Footloose Scot (20 page)

We travelled to Europe by student ship, the M/V Aurelia, 29,000 tons of the Cogedar Line. Of Italian registry, it had been built in l939 to carry immigrants from Europe to Australia, and had been recently been refurbished. In the summer it was chartered by a U.S. organization, Council on Student Travel, to carry students across the Atlantic, an eight-day crossing

On the 29-year old M/V Aurelia, despite cramped cabins, old fittings and watered down wine, the mood was infectious and the excitement palpable. Once in Europe, many students used the Eurailpass, sleeping on overnight trains, or took student flights. This student flight network, run by the European National Student Travel Bureaus, was wide ranging and remarkably cheap, using DC 4s and other prop planes of similar vintage.

I have taken various sailings around the world over 50 years. These include a free first class ticket on the SS France in 1965, thanks to my status as student travel operator. On the SS France I wore a dinner jacket when dining and had a cabin to myself. In 1974, on a trip to the Far East with my then wife, we boarded a Polish freighter in Singapore, bound for Yokohama, Japan. But the best sailing I ever took was on the old M/V Aurelia, because the 1,100 passengers were alive, open minded and ready for an adventure.

I had hardly returned to the San Francisco Bay Area after six weeks in Europe, when my boss in New York called to say he was quitting as Executive Director and was looking for a successor. I was summoned to New York to be interviewed by the Board. I was surprised at the offer but jumped at the opportunity. I flew to New York and met with the Board of Directors, mainly students from the National Student Association current crop of officers. The interview was informal, in someone's apartment, with a TV playing in the background.

I was offered the job, and accepted on the spot. I had no idea what to expect. I was now in charge of a student travel company, employing sixteen people in an office on Madison Avenue, selling travel services (tours, tickets, ID cards) and was expected to make a profit for the parent organization. The company was run by recent students in a student fashion, handling a lot of money and never quite sure how solvent it was. Still, we were in a growing business, and had the advantage of non-profit status and some unique travel services to sell. And I had a new job.

So, in suit and tie, I went to work. Travel to Europe was popular, things went well, and tour sales increased. For me, being a big fish in the small world of student travel was better than being a room clerk. I travelled regularly within the USA giving talks or attending educational travel conferences and to Europe where we had a small office in Rome. It was a real kick to walk a few blocks to the Pan Am building, which towered over Grand Central, take the express elevator to the roof and catch a helicopter to JFK. Sales improved, and the Board seemed content. This was fun!

The publisher Arthur Frommer called one day and wanted to discuss publishing a student flights manual we put out. We met in a restaurant in Grand Central and ate steak and kidney pie. Frommer, already a household name, saw a good market among students travelling to Europe for our listing of flights within Europe. Who didn't want to know about a flight from London to Paris for twelve dollars? He was amiable and focused, and it was easy to agree to a deal.

In 1964 I was invited by another organization in the student travel field, the Council on Student Travel, to attend a reception to greet a delegation from Sputnik in Moscow. Sputnik was the youth and student department of Intourist, the Soviet national tourism agency. I talked with the head of their delegation, an older man and, judging from the red pin on his lapel, a Communist Party member. Hearing that I represented US students, he extended on the spot an invitation "to visit the USSR for as long as you want at our expense."

The idea was that I would get a red carpet tour, and then we would sit down and plan future trips in each direction between the USSR and USA, an exchange of student groups. I had always heard that the way to visit the USSR was in a delegation, and here I was being invited as a delegation of one. I said "Yes". To get to know them better I took three in the delegation including the chief out one evening in New York. I thought a few drinks and a good steak would pave the way for my visit to Moscow. After the few drinks and the steak dinner I thought of somewhere unusual to visit: Sammy's Bowery Follies. This was a big mistake, I realized as the evening passed. What I thought of as late night entertainment, songs croaked out by female singers well past their prime, the Soviets saw as degradation and exploitation by the capitalist system. Still - the invitation to the USSR had been extended and accepted, and I was ready to go.

Before leaving, I checked with the US State Department as to what advice they had to offer. Although this was the Cold War era, plenty of US organizations had links to organizations in the Soviet Union. State Department's advice was to pay careful attention to the practical side of the exchange of student groups and to ensure quality service from the Soviets when our student groups visited the Soviet Union since the standard of facilities in the USSR was generally nowhere near as good as in U.S. They advised me get very clear details in advance regarding meals and accommodation.

I also consulted with the officers of the US National Student Association. They told me to stick to making business arrangements, and not get snared in making political statements or get into any situation which might prove embarrassing. I told them I understood what they were saying: be careful when speaking in public, don't get drunk or photographed in a compromising situation.

I had been invited to attend the May Day Parade, and on April 30 I arrived in Moscow. The head of the Sputnik agency, who had invited me in New York, met me at the airport, and expedited my passage through Soviet Immigration. He was an older, serious man chosen I gathered not because of business acumen but due to political connections. As we sped by taxi into central Moscow, he asked what I thought about the multi-lane highway. It seemed sort of ordinary to me, but I told him it was pretty impressive since he was obviously proud of the amount of traffic.

We went straight to the Sputnik office for the first of many receptions, fuelled by vodka, involving toasts and lengthy translations. I could see that this student and youth travel agency was far removed from our setup in the USA. The Sputnik staff was all first and foremost party members, and the top job was a political appointment. I hoped future meetings would be less political.

Next day was the May Day Parade, a military demonstration of the power of the USSR. Tanks, vehicles, rockets and other equipment rolled past followed by marching groups, lasting for hours so far as I remember. Then there were lengthy speeches. The weather was clear but cold, and I was glad I had a thick overcoat and astrakhan hat. I watched from a special area for minor VIPs, not too far from the dais where the top officials presided. Fortunately I ran into some Polish student delegates, a lively group, not too subservient to the Soviets. We agreed to meet up in the evening and to sit together if possible at the May Day banquet.

The long evening, with several courses and many toasts, seemed to go on forever. I was not called on to speak which was as well, since the vodka was affecting me. "Do you know what you are singing?" the jovial Poles asked me, as the whole auditorium rose to sing the Soviet national anthem. This was, thankfully, the end of a loud and long night. I somehow got to my room, and some minutes later resisted answering a tap on the door from a red haired woman from the Polish delegation wanting to further our relationship.

Not a good idea, I thought, following the advice from my student bosses.

Eight busy days followed with many sightseeing visits as well as discussions with factory workers, party members and students. The translator/minder assigned to me was a dour party member, competent but humorless. We travelled by train to Kiev, then flew to Yalta on the Black Sea, then back to Moscow. At each stop, there would be a reception, whatever the time of day. It might be breakfast time at a factory or an early evening meeting with students at a university, but there would always be speeches, and lots of food and vodka. The subject of Vietnam inevitably came up. "What are you doing there? they demanded. I agreed with them, but couldn't say so. So I prevaricated and talked around the subject until the vodka took its effect on everyone present, and the toasts would begin.

At Yalta we stayed in a student center right on the beach. The balmy climate on the Black Sea was a pleasant change from the icy grip of winter in Moscow. Even my guide relaxed as we drank beer ate shashlik (lamb on skewers) cooked over an open fire in the mountains. On the second day the people at the student center asked if I would like to see a video showing the activities of the center during the summer. I agreed, and the next minute was looking at my old room mate from New York, Peter Skinner, filmed while attending an international student conference at the center some years previously.

Our visit to the Black Sea over, we returned to Moscow to start business talks. We discussed running a trial trip in each direction, and simply offset the land arrangements so that no money would change hands. Soviet students would receive a free land tour in the USA, and American students take a trip of the same length to the Soviet Union, paid for by Sputnik. We agreed to start the exchange visit the following year.

Coming back to the controlled chaos at Kennedy Airport, and listening to the accents of the cab drivers and the shouting of the police, I was glad to have escaped from the drab uniformity of the Soviet system. I was tired of being heavily chaperoned and programmed and being on public view. Once was enough, I thought, for this type of trip.

By l967 I was ready to quit. I had enjoyed the job, learned a lot about running a small company, and done a lot of travelling. But I sensed there was not much more to learn and I was anxious for a new experience. America had been good to me, and for me. However, just prior to my leaving, there was a dramatic revelation in the US press that the National Student Association had been accepting large sums of money from the CIA. In the travel department, separate from the parent organization, I knew nothing of this. But it was such hot news that I needed to travel around Europe to assure personally the national student travel bureaus of our non-involvement.

This chore accomplished, I left the student travel agency and moved back to the U.K. Curiously this revelation of the CIA connection to the student organization followed me and got mentioned some years later in the English satirical magazine,
Private Eye.
The brief but toxic article resulted in the windows of my business in Oxford being broken and my name ("Jim=CIA") spray painted on college walls. None of the left-leaning students responsible for this, whom I met face to face at one point, believed my protests that I had no knowledge of the NSA's connection with the CIA. The incident soon passed with no lasting effect. From today's perspective it seems trivial, but in those days the Cold War was still in effect.

I closed my Houston shop called Glendinning's of Scotland in 1986 and went hiking in Oregon. Next I took a Round the World trip. While in Houston I had taken a trip to Big Bend National Park in West Texas and had been impressed by the whole area called the Davis Mountains/Big Bend region. I wrote a guidebook to the area and while doing that I became interested in moving to Alpine, the area's largest town.

A handsome 1930s brick-built house was for sale in Alpine, Texas at an intersection of the east-west highway (U.S. 90) and the north-south highway (Texas 118) which leads to Big Bend National Park. It was soundly built and had nine rooms on three floors. On a whim I decided to buy. In 1994 I opened a Bed & Breakfast house and called it The Corner House due to its location. It was my place of business and my home.

Alpine is located at the end of a wide valley at an elevation of 4,484 feet, surrounded on three sides by low mountains. In a good year there is rainfall of sixteen to eighteen inches as well as abundant sunshine. The town of 6,000 lies 80 miles north of the Mexican border, 150 miles southwest of Midland which has the nearest airport and 200 miles east of El Paso. It is the county seat of Brewster County and houses local, state and federal government agencies and is the region's major banking and retailing center. It is home to the only university in the area, Sul Ross State University, a four year institution founded in 1917, with a student enrollment of around 2,000.

Alpine's founding in the early 1880's was due to the existence of water at a nearby spring. Water was vital for the steam engines of the railroad which had just arrived. Water always played a vital role in the economic history of the area. Good years for rains were interspersed with longer drought years which severely affected ranching. Local ranchers still talk about the drought of the 1950s. More recently, I remember in 1997 when a long rainless spell ended, seeing my neighbor wandering around in her yard, a happy look on her face, as rain fell. Not just the ranchers but the whole population was affected by the amount of rainfall.

Hispanics make up half of the population and Spanish is widely spoken around town. Later, I would interview Hispanic old timers on a local radio station and hear stories of Hispanics being spat on and verbally insulted during the 1950s and1960s. Today in Alpine Hispanics have risen to the highest levels in government, education and business and a respectful attitude prevails between the two communities. There is neighborly courtesy (a greeting, holding open a door) in places like banks and the post office, and even at City Council meetings.

After travelling to 136 countries I now call Alpine home and am happy there. Cycling or walking around town gives me as a newcomer a good insight. People here look you in the eye, a Texan characteristic. When walking around the perimeter of the golf course I'm as likely as not to be greeted by a couple of teenage girls walking a dog: "Hi there!" they might say sociably, rather ignoring me. The only time that I can remember upsetting people was when I did not acknowledge them in the street. I would explain that since I was concentrating on riding my bike I couldn't see them through their tinted car window.

Football is a religion here, something which since I never came through the Alpine high school system I will never really get the hang of. I can understand the competitive drive to win since I was brought up in a school in another country, one which was not defeated in the five years I attended; but the game was rugby. In the USA I see the sporting desire to win as an essential part in the need to succeed the capitalist business world. Sports booster in chief and heart and soul of the community is affable Ray Hendryx, Alpine's radio station proprietor. For me, a day without listening to Ray is about unthinkable.

Real religion is served by 23 churches, not a surprising number I'm told for a Texas town of this size. The bewildering number must reflect America's passion for choice. My late best friend, Gerry Finn, who taught Latin at a private school in Houston, once said that, if he wanted to make a million, he would start a church. He would most likely have succeeded since he had the twin assets of being an unconventional charismatic speaker and having a scholar's grounding in Greek and Latin.

In addition to government jobs modern Alpine relies on tourism. The commercial part of town lies along US 90 and comprises motels and fast food outlets, restaurants and retail stores. Recently art galleries and specialty shops have opened. The university sits on a hill overlooking the town, with a tree-filled campus and dignified-looking buildings. It has an excellent state-of-the-art museum and a large new events center.

Below the university is a nine-hole golf course and nearby an outdoor summer theater, and beyond that an historic baseball field built in 1947 by a local rancher named Kokernot. A new hospital has been built to the north of town opposite the airport. Downtown is anchored by the historic Holland Hotel (built in 1912) and the Amtrak station. On the south side of the railroad tracks are the homes, many of which are small adobe structures, where the majority of the Hispanic community lives.

In May 1994 I had just arrived just arrived in Alpine and was getting ready to open the Corner House. One morning I walked downtown to the post office to arrange a PO Box number. Waling back along the principal street I crossed over to buy a soda at the supermarket. On my way out, I noticed a police officer who was standing at the corner of the building who was waving at me to approach him. He asked who I was and to show ID. I had in fact noticed a police car approaching as I crossed the street, but had thought nothing of it.

What Officer Rodgers, whose name I saw from his badge, noticed was a stranger walking (not all that common, apparently) who crossed the street when he saw a police car. Without challenging the officer's account, I identified myself and said I was the new owner of the new Corner House Bed & Breakfast.

He nodded and looked at my ID. I was somewhat taken aback by the suspicion (crossing a street on foot, walking on a sidewalk!) but on the other hand maybe I should have been happy to know that the Alpine Police Department was alert in spotting strangers. It was more unsettling than reassuring - more like big city than small town. As I was to discover, this early surprise was not typical of Alpine behavior. In only a couple of years I felt quite accepted in this small town, and began to see the advantages of small town life: openness, civic cohesion, relaxed lifestyle, and some cultural events without big city negatives (traffic jams, noise, tension).

With the help of an English friend from Houston, June Hughes (an excellent cook), I opened The Corner House Bed & Breakfast in 1995 with four rooms. Later that number was increased to six rooms including the basement which had beds at hostel prices. The adjacent garage was subsequently converted into four more rooms, which were rented monthly. There was a pleasant dining area with small tables, and a sitting room with a fireplace. The look of the place was old fashioned, with an international flavor: Scottish and Welsh flags on the front of the building and British prints on the walls inside.

We got off to a good start. A local paper wrote an article and The Chamber of Commerce did a ribbon cutting. We soon decided to open for lunch for Alpine residents - a wise move which got us known to the local population and made them familiar to us. For breakfast I baked bread, made marmalade and cooked a breakfast dish called Egg in the Hole. This dish, which could be made to look like a human face, amused the guests and became the most popular breakfast item. June cooked some British specialties like shepherd's pie and bread-and-butter pudding.

A neighbor suggested that a Bed & Breakfast should have cats. No sooner had I agreed than the local Humane Society arrived with two cats for my approval. Our two cats, Harry and Smokey, proved a big hit with most guests. They had a habit when guests arrived of following them to their rooms and watching them unpack, "Like they were checking us out" said one amused guest.

The cats proved a challenge when dealing with the local Health Inspector. I had called this hard-working man before I arrived, asking for his advice. I had previously taken a food handler's course in Houston so I knew something of the basic health requirements when preparing food for public consumption. But I had neglected to take into account Harry and Smokey.

A Bed & Breakfast combines private accommodation for the owner and space open to the public: the bedrooms and the dining room. We were not only cooking breakfast for guests but also open for lunch to Alpine residents so the kitchen and dining room were liable for inspection by the health inspector. On one occasion he arrived, unannounced, entering through the back door of the building which leads directly into the kitchen. At that moment, unfortunately, Harry was taking a nap in a salad bowl on the kitchen table, clearly visible.

It was too late to make excuses, and my embarrassment was about the same as the health inspector's. He wished he wasn't witness to the infringement, and I wished I had put door closers on the kitchen door so that Harry couldn't stroll in from the private part of the house. But there he was, off limits. "I'll get door closers on these doors right away, Jeff, so this can't happen again." I told him. Later, while we were sitting in the dining room going over his list of items needing attention, Smokey ambled through the door and hopped up on table next to the health inspector as if examining his presence. "I'll put door closers on this door, too," I assured him. The good man sighed, and went off to inspect other restaurants.

CORNER HOUSE BED & BREAKFAST

ALPINE, TEXAS

As we got known in the community our numbers at lunch grew till we were serving 25 to 30 persons daily. In addition, we sometimes did special meals and functions in the evening, like a Murder Mystery play. We once staged a Burns Supper, an annual banquet celebrating Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet., something quite new for Alpine.

Each year on the anniversary of his birth, groups of expatriate Scots come together to attend a Burns supper. This is a sit-down dinner with haggis being the main course. Haggis, Scotland's national dish, is a sausage-like dish made out of sheep innards and with the meal there is always entertainment. I have been at a Burns supper in Houston with as many as 600 people present.

At The Corner House Burns Supper 1997 25 persons were present. A local lady called Barbara had undertaken to make the haggis, a brave gesture - and a successful one. She went to the abattoir at the Range Animal Science Department at the university to get the ingredients, which she then stuffed in a sausage skin, having added oatmeal to offset the fat content. The problem was that, while cooking, the haggis shrunk and was obviously not enough for 25 persons, even with a small portion. So Barbara then had to make a second haggis, with less enthusiasm than the first, but still the real thing.

On the evening of the Burns Supper (January 28
^th
) everything was ready. Most of the guests had some connection to Scottish ancestors, and some wore some tartan. I was fully dressed in kilt, jacket and sporran even including the dirk (knife) which tucks into the top of the wool hose. A bagpiper arrived by train from Houston. Once everyone had sat down, the bagpiper then marched around the house playing his pipes, and I followed carrying the two haggises on a platter. During the meal poems by Robert Burns were recited including one which I narrated
Ode to a Haggis,
during which I plunged the dagger into the steaming haggis. Everyone had a great evening, washing down the haggis with Scotch whisky.

Usually, days and evenings were not so eventful. But they were long. Offering rooms and food, and inviting the public at any hour into your house which is also your home, is a recipe for long hours and little time off. Also, during the early days, when every booking was important, if we were busy I would give up my room and bed and sleep on a couch or even in the garden. It was a tiring but satisfying life.