A tragic tale of two millionaire wannabes: the Saudi terrorist, the cowboy president, and what they wrought. Continue reading →
I wrote this entry on September 11, 2001, the twentieth anniversary of the famous terrorist incident. 9/11/01 was a Tuesday. We had a full house at TSI’s office in East Windsor—Sandy Sant’Angelo, Nadine Holmes, Harry Burt, Brian Rolllet, Denise Bessette, and myself. Sandy either was either listening to a radio, or she was surfing the Internet. She told the rest of us. I cannot remember whether everyone stopped working or not.
I was not even a little surprised that something like this had happened. I had followed developments in the Middle East since I debated and gave extemporaneous speeches about foreign policy when I was in high school. Also, there had already been some close calls. In 1993 a member of a group called Al-Qaeda, Ramzi Yusef, had set off a very destructive bomb in a basement parking lot of the World Trade Center.
A country can’t just take another country’s land and colonize it little by little.
For a long time Arabs who were not lucky enough to control oil deposits had been treated very shabbily by the West. The big issue, of course, was the fact that after World War II the Palestinians had been summarily evicted from the land in which they had resided for decades and replaced by Jewish refugees from the Pale and from western countries. At the same time Israel had been assisted by the United States in developing a very strong army with an impressive arsenal that included nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.
Little by little the Israeli government had limited the rights of non-Jews and, after the Six-Day War in 1967, had authorized hundreds of thousands of settlers to seize property on the West Bank previously owned by the Palestinians. Another factor was the fact that one of Islam’s holiest places had also been seized during the war and access to it was subsequently controlled by the Israelis. On several occasions a peace negotiations between the two sides had been attempted, but nothing much ever happened.
For more than fifty years any attempt to address these issues in the United Nations was thwarted by the U.S. So, it was no surprise to me that a very large number of people in the Middle East felt great animosity toward America.
BDL was my starting and ending point.
In 2001 and the previous few years I had been traveling all over the country1, almost always by airplane (anecdotes recounted here). I was lucky that most major airlines scheduled flights at the local airport, Bradley International, but almost all my itineraries required a layover at a hub. So, I was quite familiar with the security arrangements at airports around the country. At most airports security was run by the airlines themselves or by contractors that they hired. The marketplace for air travel was intensely competitive. The primary objective for the airlines was to make the experience enjoyable.They emphasized how pleasant flying on their planes was. Security was seldom mentioned.
The gates at KCI were walled in, but the walls were only about ten feet high. I envisioned a graceful sky hook.
In the hours that I spent sitting in airports I sometimes tried to imagine ways for getting weapons onto airplanes. The type of security varied greatly from airport to airport, but I thought that a determined person could easily have figured out a way to get a gun on an airplane. In some airports, such as Kansas City’s, it would have been laughably easy.
So, when I heard on 9/11 that a group of people had skyjacked some planes, I assumed that that they had smuggled guns aboard. In fact, however, they did not need guns. Their only weapons were box-cutters, mace, and imaginary bombs. They were able to commandeer the planes because in those days the door to the cockpit was generally open. Flight attendants went in and out all the time. It was also not rare for the captain to meander into the passenger area and chat with people. Kids were sometimes invited to visit the cockpit. The airlines encouraged this rapport between the crew and the customers.
Four box cutters!
On 9/11 nineteen men divided into four teams. Two teams went to Logan International Airport in Boston, and one each to Newark International and Dulles in Virginia. Each group intended to board a flight,and when it had reached cruising altitude, and take control of the passenger area and then the cockpit. The one member of each group who had some training as a pilot would then fly his plane to a designated targets and crash int it. The four events were designed to occur simultaneously or nearly so.
Fifteen of the men were Saudis, one was Egyptian, two were from the United Arab Emirates, and one was Lebanese. Four had some training as pilots. The others were simply there as “muscle” to keep the passengers and crew under control. The oldest was the Egyptian, Mohamed Atta, who was thirty-three. All the rest were in their twenties.
Two morning flights each were selected on American Airlines and United Airlines. Three of the attempts were successful. At that time the standard procedure in dealing with a hijacker was to accede to the demands. In this case the demands were simply for the crew to get out of the way and for the passengers to remain in their assigned seats.
The passengers on United Flight #93 revolted. What happened after that is unclear, but the plane crashed in Pennsylvania.
The event was merely a murderous stunt, not an attempted coup. Al-Qaeda claimed credit for the attack, and intelligence briefings had actually predicted something like what had occurred. Most of the 2,997 casualties were associated with the attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
My representative, Nancy Johnson, immediately declared that “9/11 changed everything.” Most people probably agreed with her, but to me the only thing that 9/11 changed was to remove the blinders concerning airport security. The other potential lesson, that U.S. foreign policy was bitterly hated by a large swath of the world’s population, was not learned. In fact, anyone who acknowledged it was reviled. Instead, the clarion call was “United we stand!” Criticism was not tolerated.
The Bush administration’s reaction was very strange in one way. The entire country’s airspace was essentially closed to commercial traffic for several days. That was probably prudent. However, during this period the government allowed the evacuation from the U.S. of 140 or more Saudi nationals despite confirmed intelligence that the vast majority of the of the perpetrators were Saudis. The funding also mostly came from other Saudis.
The attack was described by everyone as a terrorist act, which, of course, it was. Colin Powell said that we were “fighting a war against terrorists of global reach.” He therefore excluded Hamas, Hezbollah, and domestic terrorists. Almost immediately, however, the “of global reach” limitation was dropped, and anyone who in any way supported terrorism (except for the right-wing American version) was added to the list of enemies. Later the president the target as evil itself, as embodied in the “Axis of Evil’: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Bush even used the word “Crusade” to describe the new Bush Doctrine of boundless preemptive military actions. No word was more offensive to Muslims.
To his credit, W. stopped short of offering indulgences to everyone who fought in this war on terror.
The testosterone-laden approach was very popular. Support for the president jumped to an astounding 90 percent. Nobody asked me.
Paul Wolfowitz and the Neo-Cons demanded blood.
This is indisputable; None of these countries had in any way participated in the attacks. Iraq’s biggest crime was probably the $25,000 that Saddam Hussein had been paying families of Palestinian suicide bombers. There was something personal, too. Iraq had allegedly been behind an assassination attempt on W.’s father in Kuwait. Iran was allied with Hezbollah. The Israeli lobby and the Neo-Cons who advised Bush pressed for aggressive action against both.
Nobody in North Korea ever crossed any borders. Who knows what the justification was for including them in this unholy crusade? It has been reported that President Bush informed Bob Woodward that he loathed Kim Jong Il.
So, who was a terrorist? Terrorism is a tactic, not a country or organization. Terrorists didn’t wear uniforms or work on behalf of governments. Some didn’t work for anyone. Their common traits were strict secrecy and lack of access to advanced weapons.
So, how do you identify them before they commit a heinous act? The answer was simple: “Don’t worry. We know some of them3, and we have ways of finding the rest. Trust us.”
Noun: exaggerated pride or self-confidence.
Meanwhile, the first stage was to attack the Taliban, a band of religious fanatics who ran Afghanistan and gave refuge to Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda. After a few weeks of heavy bombing the Taliban offered to hand Bin Laden over, but the Bush people were unwilling to negotiate. They expected a quick unconditional surrender, which, of course, never happened. If you look up “hubris” in the dictionary, you might see a picture of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.
No more crusades, please.
In 2003 the U.S. attacked Iraq. The administration had made a comical attempt to gather allies for the vengeful invasion of the country that was the most secular of any in the Muslim world. An attempt was even made to convince the United Nations to back the attack.That was thwarted by Pope (Saint) John Paul II. My dad was very upset by the fact the country that he loved and for which he had fought in World War II, would commit such an act of naked and illegal aggression.5
I remember watching a video recording of Colin Powell’s presentation to the U.N. I had read a transcript and had been somewhat impressed. However, when I saw the video I realized that what I had assumed were photos presented in evidence were actually drawings. He was trying to sell an unprovoked invasion based on an artist’s conception of what the Iraqis might have been doing. These were just cartoons! Although many Americans swooned, the rest of the world was unimpressed.
Most of the American public bought all or at least most of the lies. I knew from reading Juan Coles’ blog, Informed Comment, that the case presented was full of holes.
The administration was not impeded by this snub. Condoleezza Rice and others appeared on radio and television programs to promulgate a new catchphrase. Even if Iraq did not currently harbor terrorists, it certainly had “weapons of mass destruction” and if the country ever did start welcoming terrorists, we did not “want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
In point of fact, no one (except perhaps Cheney in his yellowcake fantasy) thought that Iraq had nuclear weapons. Some people just assumed that Saddam Hussein had been lying when he declared that his government had destroyed all of Iraq’s chemical weapons. The WMD justification was totally bogus.
No one except Harry Shearer seemed to notice that the one Islamic country that definitely possessed weapons of mass destruction and definitely had harbored terrorists, Pakistan, was never mentioned in this propaganda blitz.
There is no doubt whatever that the Republicans (joined by a few turncoats like my senator, Joe Lieberman) knew exactly what they were doing. Bush informed a stunned Tony Blair on September 14, 2001, that they planned to attack Iraq.
What really made me see red was the indefinite imprisonment of foreigners on the military base in Guantánamo Bay for the sole purpose of circumventing the American system of justice. Some were never even charged with a crime.
The interrogators even tortured civilians—some captured by very sketchy foreigners—to force them to provide evidence of Iraqi misdeeds. Even worse was the disgraceful use of “extraordinary rendition” to send captured individuals to countries with less rigorous legal systems in order to extract information from them—whether or not it was true. This was perhaps the most disgraceful period in U.S. history that I have witnessed. In my opinion all of the participants should have been tried for war crimes. I cannot imagine what their defense would have been.
Richard Reid’s shoes.
The reaction to 9/11 that affected my lifestyle the most was the creation of the Homeland Security Department and, especially, its Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Security at airports and on airplanes definitely needed improvement. Armed passengers needed to be prevented from boarding airplanes. If someone with a weapon somehow got aboard, they must be prevented from gaining access to the cockpit.
However, one does not use a double-barreled shotgun when threatened by a mosquito. The new security procedures were a grotesque overreaction. For example, solely because one incompetent idiot named Richard Reid once tried to light his sneakers on fire on an airplane, every adult was required to remove both shoes before boarding an airplane! The TSA transformed air travel from a boring expediency into an outrageously annoying exercise in frustration. I ended every trip in a very foul mood.
European countries had already implemented a much more reasonable and equally effective program. We should have sought counsel from them as to how they had successfully dealt with a very active terrorist group, the Red Brigades. The Bushies were too busy making and selling their plans to ask anyone for advice.
The most sensible moves that the administration undertook were to require the crew in the cockpit to stay there and to require the door to the cockpit to be locked. Thank goodness the government did not accede to the demands from some gung-ho pilots to carry sidearms.
The most frightening experience that I ever had in an airport or an airplane was in the Intercontinental Airport in Houston shortly after 9/11. Some genius had decided that it would be cool to have soldiers with automatic weapons in U.S. airports. I saw in the Houston airport a young guy in U.S. Army camos4 eating his supper alone at a restaurant. His M16 was leaning against the back of his chair.
The M16 was a weapon that I (and thousands of others) knew very well. I could consistently hit a human-sized target with one at distances up to three hundred meters. I could take one apart and reassemble it. Most importantly, I knew the location of the little lever that activated the fully automatic mode. As I watched the young man eat his burger, I suddenly realized that I was carrying a potential weapon—my laptop in its very sturdy metal case—with which I could easily disable this soldier, thereby enabling me to seize his rifle. I wondered how many other travelers there had similar thoughts.
Anyway, the U.S. forces quickly brushed aside the Iraqi troops. Our draft-dodging president got to land a jet on an aircraft carrier where a huge “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” banner was displayed.
We tried to install a Hartford Native, Paul Bremer, as imperial governor. That did not go over too well. The fighting continued in whack-a-mole fashion at a reduced level. Then the situation deteriorated. We dropped a lot of bombs, and hired a lot of mercenaries. When things began to look really bad again our military presence in Iraq even “surged” just before the 2004 election in America. Some called it “the splurge” because a whole lot of money was spent assuring the support of local power brokers. This tactic was effective, but the loyalty only lasted as long as the payments kept coming.
After the first election, Iraqi men and women showed their purple fingers to cameramen.
The U.S. eventually imposed on the Iraqis an Italian-style parliamentary democracy. We may have expected the Iraqis to form parties that resembled liberals and conservatives, but, in fact, Saddam Hussein had probably been the most liberal leader in the Muslim world. He tolerated all religions, but the new parties were formed primarily along religious lines, and, guess what, the most popular party was the Shiite faction that was friendliest to Iran, a card-carrying member of the Axis of Evil. The main thing that all parties agreed upon was that all Americans and practitioners of non-Muslim religions—including the rather vibrant Christian communities—were not welcome in democratic Iraq.
Eventually, we did go, in a manner of speaking. But what a cost this adventure exacted—hundreds of thousands of lives lost, millions of lives of innocent Iraqis disrupted, trillions of dollars wasted, and a treasure trove of international good will squandered.
Then the Islamic State (or ISIS or ISIL) developed, and we allied with Iran, of all people. Then we had to fight them in Syria, too, and …
I don’t want to write any more about this. I am not an expert on the Middle East, but Juan Cole is.
I have been following Juan Cole’s blog, Informed Comment since it began in 2002. You can find it at juancole.com. Cole was (and still is in 2021) a professor in the history department at my Alma Mater, the University of Michigan. His writings presented an impartial and very well researched description of affairs in the Middle East and other countries dominated by Muslims. He had lived for a period in the area and he could read and understand Arabic and a few other languages used in that area.
I have read his blog every morning no matter where I was since he started posting it in 2002.
Professor Cole wrote a long article in 2006 for Foreign Policy magazine explaining the politics of the situation. Although he was pilloried by jingoistic Americans and Zionists at the time, he has proven right about nearly everything. The article was republished on his website on September 10, 2021. You can read it here.
1. In those years I spent considerable amounts of time in airports in all of the following states: Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.
2. Nancy Johnson served in Congress for twenty-four years. She was defeated by twelve percentage points in 2006 by Democrat Chris Murphy despite outspending him by a large margin. Since then she has worked as a lobbyist.
3. To help identify the “bad guys”, a deck of cards was created. Saddam was the ace of spades. During this period rumors abounded about potential terrorists who looked like ordinary God-fearing law-abiding citizens. However, on notification by someone (George Soros?) they and the other members of their “sleeper cell” were ready to spring into action to attack a predetermined target.
Some patriots took the “better safe than sorry” approach. On September 15, 2001, Frank Roque murdered a Sikh man and fired on a Lebanese man and an Afghan family in Arizona.
4. My dad asserted at the time that it was the first unprovoked attack by the U.S. This was clearly false, but I never challenged it.
5. Don’t get me started on the current custom of military personnel wearing camouflaged fatigues for day-to-day activities in the U.S.
The most mysterious of all of the trips that my wife Sue and I took together was the only one for which she did all of the planning. My recollections of this bizarre experience have mostly been repressed. In 2023 … Continue reading →
The most mysterious of all of the trips that my wife Sue and I took together was the only one for which she did all of the planning. My recollections of this bizarre experience have mostly been repressed. In 2023 I could remember the basic route that we took and a few of the experiences. I did not recall most of the names of places we visited or companies with which we interacted.
I do not even remember when this event occurred. I have assigned the date 2000, but it could be off, even by a year or more. If it was in 2000 we must have gone in the fall or late summer. Denise Bessette and I went to San Diego (described here) in January. This trip could not have been scheduled for the subsequent months in which I was very busy with work.
I hypothesized in 2023 that we planned to start on a Friday morning, stay for two nights in Nova Scotia and return on Sunday. Sue agreed with this, but we may very well be wrong.
Sue somehow won two free round-trip tickets on a regional airline that was based in Boston. My dim recollection is that it was called Executive Airlines1 or something like that. We could fly to any destination that the company served. We had a certificate but no tickets; we had to fly stand-by. So, in effect, the airline gave away seats that would have been empty.
Sue wanted to fly to Halifax, Nova Scotia. I suspect that this desire stemmed from tales told by her grandmother, Molly Locke, whom Sue idolized, of her adventures in the maritime provinces.
We drove from Enfield to the Boston area. I have a feeling that we parked in Framingham and took the T to the airport. I am pretty sure that we did this once, and if it wasn’t for this adventure, I cannot imagine when it would have been.
When we arrived at the airport we made our way to a room devoted to this airline. It wasn’t a ticket counter. I remember that we sat in plastic seats in a room and plotted our strategy. There were other people in the same situation, but it was not crowded. Sue had planned on flying to Halifax, Nova Scotia, but the flights on that day had no seats available. I remember being very upset by this development. If I had any inkling that it was a possibility, I would never have agreed to it. As I sat there helpless, I became more and more incensed. Sue tried to calm me down by telling me to relax because “we are on vacation.” I retorted that this was no vacation.
The time estimate from Google maps must reflect the fact that in 2023 there are no direct flights.
In the end Sue suggested that we fly to Presque Isle, ME—a destination that was apparently not in much demand that day. There we would rent a car, and drive to Nova Scotia. After we had spent a day painting the province red, we would drive back to Presque Isle and fly back to Boston. I considered it a close call between her suggestion and writing off the entire idea and thereby returning home to Enfield sadder but wiser.
Of course, I eventually capitulated, and we exchanged our certificate for tickets to Maine’s third-largest airport, which is located only a few miles from the Canadian border. The plane, as I remember it, was rather nice. I should actually say that I don’t remember anything good or bad about it. I think that it may have even been a jet. It had perhaps two dozen seats that were rather comfortable. The flight was short. I don’t think that anyone served as much as a beverage.
This is an “international” airport, not a bus station.
We landed at Presque Isle’s airport. It was by far the least impressive one that I had ever seen. I remember that the baggage claim was a chute that was less than ten feet wide and not even that long. We could see the workers take the few bags off the plane and plop them on the chute. The good thing was that there was very little danger of losing or misplacing a bag.
There was one car rental establishment. I don’t remember which company it was, but it may have been Avis, which had an office there in 2023. I remember that we had an option to rent a Volkswagen New Beetle, which had been introduced in 1998. I am pretty sure that we declined and settled on some kind of compact car.
I already knew that there was quite a bit of land between Maine and Nova Scotia. We discovered on the map that came with the rental car that it was mostly New Brunswick. We spent most of the rest of the day driving across one of Canada’s least famous provinces. I remember almost nothing but frustration about this experience. I do not remember if I drove, Sue drove, or we split it up. I have a feeling that I did the bulk of the driving because in those days some rental companies charged extra for a second driver. We must have stopped for lunch and/or supper somewhere, but I do not have any recollection of that. Likewise, I do not remember any of the cities or towns, although a few of the names seem familiar. The city of Saint John rings a bell, but it would have been out of our way to stop there.
We stayed overnight somewhere north of Halifax. It was a fairly rustic place with a view of the water. I remember something about Prince Edward Island, but from the map it does not seem as if we could ever have been in sight of it. Sue recalled us eating bay scallops from Prince Edward Island. I might have tried one, but people from Kansas—especially ones that grew up as Catholics—generally avoid marine insects. She thought that the water that I remembered was a tidal pool.
We visited Halifax on the second day. We spent some time at a fort or something similar with a view of the sea. The one vivid memory of the whole trip that I have retained is that we visited a room that had hundreds of butterflies. It may have been in the Museum of Natural History that listed a “butterfly house” among its attractions in 2023. This was the only time on the entire trip that I felt entertained or relaxed. Sue’s recollection of Halifax in 2023 was entirely different. She recalled only touring a garden.
That’s all that I remember. We drove back to Presque Isle. We flew to Boston. We took the T to Framingham. We drove from there to Enfield.
This was by far the worst mini-vacation that I ever took.
1. I could not locate much information about this or any similar airline on the Internet. I am almost positive that it went out of business within a month or two of our epic trip. One website mentioned such a company in New England. The post is here. However, in the seventies that airline was sold to Air New England, which went out of business in 1981. So, I am probably wrong about the name.
If I had read TheInnocents Abroad, I might have brought a notebook on the trip to London. I definitely brought at least one to Milwaukee.
In December of 1989 I had won a story contest (described here) held by the Hartford Courant. The prize was a two-week trip for two to England!
I should mention at the outset that neither Sue nor I took any notes on the trip to England. I think that Sue must have brought her camera, but I have not located any of her photos. I definitely took no photos. So, all of the following content was based on our memories, and the photos that are include, with the sole exceptions of the tattered notebook on the right, the shot of Rocky perched on the toilet, and our souvenir coaster, were all taken by others.
I might have made a mistake in the dates, but the schedule worked out so perfectly that my confidence level is rather high, especially considering that the events happened more than thirty-one years ago.
My preparation for my first trip across the Atlantic was, by necessity, greatly inferior to my efforts for our twenty-first century vacations. Research was much more difficult in 1990. The Internet sort of existed, but there was no Google or Wikipedia. We had Cox cable in our house, but Cox did not offer Internet services until the last half of the nineties. Even AOL dial-up was still three years in the future.
Moreover, I had no time to research. The installation of TSI’s AdDept system at Macy’s in New York was entering phase two (as described here), and, at the same time, we were desperate to sign up a second large retailer to use the system that we had worked so hard to develop for Macy’s. TSI was in a rough spot. We no longer had a dedicated marketing person, and we were also quite short on cash.
The Enfield Public Library.
We obtained a guidebook somehow, probably from the library. Sue and I decided that we wanted to see as many famous sights as possible, but, despite what I had said to Lary Bloom at the Courant, on the way we would also try to investigate some places that were related to the Arthurian legends.
Sue worked with the Jameson Travel people that the Courant had hired to handle the details of trip. The newspaper provided enough money to cover all transportation costs (including auto rental) and lodging. We had to pay for food and anything else that we wanted. Our basic plan was to eat big breakfasts at the hotels and either lunch or supper at a restaurant. The other meal would be snacks that we picked up at whatever store we chanced upon.
We had a pretty good plan with four bases of operation:
London for three nights. Starting with our arrival early in the morning on Thursday, February 22, 1990, and ending with a car rental on Sunday the 25th.
Wells for three nights with side trips to Glastonbury Tor, Stonehenge, Wookey Hole, and Cadbury Castle. We drove through, or at least very near to, Bath (BAHTH) on the way.
Plymouth for two nights with a side trip to Tintagel (tin TAH gehl) and a stop in Bristol on the way to York to enable Sue to shop for miniatures on her thirty-ninth birthday.
York for three nights with a drive through the Dales and, on the return trip to London, a short stop in Barnsley so that Sue could see Locke Park as well as an afternoon stop in Warwick Castle.
Back to London for two nights. Since we gained five hours flying west, we would arrive in Boston at lunch time or even earlier.
The story of my trip actually begins on a February flight from Bradley not to London but to Chicago. It was an early morning United flight on Monday the 19th. For some reason most of my airplane horror stories have involved flights on United airlines. The one to Chicago, however, was quite uneventful.
One IBM Plaza.
From O’Hare I took a cab into town for a meeting at One IBM Plaza with some IBM sales reps who specialized in the retail sector. Some really big retailers had headquarters in Chicago. Sears and Walgreens came to mind. Marshall Fields still had its headquarters in Chicago at that point, too. I tried to explain AdDept to them, but they had trouble understanding it. I am not sure that they even realized that retailers had advertising departments.
From IBM regional headquarters I took a cab to the train station, where I bought a ticket on the next Amtrak train to Milwaukee. The schedule said that it was a ninety-minute journey. Unbeknownst to me, this train happened to be the famous Empire Builder, which went from Chicago all the way to Seattle and Portland. Union Station in Milwaukee was its first stop.
When I boarded my car, it was rather empty. I found a seat by a window, lifted my suitcase up to the overhead rack, and sat down to read.
To my surprise, a man who may have been in his sixties approached me and asked if he could sit next to me. Here was my chance. All that I had to do was to utter the word “No.” I, however, chose politeness. This would be a better story if I had introduced myself and asked the gentleman his name, but I was not that polite.
I didn’t say that it was an express train.
My unexpected companion explained that he and his wife were traveling together to Oakland, CA, to visit their daughter. They liked to take trains, but on long trips like this one they soon tired of each other’s company. So, they each sought out other people to sit with and engage in conversation.
The gentleman was certainly friendly. He asked me where I was getting off and, after I responded, what I was going to do in Milwaukee. Nobody could explain TSI’s unique business in just a few minutes, and my activities that day would seem confusing to anyone. I did my best, and he listened politely.
The cars were a little sleeker, but this was still the Milwaukee Amtrak Station in 1990.
Then, without being asked, he told me that he was from a small town south of Chicago. He may have also worked the price of corn into the conversation at some point as I glanced longingly at the mystery novel balanced on my lap.
Somehow the topic worked its way around to his daughter’s marital status, which was evidently “divorced”. She had moved to the west coast and was living by herself “because, you see, he turned out to be one of them gay fellows.”
Fortunately, this revelation came just as the train was pulling into Milwaukee’s Union Station. Some other passenger would undoubtedly get to hear the rest of the story. Actually, probably several unsuspecting people would be subjected to it. In the cab from the station to my first appointment it occurred to me that the idea of sitting with strangers on the train was probably the wife’s.
My destination in Milwaukee was the office of an ad agency, the name of which I don’t remember. I met there with some people to discuss the possibility of the agency purchasing an AS/400 and running ADB, the version of TSI’s ad agency system designed for that computer, on it. The employees at the agency treated me very nicely and seemed quite interested in what the system had to offer.
The Mark Plaza is now a Hilton.
At the close of the business day I took another cab to the Mark Plaza Hotel in downtown Milwaukee, which was within walking distance of the Boston Store. P.A. Bergner and Company owned that store and a large number of other department stores in the north-central states. The advertising department for the entire chain was located on one of the top floors of the store.
Before going to bed I called Sue and told her about the two meetings as well as my encounter with the long-distance rail traveler.
At Bergner’s I met with the production manager, Dan Stroman, and the loan room manager, Sheree Marlow Wicklund. Their loan room was much simpler than Macy’s. The merchandise seldom was sent to outside photo studios. One person could really run it without a computer.
We had not written a system for keeping track (called “trafficking”) of the status of the various aspects (copy, layout, art, photography, etc.) of production jobs yet. So, what Dan was interested in was a new area for me. I also met with the finance and newspaper people. More details are here.
In 1990 a small restaurant in the Milwaukee Airport sold these delicious brats.
After an entire day gathering system requirements, I left with a lot of notes in my spiral notebook, a folder full of sample reports, and my suitcase. I took a cab to the airport. I bought two Usinger’s brats for supper, spent a few minutes in the airport’s used book store, which, as I recall, had a set of Goethe’s complete works that was short a couple of volumes.
Nobody made this drive in an hour in the evening on February 13, 1990.
It was snowing lightly when I boarded the plane. My journey home went through Chicago. That first leg was always so short that the seat belt light was never turned off.
We had barely taken off when the pilot announced on the intercom that O’Hare Airport had just closed because of an ice storm. So, the plane was being diverted to the nearest available airport, General Mitchell International Airport, the same one from which we had just departed.
When we had landed, an agent proudly informed us that United had hired buses to transport all the passengers to O’Hare. So, evidently the airport itself was still open, even if all of the runways were closed. I was a little fearful of a bus ride in a storm that was ferocious enough to frighten the airport that was a hub for two of the nation’s largest carriers, but I really needed to get back to Enfield to attend a meeting scheduled for the next day.
The rest of the trip went as smoothly as could be expected. The bus that I was on made it to O’Hare. I had to wait in line to speak with a United agent, but I was then booked on a flight to Hartford that was scheduled to depart early the next morning.
Since the cancellation was due to the airport’s decision, United did not offer to put me up at a hotel. I had no credit cards and too little cash remaining from all of those cab rides to pay for a room on my own. So, I snatched as much sleep as I could in one of the seats that were specifically designed to prevent people from nodding off and missing their flights. I had a lot of company.
For the next two decades I was a regular at Executive Valet Parking.
The flight the next morning left on time and arrived in Hartford on time. I took the shuttle to the airport parking lot, ransomed my car, and then drove back to Enfield.
I arrived at our house a little before noon. I called the office and told them that I would take a shower, grab an hour or so of sleep, eat lunch, and then come into work. I did not sleep much, but otherwise I followed that plan.
In the afternoon a couple from New Jersey appeared at our office. I don’t remember the details of this meeting. I seem to recall that it had something to do with our pitch for Paramount, which is described here. These people had experience with UNIX, the operating system preferred by Paramount. “UNIX” had always been sort of a dirty word in our office.
After they left I formalized my notes from my three meetings in Chicago and Milwaukee and sent letters to the people with whom I had met. That is what you had to do in the days before email. Because we were scheduled to depart for London the next evening, I left it up to Kate Behart to follow up on the phone with them.
I did not feel hopeful about the meeting in Chicago and the meeting at Bergner’s. The last meeting in our office was just a flyer. On the other hand, my hopes for the ad agency in Milwaukee were pretty high. If someone from the agency called our references, I thought that we could get it. Our clients loved us, and they always praised our work.
After supper I packed. I remember bringing along several books by Jack Vance. Chick Comparetto1 had volunteered to take care of our cats, Rocky and Woodrow, while we were absent. It was not a weighty responsibility. They had their own door. I had purchased plenty of Cat Chow. If Chick forgot to give them water, they were not shy about helping themselves to the toilet. If they got hungry, Woodrow was adept at ripping open the bag of food. They probably also had two or three survival tricks that I had not yet discovered.
We must have brought either travelers’ checks or a lot of cash on the trip. I am quite sure that we had no credit cards.
Someone drove us to Logan. I have a vague recollection that it might have been Sue’s sister Betty.
I remember nothing about the experience in the airport in Boston. Our plane did not leave until late in the evening. We must have eaten something in the airport, but it was not memorable.
We lost five hours in the flight across the Atlantic, and so it was rather early in the morning when we landed at Heathrow. We had no trouble with our luggage or with customs. That aspect of travel was much easier in those days.
We also had no difficulty finding the driver who had been hired to meet us. I don’t remember his name or what he looked like, but I recall him being very welcoming in a reserved, British manner. He asked about the contest, and he recommended that we invest £5 each in the double-decker bus tour of London.
I am pretty sure that the Camelot was somewhere on this map.
He drove us right to the Camelot Hotel2, our home for the next three nights. It was located on or near Sussex Place quite near Hyde Park. As soon as we entered the hotel, Sue and I had the same thought: “We are staying at Fawlty Towers!” Manuel was missing, and the details were all different, but the feel was remarkably similar. I suppose that at one time there were small urban hotels run by amateurish entrepreneurs in the United States, but by 1990 they were pretty much extinct.
We had to sign the guest registry, which was a huge book lying open on a desk, not a counter. A television was on behind the desk, and—I am not making this up—an episode of Fawlty Towers was playing.
My recollection is that the hotel comprised eight or ten nondescript rooms.We found ours and unpacked. We were both tired, but adrenaline overpowered the jet lag.
The person at the desk told us where we could catch a double-decker bus. We left our oversized key at the desk, walked to the location described to us, mounted to the second level of a bus, and took the tour. It was, as our driver had promised, a good way to get a feel for the city.
I don’t remember where we ate lunch, but afterwards we took a stroll in Hyde Park. It was very relaxing. I was surprised to see that people still used the Speaker’s Corner as a public pulpit. At some point an interesting thought popped into my head. I looked at my watch and then remarked to Sue, “Do you remember that guy on the train to Milwaukee that I told you about? I just realized that he is still on that same train.”3
That evening we walked a few blocks over to Baker St. I don’t remember what our motivation was originally, but when we arrived there we naturally tried to locate 221B. It didn’t exist. Moreover, there was no 221 at all.
We did find a steakhouse near that location, and, although we knew that the English were not famous for their cuisine, we gave it a try. The restaurant had a sound system that played pop tunes. The one that was playing as we walked through the door was “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty, which had been released twelve years earlier. The coincidences on that day were truly unbelievable. The food was OK, and Sue and I had fun trying to name the other songs. “Baker Street” never came up on the sound system again.
I only remember one other restaurant that we patronized in London. It was a Greek restaurant4 that was a block or two from the hotel. My recollection is that it was in the basement of some building, but I may be wrong. I distinctly remember that the food was absolutely delicious, by far the best of any of the food that we ate in England. I also remember that there were only two other people in the restaurant. They were seated at a table as far from us as was possible. They seemed to be just chain-smoking, drinking coffee (or something in coffee cups), and speaking in Greek. I struggled to hear a familiar word or phrase, but since the only Greek I knew then was thousands of years out of date, the task was hopeless.
In London we walked and/or took the tube everywhere. I thought that London’s Underground system was wonderful. It was so easy to figure out. I was used to the mass transit systems in New York and Boston. They were both haphazard and uncomfortable by comparison. I even bought a tee shirt advertising the London Underground. Here are things that I remember Sue and me doing in London:
We definitely went to the British museum. I was thrilled to see the real Rosetta Stone there. It was right out where you could touch it. They had lots of other stuff, of course, but the most memorable for me were handwritten lyrics by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Those were definitely kept in cases where no one could touch them. I also remember the pigeons on the steps. There must have been a thousand of them.
We spent the better part of a day at the Tower of London. I was very impressed by the armory and the Yeoman Warders in their fancy dress. I had no use for the massive collection of shiny rocks, but others stood in line for a chance to adore them. One of the few souvenirs that we bought on the entire trip was the coaster shown on the right.
We walked to Buckingham Palace, but we did not watch the changing of the guard. It was chilly that day. While we were in the vicinity, we went to Westminster Abbey and were a little grossed out that so many people were entombed there. I guess that they have to put the cadavers somewhere. We also saw Parliament, #10 Downing Street, Big Ben, and the Thames.
Sue wanted to visit St. Catherine’s House in London to look up information about some of her ancestors on her mother’s side, the Lockes and Kings. I didn’t go in with her. I don’t remember what I did, but just looking in windows is quite entertaining in London. I think that I might have found a bookstore.
We were very impressed with the retail on Oxford St., which I found much more exciting and dynamic than the stores on Fifth Avenue in New York.
The ducks in the ponds in Hyde Park were very striking. They had complicated and beautiful markings. Neither of us had seen the like, not even in zoos. I also really liked the coots. Their oversized feet impressed me.
From Hyde Park we could see both Kensington Palace, which at the time was the home of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and Royal Albert Hall. We didn’t visit either one. It probably would not be cool for someone from the Colonies just to drop in on Chuck and Di, and we already knew how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
We did not find that being a pedestrian in London was too difficult. At the enormous intersections there were usually pedestrian subways. The hardest part for us was remembering to look to our right first when attempting to cross a side street.
On our very last night in England we went to see Agatha Christie’s play, The Mousetrap, at St. Martins Theater. It was very enjoyable. Maybe we should have tried something a little more daring, but I am very happy to say that I viewed this play when it was only in the thirty-eighth year of its record run.
The worst part of our entire trip began when we picked up the rental car. I think that the travel agency provided us with transportation to the car rental agency. It was only then that Sue revealed that she had specified a standard transmission car, and she was afraid to try to drive it. So, I needed to learn how to shift with my left hand on a perilous journey from the very heart of London to the M4 during the morning rush hour.
I made many mistakes. Other motorists even honked at us a few times, probably the only horns that I heard while we were in the U,K. The British seemed more reluctant than their American counterparts to draw attention to bad driving. Embarrassed and frustrated, I did manage to get the car onto the freeway without causing any accidents.
A little west of Reading Sue suddenly announced, “There he is! I just saw a bear!”
Intent on my driving, I dared not gawk. I took a quick peek in the direction that she pointed. I saw nothing. At the time I did not know that bears had been extinct in England for fifteen hundred years. It probably was just an ordinary Bigfoot.
We took the M4 almost all the way to Bristol. Driving on the M roads in England was no more challenging than driving on interstates in the U.S. However, when we exited from the M4, the rest of the drive was on the A roads, which were very narrow by American standards. I remember that when we drove through the outskirts of Bath I was fearful of scraping against the stone walls that formed the border of the road. Fortunately, we encountered very few cars coming in the opposite direction. When we finally reached our destination in Wells, I was happy that the trip was over and more than a little anxious about the next nine days on the road.
In Wells we stayed at the Red Lion Hotel, which is described here. I think that the building at some point was converted to other uses. I remember that our room had a four-poster bed. I had seen them in movies, but I don’t think that I had ever slept in one.
We spent the rest of that first day in Wells exploring the town. The focus of attention was definitely the huge Gothic cathedral that is dedicated to St. Andrew the apostle. Although it is now the see of the Anglican Bishop of Bath and Wells, it was constructed in the late middle ages when England was a Catholic country. It seemed totally out of place. Wells is little more than a village, and the cathedral is actually set apart from the town. I would have expected the town to have grown up around it.
The Bishop’s Palace was equally awesome or perhaps even more so. His Lordship George Carey5 evidently was not apprised of the arrival of the esteemed visitors from across the pond. We saw his home from a distance, and we were even treated to the sight of some episcopal long-johns hanging out to dry. However, we were not invited into the palace grounds where, according to Wikipedia, croquet games are rather common. I would have loved to hear someone explain the rules of the English version of the game.
Rand’s jump.
A word about the weather: Although all of England is well north of New England, the weather in late February and early March was much nicer than what New Englanders would expect. It seemed more like mid-April. Flowers were out, and the grass was green. We wore jackets every day, but we were seldom cold. We also were lucky not to encounter much rain.
For me the most interesting feature in the town of Wells was the memorial on the sidewalk to Mary Rand, a resident of Wells who won the gold medal in the women’s long jump in the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. The plaque measured out the exact distance that she jumped.
What I remember most about those days was the driving. No matter which of us was at the wheel, both of us became irritable. For some reason the roundabouts gave us the most difficulty. It was bad enough to have to remember to go clockwise. The big problem, however, was the signage. The highway numbers were seldom provided at the exits. Instead a sign displayed the name a town that was somewhere on that section of road. This was, I am sure, useful for people who knew where all of those towns were, but they did not help us at all. Furthermore, it seemed as if at least half the time the name on the sign was “Taunton”, and visiting Taunton was not on our agenda
I am not sure where we went on which days, but I am sure that we went to all of the following places:
Our guidebook described a place called “Cadbury Castle”. It was supposedly someone’s idea of where Camelot (or maybe Camalet) was. We had a lot of trouble finding it. Finally we came upon the village of North Cadbury. We asked someone at a pub where Cadbury Castle was, and they directed us down a one-lane road that was actually just two tracks. Those were the last humans that we encountered on this adventure.
We went as far as we could by car. We stopped the vehicle, locked it, and set off on foot.
Ahead of us were two troughs, a lot of thick underbrush, and a formidable grassy mound. We made our way through the underbrush for thirty or forty yards. Sue got attacked by stinging nettles and was forced to retreat in agony.
In those days if there was a hill in front of me, I climbed it. I made it to the top of this so-called “hillfort”, but I saw no trace of a fort. On the top of the hill a dozen or so cows were peacefully grazing. They ignored me. I could also see Glastonbury Tor in the distance. That was something, I guess.
Nettle.
To be fair, I should add that the sun was out. The legend is that on a misty day you can see the Once and Future King and his famous knights.
Dock.
When we arrived back at the hotel, Sue asked someone what to take for stinging nettles. They informed us that the best treatment was a plant called “dock”, which always grew near the nettles. That was not in our guidebook.
We also drove to Glastonbury Tor, another ancient hill in Somerset. A lot of people think that this is a magical place. it certainly has an unusual shape. Evidently in the middle ages a monastery was there. Legends abound about it being associated with King Arthur, but there is a dearth of evidence.
A paved path now leads to the tower atop the tor. I don’t think that it existed in 1990.
I don’t remember a lot about our visit here. I don’t clearly recall the tower at the top of the hill at all. Therefore, I was skeptical as to whether I climbed to the top. Sue, however, has told me that I did. Evidently I don’t remember the tower because no one was allowed to enter it. Therefore, its distinguishing feature—no roof!—was not visible to me.
Sue also reported that a dozen or so New Agers were busy absorbing Glastonbury’s vibes.
The good thing about it was that the town of Glastonbury was actually fairly easy to find. I can’t say that about most of the other sights in Somerset. We had a devil of a time finding Stonehenge. Surely, there must have been a lot of tourists who wanted to see these big old rocks. Nevertheless, there was precious little signage to indicate their location.
We were not allowed as close to the stones as the people in this photo are.
We did find it, but it was probably the biggest disappointment of the entire trip. At the time no one was allowed to approach, much less touch the stones. I don’t recall that we ever were within one hundred feet of them. I honestly think that we would have gotten more out of a film about the place.
By this time we were getting rather tired of driving around Somerset searching for legendary hills and ancient inanimate objects.
Our last stop in Somerset, however, was delightful. Wookey Hole is a set of caves that are located just a few miles to the northwest of Wells. We knew about the caves from the guidebook, but we were surprised by the fact that there were actually other really enjoyable things to see and do nearby.
The caves were quite interesting. We took a little tour with a local guide. The best part of it was the way that she pronounced Wookey Hole. The first syllable was at least a fifth higher than the rest of the name. Since we had heard no human speech anywhere near any of the other attractions in Somerset, it was nice to have someone explain the geology of the caves.
In addition to the natural formations, someone had constructed a small museum6 that emphasized a few diverse elements of the culture in and around Wookey Hole.
Cheddar Gorge.
The paper-making demonstration was the most educational. Until then I had absolutely no idea how trees and rags were turned into paper. The penny arcade machines were also something that I had never seen before. Visitors could even play the games using old-school pennies that they could buy there. The carousel section had complete carousels (going clockwise, of course), as well as stunning individual statues. I remember seeing a beautiful lion, but I was unable to find a picture of it on the Internet.
Sue and I found our visit to Wookey Hole both fun and relaxing. We then undertook the drive up to Cheddar Gorge. I am not sure why we did not stop here. Sue absolutely loves cheese. In retrospect I have trouble understanding how she could have resisted the temptation to stop and sample one of her favorite cheeses.
Our next destination was Plymouth, which is a genuine city on the south coast. On the way there we took a slight detour to drive through Exmoor, which includes some really diverse and beautiful areas.
Our hotel in Plymouth was not as memorable as the first two. I have a vague recollection that it also had a restaurant. We took a short pedestrian tour of the city, mostly so we could say that we had seen the spot from which the Pilgrims departed.
I remember that at the restaurant I was served some Devon Cream. I had never had this before and remarked about it to Sue. My face must have registered disgust because the waiter rushed over to ask me if there was something wrong. This, by the way, never happens to me in the U.S.
The main reason that Sue and I bothered to come this far west was to have somewhere to stay while we ventured to Tintagel, the ruins of a real castle in Cornwall on the Atlantic coast.
Tintagel ruins.
A different angle.
Merlin’s Cave.
Tintagel7 was definitely worth visiting. However, it was a difficult drive from any direction. Furthermore, a fairly long walk was (and evidently still is) required to reach the ruins from the parking lot. We went there in February, and a very cold wind was blowing in off the Atlantic. We did not get as much out of this experience as we might have if the weather had been nicer or we (i.e., Sue) had been in better condition. We did get a look at the castle ruins and Merlin’s cave. The view of the ocean was stunning.
I am not sure about this, but I think that we decided not to drive directly back to Plymouth. Instead we headed to Barnstaple, a city with which we were familiar from playing the British Rails game. All of the cities in this section are at the base of a very high cliff. This accounts for the peculiar fact that all of the rivers flow to the south.
On Sue’s birthday we left from Plymouth with the intention of reaching York by supper time. I asked Sue what she wanted for her birthday. She said that she wanted to shop for miniatures at a store she knew about in Bristol. So, that is what we decided to do.
Somehow we came up with an unusual plan. We drove to a location on the outskirts of Bristol, which in 1990 had about 400,000 inhabitants. We parked the car and took a city bus downtown. Sue somehow knew which bus to take and the stop at which we needed to exit. When we got off of the bus, Sue looked around but could not see any familiar buildings or street names.
She did find a Dr. Who-type phone box (not booth in England). Somehow she figured out how to make it work. She called the store. The woman who answered asked her what she could see from the phone box. Sue told her. The woman merely said two words: “Turn around.”
Sure enough, Sue found herself looking at the miniatures store. She went in; I did not. I had enough trouble—even at that age—dealing with full-sized objects. While Sue was shopping for tiny things, I walked around and looked in windows. If I discovered a store that sold books or games, I probably went inside. I don’t think that I bought anything, but Sue definitely did. Good! It was her birthday.
We somehow caught another bus that brought us back to the car park. We fired up our vehicle and easily found our way back to the M5. Sue received one more present. We got off of the throughway at Cheltenham and drove through the Cotswold country to Bourton-on-the-Water the home of the Model Village. It took about half an hour.
I think that this is the model, not the real village.
I probably would not have made this side trip if I had been by myself. However, Sue has always felt a special attachment to the Cotswolds and particularly its thatched roofs. The Model Village itself is definitely worth seeing once. It was a nearly exact replica of the real Bourton-on-the-Water within which it resides. What I found the most interesting was that the model itself is indeed modeled at the same one-ninth scale. I naturally wondered if that model included a one-eighty-first model of the model and so on. I mean, some people write on grains of rice; what is the limit?
My attitude might help explain why, although everyone likes working with me, nobody ever asks me to go anywhere with them.
Royal York Hotel.
The remainder of the trip to York was uneventful. We stayed for three nights at the Royal York Hotel, a huge very old hotel near the train station. In one way I was glad that we did not go any further north. The people in the north spoke perfect English, of course, but the accent was so strong that it was difficult to understand.
National Railway Museum.
The other memorable supper that we ate might have been our first night in York. I don’t remember the rest of my order, but the vegetable was broccoli. It had been cooked so long that it had turned grey. The waiter, who had emigrated from Greece, noticed my horror. He told me that the English always overcooked the vegetables. I conversed with him a little. I told him that I had taken ten semesters of Homeric and Attic Greek in high school and college. He did not seem too impressed. He probably knew that these classes would not have helped me understand him. I later learned that while modern Greek grammar has not changed much through the millennia, the vocabulary and pronunciation had evolved drastically.
The view from the central tower.
I think that Sue let me do most of my exploring of York on my own. While I was out walking around the city I think that she visited the Railway Museum, which was very near the hotel.
I never pass up a chance to walk the walls of a city. York’s were probably the best.
I remember visiting the stunning York Minster, which was awesome both inside and out. It must surely be the most impressive church in England. I am quite certain that I climbed as high as they allowed in the ancient cathedral. The view of the city and the countryside was breathtaking.
I also walked around atop the ancient stone walls of the city. I cannot remember whether I made it all the way around, but I recall thoroughly enjoying this experience.
York was such a delightful old city. It was very pleasant to experience it both from street-level and from above.
Sue and I definitely visited the Jorvik Viking Center8 together. This museum emphasized the history of the area before the arrival of the Normans in the eleventh century. Many lifelike displays depicted the lifestyles of the Vikings who inhabited the area. The details were based on archeological excavations that produced thousands of objects.
We watched ACG&S the first time around.
We also went for a drive in the Yorkshire Dales that we knew from the television series All Creatures Great and Small. We stopped at a house or store for some reason. We talked with a lady there who used the word “fortnight”. I told her that no one in America ever used the word. She asked me what Americans said instead. She seemed mildly surprised when I replied “two weeks”.
Joseph Locke’s statue.
After we left York we made two stops on our way back to the Camelot Hotel in London. The first was in Barnsley, where we searched for Locke Park, named after one of Sue’s relatives, a railroad magnate named Joseph Locke. We stopped to ask for directions. We were told that it was at the corner of Locke and Park. Where else? Sue is not a direct descendant, however. Joseph and his wife Phoebe had only one child, whom they adopted.
Our second stop was at the fabulous Warwick Castle. This stop was recommended by one of TSI’s clients, Mary Lee Pointe at Avon Old Farms School. I had mentioned to her that we were going to England and wanted to see at least one castle. She said that sh had visited several of them, and Warwick Castle was the most interesting.
The castle and its grounds made a fitting end to our motoring excursions. I cannot imagine a more awe-inspiring setting that was matched by the opulent displays in the interior. As I recall, we had a picnic lunch together on the grounds.
We made a memorable pit stop on the way to London. The facilities themselves were mediocre at best. What got my attention was a sign at the entrance demanding “NO FOOTBALL COACHES.” A “coach” to Brits was a tour bus. “Football” referred to the game called soccer in the states. So, the rest area actually prohibited busloads of soccer hooligans.
We managed to locate the car rental agency in London. I don’t remember how we got ourselves and our luggage to the hotel for the last two nights.
I don’t remember which of the activities that I listed in the first London section were actually performed on our last full day in London. I am pretty sure, however, that, as I mentioned, Sue and I attended the theater on our very last evening.
“Memorable” is definitely the right word for this”‘fortnight” in England. I can hardly believe how many things we did and how vividly they have remained in my memory and Sue’s—with no notes at all. How times have changed! It is now a titanic struggle for both Sue and me to recall what we did the day before yesterday.
One thing that I cannot remember clearly is what we did about the business. In the course of the two weeks, we must have called the office at least four or five times. I cannot recall needing to deal with any pressing problems.
1, Chick Comparetto was the father of Sue’s first husband. He lived less than a mile from us. He died in 2020. His obituary is here.
2. Alas, there is no longer a Camelot Hotel in London, and I was not able to identify any hotels that might be successors. Perhaps the building was converted to some other use.
3. This is my favorite shaggy-dog story of all time, and it is 100 percent true.
4. I think that this restaurant might still be in business in 2021. A restaurant called Halepi seems to be in the right location, and everything mentioned on its website, which can be visited here, rings true.
5. His Lordship George Carey became Archbishop of Canterbury, England’s ranking clergyman, in the following year. He retired in 2002. Like most bishops everywhere he got entangled in scandals about reporting clerical sexual abuse. In 2017 he resigned his last formal relationship with the church, which meant that he was no longer allowed to officiated at services.
6. Not many people were at Wookey Hole when we visited. I remember thinking in 1990 that this place needed some good old American marketing. Maybe Ambrose could have helped. Subsequently it has been Disneyfied into a real touristy place. Check out its website here.
7. Tintagel has changed in the three decades since we were there. A visitors’ center has been added, a footbridge has been constructed, and someone was allowed to carve a gigantic image of Merlin’s face on the side of the cliff.
8. The Jorvik Viking Center is still in operation. Its website is here.
