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DIDGERREDOO
The title to this little essay is an aboriginal name from the Outback in Australia. There is no written language in the aboriginal culture, so every one is free to spell it as he sees fit. I spell it as DID-GER-RE-DOO, a musical instrument. So keep that name in mind while we spend a few…
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THE THREE I LEAGUE
When we were young, many of my compatriots had their sights set on a professional baseball career. Unrealistically, as it turned out. But we didn’t know that then. In the Midwest, one of the leagues to which we aspired had clubs in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa. And so it became the Three I League. It…
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THE GREAT NEPAL ROBBERY
In an earlier episode of this great World Wide Travel Report, it was reliably reported that Cal Tuggle, Howard Pappert and I were headed for the mystic delights of Bahrain. Such as they are. And then on to India, Nepal, Bangkok and Kuwait, such as they are. You may recall the Blah, Blah Blah incident…
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ON TO MOTHER ENGLAND AND THE U S OF A
Now that we have finished with the Iron Curtain, there may be some small merit in a review of the trouble of a Libyan tour group in Heathrow and finally, a call to personally minister to the needs of a fine group of Overseas operators and executives in Pittsburgh. We may as well start with…
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BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN
The world may be broken into three parts, as the French say, but for us in the Overseas business of the Bell System, it had a great many more parts. I found them all fascinating from the Indians, to the Saudi Arabians, to the various tribes in Africa as well as to the more familiar…
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DECEMBER 8, 1997
Back in 1943, I was in a terrible slump. A slump is a bad day at bat; it is a bad day on the basketball court when the ball never goes in. It is when your battery doesn’t turn the engine over and when you have a flat tire. I had such a year –…
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“…AND THEY DID NOT BURY THE DEAD”
If you will lend me your eyes for a few moments, I will try to give you a nickel’s worth about aphasia and several dollars’ worth about the realities of being a soldier. My thoughts about the realities of being a soldier have been rolling around in my mind and have been keeping me awake…
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NEVER SEND TO KNOW FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
“NEVER SEND TO KNOW FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS; IT TOLLS FOR THEE” John Donne 1572 – 1631 These lines are being dictated on a gloomy Friday afternoon at the end of December, 2006. Ordinarily my outlook on life is less than exuberant during the period between Christmas and New Year’s. Today’s news has sent…
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TAKE ME OUT TO THE AFRICAN BALL GAME
The title of this essay is a bit misleading because at the time this game took place, Africans played no baseball at all. On the other hand, it is a celebration of a game played by GI’s late in 1944 or 1945 between two clubs whose managers disliked each other with such intensity as to…