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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 1
I was on my way to buy a gibbon! I had been waiting two months for this day to arrive, ever since our second day in Bangkok when I had first seen one of the little apes. Van, my husband, had promised that as soon as we were settled in a house I could have one, and now, with my fourteenyear-old son, Craig, and our driver, Bunchu, I was going to the pet shop.
"I'll sit in front with Bunchu," Craig said as he slid onto the hot leather seat of the steamy car.
Already in the back seat, I nodded and braced myself for the jerk I knew was coming.
Bunchu was waiting in gear with one foot on the brake and the other on the clutch. As Craig's door slammed, Bunchu removed both feet at once and we catapulted through the open gates. If he'd known the words, he'd have yelled, "Varoom, varoom," as he tramped on the accelerator.
Round-faced Bunchu was in his twenties and loved to drive. It was a skill that must have been recently acquired. He had two speeds forward-that of a torpedo with an unswerving trajectory, and the other-slower than a clogged catsup bottle. The latter was dictated by the traffic on roads designed for nothing larger than samlors (pedicabs) and bicycles. According to Bunchu, the inevitable grid-lock was a plot against Thailand by the Japanese who had occupied the country during World War II.
Whatever the reason, in 1956, the roads were constricted by cars, motor scooters, pedicabs, bicycles and trucks. Once in a while a few water buffalo were herded down the main thoroughfares, but the trucks felt they had the right of way and the herder who valued his own life as well as those of his buffalo, usually chose a more circuitous and safer route.
After our explosion from the gate, the driver draped his right arm across the back of the front seat and we shot onto Pattipat (pronounced Pottypot) Road. The traffic, for a moment, was light, and we careened down the narrow strip, bouncing from pothole to pothole and skidded across a narrow bridge at the end. As we swished around the corner onto Don Muang Road, I could see that the vehicles a quarter of a mile ahead were beginning to form a clot in the city's artery. Bunchu ignored the signs and we sped on.
Coming toward us was a bus with passengers clinging to the top and sides; ahead of us was a huge charcoal truck, fully loaded, with four men and assorted baskets perched on top of the grimy briquettes. The grinning men waved us on to pass them and Bunchu accepted the challenge.
They were abreast of each other, the truck and the bus, when we, like a fat arrow, flew between them.
My eyes were closed and I neither saw nor felt the car suck in its sides, but it must have because we emerged on the other side alive and with no Thai bodies splattered on our hood.
"Oh, Bunchu," I gasped when I could exhale.
Our driver took his eyes off the road, turned in his seat and gave me a wide grin. He languidly raised the arm that still lay limply along the seat back, flapped his hand at me and said soothingly, "Never mind, Madame." It was his stock answer to everything upsetting and, in view of the fact that I was going to be riding with him for the next two years, I thought it a philosophy I would do well to accept.
Van was a colonel in the United States Army and, as the American Advisor to the Thai Intelligence School, was given two cars. He drove the small Borg Ward back and forth to his office himself, but the car that the family used, the one driven by Bunchu, was a four-door Dodge with leather seats and no air-conditioning to alleviate the tropical climate. Because the Dodge was bigger and had more power, Bunchu was satisfied with the arrangements.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 2
His hours were long, starting when he took the children to the International School in the morning and ending when he delivered Van and me to and from whatever evening function we had to attend; but he napped a lot so I didn't worry about him.
The charcoal truck and bus spat us out into the traffic jam and the noise was unbelievable. Vespa motor scooters beeped, taxis and cars cursed each other with their horns, and public address systems blared songs like "Bernadine,"' sung in high sing-songy voices, from each open-fronted a store along the road side. Ahead of us, a ramshackle truck carrying two enormous dead shark filled the car with carbon monoxide and putrefying fish aroma.
Forty-five minutes later, still behind the further-aging shark, we inched along the dusty road. I had the feeling we were blocked by a solid curtain of heavy, smelly heat that was actively pressing us backward. The puddle of perspiration that dripped from the heels of my open sandals onto the rubber floor mat, grew in depth as I tried to think about my gibbon-to-be.
We had been invited to a luncheon on our second day in Bangkok and the hosts had a young gibbon who lived in their garden. He was attached by a belt and chain to a wire that ran between two trees and, as I approached him, he opened his arms and ran toward me on his hind legs with a happy grin. When I picked him up and his long arms wrapped around my neck, I knew I had to have a furry baby of my own. Now the day that Van had promised me had arrived and I resented every car on the road that kept me from getting my gibbon.
"Madame, Claig, go walk." Bunchu's voice startled me. "See- look shop. Not smell bad so much."
Craig was already opening his door into the stalled traffic. "C'mon, Mom, let's go. We'll be cooler walking and we'll be away from those shark."
"All right." I stepped out into the road. "Where will you meet us, Bunchu?" I slammed the door and waited.
"Near-by Emlard Buddha," he said. I knew where that was and dodged away between the vehicles.
On the sidewalk a huge fish gazed at me with glassy eyes. It basked in the searing sun on a banana leaf laid on the pavement, and I realized that we were at the open market, the one that provided us with most of our food. Pi, the cook, did the purchasing so I never before had been this close to the source of our meats and vegetables. I was immediately sorry that the opportunity had now presented itself.
"Craig, hurry up." My tummy lurched and I put my hand over my mouth and nose. "Let's get by here quickly. If we don't, I may never eat again!"
Craig stared at the food spread on the banana leaf plates arranged on the sidewalk. A vendor grinned at him with red, beetle-nut stained gums and few teeth. He shooed the flies away with a wispy broom. They circled, buzzed and relit at once. Craig shuddered.
"I'd just as soon forget the bare feet that have tramped over my future dinner, myself," he said as we pushed our way through the perspiring crowds and cloying smells, "but did you see the beetle-nut chewer spit right next to the papaya?"
"I only hope I can forget it!" I had seen the woman spit and had noticed the tell-tale red stains in the dust near almost every leaf on the concrete. "Thank God for Clorox." I referred to the fact that all the vegetables or fruits we used that weren't cooked were soaked in straight chlorine bleach to kill the flukes, amoebas and, we hoped, bacteria.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 4
Something brushed my hair and I turned my face into a dead duck that looked as though it had been flattened by a steam-roller. Its head hung limply on my shoulder and it stared at me with squashed, lifeless eyes. A whole row of them hung from a line across the open storefront, and I wondered how the Thai housewives in their colorful patungs, could tell any difference as they fingered the paper-doll thin bodies. The women also pinched and poked the naked chickens that hung by scrawny necks from a bamboo pole. The odor of the fowl, mingling with the pervasive smell of garlic, seemed to cling to everything in the oppressive heat.
We hurried past the market and turned a corner onto a quiet street. It was bordered on one side by a klong (canal) that was filled with splashing, naked boys about seven or eight years old.
"That's the life!" Craig sounded envious of the group. I understood. I wanted to jump into the klong myself. Two very little girls wearing only aprons that stopped short of naked, brown thighs, skipped ahead of us. Suddenly, they crossed the road and jumped into the canal with the boys. Now I was envious.
"Look at them," Craig continued. "They can cool themselves in the klongs, pick a banana or papaya when they're hungry and haven't a care in the world."
"You've got to be kidding," I said as I thought of the perils these kids faced daily. "What about the poisonous snakes in every bush and tree, the leeches in the water, rabies, TB., to say nothing of the flukes and amoebic dysentery? Those seem like pretty big worries to me."
"Kids don't worry about those things." Craig gave me an innocent look and shrugged his shoulders. "That's a job for their mothers."
He was right, of course but I just shook my head. I wouldn't rise to the bait.
A pack of wild dogs, mangy skin hanging in festoons from emaciated bodies, snarled weakly at each other as they foraged for scraps in the gutter. None appeared rabid, but one, an obvious mother, was so thin I wondered how she could stand up or what she had to feed the puppies. I hoped she didn't have many to add to the canine population. My heart wept for her and for the thousands that roamed the streets, unfed and unloved.
"You know, Craig," I sighed, "this country has so many interesting things. The people are beautiful and friendly. They're never cold and never hungry. They have flowers and antiquities and delicious, exotic fruits but-as an animal lover-I'm afraid my time here will be colored by things like these pitiful dogs. The Thai seem so cruel and callous as far as animals are concerned."
"'Bunchu says their religion teaches that a dog is a reincarnation of an evil person, therefore to be punished." Craig spent a lot of time with Bunchu. "It's hard to believe, but I'm trying to learn not to see the dogs."
"Any success?" I asked knowing what the answer would be. None of us would be successful and would suffer for the next two years.
"Not yet, but I haven't given up." Craig was an optimist.
As we approached the end of the street, a shiny roof lacquered-red and bordered in a wide band of emerald green, rose above the trees. Along its edge, flame shapes covered in gold leaf reached toward the sun and reflected its rays back into our eyes. It was the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 5
As we walked closer, the wall around the temple and its surrounding buildings cut off our view of the roof, but I knew that inside, protected from the sun, the small green Buddha smiled serenely.
Bunchu was leaning against the wall under a tree that shaded both him and the car. "No more tlaffic now," he announced happily. "We go rickerty sprit." To the Oriental ear, 1's and r's are interchangeable, but I knew what Bunchu meant, no matter what consonant he used. My heart sank.
In the car I braced for the take-off. Bunchu grasped the wheel, raised his feet, slammed the right one onto the accelerator and we bounded away from the curb. We raced down the road and screeched to a halt at the klong that separated us from the pet shop. I hardly had time to get nervous.
A rickety bridge spanned the canal, and Craig and I stopped in the middle to observe, in awe, the activities going on below us.
A young woman in a black sarong stood waist deep in the water as she washed her hair. Her dirty suds, however, swirled down the sluggish stream to surround a man in white boxer shorts who was brushing his teeth. Upstream of them both, a child attending to other bathroom functions, squatted over the edge of a plank that jutted out like a small pier into the gray-green water. A dead pig, bloated and pinky-white, floated beneath the child and toward the ablutionists through a tangle of water hyacinths.
"An old fashioned hand pump and an outhouse would be an improvement over this," Craig remarked quietly.
"Anything would be an improvement over this," I answered. "Anything!"
As Bunchu joined us on the bridge, I wondered, briefly, what the bathroom situation was in his home. He always appeared clean and starched, but then, in our two months in Thailand, I had never met a person who looked dirty or who had an unpleasant odor. Given the heat and primitive facilities in many homes, I wondered how they managed.
Across the rotting boards, the pet shop looked deceptively picturesque. Under a sagging and rusted corrugated tin roof, it seemed shady and cool. Open on the front, it was ringed around with banana and mimosa trees. Dusty hibiscus bushes in full bloom poked their branches in and around the cages of brightly colored birds that were out in front. Ducks and geese attached by long strings to trees and bushes squatted or waddled on the bank of the canal.
Under the roof, it was a different story. There, if there were any, the furry animals lived or died. Birds and other fowl were always saleable-the Thai loved them-but other pathetic creatures were kept mainly for foreigners. They were acquired cheaply by the owner and so were a small loss if they died. They stayed, often without food and water, under the steaming roof. The dilapidated cages were stacked four high in rows that formed passageways so narrow that even the fetid air could not escape.
"I guess we're out of luck," Craig said as we squeezed up and down the aisles. "I don't even see a rat."
"We have enough of those without buying one," I replied, "and your sisters have managed to revive all the guinea pigs we're ever likely to need, so I hope we don't see any more of those."
Two of the little brown and white tail-less creatures had been nearly dead when Lee and Christy had brought them home. Now they were healthy and, we were happy to find, both of the same sex.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 6
Craig, himself, had rescued the two mongooses, Pat and Mike. Although they were still wild and had to be caged, from time to time they escaped and before they were again incarcerated, they would rack up an imposing list of cobras and other poisonous snakes. A phobia against all legless reptiles made me yearn for the day when the mongooses could be allowed to roam freely in the compound.
But the cages for the fur-bearing animals were empty as Craig and I searched for a gibbon-until the last cage of the last row.
As I peered into the gloom, two terrified eyes, round and black, looked back at me. They belonged to a very young, female gibbon. Huddled in the farthest corner of her crate, her long arms wrapped tightly around her knees, she stared at me with such fear that I stepped back as far as I could so I wouldn't frighten her further.
Her fur was matted and discolored by the filth in her cage. Only the white fringe that surrounded her tiny, pansy-shaped, black face was clean and seemed to glow in that horrid place.
I turned to the pet shop owner who, with Bunchu, was behind us .
"Tao Rai (how much)?" I asked. I hadn't yet learned much of the difficult language, but I could ask the price of an item.
"Ha loy Baht (five hundred Baht)," he answered.
As I took out my wallet, Bunchu flew into a frenzy.
"Too much cost! Too much cost! Madame not pay!" He fluttered his hands in agitation.
"Let Bunchu bargain for you, Mother," Craig said. "Otherwise, you'll lose face."
"I don't care if I do lose face." I continued to take out the money. "I won't haggle for this bedraggled bit of life as if she had no value, anymore than I would haggle for your life. She has a value to me and I'd pay any amount to get her out of here. You don't have to tell the owner that." I glared at Bunchu as I handed the man five one-hundred Baht notes, each worth five dollars.
Penny, as the gibbon was to be named, was miserable in the cage, but was in abject terror of us. I reached into the dim recesses and as soon as I touched her, she bit me. Her baby teeth barely pinched and as I got both hands around her middle, she kept nipping and making forlorn little whooping noises. Her two hands and feet worked like four hands and as I pried the fingers of one from the cage wires, another hand and two feet still clung. We had a tussle, but at last I won, and had her dangling from the end of my outstretched arm.
I had been told that adult gibbons had long, sharp eye teeth and could be dangerous. In order to get a baby for resale, the hunters went out into the jungle, shot a mother and snatched the little one. No wonder this baby was so afraid of humans.
As the chanee (Thai word for gibbon) turned and twisted in the air, Craig fastened a small cat collar around her waist and attached a leash so we wouldn't lose her. Bunchu, still sulking, stalked ahead of us as we wrestled our way across the bridge and into the car.
"What's she doing?" Craig asked from the front seat when we were underway.
"She's hunched in the farthest corner on the floor," I answered. "She's staring at me and, I think, trying to figure out how she can get away. Poor little thing! I wish she knew how safe she is with us and how we'll spoil her if she'll let us."
"We've had frightened things before, Mom." Craig craned his neck over the back of the seat and stared down on the chanee. She drew into an even smaller ball and stared back at him without blinking. "She'll learn," he said as he sat back down. I knew he was right.
Gibbons are the smallest and, I think, the most beautiful of the ape family which consists of gibbon, chimpanzee, orangutan and gorilla in ascending order of size. The gibbon is the only primate, aside from man, that walks entirely on hind legs, but it has long arms meant for swinging through trees.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 7
Penny, when clean, turned out to be champagne colored. Now, as she huddled on the car floor, she was filthy from her ordeal, but I could see that she had lovely long fingers on her tiny hands and that they ended in perfectly shaped nails. Her palms were black, as were the soles of her feet, her little bottom and her white-rimmed, pansy- shaped face. Her ears, too, were black, shaped just like a human's and flat to the sides of her round, furry head.
I wanted so badly to pick her up and hug her to me as I had hugged the gibbon two months before. I wanted to feel her arms around my neck and to know that she felt secure with us and that we could exchange love . . . but I had to wait.
"Little gibbon," I said to the apprehensive baby crouched in the corner, "you're safe now. I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, no one will ever hurt you again." I never dreamed that I would have to break that promise.
Chapter 2
As a protection against predators, gibbons in the wild seldom set foot on the ground. Most of their food is found in trees and when they drink, they swing from an overhanging branch and reach into the water with a long- fingered hand to scoop the liquid into their mouths. It seems strange, when gibbons can walk entirely upright, that they don't run on the ground, but predators are many. Safety is in the trees.
At home, once we had run the gamut of curious servants, dogs, cat and daughters, we took Penny to Van's and my bedroom. I undid her leash and let her go.
After a minute or two, and without looking at any of us, she stood up and tiptoed into our dressing room. For the first time, we could see that she stood about ten inches high and had been injured in one leg. Instead of walking straight forward, she danced sideways in a graceful little step-slide, one arm raised above her head as if she were performing a Polish Mazurka.
My closet door, in the dressing room, was open and Penny climbed my dresses until she reached the shelf. Higher than my head, she seemed to feel safe and made her way to the farthest and darkest corner. In a few minutes the lids closed over her shoe-button eyes and obliterated all the terrors of her day.
The bathroom joined the dressing room and we set a dish with cucumbers, bananas and rice on the blue tiled floor in hopes that when it was quiet she would come out to eat. There was plenty of water in the bathroom. At odd hours during the day the water went off in Bangkok. In the event that you were lathered with soap when that happened, some houses had huge jars which were filled with water and a tin bowl to scoop it out with. Our bathrooms had a built-in, tile "klong-jar" and we were given a silver bowl as a scoop. The jar was always full.
We straggled down the stairs filled with disappointment. We had expected a cuddly, affectionate gibbon like the ones we had come in contact with at other people's houses. Instead we had poor, bedraggled Penny who saw us as the enemy and whose only thought was to get as far from us as possible.
We had brought other animals from terror to trust, and we knew that time and loving care would erase whatever memories Penny had of the nightmares she had lived through, but we were eager to begin her rehabilitation and she had successfully blocked us out. We had to be patient and wait.
Day followed day and by the end of the first week I could pick Penny up without being bitten, although she still hung from the end of my arm. She seemed to be terrified of my body.
The second week she made friends with our dogs, Pruno and Yorick. Tucky, the cat, because he was nearer her size, she saw as a friend and fellow victim. She loved him and would throw herself on his sleeping body prepared to cuddle. Long- suffering Tucky never stayed around to cuddle. He usually got up and stalked haughtily away.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 8
Penny always seemed aware of where I was. If I stirred, she ran behind a chair or under a table, but after a few days, if I moved to another room, she followed at a distance.
The second week, too, she began to accept food during the day even though she went behind a chair to eat it.
Since there is no twilight in Bangkok-it's light and then it's dark-wild gibbons go to bed at around five o'clock so they won't be caught in the open when predators start their search for the evening meal. Penny established her routine and promptly at five every day, she struggled up the stairs and into her closet. By then we had made a bed for her in her chosen end of the closet, and she had a soft pillow and doll blankets that she didn't need. The dressing room was not air conditioned nor was the bathroom.
Early morning before we were up, apparently, was a busy time for Penny. We had removed or locked up anything that could have been dangerous for her, but she found things that she must have considered wondrous. Her choices were generally messy. The tooth paste from tubes wasn't hard to remove from the tiled floor and walls, but Penny had to be washed too and that was a debacle.
The talcum powder which she sprinkled on, or, in every ledge or crevice was harder to clean up since we had no vacuum cleaner, but we viewed it as a tragedy when Penny scattered the Dutch Cleanser, because this was hard to find in Bangkok.
Luckily, we caught sight of Van's uniform insignia in the commode and didn't flush them away. We'd learned to look before we sat when Lee's doll shoes were observed just as they had disappeared down the drain.
Since gibbons aren't meat eaters, their droppings aren't smelly or frequent. Penny picked one spot-she hung from the wash basin-and only that place had to be disinfected. Since the bathroom floor was washed daily anyway, there was no extra work for the servants.
In the third week we had a real break-through. Penny accepted a banana from my hand, and ate it sitting at my feet. I felt then that I could take her out onto the terrace and let her climb in the bougainvillea vines.
She climbed and swung and chased bugs and tiny lizards called chinchooks in the dappled shade until a car backfired on Pattipat Road.
Like a traveling light beam she was across the terrace and against my heart, her furry, baby arms around my neck. My hand automatically came up as it does for human babies and I pressed her to me.
Neither of us moved for a long time. I could feel her tiny heart thumping in her breast and I'm sure she could feel mine. In those moments, as her heartbeat slowed, I became her mother and she never again, when she was awake, willingly let me out of her sight.
We sat, she and I, until finally she moved her head and, with a soft cooing noise, looked up at me. In her eyes I saw, at last, trust and love. My heart sang!
Chapter 3
It had all begun in Vienna, Virginia, on what turned out to be the most malodorous and imperfect of days.
We had never thought it would be an ordinary day. Maybe there are people who move a family of five and its pets from a comfortable house in Virginia across the whole of the United States, the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea to Bangkok, Thailand, on a regular basis, but we'd never done it before. In the previous four months we'd dealt with lengthy lists of unlikely adversities, but nothing prepared us for the unlikely adversities of this day of departure.
Our goal for the day was to reach Long Beach Island, New Jersey, where we would spend two nights with my parents before heading west across the continent.
Brad and Trouble
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 9
That August morning in 1956, the sun came up deter mined to do its damnedest and by 8 A.M. it was ninety-eight degrees, humidity to match.
Van, my husband, perspiration running down his face, jammed the last suitcase into the small, two-wheeled trailer, tied the tarp in place and announced, "We're ready to go. Round up the troops."
As a colonel in the United States Army, where the Military said he would go, my husband went. We-one wife, three kids, two dogs and a cat, all lumped together as "the 17 troops"-went with him. This time, God-willing, we were going to Bangkok.
The troops, all except Tucky, the white cat, were scattered. The large cat had already stretched himself comfortably on the kids' pillows in the back of the station wagon. Convinced he was one of the dogs and, in his own mind, the most important one, he was determined not to be left behind. He also wanted to avail himself of the softest and best spot, so had gotten in the car early to make his selection. Nothing seemed likely to dislodge him, but I clipped the leash to his harness and attached him, temporarily, to a basket that held a large jar of water for the animals, and their feeding dishes. The cat hardly raised his head, but a low rumble started somewhere in his insides and I knew he was content.
Craig, our fourteen-year-old son, came around the corner of the house carrying a large sack of Purina Dog Chow, the only food that didn't upset our Great Dane's inner workings.
"Did you mean to leave this on the back porch?" he asked, already aware of the answer. Van blinked his eyes slowly, drew a deep breath and started untying the ropes of the tarp. When the contents of the trailer were exposed, I couldn't see where there was room for the dog food. It was a very small trailer. I started tugging at one of the suitcases to make room. My husband shoved me aside.
"Now let's lay down the rules before we start out," he said. "Things aren't going to be easy with this motley crew, so let's simplify it. There can be only one commanding officer and I'm it. I'll handle the logistics and you handle the troops. Above all, keep your sense of humor."
I wanted to protest that he had the easier job, but thought better of it thinking that, as soon as we were under way and cooler, the rules would change. I was wrong.
"I'll get Lee," I said to Craig who had sat down on the front steps. "Have you seen Christy?"
"I think she's in the barn." Craig referred to the beautiful old structure that had been built when the house was built in 1830. I groaned. Nothing in the barn was clean and our youngest, eight-year-old Christy, had a definite predilection for dirt.
"Get her, please." I looked at Craig. His blue eyes stared back.
"You know she'll be dirty."
"Then clean her up and please don't leave the bathroom in a mess. The renters are moving in this afternoon." Craig started off as Van unloaded the trailer.
I walked across the front yard where I could see Lee carrying her doll, Tommy, wandering among the trees and bushes. Tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed on Tommy's bald head. As I came near I heard her quavering voice bidding good-bye to the immense trees planted when the house was young.
"Good-bye, my beloved maple (or linden or horse chestnut). Good-bye, dear oak tree." She caressed the oak's bark lovingly. She'd spent many imaginative hours with her toy horses and dolls among the great tree's roots. "Wait for me. I'll be home in two years."
Pruno, our gentle and gentlemanly Great Dane, and Yorick, a frowzy-furred medium sized dog whose black body held a golden heart, followed our middle child on her pilgrimage. They, too, loved the familiar trees and shrubs and though they had no idea what was in store for them, they followed Lee, sniffing and watering as if in farewell.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 10
"Come on, Lee-Lee (the pet name for our ten-year-old). We're ready to go."
Lee's expression was stricken and the tears seemed to magnify her already large hazel eyes as she turned to come toward me. Poor Tommy, in her arms, was soaked.
I understood my tender child's sadness. As the daughter of an army officer, I too had left many places and friends that were important to me. I had sometimes felt that my heart would break with the partings, but now I knew that it had only grown larger to accommodate so many wonderful memories and to embrace friends all over the world. My children would learn the joy of adventure and the tremendous wealth of remembrance, but today, for Lee, that knowledge hadn't yet come.
Yorick and Pruno, as different in size as Mutt and Jeff, came galloping across the lawn. Lee, brown head drooping, moved slowly and reluctantly. I put my arm around her shaking shoulders and guided her toward the station wagon. Anything I might have said to her had already been said. Now she just had to know that we understood her sorrow and that she had to accept her fate.
Lee, by choice, had elected to share the back deck with Pruno, Yorick and Tucky. It was a large station wagon, but in spite of the fact that he tried to take up as little space as possible, a Great Dane is a large dog and Pruno wasn't entirely successful. Still, when they were all in and arranged, no one complained and I turned my attention to Craig emerging from the front door towing a protesting apparition.
Christy's brown hair was glued to her head with perspiration. Her hands and face were semi-clean. Craig had done his best with a difficult subject, but Christy's legs and clothes looked as if she'd been wandering the earth from time immemorial and had never encountered any water.
"Van," I said as my husband finished fastening the last tie-down on the trailer, "I don't know whether this comes under troops or logistics, but we have to get Christy some clean clothes. We are going to start out clean."
Van spun around and looked at his daughter. After a long pause, he turned and, with great deliberation, began to unfasten the ropes again.
"I suggest," he said, "that since she comes under 'troops,' but her clothes, because they are in the trailer, might come under 'logistics' and . . . since I will untie these ropes only this once more . . . that we dress her in a bathing suit and hose her off at every rest stop."
The subject under discussion wilted, and though I felt Van might have the perfect solution, I vetoed his proposal. Grumbling, Van found and handed out the requested clean clothes. I stripped Christy to her underwear, miraculously clean, handed her father the dirty shorts, shirt and socks, and escorted her into the house and to the laundry tub in the utility room.
She was a very small eight-year-old, having been born three months prematurely, and was able to get in the laundry tub for a bath, leaving the pristine bathrooms untouched.
Van was standing beside the trailer when we returned. In his hand, the ropes jiggled like a fistful of writhing worms. "Are you going to need anything else?" he asked grimly. "I told you, I won't tie and untie this thing again."
"Where's your sense of humor?" I knew it had gone where mine had, but I asked just to remind him of our earlier agreement.
He looked at me and smiled faintly. "You're right, he said. "Let's keep it at least until we're out of the driveway." He shook his fistful of ropes. "Put everybody in the car so nothing else can happen and then, and only then, will I secure the trailer."
I closed the tail-gate on Lee, Pruno, Yorick and Tucky and went around the side where Christy was climbing in over piles of broken plastic toys, wheel-less cars, rags, boxes of broken crayons and other debris that had been, until an hour ago, in the trash cans out by the barn.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 11
Craig was standing beside the car waiting to follow his sister. "I can't ride with all that junk under my feet, Christy. Get it out of there." Craig began to scoop up an arm load.
"It is not junk, and don't touch it!" Christy had a high piping voice and in her frenzy I know she pierced E above high C. "They're my treasures!"
"Christy." When I'm irritated my voice gets as low as my daughter's was high. I might even have sounded like a man as I continued, "I am going to put this trash back into the can designed for just this sort of thing, and I don't want to hear a peep out of you. Ah. . . ," I said as she opened her mouth... "not one peep." The mouth remained open but, fortunately, nothing came out. "Craig, help me pick up anything that's broken. We're making a clean start." I underlined the word "clean" and glared at Christy. She glared back.
Craig snorted and kicked his sister's favorite doll (aptly named "Poor Pitiful Pearl") as he climbed in to gather an arm load. The usually callous mother snatched her bedraggled child and clutched it to her bony breast while her brother and I cleaned the floor under her feet. We made our trip to the trash cans and returned to the station wagon. Van was standing by the driver's door guarding the inmates. My son and I took our assigned seats.
"Everybody ready?" Van's steady voice had a calming influence. "Yes," we all answered.
"I'll lock the house and we're off." Van ran up the steps, turned the key in the lock and came back to slide onto the driver's seat.
"Ready?" he asked again as he slammed his door. There were three "yes"es and one, "I have to go to the bathroom."
"You don't have to go to the bathroom, Christy." Van knew that his youngest had the capacity of a septic tank. "You had your chance. Now hold it." He put the car in gear and we rolled out the gates, the trailer bumping along behind. I think we were all too tense and hot to even say good-bye to our dear house.
Aside from the challenge of spending two years in a country whose culture was so different from our own, we had the practical problems of taking clothing for three growing youngsters, clothing for a reportedly endless social life for Van and me, a refrigerator, a wringer washing machine, window air-conditioners and all the other things to make life bearable in a country that was always hot, steamy and sticky. In addition we were going to cross the Pacific on a luxury cruise ship, the U.S.S. President Cleveland. Everything that wasn't necessary on the drive across the country, and the cruise, had been shipped ahead to Bangkok. All the clothing for the five of us for the monthlong luxury cruise, had been packed in trunks and sent to a Fort Mason, California, to be held there for our arrival.
Our plans had been made and carried out as carefully as possible and as we turned onto Walnut Lane I leaned back in my seat, ready to enjoy a leisurely drive across the USA and an elegant cruise to the Orient. My job was "well done!" Nothing could go wrong now!
"Are you ready for the air-conditioner?" I asked when we reached Maple Avenue, the main street of Vienna. In 1956, cars were not generally air-conditioned and the station wagon was no exception. I had, however, found a wonderful invention at one of the automobile dealers'. It had been advertised and touted on television and in the newspapers, and a friend who had bought one assured me that this was just what we needed to cross the United States in comfort in the heat of summer. It was installed, the kids and I had tried it out and it worked.
It was a tubular steel cylinder about two feet long and six inches in diameter, stuffed with excelsior. It fit onto the top of my partially rolled up window. When the cylinder was filled with water, the excelsior became saturated and, supposedly, when I pulled a string, louvers opened and the air from outside rushing through the wet straw cooled the entire station wagon.
Eagerly I instructed, "Roll up your windows."
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 12
The windows rose. I pulled the string. I turned to smile at the expectant faces in the rear.
Suddenly-with the roar of a speeding motorcycle two gallons of sun-heated water streamed past me and inundated the eager assemblage behind me. Expressions changed and though the bodies seemed immobile, the vocal chords functioned loudly and well.
Tucky reverted to a water-hating cat. With flattened ears and soaking fur, he expanded his tail, extended his claws and launched himself forward onto my red linen lap. He came by way of Craig's head and my shoulder. We were immediately soaked, tufted in white fur, and in pain. Van, who couldn't tell what had happened, swerved to the curbing and stopped the car. He looked at me and then to the rear.
"Is that the way the thing is supposed to work?" he asked wonderingly.
"Of course not," I answered shortly. "I could have saved a lot of money by throwing a large pitcher of water on us all."
"Maybe we should have brought a pitcher, Mom. I do feel cooler." Craig mopped at his formerly well pressed shorts and rubbed his face on his driest sleeve. "Christy, stop yelling. Water won't hurt you." He put his hands on his sister's bouncing body and pinned her to the leather seat.
"Ooooo! My clothes are all wet!" Our youngest had a terrible aversion to water, but she was more outraged than uncomfortable.
The occupants of the back deck had caught the major portion, but in spite of the dogs, who were shaking their excess water onto her, Lee hadn't made a sound.
Her dripping arms were held out from her body, her head was down and her disbelieving eyes were fixed on her soaking shirt and shorts. At last she sighed, and, with her doll blanket mopped her own face and her doll's. Then she looked up and said with resignation, "Well, that's that!"
Van stepped quietly from the car, came around and, without a word, unbolted and removed the malfunctioning cylinder from my window. He laid it carefully on the curb, reappeared on his own side of the wagon and, still in silence, slid in, slammed the door and we drove away.
We had agreed that, if we could keep our sense of humor, the trip could be fun. From his shaking shoulders I could see that Van had found the funny side.
We had to make, my husband said, one quick stop at the Pentagon because a civilian employee, Mr. Wilson by name, had not in four months gotten around to signing the travel vouchers or giving us our steamship tickets. Prior to our trip to Bangkok, all military personnel who refused to fly to a foreign destination had been sent by freighter. Christy's health was not always robust, and freighters carried no doctors. We didn't dare go by freighter. Because of Pruno, Yorick and Tucky, and because I was terrified of flying, we didn't want to fly.
The military ordered a staff study of the situation and found that should Christy become ill and the freighter have to turn around or put into a foreign port in order to find a doctor, the Government of the United States would be liable for the cost of the detour. We were to be sent aboard the U.S.S. President Cleveland which was all we'd asked in the first place.
On this, our day of departure, Mr. Wilson had promised to have everything ready by eleven A.M.
Brad and Trouble
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 13
We drove into the parking lot at the five sided office building at 10:45. Van parked us near the only available tree, a three-year-old sapling with just enough leaves to show that it was going to be a maple.
"I'll be right back," Van promised as he went off toward the air-conditioned building.
At 11:30, after the four of us had grown tired of watching the heat rise from the pavement and were out of the wagon and clustered around the sapling. Van came stomping across the parking lot. His lips had grown thinner and his jaw twitched.
"Mr. Wilson," he said grimly, "has gone to an early lunch, but is expected back shortly. He was gone when I got up there at 10:55. I'm sorry!"
As his father strode off again Craig said, "I could almost feel sorry for Mr. Wilson when he and Dad finally meet, if I weren't so hot. As it is, I hope he gets what's coming to him."
At noon, Van was back with a box of hot dogs cooler than we were and cokes that were as hot.
By 12:40 the kids and I had just put the finishing touches to a story about Mr. Wilson's enforced retirement when Van came toward us waving a manila envelope.
"Hooray!" we cheered, and even the hot, panting dogs gathered the strength to stand up and wag their tails. Tucky, on harness and leash, lay under the tree, totally noncommittal.
"You don't get to celebrate yet," Van warned. "I have the vouchers to get the tickets but not the tickets themselves. Mr. Wilson forgot."
This time I mentally fired Mr. Wilson without giving him the option of retirement, and hoped Van had attended to the same end in the hours he had waited in the Penta- gon. Mr. Wilson must have had a boss and I felt sure that the furious colonel standing now in front of his bedraggled family must have consulted with him. I thought, however, that I'd ask later when things were more calm.
"What now?" I asked as we rose from the hot curbing and got into the scorching car. The leather seats burned through my dress and as Craig and Christy screamed, I sympathized with them for the pain on their poor bare legs. Lee, on her pillow in the rear, was all right, and she quickly tossed the other two cushions to her siblings. "Ah!" they sighed in unison and settled back.
"You asked, 'what now' before the furor in the back began." Van's lips had grown even thinner and his jaw was a cluster of muscular knots. "Now we go to 15th and K Streets in Washington." He put the wagon in gear and we rolled forward. "There, if we can find a parking space for a station wagon and trailer, we'll also find the President Steamship Lines." Van, in spite of being an army intelligence offices was usually an optimist. I could tell that the day and Mr. Wilson were beginning to alter his outlook on life.
On the 14th Street bridge, I turned to take inventory of the passengers in the rear. We were not the same clean, well dressed family who had gotten into the car some hours earlier. All clothes, mine included, were wet with perspiration, and grimy with dirt that clung to the soggy fabrics. Our hair was plastered to our dripping heads and the kids, after mopping at their faces with filthy hands, had streaks and lines that made them appear to be unwanted and unwashed ragamuffins. Only Van, who'd been in an air-conditioned building, still looked like, to use Christy's phrase, "a human bean."
Even the panting animals, including pure white Tucky, looked damp and grimy although the cat was working on himself.
No one was exactly chatty as we crossed the Potomac River into the District of Columbia.
On K Street, when two cars pulled out in tandem and left room for the station wagon and trailer, Van shouted, "Hallelujah! Our luck is changing. This time I really will be right back." He took his manila envelope and went into another air-conditioned building. I felt unreasonably resentful. Looking as I did, I wouldn't have gotten out of the car if he'd offered me the chance, but the temperature had to be nearly one hundred and I wanted the offer.
Brad and Trouble
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 14
"At least it's shady and that's an improvement." Craig must have read my mind. He peeled off his shoes and socks and put his feet up on the back of the front seat. As I turned my head to look at him, his big toe nearly put my eye out. I glared at him.
"Sorry," he said as he put the feet on the floor.
Christy, already barefoot, turned upside down and, resting on her shoulders with her back against the seat back and her legs in the air piped, "Why isn't he back yet? He's been gone a long time and he said he'd be right back. He's a liar. Daddy is a liar."
"Christa Lambert Vanderhoef, don't you ever say such a thing again! Don't ever call anyone a liar, and sit up on the seat. You don't need to make us look worse than we already do." I was irritable.
"Well, he is," came an almost inaudible murmur from behind me. I was too hot to deal with the remark.
"How come those people out there look so nice and clean?" Lee was watching passersby on the sidewalk. "They look cool, too," she added.
"They've probably been sitting in an air-cooled restaurant and are now on their way to their comfortable, air conditioned offices." I'd never wanted to work in a office before, but now, I felt bitter and discriminated against.
Minute after minute passed. The temperature rose. Soon I began to think Christa had been right. Van was a liar. Each occupant, glued to his own wet leather seat, grew more miserable and silent.
Pruno, Yorick and even Tucky had been panting and had their heads out of the windows. Pruno drew his in and began to pace as far as the limited space would allow. When his mournful howl rent the air, we all jumped.
Fortunately, Lee jumped the farthest because as she leaped into the little aisle next to Christy, poor dignified Pruno went off like a siren from one end and a bomb from the other. The heat had so upset him that he had diarrhea all over the available space in the back deck.
There was a second of horrified silence, then Craig, Lee, Christy, and Yorick joined Tucky and me in the front seat. It was crowded.
One expects a large dog to have a tremendous capacity and a powerful smell, but Pruno became the champion of all time right then.
The gagging, yelping and hissing emanating from the car as the doors flew open and we huddled in an unclean cluster on the sidewalk, caused passersby to stare in our direction. The stench, as it boiled through the openings, forced people up against the buildings.
They hurried by, hands ever their noses and with eyes searching for the source of the terrible odor so they could avoid it. Since Pruno was, by then, out of sight between the front and back seats, his embarrassed head buried in his paws, they probably thought one of us was the cause.
"Do something, Mother, do something!" The girls brought me out of, what might be termed, the anesthetic.
Forgetting that we had already been viewed by nearly everyone in downtown Washington, I made a ridiculous statement.
"Get in the car," I said, "before anyone sees you. I'll take care of it." They all dutifully climbed into the front seat.
Yorick, without leash, was investigating a tree near the car, but came right away when I whistled. Tucky, unnoticed, had wandered down the sidewalk and was the center of an admiring group of office workers. One of them, an attractive young woman in a navy blue linen dress, picked him up. I hated to draw attention to myself, we were getting enough of that already, but I could see that our cat was about to be kidnapped.
Brad and Trouble
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 15
Tucky, considering himself a dog, always came to a whistle, but when I had summoned Yorick, I did it so softly that the cat, who was farther away, hadn't heard me. Now I puckered up and blew and was probably heard in Baltimore.
Tucky wrestled free of the embracing arms and flew toward the car, but not before he buttered the front of the blue linen dress with white fur. Somehow it made me feel better about my own fur-encrusted red dress. Serves her right, I thought. I didn't know what the girl had done to deserve my anger, but I think it must been because she had looked so nice when I was in such a mess. Well, now she looked almost as awful as I did.
Once everyone was corralled, I began to root through pile of bags and boxes that had been crowding my feet on the floor of the car. I had bought a giant, economy-sized box of Kleenex that I thought was large enough to last us all the way to California. Naturally, it was on the bottom of the pile.
Bearing it with me, I made my way to the rear of the wagon; lifted my tight, straight, wrinkled skirt above my knees and straddled the tongue of the trailer.
When I opened the tail-gate and my nose was in closer contact with the disaster, I thought I was going to add a new dimension to the problem.
"I'm going to be sick," I said aloud.
A chorus in the front sang, "No, don't do that," a cappella and with feeling. I stepped back, swallowed and crept forward again.
Using the Kleenex and what was left of the animals' drinking water, I sopped and mopped until the floor looked clean. The odor, however, remained. Van's thermos of coffee went next. There was no improvement. I emptied the shoe box that held the girls' crayons and filled it with soiled tissues. I also filled the box in which Van had brought the hot dogs, two large paper bags and the Kleenex box itself. That collection, for want of a waste basket within running distance, I pushed under the car. Still the putrescence clung.
Desperate, I grabbed a huge plastic bag of bright green, granular bubble bath that a neighbor, bless her, had brought the girls as a farewell gift. Sprinkled thickly on the offending area, it smelled strong and cheap like dime store perfume, but it had more power than Pruno's calamity and to us it smelled wonderful. I blanketed the back of the wagon with it.
"I like that." Christy, who had been leaning over the back of the front seat, smiled. "Dad's gonna like it too." I didn't agree with her. "Going to," I automatically corrected.
"It's better than the diarrhea." Craig got out and changed to the middle seat of the wagon. "It's strong but it doesn't make you sick at your stomach. It'll probably weaken as we go along, won't it?" I said I hoped it would.
"Well, I can't sit back there in the bubble bath. I'll sneeze all the way to New Jersey" Lee had a point. "May I sit up here with you and Dad?"
"Yorick, get in the back." The dog's long lashed, brown eyes stared at me pleadingly out of his sparsely furred, bony skull, but he obeyed. "Lee, give Tucky to Craig and slide over." The cat was handed over the seat back, and my daughter's bare legs squeaked on the damp leather as she wriggled into her allotted space. I plopped onto the seat and shuffled my feet into the clutter on the floor. When they touched bottom, I sighed. That crisis was past.
We were barely settled when Van emerged from the building. His step was jaunty and he waved the envelope at me as he approached the car. Halfway across the broad sidewalk he raised his nose in the air and began to sniff.
"He smells us," Christy said happily. How could he not, I thought. "He thinks we smell delicious," Christy continued. I marveled at her innocence.
Brad and Trouble
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 16
Van's first words, "What's that awful smell?" deflated his youngest like an overdone souffle. At her expression he thought he had found the culprit. "Christy, have you . . . ?"
"For once Christy didn't do it, Dad." Craig was usually fair. "Pruno. . . ."
"Pruno had diarrhea," Lee chimed in. "Mother cleaned it up but . . . ."
"She used up all of our bubble bath." Christy had found a bright spot. "Now we can't take a bath," she added.
"Fortunately, you can and will." I answered. "Accept this fragrance, dear one," I said to my husband as he slid behind the wheel. "The one it is masking was unbearable. Do we have the tickets?"
Van reached across Lee and handed me a bulky envelope. "Put these in my briefcase, please. He looked at me. "Where is my briefcase?"
"It's back here, Dad," Craig volunteered. "Pruno is lying on it."
"Why isn't he in the back?" This brilliant army officer didn't seem to be getting the point. He looked at Lee sitting between us. "Why is everyone out of order?"
I explained our recent disaster once more.
"Oh," he said when I had wearily gone again through the corrective steps I'd taken. "Well, the animals' tickets were the things that took the time. At first, no one would believe that we were crazy enough to take this kind of a luxury cruise with three kids, two dogs and a cat." Amen, I thought. "Actually, the man and I came out onto the sidewalk to view the menagerie, but there was a terrible smell so we only stayed long enough to see you standing behind the car with your skirt half-way to your hips. What in God's name were you doing?"
I couldn't believe that he still didn't know what I had been doing.
"We," I said quietly, "were the source of the terrible smell that sent you back into the building. "I," my voice rose, "was back there cleaning the car and over-riding that smell with the flowery fragrance you now dislike."
At last Van got the picture. He reached across Lee to pat me on the knee. "I'm sorry," he said in apology and sympathy. "I didn't realize." Then he chuckled. "If it's any consolation, the President Lines man and I thought the view of your legs was great."
Surprisingly, the little compliment did help my morale and as we wound our way through the, by then, evening rush-hour traffic, I smiled.
Even Pruno, who still lay under Craig and Christy's feet hiding his shame, crept up onto the back deck where he sat, rather unhappily, in the fine, cloying crystals.
I handed the ticket envelope to Craig who put it in the released briefcase.
When we got to the Washington-Baltimore Parkway and were up to speed, the wind from the open windows swirled and shifted the powdered bubble bath like the sands of the Sahara.
I watched as it covered the kids' sweaty bodies with green. They watched as it covered ours. It stuck like glue. It dyed our hair, it provided us with three green animals and-worst of all-it blew in our eyes. Being salty, it stung! Van couldn't see through his tears. He wavered to the side of the road and came to an abrupt halt.
"We can't go on like this!" bellowed my usually placid husband as he mopped his streaming eyes. "You have to do something!"
"Why do I have to do something?"
"Because you're the mother." He looked at me, his green face determined.
"That's all I've heard all day." I said each word carefully through clenched teeth. " 'Do something, Mother.' It seems to me that this comes under logistics. Besides, I'm not your mother. You do something."
"I don't know what to do." He sounded pitiful. My anger subsided.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 17
In the glove compartment was a spray can of Fuller Brush Insect Repellent. I reached in, grabbed it and handed it to Craig.
"Spray the stuff. Wet it thoroughly. Stick it to the floor," I growled. "I hope this works. If it doesn't, I have nothing further to offer."
An aroma, redolent of an old trash dump, wrapped itself around us as Craig sprayed, but the repellent glued the granules to whatever they lay upon, and our driver was coaxed back into operation.
The remaining five hours of the trip seemed to stretch beyond eternity. We couldn't stop at a restaurant lest the other patrons think that smelly Martians had landed. We ate our few Oreos and Fig Newtons and sucked on Lifesavers in lieu of water.
At last, we drove into my parents' driveway on Long Beach Island, New Jersey. We were hot, tired, hungry, thirsty and, as Craig said, thoroughly "un-gruntled."
As our station wagon rolled into my parents' drive, my father and mother rushed out to greet us but just when I was ready to throw myself into loving and comforting arms my father clapped his hand over his nose and backed away.
"Good God! You stink!" he yelled loudly enough to alert all of Long Beach Island.
Mother looked bewildered, but she stood her ground. I did the only thing possible, I burst into tears.
"Everything stinks!" I yelled at him through my tears. "And this day stinks most of all!"
I got out of the car and threw my soggy purse at nothing in particular. It landed somewhere in the dark yard.
Having been on duty for twenty-one of my thirty seven years, my mother recognized the symptoms and was prepared to "do something."
That precious lady ignored my smell, opened her arms and took me and my responsibilities into them.
In that moment, as my obligations shifted temporarily from my shoulders to hers, the day, that had long since turned to night, and I were all right again.
Chapter 4
Late in the afternoon of the third day on the road after leaving my parents' home, we drove up in front of the beautiful home of Van's Uncle Will Nash, near the small town of Wayzata, Minnesota. The house stretched its wings along the shore of Lake Minnetonka, and we thought two days there would be a welcome break for people and animals. We reckoned without Uncle Will's dachshund, Vanderhoef.
Aunt Laura, Van's aunt, had been a Vanderhoef, all four of the Nash children had the middle name of Vanderhoef and there was always a dog of some breed to carry on the name. The current bearer of the standard was the snarling, barking dachshund who attacked the car as soon as it stopped rolling.
Yorick and Pruno, who had been eager to disembark, withdrew their heads from the windows and looked at us as if to say, "We don't think we're welcome here! What now?"
I wondered the same thing, but a soft voice with a Norwegian accent silenced the feisty dog.
"Stop dat noise, Vanderhoef." Miss Nelson, better known as "Uh-Huh," came around the corner to greet us.
Vanderhoef stopped barking, but none of us got out of the car.
Uh-Huh had come to the Nash household many years before when the four children were small. She stayed as their nurse until they were grown and then became the housekeeper and a true and beloved member of the family. Aunt Laura had died before Van and I were married, and tiny Uh-Huh ran the household and its inmates from that time on.
Brad and Trouble
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 18
"Dean," she said to my husband, poking her head in the window and using his given name, "Vanderhoef doesn't like udder doks, so ve haf arranged wit a kennel. Edgar iss coming now to take you der." Edgar was Van's older cousin, the eldest of the Nash offspring.
"Jeannie!" Uh-Huh smiled and put her hand through the window to touch me lovingly on the arm. "You and the kits come inside de house. Bring de ket wit. Vanderhoef issn't jealous of kets."
Edgar drove up with his wife, Nancy, and they both got out of their car as the children and I, Craig bearing Tucky, extricated ourselves from the possessions and trash we had accumulated in just a few days.
We loved Nancy and Edgar and after we'd all hugged several times around, Edgar said, "Come on, Dean, we'll take the dogs to the kennel," and off they went.
I wasn't comfortable about Pruno and Yorick being in a strange kennel. They'd been uprooted from their home and I worried that being torn now from the family in a strange place, might turn Pruno back into the quivering, cowering mass he'd been when we found him in Germany. Still, there was no choice.
Nancy and Uh-Huh told us what a loving, caring kennel it was and how careful the staff was with the animals it boarded, and I, at least for the time, felt better.
We had a lovely dinner that night. The other cousins, Bill, Fred, and Marianna, came with their spouses and their children. The younger children were fed early, and the ones old enough to he civilized joined us at the table in the enormous dining room. It was fun, but the dogs were on my mind and I called the kennel right after dinner. I was told they had eaten well and seemed content. I relaxed.
After the kids were all taken home to bed, we met at Fred's house and were introduced to his raccoon who, because it was night, was wide awake and ready to entertain us. We were entranced and I made up my mind that someday I'd have a raccoon.
Van called the kennel after breakfast the next morning. The dogs were fine, he was told, but we had just finished lunch when the phone rang. The caller asked to speak to Colonel Vanderhoef. Since we knew no one in Minneapolis, we knew the call had to be from the kennel, my parents or the Pentagon. No one else knew where we were.
When Van came back to the dining room, his face was pale. "Come on," he said, "the dogs have escaped and are loose in Wayzata. Sorry, Uncle Will, we'll be back when we find them."
Lee and Christy, after a busy morning of swimming with their cousins, had eaten early and were napping, but Craig jumped up to join us. As we hurried from the dining room, I heard Uncle Will say to Vanderhoef who was lying in the dining room doorway, "See what you caused, you smelly, old, bad tempered dog."
In the car heading toward the established rendezvous, I asked Van how the dogs had gotten out.
"Pruno stood up and opened the latch with his nose and out they went. There was no lock on the gate. Fortunately the owners saw them go and are in pursuit."
It took us ten minutes to reach the command post, a lovely residential area of upper middle-class homes and huge shady trees. There we found the animal warden, his truck, his assistants and an ever increasing crowd of dog- lovers. By now the kennel owners and the entire kennel staff were in on the chase. The dog warden, two veterinarians and assorted members of the Great Dane Club of America had been rallied to arms. We also found that the dogs had been on the loose for some time and it seemed that everyone in the state had been called before we were alerted.
The police, contacted by Uncle Will, showed up just as we did. The quiet village of Wayzata had never seen such excitement! Like the Keystone Kops, the army ran through the town trampling flower beds, peering under bushes, into windows, doors, sheds and garages, scarring lawns and wreaking havoc.
Brad and Trouble
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 19
"I'm gonna sue the city," an irate man bellowed as he trotted beside a large, black Great Dane attached to the dog warden by a stick with a noose on the end. The noose was around the dog's neck.
"He's right," I said to the warden as I joined them. "Our Great Dane is brindle; this one is black. This isn't the one you want."
"Who are you?" the warden asked haughtily, still pressing forward toward a large truck with cages in the back. The truck was old and looked dead tired.
"I'm the owner of the dog you're hunting, and believe me, this isn't the dog."
"The report said the dog was black." We were nearing the truck by now.
"There are two dogs." I explained. "The smaller dog is black. The Great Dane is brindle."
"He took Caesar right out of his yard . . . right out of his own yard!" The dog's owner couldn't have been more than five-foot-six, had a belly like the beer barrel it probably came from, and, I noticed, was wearing bedroom slippers.
We stopped at the truck and the warden prepared to hoist the Dane into one of the cages. The dog's front legs rested on the tail gate, the tail wagged, but the hind legs only danced on the pavement. Caesar turned his head and washed the warden's face.
I wanted to get on with hunting Yorick and Pruno, but I couldn't let this injustice continue.
"Look," I said, "we're visiting Mr. Willis Nash. Our name is Vanderhoef. Our two dogs escaped from the Deerwood Kennels and I really would like to get on with hunting them. Believe me, this is not the dog you want."
Uncle Will's name, and the facts, finally got the warden's attention. After a minute's thought he said, "Well, Okay. Here, Mister, here's your dog, but you'd better lock him up or somebody else is liable to take him again."
The black Dane's owner became less apoplectic as he took Caesars's collar. Caesar joyously moved his fore feet from the truck to the little man's shoulders and in fits and starts they moved across the pavement. The man was slipping and staggering in his bed room slippers and the dog, walking upright, was at least a foot taller than his owner.
"I hope you find your dogs," the man managed to gasp as I hurried past. "I know how I'd feel if it was mine and only these idiots were out hunting him." He gave a short laugh. "We sure get to love 'em, don't we? Well, good luck!"
As I hurried away I thought about my love for the two missing members of the family. I remembered Pruno when we'd first acquired him in Germany. Mistreated and abandoned, he'd been a huge, quivering mass of bone draped with loose skin. He had loved us at once, but for more than a year, a strange man or a loud noise would send him shivering into the farthest, darkest corner. Now, with love, he was a beautiful, happy dog and we loved him with all our hearts.
Yorick had been one of a litter born under the coffee table in our TV room in Vienna, to mother's poodle, Folly. He was the most endearing, if the most wispy looking, puppy of the litter and he too dwelt in our hearts.
I was determined that even if Van had to retire from the army and we never got to Bangkok, we would stay in Wayzata until both dogs were found.
Van and Craig appeared on either side of me and swept me along with the ever increasing crowd.
"Look, up there, Jeannie," my husband said suddenly. "Isn't that the boys?"
Far in the distance I saw two specks cross the road. They were of uneven size and each had four legs. "It does look like them, but I'm afraid to hope."
"Whistle, Mother," Craig said. "Maybe they'll hear you."
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 20
I can summon the loudest, shrillest whistle in the family when the occasion demands it, so I put my lips together and blew. The specks hesitated. My heart leapt and I blew again. They stopped. I whistled once more. They turned and raced down the road toward us. No grasping hands or prone bodies deterred them. We began to run and the meeting came somewhere in , the sea of floundering, applauding humanity. When the dogs reached us, tongues lolling, sides heaving and tails waving, they leaped upon us in unalloyed joy. Pruno stood half a head taller than I when he put his paws on my shoulders and slathered my face. Yorick sprang into Van's arms and there wasn't a dry eye on the block when the reunion was over.
Van made a touching speech of thanks to all the city employees and volunteers; the dogs jumped gratefully into the station wagon, and we drove away. Our prayer of gratitude came from the very bottom of our hearts.
Chapter 5
What country are we in now?" Christy's piping
voice wafted forward from the back deck of the station wagon. All three offspring were stretched out sideways on the floor, their heads on their pillows feet prominently displayed in the long side windows.
Yorick lay between Craig and Christy, his chin on our son's chest. Pruno had been promoted, to his way of thinking, to the middle seat, and as I turned to look at Christy, the dog's feet jerked, his ears twitched and he gave a muffled bark. He was sound asleep.
Lee had made a bed for her doll on an extra pillow, but Tucky found that a waste of bedding. The seventeen- pound cat lay upon the doll's unresisting cloth body and poor Tommy, the doll, was smothered by a blanket of white fur stuffed with sinew, bone and muscle. Tommy's mother and Uncle Craig appeared to be asleep.
We'd been underway from Virginia toward San Francisco for two weeks and had settled into a, more or less, routine when we were in the car. Part of the routine (like the inevitable "Are we almost there?" from our youngest) was the unavoidable and just asked, "What country are we in now?"
Van and I suspected that Christy already understood the answer. She also had enough intelligence to see that, like Chinese water torture, she would he able to slowly drive her parents to the brink of insanity and, quite possibly, assist them over the precipice.
"We're still in the United States," I said to our youngest with, I'm sure, an edge to my voice. The muscles in Van's jaw, when I looked at him, were jumping as if he had a tic. "I don't think I can go through this again," I muttered.
"I'll give it a try." My husband took a deep breath. "Now listen carefully, Christy," he said, "and don't forget what I tell you. We will be in the United States of America until we get aboard the ship. Isn't that what Mother told you yesterday?"
"And the day before and the day before that, ad nauseam," I mumbled.
"Yes, but...."
"In all the time we've been traveling have we left the United States?"
"Yes."
I could see Van's lips move as he counted to ten.
"What do you mean, 'yes.' When have we left this country?" His voice, when he spoke was very, very quiet.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 21
"Grand Forks isn't in this country," Christy said triumphantly.
Van's voice began to rise and to develop a keen edge. His daughter was impugning his home town in North Dakota.
"What do you mean, Grand Forks isn't in this country? Of course it is. What makes you think it isn't?"
"When we got to Auntie Lois and Uncle Bud's, you said we were in God's country. So now. . . are we in God's country or our own country? What country are we in?"
"Mesopotamia!" Craig answered irritably and sat up.
"Where?" His sister was interested.
"Mes-o-pot-a-mia!" Craig pronounced slowly.
There was silence as Christy appeared to be thinking. I doubted that she really was.
After a minute or two she lay down, and said, "When we get to Yellowstone Park, I'm going to climb Old Faithful."
Our daughter had a thought all right, but it was a totally unexpected one. Since we had spent the day before on the difference between states, countries, counties, towns, mountains and geysers, I hoped we weren't going to get into that nerve-knotting discussion again. Apparently everyone else was holding his breath at the prospect, because we all exhaled at once and the car seemed to shiver.
When we reached the entrance to Yellowstone Park, the park ranger was friendly, polite and helpful. He filled the front seat and my lap with leaflets and brochures, told us that since it was the second of September, all hotels in the park were closed for the winter (having closed on the first), but he assured us that we would be comfortable in one of the log-cabin campgrounds. Van was thanking him and preparing to drive away when Christy leaned over the back of his seat.
Her short legs waved in the air behind her, and she stuck her head out of the window almost into the ranger's face, announcing in an excited voice, "We're in a mess of pots, and I'm going to climb Old Faithful as soon as we get there."
I don't know why I felt obliged to explain. "She thought we were still in God's country instead of the United States," I said foolishly, "so our son told her we were in Mesopotamia." That wasn't at all what I meant to say and it certainly was no clarification.
The young man's smile shrank. His eyes, a clear blue only moments before, became opaque. He stepped back from the car and from Christy's upturned face, and said, more to the animals than to us, "Be sure you have your pets on leashes and under control at all times. We have bear in the park." He looked toward the dogs and cat clumped together in the rear, and I was sure he was speaking to them rather than to us.
Craig and Van began to laugh at the same time. Lee and I joined in as we rolled away, our guffawing echoing through the trees. Only Christy was bewildered. When I looked back, I saw the ranger still staring uncertainly after our station wagon.
"That certainly was an edifying dissertation," Van chortled when he could get his breath. "It proved, without doubt, what that young man had only suspected."
"Sort of like Mother's beautiful Palominos." Craig doubled with laughter again. He referred to an inane statement of mine when, once, someplace in the middle of Illinois, I had seen what I thought were graceful cream colored horses in a lush green field.
"Look at the beautiful Palominos, kids," I'd said with enthusiasm. I wasn't wearing my glasses and I'm quite nearsighted. There was a silence while everyone looked.
The silence was pronounced enough to cause me to snatch the glasses from my lap and put them on. What I saw were four, dirty, white mules standing near a stock tank, in a field that at best was only patched with green.
The laughter, mine included, was loud, and "Look at the beautiful Palominos" became a favored family observation.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 22
At last the laughter diminished, and as we wound through the beautiful park, a family of bear beside the road, a mother and two cubs, entranced us all and I hoped Christy had forgotten Old Faithful. Her occasional remark on the subject, however, kept us aware that in spite of any arguments we might have offered, she was bound and determined to climb the geyser. The wild animals seemed secondary. I dreaded her disillusionment.
The cabins, when we found them late in the afternoon, were primitive. They were so small we required two. Fortunately, they were close enough together that we could put the kids in one and we could take the other and still hear almost every breath they drew. Unfortunately we could also hear the breathing of the man on the other side of us who, once he had coughed and cleared and snorted and snuffled his way to bed, went immediately to sleep and to snore.
The floors of the cabins were oiled linoleum. There was room in each cabin for a pot-bellied stove, a small table, two straight chairs and a double bed. We picked up a cot for Craig which crowded the kids' room somewhat, but if he had shared the bed with the girls, it would have been like sleeping with a pony in a dresser drawer and besides, it wasn't suitable.
It was cold and when bedtime came, we made no attempt to open either of the two small windows that flanked the front doors. It was just as well, as Pruno spent the night with his front feet on the window sill growling at the bears, and we could hear Yorick's echo from the kids' cabin. We knew the dogs weren't disturbing our next-door neighbor because his racket never ceased, so we made no attempt to quiet them.
Tucky huddled under the covers with me while Van and Craig spent the night adding sticks of wood to the stoves.
The communal bathrooms and showers were fifty yards away and no one, not even the chain saw next door, braved the wild animals and the cold during the night.
Dawn came, the cabins finally warmed and we all went to sleep only to be wakened in a few minutes by clamor and hubbub directly under our windows.
"Would you look at that!" A female voice, as high and piercing as an aging diva's, brought us bolt upright. The snoring next door stopped abruptly.
"Boy! Are they going to be unhappy when they wake up and see this." A younger male voice chimed in.
"Wouldn't you think they'd have had better sense than to leave this stuff out here?" Another male voice.
"I hope they clean up the mess. The bears sure won't do it." A convention was obviously convening.
Van and I wrapped ourselves in a blanket and, like Siamese twins, hobbled to the window. Pruno was already there, ears alert, tail wagging.
The window wasn't large, but it was big enough to frame a disaster. Our tiny trailer was surrounded by fellow campers and more were hurrying toward it. A can of dog food lying outside the awed circle gave us a clue.
"A bear has eaten the dog food;" Van said. "That's all it is."
"I hope that's all it is," I mumbled. The crowd shifted and I saw a suitcase on the periphery of the circle. "I hope they didn't damage our clothes."
Neither one of us knew then how hard it was going to be to replace that dog kibble, the only kind that didn't upset Pruno's delicate inner workings.
By the time Van and I got our clothes on and had elbowed our way through the milling mob, the kids and Yorick, firmly attached of course, were already on site. Tucky peered through the window of the cabin, sitting, we assumed, on the small table under the window.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 23
The trailer had suffered a definite catastrophe, and it must have been noisy. Obviously we had slept more than we thought. The tarp was more like canvas fringe. Great claws had combed easily through it, and it hung around the edges of the trailer like a threadbare hula skirt. Luggage was scattered on the ground in a wide arc as if the bear had been using each piece as a football. The Purina Chow, naturally, was gone, and the condition of the huge sack that had held it attested to the extreme hunger pangs of its consumer. Cases of canned food, both dog's and cat's, demonstrated the efficiency of bear claws as can openers, and only one or two cans had escaped notice. I wondered how an animal could have known there was food in the cans. I still have no answer.
Some of the crowd stayed to commiserate and to help us restore order, but most of them wandered away in search, I suppose, of breakfast. The luggage was, thank heaven, intact, if a bit scratched and dented. Since our pets didn't eat much during the traveling day, we thought we'd have time, before supper, to find a grocery store and replace their food.
I'm sure that some store in the West carried Purina Dog Chow, but we never found one in any state including Hawaii. For the rest of the trip, Pruno and Yorick ate whatever we could get, and we made sure we stopped often for Pruno's fragile insides.
Once we had tidied the campground we went to breakfast, and the whole time, Christy sang a tuneless song. "When can we go to Old Faithful? I'm going to climb Old Faithful. Let's go to Old Faithful." She had a few variations on the same theme but they did nothing to relieve the monotony not only of her insistence, but of our ever-increasingly irritated replies.
As it always does, the time finally came when we were cleaned, fed, reloaded-and on our way to the famous geyser. Christy bounded all over the interior of the station wagon in anticipation, and the rest of us agreed that we hoped she could attain her goal. We had done everything we could to explain -the impossibility of the feat, but our youngest had heard none of it. Now, she had almost convinced us that Old Faithful could be climbed, and we teetered between the laws of the Universe as we knew them, and the Bible which taught that with faith, water could be walked upon. Christy certainly had the faith.
"I want to see her do it." Craig voiced the thoughts of all of us, and was answered by a chorus of: "I do too." The subject of our thoughts was so deep in her own excitement she didn't even hear us.
We parked and got out of the car to walk to the circle around the site of the geyser. The benches in the circle already had a few hardy souls shivering in the morning mist. Christy skipped ahead of us and went right on by the people and benches. As she started up another path, Van ran after her and towed her, writhing and protesting, back to the skeptical family.
"Let go," she yelled. "I have to find it."
"It will be right here in ten minutes," Van said. "You'll just have to sit down and wait for it."
"It can't be here. There's nothing here. How can it be here?"
"It will come out of the ground, Christy." Sensitive Lee already felt the disappointment that was coming to her younger sister. "See where the ground is wet. That's where Old Faithful will come up."
Christy stared at the wet spot in the middle of the large circle. I wondered what sort of vision was in her mind. What did she imagine was going to come up out of the ground? I suspected it had to be either like a flag pole or a hill, but since we had been given no clue and because she wouldn't or couldn't describe what she visualized, we simply had to wait.
Old Faithful was right on time. Christy watched the steaming water spout into the air. She looked from bottom to top and back down again. We were all watching her instead of the geyser.
"What's that?" she asked.
"That's Old Faithful," I said. "It does this every hour." "I can't climb th-a-a-at thing. It's water and it's hot." "We know," Craig said. "We tried to tell you."
Christy took her eyes from the spouting water and gave him a withering look. I looked for signs of disappointment and saw none. I saw anger and betrayal and when those disappeared, she shrugged her shoulders, sat down on the bench and said matter-of-factly, "Well, that was certainly a bust. What are we going to look at now?" Her tone challenged us to provide something that was better than Old Faithful.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 24
"How about getting in the car and let's look for some wild animals!" Van sounded enthusiastic and I wondered what his reaction was to Christy's unexpected acceptance. I felt grateful, but wondered if there was a lingering something hidden inside the child that we might never be privileged to help her with. At the same time, I felt disappointment that she hadn't been able to make her climb.
As she skipped ahead of us to the parking area, Van said, "I think she's been putting us on all this time, and we've reacted exactly as she expected us to." From the bottom of my heart, I hoped it was so.
Chapter 6
The Pacific ocean was blue, the leaves and grass were a lush green; yellow, red and purple flowers pushed up to soften and blur the earth's edges but my husband's face outside the open car window, was magenta.
"This is no joke!" he announced loudly, his clenched teeth acting like a reverberating sounding board. Instantly the troops in the car became alert and apprehensive. We sat at attention and even the dogs stopped thumping their tails. "Some idiot sent our trunks out yesterday on the President Garfield. We have no clothes to wear!"
What he meant, of course, was that the carefully selected clothing for a family of five for a month-long luxury cruise had gone off on the wrong ship.
I stared into Van's blue eyes in his nearly purple face and knew I would have to be very careful. I knew it, but could do nothing about it. "What do you mean, they sent them on the Garfield? We're sailing on the President Cleveland." My voice was as loud as Van's and twice as shrill.
"I know that, and they certainly know that." The colonel had, I was sure, left the perpetrators in no doubt. "The question is-what do we do now?"
The day was Friday, the ship sailed on Sunday and all that was left over was Saturday. Even if dress in the 1950s had been as casual as it is today, the collection of clothing in our "across the country" suitcases wouldn't have been acceptable on the President Cleveland.
In 1956 no one lived in jeans except small boys and farmers. Craig had a pair or two of those. Shorts and slacks for females of any age were for sports only. The girls and I had a few pairs of each. Dressing for dinner aboard ship meant cocktail dresses for women and dinner jackets for men. We had none of those! Special nights required evening dresses. I certainly didn't have any of those in my present luggage. In fact, about the only things we were towing in our little two-wheeled trailer were the forbidden articles of clothing.
Added to the imminent catastrophe, Mr. Wilson, in Washington, along with all of his other omissions, had neglected to get us a Hong Kong visa. We needed one. We had to change ships in Hong Kong and we had a five-day layover there. The station wagon and trailer still had to be sold and we had lunch and dinner engagements with old friends on both Saturday and Sunday. Our time was nearly as limited as our wardrobe.
As soon as Van asked me what we should do now, my mind, which had become anesthetized from shock, began to function as it had been trained to do. Sensibly, I thought.
"It's too late to do anything tonight." I began to gather my purse and belongings together. "Let's get settled and then we can decide what to do."
"The powers-that-be are so contrite they've given us what they call the President's Suite in the Guest House. I hope it's as fancy as it sounds." Van came around the car and got in. "They weren't contrite enough to let us keep the dogs with us; they have to go to the Post kennel, but we can keep Tucky."
I hoped Pruno and Yorick had grown more accustomed to kennels on the trip across the country. They'd been required to stay in several when they were unwelcome as house guests, and had always eaten and slept well. Happy or not, there was no choice.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 25
The "suite," when we reached the Guest House, was lovely. Open windows brought in the gentle, late afternoon sunshine, and the breeze from the bay pushed the filmy curtains aside so we could see beyond the Golden Gate bridge to the meeting of the ocean and the sky. My world straightened out and I knew that everything was going to be just fine.
"We'll be all right!" I said. "I'll call Macy's, reserve a store 'shopper' for tomorrow when they open, and we'll have a go at it."
Macy's, the only store I knew that would have everything we needed, including trunks, promised to be ready for us at nine o'clock on Saturday.
The soft breeze kept up its good work all night, smoothing our "furrowed brows" and soothing our frazzled nerves and knotted muscles.
In the fresh morning we put on our only "appear in civilized society" clothes, ate a strengthening breakfast and presented ourselves at the store of our choice.
We started with the trunks, which were then sent up to the shopping service on the top floor. All day as things were purchased, fitted and sent to the shopping service, a kind lady there packed each item carefully in the two trunks. One trunk was to go to our stateroom; the other, directly across the corridor to Lee and Christy's cabin. Craig was to room with another teenage boy one deck up. The lady made no errors in her packing.
Van and Craig's clothes came first. Macy's assigned a tailor to us and as the clothing was selected, he pinned, fitted, sewed, and his results went up to the trunks. Finished, Van and Craig left us for the British Embassy and the Hong Kong visa. They also planned to sell the car and trailer while they were out.
Left alone, Lee, Christy, Frances Short (the shopper), and I raced through the departments. All summer stock had been put away on the first of September, but Frances had it brought back, and the girls and I had a glorious time selecting dresses, shoes, underwear, shorts and bathing suits-all at half price.
At the end of the day, after a personal phone call to the president of our bank, we handed Macy's a check. The clothes were ours!
Macy's final act of kindness was to promise to deliver the trunks to the dock before five o'clock. They kept their promise.
The car was sold (trailer thrown in), the visas were in our passports, and we were free to enjoy a lovely dinner with our old friends. We had clear sailing, we thought was waiting there to take over. He then saluted and disappeared.
When the elevator doors opened to admit us, an obese little East Indian man, already on the elevator, paled as friendly Pruno stepped in and advanced toward him. Shaped like the Michelin tire boy, the man tried to wedge himself into the corner at the sight of our gentle dog, but his broad hips and undulating belly forbade it. Pruno's nose almost disappeared into the soft flesh of the man's mid-section before Van could shorten the leash to restrain him.
"Please to remove tiger," the small man bleated in imperfect English. His eyes were fixed on the light in the ceiling as if he thought that by not looking directly at any of us, he would cause us to disappear. Van pushed the elevator button.
Brindle Pruno did have stripes in strategic spots and, in time, we would be indebted to his markings for our very lives, but we weren't accustomed to this kind of mistaken identity and it took a few seconds to understand.
"Oh, this isn't a tiger." Lee put her arm around Pruno's neck. "See, He's very gentle." Pruno waved his tail.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 26
The man, whose name we later learned was Mr. Ramaswami, wasn't interested.
"Please to remove tiger," he whimpered again. "I go out!"
Van pulled Pruno to the other side of the none too large car. Craig and Yorick followed. Lee and Christy arranged themselves across the back of the elevator and I, with Tucky draped over my arm, moved to leave space around the terrified man.
When the elevator stopped and the door opened, Mr. Ramaswami shot through the door like a stone from a catapult and before Van could push the "up" button, had disappeared down a corridor. The speed and agility of his rotund little body was astounding.
The kennel, when we reached it, was large and airy. Though a huge cage had been prepared for Pruno and smaller ones for Yorick and Tucky, after their caretaker met our pets he decided to let them have their beds on the floor of the large room. He showed us their own fenced, outdoor deck, a huge space the width of the ship and approximately thirty feet long. It was a deck above and overlooking the r swimming pool. Our animals would have as pleasant a voyage as possible. We left them in caring and capable hands to search for our own accommodations.
Our cabins were comfortable and as soon as we had deposited our carry-on belongings, we went on deck for the departure ceremonies. Stewards carrying great baskets filled with rolls of serpentine paper offered each of us handfuls to throw at those poor souls left on the pier. A band played, but as the gangway was rolled away something hit me in the back, almost pushing me over the rail. Hot breath in my ear told me it was Pruno, and there he was, paws on my shoulders, tail wagging! There, also, was Yorick, happiness radiating from every tuft of black fur. Tucky was missing, but we prayed that he hadn't gotten off before the gangway was removed and that someplace on the vast ship a white cat was wandering alone.
The search was intensive and short. The cabin stewardess assigned to take care of us on the voyage found Tucky sitting outside our cabin door and brought him to the Purser's office. How did he know which room was ours? We'd been there such a short time and he'd started his hunt three decks above us. Was it intuition, smell, or just plain love that brought him to the proper door?
From then on, Tucky had the permission of the Captain to visit on any of the decks (on his leash, of course), and we had a long list of willing and eager cat-walkers among the children and adults.
The animal steward learned too, that unless you lock a gate securely, a Great Dane is as clever as Houdini.
The Purser told us that Mr. Ramaswami had arrived in his office, pale and panting, to report that a tiger was loose in the elevator and that he had only just escaped with his very life. Apparently the dogs had descended the only way they knew-by elevator, and with them, no doubt wedged into a corner, had been the corpulent and quivering mass of Mr. Ramaswami. That gentleman left our Purser in no doubt as to his feelings about the security of the ship and the safety of its passengers.
When we spied the Indian sitting with his round little wife in the cocktail lounge before dinner that first night, we hurried over to make our apologies.
Mr. Ramaswami saw us approaching and, abandoning his astonished wife, leaped up from the tiny table, brushed by us and disappeared through two sets of doors and onto the deck.
Mrs. Ramaswami, dressed in a lovely silver and blue sari, looked at us in bewilderment. "Where he go?" she asked.
Van bent over so he wasn't towering above her and said gently, "We have a large dog . . . ."
He got no farther before Mrs. Ramaswami began to giggle. "Scare he!" she said and covered her mouth with both palms. Her eyes danced as she rocked on the banquette, overcome with mirth. Van and I, not quite knowing at what, giggled with her.
"He say tiger in lift," she said at last. "You say dog. Someday I meet dog, yes? Like be friend with somesing scare husband. Dog not tiger, no?"
We assured her that Pruno was not a tiger and that he was gentle. She insisted that she would like to begin her friendship with Pruno as soon as possible and left to pursue her cowardly husband. Before we parted we made an appointment for the next morning on the dog deck.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 27.
Mr. Ramaswami did not reappear until dinner time and then he was alone. Poor Mrs. Ramaswami! We guessed she had either taken him to task for being a coward or had laughed in his face.
She was, however, on time for our appointment the next morning. Though her first approach toward Pruno was somewhat timid, friendly Yorick won her heart and guided her toward his companion. She patted the Great Dane gingerly at first, but soon she was standing near the rail that overlooked the swimming pool, her chubby arm around Pruno's neck and her sari fluttering in the breeze.
The sun was warm, the sky cerulean blue, but the Pacific ocean was such a deep blue and so glassy it seemed made of ceramic. Only the ship's wake gave a hint that anything within our vision was moving.
All was peaceful until Mr. Ramaswami, his upper body welling out of too tight bathing trunks, sauntered by on the pool deck below. He was ogling the females in their bathing suits, as Mrs. Ramaswami no doubt had known he would. She broke into a paroxysm of artificial coughing.
When he looked up and saw his wife above him, her arms twined around the neck of a tiger, his expression was a fusion of terror, venom and incredulity. Poor Mrs. Ramaswami. I felt she was going to pay for her brief moment of superiority over her thoroughly detestable husband.
She looked at me with shining eyes, squared her shoulders and I had the feeling that for the first time in her married life, she had had the courage to do something on her own. Damn the torpedoes!
Day by day we understood Mrs. Ramaswami better. Every female between sixteen and eighty, except me, was pinched at least once by Mr. Ramaswami and some were pinched daily. If I hadn't been almost positive that the man thought I would sic the tiger on him if he included me in his painful play, I might have developed a complex.
After Mrs. Ramaswami bested him, he seldom brought his wife out in public, not even to the dining room. Our sympathy for the poor little woman grew and we were glad she'd had her amusement. We hoped she'd get the last laugh.
After a few days, perhaps in pique, Mr. Ramaswami formed an attachment for a wealthy, sixty-year-old widow from Fort Worth who, with her friend, Lola, sat at our table. Mr. Ramaswami may have been as old as she, it was hard to tell, but he seemed quite smitten.
Billie, the widow, did everything but stamp on his flat feet or hit him with an uppercut to discourage his attentions, but nothing availed.
Nightly he sent a bottle of champagne to the table, which she refused, and whenever she looked in his direction he bowed and twinkled as perspiration stood out and ran down his oily face. We all agreed that he was a despicable, unattractive little man. Billie declared him one of the vicissitudes of life and handled it all very well.
Mrs. Ramaswami, on the other hand, spent a lot of time on the dog deck when she was allowed free. We had the feeling that someday she would purchase a Great Dane of her own and that he would be brindle and striped like a tiger.
In the three weeks it took us to reach Hong Kong, Mr. Ramaswami neither spoke nor came near any member of the Vanderhoef family, human or canine. If Tucky was occupying the lap of someone near the swimming pool, which happened often, the man slithered by, his eyes on the cat instead of bathing-suit clad females. Everyone was grateful, and Tucky was always welcomed enthusiastically.
Brad and Trouble
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 28
Every day aboard the President Cleveland was unalloyed pleasure. From San Francisco we swam and danced and ate and played our way to Hawaii, Tokyo, and on to Manila. We made wonderful friends who are still friends, and when we disembarked in Hong Kong, we disembarked as a body and moved to the Peninsula Hotel. Billie and Lola were there, but we thought we had seen the last of Mr. Ramaswami. Not so!
At mid-morning coffee in the hotel lobby, who should swagger by but Billie's bete noire?
But that's part of another story.
Chapter 8
The day was glorious! Only a few airy clouds formed, then thinned and shredded and formed again to repeat their cycle in the infinite blueness of the sky. The calm water of the Hong Kong harbor reflected the blue; but surprisingly few sampans skittered from spot to spot on it, and only one or two red-sailed junks glided quietly through it. Tankers and freighters lay at anchor and the morning sun poured its light and a gentle warmth over the beautiful scene.
One of the freighters, the British-owned Foo Chow, would take us to Bangkok, and we were to meet the launch that would deliver us to her at eleven o'clock on the small dock two blocks from the Peninsula.
Van and Craig had to rescue our animals from quarantine and had engaged the same flat-bed truck they'd used to deliver the animals there. The girls and I gathered in front of the hotel to wave good-bye, but mainly to view the truck that had been the recipient, during our five days in Hong Kong, of very definitely condemnatory remarks by the two males in our family.
The large, rusted, flat-bed truck was just arriving when we emerged into the sunshine. It threaded its way around the semi-circular drive like a moth-eaten mastodon in a herd of sleek jaguars. Actually, there were some Jaguars lining its route. There were also Mercedes, and Cadillacs, and tiny MGs, to say nothing of one classic Duesenberg.
A fortune in expensive automobiles could have been wiped out if the Chinese driver of the truck had veered even slightly to his right or to his left. As it was, he sat, unimpressed, on a box (the seat having long ago disappeared to thieves, vandals or age), and peered myopically between the spokes of the steering wheel at the glittering array on either side of his huge, clattering behemoth.
The brakes and the clutch screeched as the driver writhed on his box to reach the pedals. The gear shift (minus its knob) protested, and the whole untidy mess came, surprisingly, to a halt.
Lee, Christy and I watched in amazement as the Peninsula's elegantly clad doorman produced a step stool and assisted Van and Craig aboard. He didn't even have to open a door. There wasn't one.
Again the gears screamed and they lurched away.
The girls and I decided to walk to our point of embarkation. We strolled along until we were passed by the truck, with Van and Craig teetering and skidding on the back of their unreliable conveyance, clutching leashes, plus cat carrier and trying to keep everything and each other from sliding off. The truck screeched to a halt at the dock.
When we arrived, six coolies and our mass of luggage were already occupying most of the available space on what had been loosely described as "the wharf." It consisted of a space possibly twelve feet long made up of boards running parallel to and bolted to the seawall that ran beside the road. It was no more than six feet wide and though it looked sturdy enough, I wasn't anxious to try it out.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 29
The dogs had no misgivings. When they saw us they tore the leashes from Van and Craig and leaped from the truck, landing on the wharf within two feet of the luggage coolies. Of course the dogs flew to us, but not before one little man fled up the road and another backed to the edge and disappeared into the water. The other four coalesced into a clump and took root.
"Tiger! Tiger!" wheezed the only one who spoke English. The others reserved audible comment.
Yorick, loose from Craig's grip, bounded toward us, his black ears and red tongue flapping, his tail waving like a semaphore flag. Even when Lee had his leash in hand, Yorick continued to cavort and to cover us with sloppy dog kisses.
Pruno simply rose on his hind legs, put his paws on my shoulders and grinned with his face not an inch from mine. His tail waved with joy. I put my arms around him, hugged him to me and the coolies gasped in unison.
Tucky, in his carrying case, was already wearing his harness and leash, and when Pruno and Yorick were calm and the coolies seemed resigned to their fate, I took him out and cuddled him on my shoulder where he, hung like a limp rabbit. The family was again complete.
As we'd walked to the dock, the red ferry boats had quietly come and gone from Kowloon to Hong Kong and back. Now, one approached and before it even came into the slip a low rumbling aboard drew our attention.
Suddenly, the hundreds of people who were crowded onto the ferry's decks raised their arms and voices and began to stream from the boat to shore. The rumbling became an ominous roar as the passengers pushed and shoved and jostled in what seemed a frantic effort to be freed from the confines of the ship.
"What do you suppose is going on?" Van set his briefcase carefully on the pavement and looked toward the ferry building. I was familiar with his watchful care of the briefcase.
Until we were aboard the Foo Chow and the briefcase was securely locked in the Captain's safe, I knew that it and its contents would be no more than a few inches from my husband's hand. The contents, all except one, were some classification of "secret"; that much I knew and that's all I wanted to know. However, in among the confidential information, was a snub nosed thirty-eight caliber revolver. I was only aware of that because British customs officers had required that it be placed in their custody during our stay in Hong Kong. Van had retrieved it when he and Craig had picked up our pets at the abattoir.
"It must be some kind of celebration," I said in answer to Van's question. "Didn't the waiter this morning say something about the tenth of October being the day of the 'Double Ten'? I wonder what he meant?" We both looked again at the ferry slip.
The din was growing louder and the men-they all seemed to be men-were still streaming from the boat.
They leaped or stumbled onto the wooden dock. They then surged through the ferry building and were suddenly joined by hundreds more who came from buildings, side streets and, seemingly, cracks, crevasses and holes in the ground.
We stood mesmerized. We watched as the grillwork of iron pipes that protected the ferry from interlopers was torn apart and the short pieces were raised above obviously overwrought heads. They became clubs!
In the minute or two before the seething mass of humanity, continuing to swell in volume and all armed with some manner of bat, turned to come toward us, we were more interested than frightened. However, I think Van and I recognized at the same time that this was more than a celebration of the "Double Ten"! The citizens of Hong Kong and Kowloon were inflamed, and we stood, suddenly trembling, in their path!
Brad and Trouble
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 30
We faced a terrifying and powerful sea of humans determined to annihilate and we were as vulnerable as five tiny glass figures challenging a steam roller.
"Everybody move toward the water," Van barked and snatched his briefcase from the ground beside him. With it as a prod he began pushing at the kids all of whom were standing open-mouthed in fascination staring at the advancing rabble. Pruno's leash grew taut.
Craig, still with Yorick in tow, immediately got the message and pushing the girls ahead of him he moved as close to the water as he could get. The coolies gave way. Yorick strained to get back to Van and me, but Craig held firm.
My heart must have stopped in the first few seconds of recognition of danger, and when it began again it beat with such frenzy that it left me breathless and almost choking. Still, my mind worked and as I stepped in front of my children, Van stepped in front of us all. Our thin, little battle line was drawn.
Small hands fastened like talons on my bare arm and Tucky, draped on my shoulder, hissed at whatever was grabbing me. I stiffened and tried to pull away, but the claws held on and as I looked quickly I recognized the hands as belonging to one of the baggage coolies. The small man was trying to point out the launch which had left the Foo Chow's side and was racing toward us.
"Look Van!" I yelled to be heard above the cacophony. "The launch!"
Van's head turned. "It can't make it in time. When I yell, everybody hit the water!" I hoped we weren't going to be drowned like mice in a bucket, but Van had gauged the situation correctly. The water would give us a better chance than we had in the open. We could all swim. Even Tucky on his leash, as much as he might hate it, could swim. He would be given no choice. He and I would leap together. I knew Van had thought of his revolver; I'd seen him finger the catch on his briefcase, but it would have been of no help against the frenetic thousands who seethed and boiled as they advanced on our fragile line.
In front of us the mob raged closer!
I could hear a swelling murmur that meant the street behind us was filling with people and soon, when the Vanderhoef family was over-run, they would join the others to become a solid, raging, undisciplined legion.
The leaders were no more than fifty feet away now and I saw Pruno's ears flatten against his skull and his tail rise to became a straight extension of his spine. He stepped forward to the full extent of his leash, his ears came up and he stood like a perfect and beautiful statue in front of us all. His tawny coat shone in the sun and his stripes were as dark as if they'd been painted on with black enamel. He stood immobile, waiting.
The buildings on the left and the harbor on their right had compressed the frantic horde into a screaming, passionate marching army. They were close enough now for us to distinguish their features, but I saw only wild animals preparing to tear into their unlucky prey. Their eyes were angry and fixed, but as we watched and as the leaders neared, Pruno took his stand, and the expressions changed. Fear replaced anger; a small hesitation supplanted determination. The seething sea smoothly changed its course and surged around us.
The enemy, too, thought our beloved and gentle dog was a tiger.
The launch came in, the coolies shoved us and our belongings aboard, and we roared away, Pruno standing like a proud figurehead in the prow. Even Yorick didn't dispute his right.
Every foreigner who was on the streets of Hong Kong that day lost his or her life. There has never been any doubt that we owe ours to a gentle and gentlemanly giant with the soft name of Pruno.
Brad and Trouble
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 31
The dock in Bangkok, when we reached it after a long day of sliding silently up the Chao Phya River, was nothing like the bustling pier in The King and I.
It was crowded, but for the most part no one moved except the small men, presumably stevedores, who caught the hawsers thrown from the Foo Chow and made us fast to the cleats.
All the other humans, and there was a multitude, stood staring expectantly upward and when the chain was removed and the Vanderhoef family led by its hero, Pruno, started down the gangway, there was a subdued, harmonious "A-a-a-h!"
Rarely, since airplane use had become common, had a military family been crazy enough to come by ship, and certainly never had anyone brought a menagerie. The colonel who preceded Van, and his wife, had spread the word that oddities were docking today. Below us stood an audience composed of many nationalities, all curious, interested, perhaps even compassionate, but all ready to applaud or boo and hiss depending on our performance. Fortunately the actors, human and zoological, behaved with circumspection and were greeted warmly by the legitimate welcoming committee, made up of Van's predecessor, his wife and the four captains who would comprise my husband's command in Bangkok. All the others crowded forward to ignore us and to welcome the animals.
One of the most difficult parts of our two years in Bangkok started immediately with a "command performance" dinner party that night. In the weeks that followed, between luncheons, cocktail parties and dinners we tried to see our children and to find a house to live and entertain in for the duration.
Although we had a cottage on the grounds, the ancient hotel we had been registered in by Van's predecessor was not comfortable. House-hunting was uppermost in my mind.
Nothing was memorable about that two weeks except that at a luncheon, I met my first gibbon. He was small, black and furry with a white rim of fur around his bright-eyed, shiny black, pansy-shaped face. He walked entirely on his hind legs and, carrying the chain that led from a belt around his waist to a wire stretched between two trees, he ran to me and, with soft cooing noises, leapt into my arms and twined his arms around my neck. He had no tail, and, aside from his soft fur, might have been a human child.
My heart melted and I wanted a gibbon of my own! Van agreed that, as soon as we were settled in a house, I could get one. I stole even more time from the social activities to find a house as soon as possible.
It was new! The multi-colored, stone facade was shellacked and shiny. Balconies of pseudo-marble protruded from each of the three bedrooms and were surrounded by rococo, wrought-iron railings painted red. Downstairs the porches, that might have been obtrusive had they not nestled under the balconies, were pseudo-marble and had broad marble railings wide enough to sit upon. The stone, the marble and the iron were tied together by cream col- ored stucco. A portico overhung the driveway and pro- vided shade for the porch. In the back a huge terrace, with a fast growing bougainvillea vine, was delightful for enter- taining.
The house had few trees and shrubs for snakes to hide in (a danger in Bangkok where every tree and bush has at least one reptile), and it had, wonder of wonders, a bathtub and a small basement which, because it was built on delta land, was almost always wet. We rented the house!
There was no "better" section to the city and "nice" houses were scattered higgledy-piggledy among the opium dens, shops and crematoriums. Our house had a large, fenced compound with two good sized trees in the farthest corner and room for Pruno and Yorick to run. There was a nice-looking modern house with a red tiled roof behind us, an open field, with water buffalo grazing, across the lane beside us; and a ramshackle, unpainted wooden house on our other side.
Brad and Trouble
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 32
The grass was tall and uncut around that gloomy- appearing abode. Trees overhung the house, and untended bushes all but obscured everything except a tattered blue and gray, striped canvas that seemed to hang over some sort of sleeping porch. The real estate agent assured me that the small canal between us plus the diligence of the gardener we would hire, would keep snakes from the area at bay.
We moved in, and within a day or two a little girl about Lee's age appeared at the fence that separated us from the disaster next door. How nice, I thought. Lee and Christy can have a Thai friend. Craig had already gone to a boy's camp down on the seashore where he could make friends and learn some of the Thai language. Now here was a chance for the girls to get to know someone other than another Caucasian.
Immediately, through sign language, I invited the child over to play. She indicated that she couldn't come, but invited Lee over there. Lee took her Ginny doll and its trunk full of clothes and trudged all the way around by Pattipat Road. I saw her disappear behind the tall grass and began to regret having let her go into what, I was sure, was a snake infested swamp. She reappeared briefly beside the spirit house, then was lost again for the afternoon.
All dwellings in Bangkok have "spirit houses" in their gardens. They range in size from small, twelve-inch or so unpainted houses with a porch-like affair on the front, to elegant three-foot-long, two-foot-high houses, gold leafed and painted to match the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Spirit houses are designed to be put on a pole in the yard and, by providing a bowl of rice a day and burning joss sticks at all times, the house owner assures that the good spirits are appeased and the evil ones stay out of the main dwelling.
We had noticed that the owners of the house in which Lee was spending the afternoon fed their spirits an enormous bowl of rice twice a day, and kept a naked electric light bulb instead of joss sticks burning inside the spirit house.
"Did you have a good time?" I asked when Lee got home.
"I guess so," she answered as she plopped into a chair on the porch.
"What did you do?" I prodded.
"Well, not much."
"You must have done something for three hours."
"It was kind of boring. We just sat on the bed and Juey's sisters played all afternoon with my Ginny doll."
"Oh! How many sisters does she have?"
"Three."
"Did you meet her mother?"
"Maybe. There was a kind of old woman there, but I don't know whether it was Juey's mother or not. It's hard to talk when you don't speak the same language."
"Yes, I know." I thought about my trips with our driver, Bunchu. I always carried a pencil and notebook so that if I wanted to buy some flowers, I could draw a picture of what I wanted. If I wanted the pot, too, I could draw that as well. My drawings were rudimentary, but they got me where I wanted to go.
Juey came to our house a couple of times, but the visits weren't successful. She was into everything, closets, drawers and every cabinet that was closed. She was only curious, I'm sure, but Lee didn't enjoy her very much and soon the visits stopped.
Some months later, Craig and I were sitting on the porch watching Lee, Christy and some of their friends doing acrobatics on the trapeze hanging from one of the larger trees. I'd grown used to the samlors (pedicabs) and taxis that came frequently to the house next door, but a shrill laugh caught my attention and I looked over to see what was amusing. A girl, one of Juey's sisters I assumed, leaned out under the ragged canvas and tossed a mango to a man standing below her. He caught it, got into a samlor and left as I watched.
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GIBBONS IN THE FAMILY TREE by JEANNE ANN VANDERHOEF part 33
"What do you suppose they do over there?" I mused as the samlor pedaled away and a taxi arrived. The girl disappeared.
Craig looked at me with his mouth open and his eyes wide and disbelieving. "Don't you know?"
"No, do you?"
There was a long pause while my fifteen-year-old son searched for words. Finally he leaned forward in his chair, took my hand in both of his and said gently as if he were explaining to a small child, "Mother-that is no ladies' bridge club!"
Horror and rage filled me to the brim. How could I have been stupid enough to allow Lee to visit a brothel? How lucky that she had emerged unscathed. I was a danger to my children. No woman as naive and imbecilic as I should be allowed to be a mother. The rage passed, but the horror remained and I was careful from then on to view everything with suspicion.
Sometime later, many men, including a fire department with out-moded equipment, came, burned the house to the ground, cut the grass; and chased nineteen cobras, six banded kraits and an assortment of other poisonous snakes into our compound. It was lucky that on the advice of those who had lived in Bangkok longer than we, we had hired a Muslim gardener instead of a Buddhist. Buddhists won't kill anything, and I would have left Bangkok rather than share the compound with writhing, sinuous, reptiles. Thom, the gardener, was equal to the task and he dispatched them one by one.
There were still snakes in our trees and bushes; that, I knew, but Thom made a sweep each morning and I had to feel content that we were clear for the day:
We bought two mongooses, Pat and Mike, to help Thom out. They killed a few cobras before they left home permanently after also killing the neighbor's goslings.
Our neighbor suggested a goose, so we got Oddle Waddle. He did fine until he fell in love with the mother of the departed goslings and pined at the neighbor's back fence until we just donated him to the neighbor. Thereafter the neighbor showered us with gifts to build up his Karma.
We all watched with interest the building of a new house next door to replace the destroyed house. First the pile drivers came-two men with muscles who hefted a heavy log up and dropped it down on the piling. Once they had driven sufficient teak pilings into the delta mud to support the structure, the foundation was laid, and the building was framed out on the first floor. Every stick of wood