Flight Loads in the US - Getting Some

If I was was to reflect on my travel this last 12months I would ruminate over some of the unexpected destinations I found myself heading towards, obscure places visited and always the remarkable people I have met. Some old friends. And some new ones. The process of getting there has been interesting as well. The nightmare which is now Heathrow Airport stands out. And so too packed aircraft. I can understand there being no spare seats out of Baghdad - that kind of makes sense. In fact packed aircraft are now the norm although the thrill of flying (I am still a ten year old boy in that regard) tends to outweigh the small seats, lack of legroom and awful food. (Can anyone beat freeze dried carrots in a small plastic packet (flight from LA to Dallas)?) With cheaper airfares, the demands of business, and 2001 receding into the background (though the chart here barely registers a minor blip in 2001), more and more people are taking to the skies. In fact the expectation is that commercial airline passengers will double in the next ten years, explaining the massive buildup of global airlines which are creating their hubs in the Middle East. And then there is China's incredible airline expansion which has yet to really impact us. But it is not all bad. Being packed into a seat on a small MD80 making a connection from Philadelphia to Dallas earlier this year I got chatting to about six or seven American travellers in the rear of the aircraft. The cramped confines made for an intimate setting of sorts and we spent the couple of hours in the air talking about family and business but mainly literature. As we descended into the behemoth which is Dallas Forth Worth airport the woman next to me declared (imagine a slow southern drawl), for all the rear cabin to hear, "boy, with an accent like that you could get some." There was much mirth. Sometimes being an Australian abroad can be good for the ego - even if you are getting mileage out of something you have no say over. It was of course a standout moment in 2007.

Drawing Attention to a Killer

Here is an interesting dilemma which I find rather intriguing. Take your spent fuel rods and bury them somewhere other than near the Hudson River. Then warn off the accidental and the curious who might want to dig the stuff up again - not a good idea if you are planning on dying in your sleep at a ripe old age. Here is the dilemma - what you write on the warning signs might be good for now. We all know the radioactive fan symbol and of what it warns. But what about this stuff that hangs around in lethal doses for ten thousand years. Those warning signs need to be legible AND understandable in ten thousand years as well. The text shown here tells the opening lines of the poem Beowolf. Believe it or not it is in English. The shift in language over 1000 years has been dramatic and few outside of Old English classes can read this text - not even I who spent three years studying the language. I am pretty rusty now. Look how many languages remained a mystery to us that were only 4,000 years old. Clearly warnings around radioactive waste need to have some ready currency in 10,000 years.

An interesting challenge that is actually being addressed by some of America's scientists. They flag some scenarios that speak to human nature as much as anything else. So we put up warning signs, saying "don't dig here, a horrible death awaits." That did not deter those who dug around the tombs of ancient Egypt or of Persia. Indeed, the more vociferous the warning, the greater the attraction. An archaeologist in the year 9007, whose hair has not already naturally receded from his pate and fallen out his ears, might think that the urgent warnings are signs that he is on the cusp of a famous and wealthy find. After all there would be no immediate signs of ill health. One of the more interesting solutions is to seal and bury the stuff without any signs or warnings. If someone is smart enough to find, the hope is that perhaps they are smart enough to be carrying Geiger counters with them - not always a safe bet with boffins. Thinking practically that is.

The Economist carried this article on future proofing nuclear waste bunkers that caught my eye.

New York Blizzard

Yesterday afternoon I caught the Amtrack up from Philly. I planned on working but it was freezing outside and warm as toast inside. I think I only heard three bars of clickety clack music and I was asleep. I woke just as we arrived at Penn Station. I had an address for the hotel which I saw was in 7th Avenue. I counted the blocks and figured there was only a short distance to travel. I had a case for each hand, was wearing only a suit and business shirt and in the warmth bliss of the station figured this would be a quick and bracing trip. After a block I can confirm the bracing, but not the quick. Stupidly I walked past a man selling mittens of a dollar. Not one man actually. About five. By the time I had cleared the station they were well gone. So on I pushed. Block after block after block. Across Broadway, up 7th Ave, through Times Square and on and on. Slower and slower. More and more braced - stiff. I did not realise just how stiff until I arrived at the hotel reception and was unable to speak, unable to put my cases down and appearing like a mute before the rosy faced receptionist. She seemed to know what was going on and pointed me at a corner near a heater, beside which which I thawed, eventually released my hands and then attempted to sign in again. But even though I could mumble (the jaw needed massaging to help it along) I could still not hold a pen. She accepted a scrawl.

This morning I was more rugged up but we ventured out (on 7th Ave rather than the pavement, with large chunks of ice smacking into the ground every now and then from off the skyscrapers, warning us off) to meet a prospective client, only to make it two blocks before a snow flake stopped us in our tracks. We glanced at each other then continued on. By the end of the block it was falling heavily enough to dust us. We back tracked and purchased beanies and mittens (at which point this photo was taken) and just as well since in the intervening minutes a blizzard whipped across the city and the first dustings had turned into an assault in which you could barely hold your eyes open. By the time we scouted out the location of our client we looked like a couple of cold and bedraggled half-beats. We have an appointment elsewhere this afternoon - lets see what that looks like in this weather. And if we can scrub up sufficiently to make the right impression.

Thanksgiving 2003

Eating Squirrels in New Jersey

For those of who are not Americans, and/or who live outside of the CONUS there is a quip which explains the quirky, bizarre and just plain weird. It is simply "only in the US", usually said in a condescending tone, the combination of which helps the listener understand that there is a rational reason for the weirdness. Most commonly used when referring to the escapades of Hollywood. Here is one from the other coast that falls in that basket though. It goes something like this:

False alarm: New Jersey says it's once again safe to eat squirrels. Earlier warnings about excessive lead in the rodents that live near one of the Garden State's toxic waste sites was caused by a malfunctioning blender that they used to "process the squirrel's tissue samples," according to the federal government. Full article under this title:

Have no fear New Jerseyans, the toxic waste hasn't made it unsafe to eat squirrels after all

So what is the "only in the US" element hidden in this article? The squirrel element of course. Everyone else would be concerned about the toxins, real or imagined. Here the city council are pleased to announce squirrel is back on the menu!

CIA Family Jewels

So the CIA is revealing its family jewels? Apparently, according to the Washington Post, though not the CIA website. Let’s see what actually happens but the prospect of revelations about CIA alleged, apparent, imagined or real misdeeds seems to have a whole lot of people in slavering anticipation. OK, given the mystique around these organisations fueled by fiction (some laughably outlandish) in print or film and the occasional piece of sanitised revelation from former employees I can understand the interest. Like sex, espionage is a subject everyone seems to want to know about even when they can’t know about it. Or is that, “because” they can’t know about it? Mind you, the CIA divulges a surprising amount about itself, although with the vast array of organisations conducting intelligence collection and analysis (collection is always the more sensitive part of the intelligence cycle) it does not hurt for one of them to be the media foil, and the remainder to quietly get on and do their thing. Despite their openness there is an expectation that everything that is happening behind closed doors is wrong, evil, unwarranted and unjustified.

The interest in the material to be released, and the expectations that everything is dirty and dark are the source of slight irritation for they contain an element of the hypocritical. Unions, business (big and small), private and public organisations, law enforcement agencies, lobby groups and any other number of institutions collect information on each other, and us, for competitive, sometimes dishonest, Machiavellian ends. Using whatever means they can get away with. But except for the occasional slip up when these activities are revealed to the world the public interest in these activities is almost non existent. We want to pay attention to alleged illegal activities of the CIA and their sister organisations yet forget they are designed to function with our welfare in mind. I will concede they slip up here and there (and in many countries they operate without independent checks and balances - another (serious) story) but with mandates and charters to look out for the welfare of a nation, the activities of these organisations have more sympathy from me than say a bank that collects data on me in order to garner more profit from me.

CIA, headquartered in Washington D.C. at Langley, is difficult to spot, nestled as it is nicely into a hollow in the ground on the banks of the Potomac. You can’t see it from the front gate or any of the surrounding roads. It is of course the stuff of ordinary civil service offices, not the glow-in-the-dark electronic centres Hollywood wants to show us. Sorry to disappoint you. If you can’t get a tour of the place (a tongue-in-cheek proposition) the next best view is via Google Earth (cut and paste these coordinates to be taken straight there "lat=38.9512483192, lon=-77.1450623562) or via the CIA virtual tours on their web site.

Dallas - Nice Truck, Big Gun - The "JD Memorial Shoot"

Dallas is a pretty special place - for some! I have a friend from Los Angeles who decided he needed to get out of the madness of that lifestyle and go someplace where he could focus on his humanitarian work. To do that he figured he would live in the worst place he could imagine - he chose Dallas. That still makes me laugh. My own experience of Dallas is a much more positive one and came about through Clyde Musgrave. PhD. Ex USN. Works in some interesting parts of the government. Introduced me to some interesting venture capital types in Richardson County (one memorable meeting had one of them hand me a pomegranate from out of his garden) in 2001, a visit which still remains vivid in my memory. Clyde was instrumental in getting our business up and running in the early days and opening our eyes to what was possible in the US and global markets. In that process he formed some very firm friendships with our founding team, friendships that are now as inclusive as family. He has also been instrumental in helping me get to know a little bit about Texas - a drawling "niiiice truuuuck" is one clue to making friends quickly in this part of the world.

A special friendship sprung up between Clyde and Jonathan. Jonathan was tragically killed in an accident a few months back. All of us shared a love of shooting, especially handguns. Jonathan was particularly obsessed. So it seemed entirely appropriate that for us to honour our friendship with Jonathan we conduct the inaugural "Jonathan Ashton Memorial Shoot". Which we duly did. A Ruger .38 (Clyde using it here), a Beretta .32, a Glock 9mm and a S&W .357 were the instruments of choice. As we blasted away a part of the morning we grinned like little boys in a candy store and knew in our hearts that Jonathan would have thoroughly approved.

22 May 2007

Philadelphia

There are parts of Philly that are familiar (I have been in and out of here since 1997) and attractive - for all the reasons you would expect them to be. Here the Declaration of Independence was signed, Benjamin Franklin and his cronies hung out and where the nations capital was seated for a period of time. So there is the old brick, Roman colonnade sense of history to the place which I find appealing. Around about are smaller historical towns that convey that rustic historicity as well. Even the more modern skyline is distinctive and well balanced and sufficiently unique among skyscraper cities for it to stand out the moment you see it - including in the TV series Cold Case where this city sets the backdrop for those stories. And here are the famous boatsheds, the equally famous universities, Hymies deli (what sort of name is that?) Warmdaddys and the fractured bell.

But... There is also a grittier side of Philly that I also like. The city sits beside the Delaware River which is a major industrial artery which seethes with shipping. There is no sense here of any pleasure craft pursuits here - though I maybe wrong. Oil and other heavy industry line the banks of the river. Power stations. Steel fabrication. Skeletal bridges such as the Walt Whitman and the Benjamin Franklin. The amazing naval Reserve Basin with warships mothballed, including the USS America, and any number of hulls being ripped down. All this activity in the midst of a more refined banking and historical centre. I think the mix makes for a more lively city. A snapshot of the Delaware River as we clear Philly and turn towards Dallas.

21 May 2007

Oh Dear, Loose Moose

I cleared Massachusetts this morning, departing Hanscom AFB (I have since discovered that Hanscom is heavily pixellated on Google Earth (lat=42.4662646665, lon=-71.2843313498) – its facilities are classified in some way but the focus on their electronic warfare capabilities is well recorded on various sites) and headed for Worcester via the 495 before getting onto backwoods road “9” and heading west to Northampton and then on to Pittsfield. On the way through to Worcester I was continually surprised by the number of deer either grazing quietly on the side of the road, in the median strips, or every few miles spread across the road in a pile of minced meat not unlike the way kangaroos can end up. I don’t think I had ever thought of deer being this numerous, this relaxed around traffic, or even being this visible in the middle of the day. Not being sure about how skittish or otherwise they might be around traffic I moved into the centre lane after coming across the third or fourth grazing on the side of the road. After a while I realised they were going to care less about my little car if they were not batting an eyelid at the semi trailers blasting past every few seconds.

When I was in primary school, at the age of about ten, I developed an obsession for all things to do with the War of Revolution. I think it was Paul Revere’s ride that did it but the concept of the Minutemen caught my imagination as well. I got my hands on anything I could read about it and the subject was the first thing I researched when I got to High School and found books about it in the library. So I was keen to visit Boston and at least get to Bunker Hill. Poor Mr Revere would have a hard time of it now. I got the sense that unless there had been a bi centenary (1976) Bunker Hill and just about everything else of significance to this period would have disappeared under houses or freeways. Yesterday I walked to Bunker Hill and did so along a dilapidated path which took me under a freeway and through a collection of cardboard houses lived in by homeless men. It went by the grandiose name of the Freedom Trail but it was one track on this trip so far where I was wary about my personal safety. That it is not clearly marked only underscored the sense that 1776 is not well respected by those who live on top of it. I finally found Bunker Hill, a small patch of grass nearly swamped by development. I guess we do the same at home – treat with indifference the sites that are significant to our shaping and history. I left Bunker Hill with a different picture in my head to the one that I had formed in High School.

Visiting Concord was another matter altogether and I enjoyed a sense of history of the area that I did not get in Boston. Though still in a very built up area of the country there had been bit of a disturbance up the main street that morning, with a moose wandering around loose, giving everyone some excitement. I had pulled into the railway station to park my car before walking around, and was told by some locals to look out for a moose. I thought I was being conned, not expecting these animals would exist this far south, until I saw a notice pasted up by a local authority warning that a moose could be an ornery thing to tangle with and advising they were best to avoid. Apart from an elusive moose Concord held an unexpected pleasure in its graveyard. I spent some time walking through reading the stories engraved there. Fortunately there is more here than simply a name and birth and death date although the slate was not holding the details from the weather very well.

This is an area of the country I need to spend some more time in but I am on a tight timetable and am now ensconced in a little bit of Revolutionary history for the night, this being Washington’s old accommodation in Carlisle. This diary is getting harder to fill out the longer I spend on the road but some more on Boston will be worth the effort. Later. Now to bed.

October 1989

Nuclear Subs in New London

Last night was spent in a musty naval quarter that was bit of a surprise. For its filthy state that is. The mould and damp caught in the orange carpet still pushed through the disinfectant that had been used very lightly in the bathroom. Not having much luck with military accommodation over the last couple of nights. But the apartment block was empty and I did not have to contend with noisy rutting neighbours as I did at West Point. I drove on up towards Boston but the highlight of the day was the submarine museum which is here at New London.

Tied up alongside, in the Thames River, is the SSN Nautilus. The first nuclear powered submarine, now open to the public. After crawling around in our O-Boats the Nautilus, tiny compared to the newer submarines in the USN ORBAT, is still remarkably large and spacious. I could walk everywhere standing up and ascended and descended through three decks. Stainless steel everywhere, roomy bunks and the ubiquitous ice cream machine. The US military is fuelled by ice cream in the same way their police are fuelled by Twinkies.

Apart from the Nautilus I was struck by the sheer scale of the newer submarines. At the entrance to the museum is the rib of an Ohio class submarine. For a couple of hours this morning I was the only visitor here. Eventually, just before lunch some people arrived and wandered into the centre. They usefully scaled the size of the rib for me and I managed to grab a photo of them walking through the rib "o-ring". I reckon an Ohio would have to be eight or nine stories deep. Imagine the expansiveness of engineering mind that envisages then designs and builds a submarine that size. There is nothing small minded about this industry or weapons platform at all.

It took a while but I eventually tore myself away from New London this morning and brought away with me a mixed bag of memories. A rather bizarre streak dinner with a difference, finished by a family meal with people I don’t know, a quarter you might only impose on recruits (and in which I worried about my health) and an unexpected tour of a nuclear submarine – by myself. I think I am coming to expect such from this country – everything in your face but such a range of extremes.

October 1989

Chinese Hospitality in New London

A long day today which brought with it a range of experiences. Someone told me before I first came to the US that I would see and hear things that I could never imagine ever existed. He was referring to things seen in stores and I guess he was right after spending a few hours at Tysons Corner. More shops there in one place than I have seen in a single collection anywhere. But you could not buy anything – as the colonel found out. He is a keen fly fisherman and wanted a specific type of fly but was not even able to find a fishing store in that complex, let alone a fly. So Tysons was not as big as its promoters wanted us to believe. But it was enormous. No question.

Anyway, spent the day sticking to the back woods roads having survived the night at West Point. I got away early, just as it was getting light. Today is a public holiday so there was very little traffic on the roads to start with. But as I went further east and as the roads got narrower and tighter the traffic got heavier and heavier. Soon I was crawling through tiny wooden towns in remote hills in bumper to bumper traffic. Thinking something amiss I tuned into the local radio station to find out what was going on. Eventually I heard the DJ welcome to the woods all the out of town “leaf peepers”. Of which I was one I realised.

And I have to say that the leaves were colours I have never seen before. Reds and oranges and yellows that simply don’t exist in Australia. Postcard stuff. I am not sure how the photos will come out but hopefully they do justice to the scenery. I remember seeing pictures like these scenes in books at school and some local wisdom assuring us that the tones and hues were achieved with filters. The colours seemed so improbable we were sure he was right. But today I can attest he was completely wrong. So two new things today – colours to defy the imagination and a label applied to me which I have never heard before.

There is little more to write about as most of the day was spent driving and looking. Stopped in a few small towns to get out of the traffic. Arrived in New London after dark and booked into the naval quarters. Not quite as flash as the Army puts up but who is complaining when the rates are so good. Went down to the local steak house, about the only thing open and discovered that dinner was served with a stripper. After dinner was served up! A bit unorthodox so left there and asked at the laundromat a few doors up where I might find somewhere to eat. The Chinese lady there told me everything nearby was closed but if I liked I could join her family for dinner. So I sat around the family table, in a room opening off the laundromat, and enjoyed a large feed of fried rice. And something which included cabbage. I have to say that this country is full of surprises. The warning that I would see and hear things I would never imagine possible seems to be a sound truism.

October 1989

Heart Attack on the New Jersey Turnpike

I am sitting on the edge of an oval overlooking the Hudson. The buildings of West Point are behind me, while down the road and appropriately out of sight and sound is the tawdry little roadside hotel I signed into earlier this afternoon. There was precious little accommodation around the area given an Army football match was on and everyone seemed to be up here for that. With only one side of the wall framework actually lined and the studs and lining from the neighboring room's wall painted a bright enamel blue I think it is easily the worst hotel room I have ever set my eyes on. I can’t complain when I am paying $22 although the loud and graphic sex that started up through that single wall lining has forced me out of the room to drive up here and have a look around. Hopefully the young Army stud will be done in a few minutes and we will all get some sleep. She did not sound too receptive ("don't you do that to me!") so it might all be over one way or another very shortly.

The day started out simply enough. I drove down to the golf course at McGuire where a bunch of enthusiastic golfers were charging around on golf carts through the fog and trying to have a serious accident. As the fog burned off the carts slowed down – probably because it was now easier to see which senior officers were being the most childish. After a quick breakfast there I got on the road. My plan was to drive around New York and arrive at West Point without having endured driving through that city. I can have that adventure some other time. The plan remained intact for most of the day. I managed to stick to the back roads and wound my way through some picturesque country. It is pumpkin season and I have never seen pumpkins the colour and size of these. But people seem to collect them for the sake of collecting them. Houses are covered in them. They are stacked up around mail boxes. Piled on verandas. Stacked along sidewalks. None are cut for Halloween as I might expect. Just stacked everywhere. Very odd. But very colourful. It added some drama to the drive.

I wound through a series of single lane roads and passed through very small towns, just taking in the sights and not really paying too much attention to where I was going. It was a nice way to drive. Suddenly, without any warning it seemed, I was on the New Jersey Turnpike and with more cars in my view than I have ever seen in one place. I quickly turned into a petrol station located in the middle of 16 lanes of traffic pouring in and out of New York, that town now being very visible on the horizon. I took a slow check of the map and got my bearings. And wandered up to buy some lunch from a fast food place but the queue deterred me and I bought a bag of apples off the back of a truck instead.

As I took the apples back to the car a woman pulled up in one of those excessively large cars Detroit loved to build in the 1970s. Square edged, wallowing suspension. A horrible mud brown colour. But clean and well kept. It pulled up beside me and a middle aged woman staggered out of the car and leaned on the bonnet. She gasped at me that she thought she was having a heart attack. I asked if she was sure. Her response was along the lines “Don’t be stupid boy, I have had one before and I know what it feels like”. Fair enough. I asked her if she had medicine. She said she had some and that she had just taken it. I then offered to call an ambulance. She shook her head. “No, I just need to get home”.

In one of those surreal moments in this trip she then named a small crossroads of a town in New Jersey and asked me how to get there. Her pain had confused her and she claimed she was momentarily lost. Here I am from the other side of the world and she asks directions to her house. What chance I would know? Ironically I had just driven through that place about 30 minutes before. How about that? So not only was I able to give explicit instructions but was able to draw her a map and highlight the turns. I watched her car drive off up the ramp in a rather hesitant way. I hope she made it home. Nothing that ever happens in life is an accident is it?!

I threw the apples in the bin. They were terrible.

And to cap the day off – at least until I was driven out of my room (sorry “den”) by the sound of rutting army animals – I was picked up by the telephone operator. I had rung through to New London where I hope to stay tomorrow night. The operator, based in New York, connected me but before my call was finished she cut back in and asked what I was doing for the evening. She finished her shift at 11pm tonight and wanted to go out on the town tonight. On the basis of my accent. Bizarre stuff. I demurred. Told her I was at West Point (was that a mistake?) and that I did not want to drive into the city. She encouraged me to get the train. Persistent. Sounded cute but…!

So here I sit with the Hudson River silvery bronze and dead still. The sun has gone but the sky is metal grey and highlighting the leaves that are starting to change colour. It is a peaceful scene and there is no one around to disturb the stillness. A bit odd given this is a military academy. Back to the hotel I guess. Hopefully the blue Pontiac has departed the car park and the rutting is over. I hope that lady made it back to her house.

October 1989

Racial Tension in Maryland - A First Hand Experience

I cleared the D.C. area and crossed the Bay on my way to Wilmington and took the first ramp off the freeway that I could find. It took me into fields of autumn crops, narrow lane ways, red painted barns and very little traffic. I was thankful for that today since it takes a day or two to get used to driving on the other side of the road.

I had departed Washington with the vague notion that I should get a haircut at some point. It was a beautiful, clear day and I deliberately drove through as many back woods roads as I could. I wanted to get a feel for the US, not through the rarefied air of political Washington (though heck, that was something else as well). So I plan to fill my journal with as many anecdotes of the people I meet across as much of America as I can find. I have three weeks. Today I got off to a good start.

With the need for a haircut in mind I slowed into a small crossroads town of only three of four buildings. So small it was not marked on my Rand McNally. All very shabby and lacking paint. A hardware store. And a grocery store. And wonder of wonders, a barbers pole. I backed up and parked the car. It was very quiet. No one on the streets (all two of them) so I walked into the hardware store, which was also a second hand store. Can’t afford that new axe? Well, buy Grandpa’s old one. The old chap behind the counter greeted me with a friendly hello but I stepped back onto the porch before I got started into a conversation I would not be able to finish.

I then walked across the road to the barber shop, stepped across the small porch and pushed into the shop. On my left were three chairs with three African Americans under the towels, each being clipped by three African Americans. On the floor were two small children, about four or five years old. The girl had her hair down in those tight, numerous pigtails that these folk seem to enjoy. The chatter and laughter I could hear on the street was instantly silenced when I walked in. And everyone kept that silence as I stood and tried to read the “menu” of styles they offered. As I turned to sit down I realised that they were all looking at me and that the silence had continued. And as I sat down I realised this was not something they expected, or perhaps previous tolerated. Not that I felt threatened. But it was clearly not something they expected. I figured I would stay sitting down and picked up a magazine to flick through it. The kids sitting on the floor sat and gazed at me with their mouths open, and the clipping started up again over my right shoulder. But the silence continued.

After a few minutes I was signalled over to one of the chairs. One of the existing customers had paused half way through his haircut and signalled for me to take his place. As I did so one of the barbers asked what sort of style I wanted and pointed at the menu. I had no idea what they meant and stood to get a zig zag pattern zapped into my head if I took a random guess so asked him to keep it simple and tidy up the mop that was there. After he strapped me he asked (and stated) “You’re not from around here are you?” The accent had given me away. So I carefully explained where I was from and what I was doing driving through their blip on the map. Instantly the chemistry changed. The kids rapid-fired questions about snakes at me. And all sorts of bizarre questions came thick and fast from the other barbers and customers. It was pretty obvious that in the minds of some, Australia was Africa. Or vice verca. But it made for an interesting and lively discussion.

Half way through the haircut the bell above the door tinkled and a VERY LARGE woman walked in carrying a stack of pizza boxes. She waddled in with cries of hello, turned and locked the door and flipped the “open” sign to “closed”. This was lunch being delivered and this was the mother of the three barbers, and grandmother to the two children – who had greeted her with squeals of delight. My towel was whipped off from around my neck even though we were only half way through the haircut. And I was invited to sit on the floor of the shop foyer with them all (including the other customers) and share pizza with them. The air, crowded with barriers only a few minutes earlier, was now an atmosphere of family into which I was warmly welcomed.

I had the haircut finished under the stern gaze and hilarious guidance of mother before she took the grandchildren off somewhere. I wish I asked which town I was in – I know one day I will be looking for that place again. I am now settling down for the evening at McGuire AFB, and even this purely functionary establishment has taken on a glow that is hung over from the thoroughly pleasant experience with which the day started. If I was looking to get a feel for what the US is about then today’s haircut bodes well.

October 1989

White Trash

The pair of us landed in San Francisco and had four hours to spend before connecting to our flight across the Pacific and home. We had been on the road for a couple of weeks and were in no mood to hear from a clerk that, having checked in, we were not to leave the airport. After solemnly promising to stay on the premises James and I fled out the front door, jumped a cab and headed downtown to the wharf district - a popular but garish haunt.

In fact to be fair to San Francisco it is hardly representative of the city. There are parts of that wharf area that are uniquely American and distinctly San Francisco. My first trip there is especially memorable – eating seafood at Fishermans Wharf while ensconced in bibs, with the otherwise straight and proper colonel I was working for at the time, getting very tactile with his food. Something of a revelation to me – hard to look at him the same way when you have seen him with sauce running down his chin. But there are parts of that tourist area that are no different to any other cheap tourist trap which hustle imported t-shirts, cheap prints, bizarre postcards and strange wood and glass artifacts.

We were idling through the crowd, avoiding the hustlers and steering away from the buskers and beggars, with one eye on the watch and one hand on the hip pocket. At one point, to avoid some brightly lit, cheaply priced shops we moved towards the kerb though were kept from the road by a wrought iron fence. We shuffled along trying to outflank the cheap pits and while we did so were completely startled when a loud voice bellowed from beside us “Nickel for some white trash?!”

For a moment we had no idea where the voice, increasingly strident, was coming from until we looked into the bin at the side of the road and saw a pair of eyes peering out at us from inside a trash can - built in the style of those found at MacDonalds or other fast food places. Somehow he had gotten in there and had hung a little tile out the front simply titled “white trash”. If a passer-by missed the sign he yelled out instead – lifting the flap to get their attention. I don’t recall if he got a nickel from us but he sure made us laugh.

I hope he made a lot of money. A very self deprecating approach to begging, nicely claiming a pun as a way of life, employing some self mockery at the same time – and touching a raw nerve in US culture that is not always seen in such a humorous light. In southern states reference to white trash can often have a pretty raw edge to it.

We made the flight with time to spare, no one at the airport missed us. And "white trash" still makes me laugh when I think about him. I hope he is OK.

USS Arizona Rebuilding

USS Arizona still leaks fuel oil in a steady blobby rain, called by some the Black Tears of the Arizona. You can watch it leaching to the surface in black blobs of ink, and in the light chop of a protected harbour the peacock tail colours of petroleum on water glint the sun hard back into your face.

Iconic as the image that symbolises that “day of infamy” USS Arizona now lies just below the surface of the harbour. As a visitor you can spend some time looking at the hull shadowed in the water, and be startled by the wall of names that remember the hundreds of men who perished in her. Many from the same families - see how fathers, sons and uncles all vanished together. An assignment policy the US Navy overturned as a result of this disaster.

That wall of names was a revelation for me one hot Hawaii afternoon. I was the only Caucasian on the tender that ran us out to the memorial. More to the point every other person on that tender was a Japanese tourist. All carrying mountains of flowers. I boiled with indignation. How dare they?! Gloating no doubt. Having a look at what they had achieved in 1941. Reliving the glory. I felt a mix of agitation and anger and irritation. How dare they interrupt my own spiritual journey out here. I was even more appalled when I stepped onto the memorial to discover even more Japanese quietly waiting the return tender trip. There were thousands of flowers on the water, all being gently pulled away from Ford Island by the breeze. At that point their significance was lost on me. I stepped over to a National Parks officer and asked him what was going on.

He had the good sense to keep the brief simple. He said they were here to grieve, to express their regret. And suggested I walk up to the wall and see what was happening up there. He added that his grandfather was killed on 7 December 1941 but that he wished his grandfather could see what was happening here today. Then signalled with his chin for me to make my way through the crowd to the wall of names. Perhaps he sensed my agitation. Or heard the indignation in my voice.

I paused for a moment, caught in a crowd and noticed for the first time the serious stripping of garlands and the tossing of flowers onto the water from the edge of the memorial and through a hole in the floor. Everyone was doing it. I was the exception. All were sober. All were silent. The slap of the water on the barely visible turret housing, and on the memorial pylons was all that could be heard.

Finally making my way to the wall of names I was confronted by a wall of flowers and a veil of tears. The flowers were heaped up over a plinth that is located in front of the wall, and over the rope that keeps visitors away form the wall. The tears coursed in silence down the faces of elderly Japanese who stood stiffly at attention. Before they bowed gently and about turned and made way for others. Here was a very different perspective altogether and my about-face was total and instant. In humbled shock I could not tear myself away.

Nor could one old Japanese gentleman who was bowed from the waist, at complete right angles. His tears splashed on the deck. But there was no sound. With a tight timetable of tenders coming and going with visitors a Parks officer had to gently help him away from the wall and back to the boat. I followed, the last to leave. As I did the Parks Officer who had suggested I see what was happening at the wall nodded to me. “Those Japanese who visit this place are usually more sorry about what happened here than we are” he said. Words that rang in my ears. The return trip, only 20 minutes or so since my outward leg, carried a very sobered and humbled me. These people had taught me a lesson about humanity that I hope I don’t forget.

It was certainly all brought to mind with this photo in the weekend paper of Zenji Abe, former Japanese pilot who was one man whose bombs struck the USS Arizona in 1941. His posture suggests to me the same regret I saw the day I visited the memorial. See his hand touch the names. And see the names below – was that a Johnson family who lost four men in one fell disaster?

Some of the great things that have come out of conflict have been the powerful reconciliations forged afterwards. We are capable of so much which is corrupt. But capable of so much compassion as well. It’s a shame the latter is often most profound when it is born out of the former.

Riding the Dog

This morning I am doing the American thing - sitting in a hokey little New Jersey Greyhound terminal waiting to catch a bus to New York. But there is a home feel to this adventure, for Frente is being playing on the radio. A small touch of home although if it wasn't such a unique sound it would be quickly swamped by all things American.

It is a Saturday morning and a warm spring day. A small crowd dozes in the warmth of the building although it need not be heated so. A black girl with jeans she has been poured into, gold looping earrings and braided hair talks to a candy machine, coaxing chocolate from it. Mid thirties something buys a donut and feeds it into the microwave. Gold bangled girl gives up and moves to the Coke machine. Jam donut explodes and fills this hokey hole with the fragrance of sweetness. Belinda, for it appears her looping earrings contain her name, comes back to the candy machine. Crowd of Hispanics bustle out and board a bus destined to "Have a Nice Day" - the only thing I can see posted on the bus. But they seemed to know where it was headed. Joshing and jostling and laughing they seemed pleased to be boarding. In a clunk of a coke can down a shute they are gone and with them the scrolling injunction to have a nice day. Belinda settles for a coke.

Beside me a young chap sags and relaxes then snaps upright in a cycle of slumber that delivers no rest. The seats here don't offer anything like that. Classic youth uniform of runners, jeans and windcheater. A line is starting to form for this New York bus which has yet to arrive. The line is composed mainly of women. Shoppers? Not likely. Workers? Perhaps. A bus pulls into "Track 3" - the "9:05 to Baltimore and downtown Washington D.C" we are duly told over the intercom by an employee speaking into a microphone only ten feet away from us all. The young chap snaps awake and does a bolt for the door.

Tuning into a conversation at the counter I realise this service is offered on a first come, first served basis, and that all those folk out there lining up next to vacant bus slots were not doing so for the warm spring air. After joining the queue a Greyhound rolled in but it was a shortlived visit. Three alighted. Three boarded, the door hissed shut its mockery and we were left to wait for the next service, due in an hour! Such are the risks even before you alight the dog.

1 May 2004