The Red Light District in Amsterdam and the Fat Lady.

Summer 1971: I am fourteen-year old from Venice, stuck in a giant flying-sausage—a metal apparatus with wings and on my way to Europe. Just because I'm skinny and look like a twelve-year-old, I think the airlines thought it would be okay to stuff a fat lady next to me. Parts of her rolled over the armrest and shared a third of my seat without me giving consent.

Sigh

She didn't cover her mouth fast enough when she sneezed and I was hit at least 200 times by blast of warm, toxic, germ-laden winds coming at me at well over hurricane speed in excess of 100 miles an hour.

I tried to stick my head in the small crack between the other seat next to mine to breathe air from behind. This worked fine for about the first 63 sneezes until something warm, gooey and dripping got jammed into my mouth.

The snotty-nosed kid behind me decided to share his Tootsie Pop (and whatever childhood diseases he was carrying) with me by cramming the half-chewed lolli-pop in my mouth.

I thought of the hamper. I thought of babies and diapers and somewhere over the Atlantic I began heaving and gagging.

This is the point that I typically make a run for the bathroom. But I couldn't get out—I was stuck—wedged in by the behemoth next to me.

Violent heaving.

My brain involuntarily communicated with my stomach (it was some form of psychosis, said my Aunt Mary—my brothers used other words). Doesn't matter, the result is the same. Vomit filled my cheeks and I didn't know about the throw-up bags in the back of the seat in front of me.

I pressed my face tighter between the seats and projectile-puked on the little kid. He deserved it—it was probably brought on by some kind of fungus living in his nostril cavities. After that initial stream, when I turned around, it was like a broken hose from a firetruck. I didn't mean to get the business man to my right (who wouldn't give me the window seat) but by the time I finished, the eruption from Mount Vesuvius mostly ended up on the large lady whom I had been forced to share a seat with.

Although there was a lot of panic and most everyone was mad at me, we were too far across the Atlantic to turn the plane around. I didn't broadcast to everyone that I had mental problems. I just made them think I was airsick.

One stewardess cleaned me up, cuddled me and put me in first class.

Hum? Kindness! I wasn't used to that. She held my hand (and not in some kind of sick way - like the senior girl on the bus - the Santa Monica 3 Lincoln).  Human touch. Compassion with no strings attached. A new feeling. Love?
       
I watched the regular people sleep and had lots of time to think about love and my place in the universe.

The Chittys picked me up at the Munich Airport. I was the first one off the plane—I needed fresh air and to be free—claustrophobia!

The American school teachers stationed at the US Army Base were wonderful host to me.

 




They took me to the site of where they were busy building for the 1972 Olympics in Munich next year.
















The Olympic tower was completed but more construction was underway—fast and furious.












They they drove up me alone the Rhine where we visited magnificent castles. I found out that the Germans ate mayonnaise with their french fries - YUCK!

We went into France and the Netherlands and stayed in Amsterdam. They even took me to the infamous "Red Light District." Hormones were setting in (FINALLY), needless to say I was intrigued by the half-naked women in windows, but it made me feel dirty - GROSS!  (No pictures for you to look at)! 

The owner of one of the houses we stayed at told me that the Apollo 11 moon landing 2 years ago was a hoax and was filmed on a sound-stage in Hollywood. WOW!



Windmills
Tulips






Then to Austria—to Salzburg—where I got to slide down the wooden ramps to the underground salt mine tour...









....then to the alps and to Hitler's eagle nest.

I



Think I would have hated it had we been to Dachau first, but at this point, I was just a stupid tourist.

Hitler's Great room .

From there we went to Dachau.

I saw the places where they did awful human experiments and the hideous ovens where they did detestable things that sickened my stomach.



I realized that the world was bigger than Venice and Santa Monica and my few visits to B and B Hardware and Tito'sTacos in Culver City.














There was true evil in the world. There were sinister forces of hatred, racism, injustice, intolerance and evil that lurked the basement of humanity for centuries.



I had seen it here at the Nazi concentration camp and had experienced that darkness in a way that does damage to the heart of a child.

I vote for compassion and kindness and wanted to know even more what this elusive thing called "love" was all about.

I wish I could go back in time and tell the large lady next to me I was sorry for making fun of her—even if it was only in my mind.

    "I are now a world traveler."


And it is good to be back home in Venice, to a place where crazy was normal. To my house and to the Boardwalk with King Solomon the Snake Charmer....

...and Milo, the dude with dreads, on roller skates with a electric guitar and an amplifier strapped to his back.


Home to the normal I knew.


Credit Picture of Venice http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/11652599