NOW IT CAN BE TOLD!--Chapter 2: Cheesequake Park to Calais! DO 2708 3/91
--Story Time with Grandpa!
1. (Techi: Amen! Thank You Jesus! Amen, Lord Jesus, please bless our class, & please do inspire Grandpa & help us to be really receptive & to have a fun class, in Jesus' name, amen!)
2. This is our Story! Instead of a class, let's call this our Story! OK? So, thank You Lord! Amen! Praise the Lord! I was telling you about our first trip to Europe & how we'd left the Hippie Ranch, TSC, with Jethro & Deborah in charge, together with others, & how we were driving with just Ho & I & Mama & Mother Eve. We stopped by & saw Eve's relatives in Kentucky, & then Mama & I drove on to Washington, D.C. to apply for our passports, asking them to mail them to General Delivery, New York City.
3. We stopped just outside of New York at Cheesequake Park & camped, just Mama & I. We'd bought a little pup tent at Sears on the way, just big enough for two people, along with air mattresses & sleeping bags, & I cooked breakfast, bacon & eggs!
New York City!
4. I'll never forget that picture! I sort of have these memories in certain pictures. I remember as we drove into New York City we stopped at that huge Post Office that they have there. I can remember they had 10-minute parking out front & I pulled up & sat in the car while Mama ran up the steps into the Post Office, & in a few moments she came running out waving the little package of our passports. We had our passports to freedom!
5. We drove on from there & our next stop was Greenwich Village. That's where there are lots of Jews & where they had the office for the Jewish agency & the kibbutzim in Israel, where we were applying to join a kibbutz.--Ha! We were all gung-ho about Israel & Jews & kibbutzim in those days!
6. Well, they didn't give us any encouragement. They asked us a few questions, very skeptically, & didn't seem to think we were very Jewish. I think he actually asked me, "Are you Christians?" & he scowled at us. We said, "Yes, but we believe in the same God, we can work in a kibbutz." "Well, you'll have to make your own way! We won't pay your way to Israel." In those days they did pay the way of a lot of people. Those who volunteered to join kibbutzim, they would pay their way to Israel to join a kibbutz. (Techi: Actual Jews.) Yes. But he was pretty skeptical about us. The Devil's spirits recognise other spirits. He said, "You'll have to pay your own way, but when you get there you can volunteer at the offices of the various kibbutzim right there in Israel."
7. And so, disappointed as we were, we were still determined to get to Israel nevertheless! So we went over to the office of Icelandic Airlines. We'd heard about their special cheap flight of only $100 from New York all the way to Luxembourg, in Europe. It was special. The other airlines charged almost twice that! It was a one-way flight to Luxembourg, $100. They still had a couple of seats left, thank the Lord, & we bought our tickets!
8. Then we went to the French Railway Office (their branch in New York) which was a huge, monstrous place! It looked like a train station, it was enormous! (Techi: The Post Office was enormous too?) Yes! You should have seen the stairs that Mama had to go up. They stretched clear across the front of the building, & were almost as high as the building.
9. We'd heard about the Eurailpasses of Europe. You bought a train pass for something like $100 each, & you could go anywhere you wanted to in Europe on any rail line, First Class for one whole month!--Almost anywhere you wanted to go for two people. This was dirt-cheap considering what you had to pay to buy normal First Class tickets from place to place. Of course, Eurailpasses are much more expensive nowadays, but still a good deal!
10. Anyway, we got it from this pretty French girl at the French Railway Office. And we were really excited, of course, because we were on our way to Europe, practically! We got into the French Railway Office to get our Eurailpasses just in time before they closed, & our flight was the next night, when we would fly across the ocean almost all night to Iceland, then on to Luxembourg.
Camping Out at Cheesequake Park!
11. So we went back to our little tent which we left pitched at Cheesequake Park, & nobody had bothered it, thank the Lord. I think we cooked our own supper that night, I don't really remember. But we got up early the next morning & cooked our breakfast. I'm good at cooking breakfast--that's about the only meal I'm very good at cooking--so I cooked while Mama was making the beds & packing up, rolling up the sleeping bags & deflating the air mattresses.
12. (Techi: What did you make for breakfast?) Oh, always the same thing, the only thing I know how to make!--Bacon & eggs! I made the bacon first. I fried the bacon over the campfire & then took it out & put it on a paper towel on the picnic table & poured out the bacon grease. We didn't have anything to pour it in to keep it, but we couldn't take it with us to Iceland anyway! So I think I just poured it out into the fire where it burned. And then I broke the eggs into the pan, which was greasy with a little bacon grease, two eggs each. I think Mama likes hers fried straight up easy & I did mine the same way, it didn't matter to me. Then I slid them off on to our plates!
13. Meanwhile, I think we did have a little coffee pot, just a little one, & we heated water in it & made our coffee. So we had eggs & bacon & coffee, which is a good breakfast! Then I pulled up the tent stakes & packed up the tent & all of the camping gear & everything else in the trunk of the Buick that we were driving that Ho had loaned us. We cleaned up our campsite, got everything shipshape, & rolled off to the La Guardia Airport in New York City. As I recall, it's just outside of New York City on Long Island.
14. We had all of our clothes at that time packed in one big suitcase because we didn't want to be encumbered with too many weights. We knew we were going to be running from train to train & lugging our big suitcase with us. (Techi: So that's all you had?) That's all we had, one suitcase, with our work & our changes of clothes in it. I just had one jacket & that's what I wore, & my long overcoat & my hat. And Mama wore one of her dresses, sweaters & a coat. She's always pretty cold so she dressed pretty warm. Of course right then it was September & it was already getting cold in New York; for us it was cold!
Flight to Europe!
15. So we got to the parking lot at La Guardia Airport in plenty of time to check in & we left the car in the parking lot for Ho to pick up later. By the time we were done with these other errands it was time for lunch. And there I did check in the big heavy suitcase & we carried our carry-on stuff in our shoulder bags. As I recall, we ate lunch there & then we waited for the plane, this special bargain flight. You had to be there about two or three hours early to board, to make sure everybody was there & had their tickets & their money, because it turned out to be an all-hippy flight! They were all hippy kids!
16. Mama fit in pretty good, she was quite young & cute, but I was the only old one on the whole plane! But thank God I had a beard, & that made me acceptable to the hippies. (Techi: Just because you had a beard, really?) Yes. They looked up to gurus in those days, you know. They didn't trust their mothers & fathers, the middle generation, but they tended to at least trust their grandparents, the older generation. So they accepted me & greeted me cheerily & smiled, & I smiled at them & was happy, even though I knew I was the only older person on the whole flight!--Ha! It was really funny!
17. We boarded & took off safely--Mama & I always hold hands & pray together as we're taking off--& we climbed into the evening sky. I think the sun was just setting, so this was a night flight. I can always sleep like a baby on planes or trains or buses, they just seem to rock me to sleep. But of course Mama woke me as we were coming down to Iceland, which is an island out in the middle of the North Atlantic.--Well, it's not in the middle exactly, but it is quite far out in the Atlantic, in the far North. Mama woke me up so I could see Iceland below & pray together as we landed.
18. (Techi: Is it like ice?) It's largely covered with ice & snow in the Winter time, but this was only September. It was already cold, very cold. After we landed they wanted us all to get off the plane so they could clean & service it, refuel it, so we went into the terminal. It was a cute little terminal, spic & span & real nice. They had souvenirs for sale in there, post cards, & everybody could take a post card & write home & buy stamps & hot or cold drinks & things like that.
19. We were there for about an hour as I recall. Then they told us to board the plane again, & we did. Mama & I both wrote post cards to the folks back home so they'd know we'd made it to Iceland at least, & then we flew on from there for the morning.
20. We ate breakfast on the plane. They did serve us little meals. I think at night we were supposed to have left after supper, so they didn't have to serve us a meal, but they did serve little snacks that you had to buy. Because the flight was so cheap they didn't furnish them free on the way, even during the night, but in the morning they gave us breakfast on the way to Europe. It was a very skimpy little breakfast but it was enough. I was thankful for it because it was free, because we were very short on money in those days. I think we left for Europe with no more than about a thousand Dollars cash & we had put it mostly into Traveller's Cheques.
21. It was exciting when we flew over Ireland & England & then over the Coast of France. And as you know, Luxembourg is a little tiny country, one of the smallest countries in all Europe, snuggled into the Northeast part of France. And we landed there.
Customs & Immigrations!
22. Before we left New York we got three of the most important books we ever could have had on such a trip! I had a map book. And we bought a Cook's travel book, which gives all the various schedules & routes, etc., & times & places of all the kinds of transportation in Europe--train transportation, plus some boats. And the other book, {\ul \i Europe on $5 a Day} by Arthur Frommer, was a very famous book in those days of hippies journeying through the whole World! We bought that at a bookstand, & we were very glad we got it! It listed all the cheapest hotels & pensions in all the major cities. As you know, a pension is a very cheap hotel run by a family usually, like a rooming house. So we had bought these three books: A map book, the Cook's travel Book with train schedules & "Europe on $5 a Day."
23. I especially remember landing & going through Luxembourg Customs & Immigrations, which was my first experience to ever go through what is a tight Customs & Immigration. The only international travel I'd ever been through before was Canada & Mexico, & there wasn't much of a customs check. And I'd been in the Caribbean, in the Bahamas & places like that, but that was very easy too. But here they were pretty tight with these hippies.
24. The Immigrations was one thing, you just needed to show your passport. Luxembourg is quite easy on that, they give tourists immediate landing visas. But the thing they were tight on with these hippies was money. The officials wanted to know, "How much money have you got?"
25. I remember this young girl who didn't look hardly any older than you, Techi, but it turns out she was 15. Fifteen was underage, though, and she was very low on money, so they wouldn't accept her. (Techi: They sent her back?) They put her in detention and said she was going to have to phone her parents to make sure she had permission to travel alone, and they'd need to send her money if she wanted to go any further. She was just about one or two people ahead of me in line. The rest of them were older hippies and they were experienced travellers and they had passports and enough money, etc. I think they claimed you had to have at least $100. (Techi: And she didn't have $100?) No.
26. So when they came to me & they asked me & Mama if we had enough money, I took out my Traveller's Cheques. They have them in a little sort of a wallet & I opened it up, unbuttoned it, & just ruffled my Traveller's Cheques like this. They were $100-cheques, you know, & I just ruffled through them & he said, "That's OK." He didn't even count it. After all, I was an older person. (Techi: It must have looked like a lot.) Yes, & it was $1,000, so that's ten times as much as they required. So we went on through & took an airport bus into town.
Train to Calais!
27. The center of Luxembourg is a great big square surrounded by all these fascinating old European buildings, & on one side of the square is the train station. I had looked up in my Cook's travel book that there was a train leaving at 10:10 p.m. & it was almost 10 o'clock when we got to the station! So I said, "I want to catch this train!" The ticket man said, "But it's already loading. You'll never catch it." I said, "Give me a ticket & watch me!" So I bought the ticket to Calais, France, where you catch the ferry to London, & I ran all the way to the train with my big heavy suitcase!--And Mama trailing behind.--Ha!
28. But we caught the train just before it pulled out! Mama & I jumped aboard with our big suitcase huffing & a-puffing. Poor Mama, she was trailing off behind me & I didn't know just where she was! I'd look around once in awhile to make sure she was still there, & she made it! We got on the train! (Techi: That would have been awful if you had jumped on the train & left Mommy behind!) Don't worry, I wouldn't have left her.
29. She almost left me once in Spain! She got off a train, & it almost pulled off & left her! She didn't mean to, but we didn't know that wasn't the end of the line. When we got to Barcelona, she got off asking some people about hotels, & the train started up again! They have a lot of stations in Barcelona, so we didn't know that was one of the stations that they stopped at just before they got to the heart of Barcelona. So the train started to pull out while Mama was out there talking to somebody. I raised the window & yelled, "Come on! We're leaving!" She ran & jumped on the train while it was actually moving! You've got to give her credit for that, that was a brave thing to do! (Techi: That's good!)
30. But now we're back in Luxembourg & we're running, we caught the train, & by this time it was after 10 o'clock at night & we were tired! We'd had this long plane journey & then a bus journey to get into Luxembourg, to the town square. They'd let off all of the hippies & they were going to stay there that night & see the town.
31. But I wasn't about to begin wasting my time right then on Luxembourg, I was trying my best to get to London!--And do you know why?--Because London is the only place you can get good information in English--brochures on all the places to go & trips to take & everything in English. There are a few little folders on some of the travel racks in other places but very little in English, of course, because they speak other languages. And they didn't have much even in New York. We were surprised. The best we could get there was in that French Railway office. They had a few little folders & that was it. So I said, "There's only one thing for us to do, is to go to London! We'll see London first & we'll be able to get all kinds of information there.--Travel information, tour information, info on trips & sightseeing & everything else!"
32. So here we were on the train from Luxembourg to Calais, where you catch the ferry over to England. I paid for this ticket cash, Second Class. We heard Second Class was pretty good in Europe, & it is. (Techi: You didn't have a Eurailpass?) I had it, but I didn't want to start using it yet. I wanted to keep it as long as I could, because the minute you start using it, from then on you just had one month, a time limit of 30 days, but we wanted to see London & England first.
33. We probably should have gotten a "couchette" where we could stretch out & sleep, but I wanted to save money so we just got on to the Second Class coach (with rows of seats just like a bus) which I figured was good enough. That was after 10 o'clock at night, & it got us into Calais in the morning in time to catch the ferry over to England. They have about four or five ferries a day. So we just sort of dozed & slept the best we could. I think I even slept with my head in Mama's lap, because it was night & we were tired, all the way to Calais. I ought to get you out a map so we can review these things. (Gets out atlas.)
Ferry to England!
34. Here we are! Here is the same little map book I told you about, the very atlas that Mama & I carried on our first trip through Europe! (Techi: So this is the one you bought?) Yes. This is the one I bought before we left New York. I've forgotten exactly where I got it, but anyhow, this is it.
35. (Looking at map:) See, here's Calais, where we crossed the English Channel to get to Dover. Although England is an island, the big tunnel that is supposed to be ready by next year will directly connect it to the rest of the Continent, which will make it seem even less like an island.
36. So we caught this night train from Luxembourg to Calais & got there in the morning. The train station is right by the ferry station, so you can get off the train & get right on to the ferry. And when we got off the train, here were these baggage men motioning for us to give them our baggage to put on the ferry. I never trusted my baggage just to a baggage man without going with it, but he grabbed our suitcase & he said, "Dover? Dover?" We said, "Yes." And he grabbed my suitcase & in nothing flat he was out of sight going to put our suitcase on the ferry to Dover! I thought, "My God, what's going to happen to our suitcase? Maybe he stole it! Maybe he just ran off with it!" (Techi: Oh, because you didn't trust him?) I didn't know! I'd heard a lot of tales about Europe & people getting baggage stolen & whatnot.
37. But sure enough, when we got on the ferry, here was this huge big pile of bags, everybody's bags sitting there in a big baggage area, & I ran quick & looked them over & there was our bag & he had put a tag on it for Dover! We had to stop & buy our ticket to the ferry, but he'd just grabbed it anyhow & took it on the ferry & put a tag on it for Dover!
38. Is this interesting to you? (Kids: Oh, yes!) Are you sure? You're not getting bored? (Kids: No!) I'm almost done. Oh my, we ran over time! Anyhow, there was our bag & there we were safe & sound getting ready to cast off from Calais to Dover, & that's as far as we'd better go for tonight! (Techi: Calais is the place that Queen Elisabeth I talked about, isn't it?) Yes, she once said, "If you could see my heart, you'd find Calais written there!"
39. OK! Here we are!--On board the ferry & the ferry shoves off to England & we'll continue the story tomorrow night! OK? (Kids: OK! This is neat!) You'll find it more interesting as we go along, especially when you come along! I thought you might like to know your origins! Imagine, just Mama & I made this whole trip all over Europe all alone, with nobody else! (David: It's hard to imagine that.) I was the businessman, the ticket buyer & the tour guide! Of course, I always conferred with Mama on everything, we decided together on what we wanted to do. You'll find our first visit to England very interesting, thank the Lord.
Closing & Prayer!
40. Let's have a little prayer to end our Story, OK? (David: Amen! Thank You Jesus! Thank You Lord for Grandpa telling us this story. Thank You how it's been so interesting, Lord. And thank You we've been learning so much, Jesus, about where we came from & how Grandpa & Mommy got around in the beginning. We thank You so much for that & for working it out for us to have a time for Grandpa to tell it to us, Jesus.) Amen, PTL!
41. This should be of interest to the Family, & particularly you kids, because it's the very first time I have ever told this whole story in detail, exactly the things that happened & how they happened, at least as well as I can remember. Now was that a little bit exciting? (Kids: Yes!) Interesting? (Kids: Yes!) OK! Good! I'm a little slow recalling these things because I don't want to miss anything, but anyhow, that was from Cheesequake Park all the way to Calais, that's not too bad, ha!
42. One nice thing about this Story, you don't have to study or have any homework!--Ha!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family