Memory, Disintegrating

That morning I unearthed a box filled with flakery reminiscent of friable asbestos in the basement or my collection of desiccated horseshoe crab carapaces.The box was labeled WW2 and was in fact filled with brittle rolls of film, mouse-nibbled packages of negatives, and dozens of envelopes containing black and white photos taken by my father in Japan, right after the end of the war in 1945. There were pictures of Japanese tombs, Japanese tunnels, destroyed Japanese warplanes, and what appear to be picnics in the countryside. There were multiple photographs of Miss California, flanked by smiling soldiers.

It was a good thing to find before taking my mother to visit the neurologist. It was pure chance, or maybe just a respite from the cosmos, that the neurologist we visited was from Lebanon and my mother grew up in Egypt, and if nothing else, she recalls Egypt well; and in her mind, Beirut is still the Paris of the Middle East. So the doctor’s name was familiar and reassuring. So reassuring, perhaps, that my mother did not register or hear and acknowledge the diagnosis, so reassuring that she had no reason to recollect the discovery of Alois A. more than a century ago of the neurofibrillary tangles causing us so much dismay; but I did: I heard, I registered and recalled. I have never been to the Paris of the Middle East.

Back home we sat at the kitchen table and rifled through the box of old pictures. We did not discuss the diagnosis or anything at all about the visit to the neurologist. From handling the old photographs, we had to wash our hands frequently. Or I did. (I am only slightly paranoid about hanta virus and its variants.)

My father signed up during his sophomore year at Harvard, and he was sent to the Navy’s Intensive language school in Colorado to learn Japanese and Korean. (Good call: he was already fluent in French and German, as well as his native Esperanto.) Later he was selected into the Naval Intelligence Service and sent to Hawaii where he translated intercepted Japanese messages. Later, he assisted Admiral Jerauld Wright at the surrender of the Japanese Navy in Korea. . We don’t know anything else he did in the war. He never spoke of it - as in never, or only slightly more than he spoke of his mother, about whom he never spoke voluntarily - until the last five years of his life, by which time he had suffered a stroke and his older memories became the most vivid for him. He was stationed in Japan when the war was over, and stayed on to debrief Japanese soldiers and assess the situation. The war was now over, so he was finally allowed to take photographs; he took lots and sent them back to Hingham to be processed. Sixty years later, he still had his prescriptions filled at the same pharmacy.
Here are some Japanese planes. I wonder if even back then, Dad was wondering how the scrap metal might be profitably recycled.

Dad's caption for this reads: If a family doesn't have enough money to build a tomb they make a special thatched hut like this and put the ashes there.

On the back of the above he wrote: The Okinawa thatch is different from that in Europe or England but equally effective.
And here are the young soldiers with their beloved Miss California.

I can't begin to explain this except to marvel at Dad's observations (and knowledge of gemology?)

Cuba 1956

The story I heard was this: my parents arrived in Havana sometime in the mid- fifties, and handed over their passports to the Cuban immigration authorities, and that was the first realization that my mother was 4 years old, had blonde hair, blue eyes and was 2 feet 6 inches feet tall. (My eyes are actually, currently, green)
She had picked up the wrong passport on her way out the door (in snowy Hingham, leaving behind her three children), and now she was in Cuba pretending to be her daughter.
That is all I ever heard. I assume my parents came to some satisfactory arrangement with the immigration officials, because they proceeded to enter Cuba.

I tried to verify this story, or my memory of the story, but my mother has no memory of ever going to Cuba, with or without my passport.
Which of us is most culpable of failing the narrative: Me for possibly making it all up? She for not retaining the memory?
One thing I feel certain about: They did go to Cuba, and not only did they go to Cuba in 1956, but – according to the paper trail - they did several things we did not do: they basked on the sunny beach of Varadero, they saw the wildly funny De Castro Sisters* perform, and then they attended Sunday mass at the parish church of Santo Angelo Custodio. It was, after all, the first Sunday of Advent.
I know all this because there is an enormous cupboard in the parental basement containing the relics of my parents travels. The drawers are labeled: Europe, South and Central America (Cuba was in this drawer), Asia, Africa. And inside each drawer are manila envelopes labeled with the country visited and a date. My mother’s organization will outlive her memory.

*Three singing sisters, Peggy, Cherie and Babette: they were raised in a Havana mansion that is now home to the Chinese embassy. Their mother, Babette, was a Zeigfield Follies showgirl, and their father, Juan Fernandez, owned a sugar plantation, Radio and TV stations in Cuba, and was planning with Batista to build a canal through Cuba. In 1954 the De Castro Sisters performed at the Desert Inn with Noel Coward when he made his Las Vegas debut, and in 1956 they performed at the Casino Parisién for my parents.

Some Blue in Cuba

As Americans we are not meant to go to Cuba in order to bask on the beach, frolic in the waves, get sunburned, get sand between our toes and drink mojitos.
Only Canadians and Germans get to do that.
As Americans we went to Cuba to see Art and Architecture, of which we saw a lot. Serendipitously, the art studio of Norberto and Jannette was nearby a beach, so we went there for lunch and the possibility of plunging into the warm Caribbean waves.
It was a sirenic possibility, until we saw the Portuguese men o’war. These bluebottles are marine cnidarians, and though I have always thought otherwise, they are not jellyfish, but siphonophores. Their gas-filled bladders – pneumatophores [I am loving this vocabulary] - are bright blue and tempting. My impulse –thankfully thwarted - was to pick one up, pop its distended bladder and bring home the deflated blue sac to show my grandchildren. That would have been a terrible idea, as their venom can remain potent for hours and even days after the dead creatures have washed up on this lovely tropical beach. And then I would have suffered an extremely painful dermatitis, caused by contact with urticariogenic tentacles; and possibly even developed a fever, shock and then died.
I did not touch the bluebottles, or only once, and very slightly.
We didn’t go swimming either, because lots of Portuguese men o’war washed up on a beach indicate even more Portuguese men o’war are in the water, floating this way and that, along with the winds, currents and tides.
(Not my foot, but a good one for scale, and of course the colors are lovely.)

Cuban Cars, the Antidote to Auto-Agnosia

One of the many things I worry about is my inability to identify cars. I lie awake fretting that I might one day witness a crime (A heist, a gangland shooting, money laundering) and actually see the culprits escape in a getaway car, and then be completely unable to identify the getaway car. I would be the one witness to this crime and I would be unable to help solve it, unable to help justice be done, and unable to bring the perpetrators to justice. I would fail my fellow citizens, and all because I don’t know cars. Other than red from green, and sedan from station wagon, I cannot distinguish models or makes. I am hopeless. I suffer from auto-agnosia.*

But in Cuba, even I could tell that the cars are very old and American. And the ones that were not very old and American, were also old but made in Russian or Bulgaria.We won't go there. In Cuba, I made a point of trying to read the logos and hence distinguish a Buick from a Chevrolet from an Edsel, because in Cuba, that seemed like an important thing to do.
Also in Cuba, the cars came in wonderful colors, real colors, not the pathetic excuses for colors (the muted maroon, the muted forest green, the shabby grey) that inhabit the highways and parking lots of New York.

In Cuba I thought about cars more than I have thought about cars in the entirely of my life outside of Cuba. I thought about riding in cars that were manufactured when I was in kindergarten. I thought about breathing the fumes of these cars that date back to the Middle Ages. I noticed that a certain Eastern European car has a logo that is deceptively like the BMW logo, and do we think they did that on purpose?
We wondered what would happen to all these antediluvian cars when “normalization” comes to pass? I wondered if someone in Cuba would like to acquire CSB’s 1947 Chevy truck that resides, inert, in the back field.

* I am basing this word, which absolutely should be a word, on prosopagnosia or face blindness, from the Greek for face, “prosopon” and for not knowing,”agnosia”.

*
The first known inhabitants of Cuba, the Taino, settled the Cuban archipelago around 700 AD, while the Chinese were combining saltpeter and carbon and sulfur to invent gunpowder, and while Pepin the Short was ruling the Franks.
The Taino were skilled farmers, potters and weavers. Alas, their weaving was so accomplished that the conquistadores later forced them to weave sails for their caravels.
On October 27, 1492, Columbus espied Cuba and thought it was Japan; he called this place “the most beautiful land that eyes ever beheld”.
When the Europeans arrived, there were about 300,000 indigenous people living in Cuba. Then came the Spanish, forced labor, smallpox, measles and typhus; all that remain of the Taino are a few shards and these words: Canoe, hammock, hurricane and tobacco.
(Still, I consider that to have left the world greater by the addition of words is not a negligible legacy. Words of any kind, words that are powerful, words that name powerful weather, words that evoke siestas, words for crops, words for modes of transportation, these are always worth having.)
Also, according to the Internet (”We are still here”) descendants of the Taino are alive and well and living in Brooklyn.

The first name for Havana was San Cristobal de Havana, and Saint Christopher was named its patron saint. In 1969 St Christopher was de-listed form the Catholic liturgical calendar, his ‘cultus’ being deemed too fantastical and possibly even untrue. Given the otherwise bizarre standards for sainthood in the Catholic Church, this seems a harsh fate for the beloved patron saint of Havana and travelers. (My grandmother saw to it that I always had a St. Christopher medal in my car and tucked inside my suitcase when I traveled. The de-listing of the saint was for her a matter of indifference.)

Because we are Americans, we cannot just get on a plane and fly to Havana. We must go with a group that is licensed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, and have a specified and educational raison d’être for the trip. We did. We traveled to Cuba to experience Art and Architecture with a group composed of Hampshire College alumni and parents (my favorite daughter went there) and assorted friends. If you know anything at all about Hampshire College, this should be a key piece of information. If not, imagine a group of people who went to Hampshire because they were disinclined to follow a traditional educational path; who preferred to create their own curriculum, follow their passions, re-invent the wheel, and inhabit coed dormitories. Creative souls, all.

We gathered at 4:45 am at the Miami airport, not a generally happy time for many creative souls. But CSB is generally awake at that hour, so he found the Dunkin' Donuts gathering place without difficulty. Meanwhile, all the Cubans on the flight were getting their enormous bags shrink-wrapped. The rational for shrink-wrapping luggage became the dominant topic of inquiry all morning, long after it was exhausted as a topic. (E.g. What happens to all that shrink wrap once it gets to Cuba and is removed?)

Cuban women are known to be lovely, but I had no idea that they were also deeply attached to high heels, vertiginously high heels. I watched Cuban woman sprint across cobblestoned streets in high heels, faster than I can run in my trusty and practical Birkenstocks.

Laundry in the countryside and in Havana.
* The Damned Circumstances of Water, by Sandra Ramos. (At MOMA and elsewhere)

Nothing in Common goes South, Part 2, The last day

There is always something unimagined. And then there is a billboard by the highway. Driving through North Carolina I discover the existence of Actors, Models & Talent for Christ. (The AMTC vision is to see “the Great Commission of JC fulfilled in film, fashion, music and theater.”)

We spend the night in Petersburg, because that as far as we get. It is my last night for communing with William Shatner and I am happy to report that we remain BFFs. Though the night clerk at the Hampton Inn should seek other employment, perhaps as an enforcer for a Russian oligarch, that is how charming he is.

Otherwise, Petersburg, VA is delightful and full of old historical houses in need of restoration. CSB considers moving.
While we might have predicted the plethora of decrepit but lovely houses, I had no idea about Pocahontas Island. Native Americans lived upon this peninsula into the Appomattox River more than 8000 years ago; more recently, it was the largest settlement of free blacks in the country. It is early Sunday morning as we drive around, and like early Sunday mornings in Brooklyn, it appears that everyone is still asleep. Many of the houses are covered with fine print, telling stories, bearing witness.

Then we are on the way to Manassas, and sandwiched between a billboard for webuyuglyhouses.com and a billboard advertising the best exterminators in the county, is this message: HOLY BIBLE. INSPIRED. ABSOLUTE. TRUTH. I appreciate the emphatic use of periods.

Manassas is the site of the Battle of Bull Run and also the Second Battle of Bull Run. These are the normal and appropriate things to know about Manassas. But just in case there is more, we start Googling; really it is our last Googling of the trip, our swan song of Googling and this is what we learn. Among the Notable People who have lived in or were born in or passed through Manassas, are John and Lorena Bobbitt.
Lively conversation ensues. Yes, of course we remember the notorious case of John and Lorena Bobbitt but did she chop it off, or bite it off? And then what happened? There is far more to the story. She chopped it off and threw it from her car window. But here is the amazing thing – later it was found and re-attached. (The surgery took 9 ½ hours.) The imagination does somersaults.
That however was not the end of the Bobbitt’s. John later played in a band called “The Severed Parts”. The band failed, not surprisingly. He also appeared in several porn films. Sadly, their titles were likewise unimaginative, never straying from the obvious.
From Manassas it is straight north for us, home to Bruno and the chickens. Home to the very delayed appearance of these events in SQD.

Nothing in Common Goes South, PArt 2, Day 13, the penultimate day

Years ago we saw a documentary film about a man in South Carolina, who, with no formal training, little money and rejected planted material, created a remarkable topiary garden in his small plot of land.

Now his garden has a dollhouse/public restroom donated by Coca-Cola.

The man is Pearl Fryar and his story is well-told in the documentary and on his website.

When I saw the film and realized that Pearl lives in Bishopville, SC, I thought, Great, next time I am in Spartanburg for a business meeting, I will scoot over to Bishopville and check out this amazing garden. That was before I look at a map of South Carolina and realize that it is 147 miles between the two cities, and driving takes 2 hours 28 minutes, assuming you don’t stop every few minutes to take picture of a Jesus billboard. Which is not a safe assumption, given my lack of resistance to temptation.

We arrive at Bishopville in the evening and, I am sorry to report, eat very badly, and then find a no-tell motel. In the morning we breakfast at Waffle House on the Sumter Highway, and note that it has topiary plants out front. Later we will learn from Pearl that he and the Waffle House have a warm relationship.
You could almost miss Pearl’s garden and house, an ordinary bungalow on a flat suburban cul de sac, until you realize that every bush, every shrub, every tree, every living thing surrounding the house, has been clipped and shaped and molded and created.
We park the car and start wandering around. Pearl soon arrives driving his John Deere golf cart and drinking his Waffle House coffee. Pearl is very chatty. Pearl will tell you his life story, Pearl will sing praises of his employer, Pearl will advertise the American dream, Pearl will promote education, Pearl will wax eloquent about his vision of a garden. We had a great time. Pearl’s garden is worth traveling 147 from Spartanburg or other miles from elsewhere. And if you drive past Watford’s BBQ without stopping, that is fine as well.

One of the shticks of Nothing in Common goes South, in fact the original - the seminal - shtick, was that we were going south so that CSB could go to Nascar races, and I could visit the childhood homes of great American writers. Shall I elaborate all the ways that shtick has become more conceptual than reality? Clearly something has gone awry, because until today we have not seen a single Nascar race, while I have visited the homes of William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Thomas Wolfe, Flannery O’Connor, along with their graves.
But that is about to change. Today we are driving along SC-34E and right there is an exit for the Darlington Raceway, situated on the Harry Byrd Highway. CSB is not even excited, which is suspicious. Was the Nascar shtick a ruse all along? And if so, for what?
But I am excited. I have never seen a Nascar racetrack and here it is, fallen across our seatbelts and into our laps. I quickly dash across three lanes and exit.
You can read the history of how Darlington Racetrack was built on cotton and peanut fields, and how Farmer Ramsey’s minnow pond was saved, here.
There is no actual race going on today, but apparently (for a fee) you can get in line and then get a ride around the track in a racecar driven by a race driver. There is not enough Dramamine in the world to make this a good idea.
There are also on display hundreds of lovingly tended vintage cars and their owners, generally less well tended than their vehicles. I am sorry that I neglect to take a picture of the entirely turquoise 1962 Corvette, and when I say entirely I mean the paint, the upholstery, the dashboard, the steering wheel, the knobs, doohickeys, and the hubcaps. It gleams like a gem. It makes me reconsider my lifelong indifference to cars. It would make a believer of anyone.