basia2017 Price

Before McDonald’s Ate Europe: A Travel Memoir

Chapter 1: University of California, Berkeley, 1965

The Campanile chimed twice. My room-mate, Judy, was gently snoring. The dorm was amazingly silent; no phonographs blaring, no giggling, surprisingly, no coughing. With trembling hands I put the finished application into the manila envelope and licked the seal. It would go out in the morning mail and arrive well before the deadline. I knew I had no chance of getting accepted but it was such an incredibly exciting opportunity. And my acceptance might mitigate, a bit, my father’s disappointment and wrath.

I should have been sending out applications for medical school. But, in October, when I started filling out the applications, I had a sudden, pit of the stomach, queasiness, a chilling realization that although I dearly loved medicine and science and the whole mystery of discovering and curing diseases, I really didn’t like sick people. I wasn’t particularly squeamish, at that time oozing blood didn’t bother me. I did OK with dissecting frogs and sea cucumbers and those disgusting ascaris worms. The smell of the formaldhyde did make me gag but that’s what the masks and dousing in cologne were for. I wasn’t too excited about that one part in my beloved medical entomology class where we had to catch cock roaches, kill and dissect them, but I made it through midterms with an A and planned on getting an A on the final.

Was it because my mother made me hold her head whenever she vomited into the glass pyrex salad bowl when she had migraines? I still shudder with shame when Auntie Lee came over to find me cowering in a closet. Was I six? “You must take care of your mother” she scolded, her brown eyes searing right through me. “How can you be so selfish?”

Yes, maybe that’s when the horror and disgust of taking care of sick people started. I knew I would break my father’s heart. We were going to be the first father/daughter dermatology team in Los Angeles, perhaps California. Maybe the world. But I couldn’t run to the hospital closet when one of the patients made me squirm. The realization of who I really was shocked and frightened; shamed and humiliated me. But the truth was the truth and anyway, I knew, I would have never been able to make it through the chemistry and physics of medical school.

Fortunately, at that time, Berkeley encouraged pre-med students to have a liberal arts major with a science minor and so I sailed through those glorious four years blissfully in love with Chaucer and Shakespeare and Jacobian poetry mixed with Botany (maybe “Plants and their Relation to Man” was my second favorite class), Zoology and Biology, etc. I hated Physics with a passion but never missed a class. I would always sit in the front row, staring at the professor while furiously writing poetry in my notebook to keep from dozing off. When I got the deserved D on the final I went to the Professor. Why, I have no idea. It was amazing that it was only a D. I think I cried in front of him. He said he recognized me. Out of those 300 students in the huge lecture hall he said he noticed how hard I had worked, taking copious notes, always so alert, never absent. So he gave me a C. The only C I had received in college. And I doubt that I had ever written a poem about him. Well, I didn’t think I could get away with that in medical school.

I hadn’t yet told my father about my decision. I would have to do that in person, face to face, after graduation. Sometime in December, I threw all the med school applications away and on that most depressing day, I saw the notice for applications for a summer program in England for graduate English majors. There were 4 choices:

1. Study Shakespeare in Stratford upon Avon, or 2. Samuel Jonson in Oxford, 3. Bobby Burns in Edinburgh, or 4. Victorian Literature in London. I chose to apply to the least romantic and least interesting program because it would give me a chance to spend a summer in London. Just the fact of living in London was wildly romantic, enough.

And so there I was, smoking like that proverbial chimney, (filtered Parliaments) stuffing the envelope with a sealed recommendation from my Thomas Hardy professor, the filled out application, the sealed transcripts (I was hoping the A’s in English classes would out-weigh the C in physics) and my 1,000 word essay on how the Bronte Sisters had changed my life.

The letter of acceptance arrived in late May, just before graduation. I couldn’t believe it!

The program had been open to any English major in the world! How did I ever get chosen? But now the dilemma. I had to tell my parents soon because we had to plan the trip. Going to England in the summer certainly didn’t preclude medical school in the fall, but I felt sick, sick about the whole thing. Then I realized that a faceless conversation on the telephone would be less painful than facing my father with the truth. I knew I would break his heart and I didn’t want to see that.

Except for the catching of the cockroaches, Medical Entomology was one of my favorite classes. It was simply fascinating to learn how insects carried diseases. And, I was the only girl in the class of thirty.. My lab mate, Ibrahaim, was an Ibo from Nigeria (excuse me, he wouldn’t say the name Nigeria, he was from Biafra). And he kept on insisting that there was absolutely NO malaria in Biafra. The Anopheles mosquitoes would never carry that parasite to his area, nor bite the loyalists fighting for independence. I suppose those odd conversations gave me the first inkling of the contradictions between a scientist and fanatical true believer. It certainly has helped me understand those who deny climate change now.

Adrian Marshall was my TA in Medical Entomology. He wasn’t bad looking but he had the most terrible acne I had ever seen; looking at him the first day of class made me regret not becoming a dermatologist-- for a few minutes. He had a lovely British accent and British bad teeth and was extremely friendly and helpful to me the whole semester.

In late May, I noticed that his complexion had magically recovered, almost over night and I just had to ask what he had done. "Adrian, your face looks so good. Did you change medicines?” He laughed and said that his PHD dissertation was on how fleas carry diseases (think Bubonic plague) and he had been working and living with fleas for the past six months. He had finished the lab work last week and now was busily putting the results of his experiments on paper. Those weren’t acne pimples, they were flea bites. Another good lesson from Berkeley; as they say; there are three words in the word assume: ASS, YOU and ME.

When I knew I had been accepted to London University (and there was no question I wouldn’t go) I shared my joy with the now clear skinned Adrian. “How delightful.” He smiled. You must go visit my parents and sister. They live in Cambridge and they would be so happy to have you to stay for a weekend.” “Oh I couldn’t impose.” My heart beating with excitement. “No, not at all. They have never met an American and it would be good fun for you. And my sister, Hazel, is just a few years older than you. She would be so pleased. I’ll write to them and let them know. You write and tell them when you can come. Their address is Marshalls, Tudor House, Cambridge." "That's the whole address?" "Yes, well it's a small and very old city. The house was built in 1572. You’ll have fun." Adrian smiled

Chapter 2: The Innocent Goes Abroad

Remembering the past as it really happened is risky. This is a travel memoir and therefore must be totally true; but I have major concerns. I have such vivid memories of important episodes in my life and on a few wonderful occasions, I have been incredibly lucky to find journals or photos or documents so I could actually fact-check those memories; only to be horrified to find out that what I so vividly remembered and what the truth really was didn't quite mesh at all.

I clearly, absolutely, painfully remember when my heart was first broken. It was mercilessly destroyed by JR, my first boyfriend. We met in September,1959, the first day of classes in the 11th grade. We shared English, trigonometry and history. JR later told me that he had been having serious emotional problems and had been throwing up every day. The first day he met me, magically, he never threw up again. I was too young and shy to ever ask any details about that. It just seemed weird but he was so sweet and handsome and tall, with the most romantic blue eyes, and we immediately had so much to talk about. The fact that I had planned to be a doctor and that I had somehow cured him made falling in love even more wonderful. I was sixteen and he was my knight in shining armor, with the most magical kisses; he was also my very best friend and we became inseparable.

After having been a "couple" for a year, one Saturday night we were together at my house. My parents were away playing bridge and JR and I were lying on the white shag carpet of my living room and blissfully making out (we didn't do anything more than that simply because I didn't know there were any other options). JR left at the specified time, way before my parents came home. The next day I found an unstamped envelope in the mailbox. It unfolded like a Russian doll, an envelope in smaller and smaller envelopes and there finally, the last tiny envelope revealed a little tiny card which said "I'll love you no matter what happens." As I write this, it's as if it had happened yesterday. The goose bumps. The sense of thrilling romance.

The next day at school, JR wouldn't talk to me at all or even look at me. He sat on the opposite side of our classes, and for the first time since 11th grade, he wouldn’t sit next to me at lunch, or on the school bus we took home together. I was totally humiliated in front of my friends and teachers because we were considered the adorable golden couple. I spent a lot of time crying in my room each day. Because JR and I were so close I had not cultivated any close girl friends and I felt totally alone in my misery and confusion. That painful state of being ignored lasted until we graduated from high school. I still cannot forget that deep sense of heart break, bewilderment, embarrassment, and teen angst.

And then, just a few years ago, I found my diary of that time. I rarely wrote in diaries, maybe a few pages once or twice a year, and then I would get bored. But I did write almost daily during that time of the breakup. And there, in my very own handwriting, I read a totally different story. Shockingly different. Yes, what I had remembered from the Sunday's envelopes was true. (I had saved them in the diary) and yes, that bitter cold Monday of being completely ignored was true. And yes, we didn't ever kiss or go out again. But, according to my own handwriting, JR did talk to me every day. He did look at me. I don’t know about eating lunch together, but we still sat together on the school bus. JR never explained what had happened (did I ever ask?) and my heart was truly broken. But, to this day, I still believe the painful false memory that he never spoke or looked at me again, ever. The reality of what I had written in my diary was just too foreign to believe. Scientists who study memory always caution about those occurrences. Evidently each time you remember something you somehow change it and the changed one becomes the memory. Scary stuff.

I met JR just a few years ago. We were in our sixties. Somehow, he wasn’t as tall as I remembered (maybe I grew), his eyes weren’t as blue; he wasn’t very handsome or thin. In fact, he was chubby. We had a very nice visit at a Starbucks, and I asked him about our breakup. Why did it happen. He looked at me blankly and had no memory of it whatsoever.

And so it was with great delight, and relief, that I have just found my "Trip to Europe" scrapbook and more than that, in the back of that scrapbook was a "travel diary" that I had methodically kept (almost) each day of that magical trip from July 11, 1965 until my return home on September 10, and more than that. ..... I climbed high up to the top of a book case where I keep my mother's hat boxes full of her letters (which I will need to purge someday but who has the time), and amidst a large family of dust bunnies, I found, actually found, ALL the letters I had written to my parents when I was on my trip abroad. Oh, joy oh rapture oh fractious day!

So now I can tell you the real truth of what happened to twenty-year-old me and my trip to Europe in 1965.

I’m looking at the scrapbook. I blow off the dust. Having done my senior thesis on Mark Twain, I titled it “An Innocent Abroad”. The first page has two pictures. The first one shows my father, in a suit and tie, and a smiling me in front of our small white ranch house at 3911 Ethel Avenue in Sherman Oaks in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. The house looks so much smaller than I remember, (of course) and rather quaint with its black shutters, white painted chimney and large television antenna on the roof. (Yes, a new antennae, a great modern advance from "rabbit ears" on the tv: there were no satellite dishes then). There I stand with my parents' two beige Samsonite suitcases (at that time, so modern and light) next to our bronze 1963 Buick La Sabre.

The second picture shows a smiling me with my mother. She is wearing a light blue suit and heels. They are dressed like that because they are taking me to the airport. Going to the airport was an exiting and formal occasion.

We didn't have "selfies" in those days. In fact, we didn't have cameras that we could set on a timer, then run fast and be in the photo. Since there were three people involved, one would have to be missing because someone had to take the photo. And I am shocked, truly shocked, because that smiling, thin girl in those two photos is quite attractive: actually beautiful! At that time, that girl thought of herself as mousy and dull and unattractive and much too fat. She's wearing a very nice grey light wool jumper, at a modest two inches above the knees. Under the jumper is a crisp white peasant sleeve blouse (who travels to Europe with a white blouse? And is it cotton? Was polyester common in 1965? Was she planning to iron the blouse during her two months away?).

Unfortunately, I can’t see her feet. Is she wearing closed toe shoes? Probably. No one wore sandals on the plane. But, oh my god, if she’s wearing shoes she is also wearing stockings. That’s just the way it was done. But if she was wearing stockings, was she also wearing a garter belt? Pantyhose had just been invented and I don’t think she knew about them. So she is traveling to Europe, sitting for, was it twelve hours from Los Angeles to London? With a slender nylon “belt” across her waist, with “garters” hanging from each side attached to stockings held up on her thighs. Oh to be young and innocent and not know there are alternatives.

She has mountains of dark blond hair piled on top of her head (not all the hair is hers. She bought a fashionable “chignon” made to order at Macy’s and always wears it on the top of her head. No one ever guesses it is not natural. I just found it and it's still the same color as my hair!!!). And, of course, her proverbial bangs, which she has had since she was five. She has a grey coat slung on her left arm, a large black leather purse slung over her right shoulder and she is holding a large woven straw bag she had bought at the downtown Mexican shopping area, Olvera Street. I think it’s stuffed with books. "What were you thinking?" I shout at the girl in the pictures. "Who is going to carry all those things as you traipse around Europe? And it’s July. You are wearing a wool jumper and carrying a coat!” Then I realize. I know it's hard to believe, but they didn't have roller bags in 1965, or parachute fabric purses. They did have airplane and train porters in those days (weren’t they called Sky Caps?) and she was going for two months. Obviously, she had done her homework and knew that London was cold and rainy even in July.

That pretty young girl would have been shocked to see how I now travel for a full month in Europe. Before roller bags, my husband and I would both have two large, light weight Rick Steves backpacks to put through luggage and I would carry on a large light nylon black bag. In that bag would be two books for us, plus a tour guide, two energy bars and a bulky camera with lots of film. In the past few years it’s been so much easier. My husband still uses one large Rick Steves backpack; (it’s lasted us 25 years!) Now I have a small roller bag which will fit in the overhead. I carry my lightweight laptop and a few books in a small parachute fabric black bag; my cell phone is in my purse. No longer do I have to carry a bulky camera or worry about the airport x-ray harming my film.