Man on the Moon!

Sam:  I want to know what you remember about the first time man was on the moon.  Do you remember where you were?  What was it like?  How did people feel about it?

It seems strange to me that I don't remember where I was when it happened.   I do remember reading an interview with a woman who commented, "We have enough troubles in our own country."  I guess she thought it was a waste of money or that the moon was just another country.  I often use her quote, when people totally miss the main idea.   There were lots of people who thought it was a government hoax and that it never really happened.  

 I remember watching on television, the first step on the moon and hearing the great quote, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

  I do remember exactly where I was when I heard that Kennedy was shot and, again,exactly where I was when I heard that the Challenger had exploded with the teacher, Crista McAuliffe on board.  I know where I was when I heard about the twin towers.  

That semester I was teaching at Mesa Community College and an older woman who was in my class had a daughter working in the Twin Towers.  The daughter had stayed home to go to the dentist that day and so had survived.  This woman was so shaken at how unpredictable life can be, that she moved back to New York to be near her daughter and grandchildren.

Maybe, the reason I don't remember the exact moment I heard about the landing on the moon is because it came about in stages and was no surprise when it finally happened.

I got to see the John Glenn space capsule in Manila when I was in the Peace Corps. The U.S. sent it around the globe for  exhibits.  It was in a park not too far from the Peace Corps office the summer we were working in Manila.

 I saw some space capsules at the Smithsonian and touched a moon rock there.   From an overpass in Reston, Va, I also saw the space shuttle come down the Dulles Toll Road on the back of a truck on its way to be flown back to Florida.

Sorry, Sam.  No great stories about the Man on the Moon.

Nixon?

Sam:  Tell me about Nixon.  And everything you remember about that time and his impeachment.  

I originally thought that Nixon was an okay sort of guy.  He was smart in school.  He had been raised in a minority religion and I could relate to that.  I thought that deep down he had values from his youth.  His wife was a school teacher and I could relate to that, as well.  

My family and almost all of Arizona had always been Democrats when I was growing up.  I thought of myself as Democrat but...not anything like the ones you hear and see in the party today.  After the Peace Corps, which appeared to me to be run by political pay- offs of  Kennedy with no idea what they were doing, I began to question  myself as a Democrat and, eventually, registered as an Independent.  This turned out to be really silly, since you have no say in the primary votes. Some states now let anyone vote in primaries, which creates other problems. 

 I worked several years to help Fairfax County integrate schools and to help  Head Start get going as part of the War on Poverty.  It was supposed to help eliminate poverty.  When I got invited to a big party celebrating the first graduate of Head Start to have a child in Head Start,  I was appalled that this would be something to celebrate--another generation in poverty.  My doctoral research at American University showed almost no gains for kids in Head Start over their siblings who never had Head Start.  Forty years later we continue to dump money into a program that is just another entitlement in the worst sense.  All this is to tell you how I moved from a Kennedy Democrat  over quite a few years to become a Republican. 

There was another scandal about a politician, Gary Hart, I think, from Colorado that also came from a minority religion so strict that he wasn't even allowed to dance. So when he was young he would drive out in the country to some slab of cement and dance away with his girlfriend.  Nothing wrong with that, by almost anyone's standards.   Later, he was moving onto the national scene when an almost complete  lack of morals was revealed to everyone.  This was a big insight into human behavior for me.  If person has a set of  values and he decides to step away from just part of them, then he is blowing in the wind.  Once he has broken with one of his values, he seems to lose his moral compass and begins to break more and more of his original values, many of which were very valuable in guiding his life, much more valuable than the first one that was broken.  I do think that people can grow up  and move away from their original religion and still have values, but they have to work at it and do some soul searching on their own.  They cannot rely on automatically following some standard that they no longer hold to.

Someone posted last week, something like, "Don't throw away something good until you have something better to replace it with."  I think that sums up the above paragraph.

Lyndon Johnson had some of these same moral problems.  He had been a poor teacher and worked his way up in Texas politics.  He and/or his supporters  began to use methods of getting elected that were shady.  Near the end of his term, it seems like there was an investigation and a  secretary who knew a lot of secrets, was "accidentally" killed in a plane crash in the ocean.

     

What about this John Edwards who was running for president.  I didn't see any redeeming qualities in him from the beginning, but I haven't read that much about him.  

 Back to Nixon!  Since I now identified myself as a Republican, I didn't want to believe Nixon could be really bad, but it was beginning to look like it might be.  People couldn't go after him, at first, because the Vice President, Spiro Agnew, was totally corrupt, so they had to get rid of the Vice President first before they could go after Nixon.  In the end, Nixon did not seem to have any boundaries that he wouldn't cross.  When the tapes of his conversations were opened to the public, I was revolted that he had vulgar language, as well. 

I felt so sorry for his wife and children when he had to resign.  Some of his staff members went to jail.  I felt for their families, as well.  Nixon was probably not the worst president that the U.S. has had, but he was, maybe, the most disappointing in my lifetime. 

Post Script:  Just this year I read a book about Nixon and Jack Anderson, a popular columnist who lived in the Washington, D.C. suburbs.  Nixon hated him and had the FBI or Secret Service or his own goons try to get something on Anderson's kids such as drug usage, etc.  They came back with the answer, that his kids don't even drink coca cola.  Jack Anderson was a Mormon.  Nixon or his cohorts even had a plan to poison Jack Anderson by painting a poison substance on his steering wheel that could be absorbed into the body.

Fourth Grade

Fourth Grade Memories

Miss Augusta was my fourth grade teacher.  This photo must have been taken about the time I was in her class, since it looks just like I remember her.  She was an exceptional teacher.  I have used her as an example in many classes I have taught for teachers and students planning to become teachers.  I was always going to write her a letter and tell her what a good teacher she was, but I procrastinated until it was too late.  Thinking back over my fourth grade memories, not a single one is traumatic or negative.

Our Marvelous Coat Closet

On the west wall of our classroom was a long skinny coatroom.  Many  classrooms have a coatroom, but not like this one.  In our coat room was the most amazing thing--a glass beehive with a glass tunnel that led over to the window, so the bees could go in and out.   I remember  watching the bees at work and hoping to get a glimpse of the queen bee.

Another memory of this coat closet happened one winter day
 right after lunch.  Everybody went home for lunch.   At our house, my mother always had us wear an apron to protect our clothes from spills.  That afternoon, standing in the coat closet,  I took off my coat and hung it on a hook.  A girl in my class said, "Why did you wear that apron to school?"  I give her a look.  Then she says, "Oh, did you sew it yourself?"  I don't remember what I said next, but I quickly took off the apron, before someone else saw it and hung it on the hook underneath my coat. 

The Widow's Walk

I do not know why such a house was built in Snowflake, Arizona, which is far from any seaport, but Miss Augusta lived in this house.  It had a widow's walk on the roof like a lot of East Coast houses where the husbands went to sea and the wife would walk up and look out to see if her husband's ship was returning. 

On a clear night, Miss Augusta invited our entire fourth grade class to her house. She took us up on the roof and used a flashlight  to point out all the constellations.  It is the only time I was ever on a widow's walk in my entire life. 

Frogs Eggs

One spring day, Miss Augusta took us on a walk to a pond where we found some frog eggs.  We scooped them up and the next day they were in a huge tub at the back of the room.  I don't remember that they ever hatched into poly-wogs and later frogs.  But, later, after a big flood at the ranch, my siblings and I got frog's eggs and watched then change to poly-wogs and then grow legs and lose their tails to to become frogs.

Speaking Spanish

Miss Augusta had a metal box of pamphlet size books in the classroom.  One of them was about Mexico.  In the back was a section with words to learn in Spanish.  I taught myself to count in Spanish and also phrases such as, "Usted, Amigo?"  I was probably motivated by the fact that Mexican sheepherders often drove their sheep across our ranch and would say to my father, "No savvy d'English." They would often give my father a baby lamb or a goat for the grass that their sheep would eat while crossing our land. I remember having to feed the lamb or kid with a bottle until they grew enough old to eat grass or hay.

The Bear Pit in Bern

You may wonder why I have a bear pit in Bern on my fourth 

grade  blog.  It is because our fourth grade  social studies book  had a picture of it.  Many years later when I took my kids to Europe for a summer, I remembered and wanted to show them the bear pit.  We took a special train all the way to Bern and then a local bus and then walked.  We finally arrived.  We peered down into the bear pits, but there were no bears.  It turned out that it was a Sunday and the bears don't come out on Sunday.  So although I have seen a bear pit, I still have never seen a bear in a bear pit. 

(I looked it up on the internet and it seems that Bern has  built a new bear pit.  The article didn't say if the bears come out on Sundays, now,or not.  My grand daughter, Rachael went there in the summer of 2014 just  in honor of this story)

The Kalamazoo Clu

(Also known as the Culvert Club)

One weekend, I was picking at a scab on my knee, and it began to bleed.  So, as not to waste this good blood,  I got a pen and and notebook and wrote my name in blood.  By fourth grade, I was reading a lot of chapter books and, no doubt, this idea came from one of them.  Now, that I had signed my name in blood, I decided to start a club and get other kids to join.  Of course, they would have to sign their names in blood, as well.

I wanted the club to have a really good name,   I thought and thought. In our side yard, sat an old iron stove with the magical word, "Kalamazoo," written on it.  I liked the sound of it.  What a fun name!  I wrote the new name of the club on the front cover of the notebook.

The next day at school, I explained this wonderful club to my friends and we arranged to meet at recess in the culvert that drained the playground.  Our culvert was big enough for quite a few of us to sit in, but not big enough to stand in.  There was never any water in it.  It was perfect for our secret club meetings.  Several of my friends pricked their fingers and signed their name in blood.   It seems that I didn't get far enough in my club plans to decide a purpose for the club, so after a few meetings, we went on to some other recess activity.





Imagine my surprise, years later, when I discovered that Kalamazoo was not a magical word, but was a city in Michigan and that the stove had probably been manufactured there.





)

The First Time I Tasted Spaghetti 

One afternoon, Pearl Bigler, announced to the class that today was her birthday and we were all invited to go to her house for a birthday party.  She lived a little ways southeast of the town.   A group of kids began walking down the street which was on my way home from school.  My mother was a teacher at the school that year and had to stay after school so I couldn't really ask her permission to go.  I can remember right where I was standing with this group of kids and had to decide to go up the hill to my house or turn the corner and go with the group to Pearl's birthday party.  I chose to go with the others.  It was quite a hike  and part of it was along the railroad tracks.  Maybe we even crossed a railroad bridge because I can remember thinking what should we do if a train comes along. 

This was a surprise birthday party.  That is, it was a surprise for Pearl's mother.  She had not made any plans for a birthday party and did not have a cake made, but she was very resourceful.  While we played, "Red Rover, Red Rover"  she made a big pot of spaghetti and everyone enjoyed it.  It was the first time that I had every eaten spaghetti. 

We all walked back to town together and I went home.  When I got there, Ada, who sometimes worked for us, said to me,"You are in real trouble, your mom and dad are out looking for you right now."  Sure enough, she was right.  I think this was the last time my parents ever had to go looking for me.

Perfect Attendance

At the end of the year, I got the only perfect attendance certificate that I ever received in all my school years.  I tried to figure out why.  Was it because I loved school so much?  Was it because I was extra healthy that year?  No!  I figured it out.  My mother was teaching sixth grade in our same school that year and no one would be home to take care of me if I was sick.

A Child's Memory of World War II

I promised Elizabeth to tell my childhood memories of World War II so I am writing this second blog, only to discover that I have told several of these stories as part of other blogs.  In order to make this one all encompassing, I have lifted those stories and put them into this blog, as well. Sorry if you already read them.

I was seven when the war started and eleven when it ended and these are my memories of World War II.

"Remember Pearl Harbor" 

 

My first memory of World War II was on Dec. 7, 1941.  The news about Japan bombing Pearl Harbor came over the radio and our family had heard it and talked about it that night.    The next day I was late walking the two blocks to school.  All the children were already in their classrooms.   As I was hurrying  up the semi-circle sidewalk toward the front door of the school, I heard the radio in the eighth grade classroom. This was very unusual since radios or films were not a normal part of the classroom in those days.  I recognized the distinctive voice of  President Roosevelt.  I walked over closer and stood under the window of the eighth grade classroom  and  listened as  President Roosevelt declared war.  I somehow knew that this was an historic moment and so, even though I was late,  I stayed to listen. 

 Shortly thereafter,  slogans on pins and posters popped up everywhere, saying, " Remember Pearl Harbor."  I do remember it  more than seventy years later.  

War Stamps and War Bonds

The next war related memory I have is that, Miss Flake, our third grade teacher, gave everyone in class a little stamp book.  The government needed money for the war and were selling bonds to the public.    Even little children could help by buying stamps for 10 cents each. It took 75 stamps to fill a book.  Miss Flake gave little prizes at certain designated levels. It seems like I got a coloring book, when I finally got the entire book filled with stamps.  

 

The book was turned in for a $10 War Bond, which I remember as being very fancy and official looking compared to the wrinkly messy stamp book I had been carrying around all year. You couldn't cash the bond for a whole ten years, but you felt really good about "helping win the war."  

 Winning the War, One Gum Wrapper at a Time

Another way a child could help win the war was to save the foil wrapped around a stick of gum or candy bar.  You had to carefully peel off the foil from the underlying paper and then you wrapped it around the ball of foil in the classroom.  In fourth grade we had a classroom ball of tin foil.   I think there might have been a contest to see which classroom could get the most tin foil because I remember kids bragging on the playground about how big our classroom ball had grown. 

The Mysterious, Yet Familiar, Handwriting on the Envelope

One day my father came home from the post office with a letter for me.  I think this might be the first letter I had every received, addressed personally to me.  I looked at the envelope to see who it is from.  It didn't have a return address on it but the hand writing looks familiar.  I thought I had seen it somewhere before.   I remember thinking that it might be  from  my Aunt Natalia.   She often wrote to my mother and  we considered her sort of a substitute grandmother since we didn't have any grandparents.   I tore open the envelope and out fell  the contest rules and entry form for a scrap paper contest that the Arizona Republic was sponsoring to help the war effort.  I had sent a self addressed envelope to the newspaper perhaps a week or so, before, and had forgotten all about it.  The familiar writing on the envelope was my very own.  I can still see the careful way I had written Rayna Gay Pace on the envelope in my very best Palmer cursive handwriting.

This advertisement suggests that the scrap paper could be used for paper
parachutes.  Other places say they packed parts for machines in the paper.

The contest rules stated that the total weight of the papers and books collected would determine the winner. I set to work collecting all the newspapers I could.   In Snowflake there was a ZCMI  or maybe it was an SCMI store that had become defunct by the time we moved there.  One day they were tearing it down and throwing out some very heavy account books from the store.  My father brought them home for my paper drive, because they were so heavy.  (They would be very valuable today as historic relics but they went to a scrap paper drive for the war.)   Of course I didn't win the contest.  Even if I had collected all the available paper in the entire town of Snowflake, maybe even the whole Navajo county, it wouldn't have been enough to win the contest.  A boy in Phoenix, who also delivered newspapers, won.  With the use of fliers and his father's help and a pick-up truck, they had collected thousands of pounds of paper from a wide area with hundreds of homes.  Did I mention that the prize was a horse?

Although scrap iron, aluminum, rubber, and  even rags were collected, I have no personal memory of these being collected at school or in our town. 

Milk Weeds and the War

Japan had control of Indonesia which supplied most of the kapok for life jackets and life preservers. The U.S had to substitute milkweed "floss" for the kapok.  Some schools collected bags of the fluffy seeds.  One of my teachers must  have talked about it to our class.  When I delivered newspapers, I saw milk weeds growing on a lot of vacant lots and along the side the dirt roads in Snowflake.  I remember looking at all the fluffy seeds and thinking that I should gather them up  for the war effort.  It never happened, but whenever I see milk weeds, I still remember that they could save lives.

Tin Can Tap Dancing

 In addition to those pre-school tap dancing lessons I had taken in Safford, my mother found me another teacher in Snowflake.  She lived in a tiny apartment above a free-standing one-car garage.  I remember dancing in her tiny living room.  Having poor rhythm ability and no real talent in music, this didn't last very long.

 I was never destined for a dance career, but because of the war effort to collect scrap tin cans, I got my one big chance in the spotlight..  During some school patriotic program, another girl and I had a tap dancing duet.  We tapped onto the stage to a song about saving tin cans for the war effort.  We carried in our hands a tin can with both ends cut out.  After a little bit of tap dancing, the song ended with something like, "Stomp on that tin can," or "Mash it Flat."   We lay the cans on their sides and stomped them flat.  That was the end of my tap dance career although my brain and feet still know all the steps to "School Days, Good Old Golden Rule Day."  I just stood up from the computer and did it to see if I could.   And I could!

Pennies Change Color

I do remember when pennies changed color.  Because of the shortage of copper, the government began to make zinc coated steel pennies instead of copper ones.  They might be described as silver in color, but it was not a pretty silver like a dime.  They were a flat dirty gray color.  Of course, the copper ones were still available and I even remember that once in a while you would even come across  an Indian head penny, still in circulation.  I wish I had known to keep  some of them.  However, my father realized that these zinc pennies would be collectors items and glued one into a scrapbook along with some rations cards.  ( In that same scrapbook, he had some heavy cardboard  "coins" produced by the State of Arizona in the 1930's for sales tax purposes.  There was  half cent piece and even a one tenth cent piece.  Imagine, making change for a penny and now they are thinking to do away with the penny, altogether.

Stars Change Colors

One out of three sons died in this family.

If a member of your house was in one of the armed services, the government issued you a blue star to put in your window.  If the that person died in the service, then you got a gold star.  Since I delivered the newspaper and went past every house in town, everyday, except Sunday, I would be one of the first persons to notice if a blue star turned gold.  I do, in fact, remember when one family's blue star came down and they put up a gold one. 

Gum Goes Away

My mother would always dole out a half stick of gum to each kid, but soon it became almost impossible to get any kind of gum..  Wrigley's ceased making gum altogether because they were unable to import the ingredients.  

An artificial gum called Orbit came out and, of course, with no tin foil in the wrapper.   It was not very tasty and it didn't chew that great either.  In the last few years this name has  been brought back as a new brand of gum.

After the war, gum began to be manufactured again, but it was in short supply.   I can remember a new grocery store opening, and to lure customers they offered  two free  pieces of bubble gum.  They were swamped with customers.    Everyone wanted a piece of bubble gum.

A girl in my seventh grade class at Kenilworth School brought to school a whole box of bubble gum.  Her father worked for a candy distributor and he had gotten her  a box of 144 pieces of gum meant to sell for a penny.  She sold them to my classmates and kids in all the upper grades for one dollar each.  There were plenty of buyers.  That was quite a profit, $144 for what cost about $1 wholesale.  Another financial lesson learned.  Supply and demand dictate the price of even something as everyday as chewing gum.

My Chinese Connection

One day when I was delivering newspapers to a certain house, their son, who was in the military, was home on furlough.  He had brought home some Chinese coins and he gave me one.  It was copper with a square hole in the middle and had Chinese characters on it.  I was told that Chinese kept their money on a cord strung through this hole.  I kept this coin up until my children were in school. I let one of them take it for show -and-tell along with some other coins and a piece of Indian wampum.   The Chinese coin never made it home.  When I was teaching in China I bought another one like it at a market. 

Three Stories about U. S  Enemies
(as seen by children)

One day a total stranger stopped in Snowflake.  I don't know any of the details of the adult interaction, but  all the kids at school were talking about him.   The general conclusion was that he was a German spy. 

Our family subscribed to the Children's Playmate Magazine and they had a contest to finish a drawing of a basic human figure to represent a person from a foreign country in their native dress.  I had a new set of colored pencils and thought, that I could win this contest.   My idea was to finish the figure as Hitler and put a noose around his neck going up to a wooden scaffold.  I drew a Nazi uniform, probably researched from our stash of Life magazines.  I got Hitler's hair and mustache, just right. I can still remember coloring the rope yellow.  With the money I made from the paper route,  I could easily afford the three cent stamp and so I submitted it with great hopes.  Obviously, I didn't win.

My younger brother, Wendell,  had a worn-out pair of boots that were too small for him.  My father told him to throw them in the big stove that heated our living room.  Wendell did not want to part with his boots.  So, I got the great idea to name one boot, Tojo, and the other one Hitler.  Only then, at age 3, did he agree to throw them into the fire.  I opened  the door of the stove and he threw the little boots into the roaring fire.

The Well Traveled Divinity
A Very Sad Story

Our Aunt Natalia had two sons, Gilbert, who joined the Air Corps, and Malcolm, who joined the Army.  Gilbert flew planes in Burma and China and Malcolm was in an armored division on the ground in Europe.  Aunt Natalia gave Gilbert's trumpet to my brother, Milton, and she gave me Malcolm's saxophone, which I played in  band all the way from elementary school through college.  Since both of her sons were gone, Aunt Natalia lived alone.  On the weekends, she would sometimes drive from St. Johns over to Snowflake where three of her sisters lived.

One weekend when she came over, my mother suggested that we make a batch of divinity candy to send to Malcolm.  Divinity is a light fluffy confection that requires a lot of beating, but my mother had an electric mixer that made the job easier.  We kids cracked black walnuts and dug out the nut meats, while my mother and Aunt Natalia made the divinity.  After the candy cooled, we packed it into a tin can with a tight lid.  Aunt Natalia labeled it with Malcolm's APO address and my mother said she would mail it on Monday.  We got a letter from Aunt Natalia the next week saying how worried she was about Malcolm.  That night she had heard on the radio that the 12th Armored Division was meeting stiff resistance.  That was the first time she had heard his specific division mentioned on the radio.  Shortly after that she got a telegram telling her that Malcolm had been killed in the very battle that had been mentioned on the radio.  Some time later, we went to his funeral in St. Johns and there was a military contingent there to do honors with taps and gun salute and the folded flag.  It was very sad.  When my youngest brother was born, my parents  named him, Malcolm, to honor this cousin, that we knew so well.

Some time later, to our surprise we got the can of divinity back marked, "undeliverable."   It had traveled to Europe by ship and probably all the way to the front lines and  had been returned by ship, I assume, because of the long delay.  My mother didn't want to open it.  I remember that  we took it outside and tried to eat some of it.  The nuts were totally rancid, but the divinity surrounding the nuts was still good.

  

 Other Family Members Who Went to War

Besides Malcolm Greer and his brother, Gilbert Greer, we had many relatives who were also  in the war.  My brother, Arman, is named for Col Arman Peterson, my mother's cousin.     His father, Uncle Andrew, was my grandmother Isaacson's brother and  he was a history professor at Northern Arizona State College, in Flagstaff.

Col. Arman Peterson flew 43 combat missions and was awarded the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Purple Heart ,and  the Air Medal with three Oak-leaf Clusters.  He was the commanding office of the Duxford base in England when his plane went missing over Nazi occupied Europe.

My father's youngest brother, Lincoln, served in the Navy on a submarine.  We had a picture of him in his uniform.  My father's sister, Beth and her oldest daughter served in some service because we had pictures of them in their uniforms, as well.

My father's oldest brother, Wilson's oldest son  was an instructor training pilots to fly.  He died in a mid-air collision in 1944..  My father knew a Navajo woman who wove rugs and he got her to weave a small Navajo rug with a gold star to honor his death.  A book about Levi Wilson Pace, Jr.  has just recently been published.

We knew Melvin Denham, my cousin, really well, since he lived very near us in Snowflake and we spent time with their family.  He went into the Army during World War II and was sent to fight in Europe.  In one battle he was wounded in the neck and was bleeding badly from his jugular vein (I think) and a medic came by and inserted a bladder from his fountain pen into his vein and saved his life.

Aunt Ella who also lived in Snowflake, had three sons in the service, Harold, Lyle, and Herman.  Harold was stationed in Walla Walla, Washington.   As children, we thought that name was very funny and like to say it over and over, "Walla Walla, Washington."     I remember just one story from the war about these boys.  Harold was older than the usual recruit and even had false teeth.  When he was being sent overseas, he became sea sick and vomited over the side of the ship, losing his false teeth in the process.  All three of Aunt Ella's sons returned home from war, alive.  

My mother was one of ten children and there were eight cousins  that served in World War II, but I didn't know them very well.  There were several other cousins on my father's side that also served.   As near as I can remember, there were no other deaths.

The War Ends

Everyone knew that the war was ending by the  fall of 1945, when my parents moved to Phoenix.  I don't remember any big celebration at home or in our neighborhood when the war ended.  I do remember the famous picture of the kissing nurse and sailor in Life magazine.   I knew that President Roosevelt had died before the end of the war and that Truman had become president.   Everyone knew the name of General MacArthur and General Eisenhower.  But we no longer went to movies on a regular basis, so we didn't see the newsreels.  Nor, was I delivering newspapers on a daily basis and seeing all the headlines.  All the war stuff took a back seat to adjusting to a new school, living in a city rather than on a farm or a ranch, and becoming a teenager.

Happy Mother's Day from Kai

Mean Mom 

Many years ago, while I was in law school in New York City, I served as the scoutmaster for a new Boy Scout troop the South Bronx. There were 16 boys in my scout troop, ages 12 to 17. All of them were black, none of them had fathers, and they lived in public housing projects that were more than a little scary when I had to walk them home at night after our scout troop meetings were over. The boys in my troop were great kids, but for the most part, they had challenges that are common with kids from the projects. They tended not to do well in school, and had trouble reading, even the simple things contained in the Scout Handbook. Even though they were good kids, they ran with a rough crowd, and some of them were already getting in trouble at school and having brushes with the law. As I got to know them over the two years I spent as scoutmaster for that troop, I often despaired when I thought of what the likely outcomes were for many of them. They seemed to lack some of the most basic skills and traits that would allow them to make it in the world outside of the projects. 

One of the boys was different. He had no problems reading the Scout Handbook. In fact, he usually had a book with him that he was reading just for fun, much to the amusement of the other kids. He was a bright, handsome boy, and he had a self-assured but quiet air about him that contrasted a bit with the loud, harsh swagger of some of the other boys. Once, when he missed a scout activity, I asked the other boys where he was. They told me, “He can’t come because he has a Mean Mom. She won’t let him come. She’s a really Mean Mom. She won’t let him do anything.” As it turned out, this boy’s Mean Mom had found out that he was getting behind in school, and had made him stay home from scouts to get caught up on his homework. The kids were sort of right about the Mean Mom not letting her son do “anything,” although it would be more accurate to say that she wouldn’t let her son do “nothing.” She made sure he was at church, and school, and he was active in sports, but she wouldn’t let him hang out doing “nothing” in the neighborhood with the other boys. She kept a pretty close eye on what he was doing, which made her a pretty Mean Mom. 



During my time as a scoutmaster, I got to know more about this boy’s Mean Mom. She was an immigrant from the Caribbean, and her English was richly accented with a Caribbean flavor. Unlike the other boys’ mothers, she had a job, doing cleaning work in the city. When I saw her at church or at her home, she always looked a bit tired. She had a lot of energy when it came to looking out for her son, however. I first met her in person at a scout meeting before our first camping activity. She showed up with her son, and asked me a bunch of questions: Where were we going? How were we getting there? What were we planning to do when we got there? Who else was going? Who was driving? When would her son be coming back? The encounter had the intimidating feel of an FBI security clearance interrogation. I could kind of see why all the boys referred to her as “the Mean Mom.”

After a couple of years, I moved out of the city, my work as scoutmaster of that South Bronx troop ended, and I never did see any of the boys again. Sometimes I wonder what became of them. Although I hope that all of my scouts were able to avoid the bad influences that surrounded them and managed to make something good out of their lives, the only boy that I really would have bet on was the boy with the Mean Mom. That is because I was lucky enough to have a Mean Mom, and I know first-hand what a difference it can make. 

When my father left, my Mom became a single parent with two children under the age of two. At the time, she didn’t have the skills to build a career for herself, so she was forced to go back to school. When I was growing up, my Mom was going to school and holding down a job too. She took any job she could find, including jobs that the media these days say that Americans won’t do. My mom cleaned houses, worked as a janitor, and other menial jobs. She crossed union picket lines to work as a substitute teacher during a strike, delivered phone books, sold Avon, and whatever else she had to do to pay the bills and take care of the family. 

We were poor, but I always had nice clothes to wear to school, and there were always presents under the tree at Christmas and some money to buy books from the Scholastic Book Club catalog. My mother didn’t have time for herself. She didn’t date. She didn’t go to parties. She didn’t take vacations from her kids. She worked. She went to school. She took me to church. She came to my baseball games, track meets, Cub Scouts, soccer, and piano recitals. Eventually, due to her work at getting an education, her thrift, and her willingness to do whatever was needed, she raised our family from being poor to middle class. We went from food stamps and free lunch to a nice home in a good neighborhood, and a family vacation to Europe. 

Like other Mean Moms, my mother didn’t want me to do “nothing.” She thought I should always be doing something useful. My Mean Mom didn’t approve of Saturday morning cartoons on t.v. There were too many “important” things to do other than watching cartoons. I had homework. I had activities. I had chores. I had work. 

Other kids got an allowance. My Mean Mom made me work for the money I needed. No work meant no spending money, so I worked. When I was in second grade, my Mean Mom got me my first real job, working at a local shoe store. I swept the floors, I emptied and cleaned the ash trays, I wiped the windows, I vacuumed the carpets. I got paid a dollar an hour for my work. I didn’t know it at the time, but (at first) my mom was giving the store manager the money to pay my salary. (Although after a while, he decided I was worth a dollar an hour and paid it himself.) The summer before 7th grade, my Mean Mom insisted that I get a paper route. This meant that I had to get up early every morning in every weather. With her encouragement, I kept expanding my paper route activities and by the time I was a Junior in high school, I had four paper routes and was getting up at 4:00 a.m. to deliver hundreds of papers every morning. With a Mean Mom, summers were not a time for relaxing either. Even though I would rather have spent my summers doing nothing, my Mean Mom insisted that I work. She got me summer jobs doing landscaping, laying asphalt, yardwork, working at the local ice cream store, and anything else I was good for. 

The “worst” job my Mean Mom got me was one that took up several precious summer Saturdays. A friend of a friend needed people to disassemble an old steel girder building and stack the steel on trailers to be hauled away and recycled. I wasn’t interested in the job, but my Mean Mom committed me to it without asking me my opinion. When I asked how much I was getting paid, she said she didn’t know. The man who was hiring people for the job had been reluctant to take me because I was just a teenager and the other people he was hiring were adults. My Mean Mom had convinced him to take me by telling him he only had to pay me “what I was worth.” I was distressed by this, but she told me that I should never be afraid to be paid only what I was worth. The job turned out to be worse than I had imagined. The building was in a swampy area ankle deep with stagnant water, horrid smelling mud and mosquitoes, and tearing the building down was hot, exhausting, and more than a little dangerous. I did everything I could to prove I was worth as much as any other person there because I was a teen age boy on a crew of men, getting paid only “what I was worth.” At the end of every day, I got paid in cash, and it was the same as the other men on the job. When I remember how mad I was at my Mean Mom for committing me to take this job, I have to smile. I’ve never had a paycheck since that time that I was more proud of, and since that job, I’ve never been afraid to be paid only what I’m worth. 

My Mean Mom valued education maybe even more than she valued hard work. My very earliest memories are of my mother teaching me how to read. As I grew up, she spent hours making me do school work; drilling me with math flashcards, staying up late working with me on essays, and helping me memorize all the world leaders for a social studies test. There were always many other things I’d rather be doing, but my Mean Mom insisted that I not waste my time doing any of these other things. School always came first. She wouldn’t let me hang out at the mall, but there was always time to hang out at the library. We didn’t have an Atari game system in my house (my Mean Mom didn’t approve of them,) but we had tons of books.

When I was a teenager, it seemed like my mom and I had a harder and harder time getting along. I became convinced that my Mom was the world’s Meanest Mom. We fought constantly, and I ended up living with my grandparents for several years because of the friction between us. However, as I have grown older, I’ve come to love and appreciate my Mean Mom more and more with every passing year. It would have been a lot easier for her not to be a Mean Mom. She spent so much time being a Mean Mom that there was very little left over for herself. I’m sure that sometimes, given my rebellion and resistance, she despaired of raising a son who would ever amount to anything. It makes me happy to know that I haven’t been a disappointment to her and that since I’ve grown up, I’ve done some things that she can be proud of.

When I look at the lessons I learned, and the experiences that truly shaped my early life, most of them are the result of my Mean Mom. She taught me how to work. She gave me my love of reading and my appreciation for the importance of education. She taught me self-reliance. She taught me that loving your children doesn’t mean giving them everything that they want. Many of the best parts of me, the traits that have allowed me to make my way in the world, were the result of having a Mean Mom. As I look around at the seemingly insurmountable problems in our society, issues that governments, schools and other organizations have wrestled with unsuccessfully for decades, I believe in my heart that the only real solution is more Mean Moms. A mother is uniquely able to influence the lives of her children in a way that no one else can.

I was blessed with an exceptional mother. She put her children first, and loved me enough to be a Mean Mom, when it would have been so much easier to just let me do what I wanted to do. There’s never been a time that she was not willing to sacrifice her own needs for me. I’m grateful she was willing to do what was necessary to raise me the best way she knew how. We didn’t always get along, and we have had more than our share of disagreements as I was growing up, but I’ve always known that she loved me.

I love you Mom. Happy Mother’s Day 

Peace Corps

Life as a Wife and a Volunteer—Peace Corps Style

Rayna Larson

Why I Joined the Peace Corps

In the orientation at Penn State, I remember being told that people never do anything for just one reason.  We all have multiple reasons for doing everything we do, including joining the Peace Corps.  Today we might call these “talking points”. 

To See the World

Just before our final departure my husband Blaine and I were asked “Why we joined the Peace Corps?” by a reporter from The Arizona Republic, who came to take our photo and interview us.  We dutifully gave the reporter multiple reasons for joining, but the only one printed in the story was that we wanted, “to see the world.”  This resulted in a nasty letter from a reader who was angry that his tax money was going to be spent for us to take a two year vacation to “see the world.”  And to think that all along, we thought we were “doing something for our country!”

A Family Tradition

My grandfather after his return from Samoa.

My great, great grandfather in his old age.

 Some of those multiple reasons included my Mormon heritage.  I had read my great, great grandfather’s journal written in the mid 1800’s.  He was called as a young man to go on a mission to Burma but ended up teaching English in India and couldn't get home to America for several years.  In the late 1800’s my grandfather, James Byrum Pace, saved his money as a teacher and went to Samoa on a mission.  I probably would have gone on a mission, too, but in those years, a young woman had to be 23 years old before she could go and I was married by then.  When the Peace Corps was announced, it seemed like a second chance for me to “do something good for the world.”

Presidential Junkie

Another reason was that I was a political junkie—really a presidential junkie.  I even wrote a letter to President Truman when I was in elementary school. On one summer vacation, our family ended up in the same city as a national convention of governors and I saw Thomas Dewey in the parade.  When he ran against Truman, I wanted him to win just so I could say I had seen a president of the United States.   

In February of 1959, a banquet celebrating the Sesquicentennial of Lincoln’s birth was held in Washington, D.C.    It was announced that all three living U.S. presidents were going to be in attendance.  Two students from every state would be invited as guests to represent their home state.  Through a nomination from my school, American University, I became one of the two students representing Arizona.  Herbert Hoover wasn't there, but Truman was and Eisenhower gave the major speech.  I not only got to see a U. S. President, but I sat down to dinner with two presidents, albeit at a distant table.

We were given the newly minted pennies
not yet released to the public and our
plates were specially made for the
celebration.  Some students at my table
didn't want their plates,so I got a set of
four plates.

When Kennedy was elected, I was living in the Washington suburbs.  The night before his inauguration, a huge snow storm hit the area.  Newscasts were filled with stories of people who where snowed in.  I was determined to attend the inauguration, but no one wanted to go.  I finally convinced my sister, who was an English major, with the promise of seeing Robert Frost in person.  So very early that morning, we left her one year old baby with our husbands, dressed in our warmest clothes and snow boots and drove through the snow bound streets.  It was a great day. My sister got to see Robert Frost and I got to attend a U.S. Presidential inauguration in person.  “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country,” became another reason why I joined the Peace Corps. 

A Married Couple Joins the Peace Corps

I have often been asked what it was like being in the Peace Corps as a couple.  Some assume it was a romantic adventure; others think it might have proven difficult because of too much togetherness.  Let me relate some experiences which illustrate our life as a Peace Corps couple.

Penn State Memories

One small group  at Penn State training . Blaine is in the center back row and I am  one over to the right.  

At Penn State, where our training began, we were housed in the girls dorm with bunk beds--enough said!  Someone even thought we were brother and sister since we had the same unique last name, Larson-Crowther, which was a combination of Blaine’s father’s and stepfather’s names.  When everyone went camping, Blaine went with the men and I went with the women, which worked out fine.

 

Then, when it came time for the flight over the Pacific, our group was divided into males and females, and this time, Blaine and I were put in the male group.  We flew in a prop jet which was very slow and had to stop for refueling at places made famous by World War II—Midway, Guam, Wake, and Pearl Harbor.    My memory is that it took two nights and a day or maybe more to get to the Philippines.  After we arrived, we were not allowed to deplane, but had to sit in the hot plane on the tarmac in Manila waiting for the female volunteers to arrive by jet from Hawaii.   Although the females left at the same time, they were in a faster plane, which gave them a layover in Hawaii for a day at the beach so that our two planes would arrive in Manila at the same time.  All this was carefully planned so that rather than getting photos of tired, grumpy guys with two-day-old stinky, sweaty clothes, the news photographers could get pictures of pretty girls, newly suntanned and wearing fresh clothes, coming gracefully down the steps of their more modern jet airplane.
Eventually we were allowed to deplane and join in the ceremonies planned for us at the airport.  We were welcomed as the second wave of “Thomasites,” a group of 500 American teachers who had come to teach in the Philippines in the early 1900’s.

This is how we looked after we were finally allowed to deplane at the airport.  

Los Baños Memories

This picture was in a national magazine and  was  taken
by another volunteer.  We are watching a demonstration
lesson on science.

 During our in-country training at Los Baños, we didn’t live with the other volunteers, but were assigned to live in the International House for foreign students at the college.  This meant that we were somewhat isolated from the other members of our group, especially during the evenings; however, we met and became friends with some of the foreign students living there.  We never saw a menu, but every night, when we went to the dining hall, a plate of food was placed in front of us.  We noticed that friends sitting next to us were served entirely different plates of food.  One night when we arrived at the table we pointed to their plates and asked if we could have the same thing.  We were told that Pakistanis eat Pakistani food and that Americans eat American food.  We laughed inwardly because nothing we had eaten had                          a familiar taste to it.

Filipinos treated us royally with dinners and programs, even giving us Filipino skirts and blouses.
This is after a program in Los Banos.  I am the tall one on the left. 

We were also expected to put programs on for them.
I am the one on the right.

Wives Are Supposed to Know Everything

After Blaine was chosen to be one of the volunteer leaders, he went to our assigned province, Sorsogon, ahead of the main group of volunteers, which meant I was left alone at the International House for a period of time—long enough for Blaine to write me letters.  One evening a knock on the door brought a Peace Corps staff member holding one of Blaine’s letters clearly addressed to me.  On the back was written something like, “Tell so-and-so that I am working on it.”    To my surprise he demanded that I open the letter and let him read it.  When the letter didn’t reveal whatever information he was seeking, he demanded to know what Blaine had told me about this situation.   Apparently, one volunteer had previously asked Blaine to arrange a transfer from her assignment to one in Sorsogon.  I didn’t know anything about it.  The leader insisted that I wasn’t telling the truth and that Blaine would certainly have discussed this with me.  I really had never heard a single word about it.  After my visitor left, I started crying-- maybe from loneliness or maybe because I had been treated so rudely or maybe because Blaine hadn’t told me anything about it.  In a few seconds, there was a soft knock on my door.  Two Filipino members of the International House staff had come to comfort me, having heard this entire conversation through the wall.  Then, I began to wonder what else they had heard through the wall in the previous weeks.

“Get Me to the Train on Time”

This looks like the Legazpi  train station.  

After the Filipino elections the day finally arrived when all the volunteers were to leave Los Baños for their assignments.   Our group was to take the Bicol Express train to Legaspi and then travel on to Sorsogon by bus.  As directed, I packed my suitcase and sat on the steps of the International House.  I waited and waited, but no one came.  Finally I went inside and called the Peace Corps office.  They had completely forgotten about me.  Shortly thereafter a driver arrived in a jeep to pick me up.  Off we went flying through the jungle trying to beat the train to the next station.  A bumpy zigzagging road and no seat belts meant that I had to hang on for dear life.  Of course, there was no way that a jeep going on a rough road through the jungle could beat a train.  Someone had phoned the train to wait for us, but the train had a schedule to keep.  I was just happy to have arrived in one piece and that my suitcase hadn’t fallen out.

 

Train route Manila to Legazpi 

Whoever was in charge, decided against taking me back to Los Baños and the International House.  Instead, I was taken to a very lush private home with marble floors.  I don’t know how this house was chosen.  Maybe it was the local mayor’s house, or perhaps, a wealthy relative of the jeep driver.  No matter, they graciously took me in, gave me food and a bed.  They accomplished their assignment of getting me to the train on time with no mishaps, but the trip was not pleasant.  It was the overnight train and I had no reservation.  This might explain why I was the only female in the dining car full of beer-drinking men.  I stayed awake the entire night answering questions from strangers.

As the train reached Legazpi, I had two memorable moments.  The first was a beautiful pink and yellow sunrise behind Mount Mayon  framed with tall coconut palm trees.   The second was Blaine waiting at the station to take me to Sorsogon in his jeep.

On the ride from Legazpi to Sorsogon I saw for the first time coconut spread out on the highway drying.  This became a common sight on any open cement or paved  surface.  They sometimes covered half the road making it difficult to drive around it.

Sorsogon Stories

A Home of Our Own

 Although Blaine had arranged housing for all the other volunteers in our district, there seemed to be no affordable housing in the provincial capital, Sorsogon City, where we were assigned.  At first there was talk about the Peace Corps building us a small house.  In the meantime, we were to live temporarily with Dr. Leocadio, the Superintendent of Education.

 I remember that we had a breezy second floor bedroom that looked out onto the convent across the street.  Every morning we awakened to the chanting of prayers and the singing of the nuns.  We were soon embarrassed to discover that a young relative of the family, who was acting as their maid had given up her room for us and was sleeping in a closet on the floor.  This information spurred us to work harder to find our own quarters.

Because of flooding, Filipinos usually lived on the second floor of their homes leaving the first floor basically empty, unfinished, or sometimes as a shelter for farm animals.  We ended up renting the lower half of such a place, but it needed a lot of work.  Neighbors, other volunteers, and curious Filipinos who were passing by stopped to help.

I am painting one of the many open windows.

 We had to remove junk, scrape layers of dirt and finally paint all the walls and unfinished surfaces.  I remember that the paint was blue.  Although some homes had flattened sea shells set in wooden frames for windows, our windows were just open to the outside. There was a basic toilet and a cement shower that drained directly into the side yard.  This allowed snails and other small organisms to enter our shower from the yard. 

The kitchen was in the back yard separate from the house.  We learned that this was the custom because fires often started in the kitchen and when such a tragedy happened, this would prevent the whole house from burning down.  After we moved in, we discovered one minor flaw—our home had no ceiling.  When the family swept the floor above us, the dust would float down between their floor boards onto our heads.  I never remember any water coming down.  Maybe they never mopped their floor.  It mattered  little, however, because rain, wind, and numerous living things came in through the three walls of windows.

The three Castillo brothers that lived above us with their boarder, Fred, an architect who was working in Sorsogon.

We had several lizards that moved in permanently and ran unimpeded across our blue walls.  We were told that they kept the insects under control.   Eventually their little clicking noises became comforting rather than frightening.  However, spiders were not comforting.  One day a huge five inch spider came walking across the floor.  I smashed it with our broom and suddenly,  what seemed like hundreds of little spiders, were running in every direction.  It turned out that this was a mother spider carrying a sac of baby spiders on her back.

We bought a bamboo couch, but could not find a table and chairs.  We went to a “furniture store,” where we were taken immediately to the back yard and shown huge hardwood logs, four feet in diameter.  We were asked to select the log we wanted them to use for our table and chairs.  We also ordered a double bed, but when it came it was the size of an American twin bed.  At first I thought this was a translation problem.  Double and twin could have been misunderstood.  It turned out that a local single bed was a very narrow cot size.  We had to order a second “double” bed.  Our home was complete when Blaine painted a picture to hang in our beautiful blue living room.

You can see Blaine's  painting, the bamboo couch, and the blue walls where the lizards would run.
We are being interviewed for some radio program about the Peace Corps

Glimpses of a Romantic Vacation

 In spite of the critic who thought that the government had sent us on an extended honeymoon, we rarely experienced anything that came close to a romantic vacation, but in fairness I will mention a few instances.

After the Storm

In the first few days after arriving in Sorsogon, Blaine invited me for a jeep ride during a typhoon.  It seemed dangerous, but I joined him anyway.  Everything was unique and beautiful.  There was no one at all on the road—no cars, no people, just palm trees and jungle vegetation.  Everywhere coconuts had been blown down by the strong winds.  As the storm began to abate, a little boy came walking down the side of the road holding a gigantic leaf over his head as an umbrella.  It was a magical moment.  My immediate thought was, “Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun,” only, in this case, it was, “Mad Americans and little boys go out in a typhoon.”

A Day at the Beach

Although Blaine was often away on Peace Corps business, visiting other volunteers, going to the regional office in Legaspi, or even attending meetings in Manila, I do remember one weekend we had to ourselves.  We found an isolated beach...no huts, no boats, just a beautiful beach not too far from the main highway.  We had worn our swim suits under our clothes, but ended up swimming in the nude.  Almost immediately, we heard the squeal of brakes.  Peering into the distance we saw a public bus unloading a group that we recognized as Peace Corps volunteers.  We barely had time to retrieve our swim suits, swim into deep water, and pull them on before our friends arrived.  We had a good time that day, but it wasn’t the romantic get-away we had planned.

Christmas Eve Midnight Mass

Although we lived in a city that had recreational possibilities I never remember having time to go to dinner or the movies with Blaine. We did go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve at the local Catholic Church and once were invited for dinner by a group of volunteers who lived not too far from Sorsogon City.

Writing My Own Job Description

  I never learned how it came to be that I didn't get assigned to a specific school—as had all the other volunteers.  Maybe it was assumed that I was to be the supporting wife of a volunteer leader.  Or maybe I was supposed to be assigned to the local school.   It was the “model” school for the entire province and the teachers there regarded themselves as “model” teachers and perhaps didn't really want a Peace Corps Volunteer assigned to their school.

Sorsogon capitol where I worked in School Superintendent's Office 

The school superintendent told me that I was to work in his office.  My first duties were to write letters to Manila to try to get money for some teachers who hadn't been paid.   The thought of working for two years as an office assistant was too dismal to contemplate.  

Science Books

Somehow, I arranged to present a few science workshops for groups of teachers from outlying villages.  I saw the need for some handouts, which inspired the idea of printing inexpensive pamphlets for teachers. I gathered up some science books and began to write, “For Teachers Who Are Attracted to Magnets.”  They could be produced for less than three cents each.  The Peace Corps reproduced a large quantity and offered them to other volunteers and local schools.  A Jesuit Priest came across one and wrote me a very complimentary letter encouraging me to write more of these.  He also told me that the Philippines had a source of magnetic sand, just in case my book came out with a second edition.   I began working on, “For Teachers Who Are Sparked by Electricity.”  A publisher in Manila also came across the pamphlet and asked me to help edit some high school science textbooks written by Filipino science teachers. The Peace Corps office in Washington even wrote me a letter asking my opinion on what to provide new volunteer teachers. These affirmations helped make up for a lack of a “real” assignment.   

The Toaster

  When I was in elementary school, one of my favorite magazines in the library was Popular Mechanics.  It told how to make marvelous toys and useful household items.  The Peace Corps had given all of us a UNESCO book that detailed all sorts of wonderful things to make when living in primitive conditions.  I remember it told how to make a slide projector for a school with no electricity, using multiple mirrors to reflect the sun.  It also had directions for making a toaster which did use electricity.  I decided to make one.  I found some resistance wire at a local radio repair shop and the other supplies at a hardware store.  Of course, the bread didn't pop up.  You had to turn it over to toast the other side. You can’t imagine how good the familiar taste of toast was after a few months of Filipino food.





About this time someone gave us a can of butter from Denmark.  Afterwards we kept a store of guava jelly on hand at all times.  Our weekend guests all loved making toast at our house.

Day to Day Problems

 Shopping and Transportation

Thermos bottle for boiled water, Blaine, Manny, and Rayna

Lack of money was a problem for us.  Most of the volunteers lived in smaller towns in groups of four and pooled their allowances to cover the cost of a cook and other household help.  Although Blaine got extra money to cover the cost of gas and the upkeep of the jeep, we didn’t have money for a cook and had to get by with the 19-year-old son of the landlady as a house boy.  He cleaned, washed dishes, and boiled our drinking water, but he didn’t really know how to cook.  I usually had to do all the cooking as well as the shopping. 

 I never remember getting to drive the jeep, even once, but I was thrilled when I got a bicycle.  Now, I could ride to the market for food or to the pier for fish and clams.  I remember that beef was available only on Saturdays.  The entire carcass hung in the market and you pointed to the part you wanted.  There was a set price per pound whether you got the choice cuts or the soup bones.  After I learned this, I got up early on Saturdays and pedaled to the market so I could buy a tender cut.

Running a Bed And Breakfast

This was probably a Saturday afternoon, when volunteers would often come into Sorsogon.
I would guess it is December because of the typical Filipino star hanging over the table.

  Because Blaine was the volunteer leader for the surrounding area, our home became a kind of bed and breakfast with visitors almost every weekend, some staying overnight.  One volunteer became very ill and moved into our extra bedroom.  Our house boy became his practical nurse, until he had recovered sufficiently to return to his assignment.   Volunteers stopped by our house whenever they were in Sorsogon City, mainly to see each other, eat together, and exchange stories about their assignments.  Most of the volunteers were living in small villages with no running water so sometimes they even took showers at our house.

Here are a few of the volunteers who made up our Sorsogon family.

Besides the volunteers, we often had visitors from Manila, sometimes social and sometimes official.   Blaine’s parents had apparently complained to a senator that they hadn’t heard from their son who was far away in the Peace Corps.  Diplomatic wires buzzed and a young man was sent all the way from Manila to Sorsogon to check on Blaine, in person, and to tell him to write a letter to his mother.

A Not-So-Happy Jeep Story 

 A short time after we came to Sorsogon, Blaine had a not-so-pleasant experience with a jeep.  At a meeting of volunteer leaders, he was riding in the back seat of a jeep driven by another volunteer.  The jeep hit and killed an elderly man.  The collateral damage consisted of the side view mirror coming off and flying into Blaine’s face.  He came home with stitches and a bandage.  The headline in the local paper read, “Peace Corps Volunteer Injured in Accident.” instead of “Peace Corps Jeep Kills Local Man.”  The rumor was that the man’s family had been paid a good deal of money.  From that time on, young men would pretend to push their friends in front of our jeep, saying something like, “His family needs the money.”  Even though they were joking, Blaine had to be a careful driver because, in their horsing around, the boys sometimes actually stumbled into the road.

They Came Bearing Gifts--A Turkey! A Cheese! A Baby?  

"It Took a Whole Village..."

During a visit to Legaspi, an American Mormon family who lived nearby heard about us and showed up one day bringing a huge turkey from their farm as a gift.    We thanked them profusely, but were extremely happy they had already butchered it because I was still learning how to kill, pluck, and dress the much smaller chickens from our market in Sorsogon.  After taking the turkey back home, the real problem began.  What could we do with this huge bird?  We did not have a stove big enough to cook it.  Peace Corps volunteers either cooked with charcoal or used the little camp stoves given to us as part of our gear, even though the required fuel was not available in the country.

Luckily for us Philippine culture is full of FOAF's. (Friend of a Friend)   Someone in our neighborhood knew someone who knew someone who was in the business of renting out freezer space.  So off went our turkey to the freezer. In the hassle of trying to get our place livable and furnished, we forgot about the turkey until, one day, word came that we should come and get our turkey.




Now the same  old problem returned, except it was “What to do with this huge frozen bird?”  FOAF to the rescue!  Someone knew someone who knew the owner of the local bakery—one of those huge wood-fired brick ovens with long wooden spatulas.  Off went our turkey for the second time.

Now everyone, including our house boy and his mother, began to prepare the other fixings.  I don’t remember the menu, but I am pretty certain that we did not have cranberry sauce.  The turkey came back, beautifully roasted and delicious. Volunteers, our land lady’s family, neighbors, and some of the FOAFs were there.

It had taken an entire village to prepare this Thanksgiving feast, but the funny part was that it didn’t take place on Thanksgiving Day.   It might have been Christmas, but I think it was just a random day dictated by when the freezer  man needed more space.

The Great Cheese Chase

 On another occasion we received a small rounded waxed cheese from the Netherlands, a gift from a Professor of Linguistics who had befriended us at Los Baños and had decided to visit us in Sorsogon with his family.  It was a welcome gift—even fancier than the canned butter from Denmark that someone else had given us.  Although we didn’t have a refrigerator, we put the cheese with our other food supplies in the cupboard of our backyard kitchen.

The next day after our guests had left for Manila; I looked up and saw a big stray dog running past our open door with the cheese in its mouth.  Right behind him came our houseboy, Manny, chasing him with a machete.  They were halfway down the block when he threw the machete with surprising accuracy and the wounded dog dropped the cheese.  Manny came back, triumphantly holding up the cheese.  The wounded dog was howling so pitifully that I began to cry.  Off Manny went to find his uncle who was watching a movie at the local theater.  They came back almost immediately and put the dog out of his misery with the gun that his uncle always carried.  To end the story:  in spite of all that happened, we actually ate the cheese.

Could This Be True?

Since it was obvious that the Peace Corps wasn't really prepared for couples, I felt certain that they weren't prepared for pregnant volunteers.  Blaine and I had decided that the Peace Corps was to be our big adventure before starting a family.  Nothing specific was said to us about official policy, but I do remember getting birth control pills in Manila.

After we settled in at Sorsogon, we were constantly asked by Filipinos, why we didn’t have children.  They began sending us anonymous cards with pictures of babies on them and cards with prayers that God would send us a baby.  Somewhere along the way, we were told about another childless American couple, who came home, one day, to find that someone had left them an anonymous gift—a Filipino baby.  I always suspected that this was an urban legend, but the possibility that it might be true was unsettling.

Our Summer Proposal 

The Peace Corps office asked all the volunteers to submit a proposal for spending the summer break in a productive way.  Blaine and I proposed to produce television programs focused on English as a Second Language.  I planned to produce and write a puppet show for children and enlisted a beautiful volunteer who agreed to be the star.  The Peace Corps approved our proposal, but at the last minute, the beautiful star of the show went off to Zamboanga for the summer and I ended up as “Miss Rayna” on a weekly show called, “For Children Only” with Blaine working the two puppets, Toto the sassy dog, and Fred the slow talking horse. I made the puppets and Blaine painted the sets.  Blaine also had his own show, “English as a Key” for high school students in which he co-starred with Rosie, a staff member from the Bureau of Education.  We learned about story boards, script writing, set making, and about the hard work that goes into producing television programs.

The project required that we relocate to Manila for the summer.  We found a small apartment over a beauty shop which was convenient since I had to get me hair done just before our show was taped at the PBS studios in downtown Manila.

 Every night nearby hawkers called out, “Baloooooot, Balooot” as they peddled this Filipino specialty, a boiled fertilized duck egg, almost ready to hatch, complete with feathers, beaks, and legs.  This is one thing you need to try only once in a lifetime, if ever.

Our Second Year Begins 

Our programs on the PBS (Philippine Broadcasting System) were so successful that the Bureau of Education requested that we stay and continue them during the next school year.  The Peace Corps thought that doing television programs was too glamorous, but agreed if we also taught college classes at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City. 

Living on the UP Campus

The University, which was building small two-bedroom houses on campus for faculty members, provided us the first completed one as our quarters.  We were both assigned to teach English classes to incoming freshmen.






Second semester I was assigned to the graduate college and, as a presidential junkie, valued the hand signed transfer letter from the new UP President, Carlos P. Romulo, who had previously been the President of the United Nations General Assembly.

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Relaxing in our  house on the campus of the University of the Philippines

Although we were busy writing scripts, rehearsing, preparing lessons and grading papers we had more time for normal living.  We sometimes went to movies or ate Filipino fast food on the way home from the television station.  We met a young Filipino poet and his wife, who sometimes double dated with us.  We became friends with Leno Brocka, a Filipino student, who spent a lot of time at our house, sometimes staying overnight.  He later became a very famous movie director.  We also met several American families who reached out to us socially, as a way of thanking us for our service as volunteers.

Beware of Empty Bedrooms

 After we had been teaching at UP for a while, a group of female volunteers from a later Peace Corps group moved into the new house next to ours.  One was a grandmother who was having difficulties with the younger volunteers.  Someone’s idea of the solution was to give the older woman her own bedroom.  Since we had an empty second bedroom, it was decided that she would move in with us. I know that I did not volunteer nor agree to this arrangement.  We were told that this was to be a temporary arrangement—just until a new house was built for her. 

So now, we had a “mother-in-law” living with us who wasn’t related to either of us.  She complained about my cooking, gave advice to us on personal matters, and to my recollection never helped with any of the housework, which fell on me since we had, long ago, given up on the maid who put leftovers under the sink instead of in the refrigerator.

I began to long for the lonely, but quiet, times in Sorsogon.  I was especially homesick for our Sorsogon family of volunteers with their humor and funny stories.

Day after day, I watched as our “mother-in-law’s intended house was being built.  When it was finished, she still didn’t move out, claiming it had no electricity.  More time went by.  Finally, I was so exasperated that I went over to the house and turned the lights on.  She moved out in a few days.

           

Tales from Clark Air Force Base

This picture shows how much weight Blaine lost.

During the second semester at UP, Blaine began losing weight and came down with an unidentified ailment that allowed large amounts of blood to seep into his urine.  Since his father had died of kidney failure at a fairly young age, we of course, quickly sought medical help.  At first he was hospitalized in Manila where they checked out his kidneys.  Later he was moved to Clark Air Base hospital where they began looking for symptoms of various tropical diseases.

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This was a difficult time because I had to continue teaching my classes plus some of Blaine’s.  Several days a week I would catch a bus for the two hour ride to Angeles, the nearest town to Clark Air Base, and then take a jeepney to the airbase gate

After the doctors did a biopsy on Blaine’s calf muscle to look for parasites, he was temporarily in a wheel chair.  As I pushed him around the grounds of the hospital, I had one of those literary romantic moments.  I felt like I was a nurse in some World War II movie caring for a wounded soldier.

My Introduction to Vietnam

In the hospital Blaine was sharing a two-person room with a real American soldier who had been wounded in Vietnam.  At that time the war had not started and I knew nothing about Vietnam or for that matter that American soldiers were fighting anywhere.  Meeting this soldier was my introduction to a whole era of American history that was just beginning to unfold.  The next time I came back to the hospital, the soldier’s bed was empty and Blaine told me that he had died during the night. 

The Ugly American Jeepney Ride

This picture is typical of the Jeepneys that I rode in.
 Now they are much bigger and more highly decorated.

One evening when I was leaving Clark Air Base, I got on a crowded jeepney that would take me into town where I could catch the bus to Manila.  An American serviceman walked up and shocked everyone, including me, by telling the Filipino passengers to get out of the jeepney.  I protested, but he waved me off and hired the jeepney privately for me alone.  I know he thought he was being kind, but it was a typical “ugly-American” thing to do.  Such events wipe out much of the goodwill that the Peace Corp was trying to establish.  At the time I couldn't think fast enough, but in retrospect, I wish I had asked the driver to go around the block and come back to pick up those abandoned passengers.

A Smoking Hot Bus Ride

 Another time when leaving the Air Base, there was no jeepney waiting.  In hope of getting to Manila before dark, I walked out to the main highway and flagged down a bus.  It stopped and I climbed on.  It was coming from a northern village heading to Manila.  I am sure the passengers thought it was strange that an American woman was on the highway flagging down busses, but I also thought it was strange that nearly everyone on the bus was smoking cigarettes with the lit end inside their mouths.  During our orientation sessions at Penn State, we had been told about certain groups who smoked this way, but this was the only time that I  ever saw this phenomenon.

Going Home

 When the doctors at Clark Air Base Hospital couldn't diagnose Blaine’s problem, it was decided that going back to the U.S. was the best choice.  The Peace Corps staff was probably influenced by the fact that one volunteer from our group had already died and the organization didn't need any more scary publicity.

I remember being called to the Peace Corps office and given the choice of staying in the Philippines or going home to the U.S. with Blaine.  Of course, I chose to go home with my husband.

Some of the new volunteers at UP took over our college classes.  Blaine’s co-star got another co-star and went on with their TV program.  My TV show, “For Children Only” ended.   I packed Toto, the sassy brown dog, Fred, the sock puppet horse; and the TV guide with a picture of “Miss Rayna” in my suitcase as souvenirs.

And so our “honeymoon” in the Peace Corps ended with Blaine in a Public Health Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland surrounded by sick Coast Guard retirees.  His final diagnosis was “idiopathic bleeding” which I was told by the doctor translates to “nobody knows.”  Blaine did, however, recover fully.

           

Useful Things I Learned in the Peace Corps

  

I learned how to cut a mango and how to skin a pineapple with no waste, but these skills were not as impressive as opening a coconut with one blow of a hammer.  Someone taught me to turn a coconut so that you can see the “face” and then hit one hard blow to the left eyebrow.  Sure enough the coconut pops wide open.  This was always an impressive trick that I enjoyed performing for my children and their friends.   

Many years after the Peace Corps, I was able to make use of another thing I learned.  One night, after taking a shower I discovered that my hairdryer wouldn’t work anymore.  The thought of sleeping with wet hair and the “bad hair day” that would follow, motivated me to use the skills I had gained making the Sorsogon toaster.  Sure enough, I was able to repair it.  That is why a broken toaster sits on my kitchen counter, right now, waiting for the same skills to be applied.

When I confessed to having no talent at speaking Tagalog, a linguistics professor taught me three rote sentences in Tagalog that were useful on a daily basis in Manila. “What is your name?”  “My name is Rayna,” and “I don’t smoke cigarettes.” This last one was used to fend off the many street venders. I still know all three sentences.  I have used the first two to open conversations with Filipino Americans I meet, only to disappoint them when I can’t remember any more Tagalog.  Little kids just go on talking to me, thinking that I can understand their Tagalog.  I recently typed into a computer translation program,  my remembered Tagalog version of  "What is your name?" and "My name is Rayna." and it came back in English as, "What is your name? I am the Queen." I had to laugh and laugh.

I have not, yet, had an occasion to cut down a jungle vine and get the water to drain out in just the right way, but I still remember how to do it.  I’ve told my friends that if they ever get lost in a jungle and are thirsty, they can call me on their cell phone and I’ll tell them exactly what to do it.

Although I never became one of the noted Peace Corps volunteers, written up on the internet, the Peace Corps and what I learned there have had a lasting effect on what has taken place in my life.


 I now have a great grand child and with luck, will pass on to him some of the things I learned in the Peace Corps.  His mother, however, will get the lovely hand embroidered tablecloth.

After leaving the Philippines Rayna Larson taught school in Fairfax County, Virginia during the county’s first efforts at racial integration.  She and Blaine separated in 1965.  Having written science pamphlets in the Philippines, she was inspired to return to college for pre-med courses and entered the Medical College of Pennsylvania, but quickly found that raising two children as a single mother, attending school eight hours a day, and studying in the evenings was too much.  After two years, she returned to Fairfax County and worked as a school psychologist until she retired in 1991. After her retirement from Fairfax County, she continued working off and on as a psychologist and college instructor in Arizona and California. 

  Having joined the Peace Corps as one-half of a couple, when almost everyone else was single, Rayna spent two years in China as a single woman with a group of mostly retired couples. She taught English in 2002, at XISU in Xian, and in 2004 at CFAU in Beijing, as part of a service project sponsored by Brigham Young University.

In addition to her two children, eight grandchildren, and one great grandchild, she stays in touch with many of her former Chinese students on the internet and through Face book.

This entire blog is from an article I wrote for  the book, "Answering Kennedy's Call--Pioneering the Peace Corps in the Philippines" which was published in 2011 to mark the Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary.

I have added additional comments and pictures that were not in my original article.