Going home to the East! IV - San Fransisco

We docked in SF and both my father and I worked the milk dispensing machines while customs and other requirements were satisfied. We spent the day around the city; as I recall we drove by the old ARAMCO offices at 200 Bush Street, saw a bit of Chinatown, and had several hamburgers! What a delight. As night fell, we went to the train station to catch the Lark to LA. This train was an overnighter departing from both cities at 9 PM and arriving at the counterpart the next AM at nine. Business people used this sleeper to arrive fresh and ready for the day. I suppose it was replaced by the airline's redeye.

The trip was great. I don't remember a thing!

This was the last leg of our journey from Dhahran in 1950; the relatives picked us up and we headed home to food and hugs, food and hugs. We stayed with Baba and she cooked all the exotic, Serbian meals that fattened us up for the trip back to Dhahran, barely a month away. We had 90 day homeleaves then.

I recall the memories that attached most strongly to my adolescent interest center. The mimosa tree in Singapore; its leaves closed when you touched it. The tall Chinese lady in Hong Kong; I encountered her on a busy street. She was dressed to the nines, was at least a head taller than I was and she teetered and tottered on tiny bound feet smaller than my sister's. The Hong Kong comic book shops. Take in ten, get seven back. The law of diminishing returns. I left my collection there over a period of days. Tiger Balm (sp): a salve that came in a small tin. We saw the multimillionaire developer's house in Singapore. A series of circles and semicircles, it was burned out from the war but the gardens were still beautiful. The aquamarine color of the gulf at the Strait of Hormuz and the waters off Columbo, then Ceylon. My father bought my mother two gems, an aquamarine and an amathyst. My father bought a Mido wrist watch in HK; he worn it for years, always crystal beneath his wrist. Mother's Store in HK; we bought a Chinese chest. The sampans in and around HK; they would defy death by cutting in front of the ferry; using one trailing oar for power, they could bend into that little stick and at the final instant before collision just squeeze by! The ferry NEVER altered course for them.

A few weeks after arriving in LA, our shipboard hold baggage arrived. The steamer was unopened during the trip. When my mother threw back the lid, the smell of something (?) spilled out. I had a wool sweather on top the first layer. It had shrunk to a size even my sister, seven years younger, could not get on. We think that ours was one of the bags dumped in Karachi or maybe coming aboard one of the other vessels. We have no way of knowing. These are the excitements and surprises of travel. It was good to be home, but, great to leave again!

Rolf A. Christophersen