worth it to get out of my routine for a while, to get the creative juices flowing, to aerate my brain, and to cultivate an attitude of gratitude for everything that I have.  Also, Tracey and I strengthen our marriage by spending quality time together because this was our best week ever!

Having a great vacation doesn’t just happen.  I was determined to be on my best behavior because I wanted us to share a good memory.  I have learned to check myself whenever I feel impatience, anger, and intolerance flooding into my brain.  When I become tired, frustrated, or feel a lack of control, I tense up and move my way into a bad mood.  “Where ever you go, you take yourself with you,” was a third line that I used and I have learned that the best way for me to combat my anxiety is through exercise.  I took a two hour walk every morning, lifted weights in the afternoon, and took a nap every day to refresh myself.  Happiness is a choice, but I have to work on it, and I know that I can be my own worst enemy on vacation.  Since I paced myself by reading a little, playing around on YouTube, and listening to some of my favorite music, our vacation was a complete success.

Being a man of a certain age can be an advantage because I can walk around unnoticed.  As an older man in a younger crowd, I become invisible, but that is fine with me because I am free to observe other people without them becoming defensive.  For example, as I crossed the pool deck to check in on Tracey, I came across a loud mouth jerk who was arguing politics with an equally opinionated Latina while their spouses sat off to the side, wishing that the debate would end.  Another time, I saw a young Asian man strutting from one end of the property to the other while his new wife had to take twice as many steps as he did just to keep up.  And then there was the couple who was having a good time by giving each other piggy back rides on the patio.  Teenage girls were taking selfies and recording Tick Tock videos in bathing suits that were barely there.  A young mother kept a watchful eye over her two sons but what made her remarkable was that she was wearing a string bikini.  She was obviously proud of the fact that she kept herself up, in spite of giving birth to two boys, and wanted to show off.

“Mojitos” was one of the restaurants attached to the hotel and Tracey and I liked the place so much that we had breakfast there every morning and took most of our dinners there in the evening.  The food was good but the real reason why we kept going back was the staff; they warmed up to us from the first day of our stay and by the end of the week they treated us like family.  Kathy is the owner and, since we were at her restaurant on New Year’s Eve, she introduced us to her mother and husband, who were there to celebrate the holiday.  “Mojitos” is a family run operation and Kathy’s daughter works there as the hostess while her husband visited the restaurant every day just to help keep an eye on things.  Peter and Pedro were the brothers who bussed the tables and they was a little confusing because not only did they share the same looks and demeanor, they shared the same name.  The real gem of the place was Veronica.  She was our waitress on most days and she was a little Puerto Rican ball of fire.  At one point, Veronica had colored her air silver, but it grown out a while ago, so about a quarter of her hair was jet black and the rest of it was silver.  Not everyone could get away with this look but Veronica had the personality to pull it off.  Because she had so much energy and an attractive personality, I began to look forward to seeing Veronica every day just so that I could spend a few moments talking to her.  However, it was hard to see her bright eyes turn sad as she talked about the devastation that Hurricane Maria brought to the island two years ago and the poverty that came as a result of the calamity.

If I had to pick one moment that was the highlight of our trip to the Caribe Hilton, it has to be when they brought out our New Year’s Day dinner at “Rustica.”  Tracey picked this Italian restaurant to bring in 2021 and she preordered the meal as a surprise to me.  To add even more class to the event, Tracey paid with cash so that I couldn’t find out how much the meal cost.  We shared carpaccio for an appetizer, a tomahawk steak for two as the main course, and tiramisu for dessert.  The meal was paired with a bottle of Chardonnay.  It was the best dinner that I have ever had and it meant more to me because Tracey went out of her way to make it an event.

There were so many small moments, so many memories that made our vacation special.  If there was anything that was negative during our week in Puerto Rico, it was that so many businesses had shuttered their doors.  The hurricanes and the pandemic had left the restaurants and hotels wanting for customers.  We never left the tourist area so Tracey and I didn’t see the devastation on the rural areas of the island but Veronica said that she lives in the city and her electricity was off for eleven months.  It is my hope that this pandemic will be over soon and people will feel comfortable travelling again.  And if there is anything that I can do to encourage you to visit Puerto Rico then please let me know.  It is a wonderful place and I want to see the small businesses flourish again.             

    

Pacifc Coast Highway

The Pacific Coast Highway

My tour of the Pacific Coast Highway began on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  Many small things made this trip special.  For example, when I flew to Chicago to meet my connecting flight, the flight attendant said that there were seats available in first class.  I took advantage of this opportunity because I have never been in a first class seat before.  The next flight, which took me to Seattle, was uneventful except for the baby crying and the dog barking.  I smiled to myself because I was far enough away that the noise didn’t bother me.  The best part of the flight was the view of the Rocky Mountains.  Once I landed, I picked up my rental, an Acura Infiniti Q50, a sporty little sedan, and then I was ready for my Pacific Coast Highway adventure to begin.

            Between the COVID virus and the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, there were few businesses open along the highway.  I knew that this was going to happen and that is why I chose to do the bulk of the driving on Thanksgiving Day.  Once I landed in Seattle, I decided to avoid driving into the city because of the heavy traffic.  Instead, I drove to the heights on the west side of the city and, for the first time, I took out Tod Knight’s shirt and held it in front of me.  The shirt said “Team Tod’ on it and I had my picture taken with Seattle in the background.  After a brave fight with cancer, Tod succumbed to the disease two weeks before I left so I decided to dedicate my trip to him.  I wanted to honor Tod so, at every major attraction on the highway, I took his shirt out of my backpack, unfurled it, and had my picture taken with it.

            On Thanksgiving Day, I drove the Infiniti for twelve hours straight, stopping only to refuel and to go to the bathroom.  Since all of the restaurants were closed, I bought two boxes of dry cereal and some bottled water, and this is what I lived on for two days.  It wasn’t a trip for everyone; my wife and kids would have been miserable on it, but I was in my element.  My hyperactivity, which had caused me a lot of problems over the years, worked for me on the long drive.  Also, the skills that I honed while training for the Ironman, like organization and taking the trip one-step at a time, really helped me to not become overwhelmed.  I found true happiness as I drove, with the Pacific Ocean crashing into the rocks off to my right and the Cascade Mountains, filled with Spruce trees, off to my left.  When I drove through the Redwood Forest, where the road was literally built around the trees, I took the curves as fast as the Infiniti would take me, and I felt alive.

            When I checked into the hotel on Thanksgiving night, the clerk told me that breakfast would be served at 6:00 am.  I told her, with a glint in my eye and a sly smile, that I would have been on the road for two hours before breakfast.  She looked at me like I was crazy, which was exactly the reaction that I was looking for, becauseI knew that this whole trip was beyond the boards.  Still, on both Thursday and Friday, I was on the road for three hours before the sun came up.  It was so dark that I could not see a thing; fortunately, there were literally no other cars in the road, so I could drive at my own pace.  After five hours of intense driving, and the feeling that I had melded into the seat of the rental, I turned in the Infiniti to the Enterprise station that just happened to be located in the Tenderloin section of San Fransisco.  Only later did I learn that this was the worst section of the whole city.

            After living in the rental for two days, all that I wanted to do was to get out and walk, so I slowly made my way down to Fisherman’s Warf, stepping over the homeless as I started out from the Tenderloin.  On the way to Pier 39, which is the main tourist area, I stopped at the top of Lombard Street to take a picture with Tod’s shirt while overlooking the city.  It was all downhill from there and I decided to reward myself with a big lunch at a nice restaurant after eating dry cereal for two days.  As I was enjoying my burger with a beer, I heard “Hey Jeff!” from behind me.  I almost didn’t turn around, thinking that no one in San Fransisco could possible know me, but there was Carolyn Nunn, my wife’s best friend, who happened to be in the city to visit her brother.  We both laughed at this strange turn of events, had lunch together, and then went down to the docks to watch the sea lions for a while.  Before we said our goodbyes, we remarked on how weird it was for us to run into each other 2,000 miles away from Louisville.

            Later that afternoon, I took a catamaran tour of the San Fransisco bay.  One of the other passengers saw my Ironman jacket and he told me that he competes in Ultra Marathons.  We passed the time by comparing the different competitions and bonded over the fact that we both played rugby in college.  It was fun to relax and share stories while sailing underneath the Golden Gate Bridge.  After we docked I walked to the Hilton in the financial district, but even I had to admit that three days of unremitting travel was beginning to wear on me.  As I said, this trip wasn’t for everyone.

            On Saturday, I decided to take a small group tour on the bay area and it did not disappoint.  Benny was my tour guide and we met at 8:00 am in order to beat the traffic.  There were only two other people in the small van with us so the tour could not have been more personal.  We started off at city hall, in the Tenderloin neighborhood, and Benny showed us a huge homeless camp right across the street from the main government building.  He drove us down Lombard Street and through the Pacific Heights neighborhood, which is the most exclusive part of San Fransisco.  We took a break at the park where the opening credits of the television show, “Full House,” was filmed.  I didn’t think that it was that big of a deal but the couple taking the tour with me about lost control.  Benny sang the theme song to the show because he was really enjoying himself as well.  We also saw the “Mrs. Doubtfire” house and then visited the residences where Jerry Garcia and Janis Joplin lived in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood.  Benny played “Touch of Gray” and “Bobby McGee” while driving the van. 

            Benny gave us a lot of information about how the hippies moved into “The Castro” during the 1967 “Summer of Love.”  He told us how they crammed as many people as possible into each house, and then they refused to leave, so the local government decided to stop all municipal services until the blight of hippies got out.  They stayed anyway, until they could no longer afford the rent.  Benny said that the average two bedroom apartment goes for about $3,700 a month in Haight Ashbury, well above what the hippies could pay, so they moved out and the “Yuppies” moved in.  The last neighborhood that we saw was “The Presidio,” where my sister used to live.  It is an old Army base that has been turned over to the National Park Service.  Once again, the rent is too high for the average citizen to live there, but the residents have a great view of the bay and the city.

            Our final destination was the “Muir Woods,” located at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge.  Benny warned us that, in order to prevent ourselves from getting lost, we should turn left at every intersection as we hiked the trails, and that way we would naturally come back to the visitor’s center without losing our way.  After reviewing the map, and realizing that the trail that Benny suggested was too easy for me, I decided to be a rebel and take the trail off to the right.  The “Canopy Trail” proved to be almost too much for me as it was a 40 minute hike straight up to the summit and then an equally challenging 40 minute hike back down to the main trail.  I had to sprint to finish the trail in the allotted time but I made it back with seconds to spare.  When I bragged to Benny that I went straight up the “Canopy Trail,” which was exactly what he told me not to do, he said “So you went to the right!”  I think that he was irritated that I ignored his most basic instruction but I didn’t care; if I hadn’t been a rebel then I would have missed the prettiest part of the “Muir Woods.”  He blew it off and I gave Benny a twenty dollar tip because he was such a great guy.