BOTH OF US WERE ONE FOOT INTO RETIREMENT by now. Millie, of course, still went daily to work but this consisted mainly of "trooping the colors" with the CEO's and other biggies of the Fortune 500's who made up most of her accounts. I kept our place up (lots of tractor mowing and snow removal...). I worked at my smithing and early-crafts woodworking. I took up watercolors. I rode Miss almost daily – our rural and wooded neighborhood had miles and miles of excellent and attractive trails.
I backpacked with my son and nephew and others. We climbed Mt. Marcy, and others of the Adirondack High Peaks – a region we all loved.
We owned a Condo in North Miami Beach and usually spent the winter holiday season there. We travelled around Southern Florida and down to the Keys and all. We talked of permanent retirement there someday, little-knowing the horrendous events which lay yet ahead...
Millie loved to travel. So we began taking Carnival Cruise line trips out of Miami and Fort Lauderdale to the various Caribbean Islands. Once, on a trip to Cozumel and Cancun, I snorkeled over the ship's side in the waters of the Great Trench south of Grand Cayman Island. Floating on the surface of the crystal clear waters, I saw the brilliant schools of fishes far below me. And yet further down – what was this? – I saw Scuba divers merrily flitting along and then vanishing into the blue wall beyond!
"Hot Damn!" I thought. "That's for me! I got to learn to do that!" And so when we returned to Connecticut that winter, I enrolled in a PADI Course at the local "Y" and learned to dive. Diving has been one of the things I have enjoyed most in life and I have dived over the years a-plenty – but strangely often under duress or pressure some how (more later) and never fully to "heart's content," even though I lived in Southern Florida. I have not been down now in years... My son and I made our first open ocean dives together at a dive resort in the US Virgin Islands. Closing The Gap is a sort of tribute to this father-son adventure - which might provide a sort of "Intermission" here if some readers cared to check it out...
But grand as the resorts on Cancun and Cozumel are, (they were diving in some small, flooded, emerald-green ctenotes one day as I watched – enthralled – from the sparkling white limestone overhangs above - but I was not yet "certified"...), you can bet the highlight of such trip for me was to see the splendid Mayan (and Mixtec) ruins at Tulum. Fantastically well-preserved, these buildings are right on the coast: you can swim on the beach just in front of them! It may indeed, have been from the walls and pyramids of Tulum, that the Maya first saw the strange bearded Spanish invaders in their "white-winged" ships approaching from the sea one day long, long ago...
And once we "did" a trip which included a stop at Labadie, a wholly-owned point of land onthe Haitian Coast, near as I ever could figure out, by Royal Caribbean cruise lines. We had shipped aboard its flagship, "Freedom of the Seas." Labadie had been hyped as the be- all-and-end-all of beautiful tropical pristine beaches - and one of the planned activities was to be a "beach picnic" arranged ashore by the ship's crew for all the passengers later in the day. Around sunup, I woke and went on deck. I happened to notice a small knot of early risers and a number of ship's officers at the rail, so I wandered over to see what was up. What was up was way down: far below us, at waterline, a small group of coal-black Haitian kids was diving for pennies and small change the passengers threw over the side.
As I watched, one of the officers near me growled, "I hope the buggers get out of the way quick enough this time...." I asked what he meant. He said,
"This ship is equipped with side-thrusters - as you know. (This is a method whereby the ship's propulsion units may be set to move the vessel sideways - a big advancement for docking large vessels in small, out-of-the-way ports and where there is limited docking space).
"Last month, when we were here," he continued, "we could not get all these kids to get away from the side as we wanted to get underway - and the side-thrusters wouild suck them in: very dangerous... So the Captain radioed for assistance from the Local Police boat and it eventually came chugging out from its berth, and came up alongside the kids in the water. They exchanged some kind of words, and the kid divers refused to leave, I guess. Anyhow one of the police crewmen then stepped up to the rail with a submachine gun and shot a bunch of them in the water! Just like that! Then, they waved at us - and headed back to their dock! Cripes! what a place!"
That afternoon, at the "beach party" I could not get this all out of my mind. To underscore it all, there was a large cyclone fence across the neck at one end, and behind it from time to time peering out of the foliage, one could make out groups of (adult) black Hatians - always in stocking caps - looking in at us. I felt like Louis IVth must have, in the Garden at Versaille before the mob broke in and he lost not only his Garden - but his head as well! Wow!...
Mill loved to gamble, so we "did"The Bahamas and its Casinos. I hit a lick or two on the slots – lotsa fun – but gambling is not really my thing – and the "tables" leave me cold. (But Mill could remember cards and all that jazz and in her black dress, blonde hair and scads of diamonds (more later...) did more than just hold her own – and the crowd parted before her when she arrived, just like the Red Sea did for one of her ancestors even longer ago...).
But I would gradually edge toward the door and once outside, lit a shuck for quarters – where – LOL! – I had my electronic "treasure seeker" stashed away – having managed to smuggle it over from Miami (at least the Bahamian "inspectors" had not spotted it! Whether it was allowed or not – I do not know – probably pretty stupid thing to do now that I think back on it! But back then, bombing and bomb smugglers were not yet such a worry...).
But I much preferred to set up my "finder" and then with earphones clapped to my ears, "sweep" the nearby beaches for (hopefully!) reales, doubloons, and other lost flotsam and jetson of the Ancient Spanish Main... Hopeless romantic, I , of course, and I never found any coins or gold bars at all – but I did find dozens and dozens of aluminum beer can "pop tops" – the early detachable ones that folks used to just "pop" and throw away. (For which – oddly – I feel I share some guilt in fact, since "pop tops" had been an early-on development of my onetime Continental Can Company client back in my salad days in the Big Apple – and I had been hired moreover, to promote the "tops" and their use.. See ______.). But I was making good on my earlier, derelict activities: my treasure seeker and I attracted hordes of little Black urchins (the Bahamas are paved with them...) and they would troop merrily along behind me as we went down the beach – and they shared my "pop top" finds with me as though I were indeed finding pirate gold...
I was the Pied Piper of Outer Exuma - and none to say me nay...
About the only other thing I remember about the Bahamas is Goombay Punch (Go Easy, Bro!) and a little island sparrow of some kind which is the national bird there – it used to be on their postage stamp - a pair of which had a nest in the vines just outside our door....
Halcyon Days – and all that Jazz!
Then the Martin Millers bought the house next door – and moved in. Martin was a multi-millionaire! (Hint: Never live next door to a multi-millionaire if you can possibly arrange it!!!)
Martin, you see, was the sole inventor – and patent holder of ..... Shop-Vac!. THE Shop-Vac, Good Buddies - the original one and only wet/dry vacuum that every hobbyist, homeowner and cleanliness freak in Christendom owns – and all its "name-branded" version namesakes...
(Jeezul! Now I got to relate all this...)
Martin was an Art Student. Martin got married. Martin worked late nights in his basement workshop. Martin made messes. Martin (once! Amen!) took an old vacuum of his wife's (Martin was married by now, as the alert will already have ascertained) and he cobbled this old vacuum of his wife's together some way till it would suck up both wet and dry messes in his "art studio" – which achievement had never yet been known on land or sea ... (The operational phrase here is – wet or dry, Pilgrim!)
His wife said, "So what, Martin?" (Sort of my reaction the first time I heard the tale, too. Especially, since Martin had no knowledge of engineering or mechanics at all - as he also boasted. Sigh).
At which juncture in his telling of his own tale, however, Martin used to lean back and say to me: "As of today, Bernie, I own 9 plants worldwide and all the global patent rights to wet-dry vacs."
(I was impressed – but just so much and no more).
But he had gotten filthy rich!
And his first wife died (?) and he remarried... one, Tanya... Now Tanya was a piece of goods!
To begin with she was a bona fide Communist Russian... born and bred!
Don't task me why! (Or even "how." How they met, I mean – the Cold War was in its dying stages). Martin travelled extensively worldwide you see – all those pep talks he had to make at those 9 plants. Like Archie Bunker might have said, "Someone has to be Russian!" (In Archie's case, of course, it was "Someone has to live in New Jersey." Same difference.) Anyhow, I think they might have met in Switzerland - or somewhere...
Whatever.
She was half his age – and she ran the roost over there. They settled in (they had nine acres, we had five...). And they and their yardmen and hangers-on (the rich always have hangers-on, you see) raised holy living hell and noise over there day and night! Trucks were always delivering things – like vanloads of framed art and paintings – you know – regular home delivery stuff... one after another.
Then weekends they went shopping in London. Once they came home with a Bentley Taxicab. S'God's truth, so help me! Tanya admired it as they rode along Fleet Street or wherever (LOL), and Martin bought it for her on the spot and had it shipped back forthwith.
(Way to Go, Man! Mill had a favorite phrase: "Rich or poor," she used to say, "...it's nice to have money").
One day I hear all this gear-grinding and tire noise over there beyond the thicket between our two places. I push through the thicket and here is Martin sitting in his Bentley, with the rear wheels up and over a low brick wall, not even touching the ground.
Jeezul!
I said, "Martin! What you doing?"
Martin: "Trying to get down off this wall...."
(Me): "We got to cool this, Martin. Let me explain..."
After the tow truck had come and gone, I looked around a bit. I spotted a great big, wet puddle on his garage floor. The odor of gasoline was overpowering. Fumes everywhere!
I said to Martin, "What is all this...Martin?"
He said, "I think it is gas. It has been like that for weeks and weeks...".
As Tanya was a chainsmoker, and the access to one of the backdoors was at the back of this garage, I said to him,
"Listen, Martin! This is serious! Why if just one spark from Tanya's cigarette were to land here – your whole place would go up!"
He looked at me with a sort of pole-axed, bemused look he always wore. "Well, I didn't think it made much sense," he trailed off weakly. I opened all the garage windows, made him promise to leave the door open all night, too – and the Bentley outside (not necessary to back it up over the brick wall first, either) – and get its fuel lines and tank checked first thing tomorrow!
He was a genuine Captain of Industry, this guy – and he didn't have enough brains to blow hot soup!
In the beginning we were sort of friendly. They built a big sauna by their pool – and never used it. But Tanya knew I swam every day and often spoke of the sauna I enjoyed at the "Y". So one evening they invited us over "for a swim" and Mill and I pushed through the thicket and here is this lovely pool (almost better than ours! LOL) – the marine lights on and all inviting. We were suited up and just jumped right in. The two of them then sat there and watched us swim, while they had drinks beside the pool. Then we got out, and Mill went to take quick shower and put on her clothes – but Martin and Tanya insisted that Bernard must "inaugurate" this new sauna of theirs. They ushered me into it. It was twice as big (and grand) as the one down Rte. 7 at the Wilton "Y" Health Club – there were benches for about 12 people. It was already hot and they both left me to my devices. I stretched out on one shelf and was sort of alternately dozing and sprinkling a drip or two at times on the ceramic coals, when I noted this fresh-cut branch with green leaves on it lying sort of unobtrusively near to hand. I picked it up and sniffed it: euctalyptus leaves! – fresh! – minty! - the sauna goer's ultimate dream! I sat up and flagellated my back several times with it (Socrates and his fellow seekers-after-truth never had better!) as the pungent odor and tingle swept over me! Hot Damn! What a way to live!
(But where, I wondered, had euctalyptus branches suddenly come from in late summer Connecticut...?)
"Purely a puzzlement..." (as the King of Siam used to intone...).
So I showered and dressed and joined them on the deck for a drink. I thanked them for their hospitality. Then I idly asked, "Wherever did you find a euctalyptus branch hereabouts this time of year? It sure was... neat!"
"Oh, Tanya cut that just for you this morning – since she was thinking of having both of you over tonight," said Martin.
"That a fact?", I said. ... still wondering. "Cut it ...where?," I continued.
"On our farm," said Martin. "Farm? What farm?" I continued.
"In California," he said. "There are thousands and thousands of eucalyptus trees we have there...".
It all finally fell in place, when he said they had flown back in a private plane to nearby Westchester Airport later.
("The rich are very different from you and me," as been truly said!)
Then one day they threw a lawn party for a friend's birthday, I think it was. We were invited, and I had a seat with a number of others at large table next to Martin – who just sat near but not actually at – one end of the table - and sort of hunched silently over his plate. The conversation turned to travel (this as you might in imagine was a pretty well-heeled lot) and sevral had been on sort of marginal safaris and were relating their experiences – but couldn't remember animal names or places and sort of stumbling along – so I piped up and said, "Why don't you ask Martin here: I think he has been on more African safaris than Osa Johnson..." and turned to our host. He flushed abut three shades of red... but we smoked him out – I knew all this because he had hunted lions and wildebeest and every other critter you can name, and had oten told me before. His guests (at table) were flabbergasted: none even knew he had ever set foot out of Connecticut, I suppose. He was one weird dude. A key for the perceptive had they but seen through it, was fact he wore sort of abbreviated L.L. Bean safari clothes around the place all the time...
Well, the desert course came, and we sang "Happy Birthday, Somebody" and all that – then came the big surprise of the Party: Tanya must have had about 500 Helium Balloons all held down temporarily (I think under a big tarp, as I best recall). Whatever.
But on each balloon was a long dangling ribbon and at the end of each was a really attractive ring (Not Tiffany's you understand, but not "costume" junk either) and each was set with a small, genuine ruby! A genuine ruby! And a card wishing the finder happiness and all that and good health and long life by wearing the ring. Then she pulled the string and the balloons rose in a giant cloud up through the trees and all, where the winds caught them and scattered them far and wide over the Connecticut countryside.
Tough act to follow, that one. Some folks just "know" how to live, you see....
Then once, a friend got married over there. Again, we (Mill and I) were much in demand. This time an armed (!) guard stopped me as I pushed through the familiar thicket: "Orders!" were that all guests were to enter and leave by the big main gate on the drive only! This (automatic) gate would have done Sing-Sing proud: once Martin nearly got shut in it himself, and impaled like a bug on a pin when he had come out to greet us...
So we backed out of the thicket and joined the throng streaming in at front.
Get this: The groom was a ...mime! And he came all done up as one: dusted in white flour or powder or something from head to foot and acting like a sort of Zombie with a tic, you might say. I say. Mille warned me to keep my mouth shut or I would have to deal with her! The bride was not a mime... but the piano player was! He too, all dusted in flour and all. We sat quietly in the front row of chairs – ringside view as it were. (It was even better than it appeared: Mill found out later that the piano player had been the bride's former boy friend....). I behaved, and there were no crises to mention.
"Oh! Promise me...."
But relations worsened... they went off to Greece or somewhere one cold winter day and the water pipes (unaccountably installed in their third floor attic) froze in the unheated space, burst, and flooded damn near the whole place – damage unparalleled: art, art objects, and what not. It happened around one o'clock one freezing , cold Connecticut winter morning, and I got all out-of-sorts and huffy because fire engines came down their and our driveways and the noise and searchlights and hallooing and hullaballoo really pissed me off...
Then they had an outdoor sound system they would go away and leave on for weeks or days – or overnight and so on. Endless idiot music blaring out over this empty palace grounds of theirs (and my more humble adjacent abode). But I fought fire with fire: sometimes they wanted their peace and quiet over there – and I had a tape of the despised Internationale' – the Workers-of-the-World Communist Party Song!
