DRUNK DRIVING HOUR 1973

My college tuition in 1973 was $2000 for the year. My other expense was for an unheated bedroom in a coldwater apartment in Brighton’s Bug Village. $55 a month. I hacked a cab for Boston Taxi to pay tuition and living expenses. The company garage was next to the old Boston Arena. If a driver booked more than $100 a night, the percentage split jumped from 45/55 to 50/50, driver/company. My classmate Hank Watson and I were the company’s top earners. We started after our last class, catching the evening shift at 4. We drove everywhere. Roxbury, Southie, Beacon Hill. We drove everyone. Nuns, college girls, drunks. Our paths rarely crossed, but we tended to meet for the last song at the 2 O’Clock Lounge in the Combat Zone. A listen to the three-piece band, drum, orga, sax playing funky bumsp Sand grind music. A 7 oz. pony Bud costs $1. qqqqe 2 O’Clock loungeq worked throughout the evening. At final ride for the strippers of th. The drinking age was 18. Hank and I rendezvoused at 1:30am to watch the headliners finish the night.

Tuesday night was the best.

The girls got paid a commission pushing drinks to the suckers.

The 3-piece band played our requests. We tipped them with our tips. IN DA GADDA DA VIDA was priceless on a stand-up Hammond organ.

One evening we stayed after hours.

Neither of us were aiming for magna cum laude.

The strippers taught us life, not abstract algebra, although there was a connection between the two,

My favorite was Claudia. 18. Blonde. Marilyn Monroe could have been the mother who abandoned her to the nuns. Claudia lived in Jamaica Plains. We drank three tequilas and smoked a joint with the band. Hank was driving his favorite, Shaleen, to Roxbury. My first class, RADICAL ECONOMICS, with Barry Bluestone was scheduled for 9am.

6 hours away.

“If you want to go, then we have to go now.”

Claudia was glad to go. She had a jealous biker boyfriend. I had her sit in the front. Anyone sitting in the back triggered the meter. The Combat Zone to Forest Hills was $7. Better in my pocket than the greedy owner.

Claudia talked about her childhood.

Nuns. Beatings. Priests. Wandering hands .

“A-huh.” I was having trouble staying on the road. Smoking weed and tequila was a deadly combination. Claudia asked at her address, “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” My head was strapped to the end of a helicopter prop.

I headed back to the garage, ignoring the radio dispatcher. Any fares in Dudley Station were stuck in Dudley Station, until the train opened at 6am. I stepped on the gas. Columbus Street was naked of traffic. My Checker cab had some tiger. I hit 70.

Too fast to stop for a Mustang burning the stop sign at Centre Street.

I t-boned the Ford at the doors. My car snaptailed across the intersection at 1000 rpm. The car came to a stop against a curb. The driving wheel was in my hands. The windshield shattered by the impact of my head. I dropped the steering wheel and touched my forehead.

No blood.

No missing parts.

The Mustang was bent in half. A black man lay out the door. I walked over to the wreck. Steam vented from the engine. People exited from the nearby projects. Blood leaking from the man’s ear was not a good sign.

“That look like my Uncle Milton.”

“That white boy killed Milton.”

“I didn’t kill anyone.” I leaned over Milton. He wore a red silk suit. Wilson Pickett style. “Can you hear me?”

“White boy, you done kill me.” Crimson bubbled from his lips.

The crowd grew bigger. Someone had a gun at his side. I eyed him, as if I were not white. He didn’t buy the lie. Mob. Riot. Headlines. I stood alone. A Boston cab drove between us. Hank was behind the wheel. Shaleen stepped out of the back in pink hot pants slendor.

“Leave the white boy alone. He’s good people.”

This future was detoured by the whoop of a police car. The crowd backed away from the smashed Mustang. Shaleen had done her job. Frank drove away in a hurry. This was none of his concern. The police were by my side.

“Get in the car.” The officer behind the wheel ordered with urgency. I obeyed his command and we escaped, as an ambulance pulled into the intersection.

“I think I killed that man.”

“Not at all. We’ll write it up in your favor. You’re from Boston, right?”

He could tell from my accent. I was free. No manslaughter, because Milton survived the crash. He had been drinking too. The cab company was angry. Milton was suing them for damages. They fired me. Six months later, his lawyer called my house to ask me to testify against the cab company.

$100.

I received a check.

No one showed for the court date, but ever since that night I’ve always thought that the state should have a drunk driving hour. No one on the road but drunks.

2am to 5am.

Made sense to me and probably Milton too.

We were survivors.

For that night and beyond

BOOK MART le Combat one 1971

I studied XXX in the Bookmart. Mostly the books. The desk clerks never wanted browsers handling the magazines. THE ITCH by Steven Hammer. I read page 83 hundreds of times. Had my own copy.

NOT ALL CRASHES ARE ACCIDENTS

I never met Princess Diana. A friend of a friend had married her brother. Diana would have been at the wedding. I never received an invitation. The Princess of Wales wasn’t my type. I respected the woman as a truly noble aristocrat and viewed her death as a blow against the empire of goodness.

On August 31, 1997 according to AI, Princess Diana was killed in a car accident in Paris after the Mercedes-Benz she was had been rising, crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel. The English media blamed the driver, Henri Paul, who had sped up to evade paparazzi, while under the influence of alcohol. Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul also died at the scene. Diana succumbed to her injuries at the hospital hours later.

I arrived in London after a flight from JFK the day of her funeral. I exited from the Tube at Nottinghill Gate. People on the street walked with sorrowful steps in the direction of her Kensington Palace. Two grown men passed me in tears, as if their mother had passed away. Women sobbed like they had lost their best friend. I walked to Sam Royalle's house. He was not at home. Everyone in London was observing the passage of someone whom they had hoped would be queen. The keys were under the mat chez Sam and I entered his small house on Shrewsbury Mews.

Sam Royalle showed up at 5. His eyes were red.

"Are you okay?"

"I feel what you must have felt when JFK got killed."

"That bad?" I had been an eleven-year-old schoolboy. I recall Mother Superior’s voice. What i was wearing.

"Yes, that bad. Let's have a drink

That evening Sam and I went for a drink at the Westbourne Grove. We then walked with thousands of the Princess' admirers to lay a wreath before Kensington Palace. The wall of memorial flowers rose chest-high. The scent of dying petals buried my senses and my eyes teared with the world’s loss. A candle in the wind.Sam was a bawling baby. We walked away with our arms over each other's shoulder

Diana had been a real princess.

The next day I left London to go on a road trip through the Loire Valley with my father. He loved every minute. Seven days with me was enough and we returned to Paris to catch his flight. I had the rented Fiat for another week. Sam Royalle showed up at the hotel off Boulevard St. Germain. The three of us dined at La Coupole. After putting him to bed at the Hotel Lousiane, Sam and I sat at le Bar du Marche across the street.

"I got a problem." The Londoner whispered across the table. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth, so only I could hear him. My survival antennae perked into life. Only the guilty talked in such a manner.

"What?" It's usually better to not know what someone's problem, so you don't ever have to get involved, but Sam and I were friends.

"Some Brixton yardies suspect me of switching a bank destination for a money wire transfer," Sam explained that the yardies had an auntie working at the transfer accounts in a Scottish bank. He had arranged for another SWIFT code for them from an off-shore account. "The money never showed up."

"How much?"

"Over a million quid."

"And where is the money?" There were only three choices; with the yardies, Sam, or an unnamed party.

"I don't know."

It was the right answer. Sam expressed his apprehensions about returning to London in order to discuss the matter with the Brixton yardies. The habitual murderers had shown up at his Pimlico pub with shotguns.. He ordered another round of drinks.

"On me."

"In that case, make it a margarita with good tequila."

The waiter took our order. I suggested to Sam that he take a long vacation in Thailand.

"The food is good, the girls are friendly, and I've never seen a Brixton yardie in years that I've been traveling in Asia. Plus it's hard to get extradited from there."

"I didn't do anything wrong."

"Oh, I forgot about that." I said nothing about his arranging a different destination for the wire transfer. Our drinks came to the table. We drank them swiftly. After two rounds, I mentioned that Diana had stayed at the Ritz only two weeks before. Drink can make me sad.

"That's where she left from for that fateful drive."

"Is it far?"

"No."

Sam looked around the bar, as if to see Diana's ghost.

"Something about that accident isn't right." I felt like Oliver Stone filming JFK. The French police had blamed the crash on the driver. "Henri-Paul had been drinking and maybe doing drugs, but I've driven in that condition on more than one occasion without a crash."

"Twice the speed limit."

"65 mph is not fast for an expert driver."

"The newspapers reported 90."

"English newspapers love sensation. I'm surprised that they didn't publish any naked photos of her corpse at the Quai de La Rapee." Back in 1985 I had IDed a friend at the Paris Morgue. It wasn't a cheerful place.

"Stop joking." The English were loyal subjects to their nobility.

"I'm not joking and I can prove it."

"How?"

"By driving the rented car through the same street at the same speed." I had drank enough margaritas for this evening to do it. "I'll re-create the accident.”

“Fuck you.”

“Someone killed her.”

The whys were too numerous to count unlike the four margaritas I had downed in the last hour and the Londoner tried to talk me out of my test.

"Tomorrow morning would be better."

"No way. This test needs the right conditions. Nighttime, Drinks. Tomorrow morning the quai will be jammed with traffic." I also had to drive my father to the airport to catch a flight to Boston in the morning.

We walked outside to my Fiat Panda. I turned the key in the ignition and peeled from the curb to snake through the narrow streets of the Left Bank. I crossed the Seine at the Louvre and sped down Rue Du Rivoli to whip into the chaotic merry-go-round of Place de la Concorde and 90kph.

I needed to go faster.

Diana’s Mercedes had paparazzi on her tail. A score of them were on motorcycles. With strobe lights on their tail, Jodi must have told the driver. “Plus vite.”

Diana laughs. Jodi joins her.

I hit 110 KPH and skittered onto the Quai like a billiard ball sliced with extreme English.

I don’t hear Sam’s shouting.

The entrance to the death tunnel loomed ahead. I reached it at 120 KPH. The Fiat Panda went airborne and pancaked in the tunnel. I controlled the swerve. Barely.

"See, I told you the accident was no accident."

"It was a heavier car."

"It was no accident." I slowed down coming out of the the Place de l’Alma underpass.

Two more cars followed us. The look on their faces told us that the drivers had just attempted the same re-enactment. Not everyone was convinced that Diana's death was an accident. I dropped Sam at his hotel on Rue De Seine. He checked the street for Brixton yardies. The coast was clear.

"See you in the morning."

"Thanks for the ride. It's always good to have a near-death experience before bed."

"Don't mention it."

I dropped him at his hotel and parked the Panda on the street of the Hotel Louisiane. I checked the underneath. The car was fine. Fiat made good cars. I went up to our room. My father raised his head from his pillow.

"You smell like you've been drinking." My father was no tee-totaler, but he didn't like drunks, especially those related to him.

"Just a few glasses of wine." I fell into bed wearing my clothes.

"Smells more like a vat. I hope you didn't do anything stupid."

"Nothing more than talking with a friend."

"Then good-night and see you in the morning."

I crashed into the pillows without any thought about Diana, Princess of Wales. Or anything else.

< p> My father and I hugged at the aeroport. Sam and I traveled to the South of France. After a week in Perpignan, he booked a flight from Paris to Thailand. I went off to Ireland.

A town called Ballyconeeley.

Three months later, the paparazzi released the final photos of Diana. She was a queen in waiting then and a queen now. I would never be as good as her. I could only try to follow her example. It was all of us could do.

I took several minutes to study the prints in The Times, while eating my breakfast at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. The driver's face was aglow with excitement. I was convinced that he had been drugged like Teddy Kennedy at Chappaquiddick.

By whom?

I have my suspects.

They know who they are too.

That crash was no accident, and I'll prove it again if anyone wants to buy the drinks.

Just know that they are expensive in Paris.

Sam looked around the bar, as if to see Diana's ghost.

"Something about that accident isn't right." I felt like Oliver Stone filming JFK. The French police had blamed the crash on the driver. "Henri-Paul had been drinking and maybe doing drugs, but I've driven in that condition on more than one occasion without a crash."

"Twice the speed limit."

"65 mph is not fast for an expert driver."

"The newspapers reported 90."

"English newspapers love sensation. I'm surprised that they didn't publish any naked photos of her corpse at the Quai de La Rapee." I had been to the Paris morgue to ID a friend. It wasn't a cheerful place.

"Stop joking." The English were loyal subjects to their nobility.

"I'm not joking and I can prove it."

"How?"

"By driving the rented car through the same street at the same speed." I had drank enough margaritas for this evening.
"I'll re-create the accident.”

“Fuck you.”

“Someone killed her.”

The whys were too numerous to count unlike the four margaritas that I had downed in the last hour and the Londoner tried to talk me out of my test.

"Tomorrow morning would be better."

5

We walked outside to my Fiat Panda. I turned the key in the ignition and peeled from the curb to snake through the narrow streets of the Left Bank. I crossed the Seine at the Louvre and sped down Rue Du Rivoli to whip into the chaotic merry-go-round of Place de la Concorde and 90kph.

I needed to go faster.

Diana’s Mercedes had paparazzi on her tail. A score of them were on motorcycles. With strobe lights on their tail, Jodi must have told the driver. “Plus vite.”

Diana laughs. Jodi joins her.

I hit 110 KPH and skittered onto the Quai like a billiard ball sliced with extreme English.

I don’t hear Sam’s shouting.

The entrance to the death tunnel loomed ahead. I reach it at 120 KPH and the Fiat Panda went airborne. The Fiat bottomed out underneath the tunnel with a slight swerve, but I controlled the car.

"See I told you the accident was no accident."

"It was a heavier car."

"It was no accident." I slowed down coming out of the the Place de l’Alma underpass.

Two more cars followed us. The look on their faces told us that the drivers had just attempted the same re-enactment. Not everyone was convinced that Diana's death was an accident. I dropped Sam at his hotel on Rue De Seine. He checked the street for Brixton yardies. The coast was clear.

"See you in the morning."

"Thanks for the ride. It's always good to have a near-death experience before bed."

"Don't mention it."

We arranged to meet in the morning after I drove my father to the airport. I parked the Panda on the street of the Hotel Louisiane. I went up to our room. My father raised his head from his pillow.

"You smell like you've been drinking." My father was no tee-totaler, but he didn't like drunks, especially those related to him.

"Just a few glasses of wine." I fell into bed wearing my clothes.

"Smells more like a vat. I hope you didn't do anything stupid."

"Nothing more than talking with a friend."

"Then good-night and see you in the morning."

I crashed into the pillows without any further thought about Diana Princess of Wales.

Sam and I traveled to the South. After a week he booked a flight from Paris to Thailand. I went off to Ireland.

A town called Ballyconeeley.

Three months later the paparazzi released the last photos of Diana. She was a queen then and a queen now. I would never be as good as her. I could only try to follow her example. It was all of us could do.

I took several minutes to study the prints in The Times, while eating my breakfast at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin. The driver's face was aglow with excitement. I was convinced that he had been drugged like Teddy Kennedy at Chappaquiddick.

By whom?

I have my suspects.

They know who they are too.

That crash was no accident and I'll prove it again if anyone wants to buy the drinks.

Just know that they are expensive in Paris.

DRUNK DRIVING HOUR 1972

During the early 1970s my college comrades and I drank at the Hi-hat Lounge in Brighton. The girls were young, the drinks were cheap, and we sold 'ludes and mescaline at the bar. Neither of them were the best available in Boston, but we were always in supply, so the bands playing on Commonwealth Avenue visited us before and after gigs. I even sold LSD to AeroSmith and they invited us to their show. They weren't big yet, but the band attracted co-eds from every university within 25 miles.

That night my friends and I crammed into my VW Bug.

"Can you drive?" Peter Gore asked from the passenger seat. We had hitchhiked across America in 1971. A carload of drunks had begged me to drive their Riviera from Reno to San Francisco. Peter had sat in the back. We drank warm whiskey through the Sierras. He hadn't trusted me behind the wheel since.

"Of course I can drive." I had only dropped a 'lude and guzzled several whiskey cokes. Something about his question bothered me and I said I was going to run every red light to Kenmore Square.

"Don't do that." Peter buckled up his seat belt. No one in 1971 wore one. We had all seen too many films where the passengers burn in their cars, thanks to a defective seat belt. The other passengers were more enthusiastic, then again they weren't in the suicide seat.

I blew the first light at the BU dorms and then another by the Boston Club, however we were approaching the Charles River Bridge. This was a much busier intersection with cars coming all directions.

"Don't."

Everyone cried out with good reason and I braked too late to avoid slamming into the back of a Mustang.

"Asshole." Peter was pissed.

"Anyone you hurt?" I pulled over to the curb..

"No."

Everyone was fine.

"Sorry, I was an asshole." I got out of the car to examine the damage to both vehicles.

My front fender was slightly bent.

My friend at a body shop in Dorcester might charge $200, but the Mustang bore a major dent to the rear.

Maybe $1000, which was a lot of money.

Cars swerved around the Mustang. The driver was puking out the open door. I walked up to him and he wiped his mouth, saying, "Sorry, for running that light. Are you okay?"

"I'm good."

"I'm really sorry."

The drunken fool thought the crash was his fault.

"Don't worry about it." I was lucky.

"How much you want to fix your car?" He pulled out a wad of cash.

"Nothing." Peter pushed me back toward my car.

"Nothing isn't going to fix my fender." Five $20 bills seemed fair.

"Thanks." The Mustang driver got back in his car and drove off toward Cambridge.

Later at the Aerosmith show we laughed, when, Peter calling me, "Boston's worst driver."

"But I met my match with Mr. Mustang."

Drunk driving hour was a weekend ritual in the last century, but several years ago the Palm County police had a world-class violator in their sights. The driver refused to stop for the officers in pursuit. He ran red lights, crashed into anothercar, a fence, fled the scene, and when they finally stopped him, the cops cited the offender for fifty violations.

One was not wearing a seat belt.

All sounds too familiar.

I wonder if Peter Gore wherever he is thought the same thing.

"Asshole."

I don't drive anymore.

I drink no less.

Best for everyone if I walk and I'm sure that Peter Gore feels the same way too.

2024. Not moved to New York to stop driving drunk. I haven't hd a drink for almost six years. I don't run red lights anymore. I wonder, if there is a connection.

ps I

Oct. 7 2024 - Three Years Later

1900

Palestine was a province of the Ottoman Empire. The Arab armies liberated the Middle East with the British Army. The provinces were divided by two English Arab experts. Straight lines drawn in the deserts. Peace had ruled the lands under the sultans. The West had plans for the Levant. Peace was not part of the equation. Not for any of the new nations. Especially Palestine.

According to a 1914-1915 census the population of Palestine was 602,377 Muslims, 38,754 Jews and 81,012 Christians.

1937 Nakba, when the British defeated the Palestinians and then armed the Zionist gangs to create a homeland for the Jewish people. The Holocaust was on its way. The Nazis spared no jews, but even the Germans couldn’t exterminate an entire poeple. Neither the Jews, the Roma, or the Gays.

Death camp survivors and Jews of the Diaspora emigrated to Palestine with the hopes of a place of refuge. The partition wasn't in Germany. No Jews dreamed of exercising ‘the right of return’ to the lands of the Holocaust. No one had the strength to evict the French, the Poles, the Austrians, the Germans et al from their old houses in Europe. They needed someplace far away. Someplace given to them by Yahweh. Palestine, but the biblical kingdom of Judah which hadn't existed for almost two thousand years. The Jews had a new home. The home of someone else.

Palestine shrank with the loss of wars. 1948. 1956. 1967. 1972 and then the occupation. Israel, a theoocracy, ruling over a ‘demoracy’ and an apartheid ghetto. People said those people were always fighting each other just like the Irish fought the rule of the British. We Irish always stand for a Free Palestine.

Ugly.

Throughout the occupation of Palestine, the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah has countered US financing Israel’s precision bombing and invasions with armed attacks on Israeli targets, airline hijacking suicide bombings, and intifdas to no avail. Then on October 7, 2023. Hamas surged through the border walls to attack the desert communities in the Negev. On that morning, the IDF was asleep. Shin Bet supposedly knew nothing about the preparations for the break-out. Hamas fighters swarmed from Gaza. Nearly 1109 Isrealis died in the assault. Hostages taken by Hamas. Israeli accusations of rape and babies burned to death. The only POV was that of Israel and world opinion sanctioned the complete destruction of Gaza, especially the US government.

From Al Jazeera Senator Tom Cotton: “Israel doesn’t need patronising lectures about civilian casualties. As far as I’m concerned, Israel can bomb the rubble in Gaza.”

Tens of thousands killed by ensuing revenge bombing and artillery barrages. Hundreds of thousands wounded by the IDF. Millions homeless. Nowhere to run or hide in a repeat of the Warsaw Ghetto extermination by the Nazis. A revenge never served to German people.

As for the deaths of non-combatants, according to Al-Jazeera, Former President Bill Clinton said: “Hamas makes sure that they’re shielded. They’ll force you to kill civilians if you want to defend yourself.” and

For months, now years, Netanyahu and the hardliners backed by the DNC and GOP refused to negotiate with Hamas or anyone.

Once more, Al-Jazeera cited Former President Joe Biden: “I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war.”

Israel sought blood and death backed by billions from the West. War consolidates the Nazionist rule over Palestine and Judah. $95 billion to kill 100,000 or more with the wounded numbering 244,000. Over 10% of Gaza's pre-October 7 population. And there's more to come with no escape from the onslaught for civilians. Not to Azrael. Not to Egypt. Not even to the sea. The people are trapped in a shattered land along with Hamas and the remaining hostages. No nation wants the Palestinians. None of the Arab countries. They like the Jews throughout the Diaspora and the Irish under the Crown are pariahs. The Nazionists want to marched them en masse into the Negrev Desert this winter. But that will not defeat Hamas. Only take away the ocean in which they swim.

But there is one solution other than the Final Solution.

Peace.

Shalom

Salaam.

But not with Netanyahu in power, although 47, an Israeli puppet, has proposed various peace truces. Hostage exchanges. Release of prisoners. Armistice. Hamas amnesty with a vow to relinquish control over Gaza. The withdrawal of IDF forces. The return of UN humanitarian services, reconstruction et al. Hamas and no one asks why 10/7.

The date has no significance.

Why?

Ask who had to gain from 10/7?

Not Hamas. Not Israel. Not Iran. Not the USA. No one had an answer. Only one person stood to benefit.

Boris Putin.

Why?

On 24 February 2022 Russia's President Putin greenlighted Soviet forces to invade Ukraine to protect Rodina from a NATO-backed Nazi regime. Four separate armies crossed the border at dawn. Defeat of Kiev appeared to be inevitable, except that Ukraine fought back and stopped the Russians dead in their tracks. Putin refused to end the war, but things went from bad to worse. This was the modern world. Drones ruled the skies for both sides. Static strategies led to horrific losses on both sides. Victory was not in sight. Public opinion weighed heavily against the invaders. Russia was losing both on the ground and with his people, but the crafty KGB operative had a card to play.

"Intelligence.

About the security on the Gaza Border. Netanyahu had pulled off soldiers to deal with the protests against his government's attempt to abolish the Supreme Court. Putin couldn't attack on this info, but let his closest arms supplier, Iran, know that the border was soft. The Islamic council had little use for this. Putin convinced them to let Hamas know about the slackened defense. Iran informed their Hamas allies’ top brass and they decided to take action, even knowing that the IDF was bound to exact more than a pound of flesh. Shin Bet saw nothing come, because Netanyahu knew of the planned attack and he realized that he could rally the public behind a war of revenge. The rest is history.

Before 10/7 the War in Ukraine was the # 1 lead for the media. Now Israel Total War ruled the headlines. October 11. Chaos. The Ukraine War invisible to the world.

Putin now attacks Ukraine with impunity, reaping the value of Eternal War.

But one day Peace in the world. Gaza, the Ukraine, and everywhere and I hope it's soon.

Call a truce now.

Bring home the hostages.

Stop the war.

Shalom salaam.

SPICE MAD DAY by Peter Nolan Smith

Last year I celebrated Columbus Day with my doctor on Staten Island. Nick was Italian and cooked great meatballs. The doctor and I had met during our freshman class of European History 101. We had received Bs from the professor.

His kids had the day off. So did both of us. I crossed the inner harbor and took the SIRR to New Dorp. Nick picked me up in his vintage MG. we enjoyed his wife’s cooking. Meatballs, ziti, et al. No one at the table spoke. Certainly not about Christopher Columbus.

"Hey, Nico, I have a question for you."

"Yeah, what?" His oldest son studied film at a state university. I liked his short films.

"What year did Columbus sail to America??

"Why you asking?"

"Because today's Columbus Day."

"And?"

"I was wondering if you knew the year of his discovery. Do any of you?"

"Sure."

"What is it? Any one you."

"It's not a school day," Nico's best friend replied through a mouthful of meatballs.

"So you don't know."

"Nope," they answered in a collective chorus of ignorance.

"Did we know that little, when we were that age?" I asked Nick.

"We went to nun school. The sisters forced us to remember the names of Columbus' three ships; the Santa Maria, the Nina, and the Pinta."

"C'mon, you gotta know." I looked to the young people around the table.

"1882?" His youngest son was the only one brave enough to offer an answer.

"You got two numbers right." The doctor shook his head in disbelief. "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. You never heard that?"

"Never." The kids' ages ranged from 8 to 21. Columbus was a blank to them and I explained that Columbus had been seeking the back door to Asia.

"For Chinese take-out?" His older son’s friend Squeak asked with interest. He liked pu-pu platters.

"No, for spices."

"That's why no one knows about him. No one knows about spices." His oldest son's only connection to spice was the Spice Girls and they hadn't scored a hit since the turn of the century.

"Spices were the most important commodity in the world 500 years ago." I had been a history substitute teacher at South Boston High during the bussing riots of 1975. "Spices are pepper, cinnamon, cloves, garlic, chili, nutmeg and many more."

"Chili came from Mexico," Nick's youngest son announced from the table.

"Correct."

"The gardener told me that. He's from Mexico."

"Yes, but many other spices came from Asia." I had spent the 90s and 00s in the Far East. Nick had graduated from a medical school in Manila. We both liked Oriental cuisine. Almost as much as his mother’s and wife’s cooking.

"Why they need spices on their food when they had ketchup?" Squeak was spinning linguine on his fork.

"Ketchup is not a spice, and it is not a vegetable."

Even if the majority of American teenagers choose Heinz ketchup as their favorite veggie. "I'll tell you a story. Back in 1991 I arrived by boat to Ternate in northern Indonesia. The volcanic island was a backwater then, but in the 15th Century European nations fought to control its treasures of cloves and spices. Hoping to discover a shortcut to the fabled island, Christopher Columbus set sail west across the Atlantic Ocean. His fleet of three ships made landfall on an unknown continent. It was not China, Japan, or Ternate. Undeterred by this disappointment, the Genoan adventurer claimed the new world for the King Of Spain and his patroness, Queen Isabella. He was as good a salesman as he was a sailor and called it the West Indies to promote future expeditions."

The teenagersa the table gazed off into space. Nick’s youngest son and daughter listened to what I had to say. Their attention span respected an adult, so I continued my tale, "Columbus' first voyage was remarkable, for the fact that he was traveling through unknown waters and only lost one ship, the SANTA MARIA on his first voyage. It sank on Christmas Day, but not one sailor drowned in the shipwreck. There was not enough room for everyone to return to Spain, and 39 men elected to stay on 'Hispaniola' to further explore the virgin territory for gold and spices."

"What happened to those guys he left behind?" Nick's younger son was showing promise as a scholar. Julien was a straight B student.

"They were'massacred by Carib warriors, who detested the newcomers' enslavement of the Arawak women, children, and friends, thus initiating the long conflict between Europe and the New World."

"Massacred as in eaten." Squeak was an ace at shoot-em-up VDO games.

"Yes, eaten."

"Did they use any spices when they ate them or just ketchup?" Squeak's comment earned a round laughter.

"I quit." I got up from the table and went out on the terrace with a glass of wine in my hand.

Outer New York Harbor spread beneath the highest point in Staten Island. Henry Hudson had sailed this bay. His namesake river ran straight north into the Adirondacks. He had been stranded in the Arctic by his men.

Exploration was tough on failures.

In truth, Christopher Columbus carried little gold back to his Spanish sovereigns, but he introduced corn, manioc or cassava, potato, the peanut, tomato, papaya, pineapple, avocado, chili pepper, cotton and cocoa to the Old World. It took about thirty years for the chili to reach Thailand, which adopted the fiery spice as its own.

My wife Mam loved chili on her sum-tam or green papaya salad. All Thai women loved the fiery dish and they have Columbus to thank for their pleasure.

Columbus might be forgotten by the young and no longer considered to be a hero by those who blame the destruction of the Indians on his discovery, but I celebrated his discovery of the Bahamas with rum and coke. Nick joined me and raised his glass.

"To Columbus."

He was Admiral of the Oceans.

A Gift From the New World

Young men in the 1960s were constantly warned about the dangers of drugs, rock n roll, and sex.

Sex not only led you to hell, but to Syphilis.

We had no idea what Syphilis was, how you got it, and what you did once you had it other than horrific tales of doctors shoving an umbrella needle up your penis. Fear was a credible prevention tool during those decades of ignorance, although not enough to keep us pure forever.

Before 1493 no one in Europe, Africa, or Asia had the Clap.

No one, until Columbus returned from his discovery of Haiti.

Of course the Native Americans claim that it was the Europeans who infected America not the other way around.

It’s a little like my first time getting a dose.

It was in Paris.

1984

I was faithful to my teenage girlfriend, Candia.

The jeune fille had an Italian lover. Their affair was supposedly over and I believed the 17 year-old. Men in their 30s can possess a soft heart for a young woman. She traveled to Italy for a photo shoot. We made love upon her return. A week later I went to the bathroom and experienced a burning sensation while passing water.

My trust had been rewarded with the clap.

“How could have I gotten this?”

"I don't know." Candia acted blameless. "Maybe it's something else."

We visited the the Palais Royal Red Cross clinic. They tested us for free. The results were positive for both of us. as we walked through the regal garden, I said, “You should tell your boyfriend.”

“He would not give me this. You must have gotten it off a toilet seat.”

“Toilet seat?” I didn’t get the clap from a toilet seat and broke up with Candida. We said nothing about her gift until she gave me the gift that keeps giving once again. I went to the Palais Royal and got another dose of medicine. Candia wanted to get back with me. I called her to say I was leaving for the States. I haven't had the clap since, but I can state without any doubt that Columbus did not get Syphilis off a toilet seat.

I doubted either the Caribs used sitting shitters and the Spanish of that era of exploration were even less elegant with their sanitary habits.

The returning members of his first expedition got the clap from sex.

Thank you, Columbus.

Without you we would have never had condoms.