Pt.18 Morning in Arles

Follow this grand adventure from the beginning:
Link to Pt.1 of this series

Pt.19
Day 5 — Sunday, August 23, 1998

@#$%#!!! Cold Water Shower!
I woke up early the following morning. The sitzbank was a pretty good place to sleep. I like a firm mattress, and this one was like a concrete slab. In the shower, I didn’t know how to work the hot water, so I had a rather cold shower. I didn’t really try that hard to get the hot, I just assumed that the ship had run out, because of the excursion leaving at 8:30, and everyone trying to get breakfast before leaving, and a shower before breakfasting. I used some of the soap from the dispenser, and some shampoo from the Nikko hotel, because the ship of course had not provided any.

Since Joyce was not yet up, and we had until 9:00 a.m. to get to breakfast, I took “Elvis, Jesus” up on the deck to read for awhile. I was the only one up there, and I set down in a deck chair facing the shore side, and between reading and watching the shore excursion busses loading and departing, it was a most pleasant hour. The road we had dragged our suitcases acrosse the day before was now bumper-to-bumper at freeway speeds, now. "Too Bad, Pierre! You gotta work and I'm on vacation!" The shore excursion would leave, then the boat would leave for Arles. The shore excursion would rejoin the boat at Arles.

Der Loccch!
Heading for Arles, the boat was required to descend in a 25-meter lock. Frau Helga said “Ja, jetzt kommen wir im Schleiss”, or Loccch, as she said it in English. No mater what language it was in, she always made it sound dirty. As Frank the Englishman remarked, “If you’ve seen one lock, you’ve seen them all”. True enough, they were all of identical design, and we would be traveling through 22 of them. Except for today, which was a round trip downriver from Avignon. In the coming days, all the locks would be taking us up, a total of 200 meters in elevation.

Before Frau Helga’s announcement, I thought it was a fueling stop, and then noticed that the pier seemed to be going up, and that the walls of the pier were covered with a dark oily substance. Turns out that we were going down, and the “oily substance” was just the wet walls of the lock.

How the Other Half Cruises the River
We arrived at Arles — apparently, pier space is at a premium at Arles, because we had to disembark over the deck of the Cezanne, which was on the same route as our ship. Once we “accidentally” went through the lobby of the Cezanne. It was a much better-appointed ship than MS Arlene. I bet they even had washcloths on board. The railings and trim were all natural wood, the deck was astro-turf color instead of the garish blue-green of our deck, and the ship looked newer.

Van Gogh's Home Town
A quick look around Arles in the one hour before dinner, revealed that they had a Monoprix, but because it was Dimanche, Sunday, it was closed. We went through a very old, very heavily fortified gate, and into a village tourist area, with cafes, Tabacs, and merchants with wares in the street. We purchased some post cards, which were priced between 2f and 5f. We wouldn’t find any below 2f until our final day in Paris. This was the city where Vincent Van Gogh lived for many years, home of the famous Cafe painting, home of those trees (poplar? The ones in Starry Night), and the Bedroom. It wasn’t until after dinner that we would be biting each other’s ears off.

We stopped in a newsstand, and bought post cards. I was looking for a London Times to score points with the Boys from England, who said that they were looking for one, but found only Das Bild, a German tabloid, with a very sarcastic front page of Clinton, Monica, and the Middle East. “Hast es alle im Griff?” (Can he handle it all at once?). I was rather hoping that there would be no terrorist reprisals or changes of power in Bubbaville until we got back, mainly because I wanted to see the Clinton Scandal first-hand, rather than the terrorist reprisals. (TEXT NOTE - 1/23/10 - this article was written in 1998 - we got home in plenty of time) We didn’t see the Coliseum on that trip, only because we hadn’t travelled the two blocks it took to get there. We were planning on returning in the afternoon, after lunch. We went back to the ship, and the boys were surprised that we had already been off to town.

At lunch, professor Jack said that he was going on the shore excursion to the Camargue, the delta of the Rhone, which he would have compared to the Mississippi Delta, but he couldn’t remember the name of the Mississippi Delta..

The Other Half - Second Look
After lunch, we headed out back through the Cezanne, got yelled at for crossing inside the boat, but we wanted to see it. It was better than ours. MS Arlene was definitely the schlepper boat of the damned. Joyce remembered that the Cezanne cruise cost the same as the Arlene cruise, but the travel agent recommended the MS Arlene, not from first-hand experience, I’m sure.


Thanks for listening and contributing. For up-to-the-minute thoughts, come on over to twitter.com I'm @dimbulb52

a second opinion...

Since last December, I've been on the verge of a toothache. The whole spectrum - from "whoops better not bite on that just now" to "HOLY #$%^ WHERE'S THE IBUPROFEN!" So, finally, right after Christmas, I went to my regular dentist, Dr. C.. He used to have a little office above a bank, close to where I work. I've been his patient since he first started out in 1984. Times have improved for Dr. C., and now he has built up his little bicuspid bistro into a multi-tentacled molar mega-mart in the suburbs. After X-rays taken by one of the scurrying assistants, a perfect stranger offered me her opinion. The suspect tooth had "no evidence of infection", but to eliminate any doubt, she recommended removing the metal cap, re-drilling the root canal, and replacing it with a new cap. $2300.00. Considering that i'm still operating on an economic down-turn of a reduced work-hour schedule, and no dental insurance, I got a good laugh out of that. I stood there under the spacious cathedral ceiling of the Patient Waiting Lodge, with one wall dominated by a huge Oprah Whimpery on a huge flat-screen TV, and I thought to myself: "Perhaps a second opinion would be in order." Oprah could not be reached for comment.

So, I remembered the recommendation of my General Practitioner, whose usual answer to any pain was "What T'Hell? You're getting old!" He said to try Dr. F. in South Milwaukee. So, I made an appointment, and did a little comparison. Here are my findings:

Dr. C Dr. F Available for Appointment "Emergency? Well, if you're really in constant pain, we can work you in by the end of next month." "What are you doing tomorrow morning, say, 9 am? I was going on vacation, but the flight's not till 6 tomorrow night." Estimate For diagnosing that there was "no infection evident" and implying that I was imagining waking up in the middle of the night - $98.00 We don't charge for estimates, and the body shop doesn't fix teeth! Lobby entertainment Huge wide-screen TV, game room for the kids, with its own TV. People spend lots of time waiting here. National Geographic and Home Handyman Magazine. TV is bad for kids. Furnishing - hallways Muted tone wall fabric, soft energy-efficient recessed lighting. Out the tinted windows, a wooded suburban residential lot. Wood Paneling and Windows overlooking the swingset in the neighbor's yard Chair-side music XM satellite radio, soft speakers or headphones. has the radio on, playing Lady Gaga and Abba What to watch while Dr. is hard at work TV in ceiling, pointed down for easy viewing in the chair, close-captioned, of course. Red, white and blue snow-man cutouts taped to the fluorescent fixtures. X-Rays Takes new Xray almost every time, $80 / pop, and I'm radiated enough that I don't need the remote to change channels any more. Asked if I could bring Xrays or duplicates from Dr. C. I asked Dr.C's office, and they sold me duplicate prints for $10 ea. Suitable for framing! Computer monitoring During any work, Dr. has multiple computer screens displaying Xrays, dental records, and Hi-Res photos of teeth to guide him. Dr. F. relies on the older time-tested method of looking at the actual teeth in front of him. They're right there. I brought them in! Payment Options There is an in-house finance office with a full-time finance officer ready to write up a re-finance or reverse mortgage, payment plans to last a lifetime! No credit cards. Cash or check. 10% discount for paying immediately after your service. Charges. For removing, re-drilling, and replacing a cap - $2300.00* *note, i didn't go through with this recommendation, BECAUSE...... >>>>>> For finding the actual cause of the toothache was in the next tooth over, and replacing the leaky filling that was causing the problem - $117.00 If anybody doubts any of these details, I'LL BITE 'em! Thanks for listening and contributing. For up-to-the-minute thoughts, come on over to twitter.com I'm @dimbulb52

Five and Dime Beginnings

One of my first jobs in high school was as a stock-boy in Woolworths. At $1.40 per hour, I knew that I had made the right choice quitting the $1.10/hour hamburger place. I'm still haunted by this delightful nostalgic dream-world - i can still hear the creaky floors, and smell the intoxicating combination of lunch counter, candy counter, and pet department.

4th & Main, Five & Dime in Watertown, Wisconsin, Fronted by the canonical curved red background with gold letters and diamonds. The front of the store had a red and white striped awning, The manager cranked it down in the morning, and I cranked it back up in the evening. But that was just one of my duties....

The F.W. Woolworth 5 & 10 cent store had departments competing with every other store on Main Street. We had hardware, housewares, men's and women's clothing, fabrics, paint, pets, candy, & toys. At Woolworth's while Evie was cutting your window shades to custom lengths, Esther could tint you a gallon of paint to just the right shade, and Betty could notarize your documents, while you relax at Merla's lunch counter for an incomparable home-cooked meal. Then wander over to Angie's candy counter for a handful of those Brach's maple nut goodies that look like mushroom caps. Get the latest Simplicity patterns in Lorraine's department up in front, and then go to Gertie's department to get the fabric to implement the pattern. There were greeting cards, phonograph records, books, parakeets, cacti - simply everything you'll ever need was right there.

But I was a dweller in Woolworth's underside. The entire basement was a dark maze of rough wood shelving, arranged in the same layout as the upstairs, with many mysterious side passages. Items entered the Woolworths System through a door which opened up in the sidewalk. Cartons slid down a metal chute into the basement. If the cartons jammed up on the way down, Roger the Baptist was sure to mention it to me as soon as I arrived. Roger never wanted to get dirty. He would check the merchandise in, and stock it on the shelves in the basement. The ladies picked their restock orders off of these shelves, and laid them in the aisle in cardboard trays called "X-90 boxes" (i hope i don't get in trouble for revealing this inside terminology). I brought the X-90 boxes up the creaky wooden stairs, each to its proper department, and the ladies would price and restock the items. Nearly everything upstairs had its counterpart downstairs in backup stock. One thing you never heard at Woolworth's : "If you don't see any there, we don't have any."

There are many stories, and I will tell them as best I can in upcoming installments.

Thanks for listening and contributing. For up-to-the-minute thoughts, come on over to twitter.com I'm @dimbulb52

Rudolph - The Rest of the Story

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Now, A.L. Williams and One Lane Bridge give you

THE REST OF THE STORY.........

(a new song by A.L., debut on 12.19.2009 at Music on KK in Milwaukee)



Thanks for listening and contributing. For up-to-the-minute thoughts, come on over to twitter.com I'm @dimbulb52

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

The song "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" was always very low on my Christmas hit parade. It was a big-band ditty that was always delivered with more than a hint of seedy sleaziness. A pick-up theme, delivered with a leer by a Sinatra-hardened bar-room tenor.

That has all changed now. This past weekend, I heard the song as if for the first time, at a concert in Milwaukee. It's delivered by Julie Alonzo-Calteaux, a mezzo-soprano who performs with local opera companies (and she also sang at my wedding). Accompanied by Bette Larson on piano, who used to travel with USO shows to entertain our servicemen. (and she played piano at my wedding, too). I thank them for allowing me to broadcast their performance.

Julie and Bette take the song to a whole new level, with a vulnerability that takes you back to a time when love was new. Enjoy!



Thanks for listening and contributing. For up-to-the-minute thoughts, come on over to twitter.com I'm @dimbulb52

Advent

Brief apologies: Sorry for all the writer's block, holiday funk, misplaced priorities, building emergencies, outrageous timetables, etc. that kept me from posting since the beginning of December.

It's almost Christmas. Whether you're a believer or not, the Church has a tradition that they are presently only paying lip-service to - the season of Advent. Advent is an essential part of the holiday - the brief journey out alone into the middle of a snow-covered field of silence.

Away for a minute from all the door-buster sales, pre-holiday clearances, overindulgences, contrived and meaningless traditions, and frantic grasping at the appearance rather than the essence of the upcoming holiday. Away from all the selfishness, falseness, away from the bullying relatives, the commercialized churches, and the evil shopping centers, where even Santa Claus's time is bought and sold.

The holiday is Christmas, and if the word is taken back to its roots, it becomes a non-denominational necessity. Do you wish to maintain your sanity in this media-driven frenzy of a world? The word "Christmas" means "mas=coming, arrival" "Christ=the anointed, or chosen one". So, literally, it means "the arrival of the chosen one". You are the chosen one, (or Christ in you, if you insist, don't hammer me with doctrines, you don't know the answer, and neither do I). It's a homecoming after being away from - away from everything. Away from all the frozen-smiled head-bobbing falseness, away from all the noisy baby-boomers trying to force-feed you all of their childhood memories at once, as if buying things is going to bring back Rosebud for them. Clear it all out - get away - get out into the starry silent night - listen to - to the silence, to the absence of all the contrivance, breathe in the cold starry darkness, the crystal-clear absence of the noise, free of all the repetitious nonsense that is merely a noisy sales pitch that promises by appearance that which it can't possibly deliver.

Returning to the world that you must inevitably return to, after your personal Advent, you are transformed. You'll be fine, now. You are above the noise at a safe distance where you can make up your own mind. With cleared senses, you can now differentiate between the necessary truth and the false silliness. Your priorities return to their righteous order - love, peace and goodwill to all unconditionally.

Reclaim your Christmas, Discover your Chaunakkah light, Ramaden, Solstice, call it whatever you want - just DO IT! Time is running out. Advent by whatever name you call it is a dire necessity, if you are going to get anything out of this holiday. Else, content yourself with the crabby deafness that so many tragically mistake for the true holiday experience.

Peace on earth, goodwill to all.

Thanks for listening and contributing. For up-to-the-minute thoughts, come on over to twitter.com I'm @dimbulb52

First Night on Board the MS Arlene

Pt.18 - Meet the Captain

Link to Pt.1 of this series

Meet Him, Greet Him, But Not a Word of English
And there was the captain, shaking hands with everyone — so glad to meet us all. Meanwhile Andre and another of the Captain’s henchmen, a guy with no lips that reminded me of the concierge back in Paris, handed out the glasses of champagne. We took a love-seat, to complete a circle around one of the small tables. There was a small plate of salty pastry shells on the table. We had some. We had some more. The group of ladies around the table were all talking — to each other — in German. I understood some, pretended to understand more, laughed at the right times, but could not engage them in conversation. They passed us the pastry plate — I said “Gerne”, and “Danke” but they knew we were not of their group, and respected our privacy whether we wanted them to or not. I wished one of them would talk to us, so I could impress them with my German.

We found out that the national makeup of the passenger list (about 150 people) as 70% German, 10% French, and 20% English. Two of the English passengers were Americans. We talked amongst ourselves, and the half-hour went fairly fast in people-watching. It didn’t seem to be the time to get up and mingle.

And Now Ve Vill Talk About Ze Tours
The announcements began. Our unofficial “cruise director” was a German lady named “Lisa-Beth”. She conducted the shore excursions at the ports, usually bus tours, and when she was on the ship and the ship was underway, she provided commentary over the PA system, always in English, German, and French, so you always got to listen to it in two foreign languages, as well as her heavily German English. Her shore excursions usually cost at least $30.00 per person, and we were to pay her directly, not to pay the ship — that ees ze arrangement. We came to refer to her as “Frau Helga”, the prison matron. Her authoritative manner seemed to go with the Sitzbank and mandatory Vivaldi cabin music combination.

Peter, Frank & Jack
At 8:30, we were invited to proceed to the dining room, for seating assignments and dinner. Tables were assigned by language, arbitrarily. Since we were some of the last ones to get down into the dining room, our table assignment was right at the bottom of the stairs leading to the dining room. We met our assigned table companions for the trip. Peter Finch is a retired engineer from Oxford. Frank is a retired lithographer from Bristol. Peter and Frank were companions since before grade school. They were constantly ribbing one another. There is a mental block, here. The more I try to remember actual dialog, the more it eludes me. Jack Mahoney, from Scotland rounded out the table. He is a retired professor of Ethics.

Now Fressen Sie!
The meals are always superb. Ultimate flavor, and picture-perfect presentation were always the order of the day. There were six servers, and they served the entire room more or less simultaneously. Servers were in their early twenties. I never learned any of their names, and they all waited on everybody, rather than having territorial tables. Some looked like waitresses. There was a Cambodian girl who always looked very happy. One was a walking embodiment of grace and beauty, more on her, later. The servers never engaged in conversation with the diners, but were always there whenever someone needed something.

Listening to Peter and Frank was like listening to Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Peter always described things in minute detail and complete sentences, in a complete monotone. Frank, on the other hand, was full of exclamations and animations. Frank was married, but left his wife behind, because she didn’t like to travel. She encouraged him to take the trip with his companion Peter. Peter had lost his wife within the past year, and was adjusting to life on his own. He was also prone to some sort of arthritic inflammation, and was sometimes in great pain. When he was hurting, he sat more quietly with his head lowered. His arthritis bothered him particularly in the mornings.

Professor Jack was always eager to distract Peter into a private conversation about ancient civilazations. Our trip included many sites which Jack wanted to see, places that he had not yet seen, although he had travelled the world extensively. Tomorrow’s shore excursion, the Camargue was one of these places. When we indicated that we weren’t planning on taking the bus tour, he told us about the Coliseum at Arles, which sounded like something we wanted to see. That day, he had seen the Palace of the Popes in Avignon. We decided to try and see that the following day, when we returned to Avignon.

Back to Der Sitzbank - Gute Nacht
After dinner, we were still exhausted. Upon returning, we found that the room had cooled down some, and that we could cool it down even further, now, by opening the window. There was no insect problem with opening the window, so we left it open. In the distance the dark spectre of Spectacles was lit by only a few feeble lights coming from the upper deck. A cruise boat was navigating up and down the river. On the side of the boat, there were lights mounted of searchlight intensity. Apparently, night river tours have the capability of illuminating their own scenery as they go along. It was like a searchlight in our windows, but we were in bed anyway, and the boat was on the other side of the river. We slept like stones.

Thanks for listening and contributing. For up-to-the-minute thoughts, come on over to twitter.com I'm @dimbulb52