Smelting In Lake Erie

I only got to go smelting once and it was a bust.

We were teenagers, my brother and me and two neighbors, a brother and sister, and one had a car and a net. Someone took a bag of potato chips and bottles of coke.

The moon was full and it was a bit late in the spring to be smelting, but we went anyway.

We threw the drag net time and time again and caught fish that we had to throw back, but not a single smelt, because they were all gone, out to deeper water.

So we gave up in the cold and the dark and built a bonfire and sat on logs in the quiet moonlight and ate the chips and drank the warm sodas.

Always, there were neighbor men in the village with fishing nets and a taste for smelt, and they'd just show up at our door late one night with a huge pail of smelt in water for us. The catch was good, they said.

Sometimes they were farm boys and sometimes village family men, and they always shared with everyone who ate smelt.

I cleaned smelt in a flurry early the next morning, out on the fish cleaning tree stump.

Mom fried them in butter and coated in corn meal. The bones were non-threatening, so tender were they. We ate the whole fish in one gulp. Hundreds of them.

I always wanted to go smelting to see how it was done, to see how exciting it was. Because one thing was sure, any man or boy who went smelting in the cold spring at Lake Erie had a lot of fun doing it.

Girls just didn't go.

They weren't allowed.

It was a guy thing.

The United States Of America, Chapter Four: California

The flight to San Fransisco had a stop-over in Chicago. What I liked about that airport was the jets had to taxi over a freeway via a wide bridge to get between the terminal and the runways. In the plane, we could look down on the cars whizzing beneath us as we drove over them.

San Fransisco was as unappealing to me as I figured it would be. I don't like cities on steep hills where the driving is crazy, where you have to ride the brake and the gas at the same time at every intersection, trying not to leave rubber and smoke the city, looking stupid.

I didn't care for the weirdness along the waterfront, because adults were trying to get your money by juggling, head-standing, singing, even just standing inside a box, looking stupid. Their costumes were horrendous too, but San Fransisco embraced the absurd.

The scenery was beautiful, but even the Golden Gate Bridge wasn't golden, or particularly impressive.

Alcatraz looked as horrible as it should.

A boat cruise in the bay was fun in the afternoon.

The air was cool and misty and damp all morning, every morning.

Chinatown was huge and sprawling, and the biggest one I'd ever seen.

And don't get me started on the cable car ride. That was one crowded and horrible experience I never wish to repeat.

Over the bridge and up into the hills of Sausalito, and I was entranced. Great cascading vines of red bougainvillea covered the roadside walls, hiding houses behind them.

The streets were narrow and winding and delightful, much prettier than the S-curves of San Fransisco's claim to the windingest street on their hillside, because Sausalito streets were secret and mysterious, not stuck on the side of a hill with flowerbeds planted along the sides like a garden.

I couldn't wait to start my journey south along the Pacific coastline of California.

Ten Stupid Questions

Sketches by Sarah (RahRahAnn)

Cuba In 1981, Log Seven: Food Poisoning

The Havana hotel provided three meals a day, which we had to pay for when we booked the trip. The restaurant was a buffet set-up.

Every meal was exactly the same thing. Day after day.

Breakfast was rolls and jams, bowls of sweet oranges and tiny bananas. Coffee was served with tin pitchers of hot milk for the weaker stomachs not used to Cuban coffee. There was no juice.

Lunches were salads and rolls. You could order a cola or an orange soda that tasted nothing like what we were used to.

Orange was pronounced "or-an-gee."

Dinners were fish, beef, cooked vegetables, and rolls.

Always the same food, served with pride and big smiles. And the food was good.

Only one cup of coffee was allowed and only at breakfast. Coffee was scarce.

People ate the fish. I tried it one night. The first tiny bite tasted too strong and too fishy. I didn't eat the rest.

An hour later, we were on a bus to the countryside to the Tropicana nightclub, to see a show. You know the kind - singing and dancing and women with gigantic fruit baskets on their heads.

But within ten minutes on the bus, I was hit with a horrendous wave of nausea that bent me over. Heat and cold raced up my chest and neck and into my head. My head spun like crazy and it scared me.

One tiny bite was all it took. Food poisoning.

I spent the night in a washroom stall. I missed the show, but the loud music pounded through the whole building and into my head.

The washroom had older female attendants who handed each patron two sections of toilet paper in exchange for money. Two sections would not do for anybody, as far as I was concerned, but that's all they would sell. Toilet paper was scarce.

After an hour on my knees and hanging my head over the toilet, I staggered over to a small settee and laid down. I heard constant whispers and "tsking" because they thought I was drunk and sick. My face was stone white. I thought I was on my last round-up, and in fact I hoped that I was, it's how sick I felt.

Someone came and got me when the music stopped pounding and the show ended. They dragged me outside and stuffed me onto the bus.

The other tourists started whispering and "tsking," and I knew my good reputation was at risk. I am not a drinker, but how could they know that?

I still didn't know what was wrong with me.

Back in the hotel, a well-traveled friend came to my door and asked me what I ate for dinner. I told him about the one bite of fish.

He shook his head. "You have food poisoning. If you can keep these dry crackers down, you'll be better in two days."

I did, and I was. Almost. Still weak, but better.

I asked him if he'd tell the others that I wasn't "drunk sick" but "food poisoned" sick, and he just said, "Why do you care what strangers think?"

It would be nice, maybe, to live like that, to be free of the agony of scrutiny and gossip, but I just don;t know how to do that.

But my worst experience in Cuba was over.

Until the night we were to fly home.

Production Of Our eBooks

My two teenaged children are the ones who encourage me to write books and put them up for sale as eBooks, now that such a thing exists.

My daughter works with me, editing then proof-reading each book after it's written. She also does this on websites for writers, showing them how to improve their work.

The book is then sent to my son, and he formats it, which involves converting the rich text to HTML, then he adds the description and keywords, and then he uploads it to Amazon.

Each book needs a cover.

My daughter designed both covers to our anthologies, which she and I contributed to. Also, she designed my novel Linny using her own photography.

My son designed the Anna series using his 3D models and his own photography, and Poser.

Be Home By Noon was designed by my husband.

Fireden's Island is my son's and husband's 3D work, my son doing the water, the mangroves and the sky, my husband doing the fishing boat.

My latest book, still in the editing stage, has a cover already. My son used his father's classic 3D model of a `57 Chevy and chose the font and design for the rest.

It takes a family to make it happen.

"Breaking A Lease" Party

It's true. Guys did awful stuff like that back in the days when they could actually get away with it.

When some young man, always one with no money to speak of and a lacking in decency and a sense of responsibility, found himself in need of moving out of the house or apartment he was renting in the city, he threw a party called Breaking My Lease.

It never occurred to the tenant to just go and have a talk with the one who owned the place in which he lived.

No - he needed to do something horrific so he'd kick you out.

And what always came to mind?

Yep. A loud - no, make that a louder than average - party.

The tenant staged the party to just when he wanted to move, or be kicked out.

The tenant needed to attract all the party people he could, operating on the concept of the bigger the better, the wilder the better.

And what makes a horrific party?

Alcohol.

He couldn't pay his rent, but he could buy gallons of drink and party food, logic being it was money well spent.

The night they arrived in noisy droves, parking their vehicles all over the worst places, they were loud going in and even louder coming out, which usually was around dawn.

Of course, the landlord heard about it from all the irate neighbors who hadn't slept the entire night, thanks to the lease-breaker, so he came and kicked out the offending tenant straight away.

Mission accomplished.

Bags were already packed - no problem.

Except once in awhile, it back-fired.

No landlord showed up because no neighbors called him, because they all knew the game going on next door and they held no respect for young men who acted like that.

Darn.

A Back Road Dump

When I was a kid, for some reason the county allowed a dump here and there for people to haul their leftover unwanted treasures and garbage and leave it behind.

There was one such public dump down the road, off the beaten path a bit where a deep ravine and a shallow, barely-there creek ran alongside the gravel road. It was somebody's private property. I don't know why they put up with it, having a piece of their far-flung farmland defaced like a junkyard.

Everything got dumped there.

Old shingles, broken shingles.

Battered pots and pans missing their handles.

Junk wood, rotten wood.

Shredded tires, mangled bicycles.

Rags of clothes and moth-eaten wool blankets.

Suitcases about a hundred years old.

Dried out paint cans.

Cracked dishes and bent cutlery.

Books that yellowed under the sun.

Books that disintegrated in the rain.

Barn boards, broken and useless hoes.

Baby buggies from the 1800s, rusted out.

Crooked wagons and rungless sleds.

If at one time it had been owned, it was there crowding out all the other stuff that cascaded down the edge of the ravine.

Somewhere in all that, there were treasures of colored glass, a spoon fit for a kid's digging aspirations, a vase, a book that survived the rigors of the discard, even a bike tire that could be patched.

Some folks just randomly tossed out their attic's contents in boxes and bags without first looking inside them.

And, oh yes, they always brought a gleam and hope when they were opened by someone perusing the dump.

In my previous travels through parts of the south, I've seen worse things being sold at massive roadside stands, places that people make money, enough to live on, from somebody's old junk.

Cuba in 1981: Log Six - Straw Hat

Walking along the quiet street towards the bus and driver and guide, all of which would take us out through the countryside to the beach for a week, my straw hat was stolen.

Lifted right off my head.

I wouldn't have been angry if I hadn't needed that hat so much. It was a period in my life when sunshine gave me instant headaches as soon as it touched my head.

The culprits were two young men and a boy about fourteen, who was hanging out with them and obviously learning the ropes of distracting tourists to get what they had their eyes on.

They ran, the boy rode, all laughing while I yelled, "They stole my hat!"

I couldn't have chased them and caught up with them, but many of the men could have. But they didn't.

I yelled again, and the guide, a little man, and the driver, took off after the thieves. They could run as fast as the wind.

They caught the boy and his bike, but he refused to talk, so they confiscated his bike until they returned from the trip to deal with him.

It was a sight to see those two Cubans hauling that dilapidated old bicycle back to the bus, because they were chatting loudly and happy.

When they reached me, they held up the bike in triumph, grinning like crazy, and in broken English splattered with Spanish, they told me the story, then said how sorry they were that this happened.

I was too. They took this theft personally, as if they alone were responsible for the wayward morals of unknown citizens.

As we left the city, I thought, well some young lady will receive a foreign straw hat from her eager boyfriend, a hat that had a ribbon the color of summer roses wrapped around the base of the crown. And she would never know where he got it.

Cuba in 1981: Log Five - Cuban Bread

I'd read about Cuban bread and was determined to purchase a huge crusty loaf of it for the bus ride out to the beach when we left Havana.

As luck would have it, there was a small bakery across the street from the hotel room window.

Every morning, I rose early to watch the chickens on the roof and listen to the happy crowing of the resident rooster perched on the lip of the roof, head back, yelling to the city that once more, like clockwork, morning was here.

I also waited for the woman to arrive at the bakery, where inside and all night long, someone had been working and turning out bread.

The woman always came out with an old straw broom and swept the sidewalk out into the street, whether it needed it or not, a comforting ritual to watch.

I went over and bought a giant fragrant loaf of bread the morning we were leaving. The bakery was tiny, barely able to contain the wonderful smells coming from the ovens.

We smiled at each other because we could not speak each other's languages.

On the bus, with napkins, I ripped off chunks of the bread, and gave them to the driver, our guide, and everyone of my fellow tourists on the bus.

That had been my intention, to share this bread that I had read about in a Toronto library research trip before coming to Cuba.

Everyone of those Canadians said they'd never had bread like that.

Just one more reason to enjoy the fascinating island of Cuba, and its people.

Cuba in 1981: Log Four - Houses and Cars

Havana was closed-up huge houses with massive verandahs covered in deserted bougainvillea vines, red and green glories of life pouring over the sick and sad dwellings that lined too many quiet streets.

Havana was old bus rides and proud museums of war and communism.

Havana was throngs of Cubans waiting for buses on wide plazas of heat and unsheltered sun.

Havana had few tourists back in 1981, so we were too obvious in our northern clothes and English words and pale skin.

There were too many streets with rotten doors behind which families lived.

There were taxis made of ancient and beautiful American cars, preserved and cherished because they were all they had. No one supplied them with imports any longer.

We took one of those great cabs out to the countryside to see Ernest Hemingway's Cuban home, sitting all by itself in rolls of greenery and beauty.

The car was uncomfortable in its old age, but it brought back sweet memories of youth and teenaged boys' cars and brothers who loved their wheels as much as anything.

The cab driver was a happy handsome man with dark sweeping hair and a better than an Elvis aura about him. He spoke a little English and when I praised his car, he absolutely glowed. He grinned and patted the old dashboard. It was his car.

We paid him well because he took us on a delightful tour, showing us the beauty of Cuba, the serenity outside the city, and he made it obvious that he loved his country.

I saw dark red berry-beans growing in trees near our hotel, and when they fell from the branches, they were so hard that they stayed intact and unmarred, and I thought how much I'd like a necklace made from those things of Cuba.

In a little shop inside a hotel on the waterfront, I found my wish and I bought it, laid it around my neck, and refused to take it off.

The Farm I Wish Was Mine

The farm, on my mother's side, raised generations of country kids, living off the land the way all great pioneers and settlers did.

I knew the farm as a kid, because my mother's brother ran it, because he was the only one of my grandpa's many children who wanted to be a farmer.

Grandpa got the farm from his parents, my great-grandparents, and they got it from his father, and so on. As long as one son wanted to farm, the land was safe to remain in the family.

The land was sandy, good for growing peanuts the way they do in Georgia, the way former President Jimmy Carter did.

The land was north of Lake Erie a few miles. Historians say that the land there used to be at the bottom of a much larger Lake Erie, but that's basically just an assumption. Who knows really why it is sandy like that.

It grew numerous crops, and when tobacco became popular, it grew that as well.

Grandpa had three wives who all bore him children before they died young. Mom and my uncle came from his second wife. They were barely a year apart.

They rose before dawn to milk cows, before breakfast, before they walked the mile to the one-room school, along the sandy road, carrying a tin pail of lunch.

Grandpa had cows and chickens and pigs and enough crops to feed them all.

The house has a wide verandah and gingerbread scrolling around the roof line.

The barn is huge and is set at the top of a rise of the wide sandy driveway a distance from the house.

The pig house is up behind the barn on a hill.

There were always goats in a pasture beyond the driveway.

The farm has two houses, which is often the case in Ontario. The second house was where the parents lived when they handed the farm over to a son or two.

The goat pasture is in between the houses.

Grandpa died in the farm house when I was a kid. He had a room before that, on the second floor that had two steps down to it, a sunken bedroom, a mysterious room with dark furniture and pipe smoke and an aura of pirate's den to me. A good pirate, because there were such things.

The farm was my favorite place to visit and to stay, because the land was huge and kids ran barefoot and scrawny, and ate good old farm food, mountains of it. They stayed out of the precious rose garden that my aunt grew beyond a wooden trellis, standing like a security gate to the fragrant garden on the hill.

The cows were big and dairy and they made an awful smell that ended up daily on a pile out by the barn.

The pigs squealed and grunted and acted like pigs, shoving to get at the trough when it was feeding time. No manners, whatsoever.

The goats were a little too friendly, pushing at a little kid like dogs needing attention.

The loose sand of the road squished between bare toes and clung like dust.

There's a pump in the back kitchen that brings up cold, clean water, and when I was a kid, we all drank from a long-handled tin cup that had survived an awful lot of farmers' families.

No water has ever tasted better, and everyone who tasted it will vouch for that.

Whenever I was terribly ill at home and suffering a raging fever, my delirious mind craved that water from the tin cup, haunting me until I was desperate.

Today, the son of my cousin runs the farm, and if things can remain the same as they have through time, that farm I wish was mine will still be in my mother's family, until the cows come home.

United States of America: Chapter Three - Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

South Carolina in the seventies sold fireworks at roadside stands, a huge business, all year round.

To a Canadian, that didn't make sense. Fireworks were for July 1st, Dominion Day, once a year.

South Carolina advertised Myrtle Beach on the Atlantic Ocean as a vacation destination for the week around Easter, when kids were out of school and springtime made people restless to get out there and have some fun.

Myrtle Beach was not exactly warm, but 65 degrees F was better than 50 degrees F, and if you packed the kids into the family car before dawn, and drove like crazy, nonstop all day, you could touch your bare toes down onto the sand that very night. Or get a brain and do it in two easy days.

Leaving the freeway of colorful firework stands and the first palm tree I had ever seen for real, the car headed southeast toward the beach. That stretch of road seemed to take longer than the entire trip, because I had seen a real, live palm tree, as short and scruffy as it may have been, and therefore the beach had to be a mere stone's throw away, in my mind.

There's nothing like the atmosphere of a beach on the ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. If you like saltwater, you're hooked.

Back then, motels were few and small, the amusement strip had only a few rides and games, but was open every night, lit up like a handful of those firecrackers for sale back on the freeway.

There were a few shops along sandy lanes, and nice people, who loved their little village-town, worked behind the counters or owned the merchandise.

A tiny post office sold stamps and didn't mind at all the sand tracked in on people's sandals.

The whole place had a vacation atmosphere. You could wander the streets in peace, and check out all the different kinds of palm trees that grew beside houses and cars.

Going to Myrtle Beach was my first taste of American pie, and I hated to leave without knowing I'd be back. So we made a vow to go again the next year, and we did.

But after that, we went even further south, all the way to Florida, and that opened up a whole new world to me.

I got hooked on the incredible state of Florida, as a vacationer.

Living year-round here is a different story altogether. It's probably why so many people come and go, if they weren't born here.

If you don't have the attitude of the happy vacationer who goes back home after awhile, the place loses its luster after a few years.

To some people. A lot of people, actually.

The United States of America: Chapter Two, Detroit Zoo, Michigan

In our village school back in the 50's, the school rented a bus to take the kids to Detroit, Michigan, so we could go to the zoo.

The two teachers went, of course, and several parents volunteered as well, mothers who could spare the time and who had no small children at home.

Such a big trip didn't occur very often because of the cost. I guess I was about nine when I went.

I was used to long drives with my parents, but not a long drive in a school bus, an uncomfortable and foreign ride at that.

It wasn't much fun for me. I wasn't relaxed and my stomach had nerves and I knew that the driver would take us across the Detroit River by way of the under-river tunnel.

One of my aunts was terrified of that tunnel. She swore she saw water leaking through the walls on one trip, but my dad said that would be too unsafe and the city would never allow that.

I didn't like the tunnel because of my aunt. And I wasn't too crazy about tall and long bridges either, so getting across the river made me nervous when I was a kid.

We all loved the zoo. What kid wouldn't? The Detroit Zoo was the first place most of us ever saw wild animals from around the world.

I remember the excitement of seeing the exotic peacocks, more than the elephants and zebras. Today, I have peacocks coming to my front and back doors, asking for seed and displaying their trains. They are friendly, though wild, but it took time for them to relax around me.

Detroit back then was an older and bigger city than any we had where I grew up, so it held mystery and grime and exhaust fumes.

But the people were like us, so it was fun. The food was like ours too.

Border crossing was easy in those days.

When people talk about the good old days, they're probably remembering how easy things were then, compared to their present lives, especially in my parents' generation, but also in mine.

I probably enjoyed the Detroit Zoo that first time more than any of the other times I went with my parents after that.

Probably because I was going to the United States.

Cuba In 1981: Log Three - Ice Cream

Before I travel anywhere, I study up on all the things to see and do, especially the little things that people never even know about. Somewhere, in a book, there are always lists of wayward information that catch my eye.

One of those in Havana was the ice cream carousel, an open-air place, where ice cream in all shapes and sizes and flavors is served at a huge booth that is laid out in a circle in the middle of nowhere, meaning a small park.

Of course, everything was written in Spanish on the huge boards, and the servers, all older women, spoke only Spanish. And of course the place was crowded with mothers and children and the odd teenager looking mighty guilty on a school day.

I believe that my friends and I were the only tourists, the only English-speaking people there. And we didn't speak or read Spanish. Lovely.

So we ogled what people were coming away with in their hands to see if it was what we might want. But nothing, and I mean nothing, looked familiar. We had no idea what was in the ice cream, and there were many to chose from and many ways in which to buy them.

Cookies, cones, fruited, you name it.

The servers weren't too keen on messing with us, wasting precious time with us when we didn't have a clue what to say or to order.

Several attempts at the counter to different servers failed, so finally in frustration, we crowded up to a server for one last try. As soon as she handed the mother in front of us a tray of different ice creams, we pointed at the tray and said, "Seis, por favor," with ridiculous gigantic smiles on our faces, as if that could possibly help.

She frowned, once again, so we said it louder. Right. Good move.

I guess she figured that she'd never get rid of us obnoxious people if she didn't put something together, because all the servers were sick of us by now, sick of our feeble attempts to make ourselves understood.

She nodded, turned around and went to work.

We were practically high-fiving each other. Well, we would have been if we'd heard of it, because high-fiving wasn't even invented back then.

Instead, we giggled (the girls did) and the guys looked mighty pleased with themselves.

Oh yes. We were getting the famous Cuban ice cream at last.

When the tray was ready and we had paid, one of the men grabbed it and we all said "gracias," in awful accents and even bigger grins than before, then we went and sat down at one of the tables in the sun, and looked longingly at what we'd just bought.

We had no clue what it was.

So we just chose one each and tried it.

Now, I was the only one of us who had studied up on this. I was the one who insisted we should go there and try it. And I loved ice cream.

But I was the only one who couldn't eat the ice cream because the flavors made no sense to me at all and I didn't like any of them.

But they all loved them.

So there I sat, watching them gorging on the colorful concoctions while I sat in the heat, sweltering and feeling like a loser.

And then it hit me.

None of what the server gave us looked one bit like what was on that mother's tray. She'd just given us whatever she felt like giving us. Six buckets of whatever.

"Hey," I said. "We didn't order this."

"Who cares?" they all said. "It's great."

"I might have liked what we ordered, you know," I said.

They just laughed and kept right on eating.

Kittens: Evidence That They're Human

As soon as she found her way around the house, Mitsy treated her home like it was an outdoor playground, twenty hours a day.

Sure, she had naps, but they were short-lived compared to play time.

Why is it that kittens always do what they're not supposed to do on their playgrounds, like bratty little boys or something? And don't think they don't know when they're being naughty, because that gleam in their eyes, when you scold them, speaks volumes.

My sofa wasn't a basketball court. My upholstered dining-room chairs weren't little ice rinks. And the backs of those chairs weren't the peaks of the Rocky Mountains. She didn't have to claw her way up the woven wicker backs and cling to the tops like a mountain goat in Tibet. Couldn't she have used the stairs to the second floor for that?

Whenever I was peaceful reading the paper, she'd come flying at me in one mighty leap, landing on the paper and crashing onto my lap, scaring me half to death and destroying the sheets I was reading.

When I wrote a letter, she'd jab at my pen and poke at my hand as if she could do a better job than me.

At the typewriter, she ruined copy by plunking the keys when I was otherwise distracted.

Playing the piano, she'd come from nowhere, lifting herself through the air like a weightless feather, and march up and down the keyboard like some little protege from another world.

She never did all those things if I wasn't already doing them.

So what does that reveal?

Uh huh. She was competitive. With me, of all things.

As a kitten, even.

Mediterranean Cruise, Log Six: Catacombs

From Tunis, we sailed across the Strait of Sicily and docked at Palermo on the island of Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and belonging to Italy.

I remember how cheerful the Sicilians were, happy to see a shipload of eager tourists arriving at their main seaport.

We were basically left on our own to do what we wanted, because the only tour offered was to the catacombs, and I had zero percent interest in seeing them.

One of my friends went with a group of women who came back later looking green and refusing to talk. Of course. That's why I didn't go.

Catacombs are underground tunnel rooms used as graves by early Christians and as refuges from persecution.

My friend said there were skeletons hanging on walls and mummified shapes, and the whole place went on forever and smelled strange and gave all the women the creeps.

He also said I was smart not to go.

What I did do was walk the streets of Palermo and talk to anyone who could speak a little English.

So I came away with fine memories, while the others who took the tour?

My friend said he never forgot the smell.

I never forgot the Sicilian friendly smiles.

Mitsy's Baby: A Cat's Final Dream

She loved babies, human babies, and would watch them for hours on end.

When new neighbors moved in next-door, they brought with them a six-month old baby boy. They would sit in their backyard with the baby and Mitsy would hide in the bushes by the wire fence, and watch.

So I knew that getting a baby at her ripe old age of seventeen would make her the happiest cat in the world.She curled up next to the newborn and slept the peace of cat heaven. She never got too close to him because she knew that wasn't right.

The first time he focused on her old, sagging face, he couldn't figure out what she was.

When he had hand coordination, he reached out and touched her soft ginger fur, and fell in love.

Mitsy stayed with him when he played and when he ate baby cereal in a carrier on the floor.

He belonged to her, and we all respected that.

She only lived ten months after we got our baby, but she must have died happy, even though she was old and sick, because having a baby was as precious to her as it was to me.

 

American Idol Save

Tonight, the judges used their solo save to keep sixteen year old Jessica Sanchez on the show as a contestant.

The judges were shocked that Elise Testone, Joshua Ledet, and Jessica were all in the bottom three.

Phillip Phillips, Skylar Laine, Holly Cavanagh, and Colton Dixon were all in the saved and safe group.

Add Jessica Sanchez to that group and these are the contestants who will compete next week.

The United States of America: Chapter One

I guess I fell in love with the United States when I was a little kid.

Dad used to take us on Sunday drives across the border and under Lake Erie, so we could experience the feelings of being out of Canada for a few hours.

The thing I liked the best was that I couldn't tell the difference between the two countries. The roads, the grass, the houses and cars, and especially the people, all seemed to be the same.

There was a bit more garbage in the ditches, stuff like pop bottles and papers, and sometimes we'd see a big rig I'd never come across before, but that's about it.

No one in the states ever knows I am Canadian, a foreigner, a legal alien, just by looking at me or talking to me, because we are all so much alike.

When I was young, I loved the concept of Disneyland, and how lucky could you be to be an American kid in California?

Florida was a paradise of dreams, and whenever any of my little classmates came back up from a winter drive to Florida for a couple of weeks, I peppered them with a thousand questions.

Palm trees are my favorite tree.

Sweet rolling towns with American church spires and wide lawns are my favorite towns.

Waitresses in roadside restaurants, that stand on freeway exits in the dawn hours of early morning, are my favorite American people, because they call you honey and always know what you need before you do, with a smile.

And truckers, sitting on bar stools at the long counter eating enormous breakfasts and talking quietly to anyone with earshot, are my favorite blue collar workers in the United States.

I like Washington and the wonder of being a part of the running of such a huge country.

I hate to say it, because sometimes it can get in the way of common sense, but American pride is unique to the world, in my experience, and not a bad asset.

There is no greater country to share a long border with, in my opinion, than the United States, because we are not enemies, never have been, and never will be.

There is a comfort, to both sides, knowing that.

Mediterranean Cruise, Log Five: Tunis and the Sand Caves

I saw the caves on the cliffs of north Africa outside Tunis, standing on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. The sand of the cliffs was golden and smooth and sweet.

Our ship had slipped into the Gulf of Tunis on the northern tip of Tunisia and docked at a pier in Tunis in the night, so we awoke to the views of a beautiful city belonging to the Arabs and Muslims.

A bus took us along palm-lined wide avenues and tall and slender uniformed men guarding palaces at their gates.

The city was enchanting, modern and old, dark-skinned men dressed in long white gowns and turbans, and some in western and European clothes.

Buildings were white and sandy-colored stone.

There were donkeys pulling carts in the streets, and marketplaces selling nuts and dates and olives.

But the caves...

The water of the sea was a rich blue, not dark and not pale. Different.

Sun splashed light along the cliffs, making the caves black in shadows down below from where I stood, absolutely enthralled, on a high cliff.

Nomads' homes.

Some said Bedouins' homes, but did Bedouins really live there or only in the deserts of countries further west, back in 1975?

A man walked out of one of the black shadowed openings and stood there looking up at the cliffs.

His robe was snow white, his skin almost black in the hot sun.

He was young and strong and tall.

I wanted to wave.

He turned and walked back into the cave, disappearing into the shadows of a life spent wandering, a life he must have chosen, because it was what he knew.

Baby Music

Being a pianist practically all my life meant that my kids would play too. Surely they'd love the piano as much as I did. Surely my enthusiasm would become theirs.

As soon as my son was able to sit, I put him on the piano stool and asked him to play, and he did, a baby fascinated by the sounds he could make, just like his mama did.

He was also fascinated by the height of the stool, and the fact that he could go around and around with my help.

When he was a year old, he had it down. Good hand placement on the keys, curled up toes, and a master's fat ego on his face.

My old Toronto-made Gerhard Heintzman had an incredible rich sound that brought pianists to our door when I was a kid. My father bought me the piano because he got the message after two years of begging and me playing the tabletop at mealtimes. My piano teacher in the village would come over just to have "the privilege of playing this piano," and so my love for my piano grew even stronger.When my daughter was a year old, I no longer owned the Gerhard Heintzman, because the soundboard was broken from a long-distance move. So I gave it to two men who practically drooled over it, because they knew pianos and desperately wanted this one.My daughter played on an electric Technics piano I bought in central Florida, a much smaller and more manageable instrument, albeit not a real piano. But it does have a decent sound.

She learned to play by watching me. My son learned to play by my instruction.When he was three years old, he sang along with his own chording, his own creation and lyrics.

My daughter knew the beauty of the arms and fingers of a concert pianist running through her as she played, with baby-like concentration.

I think my fun moment was when I handed my son my violin when he was only two and a half, and told him to be very gentle with it.

He picked up the violin with awe on his face and in his hands, and very carefully held it lengthwise, anchoring it with his feet, then he held the bow in his left hand and began to play.There was no screech of horsehairs on string, just sweet strokes of baby music coming off the beautiful instrument.

Small Town Diner, Small Town Teenaged Girl

Remembering last Saturday night and how much she hated it, Theresa called her one best friend to meet her at the diner at eight o'clock.

She walked the six blocks to the local hangout wearing jeans and a sassy red blouse and sandals, and mumbling the whole way to herself.

She was sixteen and nobody could tell her what to do in 1960.

Jerry was pumping gas in his black Chev. His latest girlfriend was primping in his rear-view mirror, leaning her face into it.

Theresa saw her and sneered. Who'd go out with that loser guy but a dope like her, she thought miserably.

Jerry looked over at Theresa.

"Hi," he said.

"Yeah," was what he got back, a sullen look accompanying the droll word.

"Who're you mad at?" he asked.

Theresa shook her head, rolled her eyes, slouched her already round shoulders, and walked into the diner.

June was perched on a stool at the counter, smoking and looking righteously bored. Theresa's best friend, still wearing a beehive and long dangling earrings.

A ring of red lipstick stuck to the filter on the cigarette where June laid her lips every few seconds. She never inhaled. She just smoked to look cool.

Theresa slid down beside June and grunted.

June said, "Yeah, me too."

"Did you see Jerry's latest, in the car?"

"Yeah. She's from the bad side of town."

"Wrong side of the tracks," Theresa agreed, and held out her hand. "Give me a smoke."

"Try asking, huh?"

Theresa rolled her eyes.

June passed her the package, slid it across the counter with the lighter.

"So, what's up?" she asked, watching the cool way Theresa held the cigarette and lighter. She wished she could look that sophisticated.

"Marcus dumped me."

Someone stuffed a quarter into the jukebox and played Conway Twitty, making Theresa's bold statement ache inside June's chest.

"Why?" she whispered.

"You know why."

"Another girl?"

"Shhh. Here comes that nosy waitress."

"Hi, Theresa. What would you like?" The nosy waitress gave out her best smile to the girls, and Theresa sneered, knowing all she did it for was to get a bigger tip.

"A coke," she snarled.

"Sure. Be right back."

"Witch," Theresa mumbled.

June laughed.

Neither of them saw the waitress's back stiffen a few feet away at the work station.

"So, who's the girl?" June leaned in close to whisper.

"Virginia."

"Yuck!"

"Sleaze girl."

"Yuck."

A tear dropped onto Theresa's left cheek in full view of her best friend's eyes.

"Oh, Theresa."

"I love him."

The nosy waitress set a glass of coke down in front of the crying teenager, making the ice cubes tinkle against the glass.

She leaned down and whispered, "I may be thirty-four, honey, but it still hurts when a guy dumps me."

Her voice was so kind that Theresa looked up and met her eyes.

The nosy waitress said, "I just lost my boyfriend of two years and four months...to my cousin. I even have my wedding dress."

Two pairs of sixteen year old eyes widened in shock.

The nosy waitress nodded solemnly.

June said, "Stupid men."

"Sometimes they are," the nosy waitress agreed, "But then, so are we. How be you have an ice cream sundae on me, both of you. That'll make you feel better."

Her smile was encouraging, as if life can look better, just like that, when somebody cares.

Theresa nodded.

June said, "Thanks."

As soon as the nosy waitress walked away, the teenagers looked at each other.

"Who'd have thought," June said.

"Two years and four months," Theresa whispered.

"That's like a lifetime."

"Me and Marcus only had three weeks."

"That's still a lifetime, Theresa."

"Yeah, but..."

They both turned to stare at the nosy waitress preparing the sundaes over at the work station.

"A wedding dress," Theresa said in awe.

"I'm swearing off boys."

"Yeah."

The doorbell dinged and in walked the bad guy, alone. He sauntered straight over to the girls and laid his arms across their shoulders as he leaned down between them.

"Ladies. How about a double date with Dew and me?"

The teenaged girls' hearts just up and melted, right then and there.

Pete and Dew, two really hot guys, asking Theresa and June out on a double-date, right now, right here in the town diner.

They looked at each other, wide-eyed and grinning.

They both eased their jeans off the stools and let the bad guy walk them to the door, and the mean waitress smiled, watching them go.

That story works every time, she thought, knowing she really shouldn't lie like that, her being an old married woman and all, but...

Theresa's just a teenaged girl, in a small town.

My Oldest Brother's Car

He drove 846 miles to bring that car home for the summer after he was finished teaching in June.

No one could figure out why it hadn't fallen apart on the way, or at least broken down, let him down even, but it hadn't.

A Karmann Ghia, 1956, 1584 cc engine producing 60 hp, a European car the color of faded oranges.

My brother had just turned twenty-two and his career life had begun to flower and grow in the far north of Ontario at the lakehead.

He was excited about teaching, about living so far away from home, and about having his own place in a city that had never heard of him.

If he came home at Christmas wearing a massive full-length wolf coat and carrying a pair of equally massive snowshoes on the train, then surely he'd come home for the summer in a car so foreign and wild it would knock the socks off the boys he grew up with and the uncle who got my sister that Willys.

And he was right.

He was right about everything that summer. Loud and right and laughing and right and glowing and...

Boisterous. And right. You couldn't tell him anything.

The Ghia was a mess. Chipped paint, faded paint, and the interior? Puleeze.

Ripped, torn, scratched, smelly, but wonderful, exotic, and fabulous.

"Get in, get in," he said to me. "I'll take you for a ride."

And he did.

But first - "Be careful of the floor," he said.

"What's that cardboard doing on the floor?" I asked.

"Don't put your feet on it."

"Where do I put my feet, then?"

"On the sides."

"What's so special about a piece of cardboard?" I asked, in fourteen year old innocence.

"Nothing. But it's basically the floor. Lift it up."

I bent down and pulled up the big piece of cardboard and looked beneath it.

Whoa!

"There's gravel down there!" I said.

"Yeah. That's the driveway. There's no floor there. Sorry."

"You can't drive a car with no passenger floor," I said, amazed and intrigued and grinning.

"Sure I can. Put the floor back and keep your feet off it."

The Ghia was low to the ground and so it felt like scooting across the gravel driveway and along the pavement. The thought of seeing the pavement so close made me peek under the cardboard when we were doing about 55 mph on Hwy 74.

What a thrill!

"Put that back!" he said.

Gee.

I went for a lot of rides with my brother that summer, because I loved his car like he did.

But the worst ride I had was coming home from a long weekend at my uncle's cottage. My brother and Dad all drove their cars, but my oldest brother insisted I go with him in his charming Karmann Ghia.

When you're young, the rough ride isn't felt. When you're young and happy, the world flies by at ground level and you never stop laughing.

It was 180 miles of joy, until we went down that long, long hill where at the top of it, a sign, a big sign, screams at you:

Slow down - 25 mph on hill.

Train tracks ahead.

"Slow down," I said. "I've been here many times with Dad. Slow down!" I yelled.

He didn't. He laughed. He was twenty-two, a career man in a foreign sporty car held together by rust and cardboard, and wearing an attitude as big as an elephant.

"I mean it!" I shouted.

"No problem. This car can take those tracks lying down."

The tracks were set in the road partway down the hill. The hill was on a steep slant. The tracks were level. 25 mph would be almost slow enough to cross them safely.

We were doing 65. The Ghia had picked up speed on the steep slant and my brother couldn't wait to hit those tracks.

I grabbed everything I could get my hands on to brace myself against his stupidity.

Behind us, my brother in his car saw what was happening. And he started praying.

The Ghia hit the tracks and became airborne. Silence filled the tiny interior. My heart pounded to death. My brother's face beside me went white and he swore.

My brother in his car behind us way up the hill, doing 25 mph, said later that he was watching us about to die.

When the Ghia landed, it should have blown apart and sent us flying. But it didn't.

It hit with a massive force, jarring every cell in our bodies. Everything behind our seats flew forward and covered us, clothes and beach towels and snacks.

The car slowed and rolled to a stop, then nothing.

We sat, dead-like, shrouded in underwear and potato chips.

"Are you okay?" he whispered.

"Yes," I whispered back. "Are you?"

"I'm sorry."

"You're stupid."

"That too."

We were shaking by now. We had headaches and body aches and we were shaking.

We slowly started uncovering our heads and my door was yanked open and my brother, who'd seen it all, was ghostlike in fear as he peered in at us.

"You're not dead?" he asked, and I started to cry.

Then so did he. And then the driver too. It was awful.

"You couldn't have survived that," he said, over and over. "Do you know how far and how high you flew through the air? You hit the tracks way back up the hill and landed way down here. What the heck's the matter with you!" he screamed at the driver, the one who knew everything that summer.

He pulled me out and gave me a shaky hug, then went around the hood and pulled his big brother out and hugged him too.

Then they inspected the car.

They couldn't believe that the tires weren't blown to smithereens, that the body was still in one piece. It didn't make sense.

"I prayed," my brother said. "Harder than I ever have."

And we cried some more.

The smart brother followed us home to be sure the car would make it.

It rattled a bit, but nothing else.

The cardboard settled back down on the floor.

We were silent for at least ninety minutes of the drive home.

We didn't tell our parents.

My brothers took the Ghia to the garage and had it worked on. But the pain of what it suffered to save our lives was too much for it.

My brother was forced to give it up because it was officially unsafe now.

He drove it around that summer, slowly, but went back to the lakehead in late August, in a different car.

He was a humbled man, that's for sure, the young man who came home knowing everything in 1959.

Small Town Diner, Small Town Teenaged Boy

Hank Bailey parked his old Ford on the gravel and watched the dust cloud in the rear-view mirror, the dust storm he'd made when he slid off the road and skidded sideways across the parking lot, just to show off to anybody watching behind their curtains.

He was a darned good driver at seventeen, the magic age of your entire life, as far as he was concerned. Everything happened when you were seventeen. After that, you got old.

The year was 1961.

The Ford was 1952.

The paint job was dirty brown.

The rust was just plain dirty.

And the interior was crap.

The best car to have when you're seventeen and living life like Heaven was waiting for you tomorrow.

Hank's door creaked loudly in protest when he shoved it open and stepped out onto the gravel.

It was Saturday night and the girls were inside the diner, looking mighty pretty for small town girls. Some wore lipstick like a city girl, a naughty girl, the boys all said. They looked good with red lips and wayward eyes, he figured.

He stood tall, over six feet, about an inch, almost. His hair was dark and curly. His eyes were blue and piercing. The girls liked his eyes, he knew. He could pin them with his eyes.

He had long legs under his jeans and a big chest under his cotton shirt.

The driver's door slammed beneath his strong hand, and the driver of the hot Ford sauntered across the diner parking lot in no hurry at all. They would wait for him, all those girls inside.

The door dinged at his touch. It should have been a drum-roll, not a ding. He hated the sissy ding, had ever since he was a baby.

His blue eyes scanned the restaurant like a pro. Music played on the jukebox. An Elvis song, filled with love.

Hank's face flushed for a second. Then he heard the giggles.

The girls. Down on the left, in a booth, near the jukebox and Elvis.

He smiled and sauntered on down, feeling the pull of his shirt across his broad shoulders, shoulders so powerful he looked like a man in them. Nearly ripped the seams every time he came in this place on a Saturday night.

They were watching him. Some of their eyes traveled all over him. Some of their lips sighed. Bad lips, naughty lips. Fantasy lips on fantasy faces.

He stopped his massive height right beside the booth.

"Evening, ladies," he drawled.

"Hi, Hank," they all said in unison, a chorus of beauty to his ears, singsong admiration in their voices.

"Mind if I join you tonight?"

They all slid over, all four girls, two on each side of the table, as if he could sit on both benches at the same time.

"Well, now, which side should I chose?" He smiled handsomely into each of their gorgeous expectant faces, seeing them gleaming in anticipation.

He couldn't decide. They were all so beautiful.

The waitress came over.

"Hank," she said. "Your mom just called. She needs a ride over to the hospital to see your Grandpa."

Hank stared at the women in boring white shoes, gray frizz on her head, and a notepad stuck inside her blouse pocket, making it bulge.

"It's Saturday night," he said, stupidly, sprouting a nasty frown, without thinking.

The waitress shoved her hands on her hips and said, "Is that supposed to mean something, because if it is, it doesn't mean much. Now go on home, because she's waiting."

Crap! Son of a gun!

The witch of a waitress walked away, showing him her tough back, and he pulled a face at her. The girls giggled.

Crap, that was immature.

Brenda, the sauciest of the girls, snapped her gum and drawled, "Mommy wants her little boy."

"Shut up, Brenda," a red lipstick face said. "It isn't Hank's fault."

He stared at them for a second, then one of the girls with pink lips and rosy cheeks, said, "I'll go with you, Hank, if you like. I heard about your Grandpa falling off the roof. Is he going to be okay?"

"Yes. He broke his arm, that's all."

"I'll go with you." She smiled.

"Thanks."

As soon as she slid out of the booth, the door dinged, and in marched a gaggle of teenaged boys, playfully punching and shoving at each other.

"Hey, Hank!" one called. "Wanna drag the strip with that piece of rust on wheels?"

Hank grinned and almost said, "Yeah, loser."

But a soft hand slid into his strong one and his mouth didn't work.

He shook his head.

"Chicken!"

Hank shrugged and tugged on the soft hand.

"Hank's got a girl, guys. Ain't she pretty," someone viciously cooed, boy-like.

Hank walked with Daisy across the floor, feeling not quite so powerful and handsome as when he first entered the diner, because Daisy was so sweet she made him okay with who he really was inside.

At the door, his buddies parted for him to leave.

He nodded at them, suddenly mature beyond belief.

"Good evening, gentlemen. See you next time," he said in a quiet and dignified voice.

The gentlemen stared wide-eyed as Hank and Daisy left the diner.

Ahh. Seventeen, the magic age of your entire life.

Everything happens when you're seventeen and a small town teenaged boy.

Just about everything.

Spear-Fishing Is A Bloody Mess

You didn't go spear-fishing in daylight back in the 50's. Where was the fun in that?


The adventure was at night, skulking across foreign lands in rubber boots and spears held in teenaged boys' hands like medieval cowboys.


Dark clothes, a pail or two, and whispers.


I had begged for years to go with my brothers, and they always said, You're too young, You're a girl. Ridiculous stuff like that.


I loved the sound of their adventure tales when they came home in the dark and talked, so I wanted desperately to go too.


When I finally turned twelve and my oldest brother was twenty, and I stood almost as tall as one of them, they said yes.


"You're not using a spear, though," they said.


"I don't want to," I said.


"And you can't talk. You can't chatter like a -"


"I'll be silent," I said, grinning.


"Only whispers," they said.


"Whispers." I nodded.


I borrowed a pair of rubber boots and got to carry a pail. They carried the heavy spears and the flashlights. I didn't get one.


Mom told us to keep to the ditches by the road, so if the OPP - Ontario Provincial Police - drove by, they might not see us. And for sure keep the flashlights hidden. Mom was an aider and abetter to these crimes, though she would have denied it at the time.


We went on a moonlit night, down the country road and across a farmer's field in the dark, looking evil in our old clothes and spearheads pointed to the sky.


The small creek was adorable and I nearly squealed with delight. It had rushing clear water and pebbles to make eddies and it was just...so adorable.


We could see the fish in the light of the moon. They were swimming in the beautiful shallow water. Cool water that smelled like them.


My brothers got right to work, spearing and splashing and saying not one word.


It was disgusting. Horrible and bloody.


They mangled the fish with the spearheads in their zealousness. Who could eat that torn meat, all bloody and ewwww.


The wicked night brought out the joy of whispered cuss words, further disgusting me. What would Mom think?


"Don't you tell her," they whispered, "or you'll never come with us again."


"I never want to," I said. "Are you catching the right fish?"


"Be quiet," was their answer to that.


I decided to move upstream and just explore the adorable creek by myself, but one of my brothers followed me, no doubt to spoil my peace.


I said, "See that fish right there? I can catch it with my bare hands."


He scoffed. "You can not."


"Watch me," I said.


I moved downstream a few feet, squatted down, and waited.


When the fish swam by me, I reached in and grabbed it. No problem. It was maybe eleven inches long and it wriggled like crazy.


I held it up for my non-believing brother to see.


"How did you do that?" he yelled.


"Shh. Whispers," I said.


Then I put it back in the stream and moved further down the stream and said, "I'll catch it again."


"No way. You can't catch it twice," he argued.


"Sure I can," I said.


And I did.


So he tried with other fish and he couldn't even come close. Fish are wary and slippery and he lost, every time.


I took my fish to a pail and put it in with the speared fish, knowing Mom would be proud of cooking a piece of fish that was not all mangled from a vicious spearhead.


We skulked home in the dark. My brothers had used their flashlights to spear their fish because it was illegal and they liked that thrill.


I caught mine by the moonlight.


In the kitchen, we showed Mom our two pails of catch.


I expected her to be wowed by my one fish.


She threw up her hands in utter disgust.


"You did it again! Carp and catfish! What's the matter with you boys!"


I said, "What about my lovely fish, Mom? Is it a good fish?"


She just gave me a Look.


I glared at my brothers and stomped from the room.

Spear Fishing At Night

Was it illegal back in the 50's? No.

Was it illegal to spear fish using a light? Yes.

Did the teenaged boys obey that law? NO.

Their logic was: how can you catch a fish you can't even see?

Okay. So go fishing on a full moon or a near full moon, Mom always said.

Full moons don't come around enough, was the boys' argument to that suggestion.

They wanted fish fried up crisply in a pan of bacon fat, Mom's end of the deal, because she never let them near a burner and fat and we can all guess why.

My brothers went fishing any old chance they got, whether it be with each other or with the neighbor boys or a cousin or two.

No carp or catfish, Mom always said. They're ground feeders, trashy fish. We didn't eat those.

They fished with Grandpa's farm bamboo pole or with chokecherry poles cut from our trees at the back of the property, or with rods and reels when they made enough money to buy them.

Bait was dug-up worms.

When they fished, they came home with the right fish. Bass and trout - nice fish.

When they spear-fished, they came home with the wrong fish - carp and catfish. Why? I have no idea. It always disgusted Mom, and she'd say, "Cut them up and bury them in my flower garden for fertilizer, and quit killing the wrong fish, for goodness sakes!"

My brothers would look contrite as they filed from the kitchen with their pails of fresh fish, then they'd go and do what she said.

And the next time they went spear-fishing at night?

They did it again.

And again.

And again.

It kind of makes you wonder about teenaged boys back in the 50's, doesn't it?

Remembering Back

Sometimes you just can't ignore that little nudge that says, "Go back - just do it," so you look for ways to make it happen.

Just sitting still and thinking, remembering when you were young, when it all started for you, is about the best way I know to activate what the nudge is telling you to do.

Then you make the contacts, relatives and old friends, asking them questions about the past, stirring up their childhoods right along with your own.

And then come all the answers that fill in the blanks of your life, the blanks you never even knew were there.

And things begin to fall into place and start to make sense.

It's like a mosaic that's never been completed, a piece of art that has sat gathering webs and dust and neglect in a barn somewhere. The pieces of someone else's memories, given to you, begin to rebuild the mosaic, even moving a few pieces around for you that never belonged where they were, because the whole truth had not been revealed, until now.

And suddenly, there it is.

It may be ugly to look at or at least have ugly bits marring the overall beauty, but you know you'd never change one color of it, because it was meant to be.

Most of those memories might never make you happy, but they'll make you complete.

And that must be what the nudge was all about, what the nudge knew you needed, before you reach the end of your rainbow.

Cuba in 1981 - Log Two - Customs

The customs officer never smiled. He was already an attractive man, but a smile would really have softened up that look he had on his face when I stepped up to the window

I handed him my passport, because he said, "Passport."

He looked at it and studied my photo for a while, then looked at me, and studied me for a while, which made me a little more nervous than I already was. His eyes were glaring at mine by now.

Then he looked at my passport photo again, then back at me again, so already he wasn't following the pattern of those tourists he'd checked through before me, and my stomach flipped over, and I thought, I'm in trouble.

His dark eyes narrowed on mine after a third photo check, and I held my breath.

Then - "Papers."

I didn't dare breathe as I handed him my papers that were shaking all on their own. The people behind me waiting their turn, my friends, were fidgeting and nervous, which didn't help me at all.

The officer studied my papers a little too closely, so unlike the others he'd observed, and I was sure I was headed for prison in handcuffs right then and there, doomed forever.

Finally, when I could stand the suspense not a second longer, he shoved the papers back at me, then my passport, and gave me one last look.

I said, "Thank you," so humbled by now with relief that I would have been willing to dig ditches instead of playing the Canadian tourist, if he'd asked me to. Heck, I would have volunteered.

I moved aside and a nervous friend took my place up at the window.

My legs wobbled across the small floor space and over to the door where the other tourists were exiting, smiling and happy, while I was swallowing and terrified.

Outside, the night was black and as soft as a rabbit, fragrant and sweet. I saw buses lined up beyond the cement and drivers waiting down on the pavement.

And for some stupid reason, I panicked and started to run.

Tourists stared and guides stared as I whizzed by them in panic, going nowhere but into the night, anywhere to get away.

I can't believe I did that.

A man was yelling my name and running after me, and I kept right on going.

I heard, "What are you doing!"

And then reality clicked in. And I stopped. And felt so stupid.

When he caught up to me, a friend, I said, still shaking, "He scared me."

He said, "I know. But running away?"

I said, "I should never have come to Cuba."

WRONG.

I should have come to Cuba, and I was glad I did, in the long run.

We didn't get our luxurious hotel on the water, the one we paid for. The bus took us to another hotel about three blocks in from the luxurious one.

It had a small lobby and no shops. It had a small elevator with a female attendant. They did not let us ever use the elevator on our own.

The rooms were small but clean and nice. There was a rooftop patio and a deep pool with a lovely view over houses and rooftop gardens and chickens pecking in the plants.

In the morning, roosters crowed, rooftop roosters sitting on ledges and clothes lines in the light of dawn, a wonderful sound and sight in Havana, Cuba in 1981, on my first day there.

Cuba in 1981 - Log One - Arriving In Havana

Canadians were free to travel to Cuba when Fidel Castro was in power as its Communist leader, and I was curious to see what he'd done to the country, when I was 35 in 1981.

Books showed beautiful people, and horses on perfect beaches, happy children in cute little uniforms walking side by side to school, lush green countryside, and an island promoted as having no racial discrimination because Cubans were all shapes and shades and Catholic.

The tour booked rooms in an old, expensive hotel on the waterfront, where Russian ships arrived several times a day, slipping by the downtown Havana hotel's cement patios and seawall to dock at the main wharves.

Attached to the booking was a small condition - we may not be staying in this hotel. The travel agent said that Cuba did that all the time, so be ready for it.

Our flight left Toronto late at night in the dead of winter because no foreigners were allowed to descend upon Cuba in the light of day, causing those foreigners to wonder what Castro was hiding from them and the free world.

I flew with the expectations of exploring the island, riding a horse on the white sugary sand of the crystal clear blue waters that lazily lapped at the shores. I wanted to see the museums and shop at downtown stores and taste the food that Cubans offered and buy giant ice cream cones made from exotic fruits and creams and spices.

I longed to see those happy child faces on their way to school and feast my eyes on the dramatic three-storey houses of the rich, mansions that boasted wide wooden verandahs on all three floors, set on streets lined with massive oleander vines climbing poles and fences in red splendor, along the sidewalks.

I knew these things were there just waiting for me, because the books and the travel brochures proved it did in colored glory, pages and write-ups and a "come and see me" attitude.

Wrong.

But I'll get to all that in the next post.

Our plane landed in the dark and we pulled out our passports and once again were reminded by the captain from the cockpit to be respectful and answer the customs officer's questions in clear English and smile a lot.

Okaaay.

Being told this twice put me on edge. I had horrors of being handcuffed and whisked away to prison to be never heard from again, if I didn't smile enough. Oh, yes, the captain said to keep eye contact with the authorities at all times, to prove we weren't hiding anything from them.

Customs at the Havana airport was in a small building and there were only two officers waiting to see us, so we lined up, mentally gambling on which officer was the least scary-looking in his seriousness and mood.

When I stepped up to the window where the Cuban officer stood a good foot above me in an enclosed booth, a great method of intimidation if I ever saw one, I expected him to do what he had done with the tourists ahead of me - look at the passport then at the tourist to match the face in the photo, check your papers to see that they were in order, ask a small question, then hand back the papers, and say not another word.

Wrong.

But I'll... You know what I was going to say.