My father reads me like a book: when he calls me or I call him, the first thing he asks me is where I am. Once in 1979 I disappeared wordlessly from Rhode Island and drove to Montana alone. It was the first of my lengthy, random, solitary western adventures. My father understands spontaneity. 12 years ago, at age 80, he decided that he wanted to go to the 50th reunion at the college he’d taught at in Istanbul. My stepmother refused to go because my father wanted to be spontaneous and not book a room in advance. She's a Taurus like me. We like our creature comforts. He did the trip. My 2 sisters went along. 1 of them booked the room. My father would not sleep in a separate room. He did not want to miss a thing. When they came home, I heard from 3 different people about 3 entirely different trips. They all had a fabulous time. My dad brought home some very pretty bright-colored hand-woven table cloths that he’d selected at the market for my stepmother and me.
My dad and 2 sisters spent 3 weeks in Istanbul meeting many people who had had either my mother or him for professors back in the 1940s after the war. They each took the same ship, the Gripsholm, over from New York, a few months apart, in the summertime before fall semester started. My dad went to a job teaching engineering at Robert College. My mother went to a post teaching biology and botany at the American School for Girls, really a college. My mom arrived first. My dad spotted her shortly after he arrived, at a faculty picnic. She was not alone. A short while later, my father was out walking and he saw the police start to manhandle my mother and try to take her camera away. She had her brownie and was attempting to capture the view from a bridge. Apparently, she was a security risk. My handsome, well-appointed father stepped right in and told the police that he knew her and that she was an upstanding individual who was employed at the college. He may have saved her from a lengthy prison stay.
At the next faculty picnic, my mother arrived with a swarthy Romanian. Somewhere along the path, the Romanian stepped away to use the outhouse on a hill and it tipped over and tumbled down the hill with him inside. Well, he left early to clean up. My father moved quickly and the swarthy Romanian became history.
When I first heard this story 12 years ago, I wondered exactly how that outhouse got tipped over. Had it been a spontaneous gesture? Like Bailey White said, every family has a plumbing adventure & that was ours.
My dad and 2 sisters spent 3 weeks in Istanbul meeting many people who had had either my mother or him for professors back in the 1940s after the war. They each took the same ship, the Gripsholm, over from New York, a few months apart, in the summertime before fall semester started. My dad went to a job teaching engineering at Robert College. My mother went to a post teaching biology and botany at the American School for Girls, really a college. My mom arrived first. My dad spotted her shortly after he arrived, at a faculty picnic. She was not alone. A short while later, my father was out walking and he saw the police start to manhandle my mother and try to take her camera away. She had her brownie and was attempting to capture the view from a bridge. Apparently, she was a security risk. My handsome, well-appointed father stepped right in and told the police that he knew her and that she was an upstanding individual who was employed at the college. He may have saved her from a lengthy prison stay.
At the next faculty picnic, my mother arrived with a swarthy Romanian. Somewhere along the path, the Romanian stepped away to use the outhouse on a hill and it tipped over and tumbled down the hill with him inside. Well, he left early to clean up. My father moved quickly and the swarthy Romanian became history.
When I first heard this story 12 years ago, I wondered exactly how that outhouse got tipped over. Had it been a spontaneous gesture? Like Bailey White said, every family has a plumbing adventure & that was ours.
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