The Balcony Story - 1984

Of all the stories I have told, or written down for posterity, there is one which I have overlooked until recently. It involves a 7th story hotel room in Virginia Beach back in 1984. Sue had come from Baltimore to see me when I returned from a 6 month contract aboard the USNS Sirius, AOR-8, a supply ship which was part of the Defense Department's Military Sealift Command.

We had spent the day at the Botanical Gardens, had dinner, and walked along the beach that evening. It was mid April and not quite warm enough for swimming or sunbathing yet.Virginia Beach has the Labrador Current and the water is quite cold from late fall through Memorial Day, but still, walking on the beach in the evening was a nice way to end the day.

Returning to the hotel, and the 7th floor, I found that neither of us had the room key. Going back down to the lobby and the front desk, we were amazed that, for some reason, the hotel had neither a duplicate, or even a master key to our room. All of our clothes were inside that room, as well as my stash of Moroccan hashish fresh from the Mediterranean. There was no question about it, I had to get in that room.

Neither of us remembers why the hotel did not simply call a locksmith. It may have been a holiday, but there was nothing to be done. I have always been in the habit of leaving the balcony door unlocked and slightly open to get that heavy scent of room freshener out and some fresh sea air in.

So, knowing that door to be open, I requested, and the hotel clerk acquiesced, to allow me entry to what I remember as the adjoining room. Sue remembers it differently. She recalls the vacant room as being one floor above, or below ours.

Either way, we accessed the vacant room and I went out on the balcony with the intent of my climbing out and reaching across the gap between the two rooms and reaching the balcony to ours. This is why I believe it was the adjoining room rather than the one above. I didn't have access to any rope with which to lower myself to the floor below. It was a bit of a stretch, about 7 feet, maybe a bit more, but I was always a good climber, be it of trees or ship's masts, so I was game. And, of course I'm sure there was a bit of showing off involved.

I remember thinking that this could turn out badly, but you have to take a risk if you want to make a gain, and so I got up on the railing and tried to reach across the divide. No go. I was about a foot shorter in reach than the gap.

There was a thin brick ledge below the balcony so I decided that I could use that and inch across  to the other balcony by holding on to one balcony with my right hand, while clinging to the brick with my left until I got close enough to the other balcony and grabbing the railing there with my left hand. Of course, there would be a moment when I would not be clinging to anything but I still believed it could be done.

I remember being a bit concerned while performing this feat, but I don't remember being scared.  And, once I'd started there was really no turning back, so onward, or more accurately, sideways, I persevered. When you are just 29 years old you take chances. Plus, I admit, there was a bit of "showing off" involved. And, there was that hashish to be considered.

Obviously I made it to the other balcony, and am still here, at 70 years old, to tell the tale. I never doubted that it could be done, but still, there was just that one moment, while letting go with my right hand, and reaching out with my left, when there was nothing but faith to hold onto.

So, there is the story. Sue can verify it. And now the tale is written, as I said, for posterity. And to think, the accompanying photo here, could well have been my last!

For Phyllis Drivas

I watch as leaves fall from the trees
Like lives they fall til no one greives
And no one's left, and they all leave
life always ends this way.

Time goes by, both good and bad
Emotions pass, first joy, then sad
And when it ends we're sometimes glad
that no one's born to stay.

So why then do we take it hard,
when left here standing in the dark
Life seems empty, void and stark
and in our hearts we pray.

Reduced to only flesh and bone
We're all born to die alone
There's no reprieve from hard, cold stone
a void that's marked in grey.

From me and Sue. ❤

December 7, 2022

Surrender at Yorktown - 1781

Unlike Vietnam; where we won just about every battle, but lost the war; the American Revolution was the complete opposite. We managed to lose almost every battle, and still win the War for Independence. There is a lesson in that. When people fight; on their own soil; for their own freedom; it is virtually impossible to beat them.

John Trumbull’s painting “Surrender at Yorktown” epitomizes the strength inherent in a just cause. Had the Americans lost the war, England would have faced a hostile colony for centuries; much in the same way that Indo-China was a “thorn in the side” to the Koreans, French and eventually the Americans who tried to rule it. But that’s another discussion.

The subject of this post is the surrender of the British at Yorktown in 1781. In spite of a lack of adequate provisions, George Washington was able to lead the Continental Army to a decisive victory over the British forces for the simple reason that they were fighting on “home turf”, for their families as well as their own futures.

In September, Lord Cornwallis had been reinforced with about 7,000 new troops in a last ditch effort to stamp out the revolutionaries. He took these troops to Yorktown, where he established a fort, hoping for relief from the British Navy, which never arrived.  Washington deployed more troops and artillery, with the result that by October; with the help of the French fleet, under the command of Admiral Compte de Grasse; Cornwallis found himself caught between the land forces of the Continental Army, and the French Navy; which had come to our aid through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin in Paris. Those vessels repelled the British fleet, keeping them from rescuing Lord Cornwallis and his men. With all hope of escape gone, he had no choice but to surrender.

The British, and the Germans fighting with them, were eventually forced from their fort under threat of further bombardment, and instructed to bring their colors with them. The British military band played "The World Turned Upside Down"; a popular song of the era; as a way of displaying their disbelief in their loss to the colonies. Cornwallis elected to remain indoors, rather than face his adversary in defeat. Even his second in command, General O’Hara, tried to surrender to the French rather than to the Americans, but he was rebuffed in this effort, leaving him no choice but to surrender to the Continental Army, thus recognizing the new nation it represented. This was the reason which compelled General Washington in his decision to have General O’Hara surrender his sword to General Lincoln instead of himself. He was merely returning the snub by Cornwallis.

So, the painting of the surrender is not exactly what many Americans think of it as being. That is not General Washington mounted on his horse accepting the sword of surrender. It is, rather, General Benjamin Lincoln who is extending his right hand toward that sword, which is not carried by Lord Cornwallis, but is borne by General O’Hara instead.

Depicted in Trumball’s painting, the British troops are in a line which extends into the background. The troops on the left are the French officers, mustered under the banner of the Bourbon family. To the right are the American officers with the flag of their new republic. In that group are the Marquis de Lafayette and Colonel Jonathan Trumbull, who is the brother of the artist who captured it all on canvas. General Washington is in the background, astride a brown horse, keeping an ever watchful eye on the events, just as he had guided the colonies to victory over the course of the war.

But, in spite of these proceedings, the war did not come to a formal end until sometime later, when the British and Americans signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The painting itself was not completed until 1820 and hangs in the Rotunda of the capitol in Washington, D.C. today.

Me and Sue - Viva la Difference.

Sue and I have been married for a few decades now; and when you explore the differences in our respective childhoods, that’s pretty amazing, since we both could not have been brought up in places which were more different from one another. I’m a city kid, born and raised in Brooklyn; while Sue was born in Scotland, Pennsylvania; a small village outside of Chambersburg; which is just northeast of Gettysburg. That fact alone; having to explain; geographically where Sue is from, serves to underscore the differences; some good, some bad; in the ways in which we were raised.

Just look at Sue, in August of 1958; not yet 4 years old; swinging happily on the edge of the hayfield which bordered her Grandfather’s house. This was definitely a rural area, with an economy to match. Doors were unlocked and crime was relatively rare.

The nearest “town” was Chambersburg, located on Lincoln Highway, Route 30, and was where the residents of Scotland went, for the most part, to shop and run errands. It was an insular world; crossing the street was not something to really worry about; there weren’t all that many cars roaming the streets of Scotland during the day. Most of the residents with automobiles would have been at work until the evening. One set of her grandparents actually had a farm! It was, as they say, a simpler time and place.

Now, here I am, at the same age, in August 1958, mailing a letter. There were 4 different Post Offices within walking distance, but for the sake of efficiency we had mailboxes on each corner. The mail was picked up 3 times a day. Crossing the street was an art to be learned, and not taken for granted. Just look at the width of Kings Highway at Bedford Avenue. It’s got a service lane on each side; for deliveries and parking; bracketed by islands for the bus stops, and in between were two lanes in each direction.

In Scotland, Pennsylvania they got 3 TV stations. And even those were hard to tune in, as Scotland rests in between some mountains, necessitating an aerial “tower” for the TV in order to get a good signal. I remember going up on the roof of our building in Brooklyn with my Dad, this was about 1957, and watching him install our TV antennae by simply pointing it towards the Empire State Building; with its huge broadcast antennae; clearly visible about 10 miles away. And, at night, we even got channels from Philadelphia.

Food was very different in our lives growing up. Where I grew up the constant question was “What do you want to eat?”  Our choices ranged from Chinese to Italian, Jewish, Hungarian, Algerian, French and whatever other nationalities lived in the city. I once counted 30 different ethnic restaurants while walking with my Uncle in Manhattan. Sue shocked me when she revealed that she had not eaten Chinese Food; other than Chung King; until she moved to Baltimore in her late 20’s. I cannot even imagine that. And the first Chinese restaurant finally did arrive in Chambersburg about 1980.  

On the other hand, Sue has no recollection of the Teamster’s strike in 1960; nor should she. She grew up in an area in which they all grew their food locally, and simply trucked it by pickup to the local marketplace. During that same time in New York, we faced a severe shortage of eggs, butter, milk and meat. Sue’s Mom canned vegetables and fruits; mine went to the store and bought them frozen.

Transportation was also a big difference in our upbringings. The bus pulled up right behind where I am standing in this picture. It cost a dime and the driver issued you a “transfer” to connect with other lines which ran perpendicular to the one you were riding. You could literally; as with the subways; travel all day on one dime, connecting to each borough. You could even use your bus transfer to change over to the subway lines at certain points, making the trip even longer. The Boy Scouts used to do this annually, and I remember the record for the subway lines alone was 25 hours on a single 10 cent token. There may have been a bus line connecting York, Pennsylvania to Chambersburg, but I’m not really sure.

Culturally, our two worlds were galaxies away from one another. I grew up in an area where there were all kinds of languages and customs being observed by many different ethnic groups. We had Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic Churches and Jewish synagogues, not to mention a couple of Pagodas. While the United Nations was merely a clip on the evening news in Pennsylvania, it was a center of cultural diversity in New York, spilling out into all 5 boroughs of the city, spawning the myriad of foods and languages to which I was privy.

All differences aside, we did manage to find one another. The big secret? In the photo above I’m actually mailing her a letter, introducing myself, but which never arrived until we were much older.

Happy Birthday, Sue!

Happy Birthday to my wife, Sue. We are both the same age. Beyond that you will get no information concerning the actual number of years involved. I want it to be a Happy Birthday. But if you look in on this space in the next 3 weeks, you will discover my age, and therefore know her age.

This picture was taken in 1959 at the Pensinger Family Picnic. That's Sue in the middle with the short hair on her head and a smile on her face.

Sue hasn't changed that much over the years, still smiling. I always say that if it were raining shit, she would find a use for it, while I would be busy cursing the Gods. She has a way of dealing with everything in a normal manner, an art which I have not yet mastered.

So, this is my very public Happy Birthday to Sue, my wife and lover, as well as my friend...