M Y O B

FIFTH BIRTHDAY:

I hate cooked carrots: I love ‘em raw, or in carrot & raisin salad, but they (and most root-veggies) take on a bad flavor when cooked. Now, my folks generally would put up with my tantrum when Mom served carrots, asking me to “just eat a few”, but I was a stubborn tyke and they usually gave up. So, I thought it was a particularly bad choice to serve carrots on my BIRTHDAY, and I absolutely refused to eat any of them. My Dad must have had a bad day, because he was determined; so, as never before (or ever again), he took me out into the kitchen and forced those damn carrots down my throat! I suspect you know what’s coming: as soon as Dad turned his back, I launched those friggin carrots (and everything else in my stomach) all over the floor. My Mom (who I am sure was aghast at Dad’s behavior) made him clean up the mess. I never had to eat carrots again!

Carrots!

ALMONDS:

Our little spread of five acres had mostly almond trees, which — by golly — produced almonds! The problem was, we could not afford to have them harvested by others: we did it ourselves. Mostly, I was too young to get involved with the heavy work, but I could be pressed into service removing the hulls. (We sold the nuts to a co-op: they fetched a better price if they had no hulls, and money was tight in those days). Gad, how I hated that work! It was dirty, the fuzz got into your eyes, nose, and elsewhere causing severe itching. It should come as no surprise that I still do not like almonds!

OLIVES:

Across the road from our place was a group of olive trees. No one ever harvested them: they were just there. But, although olives eventually turn black while still on the tree, they taste HORRIBLE: olives must be “cured” before they become edible. But one of our favorite little tricks was to put a couple of the UNcured olives in the dish of olives Mom like to have if we had guests. We boys knew which ones were uncured, but the guests didn’t. With much giggling we’d watch a guest try to get one of the bad olives down without revealing they tasted awful. Mom, of course got on to us soon enough and would carefully inspect the dishes of olives she put out, thus ending that little prank.

CREAM:

But we had lots of other pranks! One was to put a table-spoon of vinegar into the coffee urn at church socials. It does nothing to the flavor of the coffee, but it makes any added cream curdle. Here we were in the middle of farm country, where fresh cream was the very finest, but it curdled. We three really were hellions, and  soon became suspect whenever anything “went wrong”.

ENTRAILS:

All of us loathed beef-kidneys and beef-liver. I still do! But Dad loved them, so Mom would buy them from time to time. She always left them out prominently, so the three of us would be absolutely beastly all day, and would be punished by being put to bed without any dinner. Mom always relented, and allowed us to come down later to eat bread and milk with sugar and cinnamon on top, which we all loved. Only many years later did I realize the whole thing with entrails was a charade: when Mom & Dad wanted a quiet dinner alone, serving something we hated was their way of getting it!

TONGUE:

On the other hand, we all loved tongue, and in a farm community, they were plentiful and cheap.

The only problem was, we kids got the back part, where there were all those veins and things that were kinda “icky”. It took me many years to appreciate the fact Mom saved the front—the good part—to put in Dad’s sandwiches which he always took to work.It was the same thing with chicken: we had one in some form every Sunday. But there were three of us boys and only two drumsticks. So we fought over who got what part and who had the take the back (”yuck”). The second-joint (thigh) we never saw! These were set aside for Dad to take to work. Once I got away from home and discovered chicken thighs, I couldn’t get enough of them. I still can’t…

Mom took very good care of my Dad: he got the goodies while we got the scraps. Not that we were not well fed: all through the war we had beef on the table because we raised and slaughtered our own cows.

Beef Tongue

WORLD’S FAIR:

Shortly after we moved to Carmichael, I tripped while running and happened to fall on a board that had a rusty nail sticking up: that nail went right into my left knee. Ouch! The local Doctor fixed me up, and as I was young, things healed quickly enough. Nevertheless, I malingered long after I was able to walk without a limp, and climbed the stairs to my bedroom on all-four. So, one day,  Mom casually remarked, “If that knee of yours doesn’t heal, you won’t be able to go with us to the Fair.”

World’s Fair Treasure Island 1940

“The Fair” was the World’s Fair on Treasure Island, held over into most of 1940. Needless to say, my “wounded knee” healed right up, and our little family of five spent a day at the Fair. I still have the 16mm films Dad took there, which form the real basis for my memories of the event.

FARM BOY

My upbringing on the farm led to my writing Animal Crackers, (1993) (it’s on Nifty), and a neighbor’s old Fordson tractor, like this one

Old Fordson Tractor 1942

is mentioned in Heartbreak Motel (2002), except that Ted’s Fordson, once new like this, had long since become a massive pile of rust. Still, the first harbinger of Spring for me was always finding Ted grinding the valves, getting it ready for spring discing, as I dropped in to beg for cookies from his wife.

BULLS:

A neighbor had a bull that he kept for breeding purposes. When there was a cow in heat around, he acted as all bulls do, but the rest of the time he was as docile as a lamb.

Dad used to have students from the city out to the farm now and then: city-slickers, we called them, and we had a series of tricks to pull, besides the raw olives mentioned earlier. One of these was to visit the American River that flowed not far from us. There were any number of ways to get there, but our favorite was through our neighbor’s paddock. As we walked along the fence to a stile, we would explain that the bull was ferocious, and if he moved towards us, we had to run as fast as we could back to the stile.

The bull was curious, of course, about anyone who came into his territory, so inevitably he’d start moving toward our little group: “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES” we’d shout and watch our friends run helter-skelter back to and over the fence. When they stopped and looked back, we’d be hanging all over that bull; I was usually up on his back.

ANIMALS:

We didn’t have any horses ourselves, but many people in the community did, so learning about horses came naturally. One of the girls I’ll call Betty at our school lived on a spread with quite a few horses, and she was as “horsey” a person as I’ve ever known. Her “doodling” in the margins of papers and so forth was always sketches of horses. She was a tall, lanky blond, and with my interest already turning away from females, I was not much interested in her. But I was interested in the horses, particularly in the huge dongs the stallions had.

I never knew  why, but whenever I visited Betty’s place and she showed me her horses, the stallions always dropped for her. It was probably a matter of pheromones, but of course she might have been diddling those beasts herself, something I really wanted to try but was too ashamed to admit and afraid to ask.

That pleasure – jerking off a real horse –  was provided by a guy in my 5th-grade class I’ll call Carl. He had this ancient old beast, near dead, that could still “get it up” when Carl went to work under his belly, and once or twice he let me “get a grip”. These events found their way into two of my stories. Likewise, the old black dog that we called “Bouncer” and several others through the years provided a bit of kinky entertainment for me, as well as “entertainment value” in some of my stories.

VACATIONS:

While Dad was teaching, he had summers free. He loved to drive, but during the war, with gasoline rationed, our excursions were somewhat curtailed. Nevertheless, most summers we managed to get to Bliss Park at the south-west end of Lake Tahoe, where we spent the entire season. In those war years, we might see one or two other families camping there in the course of a whole summer! Nowadays, you have to make reservations in advance! As a closely knit family, the lack of other folks around didn’t bother us a bit!

SAN FRANCISCO:

From time to time, we would drive to San Francisco, mostly I think to let Mom do a bit of shopping. I don’t recall what my brothers did, but Dad would give me a pocket-full of nickels and I would ride cable-cars and iron monsters all morning, all by my self. I had to be at Compton’s Cafeteria for lunch, then I could get a few more hours of riding before we set off for home. Those old streetcars were fabulous machines, very basic but built to last. Hurtling through the dark tunnels was exciting, but the cable-cars on the hills were great fun as well. In those days a little kid like me could ride the running-board just like the “big folks” and no one said boo about it!

We occasionally went out to Ocean Beach, since the ocean was something we did not see every day:

That’s little me at Ocean Beach, oblivious to the rip-tides.

Although the Oakland Bay Bridge was in place, Dad loved the ferries, and we usually got to San Francisco on the Vallejo or Benicia auto ferry. Once the car was secured, the rest of my folks would go topside to enjoy the views and freshets. Not me! I made a bee-line for the nearest opening through which I could watch the huge steam engines at work down in the hold. Even then I was already a size-queen! I never saw the San Francisco sky-line: when the whole ferry shuddered as the engines reversed, I knew the folks would soon be by to collect me to continue the trip.

SCHOOL PAGEANT:

I no longer know what the pageant was about, but it seems I was “Uncle Sam”, and I could very well have “wanted” George, there on my left: he was very handsome and liked to toss me over his shoulders for rides around the house.

Me and George

George was one of Dad’s students who had been to our home often, and who was home on leave from the US Army: this was 1942. My folks were absolutely color-blind: we had all sorts of students out to the farm as the years rolled by, which probably accounts for my own eclectic preferences later on. About those, much more will be said in due time.

UNDERWEAR:

Toward the end of my sixth year in Elementary School, Dad began dickering on a pair of cabins near Lake Tahoe: there were two cabins on a single lot, one just for sleeping. The owner let us use the cabins one weekend, hoping to seal the deal no doubt, but for other reasons that did not happen. I remember the occasion well, however for ONE event that remains seared in my memory, and which likewise explains some of my later, and current, preferences.

A college classmate of my Dad was passing through the weekend we spent in that cabin, so they went along with us. These folks had several kids, including one fellow they had adopted while working in India. He was about 16 at the time, quite tall and very brown. As I lay half-awake one morning on my cot in the sleeping room of the cabin, Presad walked through the room on his way to the toilet, clad only in a pair of bright white Y-fronts pushed out to their limit by his morning piss-hard. What a splendid sight!

A lovely sight!

I thought it one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, even though I did not fully understand what was going on beneath that sparkling fabric. I’ve since learned, of course, and I thank the internet daily for the thousands of similar images of hunky guys clad in shorts that I have on my hard-drive. I actually have more pictures of guys dressed (well, more or less) than of them nude.

SUMMER OF ‘46:

Dad taught at UC Berkeley that summer: we exchanged homes with a Cal Prof, so we lived in El Cerrito. I quickly found the “F” end-of-the-line station for the Key-System trains that ran to San Francisco, and spent whole days riding back and forth: if I did not de-train at either end, I could ride paying only once. Usually I was right up front, and now and then the motorman would put up the shade that covered the window into his cab, so I could watch his operation. I was in hog-heaven! Naturally, I wanted to be a Motorman  ”when I grew up”.

The key-System trains were massive affairs, built like the proverbial brick latrines, and they ran for years and years. Just three sets remain: two at the Railway Museum in Rio Vista, CA, and one badly deteriorated one in the Orange County Railway Museum, Perris, CA:

The Key-System Train, Orange County Railway Museum, California

Key-Systems Train Detail

Superficially, these resembled the Boeing-Vertol train-sets now used by MUNI, but they were more massively built. Most were scrapped when the system was shut down in 1958. In its place we have BART, train-sets of which are now being replaced after less than 20 years of use. We once knew how to build things to last, but not any more!

The summer of 46 was also noteworthy, because while living in El Cerrito, we learned Mom had cancer, which proved fatal five years later.

To be continued …

PeeYes: I’ll try to add to this blog most Fridays, that being a day off for me.

NEXT

Arrow points to Kuala Lipis

Arrow points to Kota Bharu

Friday 1st November 1968

Yes, happily it was steam all the way—the same engine up and back, a British (natch) 3-cylinder rotary-valve affair built in 1935. They burn an extremely poor grade of “Bunker C” here, with a very high sulfur content, so the exhaust is very acrid & dirty; in the tunnels it gets positively suffocating! But I did hit good weather, and some lovely views, and of course 180 miles or so of jungle scenery, all very pretty, with many flowers, orchids and so forth and some pretty birds. Kota Bharu had a slightly different flavor but not so much as I’d expected, and it is by no means the cleanest city I’ve seen in Malaysia. The local refuse system seems heavily augmented by many goats that roam the town!

The train I rode to K. Bharu

Steaming through the steamy jungle

There were many tunnels

Passing the “down” train

I had a slight mishap while looking around the town: I mis-stepped crossing a deep gutter & in the ensuing scramble for balance the left side of my head came into smart contact with a sign. No damage to speak of to head or sign, but evidently I sprained my left thumb slightly and a few muscles in my back, which resulted in a poor night’s sleep later on. The railway ride back today pretty well loosened up both again, though: the Malays run their trains much faster than the Thais, over road-beds that are nowhere in as good condition as those in Thailand. Hence it is pretty rough riding! And the car I rode in was built in 1913 for the (then) Federated Malay States Railway, so the springing was not so good either. We passed near K. Bharu the site of a de-railment, where 4 freight cars are still being righted from beside the temporary new track. All in all, though, it was a worthwhile trip.

I loved the flame trees…

… but the photo was likely taken (from the train) to catch the handsome guys, lower left.

Another lovely view from the train

Forgot to mention that for what little good it will do, I voted in K. Lumpur. Humph had better pull a “Harry Truman 1952″ act,  or he’ll never make it. News tonight of the possible bombing-halt in VN—encouraging, perhaps, but only time will tell if it is the right thing to do. News here is heavily overshadowed by the Sabah “confrontation”. I’ve been asked many times here—and am at loss to answer—why we, with our considerable influence in the Philippines, have not done more to get Marcos to lay off. The P. I. “claim” on Sabah is about as pertinent today as a Khmer “claim” on West malaysia would be—both have the same sort of background and in light of subsequent history both are absurd. Tension between Indonesia & Singapore also has been headlined here, but that seems to be easing somewhat.

Malaysia makes a big thing of the fact it is multiracial (is certainly is!) and has no racial tension; I’ve also been put on the spot by several Malaysians wanting to know about the “race problem” in the states. Of course, they can’t understand it, and I can’t excuse it. At least two people I’ve met have cancelled plans to visit USA because of the situation there—they are afraid of running into a riot or something. Unfortunately, unlikely though it may be, I can’t assure them they won’t run into something. [Likewise], I can’t assure them the situation is likely to improve much in the next few years, regardless of the election outcome.

There is an article in tonight’s Straits Times about the approx 2000 babies born of Thai girls and american GI “husbands” which are coming in for some attention from the Pearl S. Buck Foundation. The Thais are rather unhappy about the problem; I was pleased to observe that this article (in a Malaysian paper, of course) closed by pointing out that the Thai Queen’s-Cobra Regiment, recently returned from VN, left behind several hundred Thai-Vietnamese babies to be cared for. The disparity between the american ideals we talk about and the “ideals” we actually export is phenomenal. Many people are disgusted by both—including me. Our emphasis on technology the past hundred or more years has interfered with our development of humanity; because we really know so little about ourselves (and have such absurd delusions of grandeur), no wonder we can’t understand (or even make the attempt most of the time) other people with different cultural backgrounds. I am less convinced than ever that industrialization of Asia alá Japan is the best course for the future. Particularly in Thailand, I found many people apologizing to me because they are poor. This shows success for the first phases of “developing” a nation, for once people become dis-satisfied with what has satisfied them for centuries, you have created a market for modern produce. The next step should be to show and help the people learn how to produce locally what they want; but the next step all too often is simply to flood the country with imports; Thailand is only now waking up to the facts and trying desperately to stop the flow of money out of the country, but it’s a difficult thing to do after so much damage has been done.

Enuf of this for now—I’ve got to go to bed for an early start tomorrow. Will go to Temerloh & from there, I’m not sure at this moment—weather will decide, probably between Kuantan & K.L

Sunday 3 November 1968

I can’t seem to get used to the idea it is November already! Two more days and I shall have been “on the road” two months—and you all should be voting for the “candidates of your choice”—ha! Anyhow—I got my usual early start from Kuala Lipis, except that for the first time in weeks, I ran into morning rain! It was light, and by the time I’d retraced my tracks to Benta, it had degenerated into a light mist, not at all bothersome. At Benta I turned more or less southward towards Jeruntan; the road was fairly good, & the only obstacles to care-free driving were numerous ox-droppings in the roadway. Obviously (this not being one of the main hiways) oxen & water-Bs utilize the road more than vehicles do. So I spent an hour or so dodging “pies” successfully; but there is enough manure spread around by larger vehicles (who worry less about hitting it) that by the time I reached Jeruntan the Honda was rather well “covered all over with ’sweet violets’”. Nature came to my rescue, though, with light rain between Jeruntan and Temerloh, so by the time I got there most of the bike (& me) was clean again. The road from Jeruntan to T’loh must have been built by a subsidiary of Standard Materials—the macadam is not more than half an inch thick (where it remains at all) and despite extensive patching & re-patching the roadway is pretty bad in spots. Nonetheless I reached Temerloh slightly past noon & stopped at the Gov’t Rest House for lunch—and subsequently over night, as the rain did not stop until just after I booked the room. Temerloh is a very pretty town, very small, but with a huge new National Mosque situated on the banks of the Pahang River. Over this there is a nice large concrete bridge, about 1/3 of which is missing since last year’s monsoon floods—there is  temporary steel-work over the gap!

This may be the Mosque near Temerloh. . .

. . .then again, it may not. Perhaps someone reading this blog can enlighten me!

A bus crosses the temporary bridge carefully

In that direction (east) lay Kuantan and much more rain! I turned around and headed back to the coast.

Though it was Saturday night, the town was extremely quiet, and the rest house seemed quieter. So I had a very restful sleep & arose early again this morning. Fog, but no rain, though obviously in the direction (east) of Kuantan it was stormy. So I decided to pass up Kuantan this trip & come on west again to K. L. The roads are better and the pass from Bentong over the mountains is only 2066 feet, so I arrived before noon. When the fog lifted it was mostly clear & pleasantly warm; my poor nose (which has peeled twice since I last mentioned it) apparently burned again,  judging from the feel of it now.

A Governor’s Mansion or a church—I forget which

I drove around K. L. for about an hour & a half, located a cheap hotel (Tivoli!), had lunch, tuned and washed the Honda, walked about a bit (everything closed, as it is Sunday). K. L. is much more interesting architecturally than Bangkok; the modern buildings being designed by local architects blend much better with the old , and the old parliament, railway and other government buildings downtown are very interesting. There is a national “Muzium” to spend some time in, & lots of shops to browse, but I suspect 3 or 4 days will suffice here. Thence to Seremban (where I will try to contact Lt. Col. W. K. Bramson, the only Bramson in the W. Malaysian phone book—to see if by any chance he’s a relative) and on to Port Dickson and Melacca. From there I may cross the country once more to Mersing, then proceed to Johore (Ye Gods!—from my old stamp collecting days I always though Johore was in India!!) and Singapore.

Receipt from the tivoli Hotel

This phase of my current hajj is, obviously, drawing to a close. The mileage will wind up around 5500 miles. What next awaits stock-taking & investigating in Singapore—I have several ideas, the practicality of any of which is yet to be determined. I’ve spent a little more money in Malaysia than elsewhere because I began picking up a few souvenirs; still, the trip all-told has so far cost less than $1200.

Time to close up this installment and get it on its way tomorrow. Hope it finds you all well, as usual.

Love to everybody~

Bruce

In my next post, I describe a few days in Kuala Lumpur: stay tuned!

NEXT

For the first year that I owned the house, I continued to take my meals with Ted: the only good way to rid a building of roaches and mice is to starve them out, so we had NO food of any kind in the place for the entire year. I began assembling some furniture, all of it used. Most of the first year was spent tearing out horrible additions that had been made to the building at one time or another. For many years it had been broken up into “apartments”, with kitchens stuffed into corners. Hung all over the outside of the house was plumbing, now useless, that had fed those kitchens. All this stuff had to be taken down.

Plumbing in the house was perilous, still in old galvanized pipe. I slowly began replacing it with copper, but it was many years before the entire system was in place. Little by little, the place became more livable, and beginning with the second year Ted moved into a suite of two rooms on the second floor. Towards the end of the second year I had the apartment in the basement level complete, so we moved our cooking and eating down there and attacked the main kitchen upstairs: it had had a wall added to reduce its size, and the ceiling lowered, so it was necessary to essentially gut the room and start over. This took most of the third year. Since I was working regular hours, most work took place on weekends, and Ted’s students were often recruited to help. Their “pay” was usually a fine dinner (Ted loved to cook) with lots of fine California Red to wash it down.

We found a few interesting items which had fallen behind base-boards, or had been sealed in walls that were re-plastered, probably after the 1906 earthquake.

A Transfer from 1908

Can I still use the unpunched rides?

If proof were needed that we had “wing-nuts” long ago, just as we have today, here is a post-card-sized item found in the walls of the house:

A bunch of baloney

More baloney

These items pre-date the occupancy by the drug addicts. Here are two items from that period.

Affixed to the second-floor toilet

Talk about brainwashing! But the item below I found most interesting. In the attic where all the boys (no girls, please note) lived, there was a tiny room about 8-feet square: a couple of sticks in the form of a cross had been nailed to the door, and it was labeled “Prayer Room”. It was the only room in the house where boys could lock themselves in (and others out). Judging from the wads of tissue, sox and hankies found stuffed into the walls, this should have been labeled “Masturbation Room”! The graffito shown below was found about a foot above the floor-line, scrawled on a piece of masonite: my guess is the “author” doodled this while getting porked by one of the other guys—but that’s only a guess:

“Pray for Homosexuals to be delivered from sinful lives”

So the years rolled by. My work at the lab was rewarding, my salary advanced, and in general, life was good. Things began to nose-dive late in 1975, when the last remaining founder of the company I worked for passed on, and he was replaced by someone I did not care much for. The lab needed some attention he was unwilling to pay to it, and several months of doldrums set in. Then one day, I awoke with a headache (not in itself unusual) except that by the next day, the headache was still there and getting worse. Late that week I put myself in the hands of my doctor, who ran me through a whole bunch of tests, scans, and so forth, my head feeling all the time like it might explode. At the end of a grueling day of tests, the Doctor sat down with me and explained he could find absolutely nothing wrong, and that his diagnosis was a classic “tension headache”. He promised to get rid of it, but explained that it was up to me to ferret out the cause. He sent me home with a week’s worth of dynamite pills that put me to sleep for a week: when I came out of the fog, the headache was gone.

On my first day back at work, the headache had returned by mid-morning. I dictated a letter of resignation to my Secretary: I had found the source of my headaches, and there was NO WAY I was
going to stay in a situation that adversely affected my health!

I must have know something was up: I had built up my bank account, and so was able to weather quite a long spell without any work at all. My old wander-lust emerged, and so I sent out resumés asking for possible work overseas. In the fullness of time, I was taken on my one of my old firm’s arch-rivals and sent to work in Egypt. I left the house in the capable hands of Ted who looked after it and my interests.

I arrived in Alexandria April 1, 1977, and in a future page or two I’ll amuse you with some of what I found there. For the moment, here I am, somewhere in Egypt.

Lousy photo: Mediterranean in the background

Next page: spend some time in Egypt with me.

NEXT

March 17th, 2010

There will be a brief hiatus in my posts while I undergo surgery and recover.

Here’s the story – is there a Doctor in the house?

The essence is, torn meniscus in left knee

Arthroscopic surgery scheduled for Monday

At the moment, I can scarcely hobble around, and this computer is up three flights of stairs!

Hang in! I have lots more adventures to share…

NEXT

AROUND THE COUNTRY

To get our minds off Mom’s demise Dad took us on a trip around the country: basically, we went to Quebec by way of New Orleans. This was the summer of 1951: “Jim Crow” was in full swing, and Dad hated everything about the South, but felt we boys ought to see it. I’m glad he lived long enough to see much of the discrimination reduced.

We traveled in our 1948 Chrysler Windsor, pulling a Higgins trailer. Ours was blue, like the one in the photo, and as far as I know, they all were.

A Higgins trailer like the one we had

These were popular in the late forties and early 50s, and our family, now of four, fit inside just fine. We saved a lot of money not staying in motels. The two halves of the trailer lid opened out on hinges and a canvas tent popped up on metal stays. Sleeping-bags went on the  two opened flaps, and there was room for two more on the floor of the thing. Here’s a view inside: I slept right up there, and my older brother slept on the one opposite.

The two halves of the trailer lid opened out on hinges and a canvas tent popped up on metal stays.

Dad and my oldest brother flopped on the floor. We had cooking equipment and carried our own food, so we  slept and ate nearly all of our meals in and around this contraption for the  whole summer.

My biggest problem under this regime was to find times when I could exercise my new ability to jack off. I expect my brothers had the same problem, but none of us ever thought of taking matters in hand together. So the summer was spent whacking off in gas-station rest-rooms, behind trees at camp-grounds, and at other places that presented the opportunity.

On the way home, Dad remained in Denver for some conferences, so my brothers and I continued on our own by way of Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. I often jerked off in the back seat of the car, believing my bothers did not notice. I expect they did, though, but chose not to say anything about it. I recall wandering off alone in Yellowstone one day (a fascinating place for a budding chemist): watching a small geyser erupt, I could not help myself. I pulled my pud and erupted right along with it! Far as I know no one was watching, but who knows? Maybe I gave a voyeur something to remember.

GROWING UP

With hormones now ruling my life, I grew up another foot, and out by an inch or two where it really counts. Better yet, I began to find some hair here and there where there had been none. So, when I entered my sophomore year at MHS, I was catching up to my peers in ways that made me feel a little better about myself. Nevertheless, there were residual effects from the hazing I got for being so immature: I became completely pee-shy, unable to piss in the presence of another person (unless I sat in a stall).

This pretty well put an end to my cruising for dick in the boys’ rooms, and in fact led to a permanent aversion to “tea-room” sex.

SOPHOMORE YEAR

The science course in my second year was Biology. We dissected frogs and did all the usual icky stuff. We also got some rudimentary sex “education”, in a class separated by sex. The girls, who probably would have benefited from some insight into how boys work, saw films about girls. The boys, who might have found useful some insight into how girls work, saw films about boys! If what the girls saw was as unenlightening as what we did, the whole exercise was futile. How  can you spend a half hour discussing sex with a bunch of horny teen-aged boys and NOT EVEN MENTION masturbation? Sheeesh! However, the episode did give me an inkling that I might not be so different from my peers as I had come to think.

I endured PE, this time with the help of a lanky fellow named Bill who enjoyed playing hand-ball as much as I did. We actually got pretty good at it, kept score, and once in a while induced another guy to attempt it with one or the other of us. I got a passing grade in PE for the first time in my life!

Still, I remained very much a “loner”. I had only a few friends, one of them a devout and proper Catholic boy who I liked a lot intellectually, though I was not attracted to him physically. He was a bit pudgy; my aversion to adipose tissue was already evident. But at the end of that school year, Gary went off to Bellarmine Prep School, determined to be a priest, so he went out of my life. The tall and lanky basket-ball players remained my favorites and fantasy-fodder for innumerable jack-off sessions—by myself, as usual—and while I often contemplated broaching the subject of mutual JO to other boys, I never did so. I generally got my rocks off twice a day: once after getting home from school, and once before going to sleep. On week-ends, with many hours spent alone in my little “laboratory”, I might scatter my seed on the floor several times. My last act of every day was to whack off in bed, where I just rolled on my side and shot my wad on the wall. I’d be asleep in minutes: masturbation is nothing if not a good soporific!

I was beginning to form some fixations that have lasted to this day. One was a fascination with arms (and legs) which I have already mentioned. Another was a fascination with boys’ adams-apples, since my own did not yet show.

But my primary fixation was on the phallus: furtive glances in the gym were not what I had in mind! It would be a while before I got my hands on one other than my own!

ANOTHER MOVE

As that school year drew to a close, Dad moved us to a rebuilt house on the outskirts, nearer to his job and nearer to the railroad.

The move resulted in one of the most embarrassing moments of my youth. When the bed in my room was removed by the moving crew, the wall beside it (which had once been all white) was found festooned with yellowing cum-stains! Their location on the wall made it abundantly clear that little Bruciebabe had been spraying his load repeatedly on that wall! It’s twoo, it’s twoo!  I’d been shooting off every night for a year or more; the incrustation was not only obvious, it shouted out to anyone who looked: that little kid’s been spankin’ the monkey! I was mortified, but not a soul mentioned it. Whoever bought the house musta painted that little bedroom quickly.

Ironically, we had a half acre of almond trees again, but never harvested them ourselves: Dad sold the crop to the neighbor who also had almonds. The impetus for a new house was his remarriage, too soon after Mom’s passing as it turned out. His new wife was a real bitch, and she had a bratty kid from a former marriage who was too young to be of much interest to me.

However, our move put me closer to a fellow I admired named Jim. He and I shared many interests in mechanical things and, above all, CARS! Jim had several, and through his influence I was able to find a beat-up 1926 Dodge sedan that cost me all of fifty bucks. The windows (except windshield) were missing, and the upholstery was in tatters, but it ran well and I loved it. That car was the first of a bunch of them, all unusual in some way. I had a lot of fun with a 1933 Oldsmobile straight-8 sedan: the engine was so worn out it got only 18 miles to the quart of oil. A few trips the length of the town’s main drag on a hot summer night would lay down a formidable smoke-screen of blue haze. It did not look anything like this restored one, except for the shape: mine was black and ready for the junkyard. (Oh, wait: that’s where I got it)!

Restored 1933 Oldsmobile Straight-8 Sedan

Jim and I bummed around a lot the summer following my sophomore year. Dad and his new shrew wife were off on what I later learned was anything but a honeymoon, so we had plenty of time to go places and do things. One night we were tinkering in his work-room when he asked me a question I certainly had not expected: “Have you ever jacked-off a dog?” Holy cow! It was the first time he’d mentioned anything even remotely about sex! I had to answer truthfully, (see my story Animal Crackers at Nifty), “Yes, why do you ask?”

In the end, we went behind his garage and I showed him how to JO his mutt, at the conclusion of which it was obvious Jim had a hard-on, just as I did. We went inside the garage, sat side-by-side with our backs to the wall, opened our pants and fondled ourselves for a few minutes. Then it happened: Jim reached over and grabbed my prick! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven: it felt absolutely incredible, and utterly unlike how it felt when I held myself. Within seconds, I had his dick in my fist and … well, you know what happened.

Absolutely Wonderful

Though it felt absolutely wonderful to jack each other, we completed the “off” part individually, much as we would have done if alone. In fact, that remained the pattern whenever we got together, which was often. I discovered Jim got horny when driving, just as I did (and, I think, many men do), so most of our jaunts into the Sierra foothills on back roads resulted in one or more JO sessions together. It was a fun and busy summer: the wall in my new bedroom remained clean since Jim and I got off together often, and because when I pounded one out at home, I used an old towel I kept under the bed.

JUNIOR YEAR

At the end of summer my Dad and his new bride shrew returned and life should have returned to normal. Several events occurred to render the school year different. It quickly became apparent  that Dad’s love-life did not exist, and his marriage was headed for divorce. Lillian, a fiery red-head, might have been a hot number once, but towards my Dad she was utterly frigid. When it came some months on, the divorce was based on the fact their marriage had never been consummated! Now that I was learning the importance of getting off, I had a new appreciation for Dad’s dilemma: his needs were obviously not being fulfilled by this witch. Can you spell  G-O-L-D   D-I-G-G-E-R ?

More importantly, now that Jim and I were on intimate terms, I learned he had been using his expensive polaroid camera to photograph as many hard-ons as he could find! Mine joined his rogues’ gallery soon enough, but the erection that fascinated me most was attached to a fellow nick-named Butch—I forget his real name now. Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned Butch was only a seventh-grader, and a classmate of my (for the moment) step-brother! For some reason, Jim had lost interest in Butch, but I was fascinated by the photo of his toad-stabber, and through the agency of little Dougie was able to make Butch’s acquaintance. He lived only a couple of blocks away, had a car, and loved to let me play with his salami! Despite his being younger than I, Butch was taller, far more precocious, and well ahead of me physically. I coulda cared less: he was willing to let me play with his prick, which was enough for me (it was enough for two, to tell the truth, but I kept him for myself)! [Jim and his photos, and Butch, found their way into my story, Piece on Earth: read it at Nifty].

Dad was busy most nights and his “wife” would take her kid and go somewhere (I didn’t care where, as long as they were away!) so I had the house to myself. I’d call Butch, he’d drive over, and we’d play for several hours. Don’t ask me why: we never tried sucking or fucking! We just played with each other’s hard-on and felt each other up elsewhere (remember, I already loved legs and arms, and Butch had some fine examples). He seemed to get a kick out of my lack of precocity, just as I was fascinated by his abundance of it. When he got tired of playing, he’d announce a “race” to see who could cum first: I always won. It seemed with all that length to deal with (I did measure, and he was fully 8½ when hard) it took him a long time to reach nirvana. Perhaps watching me shoot helped, for soon after I shot my wad on to the wooden floor he would blast his likewise. That signaled the end of  our tryst: he’d hike up his jeans and drive home. I was so wound up, I’d often whack off again, then wipe up the mess before going to bed.

Those grand romps came to an abrupt halt: some gal got him up one night and stuck that lovely thing in her snatch, and it was all over: little Bruciebabe couldn’t hold a candle to the “real thing”.  Damn!

As a Junior, I was taking Chemistry as my science subject. However, since I’d already done all the experiments and knew the subject well, the instructor appointed me as “lab assistant”, so while he was lecturing I was prepping his “show and tell”.  Perhaps the association of chemistry in my little home lab with the number of times I whacked off there was the cause: whatever, I jacked off in the school lab frequently while the lecture in the adjoining room was in progress.

I was also on television that year, on a program called “Science in Action”. This is described in some detail in my story, Central Valley High: read it on Nifty.

FRUSTRATION!

The divorce was finalized mid-year and Lillian & Doug were gone. For good! My sex-life consisted of an occasional wank with Jim and non-stop wanks at home. One day in Latin class a fellow I liked a lot stuck his leg out into the aisle, which caused his jeans to ride up, revealing some leg above his socks. I was fascinated by the hairiness there, since my own ankles were as yet glabrous and skinny. I wanted desperately to see more of that leg—and him, so set about developing a plan. It eventuated that he accompanied my Dad and myself when I drove Dad to a conference in the Bay Area. Ed and I were alone in the car on the way home, and as night fell I managed to get our discussion worked around to sex. I got hornier and hornier, and so did he, so we finally agreed to jack off together (or so I thought). I drove off the highway to a spot I knew where we would not be bothered, hoping to slide across the seat and extricate his meat in preparation for some funzies, but before I could move he was out the door and into the back seat! Damn! It was dark, so I couldn’t even see what he was whacking at back there. We shot our respective wads into paper towels (I was prepared), he returned to the front seat and we drove home, our desultory conversation turned to less interesting things. I never made another attempt on him, and think maybe my aversion to body-hair may have originated from the frustration of not having had a good time with him. He was the only fellow in high school I even tried to lure into my clutches.

To be continued …

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Here’s a picture of me on my first day home from the hospital:

First day home

Do I look unhappy?  Perhaps I was.

However, my recovery from the hip replacement has been rapid and remarkably pain-free. The Doc attributes this to the total replacement, metal-on-metal. I am getting around with only a cane, and expect to be able to abandon that soon. I will be going back to limited work starting the 13th, which should help pass the remaining weeks before the knee replacement takes place.

Here’s a picture of my scar (which I cannot see directly):

It was a “glue job”, no staples or sutures

Meanwhile, despite the cool summer we’ve had here, I did get a nice crop of “Naked Ladies”, otherwise known as Amaryllis:

That’s all the news that’s fit to print, for the time being.

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The red arrow points to Melbourne

Arriving back in the States shortly before Christmas meant getting back in touch with family. I spent a few days with my Dad and his wife in Modesto, then we all travelled to southern California. Todd arrived with his little Toyota truck with a miniscule camper. After Christmas a three-vehicle entourage set out for Guaymas, Mexico. I no longer remember why we went, but Todd drove in his camper, I drove Robb’s old Jeep 4WD, and Robb and family rode in a mammoth Suburban he owned at the time. Robb’s wife hated camping, so she bitched and moaned most of the way, and we were additionally plagued by car-trouble: the alternator failed in the Suburban, which meant from time to time we all had to stop and pump up the battery in that vehicle. I had no trouble with camping, and loved driving that old Jeep, but otherwise I thought the trip was a waste of time. Nevertheless, it helped me maintain my “out of country” status for income-tax purposes.

The location of Guaymas is indicated

Soon after arrival back to Robb’s home in LA, I finalized the agreement to return to Australia to work on the Port Phillip Bay study. I booked a non-stop flight from Honolulu to Sydney: in those days it was still in a 707, and I was surprised it could be kept in the air long enough. It was one of the least comfortable trips I ever made, because there was not an empty seat on the plane. The only thing that lightened it up was one of the stewardesses on her final flight: she proceeded to get quite sloshed, and had fun telling people to “get your own bloody water” and so forth. She was a hoot, but I resolved never to take that long flight again.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE

Melbourne is located on Port Phillip Bay, which has been called the “arsehole of the earth” by some because of its nearly round shape. There is one small opening to the sea. It is a fine harbor, which accounts for the location of Melbourne nearby. As can be seen in a fairly recent aerial photo, Port Phillip Bay is pretty much surrounded by urban development. In the 1970s, most of the waste from the urban development at that time found its way into the bay, often poorly treated, if at all. The result was declining fisheries, algal blooms and other untoward disturbances. So, a study was undertaken to map the fate of the nutrients which found their way into the bay, and attempts were made to estimate the amount of exchange of new sea-water through the narrow entrance, which tends to limit that exchange quite severely.

A recent photo shows dense urban development all around PPB

One of the conservative ingredients often used to track pollution in open water is ammonia nitrogen. A huge undertaking was put in place to sample the bay daily in many places and depths, and perform numerous analyses, the object being to create a base-line against which attempts to clean up the bay later could be measured. By the time I got to Melbourne, the study had been going on for some time, and a problem had become evident which no one on the scene could fathom. Whereas early in the study typical concentrations of ammonia-N had been found, as time went by, the amounts became less and less, and for some months none whatever had been found. Since there had been no change in inputs, this made no sense.

Unfortunately, it was a problem too easy to solve using common techniques that those in charge of the study should have known. First, I “spiked” a sample with some ammonia-N, and found the reagent did not react with it. Then I made up a fresh batch of reagent, and—viola—we found ammonia-N. Although instructions were clear that the reagent had to be made in small batches so it would be fresh and used-up quickly, this admonition had been ignored, and the reagent had been made up by the gallon: the many gallons on hand were all useless. At least one (properly, several) spiked sample should have been included with every batch of analyses, but none were, so the failing reagent was not detected.

This finding (which took only a few minutes to deduce) did not exactly gain me any “brownie points” with the laboratory administrators: I did my best to keep the situation low-key, but for the next 6 months I was shunted into regular staff duties just running hundreds of analyses day after day. In the short term I didn’t mind this, but it wasn’t something I wanted to do long-term, so, having solved their problem, I decided to move on.

When I booked my return trip, I decided to fly Qantas, which I had never done. They offered me a “non-stop flight from Sydney to Honolulu”, which I declined, explaining I had done it once and would never do it again. So I got to put my feet on the ground in Pago Pago once more as the slower flight refueled.

Frankly, I was not impressed by Australians in general, though I did meet a few chaps who were terrific fellows. The sloppy administration of the laboratory seemed to be symptomatic of sloppy administration everywhere, which, taken with a general “don’t give a shit” attitude, made me a bit queazy. I loved the trams and interurban trains, and rode them often. But certainly one problem I had was that I was an american, and americans were not exactly popular in Melbourne in those days, largely because of the situation in VietNam, where Australians were dying in combat. That war was even less popular in Australia than in America!

I spent about 7 months altogether in Melbourne. In that time, I was invited out to dinner to homes of laboratory personnel exactly twice. In the second instance, a dinner for ten, a “companion” for me at table had been found. I found her boorish in the extreme, but of course it was all set up in advance: I took the tram out to the the dinner, but “she” had a car so “she” could take me home. By way of her own apartment, of course. There were two other couples already screwing in the lounge when we got there, and she dragged me into her bedroom, intent on rape. I could not have gotten a hard-on for this bird under any circumstance! I no longer remember what excuse I made, but I departed quickly: fortunately, I had paid attention and knew I was not far from the hotel where I stayed, so I walked there in the wee hours of the morning, my virginity intact.

I quickly established a routine: I would rest and read after reaching my hotel at the end of the day, then I would ride back into town and dine at the Australia Bistro, located then in the basement of the Australia Hotel. The food there was terrific, and I would wash it down with a fifth of good Australian Red. Then I would walk through a convenient tunnel to the Australia Bar, also in the basement of the Hotel. This was a gay bar, and there I eventually met a fellow I’ll call George. George and I hit it off very well, and after a pony of beer we’d go to my hotel for an evening of wonderful sex. George stayed over occasionally, but usually departed and found his way home.

When it came time to leave Melbourne, leaving George behind was difficult. I took him to the Bistro one night, and when we surfaced after our ponies of beer, instead of heading to my hotel, I simply told George I was leaving the next day: “I hope you will remember me the way I am now, slightly sloshed, horny as usual, and sad that I won’t be sucking you off ever again.” I turned on my heal and walked away: I never saw George again.

I took only a few photos in Melbourne: this is one of them.

Melbourne’s most famous landmark

I found this on the web: “Rumours abound that the plans for Bombay railway station and Flinders St. railway station were mixed up in the designers’ office in London, and as a result the Bombay railway station now sits in Melbourne and the original Flinders St. railway station was built in Bombay. While there’s no actual evidence to support this claim, Flinders Street Station has in fact had its influences reach further ashore. The Luz Station in Sao Paulo, Brazil was based on a design inspired by the lines of Flinders Street Station.”

Here’s a recent photo of this Australian Icon:

It is still there!

I walked into Flinders Street Station many times. Among its amenities was the only ice-cream shop I ever found in Melbourne that knew how to make a true american-style chocolate milk-shake!

Australian bills were not very exciting. Throughout my brief tenure with the MMBW lab, I was given a pay-packet every two weeks with my salary in cash!

That’s all I have to say about Australia, except that I know Melbourne is a very different place today. A large influx of Vietnamese and other South-East Asians has widened Melbourne’s outlook immensely. I might actually enjoy it now, but in 1969-70, I found it appallingly provincial.

1970, however, would turn out to be an important year in my life, as I will describe soon.

Egyptians bargain for everything. It’s in their blood, and unless you bargain, you will be taken and will not be respected, The concept is not easy to understand for westerners, and for some it was impossible. Generally, the approach that worked for me was that I would decide in advance what I would pay for an item or service, then I would give over somewhat less and let the vendor argue me out of the balance. They have to come away feeling they’ve gotten the better of you. Among themselves, the bargaining is more akin to haggling, and it can approach violence at times, with barterers grabbing at each other and making loud threatening sounds, but when agreement is reached, they are all smiles and the money changes hands.

Unfortunately, money changed hands all too often! The smaller bills particularly became filthier and filthier: they were never removed from circulation and replaced; when a bill became so scuzzy no one would accept it, the holder was stuck and either burned it or threw it away. For us foreigners, whose per diem was paid in local cash and large bills, having the right amount for a simple transaction like a taxi ride was a problem. Drivers would usually refuse a large bill, saying they had no change. This was often not really the case, but making the change would deplete their reserves of “small money”. Naturally, they would happily take the large bill and give NO change.

On a train one day from Cairo back to Alex, I saw a well-dressed gent paying for drinks with all brand-new bills. I asked him how it was that he had so many, and learned he was the administrator of a large Bank in Alexandria. I explained our problem, and he arranged that I could being a clutch of large bills into a teller and exchange them for small ones. We set up a revolving fund, and I sold off the small bills to my compatriots, so thereafter we usually had small money for the taxis (who were not happy about it!)

There were coins (aluminum), but they were not in circulation much. There was a 1 piaster coin, equivalent to our penny, but I only saw one or two in all the time I was in Egypt.

Egyptian currency was changed often to thwart counterfeiters, so there were often several different versions in circulation at any given time. Getting clean, uncirculated copies was difficult and often impossible!

If nothing else, the bills were colorful and all of different sizes, so keeping track of them in one’s wallet was easy. Unfortunately, as the bills wore out, they tended to stink! I have seen small money used to wipe dipsticks, and shudder to think what other things they might have wiped!

Anyway, here’s a representative group of the money in circulation while I was there. One Pound  (written £E) was a US$1.50

The Egyptian Pound was colorful, and = $30

Egyptian 10 Pounds. = US$15

Egyptian 5 Pounds, = US$7.50

One of at least two 1 Pound notes circulating then

More recent 1 Pound note, = US$1.50

An older 50 piaster note

Newer 50 p note. 1 p is 1/100th Pound

The Egyptian 20p note

Older 10p note still circulating in the late 70s

This bill was only about 4 inches long

Towards the end of my stay in Egypt, new, smaller bills of uniform size were being introduced. Since these may well still be circulating, I feel obliged to stripe the images.

These new bills were about 2/3ds the size of the old ones

The bills remained of different sizes by denomination

But all were more nearly “wallet size” than formerly

The 25p note was altogether new, replacing the 20p note

As I mentioned earlier, our per diem was paid in local currency. Basically, it was a means of getting cash into circulation, since we were paid far more than we coupld expect to spend, even if we rented quarters locally. We were “cash cows”, and on a future page I will explain what a lot of my per diem went for.

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IN OUR LAST EPISODE, THE TRAIN WAS MADE UP IN BUCAY WITH ENGINE 53 ON POINT

At long last, around noon, the train was made up, Engine 53 was up to pressure, and I was aboard the tender, ready (I hoped) for the wonderful ride up to Alausí. Bear in mind we have a heavy train getting under way on a 3.5% grade, and on a curve (also the main street of Bucay). The mechanista took some throttle, we began to move, and within a few feet one set of drivers slipped off the rail! The engine tilted alarmingly, the fireman blew out the fire (steam jets are provided for this eventuality) and I clambered down from the tender, happy the engine had not fallen right over on its side.

Ooooops!

Something has to be done!

Making the nick-name “weed-whacker” meaningful!

I really wondered if that massive crack-pin on the ground was all that prevented the engine from toppling all the way over!

Grounded!

Workers trying to get a re-railer into place.

Over the next several hours, poor little 53 was eventually returned to the tracks, aided by re-railers, stones, planks, and the removal of her train and substitution of a diesel to pull her back. A single new sleeper was inserted and spiked into place, gauge was checked and found within some limit, and once again the engine moved forward past the bad spot. Our train was reattached, and off we went, about 4 O’clock. Darkness set in rapidly, so further photos could not be had. To see my photos of the same run in 1979, see “Ascending the Andes behind steam” in this blog.

Diesel power to the rescue! These Alsthom Diesels look very large The diesel engine has replaced the train. Not much progress yet.

The train has been spotted elsewhere, and the diesel attached  to #53. At this point she has been dragged backward, but she’s not yet back on the rails.

Note the condition of the ties, really just logs Unfortunately, the tender had also spread the rail Digging out a rotted sleeper

Back on her feet once again. Engine 53 will be getting up steam again shortly.

A single new sleeper was put in place Under way at last! Approaching the first bridge over the Rio Chan Chan

We made it to Huigra, and no further. I was told there was too little fuel to get the train to Alausí. The people on the train, who probably had relatives nearby, disappeared. There was no power, so what light there was came from oil lamps. Fortunately, I had included a flash-light in my little bag, but I had no more than a quick change of underwear and a few toiletries, as I had expected to stay overnight at Alausí. Eventually, with help of locals, I found a woman willing to rent me a room for the night. It was a spooky place (still no power, no light) and was just rough boards to make an enclosure on the top floor of the building. There was a smelly squat-toilet one floor down, and the bed was a thin mattress heavily stained. There was no lock on the door. I slept poorly, having had too little to eat, but thank glub there were no chinchas. It was a long night, made more-so as I thought of the relative comfort of the room at the Grand Hotel for which I would pay but not use.

The farthest building on the left was my “hotel”

In the next page I’ll describe how I got back to Guayaquil!

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It seems I do have a few followers, as revealed by Statcounter:

Regarding my hip replacement: It has been a piece of cake, as they say. And the latest news is I may not have my knee replaced after all! According to the latest MRI, everything that needs to be “there” is still there in my knee. The issues I have walking are due to muscle tone (and lack of it). So, I have been sent for “aggressive” Physical Therapy, and the therapist is sure she can eventually get me to walk again. We’ll see!

MEDICAL ISSUES

Early in 1987, the week before Easter, I paid a visit to my Stepmother. She was still mourning the loss of her husband; I was mourning the loss of my “lover”. I thought we could commiserate. However, I began feeling ill, and cut the visit short. My Doctor (for reasons only he knew) took a urine specimen and sent me to bed. Two days later my temperature was up to 104º, and I was feeling really, really bad! When I told the Doc the next day my temperature was still rising, he told me to check myself into the ER. I went by taxi, and after the check-in, I was seated in a wheel-chair to await triage.

Time passed, but eventually a nurse came by and stuck one of those new-fangled digital thermometers into my mouth. When it beeped, she departed and brought in another one and stuck IT into my mouth. When it, too, read 107º, she pushed the button: Code Blue! Within the next few minutes I was whisked up to an empty room and bed, and quickly surrounded with bags of ice. They began trying to insert an IV, but I was so dehydrated the nurse had a bad time and I was poked several times before a vein could be found. Sleeping among bags of ice reminded me of a few tricks!

Meanwhile, my Doctor had phoned in the results of his tests on my urine; I had a blood infection (septicemia) and the infectious agent (whatever it was) was susceptible to a particular anti-biotic, which they began feeding me through the IV. Within a couple of days, my temperature returned to normal and I was released with a prescription for Cipro. A temperature excursion like I had does “unwire” a few thing in the brain, and I felt rather strange for a week or so, but eventually got back to my normal routine.

Thus began a series of medical interventions of various forms. I got so that I could tell when the “bug” had gotten into my bloodstream again and I could head off calamity by chomping down more Cipro. The consensus was the bug was lodged in my prostate, which sent my PSA test results sky-rocketing. This required several uncomfortable biopsy procedures to be sure I did not have prostate cancer. Eventually, prostatitis required that my prostate should be removed: two weeks in hospital (the first week on massive IV drips of several antibiotics: they wanted a sterile field when they operated; then the operation; then another week of antibiotic drips) and a short recovery. Not much after that had been finalized, I began peeing blood. This turned out to be polyps in my bladder. Altogether, I had six operations to remove these, eventually successfully, although I go to this day twice a year so my urologist can have a look inside (though a cystoscope inserted like catheter is—OUCH)!

Through all this, from 1987 to 1994, I remained employed and got many things done to my house. I basically gave up sex, except for self abuse (why in the world do people use that term? “abuse” is nothing like it). My last “fling” lasted only three weeks, when I met a young fellow whose partner had passed away. I was impressed with the fact he’d stayed with his “significant other” for five years. But it quickly devolved that his previous paramour had lavished money and attention on him, and had required nothing whatever in return. When I made it clear I expected at least respect, and got none, I sent him packing.

Then, in 1994, I decided to go back to Ecuador and see what had become of the Guayaquil & Quito railroad. This time I took along a good camera, so the next 5 or 6 pages of photos will be devoted to that wonderful —and almost gone—railroad. Stay with me…

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