The Awakening

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Bahman Mahmoudi
by Bahman Mahmoudi
30-Oct-2007
 

The summer vacation had started and we were going to have fun by going to the Caspian Sea in northern part of Iran. Those were the happy years of the cold war, Iran had become a stable Dictatorship Democracy.

The foreign powers were getting the oil, and the local honchos were getting the oil revenues transferred directly to their Swiss numbered accounts.

The king "shah" was in search of a new queen to give him an heir and a spare, so he could wear the crown of the friendly gas station man.

We, the people, got the for profit private grade and secondary schools.

The greed had not taken over yet, and there were still plenty of the imported merchandise and automobiles in the country still at reasonable prices.

My dad had bought a second hand VW bug from a friend, and we were very proud of our new wheels.

The white revolution had not yet started and the people still owned their own lands and properties.

The wealth of the last king's father was still frozen in the English banks.

He was named an earth worm, because he used to follow the example of Alexander the Great

"I came, I saw, and I took".

All the northern part of the country was taken over and turned into his private property.

Now the family wealth was frozen in English banks and could not be taken out of the country, but could be used to buy English made equipment.

Why not buy an automobile factory from England and and make English cars in Iran and sell it to the helpless Iranians at high prices?

To prevent the competition from the foreign manufactures, why not put a 200 to 300 percent import tax on all imported cars and equipments.

The country had belonged to his stable hand father anyway, and now it was all his and his close relatives.

They could also put up businesses, or be silent partners which did not take much time for their other affairs.

We finally got to the northern port of Pahlavi which was named in Honor of their family name, and rented a room in a family run pension.

There were some other guests, who were French nationals and hit off with my father, because of the my father's fun time in Paris and other centers of civilization and culture.

One of the guests was the manager of the Air France Air Line in Iran.

He had married an Armenian woman, who had a daughter from her previous husband.

The daughter was a non-fat person, with good looks and teeth.

Soon, we became good friends and started renting motor cycles on the beach and zooming through the beach sands.

In the evenings, we were going to an old wooden beach hut that we started calling "Casino" to the memory of the one in Monte Carlo, and would have a light dinner.

It was a new world for me and I enjoyed it very much. Our social gatherings continued in Tehran.

He gave me a major discount, when I bought my airplane ticket to come to America.

I wish them all a long and happy life, wherever they may be.

I was awakened to a new life style, and found new ways and friends everywhere I went.

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