Gun Running in the Peace Corps

One Sunday morning I noticed a small canon on the lawn in front of the Governor's Mansion in the Casamance Region of Senegal. There being no one in sight I managed to get the canon into the back up the Peace Corps pick-up truck. I drove south and crossed the border into Portuguese Guinea. Here it should be noted that there was a rebel force in that country seekiing to take over the government. My unlawful entry was noticed by border guards who, when they saw the canon in the bed of the pick-up, ordered me to get the hell back to Bignona. I guess I was lucky that they realized I was just having some fun.

a Jeep Up a Tree and under the Wave

I was entrusted with a jeep pick-up truck by the Peace Corps in Senegal inasmuch as I was a lead person in our construction team of volunteers. The jeep had a winch attached to the front bumper. Ome boring Sunday afternoon I threw the cable over a sturdy branch of the tree and hoisted the jeep into the air. One of the PCVs playing around with a jeep played chicken with the waves on a beach near Dakar. A rogue wave finished the jeep.

Kramer Story

When I was about three years old one of my father's students, a rather arrogant man, asked me for a glass of water which I fetched for him. A little later he asked me for another glass of water to which I repled , "I cannot reach the chain."

Spaghetti Story

My father told me that when he first came to New York he had never eaten spaghetti. He saw it at a nearby table and ordered it. His companion, a musician who had hired my father to perform for a $100 fee suggested that he use a spoon to roll the spaghetti into a neat bite sized roll to make it easier and neater to eat. Afterwards, the check bounced for lack of funds; thus, my father said it cost him a hundred dollars to learn how to eat spaghetti.

Ketchup Story

My father told me that when he was a student in New York one day at lunch in a restaurant he sampled the kitchup that was provided to each table. He had never tasted ketchup; he liked it and took a second tablespoon of the ketchup. When the check came for his lunch there was a twenty-five cent charge for ketchup.