There are some times when the New Jersey winters just won’t let up. There are gray days and there are many sunless days. In the midst of one of those endless periods without seeing the sun, Walt Fennessey walked into my office. Walter had responsibility for business and correspondent relations with several African countries, including all the sub-Sahara governments.
Walt’s proposition was that I should take a trip with him through a few of his countries. He mentioned that I had been to Europe and to Japan and Australia, but that I had not been seen on the “Dark Continent”. He was right. Aside from the fact that there are many more commercial opportunities in the rest of the world, Walter was working away in an unappreciated corner of the globe. He deserved the attention that would flow from a 12 day trip devoted solely to his concerns for some of his African clients. And so on the spot, I said “Why not.” Why not go to Africa where the sun was warm? Why not visit a few places that are off the beaten track? And why not see if old Walter could produce nice hotels and fine food among the former French colonies? Indeed, why not.
To digress for a minute, a word or two would be in order about “Why not.” Those sentiments entered my vocabulary a little later in life. Specifically, when I came to New York, I stayed at the Picadilly Hotel, on 45th Street. Just down the block at the corner of 8th Avenue and 45th Street, was a place that served breakfast and lunches and late food for people coming from around the theater district. It was not a fancy place; the counter had stools along its edges.
When I first went to this place, I ordered some eggs – it being breakfast. About two or three feet to my right, was the place where they kept the sugar, the salt and the pepper. Next to me on the stool to my right, was a large fellow who was dressed for work, perhaps on a moving van.
I suppose I could have reached over in front of this large fellow to grab my salt and pepper. It struck me that the appropriate thing to do was to ask him to kindly pass the salt and pepper to me.
When I made my most polite request, the large fellow said nothing. I’m pretty sure he had never been the recipient of such a nice request to pass the salt and pepper. Finally, the Big Man turned toward me and inspected my suit and shirt with tie. Then, when I thought he might push me off my stool, he said in a loud voice – sort of a bellow really – “Why not?”
And so I became a subscriber to the Why Not entreaty. It served me well when I told Walt Fennessey the only answer to his African trip was “Why not.”
The trip was to start in the eastern end in Libreville, Gabon. Proceeding westward we planned to go to Lome in Togo, to Abidjan in the Ivory Coast and then finally to Dakar, in Senegal. Starting in Paris, we had a fairly good aircraft until we landed in Abidjan. From that point to Gabon, to Togo, back to the Ivory Coast and thence on to Senegal, the planes were one step from the graveyard. They were the equivalent of the U. S. firm called “Rent a Wreck.” The planes were flown by Central African Airways, a French colonial effort that surely had the last drop those airplanes could deliver.
Not much happened in Gabon and Togo. The hotels were new, as Walt promised, and the food was great stuff. Most, if not all of it, was flown in regularly from Metropolitan France. The towns were typical African cities, without much in the way of pavement or running water. Ah, but the hotels were first class places.
Now it’s on to Abidjan for a banquet, African style. It’s now 14 or 15 years later and I still remember that meal.
On Friday, we had met with Mr. M. B. L. Aka, the Director General of the Ivory Coast Telecommunications System. From newspaper articles and other material from the American Embassy, it was clear that Mr. Aka was a prominent advisor to the President of the country, Mr. Haughrey. Mr. Aka asked us many questions about how things are done in the States. It was a very pleasant visit. As we began to leave, Mr. Aka asked us if we could stay over on Saturday so that he could arrange a special meal for us at a typical African restaurant. We could not leave until Sunday in any case, and Director General’s invitations are to be responded to promptly. So we accepted on the spot. Maybe another case of “why not.”
I believe we were eight at dinner, very few of whom spoke English. Three of his aides were accompanied by young women whom we assumed to be wives. To start, we assembled in a room off the bar where we were given an excellent assortment of hors d’oeuvres. Fennessey and I were thinking this must be the French influence. And there was plenty to drink. I would have been happy to go home after the hors d’oeuvres, but that was not to be.
Then we moved to the main dining room where it was more or less dark. There was a lot of coming and going. The room was only about seven to seven and a half feet tall. We found that the waitresses used large jugs, tapered at the top, to bring food from the kitchen. Perhaps each one may have held two quarts of liquid. They jostled the jugs around and then emptied them on a large plate near the center of the table. Some others were placed on guest’s places. There was no discernible organization about the service.
Well, the first course was lobster split down the middle. The light was not so good, but it looked pretty good to us. Now, I had thought with all the appetizers out at the bar and now the lobster(s), that would be a very plentiful meal. Wrong again. The waitresses with the large jugs came around after the lobster course bringing more food. That was only an appetizer.
What was in those large jugs had me holding on to my seat. And Fennessey did likewise. When the waitresses emptied the jugs on the center of the table, I didn’t want to stare too long but it looked like frogs. In the dim light, I had hoped it would not be frogs. It was frogs – whole frogs.
Fortunately, the waitresses did not clear off the remains of the earlier portion of the meal, so I had a place to hide some things among the lobster pieces. I puttered around piling up the lobster pieces and moving them around. It seemed like a long time, but one way or another the Africans polished off the frogs. I hope that they were sufficiently interested in working on the frogs – hind legs, front legs, stomach, etc. – that they didn’t tumble to my maneuvering the lobsters around.
Now the evening turned to a jug full of monkey’s paws. Luckily, the hosts were sort of full so it was agreed that the monkey’s paws would be put off until the next time at that restaurant. We dodged a bullet.
We thanked our host Mr. Aka and said it had been a memorable meal. Boy, Walt Fennessey and I will never forget how memorable that meal was in Old Abidjan. The Joy of Cooking will not be complete until it produces a recipe for frogs in wine sauce and monkey’s paw in lime juice – all from a large jug. Old Fennessey didn’t “Toodle the Flute” after that meal.
Now on to the airplanes. You may recall that I referred to them as “Rent a Wreck.” They were all of that. I didn’t see any on-the-ground maintenance. They flew. If they didn’t fly, they canceled the schedule and tried for another day.
On almost every day, it is hot along the Equator. Most of the airplanes that fly those routes have very poor to non-existent air conditioning. And they seldom fly high enough to cool down the whole airplane.
So now here is my friend Walt Fennessey who is sweating mightily at 4000 to 5000 feet. And I am too. When Walt saw the cabin door to the crew quarters open, he could see the Engineer. And so he planned to ask him to please give us some more air conditioning. The Engineer was fanning himself with a large magazine. Upon hearing Walt’s request, he located another large magazine and passed it to Walt. That was the air conditioning.
On the last leg of the African expedition from Abidjan to Dakar, we enjoyed our fellow passengers and a meal service in the style of Central African Airways. At the beginning of the flight, an elderly gentleman in long white robes sat across from us in a row of four facing seats. His four wives were then brought in to sit facing him. Next to him sat a small goat, who had his feet hobbled and who caused no trouble at all. The best I can remember is that neither the gentleman nor his wives ever spoke during the flight. Neither did the goat.
But now to the morning meal service. It was very nice, however my friend Fennessey decided that he required butter. He knew that the stewardess spoke no English so he tried his French on her. He politely requested some “Beurre.” She disappeared and returned with a liter of beer. She had understood him to say “Biere.” From there, Walt repeated his request for some “Beurre.” She simply found him another “Biere.” And all of this was at breakfast.
There was no point in being annoyed with the stewardess. French was her second language. And who knows, “Beurre” and “Biere” sound pretty much the same in French. And in all likelihood, there simply was no “Beurre.” It would have melted, I suppose. And so we drank some of the beer so as not to hurt the feelings of the stewardess.
We spent a couple of days in Dakar. In many respects it looked a lot like the town where the United States Army had come ashore in early 1943. It was a pleasant way to end the trip with Walt Fennessey. He delivered on the hotels and good French food. And I even enjoyed the meal in Abidjan.
So I’m glad that I said “why not” to Brother Fennessey. I didn’t dine out on the Central African trip, but I surely did talk about it. We met some influential people on the trip. And we had lots to laugh about. And so if you should ask me to go to French Central Africa in December 1997, I’m not so sure that I’d say “why not” – but I’m leaning that way.
E. E. CARR
December 24, 1997
Essay #1 (New Format)
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I’ve decided to switch the site up a bit, and proceed chronologically forward through the essays for the foreseeable future. I’ve already gone backwards from 2014 back to 2006, so now I think it’s time to start from the beginning and meet myself in the middle. It might not be in exact order, especially since dates are a little bit trickier to discern in the earlier essays, but it should be close enough.
That said, I very much suspect that this was not the first true Ezra’s Essay. Perhaps Judy could weigh in here, but I bet that there were many before this that were handwritten and never transcribed. I could be wrong. Stylistically, this essay strikes me as completely different from what I consider the norm for his writing.  This is likely due to the fact that I’ve read four or five hundred essays that were dictated as compared to only a few dozen that were handwritten and transcribed; even though logically it makes sense for the tones of these styles to differ, it will definitely take some getting used to on my end.
What confuses me is that he mentioned the dinner being about fifteen years back, but also he says that he’d “not been seen” in Africa. But I know that he definitely spent time in North Africa during the war — and I thought he even visited Egypt after the war but before 1982. Hopefully Judy could speak to that as well.
All that aside, the thought of my grandfather at age 60 deciding to travel to Africa with a buddy on a whim, then winding up drinking beers with a goat on a sweltering plane makes me smile. I can only hope to continue having adventures like that throughout my life — I think part of the key to that is definitely continuing to ask “why not?”