Best of Intentions, Chapter 2

Ben is slowly, clumsily, hesitatingly walking through a dense, wooded area, like a forest or a jungle, finding it difficult to maintain his balance.  He's searching for someone or something.  His eyes dart rapidly in many directions, examining the terrain.  He's dressed as a hunter, but he has no gun.

He shouts, "Frank...Frank...Frank."  There is no response.

Ben's eyes open wide as he sits up quickly from a prone position, very startled.  He slowly realizes that he's back in his room at the Commodore Hotel.  Ben cups his sweaty face with his hands.  He's breathing deeply.  Then he begins to relax, knowing it was just a dream, but one he's had too often.

A short time later, Ben leaves his hotel room and slowly walks to his right toward the elevators, oblivious to the world around him.  He's better groomed than the previous night and seems more positive and self-confident.  Ben arrives at the elevator bank and presses the button requesting a down elevator. 

A voice from behind him says, "I hope you don't think I'm following you." 

Ben turns around and sees Rita.  He had not realized she had been walking behind him.  Rita's hair, makeup, and clothes aren't as glamorous as they were the previous night, but Ben is still quite pleased to see her.  He smiles, as does she.

"Good morning.  Sleep well?"  says Ben.

"Like a baby, as you say.  Where are you going, to watch more baseball?"

"Not yet.  I'm meeting my friends in the coffee shop for breakfast."

"I'm going there, too, to meet my brother."

The elevator arrives and the door opens.  Ben lets Rita enter first.  There are a few other people inside.  Ben and Rita stand near each other, awkwardly, not talking.  All are silently descending to the lobby.  The elevator makes several more stops as more people get on making the space more crowded.  Ben and Rita are pushed closer together, making them slightly uncomfortable.  Finally, the elevator reaches the lobby and the door opens.  Ben and Rita step out together.  They turn and walk toward the hotel's coffee shop.  After entering, they each look around for their respective breakfast partners among the throng of hungry patrons.  Bob, Billy, and Miguel are not to be found.

"See your brother?"

"No.  But, I'm not surprised.  He was out very late last night.  I may have to go wake him.  Do you see your friends?"

"No.  They're probably still sleeping.  Say, I'm hungry and I don't want to wait for them.  Would you join me...at least until your brother arrives?"

Rita is pleasantly surprised and after a moment's hesitation, accepts.  Ben is beaming.  He asks the hostess for a table for two.  Ben and Rita follow her to their table.  He politely helps Rita with her chair.  They examine their menus.  After a moment, Ben puts his menu down and studies Rita who still looks at hers.

"You said you've visited New York many times.  Where are you from?"

"Mexico City.  I come here on business.  I manage my late husband's hat shop.  We sell both men's and women's hats."

"You're Mexican.  Wow!  You're the first I've met.  And your English.  It's perfect."

"I've studied English since I was a child.  When we used to visit our cousins in Houston I got to practice a lot."

"Sorry about your husband."

"That happened about five years ago.  Heart attack!  A great pity!  And you, are you married?  Any children?" 

Ben hesitates giving an answer.  He looks down.

"I'm...ah...divorced.  No children."

"I'm sorry.  What work do you do?"

Ben responds with renewed vigor.  "I'm a teacher.  High school.  American history.  I love trying to reach the kids, to motivate them to understand history's relevance to their lives.  It's not bunk like Ford said.  If you don't understand the past, you can't figure out the present, nor can you have any chance to predict the future."

"I agree.  I've always been interested in the history of my country.  We've had a difficult past.  And where are you from?"

"A small town upstate.  My friends and I come here every year to see the Yankees play.  I should really study more about your country's history.  After all, we're neighbors."

Their waitress finally arrives and asks for their orders.

Rita said, "I'll have pancakes and coffee, please."

"The same."

The waitress takes their menus and leaves them alone. 

Ben, feeling more and more confident, says, "Pardon me for saying this but, you intrigue me.  You're so different from the women I know back home."

"Perhaps it's just that I come from a different world than you do.  And you're not like any of the Mexican men I know, nor like many of the American men I've met either.  You're open to differences, while many are not."

"I don't get it.  We're just two people who met on the twelfth floor and we're sharing a little."

"That's beautiful, Ben.  Please call me Rita."

"OK, Rita,"

Soon, their waitress returns with their food and beverages.  Rita and Ben start eating as two hungry people do.  Bob and Billy enter the coffee shop and notice Ben with a strange woman.  They are curious, but want to give their friend some space.  They sit at a table behind Rita, but far enough away so they can't hear any of their conversation.  Ben notices his friends, but tries to ignore them.

"Do you like your pancakes, Rita?"

"Yes, especially because they are so different from what we eat at home."

"I'd like to try some Mexican food."

"I could recommend a good Mexican restaurant here in New York."

"That would be great."

Rita puts down her knife and fork and takes one more gulp of coffee. 

"Please excuse me.  I really must go and wake my brother, Miguel, and get ready for our flight home.  It's been a pleasure talking to you, Ben.  I hope I'll see you again one day."

"I hope so, too.  Perhaps I could write you sometime...to see how you're doing."

"That would be wonderful..Let me write down my address."

Rita takes out a piece of paper and a pen, writes down the name of a Mexican restaurant in New York and her address in Mexico City, and gives it to Ben.  She stands up, as does he, and takes her check.  Rita steps towards him, places her left hand on his right shoulder, kisses him gently on his left cheek, and heads toward the coffee shop cashier.  Almost immediately, Bob and Billy join Ben at his table.

"What gives?" asks Bob.

"Who was that babe?" said Billy.

"Just a woman I met here in the coffee shop while waiting for you bums.  It was so crowded when I arrived that we agreed to share a table."

"What was on that paper she gave you?" asked Bob.

"And why did she kiss you?" said Billy.

Ben responded, "She wrote down the name of a Mexican restaurant she recommended.  The kiss?  Oh, I guess she was just being nice.  No big deal."

"It was good seeing you with a woman, Ben.  It's been a long time." said Bob.

South Pacific

“South Pacific is a musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II (same as Carousel-See post of January 17, 2016).  The work premiered in 1949 on Broadway in New York City and was an immediate hit, running for 1,925 performances. The plot of the musical is based on James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book, Tales of the South Pacific, and combines elements of several of those stories. Rodgers and Hammerstein believed they could write a musical based on Michener's work that would be financially successful and, at the same time, would send a strong progressive message on racism.”

What racism?  The plot concerns two U. S. naval officers, Ensign Nellie Forbush, a nurse, and Lieutenant Joseph (Joe) Cable, USMC, who meet on a Pacific island during World War II.  No, they do not fall in love with each other.  They are only friends.  But, they do fall in love with other people and therein lies the rub. 

At a party on the island for officers, Nellie meets a rich, local planter named Emile de Becque, a French emigre.  They fall in love.  However, he is a widower with two young children.  Their mother was Tonkinese (people from Southeast Asia, near the Gulf of Tonkin), thus making them Eurasian.  Nellie was reared in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she learned a taboo against interracial marriage.  Thus, De Becque’s children complicate their relationship to the point where she breaks it off after she discovers who their mother was.

On a visit to the nearby island of Bali Ha’i, Joe meets a beautiful young Tonkinese girl, Liat, whom he falls in love with.  However, he can’t marry her because of the same above taboo, but instead will marry his white girlfriend back home in Philadelphia, PA.   

When Joe talks to Emile about why he can’t marry Liat, he sings a poignant song that gets to the essence of their mutual problem (also why Nellie can’t marry Emile).  In 1949, this song was extremely controversial, but Rodgers and Hammerstein were willing to risk artistic and financial failure to make their point.  The song, You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught, would stay in the show. 

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!  You’ve got to be carefully taught!

Joe is at this particular island’s naval base to engage in a very dangerous mission, spying behind Japanese lines.  However, he needs the help of de Becque to serve as his local guide.  Initially, de Becque is reluctant to risk his life because of his relationship with Nellie.  However, after their breakup, he believes he has little to live for (Emile, what about your children?) and agrees to help Joe spy on the Japanese.  Later, Nellie realizes that de Becque means more to her than living by the code of conduct she grew up with.  She is shocked and frightened to discover that he is on a dangerous mission and prays for his life to be spared.  Nellie then meets Liat whose lover is with de Becque.  The two women frantically wait for news of Emile and Joe.

There is a beautiful song, called Twin Soliloquies, which describes when Nellie and Emile first meet, and where they each privately show their insecurities.

Nellie:
Wonder how I'd feel
Living on a hillside,
Looking on an ocean,
Beautiful and still.

Emile:
This is what I need,
This is what I've longed for.
Someone young and smiling
Climbing up my hill!

Nellie:
We are not alike.
Probably I'd bore him.
He's a cultured Frenchman,
I'm a little hick.

Emile:
Younger man than I,
Officers and doctors.
Probably pursue her,
She could have her pick.

Nellie:
Wonder why I feel
Jittery and jumpy!
I'm like a school girl
Waiting for a dance.

Emile:
Can I ask her now?
I'm like a school boy!
What will be her answer?
Do I have a chance?

Later, Emile sings about meeting the right woman, Nellie, on Some Enchanted Evening.

Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger,
you may see a stranger
Across a crowded room
And somehow you know,
You know even then
That somewhere you'll see her
Again and again.

Some enchanted evening
Someone may be laughing,
You may hear her laughing
Across a crowded room
And night after night,
As strange as it seems
The sound of her laughter
Will sing in your dreams.

Who can explain it?
Who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons,
Wise men never try.

Some enchanted evening
When you find your true love,
When you feel her call you
Across a crowded room,
Then fly to her side,
And make her your own
Or all through your life you
May dream all alone.

Once you have found her,
Never let her go.
Once you have found her,
Never let her go!

On the other hand, Nellie expresses her true feelings about Emile with I’m in Love with a Wonderful Guy.

I expect everyone of my crowd to make fun
Of my proud protestations of faith in romance,
And they'll say I'm naïve as a babe to believe
Any fable I hear from a person in pants.

Fearlessly I'll face them and argue their doubts away,
Loudly I'll sing about flowers and spring,
Flatly I'll stand on my little flat feet and say
Love is a grand and a beautiful thing!
I'm not ashamed to reveal
The world famous feeling I feel.

I'm as corny as Kansas in August,
I'm as normal as blueberry pie.
No more a smart little girl with no heart,
I have found me a wonderful guy!

I am in a conventional dither,
With a conventional star in my eye.
And you will note there's a lump in my throat
When I speak of that wonderful guy!

I'm as trite and as gay as a daisy in May,
A cliché comin' true!
I'm bromidic and bright
As a moon-happy night
Pouring light on the dew!

I'm as corny as Kansas in August,
High as a flag on the Fourth of July!
If you'll excuse an expression I use,
I'm in love, I'm in love,
I'm in love, I'm in love,
I'm in love with a wonderful guy!

South Pacific is truly a classic musical you will enjoy again and again.

 

V-J Day

Today, August 14, 2016, will be the seventy-first anniversary of V-J Day, the day in 1945 when the USA’s war against the Empire of Japan, which Japan started with its attack on Pearl Harbor, three years and eight months prior (December 7, 1941), was finally over.  Eight days before V-J Day, on August 6, 1945, the U. S. military dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.  Receiving no response from the Japanese government after the resulting devastation (an estimated 66,000 people were killed), the U. S. military dropped the second and last of its then inventory of such bombs on the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 (an estimated 39,000 people were killed).

Five days later, on August 14, 1945 (in the USA), Japanese Emperor Hirohito urged his people, in a radio address, to accept a surrender to the Americans.  He blamed the use of a “new and cruel bomb” by the USA for this necessity.  U. S. President Harry S. Truman announced Japan’s surrender at a news conference at the White House.  The American people were jubilant.  In an iconic photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt that reflected their exhilaration, an American sailor kissed a nurse unknown to him in New York City’s crowded Times Square (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-J_day_in_Times_Square).  The Second World War was finally over.  Germany had surrendered three months earlier on May 8, 1945.

Over the years, there has been some debate about the decision, made by President Truman, to drop those atomic bombs on Japan.  Truman, himself once said that after making a decision, he “never looked back.”  As such, he had no regrets about dropping those bombs.  I agree.

Without those bombs, the USA and its allies would have had to invade the homeland of Japan, just as they had done regarding Germany, in order to secure an unconditional surrender.  The planned invasion was code-named Operation Downfall.  It was to begin in October 1945 with an assault intended to capture the southern third of the main Japanese island of Kyushu.  Then, in the spring of 1946, the USA and its allies would have invaded the Kanto Plain, near the capital of Tokyo on the Japanese island of Honshu.  Operation Downfall would have been the largest amphibious operation in history, greater than the D Day invasion of Europe on June 6, 1944.

On the other side, the Japanese military was preparing for the U. S.-led invasion with its own Operation Ketsugo.  Logically, they knew where the attack would begin and planned for an all-out defense of Kyushu, with nothing left in reserve. 

U. S. military planners assumed “that operations in this area will be opposed not only by the available organized military forces of the Empire, but also by a fanatically hostile population.”  As such, estimates were made by various groups and individuals in and out of the U. S. government as to the number of American casualties (killed and wounded) that would be suffered by the U. S. during Operation Downfall.  Thankfully, we will never know the true number, but based upon previous experiences during WWII, it would have been mammoth (substantially more than the number killed by the atomic bombs).  And the number suffered by the Japanese would have been huge as well.  It is safe to say, in my opinion, that the estimated 105,000 Japanese who died as a direct result of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was less than those who would have died (Americans, allies and Japanese) during the planned invasion of Japan.  Thus, the atomic bombs saved lives.           

 

August 7

Today is August 7.  To me, it is the most special day of the year.  Why?  Well, of course, it is my birthday.  It is a day that should be celebrated, to remember that Tuesday, back in 1945, when at Syracuse Memorial Hospital, in the 15th Ward of the City of Syracuse, the County of Onondaga, the State of New York, the United States of America, I was born. 

It was not the date of my conception which was probably around November 14, 1944 (38 weeks).  If I knew the exact date, I would celebrate that day, too.  Let me thank my parents, Harry and Margaret Lasky, who were then residents of the City of Oswego, the County of Oswego, the State of New York, the United States of America for creating me.  I wouldn’t be here without them and the rest of my ancestors who preceded Harry and Margaret.  Unfortunately, Harry and Margaret died many years ago (1981 and 1995 respectively), but I can’t celebrate my birthday without giving a toast to them.

August 7, 1945 was a day when many things were happening besides my birth.  The headline on every newspaper in the world that day showed the same thing.  The United States military had dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.  This was an attempt to bring World War II (in the Pacific) to a speedy conclusion with fewer American casualties (and Japanese, as well).  It worked.  Seven days later, the Empire of Japan agreed to an unconditional surrender.  You could say that my birth coincided with the birth of the atomic age.

That same day in Canton, Ohio, Alan Page was born.  He played football at the University of Notre Dame (I was at the Navy game in 1966), as well as for the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears.  Page was inducted into both the college and NFL Halls of Fame.  He also graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School, practiced law, served as a State of Minnesota Assistant Attorney General, and was then elected as an Associate Justice of the State of Minnesota Supreme Court where he served until he was forced to retire last year by state law.  I’m wearing a Notre Dame “ND” cap in his honor.  Happy Birthday, Alan.

How should I celebrate my birthday?  Well, today, my wife, Cristina, and her mother, Irene, will take me to lunch at a restaurant of my choosing, Vinheria Percussi (www.percussi.com.br), which is located down the street from where we live in São Paulo.  I chose it because it is a wonderful restaurant with excellent Italian food, which I love, and one in which Cristina and I have frequented for many years. 

I love sweet things, especially chocolate cake (even though it is not healthy).  It has been traditional in my life to celebrate my birthday with chocolate cake.  I remember once I ordered a chocolate cake from a bakery on Bell Boulevard in Bayside, Queens, near where I lived.  When I picked up the cake, I discovered that they had misspelled my name in a message on its top.  I insisted that they correct their error.  This year, for my birthday, Cristina has bought (www.studiodochocolate.com.br) me a wonderful “bolo de brigadeiro” (a chocolate cake similar to fudge).

However, more than food and drink, it will be wonderful to hear from my children, grandchildren, brothers, and other family members and friends who will acknowledge me on my special day.  After all, it is the human relationships we have that make life so worthwhile.

Happy birthday to me!