Tales of the Living Legend

Campus/Casitas Caricatures

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 19:34:00 +0000

My father had been a sports reporter for El Gaucho, the student newspaper of the University of California Santa Barbara through his Freshman year. At the beginning of his Sophomore year he started a column that would continue through his Senior year.

By his Junior year he was made the Sports Editor of the paper, a job he would hold for that entire school year. That year the name of his column on campus personalities was changed to Campus Caricatures.

All 35 columns are now available at the Internet Archive. Below are links to the files for all three school years.

Casitas Caricatures column Fall '55–Spring '56:

https://archive.org/details/CasitasCaricatures195556

Campus Caricatures column Fall '56–Spring '57:

https://archive.org/details/CampusCaricaturesFall56Spr57

Campus Caricatures column Fall '57–Spring '58

https://archive.org/details/CampusCaricaturesFall57Spr58

The Neighborhood Watch

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 09 Feb 2018 08:01:00 +0000

I never understood why my father, who was a lawyer, or at least had a law degree was never granted a concealed-carry permit by the city of Philadelphia. Unfortunately that never kept him from carrying his gun on him at times, most notably when he was doing his tour on the Neighborhood Watch.

The way the Neighborhood Watch worked back in 1980s in big cities such as Philadelphia was that the committee would assign two people every night to patrol the neighborhood. There were enough people in the group, usually from forty to fifty, which it usually amounted to one night a month patrolling the neighborhood from eleven p.m. to seven a.m.

The two-person nightly patrol was given flashlights, whistles and a cell phone, which at the time was quite uncommon and very expensive, paid for out of the modest budget of the Neighborhood Watch Committee.

One night as he prepared to go out on his monthly patrol he said to me, “Fuck the whistle. I’m packing heat,” at which point I reminded him that he didn’t have a concealed-carry permit for the 9mm automatic. He said that would only be an issue if he actually used it. That was exactly what concerned me. We’re talking about a man who recorded Death Wish on the Betamax and watched it dozens of times.

I was always concerned that the gun was going to get my father in trouble. He had such a short fuse and just about anything could set him off—a barking dog or people sitting on his stoop.

Predictably enough, after that night on his Neighborhood Watch patrol he was kindly asked not to return, that his services were no longer needed.

Fortunately, the only other time the gun came out, was the time he found his house was being burglarized while he was upstairs napping. When he was awoken by somebody in the house, he quietly called 911 and pulled the 9mm Luger out of the drawer of his nightstand. He quietly went down there stairs to find a burglar, nothing but ass and elbows, buried deep into his stereo cabinet pulling wires.

The click from my father’s automatic caused the burglar to hit his head on the top of the cabinet as he struggled to extricate himself. When he turned around he found himself facing my father seated in a chair holding the gun on him.

“In the state of Pennsylvania I could legally shoot you for unlawfully entering my home,” my father casually informed the burglar. “I’m debating whether to shoot or simply wait for the police to arrive, which should be momentarily.”

The burglar slowly raised his hands and said, “Oh, man, don’t shoot me. I’m only trying to make a living.”

“Have a seat,” my said, indicating the step up to his study.

Fortunately my father was able to control his anger long enough for the police to arrive and take the hapless burglar to jail. That was exactly how my father told me the story.

Two Hundred Record Albums

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 02 Feb 2018 08:01:00 +0000

During my first winter break from college I was at my father’s house. I was going to spend the spring semester with him. But it was still a couple weeks away, so my father gave me some Richard Brautigan and Hunter Thompson books to read while I listened to the WMMR, Philadelphia’s best-known rock station, on the radio.

The last week of December WMMR was having a contest in which they were giving away the 200 best-selling record albums of 1976. To enter you had to mail in a postcard with your name and address. I mentioned the contest to my father because I knew he always had some angle on such contests.

Ever since he was a kid haunting the casinos of Las Vegas in 1949, while his mother waited out the six-week residency for a Nevada divorce, he was learning how to work different gambling games and machines. He was befriend by dealers who showed him tricks and other sleight of hand moves with cards and poker chips. He even figured how to rig an electronic horse-racing game to pay out every time he played it. All this at age of 12.

“You have to figure out a way to give yourself a slight edge over the next guy,” he would say. “If you have to mail in a postcard and you mail in two, you have twice the chance of winning than anyone else. Three postcards give you a three times greater chance and so on. Although one or two additional postcards won’t give you that much greater probability of winning overall you still dramatically increase your chances in comparison to any other person.”

“Yeah, but they only allow one entry per person,” I pointed out.

“Then you send a bigger postcard,” he said. “The same concept applies to size as well. If you send a postcard twice the size of a regular 3x5 or 4x6 postcard you still have twice the chance of winning.”

“Can you send bigger postcards through the mail?”

“Yeah, the mistake people, though, is putting only the postcard amount of postage on it. If you have a postcard that’s bigger than 4x6, you just have to put first class postage on it. And if it’s bigger than what they allow for first class, you have to put the postage for large envelopes on it.

“Where am I going to get a big postcard?”

“You make it,” he said. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

We went into his darkroom where he got out some artboard and an X-acto knife and preceded to cut out a large postcard.

“It’s best to make it out of artboard and cut it into a parallelogram with sharp corners, so that when they reach in to the barrel to pull out entries, it will jab their hand and their natural inclination will be to pull it out and voilà!—they have a winner.

Three weeks later I was notified—by postcard—that I was indeed a winner.

The Paris Room

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 08:01:00 +0000

I called it the Paris Room because the entire wall space, such as it was, was covered with prints, maps and photos of Paris. But to call it a room was a family joke. It was more of a closet. To be more precise, a water closet that measured a mere 5' x 6'. It was the first floor bathroom of my father’s row house on Wallace Street in Philadelphia’s Art Museum Area.

It was occupied only by a toilet, immediately to your right when you walked in, and a small sink to the left of the toilet. The rest of floor space was unoccupied because of the simple, but curious fact, that underneath the carpeting and hidden by it, was a large trap door that lead to the basement. The carpeting could be pulled back and the trap door opened and leaned against the wall opposite the door. Steep wooden steps lead from just below the sink down to the basement. The most macabre aspect of the bathroom came from the fact that the edge of the trap door opening was within a foot of the entrance to the bathroom.

A photo showing the door (center) to the Paris Room
No photo exists of the interior.

The real treachery of the Paris Room came from the fact that my father had a bad habit of leaving the trap door open. If you lived in the house or spent enough time there, you would always be wary of stepping into the Paris Room, lest you step into the dark abyss and tumble headlong down the stairs into the unlit basement, which was notorious for harboring very large rats. So, theoretically, if you didn’t survive the fall, and there was high probability you wouldn’t and your body not discovered for a while it would provide a feast for the rats.

It was a bit unnerving, especially to us kids to be sitting on the toilet staring into the gaping black maw of a basement that none of us would have been caught dead in alone. The blackness of the basement fueled our imaginations to speculate as to what lay beyond. I’m sure my sisters never used the bathroom without closing the trap door first.

You might rightly ask if anyone ever did fall down the stairs and land in the basement. The answer is yes. There was one such case. Unfortunately, I don’t know all the details, but sometime in the 1980s when my father was dating again after his last divorce, he had a woman over to the house on their first date.

Of course my father had forgotten to close the trap door and hadn’t even remembered he had left it open when his date asked to use his bathroom. She opened the bathroom door and was quickly sucked into the abyss of my father’s basement.

An ambulance was called, as was, ultimately, a personal injury lawyer. My first fear at the time was that my father might have let his homeowner’s insurance lapse as he had done once or twice before since paying off the mortgage sometime in the late 1970s. I do vaguely remember an insurance company representing him though and ultimately the case was settled out of court for the vague, but often-cited, “undisclosed amount.”

The Eigerwand, Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 16:25:00 +0000

In this excerpt from his autobiography my father is again a bachelor, now in mid-60s Seattle. He seems to give little thought to his family while pursuing the life of a Lothario.

I returned to Seattle to await possible job offers and take part in the demise of my marriage. It seemed as if my life was disintegrating, piece by piece. Even my mother, my staunchest ally, was unhappy with the way things were going. With my sister going off to Graduate School at Northwestern in Chicago, she thought she would move up to Seattle. At first this was to enjoy grandmotherhood and to help Mary Ann raise two boys; then it was for the perceived companionship and support I would need. She had finally finished her Master’s degree in Education at UCLA and she believed she could find something to keep her busy in the Northwest.

            I don’t recall all the circumstances surrounding my final break-up with Mary Ann, but it was decided to at least make a trial separation that spring. The boys were told that they were moving southwards—to Carmel, California as it turned out—with their mother for a while. I was to stay on at our leased house, looking for another place, until the owner returned at the beginning of June.

            I was now so broke that there wasn’t the remotest possibility—although I longed to—of going to Cambridge and Europe for the summer. One bright sign emerged: I had been offered a further three year contract by UW, only two short of tenure! That would defer job-hunting for another two years. But then no offer was forthcoming from either Hopkins or Yale; but my friendship with Derek Price at Yale continued apace.

            I enjoyed the life of a 27 year old bachelor professor, but had few friends in the city. One day, after class, I was walking in the University District and I passed by this large glass window fronted coffee house with the weird name Eigerwand on it. It looked dark and somewhat dingy—not unlike all of the coffeehouses of the early sixties.

            As it happened, the Eigerwand came out of the Seattle World’s Fair where, as its first incarnation, it began as The Sleeping Buddha. I believe that its two partners, Joel Eisenberg and Eric Bjornstad, bankrupted it shortly after the closing of the Fair. And somehow some of its contents, barrel-tables, benches, ice-cream freezer, tea pots and tableware, found their way up to the University district.

            Along the Eiger’s walls hung numerous large framed black-and-white photographs illustrating Eric’s more renowned climbs—showing him in crevasses, climbing upside down, etc. Eric was a genius when it came to decoration: burlap (from a bag factory) was the wallpaper, the acoustic tile-looking ceiling was, in fact, egg cartons sprayed with dark brown paint and fire-retardant and the barrels and various utensils came from the old Sleeping Buddha. It was a cozy, friendly place in the University district of a rainy Northwestern city—and a reasonable profit-maker.

            In those days, Eric was an insatiable rock climber, this tended to mean that the Eiger was simply a money-generator to finance his climbing. It also, by way of his waitress-interviewing, a generator of his sexual fodder. This, coupled with his alluring red-finished pot-bellied stove with fire and private table at the back of place, provided Eric with ample companionship.

            Eric and I became acquainted not long after I started coming in. I found him to be intelligent, interesting, and willing to befriend me at a time when I was feeling very much alone. He, in turn, introduced me to other denizens of the place.

            I’m not exactly sure of the circumstances under which I first met Alicia Wheatley, but I believe it was at the Eigerwand, possibly in the company of Deb Das who seemed to be her guru. Alicia was considerably attractive, somewhat intelligent, and soft spoken. She was the daughter of a UW marketing professor. She had been a student, but had decided to experiment with a career in nursing. These were the days of “flower children” and clearly, under the tutelage of Deb Das, Alicia was fast becoming one. I personally think she had seen the film Elvira Madigan one too many times: she liked to wear gossamer summery dresses and drift or glide instead of walk. Alicia never planned anything in advance, she was, to say the least, spontaneous. She was the opposite of “up tight”; you might say, literally, not wound too tightly. But she had a soft, feminine, ethereal quality. She was, in short, lovely.

            About the only thing I remember that I found disturbing in Alicia was her nervousness; she was definitely high strung. Some part of her body was always moving; she could never sit still for long. Also, this was reflected in a pervasive intensity—the strong, committed way she felt about everything. I found her instantly attractive and wanted to possess her. Her hungriness and intensity made me want to possess her. Fortunately for me, she was not up to playing games: if she liked you, she was not difficult to possess—to ‘keep’, perhaps, but not possess.

            I remember that her friendship with a fellow student, Melody Greer, got her interested in theater. Melody was rehearsing for The Fantastics in a University drama production and Alicia was living it all out, vicariously. She sang “Try to Remember” endlessly when we were together. And we did spend a lot of time together. In order to get her to live with me, I had to promise to take her to work at a local hospital every morning around 6:30 a.m. This was the true test of love, as far as I was concerned!

            The only trouble was that Alicia was a bit of a nymphomaniac, so my nights preceding school days were none too restful. Going to bed at midnight, making love until 2 a.m., then getting up at 5:30 to take Alicia to her hospital, then going off to teach. Love, or lust, held it together for a couple of weeks, then it began to drag me down a bit. But Alicia’s physical beauty and feminine intensity held me enthralled.

            I really only clearly remember two events during the relationship. First was the evening I went to a sorority ‘apple-polishing’ dinner and found myself seated next to an imposing fellow Professor, a George C. Scott look-alike who seemed quite the self-impressed rogue. You could tell from his conversation that he wished he was a bachelor some 20 years younger. When I asked him about himself, I was floored to learn that I was seated next to and conversing with Alicia’s father! I tried to keep my cool as he kept prodding me about the love life of a young bachelor professor, and how I was doing with the co-eds—replete with the occasional nudge, nudge, know what I mean? thrown in. I found it embarrassing, because I suspected that, before too long, we would be more formally introduced by his daughter. As it was, I admitted to nothing, although he probed unabashedly. I remember coming home to Alicia that night, and asked her off-handedly to guess who I had dinner with. When I told her father, she went ghostly pale. She knew what a short-tempered bastard he was. When she learned that he hadn’t a clue as to who I really was, vis-a-vis his daughter, she relaxed and enjoyed my little joke.

            The other occasion I now remember vividly, was the weekend that six of us—calling ourselves The Olympic Loving Team—went out for a lustful weekend to the Olympic Peninsula. I can remember Susie, a waitress from the Eiger, who was a pal of mine, and her boyfriend Mark, a New York attorney, Jim Wolcott, his girl Kathy (another Eiger waitress), Alicia and me. There may have been one other couple along. I remember we had planned ahead, filled a cold chest with wine, ice, beer and other beverages. We brought along some pot and a few delicatessen sandwiches.

            We drove over, having taken the Bremerton ferry, and eventually stopped at a Norman Bates-type court motel in La Push, which, next to Humptulips, seemed to be the most appropriately named locale for the Northwest Spring Trials for the Olympic Loving team. We were all marvelously suited to one another and got along fabulously. The pot-smoking got us to playing kiddie card games like Go Fish! and Old Maid, and possibly my invention of 3-D Monopoly—where you can go under the board. We went to bed that night both physically and mentally wiped out. Susie and Mark had one bedroom off a sitting room that was shared by the occupants of a second bedroom (Alicia and I). We left the cold locker on a chair in the sitting room, still with remaining sodas and ice. Sometime during the middle of the night, thirsty from our cannabis and booze, three of us decided to get up and tiptoe into the common room to get something to drink. When it became obvious to each of us (Kathy, Susie, and me) that we were not alone in that darkened room, Susie spoke up, saying not to turn on the light as she was totally naked. When Kathy concurred that she too slept in the altogether and hadn’t a stitch on, I immediately flipped the wall switch to confirm all this and fed my eyes with their pulchritude as they ran squealing back to their respective bedrooms! Alicia was not too happy with my nocturnal activities and admonished me for my insensitivity. Since she did not partake of the weed, nor of much of the booze, she was, in my eyes, not really a full-fledged participant in our group. Had she not been great in the sack, that might have put an end to our relationship even sooner than it did.

            I had had an evening class student named Sharon Sinclair who was about 25 years old, who had quit regular day classes because (a) she needed to earn a living and (b) because she had dreams of being a professional figure skater. She had come up to me after class one evening in an effort to get to know me; in the course of this personal contact she learned that I had once been a figure skater. Her mental/emotional wheels were beginning to hum—rapidly. Clearly, she felt that time was fastly becoming her enemy; she had reached the advanced age of 25 with three years of college and hadn’t found a suitable mate. Her above-average intelligence which, unfortunately, showed a little too much and her above-average looks which were normally a considerable asset had also proved a drawback, in so far as they set her standards a little too high for what was currently available in the male population of Seattle. As a result, Sharon was an aggressive, determined young lady who, once aroused by a suitable quarry, became nearly obsessed.

One consequence is that she was sexually self-aware and used her predilection for nymphomania as a social assault-weapon. Naturally, I found this to be—in addition to the looks, intelligence and agile body—a most appealing attribute. After only two evenings we got into bed together. She was determined to make me feel that it was I who in fact seduced her.

Indeed, once she got to know me intimately, she presented me with a joke present of some pale blue business cards with: “Peter Vorzimmer, Mind Screwer” printed on them! The only problem with Sharon was that her determination turned to obsession. Where I enjoyed this in the sex department, I found this too constricting to my bachelorhood. She did not possess the comforting warmth of a prospective mate; she seemed as shallow as she was bright; and it seemed to me she offered no long-term prospects as a wife. She was not generally social—perhaps it was a form of insecurity, of not being able to hold on to me in the busy full environment in which I lived. Only very slowly was I able to phase her out of my life, though she embarrassingly hung around the fringes of it at the Eiger, at the University and the University District in general.

Death in Hollywood

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 07:01:00 +0000

On Wednesday, March 17, 1954—St. Patrick’s Day—my father, 16 at the time, was driving to the Hollywood Athletic Club (HAC) to do some ice skating. He was headed west in the left lane on Sunset Boulevard, which is two lanes in each direction, and directly across from the Athletic Club. There were two cars in the right lane, slightly ahead of him, which had stopped to let a woman cross the street in the middle of the block. My father, not heeding the fact that the cars ahead had stopped, kept going and, as he came parallel to the first car on the right, the woman stepped into his path and he hit her hard enough that she died almost instantly.

The 59-year-old-woman woman, Bertha C. Smith was pronounced dead on arrival at Hollywood Receiving Hospital and my father was booked on manslaughter charges. Later that day he was released to his mother’s custody. The manslaughter charges were eventually dropped, but his driver’s license was suspended for a year and civil charges of negligent homicide were brought by the family of the victim.

My father’s only recollection of the trial, besides the decision that his parents were not financially liable for the death of the woman because she had not crossed at the crosswalk, was of the woman’s two sons, in their thirties, who glared at him throughout the trial.

Two ironic notes are that my father’s own paternal grandmother was named Bertha and that my father would not, himself, live to the age of 59.

My father was in the last half of his senior year at Hollywood High and my father says no more about it in his autobiography other than the fact that he was inconvenienced by losing his driver’s license for a year.

It was on the way to HAC one day, March 17th, 1954, that I got involved in an accident in which I killed an elderly pedestrian. Which, though she had made some negligent contribution, cost me my driver’s license for one year. It also took the wind out of my senior year of high school.

My lack of wheels forced me to concentrate on my writing skills—particularly my editorship of an amateur science fiction magazine, Abstract, a fanzine, as they are called. This brought me closer to a group of similarly minded young men. Charley Wilgus was my closest friend, followed by Don Donnell, Jimmy Clemons and Burt Satz. Don was the most creative and, at 16, already a good writer; Burt, who was universally picked on by the rest, was the best read (Hemingway, Joyce, and a host of others). Clemons introduced me to the world of Science Fiction and the L. A. Science Fiction Society—whose meetings were attended by E. E. “Doc” Smith, Ray Bradbury, and the agent Forry Ackerman. Possibly because of its controversial—read argumentative—editorials, its excellent mimeographed and often salacious art, Abstract became quite popular in the world of science fiction fandom. The high point of my early career was my bus trip to San Francisco to meet various pen pals: Gilbert Minicucci, Terry Carr, Bob Stewart, and Pete Graham. It took something for my mother to permit her 15-year-old son to go up by bus to San Francisco from L.A. to attend a Sci Fi convention on his own for a week!

A Falling Out

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 08:01:00 +0000

My father had some kind of disagreement with my grandfather in January 1964 the details of which we never knew other than the fact that it was something very trivial relating to paintings of a friend of his he was trying to promote. Years passed without communication of any kind between them and it became apparent to me that the incident, whatever the particulars, was in my father’s mind a sort of “last straw” in a series of conflicts with his stepmother, who had been my his father’s mistress and, therefore, in his mind, to blame for the dissolution of his parents’ marriage.

Although we, his grandchildren, did try to maintain a relationship with my grandfather, thanks in part to my aunt, my father’s sister Mary Ellen, it was never close and always a bit strained. I remember at the end of every visit with them, my grandmother—my step-grandmother—without asking me anything about how my life was going, would pull out a checkbook, write a check for a couple hundred dollars and hand it to me while telling how much they appreciated the visit. I always wondered if I appeared impoverished to her in some way.

My aunt, the only person that could have effected a reconciliation between her father and her brother, told us often that our grandfather wanted no part in making that happen. My grandfather was never told that his son had died in early 1995, having predeceased him by seven months.

During the six weeks I spent at my mother’s in Los Angeles before I moved up to Seattle, I was miserable. In my mother’s eyes I was still the teenager I was when I first left L.A. for college in Santa Barbara nine years before—and she treated me accordingly. I was broke—and thus dependent on her for support. And she was none too happy that my marriage was falling apart, because of my own infidelities which she saw as rank immaturity and a criminal shirking of responsibilities! I was obliged to account for all my time and money spent, I had to ask to borrow the car, in short, I had to explain or justify all my actions. I felt I was a prisoner on Alverstone Avenue. I couldn’t wait to get to Seattle.

My conversations with Mary Ann resulted in her willingness to come to Seattle and try once again to put our family back together. We would have a big family house for the year and it seemed to provide an opportunity to mend things. It also enabled me to save considerable face in my new location. After all, I was a young, green academic anyway, and in good old “family-values” middle America Seattle, being divorced at 26 with two kids would definitely not be a social plus.

All was going well with us at this time; the University of Washington History department had decided to keep me on, and offered me a 3-year contract despite the fact that Tom Hankins was arriving to fill the History of Science slot. But, I was happy and content, my dissertation manuscript had been submitted to the UW Press, and I looked to be well on my way. Nevertheless, I decided to hedge my bets by presenting a research paper on the work I was doing at the annual History of Science Society meeting to be held in Philadelphia just after Christmas. This had the additional advantage of seeing my father in New York—and also my former roommate on the trip to America, Claus Seligmann.

I contacted Claus, with whom I had been in regular correspondence since he stopped in New York, and arranged to see him there when I came out to attend the conference in Philadelphia. He invited me to come back up to New York and stay with him over the New Year’s holiday—the Conference was to be the December 27-30—I happily accepted.

I stayed with my father and his family in Manhattan for one night before I left for Philadelphia. Nothing unusual; my stepmother was as difficult as ever. She had been going on as if she were some important patron of the arts. They had some decent paintings on the wall, called the artist Leroy Neiman by his first name, and talked incessantly about discovering some young artist.

Since I had seen a number of Claus’ own paintings, I mentioned that I had a friend who was an artist, a good artist, and who was looking to be discovered. She and my father said to bring him over to the house—together with some of his works—one evening. I was happy; partly because I knew that Claus was a good artist, better than the one they had discovered, perhaps I could thereby do him a favor.

Philadelphia was somewhat of a success. I remember that my father decided to come down on the day I was to give my paper. That was some day! It was to be like an audition and I had heard that Yale and Johns Hopkins were both looking for an Assistant Professor on their tenure track. I was quite nervous, under the circumstances. But so was the young chap, Fred Churchill, who preceded me to the podium. I was sitting with my father in one of the back rows when Fred began. I wasn’t really listening when my father, hearing Fred slurring some of his words and swaying slightly, announced that something was wrong. He told me that he thought the speaker was about to faint; my father began to move out of his chair, towards the front. Sure enough, Fred continued for a few more words, then collapsed right in front of the audience. My father was one of the first to reach him where he was lying, already surrounded by people. My father urged people to stand back and give him some air and began to loosen Fred’s collar and tie. Meantime, former physician and Hopkins professor Oswei Temkin was also taking it upon himself to minister to Fred. He asked for a chair for Fred to sit in and was starting to help the bewildered young man into it, when my father intervened. He said that he should continue to lie still for a few moments and not stand or sit up! At this point, an argument ensued between Temkin and my father with Temkin demanding to know “Who is this man?” and declaring that he, Temkin, was a physician, and knew best, under the circumstances, what to do. My father countered that any first-year med student would know not to have a fainter be put in an upright position. Temkin demanded to know my father’s credentials. When he was told Chief of Medicine at Beth Israel Hospital in New York, Temkin mumbled and stalked off! Considering that Temkin had a say in the Johns Hopkins appointment only made me more nervous—and I was up next!

It all went well for the rest of the meeting; my father returned to New York and I followed the next day to Claus’.

Claus had taken a relatively menial architectural job in New York at modest wage in order to secure his visa, but he was none too happy at the rather stinginess of the wage he’d been offered and in his own ignorance of the wages necessary to live confortably in New York City. He had met and taken up cohabitation with, a German nurse, Jutta Holzhueter, whom he had met shortly after his arrival. She was an attractive, intelligent, extremely outspoken, Germanic young woman with a good sense of humor—and we all got along well. They invited me to a New Year’s Eve party, offering to find me a date. Immediately there came to mind the most beautiful woman I had ever met, who had been my birthday present the previous May in Cambridge. She was Dutch and was a flight attendant for KLM out of New York. She had given me her phone number when we parted in May and said if ever I was in New York to look her up.

It was a night I’ll never forget. I told Claus and Jutta that I might be able to scare up my own date for the party. I didn’t think, on but 24 hour notice, that I could get a date with one of the city’s most beautiful women—who certainly would not be hurting for a date on New Year’s Eve!

I was surprised to even get Michaela on the phone! And further surprised and flattered that she remembered who I was. I was stunned when she said that—as a matter of fact—she didn’t have a date for New Year’s Eve and would love to go along with me and my friends to a party. She had only just gotten in from one of her flights. She did mention, a bit offhandedly, that she had, about a month before, said to a young Dutchman she knew, that she might see him if he came to New York over New Year’s; but she’d not heard from him. By this time, I was hearing nothing, literally clicking my heels with ecstasy and glee at the thought of my incredible last-minute luck!

When queried by Claus and Jutta I said that I called some old back-up slag I used to know who would “make do” for a New Year’s date. Jutta was a little disappointed as she’d talked me up with an English nurse friend as a possible date. Meanwhile, I was in seventh heaven in anticipation of this gorgeous creature.

The party was to be a modest one, consisting primarily of nurses and artists in Greenwich Village. We brought two bottles of vodka and left early to pick up Michaela on the way.

When she opened the door, Mike was even more beautiful than I had remembered. Her long blonde hair was up in a French twist, showing off her flawless tanned face and flashing white smile. She was wearing a dark blue pinafore top dress with a single gold brooch. She seemed delighted to see me and invited me in for a quick drink while she got her coat. Claus and Jutta were down in the car.

I must say that I felt like King-of-the-World as I sipped my Scotch-rocks and surveyed her apartment. Who knows? Wasn’t it odds-on that I would get lucky on New Year’s Eve? I was definitely pre-orgasmic! This feeling was to last less than 30 seconds; for next the doorbell rang. Mike asked me if I would answer it.

Standing in the doorway of the apartment was the handsomest male human being I ever met. He was about 6'3" dressed in a ship’s officer’s uniform replete with braid and brass. He had a lion’s mane of blonde hair and a disgustingly charming white smile! I felt like a zit-ridden, wart faced Quasimodo by contrast. My mouth must have drooped open as he introduced himself. As he held out his hand, Mike came out of her bedroom and crossed to us. The only thing I could think of was to place my scotch in his proffered open hand and apologize for being in their way. I thanked her, hiked up my hunch, and strode out the still-open door. What total humiliation! And here I thought I would return to my waiting friends in triumphant pride and all I could do was drag one foot like Quasimodo and haul my humiliated hunch back into the car.

I was that close!

Jutta was great, insisting that she call her friend Gillian, who was going to the party anyway, and have her make up a foursome with us, which she did. Lower than whale dung at the bottom of the ocean, as an old friend of mine would say, I would find Gillian, a slender attractive English blonde, a more than sufficient substitute for my Dutch 10. But there was an interesting end to 1963—and I never hear to that song “December 1963 (Oh, What a Night!)” with its line “Late December back in ’63 . . . what a lady, what a night!” that I don’t think of Gillian.

The party was packed with people, a convivial, casual group of urban existentialists. Much booze, and delicious boiled calamari which went splendidly with ice-cold vodka; all contributing to the normal boy-girl vibes which, at our age and general inclinations, didn’t really need any stimulating.

Our first stop after the party was Gillian’s. I went up with her, telling Claus and Jutta that I would walk back to their apartment afterwards. We were feeling no pain at that point, but neither were we feeling any unmistakable signs of forthcoming intimacy either. Offered a choice of either coffee or another drink, I chose neither. A few minutes of small talk and Gillian excused herself—it was getting late. She asked for my help in moving the coffee table away from the couch that would become her bed. I obliged and the bed appeared, already made. I was getting tense. Although 26, I had little or no bachelor experience—and I knew that the moment of truth was quickly approaching.

All I could think of was asking to use her bathroom.

As I stood there nervously emptying my bladder, my mind asked the perennial question whenever I got into tight spots like this: “What would Herb do in a situation like this?” My full-blooded Blackfoot Indian roommate from college, mentor, guardian, role model came in handy during moments like these. As I turned towards the door I saw, still swinging from its hook, an empty clothes hanger in the batroom. I knew what Herb would do. I took off all my clothes and was about to open the door when I paused, feeling utterly naked—which, of course, I was. I got this mental picture of myself walking out, buck naked, into the apartment of a young woman whom I had only just met some five hours before and having her look me up and down saying “What in hell do you think you’re up to?” All parts of me shriveled at this thought. I reached into my jacket pocket and, thinking of the English cigarette ad with the line “You’re never alone with a Capstan”, I took out a cigarette and lit it. I thought proudly of my mentor Herb as I turned the knob and sauntered into the livingroom.

Gillian had turned all the lights out except a small one on the bedside table, had gotten into bed, and skootched herself over into the middle, not only leaving enough for me next to her, but turning down the bedclothes invitingly. Although I must have looked a proper fool, coming out of the john without a stitch on, cigarette dangling coolly from my mouth, I maintained my composure, stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray on the bedstand, turned out the light, and moved in to enjoy Gill’s delights for the opening of 1964!

When I returned to my father’s apartment, I tried to convince him to accept one of Claus’ offered paintings for his wall. He actually had a choice of three, from which he picked one. It was a largish colorful abstract which I found striking. I pointed out that it would be very helpful if my father could help promote Claus—as he was not only talented but much in need these days. I gave them a packet of Claus’ cards just in case anyone struck with the exhibited sample might be further interested. I also gave them what would be the price of the one they had on the wall, as an example of the kind of figure Claus was expecting. Before I could finish my promotion, my father jumped all over me, ranting about my expecting to turn his apartment into a gallery, expecting him to hawk Claus’ paintings right off his walls—to vend to his house guests! I hardly had a chance to remind him that offering a business card to an interested party would be sufficient; but he and Hellie went on haranguing me for my presumption and audacity—and soon the diatribe veered into the area of long-simmering grievances they felt towards me, my mother, etc.

I backed off apologetically, but that had the opposite effect, they pushed forward, my father working himself into a real tantrum, at one point looking as if he were going to strike me. Again I apologized, saying that I would take the painting back to Claus—and again they pushed. Wasn’t it Claus’ gift? What was my role here? Was I some sort of agent or middleman for Claus? Was I using them? And off they went on some tangent that nothing to do with the painting and everything to do with the history of our relationship, and how my mother was telling me how rich my father was, was always putting me up to something.

As they joined forces in the browbeating, two things came into my mind. First, I felt that Claus’ beautiful painting was about to become the permanent property—a presumed gift—of my father and stepmother and, second, that I was being treated like a teenager, being forced to listen to years-old grievances of guilt-sodden immoralists. Slowly, I grew angry. My loyalties to my recent friend, I began to realize, were stronger than to these unreasonable adults. The phrase about the best defense being a good offensive also came to mind. If I was seen as standing in for my mother, I would defend her. I found a way out of that room—and the apartment—in which I could avoid being struck by my father and left. As of this writing, the incident was now more than thirty years ago; and I’ve not seen my father since.

Farewell to Cambridge

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 08:01:00 +0000

My father bids farewell to Cambridge and sails home on the S. S. France on which he shares a stateroom with the German artist Claus Seligmann, which was the beginning of a friendship that would last many years.

Around about mid-June I decided to host one of those end-of-term parties. Since this was a huge house, it would be the ideal place. Paul Upton and the rest of the guys would soon be heading on out to the big world, so the occasion was right. And I had gotten a ticket to New York on the SS France on the 4th of July, so I didn’t have to worry about the mess. I invited everyone. In particular, there was this Norwegian girl, tall, dark, and beautiful, called Bee.

The best way to assure plenty of guests at a party is to seek out Tony Ventris at his stall on the Southwest corner of the Market Square. It would take the better part of a book to describe Tony but, together with his father, he sold bananas and tomatoes at a stall on Cambridge’s central square. Everybody, town as well as gown, knew Tony. He was an affable intelligent chap who fancied himself as a ladies’ man and a bon vivant. He had a hideous half-cockney, half upper-crust accent which made him a cross between Cary Grant and Alfie. But no one disliked Tony and, as Tony would have it, a party wasn’t a party if Tony wasn’t there! On top of that, Tony knew where all the parties in Cambridge were. Whenever any form of social event was planned, word got back to Tony at his fruit stall. He knew the time, date, place, who was invited and who was not. And he always included himself and a few of his friends. Furthermore, telling Tony about your social affair could be tantamount to issuing an open invitation to all of Cambridge—at least the under-30 crowd.

So I told Tony and stressed the fact that he was not to tell anyone else, that way I could assure an abundance of guests. But I made Tony pay the price of being, at least for the first hour or so, the bouncer, often a necessary evil at a Cambridge party during the summer. Unfortunately, as it turned out, I tried to assure security by asking my good friend, Franz Kuna, a tall big-boned Austrian, to also act as a bouncer.

The Spread Eagle supplied me with several gallons of my favorite student libation Merrydown apple wine and most of my friends were there, including the infamous Sammy Singh!

When the Waterloo party began, Bee was there. The place was crowded—on three of the four floors. I had danced with Bee, but was bothered by the lingering knowledge that she had been bedded by Sammy—and here I was taking her to the May Ball! We had formed a party, consisting of my buddies at Alconbury, Joe Marged and Joe MacLemore, and a few others—we agreed to meet in the Great Hall at midnight to partake of the feast. I had had much to drink and really didn’t give that much of a damn about this otherwise beautiful girl; so I decided to play it very off-handedly. I made it obvious that I wanted to bed her—and told her so; regardless of the consequences.

The night began busily enough, with people flooding in. Realizing that I may have overdone it, I asked Tony to be sure to admit only those people who he knew were friends of mine, with only cute female exceptions. Then I gave the word to Franz. I then went to join the throng in the main sitting room where the lovely Bee was.

After about an hour, during which time I was busy snaking all over Bee, I heard a commotion from out in the hallway; it sounded like a fight. I went out in the hallway and looked over the railing, down one flight. Sure enough, there was Tony Ventris locked in mortal combat with my friend Franz Kuna—the two bouncers were trying to throw each other out! And this was just the beginning of a bad night!

What had happened was that, having been sent by me to do the rounds and extricate one or two party crashers, Franz Kuna had happened upon Tony Ventris. Now the two did not know each other and I had also deputized Tony to throw out any supernumerary attendees.

Well, Kuna and Ventris happened on each other downstairs, and duly challenged each other. Both took great umbrage at being so threatened and both decided to toss the other out. Kuna is over 6' and good-sized; Ventris is a natural street scrapper, so the fight was on. I managed to separate the two and end the whole thing somewhat amicably—but I found the whole thing quite amusing.

I only spent about ten more days in Cambridge, having booked passage on what was to be one of the last voyages of the S. S. France, which was then one of the biggest ships afloat. The sailing date was to be the 4th of July, a propitious time, I thought, to be heading home to America.

I had decided to have another, smaller party of my best friends on the night of the 3rd, and so invited Elie and Johanna, Poul and Merete, Ib, Sammy, and a few others round to Waterloo House. That afternoon I consoled myself with the saddening thoughts of my departure, by consuming copious quantities of my favorite Apple cider, Merrydown; by the time I got back to my room for a lie-down, I was well past it.

As I reclined on my bed, I took my steamship information packet from the night table to read. As I opened it, a small single page slip fell out and I read it. It was to inform passengers that the time and date of the sailing had been moved forward, to 4 p.m. on July 3rd! Although my mind was a bit furry from the cider, my eyes opened wide as I looked at my watch—it was nearly 1 p.m. and the boat was sailing from Southampton in 3 hours! I panicked. First thing I did was call my friend George Abbott at his travel bureau to confirm what I’d read. He seemed surprised to hear I was still in Cambridge! He was very helpful, consulting some of his timetables: he told me I had 15 minutes to make the last train that would connect me with my London boat-train in time to make the sailing! What a panic! I immediately called Poul Holm and had him come over straightaway to help with my final packing Fortunately, I had packed and shipped much before this time and only had the contents of my room. I called my buddy Bill Blackburn, a Cambridge policeman, and had him come over and took my scooter and registration papers to sell the damn thing and send me the money. I called Elie to tell him what had transpired and that the party was off and would he tell the others. By that time Poul had arrived and we scrambled the stuff—electric typewriter, tennis racket, large framed print, tape recorder, Bobby’s helmet, hat, etc.,—downstairs and out to a waiting taxi. There was a mad dash for the train with Poul, Merete, and I dashing down the platform with the gear, the train just starting to pull out. I had jumped on and, through the still-open door they chucked the gear as the train slid out of the station. As I waved good-bye as the train left, I noticed Poul waving back—still wearing my hat! Oh, well . . . That was how I left Cambridge on July 3, 1963.

I made my connections and got to the dockside in Southampton just as the France was tooting its horn signaling the dockers to let loose its mooring lines. All the traditional passenger gangways were up—only a conveyor belt moving the last-minute fresh perishables into the galley area was still attached. Boxes of fresh vegetables, canisters of milk—and me and my gear were put on it at the last minute. About 6 short Phillip Morris-like bellboys were dispatched to aid me in getting myself and my gear to my stateroom. The boys went ahead, carrying all the ridiculous gear, including the policeman’s helmet.

I had to share a cabin with two others, one of whom was already in the room squaring his stuff away. A succession of red-liveried bellboys brought, first, the typewriter, then the tape recorder. My roommate an English architect with the very Germanic name of Claus Seligmann, was curious and trying to form a picture of who his roommate was, and what he did, from the various paraphernalia that he watched coming into the room. Next came the framed print—an impressionistic Three Boats by the Vietnamese Artist Lê Bá Đảng—then the Bobby helmet, then a mountain climber’s ice axe. He was totally mystified, albeit convinced that he was unlikely to find his roomie boring! Then I came in. That meeting was, it turned out, to change Claus’ life dramatically. We were to become fast friends and, although he was newly divorced and looking for employment in New York City in the Promised Land, we would meet again, in December and, in 1966, I would be instrumental in getting him a professorship in Architecture at the University of Washington—as well as a hospital position for his new fiancée at the U. W. hospital—and his move to Seattle where he has lived ever since. So much for chance encounters.

At this time I was sorely conscious that I was entering a new phase in my life. I had no idea if Mary Ann and the boys would ever come back. I had no idea what academic opportunities would present themselves after my one-year-only contract at U.W. I had little money and no income until the end of September (but U. W. would then give me one large check at the end of September covering three months’ wages). I was heading back to my mother’s house in Los Angeles and would have to kill at least six weeks before going up to Seattle.

The Dissertation

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 08:01:00 +0000

Although this part of my father’s unfinished autobiography introduces Gudrun, there are no details about how and when they met, nor is it covered in his journal of that period, nor in letters. Presumably the omission would have been corrected in a subsequent draft.

There are notes, though, that indicate that he met Gudrun in early May of 1963. My parents would remain separated for the entire summer, from May 13 to August 27. When reading these Cambridge chapters, it’s hard to believe he had a wife and two small children, since there is scant mention of us.

The next event to have an impact on my life was on my birthday, May 7th, of 1963. We decided to host a party at our house on Panton Street. The usual bachelorish crowd had been invited—Ray, Pista, Dick, Ib, Sam, Charles the Hungarian weight-lifter, my new friend Anders from Sweden, who would go down to Pamplona with Ib and me in 1966. The little place was nearly full to the rafters by 8 p.m. It was then the front door-bell rang and opened it to find the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. With shoulder-length blonde hair, in a medium blue one piece dress, tanned and beautiful, she wore a 4" wide red ribbon, from her right shoulder to her left hip. She was holding a single red rose in her clasped hands in the middle of her chest. Her head was tilted down sniffing it when I opened the door. She looked up and said, “Are you Peter?” When I acknowledged that indeed I was, she added, “I’m your birthday present.” I stuck my head around outside to see who was playing what I thought obviously must be a joke. She commented that it was no joke, that she was for real. I looked heaven-ward and mumbled “I believe in you, big fella!” I was in shock.

Just at that moment, who but my buddy Anders, the Swede, jumps out from behind a bush in the front garden shouting “Happy Birthday, old man! Do you like my present?” Looking hungrily at this goddess incarnate, I could only mumble “I’ll say!” and ushered them into the house.

It turned out that Anders was stuck for a possible birthday present, when he stopped in town before coming to the party. He stopped at the Kenya Coffee House, one of our old stomping grounds, for he knew he could always buy a box of fancy chocolates there. He was having a coffee when he overhead Swedish being spoken at the table next to him. There were two tall beautiful Pan Am flight attendants talking at the next table. They had flown in on a Charter to Mildenhall, a USAF/RAF base some 11 miles away, and they had about 14 hours to kill before heading back. Clearly, they were looking for some night life and were presently at a loss to figure out how they were going to find it. They were happy to find this engaging Swedish fellow, Anders, at the next table; especially when he told them that he knew of a party—which was just where he was heading. They agreed to accompany him; but first he stopped at the counter and bought a box of chocolate with a big red ribbon on it. He got the counter lady to remove it and substitute a much bigger one, which he promptly hung around the beautiful blonde. Michaela was her name; she was half-Swedish, half-German. She agreed to come as my birthday present, so they were off in a cab to my house.

I was beside myself with glee and couldn’t take my eyes off this girl. Mind you, hairy, muscle-bound, dark and sinister Charles, the Hungarian weight-lifter also had eyes for “Mike” and was making the big moves on her as well. It was hard being the host, a married one at that, and keeping up a conversation with this ravishing creature.

There was something about that party—and not Michaela—that told me that the days of my marriage were over. Mary Ann could sense that as well. The loveless days of my youth were ended, and now something inside of me wanted to make up for it all. I had insufficient moral conscience, plus no desire to act on what I had. It was only to be a matter of days before I would meet Gudrun, and that would clinch it. Mary began to talk about going home, and I made no efforts to stop her. Sometime before the end of May, Mary and the boys left for Michigan.

I decided to vacate Panton Street because the rent was more than I could afford on my own and some drinking mates of mine at the Spread Eagle around the corner on Lensfield Road, who were also students, invited me to stay at their place in Waterloo House, next door to the pub, for free!

It was a big house, having four floors and included the flat of the owner and one English working girl, in addition to four University students. I would be replacing one of those four and would therefore have one room, and would share a bath, sitting room, and kitchen. I moved in on June 1; the other guys left about two weeks later.

During the month of May I finally finished my thesis, handing in the typescript volumes around mid-month. I expected my oral examination around the first of June—and planned accordingly.

So enamored of Gudrun had I become as the result of that first long evening we spent together, that all I could focus on was the opportunity of seeing her again. After my oral dissertation defense, I would be finished with my graduate career—only having to be notified of my passing and the date of the awarding of my doctorate. I would be expected to be home—though I wasn’t sure to where I would be returning—as soon as I was done. I had accepted my first job offer—at the University of Hawaii—which Sydney Smith had been instrumental in getting me—even though it only paid $5000 a year and the cost of living in Hawaii, beautiful and desirable as it was, was reportedly 20% higher than the mainland! Then, as luck would have it, an offer came through—this time partly due to my friend Harry Woolf, then Editor of ISIS—from the University of Washington, in Seattle, at $6400. I had been morally obliged to accept the latter and had dispatched a letter of regret to Hawaii. I had been in correspondence with the History Chairman at U. W. and, through him, had arranged to rent the 4-bedroom furnished house of a professor who would be away for a year on sabbatical. It would be available on September 1. Since Mary and the boys were separated from me, It looked as if I would return to my mother’s home in L.A. for the balance of that summer. I arranged with my good friend and travel agent, George Abbott, to sail home to America in early July on the S. S. France

There I was with what seemed to be two weeks on my hands before my oral exam. I decided to make a trip to Sweden, on the Tilbury-Gothenburg ferry to see Gudrun who was a student in Gothenberg. I decided this would only take about a week or less, and planned to return on the last day of May. I reasoned that my dissertation readers would have to receive and read my dissertation (and its lengthy appendix, the critical catalogue of the Darwin Reprint Collection) all within about 10 days and then—since there would be at least three of them—set a mutually-convenient time and date on which to examine me.

I decided to leave Gudrun’s phone number in Gothenberg and a tip with the porter at the Porter’s Lodge in my college and told him that, when the postcard came from the Board of History setting a date, time, and place for my oral examination, that, if the date was earlier than June1st, he should immediately call me and tell me. I would be back on May 31st and would stop by the college then. With that, I booked my ferry, called Gudrun to tell her, and took off on my scooter for the ferry to Sweden.

When I returned from Sweden, physically and emotionally tired out, I went directly home to Waterloo House. The next day I slept late and finally got around to St. Catherine’s a little after 1 p.m. The porter told me that a card had only just recently come for me—I would find it in my box. I turned to the letter boxe and retrieved the card. It stated that my oral examination would take place on June 1st, at 1:00 p.m. at an address on Grange Road—the house of Professor Carter. I looked at my watch, it was about 1:15! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I yelled at the porter—why hadn’t he called me? He reminded me that I had said “if the exam date was earlier than June 1st” then he should call me—the date on the card was June 1st. Fine. I was already 20 minutes late, it would take me another six minutes to get to the address. Off I zoomed, hell bent for this crucial meeting.

I found the house, was directed to a room inside and told by Professor Carter that I had missed the exam. Dr. Wilkie had to be back in London and, after 20 minutes of waiting, left to catch his train back to London. I was instructed to call Dr. Hoskin for a new examination date. When I did, I was told that Dr. Wilkie was leaving for his summer holiday shortly. I gulped; I had really screwed up! I commented that I was due to sail back to America on July 4th and, hopefully, a new date could be set before then. Dr. Hoskin said he would try. Eventually, all three would get together—with me—in another ten days. They knew I would not miss that one!

Helen(e) Bang

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 16:33:00 +0000

In this portion of his autobiography my father writes of meeting a Danish girl named Helen, who would become his first mistress, and of being blackmailed by his landlord. One interesting fact I found among my father’s notes after his death was that Helen would appear the following year (1963) as the fictional character of Helene Bang in Kingsley Amis’ novel One Fat Englishman.

The endless fornication and carousing continued throughout the spring. I had made a number of increasingly feeble attempts at my research, but unfulfilled socio-erotic impulses and the fantastic availability of gratification kept me from it. But as May rolled around I was becoming a full-fledged sex-addict. Then fate intervened.

It was my birthday, the 7th of May, and there was a party at Overstream House, a University rowing house party place just on the North side of the Victoria Avenue Bridge. When Dick Walters and a couple of other guys and I arrived, the party was already well under way. In fact we met other “gunslingers” coming out of the place. They mumbled to us as they passed us, “Forget it. It’s Noah’s Ark time. All the animals have paired off already. There’s no chance ...” As they spoke I noticed a tall, blonde, attractive Scandinavian girl dancing with a local guy who was a full head shorter than she. She looked over and saw us come in, then carried on with this Yo-Yo—my term for a shorter-than-average guy who does most of his dancing vertically, bouncing more up-and-down, more than any other direction, bobbing away. He looked like a real twerp. My attention then went back to these guys who were leaving and the chaps I was with. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve found my girl for the evening!” I was chided for what seemed like my fruitless egotism and I rejoindered with a challenge—having bet a pound with each of them that I would end up taking the Scandinavian blonde home that night. Ten minutes later I grabbed the proffered notes en passant as the girl and I exited the dance hall together. That evening was to have some decided effect of my life.

I left the party with that girl, Helen, that night. She was very intelligent, quite articulate and with an apparent sensuality. We didn’t go to bed that evening, but I sort of got the impression that she wanted to. I took her home to the temporary digs she was staying in, that of a doctor who one of her friends was working for and who needed a house sitter for his family home just a few blocks down from me on Huntingdon Road. Helen had invited me to come round for a visit: if it was sunny, she would be at home tanning herself in the back yard.

The next day, unable to get this sultry 22-year-old, worldly, sophisticated Danish girl out of my mind, and with little else to do, I ventured down the road to pay her a call. She came to the door in a terrycloth bathrobe as she had been sunbathing in her one-piece bathing suit. She invited me to the backyard with a bottle of wine and a small portable radio for music. We lay on a blanket taking in the sun. The conversation was all small talk, skirting the obvious sensuality that was beginning to rise in us. I certainly know that the music, the warm sun, this attractive and intelligent Danish blonde were having an effect on me, but, in my relative inexperience I couldn’t seem to fathom if she was interested in me. Finally, at an appropriate moment, I leaned over a kissed her. It was a warm and inviting kiss, but it was not one, like Deborah and Burt in From Here to Eternity that seemed to promise anything more. After a few more minutes of small talk I felt that we were going nowhere in particular and I was growing a little tired—if not tumescent—of lying in the sun. I made my exit, saying I would ring her later and we might go out. She welcomed the invitation but did not seem upset at my leaving.

Three minutes later I was up in my loft room, standing in front of my desk, looking out the window onto Huntingdon Road at the beautiful day outside and kicking myself for having left her. I wanted her... and, I thought, she wanted me. I was just going to resign myself to a little work when I opened the drawer and saw a couple of foil-wrapped Durex condoms staring back at me. God, I was sure, was giving me a sign! I snatched up the rubbers and headed downstairs, outside, on my scooter, and back to Helen’s place.

When she came to the door she was in her terrycloth robe again. She looked a little hesitant; I had to come up with some explanation of my return ... but I couldn’t. I wanted her. I told her I couldn’t explain why I had come back and, as I did, I reached out for the lapels of her robe. I was going to kiss her. Then, at that moment, the loosely-tied cinch around the robe came loose and the panels came about four inches apart, revealing the fact that she was completely naked underneath. It was a beautiful, perfect body, spread out over her 5'8' slender frame. I took it all in. As I tried to stammer out an explanation as to why I’d come, she just took my hand and led me down the hall, up the stairs and into the bedroom she had been using. “Helen ...” I said as I took hold of the lapels of her robe. As I pulled it open, she shrugged it onto the floor. “Shh ... don’t say anything ...” and she pulled open my shirt. With that I tore open my pants and stepped out of them, having just kicked off my shoes. It was all so quick, passionate and violent, it was over in fifteen seconds. As I started to pull out of her I felt her hands press against the small of my back. “No, don’t...stay there until you’re ready again.” With those words I was already ready again! This time it was really passionate and violent. She came several times—and I thought it was love! A beautiful, bright Danish nymphomaniac! This seemed to me what life was all about! I never gave a second thought to my marital status, my kids, or where the hell I was!

The relationship with Helen became all-consuming. We lived and breathed for each other. My relationship with the Frosts—witchy, puritanical Beryl in particular—had become intolerable; as a result I went out to look for another place. It was about this time that, having confessed to Mary Ann that my work would undoubtedly require me to spend at least another term at Cambridge, she said that she and the boys would be coming back to England—as soon as they boys’ school year was over—probably around July 1.

Actually, just as it was coming time for me to find a new place, so it was becoming time for Helen to return to Denmark. I hadn’t really given it much thought, but my heart was going with her. I can’t recall the details of our parting, but that is probably because something in me didn’t recognize it as a parting.

I did find a little house on Panton Street, just opposite the University Chem Labs and just down the road from my friend John Henshaw, who was an artist and the only man in town who regularly threw a New Year’s Eve Party. The house was alongside the yard and meeting place of some weird sectarian church group. It was a cute place that was actually quite bigger than it appeared on the outside.

As expected, Mary Ann and the boys moved in July and life resumed fairly normally. I realized that my six months of playing around, while they may have cost me only one term of delay, nevertheless cost me an extra year because of the necessity of now earning a living. I got a job teaching for the University of Maryland at Sculthorpe USAF base—which paid quite well, but still wasn’t enough to keep the whole family. I also managed to get a job teaching at the Tech in town: two subjects—A-level Biology and courses for the Certificate in Medical Lab Technology.

Mary Ann and I tried to resume a normal life—but, through the criminal activities of Maurice and Beryl Frost, this was not to be. Shortly after Mary Ann’s return, I had a visit one evening from Maurice Frost. Seems he was still having a hard time finding suitable employment, their money was running out, so he was bringing along the latest still-unpaid gas bill for my small gas ring which I had occasionally used to heat food and drink in my flat. He told me that, as the bill was for gas service for the whole house, he would just have to guess at the amount I owed him. He said I should give him £181! (A single ring used very intermittently for 5 months would have normally come to about £8, tops—about £30 in 1994 money). I couldn’t believe my ears! If I didn’t pay it, said he drifting off into unspoken innuendo . . .

I replied: “Maurice, if you’re doing what I think you’re doing...”

He smiled craftily. “I didn’t say a thing,” he added.

I was furious! Here I’d taken pity on this guy who had, through no fault of his own, gotten into financial troubles. I had agreed to pay rent in excess of value so as to help him and his family out—and now he was blackmailing me for more money! I was fit to be tied.

I asked “What do you intend to do?”

“You mean,” he said, “if you don’t pay?”

“Exactly,” I countered.

He shrugged his shoulders: “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.” I could only reply, “Maurice ... get fucked!” and with that I got out of the car and walked back to my house.

One night, a couple of weeks later, when I was out teaching at the USAF base at Sculthorpe, the Frosts came by the house. Mary Ann had just put the kids to bed. She knew the Frosts but, believing they had come by to see me, she told them that I wasn’t in, I was teaching. No, said they, they’d come to have a chat with her. The ominous tone in their voices made her incline to beg off to another evening—one which would involve my being there. Eventually she relented and invited them to come in and sit down.

Beryl began in a pseudo-noble tone about how she felt it was her moral duty to relate to Mary Ann just what it was her husband had been doing for the past five months. If it was something bad, Mary Ann said, she didn’t want to hear about it. It was, said Maurice, and she should. Beryl then fetched from out of her purse a little notebook and, as she flipped through the opening pages, commented that, so unbelievable and so immoral had been my behavior that she just had to keep a record of it as no one would believe it otherwise. However uncomfortable, Mary Ann listened quietly and without comment. It was a distasteful scene: this scrawny, witch-like woman looking years beyond her actual age and her puffy, weak, pale-faced husband who had always seemed like such a “lech” to Mary Ann; taking such a moral “high ground”—stabbing a man in the back who had befriended them and helped them in a time of need.

A psychologist would say that Beryl was deriving much pleasure from causing Mary Ann considerable pain. She detailed the total number of nights I had stayed in their house, then she claimed to have the exact number of nights I had shared my room with a member of the opposite sex. She talked (lying quite blatantly) about laughter, cries, little screams, etc. She commented that there were at least 30 different females, she went on, flipping through her notes trying to cite with pseudo-accuracy the lurid details.

This was the unseemly way Mary Ann learned what I’d been up to. The writing of this, even after thirty years, I still find painful. Clearly Mary Ann was shattered. There never had been a question in her mind as to the truth of these happenings. Clearly, she was feeling helpless and alone. She had but one friend in whom to find some solace, some consolation, and that was Johanna, Elie Zahar’s wife. Nonetheless, she was feeling very alone.

I wasn’t to find out about this scene until some weeks later when a special delivery letter from Helen was diverted to the house from my college as I hadn’t been there to sign for it. She handed me the letter when I arrived home that night and told me she knew all about the affair from the Frosts.

We spent several hours that night talking about it. And I didn’t make matters any better when I told her that I had gotten heavily involved with Helen. The upshot of the whole conversation was that, at least temporarily, she would let the whole matter pass until I finished my dissertation and we returned home to the U.S. Then, if I hadn’t given her any further reason to distrust me, we would see what we would see.

But somehow or other I seemed not to be able to leave it at that: I saw an opportunity to vent my feelings about Helen. I wasn’t sure I could give her up. This proved an even further blow to Mary Ann. She wasn’t sure that she didn’t want me to leave; she wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t take the kids, pack up, and leave for home in America. We went round and round, but I was obviously reluctant to just simply cut the string that (to whatever extent) seemed to be binding me to Helen. As we wound down, Mary Ann insisted on my ending it with Helen, no ifs, ands or buts. I said that I obviously understood, but ... I felt that I had to confront her—such had been the past and such were my latent feelings for her that I felt I had to see her. So the conclusion was that I would go to see her, make a decision, and return. This was probably one of the worst moments in Mary Ann’s life. She had thrown in her fate with me, left America to come and live in England, had two children and set herself on a life-path and now she would be obliged to sit around a rented house in Cambridge, England and keep up a brave front in front of two small children, while I tooled off to Denmark to see if I loved someone else and therefore see if I wanted to have a wife and two children any more. What a position she would be in! What a self-involved, 24-year-old bastard I was!

I left for Denmark shortly thereafter, taking the Harwich-Esbjerg ferry. I had called Helen ahead of time and so she was there to meet me when the ferry docked at noon on the day after my departure. I will never forget the humorous scene which followed upon her inquiring as to whether I’d brought contraceptives with me. Confessing that I hadn’t, she pulled over to an Apotek in Esbjerg so I could run in and get some. I didn’t give it a second thought until I saw that there was no one in the relatively small place except women. I felt like a 14 year old trying to buy rubbers in a less-than-crowded American drug store! I was doubly chagrined to find a woman pharmacist coming forward to the counter to assist me!

I had no idea what the Danish word for contraceptive was, but, as always, I thought if I spoke slowly, pronounced precisely, perhaps I would be understood: “Con-tra-cep-tive” I articulated carefully, as it seemed to me the pharmacy had grown quiet and the ladies were fixed on the stranger. It drew no comprehension from the pharmacist. Repeating it had no new effect. “Rub-ber” only tended to increase her mystification. Then, I looked down and saw that she was pushing a blank writing pad and pencil across the counter to me. But then I thought, what does one draw in a case like this? At last I came up with a drawing that looked rather like a test tube lying on its side. No comprehension—as a couple of ladies pushed their way to take a look at what I’d put on the pad (one of the shorter ones had actually lifted up my elbow to get an unobstructed view!) I was beside myself with frustration and embarrassment. Then, somehow or other, the message got through and the pharmacist lit up with comprehension! As she kept nodding and mumbling, ‘yes, yes, I understand’ she dipped momentarily under her counter and came up with a large (about 6"x5"x4") cardboard box and upended it, spilling its contents on the counter top. There must have been about 100 loose, unwrapped condoms there: big ones, medium ones, pink ones, lt. blue ones, ribbed ones, tipped ones—every conceivable style, color, shape, and size imaginable.

I could hear the group behind me inhaling with surprise as in one breath! Even the odd “oooo” and “ahhh”s! I felt about 2" tall; all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there! But she stopped me by asking (I surmised) how many I wanted. I paused, thinking; then I saw that all had turned to look at me. I reckoned that they were probably thinking: here’s a swaggering Yank thinking he’s coming here to swive all our innocent maidens; but I wasn’t going to let any possible opinion of this group to sway me. I said “Four dozen!” Needless to say there were a few “tch, tch”s among the second round of “ooo”s and “ahhh”s. But I grabbed my package, paid, and dashed out into Helen’s waiting car.

We had about a 3 hour drive to her family home outside of Randers on the main Jutland peninsula. When we got to Kolding, about 1/3rd of the way, we were finding it difficult to contain ourselves. A mile out of the smallish town we actively started looking for a lovemaking place ... so full of pent-up hormones were we. Within a minute, Helen ordered me to turn off to the left, down what looked like a farm road.

A little way down the road there appeared what looked like to be an old barn. Helen told me to pull over. We got out of the car, me following her into the barn. I was looking left and right and all around to make sure the place was as deserted as it appeared to be. It was.

We spotted one darkish corner with a pile of hay and Helen ordered me to close the barn door. As I did so and turned back to her, she had already taken off her blouse and was busy removing her panties. She beckoned me as I undid my belt and lowered my fly. Within seconds, we were making the most delicious, frantic, impassioned love: We almost set the hay afire! But we had hardly finished than we heard the rustling of the farmer/owner who had, it appeared, been in the building the entire time! We were devastated with embarrassment!

I got the feeling that I was being introduced to the family as a prospective mate for Helen. I don’t think I had a single moment while in Denmark, except, perhaps, for a few minutes in that barn, where I was not reflecting on my position, my future; not to mention wife and family back in Cambridge. Somehow, the view that seemed to predominate was that it would be poetic retributive justice for me to burn my bridges behind me and, having done so, have nothing to show for it but burned bridges. In Helen’s tough and seemingly unrelenting mother I saw where Helen had gotten not only her smarts but her tough, take-charge attitudes: there was a lingering fear that, after the romance and passion had waned a bit, I might just be left with a bossy wife and a long-distance view of some charred bridges! I loved my two sons and, although I had badly damaged her and thoughtlessly caused her much grief, I nonetheless cared for Mary Ann. I did have a conscience, though it didn’t seem to play much a role in the decisions I had made in 1962.

By the time it had come for me to leave Denmark and head for the ferry, I had made up my mind. I knew I had to leave Helen behind: that there was no moral or personal choice. As we were getting out of the car at the ferry quayside in Esbjerg, Helen gave me a nice cardboard-framed photo of herself.

I stood at the ships stern as it pulled out of the harbor and waved goodbye to Helen on the quay. As she drifted away into nothingness and the ship passed out into the North Sea, I reflected on what might have been. I thought how near-perfect the match might have been. But then I came back to reality, thought of Mary Ann and the boys and I remember standing at the stern of the ship as I tore up her photo and threw the pieces into the sea, believing I would never see Helen again. I definitely had the feeling I was closing a chapter in my life.

In the next two months there were—at my college—two letters from Helen, but I answered neither of them. I knew that she must have known that it was over.

Cambridge 1958-1962

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 08:01:00 +0000

Chronicled below are some of my father’s earliest infidelities from his unpublished autobiography. It would seem that he recorded only the most memorable dalliances, hinting at others perhaps less interesting. His extramarital activities seemed to dawn with the new decade of the 1960s and read something like a bad British comedy of the period or an Austin Powers-type spoof. My father and mother had moved to Cambridge so that my father could get his masters and doctorate, which, as his memoirs reveal, took him at lot longer than it should have.

Mary Ann was seven months pregnant when we sailed August 15th on the TSS New York out of Manhattan for Southampton. Mary Ann’s parents would come over just before the baby was due—which was not until the beginning of October. Michaelmas Term, 1958 would commence on October 4th—the day Jeff was born.

We stayed in a little bed & breakfast place on Trumpington Street until we found a furnished house through January’s, the estate agents. Given our young ages and lack of experience, in addition to being new parents, my mother agreed to supplement our income, if needed. We found a lovely semi-detached four-bedroom house on Windsor Road—just off the Histon and Huntingdon Roads north of town. The rent was 8 guineas ($25) a week, but I would need a bike or a scooter to get around.

It was a spacious place, which required no further furniture—except some space heaters (it was not centrally heated). Two of the bedrooms were of decent size (12'x14'), the front would be the master bedroom, the rear would make a decent study; the remaining two were rather small (only 6'x9'), but good enough for a nursery and a box room. Downstairs there was a front sitting room—which would be our dining room—and a back sitting room with french doors opening onto a large garden. There was a smallish kitchen with an antique gas stove and an ancient fridge, and there was also a larder. Out back, abutting the garage, was a coal shed which also had an outside toilet (although there was one toilet and one bathroom upstairs on the second floor.) The structure was shared with a neighboring house having the same amenities. It was considered solid, if not upper middle class as evidenced by the fact that our neighbor, Doug Howarth, was Manager of the local Legal & General office, one of the country’s insurance companies. He had a wife and three children (two sons and a daughter), pre-teens. Our Estate Agent, as it turned out, also had a wife who gave birth at the same place and on the same date as Jeff.

Our life in Cambridge was one of stereotypical domestic bliss. We lived fairly well due to a favorable exchange rate—and financial help from my mother. Mary Ann became pregnant with Mark in February following Jeff’s birth; the boys would be 13 months apart. Slowly the trappings of family life were surrounding me.

In the meantime, Cambridge University’s Committee for the History & Philosophy of Science was busy creating a graduate program in the subject. The first students would be students who wanted to become science teachers in secondary schools, and wanted an additional feather in their cap. But it was difficult for the graduate school to attract competent people versed in specific sciences. It was difficult to train historians sufficiently in the sciences for them to do competent graduate work in their history, but seemed less so to train scientists in the methods of history. This is particularly so as it is the task of every would-be graduate student in the science to research the history of his intended area of research. So, the student of proven competence in a scientific field was the desired candidate to do grad work in the History of Science. As a result, I was proselytized by the resident Historians of Science, namely, A. Rupert Hall of Christ’s and Sydney Smith of St. Catharine’s, to do graduate work in the History of Biology. To do so, I would have to attend lectures, supervisions, and tutorials for the graduate Diploma in the History and Philosophy of Science; but to make the switch over more palatable, I was told that successful attainment of the Diploma would pretty much guarantee my acceptance as a graduate student in the History of Science and would also be allowed to count towards 3 of the 9 required semesters towards a Ph.D. I did so in June 1959.

In the spring, at Mary Ann’s suggestion, I wrote to her old Biology Professor at Northern Michigan College (now University) about a summer school teaching position. He, in turn, passed on my letter, to another Professor—Holmes Boynton—who, in turn, offered me a job for that summer of 1959. It didn’t offer much pay, but it was enough to pay all our passages back to the upper peninsula of Michigan, where Mary Ann’s parents lived; and where our costs would be negligible and it would only be a 65-minute drive to Marquette from Michigamme.

The Northern position was an NSA-sponsored summer Institute for Teachers of the Sciences. Most of the attendees were high school science teachers, most of the lecturers were visitors. There were also a number of regular college students in attendance that summer, many of them living in the dorms. I became friendly with many of them. I participated in several evening bull sessions with the students wherein I told of my own exploits at UCSB and encouraged one and all to “Question Authority.” Well, word got back to Boynton that I was promulgating subversion among Northern students and I was summarily called in—this after 2½ weeks of the session—and told that my services would now no longer needed. I was given my full pay as severance and there I was, fired from my first job. As this was, apparently, not going to affect my career, I could have cared less, but I was embarrassed. I returned, somewhat chastened, to Cambridge, and the beginning of a graduate career.

My biggest initial help came from Dr. Sydney Smith, Tutor in Natural Sciences at St. Catharine’s, University Lecturer in Embryology, and member of the History & Philosophy of Science Committee. Sydney was always helpful, but he was equally on an on-going ego trip. He was a relative non-achiever—though he did excellent work—who had to make it up by demeaning those under him. He incessantly told us what relatively uneducated, sometimes stupid, always ignorant, lot we were. Nonetheless, out of these meetings, we did obtain vital—and helpful—information.

But Sydney did introduce me to The Whim, Cambridge’s venerable (now gone—replaced by a Liberty store) tea-room. Many an hour was spent talking, visiting, and, occasionally, picking up girls there. I can remember a whole range of characters from there, from Elie Zahar, now LSE’s eminent philosopher of science, to Ivan the Terrible Driving Instructor. The latter was a local Englishman who so very much wanted to be part of our “crowd;” he also recognized the opportunities that we had found at the Whim for picking up girls. Ivan would invariably come in at tea-time and plop himself down with one of us. But when an attractive group of girls would come in, this gaunt and somewhat thick-witted chap would hop up and, uninvited, join their table. Ivan was the only man who I believed could clear out the entire place, simply by hopping from table to table and precipitating hurried departures!

Two elderly sisters ran The Whim and they had their decided favorites among the regulars; if you were polite and reasonably well-dressed and passed the time of day with them, you were admitted to their sanctum. When they could no longer make a go of the place in the face of Caius’ mounting rent increases; and when no one person or institution stepped forward to preserves this landmark, it went the way of so many Cambridge places: it fell to a local extension of a chain store. Laura Ashley, Liberty, Dillon’s, Marks & Spencer and the Body Shop; all have pushed out local store owners by paying the exorbitant rents the College-landlords have demanded. Pubs like the Bath and the Eagle have been bought and renovated almost beyond recognition—and even serve pizza as pub-grub! The “Crit” as the Criterion pub was known, nestled in the Arts Cinema passageway, was the handwriting on the wall; then the Still & Sugarloaf, then the Rose on Rose Crescent—and so it goes, or, went.

My principal friends in Cambridge from 1958-1962 were, among students—notably the St. Cat’s trio of Peter Lomas, Alaba Akinsete (from Nigeria), B. K. Wong (from Malaysia), Alun Steer—reading German at St. Johns and after whom I named my second son—and various “townies,” such as Janet and Brian Legg, she the Administrative Secretary of my department, he a Cambridge United footballer—and then there was Elie and Johanna Zahar, he a brilliant undergraduate mathematician, and she a German student at the Tech.

During my first academic year, my mentor Sydney Smith—embryologist and part-time historian of biology—took me under his wing as a fellow Darwin scholar and showed me around the Darwiniana at the University. There were some items to be found at the Botany School at the Sedgwick Avenue site; the reason for this being that Darwin had left most of his scientific collections to his botanist son, Francis who had become a professor of botany at the University. Botanical research papers, reprints, collections, found their way here. Darwin’s personal library, some family letters and papers, zoological specimens and collections remained at Down House in Kent, which had been preserved and maintained by the College of Physicians and Surgeons. It had been turned into a school shortly after Emma Darwin’s death, but reverted to the public domain in the late 20s and now stands much as the Darwins had left it in the 19th Century. The University Library contains Darwin’s papers, letters and manuscripts.

Most important for me personally, was Dr. Smith’s taking me to the Botany School Library. There, some 9' up along the topmost shelf along one corner wall was a 15' line of manila-wrapped, string-tied packets of 3"-4" thick book-sized bundles. Dr. Smith invited me to ascend the library ladder and, pointing to the rightmost side, suggested that I open one. They were offprints of scientific periodical articles belonging to Sir Francis Darwin. Then, finding much satisfaction in this smug game of hide-and-seek, he beckoned me to move a little further to my left and retrieve another bundle. I soon had packets of articles that had been collected by both Francis and his more illustrious father; a little further to the left and I was looking at Darwin’s own personal reprint collection. Containing over a 1,000 books and journal articles, it also contained a total of over ¼ million words of Darwin’s holograph annotations. This was to be the researcher’s gold mine and was to form the basis for my doctoral dissertation! I had the material with which to assay the direct influence of contemporary sources upon Darwin and his ideas! This was handed to me by Dr. Smith and became the center around which my research revolved.

My social life revolved around the Leggs, Alun Steer and his Yugoslavia girlfriend, Nuja, my journalistic efforts (held over from my Santa Barbara days) and my college friends. Through my friend Alaba (Vincent) Akinsete at Cat’s I met Bittan (Mai-Britt) Hallquist, a Swedish student studying English in Cambridge. We became good friends, having had many lunches, etc., together with the boys from Cat’s, at The Gardenia, The Whim, The Copper Kettle, and all those other places that students piss away their indolent hours when they should be studying. Socio-sexually inexperienced that I was, I enjoyed the attentions of Bittan. I was most curious about Sweden. So, with Alun Steer having gone off to Germany to study for the Michaelmas term of 1960 and his heading home to England for Christmas, I contrived a little trip to the Continent: from Tilbury to Gothenberg, Sweden via North Sea ferry, thence by train to Stockholm, where I would then train down the 20 miles to see Bittan in Tumba, then back up to Stockholm and then train, via Copenhagen to Hamburg, where I would meet up with Alun and then we’d return home to England on a student train, arriving on December 23rd. It was an interesting trip—Mary Ann making no objection, providing I was back before Christmas.

Bittan met me, along with heavily falling snow, when I arrived at the station in Tumba. She told me it was Santa Lucia night and there would be a small festival down at the local school. This was the formal arrival of winter, the festival of lights, wherein one 13-year-old school girl who’d been elected to the role of Lucia, would lead a candlelight procession from one part of town down to the school. This was to be followed by a dinner of nearly all the adults in the town. It was quite impressive to see the strings of hand-held candles coming from all the different lanes, converging on the High Street and moving en masse down to the school. Dinner was quite gay and I was one of the centers of attraction. I was taught how to skål and consumed many of the little chilled shots of aquavit. The next day Bittan offered to accompany me up to Stockholm and spend my last day in Stockholm with me before I left on the train to Copenhagen. It was a fun day and we ended up at the Regina Hotel, a modest place in the center of town. We each got single rooms—on different floors. We said a warm farewell at the train station the following day—I would be in Copenhagen by late afternoon.

I can’t remember much about Copenhagen and Hamburg except that I knew no one in the former and Alan was not very helpful, socially, in the latter. We enjoyed several evenings in the student beer cellars and I was introduced to several English-speaking students. I remember but one problem with the English-German translating. There was this young couple, Hans and Gerda, quite attractive, in their mid-20s. They seemed quite attached and quite vivacious. In an effort to get to know them better I asked them how long they had been “going together.” What I didn’t know was that the term, translated literally into German, means “having sexual intercourse”—as in “how long have the cow and bull been going together?” There was a hushed pause in the conversation, the two looked at each other, blushed visibly, then burst out laughing. They realized that my question, quite innocent, had missed its meaning in translation. My puzzlement in their laughter was allayed by Alun’s explanation and the good times continued.

As it turned out, Alun had much work undone and he would be unable to accompany me back to England. I was disappointed at having to make the long haul back on my own. But he introduced me to three Art students who were travelling in that direction, so I would have some companionship. They were an Italian, an Englishman, and a German—it looked like, with my French, we had all the language bases covered, if needed.

I remembered we arrived at the Hamburg railway station on the day of our travel quite late at night. It seemed quite eerie and foreboding to me; winter, late night, foreign country. And the German love of uniforms. It seemed that even the S-Bahn conductors looked like SS men in their black uniforms with their peaked caps. I felt like I was in an old black & white B movie and expected Conrad Veidt to emerge any minute in a Gestapo uniform. The German I heard in the background certainly helped to set the mood.

The bahnhof was quiet, with a moderate number of people; one or two had laid out on the long benches in the waiting room, at least one sound asleep. The four of us students sat on a bench opposite the sleeper, keeping our eye on the electric notice board above for the platform number of our train to Dunquerque.

All of a sudden—so it seemed—the double swinging doors on the street side of the waiting room burst open and two black-uniformed policemen came striding into the room. At that point I felt my Jewish blood curdling in my veins—it was the 1940s again and they were surely looking for me!

They had black leather boots on and they strode down either side of the main central aisle, glaring down at each person waiting. As they reached our aisle—I was already feeling so guilty; of something—in one alarming swoop the cop had unleashed his billy club and THWACK! thumped a reclined sleeper on the soles of his shoes. He shot up in an instant—God knows if he had had a heart condition he would have died of a coronary right then and there! I could see from the frozen expressions of my pals that they shared my terrified thoughts. We all felt like camp escapees trying to make our way out of Nazi Germany: the railway station waiting room in the dead of a winter night was the perfect setting. I really expected the cop to approach me and demand to see my “papers;” but they passed on, scrambling another sleeper and, seemingly appropriately, escorting him out of the station. We sighed and visibly relaxed when the announcement board indicated our train’s platform and we rushed for it.

We were lucky that the train was not crowded. We split up, three of us in one compartment, the Italian Franco, the Englishman Bob, and I in one compartment and our other friend had one all to himself for the time being.

As the train trundled Westward through the night, we quickly learned that the best way to guarantee our privacy was to draw the three curtains on the aisle side of the compartment—one on each side of the sliding door and one on the door itself. We found that the seats slid slightly forward, allowing them to recline at about 30º and thus, if there was no one in the seat opposite, it would make a veritable bed. Unfortunately, there was no lock on the sliding door of the compartment, so at nearly every stop someone noisily slid open our door and jolted us awake; no doubt stirring the recent memory of jackbooted Gestapo agents catching us at last!

Finally, around 2:30 a.m. Franco got the bright idea of resting the foot of his left leg and propping it up against the door lever. By straightening out his leg he created a virtual bar against the opening of the door. The way some travelling schweinhunds responded to this erstwhile challenge by wrestling with the unopenable door was something to behold. At one point I imagined three or four putting their muscles together in an effort to get inside! Obviously, there was little peace and precious little rest on that trip. By 7:30 a.m. with what looked to be the influx of commuters as we crossed into Belgium, someone had summoned the conductor to “unlock” our compartment and we were aggressively rousted into sitting positions as three grumbling German commuters slammed the now-empty seats upright and plopped themselves into their seats, glaring at us student-bums all the while.

Apparently, the train-ferry connection was not too well planned, for we were told that the ferry was just leaving as we pulled into the dockside siding. Being holiday time, all the ferries were booked to capacity and thus, if we missed this one, there was no telling when the hell we’d ever get off the continent. As it was we had to jump onto a moving ferry. With the dangerous gap already widening, I almost had second thoughts, but my wife and kids sitting expectantly around a Christmas tree flashed in my mind and I leapt onto the ferry. I was home by late afternoon of the 23rd.

The year 1960 ended and all seemed quite normal on Windsor Road. My research was proceeding slowly but surely. We were living fairly comfortably on $300 a month; paying as we were only $108 for the rental of our four-bedroom furnished house.

We were able to entertain, even throwing the occasional party for groups of our friends: the Jocks of Christs and the Mummers—two totally and diametrically opposite social groups. Rugby players like Vic Harding, Dave MacSweeny, Donald MacBean, Ron Hoare, and embryonic actors and comedians from the Mummers and the A. D. C.

Much to the occasional chagrin of my bourgeois neighbors—who had to look out their windows in the morning to see what looked like the aftermath of the Battle of the Somme with bodies strewn everywhere.

Towards the summer of 1961 I had begun to feel that I was letting myself get too out of shape. To that end I inveigled soccer-playing Brian Legg to play whiffle ball with me in our backyard, against the side of our garage and I began a diet. By the beginning of term I had gone from about 208 lbs. down to 154—9 lbs. below my ideal weight. By Christmas I would treat myself to a host of new clothes.

That December of 1961, Mary Ann and I decided that she would return home for Christmas in Michigan with the boys. As I was to be finished with my dissertation by June, I could fly back for good at the beginning of summer. To that end, I secured myself a small flat on the 3rd floor of a friend’s house on Huntingdon Road, just around the corner from Windsor Road. This was the house of Maurice and Beryl Frost, who I got to know through Maurice’s job as Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages. There was just the two of them and their five-year-old daughter in a big Victorian house. I had just run into Maurice on the street and he looked terrible. He had lost about 50 lbs. due to the sudden onset of Diabetes. He had also lost his job. It being a dead-end position, he was not fit for anything really but another civil service job—and there weren’t any of those going around. Beryl worked as a secretary/accountant for a local dairy; they were only just scraping by at the time. When I mentioned that I would be moving out of Windsor Road and still wanting to stay for another six months in Cambridge, the idea came to Maurice that he could solve both our problems by renting me the 3rd floor two-room flat at the top of his house and £2 a week seemed good for both of us. All I needed to bring was a desk, a couple of kerosene heaters, books, bedclothes, typewriter, a gas cooking ring and a couple of utensils.

I turned the two small rooms into a cozy little apartment. I brought a large carpet which effectively became wall-to-wall in the front sitting room. I had a couch, a desk and chair, a coffee table and a couple of lamps. The heater which had heated the Windsor Road living room made the small sitting room quite toasty. In the other room was the big double bed, a bureau and a night table. In the hall landing there was a large cupboard where I kept utensils, crockery, and light food.

I had flown back to America with my family, intending to return on New Year’s Eve. The first and only dance party at the International Centre on Trinity Street was to be a New Year’s party—and I didn’t want to miss it, replete with new duds and a slender 154 lb. body. I can still remember that party. The place was packed—wall to wall with attractive Scandinavian girls—and all my “gunslinger” pals. I was like a kid locked in a candy store! They even managed to serve drinks that night—something one could normally never get at the Centre.

The only girl I remember from that night was Tula, a slight brassy Finnish girl. She was a lusty thing who, true-to-form, drank much that night. She weighed in at about 90 lbs. and was so limp from inebriation that I found it easier to dance with her by carrying her entire weight so her feet never touched the dance floor. It was like making love vertically. I was in seventh heaven! This was a token of things to come!

I think I spent nearly every day of the first five months of 1962 in the Centre. The lunch cafeteria was my venue; so much so that Anita, the German cook, had become an ally of mine as the place became my living room.

I can even remember the night, having come home after a particularly wild evening, seen my desktop full of uncompleted work and, opening the desk drawer, swept everything on top into it, not to open it again for six months!

One of my more memorable affairs was with the Coroner’s wife. This woman’s husband had also hoped to become Cambridge’s next mayor. They lived around the corner from where I was living and I had met her on one of our many joint appearances at Lloyd’s Bank. She was both flirtatious and chatty—she was then about 36 years old, Irish, with dark hair and sparkling, come-hither eyes. I can remember, shortly after Mary Ann left, running across her and, engaging her in conversation over a coffee at the Kenya coffee house, I invited her to come ’round and see how students live. As it was but a two-minute walk from her house, she did so on the following day. It was not a difficult conquest; indeed, I was the seducee! It was chiefly memorable for the fact that she kept blurting out, at the most inappropriate times, “Do you know what my husband would do if he ever caught us?!” Or, at the moment of orgasmic truth ... “My husband is a violent man!” I vowed then to leave this neurotic woman alone thereafter and to have more respect where I parked my Willy! As Coroner, I could just see him standing over my dead body—having been murdered by this irate husband—and stating: “Death by Misadventure.” I was definitely going to give that woman a pass.

That winter I was, as they say, a “slut”. I remember dating a little Finnish bird called Eino. I had been trying, for some weeks, to get into her pants, unsuccessfully. One evening, on what I determined would be our last Platonic date, we went to a party at Pete Andres’ on Emmanuel Road and the liquor, as usual, was flowing like water. I had even brought my own bottle of Vodka which I had stuck to chill in his fridge.

In the course of the evening the effect of all the alcohol brought on an “I don’t give a damn” attitude towards this girl. I had resigned myself to never enjoying her slim dancer’s body carnally. I pointedly let her dance with any guy who asked her, and enjoyed dances with a few nubile beauties myself—almost to the point of ignoring her. This had the unexpected but much desired effect of getting her competitive dander up and, after another half-an-hour she insisted that we leave. I told her she could find a cab across the street at the Drummer Street bus station, but she leaned into me, pulling on my lapel, and whispered “I want you to take me back to your place!” She had decided. I heard the victory bell go off in my head, and, draining my last water glass of vodka, grabbed her and steered her out of the busy party and out, onto my scooter, and vroomed off to Huntingdon Road. The cold night air on the scooter ride really caused the effect of the vodka to take hold on both of us; by the time we dismounted in front of the house, I wasn’t quite sure that I could make the long flights up to the 3rd floor. It was bone-chilling cold and I would be lured up those stairs by the thought of my warm toasty, over-heated apartment.

When I got to my landing I lurched directly into the bedroom and, pulling off my clothes in one big go, I collapsed onto the bed. Eino was miffed at the idea of having committed herself to this act, she was going to have to forego any notions of romantic foreplay. I was totally drunk and getting less compos mentis by the minute. She hovered over the bed with me lying prostrate in it looking quite perturbed as she shucked off her coat and blouse. The room started swimming around me as I looked up at her luscious body and well-formed breasts and saw her unfastening her dress. As it slid to the floor and she slid her panties down to her ankles (thank God for the over-heated room!), I realized that nothing but 20 miles of bad neural road lay between my eager brain and my sleeping Willy!

Could I summon up the roving molecules of hormonal chemistry? Could I somehow direct them to the appropriate source? That was the question. Obviously, Willy was not being a stand-up guy. And Eino, sure that her disrobing gestures would have had the appropriate effect, was not too happy with the flaccid results.

With a slight shrug, she seemed to resign herself to a more overt form of stimulation and slid in and down on top of me, running her hands all over my bod. I kept repeating in my mind this little prayer ...” God, if you love me, you’ll make me sober. Just a little sober; just get my blood to the right parts; just for ten minutes. God make me sober.” But this was not to be the case; there was a backlog of gastric alcohol that was still entering my blood and the latter was not going anywhere useful. Eino was getting more and more passionate. I could feel her body on mine getting hotter and hotter; she was no paragon of sobriety—yet the alcohol was having the effect on her that I had been praying it would have on me. The 20 miles of bad road between brain and schlong was stretching into 40, or was totally blocked—fellatio even by a sexually dedicated Brigitte Bardot would have had no effect. Eino tried for about a quarter of an hour: she would have rubbed Willy raw if I hadn’t told her to forget it. We’d try it in the morning I assured her.

Then something went click in her mind; and her overheated and dedicated passion turned to quiet rage. She jumped out of the bed and, with me mumbling my fervent tumescent mantra, proceeded to dress herself. But my mind swam as the room whirled and my eyes circled helplessly in their sockets. I could barely discern that delicious body as it was being covered up. Talk about frustration!

I begged her to stay, promising untold ecstasies in a few hours, but she wasn’t having any of it. She turned, put on her jacket, and, before she left, she strode over to the window, threw it fully open, and looked out, cursing that it was starting to snow and she was about half-a-mile from home. She strode out, slamming the door, not having shut the wide-open window in the face of what has since held to be Cambridge’s worst winter storm in this century! Outside, and faced with the prospect of a long, freezing walk home in the snow, she found some satisfaction in leaning down and letting the air out of both tires of my scooter.

In the morning I opened my eyes and looked down at my uncovered body. It was blue! I couldn’t believe it! I could barely move: I was suffering from exposure. My head was pounding, that was how I knew I was alive. As I cast my mind back to the night before, I winced in painful memory of how badly I had blown it with the lovely Eino—after weeks of frustrating anticipation! I had to shout down for Maurice’s assistance, as I was incapacitated. I asked him to draw me a warm bath, help me up and help me downstairs to thaw. I reckon that all the alcohol I had drunk had acted as an anti-freeze—particularly when I saw the two feet of snow that had accumulated during the night at the foot of the still-wide-open window! Nearly two feet of snow had fallen on Cambridge during that night. The city was paralyzed. As it turned out, it had to borrow emergency snowplows from the city of Stevenage, 25 miles south, to clear the main roads in and out of Cambridge.

After I had recovered sufficiently to be ambulatory, I decided to take my scooter into town. Fat luck! I then discovered what Eino had done in her fit of pique. I had to remove one tire and carry it down about 500 yards to the nearest petrol station for a refill, put on the spare tire as well, then go refill the second tire. Also, it was near-lethal trying to navigate that scooter down the Castle Hill: it was sliding all over the place. That was one winter I shall never forget!

Philadelphia Daily News Thu Nov 15, 1984

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 04:03:00 +0000

Caught by the Paparazzi in the South of France

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 17:51:00 +0000

L to R: Me, the artist Alfredo "Alma" Martinez and the Living Legend, St.-Jean-de-Luz, France 1991

Alexis

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 03 Feb 2017 08:01:00 +0000

The following excerpt from my father’s autobiography chronicles the end of his affair with a 19-year-old student named Alexis in early 1978. He was 40 at the time. Chronologically, this follow the Lucy stories (1977), but was written before those. There are a few things that are striking about this part if his autobiography, most notably the shift to third person, as if he’s telling the life story of someone else. It might have signaled a decision to turn the autobiography into a novel. If that were so, he changed his mind again, as his writing over the days leading up to his death were written, again, in the first person. He also indicates for the first, and only time, that Gudrun and Joanne were his two greatest loves.

Finally, it should be noted that Charles Darwin’s birthday, mentioned in the story, would have been significant to my father in that his doctoral thesis was on Darwin as well as the subject of one of his books. He also borrows two lines from Shakespeare in the opening paragraph.

          So what was it all about? Full of sound and fury; signifying nothing. What a life. He loved not wisely; but too well. But did he do even that? Did he let it all pass by him—an unrequited malcontent who lived the less for wanting more. But he never had Gudrun, or Joanne; those he claimed as his life’s two greatest loves. Who did he have; who did he let get away? Diana? Yes. Elizabeth? Yes. Mary Ann? Yes. Helen? Perhaps, but not when he believed he had her.
          And what about those years after Lucy? after the divorce . . . 65% of the total. Lucy, clearly, must have had an effect on him. Was it something new? Or was it a reconfirmation of long-held beliefs, doubts, fears, insecurities?
          Lucy, it seemed to him, ruined it all. He believed there was much in her that would have constituted a new beginning, a new life; by mid-July of ’77 it was all evaporated. He even nurtured the hope that, somehow, on his return, it might indeed be restored: that glimpse of what could be.
          It hurt him, eleven years later, to think about that fall; the separation, the rendering—of the good, the family, what had been, at least on the surface of things, the good life. He had to leave the house when they returned from Europe at the end of that Summer, for one thing . . . but where to go? Not much of the old charter flight fortune left now . . . merely the humble professor’s salary. David Dickstein, former neighbor and sometime pal, had a big communal house in West Philadelphia. He offered me a room there, but no real privacy; and he got used to that. Besides, the days were ticking away on what little time was left to be with, to enjoy, the girls.
          It was to be the Freshman Interdisciplinary Studies Program that turned him around; a bit. The shared teaching with seven other professors removed some of the aura of the single professor hitting on his young students. There was one stunning young woman, Alexis, who, although only 19, was seemingly quite mature for her age. She was feeling stifled by strict and conventional parents. She had made her iconoclasm felt when she shocked Roxborough (a blue-collar community north of Philadelphia) by having a Black date for the Senior Prom and an illicit affair with the Vice-Principal (facts not known to Peter at the start of things). Alexis was not his “type” save in her tall, slender body and her obvious sensuality. She was dark and quiet; Baudelarian, sultry—like a black panther; a definitely female jungle animal. She had poise and bearing, such only commonly found in women over 30 and with no little worldly experience. He came on and she accepted quietly, with no questions, no conditions, no reservations, and, as it turned out, no commitment.

          They became intimate to the tune of a Nilsson album, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, playing in his part-time bedroom at Dickstein’s house. It was no big deal in terms of difficulty, nor was it accompanied by any resistance or form of ritualistic (or otherwise) protestations. She simply became his and they moved into a relationship. The only awkwardness (and that was felt more by her than he) was that she was required to return home every evening. She clearly could not overnight at Wallace Street; not, that is, until October 13th, when Beverly and the girls were to leave. Then there were a few overnights. Friday afternoons were ritualized to include a bottle of champagne and a pound or two of boiled and peeled jumbo shrimp . . . then quietly unadorned lovemaking. Time was spent with the Conroys . . . talking, playing cards (at which Alexis did not feel comfortable), watching TV and out for the occasional movie. While he accepted it as he would any other relationship; she was feeling beset by the restraints imposed by her living with her parents. By January he pushed, and she did what was required to force the issue at home. By the 8th of February time had come for her to make the move. The night of Sunday, the 4th of February 1978, a large snowstorm hit Philadelphia.
           He had to prevail on good old Uncle Al [Seidman, his neighbor two blocks away] and his roomy station wagon, to facilitate the move. Out to Martin Street, it took him, Al, and Alexis’ brother and Alexis herself to complete the move before dark and possibly more snow and before Alexis’ father came home from work and a possible ensuing scene. There was not a lot of stuff . . . two chairs, a chest and boxes of various things—mostly clothes, but some records, keepsakes, etc. That weekend was like most weekends only Alexis didn’t have to go home. He couldn’t remember her talking—at least at any length he might have noticed—with her parents. Friday afternoon they had gone down to the bank to arrange for checks on his checking account to be issued to Alexis in her name. Sunday she had to go home because her house was to be the scene of a bridal shower for her oldest sister who was to be married in the early summer. That Sunday began rather routinely, with a mid-morning breakfast. As they sat together at the kitchen table, he reflected on the fact that this would be her first trip home since her moving out and the first time they would be apart since. The first emotional glitch—seen only retrospectively hours, days, and weeks later—came when he felt moved to say something then. She had been commenting on what time she’d have to leave to make the shower when he reached over and put his hand lightly on her forearm and said that he’d miss her. Even years later he could remember her noticeably flinch at this heart-felt comment on his part. She was clearly feeling the smothering claustrophobia in a relationship wherein one party is moving emotionally faster and more intensely that the other. It passed right by him; not so much from insensitivity as an overwhelming not-quite-at-the-surface feeling he had of wishing she were saying that to him. It was not a good omen, that at the door on her way out—her sister had come to fetch her—he quipped that she shouldn’t forget to come back.
          In his insecurity and his not-fully-healed psycho-emotional state, it turned out to be a long, uncomfortable day. She left just before 11 a.m. And it was just getting dark when, at around 4:15 p.m., she returned. He had to quip again that he was beginning to think she wasn’t coming back. This gave her the easy and convenient opening for her to say that she wasn’t coming back, that she had decided to return home and was just coming back to tell him face-to-face and to pick up a number of items. Perhaps, said she, he could inveigle Uncle Al to let him use the station wagon to re-deliver her goods. This was clearly the moment at which the shock of the moment wore off and bitterness could be felt flowing upwards, from whence his heart had sunk, in his body. He asked how she could even make such a request of him; how he could be expected to haul all the stuff himself?, etc. She said she was in no hurry and the insouciance of this remark let him feel, in no uncertain terms, that she had rather firmly and unswervingly made up her mind on this. It was starkly real: the whole affair was over, ended, finis—in a very finalistic way, standing in the hallway, by the door slightly ajar. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him! And the same snow still on the ground outside . . . now trodden down by many sets of feet going in and out that door in the last days.
          He was in quiet turmoil for the remaining 30 hours before he delivered Alexis’ things to Martin Street. He lived not only all those hours in anguish; but relived those involving Lucy side-by-side with them. By Tuesday morning, his first full day at home not working, alone with his thoughts, he was a wreck. He kept asking himself, over and over again, what he had done wrong. What must have he said, and done, wrong, that pushed her away, that frightened her? And this is when, for the first time, he recalled her flinch when he touched her arm and said how much he was missing her already. Did he scare her away? Was he representing the alternate and equally alarming specter of quasi-parental containment? Emotional claustrophobia of the young who are not quite keeping amatory pace with their nominal lovers? He returned the record that she had bought of Billy Joel singing “Just the Way you Are” for their communal pleasure. Also, perhaps a little more significantly, he returned the gift she had bought him of two lovely sterling silver champagne goblets which memorialized their Friday afternoon shrimp-and-champagne ritual. He clearly felt he would no longer have any use for them. It was his way of signaling in return his equal acknowledgment of it being the end of them. And so it was. He smiled wryly as he recalled it being February 12th; Charles Darwin’s birthday.
           What was to be remembered about Alexis? That she was beautiful, certainly. That she was quiet and asked for very little; that she was understanding, but, like youth, she was not quite sensitive enough to others. That she was only relatively mature for he didn’t think she ever thought very much about what she could be for him; what he so badly needed at that juncture in his life. She was spreading her own wings; there was no question of blame here. And her quietness and reticence prevented her from articulating in a way that would, perhaps, ease his pain. So he went painfully into that good night.

Death in the Afternoon

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 03:55:00 +0000

My father was quite an aficionado of the Spanish bullfight and over the years I attended a lot of bullfights with him. But none was as memorable as July 11, 1987 in Pamplona for two reasons, I was almost killed in the encierro—the running of bulls—and, later that afternoon, I watched a picador narrowly escape death by the one of the same bulls.

I have to admit that in the ten years that I regularly ran the encierro in Pamplona I was always the most apprehensive about running the bulls from two particular ranches—the Muiras, which have the reputation of having killed the most matadors, including Manolete, and the Pablo Romeros, which were the biggest bulls in Spain. That particular Saturday morning, the fifth day of the Fiesta of San Fermín, we were running the Pablo Romeros, known by the American runners as the “boxcar” bulls. Since it was my third year attending the fiesta, I had not run in more than a dozen encierros, so it’s not surprising I made mistakes, serious mistakes.

I started the run in a position that only an experienced runner should take, near the top of Calle Domingo, only a few hundred feet from the corral, which meant that the bulls would catch me at the 90 degree turn where the course heads up the dreaded Calle Estefeta. The Estefeta is a straight and narrow uphill street of shops shuttered for the run. The street holds no quarter for runners looking to bail out other than a small alley that bisects the long two-block stretch.

In my short time running the encierro, I was aware of the particular dangers of the course and one of them was that turn, which was difficult for the bulls and even some of the lead steers to negotiate. I was told that I didn’t want to be on the outside corner as the bulls skidded into the turn and to be between a 1200 pound bull and the heavy wooden barricade.

But on that chilly July morning that’s exactly where I found myself, at exactly the wrong time. One of the bulls skidded into me and hit me with his hind-quarter so hard that I flew about 10 feet into the barricade well ahead of him and out of his path. It felt like getting hit by a car.

It was an inglorious encierro for me. I lost all the skin the entire length of my left arm and, unknown to me until I returned to the States, had dislocated a disc in my vertebrae. That morning, however, the medics at the makeshift enfermaria, bandaged me up and sent me on my way.

Aching all over as I was, I knew I had to bare the pain to see these bulls fight that afternoon. If my father didn’t have a date for the bullfights, I could wrangle his other ticket in his abono from him. I enjoyed seeing a bullfight with my father as he was quite knowledgeable. He also had a press pass, which he occasionally used to get us into the callejón, the passageway between the barricade and the stands to get closer to the cuadrillas, the bullfighters’ entourages, and the action. That he said I could go with him.

Of course, the Pablo Romeros did not disappoint. I remember the hush that fell over the crowd when the door from the stalls opened and an even larger bull came out for the second fight of the afternoon. His name was “Chivito,” little goat, and weighed 651 kilos or 1435 pounds. I couldn’t imagine why he was given such a name, but it would soon became apparent.

Chivito ran the length of the ring twice then trotted out to the center and, after turning abruptly as if something had caught his attention, charged the barrera and leaped over it, landing in the callejón, where he chased mozos through the narrow passage before being led back out into the ring.

“He’s big enough he can see over the barrera,” my father observed. “He’s attracted to any movement behind it.”

Then the first picador, a horse-mounted torero with a lance, came out along with another torero carrying the traditional magenta and yellow cape to draw the bull’s attention. The bull immediately charged the horse and hit it so hard that the picador flew off. He quickly got to his feet, but would have been gored if not for the torero attracting the bull’s attention with the cape. The picador scrambled over the barrera into the callejón. The bull turned again to the now rider-less horse, and butted his head under the horse’s belly like a goat and proceeded to lift the horse completely off the ground and with a flip of his head tried to send the horse over the barrera.

As the mozos held his now battered but yet unbroken mount against the barrera the picador climbed back on his horse, while the torero caped the bull a few more times. Again the bull, ignoring the torero, charged the barrera and leaped over it. Again mozos ran for their lives in a chase to lead the bull back into the arena.

By then the second picador had come into the ring. Chivito immediately charged the horse, pinning it against the barrera and then got his head under the horse and proceeded to lift both man and horse off the ground. If it hadn’t been for the mozos pushing back from the callejón, he would have flipped both man and beast out of the ring.

The bull turned his attention back to the first picador and charged him again. The picador got his lance into the bull just as it met the horse, got under it again and gave it a toss. Because the picador was leaning over so far, the toss caused him to fall off the horse and be impaled on the horns of the bull. The bull started violently tossing his head, throwing the picador off who was stuck to his horns.

The bull was eventually distracted long enough for the medical team to pick up the fallen picador. As they raced out of the ring with the picador on a stretcher, he managed to give the crowd a thumbs up, which they acknowledged with cheers and bravos.

“That’s always a bad sign,” my father said. “He’ll be dead before they get him out of the plaza. I’ve seen it too many times before.”

Finally, the first banderillero came out and placed the first pair of banderillas in the bull. I noticed, due to the sheer size of these bulls, it was difficult for the banderilleros to get their barbed sticks, banderillas, over the horns and into the back of the bulls’ necks. They were arching way over and leaping higher than I’d ever seen them to avoid the lethal horns.

It’s not uncommon for the matador himself to place one of the three pairs of banderillas into the bulls neck, but that day the matador who was to fight Chivito, Luis Francisco Esplá, refused and was jeered by the Pamplona crowd and even had a bottle thrown at him. After all six banderillas had been placed and Chivito was showing signs of tiring, Esplá came out to fight.

Esplá’s fight was mediocre, not worthy of such a fine bull, but eventually death came to Chivito, but not to the picador, Victoriano Cáneva, who survived his cornada. I found out later, that the horns of the bull had punctured a lung and his liver. He was in surgery for two hours in a Pamplona hospital and spent the next 11 days in intensive care, after which he was moved to a hospital in Madrid. Luis Francisco Esplá vowed that day he would never again fight in Pamplona.

Fraulein Clausewitz

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 19:54:00 +0000

I spent the Christmas of 1990 with my German girlfriend Anke and her family in Hamburg. While we were there we took some trips through what was until a few weeks prior, East Germany. Germany had just been reunified a couple of months before and you could drive from Hamburg to Berlin, for the first time in over 40 years, which we did. We were thinking about opportunities there might be in the newly-unified city. I had never been there and was eager to see what it looked like before the wall that surrounded the western half of the city was completely torn down. I grew up on spy novels and Berlin was, of course, ground zero in the Cold War, the gateway between East and West through the Iron Curtain.

By the time we returned home to Brooklyn, we had decided to move to Berlin the following summer. I had to break the news to my parents. My mother would be fine as long as she could meet the girl with whom I was making the move. The problem was meeting my father was always a potential deal breaker in any relationship I’d had.

I remember introducing him to a beautiful girl named Cornelia I was dating in college. We were at his house in Philadelphia one evening and I remember my father handing off the phone to me while talking to one of my sisters. While I was talking on the phone, my father offered to show my girlfriend his war room in the basement where he had a giant table set up with a World War II battle scene with toy soldiers, artillery and tanks. When they came up from the basement Cornelia glared at me. She took the first opportunity to tell me that my father had made a pass at her in the war room.

That’s the way it was with my father. If he liked a girl I was dating, he eventually ended up making a pass at her and if he didn’t like her, he was vicious and cruel toward her. So you can understand my apprehension. I wasn’t concerned whether my father would like Anke, but that he wouldn’t at least be civil to her and she would come away from the experience wondering what kind of family she was getting involved with. Add to this the fact that Anke herself was very quiet and unassuming.

A few months after coming home from Germany, my father called to say my sisters were coming to Philadelphia to spend their spring break there. He invited me and my girlfriend to come for the weekend and I thought it would be a good opportunity for Anke to meet my sisters and, of course, my father, if ever there was a “good” opportunity. So we drove down to Philadelphia from New York.

At first everything was going well. I think my father was on his best behavior because of the presence of my teenage sisters. I don’t remember what we ate, but it was probably one of my father’s great pizzas he made from scratch, having spent the afternoon picking up ingredients at the Italian Market in South Philly. Anyway, family gatherings with my father usually converged around the playing of a board game, in which he would berate us on the stupidity of our moves and otherwise humiliate us in the company of whomever had the misfortune of letting themselves be dragged into this private hell known as game night.

I think in my father’s mind the choice of the game was decided by the fact of Anke being German. The Second World War would be reenacted in a game of Risk. As my father handed out the different colored playing pieces, he looked at Anke and—in a bad German accent—said, “And SS black for za fraulein,” as he gave her the black tokens. The pained expressions on the faces of the rest us showed embarrassment, if not surprise, at my father’s typical bad taste. I knew this wasn’t going to end well.

I never understood by father’s fixation with the military. The full extent of my father’s service was being bounced out of ROTC after being classified 4F for bad eyesight, bordering on legal blindness and flat feet. But it never seemed to dampen his interest in all things military. In his library of over six thousand books, there were over 500 books on war and military. He had a toy soldier collection that once belonged to Hermann Göring. He knew by heart the dates of all the great battles in history. A game of Risk then was mere child’s play for a great amateur war strategist. Except that the black tokens were slowly spreading across the board from Europe and into Africa, Scandinavia and Russia.

The Risk board was beginning to look a lot like those maps in World War II newsreels showing what would happen if Nazi aggression went unchecked. When my girlfriend Anke made any kind of unconventional move in the game, my father would stroke his chin and say, “Verrry Interrresting,” like Arte Johnson in a German uniform peeking through a potted plant. He started referring to her as “Fraulein Clausewitz,” alluding to the great German military tactician, which, coming from my father was the closest she’d ever come to receiving any kind of compliment.

It was not my father’s finest hour as Britain fell to Fraulein Clausewitz’s army, which she then used as a stepping stone to Greenland, Canada and eventually the United States. One by one the rest of us were eliminated from the game leaving my father and Anke battling it out in what was left of the U.S. My father was beginning to seethe as Anke clearly demonstrated her Aryan superiority and more importantly seemed to be immune to my father’s remarks, which always had the effect of throwing us, his kids, off our game, allowing him to win.

Finally, my father conceded the game to Anke by throwing down his cards and saying, “I’ve had enough. I’m going to bed,”

“You surrender?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he answered curtly.

“Unconditionally?” I added.

“Smartass,” He said and without so much as a by-your-leave stalked upstairs to bed. Suffice to say that the atmosphere for the rest of the weekend was chilly.

Although my relationship with Anke ended that following summer in Holland, just 10 kilometers short of the German border, I don’t believe that in this particular instance the breakdown of the relationship had much, if anything, to do with my father being an asshole. But I underestimated my father’s ability to hold a grudge until some four years later when I was going through my father’s papers after his death and found a version of his will, almost identical to the version that was ultimately probated except for a few minor additions and deletions, that excluded me from any inheritance if I was married to “that Nazi bitch, Anke [Last name misspelled].”

Coffee, Tea or Me?

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 07:00:00 +0000

The story of my father meeting his second wife, Beverly, is told here in two parts: first through entries in my father’s journal at the time, which gives some insight into his state of mind in the days leading up to meeting and marrying her. The details differ between his journal entries, written only a week later, and his unfinished autobiography written 28 years later, but the basic facts are consistent. They met at around 10:30 pm on Friday, December 9, 1966 and were married less than 72 hours later.

Dec. 5, ’66 I guess I burn my bridges as fast as I erect them. Like Karen, for example. Just couldn’t take her lack of feeling. 28 years have hardened her too much. Frenchy can’t make the Gemini Ball, so I’ll not go. Back to “0” again. Still awaiting the return of the ticket from Diana—also be interested to see if she’ll reply. Mary Ann called last night—very warm and friendly for a change. Says she might come down with the boys in January. Might just be starting the new year off right. Still waiting to hear from Verena about word on her job. Two months since I heard from Suzanne & 1 week from tomorrow is the first anniversary of our engagement. So much for sentiment. Three weeks from now I’ll be in Washington—ugh! This job rat-race again. I still feel like an emotional zero—but getting out of here will surely help. Haven’t got much mail lately. 207 days left. (29½ wks)

Dec. 8, ’66 I often tell myself that I shouldn’t be alone like this—that I don’t deserve to be alone. I suppose I have had the opportunities—and muffed a good many of them. But people who love or have loved people should forgive & forget. Maybe that’s it—maybe I just haven’t been really loved. They—Gudrun, Suzanne, Mary Ann, Diana, Alicia, Carol, Nilla, etc.—all know I am alone—they’re not exactly overleaping themselves to get here. And here I am—29 more weeks! I drive at night—like to my class—or I lie awake at night—I feel as though there should be someone by my side. Where have all the young girls gone? I’m nearly 30 and my prime is passing. Not much, if anything to show. Some photos, some writings, some memories. We really live in the minds of others—even before we die. How many people think of me? Soon it will be a year since Susanne & I were engaged & soon a year since she left. Soon it will be 5 months since I was last alive. Yes, I have been dead for 5 months—five long months. But I shall be dead much longer. There are only three people who can bring me back to life—Gudrun, Susanne or Mary Ann.

Dec. 18 ’66 That was some sentence, that last sentence, “Someone new and fantastic.” Less than 24 hours after I wrote that I met Beverly. Bill came up to my place around 8:45 with a friend called Karl. We drank and talked until 10—then Bill left. Karl and I drank to 10:30 then went down to the 3rd Unit rec room where his room-mate was having a party for his fellow Philco workers. Bev was there with Karl’s room-mate. I only got to know where she lived. I agreed to drive her to her job at 4 p.m. the next day. I showed up at 11:00 a.m.—we talked, then she came over for lunch to my place—then I took her to the airport, where I was to pick her up again Sunday at 10:30 p.m.
[On Sunday] I brought her back to my place & we never left each other’s sight until we were married 5 p.m. Monday!
It is so nice to have someone to live for. Beverly will fill a big empty spot in my life. She has more class than Susanne, more beautiful & less screwed up than Gudrun. I am more than happy to trade in my past for a future with Beverly. I might even stay on at the NASA job!

For their first wedding anniversary my father gave Beverly a copy of the book Coffee, Tea or Me? inscribed above, which had just been published two months prior. Not the most thoughtful gift, but the traditional first anniversary gift is paper.

This would be the last entry my father would in his journal for 389 days. What follows is my father’s detailed version of his whirlwind romance with Beverly, which he wrote in his autobiography in late 1994.

Life at the Villa Monterrey was picking up. Bill Hamilton, ever the ladies’ man, was quite a help. We shared a lot of information on the girls at the Villa. Indeed, we ‘created’ the Seven (Social) Dwarfs. It started with a girl who had distinct body odor—she was ‘Smelly’; then there was a thoroughly dense one—‘Dopey’ naturally; then there was one with a notoriously bad sleep-around reputation—she was ‘Easy.’ And on it went: ‘bashful,’ ‘rock,’ ‘bitchy,’ and ‘sloppy’. Bill and I actually took a pair of identical twins to a Villa costume party once.

The first big event of the fall was the NASA Gemini Ball, that was to be held on Saturday, the 10th of December.

Now there was this exceedingly sexy, sultry, attractive girl who worked at NASA and who lived at the Villa—Sharon Huvar. She was about 5'6", blonde, blue-eyed and got men all worked up just walking down the halls of the MSC. Men had wet dreams about her. I suppose, however, that most believed that she was beyond their reach. I got along with her, though I'd been warned that she had a middle-aged divorced Mom with whom she lived who was extremely jealous of her daughter and kept her under as tight a reign as possible. Well, be that as it may, I asked Sharon to accompany me to the Gemini Ball—and was surprised and delighted when she accepted! I think we had one date, a rather ordinary one, before the big night. Bill was amazed that I'd hooked Sharon for the Ball and gave me a few ‘nudge, nudge, know what I mean?’ jabs. He thought that, if I performed properly, that Xmas would come early for me in 1966!

A few days later (it being still two weeks before the Ball), Bill approached me with news of an upcoming Friday night [December 9] party in the 3rd Unit Rec Room—being thrown by a ‘buddy’ of his. He said the guy was also a GE contract worker at NASA; I would have no problem if I showed up. He was also anxious to inform me that a new “gorgeous” tenant had just moved into our unit: a tall, leggy blue-eyed blonde that I ‘would just kill for.’ He said that his buddy had also authorized him to invite her to the party; so I should definitely be there. It was the Friday night before the Gemini Ball.

That was an interesting week: Sharon dropped by my office several times, usually with such marginally relevant questions as to what color and type of dress I thought she should wear. Only now, looking back with venerable hindsight, can I appreciate that the girl was definitely attracted to me (and probably her mother, a working class woman herself, thought a professor would make a good catch). I was proud of the fact that Bart and others would stick their heads out the door to watch Sharon's seductive fanny as she exited our hallowed halls.

Friday night soon arrived and Bill and I, after a few drinks at my place (overlooking the 3rd Rec Room), decided that the party was getting full enough to warrant our attention at a closer scrutiny.

As we wandered around the crowded place I was relieved to see that Sharon was not around, but curious as to this new beauty that Bill promised would be there. When I asked him, he pointed up to the mezzanine area and said that she was up there talking to our host. I bounded up the stairs to check out this babe.

Bill was right, she was a beauty. But that twangy Southern drawl: it sounded like an audition for Scarlet O'Hara! Now, if I could just overlook that . . .

But I succumbed nonetheless. I was delighted to hear that she was an airline stewardess (for Delta). She had just moved to Houston from Atlanta the previous Wednesday, so she was fresh meat. We made petty, pseudo-sophisticated small talk for about half an hour and then, in my usual, now-legendary, manner, I asked her if she would become my mistress. I must say this, she took it right in stride, not battering one little Scarlet eyelash: “Sonny boy, why you just couldn't afford me!” Two things I did not know at the time: (1) that within 60 hours she would be my wife, and (2) that she would be totally correct in her warning! I was not discouraged, but pressed her for a date for the following night—then I remembered the Gemini Ball. But, she said, she had to work this weekend, so . . . I quickly asked her when she was returning. She said on Sunday. I asked her when on Sunday (I clearly was not to be dissuaded). She said she wouldn't get back until just after Midnight. I offered to pick her up at the Airport. She said that wouldn’t be necessary, then looked as if she was going to turn away and enjoy the rest of that evening. My mind was churning, it had to claim some psycho-emotional beachhead. Sharon and the Gemini Ball were the furthest things from my mind! Then she turned back to me.

“Peter, there is one small favor you could do for me, if you don't mind . . .” I was overjoyed—she had remembered my name, at least!

“Anything, sweetheart. What is it?”

“Well, my car hasn’t arrived yet and I could use a lift over to the airport tomorrow.”

“What time?”

“I have to be there by 1:15.”

“No problem.” I paused. “But there is one condition . . .”

“What's that?”

“That you have lunch with me beforehand.” She looked a trifle put-out.

“Well, I usually sleep late and then just grab a cup of coffee—cause I can always eat on the plane.” I was not to be deterred.

“Look, I'll be over at noon, we'll take it from there.” She thought about it for one fateful moment, then decided in the affirmative.

Her apartment was only down the stairs and about 10 yards away. I rang her bell precisely at noon.

A voice on the other side of the door said that she couldn’t open the door because she didn't have any clothes on. She said she would unlock it and I could come in, but I was to wait about half-a-minute to give her time to get back to her room to put on her robe. I agreed, then heard the door latch unfasten.

I waited a full 5 seconds before I tried the door. I wanted to see the goods, but all I caught was a glimpse of a pair of tender succulent bums turning into a doorway down the hall. When she came back out in her robe, she showed me her kitchen area and said I was welcome to make us whatever with whatever I found available there. I made a small cheese omelet which we downed with some white wine.

As we walked to my car I asked her what time she returned. She said that the plane got in a little after midnight and she would be out about 15 minutes later. I said that the night would still be young and that I‘d pick her up where I was dropping her . . . about 12:20 a.m. She started to protest but I guess she realized that I would hardly take no for an answer, so reluctantly agreed. I was so delighted that I didn't give a moment's thought to Sharon or the Gemini Ball that same evening. I only remembered that I was picking Sharon up at 7:30. Hopefully, not expecting any amatory success with Sharon, 11:30 would not be too early to call it quits at the ball.

Sharon looked lovely when I came to fetch her, and her mother was quite enthusiastic about the whole thing. I knew precious few people who would be there (Bart & Sally Hacker were not going), so was not all that enthused about the whole thing. Further, I was feeling guilty knowing in advance that I had to make an early evening of it, particularly as how eager Sharon had been. So off we went.

The ball didn't amount to all that much—especially to relatively new people like me, who had neither participated to any real extent in the project and who had friends at the Ball. At about 10:15 p.m. the tension became too much and I just had to get out of there. It was, I thought, going to be difficult to leave so early; Sharon had been at NASA for a few years and knew quite a few people at the Ball. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it—Sharon misinterpreted my urging that we make an early getaway. She thought I was so hot for her that I couldn't wait to get her back to my place.

We got back to Villa Monterey just before 11 p.m. Because I was thinking in terms of taking Sharon back to her apartment, I took the turn on the path from the garage in that direction. Again, she saw this as an admirable lack of presumption on my part—and steered me back in the direction of my own place, reminding me that a gentleman always invited a lady for a cup of coffee after an evening's drinking, so why shouldn't I? Egads!, the less interested I was, the easier it became.

When we got into my apartment Sharon made a lunge for me. Not only was it a hungry, intense kiss, but I felt one of her legs rise up as she rubbed me very obviously with her thigh! Well, as Confucius say, “a stiff prick knows no conscience” so, putting all thought of Beverly aside for the moment, I obliged Sharon in the large Naugahyde recliner that dominated my sitting room (why soil good sheets when they might soon be used again in such a short time?!) It was still just a little past eleven and I guess, in her mind, my performance rated an encore, so Sharon moved on top of me this time in the recliner and I was ready in a flash. Next thing I know, Sharon is urging me towards the bedroom. I sneak a furtive peek at my watch. It was almost 11:30 p.m., I had to walk Sharon home, clean up the place a bit, then drive over to pick up Beverly by 12:15 a.m. It was definitely time to give it a bit of a rest, besides, I got the first half of a hoped-for twofer, why screw it up now? Besides, if I listened to that voice of the little man inside of me and opted to linger with Sharon, there were still two additional considerations: first, I would have to bring Sharon home to her overbearing mother, second, going all the way plus lingering or steeping in it, would only connote a more serious, potentially marital-type, relationship. So, in this, one of my final moments of rationality for that year (read: decade), I took Sharon home, promising her that there would shortly be a re-match, but that right now I was past it, and needed to get my beauty sleep. Lord only knows what path my future would have taken had Sharon said to hell with her mother and insisted on sharing that night with me! But she didn't and, in a few minutes, I was in my car, heading towards the airport. I picked Beverly up at exactly 12:15 a.m.

My psycho-traumatized memory will not allow me to recall the events of that night. Suffice it to say, the hour, the booze, the loneliness and poverty of my existence in Houston, job dissatisfaction, when coupled with the beauty, intelligence, and interest of this Southern beauty, led me to propose to this woman. We naturally tested the relationship in the sack and—surprise! surprise!—it worked! When dawn broke I roused Beverly, boinked her one more time (to make sure I'd contacted reality) and insisted on going into the Marriage Bureau in downtown Houston. I remember driving, top-down, in my TR-4A convertible, with my super-duper Blaupunkt radio blaring Happy Together by the Turtles, oblivious to the world and its responsibilities (it was, after all, a workday that Monday a.m.).

At the Marriage Bureau I was informed that, while there was no waiting period and no blood test in the state of Texas, a Doctor’s certificate attesting to a negative Wasserman test was a requirement. Undaunted, I took us from City Hall directly to my friend [Dr.] Joe MacLemore's office.

When we got to Joe’s office, his secretary had only just opened up the door. When I told her I was an old friend from Cambridge, England and it was an emergency, she let me straight in. I grabbed Joe and told him he had to do me a pre-marital blood certificate, stat! But Joe was not one to be pushed into anything that quickly. He urged me to slow down, catch my breath, send Beverly back to his office so he could meet her himself, then he might consider my request. Beverly duly went back to see Joe in his office, while I paced around the waiting room.

When Joe came out of his office, having left Beverly sitting inside, I collared him.

“Well? . . . How about it?” I looked questioningly at him.

“Well, let's put it this way,” he said, looking quite seriously, “If she’s got a twin sister, I’d join you in a double ceremony!” So that was it, another nail in my bachelor’s coffin. Now, back to City Hall!

City Hall was enjoying a slow day at its Marriage Bureau. We had forms to fill out. In the middle of it all, while the clerk was typing out the forms, I looked over at her and stammered “Are we really doing what I think we’re doing?” And she stammered back “I think so . . .” When the forms were ready, we had to ask what we did next. We were told that all we had to do was find someone to perform the ceremony. Then, as we looked quizzically at each other, the clerk informed us that any judge we could find in chambers on the 4th floor who was willing, could perform such a ceremony—unless, of course, we had a preference for a religious ceremony. We headed for the elevator, and the 4th floor

Despite it being only 10:30 a.m. the judge we found was obviously intoxicated. But he was obliging. He started the usual ceremony, but about 1/3rd of the way through reading it, his eyes started to fail him and he handed over the little book to Beverly and I to read aloud to him, then cut us off just before the end and declared that we were married. He fell back into his chair and I tucked a $10 bill in his handkerchief pocket and, thanking him profusely, took Beverly and left. By 11 we were back in the car, heading south, married. It was December 12th, 1966; total elapsed time of knowing each other beforehand: 4+ hours. The marriage, with two children [Jennifer and Jessica], would last until October, 1977.

Letter to My Sister Jennifer April 28, 1993

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 17 Jun 2016 18:08:00 +0000

April 28, 1993

Dear Jen,

Well, after a pleasant evening at Lipton's, Helen took me to Gatwick where I arrived at 9:15 a.m. I had to go Trash class, but since it was but half full, I had a bank of three seats on which to camp out. Janet was there to meet me. Today is Wednesday, she left Saturday to go up to New York to rendezvous with her Dad at her sister's house, from where they would leave Sunday afternoon for the airport and Rio, leaving me behind to gear up for Rio.

Jess just called to get her monthly check early--as she has a date in Traffic Court for a speeding ticket she got while in Houston! Now, she'll probably have to go for the Defensive Driving Course!

Jeff called Mark to ask about the Marriage Law in Texas(e.g. no waiting period, but a blood test), so I guess things are getting bad. Aborigine grandchildren, I can't believe it..it just keeps getting worse..worse than a bloody Finn! Oh well, what can you expect from a product of a broken home? Please promise me you'll marry someone of the same race! Ukrainians are close enough! Maybe I'll be dead before the Yannomammos start dropping. I'm leaving here on 7 May, will be back on the 22nd. Weather is much improved here. I fixed the back door on the little Solido ambulance. Managed to get back here with 8 jars of curry sauces and a 1/2 liter jar of Branston pickle. Those bastards/creeps at the coin shop claimed not to have the proof sets in yet! Found a good bookshop, called Ulysses, on Museum street which had 2 Colin Wilson books I didn't have, but couldn't find Atlantis on that street.

Hope you're not working too hard..but I guess I needn't worry, you'll be in Naples soon! See what you can find for transport to Pamplona around July 6th..if you can take the fast train to St. Jean, Alfredo can pick you up, and then take you to Irun for the Pamplona train (one always has to change from French to Spanish trains at Irun)..only one stop to Pamplona and if you call the hotel Maisonnave from St. Jean I can have a taxi out to meet your train and take you in.

Janet liked that red cedar house nr. Royston for which we had the pretty color brochure. It looks like we'll be able to sell this house between now and October and thus we'll be able to buy in England right after. Not much else new, except the weather is nice. Thanks for putting up your old dad and coming up to Cambridge with me..who knows? maybe I can come over before the 25th..

Study hard, do well, I'm sure you'll find a good position somewhere.

Love,

A Life of 21,072 Days

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 01:16:00 +0000

My father lived a total of 21,072 days. As of today, I have now lived 21,072 days.

That’s 57 years, 8 months and 9 days.

I guess it’s only natural to want to contemplate my life and make the inevitable comparisons between my life and his. He had been retired for a year and a half when he died. I have not yet retired. Although, I’m contemplating a sort of semi-retirement in which I can devote my time completely to writing. He wrote a book and a half and read 1500 books. I have my first book coming out next week and have read only 1360 books.

Of course, I’m in excellent health, which my father hadn’t been over the last year or so of his life, so it looks as though I might get a little more time than my father had, but I’m looking at it as borrowed time from today on.

Lucy Part III of III

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 10 Jun 2016 07:01:00 +0000

This is the last installment of my father's writing about his affair with his 19-year-old student Lucy. It's unfinished in that he was still writing it at the time of his death on January 15, 1995. In fact, judging from the time stamps on his computer files, this was the last thing he ever wrote. But you can read about the end in his letter of Tuesday, July 26th, 1977 to me in The Summer of 1977 post.

I guess the daily chronology of this is less than exciting and it doesn’t go very far in conveying my troubled state of mind. It was getting so that I didn’t want to go anywhere where my emotional security regarding our deeper relations might get tweaked. Lucy has always, like any truly beautiful woman, been vain, impressed with the power which her looks give her, and, quite normally, with the nice looking men whose attention she can command. Since she is also searching for herself, her identity, some relation to a field of interest, and exploring all that the world has to offer, it would be restrictive indeed to censure her for the effects of all these qualities and these drives. They are normal, and easily anticipated in someone so ideally endowed. But NEVER, NEVER get romantically enmeshed with such a person at this stage. It is death: slow and sure and painful. And the more sensitive the person who falls, the more endlessly devastating will be the effects. I know, for I shall never never be the same again. It will be better, much better for the man who claims Lucy at the end of this tunnel of growth and experience. Lucky will be the man who claims the last dance and takes her home. I shall always regret that it will not be me . . . with anyone . . . with her above all.

So many things now seem clearer in the perspective of time. She didn’t feel, couldn’t feel, and she was only aware of a small part of it. She said that she was a total loss in the mornings . . . not very amorous (at all!), not very with it. But, you know, while I accept this on one level, I still deny it on another. Sure, if she stays out late, has a nice draught before going to bed, etc., she’ll still be out of it in the morning. But, on the other hand, if you love and are loved, if you feel and are felt, if you are really into sharing, well, it all just flows . . . there are no demarcations. Look, it isn’t all that bloody important to me but obviously this is providing that it doesn’t represent a turn off that lies just a little deeper. Just that I can imagine Lucy so happy and so into life that I can’t see such an artificial distinction.

But then there’s more. For Lucy does like to call the tune in a sexual way. A cue rarely, in itself, turns her on. It is merely like a request to be considered and she reacts to it in whatever way she feels at the moment. It is her own well circumscribed ego that accepts or rejects; sadly it is rarely an ‘ego involved’, if you know what I mean. I think that her past ecstasies have very much been selfish ones, bits of self-fulfillment . . . I don’t think she’s ever put her neck in the noose, handed someone the loaded pistol. I might even venture to say, since she is older now and projections are now potentially more accurate, that she may not be capable of true abdication (however impermanent) of self. But she knows how to get what she wants. She got Morocco, but she agreed that she wouldn’t stint on the loving (sun, sand, and salt water really turn me on, I’d said) up to a point and if I’d agree to lay off stiff morning overtures. Well, we both lived up to our promises, as it turned out. I am still amazed how many things I must have felt but repressed during all those days. Indeed, to read them paraded out on paper, in limited context, one would think I was miserable 99% of the time. Far from it. Just that, having ended disastrously for me, I tend to analyze and explore those elements which seem to have signaled or contributed to it. This accounts for subjective distortions and, relatedly, a little unfairness.

On Monday morning we zipped down to Abbotts and plonked our money down for a 7 day all in trip to Tangiers, leaving the very next Wednesday from Luton. We busied ourselves with preparations, between brass rubbing, pubbing and the like. Lucy was noticeably ‘up’ once the Moroccan die was cast. We drove to Luton on a bad afternoon and took off for Tangiers about 4 p.m. British time. We arrived in Tangiers around 7 p.m. It was a cool 66, but Lucy was brimming with happiness . . . and wearing a straw hat I’d bought her in the market square . . . and looking gorgeous in it!

Our hotel was quite nice and quite modern. I was a little shocked when I saw two single beds at right angles to one another, and fixed so that they could not be placed side by side. But the view of the Straits of Hercules beyond the Bay of Tangiers was really nice . . . in fact, we faced nearly due West and the sun set right out our window. We put our gear away, showered deliciously, redressed quickly, got a light evening snack, a meal, took a walk, then it was bedtime.

Of course, being fairly familiar with Tangiers from my previous trip, I was brimming over with things to show Lucy. Our first minor problem was that Lucy was already well tanned and would and could soak up the sun for hours at a time. I, on the other hand, could take no more than a couple of 60 or 70 minute exposures on the first day and only about 20 more on top of that for each of the next three days. The longest I could stay out under that sun, even after a week, was two 50 minute stretches a day . . . if that. I’d say that Lucy could be out, after that same period of time . . . at least two 3 1/2 hour stretches a day. And, remember, this is not counting the exposure that comes from all that walking around in the city and touring!

I seem to be returning constantly to the subject of differences. Look, I don’t think the seeming disparity between me, who could spend 5 to 6 hours at a stretch with the colorful denizens of the Casbah, and Lucy who could spend the same amount of time basking in the sun poolside, is significant. Remember, Carl and Lucy’s current boyfriend could enjoy the security of knowing that Lucy loved them. I never could (because she never ever did). Had I that security, the story would have been very different. Very. First, she could have talked to Sammy for five hours and it wouldn’t have made any difference, though I might still be angry at Sammy for using up her time and energy; or anybody for that matter. Indeed, an honest and close examination of those few of my past relations that involved me being loved clearly and unequivocally by a good woman (Mary Ann, Helen, Diana) reveals that I often take advantage of the situation and hurt them with my consequent inattentions (or attentions elsewhere!). You know, it’s a funny thing, but I caught myself feeling this very early in my affair with Lucy.

I guess it was in late April one day in my office. It may indeed have been that same day that Lucy told me that it was quite likely that she would walk away from me after the summer. I can remember feeling that although I was completely emotionally ensnared by her at that moment, and that I was a captured victim I knew if I only could succeed in bringing her around to loving me equally, then the balance of power (so called) would shift immediately. I knew that if I could only reach that stage (of her loving me) that it would instantly cure my insecurities and I’d have exactly the right operational attitude that would be required to hold Lucy completely. It has never ever failed though not something I would ordinarily brag about: once they fall, they never fall out (unless I want them to). This is because my tremendous self-sufficiency doesn’t spell ‘need’ or at least that kind of ‘need’ that turns people off. I treat them at best well and considerately and as independent and intelligent people, and they never know for sure . . . .at worst I let them on their own if it’s not me who’s off on his own. I was made to be some explorer or sea captain type who has to follow his urge to go off and return to pick up my love when it suits me. But this is a failing. And here’s where Lucy comes in. You see, she represents so much to me, in terms of what we can be to each other together, that we would move a distance from each other and this would trigger reactions that would make us come together again . . . from natural, internal mechanisms . . . neither of us would go beyond a certain point, because of love, selfishness, and mutual consideration. Interesting . . . and I had a vision of a near perfection that I cried for my failure to get even to the necessary starting point! And I was so confident; I had not the slightest worry if I could only get to that magic point. It wasn’t a matter of time, per se, just a matter of a few days or weeks at most, but starting only from that moment that Lucy unequivocally—not necessarily permanently—invested her heart in me. But that never happened. Alas. It is so nearly equivalent to the bottom line, that I am tempted to stop the story at this point.

And I have to be careful, elsewise this will be merely a chronicle of hurts and pains. Let me carry on by regaling some of the beauties. We did indeed share love for travel, meeting new people, eating new and exotic food. We had a liter and a half of good white wine with lunch, two with dinner, whisky in our tea in the late afternoon and always a night-cap. Lucy had a great sense of humor and got a real kick out of rare and unusual people of character. She warmed immediately to our little hunchbacked guide, Hassan, who, in turn, warmed to her. She really savored our mint tea that we had in the back of Ali’s shop in the Casbah. We could have both sat there and did quite often for hours. Only her requisite sunbathing kept us from staying even longer within the walled city. We enjoyed our shopping, though Lucy had too much heart to be a stern and unrelenting haggler . . . but she shared my victories with great relish. She made everything we did together a really enjoyable experience. She had that sensitivity and quickness of mind to reflect on the great beauty and happiness of everything we did right then and there while we were doing it. She was, to borrow a loving term from Gudrun of old, “fine, very fine.”

We walked, talked, took pictures and I took great pleasure in the hungry happy way Lucy drank it all in . . . like watching a little girl in a toy shop. She wanted everything. And how I wished I could have given her everything. Indeed, I felt so bad that I hadn’t planned to take more money than I did, for my only credit card was not honored, except at one bank where I did manage to get an additional $150 advance. In fact, we spent about six hours of our vacation doing just that: trying to get enough money to buy even more and, more importantly, to rent a car to take a side trip down the beach to Tétouan, but we had no luck. But Lucy took it in good stride and we did have one great evening before we left—almost.

Unfortunately, Tangiers was not without incident. Let us say at the outset that I am glad that I am writing this and not relating it verbally to, or in front of, Lucy; for she would probably laugh and make light of the whole incident but maybe not. Depends on how self-perceptive and honest she is.

It seems that there was this attractive young Dutchman probably about 27 or 28 who was at poolside daily. He had come down with his girlfriend (as we learned later) of several years’ standing. He had taken a fancy to Lucy and had taken to nodding a hello and an acknowledgement about the third day before we were to leave. He had noticed that Lucy and I had taken to having a bottle of the white local wine at poolside at midafternoon. On the next to the last day the waiter brought us over a 2nd bottle of wine and nodded in the direction of the sunbathing Dutch gentleman. We saluted him without glasses and drank his health. He did not come over immediately. In fact, we’d gone upstairs, showered, and come down again and were in the bar/restaurant area adjoining the pool area when he came over. And he made no bones about his interest in Lucy. By ordinary American standards it would have been embarrassing, I contend. Less than three minutes of perfunctory questions during which time he ascertained the usual details of nationality, occupations, relationships, he began straight at Lucy and his own interest in coming to the U.S., his need for contacts and all sorts of things. The man was clearly nobody’s fool, he was good at it. And I know that he caught something in Lucy’s eye, that invisible something . . . ‘interest’ you might call it for lack of a more suitable word. She was clearly flattered by his attentions and that almost invisible dropping of guard that often follows. As I like to say, like the zebra in the herd of tens of thousands who has a limp or infirmity that is almost naked to the ordinary eye. But not to the lioness. With uncanny perception it can find the one animal with the slightest disadvantage/weakness. And so on. This guy knew, he got the scent just standing slightly downhill. And man, he knew no social bounds.

I can just hear Lucy laughing and arguing and getting irritated if she had to hear this to her face. What an imagination she would say! And that in itself would tell a tale. I would stake my life on my perceptions. It was a bit like the Sammy situation, only this guy was not only humorless, but deadly serious. Well, I figured on being about half European myself and decided on a European answer to the situation—the American one would have been to either tell him to piss off, thump him on the spot, if he didn’t, or gather the lady gently by the arm and move away. I asked him if he wasn’t sure he didn’t want me to leave because clearly he seemed to have something very personal he wanted to say to the young lady. A slightly less deadly but more sophisticated chap would have stepped away then. But he merely said ‘no’ and kept at it . . . talking as if I weren’t there. He told her how much he wanted her. I interrupted again. “I think you’d really like to take her upstairs and have it off, wouldn’t you?” I said, almost a little incredulous myself. He seemed a little surprised at my directness but only for a split second. Still a little surprised, he looked at me and said “You would give your permission?” I looked at Lucy this guy was too much. “I don’t think it’s mine to give, is it?” Lucy dismissed us both with something like ‘don’t be silly’ and the conversation took on a suddenly less heavy breathing tone as he plowed on about needing to have someone in the U.S. to sponsor him, etc. In the end these two swapped addresses!

I am also 100% convinced that if this guy had met us on, say, day 2 of our trip, our love affair would have ended on June 17, not when it did. I would have been ‘set up’ by his persistence and her refusal not to abruptly cut him off but to enjoy his attentiveness. I would have taken the next plane to London, without a doubt. Fortunately, as the case was, we had less than 24 hours left and Jan, or whatever his name was, left us for that brief period. But I hurt deeply with the knowledge of what clearly, to me, would have or could have happened.

On our last night in Morocco we joined out travel group and went out to a ranch about 17 miles outside of Tangiers for an evening of music, wine, & barbecue. Everything was going fine, it was a pleasant farewell evening. But then it happened. I get on line for the chicken and this over-zealous waiter’s shoulder hit a large ornamental tree trunk on which a small lamp had been set. It tipped over and fell. On my left foot. The tree trunk weighed about 400 pounds . . . and I was only sandal-shod. Even at that, the ground below being sand, my toes simply went down into the soft ground. But the buckle over the second little toe went down as well, and broke the toe. At first I thought I could make it through the evening. But then the swelling started . . . and the pain commenced. And it was painful indeed. And I felt such a fool. In the end the photographer took Lucy and I back to Tangiers and the hotel in his car. I still recall it all with great embarrassment.

If Lucy only knew . . . I was hurting from two things at the same time. I felt the decay and ruination of everything I had wanted. I only wanted her love . . . they could cut the damn toe off! I’m not saying she was not solicitous, she was indeed. One fact. Weird as she thought my request was, she did agree to make love—and me with my left foot in the air! I paid her kindness back by walking the two miles to the Casbah (we couldn’t get a cab to save our lives that morning!) and spending another hour-and-a-half picking up all the items we thought we’d leave until the last day. Instead, that last day we made two trips to the Casbah and bought every single item that we wanted—using up just about our very last cent. On the surface—and in many ways—it was a wonderful trip and I knew we’d both love to do it again.

We landed at Luton at nearly midnight, were delighted that the old Jag started up right away, pleased that my painful foot could still manage the clutch pedal . . . and got home to Cambridge about 3:30 in the morning, exhausted but full of loot. That early Thursday was the 23rd of June . . . one week and we’d be off for Pamplona.

Dreary England soon dragged on Lucy again. We went down to see Clive in London on Friday. We met him in a wine bar in the West End with his new housemate, the soap opera star Alan Browning. Alan was going to Pamplona with him . . . they were going to fly down. Lucy and Clive took to each other immediately. We really had quite a bit of wine that lunch-time. Clive gave Lucy a nice Coronation Crown (coin) and we parted looking very much forward to rendezvousing in Spain.

I can’t remember all we did in Cambridge that last week. We did take the girls to the Midsummer Fair . . . but again the weather plagued us every day. I do, however, remember one more bad day. I guess it began with me caressing Lucy around 9 am. It might sound like I was making excuses if I try to recall what kind of day I’d had before and thus whether it was in need of assurances. I was. I guess there’s always that element. But clearly, the days in Cambridge were a strain for both of us. Anyway, Lucy wasn’t having any of it—and she was snapping and bitter. She was offended, insulted even . . . to her it was just getting prodded by a penis and she found it demeaning. But, naturally, I was hurt. But even then I was going to let it pass. I had, however, to go out to Pampisford to return the lawnmower and the vacuum I had borrowed, and to see the girls. Jessie was nearly hysterical when it came time for me to leave. And, although I knew that Lucy was enjoying an excellent, and rare, morning of sunbathing, I was anxious to return because I was sensitive to her being hurt by a too-lengthy absence at Pampisford. But I had to take the extra time to walk with Jessy down to the Rec Ground to reassure her of my love and non-desertion.

Lucy, Part II of III

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 07:01:00 +0000

In this second installment of his affair with the 22-year-old Lucy, my father mentions inserting a copy of the letter he received from her—the only letter he supposedly received before her arrival. The letter has never been found among his papers.

Well, eight months and a broken heart can produce a fuzzy memory; but Lucy and I did see quite a bit of each other during those last two weeks of April, and we did make plans. I can remember several meetings and matings in my office on the main campus. It was so delicious because our mutual feelings turned a potentially sordid situation into a delicious and exciting experience.

It is so terribly tempting to let hindsight infect my account of what happened. So easy to interject that now I see it as two very different experiences for each of us. I tried to hold myself—or rather my galloping enthusiasm in check. I had to, after all, make plans. In general, it all seemed quite clear: I would have Highworth Avenue just as soon as I arrived in England. Arriving mid-day on Sunday I could have the house in at least a livable condition if Lucy were to come as early as the following Thursday, which was possible. I couldn’t envision that Lucy, feeling as she seemed to (and as I did), would want to delay our being together any more than absolutely necessary to make things smooth for the other parties involved (our two families, as it were).

So, somewhere in that first week after, during our meetings, two big factors loomed. The first was her promise to go through the graduation exercises which were not until 27 May! Fifteen more days than if she came on the following Thursday. Half a month: it certainly was too long for me and, so I thought, would prove too long for her. I mean I could understand her sense of filial duty and all. At one point I proposed paying for an extra round trip so she could return to go through the ceremony! I reluctantly agreed to her coming after the 27th . . . but I also warned her that, since she wouldn’t see me after early Friday the 5th, she might find herself changing her mind by the following Wednesday and coming the next day after all. I stupidly began to emotionally rely on that, for I knew that is how it would be had our positions been reversed. But I put it aside for all the other plans and wrote off to Roland Spicer to get straight on with working at getting Highworth Avenue livable just as soon as that dumb Neanderthal moved out; we had no time to lose.

The second factor did not actually loom too large mostly because I didn’t let it. This was Lucy’s comment that she was making no commitment for the fall. When I started discussing the fall, she said that she would not move in with me. Having spent nearly all her years up to then living at home, she was looking forward to having her own job, her own place, her own car, in short, her independence, her freedom which she felt she had at last earned. Well, it was not a subject that I could see, right then and there. We should go into it, thought I, with the idea that everything could change even halfway through the summer.

I was concerned, and I told her so, about her choosing to work, rather than go to Wharton grad school in business. Anyway, I told her, well, I really was quite happy merely to have her with me for the summer and that the fall, one way or another, would take care of itself. And here I must say that I really did mean what I said . . . There is nothing mutually exclusive between wanting her by my side forever and being willing to accept the limited offer of a summer together. One can always hope. Clearly, the factor of emotional fidelity over the summer was something one would have thought—see how retrospective writing can infect the story!—one could have taken for granted.

I’m sure now that Lucy was the first to realize what turned out to be the crux of the whole affair: that it is difficult, if not outright impossible, to go wholly and rightly into an affair if you know in advance that it will end on a specific date. In the end, but before the actual end, we came to feel that we could have a great summer despite the fact that it would have to end in the fall. I had no misgivings whatever, but that was principally because I never believed it would end in the fall, if we spent the whole summer together.

She, as it turned out, knew that there was no way it would continue after August. It was certain and unswerving . . . and as sure as the fact that she did not love me . . . never did. But I did not know this . . . nor would I have ever wanted to know this. My decisions would have been very different. Doubts I might be reluctantly willing to assign to her; but that she possessed near certainty would have scared the hell out of me. And ‘scared’ really is the appropriate word. To have literally handed my heart and soul to someone who could literally ‘know’ they were going to walk away even, as it were, in the very act of making love with me, well, I find that frightening: it is, as I see it, a confrontation with true immorality.

As respectful as I am of a true Machiavellian, it is respect at a distance . . . the healthy respect that is equally accompanied by a feeling that one is happily at a distance and not involved personally. But face to face, with one’s own heart, mind, or well-being involved—no way. Run! But, I saw it too late . . . and now part of my life is gone forever and I will never be the same. And I have not only lost a part of myself, but an innocent giving of self that I will never recover. I have seen it starkly in evidence in terms of my subsequent relationship with Alexis.

When Lucy and I parted on 5 May, I told her I would call her on Tuesday: I thought by then she might truly be persuaded to come then. I had taken her down to TWA and bought her an open ticket, and she had her passport in hand, so that there was literally nothing to stop her. Since I thought she needed the added psychological incentive, I told her I would even arrange to have her best friend fly over with her for Stanley. I left believing that there was at least an even chance that Lucy would come some 4 days later. And brother did I go to work accordingly! Tuesday evening late I called Lucy from Stan’s boathouse. Stan was not that amenable to paying for Mary Ann, Lucy’s friend, but he would have done it for me, had I asked him. But it was hardly a viable point, because Lucy was not going to come before her graduation it was now clear. Then too, Lucy had, before I left, mentioned that her father liked to take the long Memorial Day Weekend for a family trip but had never succeeded in getting more than 4 out of 8 family members to go on it. And Lucy feared that this might be the last year in which they could conceivably do that; and I think she wanted to give her father the present of her company for that weekend as well. That meant her coming as late as June 1st. However, the way I assumed we both felt when I left was that, if she did make the concession over the graduation ceremony, I would at least get her by that Saturday weekend, as opposed to the Tuesday or Wednesday following. However, it was only May 9th or 10th, so the subject didn’t come up that night.

I went on, bouncily shopping for paint, wallpaper, prints, furniture, all manner of things to set up house and enjoyed every blissful minute of it. My true love was coming.

But my true love wasn’t writing.

One week passed, no letter. I called; she was writing, she said. Two weeks, no letter. I called again. In fact, I called three times before I received her one and only letter. Later on it would be a sore point with me that she could write Carl, her ex-boyfriend, at least twice, and about 6 times to her newest lover! A comparison, I’m sure, she never made herself. My calls must have sounded worried, insistent, and a little insecure. And they turned her off. She even said so. And then that letter came. What a blow! Right in the pit of my stomach. It turned, it churned. I went inside out.

Little did I know that this would be the first of 5 great blows, each of seemingly greater nauseating intensity. Even now I cannot bring myself to write it out, or even read it, I will simply append a xerox copy and let it go for that. The reader can see for him/herself without me having to suffer through another reading/feeling of it.

I called; a stupid, slobbering, emotion laden, hurting call which any objective idiot could have known would not have had any desirable effect. Half a day later, when I cooled down a little, I was able to write a slightly better letter. But it was a hokey letter simply because I didn’t mean a word of it. Sure I was cool . . . I told her I wanted her, but if she was going to screw it up, forget it. But I wanted her so badly that the ‘cool’ strategy, the ‘stance’ was pure sham. Sending her the Footlights tickets was an empty gesture. But she came. She had, in essence, exacted from me a promise of attitude that, well, I genuinely believed I could live with. It was little different from before in that it was now up front. It was that it would be for the summer only. Fine. But I thought I would at least get her wholehearted commitment, even were it only for that limited time period.

It is now coldly clear to me: there is no way you can get any serious or worthwhile commitment from a person who can coldly and clearly see the end of the affair at its very beginning. It is impossible. She was kidding herself if she thought she could do it. Of course, she never did and that is the immoral irony of it all and that, by the way, is why I must now reluctantly agree with my friends no matter how much I love her still that I was ‘used’ grossly by her and I was kidding myself if I honestly expected that she could. I honestly thought she couldn’t either, but I erred by expecting that her failing would come in the form of realizing how much she really cared for me after all!

I can remember the evening I told Beverly that Lucy was coming. You know, in 10 1/2 years of marriage I never exacted any real retaliation for the things that Beverly coldheartedly and intentionally did to me. But that early evening I finally did. It was a blow delivered right between the eyes. And I am ashamed that, for a few fleeting moments I savored it, relished it, luxuriated in it. She had, nearly two years before screamed at me . . . ‘why didn’t I divorce her?’ ‘Why didn’t I leave her?’ and I screamed back because I had nowhere to go and no one to go to. And so it came out . . . she led right into it . . . and I took my cue and delivered my crushing blow: Do you remember your once asking me why I didn’t leave you? And do you remember my telling you it was because I had nowhere to go and no one to go to? Well, Lucy’s coming tomorrow morning. Now I have somewhere to go and someone to go to . . . and I’m leaving. You can call who you want, whenever you want, but you can’t stop it from happening. So long, and thanks for nothing.’ Dramatic, yes; cruel, yes; but also a little satisfying considering the crap that had accumulated all over and around me in the previous 4-5 years. It was almost worth it.

Naturally, I didn’t sleep that night. The flight was due in at 7:35 a.m., and I got to the airport at 6 a.m.! Now I was certain that Lucy was on the flight. It was Tuesday, 7 June, Jubilee day, and 2 days before Lucy’s 22nd birthday—the last day she was eligible to fly at youth rate and thus the latest day she could come and still save the money. Clearly my mind did play on the lots of possibilities that would not have put her on the plane . . . and it was sweet torture to have to wait outside the customs barrier as seemingly so many passengers passed out without her in sight. But she was there . . . and so was I with my nice little Jaguar and a nice day for a drive through rural England.

I had made my mind up that I would not bring up the subject of the future, nor would I play upon her failure to come any sooner, her failing to write but one letter, her offer to not come, etc. I knew that she would probably try to say something . . . but I was absolutely determined that, two hour and a quarter drive notwithstanding, we would say nothing on it until after we’d made love. I think she at least agreed with that; she did bring up some of those subjects, but I put them aside with that admonition, and we went no further. It made her momentarily more comfortable. But I was very much aware that there was much she had to say. That bothered me, but I was determined to be totally happy. Look what price I had paid! Jennifer and Jessica were to be in the village Jubilee Celebration and parade at 10:30 that morning and here I had just walked out on them and their mother! I was not in the greatest emotional state that day.

Anyway, Lucy and I made love that morning as she went to bed for a rest. I was so sensitive to Lucy that it tore me to bring up the fact that I should go out to Pampisford to photograph the girls in their triumphant Jubilee Day parade and celebration. It was a terribly cold and overcast day, with a hint of rain in the air. Only after a while and with great reluctance did Jenny agree to put on her fawn mac, she just couldn’t bear to hide her period costume. Jessy, as always, was less flappable, and she joined her day school teacher and class on the truck float that was to carry them through the village as the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. I took lots of snaps and a bit of film footage. Beverly hardly said a word; I don’t think Lucy was even mentioned, except to ascertain for sure that she’d arrived as planned.

Lucy was still asleep when I returned to the house a little after 1 p.m. I was pleased that she seemed so ‘at home’ snuggled up in that somewhat shoddy double bed that Odera had left behind. I think we went to the Fort St. George that night, Lucy wearing her Fort T Shirt under her yellow windbreaker. She had gotten quite tanned in the States since I’d last seen her and she not only filled out the shirt quite well, but she contrasted against its white deliciously. I knew she’d make a big hit. And I knew that my friends would appreciate that my wait was well worth all the mooning around and ribbing I had been taking as I admitted to each of Lucy’s prior delays in coming over. Lucy liked the crowd, and it was quite a decent one at that: Jo Hatfield, from Abbott’s travel, and her husband were there, plus all the usual Fort crowd . . . even Rudy the Swiss, who later became my boon companion for the last half of the summer, and Phil Gosling, were there. It was a grand and comfortable evening and I was quite happy.

On Wednesday we did the tour of the town, but Lucy was showing her first signs of depression at the rather foul but not altogether untypical English weather. We did the colleges, and Lucy caught sight of her first church brass, the l9th century one, in Trinity College Chapel. We did a little shopping, bought film and musical tapes. I think we had dinner at Don Pasquale’s that night, also stopped by the Spread Eagle. That, as I remember, made Lucy a little uncomfortable as this was Bev’s local one night a week. Even though there were one or two people who knew me a number of years before I married Bev, it was one of these, on a subsequent night Dickie Webdell who had been my tenant as far back as 1960, who had to have a fatherly chat with me. We had but one drink and we pushed on. I remember that we were also anxiously looking to rendezvous with Stanley who Lucy was looking forward to meeting, but whom we’d not seen as yet.

Thursday was Lucy’s 22nd birthday and I felt I wanted to make it especially nice because I could feel that she was sensitive to not only her physical dislocation but more psychological factors as well. I went by, as previously arranged, and picked up the girls. It was another cold and bleak day, again with hints of rain. Lucy felt awkward as I parked the car outside Pampisford to fetch the girls. Bev didn’t know that Lucy was in the car, it not being clearly visible from the house and Lucy having slightly hunched down reading a magazine or booklet on brass rubbing. Anyway, the girls met Lucy for the first time, and all seemed to be going well. We pushed off for the church at Little Shelford where there is a lovely brass of a medieval couple holding hands only about 3 feet high. I had told Lucy it was one of my favorites, not very far away, and a good one to begin her brass-rubbing career with. So enthralled with her initial success was she that we stopped to book Sir Roger of Trumpington on the way home later that day.

Once we had Lucy underway and instructed in basics, the girls and I headed out to find the makings for a surprise birthday party for Lucy. It was not that easy, Thursday being the local early closing day. But we did find a small shop and got an 8 inch square chocolate cake, some tinned soft drinks, plastic forks and party napkins. The Shelford brasses finished, we held our party in the Jaguar. Fortunately it was big and roomy and the girls had the little pull down trays back of the front seats. As the rain pattered down we had a lovely cosy party, which I know Lucy will never forget. I know I felt so very happy then: everything I loved before me even the rainy and bleak Cambridge seemed to lend itself to the mellow mood it evinced in me. But the mellowness was not to last very long.

That evening Lucy and I rendezvoused with Sammy and Maureen Singh at the White Horse in Milton. We had several rounds there and talked about what we were going to do. We thought we’d take one side trip before leaving for Pamplona. We wouldn’t leave for the fiesta until 30 June earliest, three possibly very rainy weeks away. Lucy was getting itchy. Clearly, we’d have to pop into Abbott’s to see what one week holidays were available.

Anyway, we had a nice time with Sammy and Mo and soon ‘time’ was called at the pub and we drove them home. As Sammy was leaving the car, he turned to me and said, in a half whisper, “Don’t go way, stay here a minute” as he took Maureen into the house. A minute later he was back, but he surprised me by circling round the car and jumping in the back. “Let’s go, man,” said Sam, “before Mo changes her mind.” Sammy was going to continue the evening by drinking with us at Don’s on the market square. Well, I enjoyed Sammy’s company a good friend and mate for over 15 years.

There weren’t all that many people at the Don’s that night. Giuseppe was bartending, Don was there, so was his brother, and his partner. But it was just Sam and Lucy and I at the little bar, drinking Rum & Cokes. By l a.m., after at least the third round, but possibly the fourth, I was tired and ready to call it a night. But Sammy and Lucy were very into each other, having a helluva good time. I turned down participation in the next round, a not very subtle hint that I’d had it. Sammy disparaged my gesture, over insisted and the two of them went into another round. Over sensitive and insecure, I felt a little wounded. I wondered how far Sammy would go. We’d had at least three longish heart to heart talks before Lucy arrived; wherein I not only extolled her virtues, but fairly dramatically conveyed the depth of my feelings to Sam in the early hours of a couple of weekends. So Sammy knew. But there he was, charming the pants off her just like any other beautiful bimbo who crossed his trail. The absence of further alcohol in my body only brought the fatigue on sooner. But Sammy and Lucy went for yet another round. And then Sammy went into his almost traditional routine wherein I was set apart as the party pooper, spoil sport, old man, etc. It seemed I had to either flaccidly admit it or vehemently deny it. I just got angry.

As I mentioned, I’d known Sammy for 15 years. When it comes to women he has no morality whatsoever, not even a twinge of ethics. Sure, we have both long since taken the position that NEVER will we allow a woman to stand between us or affect our relationship in any way buddies to the end and no woman is worth the price of a longstanding friendship between two worthy men. But that is easy for Sammy; he was the sociosexual powerhouse, always winning the birds, and my role was the chap who had to say ‘no hard feelings’. And Sammy played it to the hilt.

Back in 1963, he not only took a drunken sweetheart of mine up to MY OWN BEDROOM to make love to her; but when I had the audacity to bang on my own door and Sammy opened it a few inches, he had the chutzpah to ask me if I could lend him a rubber! So, I knew Sam alright, bright and cunning, and too attractive. He knew full well what he was doing. Unforgivingly stupid, I let my emotions play me right into his hands, and he played social handball with me, finally chucking my cool over the backwall fence.

Lucy was pissed at me for being such a drag and getting uptight over sweet, charming, innocent Sammy! I KNOW that if we were in Philadelphia that Lucy and Sam would have found a way to spin me off, carry on drinking somewhere else, and, even though she will probably steadfastly deny it, eventually succumb to Sammy in bed. What a thought to be thinking . . . and Lucy only two days at my side. But the greatest frustration is not only in the having such a mind-breaking thought but feeling it had a real foundation! In other words, how much was due to stabs of personal insecurity and how much over realization of a true situation. It doesn’t matter, does it? I think I knew then that we wouldn’t be going to a May Ball. I could have had tickets at an extravagant price, but my spirit had been sapped, and the ball was five days away.

I retrieved myself a little at the close of that evening. As the three of us headed towards the house at Milton Road, outside of which Sammy had parked his own car, there was a police road block looking for people as drunk as we were. We were pulled over, and I could see that the officer with the flashlight had a partner with a clipboard and several of those breathalyzers dangling from it. After 20 years of unremitting intoxication on the roads of Great Britain my number, it appeared clearly, was finally coming up. Sam quickly rolled down his window, as I did mine, to clear the air inside the car it was enough to explode in the presence of a lighted match. But I remained cool, calm, and imperturbable partly due to my still shitty attitudinal shape over Lucy. And, by God, I answered all the tricky questions right down the line. We chit-chatted to a conclusion and he passed me along down Milton Road. Sammy was beside himself with disbelief, and for the next 5 minutes until we got back to the house, he praised and amazed over my performance and luck!

Sam went home, but Lucy and I had a little scene. That was, in fact, even more frustrating because I felt so strongly for her and I didn’t want to alienate her at so early a stage, that I laid the blame wholly at Sammy’s doorstep. Now, in terms of the bulk of the blame, or what one might call ‘active participation’, Sammy does carry the burden; but while that was a necessary element, it was not sufficient Lucy’s enjoyment of the flirtation, her insensitivity to my tiredness which clearly was also related to a difficult 48 hours She hadn’t seen me pick up and drop the kids at Pampisford, see their begging and tears, see Beverly’s ranting and hissing of future revenge, to be aware of the trying times I was going through and so much of it dedicated to sparing her of uneasiness daily. She, consciously or unconsciously—doesn’t make a damned bit of difference to me!—encouraged him. Never mind, I don’t even like the upward visceral feelings that I feel right now just recalling it all!

Friday we did more brass rubbing. Lucy was getting freaked out on it. Were it not for the cold and the rain and the clouds I think she could have easily roamed Britain rubbing the brasses. She loved it! That night we went to the Footlights, the first real event of May Week. It was good, as they say, but not great. Lucy enjoyed it . . . it was a nice part of everything. I think it was not until Saturday that we finally caught up with Stanley. He had come by the house. I think they liked each other. We didn’t go anywhere as Stanley was just stopping by on the way home. I got the feeling that Fraucke wasn’t encouraging Stanley’s socializing with us out of a sense of loyalty to Beverly.

Saturday we stopped in at Abbott’s and got the literature on various one week holidays. Lucy was very keen on Morocco, where I had been two years before. I said I’d rather go someplace that was similar, but where I’d not been before. Anyway, we took the various literature and went home.

Lucy Part I of III

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 27 May 2016 07:01:00 +0000

In the days leading up to his death, my father was writing the story of his affair in 1977 with one of his 19-year-old students. It remained unfinished and, in fact, the time stamp on the computer document that follows was just hours before his death. Fortunately though, he had already written the end of the story in a series of letters to me as the events were unfolding which can be read in the The Summer of 1977 and The Summer of 1977, Part II.

I guess it’s time to write the story now that the story has become history; that seems to imply some sense of objectivity. The events have achieved a kind of staleness-of-time, though, on the other hand, I wouldn’t have even begun writing this if something wasn’t driving me. So I shall begin, as they say, at the beginning. Or at least the beginning I prefer. Lucy has her own vision of the beginning. While I accept her version, believing that it probably has a greater approximation of objective reality, I still think mine is the truer. Anyway, the one thing we both would agree on is that it began on January 18, 1977—the first day of the Spring Semester of that year, at the Ambler Campus of Temple University. It was my first class of the day, a Tuesday-Thursday class, at 11:30 am. I had come into the room about 5 minutes ahead of the normal class-starting time—and watched the students file in. Lucy was already sitting in the front row, on my far right, facing the class. The door was at the far left. I knew she was in the wrong class—in more ways than one. She had fashionable half-tinted glasses on, the ones with the large lenses, which equally suited her long high-boned face. But it was really her total presence; the way she sat there, legs crossed, in jacket-blouse-skirt, all poise, sophistication and beauty. “Too much,” I thought to myself, “too much.” Well, I’ve had them come in before, the wrong room, the wrong class. Actually, I thought to myself that she was in the altogether wrong university. But certainly she had to be in the wrong class. She looked like the Business Administration/Marketing major, who she turned out to be. She, I could see right away, had more class than every female student I’d had in 14 years to that date. I was already sorry to feel that I would quickly lose her . . . the Development of Science in Western Civilization clearly wasn’t going to be for her. I figured she was too polite to walk out once I had announced the course title, my name, etc.—the more so as she would have had to cross the front of the room, between the rest of the class and me. She was going to stay for the one and half hour lecture. So, I said to myself—already half in love—I am going to pull all the stops out and give an introductory lecture that will have them applauding at the end. And so I did. Lucy signed up for the course and so it all began. She knew she was onto something good—and, at the very least, interesting. Now Lucy, if she were around, would tell you a different story. She says she was simply shopping around, weeks before, for an 11:30 Tue-Thu class, and had asked an advisor about me and my course. She claims she got some kind of warning about me. I’m not sure exactly what it was, or even what it could have been—other than I was tough, disciplined, and down on dummies. It certainly couldn’t have been much else. She stayed, she would claim, because she had always intended to stay; she had no other choice regarding electives and the time slot; she couldn’t get into whatever had been her first choice. So, she had not been unduly ‘struck’ by my stellar opening performance. At least three weeks passed before we ever had a conversation. I certainly made it easy for her. When I found she never came early, so I couldn’t arrive early myself and get in a few casual words before class, I simply hung around my lectern after the class. I knew that someday, sooner or later, she would make some remark, as she put on her coat to leave, and that would be my opening. And I’ll be damned if, for the next 2 weeks, that’s just about all we did. I would damn well have to walk her out of the class, down the hall, and onwards to . . . wherever. But damn I was already ‘struck’ myself. I thought I wasn’t letting it show—unduly. That is, I knew clearly that my interest was showing; but the extent or implication of that interest, I was self-convinced was not at all obvious. But now I must digress . . . in order to provide relevant background. To say that things were not going well with Beverly and I is at the very least, gross understatement. At the beginning of 1969 everything was fine. At the beginning of 1970 there were the first intimations of unhappiness; but with a new child and a second fulltime job, I was too caught up in material considerations.
So it went for 1971; but by the end of the business season, in November, I commented in my diary as to Beverly’s coldness, her lack of warmth, etc.
The year 1972 was busier, and more financially disastrous, than the previous year, and Jessica was born that September . . . but I wrote in my diary that “her undemonstrative insensitivity to my needs may destroy us.” In 1973 a brief flirtation with a lovely girl called Zena—which Bev heard vaguely about—made me realize that things were not right. I probably would have run off with Zena, had she been willing. My diary shows that, in the spring of 1974, I even plotted a spring holiday with her . . . but it fell through. By December 1974 I was referring to “the gradual dissolution of my marriage” believing there was a good chance it wouldn’t last out 1975. But it did. By September 1975 I had written the epitaph on my marriage. We agreed to put up the Dower House for sale the following summer; the other house had a tenant with a lease that would not be up until December 1, 1976. We were, in effect, backing towards a divorce then. The result was inevitable. It was during the summer of 1975 that Beverly asked me why I didn’t divorce her. And I responded in quasi-Rhett Butler fashion: “Frankly, Beverly, I haven’t got anyone or anyplace else to go to.” Which was certainly true. I couldn’t afford to maintain two households; nor had I the inspiration to even try. A call from Susan Smith, an old girlfriend, in early February 1976, resulted in two things. I applied to Temple Law School and I admitted to myself that, if Susan came up to go to Temple Law as well, I would leave Beverly. Susan didn’t come up, and I didn’t get accepted. Nor did we get an offer anywhere near our asking price for the Dower House in the summer of 1976. And so it went. I digress even further—during the first week of classes in September 1976, I met Barbara. Barbara was blonde and beautiful with a fantastic personality; 27 and divorced—but with two children, boys the same ages as Jenny and Jessie. She signed up for my class and it began between the two of us.
Barb was a bit conventional and that slowed up my otherwise fast rate of progress. I had, in fact, agreed to be sent up to teach at Ambler, some 16 miles to the north, because Barb’s house lay halfway along the route there; and I had even lied and said to Bev that I would be teaching until 8 p.m. every night—and thus could hardly be expected home evenings much before 10 p.m. Since I was through around 6:45 p.m., this—or so I thought—meant I could dine with Barb every Tuesday and Thursday evening. But Barb proved, in the end, just a trifle too plastic for me, and we never got past the beginning of December. Christmas in Texas was an enormous bust. The end was nearing. In February I discovered I’d developed high blood pressure; my psycho-emotional life was taking its toll, clearly. On Thursday, March 31st, I put it all to Lucy. Actually, I’d been building up to it on our little walks and talks on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But it had up to then, been pretty general: about my having a summer home in England, allusions to my less-than-satisfactory marriage. Lucy had, in turn, listened intently and even suggested that she might be going to Europe in the summer after her graduation. That Thursday night I put it to her. I suggested that she should come over and visit me. I also volunteered to call someone I knew at TIME-LIFE in New York to see if I could get her a job interview. She was busy interviewing for a September job. I called Lucy on Thursday night, as a kind of follow-up; but she wasn’t home. Then I got cold feet, thought I’d been too forward, gone too far and regretted having called. Lucy didn’t call back, though I left my number. I noted in my diary of that night that I was worriedly anticipating facing her on Tuesday. My son Mark came out for an 11 day visit on Wednesday the 6th of April. That was the night I had my first date with Lucy. What a night that was! I shall never forget it. That was the night when, at 39, I turned back into a 19-year-old!
Things had gone fairly well that Tuesday. Lucy seemed to be as interested in me as I in her; and it had clearly reached that point where we both felt a bit hampered by the limitations of time and place vis-a-vis on-campus meetings. We arranged to meet, after Lucy’s Wednesday night class, and go somewhere for a drink. I told Bev that I had been invited to Lucy’s house by her parents, as a gesture of thanks for getting her a good job interview with the International VP for Personnel Development at TIME-LIFE in New York. But it was just to be Lucy and me. I met Lucy in the Ambler library, and she looked beautiful. I can remember thinking to myself right then and there that this was clearly the woman for me! She had everything: looks, brains, personality, poise, class and it seemed as though she liked me! We drove to a small inn and tavern in Ambler and ordered a couple of drinks. I feel a bit like a drip merely trying to convey what happened on that date. All I remember is, after about a half an hour of small talk, I stammered out how attracted I was to her. And I can remember how, to my amazement, she confessed almost the same degree of attraction.
We talked about so many things; mostly our separate hopes for the future, our wants, etc. I told her what I envisioned and that was that we could be together. Then I said something that I’d never said to a girl before under such circumstances: that I wanted so much to make love to her. And again she agreed that she felt the same!
But it was already nearly eleven o’clock and we had to agree, however reluctantly, that it was too late that night. We adjourned to the car in the darkened parking lot and collapsed into each other’s arms. We were that way for at least an hour and a quarter. We both wanted each other so badly. But the soonest we could arrange to get together was the following Tuesday! I agreed to call off my classes so we would meet at the Ambler Library at 11:30 am, after her one and only class that day and we would go to a motel. This was a first for me; I couldn’t believe we were really planning this. It seemed so sordid, yet so unbelievably right! The next day Mark came out with me to attend my lecture and was very much struck by Lucy. I’ll never forget that day either. Lucy had to duck out of the day class to go to a job interview . . . but she did make it up by coming to night class that same evening. Class had already started when she arrived. I caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye as she paused momentarily in the doorway, familiarizing herself with the layout of the classroom which she hadn’t been in before. Then she passed in front of me and in front of the class, into the only empty seat in the second row. She was stunning. She was already, it seemed, tanned, and this was offset by an off white linen suit, a beige silk blouse and wearing a simple set of gold chains. Like a page out of Vogue or Harpers! I couldn’t believe that this was to be my girl! Nothing will ever make me recall what I did between that Thursday and the following Tuesday when I pulled into the parking lot adjoining the Ambler Library for my assignation. I was in my usual half depressed state, figuring that she’d probably changed her mind in the cold light of day. But no, she was there, and ready to go. It all went quite smoothly, actually. It was a bleak and rainy day, but we had a nice big room with a lovely view of a wooded creek passing right by the picture window. The rain gave it a very special woodsy, cabin like flavor and we could leave the curtains open. I was impressed by the matter of fact manner in which Lucy took off all her clothes. Of course, she had been the mistress of a man of 31 at the age of 18 1/2, so she was clearly no beginner no matter what emotions I felt. I can remember her coolness in this respect. But what a day! I don’t think we went down for dinner until 8 p.m. It was delicious and I was deliriously happy. Not just for what was happening but because I felt I had been rescued—out of an empty life into a potentially full one. Finally, it seemed, life had caught up with my aspirations, my dreams.
But something turned Lucy off that night—well, I don’t mean completely . . . something to do with the salad at dinner time . . . it’s funny because of course this didn’t come up until months later . . . and I can hardly remember what it was—something about picking up a tomato with my fingers, then, on deciding that I didn’t want it, letting it drop back into the public salad fixing trough—but it illustrates how the mind picks up and stores things, then brings them up months or years later. Anyway, it was a long drive home and I was really humming: it seemed as if I had found a life, or the possibility of one. I could live with anything now. But I can remember how, when the subject of Lucy came up at home, however casual, that Bev really went up the wall. I don’t believe she really suspected anything, just resented the subject. But she was quickly and viciously to tell me that she intended to call my department chairman, the dean, and even Lucy’s folks—if anything developed.
It was a mean scene which Jennifer walked in on. And Bev told Jenny that I was “bad” and “evil” and poor Jenny didn’t know what to make of it. She couldn’t believe her mother was serious and, even more, she couldn’t accept that it was so. But I could see puzzle and frustration and uncertainty as Jenny looked back and forth between us. It was still quite warm out, so I decided to take the kids for a little walk.
There were tears in my eyes, for I knew that the decision I had made that day was tantamount to saying good-bye to my two daughters. And yet I knew it I could no longer stand to live with Beverly. Jenny squeezed my hand lovingly and said, “Daddy, just because mommy says you’re bad doesn’t mean that really you are, does it? Just because she says it’s so doesn’t make it so, does it?”
What an observation! We walked until the tears in my eyes evaporated. I stayed up late that night talking with Mark and Jeff, who were sleeping together in Jeff’s room. I think it was the following Thursday that, having gone somewhere for an interview, Lucy came to my evening class. She looked so beautiful that I could see all the students in the class noticing her; and I felt so proud, for now she was mine. That night I came home and headed straight for the wine. Beverly was already at her evening glass. And that was the fateful night that we very lightheartedly talked about dividing up our property. Unfortunately, I was in far too good a mood at that time and I verbally agreed to quite a lot; but naturally, we weren’t exhaustive, dealing mainly with books, hi-fi, photo equipment and furniture—here and abroad. But anyway I was quite generous—little did I know that Beverly would take me at my absolute word!

A Telegram from the Living Legend

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Sat, 21 May 2016 17:07:00 +0000

Telegram, circa mid-1960s

An Exchange of Letters Between My Brother and Father from Late 1992

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 20 May 2016 07:00:00 +0000

The idea of posting my father’s letters to a blog was for my siblings to finally see what my father wrote about each of us in his letters to the others. To say he was grossly unfair is probably an understatement. He wasn’t ashamed of his cheapness—bringing his own liquor to bars and just buying sodas for mixers or meanness—his reference to my Uncle Marvin and calling my brother a “turkey”

You begin to notice a pattern in his writing, which I noticed to an even greater extent in his unpublished autobiography, and that is the belief that if you write something down and you write it often enough, you give credence to the lie. More on this to come in future postings, but a couple of examples of this from this exchange of letters.

My father alludes to sending me a Christmas gift the prior year, which, if he did, I never received. Nor had I ever received a Christmas gift from him over the course of my entire adult life. In another letter—not part of this exchange—he alludes to having sent me a $500 gift certificate as a wedding gift the summer of 1993. A pretty generous gift for me to have supposedly not acknowledged, except when you consider that I never received anything from him. Nothing, not a card or phone call. Granted, I wasn’t expecting anything since I didn’t invite him to the wedding or even send an announcement. It wasn’t until after his death, when going through his correspondence that I learned that he had complained to family and friends about my not acknowledging the gift. Maybe the Alzheimer’s to which he eludes at the end of the last letter might explain it.

Finally my father claims 1994 would be his 30th consecutive year at the Fiesta of San Fermin in Pamplona. His first trip there in 1966 was well documented in his journals, so 1994 would have been his 27th year.

I also find it strange that my father expresses a liberal viewpoint in letters near the end of a life he spent espousing political ideology that a friend and colleague of his characterized as “slightly to the right of Attila the Hun.” I was with him on one occasion in which he swerved his car into a huge puddle, soaking a line of welfare recipients standing outside the office on Broad Street in Philadelphia, screaming, “Get a job!”

October 24, 1992

Dear Mark,

Saturday night and I'm sitting here reading goddam blue books which demonstrate, roughly, 6th grade levels of grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and, on the average, 3rd grade intellectual levels! I'm torn between last-year tendencies to be generous and very realistic anger and depression at the state to which the American educational system is condemning the next generations to total inadequacy! I can't wait to get out! So, I'm just biding my time until next July 1st when I'm definitely out of here.

Janet has just left, flying her 747 down to Rio and Montevideo--in search of Uraguayan and Brazilian Monopoly sets (I must have about 30 by now, having just gotten one from Australia--to match Egypt, Thailand, etc) My main targets now are Finland, Austria and Greece (to finish Europe), then Mainland China, Philippines, and Korea to finish Asia. Then to work on Africa. What collections my kids will inherit!

I do hope you're thinking seriously about all of us meeting in London. I am torn between 3 or 4 November . . Janet can drive me up to Newark only on the 4th (and Beverly has sent me a big box to carry over to Jennifer) . . and back on the 7th (when she'll be returning from her own flight over to London). Still no word on the Guy Fawkes party, though I'm sure that someone in Cambridge will be having one. I will be coming down to London on Friday, the 6th, so if you can't get away before Thurs. night the 5th, we can arrange to meet at Jenny's on Fri. morning in London. I will probably spend Fri. night at Liptons, Sat. with Janet in her hotel in Kensington.

I enclose, as usual, advance payment for my pass, and, if you decide to go and can get a Buddy pass for Jessica, I will pay for that. I haven't spoken to Jeff yet, but will presume he can get a Courier flight to get him to London at least by the morning of the 6th, possibly earlier. So . . don't screw up; be Mr. Reliable for a change, forego a little poontang for 72 hours, and help effect a family reunion in London. Believe me, when you're a drooler and your women have all left you, you'll be grateful for having sisters who'll help wipe the drool and see you don't die alone, like Uncle Marv.

Still waiting for the Real Estate market to pick up so I can get the hell out of here. The San Diego area is my temporary alternative; I will not spend another winter in Philthadelphia! I think we'll be going into a trade war with England since this U.S.Air/Brit Air deal is dead. The little pissants want us, however indirectly, to do for them what they think we've been doing for Germany, France, and the other European countries they want to give us nothing and give them free reign in the States.

Your nonsense about competition being good for Boeing and HcD/Douglas is just that their governments are pouring millions into their airbus industries, it is hardly fair competition. Continental will soon be forced out of Europe and you'll be working for some Europeans . . but that is only if the reaction of your soon-to-be-out-of-work crews doesn't put your company into permanent manure! Think twice about what's happening to this country, you have swallowed this Welfare shit, the cry for self-sufficiency is a red-herring to get out of the moral obligation of providing for basic needs in this country And remember; whatever your beliefs, don’t manifest them so as to alienate those close to you--on whom you may well want to fall back on when things get bad!

I have signed on for the First Summer Session to make some bread so that I can provide up to $1000 for a 1/3rd share on a seaside Apt. in St. Jean for the month of July. The Grands will come here on November 12; we'll put them to work in trying to find us a first class place for the summer. 1994, my 30th consecutive, will be my last year at Pamplona. This coming year is promising; with the peseta at 109 and climbing, we might get 150 to the dollar for '93! This will still make a rum + coke at the Windsor $3.00, but will help in general . . the room at the Maisonnave will only be $175 for a double (with meals). When you consider that you paid $100 per for a small walk-up at Marceliano's . . that may be a good deal!

Janet's and my next trip will be to India, then to Brazil. United is going to connect up around the world in February and Fly into Johannesburg and New Delhi. We may even get married this Spring! If we fly to Las Vegas, perhaps you and your sweetie will join us there!

Don't let me hear about your coming up this way without seeing you old man--it's been years since you were last here. If I see my sweetie Bonita the beautiful Continental Flight Attendant on the International run, I'11 tell her you'l1 be coming up to see her!

Take Care,

Dear Dad;

Thank you for the wonderful letter. . . Your sermonizing is more than amusing. In fact, it moves me to anger.

Your comments regarding the current status of student education and knowledge was very upsetting, but it is hardly news (unless you're suggesting it's getting even worse, which would be hard to imagine). I've often believed the state of education was in collapse, the matter of degree, to me, was never of consequence.

My personal experience, regarding your culpability for this situation is minimal, unless of course I judge you based on your influence in my life. . . That influence, paired with my knowledge of your political views, would only indicate that you are an integral part of this distaste. . .

I might also add, that I think the situation is worse than you believe (I use the word 'even', largely because you concur with Boy Clinton on his assessment of our current state). I say worse, primarily because ideas to correct the situation, like you and Boy entertain, have gained such wide currency.

We have all had to listen to insufferable political musing for the past months. However, nowhere did the Republicans take a bigger liver punch than that the Democrats dished out over there stance on "family values".

Perhaps I'm the first to suggest to you, that you failed on two significant levels when it comes to the disaster in our education system. First, you simply were not present during my educational years... Next, I've have seen no indication that you are of the nature to correct the problem through working with the University, or the schools that turned out your own inadequately educated children (yes, all of them!). I wouldn't even bet the intellectual Rambo of this family even impeded, or slowed the shit pump Temple had working over time spitting these Bovidae out into the streets.

You may have heard the Bush/Quayle support of family values, now you get to hear mine... If these kids don't get a good dose of discipline, and an accompanying lesson in personal accountability (preferably from someone they're afraid of, Dad) during the years they spend in grade school, there's no way they are going to sit still for anyone long enough to learn anything in high school. College is out of the question.

In short, it takes a mother to love and coddle; it takes a father to discipline (preferably a conservative). A female cannot adopt the dual role of kind forgiver and enforcer.

You liberals are only out to make matters worse. You push us further away from personal accountability, every, single, day. You blame everyone else. . . the government, the environment, etc. . . Everyone except yourselves--the fathers, the families, the liberals!

Don't forget, the free market system is the last vestige of accountability left in this world. It's our golden goose. I'd like you liberals to quit chasing it around the yard with an axe.

The reason we can't compete with foreign, albeit subsidized products and services, is because we are the lazy, stupid shitheads (of the sort Temple is churning-out), not concentrating on producing the one sure fire answer to these imports. . . A good fucking product!

I trust the market. I don't trust any check-bouncing, pork-barreling, politically correct, tree huggin', owl spotting, grinin' and gripin', bone-head, trustee of JFK son-of-a-bitch to spend one dime of OPM wisely! And I don't recommend you do either.

By the way, even a highly subsidized Airbus (I'd capitalize it if I held myself out as a judge of others spelling, grammar, etc. . .) is just competing with the U.S. aircraft industry. Care to guess what country would be selling all the planes if we didn't have excessively burdensome union work rules, litigation, environmentalist, and on, and on, and on. . . Besides, John Maynard, it's a worldwide slow-down in new aircraft orders, not a domestic problem.

With regard to your comments on welfare. . . I feel a moral obligation, only to those truly in need (the crippled, the insane; those that cannot provide for themselves), not the permanent caste of able body loafers with their asses parked on my paycheck that aren't willing to work. Shit there's probably a significant number that attended Temple, and yes, Northern Michigan University (and every other liberal piece of shit pinko university out their confusing the fundamental elements of accountability with right-too, "access" horseshit diarrhea of the sort spewing out Clinton's mouth).

I would not want to alienate you, or any others with my personal views. However, I might also suggest the same to you. . . The way I see it, there's just as strong a chance that others will need to count on me, as there is, I'll need to count on someone.

[Attachment (fax):]

TO: Mark Vorzimmer
FROM: KB
DATE: October 28, 1992
MESSAGE: This is not the one I had, but it is pretty similar, enjoy!!

PSALMS OF ARKANSAS

BILL CUNTON IS MY SHEPHERD, I SHALL NOT WANT.

HE LEADETH ME BESIDE STILL FACTORIES,

HE RESTORETH MY DOUBT IN ARKANSAS POLITICS, HE GUIDETH ME TO THE PATHS OF UNEMPLOYMENT,

HE ANOINTETH MY WAGE WITH FREEZE, SO MY EXPENSES RUNNETH OVER MY INCOME,

SURELY POVERTY AND HARD LIVING SHALL FOLLOW THIS ADMINISTRATION AND I SHALL LIVE IN A RENTED HOUSE FOREVER.

5000 YEARS AGO, MOSES SAID, "PACK UP YOUR CAMEL," PICK UP YOUR SHOVEL, MOUNT YOUR ASS AND I WILL LEAD YOU TO THE PROMISED LAND.

5000 YEARS LATER, F.D.ROOSEVELT SAID, "LAY DOWN YOUR SHOVEL, SIT ON YOUR ASS AND LIGHT UP A CAMEL; THIS IS THE PROMISED LAND."

TODAY, BILL CUNTON WILL TAX YOUR SHOVEL, SELL YOUR CAMEL, KICK YOUR ASS AND TELL YOU THE PROMISED LAND IS IN JAPAN."

P.S. I AM GLAD I AM AN AMERICAN.

I AM GLAD I AM FREE.

BUT I WISH I WERE A LITTLE DOG

AND BILL CLINTON WAS A TREE.

December 3, 1992

Dear Turkey,

You keep pulling that "Call you right back" shit .. and there is never less than a week between calls--if that.

Robbin Walker hadn't a clue as to why she wasn't offered a job at Continental--she thought she'd done very well on the interview--only to get a brief form-letter rejection. We were not all that unhappy as (a) we thought a ramp agent job would be closer to home (b) would be better paid and (c) would have better hours. We were convinced that an airline could not do better than to have someone like Robbin; but she got short shrift from Continental--and little assistance from you!

So .. what are your plans for Xmas? Are you going to Cleveland? I am off from Dec.15 to Jan.15th--though the University wants me to retire on January 1st (they were so dilatory last June that I had to rescind my application to retire on July 1st--principally on the stated grounds that I needed more than 5 days to make an important life decision; so now they come up with January 1! But I'm going to hold my ground for June 30th.)

Janet is in Colorado, but will come back this Saturday (the 5th). She's free until the 24th whence she's off to Narita again. As I said, I'm planning on going out on the 25th, even though I've not heard yet from the Liptons--and need to be put up over there from Dec.26-29--then coming back on January 1st (Janet will try to join me if she gets a line for January that gives her off until at least the 3rd or 4th).

I will need you to send me an r/t for ConEx between PHL + EWR, I will probably only use the one-way up to EWR since I don't want to take a car up if I come back down in Janet's on the 1st, but will have the r/t for a back-up if she can't come over.

My friends Alister & Sam are coming down from Cambridge to go with us to Clive Sinclair's New Year's Eve party .. so we're getting side-by-side rooms at the Hyde Park Hilton for the 30th and 31st, then off the morning after the party. Jen will be back on the 30th, so she'll probably come along as well. You could be her escort if you like! I think you'll find her English room-mate, while cute, is a bit young for you... Anyway, give it some thought--the last New Year's Eve party had real class--a huge luxury boat with overflowing champagne--which parked immediately below Big Ben at the stroke of midnight. A tot of rum as one ascended up the gangplank upon boarding was a good sign. New Year's day is a pain-in-the-ass to come home on, but it least promises a first-class seat!

Still no word from Jeff .. probably on his way to Brazil! Called in a real estate man to appraise the house and its sale-worthiness. Market has collapsed around here. I could, right now, only get $179, 500 [down from $250,000], but if things go optimally, I might get $200,000 by summer. Only good thing is that prices are down more than that in England. Janet wants to take a temporary shift to Hawaii for six months (which would create a moving-mileage for use for an England move that would save us some $25,000); so I guess things could be worse than having to spend 4-6 mos. in Hawaii. Jennifer would hope to come back to a job in Phila at the end of the summer .. and then Jess would move up here and go to Temple (the Pa. supreme ct. just ruled that fathers are no longer obliged to provide college education + expenses to over-18 year olds--and while there is no retroactivity, that would impact on Jess' last two years. But since it remains free if she goes to Temple, she will have to come up here once I retire. Actually, she would like that--providing she could live here with Jennifer. She has already burned her bridge with Bev and Alan by moving out; so she has gone way out on a limb. This latest Pa. Supreme Ct. decision has really twisted Bev's gourd! Jessica now realizes that by giving me the finger and changing her name she also burned another bridge! When all I have is $1250 a month taxable, it will be hard to get money out of me--if Jeff wants a Christmas present from me, he better fucking well acknowledge the ones he received from me last year! His lack of taste one can do nothing about, lack of manners is something else!

The weather is closing in here in Philadelphia .. and I'm not looking forward to this winter .. just have the summer to look forward to...so...don't forget the ConEx passes (you have plenty of advance payment from me..$400 paid for 3 Y class tickets to London and one Business .. why don't you come up for a weekend? I hardly remember what my children look like .. better get here before my Alzheimer's flares up irreversibly.

The Bust of Verdi

noreply@blogger.com (Jeff Vorzimmer) — Fri, 13 May 2016 05:05:00 +0000

One of the things I enjoyed doing with my father was hanging out at Freeman’s Auction House in Philadelphia. It was the only time I ever saw my father spend money in a manner that could be called frivolous.

He would buy books and accoutrements for his study. Some of the things I remember him bidding on, in competition with area dealers, were antique firearms, phrenology heads, sculptures, mannequins and, once, the figurehead of a ship—which he won, by the way.

Sometimes, usually near the end of an auction, there would be some object that nobody would bid on. It was usually something hideous or, at the very least, in questionable taste. I remember such an object that no one showed any love for, perhaps because my father and I decided to be the lone bidders and it ended up being an object that would play a part over the course of the rest of his life.

“As our last item I have a plaster bust of Giuseppe Verdi,” the auctioneer said. “I’ll starting the bidding at $10.” The auctioneer went through his patter over the sound of people milling about or filing out. Then he stopped abruptly. “Do we not have any opera fans in the house?” he asked with arched eyebrows. Although it’s plaster, it doesn’t show any visible signs of cracking or chipping.” I would also add that it was painted to look like aged-brass—not quite trailer trash tacky, but in questionable taste.

Giuseppe Verdi

I turned to my father and said, “I love Verdi.”

“I do too . . . Oh what the Hell,” he said, as his paddle shot up. I carried it into the house that afternoon. It was all we had to show for that particular auction.

“I don’t want that thing in my house,” my tasteful Texan stepmother said to us upon seeing it cradled in my arms. My father took it from me and placed it on top of the antique bookcase in the living room. And there it sat, unappreciated for years, until the unlikely event of my father’s divorce put it center stage for a brief and shining moment.

In early October of 1977, my father’s marriage was all but over. All that remained was for them to split the furniture and the rest of their belongings and my stepmother Beverly would take my sisters with her and return to Texas.

It was a beautiful fall day on campus when my father caught me leaving my last class of the day. “You got to get to the house right now,” he said. “I just got a call that a moving van is parked outside Wallace Street and I suspect Beverly is taking everything. Just get down there and make sure she doesn’t take anything from the study or the bedroom. I still have one more lecture and I’ll be home after that”

By the time I got to the house it was too late. I saw the large moving van pulling away as I arrived. I dreaded what I would find—or more accurately—what I wouldn’t find in the house. I walked in the front door of Wallace Street to find the living room empty except for a bookcase on the opposite wall, to the right of the door to the dining room, and the bust of Giuseppe Verdi on the floor where the antique bookcase had been.

I went through the dining room. It was empty, as was the kitchen. I went up the steps to the parlor. It was empty, then through the family room. The television was there, as were the shelves surrounding it. Then one step up to my father’s study, which was relatively intact. There were bookcases lining both sides and his huge roll top desk between windows that looked out onto Wallace Street.

It turned out that the house was pretty much empty with the exception of the study and my father’s bedroom. My bed and wardrobe were gone and my clothes were in a pile on the floor. I went down to the basement to find a sleeping bag and a card table for the kitchen, so we would have something on which to eat. I set up the card table in the kitchen and some folding chairs. It didn’t look a lot less empty. I went and got the bust of Verdi from the living room floor and set it on the card table.

I sat there thinking about how different life would be without my stepmother and half-sisters, not to mention the always-helpful, always-available, au-pair girl. Of course, it wouldn’t have made much sense to leave the au-pair, but I’d grown quite fond of her.

So, my father and I would be baching it. He would probably start charging me rent if he didn’t throw me out entirely and move in one of his mistresses.

About half an hour later my father came home. He plopped down on one of the folding chairs looking a little dejected and said, “Well?”

I couldn’t feel sorry for him even at that moment since he had brought this all on himself with his extramarital activity that included students, au-pair girls and some of my college friends.

“The study and your bedroom look pretty much unscathed, although my bedroom is empty.”

“Well, we’ll have to get you a bed. If you’re going to stay,” he said.

“I got nowhere else to go,” I said.

“So, what are we going to do?”

“Well, there’s lots of room,” I said, trying to see the glass as half full.

“Good point . . . Hey! Let’s have a party!” He said, his spirits seeming to rise again.

“What, to celebrate being newly-separated? Nothing says desperate, horny, old college professor more than a party celebrating his wife’s departure.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said—words I rarely heard from my father.

“We could find something else to celebrate . . .”

“That’s it! We’ll find another reason to have a party,” he said, rather enthusiastically.

“Let’s see, Oktobefest? No, that really needs an outdoor venue . . .”

“Wait, the answer is right in front of us!” he said as he went running upstairs to his library. He came back down leafing through a biography dictionary. “I thought so!” he said. “Giuseppe Verdi’s birthday is this weekend!” he said, nodding toward the bust on the table.

“We’re not really fans of the opera,” I said. Which wasn’t entirely true. My father loved Gilbert & Sullivan and I had a fondness for Wagner.

“He’ll be a 164 years old. I’ll print up some invitations tomorrow and we’ll start distributing them right away. It’s kind of short notice, but I need you to round up some hot-looking coeds.”

We had the party. My father and I cooked our own specialties. I remember making pizza from scratch with ingredients we picked up from the Italian Market in South Philly. I also remember making something we called “clam blobs,” which were a mixture of canned clams and cream cheese heated in a toaster oven. Of course we played Verdi operas and the bust of Verdi, festooned with a laurel on his head, took a place of honor at the hors d’oeuvre table.

Thus began the tradition of having a birthday party for Giuseppe Verdi every October, about a month into the fall semester. My father held the party every year for the next, and last, 18 years of his life.