Don Ray's Friends and Hideaways

We were pretty much locked in at the Nicaragua Press Building -- a former hospital, I believe -- on the day before the inauguration of newly elected President Daniel Ortega.

This wasn't the recent inauguration of Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega -- this was 1985. A young journalist accompanied me on a series of freelance print and radio assignments in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

My reporting partner, John Bilotta, was my former student. He had recently accepted an entry-level job with United Press International.

When whoever was scheduled to cover the inauguration couldn't make it to Managua, John's boss asked him if he had ever reported for the radio. He hadn't, he told them, but his traveling partner had. That's how we ended up in the press building -- prisoners of sorts -- along with dozens and dozens of other media folks from around the world.

Someone introduced me to the guy in the photo who was pausing to refresh himself. It was Abbie Hoffman, one of the so-called Chicago Seven who had disrupted the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

We had an interesting chat. What I remember the most is the newspaper clipping service he was using. As you may know, many public persons and organizations hire news clipping services to scour every newspaper and magazine in search of stories that reference their clients.

"I have the best clipping service in the world," Hoffman told me with a smile. "Once a month I send a Freedom of Information Act request the FBI. I request all of the newspaper stories about me that they've collected.

"It doesn't cost me a penny," he said.

In a future blog posting, I'll tell you the story of my amazing adventure the following day. It involves a pre-dawn, wrong-number call to our room, being held at gunpoint and then ending up in the most unlikely place.

I even have photos.

It's always a treat when I see these dogs converging from different directions. It means there's going to be an impromptu performance.

The secret is apparently out that Bank of America is not happy with me lately. They bought out the crooks at Countrywide and now manage the outrageous, obscene, inflated, slippery mortgage I ended up with two years ago.

They somehow think that I'm going to let go of the little, one-bedroom house I moved into more than 22 years ago. It'll never happen. Where would I put the mountains of stuff I've pack-ratted for decades? They don't make a shopping cart big enough.

Besides, I gave up camping out and sleeping under the stars when I got out of the Army. To me, "roughing it" is a room at Motel 6 next to the loud ice machine.

I knew that my footrace with foreclosure was public knowledge when at least three people told me about some big shindig at the Los Angeles Convention Center this weekend -- an event where folks like me could go and maybe find some creative way to distract the vultures.

The last thing I figured I'd encounter there today was a conversation with a true urban hero -- I call him The Home-Loan Ranger.

His name is Bruce Marks and he's the founder and CEO of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA). Neighborhood assistance is an understatement. What he runs is more like a guerrilla army.

When I heard him tell the crowd of a couple thousand of my delinquent brethren about how he "gets the attention" of the CEOs of banks and other lending institutions, I darn near wanted to build a stature of him on Figueroa Street or something.

He's doing the stuff I dream of doing. When the rich, fat-cat executives ignore his calls for restructuring the rancid loans his troops are stuck with, he leads a small batallion of them to the CEO's doorstep -- the home doorstep.

He gives out their home phone numbers and encourages everyone and their relatives to call the big wheel at home -- every 15 minutes.

I don't know where I've been that I haven't heard about his delightful tactics or about the other massive gatherings he's been hosting. I had to learn more -- from the horse's mouth.

I waited for him to finish an inspirational pep rally and I approached him with notebook in hand.

It's great to be a journalist. Such access. Such respect (sort of).

Within 20 minutes or so we had found a less-noisy spot and I picked his brain apart.

Then I talked to a few of the thousands of people he had helped this weekend and I began to feel just how much of a Pied Piper the Loan Arranger really is.

Here's a short sample of what he and a couple of others told me:




I'll be heading off in the next couple of weeks to one of his next gatherings in either Phoenix, Las Vegas or Oakland. It turns out I didn't have all of the paperwork that they require. Plus, a couple of weeks gives me some more time to nail down some additional work assignments.

I want to grow up to be like Bruce Marks.

Maybe he needs a sidekick. The Loan Arranger and Donto!

Her name is Leticia, but anyone with that name in Mexico quickly becomes Leti.

She's one of the many people who make the rounds at the local park. Her eyes are so warm that they light up the morning. She's not the only visitor in search of recyclables. You'd be amazed at the number of hard-working and dedicated residents who count on bottles and cans to round out whatever income they need to keep kids dressed and in school and to pay the rent an utilities.

Leti has been in the Burbank area for ten years. You might have seen her with long, beautiful hair that cascaded down to her waist. But she had a stroke that apparently triggered a heart attack.

"They had to cut my hair," she said in Spanish, "so they could cut into my head.

"Touch here," she said in English as she parted her hair. I was willing to believe her, but she seemed insistent on having me feel the lump.


People who don't speak Spanish believe that I'm fluent in it. Those who know Spanish instantly know that I'm just a beginner who speaks more quickly than other beginners. The same applies to my piano playing, by the way. I can't fool real musicians.

I tell you this to apologize for any information that I may have gotten wrong this morning when Leti stopped by to meet Mija (my dog -- you can check out the video down further in the blog). What I never knew what how fast Leti speaks in Spanish as well as in the limited English she's learning. She's taking classes at the local adult center and apparently doing very well.

But back to her stroke/heart attack. From what I could pick up, she was pregnant at the time and that complicated things even more. I believe she was paralyzed for a while and couldn't speak.

That's certainly not the case now. She gets up early every morning and walks a little more than a mile to the park. I'm certain she has other stops along the way. Two days a week she cleans houses for two clients.

She spent a couple of minutes describing in English -- backed up in rapid Spanish -- the excellent work she does cleaning houses. I could tell it was a matter of great pride for her.

She told me that she'll clean a complete house for $50, but she hinted that she works a lot harder in the afternoon is the client shares lunch with her. Apparently, one of the clients in the past didn't believe that she should stop to eat.

What fun is it having a friendly, qualified and speedy housekeeper if you can't share lunch with her or him. Besides, that how I brush up on my Spanish.

Leti doesn't have a phone where she lives in Burbank, but her sister, Marisol does. If you should want to meet Leti and experience her high energy and higher enthusiasm, e-mail me at donray@donray.com or call me directly.

I'll hook you up.

She'll light up your morning also!

I accepted an invitation to join some fellow Vietnam veterans who get together once a week to share poems that they've written about their post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

It turns out that it's therapeutic to express inner fears and feelings and share them.

When I returned from Vietnam, I also wrote a few poems. The interesting thing is that I didn't know that I was doing the same thing these vets are doing today -- I was expressing inner fears and feelings.

PTSD works in strange ways, it turns out.

Because my job in Vietnam was to work alone at night with only my dog, I didn't develop many of those close friendships with fellow soldiers that my colleagues who fought in other wars may have developed.

My best friends were the two dogs I worked mostly with: Fritz and Ralph (the cute little fellow in the photo).

When I got out of the Army, I went straight in to Los Angeles Pierce Community College with the belief that I'd end up a veterinarian (I'll tell you the amazing story about how that dream came about, but in a later posting). One of the first classes I took was astronomy. If you go back into the earlier blogs, you'll read about the constellation Southern Cross. It's connected to that.

It was in my astronomy class that an attactive and friendly looking young woman attracted my attention. What I didn't know back then, was that the early signs of my PTSD were showing up.

After weeks of wishing that I could be her friend, but being unable to make it happen, I wrote the poem.

I never gave it to her.

In preparation for meeting with the veterans' poetry group, I found the old poem. When I read it, I immediately understood what was at work in my mind.


The Girl I Never Met
By Don Ray

You might be Sue or Cindy —
Monique, Marie, Michele.
You could be Cathy, Kay or Chris
As far as I can tell.

Your name is, quite regrettably,
Unknown to me as yet.
Unless we’re introduced, you’ll be
The girl I never met.

That day when I first saw you,
A month or so ago,
I vainly tried to smile at you
And simply say, “Hello.”

We see each other frequently —
A dozen times a week.
I can’t help feeling close to you
Although we never speak.

I wonder if you wonder
What I’m thinking when I stare.
If you think I think I’m good for you,
You haven’t got a prayer.

I guess I should explain it now —
My silence from the start —
Thought I appear unsociable,
I’m cowardly at heart.

So be happy that we’re strangers.
It’s really not profound.
As long as I don’t know you
I can never let you down.

You’ll always be a friend to me
But, one day, I’ll regret
I never really got to know
The girl I never met.

Just about every morning, I take my spectacular dog, Mija, to the local park.

It's not for enjoyment -- it's her job. Every morning she heads for the ivy that surrounds the tennis courts and searches for a tennis ball. When she finds a ball -- and she always does, the work is over and the fun begins. She has trained me to throw it and then, when she retrieves it, to throw it again.

And again and again.

But that's a story for another time. This story begins at the same park, but in the dark hours before midnight. I was blessed to have my stellarly stunning wife, Xiao Mei, accompany Mija and me to the park. Mija enjoys showing off for Xiao Mei. Xiao Mei enjoys pretending to not be impressed. I pretend to not notice.

As we entered the park, I noticed the couple sleeping on the grass behind the trunk of a big tree. One of them was wearing a white sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over the head. A couple of days earlier, I had seen a big fellow sitting with his wife or girlfriend on the bleachers watching an imaginary softball game.

He had been wearing the hood of a white sweatshirt over his head. The sweatshirt draped down his back and, from afar, looked like long, white hair. My park friend, Larry, told me later that they were, like him, homeless and that the guy had beaten him to a pulp a while back.

I didn't tell Xiao Mei who I thought the sleeping couple was -- I simply steered us in a different direction on the walk back home.

The following morning, Mija and I were there doing our respective jobs. It was shortly before 8 a.m. when she and I started walking across the baseball fields in the direction of home. That's when we noticed a young couple with their three-year-old (probably) daughter walking away from the spot where the people had been sleeping the night before.

It was the woman, it turns out, who was wearing the white sweatshirt with the hood keeping her ears warm. And the guy was much smaller and thinner than the homeless man who had messed with Larry.

They were carrying some blankets, some makeshift bags and the little girl's Teddy bear and they were walking in the direction of the public restrooms on the opposite side of the ball fields. Park workers open the restrooms at about 8 a.m.

I kept walking toward home, but I couldn't stop thinking about the young couple and that little girl having slept all night in the park. Something made me turn around and walk in the direction they were walking.

I finally caught up with them when they reached the restrooms -- which were still locked. The mother stood off to one side with the little girl while the father checked the doors.

"You were in the park last night," I said to the man. He had warm, friendly eyes. He looked to be in his early-to-mid 20s. He hadn't shaved in a couple of days, but he didn't have any of the telltale signs of being a careen homeless person.

I know now that I should have approached him with a better first line.

"No," he said with a friendly smile, "we weren't in the park last night."

"I'm going to be at the McDonald's down the street in about 15 minutes," I said. "Could I buy you folks some breakfast?"

"We weren't in the park last night," he said again, a bit more firmly. "We like to come here in the morning."

I knew better. I'd never seen them before. "I must have been mistaken," I said in a desperate attempt to undo the damage I figured I'd already done. "The couple I saw last night were wearing the same colored clothes. You must be embarrassed that I made such a stupid mistake. I certainly am."

The whole time, his wife or girlfriend stood about 20 feet away with her daughter and just listened. I strategically bid him a farewell, offered up another apology and headed home.

I wasn't even halfway there when it became perfectly clear to me that I couldn't continue my day without doing something.

That's when I had the McFlashback.

When I was about three years old, we lived in a little, one-bedroom house at 11116 Weddington Street in North Hollywood.

My sister and I shared a sofa that flattened out into a bed. The living room was the dining room and vice versa. My mother backed a couple of dining room chairs up against the sofa to keep me from falling out. When my father wasn't looking, she would pin a bathroom towel around as a makeshift diaper. If Dad found out I had wet the sofa, there would be a bad scene.

The man with the baseball cap and the flashlight came to the door in the middle of the night. It's the first memory I have of being alive. It was a disturbance. Our parents were clearly afraid and were scrambling to get whatever it was that the man in the baseball cap wanted. They didn't turn on any lights -- probably so they wouldn't wake my sister and me.

It would be years later that I would figure out what had happened that night -- what that man wanted. He was either a bookie, a loan shark or one of my father's co-workers at Lockheed Aircraft who my father had scammed. You see, my father was a horse race addict and, by that time, had already pretty much ruined their marriage. This man wanted his money and wasn't going to leave peacefully until he got it.

McFastforward.

As I walked back home from the park, I couldn't stop thinking about that nightmare and about the three-year-old girl who had slept with her parents on the wet grass the night before. I wondered if, many years later, that little girl would remember hearing her father lie about sleeping in the park and then turn down the offer for food. Even if she didn't hear or understand the conversation, I'm certain that she could feel the tension and wonder what Mommy and Daddy were worried about.

Of course, there was no doubt in my mind that the young father was not being truthful. I figured it was about that ridiculous pride that keeps us men from admitting that we need help. Later, a friend suggested that the young man was afraid that someone might report him to the authorities and they would take the child away.
I felt even more stupid. But back to that day.

When I left home to begin my day, I drove through the local McDonald's and ordered four breakfast meals. I knew that the man would probably not accept it, but it didn't matter. I suppose it became more about me than about them.

I parked my car in the parking lot and walked to a picnic table about 50 feet from where the mother was sitting on a blanket with the little girl. The father was, no doubt, in the restroom cleaning up. I didn't make eye contact with them. Instead, I methodically set the table for four and sat myself down.

Again, I never looked at her and I don't know if she looked at me, but I'm guessing she did.

I ate my breakfast, gathered the empties and deposited them in the nearby trashcan. Of course, I left the three other meals sitting on the table -- orange juice, McMuffin and hashbrown potatoes. I never looked back

As I drove off, I knew that I would never know what happened to the food. Did Mommy and Daddy have a "should we" discussion? Did they scramble to the table and begin eating? Did the little girl ask them why they couldn't eat the food?

I'll never know. And I'll never know if or how that innocent little girl will see life differently because of the crisis her parents were experiencing.

The whole incident, however, made me think more about how easily some circumstances can change the course of someone's life. I pondered about the impact that the circumstance of my childhood had on my life.

Was it a combination of childhood crises, attention deficit disorder, dyslexia and post-traumatic stress disorder from Vietnam (and childhood?) that set the tone for everything that has happened in my life? For as long as I can remember, I've struggled just to keep up with life. I've been blessed with an inflamed curiosity and a radar-like ability to connect with the most wonderful and amazing people -- and a few who were not that wonderful, but equally amazing.

And I've been cursed with the inability to complete stories and projects so that I could share them with people. I'm buried in a massive collection of astoundingly wonderful stories to tell about people anyone would want to get to know.

But instead of crafting the stories and sharing them with people, I've spent my entire adult life (so far) scrambling to keep the wolves off my heels. If only I had the time. If only I had the money. If only I had a working partner. If only I had the breaks.

I cannot keep saying "If only."

I can no longer wait for someone to give me permission to write something or shoot something or to record something. In my heart, I believe that it's time to tell the stories and hope that people read them. I spend so much time encouraging people to sit down with their parents or grandparents and record oral histories.

"It's like being in a library that's burning down," I keep repeating. "You have to move fast."

I'm also a library and I'm feeling the heat.

I hope you'll enjoy the very personal and amazing stories I'm about to share with the world.

Let there be no doubt about it, I'm saddened to learn that singer Michael Jackson has died.
My sadness isn't, however, because I will miss his music. Truth be told, I don't believe I could name any song he recorded since he sang "Never Can Say Goodbye" or "Ben" -- whichever one came first. I probably heard him sing, however, before most anyone I know. I was stationed outside of Detroit in 1969 and 1970 and I remember watching him and his brothers on local television there.
He was cute and amusing. And it was clear he had a lot of talent.
It was 1993, however, when he sort of stepped into my life and changed things forever. It was when a Los Angeles Police detective blessed me by tipping me to what was, up until today, the biggest single entertainment story in history. I was able to break the story that the police were investigating the famous singer as a possible child molester.
After I was able to confirm the investigation and the allegations, I worked with my best client, KNBC-TV News in Burbank, and we broke the story. Nobody outside my circle of news media friends knew that I was responsible for the scoop of a lifetime. It would be months later that the producers of a PBS FRONTLINE documentary about the news coverage of that story learned that I was the one.
The information had come to me from a longtime contact -- a contact I trusted and still enjoy being his friend today.
I had already learned about pedophiles. In fact, I knew more about the subject than most any journalist.
Was Michael Jackson a child molester? Was he a pedophile? Nobody ever proved it in criminal court and a secret, out-of-court settlement prevented the civil trial from ever happening.
The veteran detective investigating Michael Jackson was convinced that he was a pedophile. If there was ever someone who fit the FBI's profile of pedophiles, it was Michael Jackson.
But that doesn't mean that anything every really happened. And after the media circus that my story triggered, I'm not sure I would believe anything that might have surfaced since then.
But I can say that Michael Jackson's death was a tragedy that followed a life that was, in its own way, tragic.
If he was a pedophile -- if his interest in children was, in reality, unhealthy or criminal, one would only have to look at the world into which he was born to understand why.
The one thing that this parent-driven child celebrity never experienced was a normal childhood. What child could experience normalcy when he was on the road with older brothers who were dealing with groupies in the hotel room every night? I'm convinced he was the victim of child abuse and that these factors took a tragic toll on him.
Imagine being so famous, so gifted, so rich and yet so lonely and lost in the world.
These are the kinds of things that lead people down paths that aren't normal -- that lead people to do things that our society doesn't (and shouldn't) allow.
When the shock of his death wears off and people take a microscope to his tragic life, we're likely to learn more about what really happened.
But whether the allegations were true or false, Michael Jackson is still a tragic figure -- even when he was alive.
By the way, that's not really Michael Jackson trying to strangle me in the photo. It was a Michael Jackson look-alike who shared a talk-show stage with me in Chicago. Just for the fun of it, someone set up the photo and someone else pretended to be the body guard.
I'm so sorry that Michael Jackson died before he would know what life is really all about. Indeed, he'll join Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe in history and legend.
Maybe he can rest in peace.

Labels: child molesters, drugs, heart-attack, Michael Jackson, news stories, pedophiles, scoops, superstars

It was a Sunday and my Malawian achimwene (brother), Beston Tebula, was my passive guide as I explored the streets of Blantyre. Achimwene knew that I wanted to be open to anything that we stumbled across and anything that came our way.

Rafael and Matthew walked up and it seemed clear that they were hawking pirated DVDs. But we were wrong. They wanted to sell us a CD they had produced -- a CD of a song they had written and performed. Why buy a CD, I said to Achimwene, when we can have a live performance.

"Ask them if they'll perform for us."

I hardly had time to whip out my little digital camera when they began singing. Here's the song:



Of course, I was unable to appreciate the lyrics. The next day, I somehow rigged up a way for Achimwene to hear the music through headphones while I recorded him translating it. You can see that version on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITKVs1yF5eY. You can read more about Beston (Achimwene) Tebula earlier on this blog. We remain in touch and I've promised that we'll spend time together again -- either in Malawi or in California. When he comes, I want you to meet him!

Anyway, the lyrics turned out to be remarkable. It's a song about the "enemy" that has invaded their little country -- AIDS. It's about corruption and it's about spreading the word to young people to protect themselves. As they say it, nobody else is going to look after them.

Sometimes we think we know the motives of strangers.

Usually, we're wrong.

Labels: Africa, AIDS, Blantyre, don ray, HIV, Malawi, Music

It was a wonderful privilege to be able to write the scripts for a series of videos for the website SaberHacer.com. "Saber Hacer" means "to know how to do" something. While I'm working on honing my online skills, I'm posting some of those videos here.

In all of these videos except one, I was working with the video and the information that a field producer had gathered in the field. I would take all of the video, transcripts and written material and turn it into a story for television. The producers conducted the interviews in English and Spanish. When I would complete the script in English, another writer would have the real task -- the task of writing the exact script in Spanish.

The ones I'm posting here are part of the "Secrets of Success" series. As I watch them today, more than a year later, I am reminded of the the determination successful people demonstrate.

Meet the folks at Porto's Bakery in Glendale and Burbank. Who would have thought that their business began as an illegal operation in Cuba. You have to watch it to understand what I mean.



Now you can meet Monica Olmos. The producers were originally interviewing her for another story, but came back to the studio to tell us about her astounding success story. They asked me to use the video to for a makeshift "Secrets of Success" segment. I had to call her to learn some specific details. In the course of our conversations, I realized that I needed to conduct another interview with her. This heartwarming and inspirational story is the result of that interview. The amazing thing was that I was able to do each question first in English and then in Spanish. I never expected that she would respond with the same emotions in Spanish that she had in her English answers. If you go to www.saberhacer.com, you can also watch these videos in Spanish.

I think you're going to admire Monica Olmos.



What I loved about getting to know Aliana Apodaca was how she was able to convert the negative energy of abusive childhood into inspiration for others. She taught me that it's never too late to begin a new life.



You might recognize the voice of the skillful narrator of most of these videos. Michelle Ruiz was a reporter and anchor in Los Angeles for many years before she decided to create a website that would teach people how to live better and more successfully in the United States.

Maria de Lourdes Sobrino, also known as "Lulu" is one of those shining examples of beating the odds through determination, persistence and innovation. She's a problem solver who is now reaping the rewards while pleasing people from all walks of life with her creative desserts.



I have a feeling that, in a short time, everyone is going to know the name Eduardo Verástegui -- even if they can't pronounce it. When I watched the interview and read the materials about this talented Latino, I knew that I had to see his work. Xiao Mei and I enjoyed watching his award-winning independent film, "Bella".

Eduardo decided that, if he wanted to break the stereotype of male Latino actors, he'd have to write and produce a shining example.



Put your politics aside for a few minutes and marvel at a remarkable success story -- the story of Representative Loretta Sanchez.



There were many other stories I wrote for SaberHacer.com. Maybe I'll put links to them here or somewhere else.

This won't be up here for long -- I'm using www.lynda.com to learn about how to post videos to my blog. I won't keep this up here. You should go to the next posting to learn about the details of my upcoming birthday bash on January 20th. For now, I'm going to play with videos.
I'll start with a video of my dog, Mija. Let's see if this works.

Mark your calendar: January 20, 2009. 6 p.m. till 10 p.m. Dig out your old bowling ball and shoes. You're invited to a bowling party!
It's a celebration in three-part harmony.
Verse One: The end of a memorable era in the United States and around the world. George W. Bush will begin his rest-of-life position as a former president.
Verse Two: Barack Obama takes the wheel of a bus that's nearly veering off the road.
Chorus: I wonder what tomorrow will bring.
Verse Three: Don Ray turns 60 years old -- but still refuses to grow up.



Hence, a birthday party at a bowling alley. Not just any bowling alley, though.



In the 1960s, Don Ray made regular trips to this place, Montrose Bowl, as a member of Marlindo Bowl's Junior Traveling League. It was on these lanes that the Montrose Bowl team sandbagged three games against Marlindo's rival team and yanked the well-deserved trophy from our hands.
But nobody's keeping score this time! You don't have to keep score. You don't even have to bowl -- just show up to meet some of the most interesting people you'll ever encounter. If you're already Don Ray's friend, you're one of those people.
The party is open to you and your family. Send me an e-mail or call me to RSVP. I need to know how much cheap food to bring. The Montrose Bowl folks demand that they have exclusive rights to all things liquid, so DBYOB (Don't bring your own beverages) please.
For more information about Montrose Bowl, go to http://montrosepartybowl.com.
Simple directions: From the I-5, go north on the 2 Freeway and stay in the right lanes as you approach the 210 Freeway. Before the 210 East (Pasadena) exit, jump off at the Verdugo Blvd. exit. Turn left onto Verdugo. It becomes Honolulu. Drive a few blocks and you'll see the place on the left.
From the North San Fernando Valley and points north, take the I-5 or the 118 Freeway to the 210 East. Exit at Ocean View and turn right. About three signals down the hill, turn right on Honolulu and you'll see the place on the left.
From Pasadena and points East, find your way to the 210 Freeway West and get off at Ocean View. Turn left. About 3 or 4 signals down the hill, turn right on Honolulu and you'll see Montrose Bowl on the left.
There's public parking a block or two to the west of Montrose Bowl.
If you don't want to take a chance on the cheap food I may provide, there are a lot of cool restaurants just steps away from the landmark lanes.
Please RSVP at donray@donray.com or call me at (818) 237-3728.
Oh, please don't bring any gifts. I'm not worthy.
Remember to mark your calendar:
Tuesday, January 20, 2009.
It will be one of the happiest days of Don Ray's life!

Labels: birthday, bowling, celebration, don ray, marlindo, montrose, obama, party

When do I know that it's time to put other stuff aside and post a new blog entry? It's when the first words I receive in phone calls and e-mails are, "Are you back in the United States?" Or, "Where the heck are you!"
I meant to write six or seventeen blogs since I returned from Malawi, but when I got home, I hit the road running. Before I knew it, I was off to Azerbaijan for what was supposed to be a mostly evening training assignment.
Dream on. I sort of volunteered to be the cameraman and trainer of producers during the day -- and then I'd teach the classes in the evening.
Maybe I could have stayed up late at night to write about all of the interesting sights that I visited.
But I didn't get a chance to visit any sights. The students were fantastic and enthusiastic -- so enthusiastic that they volunteered to work on weekends and even on Muslim holidays. I couldn't let them down, could I?

If I had taken the time, I would have written about some of my observations -- things I noticed while I was going from story to story with the television camera.

For example, I would have commented on how, in most countries, I visit, it's common to see women holding onto each other as they walk in public. I was impressed that in Azerbaijan, even the men and boys felt secure enough to hold onto each other in public.
In think that one of the reasons I don't post things as frequently as possible is I can never figure out how to put photographs on the blog and still control the text flow.

If I would have taken the time to post the blogs that I wanted to, I would have written an entire piece about my best friend from clear back in the days of the Marlindo Lanes Junior Traveling League (that would be bowling) when we were in high school. Joe Veraldi was two years behind me.
When I graduated from high school, joined the Army and went to Vietnam, Joe wrote to me. By the time I came home, Joe had graduated and joined the Air Force and became a loadmaster on a C141 Starlifter. He had always dreamed of flying.
I was envious. He was able to travel all over the world in the giant transport jet. He made a gazillion trips into Vietnam. He was responsible for every bullet, mortar round, jeep and Howitzer that he and his crew delivered into the war zone.
He stayed in the Air Force for eight years, I think, and then decided to return to civilian life.
Eventually, he'd end up in the San Diego area with his wive and three boys. He worked for himself as a building contractor.
Over the years, neither of us spoke much about our experiences in Vietnam. We were OK. Both of us recall that we weren't very sympathetic to what we called "crybaby Vietnam veterans." Neither of us had been drinkers, smokers or drug users, and we survived quite well, thank you.
Within the past decade, what were once occasional combat nightmares became nightly events. And there are a lot of other things happening.
Thank God the Veterans Administration was there to help me in so many ways.
Recently, my friend Joe, told me that he was going in to the V.A. to talk with someone about his nightmares. After all these years, the things he saw and experienced during the Vietnam war were catching up with him. As I mentioned, he had to sign for all of the cargo he delivered to Vietnam. He never talked about the cargo he had to sign for when his plane would leave Vietnem. Joe had to sign for the bodies of probably thousands of young soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen.
Today, Joe can't get the thoughts out of his head. Joe was also there in 1975 when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese. He brought out thousands of Americans and Vietnamese.
We talked about our expiences for the first time a couple of weeks ago. We were amazed that our lives had been parallel in so many ways -- anger, nightmares, tears at inappropriate times, panic attacks, flashbacks and much more. Both of us gravitated toward working for ourselves and we're both uncomfortable in crowds.
If only we could have known years ago what was happening to us.
There were so many more things that I wanted to write about, but they will have to wait for another time.

This photograph is on the wall in my hotel room. It looked like a familiar place -- even though the photo is from about a hundred years ago.
On my way to my boss's flat for a conference, I saw the view as it is today and snapped a picture. The sun was in the eastern sky, so it came out dark. Whoever shot the one above shot it in the early afternoon when the sun was in the southern sky and lighting the south side of the building in the center.

I'm always at work at that time of day, so I may have to re-shoot this on Sunday or something. There's not a lot of time for being a tourist here.

By the way, the building in the center is now a cafe (the part that faces you) and a multiplex theater on the north side (to the left).

It was a long journey to Azerbaijan -- about 48 hours from leaving the house to arriving at my room in Baku, the capital of this former Soviet state. It was dark when I made it inside the walls of "The Old City".
They built these old buildings before anyone could ever imagine that there would be automobiles one day. I pulled back the drapes from my room and discovered that my view was filtered through the protective wrought iron bars. I could see a little into the window across the small walkway. It appeared to be an abandoned building. Puzzling.
I unpacked for an hour and then went to breakfast. There was only one other guest. I was the only customer in the restaurant. The night manager covered for the morning cook until she arrived to finish cooking.
After breakfast, he took me to the room of the four-story hotel.
What a view!
The sun had just risen over the Caspian Sea and was hiding behind some morning clouds.
We were surrounded by the hundreds of buildings that have been standing since as early as the 16th century. Apparently they started building the walls that would protect the city clear back in the 14th century. I'm sure I'll learn more later.
I didn't have too much time to learn about things. I had to meet with the man who will be my boss while I'm here. He walked to my hotel and we went together to the area they now call Fountain Square. In the past, they called it the Karl Marx Square.

It reminded me of the center of Belgrade -- no cars allowed. It's a place for people on foot.

The place was alive with people. I'll introduce you to some of those people later, I hope.


There's some construction taking place, so they put up a wooden wall to keep people out. On each panel is an historical photograph of the area.
It was amazing to see views from decades ago of the same walls and turrets that still surround most of The Old City.
I look forward to exploring the area when I'm on my own.
We went to a Mexican Restaurant. The food was great, but not very Mexican -- at least the Mexican I know.

There's so much more I want to share, but I have to prepare for the classes I'll be giving to journalists here in Azerbaijan. From the early briefings -- and from what I've read -- the reporters here face a lot more obstacles that we face in the United States. They have less training and little exposure to the kind of reporting that takes place in other parts of the world.

I'll learn a lot more today when I meet with them for the first time.

I hope you'll come back and join me as I discover this world -- a half-a-way across the globe from the world I temporarily left behind.

I didn't have to change the time on my watch -- it's 12 hours ahead of California.

Dear Friends, Family and Onlookers,
It was in March that I last wrote to the blog. My apologies – a lot of stuff has been happening that probably isn’t of great interest to people. But I’m back in Malawi, and that’s pretty interesting to me. The interesting little tidbits, observations and anecdotes have been backing up. It’s a lot like getting behind sending a thank-you note – the longer you neglect to do it, the more difficult it is to finally make it happen.
I’ll use this short entry to tell you a little bit about what I’m doing here. I’m doing some very specialized training with 23 experienced reporters from various media (newspaper, radio, television, freelance), from various cities and from various news outlets. About a third of them attended one of my week-long classes in February. Another third attended a class that one of two other trainers hosted and the rest are attending their first training with the company that’s employing me.
They’re working on a project that’s very focused and it’s likely their final product will be on a website of some kind. I’ll certainly send you a link when they’re done. The training lasts until the end of next week, August 17th or so.
The one thing I’m doing differently this time is I’m encouraging (forcing) them to do their reporting from the bottom up. In Malawi, the journalists seem to have been focusing their attention on the president, the members of parliament and the ruling and opposition parties. The people about whom they write know how to get the attention of the journalists and, way too often, the government officials or party members get away with manipulating the always-ready-for-a-tip reporters.
For that reason, I instructed them this time to seek out Malawians who were at the bottom of the socio-economical hierarchy. It would be an overstatement – OK, an all out lie – to say that they were enthusiastic. In fact, a few of them displayed outright hostility (in spirit, at least) to anyone who begs for help or money.
On Monday and Tuesday of this week, the group hit the streets and talked to some of the most unfortunate of unfortunate in this, one of Africa’s poorest countries. The reporters returned from their missions with a new view of how people in their own country are living.
I don’t want to spoil the stories you’ll read in a couple of weeks, but here’s one of the stories that best tells the story:
A woman who has been crippled – unable to walk – her entire life spends every day of the week sitting on a Blantyre sidewalk begging for money. Like many of the other beggars the reporters interviewed, this woman takes in about $3.20 on a great day and no more than $.70 on a bad day. Of course, she can’t walk to get to “work” and she has no wheelchair or family members to help her. How does she get to her sidewalk workplace? She hires a couple of men to carry here there and back – every day. Here’s the grabber: on a bad day – a full day without a lunch break – she only makes enough money to pay the men who carry her to and from work.
There are other stories – many of them have common themes. The life expectancy of Malawians has been plunging over recent years (it’s now in the 30s) because, some believe, of AIDS, malaria, poor nutrition and poverty that keeps getting worse. The reporters have talked to numerous street urchins who had to leave school when both of their parents died. Many – most actually – of the poor people have tried to get loans so that they can open up their own businesses and work their way off the streets. Sometimes the loan is as small as $7 and it’s supposed to be enough to get them started in business. The bigger loans seem to be in the range of about $35. Many of the people the reporters encountered have a belief that God – or someone – will make life better for them. But it seems obvious that more people fall into the abyss of poverty each day.
Millions and millions of dollars shower in to the country every years – dollars that the donor nations, organizations and agencies believe will make things better.
But there’s corruption at every level – it touches absolutely everyone here.
Stay tuned for more when I get another break.

What follows is from an e-mail message I sent to a friend in the U.S. He has been living a life of awareness since he was young. I'm just a beginner by comparison.

When I see the results of what British Colonization did to generations after generations of wonderful people, I get sad. And by being a person who stands out in Africa because I'm white, I begin to feel in just a very small way what black people, Mexicans and other "outsiders" must have felt for a lifetime -- and still feel. I came to a frightening realization the other day. For a while, I was feeling a bit proud that the, in the U.S., we don't have the great-grandchildren of the original inhabitants calling white people "Master." But then I realized why that's not the case.

In what would become the U.S., the white man either killed or isolated the natives so that there are very few reminders of their proud existance. Giving them their "own" separate nations was just a nice name for locking them up and locking them out.

In Malawi, I realized that the city of Blantyre was never an African village -- it was built by the British for the British. And the local population was there only to serve. What's sad to me is that decades after the British pretty much cleared out of what was once a colony, the old (and new) buildings and businesses are in the hands of foreigners. In downtown Blantyre, the poor people tell me that they wish that they could own businesses, but the businesses all belong to the Indians (the South Asian Indians), to people from the Middle East and to Eurapeans.

Indeed, the Malawians have the legal right to prosper. They are a democracy. But much of their democracy relies on the international support from a variety of nations and non-government organizations. Yes, the trick is to empower the Malawians and other Africans to prosper in the light of self-sufficiency.

But that's a slow process.

And in the meantime, the people on the streets still refer to me as "boss" or "mahsah".

And I hate it.

Don Ray

And to think, I went to school to become a journalist.

Everyone at the Mt. Soche Hotel refers to my friend Beston as Tebulo. Apparently, there's no word in the local Chichiwe language for the word "table", so they used a variation of the English word. But it came out "tebulo." I'm not quite sure why everyone there calls him "Table", but I add the words "my brother" to the name. So I call him Achimwene Tebulo.
Yesterday when I was walking back to my hotel, I noticed Achimwene Tebula bounding out of the Ryalls Hotel restaurant. He and my good friend Debra, the chef in Mt. Soche's restaurant (pictured with the rose), had come to their competing hotel to look for me.
I got to know Tebulo when he helped me in my quest to get on the roof of the Mt. Soche Hotel so that I could look for the Southern Cross. He ended up taking me out on a ledge outside the 5th-floor restaurant. In the course of things, Debra came out to find out what the heck we were doing there.
By the time she was able to go back inside, she had had to listen to my long-winded story about my time in Vietnam and how the Southern Cross became my friend.
She became so intrigued that she stayed outside with us for about 20 minutes.
Two nights earlier, I had invited Achimwene Tebulo, his wife Evie and their son Raymond to dinner. Tebulo wanted to make sure how much they all appreciated the experience.
Debra was working a split shift and had come along during her break to find me. When I returned to Blantyre las week, I had visited Mt. Soche to apologize to all of my friends there for not staying at their hotel this time. Debra wasn't around -- hence, her journey to say "hello" yesterday.



While we sat -- not eating dinner -- I realized that I had invited my friend Bernard to the hotel to get a status report on his quest to help school students and orphans learn how to plant trees and raise rabbits (see my earlier blog). Some of the employees found him at the front desk, so they sent him over. Bottom line -- I found myself sitting with four wonderful friends -- friends I'm sure I will see again. The cool thing is that Tebulo and Debra became intrigued with Bernard's big little dream and vowed to help him.
It's always wonderful when one can introduce friends to other friends.

First of all, I don't need to tell you that I'm not a great artist. In fact, I'd make a better jockey or belly dancer or something.
But this is my diagram and you'll have to make do.
A bit of a lecture in astronomy here:
If you drew a line through the axis of the earth and continued it forever above the North Pole, the line would just about exactly touch the star Polaris. We also know it as the North Star because it's directly north of the Earth.
If you were to watch it all night long, it wouldn't move. All the other starts, however, would be moving in a circle around it going in a clockwise direction. The cool thing about the North Star is that it doesn't move. That makes it a pretty convenient way to always know where north is. Just find the North Star (by the way, the two stars on the far side of the Big Dipper --on the opposite side of the handle -- will always point to the North Star) and you'll be looking north. Also, if you measured how high the North Star is in the sky -- compared to the horizon and straight up -- you'd know your latitude. If the horizon is zero degrees and straight up is 90 degrees, the position of the North Star along way is your latitude. If you're on the equator, the North Star would stay on the horizon. If you were shivvering on the North Pole, it would be above you. That's how mariners can tell where they are in the Northern Hemisphere.
Problem is that the Southern Hemisphere doesn't have a "South Star" and that really sucks. The next best thing they have down here is the constellation Crux or, as many people call it, The Southern Cross. It's a kite-shaped constellation that isn't in the spot where the South Star would be if it existed, but it point in that direction -- toward where the South Star should be. Remember, the Southern Cross -- like all of the other stars in the southern sky, rotate around that spot in the sky where the South Star isn't.
So to find where the South star isn't, you measure the distance between the two stars in the kite-shaped Southern Cross that are farthest apart. Then you follow the tail of the kite four and one half times it's length and you'll be at this blank spot where the South Star should be.
In the diagram -- I know, it's really bad -- you'll see the Southern Cross off to the left just as it rises above the horizon (in February). It changes as the earth travels around the Sun and messes up the night sky. Anyway, at this time of year, the Southern Cross would be on the horizon just after sunset and would point to the right. Six hours later, however, the cross will have rotated with the night sky and be above the Celestial South Pole (that's more of an official name) and be pointing down. Six hours later, just before sunrise, it would be off to the right and pointing to the left. Just imagine it rotating clockwise across the sky. The whole trip across the sky takes 12 hours. The next 12 hours, it's still rotating in the same direction, but you can't see it because it's daytime and the sky blocks it.
When I was walking my dog at night in the dark in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969, I discovered that I could tell time by keeping track of the Southern Cross. Wherever it was when I started my six-hour shift, it would be exactly 90 degrees to the right (or clockwise) when the six hour shift was over.
I came to love the Southern Cross and, for about 38 years, I've longed to see it again. When I was in Nigeria last year, the skies were never clear enough. When I was in Nicaragua, it was the same situation. And when I was in Hawaii, it was the wrong time of year. Oh, I forgot to mention that because the Southern Cross is not exacly on the Celelstial South Pole, it's sometimes possible to see it from the lower latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. That's how I saw it in Vietnam. But if you're in the continental U.S., you ain't never gonna see the Southern Cross.
My wonderful friend Debbie Winger (not the actress -- but more talented) was the winner. She'll win a cheap trinket of some kind from Malawi. Two other people got it, but not as quickly as Debbie.
Thanks for all the good guesses. 

Somebody on the blog recipient list asked for photos of the food people eat in Malawi. Here's a quickie look at three favorites.
Malawi is famous for its Chambo. This fish is native to Lake Malawi. Today I learned that nobody ever returns from the lake without bringing fresh Chambo back home. We carted about 50 pounds of it, I think.


















The woman you see is selling a delicacy here. They call it Mgumbi (I'm not sure if I'm spelling it right, but that's how it sounds). When evening comes they capture the flying termites by either using a light to lure them from their mountainous termite mounds or they cover the mounds with grass (or was it leaves) and then somehow capture the termites when they try to fly to the tasty stuff. Then they fry it up and sell it along the highway. It's apparently rich in fat and protein. I'll take their word for it.




















An finally is the exotic stuff that I prefer to eat here.
This wonderful dish is called a BBQ Pizza. It's supposed to have steak it but, as Maria the waitress told me, "The steak is finished. We only have spicy chicken."
So you'll have to use your imagination.
Anyway, I ate it and I'm glad. 

Bernard’s Big Little Dream

It was nice to have a day off and to finally get to walk through the city of Blantyre. I found the Alibaba Takeaway restaurant located “along Haile Selassie Road” as the menu identifies the location. The “BBQ Pizza” was as good as any BBQ pizza I’ve ever had. The BBQ meant that it had bits of steak on it.
I sat in the corner table where the order counter and display case meets the wall. Bernard Madeya came in with his carafe of fish came in. He set it on the counter and spoke to one of the employees. While he waited for the employee to get the bigger boss, I complimented him on his fish and asked him about them.
“They’re a lot like goldfish, but they’re not gold and they don’t get as big. I’m seeing if the restaurant would want to have some fish here for people to look at and enjoy.”
He explained that he could build a very nice aquarium and he could come in a couple of times a week to service the fish.
It took a while, but he finally agreed to sit with me while I ate my BBQ pizza with a fork. He refused my offer to buy him lunch or at least something to drink.
We talked. Here’s what I learned:
Bernard was born in Mawali but moved to Zimbabwe when his parents divorced. His father ran a small trade school of some kind. Bernard finished high school in Zimbabwe and then went into the military there. When he got out, he accepted a scholarship to attend a university in India where he earned a degree in zoology. He returned to a now-peaceful Zimbabwe (during the time he was in the military, he was providing security to defend against guerrillas who were involved in the fight for independence).
Bernard worked for the nation’s parks department and later taught science.
In 2004, his father died and left Bernard the property where the school had been. Bernard rented out the main building to a church and another part to a mechanic. He moved into the little living area behind the building with his wife and three children.
Bernard’s dream is to create gardens and nurseries at schools and orphanages where the children can learn how plants grow. They can also raise food.
But his dream is bigger, however. He also wants to install fish ponds and cages where the children can raise rabbits and chickens and other animals. He said he was inspired when he visited his son’s school and discovered that the children had to sit on the floor during lectures. He realized that outsiders needed to help. Carpenters could volunteer to make benches and desks, he said, but since he’s not a carpenter, he wants to make gardens, ponds and nurseries.
He asked if I wanted to see his gardens at this home. I think he was surprised when I said I would certainly like that.
We called a taxi.
I only had a few minutes there, but it was enough to see his seedlings, his banana trees, his rabbits and chickens and the hole he had dug for water.
Bernard also showed me a brochure with pictures of the greenhouse he wants to buy one day to nurture the plants he’ll one day put in the schools’ gardens.
He was in the city to visit the local garden club. I told him I’d share his contact information in case anyone had ideas for him or knew of some organization that might want to sponsor one of the gardens in conjunction with the garden club.
For what it’s worth:
Bernard Madeya
P.O. Box 989
Blantyre, Malawi

He said anyone could reach him through the Blantyre City Garden Club, P.O. Box 51410, Limbe, Malawi. Their e-mail address is BCGC@africa-online.net.

He’s quite a nice man. 

In case the original posting didn't make the trip (I'ts so difficult and time -consuming to even e-mail somone -- much less post words and photos to the blog. But today is Saturday and I have a little bit of time.
I'm trying to re-post some photos that didn't make the trip before. Two of the photos are from outside my hotel balcony on the first morning I arose here in Blantyre, Malawi.
By the way, Blantyre is named after the Scottish city that was the birthplace of Dr. David Livingstone. He plays a big part in the history of this region (is it Livingston? forgive me if I'm wrong. I'd go to the Internet, but I'd probably screw up the posting.). Anyway, it's beautiful here. I'm going out later today and I may be able to tell you more about the city. I've ridden in a cab, but not really been able to walk around.
I'm including a photograph of my friend, Beston. He works at the hotel. He's put a lot of energy into helping me be more comfortable. I call him by a local nickname in the local language. I'd try to spell the name of the language, but then I'd be showing more ignorance. Anyway, I call him (spelled phonetically) Achi Mwaynay Tabo. The Achi Mwaynay part means "my brother." The Tabo is really "Table" but it sounds like Tabo. Everyone calls him Tabo, but nobody can tell me why.
Anyway, he was instrumental in helping me encounter my long lost friend (not really a person) that is the subject of the current mystery. I'll repeat the clues here:
I was able to see, for the first time in 38 years, a friend (not a person) who I saw regularly in Vietnam when I was working. It would be absolutely impossible to see this "friend" from the United States -- expect for maybe in one part of Hawaii only under the most special circumstances. I could have seen my friend from Nigeria, but not as well as in Malawi. But it didn't work out in Nigeria -- the conditions weren't right. And in Nicaragua, there was also the possibility of seeing my friend but, again, things weren't right.
I knew that Malawi was my best bet and, indeed, I was able to see my friend -- the exact same friend I had seen daily (sort of) in Vietnam. It was quite a thrill. By the way, Achi Mwaynay Tabo facilitated the encounter.
By the way, I didn't mention it before, but there's a great chance that Dr. David Livingstone was also very happy to have this exact same friend.
Some of my friends guessed that my "friend" might be a guard dog or sentry dog of some sort -- because in Vietnam I was a dog handler. One friend even suggested that maybe I was able to walk a dog around some site that needed securing here in Malawi.
Well, that's not the right answer, but it sounded like fun. I had seen some people walking big dogs -- dogs that were wearing muzzles. I asked around and learned -- to my astonishment -- that they use guard dogs at department stores and other retalil establishments. So on Thursday, after work, I asked my hosts to take me somewhere where I might smeet one of these dogs and his/her handler.
The name of the dog in the picture is "German." I know -- not too creative. But he was big and mean and -- to most people -- pretty scary. In fact, the woman I work with here, Pilirani, was not willing to get close to the dog to help me chat with the handler. But I learned enough to know that if someone tries to steal something, the handler removes the muzzle and turns the dog loose.
He told me that he's had to do that four times and each time the dog was able to recover the stolen goods -- or at least bring the fleeing thief to a bloody halt.
Indeed, the crux of the story is, when you're down south in Africa, you don't want to mess with a cross dog.
But that's not the answer to my mystery. Maybe it's a hint, however.
Can you guess the identity of my friend?By the way, I suspect that the photo of Table didn't make it. I'll try to add it later. 

OK, I confess that this is a quick posting so that I can see if I can finally get things posted here. If I put too much work into it, it doesn't work. If this ends up on the blog, I can probably go back and make some text that makes it interesting. But you have to admit that the photos are sort of cool, huh?
 

I'm minutes away from beginning the first day of the first weeklong training sessions. I awoke in the beautiful city of Blantyre and looked out my 6th floor window to see the hazy hillsides overlooking the lush fields of maize (is that spelled maze?). It's the last photo in the sequence.




The others are shots along the way.









T

 

It was the longest series of flights I’ve ever experienced. In fact, as I write this, I still have one more flight. I’m onboard, in my seat, on the ground awaiting the last of four flights — this one from Nairobi, Kenya, to Lilongwe, Malawi.

My journey started at 5 a.m. Thursday when I arose to prepare for the first flight from LAX to Detroit. There was only a 45-minute turnaround and everything seemed OK until a flurry of snow sent up circling over Saginaw. When we finally landed, there was about 12 minutes to get to the next flight — the long flight to Amsterdam. The held the door for me.

That fight was quite nice. Since my journey exceeds 16 hours, government regulations say that government contractors must bump their workers up to business class. That meant some really comfortable seating.

The gentleman who sat next to me approved of the high-tech seats. And he seemed to have the authority. It turns out he was on his way to India to check out some car seats his company, Lear Corporation, was considering buying. Scott Ziolek is an engineer who specializes in how people interact with things that engineers design. His official title is Senior Human Factors Engineer. His specialty is called occupant biomechanics. He works in Lear’s Seating Systems Division in Southfield, Mich. Apparently, it’s a fairly new specialty. It would seem that we would have little in common (except for how our backsides enjoyed the seats in business class), but soon we embarked on a conversation that was stimulating and I think beneficial for both of us.

He typically recruits volunteers to sit in a couple different styles of car seats and rate different aspects. Then, they test the seat experience on the road. They never know which of the seats are the ones Lear wants to buy. The others are part of a control group.

Our two professions overlapped in the area of the interview process and the objectives of the interview. As a journalist, my goal is to get people to tell me stuff I didn’t know — whatever they say is fine with me. After all, it’s their story to tell and they can have their own opinions. My goal is to get good information and lively quotes.

On the other hand, Scott uses a rule he calls the 10-80-10 rule. He can’t expect everyone to love the product — that would be an impossible goal — so he hopes to find cumulative answers that indicate that 10 percent of the people love it, 10 percent of the people hate it and 80 percent of the people think it’s OK. He has others ask the questions of the participants — he processes the responses. I shared with him some of my open-ended, no-questions-asked techniques and he said he’d consider trying it out.

It was a lot of fun.

We arrived in Amsterdam at about midnight Los Angeles time. I had an 11-hour layover. I found places where I could connect to the Internet and a few other places where I could sleep somewhat. Then, about two hours before my next flight, I checked with the people at the gate and found out that I needed could have spent the entire time in the First Class Lounge for KLM. Dang! I went up there and discovered a paradise of refreshments, serenity, clean bathrooms and free internet connections as wonderful work spaces. You can bet that I’ll spend my entire time there on the layover on the way home.

The flight to Nairobi left Amsterdam at about 11 a.m. Friday, California time. It was 9 p.m. in Amsterdam. The overnight flight provided a wonderful opportunity to get a little sleep. In the morning, I looked out and saw the Saturday morning sunrise beyond Mount Kenya.

Now, we’re about to take off, It’s 9:30 a.m. Saturday. The flight is about an hour and a half. I’m not sure if there will be anyone to great me. If they don’t, however, I’m sure I’ll find my hotel.

Shower.

That’s about all I’m thinking of right now. I hope I can get to the Internet before long so that those of you who work late into the night or get up before dawn can get a glimpse of the Saturday sunrise long before you get to experience it.

My assignment, by the way, is to conduct four week-long training sessions with journalists in Malawi. Three of the groups will be newspaper reporters — the fourth will be with broadcast journalists.

The program is part of Malawi’s attempt to improve many of the systems that have a positive effect on human rights. In order to receive oceans of aid from the United States, the Malawi government must first take steps to show that it deserves the help. Hence, they’re receiving assistance from USAID (United States Agency for International Development) through its Millennium Challenge. USAID contracts with non-government organizations (NGOs) to help the Malawi government get on the right track so that it can qualify. The NGOs hire people like me — people with expertise in key areas — to help the Malawi people and government get a better pre-aid report card.

Does any of this make sense?

Oh, I’ll end this posting with a challenge for your sleuths at home:

The winner will be the first person to translate this:

Boya la kujiokoa liko chini ya kipumzisha mkono. Funga mkanda unapoketi.

I’ll bring a special (cheap) gift to the first person. And, of course, I’d like you to tell me the language.

Good luck.

Quick update. I’m here. I’m sleepy. More later.

And a final note. I've tried for two days to get this text in place and struck out. Maybe this time it will work. On Sunday, we flew to Blantyre where I'll be doing a weeklong seminar. I finished the course outline at 2:40 a.m. and went to sleep. I just woke up to realize I didn't turn off the paid Internet. So before I do, I'm trying again to post this text.

I tried my best to not think about the Christmas holidays, but I looked up when I walked outside the FedEx-Kinko's and saw this.

OK, Merry Christmas.
Happy Holidays.
Don't send gifts.
Do something nice for that neighbor who always borrows but never returns stuff.
Smile when you talk on the phone.

Stop watching TV news when they do remote broadcasts from the Galleria.

Drink tap water. It really is clean (unless you're in a third-world country).

I was wrapping up my fourth day in Nicaragua when I started this. It was the first moment I had to share my adventures with you. That was last Saturday night. It’s now Wednesday night and I finally have a few minutes to write a bit more and maybe even post this thing. But I’ll pick it up from Saturday:

It’s 8:15 p.m. and I’d love to take a short nap, but I’m certain I wouldn’t wake up until they come to wake me at 4:30 a.m.

You see, I have to catch the 6 a.m. ferry that will take me back to the tiny city of San Jorge. From there, someone, I’m told, will drive me to Managua, two hours or so away, and I’ll start my work again.

Since late Saturday night, I’ve been a guest on the Isla de Ometepe, or as the gringos know it, Ometepe Island. If you’re picturing a place in the Pacific or Atlantic oceans, you've pictured wrong. Ometepe Island is surrounded by Lake Nicaragua.

The small island pretty much consists to two massive volcanoes: Maderas and Concepción. They’re both active, but Concepción is more active — so active that when it started spewing thousands of tons of ash last November, the folks at Casa Santiago had to evacuate the 300 or so orphans that live there.

And that involved a lot of ferry trips.

When Concepción stopped spitting and started to breathe for a while, the children returned to the island, but the orphanage’s parent organization, Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (Our Little Brothers and Sisters), started looking for a place to relocate.

It was clear to them that running an orphanage beneath an angry volcano with a short fuse could be disastrous — especially when the only way off the island is by a small, slow ferry.

My wonderful friend, Chris Sisley, is involved with the organization and sponsors a child at one of its other orphanages. When she learned I had an upcoming training assignment In Nicaragua, she baited her hook and threw a line in my direction.

She knew I couldn’t resist the chance to interact with poor children -- children whose parents had either died, had been killed in the war or who had just plain abandoned them.

Before she even started to reel me in, Chris had sent an e-mail message to Father Philip C. Cleary, NPH International’s executive director in Mexico City.

And within a few cyber-moments, Father Phil e-mailed me an invitation.

My assignment in Nicaragua, however, was to help several NGOs (non-government organizations) raise the public’s awareness of campaign finance corruption. What better time to address the issue than ten days before a national election that people all over the world are watching — especially people within the U.S. government.

Former President Daniel Ortega Saavedra, it seems, may very well win the election and, once again, bring his Sandinista Party to power.

As you’ll recall, Ortega was one of the Sandinista revolutionary guerrilla leaders who chased dictator Anastacio Somoza from power in July of 1979.

He rose to the top of the junta that ran the country. He allowed national elections in 1984 and won the top spot.

Ortega became the first democratically elected Marxist leader in the Western Hemisphere. And, as you may also recall, President Jimmy Carter cautiously watched the Sandinistas as they set out to implement land reform, reduce the illiteracy rate and eliminate the use of pesticides in Nicaragua.

And since I’m reminding you of stuff, you must certainly remember that when Ronald Reagan took office three years earlier in 1981, his operatives came up with a plan to help the Nicaraguan people remove Ortega from office. It had to be a very secret and special plan because Congress had passed a law forbidding the U.S. president from spending any tax dollars in any attempt to overthrow any foreign government. Reagan’s people circumvented the law by secretly selling missiles and things, through other countries, to our enemy, Iran. Then his team used the money they received to pay exiled thugs — make that “Freedom Fighters” — to go back into Nicaragua and make things difficult for Ortega and the supporters of the revolution.

By a strange stroke of luck, in January of 1985, I was asked to make a side trip to Nicaragua from El Salvador where I was working on a story. They wanted me to cover Daniel Ortega’s inauguration.

I flew into Managua two days before the ceremonies and got what I think was the cheapest motel in history. Some leftist journalists from Mexico called me at 4 a.m. to remind me to get on “the bus” at five. When I asked what bus it was and where it was going, they hung up on me. It turns out they had misdialed. You see, they were trying to reach the leftist journalists from East Germany who were also staying in the world’s cheapest motel.

None of them were happy when I joined them outside to get on the bus.

Ultimately, the bus driver took us to the Managua airport where soldiers with machine guns invited us onto an elevated press stand out on the taxiway.

A few minutes later, a Soviet-made, Air Cubana plane landed and Fidel Castro stepped out onto the tarmac.

I tell you this story because it’s yet another example of how so many amazing and interesting things fall in my lap — especially when I’m not even looking.

(Time lapse) This is where the story left on off Sunday night. Indeed, I made the trip back to the mainland (if that’s what you call what’s not an island on a giant lake) and immediately went to work preparing for the Tuesday assignment in the city of Matagalpa, about two long hours north of Managua. It went well.

Today, Wednesday, I met with the editor of one of the daily newspapers and then taught a class at UAM, Universidad Americana (American University). Tomorrow morning I’ll meet with newspaper reporters and in the afternoon, maybe, I’ll be meeting with some folks who are creating a brochure for their organization.

On Friday, I’ll meet with another writer/designer to give his brochure a look-see. Then, I’ll have lunch with some other journalists and maybe another meeting in the afternoon.

So as you can see, I’ve had little time to take a lot of pictures or to write a lot about the billion interesting things I’ve seen and experienced here.

What I really want to do, however, is talk a little bit more about the orphanage I visited over the weekend -- and will probably visit again this weekend when my work is done.

It was dark when I arrived at Casa Santiago. It’s really not a house — it’s a massive piece of property that includes a church, a multi-classroom school facility, dormitories for young girls, young boys, older girls and older boys, housing for staff and volunteers, a computer lab, a semi-outdoor meeting facility, a soccer field and fields of beans and bananas and a whole lot more. You have to take a truck to get from one end to the other.

Most of the 300 children were at the covered assembly area watching television and getting things ready for an impromptu talent contest.

When I got out of the truck, the strangest thing happened. Children saw me and ran up to me. They hugged me and held my hand and greeted me.

"Hola, Padre." "Hola Padre Felipe." "Hola Padre."

I told my host and guide, a young man named Ross, that I was impressed with the greeting.

“They’re very friendly to everyone,” he said, “but you see, they think you’re Father Phil. I didn’t realize it, but you look just like Father Phil.”

Apparently lots of the kids remember Father Phil from the last time he visited from Mexico.

When they gathered all of the kids together for the talent contest, they had to make a special announcement that there was a special guest there, a journalist from the U.S. who looks like Father Phil — but isn’t. His name is Don Ray.

Some of the children refused to believe that I wasn’t Father Phil and they continued to come up to me with gigantic smiles and their arms open wide. I finally had to resort to showing them my driver’s license. That, too, was a mistake. They saw my middle name, Philip, and thought that that was proof that I was the head of the entire international operation.

I considered just going along with it and blessing them and stuff, but then I thought maybe they’d expect me to give a sermon or mass or something the next morning.

But I have to admit, it’s nice to be loved.

In truth, though, I must tell you how absolutely wonderful these kids are. I watched them playing guitars and marimbas while other in beautiful costumes performed traditional ballet folklorico dances for everyone, I vacillated between smiles and tears. I smiled when I saw how absolutely happy they all appear to be. Then I would remember that each of them is without parents — either their parent had died or had abandoned the children — and then the tears would race down my face.

The following morning I watched them working in the bean field alongside the director of the facility. They all picked weeds — the children, the staff members and even the director of Casa Santiago.

It wasn’t his first time. You see, when the director and his wife children, they were also orphans in the original facility in Mexico.

The organization is unique in that it never adopts out the children. When a child comes to Casa Santiago or to an NPH facility in any of the other eight countries, the child stays at the facility. They’ll get all of their primary and secondary education there and, if they wish, the organization sends them to college. If they’re not college material, they can learn a trade there at Casa Santiago.

And if the child has serious physical or mental problems, he or she is welcome to stay at Casa Santiago the rest of his or her life.

After weeding the bean field and after breakfast, the children turned their energy to their weekly chores. I videotaped the girls and boys doing their laundry by hand outside their respective dormitories. They allowed me into their rooms — four or five kids to a room — and I videotaped them cleaning the floor and straightening things.

Afterwards, it was free time. Some played checkers, some bounced in the bounce house, some played with Barbie dolls and some played soccer.

In one area, one of the “tios” (Tios and Tias are aunts and uncles, as they’re called in this “family”, who are the primary caregivers of the kids) was teaching two boys how to repair a bicycle. Some older boys were sitting on small bleachers watching a movie while another group of boys watched a soccer game on the big TV in the activities center.

A busload of girls headed off to the beach while a group of boys jogged to the town several miles away with one of the volunteer teachers.

Some of the other girls had a soccer game to play in town. They lost, but they were still happy. In the past, their girls' soccer team went all the way to the top and represented Central America in the big international tournament. A couple of the girls now play for other top teams -- but they remain at Casa Santiago.

When all of the children returned from their off-site activities, they went to their respective dormitories and stood in line and said prayers while they waited for permission to go inside the dining area and eat.

I had been videotaping them all day. When I’d shot enough, I shot them with my still camera.

That evening, when I transferred the photographs to my computer, I looked at one picture of a smiling girl holding another girl who was also smiling and most contented smile. It’s so strange, but something about it brought tears to my eyes. At the time, I didn’t know why.

Later that night I shared all of my pictures with my new friend Wladamir Ruiz Rivas. He’s a photographer and graphic artist who gives hundreds of hours a month to the children. Even though he lives and works in Managua, he agreed to come to the island with me in case I needed anything.

Anyway, as I was showing him the photos I had taken, I told him that there was one he’d soon be seeing that, for some reason, made me cry. When the picture came up, he smiled and told me that that girl who was girl being held — that girl with the contented smile. She was a new arrival. It had taken a while, Wladamir said, for her to adjust to her new family. But, he said, the picture I shot made it clear to him for the first time that she had finally come to realize that she was home -- that all of the suffering she had experienced in her short life was now a thing of the past.

I must warn you to not go to Casa Santiago. Do not meet the children. Do not let them hug you or smile at you or take your hand.

Because you to go there and you meet them and you let them touch you, you will not be the same again.

Like me, you’ll find yourself thinking about them all throughout the day. You’ll finish a good meal and then feel guilty knowing how so many of the children had come to Casa Santiago malnourished. You’ll look at the possessions that have made you so happy in the past and you’ll wonder how these children could be so happy with so little — with donated, used clothing and toys that kids in the United States and Europe no longer wanted.

No matter how bad you’ve been feeling lately — no matter how difficult you thought your life has been — you’ll think of these children.

And you’ll feel compelled to return to Casa Santiago because you’ll feel like family.

No, you shouldn’t go there unless you’re ready to feel things you may not have felt before.

I’ve been as busy as I’ve ever been this week -- doing the work they’re paying me to do down here. It’s three times as hard because I have to do it in Spanish and I have never completed a Spanish class.

But as we were driving along a very poorly maintained road from Managua to Matagalpa, I couldn’t help but notice the poor children standing by the road with their arms outstretched. The are standing next to potholes -- potholes that they have adopted. For them, the potholes in the road are their only chance for survival.

While they should be in school or at home playing with toys, they’re out by the roadside with shovels. Each of these pauper children tends to his or her a pothole and keeps it filled with dirt.

Then they stand by their repaired pothole with their hands out. They’re hoping the people driving by will give them a coin or two as a "thank you" payment for their work.

I wished that I could pick up each one of them and drop them off at Casa Santiago.

You see, when you’ve seen how a loving staff, some loving volunteers and some generous “padrinos” in the U.S. and Europe have put smiles on these children’s faces, you can’t forget it.

I’ll write more about the other stuff going on here in Nicaragua when I get another chance.

But I won’t stop thinking about the beautiful children who think I’m Padre Felipe.

It’s funny. I was kidding when I thought about maybe blessing them.

But, in reality, they have blessed me.

You might say that I had an hour to kill this morning between my East Los Angeles appointment and my downtown L.A. meeting.
But I wouldn't say that.
I saw it as an hour to live.
It's ironic that I chose this morning to explore one of the old cemeteries in East Los Angeles. This would be my sixth or seventh in the past month or so.
I intended to explore a well-maintained Serbian cemetery I'd discovered, but then I noticed a neglected, nearly abandoned graveyard hiding across the street.
I found a gate with no lock, so I went in. It turns out it's a Russian cemetery that must have been accepting most of its tenants in the early part of the 20th Century.
When I walked over to the beautifully groomed Serbian cemetery, one member of a tag-team , grave-digging duo responded to my greeting -- and to everything else I said to him -- in a thick Spanish accent.
"No camara. No pictures. No camera."
That took the fun out it for me. I spent a few minutes walking between the polished gravestones with a sort of "see if you can stop me" attitude. But I didn't shoot any pictures.
When I got back in my car, I heard the voice of my first TV boss, Pete Noyes, on KPCC's "Air Talk." He was talking about the man who had inspired me more than anyone, -- a man who I believe opened up my eyes to Los Angeles, to people and the beauty of brilliant writing. The sad part was that Pete was talking about Ralph Story in the past tense.
It took only a moment for me to realized the man I've idolized -- more than anyone -- had just died.
If you thought it was strange when you read that I was exploring seemingly abandoned graveyards in my not-so-spare time, then you can thank Ralph Story.
I certainly did. He stimulated my curiousity. He helped me find the explorer inside of me.
You see, when I was on the fringes of failing history in high school -- sorry, couldn't relate, -- I'd be looking forward to learning history by watching Ralph Story's Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon, even though it was a repeat of the program I'd already seen the Sunday before. And I'd be back in front of our old TV the next day to see the next episode.
Each week was a new adventure -- a new look at an old Los Angeles. He introduced me to Henry Huntington, Barney's Beanery, the old amusement park that was across Beverly Blvd. from what's now the Beverly Center. He took me on rides on the old Red Cars and took me back to the day in 1942 when the Japanese sub surfaced and lobbed a few shells in the direction of an oil field north of Ventura. And then he described the hysteria a day or two later when everyone thought that Japanese planes were bombing L.A. He called it The Battle of Los Angeles.
Of course, there were no Japanese planes.
He taught me the amazing history of water in Los Angeles and about the dam that old William Mulholland had designed -- a dam that would collapse on March 12, 1928. Years later I would bring together a reunion of the survivors of Southern California's worst disaster. I had never learned about it in school.
Ralph Story taught me.
I doubt that I ever got anything higher than a "C" in any history class, but I dreamed of the day I'd be sitting on the set, looking into the camera and sharing "Don Ray's Los Angeles" with fascinated young haters of history.

Ralph Story had an amazing ability to see things others couldn't see and to see things in ordinary people that others missed. He was a great writer, but I'd later learn that he had great writers working with him.
When I returned from Vietnam, I went back to my job with the U.S. Postal Service. It took me several years to realize that I was in the wrong place. That earlier dream was still inside of me, so jumped ship and went to college to study journalism.
In 1982, I began a stint as a per diem news writer at Channel 2 News at a time when Ralph Story was back on the air as an anchor.
I was able to watch, up close, the way he could pick up anything -- even poorly written news scripts and read them in a way that would make them sing. Finally, the day came when I got to write for him. My writing was probably mediocre, but his delivery made me believe I was gifted..
I hoped that there would come a day when maybe I could have dinner with him and tell him just how much he had inspired me. But I was a 33-year-old guy, and I couldn't compete with the lure of 21-year-old women. The truth is that I was invisible. Stuff like that happens in television.
But I still could put together the kinds of scripts that he could plate in gold with his conversational delivery.
For 40 years I've been giving my friends and their friends my all-night tour of Los Angeles. We never go to any place fancy -- just to amazingly interesting places most Angelenos have never heard about. When the rising sun signals the end of our adventure, my guests have a new way of seeing Los Angeles. They're seeing Ralph Story's Los Angeles and their seeing Don Ray's Los Angeles. And if I've done my job well, they're seeing their own Los Angeles.

I just received an invitation to attend and cover a benefit concert at B.B. King's Blues Club this weekend. I jumped at the chance when I learned that Stevie Wonder will be performing there. In my e-mail reply to the woman who sent the invitation, I found myself transported back to a most magical moment in my life. Here's where the story picks up:

When I was a very, very young person, the TV program “Where the Action Is” invited me (and any other Burbank High School students) up to DeBell Golf Course’s Luau Grounds where they were doing a day-long taping for a show that would air later. They needed hip young kids to be in the outdoor audience, but they had to settle for a few kids like me who bordered on boring. Of course there was a lot of set-up time required between performers, so we had to mill around and wait for a while.

But anything's better than being in school, right?

I was quite shy in high school — I had a few friends who were equally invisible. That’s pretty common, I guess. Between the tapings that day, I felt more comfortable wandering off in search of a more quiet place.

I noticed a little thatched-roof cabana off away from my acned peers, so I went there to escape for a while. I pulled the canvas door open and there was just enough room for a spinet piano and a bench. A young man was sitting there alone, playing the piano. He was about my age and I could quickly tell that he was blind. I felt the urge to quietly close the canopy flap and quietly slip away, unnoticed. But before I could he turned his head my way and, still playing, he said, “Hi. Come on in. He moved slightly to the right and, with a sort of gesture with his head and his shoulders, invited me to next to him. I didn’t recognize the melodies he played — probably because he was creating them at the moment.

I wouldn’t have known back then how to describe the way the music touched me — I still couldn’t today. But it was beautiful. He even sang a phrase now and then as he played. Of course, it was Little Stevie Wonder, as he was known up until about that time.

It was one of those most wonderful fifteen or twenty minutes of my life. I had seen him playing the drums and harmonica, I believe, in one of the Frankie Avalon & Annette Beach Blanket movies a year or two earlier. Now he was older – maybe 14 or 15. The encounter that day was as comfortable as any chance encounter could be. His warmth filled the cabana. His music fascinated me and his talent overwhelmed me.

After a while, however, some of the other kids discovered him and the piano and crowded in. Stevie was happy to have them squeeze in behind him as he continued playing and singing. But somehow the group went into “Ohmygod, it’s a celebrity” mode and my brief time, sitting next to this great kid came to an end. Within an hour or so, Little Stevie’s manager or someone guided him into the center of a wide circle of my classmates and we watched him lip sync aloud to “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)”.

We all clapped and marveled to the music of a young singer who was already famous. The other kids probably went home and told their folks about Stevie Wonder and the other popular singers and groups they had watched that day. I left there feeling as if I had made a new friend.

Over the years as a journalist, I would meet and interview other famous people. Most of them were kind and gracious, but a few would want you to believe that they were somehow more special than anyone else. Sure, what they did may have been special, but I always knew that they were no more human than any other person I encountered.

Everyone has a gift. Some people discover theirs, harness it, package it and ride it to fame and fortune. Others discover their gift and apply it to their own little world. Some go through life never knowing the gift they have.

Somehow, I’ve been blessed with my own gift — the ability to see and hear what people aren’t trying to show and aren’t meaning to say. Often, in enables me to discover the precious qualities that no one else sees in them.

Looking back, I wonder if maybe I witnessed for the first time that kind of vision in that kid playing piano that day.

Genio's Restaurant is closing at the end of this month. It was almost 50 years ago that I first walked into its coffee shop -- not knowing that it would be, to me, what Rick's Cafe was to Casablanca.

For me, writing about Genio’s Restaurant right now is like writing about someone you love who is very much alive, but who will die without a bone marrow transplant.

Marvin Cecchini and his grown kids are determined to find a new Burbank location for their business. They’re worried about the demise of a family enterprise that goes back more than 50 years. They believe they owe it to their loyal customers to keep the pasta boiling.

But they’re more concerned that the sale of the building will put their dedicated servers, bartenders, cooks, dishwashers, busboys, hosts and hostesses out of work. Marvin can’t hide the dread he’s feeling.

The people who prepare and serve the food and drinks talk about the “break” or “vacation” they’re about to be taking – it’s obvious, though, that there’s a chance there won’t be a Genio’s and they’ll have to replace “vacation” with “between jobs.”

For every Genio’s employee, there are probably a hundred or more customers who will also be in mourning. It’s a place where people came to share important moments and to meet with essential people. Most of those customers have a Genio’s story. Here’s mine:

I was seven or eight when my mother told me she wanted to take me to lunch at a place in Burbank. It was around 1956 or 1957.

She parked the cream colored 1951 Mercury on the street and we walked past the plate glass windows and entered the coffee shop through the glass door on Olive Ave. It was bright inside.

The long counter ran parallel to the kitchen in what’s now one of the dining rooms. Today, of course, the windows and the glass door are gone and about where the counter was is the solid kitchen wall.

After I ate my grilled cheese sandwich, fries and a Coke, my mother said, “How do you like this place?”

I told her it was great. Yep, I liked it.

“OK,” she said with a smile. “Then I’ll take the job!”

I don’t know why she sought my approval before she hired on as a waitress, but today I realize that working at an established restaurant meant that she would have the independence and security she would need to leave a marriage that was nothing short of hell. I’m sure she saw it as one necessary step toward liberating me and my sister, Nancy, from the terror we were enduring.

Within a year, she divorced our father and the three of us moved from Sun Valley to an upstairs apartment on Cedar Ave. in Burbank.

Mom worked a split shift most of the time and relied on Nancy and me to take care of ourselves when she couldn’t afford a babysitter.

Nancy and I would stay up late sometimes to wait for Mom to come home with a purse full of coins and a bag of garlic bread. We’d help her stack her pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and half-dollars before we went to bed.

Often times, the garlic bread was my preferred breakfast.

The apartment owner was a kind little man named Pete Antista. He drove a bread truck and delivered the famous sourdough bread to Genio’s. Once he took me with him on his early-morning run. There was only a driver’s seat in his panel truck, so I got to sit on a big loaf of sourdough bread. When we got home, he paid me with a whole, chocolate crème pie.

Mom took her job seriously and was able to neutralize the advances of male customers without discouraging the all-important tips. But one customer wasn’t going to let her excuses for not going out with him get in the way.

Each time she told Ed Ripley that she couldn’t afford a baby sitter, he would make the tip even bigger. When it was obvious the babysitter ploy was no longer working, she played the “I can’t get off work” card.

Rip, as we would all call him, took his case to Genio himself and asked him to give my mother a night off so that they could go out.

Within a year, Genio hosted the wedding reception at his restaurant.

One afternoon Rip threw me a fastball and I caught it wrong and broke my left thumb, up near the wrist. When the doctor got through putting a sizable cast on it, Rip took me to Genio’s to break the news of the break to my mom.

She was carrying plates to a table in the coffee shop when she saw us. Her face broke into a giant smile. Then she noticed the cast and dropped everything on the floor.

At that time, the restaurant’s back door was not far from where the rest rooms are today. I can still remember Genio’s lanky, twenty-something-year-old son, Marvin, helping seat people while he learned the business. His brother, Gene, Jr., was learning how to run the kitchen. Their sister, Paula, was still a child – two years younger than I was.

When I was in high school, I’d drive my 1952 Studebaker to Genio’s for lunch. Being Doris’ kid meant that I would get the royal treatment.

My favorite busboy at the time was Arturo. He was from Mexico and was a little older than I was. He taught me to say, “¿Qué está haciendo? (What are you doing?),” and he’d reply, “¡Trabajando!” (Working!).

Indeed, he was always hard at work. Sometimes, however, he wouldn’t return following the weekend. In the beginning people would worry about him. Soon word would get back to the restaurant that “La Migra” had nabbed him and sent him back to Tijuana. In a few days, he’d find his way back across the line and report back to his trabajo.

I was never more proud of my mother and stepfather when I found out that they were in the process of sponsoring him so that he could get a green card. Arturo went on to become a bartender and would probably be a bartender today if a family crisis hadn’t forced him to move out of state.

Before I left for Vietnam in 1968 I had to have a sort-of “last meal” at Genio’s. My Army buddy, Paul Mooney, flew in from New York so we could travel together to Okinawa to train the dogs we’d be partnering with in Vietnam. Marvin surprised my by picking up the tab. He told me he’d buy me dinner again when I got home safely.

I lied to my folks about the date I’d be coming home, so I was able to sneak back into Burbank without them expecting me.

The first place I went was to Genio’s so that I could surprise my mother. It was a busy lunchtime when I came in the door. By that time in her career, Mom was working the cash register and seating people. When I walked in, my Mom wasn’t sight. The other cashier said she was seating some people.

I couldn’t wait. I walked back toward the dining room and saw her waking back from the cove with some menus in her hand.

At first, she saw a guy in an Army uniform who hadn’t read the “Please wait to be seated sign.” She shook her head slightly and then made eye contact. The menus took flight and my mother catapulted herself into my arms. Within a moment or two the customers nearby figured out what was happening and began applauding. Some of them stood up.

That spot in the dining room is sort of a sacred place to me even to this day.

I had dinner there that night and, just as he had promised, Marvin picked up the tab.

A couple of years I was out of the Army and working as a letter carrier for the Burbank Post Office. I’d have my lunch at Genio’s. Arturo would automatically bring me a glass of iced tea with two extra lemon slices and say, , “¿Qué está haciendo?”

“¡Trabajando!”

That was 35 years ago. Today, when I sit down at Genio’s, either the busboy or the server brings me a glass of iced tea with two extra slices of lemon. Arturo trained everyone well and they’ve been passing it on all of these years.

When I got married the next year, my friends gathered for the reception at Genio’s. When my stepfather died a few years later, we met at Genio’s to remember how the restaurant brought him into our lives.

When my grandmother died back in Iowa the following year, it was the host at Genio’s who broke the news to me.

I had always wanted to be a writer, but it took a while for it to happen. The first time I ever saw my work in print, however, was when I wrote a review of Genio’s for the local paper. The paper’s restaurant writer got the byline, but I was proud knowing that it was actually my work.

When my first wife and I got divorced, somehow she seemed to have gotten custody of my mother. They remained good friends and I’d often run into my ex there at Genio’s. In 1983 I bought a little house across the street from Genio’s and down a bit. Genio’s brother-in-law, Tony, had retired as the bartender and was living three doors down from me on the corner.

Tony painted many of the beautiful landscapes that still adorn the walls of Genio’s. If my mother would see me admiring one of them, she’d buy it from Tony and wrap it up as a Christmas gift. I treasure two of his paintings that are on my wall today.

Tony had little to live for after his sister, Joan, died and later, her husband, the founder of Genio’s. They still refer to the little bar in the banquet room as Tony’s Bar.

My mother met her third and final husband, George Quinn, there at Genio’s. They were married for only a couple of years when he died.

Before she retired, Mom went along with Marvin’s suggestion that she join other professional Burbank women as a member of the Zonta International service organization. She volunteered her time delivering Meals on Wheels and helping community members in other ways. She eventually became president of the club and presided over meetings in the Genio’s banquet room. The highlight was when she traveled to Australia for Zonta’s international conference. Indeed, it was her involvement with Genio’s that helped that skinny, inexperienced waitress discover her strengths and do her part to help the world.

When Mother passed away in 1997, Marvin Cecchini stood up at her memorial and told stories we’d never heard before about a woman it seemed everybody loved.

Then he invited everyone to the restaurant to celebrate her life and her spirit.

I can’t go in there without thinking about the zany things she’d do on evenings when none of the owners were around. They were innocent things, such as pedaling through the restaurant on a busboy’s bicycle or joining the cooks, dishwashers and busboys when they’d declare the kitchen a Mexican restaurant and put on a secret Taco Fest.

It’s going to be devastating when they close the doors for the last time and I won’t be able to surround myself with the people, the pictures, the sounds and the smells that have brought me so much pleasure for most of my life.

I’ll miss the always-welcome smiles from the people there who treat me as if I’m special.

I’m not special, but they treat me that way because I’m “Doris’ kid.”

If you’ve never eaten at Genio’s, you should do it once, just to say you’ve been there and to know what Burbank is losing. If you ever dined there, you must return on last time.

Order the garlic bread and ask for them to make it extra crisp – almost burnt – and ask them to make it drip with garlic butter. Forget the cholesterol this one time and immerse yourself in Italian bliss.

And, despite what your server says about his or her impending “vacation”, leave a few extra bucks this time around.

You never know if your waiter or waitress is counting on taking home an order of garlic bread to feed the kids.

And if you get to chatting and they ask you how you know so much about the place, tell them you heard it from Doris’ kid. It might earn you a couple of extra lemon slices.

(Before you read this, please note that I've made it so that you can leave your comments. I'd really like to encourage you to share your thoughts.)

If you could have just one chance to have lunch with anybody alive, who would it be? There’s some things like to say to George W. Bush, but he won’t be in office long enough for me to waste my one opportunity. I’m so disappointed with politicians and most world leaders that I probably wouldn’t believe anything they would say.

Celebrities don’t excite me a bit. Sports heroes aren’t really heroes — they’re overpaid, over-rated and seem to have forgotten that they should be role models. Of course, I’ve always wanted to talk with singer Michael Jackson, just because so many people have asked me if I was able to interview him when I discovered the police were investigating him.

But he’s insignificant when it comes to adding anything meaningful to the world. That’s a sad commentary considering he’s probably the most famous human alive.

O.J. Simpson? I doubt if he’d give me the answers I want. Heck I already know the answers, but I’d love to hear him say it.

There’s one person, however, who I feel like I’ve known for nearly 50 years — 48 to be exact and still counting. He’s been in every house or apartment I’ve lived in and in every car or truck I’ve owned. He’s mentioned in my favorite book (The Quartzsite Trip). I’ve seen him from a distance — I even took a picture of him when I was a kid, but you wouldn’t be able to recognize him without someone telling you that that’s him in the picture.

He taught me a lot. The most important thing I learned from him is how to be as absolutely fair and unbiased as I can be.

Fairness.

He taught me fairness. In a world of “us v. them,” he’s the exception. He’s an observer but not an endorser. He knows his profession better than anyone who ever lived, I believe. He’s had a gazillion chances to leave his job and move into the really big time and make even bigger bucks. I have no idea what he makes now, but I’m certain he could have quadrupled it a long time ago.

Loyalty.

He’s the best example of loyalty I’ve ever seen — except for maybe some dogs I’ve had. Everyone knows that no human can be as loyal as a good dog.

When I think about it, he’s been there for me longer than anyone in my life, except for my mother and my sister. My father was only around for 10 years. My stepfather joined the family for 15 years. Mom passed away when I was 48. Don’t get me wrong, nobody can compare to Mom. We’re just talking statistics here — number of consecutive years of influence.

He spoke to me the other day when I went into Santoro’s Submarine Sandwich shop in Burbank. I’ve been going there for way more than 40 years. The television was on when I walked in and, just like 40 years ago, Vin Scully’s soothing, friendly voice filled the room as he provided play-by-play during the Dodger game.

I waxed nostalgic for a moment and said to the young man preparing my meatball and cheese sub, “You know, I couldn’t name a single Dodger, but if Vin Scully is announcing the game, I’m captivated.”

“Yeah,” he said. “There’s nobody better.”

It was amazing because Vin Scully was at the microphone for 30 years before the young man was born.

You don’t have to be a baseball or Dodger fan to appreciate Vin Scully. He can describe what’s going on down on the field as quickly as it’s happening. What makes him different from all of the others is he names all of the players while the action takes place.

Other announcers might identify the position of the fielder involved in a play — even I could do that — or speak in the passive voice to buy time to remember or look up the name (“It’s caught by the shortstop, Henson, and thrown to the first baseman, Garcia”).

While the player for the other team is wiping the dust off of his uniform after sliding into second base, Vinny will tell you about the time the runner fell out of a tree when he was six years old. He’ll tell interesting stories between pitches and, even after an amazing homerun, he’ll complete the story.

But it’s when there’s a dispute or a rhubarb that Vin Scully shows his stuff. In all of these years, I’ve never once heard him talk as if he’s on the side of the Dodgers. He’s always neutral. Always.

(The photo is from the www.dodgers.com.)

And he doesn’t talk bad about people. If a player screws up badly, Vinny won’t rub it in. In fact, he seems to have something positive to say about everyone — even the umpires.

He’s never at a loss for words. Back in the black-and-white days of the late 1950s or early ‘60s, I remember a time when Vinny was doing a telecast from a game in San Francisco that was delayed because of fog. There was no back-up programming while everyone waited for things to clear up, so Vinny had to keep talking. When it seemed that he’d run out of things to say about the game and the players, he gave the viewers a tour of the broadcast booth and even demonstrated the “cough button” that would mute the microphone.

And when the fans would get out of control and streak onto the field or throw things, Vinny would refuse to give them any exposure or play-by-play. Anyone who grew up listening to Vinny knows he wouldn’t approve.

For a few years, I’d take my transistor radio to the game so that I could listen to Vin Scully tell me what I was seeing. He’s that addictive. But after a while, I quit taking the radio because there are always enough people nearby with radios that you never missed a description.

He’s 78 years old and his mellow voice hasn’t seemed to have changed. I don’t believe there are any Dodger employees working there today who were there when the Dodgers came west from Brooklyn in 1958. He’s outlasted the players, the coaches and even the owners.

If I could have lunch with Vin Scully, I’m not sure I’d even talk about baseball. I might not even ask any questions at all. I think I’d be happy just to be sitting with an old friend.

Thanks Vinny for being there for me and for teaching me how to be a better journalist and a better person. And thanks for not abandoning all of us. Thanks for not selling out.

OK, if you could have lunch with anybody, who would it be? I believe the "comments" feature is turned on.