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IN THIS ISSUE

• Richard Ross carries on with his chronicles from Paris
• Arthur Pay is doing demolition work in London during the war
• Zvonko Springer tells of two interesting events in January
• Geoff Goodship discusses another inconvenient truth
• Burke Dykes sends some lines to make you smile
• Bruce Galway describes a dubious spark of genius

Richard Ross continues his letters from abroad:

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS

To those of you in Gloucester: I am constantly reminded of you when I walk past the seafood market next to my apartment. Usually when I am within 40 feet of it, I am struck with the familiar yet still stomach-turning smell of dead fish.

I was once watching "The Departed" in a cinema in downtown Paris, and without any warning, Jack Nicholson alluded to a boat harbored in Gloucester. I looked at the Parisian couples beside me, seemingly unfazed, and thought to myself, would they believe me if I told them my uncle was the Mayor of Gloucester? I even had the urge to pass around my Massachusetts license and having everyone take notice of its address. Today, I finally exhumed an hour from my busy work schedule to finish my last chapter of the Paris abroad chronicles. I know they can lose effect now that I am back in the United States and some of you already see me on a regular basis, but upon principle, I thought I would share my last fewexperiences and attitudes on my six months overseas.

I will splurge a few memories of May and then I´ll do my best to conclude with a few conclusions of the overall experience.

The sun certainly remained backstage after her breathtaking performance in April. As she rested, we were entertained by a repertoire of cold temperatures and heavy clouds. But Paris, which I think was founded on the principle of grey sky, manages to retain a certain charm in dreariness. In my opinion, it´s a culture outfitted in black and white, and too much color, whether in the sky, architecture, or in a boutique window, has a way of discomforting the eyes, as a running television in a dark room.

Aside from the splashing puddles and erected umbrellas, May provided a zesty combination of filmmaking and locksmiths. Oliver Horvitz, my preferred North Shore comrade in Paris, masterminded the script and led the direction of a heart-wrenching romance. The film, a real intercultural takes on love wasted, mesmerized both American and French audiences alike. Ollie undoubtedly etched his mark in the French film industry but behind the success and behind the scenes, another American is worthy of at least sympathy, if not credit.

During the four-day shoot, I was consensually tied to the set. Under the command of Oliver, I met every responsibility head into the wind. Despite my modest film craft, I tended to the lighting, the casting, and set preparation. However, it was when I was given my first costume assignment that I met disaster.

Oliver had sent another staff member and myself to his apartment in order to retrieve a costume change for the following scene. We hopped on a motor scooter and rushed over. Forgoing the elevator, we twirled up the stairs. Looking for Oliver´s apartment on the 3rd floor, both my associate and I inexplicably felt content on the 2nd floor. Exhibiting body language that communicated I would open the door, I was passed a jingling key chain. For that next moment, I instinctually eyed the size of the key hole with the most compatible key on the chain. In such a feat, I was brutally successful.

The key slid in as effortlessly as Cinderella´s foot entered a stiletto one starry night. Not only had I found a key with the right diameter, I managed to reach a depth in the lock no key had ever gone before. Rotating the key to the left, I met some resistance. No worries, maybe it´ll work better if we turn it to the right. Nope, not welcome there either. Really no need to worry, I will just pull out and accept my incorrect selection. Right then and there, for the first time, I experienced a situation that provided no second chances. No sir. With the pompous Parisian lock technology, believe me, one strike and you are out! Pull out and start over? We just had to start over.

My associate and I stood there, swapping turns trying to wiggle and yank an unrelenting key. As time went on, the residents of the apartment, whom of course we had never met, returned to their home to see two barefaced and inexperienced burglars picking ferociously at their lock. My associate, a native Francophone, rapidly explained our predicament. Now, side by side, we all took a turn at extracting the key. Mother, father, child, and nanny tested their beginner´s luck, but not even the fresh strength could induce a slither of movement. In the cold acceptance of defeat, we phoned perhaps the most qualified man for the job. After an hour or so, two locksmiths reported to the scene. They carried big toolkits, and I was sure these men knew something that we did not. To my shocked dismay, they used the same strategy as we had, but they just used Doctor Kevorkian pliers. With enough leverage and elbow grease, the key was eventually wrestled from the vicious, almost salivating jaws of the lock. The monstrous lock, of course, released the key as a result of its own destruction. The key I had inserted almost three hours earlier had experienced the intricate security system that the better half of French apartment doors are equipped with. As the locksmith demonstrated after, the key penetrated to the 3rd level, whereas the correct key can only enter as far as the second level.

Once the 3rd level has been reached, the jaws automatically shut and lock. I learned first hand how superfluously protective French locks are, how expensive French locks are (replacement cost me 860 Euros, about $1,100 American) but overall, sometimes the key to success only works in the right door - mismatch the two, and you may not have a second chance!

Extending the budget of the film by over 50 percent, I was officially the leading investor in the production. In efforts to alleviate my frustration or maybe to avoid another catastrophe, my director delegated me as the premier bag watcher. On that post, I stood guard, ensuring all equipment and possessions were safely accounted for. My service from then on was seamless.

Notwithstanding that small squall of ill fortune, I had an enjoyable month of May.

To be continued.

Arthur Pay has returned to London to help with the war effort:

"WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE LAST WAR, DADDY?"

I managed to return home to Leytonstone two or three times by thumbing lifts along the A1, and it soon appeared to me that I was enjoying a very much safer and pleasanter life than if I had remained in London. This began to worry me. I hitched a lift home one weekend to find a bomb crater in the roadway just near our house in King´s Road, and decided that it was time to come back to London.

That Saturday I went to Leyton Town Hall and asked if I could join the Civil Defence. They weren´t interested, but told me that Frank Coxhead, the manager for H. V. Smith & Company, who were engaged in demolishing bombed houses, was looking for labourers. I talked to him and arranged to start work on the following Monday.

I therefore went back to Huntingdon by train, to Elton Hall, to persuade the retired colonel in charge there to let me have my insurance cards, collected my bike and belongings, and returned to Leytonstone.

On the following Monday I dressed myself in my oldest clothes and reported for work at a bomb site at the corner of Leyton Green Road opposite Capworth Street, where I collected a pick and shovel and was told to clear away some rubble and load it into a lorry. There were about eight characters working there and I was soon accosted by one of them who said, "Don´t you want a f*****g job tomorrow?" I said, I supposed so; and he rejoined, "Then don´t f*****g do it all today."

After a couple of days we were moved to demolish a pair of council houses on the corner of Matlock and Epsom Roads, and found that the construction of the council houses, which were built with sand and cement mortar rather than the lime mortar of most of the older houses, represented a much harder job to break up.

There were red alerts every night and occasionally during the day, and I remember there was a lot of rain all the time. (For information, a yellow alert was given to the services when there was some activity by Jerry, and a red alert meant that an air raid was imminent, and the air raid sirens were sounded).

My mother and father had in the meantime evacuated 14 King´s Road and moved to Okehampton in Devon, where my brother Jack had farm work. He was also a conchie.

The bomb in King´s Road had dislodged some of our slates and the rain was coming in, but by arranging some lino I was able to divert it into buckets that had to be emptied periodically down the bathroom drain. I was alone in the house, and although we had an Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden, it was cold and wet and unless there was a lot of enemy activity, I thought that the safest part of the house was the downstairs back room, and put the mattress down there and slept on the floor. It was dark in the morning when I went to work, and dark on my return in the evening, so I was living like the old man of the mountain.

When the bomb fell in King´s Road, No. 14 was in fact unoccupied. My father, who was in the Rescue Service at the time, was off duty and in the shelter. He had been recalled to the police force as a special constable, but constabulary duties had proved too much for him, and after a bad fall in the blackout he resigned from the police and joined the local ARP as a stretcher bearer in the Rescue Service. Mum had spent that particular night at my cousin Lylie´s house in Harrow, which was a safer area than E.11. The other members of my family - my sister and my five-year-old nephew - were evacuated to Newbury, where my brother-in-law was working in the NAAFI.

The house was shaken up by the bomb, but not structurally damaged apart from the breaking of a few slates and windows. However, the shaking coated everything inside with dust and soot. When Mum returned, it was the last straw as far as she was concerned and within a few weeks both she and Dad joined brother Jack in Okehampton in Devon. Mum´s idea was that I should pay the rent and take over the tenancy and contents of the house for a nominal sum that I was to repay as and when I had any money. As I had been engaged to be married since before the outbreak of war, this was an opportunity to set up home with Charlotte. When we would have got married otherwise, heaven only knows, because neither of us had any resources other than our weekly wages.

The remainder of the house, which was shared by sister Dorothy and her husband Arthur, was to be looked after by us in their absence until after the war. Charlotte was willing to accept this arrangement and we were married on 22nd February, 1941, at East Ham Registry Office. Needless to say, Mum and Dad remitted half the nominal sum as a wedding present, but neither attended the wedding, and we went to the Rialto Cinema after the ceremony, and then back to King´s Road for our honeymoon. We didn´t have an air raid on our wedding night.

To be continued.

Zvonko Springer recalls two events from their January

´WARMING UP HOLIDAY"

The first one refers to an interesting find made by Maks´ father during a walk along the Diani Beach one day. I became Maks´ "big" friend because I showed some interest in his "Game Boy" practice. After that we had many virtual fights - sometime we were knights, or Indians, or any kind of fighters depending upon Maks´ fancy. Playing virtual situations helped Maks to overcome his natural dislike of the salty sea, and sand on his bare feet.

The beach find looked intriguing and it was brought to us as experienced visitors to determine the origin of that mysterious object. Many photographs were taken of that bony trophy, which looked like a large flat bean some 200 mm long, 150 mm wide, and slightly vaulted, some 20 mm thick. We took it home wrapped in dirty clothes hidden in our suitcase.

Later back home, I started contacting via the Internet some dozen institutes of marine biology to determine its origin. It took some time to get an encouraging answer that came from two Institutes - one in Kansas (US) and the other one in Johannesburg (SA). Both agreed upon the origin of this mysterious object, identifying it as an inter-vertebral disc of a kind of whale.

The remaining days of our holidays went by in normal routine except for the day of the camel rides. Every day several camels paraded on the beach. Two of them I knew from previous visits, the six-year-old Nelson and two-years-younger Dushi. Their driver, Aden Abdullahi, allowed me to take several pictures and movies of camels getting down to rest and then getting up for a guest to ride. Do you know how a camel kneels down to rest and gets up on its knees to stand again? Anybody who has ridden a camel will know exactly what I mean.

Maks, a six-year old boy, followed with great interest when we fed the camels (they liked pancakes best) and soon he joined in. The next day, he brought half a dozen pancakes just to try his courage. Then I suggested to Maks that he ask his father for a camel ride, considering that his father would also be in the saddle. At first Maks just ran away at the thought, but a day later promised that he would ride the camel if I do would do the same.

So it happened one day that Nelson had two riders (Dushi is still too young to ride). I took pictures and movies of two of them from the start to the end of a walk of some 500m on the beach. Of course, Maks insisted that it was my turn now - a promise is a promise, particularly in the imaginary world of great warriors. Did you ever sit on a camel when it gets up from the ground? Last time I had done it was it in front of the Sphinx and pyramids near Cairo long ago in 1963.

Well, I had to keep my promise, so Aden brought Nelson down and I climbed into the saddle, hooking my big toe into a small snare hanging beside the saddle. The rest was almost routine, once I was in the saddle. [My wartime horse-riding experience helped as I served in a horse-drawn howitzer battery.] I had to hold fast onto the two prongs when Nelson got up. I pressed both knees against the rather wide camel saddle that is certainly wider than that on a horse. Of course my artificial hip joints objected, but a promise is a promise. With clenched teeth we went for a "long" walk with Maks holding onto the rope and assisting Aden to guide Nelson along the Diani Beach. Dushi followed, tied up behind Nelson. The worst was yet to come!

When Nelson came back to the starting point there an interested group of observers gathered to see how this Mzee (old man) would get out of the saddle. Nelson knelt down, and then came the crucial moment for me - how to get out of the saddle. I could not find the snare. Hoping that I would be able to lift my right leg over the saddle, I placed my left foot firmly on the sand. NO WAY! The hip joints just would not allow me to lift my right leg over the saddle. Only with the help of Aden, Ljiljana, and Maks´ father, pulling, pushing, and lifting, did I finally get out of the saddle. I was deeply ashamed of my camel riding skill.

I will never again in my life (whatever is left of it) ride on a camel. That is a firm promise! You should have seen me walking after this adventure - I had proper riding "O" legs.

This last adventure of our "warming up" holidays is well documented with dozens of pictures and a few movie shots. Whoever does not believe it should ask for the exhibits.

Geoff Goodship is concerned about

ANOTHER INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Al Gore´s film win´s an Oscar. Most adults accept that global warming is a reality. We are fearful and wondering what we might do to lessen the threat. Our high schools and colleges are rushing to purchase this message for our youth.

I´m aware of a much older and greater inconvenient truth than global warming. It´s called testosterone poisoning. Testosterone: the power behind the NFL, the NHL, and a dozen other mega businesses that feed the need for violence. It´s time for some truth about testosterone´s downside. Testosterone by itself isn´t always dangerous but in a social setting of five to ten young males, disaster is often near at hand.

The evolutionists are quick to point out that testosterone is necessary for survival, yet we can daily observe its highly destructive power, particularly when spiked with adrenaline and/or alcohol. For purposes of this discussion, I´ll stick to what my doctor friend calls "Testosterone Poisoning".

Come stroll with me through any one of our local parks. Here you will find cement picnic tables and heavy stone benches lying in pieces. Who did this and why? Well, it wasn´t a bunch of retirees. Walk a little further with me to notice the bus shelter with its safety glass broken into a thousand pieces. It took a heavy blow to do that. And over there ... the skid marks of a pickup across a fresh piece of a neighbourhood lawn.

For a better look, park your car near a high school when the students come out. There´s a good chance you will see one or two fights. If you missed the violence, you can be sure to find it after the school dance. A little reflection will bring forth dozens of familiar scenes.

It´s not just artistic expression behind all that graffiti, nor was it just youthful exuberance that killed Rena Virke in Victoria. Let´s not even go to the violence of the military component of this picture.

Who among Tale Spinner´s readers have not witnessed this?

The part that I find so upsetting isn´t that this poison exists, nor is it the idea that young males seem so hardwired to violence. It´s the total acceptance of this destruction as a normal condition. We teach our youth about sexual diseases, menstruation and masturbation, emotional stress, smoking, safe driving, and global warming, but we totally ignore the overwhelming dangers they face from testosterone poisoning. There are many young males in jail or dead from an overdose of testosterone. The U.S. military recently reported that 10% of its young inductees have criminal records. There is concern about what they will do with the skills the army teaches them.

It´s time to present the medical evidence in a manner that permits youth to begin to understand the hormones raging inside their bodies. We need a private/public/health care partnership here. Let´s bring science and psychology together as we have done against tobacco and disease to help our youth cope with the violence that is their biological inheritance. The cost of doing so in dollars and lives is less than our present alternative.

What say you?

ED. NOTE: Geoff is a retired high school teacher and has seen many examples of the results of those raging hormones - hence his concern.

Burke Dykes forwards these

LINES TO MAKE YOU SMILE

My husband and I divorced over religious differences. He thought he was God and I didn´t.

I don´t suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.

I Work Hard Because Millions On Welfare Depend on Me!

Some people are alive only because it´s illegal to kill them.

I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.

Don´t take life too seriously - no one gets out alive.

You´re just jealous because the voices only talk to me.

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.

I´m not a complete idiot - some parts are missing.

Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.

NyQuil, the stuffy, sneezy, why-the-heck-is-the-room-spinning medicine.

God must love stupid people; He made so many.

The gene pool could use a little chlorine.

Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.

Bruce Galway forwards

A SPARK OF GENIUS

A man was driving down the road, and as he passed a traffic camera, he saw it flash. Astounded that he had been caught speeding when he was doing the speed limit, he turned around and, going even slower, he passed by the camera.

Again, he saw it flash. He couldn´t believe it. So he turned and, going a snail´s pace, he passed the camera. AGAIN, he saw the camera flash. He guessed it must have a fault, and home he went.

Four weeks later he received three traffic fines in the mail, all for not wearing a seatbelt.

For every person with a spark of genius, there are a hundred with ignition trouble.

"The phrase "we (I) (you) simply must ..." designates something that need not be done. "That goes without saying" is a red warning. "Of course" means you had best check it yourself. These small-change cliches and others like them, when read correctly, are reliable channel markers." - Robert Heinlein