During one of my winter vacations from Woodstock, when my dad and stepmother were living in Bangkok, my dad and I did a scuba diving course. Dad had started diving during our year in Hawaii (1966), and I’d been hearing his stories about it for as long as I could remember. Getting certified together sounded like a fun father-daughter activity, and it was.
Our instructor was “Dusty” Rhodes, who had served with distinction in the US Navy during the Vietnam war, and had then settled in Thailand. I did not realize until years later that the preparation he gave us went far beyond typical scuba instruction.
In my many moves around the world, I have brought with me a few items that remind me of specific times, places, people, and adventures in my life. This painting is one such.
While we lived in Thailand, my parents acquired some interesting pieces of original and local art, which moved with us and formed a familiar backdrop to our homes from Bangkok to Pittsburgh to Connecticut. We did not take much when we moved to Bangladesh in 1976, most of it went into storage. Sometime while I was attending the University of Texas at Austin, our household goods were moved from storage in Connecticut to my aunt’s property in Texas, where our old dishware may still be languishing in a disused falling-down barn full of rattlesnakes. I later rescued a few items, including the above which had been painted by our family friend Irma, an artist who owned a Scandinavian design shop in Bangkok.
Japan does bathrooms better than anywhere else, including public toilets.
Singapore – June
We went to Singapore (first time for both of us) because Brendan was co-chairing a SREcon, but we took some extra time to sightsee and get together with friends and fellow alumni of Woodstock School.
As part of my childhood love of animals (stuffed and real), I somehow became aware of Steiff, the German manufacturer of iconic stuffed toys and inventors of the original Teddy bear. They sold a huge range of animals of all sizes and species, most of them about as realistic-looking as it was possible for a plush toy to be. We once visited the equally iconic toy store FAO Schwartz in New York, which sold a vast collection of Steiff toys, including giraffes and elephants that towered over me, and tigers I could probably ride on. I yearned to own a Steiff animal.
They cost hundreds to thousands of dollars even 50 years ago. I couldn’t imagine what kind of family could afford such expensive toys, but we certainly couldn’t. I saved up my allowance and, on a future trip to one of Pittsburgh’s fancier toy stores, was able to buy this little guy. I vaguely recall that it cost $12? This was about 1972, so we’re talking $90 in today’s terms, an amount I would now hesitate to spend on a stuffed toy.
I felt him to be so precious that I never played with him much, nor even gave him a name. Poor little chap, he was not part of my busy community of toys. But he has stayed with me all these years.
