Bonnie Cook

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Bonnie Cook — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 08:54:00 -0700

Hey anybody out there still with me...I am typing this on the actual site, something I never do, as usually write the story and then think about it a day...however, am out of time here...this is to let you know I am just this minute leaving for nine days on The Big Island with Peter and Cindy and family, will return April 6th. Last night I was going to post a letter I received, but simply ran out of steam at two am and could not get in here to turn this thing on. I am taking it with me, and if I find a computer - between beach sessions and watching the volcano erupt! oh dear - I will post it.

My plan was to, by this time, personally reply to everybody who has posted on this site. We see that has not happened yet. You cannot, well - maybe you can - imagine how appreciated you are and how much I love your entries and notes.

My ride to the airport has just arrived, so, bye for now.

Much love, Bonnie and the Cook Family

Water and Main Street

Bonnie Cook — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 01:58:00 -0700

Saturday Night – 22 March 2008 - Hey, anybody still out there…I’ve fielded some calls about the heavy rains in Arkansas this past week – nothing that has affected this place. The river is running high and muddy, but not a danger here – and, I’ve been thinking about: Water.

In my early years in St. George, Utah, the water ran down the concrete gutters of Main Street, each family took their water turn. I remember Dad getting up in the night or early mornings, to put in the metal plate, in essence a dam, and turn the water onto our property. When Henry was in St. George in 1959, he thought the water running down Main Street was “quaint”. It was. Kids waded in it in summers – the water in the gutters and ditches is a lovely institution, ruined by closed water mains. Our drinking water came from springs, it didn’t run down Main Street but was housed in a concrete tank on the Red Hill (on the flat top of this tank we roller skated). The water was pure and clear and cold.

Not the case when we lived in Hobbs, New Mexico. Not pure, not clear, not cold. We drank it, but noticed that many locals did not. Most homes had large water coolers in their kitchens. (the Culligan Man?) That seemed an extravagant expense to us, we just drank the local water.

At this time in our history, we had three dollars left over every month, after paying the mortgage, the car payment, the stereo payment - an absolute necessity! – and ten dollars a week at the grocery store. This certainly did not include buying water, since it came out of the kitchen tap. Peter commented to me recently, “three dollars is all you had left each month? Why didn’t you get a job, mom?” Why would I? We always had money left over – could go to the movie once a month. We were fine. Besides, it never occurred to me to get a job, and want more. I was a 1950s housewife in the classic sense.

After a year or so living in Hobbs, I began to realize that some old timer locals had brown teeth, but thought little of it – they must not brush very well! We lived in Hobbs about four years, long enough to be pregnant with Peter in 1962 and Allison in 1965. Some years later, as teenagers, Peter and Allison would have their dental checkups in the States, and invariably the dentist would ask, “were these kids raised in West Texas?” They had mottled teeth, not brown, but chalky mottled. And, rock hard. A dentist here in Fort Smith looked into Allison’s mouth when she was about thirteen, and told me, basically: she has the most perfect teeth I’ve ever seen. The mottling is beautiful, as she will never have a cavity, and at the risk of my own ruined income, I would say she would never have to visit a dentist again. After quizzing me about where she grew up, and checking Peter’s teeth, he also will never have a cavity, the dentist decided it was the water in Hobbs that I drank while expecting them. Strong minerals and naturally occurring fluoride. We were, fortunately, there just long enough to set them up for life, but not turn their teeth brown, since we wouldn’t pay for bottled water!

Transfer to Tripoli. Peter was age three, Allison was three months. The water coming through our kitchen tap came from a locally owned well about two blocks away, in a yard with chickens and a screen over the opening, hopefully the screen stayed put. We were advised upon arrival, that boiling our water would be a very good idea. I acquired two teapots, holding about two gallons each, those, plus a couple of stew pots, gave me four containers that I filled every night with tap water and boiled about twenty minutes. In the morning I made milk with powdered milk and the tepid water. When we went to the States on vacation the kids found milk from the grocery store distasteful - too different. I boiled water religiously, with an occasional lapse – WHY am I chained here to this stove and these four pots of water?

Now, we discovered bottled water – the local Ben Gashir, Henry loved. As I type here, I am looking at a rusted bottle opener that has hung in our every kitchen since Tripoli – it is inscribed “Fonte ben Gascir”. This term cannot be found on the web now – except as a town the Italians bombed in about 1912. The Ben Gashir wells, where “moya Ben Gashir” is bottled, are a few miles from the Tripoli Airport.

The other water Henry loved was San Pellegrino, widely available in Tripoli, since there were so many Italian shops and restaurants. I just looked up San Pellegrino on Wikipedia – a most interesting history, I had no idea, we simply took it for granted – Italian bottled water that is really good stuff. I suggest, dear reader! You take a minute and Google San Pellegrino, then go out and buy a bottle of this water that as far back as 1509 impressed even Leonard da Vinci.

Actually, I never liked these bottled waters like Henry did; they are too bubbly for me. Eventually, Henry graduated to Perrier – and I thought, O Please. To this day, I still buy a case of Perrier about every two weeks. Allison acquired the Perrier habit as a little kid, so I keep it stocked here at the house, in Henry’s honor, and for any time Allison drops by, which can be about five days a week!

Back to the well in Tripoli: it ran dry in the summers, on a regular basis. This is when I discovered the value of water storage. Otherwise, I would load up our Fiat 600, basically a steering wheel and four tires, just slightly larger than your grandmother’s treadle Singer sewing machine, with WWII jerry cans, and drive around town, knocking on doors, asking if anybody had water. Not every well in the city ran dry, at least not at the same time. Remember, we had no telephones. This was a peaceful blessing, except in times of dried up water wells.

And, we bought a very large garbage can for bathing in the kitchen, so I didn’t have to haul hot water from the stove to the bathroom. It seems that somewhere we have a picture of Henry, standing in that garbage can and soaping up – he, grinning from ear to ear. We used this only when he was in from the rig, so that he could lift the can and pour the used bath water down the kitchen sink.

Five years later, in Marsa el Brega, a company town on the coast, where the tankers loaded, we had hot and cold water taps – they were quite salty brine – and a separate sweet water tap, for drinking and a dishwasher. Those folks smart enough to re-plumb their house and run sweet water to their bathroom sink, were summarily fired and repatriated to the States, if discovered. I never knew of anybody actually fired, but the urban legend was real. Our kitchen sink water drained through the wall into a 55 gallon drum, from which we ran a garden hose, and continuously watered our gravel, where I encouraged great patches of succulents to grow. They loved soapy water.

In this house here in Fort Smith, I hired a plumber to run a line from our washing machine to the yard, to water during summer drought. He informed me that nearly everyone living outside the city limits does this, but in Fort Smith he would lose his license if he by-passed the “grey water laws”. He left in haste. I asked another plumber - the same story - but, through the side of his mouth he explained how simple it would be and who would ever know? He told me to find a handyman without a license to lose. This will be my next project.

In Arabia we had the same three faucet situation as in Marsa el Brega – hot, cold, and sweet. Abqaiq water was okay, hard and left you itchy after a shower, but okay. Henry learned to drink the tonic water at the commissary – was it called Carlsberg? The water in Ras Tanura I never got accustomed to – turn on the tap and it smelled like the refinery to me. Especially after just returning from a repat, I would come back to RT and almost be physically sick smelling the water the first few weeks. Henry said I was over reacting, I should be grateful we lived in such a lovely place! This is the situation that drove me to apple juice! And nearly ruined my teeth with all that sweet.

Dhahran water, in contrast, was just fine. No refinery smell. Plus, by now I had learned to drink Saudi champagne – a great combination of apple juice and sparkling bottled water and orange slices and sprigs of mint. Elixir of the gods. Plus, by now I had perfected lemonade – into the blender went frozen lemonade concentrate, ice cubes, a bit of water, and then onto the heavy slush in the glass, a shot of cranberry juice, which hung in the crushed ice, forming a layer of color. This lemonade concoction (masking the taste of the water) became as associated with the Cook household as did cinnamon rolls.

So, here we are in the aftermath of the rain. I know of at least one Easter Egg Hunt that was cancelled today – the field was too marshy and muddy.

And now, it is Easter Morning - a little quote from The Good Book seems appropriate, since I got onto this Water subject -

Jesus at the Well with the Woman of Samaria:

…“Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou shouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water,

“the woman saith unto him…from whence then hast thou that living water? … Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

Happy Easter to you all - and bye for now from Bonnie and Cook Family

The Story of Our Microwave

Bonnie Cook — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:06:00 -0700

Tuesday Night – 18 March. Hey anybody still out there…Had a call the other day from Robert Nesmith. Robert, the man who will eat anything prepared in our kitchen, and then volunteer to do the dishes. The question: “have I used the new ovens yet? the space age double ovens, convection on the top and regular on the bottom”. Well, no. However, today was dark and rainy, a good day to warm up the kitchen with fresh baked cinnamon rolls. Plus, was expecting a visit from David and Julie Glover, for whom I traditionally fix cinnamon rolls. So, I got out the directions to see if I could turn on these new ovens. After a false start or two, I did manage to get them fired up. However, the convection oven starts at 170 degrees, and I need one hundred. Shot in the foot again! and back to the dinosaur microwave oven in the garage.

The story of our microwave: I had never heard of a microwave oven, except perhaps through osmosis during party conversation, when Henry showed up one day with an Amana microwave oven. We lived in the rowhouse in Abqaiq then – that tells us the year must have been 1973. He was so thrilled with himself - to present me with this total surprise. I was so startled hardly knew what to say, except that I had heard somewhere that these things were “dangerous and one should not operate them if children were in the same room.” And certainly, one would not actually eat anything cooked in such a thing. He was quite disappointed that I did not share his joy over this new invention, he who always gloried in having the very newest electronic toy. We came to a “compromise’ … we would use it. And, we did – sort of - the real usefulness for me was heating milk for making cinnamon rolls.

Note Number One: I wrote this in the night last night, and went to bed trying to remember why I was so hesitant about having a microwave. I got up again, and researched Amana, and was reminded: Amana came out with the first Radarange small enough for domestic use in 1967. In 1968 they were tested and found that indeed the microwaves leaked from around the door and the units were not safe. The problem was corrected; by 1971 the Radarange was marketed nationwide, still trailing myths and legends about their danger. Ours was a 1973 model, and all I had heard were the myths and legends

Note Number Two: we seem to have come full circle here – the last time Henry went to Dodgertown, would have been November Camp of 2006, he attended as a visitor, hoping to at least be able to watch a game each day. He was very weak and quite ill. Barbara Labine, his wonderfully good friend, and cook extraordinaire, took me aside and talked to me about what food I was fixing for him and how I was preparing it. I remember her explicit instructions: “tape your microwave closed and never use it again.” A few weeks I later bought a book on preparing healthy food. In the first chapter the instructions are: never use a microwave, ignore it, tape it closed, or get rid of it – as microwaves destroy nutrients.

Well, back in Abqaiq, we lived with the Amana. I never was good at using it. I remember Linda Simms telling me once that since she taught school all day her time at home in the kitchen was very limited, and she depended on her microwave extensively. After this conversation I tried with renewed energy to use this thing, but it really made no difference in our lives.

We were transferred to Ras Tanura in 1978, and the Amana was damaged beyond repair during the move. Secretly relieved, I watched Henry finally throw it away, promising to get me another one. I assured him there was no hurry.

Then, a year or so later, at Pat Hundertmark’s house, I saw her proofing bread dough in her microwave! In a metal bowl. I couldn’t believe it. She explained about her new Sharp Microwave/Convection Carousel she had recently bought in Kobar. Nothing would do now until I had a Sharp Microwave/Convection Carousel oven too.

I remember the shop in Kobar as being named the Pakistani Exhibition – could that be it? Or a variation on that name. Maybe it was the National Exhibition. A very nice Saudi man ran the shop. I told him I wanted to look at his microwave ovens. There was nothing on display, just boxes stacked throughout the store, four or five high.

He said, you Aramco?

Yes.

All Aramco buy this.

Well, would you open the box so I can see it?

No. You Aramco. You buy this.

But may I see it first?

No. Open box, you no buy, I no can sell box.

You Aramco. All Aramaco buy this. You buy this.

Well…

He would NOT budge – “Aramco buy this.” On the box was printed the words Sharp Microwave/Convection Carousel. So, I bought “this” - and wrestled it home on the interarea bus

He was right. “Aramco” was VERY happy with “this.”

That Sharp Carousel was as necessary to my reputation as the Kitchen Aid mixer. Every batch of cinnamon rolls and/or bread for these next 27 years had the first rising in the Sharp Carousel, exactly at 100 degrees for exactly one hour. It was wonderful to be able to control the proofing. Always this part of the process was done in the Yugoslav metal bowl. This wonderful bowl, in nearly daily use even today as we speak, was purchased at the “Dhahran Shopping Center” – a glorious name for a small shop, which also sold Avon products plus an amazing variety of other commodities. Another feature of this store was that occasionally one could spot rats peering at you from eye-level shelves as you shopped. No matter, just be careful, if a box looked chewed in any way, refrain from purchasing. Canned items were safe.

In 1994, when we were “a fixing” (as I’ve learned to say since moving to Arkansas) to retire from Aramco, I had planned to put the Sharp Carousel in the garage sale, as our new house in the States had a built in microwave oven.

Anne would not hear of it. She was as nostalgic about that microwave oven she had grown up with – we bought it about a year after she was born - as she was about the kitchen table (“you always said the kitchen table is the Heart of the Home, WHY would you even THINK of giving it away?”)

So, both the kitchen table and the microwave came back with us. That microwave was a dinosaur in this new kitchen. It is so boxy-big, plus redundant, with the nice neat microwave built in over the cook top. Anne still held on to the Sharp – “I’ll take it with me when I go to college – just keep it in garage for the next three years.” So, we did. And, before I realized it, but I was tripping out to the garage a couple of times a week to use it, as the built in microwave is not convection, therefore could not be used to proof dough. I have baked zillions of batches of cinnamon rolls these years in Arkansas, right up until these last few months when attending to Henry took so much time.

When Anne went off to college, if she had had a place for the Sharp Carousel, I wouldn’t have let her have it, as I used it on a weekly basis.

When she and Bobby married, I wouldn’t let her have it. She had to put a microwave on her wedding gift register.

So. Here we are in this kitchen with these gleaming ovens – and the convection function will not come on at 100 degrees. It starts at 170, too hot for proofing dough, as far as I know. Today I walked past the new ovens and on out to the garage to use the circa 1980 Sharp Convection /Microwave Carousel.

Other than the nostalgia of the story, is there some moral here?

How about, “Be content with what you have” – a major theme in church a few weeks ago.

What am I going to do when this thing finally dies? Stop making cinnamon rolls?

Perhaps we, the Sharp and I, will finish our lives the same year, and there will be no problem!

Bye for now –

Much love from Bonnie and the Cook Family

Libraries

Bonnie Cook — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:49:00 -0700

14 March 2008

Hey anybody out there and still with me? - I’ve had a hard time getting to the computer this week. Today, I have been thinking about the library. Henry loved the library; all our life together we were either at a baseball field, or in the library.

This is a literal statement. On driving trips, when coming into a town, he would be looking, and spot baseball field lights from a mile away. We always had to detour, check out the field, and if there was a game in progress, we would watch for a bit.

He had fond memories of his time doing homework in the Carnegie Library here in Fort Smith. The New York Public Library was a destination when we had a day there.

The Aramco libraries in Abqaiq, Ras Tanura, and Dhahran were outstanding, considering where they were – in oil company towns. Aramco spent some money on those libraries, and nobody appreciated that fact more than Henry, who was there very often.

Here is a short story, a brief insight to one facet of Henry’s life.

In our later years in Abqaiq he became a drilling superintendent, and so was out of the field and worked in the drilling office, and therefore available for community service. Henry was asked to run for the school board. I remember someone calling me from the Dhahran school administration office, asking me to encourage him serve in this capacity. He agreed. However, it was necessary to run for election. He said he would let them put his name on the ballot, but he was not about to campaign. Are we surprised? So, the day of the election, I called a few people, reminding them to exercise their right to vote and therefore he won, as whoever was also running evidently didn’t make many calls.

Most of the school board meetings were held in Dhahran, occasionally in Abqaiq. I remember attending only one meeting. But Henry did his duty, driving off to Dhahran to these meetings.

The issue that sealed his fate to only one term, was the Gifted and Talented Program. The Aramco schools had finally gotten the program started, and after a few years, this subject was “re-visited” while Henry was on the board. There must have been some intense discussion – wish now I had been there. When it came to a vote whether or not to continue the program, Henry voted no.

He was not run out of town on a rail, exactly, but he became a pariah to many in the education field, and certainly he was not expected to ever run for the school board again.

He returned from Dhahran, after that intense meeting, and then having to drive home on the Abqaiq Highway, the world’s great death trap, the sides of the road littered with burned out hulks of Haji busses, and wrecked Mercedes trucks, and parts of charred oil tankers, and what was left from head on crashes with taxis, (remember when we all wore shirts: “I survived the Abqaiq Highway”) and told me about the discussion that evening, and his no vote. I was – well, surprised. Honey! Why would you vote against it? Peter was in that program. Allsion was in it, and just loved it.

He sighed, very disappointed that he had to explain, yet again, and to someone should have understood. He said, and this is pretty much verbatim: “Aramco only allocates a limited amount of money for education. The gifted and talented students KNOW where the library is. We should be spending what education funds there are on helping the other students find it.”

Bye for now, got to go to the library!

Much love from Bonnie and the Cook Family

Steuben glass

Bonnie Cook — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 20:51:00 -0700

Hey those of you still with me. Thank you so much for the comments the last few days. Many people have called and written – am I okay? Yes. I don’t like this situation, but I am basically okay. There has been much grandchildren interaction this week - Olivia and Hunter have stayed over with me two different nights. Bobby brought Abby down to spend the night with me, but it snowed that afternoon! So he took her home, assuming I would not be able to return her on the morrow. Olivia and Hunter did build two snowmen, a “baby”, and one about three feet high, with a scarf from my nice coat, and a Dodger cap, of course.

The new double ovens were installed Thursday. They were ordered a long time ago and have been sitting in the garage for some weeks now. These things are state of the art, and would be good for a family of ten. Will I ever bake again as I did in the “olden days”? Probably not.

I am writing this the night of the 8th of March.

Today I saw an article in the paper – “Corning to auction Steuben glass.” Reading on, we see they will find a buyer by the end of the year, or close down the Steuben business and the factory. This news caused me extreme sadness, so much so, that I went to the china cabinet and retrieved the Steuben bud vase that Henry gave me on our twentieth wedding anniversary. I just wanted to hold it for awhile. This simple elegant piece of art crystal, about eight inches high, is engraved: “Chance cannot change (my) love, nor time impair.” The line is from the 9th stanza of the Robert Browning poem Any Wife to Any Husband. The line preceding it: “Therefore she is immortally my Bride,

Chance cannot change that love, nor time impair.”

Again, Henry introduced me to the finer things of life. Actually, we came to know Steuben crystal through the New Yorker Magazine, to which Henry subscribed since our days in Hobbs, where Peter and Allison were born. He read The New Yorker avidly, every word, every week. (As I write, there is a stack of unread New Yorkers, about twenty of them, in the Dodger Den, that Henry just could not get to. I knew the end was getting close when he stopped reading, about the middle of last October.) The New Yorker is where we first became aware of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, serialized in 1962. Also much of James McPhee’s Annals of the Former World first appeared in the New Yorker. And, Roger Angell was the baseball writer. It was a thrilling magazine in those days. Through the years, I could not keep up with reading The New Yorker every week, except the Talk of the Town section – in our era written by E. B. White ( of Charlotte’s Web). This elegant writer set a lofty standard. After E. B. White retired from the staff, the New Yorker was never the same for me. I still checked out those wonderful cartoons, some of which Henry would have to explain to me, as often they were a play on situations in the news in New York City.

That was a time when printing the weekly reviews of a certain Broadway musical became so monotonous, as it played for so many years, that finally the editors inserted a paragraph from James Joyce’s Ulysses in the space where the review of the show would have been. Through the years that show ran on Broadway, one would have read much of Ulysses, a few lines a week. English literature majors - and at least one geologist - loved this idea. It took Henry a few weeks to realize and then figure out the inside joke, and show it to me. I cannot remember the Broadway show – what played the longest at that time - Fiddler on the Roof, maybe. When the show closed, so ended the weekly Ulysses entries.

Anyway, Steuben crystal art pieces were frequently advertised in full page spreads. Beautiful. So very beautiful. We would fantasize that someday we would own one. Especially the piece with the Eskimo stretched out on an ice flow holding the harpoon as fish swam below him, this all encased in a crystal shape somewhat like an iceberg. Exquisite. We flew back and forth from the States to the Middle East for nearly thirty years, and many times we had a layover in New York City, so we often visited the Steuben glass store. I remember it as being on 5th Avenue then, but now the flagship store is on Madison Avenue. We would walk in, wander through – in awe at such beauty – and discuss buying. We never did buy, as most pieces we considered were upwards in the ten thousand dollar range. My! Did we have a champagne taste.

However, at twenty years of marriage, Henry did secretly acquire the bud vase, and presented it to me with much love.

A lady friend happened by a day or so later, and saw this simple piece of glass. It was the inscription that brought her to tears: “Chance cannot change my love, nor time impair.” She was nearly speechless, as she hardly knew Henry, except as the Gruff Old Grouch. She just then became aware of the marshmallow in there. And, she burst into tears, literally: “Henry gave you that?.... For our wedding anniversary this year, my husband gave me a hymnbook!”

I thought, well, books are good for certain occasions. He just doesn’t know about the finer things in life. A few short years later, I visited her and her children in the States, right after their divorce.

He should have known about Steuben glass.

Much love to you all … Bonnie and the Cook Family

Mail service

Bonnie Cook — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:18:00 -0700

Hello, everybody still with me. Tonight I am back in Fort Smith – it is Tuesday, the 4th of March. I see now that every day is going to be an anniversary of some kind. A month ago was Henry’s last night here in this house. I’ve walked around and turned on all the lights, wound all the clocks, and avoided the Dodger Den. When Peter and Cindy put me on the plane today they were very concerned that I would be alone – am not used to alone as I was in the glory days of drilling, that is for sure.

So, tonight, 11 year old Olivia came to spend the night – this is nice, even if we have to get up at the crack of dawn to get her to school on time.

The hardest day in Orlando was last Saturday, the day we went to Disney – Epcot. In the summer of 1959 our first Big Outing was driving to Disneyland from Vegas. Peter says “I still don’t believe you went to LA, did Disney, and came back to Vegas all in one day.” We did. We were in a Corvette, remember? Henry was a young buck of 24 going on 25, and I seem to remember there was no speed limit in Nevada during those years. Had there been, it would not have mattered! My, how Henry changed in later years, when he would say to me, “just because the speed limit is 70, it is not mandatory that you drive that fast.”

Anyway, last Saturday was a lonesome day, walking around Epcot with the cute little family but no Henry. I missed holding hands, missed just the smell of him. Our three kids worked at Disneyworld at sometime in their careers, so we have spent many days there visiting and checking up on them, and consequently stayed in most of the old original hotels. And, there was a block of years when nearly every item of clothing, including watches, had Mickey stitched somewhere on it.

So tonight, I’ve come home to The Mail. Allison has been collecting it, and had it arranged on the kitchen table in categories: the cards, the letters, the bills, the symphony and Coterie, Merrill-Lynch, junk, catalogs, and boxes of books. It is a literal mountain.

Which brings us to: Mail. In the first years of marriage I was not much of a letter writer, or much on thank you notes. Henry trained me up on these things. I meant to, just never got around to it. He saw to it that I did my duty, and when I procrastinated, he would finally give up and take care of things, as usual.

In Libya, the mail back and forth to the USA was so very slow, writing hardly mattered. I did write some, to my folks and Auntie, was about all. We had no phone. International calls were not in our vocabulary. Don’t remember if it was possible to call. Perhaps from the post office, I think. The only phone call I remember in those days was when we were evacuated to Italy during the Six Day War. I did write Auntie and the folks, and the US government mailed it. My Dad received that letter, called the State Department in Washington,DC, and had them track me (and his grandchildren) down! He called me in our hotel in Naples!

That’s another story…

Back to the mail. Aramco mail service was pretty good – anywhere from 14 to 21 days delivery time to the States, and about that long coming to us.

After Henry was working in the office, he always picked up the mail on the way home. It was custom. Once I went to get the mail in the day, as I couldn’t wait any longer – we had two kids out at school and I would check every day to see if they had written. Henry then checked the mail after work – there was nothing. He was so disappointed. So, I never picked up the mail again. Sometimes I would check by and peer into the box to see if anything was there, but always let him bring it home. Just a little thing. Didn’t really matter, the letters were already more than two weeks old, what difference did a few more hours make?

We all learned early on to send mail with whomever was leaving the Kindgom on repat. We certainly expected to take mail with us. I don’t remember anyone every refusing to take other people’s mail. Some people didn’t like assuming the responsibility, so we didn’t ask them twice. Some drillers on 28/28 schedules flying those charter flights later on were iffy. Occasionally the men never looked in their suitcases until they were packing to come back and then discovered they had mail! Oh dear, they mailed it 28 days late.

We always took empty suitcases out, and we brought them in, full. Full of children’s clothes in the next three sizes, shoes in graduating sizes, vitamins, bags of chocolates chips and at least two boxes of brown sugar – can one live on entire year without chocolate chip cookies? Later, the commissary carried brown sugar and chocolate chips, so the next project was smuggling in bacon. After the pork store was in business, the fun went out of trying to get past customs with our bootleg wares.

Speaking of customs, I remember the night we picked up a new hire drilling family in the Dhahran airport, to take them to Abqaiq, and customs found two issues of Playboy in the bottom of his suitcase. He swore he didn’t know they were there! as he stood there in front of his wife and little girls – he was so distraught, I believed him. All of us nearly went to jail that night! Guilty by association. Ah, the drillers were legendary.

What I am thinking, as I look at this mail here on the kitchen table, was our taking out mail on every repat. It was fun. We reserved a suitcase just for mail. People came by the house in a steady stream for two days running before we left, bringing mail and small packages – cookies and things for their kids in boarding school. By the time we actually left, we had visited with half the population of the town. Usually people did not have postage. It didn’t matter. Who cared? One year, it was while we were in RT, we had a huge suitcase stuffed with mail, as our trip was early November. We must have taken out zillions of Christmas cards. Henry never ever minded buying postage for all that mail, he expected to, and was glad to.

We flew to Florida to see whoever was working at Disney at that time, and I was anxious to get that mail off my conscience. Our conscience. Henry said, wait. We are going to Miami anyway – to eat at a Jewish deli – those of you who knew him well appreciate this. He said, let’s wait and drive down to Key Largo and mail it from there. Wouldn’t people wonder how their Christmas cards came to be mailed from Key Largo? We were eternally in the thrall of that classic movie.

So, we did. And dawdled on the way, the post office was only open a few more minutes when we arrived. There was all that mail, to stamp and process. The staff were quite surprised to see us come through their door with a suitcase of mail. We spent just under a hundred dollars in postage. Henry had such a good time at this, it was worth every penny to him.

I don’t remember if we ever got any feedback on the postmarks. Perhaps people don’t notice. Henry ALWAYS noticed postmarks. Peter brought that up yesterday. Peter remembered he mailed us a letter from St. George where he was in school, but the postmark said SLC – the postal service had consolidated by then. Henry pounced on that immediately, and wrote Peter about going off on a trip to Salt Lake City instead of staying at school, studying. Poor Peter, so innocent, he had no idea what Pop was talking about.

It’s time to close this down for now. As I’ve read through this mail tonight, I am struck, again, with the numbers of wonderful people we have been so fortunate to have in our lives.

We love you all…Bonnie and the Cook Family

Newspapers

Bonnie Cook — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:38:00 -0700

Hey everybody still with me. Thanks to those who respond. I have received two messages about the Winston Churchill quote: “they also serve who only stand and wait.” Brenda Tirrell wrote right back and said that line comes from John Milton’s poem “On His Blindness”. Correct, obviously I did not know that. Brenda did some research and found a reference that Winston Churchill had also said this, probably he knew he was quoting Milton – I was thinking he said this to the British people on the home front during WWII. The other message, from Bill Yick, states.that this quote is from John Bunyon’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Churchill, with his classical education, would have known that too. This must be a much used line in English literature. Does anybody else out there want to offer another source? Does this validate that “there is no new thing under the sun”? Well, that line just came right out of my fingers. Ecclesiastes 1:9. Didn’t an American writer use this phrase?

I am hoping to keep the momentum going here – to record what I can about Henry for the family. The last several days, I’ve been thinking: Newspapers.

Last Sunday, while here in Orlando, I went out and bought the New York Times – for Henry. He loved this paper – “that liberal rag”, as Sal LaRocca says. When we visited Sal and Gerry in New Jersey some years ago, Sal would go out in the early morning before we were up, and buy Henry the New York Times. This was an act of love, as it was most distasteful for Sal to even have the thing in his house! Throughout the years, Henry kept up with this paper as best he could – we bought it every day while on vacation wherever we were. The kids were instructed to always buy the latest paper while in airports during their return trips to the Kingdom. Most drillers returning from the States always brought him the latest papers, especially the New York Times. After we moved to the States we subscribed, but he could not keep up. Those papers were stacked up in the corner of the kitchen, in chronological order, three feet high. We finally found a teacher at Anne’s high school glad to have them for his Knowledge Bowl kids to study. Eventually Henry started reading the Times online, and we bought it only when we traveled.

So, last Sunday, there I was, stuck with this foot thick New York Times. I determined to read it though, in honor of Henry. The aroma of a crisp newspaper fresh off the press seemed to generate Henry’s presence, and within two hours my hands were black with smudged newsprint ink – a mess.

At our first sighting in Vegas, Henry was reading a newspaper while he ate his pancakes at Uncle John’s. Wish I could remember which paper – could have been the Las Vegas Review Journal – but maybe not, he bought a New York paper at every opportunity – since the New York papers covered baseball extensively. Most probably it was the Los Angles Times, as that was a game day, he would have been reading about the Dodgers.

After we were married and settled down to having an address other than the Midland office, (because for awhile we lived in trailers and motels as he field mapped in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, and the Navajo Reservation) we lived in Roswell, and later Hobbs, New Mexico. During those years he subscribed to the Arkansas Gazette, a very fine paper he discovered during his college days.

In Tripoli we subscribed to the Paris Edition of the New York Herald Tribune. My education was founded on that paper, truly the best English language paper of it’s time. This was the era of the Cold War, a time in history I doubt our children can ever really appreciate. Somewhere I read that the Kremlin had a subscription of five or six copies. A staff of translators combed this paper for clues on what was going on in the West. The Art Buchwald column baffled them, as his wildly funny satire did not translate into much sense for them. I loved reading the classifieds – music teachers in Paris advertising, announcing their music “lineage” back to well-known musicians of a hundred years ago – student of so and so, student of so and so, student of – then gave their address. Several teachers traced their training back to the Polish teacher Theodor Leschetizky. I read this so often, that I finally bought his biography, so as to understand just who he was. I had friends who seriously stated that the CIA put clues in the classifieds, for their agents “in the field” in Communist countries. And, that the Kremlin did likewise. I tried to ferret out clues. I saw nothing! Sometimes an ad would be gibberish, and I always wondered – a message to a spy? Or just a misprint? Our subscription was mailed directly from Paris, and arrived somewhat regularly. Henry would come in from the rig expecting those papers to be in a stack, by date, and untouched! He read them in order, no matter how old the news and he did not like reading a crumpled paper. So, I was careful to fold it back, but he could always tell if a copy had been “violated”. One time we were missing an issue, so we bought it at a local bookstore. About two months later the paper arrived, postmarked Paris, but by the additional stamps and cancellation marks we could trace the travels to Rhodesia! Though some miracle of the post, it found it’s way across the African continent to us.

Subscribing worked just fine, until the 1969 revolution and a twenty-seven year old Gaddafi assumed command of Libya. There were some changes, one of which was heavy censoring. Now, the paper arrived later, crumpled, and censored, sometimes with magic marker and sometimes with scissors – on occasion great sections were cut out. Can we imagine how many jobs this created?

There were times when I bought the paper downtown at a little shop. When running errands, I would make the bookstore my last stop, just before noon, to give the censors time to finish. Often would need to sit on the curb and wait, sometimes almost an hour, before being able to buy the marked up and cut up paper.

Eventually the Paris Edition became the International Herald Tribune, and, sadly, lost its local flavor. Still, we were devoted readers. Every time we got on a plane, either coming or going across the Atlantic, most passengers were reading newspapers. There was a bond with those who chose the Tribune over other papers.

Henry was a devoted TIME magazine reader since college. TIME was always nearly three weeks late. We read what was left of it after the censors finished. Henry’s greatest delight was outsmarting the government – he vowed he would always find a way to read everything – sometimes by having Auntie mail a copy in a plain brown wrapper – at great expense, but no matter, it was worth it to him. He finally took to having TWO subscriptions of TIME, one to Tripoli, and one to Auntie’s place in Fort Smith. He would spend the first week of repat reading a year’s worth of magazines – an uncensored TIME, the National Geographic, The New Yorker, the Smithsonian. Also, Baseball Weekly, Sports Illustrated, and another baseball news magazine, what was it?

The Ghibli, “a weekly paper published temporarily on Sundays only” in Tripoli, was a delight. It was about the size of the Arabian Sun. The Ghibli was the most wonderful paper – why didn’t I save every copy? It had an editorial staff of several names, perhaps ten. Voluminous letters to the editor: all kinds of people wrote in about many subjects. Household hints supplied by one Mrs. Mavis Stoningham, “as I was remarking to my husband…”, or, “My wife, Mrs. Mavis Stoningham would like to share her ideas for reusing tea bags…” There were traffic accident reports, and other articles of local interest, but usually with a twist and a certain tongue in cheek flavor. We read this paper, and laughed, and wondered, why don’t we know at least some of these people? Henry did have months in the office from time to time, and eventually became acquainted with an eccentric Englishman, I’ve forgotten his name. He was redheaded, wore a heavy Harris tweed jacket every day of the year, and Clark desert boots. This man made the rounds of the offices and collected the news. We came to understand that he was the Ghibli’s staff of one. He wrote all the copy, every word, including the letters to the editor under so many names. He was owner, publisher, editor, and the staff of ten names. No wonder he could publish that “daily” newspaper only once a week – it was a huge project for one person. Eventually the Ghibli died – the Gaddafi government did not look upon it kindly, and a light went out. This was freedom of the press extinguished. That simple little idea of a paper was squashed by a revolutionary government. A few years later Henry ran across an article in a USA publication, perhaps the Atlantic – someone reminiscing about the Ghibli. This writer maintained his subscription when he moved back to New York City. This lament over the demise of this gem in the publishing world struck a tender chord.

The Aramco Sun was a good company paper, but of course never had the free wheeling spirit of the Ghibli. Reading the Aramco paper, Henry loved to point out the contrast: pictures of company officials presenting awards to employees, and pictures of people who won golf tournaments receiveing their trophies from company officials. In which of the two events do you think the participants were dressed to the nines, often in tuxes?

Tomorrow is Sunday, again. Shall I plunk down another five dollars for the New York Times? We shall see. I miss this guy so much….

Love to all….Bonnie and the Cook Family

A "kept woman"

Bonnie Cook — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:21:00 -0700

Thanks to those who respond. Gives me incentive to pursue this. When I get home to where I can navigate my computer better than this - here at Peter and Cindy’s I am in agony every time I approach this machine. - I will email everybody back. Each response brings so many memories.

Tonight was thinking of the men who have visited me at the house in the middle of the day! Not too many of them, but each with a message, so to speak

The first incident - Hobbs, New Mexico. Henry was a well site geologist and was over worked and underpaid! He put thousands of miles on his car every month, one month 10,000 miles, tending to wells throughout eastern New Mexico. In those days I was a “kept woman” at home, a la Donna Reed style, cleaning house in a swingy skirt, sweater set, pearls and high heels…you get the idea… actually I was in a sweat shirt and jeans. One day at lunch time one of Henry’s “friends” from the office appeared at the door. He was also a geologist, we knew him and his wife slightly, he was in town for a few days, and knew that Henry was far far away. This guy ( I remember his name well ) arrived, uninvited, for lunch and conversation, and curious about how happy I was in my present marriage! He presented himself as the man to solve any love life problems I may have, on any basis I would like to name. The only time I’ve ever been “propositioned.” Things got a little sticky there, as I was very naïve, and speechless! Finally I managed to make him understand that not only was chemistry with Henry wildly wonderful, it was so successful that I was at the time with child. He left, not necessarily embarrassed, but disappointed. I never told Henry – this Gentle Giant would have strangled him.

So – in Tripoli. The prelude: Henry again a well site geologist, and worked a better schedule than we ever had in the states. Here, he was on the well two weeks, and home a week, quite regularly. The second Christmas Eve we were there, the Big Boss of Drilling knocked on our door about 11 pm. He came in, like Santa Claus, and quite pleased with himself, as he had made a major decision and brought us a Christmas present – a promotion for Henry.

This man was a legend in his time, for two generations he was the Granddaddy of drilling throughout the Middle East– he had created many of the innovations for Aramco drilling in the late 40s and 50s. He announced that he had met hundreds of geologists, that all geologists are less than bright and basically get in the way on a rig. But now he had found a geologist of worth, that would be Henry, and his plan was to get Henry out of geology and into drilling where he could make a real contribution in the oil business. He knew Henry would be happy over this move. He really wanted to meet me, as he knew I had no idea what I would be in for – as a drilling wife. Henry was thrilled. I innocently thought, well, whatever. He was right. I had NO idea. Drilling foremen with Esso had no schedule. As long as the rig was drilling, the men stayed there, only to come into town when the rig was “skidded” to another location. Sometimes he was gone as long as six weeks at a time. Occasionally he was home after only a couple of weeks. He was never home more than three or four days consecutive days, sometimes a week. Occasionally, on an especially long assignment, they would fly him into town for a weekend. Henry loved it. At that time the drilling department was on the cusp of every new innovation in drilling – his crews made the fastest holes within or under budget with the newest programs – it was a glorious time for him. Thrilling. And, I learned to live alone with little kids, and wait.

“They also serve who only stand and wait.” Didn’t Winston Churchill say that?

Backing up, a few days after the announcement that Henry was transferred to drilling under Jim Noel, I had a visit at lunch time! Henry was on the rig, of course. It was big corporate news, this transfer. The man visiting did not work for Esso, but another major oil company. He and his family were good friends, I taught his kids piano. He was the Branch president of the LDS church in Tripoli – all 17 of us. His mission this day was basically twofold: 1. He volunteered he was somewhat envious of Henry, assuming this position. I remember his saying, “I would give anything to have a chance to work in Esso’s drilling program under that Old Grey Fox, Jim Noel.” 2. He was genuinely worried about me, as he knew how much I was going to be alone, from now on and forever! He quizzed me about how I felt about Henry’s job promotion. Could I manage to live and not complain or would I make it so miserable for Henry that he could not do his job? He sat at the kitchen table, we talked – rather, he talked - and gave me some good advice, and helped me come to realize that Henry and I were in this together, my part truly was to let him go at it with gusto – which he did - he LOVED that job in that situation, and I was to remember to always be glad for him. Actually, be glad for us.

I did pretty well. About a year later, two other men from the church came by, very concerned about a young wife who was not adjusting to life in North Africa, and asked me to take her under my wing. And… I just crumbled. I started to cry, “who is taking care of ME?” They were so startled, as they assumed I was just fine, I appeared to be.

I was, just didn’t realize it.

Later still: living in Dhahran. Henry’s job situation was now, Manager, Drilling and Workover, Saudi Aramco. One could really make that sound big. It was big, in some circles. I did have my times, especially when the second child went out to boarding school. After sobbing some, I pleaded with Henry to get a job in the states, any job – work in a hardware store. We had the Talk: “this is what I do. This is where I do it. Please accept this, or, there are planes flying out of Dhahran every day.” I chose, again, to stay. Later, came the knock on the door at lunch time. It was very good friend, down from Ras Tanura for the day. I said, come in!!!! I’ll fix you lunch. He said, No!!!! I can’t come into your house in the middle of the day without Henry here. I will stand here on your porch and just tell you this: I’ve been in personnel meetings all morning, we are investigating fraud and flagrant misuse of company funds, and as I left the office I’ve come to realize that Henry Cook of the Drilling Department is the only department in the entire company not under investigation. Bonnie, I just want you to know that this morning it looks as if Henry must be the last honest manager in Aramco!

This is a bit hyperbolic, especially to those married to other managers in Aramco, but, you get the idea here.

The last incident - was reversed. One day, during our final year in Arabia, I was walking Tara the dog through the neighborhood while Anne was having a piano lesson, and a driller came out of his door, flagged me down, and asked me to come into his house. I preferred to talk to him out on his lawn – his wife was out of the country right then, they were having some serious introspective issues. We stood in his yard, talking a long time. His question was, “How have YOU managed? How can you live like this, over here, for so long, with Henry always gone, always at work.? What’s in it for you?”

I was stunned. Finally could reply: how? It is a way of life. What makes it work? Henry loves what he does. That makes him happy. And, we love each other. I know that he loves me; completely. He is secure in my absolute love for him. And, he totally takes care of me.

I am the original “kept woman”. Everything is in it for me.

Sometime in 1967

Bonnie Cook — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:16:00 -0700

Hey everybody – another story here about Henry:

Must have been sometime in 1967. At that time we were on a two year contract with Esso Libya, and assumed our life abroad was about to terminate. So, we took a great trip to Austria – the major, goal, the opera, the Spanish Riding School – the Lipizzaner stallions, and the Vienna Boys Choir. As always, Henry organized and planned the trip. I had some input, but he knew so much about history and what we “should” see, he naturally fell into planning what we would do.

A side bar here: we could not do what we wanted to on this trip trailing around with two little kids, darling as they were. After some research, we found a Kinder Hostel that boarded children. We talked with other expats who had used this place, it was highly recommended. So, we did it. Took the train up into the beautiful Alps to the lovely children’s hotel, and left them for four days. How could I do that? Looking back, would I do that again? Obviously not. Peter is old enough to remember it, and has never forgiven us – dumping him and Allison.

Well, we make a few mistakes on the way – some of us make several…

A wonderful part of this trip was taking the train to Budapest – through beautiful countryside, but not really recovered from WWII. Such a beautiful place – the little towns with the onion-domed churches, the great flocks of geese in the fields. Budapest is a blur now, except for gypsy violins at dinner, and the evening we were standing on a bridge overlooking the Danube. It was just dusk. The lamplighter was making his evening rounds, lighting each gas lamppost in turn with a long pole, a small flame at the end. As we watched that man work his way down and back up both sides of the bridge, those dark lamps flamed up into an amber glow, Henry looked at me, and we said simultaneously, “the Old Lamplighter”. Had this been a Broadway musical, we would have burst into song!

Back in Vienna, we took the morning tour of the Opera House – complete with a sinister looking man in a great black cape just happening to descend the great staircase as we walked in - the Phantom of the Opera! Our life as been full of coincidences, just have to watch for them. The evening performance was Swan Lake, I could identify here because in grade school I had a coloring book I literally treasured, each page a scene from Swan Lake. I used to color and imagine I would some day be another Maria Tallchief. That didn’t happen!

We did have tickets for the Sunday morning performance at the Spanish Riding School. If you’ve been there, or seen the Lippizzaners on tour, you need no more words. If you haven’t been there – go. There is nothing in this world like seeing those white stallions perform in the Winter Riding School in Vienna. This takes your breath away.

Henry had it planned, as soon as we left the Lippizzaner performance, we raced – we ran faster than he ever did playing ball – to get in line for a ticket for the Vienna Boys choir. No reservations were allowed then, first come, first serve. About four hundred other tourists were doing the same thing – we had all read the same guide book. It was a mass race – not too much pushing and shoving, but for people who would be in Vienna only that one Sunday, this was really important. We made it into line, along with hundreds of other people, some who gave up the Riding School to stand in line hours earlier. There were people in line from, literally, every place in the world. Listening to the languages being spoken while we stood there was an experience in itself.

About fifteen minutes before the mass was to begin, things were beginning to look desperate. There were only so many seats in that place. Seating had commenced for at least an hour before we arrived. Henry left me in line, and went to inquire at the “box office” if we even had a chance. We did. Taking into account the seats left in the Hofburg chapel, the number of people in front of us, we would possibly be among the last ten people admitted. Back in line, we watched a huge brash man make his way to the box office, literally shoving everyone aside, and in a great loud voice tinged with Texas, announced he had flown all the way from Houston to see “the Boys”, and he demanded, since he came from The States, that he be seated. His place in line was about twenty people behind us. The very polite Austrian handing out tickets tried to explain that everyone in line had come from far away for this performance, and it would be necessary that he return to his place in line. This man was blustery, insulted, and not happy, as only The Ugly American could be. He walked back down the line, counting people, he saw Henry – obviously an American, standing there a foot taller than the clutch of little nuns and tourists from so many countries. Plus, one could hardly miss the crew cut and aviator sunglasses. In those days Henry looked like a Marine drill sergeant, which most people who didn’t know him, assumed he was. This Texan with the Big Voice came right over to Henry, and said, “Hey mac, you fellow American. When you get to the window, ask for two extra tickets for me and my wife.” Henry looked down at his feet, then looked him straight in the eye and said,

“Gee. I am so sorry. I don’t speak a word of English.”

End of story. The best line of his entire career

Apologies to Texans – some of the best people we know.

Unfortunately, there is one exception.

Isolated Stories about Henry

Bonnie Cook — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 07:52:00 -0700

Could not go to sleep last night – thinking of isolated stories about Henry – nothing in chronological order:

Berlin - held such fascination for us, that Berlin was our first stop on our first repat out of Tripoli. It was the fall of 1966. Henry had become an authority on WWII history, having read all that Winston Churchill wrote about the War. At that time most of the books we owned concerned some aspect of WWII. I had to read frantically to even become somewhat conversant in this subject. We flew into Tempelhof Airport which is in the city – onto the same runways used for the Berlin Airlift in 1948. Our plane descended between blocks of apartment houses, so close that looking out the plane windows we were looking into the apartment windows and could watch people eating at their kitchen tables. I have never seen Henry so excited as he was landing in Berlin.

The first thing he wanted to do was buy a Leica camera. This guy has exquisite taste. There was a Leica shop right on the Unter der Linden – he had researched it and knew exactly where it was and how to get there. This type of camera was used by well-known Life magazine photographers since the dawn of photography. Henry was getting into this hobby, and after this purchase he turned one of our closets into a darkroom – with all those messy chemicals and lines with dripping prints pegged up with wooden clothes pins. I tolerated this mess, was not very encouraging – now, I course, I’m sorry I wasn’t nicer about it.

We purchased the camera, and the several lenses, the light meter, the carrying case. It was a lot of equipment. We (that would be me) carried this stuff around the world for many years. I juggled the two little kids, the diaper bag, the blankeys, and all that Leica equipment in it’s very bulky case while The Great Photographer, with real glee, diddled with the light meter and switched out lenses, and composed photographs – most of which we don’t have now because in those days, after making some photos, most of our pictures went onto slides. Henry spent hours filing away those slides into their little holders in trays, and labeling everything, seldom to be viewed again. They were an issue about 1998 – the first grandchild, then age two – toddled over to the cabinet in the Fort Smith house, pulled out the stored slide trays, and enthusiastically dumped them all into a huge pile. From this episode, we have never recovered. She is old enough now to spend her summers getting them back in order!

A most memorable day was the trip through Checkpoint Charley into East Berlin. We had seen spy movies where Checkpoint Charley figured prominently in the plot. This was no movie. The guards were unsmiling, nastily serious, ran mirrors on wheels under the bus coming and going, searched us and the kid’s things, and would just have soon shot you as not. At least, they portrayed that impression. It was sobering to see that wall with the terrible wire on top. Going into East Berlin was like going from sunshine to shadow. So dreary. So solemn. So eerily quiet. No traffic. No people out eating and talking at sidewalk cafes. No color – the few people I did see wore drab bulky clothing. Just large grey government buildings and huge monuments to Mother Russia and the German Democratic Republic. Even the linden trees dripped gloom. Flowers looked sick. It was fascinating and scary. I clutched one year old Allison to me, Henry carried Peter, age four. We did not want to let go of them while there. I don’t remember that we were allowed to take in the Leica camera. It was a relief at the end of the day to return to West Berlin – to the bustle of commerce on the street, to Philharmonic Hall, to the zoo. Henry was most anxious to hear the Philharmonic and see Herbert van Karajan conduct. He had timed our trip to coincide with a series of concerts, but all concerts were sold out, we had no chance, and were extremely disappointed. The zoo property was cleared of rubble. The final days of the battle for Berlin centered right in the zoo. The buildings were heavily pock marked with the scars of war, the trees, even 21years later, had not recovered, they were blasted and struggling crazily. I don’t remember that the zoo was functional yet. We simply wanted to walk through there and realize the magnitude of what had happened in that place.

We had been advised that we should visit a wonderful clock shop in Berlin. We found it fairly easily. The shop was actually a residence. The front door opened to West Berlin, the back door was brick and concrete, as The Wall virtually straddled the house, and, because of residences there, was higher through this section of Berlin. The ground floor rooms were filled with wonderful antique German clocks, at least a hundred of them, every one ticking. The clocks were very ornate and beautiful, and cost $150 and up. We had just spent our vacation money the day before at the Leica shop, so were looking for something for nothing. The very nice clockmaker was quite desperate to sell something. He led me downstairs where he had clocks not yet ready for display. Anything in the basement he would sell for $100. I picked out a clock – with a large brass pendulum, which had a dent in it. The dent seemed to give it a greater sense of history – he asked me to come back that night and he would have it running. I did. He did. Henry stayed with the kids in the hotel, I went to the clock shop, in a taxi, in the dark. That wall loomed high and menacing not 50 feet away, with the concertina wire glinting in the moonlight – it occurred to me I was extremely grateful to be born in America. That clock, of all our clocks, is my favorite, just because of that night.

Not Henry’s favorite. We were making this trip on the cheap -flying halfway around the world with four of us in three seats – that was allowed then, a child under two did not require a seat. I held Allison, Henry held the clock – couldn’t check it, since it was not crated, it had become a carry on. Peter was squeezed in the middle. By the time this trip was over, with our miserable seating arrangement, Henry was quietly and furiously upset that I “had” to have a German clock.

The precedent was set. The next summer, the kids and I were evacuated from Tripoli during the 1967 June War, aka the Six Day War. The men stayed – cannot wage a war without the oil fields operating. While we were gone, Henry met some American pilots who arrived from Germany to Wheelus Air Base just outside Tripoli for eight weeks of bombing training in the Sahara. They flew to Libya with just the crew, the planes otherwise were empty; there was a large expatriate population living in Tripoli. The crews in training arrived on a regular schedule, about every two months. It didn’t take long for the black market to develop. The airmen filled up those planes with German antiques. What sold fastest to the American expats were those beautiful German clocks. Henry met with the pilots, saw their clocks, and made his purchase. The kids and I returned in late summer to a house with the dining room filled with clocks. “Honey! NINE?” Henry shrugged. “I couldn’t decide which one you would like, so I just bought all of them.” They became our “signature” – we were the Cooks with the clocks.

We only have seven of them now. Other families returned. There was marital disharmony among some couples whose husbands did not buy THEM clocks. Presently a friend appeared at the door and asked, "What on earth are you going to do with nine clocks?” The reply, “Hang them on the wall, and wind them once a week.” By the end of the day, I was informed that I really needed to share, and she eventually carried away two of them, one for herself and one for a friend. I still think of my friend fondly, and, I still miss those two clocks. If you were asked to give over two of your nine children, just which two would YOU chose?

Not a fair question to those of you who feel that two children is enough.

My perspective is different - I am the oldest of nine children, the world could not get along without any of us!

Bye for now – much love to all – Bonnie and the Cook Family

Grandchildren

Bonnie Cook — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:15:00 -0700

Hey you out there – about the Sugar Story. I wrote my part! One of the last things the Sizer’s said when they left Fort Smith after Henry’s Celebration, was Jan would get around to writing the end of the Sugar Story. So, she will. Guess I will call her.

Also – just today I looked at the Aramco ExPats – there are pictures of some of the events of Feb. 9th. I’ve not seen these pictures before. This brought back a flood of memories. Thanks to whoever put that up, presume it is Vicci Thompson.

It’s been a week today since my arriving in Orlando with Peter’s family. It’s good. We do grandchildren activities. Accompanied eight year old Bailey to her second grade class where she read the paragraph she wrote about having her long golden braids cut and giving them to Locks of Love in honor of her Pop. Bailey was happy to write it – but hesitant to stand and read in front of the class. So I stood with her, introduced myself to the class, gave them an outline of the event of February 5th, and then I read a line and Bailey read a line. By the time we were to the bottom of the page, the dear teacher was in tears. We were all a bit misty. The teacher lost her husband to cancer when they were in their 20s – that put my crisis into perspective – at least Henry and I had 48 years, instead of their eight.

Giving her hair to child cancer patients has given Bailey quite the notoriety in her school – though now she does miss her braids. There is planned a Walk for the Cure in May, and hairdressers will be on site for those who wish to donate their hair. Bailey has set the example. Several little girls in her class have indicated they now want to do this.

Jake is four – this week we attended his nursery school Valentine’s Day Program, which had been postponed because of tornado warnings. So, I got to watch him enthusiastically sing his four songs, and attend the “reception” with pink cookies and red punch. And, there was a couple from Dhahran, the Harrells, Pat and Tom - watching their cute grandchild. I knew Pat a bit through the Girl Scout connection – It’s nice to run into Old Aramcons.

The answer is yes, the stories appearing here are to save and put into seven (just in case another grandchild appears on the scene) books for the grandchildren. I haven’t printed out anything yet, as I am here and not at home – I sure do hope all this writing does not disappear off into space.

Bonnie and the Cook Family

The Sugar Story: Bonnie's Side

Vicci Thompson — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:14:00 -0700

Hey those of you out there – thanks for the comments on the last journal entry. When I started typing that night, I was aiming for someplace else, but ended up in Las Vegas! I do want these stories for the grandchildren, and this seems to be the best way – as they come to mind, start writing.

I’ve been thinking all day about my defense for The Sugar Story. Jan Sizer said she planned to write it, but has not yet managed to do so - here is my version of the truth.

This story starts with:

1. The green Mazda station wagon we bought from the Nuttalls in Abqaiq before moving to RT. ( the car Henry gave to the Hains – precipitating a journal entry of a week ago.) This car came with no air conditioning - they had installed an air conditioner that could be turned on under the passenger side dash, on the floor, but it broke down by the time the car lived in Ras Tanura.

2. I had been to a meeting about food storage – being prepared in Arabia. The idea hit home, as in our early years in Abqaiq, the paper storage facility in Kobar burned to the ground – that was the unverified rumor. There was a great fear – was it real? Cannot remember. We all thought there would not be another roll of toilet paper in the Kingdom for months, until the next ship came in! thus, a great rush on paper goods at the Abqaiq commissary. So, at this meeting, the focus was food stuffs, and the easy way to start, after stockpiling toilet paper! was sugar. Not for your Blue Flame still, but for other household purposes. Looking back, we hardly used any sugar, except for making cinnamon rolls. However, I dutifully went to Rahima as suggested and bought a 100 pound sack of sugar, the sack was a heavy brown paper. That sack of sugar lived in the back of the green Mazda, since I had neglected to buy the plastic containers to store it in, and it was too heavy to pull out of the car. It never occurred to me to ask anybody for help. I just left the sack of sugar in the car.

3. This worked quite well, until Peter and Allison came home as returning students in the summer. Peter was hired on at the scuba club – his job: filling and delivering scuba tanks. He would load those heavy tanks into the back of the Mazda. The sack of sugar was a buffer, keeping the tanks from rolling and knocking into each other as he drove around town delivering them.

4. All was just fine. I basically forgot about the sugar as Peter had the car all the time anyway. Toward the end of the summer, the brown paper began to break down, the sewed bottom of the sack began to leak. Peter and Allison went back to school in the States. Now, as I drove around RT – with the windows down because of no air-conditioning - there was a good breeze going through the car, and sugar would blow up into the driver’s hair and down the neck. Sticky. I was always going to do something about this – however, the easy out was just to walk! Leave the car at home. RT is a little town – the Surf House was just down the beach, the school basically across the street.

5. The Sizers, Jim and Jan, arrived. New to Aramco, new to RT, new to Big Boss Henry. Their living arrangements at first were not too good. Henry offered them our house and car while we would be out of the Kingdom on repat. I never heard of or saw these people! (now, our good friends the Sizers)

6. The day we were to leave, Henry tied up many ends at the office. I was packing at home and getting baby Anne organized. Henry came home, checked arrangements, and checked the car. Oh dear. The sugar. Ordinarily Henry was very calm and collected. But not now. We were running late to get to the airport - an hour away. He was very, very and extremely, firm: “these people coming to the house are new. They can’t drive this car with sugar blowing down their necks. YOU get that sugar out of the car before we leave. You bought the stuff, you do something!”

7. Not much time here. Thinking back, why didn’t I just throw it away? It was so cheap, and not exactly clean now. I didn’t think. Just started filling up anything I could find with sugar. Thirty minutes later, the car was swept out, and we left for the airport. I don’t remember if I even met the Sizers before they took over the house and car.

8. This is where Jan takes up the story…they arrived, already a little nervous, to live in our house for a couple of months. Every container in the kitchen was filled with sugar. Every pot, every pan, every bowl, every piece of Tupperware. There was no way to cook, as every thing in the kitchen was filled with sugar. I am embarrassed just writing this.

9. Years later, Jan would say, “I looked at the family pictures on the wall, thinking:” the children appear to be normal. There just must be something wrong with the mother.”

Okay Jan – take it from here:

How We Met

Bonnie Cook — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:16:00 -0700

Hey, anybody still out there? I am in Orlando with Peter and Cindy’s family. They would not fly away and leave me home alone - they insisted I come with them for a couple of weeks.

I scooped up all the mail that arrived since Saturday last and brought it with me – re-read through the wonderful cards and letters tonight. My goodness, such terrific people we know. Such wonderful notes, and letters with serious words of wisdom. Thanks to all who took time for snail mail.

In this sack of mail was a handwritten note from Bob Speirer, one of Henry’s friends at the U. of Arkansas in the geology department. Got to thinking – Henry did wonderfully at college, and he often spoke of his years at the university as the happiest time of his life. He was, basically, disappointed that our kids never experienced “college years” as he did. Our three children had such different college lives than he had. The basic difference there was, not only did they attend as a more affluent generation, they were not fortunate enough to attend college in the 1950s - a Golden Time at cozy little U. of A.. Henry did really well academically, extremely well, actually. He was very modest about his accomplishments in college. Are we surprised? He, who later in life, “knew everything”. He did. He read, and remembered what he read. He loved the study, the learning, the friends, the atmosphere of a small school, about 4000 students.

He lived in Hurst House, a boarding house run by Miss Hurst, a legend in her own time. I’ve forgotten all her accomplishments now – think she was in the first graduating class at the U. of Arkansas, and had been in politics. He loved her. She drove a tiny car, but was not adept – in her years at the university, she attended school by horseback, and never made a full transition to the machine age. The little car was a challenge for Miss Hurst. She would simply stop the car somewhere by the curb, get out and just leave it. Henry and the guys in the House would watch out for her, go out and surround the car and physically pick it up and place it properly in the parking place. Think she grew to depend on this.

After our first child, Peter, was born (we lived in New Mexico) Henry could not get us back to Arkansas soon enough to drive to Fayetteville and show her what he had produced! He was so very proud of this baby, and he needed Miss Hurst’s approval. What could she say? All little babies are cute. Of course, Peter was wonderfully cute.

When Allison was born, we were basically on our way to Libya, so she missed Miss Hurst’s benediction. And, Miss Hurst had gone on by the time Anne was born.

Henry attended school on an extremely slim budget - that would be not enough money to budget. He served dinner and washed dishes at the Chi Omega House. He had fond memories of working there with Badir (his picture on this website, Badir one of the first Kuwatis to attend school in the USA) and Bob Speirer, who started this train of thought tonight. Two great perks of this job were 1.,Henry ate very well once a day, the only time he ate each day, and 2., he had forty instant girlfriends. If one of the girls needed a date, they knew they could prevail upon him. No obligation, just lots of fun.

In way, we owe our meeting to a Chi Omega. After graduation, Henry worked for Humble Oil, based out of Midland, Texas, field mapping the Arizona Strip – from the Utah line to the rim of the Grand Canyon. He was living in my home town of St. George, Utah. I was living in Vegas that summer, with two school teacher cousins, and had a summer job at Uncle John’s Pancake House on Fremont Street. On a weekend off, Henry drove to Vegas in his new by three months 1959 Corvette, and looked up his Chi Omega connection. She worked at one of the clubs as a singer, he took her out one night. However, the next night, the Dodgers were playing in the Coliseum in Los Angles. He couldn’t drive to the game in LA and back to St. George to work in time, so the plan was to just listen on the radio. However, the girl “talked too much”, he said, and he would never be able to concentrate on the game. So, instead of taking her out the second night, he came to Uncle John’s alone, to eat and then go back to his hotel to listen to the game. I was working that afternoon, and standing at the cash register in the big corner window. He had the Corvette in convertible mode, with the top down. He drove up to the stop sign, he looked in, I looked out, and the rest is history. We were struck by a bolt of lightening! Well… you know….

He didn’t say a word, just ate his pancakes in silence, and read the paper, folding it as I would watch him fold for the next 48 years. He would carefully crease the page down the middle, then vertically in fourths, then rework it like the road maps you get at the service station. He could fold so neatly and precisely, as he worked his way back from the sports page – always read first - to the comics, to the front page.

So, that was that. He came for pancakes again the next day – there was no ballgame, I think. It was my day off. He asked the waitress about “the girl at the cash register yesterday.” The waitress I remember – Alice. A professional as only the women of that age were – dyed red hair piled high in curls. The crisp uniform and white organdy apron and the lace edged handkerchief in the breast pocket. Alice was much older and had been through the mill a bit. Alarmed that he was asking about the personnel, she sized him up, and sat down by him while he ate! And carefully questioned him: just who was he? Where did he go to school? Where did he work? Why was he in Vegas? ( SHE could spot an innocent small town Arkansas boy – that accent!) How much did he owe on his car? Who is his family? What were his intentions?

Then, when Henry came to the register to pay his bill, Alice called me! She said something like, “this nice boy is here asking about you. We are not allowed to give out phone numbers, but I’ve talked with him and I think YOU should talk to him” – and, she handed Henry the phone! somewhat to his great surprise.

The conversation was a bit awkward. For starters, his name was Henry Cook. Henry is okay, my grandfather’s name. But Cook? The only Cook I had ever heard of was the town drunk, and the only way I knew about him was while working at the Rexall Drug store in St. George, which was directly in line with a bar across the street. I would see that man named Mr. Cook go in there every day, and later in the day come out and stumble and stagger down the sidewalk in an inebriated state.

We were not off to a good start.

Next, he worked for Humble Oil. That didn’t go over well either. I knew oil companies are named Texaco or Conoco – but are they humble? Never getting out of the St. George Valley much, except on school band trips and family trips to the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, I was totally ignorant of the fabulous history of the Humble Oil Company in Texas.

Henry managed to maintain some conversation, and the upshot was, he picked me up and we went to a movie! Can we believe this? Well – it was the 1950s. He was innocent. I was innocent. Four weekends later, he was talking marriage. He called Auntie and Nana in Arkansas, and WE met on the phone! Next, he faced my Dad, who was far from pleased with this turn of events. After a man to man meeting, about which neither one would ever discuss, Dad said to me: “this is a summer romance, and cannot last. If you must go through with it, you come on home in a few months when you realize your mistake.” Dad was sick about this state of affair. But he, himself, took me to ZCMI in Salt Lake to pick out my wedding dress. Eventually Dad came to appreciate Henry and depend on him in some matters.

We married in October – during the World Series - and yes, he would not agree to the Friday date as that was a game day, we had to marry on Saturday – a travel day.

This is long enough – who managed to read to the bottom? My sister Trieste said once “I love your letters, but never read them, they are too long!”

Much love to all - Bonnie and the Cook Family

Courting and Chinese Food

Bonnie Cook — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 11:26:00 -0700

Hi everybody – leaping right in here to admit that today this household received a cutoff notice from the gas company! After 48 years of Henry maintaining a pristine credit line, I blew it in a week.

What happened to the check? all the other checks written that day cleared the bank. Henry is up there just shaking his head, he who handled the bookwork so precisely. We see things are going to be a little loose from now on.

After the Locks of Love episode with Anne and Bailey, we ate at a Chinese restaurant. This caused some reflection:

when Henry and I were courting in Vegas, (he never “dated” me, he always “courted”, and he did mount an intense campaign) - he would always ask, “where would you like to eat?” I would always reply, “at a Chinese place.” He would always say, “excellent”, or something to that effect, and off we would go to eat Chinese food. He seemed to delight in finding new Chinese places to try. Often he would comment that a person is always hungry within an hour after eating Chinese, (which is the case as I write now) but he always agreed that eating Chinese was a nice idea.

Well! A few months into our marriage, and we had not been to a Chinese place to eat – actually the fact that we were living on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona while he was field mapping had something to do with it. However, when we returned to real towns or cities, we still never ate Chinese. He would just smile. The mission had been accomplished. Eating Chinese was what he endured for the sake of the courtship. We did eat Chinese on anniversaries – some of them, a few of them, actually, hardly ever!

When I discovered fondue, rather than miserably cooking his food a bite at a time in a tiny little pot, he would suggest the occasional Chinese dinner, the lesser of two evils. He was happiest at home, eating pinto beans and corn bread with jalapenos – or oatmeal, the ubiquitous favorite of all time.

Bye for now – I wrote this in the night last night – but so those of you who call won’t know what time in the night ( same time ) am posting this today.

It was a week ago we Celebrated and went through the impromptu ceremony at the cemetery. We had planned to be out there today – but it’s raining and cold, can you see those six little kids running out there in the mud? So we are going to the movie instead, one of Henry’s favorite thing to do.

Which brings us to the next subject – our very first trip out of Libya after being there a year, we went to Beirut – did we make a beeline for Balbeck? No! we checked into the hotel and went straight to the movies – you have to remember we were the going-to-the movie- on Saturday night generation. Had no TV then.

From Cindy

Bonnie Cook — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:08:00 -0700

Hello from Cindy,

Today was an eventful day as Anne and Bailey got their haircut, in order to donate 10 inches of their hair to Locks of Love in honor of Henry. Bonnie, Peter, Jake and myself drove up to meet Anne and her family and off to the hair place we went. Anne and Bailey decided that Anne would go first. She was a good example of bravery for her neice. Next up was Bailey, who at 8 years old has never had more than a trim. She did fine as well and loves her new stylish chin level haircut. If anyone is interested in seeing the before and after pictures please email me at: cincook@yahoo.com

Have a good evening!

Cindy and the Cook Family