Shorts

The Royal Trip

Home Trained Spies

I don't know how far back people remember of their childhood, I remember my mother breast feeding me, because we were in the middle of the World War two, with our country occupied by the allied forces and scarcity of all the essentials.
It was easier to breast feed a child than having to stand in line, in the winter to buy milk at the black market.
I remember sleeping in our front yard, during the summer and waking up to get fed during the nights.
I could hear and understand every thing, but was not able to move or hold my eyes open, or hold up my head.
As the time passed, I noticed that my mother was talking to my aunt about my drinking her milk, and wanted to know how to stop me from doing it, without upsetting me, and creating a bigger head ache for herself.
My aunt recommended to my mother to rub a dark brown liquid which tasted very bad to her nipple.
That would surely stop me from wanting to drink her milk.
I was about two years old. and wanted to object to the scheme and call it inhuman.
Other children, who were my age were eating solid foods, and I had to do the same, even when I didn't like it.
I saw the dark brown liquid the next night, and saw my mother apply it.
It tasted awful, and I couldn't stand it, but the dye was cast and there was nothing I could do.
Oh what a cruelty to a small child.
Maybe that was why I turned against my aunt, and didn't consider her a friend.
As the years past, I got close to my nanny who was a young girl from one of the villages around Tehran, and she treated me very fair and took me to her friends.
I learned from the nannies the art of pretending to be unaware, and eves drop on the grown up people's conversations.
One day I heard my cousin talking to her girl friend, and telling her I looked like Tyron Power the movie star.
I had never seen, or had heard of him, but knew it must be good.
I got glued to them from that time on, and was following them everywhere, to hear more good things about me.
I noticed the other children who were in care of the other nannies were doing similar things.
The nannies had trained us to be good eves droppers, and report to them all we had heard, without raising any suspicion.

The Trip Home

I had been waiting in the Tehran International Airport (Mehrabad) to receive the boarding announcement.
It was very tense, with the Revolutionary Guards observing all our motions. We had gone through hell  to get where we were, everyday was a different story, the airport was closed, or there was no airplane.
Finally, there was an airplane available, and the airport was open. The Revolutionary Guards were watching the passengers in the waiting room and would pull some one according to his looks or the body language, I was trying to become invisible, and not bring any attention to myself.
I was carrying seven thousand dollars traveler checks in my pant pockets, the authorities were checking for the foreign currency irregularities. I had told them that I was a resident of the United States, and had been stranded in Iran during the revolution.
Finally they allowed us to go to the plane, and identify our luggages. We got on the plane, and met an young Armenian who sat beside me. He told me that he was going to Los Angeles, and wanted to see his sister who was living there.
The plane took off, and the passengers started clapping.
When the plane landed in Heathrow International Airport in London, I invited my buddy to have a beer on me for our good fortunes.
Finally, we landed in Kennedy Airport in New York at a remote site of the air port, and was transferred by a special transporter to the main building.
We lined up in front of the Immigration office booths, I told my buddy to pretend that he does not know English, and ask for my help as a translator.
When it was his turn, we played our game as planned. The officer asked how much money had.
I told him that he had five thousand dollars. He asked him to show him his money.
I passed on my traveler checks to him underhand, and the officer got satisfied and gave him 6 months visa.
We came out of the building, and went our own ways.
  

The Wine Makers

The Train Conductor

The Crows

There used to be a lot crows in Tehran, when I was a little child. They used to fly from the east in the mornings, and would fly to the west in the venings.
They used to sit on the radio antennae, which were mounted on the metal roofs of the houses, and do their crowing for long periods of time.
My mother used to tell me that they were coming in the mornings from their homes to go to their school, and were flying back home, when the school was out.
I had developed an extra ordinary fascination for the birds and was watching or listening to them majority of the time.

It was the beginning of the second World War, and Iran was occupied by the allied forces.
The king was deposed, and sent to exile because of his interest in the axis countries and his sympathy and cooperation with Germany. He had changed the name of the country from "Persia" to "Iran" to reflect its Arian origin of the nation.
There was shortage of everything, food, fuel, coal, bread, medicine,  and milk.

Caviar By The Spoonful

Drilling Rigs

The Joys Of Skiing

Had been working in California, away from the snow, ice, and cold weather of Illinois.
Oh what a wonderful world, I Had not missed any of it and had just learned where the Coast Highway was and had watched a large building slide down a hillside in Malibu hills.
It still was much better than the slush we had to walk through to go to the supermarket or the drive through.

I was working with a Swiss engineer who had moved with his wife to the southern California and were eager to see all, and find the exciting parts of their new home.
I was content to spend my nights at the fun places such as the disco, and topless bars.
Spent my weekends with friends from home on Holy wood and Sunset blvd.
I was not going to go close to the ice or snow.
I had it to my ears in Illinois.
My Swiss friends invited me to go with them to Mount Baldy, which is about a hundred miles east of LA.
My friend was an expert and skilled skier, but his wife was slightly pregnant and did not want to loose her developing baby.
We got into our cars and headed to the skiing area.
My buddy rented a pair of skies and headed toward the never never land.
I Sat with his wife in the ski resort are cafe, sipping hot chocolate.
She offered to teach me how to ski. At first, I was hesitant and she explained how easy it was for some one with a good teacher to learn to ski and enjoy the sport.
I went and rented a a pair of skies, and started my lesson with the snow plow.
My progress was very fast and my fear had disappeared.
I was now zooming down the hill and showing off.
As I was coming down a fast slop, I saw a bunch of pretty things in the latest ski-wear fashion.
They were socializing in the middle of my path.
My breaking capability was very limited, and my chances of hitting them was a great deal.
I decided to drop on the road and avoid hitting them and save myself from the embarrassment.
As I fell, my skies went into the ground , I was hanging from my skies.
Was it ever painful, I wish I had hit them and taught them the skiing etiquette's which I did not know myself.
My ankle was swollen and had a hard time driving my car with a gearshift all the way home.
At home I had a great deal of pain and problems going up the steps and into my apartment,
I promised myself never to repeat the experience again.
I was lucky that I had only a sprain, not a broken leg.

Barcelona

We had just landed in Barcelona International Airport and followed the same process as in Madrid.
Took the bus to center of the town and hired a German speaking taxi to find us a moderately priced hotel.
The buildings were unusual, they looked like the buildings in the fairly lands with rounded corners and edges.
The driver was telling us about a famous Spanish architect by the name of "Gaudy".
His buildings were all over the city and he was telling us about an unfinished cathedral which had he had spent thirty years working on it, but was run over and killed before he could finish it.
There was a new group working on it. The buildings in the city were not just big square boxes like in Madrid.
The whole place had a different spirit that he called Catalina.
He took us to his favorite out of regular tourist path.
We got or room with a large balcony.I had come to appreciate a good balcony.
We spent a great of time watching the city, traffic and the street people while we were taking our meals which we usually bought from special shops which were selling "tap-as" which was very popular with the natives and were very reasonably priced.
We went to the seaport and saw the replicas of the Columbus's ship anchored with dignity. There were beautiful parks, one after another. It reminded me a lot of Paris and London.
we run into a long boulevard called "Robele" where everything was unusual, there were people doing magic tricks, contortion and mimes. It was out of ordinary, and the people were enjoying themselves, and nobody was in a hurry.
Tasted the special local delicacies of the region in the small and well aged restaurants.
Here again I found my German language very useful.
The Catalans were not very fund of the Madrid people.
Went to "gaudy's" cathedral and could not figure out if we were inside or outside of the structure. It was a very strange and attractive building and went along with everything else in Barcelona.
Even in Iran, we have special architecture in different regions such as "Isfahan" which has developed its own special characteristic and style for mosques and palaces.

The Summer Of 93

It had been raining continuously and the rivers around Saint Louis were rising fast.
Our office in the Chesterfield area was in danger of getting flooded.
I was joking and betting that the floods would not reach our office.
My little miniature long hair dachshund was getting excited with the sound of thunder and was jumping up and down my bed.
I couldn't stop him. He finally hurt himself and got paralyzed. He couldn't move his legs.
We took him to the vet and was tolled that we have to take him to the University of Illinois to receive proper care for his condition.

The Awakening

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 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 taxes 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 from their other affairs.
We finally got to the northern port of Pahlavi which was named in honor of their distinguished 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" in 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.

Gardening Cherries

My uncle had bought a piece of land on the side of a mountain in a village 40 kilometers north of Tehran called "Fasham".
It was a little village of no more than 300 villagers and their families.
The new land owners, usually hired the previous villager to work for them on their land and gave them a modest salary.
My uncle started by cutting the face of the mountain into wide steps and creating a stone wall to keep the dirt in place.
It was a very hard task and required a large number of hired hands. Later, they had to come back and pound the dirt into place to solidify the steps.
Each year he added more steps and went up higher, till he almost reached to half the face of the mountain.
Then they brought in fresh virgin dirt from the valley around the area and filled the steps. Now they could start the step gardening with fresh and virgin dirt.
It had taken him approximate 3 years to get to this stage.
He started planting light and dark colored Chery trees on the various steps, with other fruit trees such as peaches, and apricots.
The time had come to build a small house on the middle level step. My father and uncle went to the refugee camp, which was set up behind the military airport and found three Greek master masons and brought them to do the construction.
We kept going there through dirt and rock roads, by a surplus army jeep which we had bought from the US army at a bargain price.
The Jeep was the only kind of vehicle which could handle the dangerous road grades and the deep ravines.
It took the Greeks a whole summer, plus many bottles of the special Greek drinks to complete their project.
It turned out to be a very beautiful stone and brick building with a galvanized metal roof.

The planting and gardening kept continuing and the trees had grown tall and were blocking the view from the outside.
To store and preserve the water, they built a good size pool to receive and store the water from a nearby river.
This project was turning into a popular site for the summer weekend gathering and vacations. Friends and relatives started coming by the hoards.
My uncle had just sprayed the cherries to prevent them from getting infested with bugs and other harmful fungi.
In his absence, a very dear and old friend came for a visit, and unknowingly ate a few handful of the recently sprayed cherries.
He had a light dinner at the tea house which was like an outdoor and roof top hotel for the village.
Later, he had asked to sleep on the roof on the wooden bed with farmer type mattress.
There was a wooden ladder for climbing up to the roof, the tea house owner was afraid that his nightly guest might disappear in the middle of the night without paying.
He removed the ladder when the last guest climbed to the roof top and put it on the floor.
So, there was no chance of anybody coming down and escaping unpaid.
The cherries and the late night dinner finally caught up with our friend in the middle of the night and got him running around to come down. There was no way down and he was afraid to go to the edge, because the roof was made of hay and mud, and he could fall down and break his neck.
There was a metal pipe coming up from the cooking area as a chimney, it was the only relief way he could find.
He used it with extra care and blew the place like the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
The tea house man had saved a paying guest, but had to spend a week cleaning his kitchen.

The Consul

We were a group of Iranians who were born at the early years of Second World War, and due to the limited chances of going to a university in Iran, the threat of the draft, and the suffocating political environment had put our parents through hell, and had forced them to send us to study outside of the country.
Now we had graduated from the various universities in the US with lots of pains, aches, scratches,and wounds.

The Viet Nam was hot and on going and the young men of America were getting sent to defend America in Viet Nam.
The Immigration laws had been changed and one did not have to be from north European to be eligible now any riff Raf like us was able to apply for the famous Green Card.
As a result, a bunch of us got our Green Cards and were free from the long arm of the Iranian government and its consulate.

We could now go and demonstrate against the Iranian government and its dictatorial democracy with its secret police.
We couldn't forget the hard times so soon, and were living a very modest and quiet life.
America is the land of constant ups and downs, and one dose not know when things change. Saving is the only thing that might give you a chance to take a breath.
We were all living in cheap efficiency apartments with our bed folding into the closet.
After some time the life became very boring, because we did not have any place to go and nobody was inviting us to their house or party.
That is when we discovered the Armenian Club in Chicago, they were serving delicious home cooked food on Sundays, and the old folks who had come to America from Iran by boat would come and have water pipe with thick Turkish coffee and baklava.
We had a lot of common experience and memories from Iran and would talk and joke till late hours.
Some one suggested that maybe the best approach would be to set up our own place, and take it from there.
We got together, and rented a good size apartment on the north side, it was well furnished with a beautiful balcony.
We split the rent and the expenses, now we were ready to take on the world.
The parties would start from the Friday night and last till Sunday night.
The guest would sleep in our beds or on the air mattresses on the floor.
Some one suggested that there were some empty stores on one of the roads close by. We checked and rented the store.
It needed paint, curtains and a good wash, we recruited wives, volunteers and all kinds of helpers.
Every body wanted to have a place like a club to feel free to celebrate weekends, holidays, and the special occasions.
The place was ready in no time and we had contracted the cooking of the Sunday night meals to the good ladies who knew Iranian cooking. Our Sunday dinners got so popular that we run out of space and rented the next store too.
Our operation kept getting bigger, the Iranian government got concerned and opened a consulate in Chicago to see we did not become anti government and start making efforts to overthrow the Imperial Dictatorial Democratic government.
On night, the consul general showed up at our house party and introduced himself. We decided to treat him royally. After all, it was better to have a friend than an enemy.
He got so drunk that we decided to let him sleep at our place and send him home in the morning.
With the approach of the Iranian new year which begins on March 21, we assigned a group of interested people to arrange for place, food, and music. Ad a guide line we chose 200 couples for our guests.
A friend who was working at a print shop, printed 200 tickets which were sold in the first hour and the telephones kept coming. Printed another 300 tickets, they were all gone by 6 Pm.
What was happening? Where were we going to put them in.
We contacted an Iranian friend who was the manager of the Marina City complex and explained to him our situation, He told us that he could give us two floors of the Marina City at a reasonable price. He would provide light food and bar facilities with a 20% of the bar proceeds for us.
So it was the Marina City, with one floor with Persian music band, the other floor with a international band.
We were told that there a large group of international workers and young girls who would like to come to a free all paid party.
We assigned to our celebration party members to arrange dates for the single guests.
I was one of the single ones myself and received the name of my date through the mail.
She was going to meet me at the party.
By now, the number of our guests had exceed 1,000, and they were coming from the three sates around Illinois.
We didn't know there were so many Iranians in the US.
The new year was celebrated with lots of joy and beautiful belly dances.
My friends still talk about it after 40 years.

The Inevitable End

The longer one lives, the more funerals one will have to go.
That is when one realizes that this life is not for ever.
Then we have to face the reality and accept the inevitable end for all living things.
From one point of view it might be scary, but from another point of view it might bring peace.
Can you imagine a world, where people like "Changiz Khan", Adolph Hitler, Mussolini and some others lived forever.
My own personal experience has shown me that life is like a conveyor belt.
We get on it at a predestined time, and get off when our time is up.
I have been in several situations, when I thought all was over and then found out that I was still alive and had to carry on.
It reminds me of the love boat TV show, with different people at different ports getting on and the getting off.
We can only see and know the ones who are with us at the time.
But have no information about the ones who will come after.
Our hope should be for them to be kind, good and righteous.
I visited the house which I had lived with my parents for over forty years.
It felt as though they had never existed.
It is not possible to know when our time up, but surely it is coming up fast and nothing can be done about it.

Take the Pharaohs of Egypt,they tried to gain eternity by building huge pyramids to protect themselves against the unknown, and studied the secret of the life and death in their book of life.
The lucky ones wound up in various museums as displays, after several thousand years.
I don't think our future is going to be much different than theirs.
We better accept the inevitability and accept what is ahead, don't pollute the universe, let and don't blow up our little corner of the universe.
With due respect to all the past and present great thinkers, philosophers, and the holy men.
They could only understand and guess what they thought the truths were at their time.
They can be as wrong as any of us today, just because someone in the past said, or wrote something doesn't make it the absolute truth.
Let us give ourselves a chance to be as wrong as our predecessors.

The only ones who think they have all the answers, are the ones who ask for your donations and and encourage you to vote for the candidates of their choice.

The Primary School

I feel that in most third world countries, the powers that run the country try to keep the people uneducated. So, they can be ruled under a dictatorial democracy system.
Iran was no different, they had made a law that to start the primary school, the student had to be at least 7 years old, otherwise he had to wait for the next year.
I was 6 and a half years old and had to wait a hole year to get started.
All the schools were for boys or girls only schools and there was to be no mixing of sexes. My mom was not going to take the new schooling law laying down.
She didn't want me around the house, driving her nuts.
She took me to her friend who was the principal of a primary girl school and explained the situation to her.
She could take me to her school because, it was a private one.
I was supposed to get my shots and start the school the next week. When I heard about the shots, I decided that I was not going to go to any school at all.
But, I could not control the powers and was given the shots which were very big and painful.
Next week, I was forced marched to my new school by our house maid.
She kept telling me that everything was going to be OK, and I kept telling her if everything was going to be so good, why she was not going in my place and letting me stay at home.
She told me that there were going to be pretty girls at the school, and I could play with them.
The last bribe won me over, and I tried to give it a try.
I had decided if I did not like my school, I would just stop coming the next morning and stay at home.
I still believed that there was democracy in going to the school.
The building was old and run down, even worse than our own house. The girls were almost as homely and stock up as my own cousins.
There were old and roughly treated wooden chairs in our class rooms.
The restrooms were dirty, smelly, and scary.
How could we take a lick? We had to stand at the door and aim, and hope to hit the target.
There was another young fellow, who must have had a similar destiny as mine.
We were both arranged to sit by each other, they thought it might calm us both down and put us at ease.
We started communicating, and he started eating my sandwiches that my mother had prepared.
He liked mine, and I liked his. Our eating problems were over.
There were no school snacks or lunches.
We ate what we brought or some one else ate it for us. It was democracy in action.
We caught all the favorite children diseases and enjoyed many days of home bed rest.
We were hoping for more fun diseases like hooping cough, rubella and other good ones.
For the days I wanted to save my sandwich, I would ask my mother to make me a ham and cheese sandwich.
He would not eat non-kosher food, it was my only defense to keep my food.
In general we did OK, and I even learned to speak Persian.
Next I know the year is over and I am over the minimum age and could go to the all boy school.
I was sure to miss my female friends. We said hello on the streets when we met.
A friend is precious and is valuable to keep. Even though they are girls.

Avoiding The Pit Falls

Persian is one of the "In-do-European" languages, it may be considered the father of a few modern languages, such as German, French, Italian. and English.
It has survived the Greeks, Mongols, and the Arabs.
I don't know if it will survive the Islamic Republic with its ayatollahs, the illiterate, fanatic, and narrow minded revolutionary guards.
The Persian language avoided the pitfall of adding extras, such as gender to each noun, the endings to the adverbs and other grammatical elements according to their gender, and their grammatical case.
It stayed pure and straight forward and avoided all the extras of the other related languages which act like the speed bumps.
The remaining problem with the Persian language is the presence of similar sounding , but different letters which have entered through Arabic, or some other foreign languages.
They make it possible to spell the Persian words with different letters, according to their roots and origins.

There are many ancient fables in the Persian language which use animals to make a point.
In one occasion, a smart and witty fox hears the sound of a big bang and gets sacred.
He goes close and examines the device that was making all the noise.
He sees a big drum which was being stroked by the branches of a tree.
He concludes that the bigger the bang, the emptier the device.

On another occasion, a jealous turtle hears that her husband has been paying a great deal of attention to a young one and has been neglecting her.
She asks for advice from her friends.
They told her to throw him out of the house, so he learns his lesson.
The husband, out of desperation goes, into a nearby pond and starts swimming to calm himself down.
The next morning, he sees a monkey sitting on a tree and dropping figs into the water.
He picks up one of the figs and eats it.
It was very delicious, and ripe.
He introduces himself and tells him his life story.
Soon, they become very good friends and spend most of their of their time together.
The wife hears that her husband has found a new friend and is having a good time.
She gets very angry, and dyes her body yellow with the saffron paint.
Sends a message to her husband through her spies, that she is very sick and dying and wants his presence.
The poor soul rushes in, and sees her all in the yellow color.
She tells him that she will die soon unless she gets the heart of a monkey.
He says, he will try to get her one from his good friend, and heads towards his pond.
He asks his friend to go for a ride on his back in the pond.
When they were in the middle of the pond, the turtle asks him for his heart.
The monkey tells him that he had left it on the tree, because he was afraid of getting it wet.
The turtle gets him to the shore, and the monkey goes up the tree and sits there.
After a long time, the turtle calls his friend and asks him what happened.
The monkey replies that he looked everywhere, but could not find it.
Then he discovered that he did not have a heart, because if he had any, he would not have made friend with such a stupid and selfish animal.
The moral of the story is, don't give your heart to a stupid and selfish friend.

The Bull

Our plane had just landed in the Madrid International Airport. We checked and found out that it was a long way to the city.
We had been scalped by the taxi rides to the city in other locations before.
We took the bus to the town, it dropped us at the airport station in downtown Madrid.
The city was very beautiful, and had very wide avenues with fantastic statues at every corner.
Went to the information booth for the hotel arrangement and prices.
They were trying to to put us up at the supper luxury hotels, which were beyond us.
Decided to take a taxi, despite all the previous painful experiences.
Here my German came in handy, because a great number of the Spaniards go to Germany and work there as guest workers and come back with their savings to start a business.
Our taxi driver had been a guest worker, spoke German and was very helpful.
He took us to a very nice and clean hotel that was reasonably priced and well located.
The breakfast was included in our room price.
We had a nice balcony and could see a combination of delicatessen and a wine shop across the street.
Went shopping, and bought a few Spanish bottles of wine and a very delicious dried ham and various types of cheeses.
We were ready to sit in our balcony and celebrate our arrival in Madrid.
It was just beyond our expectations, the wine and the champaign were excellent.
We took our breakfast downstairs in the dinning room and headed outside.
Bought a city map and started towards the tourist attractions centers.
The prices were very reasonable, old man Franco knew how to control his economy and not let it get out of hands like the rest of the European countries.
Visited a leather shop and bought two hand tailored sued jackets.
Visited the Perado museum and saw real masterpieces by Goya, and El Greco.
We were afraid that too much culture might overwhelm and confuse us.
We went to the bull fighting stadium and bought two tickets for the afternoon performance.
It was full of excitement, the costumes, the bull fighting music and the delicious sherry brandy in the leather sacks.
The people went mad when they opened the gate and the bull showed up in the ring.
The Matador was the famous " El Cordobes", whose pictures were all over the city and on the stadium walls.
The butchery started when, the horse riders started stabbing the poor bull with their sharp blades without any pity. Just to aggravate the poor animal.
It kept getting worse by the minute.
When the bull hit the bull fighter with his horns, we cheered him and hoped he would kill the bull fighter.
The bull was very cruelly killed and its body was dragged around the ring by a team of horses, his blood painted the ring into a bright red color.
My wife and I are lovers and protectors of all kind of animals, we could not sit down and watch all the cruelty to go on.
We took off and went to a beer hall, to calm down our nerves and get our breath back also to forget what cruelty we had just seen.
We just didn't want to follow a bunch of strange people with weird tastes.
It is true that we liked the music, the costumes, and the drinks, but are against the cruelty to the poor animals.
There are much better things to watch than a beautiful and magnificent animal get degraded and bleed to death.
We found a magnificent restaurant behind our, hotel which was several hundred years old and looked like the colonial hacienda in the Zorro movies.
The waiter had a spoon hanging from his neck, and he sampled each wine bottle before pouring it in our glasses.
we ate and drank so much that it was hard for me to stay awake for the Spanish dancers.
We were lucky to be close to our hotel, and barely made it back to our room and fell asleep in my street clothes.
There were so many places to see that we decided to take any street and go to the end of it and then come back on the next parallel one.
We walked for four days and covered almost half of the city, then decided to save my feet for a later date.
It was time to move on and go to another city.

The Russian Cake

My cousins were also attending her classes.
I went to their classes with them regularly, and was usually accompanied by my parents or my aunt and enjoyed watching the pretty little things trying to do arabesque or walking on their tip tows.
I was very clumsy by nature, and they had finally given up on my.
I was safe and could watch all, to my heart's delight.

The good teacher, had married an Italian gentleman in her youth in Moscow and had a son with him.
He was taken to Italy with his father, after the Bolshevik revolution.
The dance teacher had an Italian friend who was an architect, she asked him to build her a villa in the mountains for the summer vacations.
We used to pass by her villa, and admire her taste.
Now the war was over, and her son was released from the Italian prison and had come to visit his mother.
There was going to be a great party, with all the expatriate communities in Tehran.
We were going to have the unheard of the baked turkey with home cooked Russian cakes.

We were trying to get mixed at the party with the other expatriate guests, but didn't have much of a chance, due to the different languages spoken.
It felt really like a United Nation's party.

I was not a great fan of the bird or the sea foods and was holding back my judgment about the unknown turkey. I had only heard about it, but never had seen it in person.
Went out side and played with a nice and friendly cocker Spaniel dog.
We became friends soon and inseparable. She was also alone.
Kept going in and out, to keep busy and kill the time.
On the way back to the kitchen, I saw a very nice, and freshly baked Russian cake on the refrigerator.
Was this the famous Russian dream cake?

I kept waiting for some one to offer us a piece, but no one did.
Concluded that the cake was for the "Sahibs", and we were just observers.
I took the initiatives, and approached the cake quietly.
I Examined it from the underneath, and took a hand full of cake from the bottom, without affecting the outside.
Kept repeating my action, and also involved my brother.
He was egger to help.
By the tea time, there was only an outer shell of the original Russian cake left.
They had prepared the coffee and the tea, and a French lady took the knife to cut the cake. It all fell apart.

My brother and I were standing by, and watching what will happen.
There were some very angry words spoken in Italian, French, and English and the blame fell on the gardener's son.
I was happy that it was him, not us.

To A Good Friend

I had been assigned to inspect and supervise the electrification of the petroleum products pipe line starting from the southern part of Iran to Tehran.
The pipe line was built 30 years earlier and was powered by gas turbines, there had been a large investment in the power generation and transmission of the electric power all over the country and they had decided that the best approach would be to get rid of the old gas turbines, and replace them with 6kv electric driven pumps and simplify the operation and the maintenance.
It was the tail end of the Viet Nam war and the retied or discharged military personnel were accepting assignments in Iran. This had turned into a large American community in Tehran doing communication, petroleum, or military projects. We were after all good friends and partners. My company hired a retired army colonel and assigned him to work with me. He was born in Sweden and had immigrated to the US at an early age and had lost his mom and dad at an early age.
He was telling me that his foster family was collecting money from the government and would not even feed him, he had to go and eat his neighbor dog's food. He was developing into a large and blond swede, he went and adopted himself a nice old lady in northern Chicago area as a foster mother and lived at her house.
Things started falling into place and he graduated from the high school and joined the army, it was an option which was open to him.
He was very intelligent and the military intelligent sent him to the university to gather information on what was happening.
He attended Illinois Institute of Technology, University of Illinois in Chicago and some other schools.
He accumulated enough credits to get two degrees. They sent him to the officers training school. His Carrier in intelligence took off and he was assigned to various American embassies in central and south America.
With the situation in Viet Nam developing into a peaceful war, he was sent there and finally he has retired in 1965, and accepted a technical position with a communication company to do the telephone system in Iran.
He was telling me about his James Bond days in various parts of the world. I had heard lots of long hair stories before and had gotten immunized to them.
We met some of his old friend at watering hole near or office, they were with the American embassy and were recording the communications of the oppositions for the intelligence community. There were over 80 embassies in Tehran at the time and it kept them all busy.
It was at a late stage of our friendship that I discovered the magic of the Army PX in Tehran. We used to buy ready to eat meals and take with us, it even had desert and was very healthy. Much better than the road side tea houses that we used to eat meals and got sick when we returned home.
I thought the fun would last forever, one day I came out and saw the crazy people burning banks, liquor stores, and buses.
Next we knew was when Khomeini was coming back, the place was not worth staying.
We packed and left for America, it is always good to have a place to crawl in.
Waited for five years for the madness to go away, started a new life and my dear friend got very sick, we took him to the VA military hospital and watched him slide away.
I was glad to be with him during his last hours and holding his hands.
My dear friend, thank you for all the joys you brought to all our lives and may God bless you.

Retirement

I was rotting in Zurich, everything was very clean, even the arrow signs on the streets were not just paint, they were poured white concrete.
The cats and dogs were polite and very pleasant, all the windows had flower boxes.
The flowers in the parks around the lakes were all fresh, beautiful and well arranged.
Even the addicts were taken care of by registering with the proper authorities and getting examined and receiving their daily allowances on a regular basis, they didn't have steal or degrade themselves for their habits.
Each building had a bomb shelter for the event of an atomic bomb drop by some one who was not a Swiss.
Every one was in the civilian army and went for their training once a year and learned how to defend their country.
There was a machine gun in every home.
I asked a Swiss friend, how come there is not much murder or mayhem on the streets with so many guns around.
I was told that the last excitement in Switzerland was when Wilhelm Tell shot the apple from top of his son's head.
He also told me that all the bullets for the machine guns were counted and were placed and sealed by wax paper in their proper boxes at home.
That explained everything to me, it was just like at home.
Finally my wife finished her school and joined me in Zurich.
I started showing her all the historical and beautiful sights in the city and took her to the Old Town area'
It was very beautiful and had reasonably priced restaurants.
We used to sit at the side walk cafes, and watch the young and pretty ladies do their negotiations with their clients across the street.
It was very nice, civilized professional. There were no hassle by the police or other hooligans.
We were trying to keep their scores and find their batting averages.
There was also an older lady, initially we thought she was some one's mother.
But, later we found out that she was a working woman. She was standing shoulder to shoulder with the rest of them and was taking care of all her own clientele.
We used to give a little victory sign to her with each good hit.
We did not know how was the situation with the health care and the state sponsored retirement plan.
We were proud of her spirit and thought she was saving for her independent personal retirement funds, additional funds never hurt anybody anyway.
She had been working at a well paying job for a long time that was also fun and there was not much let down with regards to her age, her clients were in the same age group.
Maybe they were talking about the high schooldays, or the adventures of the World War 2, watching the Nazi leaders going to the Swiss banks with large leather suit cases to deposit their well deserved funds.
It was a totally different environment. They had solved their major problems and were enjoying their lives like adults.
There was not much of a crime, one could walk safely on the streets in the middle of night in safety.
I don't think any one with a slight sense will try walking alone late at night in any of the major city here

Turkish Treat

Had been driving through the pot holes and the disappearing autobahns that the Germans had build through Bulgaria, Had to buy food and gas in the black market with German Marks, in the back allies.
Finally we were at the Turkish boarder, went through the gate and showed our passports and started talking in my Azari Turkish. It took the Turkish a few moment to get used to my Azari Turkish, then there was a big smile on his face and told me he was impressed with my Turkish. It was the language of his ancestors and I was speaking it like a native.
We were let in the country without any hassle, it does not hurt to speak a few language and make the boarder guards feel like they have run into a relative.
We were in the European section of Turkey and kept driving till we saw a bunch of children shouting "room", we stopped and were lead to a nice and small hotel with just a few rooms. The rooms were large, clean, well furnished and had a small pool in the bath room which is called "Khazineh', it is from the olden day customs. We had bath robes, soap, shampoo and special woolen clothe to rub the dead skin off the body, it was just like back home.
Next morning went for the breakfast, there were courteous waiters with smile on their faces and were serving a verity of goodies which are Turkish and very delicious. Man what a difference a few hundred miles make.
We got in the car and headed toward Istanbul.
Got to the Bosporus and went to an outdoor cafe on the sea.
The sight was beautiful, we could watch the ships traveling to and from the Black Sea. We had to cross the Bosporus and go to the Asian section of the country.
We had to get on a ferry and cross the sea.
It took us about one hour to get to the Asian side.
We landed in "Houshkidara" and and headed towards Ankara.
The road was asphalted and almost smooth.
There were many restaurants with plenty of food along the way. Instead of menu, they took us to the kitchen and gave us a plate full of anything we pointed to.
I can honestly say we ate our way through many plates of stuffed eggplants,tomatoes, grape leaves dolmas, and the shish kabobs.
We had almost forgotten our dieting through Bulgaria.
We spent the nights in our room in the little pool in the bath room. I could have gotten used to this life. Then We discovered Baklava and other delicious Turkish deserts. We had to get out of this wonderful land before gaining too much weight and not being able to fit inside our seats.

Driving Through Bulgaria

We had just entered Bulgaria from Yugoslavia. It was before the ethnic cleansing era and there was peace.
The check point station was in the dark with only a few kerosene lamps and candles. We Showed our passports and the auto documents.
We were told that we needed to buy Bulgarian auto insurance, because they did not accept any body's insurance.
We had to go to their currency exchange and buy Bulgarian Lava.
I changed a $50 to 100 Lavas, paid for the insurance, and took off for Sofia, the capital city.
It was approximately 300 kilometers away.
It was very nice, because there were no cars on the road, the autobahns that the Germans had built during the World War Two were still in existence,
with unpredictable and auto size pot holes at various intervals.
We had to be very careful not to lose the whole car in one of the pot holes.
We do, the the traffic jams of the western civilization had not caught up with them yet.
Finally we made it to Sofia and saw the advertisement for a first class inter tourist, government owned and operated hotel.
We rented a room, and went to our room to rest and take a shower.
The shower room was large and was fully covered with gray mosaics.
When I started taking my shower, I noticed that the place was not properly leveled and most of the water was going into the our bed room.
It did not matter much, I hoped we did not have to clean it.
In the morning, we went down to the restaurant to have our breakfast.
There was not much of a choice.
We noticed that there were some Russian tourists who had come to the land of plenty.
They were really treated badly, I really think they deserved it.
They were the ones who had given their system to the rest of the world, now it was time for them to enjoy it.
We decided to check out, and see if the outside was any better than the inside.
They would not accept our Lavas and were asking for exchange document which nobody had given us.
We were told that we could not even leave the country without the exchange document.
We headed back to the point of entrance and went to the check point station.
Nobody wanted to talk with us, Finally I found an officer with the red stars and strips who was kind enough to talk to me.
I wish to thank the Germans for teaching the people of the region to speak German, otherwise nothing could be done.
He told me it was a very serious matter, and he send the police to bring everybody who had worked the previous night there.
They were lined up and were crying. Being from a country like Iran, I could understand their problems and tried to give them a chance.
So, I did what any good Iranian would do, I did not identify anybody and offered to give all my left over Bulgarian Lavas to their red cross, orphan children, or the unmarried mothers.
My offer was rejected and we put my money in a escrow account which were to be returned to me at a later date.
I am happy to say, nobody was arrested or punished.
Isn't life wonderful after all?

The Waiter

Every year, many people from other countries come to Switzerland and work at the restaurants, cafes and other tourist service centers.
They are called "guest workers" and at the end of the summer, they go home. They are usually from the east European countries, Spain, Italy, or Greece.
I had been working in our company headquarters in Zurich. Had settled to Wiener Schnitzel with the potato salad as my standard daily meal.
One weekend, I become adventurous and took a long walk through the beautiful parks of Zurich, and at the dinner time, went to a modest, but nice little restaurant in the Old Town area.
There was an Italian guest worker waiter, who brought me the menu.
He spoke very little German, no English, or French.
We started with the sign language.
I ordered by the number, it was going to be No. 8.
A few minutes later, he brought me a plate with something that looked like thick square layers of rough blanket in a thick tomato sauce.
I called him over with the sign language and asked him what it was, he told me in the sign language by pointing to his stomach and making the sound of a pig.
So, I had ordered the cooked intestine of the pig in the tomato sauce, which might be a delicacy in many of the countries, but it is a no no with me.
I called him over and told him in the sign language that I could not eat what I had ordered and wanted my regular Weiner Schnitzel with the potato salad.
He took my plate away, and asked me what happens with the bill.
I told him in the sign language, that I will pay for my both orders and he does not need to worry.
I put his mind at ease and he brought me my Weiner Schnitzel.
I also ordered a large glass of wheat beer in a tall glass.
My orders were brought to my table and he gave me the good appetite sign.
I was busy enjoying my meal, and happy that I had solved the problem with the previous order.
He came to me again, and tapped my on the shoulder and showed me a new customer who had just walked in and had ordered the pig intestine meal.
He gave him my previous order, and did not charge me. I gave him a large tip to thank him for his foresight and kindness.
We were both foreigners after all, and had to take care of each other.
In Europe they don't leave tips, because the tip is already included in the prices and the food is very expensive.
So if someone leaves a tip, they think he must be an American.
They know that the Americans are usually double generous.
I had been exposed to the sign language in Iran.
My childhood barber was a mute and deaf, so my sign language skills came in handy.
We had to talk to him in sign language.
I was wondering if the sign language was universal, and all the deaf and mute people understood it equally, regardless from where they had come from.

The Accident

The weather was getting nice and warm, It was the season to go to the sea side. My dad suggested for us to go to the French Riviera. How could I resist. It was much better than all the places I had dreamed of.
Started from Rome, heading north towards Pizza, and Genoa on the coast highway.
The road got narrow and high above the sea.
Saw the leaning tower of Pizza, the nearby cathedral with the magic acoustics. It was amazing how they had managed to build such a marvelous building so long ago.
Headed towards Genoa, It was getting dark and it  was a moonless night. It was hard to see where we were going in the dark night. There was a Citroen DS 21 in front of us with an old couple.
The car was a marvel of engineering, the French had out done themselves with the front wheel drive, and hydraulic suspension system.
I was amazed at how it was hugging the road and cornering, but the driver was out of his league and should have let his wife drive the magic car. There were two bright yellow lights at the top corners of the back window. There was a large truck in front of the Citroen and the old man wanted to pass the truck and had his turn signal lights for an extended time flashing, but did not have the courage to pass the truck.
The yellow flashing light was getting on my nerve and I decided to pass them both.
I down shifted and pressed my gas and took off, he followed me and I saw another big truck going south approaching us. I had just enough time to get in the north lane and could see in my side window, the big pumper of the approaching truck missing my car by inches.
My mom and dad were hysterical and and screaming, I felt I had weted my pants.
We had to stop and get things under control, down the road there were a few side street cafes. We stopped at the first one and took a sit by the entrance, so that we could see what was happening. After a few minutes, we saw police cars, ambulances, and fire department trucks heading towards south, on the coast highway.
Everybody was talking about the big accident.
I thought it was time to split, before it got too complicated.
Drove all the way to Genoa and found a modest hotel in the center of the town and took a well deserved sleep. It had been a nerve recking experience. I promised that I would be more conservative and be more patient the next time.
Next day we had a late lunch at a side street cafe and headed towards Monte Carlo, Niece, And other exotic places. I Had seen them all in the American film " To Catch a Thief" with Grace Kelly.
Now I was there and could see it in person. Had to go to the casino and see how the rich lose their money. The Casino was too formal and we were not properly dressed, so we headed towards San Rafael and found a modest pension.
Spent the next three days in my room, due to the Monte Zuma's revenge.
The lady at our pension recommended cooked white rice with plain yogurt for the cure.
She was saying that it was a regular happening with the tourists who had eaten in Italy. Not a bad souvenir.
Maybe I was paying my dues for my driving.

Amsterdam

I was getting tired of traveling for too long.
My mother wanted to see all of her interesting shops and find the price of each item and go back and buy the ones that were the most bargains.
I had turned into a Personal shopper, translator, driver, and financier.
She had discovered that the export oriented shops gave 20% discount, if they were paid by the travel checks.
Guess what happened to all my traveler checks.
We were in Amsterdam, the Venice of the north.
I could hardly believe how nice and beautiful the place was.
There were many beautiful young women riding their bicycles gracefully all over the city.
The Dutch had learned all about the spices from east Asia colonies and had created wonderful food, nothing like the English or the German cooking.
They also spoke good English and enjoyed their beer, cheeses and the hearty breakfasts.
I had not seen so many types of bread as at our breakfast table in our pension which was a mama, papa run affair.
There were also lots of boats of all sizes and kinds navigating through the city canals.
I discovered that Dutch were very open minded and enjoyed life fully and completely.
My mother had never had any Chinese food, so we decided to treat her and took her to a Chinese restaurant and ordered a mix selection of the Chinese food.
She had never seen bean sprouts, I told her they were some kind of the Chinese earth worm.
She believed me and stopped eating, no matter how much I tried to convince her that it was a joke, but it was a little relief for all the pains she had caused me.
Went to the museum of the classical masters and saw their homes.
They really lived a very simple life and created beauty.
Visited the home of Ann Frank, who had suffered at the hands of the Nazis.
Who has not suffered at the hands of somebody even today.
The world will not change, no matter how advance we become.
It is the nature of the man.
We had to go to Luxembourg next and find its beauties.

The Currencies

We had started from Nuremberg in Germany and had gone to Munich to visit my cousin who had a German mother. She was studying in Munich University. Her father was very close to my mother, she was telling us that when they were little, she used to get scared in the middle of the night and sneak into his bed and dream of the high seas and wet his bed. He used to get a good spanking for wetting his bed in the mornings. How much closer can one get? In Munich, we saw all the tourist sights and went to the famous beer hall and enjoyed a real German beer hall music with fabulous beer, sausage and the potato salad. Hitler had started his carrier from that beer hall, and had gotten himself arrested and had started writing his memoirs from his jail cell. He was not even a kidney dialysis patient. The next stop was going to be Switzerland. I was drafted to do all the driving and my father offered to check our progress on the road map. It was not easy to drive and look at the map in the same time. There were lots of fast cars which could not tolerate any thing that didn't go full speed. We saw a sign overhead saying "Ostoriech", my father said it means Switzerland in German. So we had gotten to the right exit after all. With a few more mistakes like that, we were sure were destined to be in China soon. We got out of the autobahn and headed towards the city. My dad said that it was lunch time, and we better get to a restaurant. I found an attractive old fashioned place and parked in front of it. Went in and placed our orders of the Wiener schnitzel and potato salad with several tall glasses of beer to quench our thirsts. It was excellent, and we asked for the bill. My father got red in the face when he saw the bill, He said it was very expensive. He said he did not have enough money to pay the bill. He gave me a one hundred dollar bill to get Swiss Franks from the nearest bank. He said, they would wait there till I came back with the Swiss Franks. I drove a couple of miles and found a bank and exchanged the hundred dollar bill. I was back ,and gave the waitress the Swiss Franks. She said they only accept Austrian Schillings. I asked how come they don't accept Swiss Frank? She said it is because we are in Austria and need Austrian money which is a lot less expensive than the Swiss franks. I had to go back and buy Austrian Schillings, now we knew we were in the wrong country with the wrong currency. After many years, they have unified their currencies and every thing has gotten so expensive that nobody can afford doing much any more.

Cancun

Had been traveling a lot and my wife was going to school. Decided to make her happy by going to Cancun, Mexico. She had studied Spanish and French and Mexico was a lot closer and more fun. She could practice her language skills and I could practice my eyes.
We went to our neighborhood travel agent and got our tickets.
I had just gotten my American citizenship and had my brand new passport and did not need to go for interrogation, as previously with my Iranian passport.
What a suffering to travel with an unholy passport to a hostile country.
Close to the end of the shah era, we Iranians had been elevated to the level of a half human, but not close to a camel.
Finally we had our tickets and were waiting at the airport, the chartered airplane arrived.
It was a second hand plane with peeling paint, it reminded me of my 1978 Chevrolet Nova.
I was afraid that its roof might come off like the Hawaiian air line.
There were the mayors of the neighboring towns in Illinois.
They were expertly and politically correct dressed, the wives had white hair with shiny little beads in the tragic points.
We said hello and got acquainted. The flight was kind of shaky and my wife who is very talented in getting sick on the planes was getting ready to fill up the barf bag.
We were driven by the charted bus to our hotel. I told my wife to give a few dollars to the young man who was assigning the rooms and ask him for a room facing the ocean with a large balcony.
We got our ideal room and were happy.
Later, we met the mayors. They had been given rooms at the back of the building, facing the new construction area.
They were surprised at our luck, We explained that luck had nothing to do with it and all was based on the politics as they surely were familiar with.
We suggested to arrange for a similar arrangement for them, but they did not agree.
Even proposed for a contribution to their election fund.
It is said that there is a good reason why the hair dose not grow on all heads.
We discovered the refrigerator in our room, stuffed with all kinds of drinks and goodies, but it was 10 times the prices of the supermarket.
We started borrowing from the refrigerator and replacing it with the stuff we bought from the supermarket.
It is not easy to overcome 2500 years of genetic planning with a brand new passport and a fistful of dollars in just a few years

Picking Up New Habits

We Muslims are immune to the confession, which was intended to provide excitements and entertainment for the celibate clergy.
At a later date in my life, I found out that life has got lots of lumps in it, and one needs to get rid of them by discussing it with some one who is confidential and reliable.
The opportunity showed its face, when I got sick and had to go for kidney dialysis.
Laying down for three and half hours every other day on a comfortable chair at the dialysis center, gave you a chance to examine my life and try to make some sense out of it.
Life had been very kind to me, a college education which was paid for by my dear dad,
a well paying carrier in controls engineering at various international companies.
Lots of overseas business trips, at some else's expenses, to the very exciting countries.
Two wives and one not too bright son, who was trained by her mother to hate me.
He does not realize that he will be sitting in my chair very soon, and will find out that his life is not much better than mine. His future ex-wife will turn his children against him too, and no amount of child care payment will satisfy her majesty.
Now I have found an avenue to make my confessions to the world, by getting on the Internet and just pounding the keyboards with my two fingers at a time.
My nemeses are the guys who are reviewing my writing and considering them inappropriate, choppy and unsuitable for their audience who are from the age of 13 and up.
I want to make it perfectly clear, according my hero who used to say he is not a crook, but the biggest one.
It is not my writing that is choppy, but my personality which is all chopped up.
I have lived in so many places in the last 40 years that, I can not even describe.
I have enjoyed them all, and found it hard to think straight.
The straight forward might be suitable for some, but not for me.
Anything that crosses my eyes or mind, triggers the past events which might not have anything to do with what is happening at the moment, and make me jump to a new item or subject. It might confuse some, but dose not con fuse my wife and my dog, not in that order.
Lets say, if we throw away all the new modern arts because they are choppy and do not match the mentality of a 13 or 14 year old kid, who is in a world of his own, I think the world would become a lot poorer place to live in.
Anyway, I have found a medium to express my chopped up sentences and thoughts to others like my self, who might find it real and not too obnoxious.
Lets have a cheer for all the non-native English writers, who put a lot of their native chopped up personalities to make English a richer language like the modern times that we live in.
So, after all all, I have picked up the habit of confessing my inner thoughts on the Internet for all to see.

Zurich

My work was coming to an end in New York, after 3 years and many train, subway and  the police strikes.
I had met Mayer Koch on the Brooklyn Bridge during the strikes, he was kind enough to apologize for the inconvenience, he was a very nice and kind person.
The management had decided to complete the reming odds and ends of the project in the company headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland.
Anywhere was better than New York City, You couldn't tell who was going on strike next or where you could get mugged.
I was told that I will be taking some business documents with me as accompanied baggage.
I went to the Kennedy Airport and found ten large and heavy carton boxes waiting for me at the Swiss Air counter.
I checked all the luggage in and paid the additional costs for the boxes.
Swiss Air announced boarding, I went to the plane and saw that our plane was a large Boeing 747.
There were only five passengers waiting to board. I thought the rest will be coming later, but nobody came.
Were they going to fly a Boeing 747 all the way from New York to Zurich with only 5 paying passengers on board?
We were up and climbing, after a little while they turned off the inside lights.
It felt like walking through Lincoln Tunnel in the dark.
Finally we reached Zurich and landed. It was a very modern airport with connection to trains, subways and the street cars.
There were two signs for the customs office. One was "nothing to declare", the other "something to declare".
I picked up a cart and put my 10 large boxes plus my suitcase on top and headed toward "nothing to declare" exit.
I had just gotten through the doors, when some one came over and asked me to let him inspect my boxes, everything was done very cordially. The Swiss had to be very careful not to disturb the banking business which is their life line.
I walked out and hired two taxis, one to take the boxes to the company head quarters and the second for me and my suitcase.
We took every thing to the office and gave them to the proper authorities and then went to my hotel and took a well deserved nap. Later, I came out and started examining the goodies in the shops, and discovered Gummy bear, and the rum raisin chocolate bars which became a hit with my wife at a later date.
I kept walking to the office every day and noticed that there were street cars passing by.
I decided to take the street car the next day. There was nobody selling or collecting tickets. I asked someone at the office if the street cars were free.
I was told that one had to buy his ticket at the train stop by pressing the destination address push-button and depositing the indicated amount.
At the end of the ride, one had to tear up his ticket and put it in a trash can that was provided for the purpose.
I found out that the street cars were not cheap, and I preferred the free rides better.
When my wife joined me in summer, I showed her the magic of the free street car rides.
One time we almost got caught and my wife was all shaken up, I told her that it was part of the excitement.
She told me if they had this system in New York, it would go bankrupt in a couple of weeks.
Then came our day on the beach, there was a very clean and clear lake in front of the city with all kinds of trees, flowers, and shrubs around it.
On a nice summer day I took my wife to the beach and she saw the naked bodies of men and women swimming and sun bathing.
She was all shook up and did not know what to do. I told her to just take little peeks and don't concentrate on any part or anybody in particular, then everything will be OK.
We had just taken the first steps of becoming Europeans.
We started calling our beach "Titzen Platz" in the Swiss spirit.