The Unraveling
Or
How I Became a Common Thread
My mother tried to get me to eat my food with reminders about poor starving children. All kids in Blooming Grove knew if we dug through the middle of the earth we’d get to China. I even thought about doing it so I could give them my spinach directly. But other countries half way around the world or down under were never mentioned. I wasn’t even aware that Australia existed until I read about kangaroos in my 6th grade geography book. So, how I made my way from Texas to Aussie-land to become a member of our Common Thread group is a convoluted story. A mystery made even murkier since it’s a writing group, and I never aspired to be writer.
It’s obvious that the unraveling can’t begin with my childhood, so I’ll skip that.
The first step happened because two of my friends and I applied to teach in Europe - we were eager to attend the 1958 World Fair in Brussels. The government had promised we would have a couple of weeks to “settle into our new environment before undertaking the task of educating the children of our United States Army in Europe.” My friends were already in Germany, but I was still at home waiting for my assignment. Perhaps the telegram was late because Blooming Grove isn’t shown on many maps, which made finding me difficult. It finally arrived with instructions to pick up my ticket in Dallas and fly to New York immediately.
By the time I got to Brooklyn Naval Station, most of the teachers were already in Europe. My flight was scheduled to leave the next day. With the afternoon free, one of the teachers took us on a tour of The Big Apple. I slipped on a pair of my new high heels, donned one of the new outfits I had for my “debut in Europe.” We subway-ed into Manhattan - my first experience on an underground. We climbed the Statue of Liberty, toured Rockefeller Center, and rode the elevator to the top of the Empire State Building. I returned with goose bumps on my arms and blisters on my feet! There was a big world out there, and I was eager to see more!
I was too excited to sleep that night.
We assembled at the passenger terminal the next morning to be given our passports. After all the names were called, I was left standing. The trickle of teachers became ever smaller as I waited for mine to arrive, yet there was always someone to tour us around the city in the afternoon. By the fifth day, only two latecomers arrived. Neither was New York City-wise. I’d learned enough to get us into Manhattan. By now my feet were solid blisters - nevertheless, wearing my blue terrycloth house shoes, I even walked my group through the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria!
The day after my passport finally arrived, I boarded the prop plane. Our first stop was Gander, Newfoundland to refuel. Shannon, Ireland was next - I learned what Irish coffee was on that refueling stop. We crossed the English Channel and only twenty-four hours after leaving New York City, I landed at Orly Airfield, Paris, France.
Again, someone in the small group gave us an afternoon tour - this time the subway was called a metro. I walked the length of the Champs-Elysées, I looked up at the Eiffel Tower, and I admired the stained glass windows in Notre Dame!
I couldn’t get to sleep that night. Trepidation began nudging excitement, but I told myself, you coped in New York. It’s bigger than Paris. You can deal with things in France, even if you don’t speak the language. I still didn’t sleep.
My train was to leave the next morning for Poitier where my papers would be processed and I would be put on the payroll. The sergeant carefully explained that the train would stop for only one minute at the station, so I must be waiting by the door. He assured me I didn’t have to worry about my luggage - it was to be thrown through the window. This was my first time on any train, so I accepted that as being how things were done in France.
My principal got me through the processing and then drove me through the lovely Loire Valley - it was already dressed in its fall foliage. At a small hotel near the military base in Chinon, he introduced me to the other four young teachers. Three were rather sophisticated. The other one looked as if she came from Alabama’s version of Blooming Grove. That evening they opted to eat at the Officers’ Club on base. They had been in France for almost three weeks, so had tired of our hotel’s limited menu. I chose to eat alone. I had come to France to have “enriching foreign experiences.” I was ready for them to begin.
In the hotel dining room, I ordered by pointing to the blackboard for what I took to be “the menu of the day.” Alcohol was never served in my home, though as a teenager, a friend and I had sneaked a taste of her parents’ Christmas Mogen David, a sweet wine that tasted so awful I wasn’t tempted to try more. But I nodded when the waiter asked something I assumed meant, “Would you like a glass of wine?”
My soup arrived, accompanied, not by a glass, but by a very large bottle of the local red. Paranoia began its creep. These French can tell I’m from a small-town so they’re trying to take advantage of me. They know that I can’t possibly drink that whole bottle!
Determined not to appear as unsophisticated as they thought, I kept refilling my glass. I didn’t manage to drink the entire bottle, but I made a noble effort to lower the level. After the first couple of sips, I thought it prudent to plan my exit strategy. When the meal was over - the only food I remember, was potato soup - I was ready. Step one: rise from the table. I accomplished that - barely managing not to knock off the breadbasket. I turned, and took the two steps to the stairs. With a firm grip on the railing, I pulled myself up the steps. Fortunately, my room was at the head of the stairs, and the room key was a big metal affair. I fumbled it into the lock and the door swung open. Once out of sight, I fell into bed with all my clothes on. When I woke at 3:00 in the morning, I vaguely recalled repeated warnings about the consequences of drinking tap water in France. Uncaring, I hung my head under the faucet and drank.
That night, I slept…for part of the night. And I tried to stay in bed Sunday morning by pleading, “trip fatigue.” I’d never suffered from drinking, so I didn’t know if the endless trips down the halls to the toilet were because of French red wine or French tap water.
We had received a great deal of background information about living conditions in France, but no mention was made that in small French hotels a guest’s bottle of wine is saved for ensuing meals. However, in the volume of material, we were repeatedly urged, “Get to know and mingle with the French. Be good ambassadors for your country!”
One of my fifth grade students came with an invitation from her landlord inviting our class to learn how “champagne” was made. I dismissed the idea. I felt certain taking ten-year-olds to see alcohol produced wasn’t the sort of fieldtrip my government had brought me here to oversee. I laughingly told my principal. His response, “Sure wish my 6th grade class would get that chance, I’d jump at it.”
Oh! Perhaps I should shoulder my responsibility and become an ambassador for my country. But in case I was “contributing to the delinquency of minors,” I didn’t ask for parent chaperones. I thought it best not to have witnesses. My students would do the interpreting.
The farmer was marvelous. He demonstrated how to prune the vines, and then showed us his baskets and how he used a knife to gather the grapes. He had spread straw through his muddy pig lot, so we could traipse through it to visit his cellar. There he let each student crank the wheel that pressed the grapes. He demonstrated how the champagne was bottled and showed us the racks where it was stored while it was fermenting. Then he supervised as we each made a precise quarter turn of a bottle. As I made the last twist, I knew this was the experience of a lifetime. Vive la France! Texas had so much to learn!
When I exited the barn to re-board the bus, I saw my students climbing a flight of outside steps. Oh, no! I hurried up the stairs after them. Surely not! But they were already seated at a long table in front of their half empty champagne flutes. I obviously had missed the first instruction the farmer’s wife had given in champagne tasting because two students were holding up glasses for refills. I walked around the table almost, but not quite shouting, “One glass per student! One glass per student!”
As we left, I didn’t want our gracious host and hostess to think I was less than appreciative that they had ended my teaching career almost before it began. I hoped, “Thank you so very much for this truly unforgettable experience,” sounded sincere in translation.
On the bus ride home, a few students began complaining of a headache, but I informed them, “No, you don’t have a headache, you are perfectly all right.” I spent the rest of the trip planning a gentle way to break the news to my parents - Dear Mother and Daddy, After only a short time in France I have chosen to return - No, cross that out! Dear Mother and Daddy, In France, I am finding that… No… Dear Mother and Daddy, After only a short while in France, I have come to realize that their lifestyle is contrary…
When I confessed to my principal, he actually laughed. “Relax. We don’t have a school board to fire you, and these military parents know French kids are served watered down wine with their school lunches. They’ll understand.”
I expanded my Vive la France, to Vive la cultural differences!
After surviving two such traumatic experiences within two weeks, I felt capable of carrying out the original plan of meeting my friends at the World’s Fair. With the name of the hotel in Brussels where I was to meet them, I took the train to Paris. I didn’t have to jump off during a one-minute stop, but I did have to get to another station on the other side of the city. Without having five days to learn their metro system, I performed a “Mademoiselle in Distress” act. A gallant monsieur put me in a taxi, and directed the diver to take me to the Gare de Nord. There I boarded the train, found a seat, and showed my ticket to a passenger in my second-class compartment. She nodded her heads and said oui. Proud of myself, I settled back to enjoy the scenery - secure in the knowledge that with only my two-word vocabulary of oui and non, I had not only coped, but had done so admirably in one of the most sophisticated capitals of the world!
An hour or so later, the train stopped and everyone in my compartment got off. I was somewhat puzzled - I had assumed everyone would be going to the World’s Fair.
I was scheduled to arrive in Brussels at 0515 French and military time - which I translated as 5:15 am Texas time. With the compartment to myself, I was stretching out for a few hours sleep when the door slid open and a short fellow - about shoulder high - wearing a pinstripe suit and black patent shoes with cowboy height heels came in. He realized I was an American - I had been told on arrival in France that our shoes identified us. He flashed a bright smile, as he told me in broken English he was an Italian, and his sister lived in Boston. He then asked if I knew her.
I had been warned about Italian men - they were notorious as pinchers - but I felt sure I could handle that. Amused by his naiveté, I answered, “No. I’ve never been to Boston, I live in Texas.” He continued talking, mentioning wanting to go to America because “everyone there was rich.” I was waiting for a pause to dispel his misinformation. He didn’t pause. Instead, he asked if I’d like to marry him. Still smiling, I answered, “No, thank you, I came to Europe to travel. I’m not interested in getting married while I’m here.” Obviously not the least offended by my refusal, he made a counter proposal. “If you don’t want to get married, would you like to make babies?”
Whoa! All I been guarding against was a pinch! “No, no, I wouldn’t!” I assured him, mumbling something about “needing some sleep.” I pulled my coat around my neck, and closed my eyes, hoping if I didn’t talk, that would give me time to think. My eyes popped wide open even before they closed. That ploy wouldn’t have worked in Blooming Grove, so why had I tried it here?
This time my response was physical. I was shoving him back across the aisle when the conductor opened the door. My salvation! Or so, I thought. We handed over our tickets. After only a cursory look, he began a loud repeat of “non, non, non,” while shaking his finger at me.
I learned, in broken English, that when we stopped and everyone in my compartment got off, the back end of the train was uncoupled. It was now making its way toward the World’s Fair. The front end - where I was sitting - was speeding through the dark night toward Frankfurt, Germany!
I had a bit of trouble getting my bag from the overhead rack. When I reached for it, my Would-Be-Lover tried a rearguard maneuver. On my third attempt, I stood sideways and spread my feet apart for leverage. With my right hand pressed against his chest, I whipped the bag down with my left hand. Had I remembered he was not Texas-size, I could have adjusted my aim and not missed his head by a foot. Without a backward glance, I exited the compartment, and closed the door with a bang. I stood in the corridor highly incensed. The conductor put me off at the next stop where I waited for the first train going in the opposite direction.
I returned from Belgium with two bits of knowledge - A World’s Fair is more exciting than the Texas State Fair and what I had been told was not correct - Latin Lovers do not always conduct their affairs with finesse.
***
After this trip, I signed up for a French course. I wasn’t making much progress. So, in late November, when we had a four-day weekend, I flew to London where English was spoken. In the airport terminal, the first sign I spotted was a billboard. I read it, and then I reread it a second, and even a third time. I’m sure no female has ever shown so much appreciation for Gillette razor blades.
I mastered the subway - now called the Underground - and settled into a small Bed and Breakfast on Russell Square. That night I went to see “South Pacific.” Before the performance, everyone stood to sing. How thoughtful of them to play an American song in honor of our Thanksgiving holiday. Then I realized my mistake. While I was singing, “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty,” those around me were requesting God to save their gracious Queen. I wasn’t the least disillusioned. God had granted me a great deal of freedom, so I felt confident He wouldn’t be taxed by saving their gracious Queen at the same time.
I returned from my weekend with a purse full of coins. Before getting to Europe, I was accustomed only to paper money that was green, the same size, and identified by a number, and with coins based on the decimal system. Converting to French francs wasn’t difficult. But I failed to find any relationship between pounds, guineas, shillings, pence, tuppence, ha’penny, and bobs, so I always used my pound notes. In the quiet of the French chateau we teachers had rented, I sorted them out. It was fate! Brought up to be prudent, I’d have to return to London to spend them.
So, on this trip, I untangled the first small strand to my becoming a Common Thread. I met one of the nationalities that belong to our group.
***
Instead of returning to Texas when my school year ended, I requested a transfer to Paris, where the next “unravel” occurred. My first day there, I met Bill. It took only one look at his blue eyes for me to know that returning to Texas was not the future I wanted. Along with other things, Bill introduced me to the love of writing - though the writing was his, not mine. Ever so many nights I sat in front of my Royal upright typewriter endlessly typing, then erasing, as he transformed ancient history into stories meant to inspire eleven year olds. I will, however, admit I did a bit of creative writing - my weekly letters to my parents were about what I was and was not doing in Paris.
When President De Gaulle decided to “withdraw France from the military wing of NATO,” I went back to Texas, hoping if I got a Masters Degree, I’d be reassigned to Bill’s school in Belgium. I wasn’t. After living with the French penchant for privacy, I suffered culture shock when I went to the Netherlands. My upstairs neighbor informed me that I should keep my curtains open – “People like to look in the windows as they stroll past in the evening.” I fell back on my small town roots. In Blooming Grove, everyone always knew what the neighbors were doing. There was another aspect of life in Holland that was new. My school was not far from Amsterdam, which is a magnet for gays. Three guys and I taught in what was once a small Dutch mental institution as we waited for our classrooms to be built. While sharing this adverse environment, we became good friends. They introduced me to their favorite gay bars, yet they were always very protective of my reputation. The night I went with them to see a drag show, they shoved me under the table when the photographers appeared. But I wouldn’t have been worried about my parents recognizing me. Their magazine would never have been sold in Blooming Grove.
Four years later, my principal, a dear friend, managed to blackmail the Powers That Be into giving me a transfer to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE for short), where Bill taught. It was an international school. They wanted “proficient French speakers” only, but my friend adamantly refused to accept his new assignment unless they transferred me. So in Holland, I learned that the cliché, “It ain’t what, but who you know that makes the difference,” had validity.
When I got to this new school, I hit a roadblock. I suppose it wasn’t actually a roadblock, as it didn’t delay my eventually getting to Aussie-land. It was more of a kink in the thread. I began to write, but it was page after page of jargon required to pass correspondence courses. This did nothing to inspire me to become a writer, but with the credits I earned in Library Science, I made a career change, and began transforming a library into a Media Center. The initial money for the project depended on the number of books in our collection. I did something no serious writer would contemplate - I began tossing out one book after another.
More years passed before the next unraveling. This took place after I moved back to France. When Bill and I weren’t traipsing around the world, we were living “happily ever after in retirement” on our houseboat on the Seine. Here he completed his second manuscript. By this time, I had replaced my typewriter with a computer. Instead of erasing, I now deleted. I rearranged by cutting and pasting, so my part of his writing became infinitely more palatable.
During our fourth Christmas in Bali, Bill completed his third manuscript, and decided his next project would be to write our travel adventures! We hadn’t kept a diary. We had even quit taking photos. Bill’s interest didn’t extend to organizing, so he insisted I become co-author. I agreed. It was like all my other “undertakings.” I had taught in the elementary school, though I trained to be a high school drama teacher. I became a Media Specialist despite missing fundamental courses in library science, and I helped revamp our houseboat with the “expertise” I learned in my stage and scenery building class. Why shouldn’t I become a writer?
Not long after accepting my new assignment, our style of traveling changed. Instead of floating down a river in Thailand on a bamboo raft, or riding astride a camel into the Sahara Desert, we began exchanging houses. For a month at a time, we swapped our houseboat for a home somewhere else - scouting for the perfect spot in the USA to begin a second retirement. Though Spanish was spoken in California – Bill’s requirement - Solano Beach was too far from San Diego. Berkeley had possibilities. Seattle had weather like Paris, too much rain. We couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan, and Cape Cod was not in the running.
Winter intervened before I began arranging East Coast exchanges. We were searching for a warm place to spend Christmas when our downstream Aussie neighbors suggested Sydney. After watching the Olympics, I felt any country that could put on such a performance merited a visit. Bill wasn’t wild about the idea - he preferred Thailand where he could practice speaking Thai, but I couldn’t find an exchange there.
In our month in Balgowlah, Bill discovered the multiculturalism in Australia. He insisted I arrange another exchange - “But this time, I want to be right in the middle of Sydney!”
So in March of the following year, instead of exchanging in New Orleans for a month, Evelyn, an American and our soon-to-be-neighbor, picked us up at the Sydney Airport and took us to Manly - it was as close to Sydney as I could manage. This was to be a yearlong exchange. A few days later, she dropped by to see how we were settling in, and found me working at our laptop. When I explained our project, she asked if we’d like to come up to her place that night. “Our writing group is meeting. Bring along a couple of pages to read.” Again it was that, it ain’t what, but who principle at work.
The Common Thread-ers listened as we read our Lao chapter - the one about dining at the captain’s table on a leaky salt barge motoring up the Mighty Mekong. At the end of the evening, Jill - who is always gracious - invited us to her house the following week.
I didn’t sleep that night. I was too excited, and I couldn’t tear myself away from the computer. Besides, it took me all night to make the changes!
So, how did it happen that after our yearlong exchange in Manly, the Common Thread-ers are still pointing out that we changed tenses in the middle of a paragraph or that the Aussie way is to say, “toilet paper used for serviettes,” not “tp for napkins” when we describe the batik containers on the table in rural Thailand?
That requires another bit of unraveling. Back on the first day of our exchange, Bill and I were walking around the Manly Wharf on our way to get a library membership. We stopped to admire Henri - the scraggly pelican that reminded us of Ugly, the duck that lived near our boat. As we watched Henri, Bill mentioned how much he liked the ferry ride we took the year before and how easy it was to get into Sydney. When we got to the Corso, he remarked, “That bench would be a great place to set up my language exchange.”
“Yes, ” I agreed, “and it’s right beside Coles. I wouldn’t have to get in the car to do our grocery shopping.”
When I mentioned that Manly had the things we were looking for, so it was too bad that Australia was so far away, Bill reassured me, “Our friends and family like to travel. They’ll come to see us.”
Within days, we applied for a retirement visa. We had physicals and transferred money. I cajoled our government employees into transferring all the vital information onto letterheads instead of sending it on forms - an Aussie requirement. When the French finally came through with our spotless police record, we filed the paperwork. A month later, we were granted permission to stay for four years, with a renewal option.
I slept well that night. It’s such a great feeling to be accepted.
***
Now to gather up all the unraveling that began several decades ago because Blooming Grove wasn’t on a map, and I failed to receive my telegram on time.
My passport delay in New York City gave me the opportunity to learn there was a wonderful world out there, and I was capable of exploring it. In a small hotel in France, a big bottle of red confirmed that if I did things for the wrong reason, I’d suffer consequences. But it took only a flute of champagne to make me aware that cultural differences can be life enriching. On a train speeding away from the World’s Fair, I grasped the idea that sometimes I had to reverse directions to get where I wanted to go. But it was while singing in a London theater, that I realized I had the liberty to follow The Yellow Brick Road. And I’m ever so grateful, it led me to Oz where I became one of the Common Threads.
(c) Ina Mahoney 2004.