I attended tehran american school for first, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh grades. Baba and mom sent me away when I was sixteen, they shipped me back to the states in a C-130 hercules arranged by an iranian airforce general with an american wife who was friends with my mom. They said it was to keep me out of the army in iran, yet I was the only half-breed who left that year. They sent me to st. louis, missouri, where I stayed with a guardian family and graduated a semester early and started hitch-hiking around the states looking up old TAS high school buddies.
I hitch-hiked 30,000 miles in a year and a half and had a lot of time to stand on the side of the highway and think about things. I knew that one day an iranian would pick me up, and I would plan what I would say and do. It never happened. Not one iranian picked me up, thousands of rides and not one iranian, and I had planned the nicest scenario in case one should, but it wasnt to be.
A few years later I enrolled in the university of maryland and dropped out a year later. I dropped out and decided to hitch-hike to california, that would be more interesting than sitting in a biology 101 lecture hall with 800 other freshmen and the assistant professor on a teevee screen. This would be about 1976. so I stuck out my thumb and headed west, and then it happened, it was in tennessee someplace, and a car pulled over. I stuck my head in the window and the guy said, “ver arr yiu goveeng?” AN IRANIAN, my plan was all planned out in my head and here was my opportunity to realize it.
I affected a southern accent and said I was just going down the road a piece and was much obliged for the ride. I spoke very quickly and he kept saying, “peleez espeak eslowly, I don’t anderrrstand!” and I asked him where he was from and he said, “ay em feraam de perzhia!” and I said “HUH!!!” and he said, “perzhia, eeerrran!” and I said, “oh, you mean, EYE-ran!?” and he said yes. So I says, “my roommate in college was from there and he taught me something in your fershy language,” and he said, “farsi” and I said, “yeah, cool. So my roommate taught me ‘holly shoomie chatooshy’.” and he said, “i tink you arr differrent langvidge” and I said, “no, i’m sure its fershy, let me try again, “holly shooma chatoolee” and he said, “hale shome chetore?” and I said, with a thick fluent farsi, “ghorbunet beram, kheyli mamnun, to chetori!” and the guy freaked out, I had to grab the steering wheel for a second cause he almost lost control of the car.
I was laughing but he wasnt. He immediately pulled over to the side of the road and using rude and vulgar language ordered me out of his car. I protested and said I was sorry and didnt mean to scare him and he basically pushed me out of his car and left me standing in the middle of the highway with no exit ramp in sight.
