The Bad Guys in 1950’s according to my Weekly Reader in Hyde Park Elementary school, Cincinnati, Ohio. My 1955 6th Grade map in the Weekly Reader had the world from east of Italy to Hong Kong colored in Red, ‘Big Bad Red.’
On Mooney Avenue, Andre my fellow classmate and across the street neighbor, along with 3rd grader Greg didn’t know squat or could care less about Russia or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics but China that was different. I mean everybody knew that China had a Great Wall and if you dug a hole deep enough you would come out on the other side somewhere in China. We managed a whopping three feet, when Mrs LeClair, doctor LeClaire’s wife, Andre’s mother or “Dorthy” to politically incorrect – at an early age – me, came out to save us. Not for digging our way to China, just messing up the yard.
Andre and I along with 303 others graduated from Walnut Hills, Cincinnati’s municipal college preparatory high school, in May 1961
Andre went to a good school Earlham, while Howie, Eddie and I shuffled off to the University of Cincinnati’s ‘Ding-Dong” two- year associate program for scholastic remediation because we were in the lower third of our class in high school. We all mastered 7th grade algebra, 8th grade English, and a subject I had never heard of PSYCH 101. History, my favorite subject at Walnut Hills, was dispensed in a 500 seat lecture hall where the professor was worried about the ‘Commies’ dropping the ‘Big One.’
“When it comes, I’m going sit on the lawn in Mt. Adams with a case of Schoeling Little Kings and watch the show.”
Little Kings and its distinctive 7-ounce green bottle were invented in the ’50s when patrons of Montgomery Inn didn’t want to purchase full-sized beers to pair with shots of whiskey. Rumor is that the draft system at the restaurant was broken and no one wanted to buy a big 12-ounce bottle of beer when they just wanted a chaser, so the Schoenling’s started packaging their cream ale in smaller bottles.
Drafted twice, I watched Alan Shepard land on the Moon on my BOQ TV at Ft. Sill. A year later I was on board the USS Okinawa as it pulled into Hong Kong harbor for a ten-day ‘liberty-call.’
Be Careful What You Dig For
‘My Weekly Reader‘ map was still colored red but now the ‘Bad Boys’ were trying, according to the CIA Military-Industrial complex, to paint Vietnam red from top to bottom. I spent my entire October ’69 to October ’70 tour observing the shoreline of both Mainland China and Vietnam.
My first marital partner and I visited Hong Kong in 1981 on our way to Singapore. The Star Ferry was still chugging away, Victoria Peak had a ‘Wendy’s’ at the top but the US Navy was no longer welcome.
An Architect and his Money are soon Parted
On 8 January 2008 I closed on a home that cost three times my monthly income.
867 Tyler, Eugene, OR
“Well Mr. Gregory how did you expect to pay for it?”
I didn’t have a clue, Physics, Chemistry and for sure Trigonometry were not my best subjects at Walnut Hills High School. The only way I made it through Calculus in DAAP (Design, Art, Architecture & Planning) was copying Tom Sezniak’s paper.
Then I had what they call in Eugene, an epiphany. I was thinking back on the cosmic reason Andre and I were digging that hole in his back yard.
Teach ESL in China
Teaching ESL freshman English majors using the Toastmasters format at Henan Agricultural University in Zhengzhou, Mainland China 2009.
The United Nations sponsors musical education in Bosnia. Students, professors and administrators from participating universities, gathered at Sarajevo’s famed City Hall for the weekly Monday Concert. The UN rep gave the opening talk in American English with Bosnian translation. Even the mayor was there.
Sarajevo City Hall the ‘Temple Mount’ of the “European Jerusalem”
Situated at the intersection of three major streets in Sarajevo, the City Hall is a monument to the multiculturalism of Bosnia. Built between 1892 and 1894, the pseudo-Moorish building honored the Muslim background of this Austro-Hungarian territory. The façade is based on Mamluk-period buildings in Cairo. The building has been used for various municipal purposes since its construction, including as a city court and parliament house, which it was until 1948, when it became the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Sarajevo was the city of four religions: Catholics, Orthodox, Muslim, and Jews. The Jewish population made note of this, naming the city “The European Jerusalem.” Settled in prehistoric times, followed by Ottoman rule in the 15th century, Austro-Hungarian rule in the 19th century, Yugoslavia’s communist rule in the 20th century, and finally today’s democracy.
August 25-26, 1992, the City Hall was hit by heavy artillery and incendiary bombs. The hall was set ablaze and the entire library holdings were lost. The fire caused severe damage to the structural and decorative elements of the building. In 1996, the government of Austria funded an initial restoration effort that focused on load-bearing walls and masonry. The European Commission followed in 1999 with funds to continue restoration of structural elements
The edifice was designed by Karel Pařík in a stylistic blend of historical eclecticism, predominantly in the pseudo-Moorish expression, for which the stylistic sources were found in the Islamic art of Spain and North Africa. His epitaph reads: “Here rests the builder of Sarajevo. Czech by birth, Sarajevan by choice. – A thankful Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
In May 2014 the building reopened with a public ceremony. The restoration was completed in time to mark the centenary of World War I, triggered by the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand as he left a reception at the building in June 1914. The building now houses the national and university libraries, the city council, and a museum. November 2014
The lower level museum presents the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Jane Marie and I would not do well on a ‘Jeopardy’ former Yugoslavia geography quiz. Slovenia (Melania Trump) and Croatia got all the goodies on the coast, Bosnia got Sarajevo (the Muslim Jerusalem & tourist Mecca) and Serbia got all the Serbs in all the wrong places.
Who said there was nothing to do in Bosnia? An amateur archaeologist claims to have discovered pyramids in Bosnia, but scientists say that he is lying. Inhabitants of the small town at the foot of the pyramid believe him, but not necessarily for scientific reasons.
Amira Kilalić places pita bread on the table, wraps her headscarf tighter around her bright, dyed red hair, and steps outside. Her shop is a small wooden house that stands on the mountainside. If she looks down, the 83-year-old with a wrinkled face can see Visoko, the town at the foot of the Visočica mountain.
Buy now in Visoko, if they offered Amira 250,000 Euros for her cottage, location, location, location. We’ve all heard of Sarajevo but Visoko? Com’on.
There, women wear high heels to fetch cigarettes, and in the mornings, the men are already sitting in the cafés and betting shops on the main street. If she looks up, Amira can see the castle ruins on the mountaintop.
That’s where the director of the town’s local history museum took a Bosnian entrepreneur, who visited Visoko in 2005. Back then, the ruins were the town’s only sightseeing destination. But when the director mentioned the symmetry of the mountain, his visitor stopped short, got out his compass, measured the angle of the mountain’s slopes and suddenly became certain that he was standing atop a pyramid.
After our hour tour inside the tunnels under the pyramid we drove through the village up to the exterior North Face entry. I took the picnic table opt-out option while Jane Marie started hiking up the side.
Even Jane Marie called it a day at this point. The group ahead is looking at some extraterrestrial depression, not berries or onions.
If you’ve seen one pyramid, you’ve seen them all.
Not just a mountain in Bosnia
For centuries, the mountain was just a mountain. It wasn’t until 2005, when the amateur researcher came to visit, that the mountain became “the highest and oldest pyramid in the world”. He called it the ‘Pyramid of the Sun’ (Piramida Sunca). At the time, the people of Visoko laughed and called him crazy. Today, they are proud of the find, which has brought them fame and money. “It’s so nice that the pyramid is right here,” Amira says, with a satisfied smile.
The discoverer is called Semir Osmanagić. He makes his living from a metal business in Texas, where he goes by the name Sam Osmanagich. For years, he used to visit the pyramids of the world in his spare time, wearing a wide-brimmed white hat and a cotton shirt. The 57-year-old says that since his discovery, he’s the happiest person in the world. His business has since become a side project; he visits the company four times a year, dealing with any problems over Skype. He can call himself Dr. Osmanagić because, in 2009, he wrote a PhD thesis about the Mayan civilisation at the faculty of political science in Sarajevo.
“I was here in July and took some tunnel water with me. I drank it regularly, and in October, it turned out that I’m free of tumours.”
To Amira, he is simply “Semir”. He began excavations in spring 2006. Every day while doing so, he came by her wooden house – which has neither heating nor a water supply – with his helpers. She gave them apples from her garden and observed how more and more Bosnians and foreigners with hiking boots and cameras were pouring in. When she counted over a thousand people one sunny weekend, her husband decided to open a café. They built a long timber house with a clay floor and large windows, from which Amira now sells coffee and homemade pita, woollen socks and smoked cheese.
Visiting Gobekli Tepe in 2016, led us to read “Magicians of the Gods” by Graham Hancock but the ‘Pyramid of the Sun’ in Sarajevo has put us on the occultist bus.
A place of pilgrimage for occultists
The pyramids create jobs, urgently needed in a country with an unemployment rate of almost 30%. Those who can tend to rent out rooms, sell souvenirs or earn money as taxi drivers for the tourists. Since 2005, around 100 new accommodation spaces have sprung up, and pyramid-shaped pizza is easy to find. Osmanagić even formed a Pyramid Foundation, financed by tourism revenue. The foundation employs 38 people: guides, craftspeople and guards. Osmanagić isn’t there very often though, he now gives talks around the world about his discovery. He manages the Visoko team via email.
The amateur archaeologist invites international excavation teams and journalists with him. On the pyramid’s slope, he has exposed stone slabs, and says they are man-made.
Even the head of the European Institute for Archaeology paid the site a visit. He said the find was “a pseudoscientific lie”, and that Osmanagić should stop digging. But the amateur researcher didn’t back down. Instead, he went on to discover three additional, smaller pyramids and a tunnel that – he believes – leads you to the Pyramid of the Sun. But the alleged passageways are still barricaded by stone.
Jane Marie “laying on of hands,” occultist style.
The accessible part of the tunnel is visited by around 45,000 tourists each year. “We witness miracles here: the highly ionised air in the tunnel, the extraordinary quality of the water, and the vibrations all have positive effects on people,” Osmanagić says over Skype. The entrance fee for foreigners is 10 Euros. There is tunnel water for sale in tiny 100ml glass bottles for the same price.
Gata is an Armenian sweet bread, often about 12-14″ in diameter and about 1.5″ thick. The inside is soft, chewy and very sweet. Gata is sold at most bakeries in Armenia, and can be purchased at small road-side stores and tourist attractions outside the cities. At Geghard Monastery the name “Geghard” is written in Armenian on the Gata. Armenia has more cathedrals than McDonald’s – matter of fact. we didn’t see any big or little Mac’sMonastery with a view at Lake SevanWalking tour of the Armenian Capital – wait, wait don’t tell me – Yerevan.Yerevan is pre-gentrified interior upgrades only requirement for occupancyHostel rooms start at $3/day
Mountain & very tall hill retreats are everywhere. Thanks to Jane Marie’s research we were lucky guests at the Palma B&B high above Alaverdi
The four hour drive to Yerevan makes stops at three famous cathedrals, Sanahin was our favorite
Garni-Geghard-Pokr Vedi
Garni has a five time restored Greek temple, next to last time Emperor Nero wrote a check in 66 AD
What I liked best about Garni was the Lavash bread hot out of a real tandoor oven.
I wanted to know if any of the Apostles had been to Geghard. No but Kim Kardashian and Kanye were here in 2015
Notice when they get back in their van the Gata bread take-outYes that’s Mt. Ararat, Kohr-Vepi in the foreground and the Russians guarding the valley border between Turkey and ArmeniaJane Marie befriending the path builder on her way to the Kohr-Vepi cathedral, where St,Gregory was imprisoned for twelve years.
Vagharshapat – Etchmiadzin
Etchmiadzin Cathedral the Vatican of the Armenian Apostolic ChurchOffering unsolicited advise on oil painting landscapes, while Jane Marie checks out the Etchmiadzin Cathedral in Vagharshapat, Armenia
Trekker video of Armenian countryside that shows how green it is and the preservation of their unique culture.
Second video gets into the huff & puff parts of Armenia. On our car ride from the Georgia border in the north to Yerevan, we never saw a flat place.
This video by a Russian guy? gives an overview with lots of narrative, which is very informative.
Georgia, Georgia The whole day through Just an old sweet song Keeps Georgia on my mind (Georgia on my mind) I said Georgia
Hard to live in Turkey very long without visiting Tbilisi, GeorgiaJane Marie & I had a two-week educational, insightful, geo-social-political, and skilled Georgian home cooking stay with our new Family
Georgia Invented Wine
Georgia A song of you Comes as sweet and clear As moonlight through the pines Other arms reach out to me Other eyes smile tenderly Still in peaceful dreams I see The road leads back to you
Chateau Mukhrani, most entertaining winery in Georgia, with US & European wine aficionados serenaded by Georgian folk music. Clay pots with removable tops, so the wine guy/girl can push the grape stuff to the bottom every so often to let it ferment back up, so he/she can push it down again. Georgio, our fast-talking guide, showing off Chateau’s stainless steel lined concrete shell experimental clay pot.
Jane Marie’s Tbilisi Pics
I said Georgia Ooh Georgia, no peace I find Just an old sweet song Keeps Georgia on my mind (Georgia on my mind) Other arms reach out to me Other eyes smile tenderly Still in peaceful dreams I see The road leads back to you Whoa, Georgia
According to legend, the city of Tbilisi was first founded in the mid-5th century by King Vakhtang Gorgasali, who encountered numerous hot springs while hunting in the area and was so impressed by them he decreed that a new city be built on the site. The water still runs clear, so much so that you can drink out of the tap.Tbilisi is another great place to invest your Gentrification dollarTbilisi Tartar Vegan antidote Freedom Bridge good, Fallopian tubes interesting as a curiosityNexus carpet shop – Persian, Armenian & Georgian and bring cashIntelligentsia GraffitiFoot-long cheese or bean burrito blast furnace bakery on every cornerRe-purposed LadaGeorgian equivalent of eggs BenedictBest street art exhibit
Got to be one of the only places on earth where George ‘W’ and Dick Cheney are heroes.
My Queen of Diamonds friend was paying her first visit to our home, when she recognized that Kate Clow, founder of the Lycian coast trail lived in the neighborhood, We thought living next door to the mayor was pretty impressive but who is Kate Clow?
Kate Clowlived in the UK until 1989, when she took a job selling computer systems in Istanbul. In 1992, she moved to Antalya and started freelance work. This gave her scope to explore ancient roads, which form networks linking the centers of ancient civilizations of Turkey. Convinced that Turkey needed long distance walking routes, she connected a series of old roads to make Turkey’s first long distance walking path, the Lycian Way.
The ancient region of Lycia is now famous for walking, hiking, trekking, whichever! The establishment of the Lycian Way, Turkey’s first long distance footpath was set up during the nineties by Kate Clow an ex-pat residing in Antalya. The project won a conservation competition set up by the Garanti Bankasi and part of the prize was sponsoring the implementation of the route. Today people arrive from all over the world to hike the trail either independently or part of a package tour, bringing a boost to alternative tourism and local village economy.
Geographically, Lycia is a walker’s paradise with the limestone peaks of the Taurus Mountains sweeping down to a rugged shore of forested capes and secluded coves. Warm turquoise waters invite the intrepid trekker along coastal paths and ruins of ancient empires glorify the spectacular landscape. Snow melt gushes down narrow defiles to irrigate fertile plains and grazing goatherds define a biblical scene. Rock hewn paths connect forgotten cities and shepherd trails ascend to the ‘yayla’ summer pastures hidden amongst the mountain scree. Whether one wants to stroll through a meadow colored with red poppies or climb a ten thousand foot summit in snow and ice, Lycia has it all.
That 509 km translates to 300 miles, truth is if it was 3 mi we’d still go by car. We went fours by bus from Antalya to Kas, Everybody must go to Kas, if it wasn’t 4 hours to the airport, we would move there.
Roy & Kay liked Demre, so much so, Roy had some kind of an epiphany viewing the tomb of Santa Claus, aka St. Nicholas. Those in the know say Finike is the place to be, only no expat’s going to brag on Facebook, they’ve been to FIN – e- Kuh.
We hired car/driver for almost 12 hours from Kas to Tlos (up at the top of the map under Taurus) for $75. Had to visit Tlos, home of Pegasus, but Patara, Xanthos, and Saklikent were way more interesting. Oh, when you come to visit, I want to take the ferry (25 minutes) from Kas to this little Greek island that starred in award winning Italian movie.
Coming to Antalya, Turkey is the first time I have wandered off the path of least resistance. Did I want to go in the military in the Vietnam era – are you kidding me – Nixon made that decision for me. Did I want to get married? Of course not but did I want an open marriage, of course not. Did I want to be a goat farmer and live in the countryside? I hadn’t thought about it but at the time it seemed like a good idea, so why not. Did I want to be a widower? No way Jose. Did I want to go to China, well it was either that or sleep on my sister’s couch. Did I want to move lock, stock & barrel to Turkey? Never had it on my expat bucket list but when Jane Marie came back from Seoul with the suggestion, I was all for it.
First time ever for an unforced decision. I didn’t have to send out 500 CV/Resumes to get one offer to go to Egypt. The personnel office didn’t call me up and ask me to move to Sao Paulo. I didn’t haft to go to Cleveland for six miserable winters to atone for my fiscal sins in Brazil. What a scary thought, a no back-against-the-wall critical choice to make on which way to go. Scarier still, no employer or place to live at the end of the path but Antalya here we come with our 40 boxes of stuff.
We left Yantai, China, February 13th, on Azerbaijani Air leaving our friends to oversee loading our household effects aboard the good ship, Hansa Augsburg. April 16th it docked in Istanbul and after we paid the $2,000 ransom our 40 boxes decorated our hallway for Mother’s Day. Our conscious decision journey from China to Turkey was complete, now what do we do?
I know, let’s do ESL and Toastmasters. That worked well in China, where only 0.73% speak English, there are almost 600 Toastmasters clubs and every Tiger mom wants her single child in an English as a Second Language training school. Wikipedia says that 17% of the Turks speak English; there are two Toastmasters clubs in Ankara, four in Istanbul and praise Allah, a Turkish Toastmasters club in Antalya.
Old Town overlooking the bay
The secret ingredient, in our new Secret Ingredient Soup, is Antalya is a super-affordable, international Scottsdale, Arizona – that is after you get your stuff off the boat and out of customs. Our new ex-Navy neighbors from Ft. Worth, sold their 20 year career collection of goods in Albuquerque, packed their bags and moved to Antalya with three daughters because, “It is the nicest best place to retire on a military pension.” Therefore the secret ingredient this time around the ESL-Toastmasters barn, is expats want to retire here, unlike Cleveland or China.
Jane Marie and I are in our fourth year of Turkish Residency and moving to Antalya was the best idea collectively or individually we ever made. The ESL teacher gig or work in any form soon disappeared with the arrival of direct-deposit SSA/Pension checks. The Toastmasters get to know the community idea, may be in the distant global reset Antalya gets 12 million tourists a year but we have only one local American friend. In China we had a dozen Yankee friends and zero tourists.
Youngest daughter Tamara
Jane Marie has made the decision to exercise her artisan talents in collage art and I have reframed my “fortune-telling” penchant as Astro-Psychometric analysis.
Some reasons why you should come visit us:
Some of the most well-known Christian sacred places in Turkey;
St.Nicholas’ Birthplace, Patara, Antalya
St.Nicholas Church, Antalya
Ancient Nicea, Iznik, Bursa
Early Christian Settlement, Cappadocia
Seven Churches of the Revelation (Ephesus, Pergamon, Smyrna, Laodicea, Sardis, Philadelphia, Thyatira)
Assyrian Orthodox Church of Virgin Mary, Diyarbakir
When I was at least 12, Marion and Esther, my G.I. generation parents took me to Coney Island. I was still too scared to ride the roller-coasters but the ‘Dogems’ appealed to my passive-aggressive nature. Once back home Marion asked me if I noticed the black kid I had banged into several times? “No, why?”
Well, for more than 65 years, Coney Island and its Sunlite Pool had been a riverside playground for most of the people of Cincinnati; it boasted cleanliness, thrilling rides, a place to swim and dance, a whisper of bygone days. But it was closed to blacks. The pool, even longer. That a place of public accommodation would remain a pocket of segregation as long as it did — especially in a Northern, industrial city — surprises many, astounds others. After all, the Supreme Court had ordered schools desegregated in 1954. The park finally opened its gates to blacks in 1955, and by the time the pool was integrated — May 29, 1961 — the civil-rights struggle was well under way, punctuated by sit-ins and demonstrations around the country.
I was a Baby Boomer enjoying my childhood during the 1st Turning Act I (1943-1964) of a four-generation live action, socio-political-psycho-economic histo-drama, I call, “Apocalypse Soon, Armageddon Later.” Starring fellow Boomers; George ‘W’ 1946, Hillary 1947, Bill Clinton 1946, Trump 1946, and Putin 1952.
On my street, Mooney Avenue, we had 70 kids in an approximate 60-40 split between Protestants and Catholics. As children of a fervent Christian Scientist mother, my sister and I tried to hide under the Protestant umbrella. The Catholic kids went to Saint Mary’s and the rest of us attended Hyde Park elementary. So, in my 1955 life experience, no black kids here, no black kids there and no black kids anywhere except for that kid on the ‘Dogems.’
’53 Nash
Marion always bought ugly used cars like this ’53 Nash Ambassador – ‘Greg’ as Esther called him, drove us to Sunday school at the 1st Church of Christ Scientist Norwood then came back an hour later to pick us up. Norwood was a future Trump country neighborhood where everybody was white and wore blue collars to work at the GM Fischer Body plant.
Two Sundays a month, after Marion got paid, we went to Frisch’s Big Boy on Duck Creek and ate in the car. Whether it was a payday Sunday or fried chicken at home, I’d come back with a headache from my hour-long lesson in Mind Over Matter and the evils of materia-medica. My physical remedy for this meta-physical problem, was holding a cold wash cloth to my left temporal.
Headaches: Invalidating the self. Self-criticism. Fear.
My second wife gifted me with Louise Hay’s book Heal Your Body A-Z to teach me what I failed to learn in Sunday School.
RELIGION was my number one childhood complaint – “can’t we all just be normal kids like everybody else on the block” – number two was Marion shaming us with the only non-GM or Ford vehicle in Hyde Park, and used at that.
RACE RELIGION POLITICS SEX & MONEY
However, after Labor Day 1955, Marion drove me half way across town – to the east/west dividing line – to my first day at Walnut Hills High School. The school was smack dab in the middle of EVANSTON and from outward appearances an all-black community. I read recently that Cincinnati was the 8th most segregated city in the USA. Just looking out the window I couldn’t tell if they were Protestant or Catholic but they were the same color as the kid I bumped into at Coney Island.
But, oh Lordy, Lordy the halls of the 2,000 7-12th grade students at Walnut Hills High School were populated with black kids and white kids, but half of the white kids were Jews. Marion had warned me that, “if I didn’t learn anything from the Jews, I would never learn anything.” The first thing I noticed was that all the Jewish girls had breasts.
Secondly, while the Coney Island pool wouldn’t be integrated until the year I graduated, at WHHS all the boys swam naked. In my swim class everyone had more pubic hair, than I had hair on my head. Walnut Hills was an academic melting pot, my class of 305, had kids from every neighborhood in the city – places I had never heard of, let alone visited. What WHHS didn’t have was ‘greasers or hoods.’ Well, we did have Marty until he dropped out in the tenth grade. Marty wore ducktails and tried to act tough cool but the only status symbol at WHHS was your grade point average.
My favorite WHHS grad was Miller Huggins, Class of 1897 pictured with Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. Miller’s father was a Methodist and prohibited his son from playing semi-pro ball on Sundays. Huggins graduated from law school and his professor, none other than William Howard Taft advised him that he’d make more money playing baseball.
Huggins set an MLB record on June 1, 1910 with six plate appearances but no at bats, with four walks and two sacrifice flies. Huggins, was short but WHHS smart and managed the Yankees from 1921-29. The Yankees swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1927 World Series. This team became known as Murderers’ Row, and is considered the one of the greatest teams in baseball history.
My favorite famous WHHS grad was Jerry Rubin who went off to Berkley to found the ‘Yippies’ and protest the Vietnam War.
I passed the reading/math test to gain admittance to WHHS but Latin, Trig, Physics and Chemistry left me intellectually challenged in a very competitive environment. That, plus suffering from a severe case of homework avoidance syndrome, left me at the back of the pack on graduation day in 1961.
Of the 305 graduates, the top 100 went off to Harvard, Princeton, Yale and beyond. The middle third headed for Prairie League universities especially the hometown favorite the University of Cincinnati. My application to UC’s school of Architecture was rejected because I had not graduated in the top 10% of my high school class.
Tom Thacker was our most famous classmate along with Tony Yates in the ’61-’62 year.
I was happy to just be a poly-sci guy at Miami or Antioch but Marion, the hard knocks engineer, wasn’t about to pay for any of that monkey business. So, Howard, Eddie and I entered UC’s Ding-Dong, two-year, associate’s degree program. I did so well relearning 7th grade Algebra, English and History that I was granted admission to the 1962 class of Architecture.
Cincinnati was 85% German Catholic, home to Hebrew Union College and Rabbi Silver founder of Reformed Judaism. Thus, Cincinnati was blessed with a pragmatic German education culture. This meant that even though I missed out on Harvard I was going to be a University of Cincinnati Co-Op student and go to work for a living from my Freshman year on.
UC was the first university in the world to offer cooperative education. A bust of UC co-op founder Herman Schneider stands outside Baldwin Hall.
Herman Schneider (1872–1939), engineer, architect, and educator, concluded that the traditional learning space or classroom was insufficient for technical students. Schneider observed that several of the more successful Lehigh graduates had worked to earn money before graduation. Gathering data through interviews of employers and graduates, he devised the framework for cooperative education (1901). However, in 1903 the University of Cincinnati appointed Schneider to their faculty. In 1905 the UC Board of Trustees allowed Schneider to “try this cooperative idea of education for one year only, for the failure of which they would not be held responsible.” The cooperative education program was launched in 1906, and became an immediate success.
RACE RELIGION POLITICS MONEY & SEX
My Coop Job ’61 to ’67 as an architectural “Apprentice” above the Colony theater on Shaker Square
I spent Spring and Fall 1961-1967 working as an architectural co-op student in the offices of Outcalt, Guenther, Rode, Toguchi and Bonebrake on Shaker Square, Cleveland, Ohio’ thanks to my aunt, who got me the job and Herman Schneider, who started the first work/study program in the US at the University of Cincinnati.
Where ever an American Expat or an expat from any country resides outside his home nation they instantly become street smart economists. I had never been west of Chicago until the US Marine Corps gave me a 12 month all expenses paid tour of Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Teg, we’re not in Cincy anymore and why don’t you find a job overseas, when you get out?
Edificio Bretagne 949 Avenida Higeninopolis, Sao Paulo, Brasil 1975 – 1978
The Lobby was the best & when the elevator broke the 16th floor was a long ways to go
Good idea, I followed my bliss, first to Brazil where I tried to live an American lifestyle on a beer budget. However, Buenos Aires, Machu Picchu, boat trip down the Amazon were worth the stay.
Ismailia, Egypt rented villa one block from Suez canal 1985-86
My second opportunity to think outside the country was a short 13 month stay in Egypt as a free-lancer (on-the-economy) begging for consultant crumbs from the US Agency for International Development. Got to visit all 45 agricultural research stations from Asawan to Alexandria, took sailing lessons on the Nile and the Aswan to Luxor Nile cruise. Got to see how the civilian side of the Federal government works or doesn’t.
Zhengzhou, China 2008 to 2014 ESL teacher
After 2008 I found out that I couldn’t afford to live my ‘bliss’ lifestyle any place in the US on Social Security and my dinky pension. I exercised my one marketable job skill – speaking English with an American accent – seven years in Mainland China.
Pontificating to our Kiwi friends, overlooking Bohai Bay, in Yantai, Shandong (home of Confucius) China. 2014 -2015
My good looking partner with her JD Law creds, became disenchanted with being a shill for Chinese ESL training schools so we began looking for greener, affordable pastures. India, Vietnam, the Philippines and Korea were ruled out in favor of Antalya, Turkey, San Diego weather at one third the US cost of living.
At the base of those mountains Alexander the Great wintered his boats in 333 BC
In China we lived on wages, now we live on my SSA monthly check and save 30% of that, if we avoid Euro-Dollar countries. When I bragged to a Bostonian lady that we paid $300 for a 3 bed 1.5 bath apartment one block from the Mediterranean, she was impressed. Due to the currency exchange rate of the USD/TRY we started off at $327 in March 2014. Today, the US/Turkey political relationship has knocked our rent back to $250.
It cost us $20,000 to move from China and establish residency in Turkey.
What if the coming global financial Armageddon puts my pension on the Venezuela payment plan? That’s the problem in not only My Backyard but in 98% of the neighborhoods in the world. There are articles of living in Portugal or Ecuador for 30 years on $200,000, but what if your $200K turns into Zimbabwe bucks overnight?
My Backyard Strategy: Stay in Antalya, rent don’t own, bank accounts in TRY, EUR and USD, 5-10% savings in Gold.
Alexander the Great spent the winter in my back yard 2400 years ago.
Phaselis is an ancient city ranged on a peninsula surrounded by three small, perfect bays, now protected within the grounds of a beautiful national park. Located between Kemer and Olimpos. It is 58 kilometers from Antalya it’s a perfect spot for a quiet rest and a splash in the sea from one of the small pebbly beaches. Excursion boats and yachts often drop anchor in the southern harbor for lunch, a swim, and a walk through the ruins.
Phaselis was an ancient Greek and Roman city on the coast of Lycia. Its ruins are located north of the modern town Tekirova in the Kemer district of Antalya Province in Turkey. It lies between the Bey Mountains and the forests of Olympos National Park, 16 kilometers (9.9 mi) south of the tourist town of Kemer and on the 57th kilometer of the Antalya–Kumluca highway. Phaselis and other ancient towns around the shore can also be accessed from the sea by daily yacht tours.
The town was set up by the Rhodians in 700 BC. Because of its location on an isthmus separating two harbors, it became the most important harbor city of eastern Lycia and an important center of commerce between Greece, Asia, Egypt, and Phoenicia, although it did not belong to the Lycian League. The city was captured by Persians after they conquered Asia Minor, and was later captured by Alexander the Great.
When I was at least 12, Marion and Esther, my G.I. generation parents took me to Coney Island. I was still too scared to ride the roller-coasters but the ‘Dogems’ appealed to my passive-aggressive nature. Once back home Marion asked me if I noticed the black kid I had banged into several times? “No, why?”
Zhengzhou, China 2008 to 2014 ESL teacher
