Waitin' for the Weekend

"Beefcake Sampler #2" by Clint Collide:

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Memories of My Grand Tour, 1976

This is the very brochure I planned my trip with.
Now for sale on Ebay for five bucks.  I got my copy for free from the AAA travel agency, which handled the purchase and ticketing.

On this day fifty years ago, I began a two-week stay in London and Paris that remains a vivid memory.  Like most young men, I had a yen to see the world; but the family finances, though adequate for a quiet middle-class life, did not extend to such an extravagance.  However, the winter before, it had occurred to me that I could borrow from a life insurance policy my parents had taken out on me when I was born; it had a cash value of about two thousand dollars by this time.  My desire to see the Old World I'd read about in books all my life quickly became something of an obsession, so I set about researching ways and means to get there.

Happily, I soon discovered that TWA had a wonderful program of "freestyle" Getaway Vacations - one price covered all air fares and hotel bills, and best of all, you weren't tied down with a tour group all day, every day.  You were free to do your own thing and visit the places you really wanted to see on your own.  Perfect.  Although I would have loved to travel all around Europe, I settled for two weeks in London and Paris - the top spots on my must-see list - for which the price was about 800 bucks.  That seemed quite reasonable at the time.  I took with me about $400 in traveler's checks to cover incidentals - and I had my mom's Diner's Club card in case of emergency.

(To put the figures in perspective, my rent at the time was a little over $100 a month, ditto a car payment, and two people could eat very well at home for the same amount - including a restaurant or cafeteria dinner on Sundays, plus the occasional take-out pizza or bag of burgers.)

I also invested in a couple of travel guidebooks - one was entitled Europe on $10 a Day, which was a great guide to all the cheap but good restaurants, hotels, and amusement places, and gave helpful tips on how to get around town cheaply.  For example, I learned that the thing to do, as soon as you got to Paris, was to go buy un carnet - a book of subway tickets - which would save you a third or more off the regular fare.  And in both London and Paris, the subway was a wonderful way to get all around town.

I also learned that I needed to get an International Student I.D. Card before I left the States - that gave you reduced rates or discounts at lots of stores, shops, and museums.  But of course the prime thing was to get a passport, and apply far in advance of your departure date because the State Department was rather slow to fill all the thousands of requests they were swamped with every month.  I didn't read that part until about the first of June, so I quickly got a photo taken and went to the downtown post office, where you had to swear you were who you thought you were, were not a criminal or communist, and could recite the Pledge of Allegiance backwards and forwards.  I sent the application off with a note asking nicely for a little speed in processing, as my trip was leaving in less than 60 days.

God bless the kind-hearted soul in Washington who had pity on my plea - or did he or she just like my passport photo?  My passport came signed, sealed, and delivered in good time, well before my departure date.  The next thing to concentrate on was my choice of clothing.  I bought a couple of new shirts, one neavy blue and one chocolate brown, both made of one of those new polyester fabrics they were trying out in those days - a kind of dense netting that wasn't see-through, but had many tiny holes, which I thought would ensure my comfort and coolness.  And it did.  To pair with those I had two pairs of jeans-cut slacks (not actual jeans), in tan and dark blue.  This gave me the equivalent of four outfits; and the no-wrinkle shirts were so light they could be washed in a sink and hung over a shower rod to dry overnight.  Perfect.

Your Head Trucker is not the type to go bumming around from hostel to hovel, hitching rides and begging food, as so many of my compatriots did in the sixties and seventies.  The mid-priced hotels I stayed in were very like what you find in every American hotel:  the rooms were air-conditioned, spotlessly clean, with comfortable beds and TV sets, and complimentary tea and croissants arrived on a tray first thing every morning.  That's my idea of the way to travel.  

Looking for my old passport photo.  To be continued . . . 

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Gumbo Rescue

Restaurant workers save an elederly man's life when he fails to show up for his daily cup of gumbo. 

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Waitin' for the Weekend

"Looking Back in Time #2" by Clint Collide:

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Exploring Gay HIstory at the Smithsonian

Fascinating artifacts from the the Smithsonian Institution trace the stories of gay Americans, famous and obscure, from the 1800s till today in this 2024 documentary.  It's fairly good, though as is so often the case with such broad summaries, it sometimes glamorizes and dramatizes a bit more than is necessary - but worth watching anyway.  

We've come a long way, baby; I just hope I don't live to see the pendulum swing back the other way.  But it can and does sometimes, as history has shown many times in many places.  

It bugs me when people talk about being on "the right side of history" - that's a misnomer.  What they really mean is the right side of the future; but the future is unknown and unknowable.  It hasn't happened yet.  And there are no guarantees in this universe.

All we can ever know for sure is this little stepping-stone of time we live in - the present.  So make the best of it.

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Sunday Drive: Strauss, Roses from the South

André Rieu conducts a very cool performance of this old favorite of your Head Trucker's at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, 2013.  Sixty years ago, I used to play this on the piano.

One would have liked to go to a ball, a real ball, just once.  Sigh.  Alas, my fairy godmother never showed up!  Which is just as well, I suppose - my big Texas feet would never have fit into any glass slipper.

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Waitin' for the Weekend

"A Motley Mix of Men #2" by Clint Collide:

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What We're Watching: Miss Polly (1941)

We are sweltering through some mighty hot weather down here in Texas, boys - Tuesday it was 104 degrees, and the heat index was a whopping 119!  The temperature inside the house was 85, even with the a/c system and all fans going full blast.  We had a serviceman come out yesterday who cleaned and recharged the a/c, which helped; and also, the outdoor temp cooled off to a mere 98 degrees.

When we hear of silly-ass people in France or wherever agonizing over whether it is "ethical" to use air conditioning in extreme heat, we just laugh.  The question here in the Lone Star State is:  You want to live or die?  It's that simple.

I hope all my truckbuddies are staying cool and comfortable.  If you need something to take your mind off the weather, here's an amusing B movie from 1941 made by the Hal Roach studios - they also made the Our Gang comedies in the 1930s.  

We like to watch old movies or TV shows during dinner at the kitchen bar; and it seems I have made a convert of M.P., who wasn't quite sure who Zasu Pitts was until I started playing some of her movies.  Now he thinks she's swell.  See what you think.

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Sunday Drive: Strauss, The Blue Danube

Click to enlarge.

To help beat the summer heat, I think I will play some waltzes and other delightful things in the next month or so.  The beloved "Blue Danube" is of course at the top of the list, and Strauss wrote many others.  Here it is, as performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1961, with Eugene Ormandy conducting.

My mom used to pick up a record album from a thrift shop or discount store now and then, and though I never remember her playing any of them - maybe she played them when no one else was at home - they were exciting to discover as a lonely only child.  And what little gay boy wouldn't be entranced by the lush music and the fairy-tale picture on the album?

I played and replayed it countless times over the years.  When it had gotten rather scratchy in the mid-1970s, I searched the record stores until I found an 8-track version of the same, which I could play in my car while driving along the blue waters of the beautiful Gulf coast.  Fond memories; I hope you fellas enjoy the inspiration of this masterpiece recording too.

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Waitin' for the Weekend

"Loving Them All #1" by Clint Collide:

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Famous Photo Found!

From more than 60 years ago, I remember this fascinating photo of moving day in an American suburb that appeared in my World Book Encyclopedia, which my mom got me when I was 7.  (The World Book was an education in itself - thanks, Mom!)  I always did wonder how they got those all those big trucks in and out of that narrow street.

Now somebody has done the research to find out where this photo came from:  it was taken in 1953 for an article in Life magazine about the booming Lakewood suburb of Los Angeles.  The researcher uses Google Maps and his own video to show what the neighborhood looks like now.  A fine job of sleuthing.

May 1st was moving day up north; I never heard of such a thing down south.  This article from the Brooklyn Public Library gives the legal and historical background of the event, with some humorous period pieccs about the hustle and bustle.  See also this Wikipedia article.

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