ALOHA NUI LOA (CONTINUED)

    So now that I had the US Government car firmly in my grasp ("for official business only") I

set out to get the materials to build my new home in the banana patch I'd 'rented'. First I figured that I'd need some big bamboo to use for the basic structure so I headed over to the Dept of Forestry and, after showing them my Official Government ID, told them I what I needed (I mentioned something about building playground equipment). They said they didn't have any big bamboo lying around but the best place to get some would probably be around their weather station at the top of Mount Tantalus. They gave me directions and also gave me a key to a locked gate that I'd need to use for the private roadway that led to the top. I had to promise that I'd bring the key back to them, which I did, both promise and bring it back, and I set out for Mt. Tantalus.

If you look closely you can see the incredible road that lead
up and down Mt. Tantalus

   The drive up Mt. Tantalus was as luscious and exotic as the name suggests with a road that any sports car driver would love. Near the top I found the gate and after opening the lock I proceeded up to the mist covered mountain top. Beautiful. The top was a veritable forest of gigantic bamboo trees, most too big for my use but some smaller ones would do, but the thing I recall the most was this wonderful musical clacking sound of the bamboo

trees rubbing up against each other in the wind. I don't remember how I cut and hauled the bamboo I needed down that road but I did and before I returned the key to Forestry. I stopped by a locksmith to have a duplicate made for myself, just in case I ever want to go back again. This was perhaps going to be a little more difficult than it sounded because stamped clearly on the key were the words: Property of US Government DO NOT DUPLICATE.

   The locksmith could read and as his wide eyes looked up at me, probably ready to explain why he couldn't make my key,  I had my Government ID out and ready for him, and without another word he proceeded to make my 'personal' key to the top of Mt. Tantalus.

   After I had procured the bamboo I wanted to get my floor off the ground since there were many life forms co-existing with me in the patch, most of them harmless (but large) insect varieties except for one species, the giant centipede which was poisonous. I generally like all insects but I put mosquito netting on my procurement list so at least I'd be fairly secure while I slept. 'Fairly secure' is appropriate as one night I jumped up as two giant 'things' ran across my face. I quickly got my flashlight and found two fist-sized spiders crawling on the inside of the mosquito netting. It took me a little while to get them safely outside, but I liked all those critters, so this is what I'd call a 'minor inconvenience'. 

   Anyway my next acquisition turned out to also be free...used airplane tires that were scattered outside Honolulu International Airport would keep my floor off the ground. I did have to purchase some wood flooring that I got from a used building materials junkyard and with the final addition of some rope and clear plastic sheeting (for a roof) I was ready for construction.

Here it is! VISTA, of course thought I was 'strange' but after Alaska this was 'cake'. You'll notice
there is a tiered roof. That was so the wind coming down the valley could blow through the roof
while the rain would cascade from the first tier to the second and flow off the roof behind my bed,
while I stayed  cozy and dry. And it actually worked, for a while....

   Now all this time I was working at the Curriculum Center at the University and learning about their programs and figuring out ways that could help. I was in charge of about twenty student artists/designers so the first steps were getting to know them and their skills and also making sure they had the tools and supplies they needed to do heir jobs.

   My boss, and head of all the creative services at the Center was Dr. Julius Yucker, Colonel, USAF, PhD. Ret., and as you can imagine, in many ways, we couldn't have been more different. Col. Yucker was military. Straight as an arrow, neat as a pin, wore a sport jacket and tie every day, had perfectly polished shoes, and hair short and probably trimmed to military specification. He had perfect posture. He arrived and left on time and was generally was the opposite of me.

   My dedication was to the specific project I was working on so there were weekends where I worked around the clock to get something ready for its deadline. This was 'normal' in the design world I came from. Everything else was secondary. I came and left when I felt like it (usually showing up late and leaving after everyone else). This was also Hawaii, man, so I never even owned shoes other than those rubber zoris, certainly no tie, and I guess my hair was a bit longer than military spec would suggest. And we really don't have to discuss 'straight', do we?

   Nonetheless, I was apparently doing a good job by the results that were flowing out of my department and although we had our superficial differences, Dr. Yucker and I liked each other, either that or we both found each other entertaining.  Actually everybody I met at the Curriculum Center was talented, dedicated and a pleasure to work with.

   One day, after a couple of months on the job, Col. Yucker called me into his office. "Listen Stanley", (I knew I was in trouble when people used my full name) he continued, I really don't care what clothes you wear, or the hours you keep, or how you comb your hair or the way you run your department." (What the hell was this leading up to I'm thinking) "I just have one favor to ask of you....(here it comes)...."just don't exaggerate!" Wow, my first thought was "I'm dead!". 

   Actually I was relieved that this wasn't something serious and I immediately agreed with him, but at the same time I knew that when I got excited about the possibilities of what we, the Curriculum Center, was attempting to accomplish, I knew that an optimistic view of the future could be misconstrued as an 'exaggeration'.  Anyway, as far as I was concerned, nothing had changed.

  And what exactly was the Curriculum Center about anyway? Well, it seemed that a lot of Hawaiian kids who graduated High School on the islands and who went on to schools on the mainland had the experience of being teased about their 'accents', their use of the English language. The Center's goal was to teach (introduce) kids (grades 1-6) to Language, specifically English, and was divided into three sections SKILLS, LITERATURE, and SYSTEMS.

   SKILLS was what it sounded like: developing the basic reading, writing and comprehension skills to communicate. What I couldn't fully appreciate at the time was that the Center was developing unique 'peer teaching' materials so that, simply put, kids could teach each other. If you've read my blog here called 'APPLAUSE' you'd have a glimpse of the kind of creativity these educators were developing. Today we'd call these materials

A Spelling Kit

'interactive'. The Curriculum Center was years ahead of it's time, and the materials were specifically targeted to the children of Hawaii. It was funded by grants from the "Great Society' of Lyndon Johnson, but where other school districts on the mainland might wind up with educators writing papers, the Legislature, Board of Education and College of Education at the University of Hawaii decided to do something concrete for the kids of Hawaii. It's not easy to know how visionary a project is when a) you're not an educator b) you've just spent a year living with the Eskimos and c) it's your first real design job, but looking back I believe the educators at the Honolulu Curriculum Center were way ahead of their time and were all brilliant.

  Now the people I was working with were almost all PH's with credentials in education up the ying-yang and while I had a degree in Industrial Design from Pratt, the truth was this was still my first job and I was a bit intimidated by their knowledge and position. That all changed when I was handed an assignment from one of the PhD's to look over and make some design suggestions. I asked a question or two and she shrugged them off saying that the materials were self-explanatory. It was Friday so I had the weekend to look over the stuff and when I spoke to her on Monday I told her that there were things that I didn't understand. "What do you mean?" she said, "It's self-explanatory!", as if not understanding it was somehow my fault. Well, I just smiled and said ok or something like that but while walking away I thought this PhD was just not that smart because self-explanatory means I have to understand it. So rather than argue specifics I went ahead and changed some of the instructions and the content to match the design I was proposing simply to make the experience more 'self-explanatory'. Making those kinds of changes was perhaps outside of my 'rice bowl' but when I handed it in and after she saw how well it all worked together, my stock went up a bit (just a bit) and I think my content contributions were perhaps accepted a bit more. I still screwed up enough stuff to keep me realizing I still had a lot to learn.

   My favorite division at the Center was the LANGUAGE SYSTEMS group. They attempted to answer the question: "Why do we have to learn language anyway?" The group, led by Dr.Ted Rodgers had a brilliant answer for those kids. It was "Because language is used in a million ways after school like... in popular songs, in advertising, in animal communication, in sign language etc. etc. and they developed full multi-media educational kits (with creatively written subject guides,workbooks, records, films, examples, audiotapes etc.) on those different subjects that the kids could explore, investigate and create with for a couple of weeks when that particular subject kit was in their classroom. Genius.

   Take ADVERTISING for example. The kids studied how language was used in ads and of course wound up writing (and drawing) their own ads, some of which were reproduced and

Book Cover

printed into the workbooks for the following years students to see. One of my favorites was "BUGS AND MUGS", one kid's ad for cups that came pre-printed with insects already on it, cause if you lived in Hawaii, you'd get the joke. And it was a great ad. We told advertising stories and gave kids an immersive experience that, again, I thought was brilliant. Here's some examples of the ads the kids developed:

'Bugs and Mugs' and 'The Right Bright Shoe"

   Or when we were working on the SIGN LANGUAGE UNIT, it just so happened that the first Boeing 747 was soon going to be landing at Honolulu International Airport. I don't remember who made the contact for us (everybody knew everybody on Oahu, or they knew someone who did) and so, on that great day, my Government car full of my design team was allowed to drive right onto the tarmac to watch the signal man bring that behemoth to a complete stop. We also got pictures of all his 'signing' commands for our book: check it out:

   And for ANIMAL COMMUNICATION we got permission to reprint and illustrate a current article from Psychology today on how Sarah, a chimpanzee was communicating with her human 'friends'. Great, great stuff.

   It's also pretty easy to see how these seminal experiences led me to have a pretty successful career as a designer of interactive museum exhibits and as a consultant to museum education departments developing 'kits' for places like The American Museum of Natural History, The Brooklyn Museum, The Bronx Zoo, The Detroit Institute of Arts and, by invitation, The Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

   So you get the idea: the Curriculum Center was a great place to work. When my VISTA commitment ended, they hired me as a regular employee and it was my first real paid design job. I made a lot of mistakes, but also helped develop some cool projects and work with some great people. The worst part of leaving VISTA was that I had to surrender the car, and surrender was the right word here. I've had a lot of cars in my life but that Government grey Rambler American was the only car I actually kissed goodbye when I had to turn over the keys.

  And my 'Banana home'?.... it was great for several months until the 'winter' (not to be confused with the Alaskan 'winter') came with its torrential rains and winds that drenched and shredded my 'home' (and me) back into the 'real' world, but by that time I could (just) afford a small place on the beach which, as everyone knows, is pretty much as good as it gets.

   One more thing. I now needed a car and remember those winding roads up Mount Tantalus....

ALOHA ! 

.

REDEMPTION OVER AMSTERDAM

 "Good morning, this is your captain speaking. If you'll look out of the right side 

of the airplane you'll  notice that we're dumping fuel. There seems to be a minor 

problem that we'd like to have checked out before proceeding on to New York 

so we'll be headed back to Amsterdam. Nothing to worry about folks, so sit back 

and we should  be back on the ground in about 45 minutes".

   So what was I doing in Amsterdam anyway? Well, it must have been around 1997 and I was working on a Mattel Compact Disc Project. We had a cool demo to show to the head of technology of Philips in Eindhoven, which was not far from Amsterdam. This was gonna be interesting because his engineers claimed that what we were were proposing was impossible. The demo went off without a hitch and the look on their faces was worth the trip. We were scheduled to fly back to Los Angeles that evening.  

   But I had never been to Amsterdam and had heard about it all my life. I did have some vacation time accrued so I said goodbye to my companions and headed into the city. I checked into a really nice hotel and set out to explore. I loved everything about Amsterdam. Of course their attitude towards grass (tolerated not legalized) was one cool thing but their great canals with their unique houseboats and the general friendliness of the people made me feel right at home. Of course New York, where I grew up, used to be New Amsterdam, so much of the architecture was strangely familiar. The sidewalk cafes, the museums, the toy stores even the weather which one minute was beautiful, followed by a rainstorm sweeping thru and then blue sky again. I loved it. I just loved it all.

   I enjoyed Amsterdam fully for three days and then I started to feel a bit guilty about work so I  reluctantly packed up my stuff, re-scheduled my ticket and headed to the airport. One of the great perks of working for Mattel was the ability to fly business class on international flights, which is just an incredible luxury. I flopped back into my window seat and it even looked like the seat next to me might be vacant-even better. But just as they were about to shut the door, in came an impeccably dressed Dutch businessman (I just assumed he was Dutch), and, of course headed for the last open seat next to me. I might have made some small sign of displeasure while removing some of my stuff from the seat, but it was nothing compared to the look he had on his face when he realized he was gonna have to sit next to this disheveled hippie for the duration of the flight. Hey - I was just wearing my usual jeans and teeshirt but compared to him I was a bum and I’m sure he wanted the stewardess to check my ticket to make sure I was in the right class. Anyway we were both courteous to each other and settled in for the long flight.

   After awhile we began chatting and he asked what I did and when I told him I was designer at Mattel Toys, I guess my status went up a bit and being an ‘artist’ bought me a little leeway with my dress code. Really, he was the kind of guy who, after an eight hour flight, would walk off the plane looking as fresh and neat as when he started his day. He asked me what I was doing in Amsterdam and when I told him and mentioned it was my first time, he asked me how I liked it. I told him I how I absolutely loved Amsterdam, which happened to be his home, and he was delighted and proud to hear of all my adventures. I told him I wished I had stayed a while longer.

   He then told me more about Amsterdam and about his job which I think was in finance and then he said this: “but when I leave on a business trip I demand of myself one hundred and twenty percent efficiency!” In my casual way I responded “that on my best day I was probably about sixty-five percent”. I’m not sure he was able to process that and we were quiet for a while until the captain came on with his message.

   After all my bush pilot flights in Alaska, nothing could scare me about flying and besides I remembered that when something like this happens, if you don’t feel like flying right away, the airline usually pays for an overnight stay. So I was relaxed and enjoying this but when I looked around the plane I saw that people were scared and many seemed to be praying. 

   My neighbor turned, looked at me quite strangely, and said “It looks like you’re going to get your wish to return to Amsterdam”. “Looks that way” I replied. Then, after a while he said “Well, maybe eighty-five percent”. At first I had no idea what he was talking about and then it hit me. He thought that maybe the plane would crash and he didn’t want to ‘meet his maker’ with that ‘hundred and twenty percent’ lie on his lips. I just told him we’ll all be okay.

   And we were. The landing was smooth and silent and we all deplaned quietly. They announced that there was another plane at Gate 4 for us to continue our journey and the last I saw of my well-dressed friend was when I passed him waiting on that line as I headed to the SAS counter. We smiled and nodded at each other, both satisfied with the outcome of this particular venture.

   At the SAS counter I explained how I wasn’t prepared to fly again right now after this ‘harrowing’ ordeal and when they saw my business-class ticket they said they understood. They asked me where I wanted to stay and fortunately I had the receipt from the Sonesta Hotel which I passed onto her. “But this is a first-class hotel”, she seemed surprised. “But that’s where I’ve been staying”. She handed me a voucher and when I got to the hotel they remembered me saying ‘Didn’t think you’d be back so soon”. I asked how long the voucher was good for and when she checked it seemed that it was open-ended, and it was not only for lodging but for dining also. Imagine that. Open-ended. I probably could still be living at the Sonesta today.

   I just stayed in Amsterdam for another couple of days and had a great free time, even if it was at my best 65% efficiency.

ALOHA NUI LOA

The first glimpse of Hawaii, framed thru the jet’s window was simply beautiful. Diamond Head, Waikiki Beach, Pearl Harbor, everything I'd thought and dreamed about was there and getting closer by the minute. 

We land. This was before the era of jetways so as we walked down the ramp we were greeted by our Hawaiian hosts with flower leis for us and as we left the airport our new Vista Supervisors had decided that the best introduction to Hawaii would be a picnic on the beach, and not just any beach. We got into these old grey government cars, Rambler Americans (fitting name), and drove for an hour or so up the coast to the legendary Makaha Beach. But we didn’t stop at the parking lot, no, we drove over the curb and parked the cars pretty much right at the water’s edge. Wow. We were the U.S. Government. We could do anything. What a day. Wow.

After that fantastic experience they took us to where we’d be living. I was to have a room in a regular house in a neighborhood called Upper Kalihi. The homeowner, Hollis Chung, rented out rooms in his home, and there were three other renters, non Vistas, already there. We were all to share the bathroom. This was bad. After my space and freedom in Alaska I felt like a caged animal. Actually after Alaska I was a caged animal. I didn’t know what I could do about it that night but I didn’t think I could survive in that house and room. Not a chance. I went to sleep. 

I’m an early riser so with the dawn I wandered out to see where I was. Upper Kalihi, as you’d expect from the name, was on the side of one of the many lush mountain ridges rising up from the ocean and from the front door of the house you could see the whole panorama of Honolulu and the wide ocean beyond. Spectacular. I was still upset with my living conditions but soon Vista picked me up and took me to where I’d be working, so I have to figure that out later.

MY JOB

I was assigned to the Hawaii Curriculum Center. It was on the beautiful grounds of the University of Hawaii Manoa Campus. I was introduced to everybody, but the truth was that they had already heard about me because of the ruckus I had caused in Alaska, but they were squarely on my side because they had wanted an industrial designer on their team for the past year and they seemed as genuinely happy for me to be there as I was.

Not only that but this group was a research team, tasked with developing creative curriculum materials specifically for the children of Hawaii. The people that they had assembled were incredibly talented and believed totally in their mission. They were a passionate group. My specific job was to oversee a group of about 12 student artists who created the ‘camera-ready’ art to be produce for testing, to design the materials so they looked and worked better and to get them out for bid to the printers on the island. Truth be told I had no idea what ‘camera-ready’ even meant (Pratt didn’t teach us everything) but I kept my mouth shut and quickly learned what I had to to make things work. The truth was it was fascinating work and it was in Hawaii. 

VISTA AND ME

Let me start by saying this. Although I got what I wanted in the end, what VISTA put me thru, for no reason except total government inefficiency, left me with no respect for the organization's managers. Today, in 2016, I can appreciate their fuck-up gave me an experience living with the Eskimos that I treasure, but at that time I was in no mood to listen to anything Hawaii Vista said, and conversely, the last thing they needed was for me to complain (in writing) about anything so we co-existed. Besides, my job at the curriculum center was going well and as long as the University was happy with my work, so were they. Except:

I had these two little issues to solve. The first was my living conditions. So the morning of my first weekend off from work I started to scout the area around Upper Kalihi. I didn’t have to go far because in the back of Hollis Chung’s house was a big sloping yard. I followed it down to where he kept bees (he was very entrepreneurial) and there I saw a wall of overgrown foliage and an old weathered handmade sign that said ‘KAPU’. Figuring this was the Hawaiian version of ‘TABOO’ or ‘KEEP OUT’ I quickly parted the palm fronds to find a set of ancient giant stone steps that led down to a luscious patch of dwarf banana trees and at the end of the patch,beyond and below another old stone wall there was Kalihi Stream. This was amazing.This was real Hawaii. I knew right then that I’d be living here.

I made a deal with Hollis. He could keep all the money Vista paid him for my room rent and he could rent the room out to someone else as long as he’d let me ‘camp’ down in the banana patch and use the shower occasionally. He, of course, thought I was crazy but couldn’t pass up a business offer like this so he agreed. Besides, he saw I was picked up by a  government car all the time and I might have inferred this had something to do with the government. The deal was set. Only one piece left to put in place. Tomorrow. Sunday.

I mentioned VISTA had these cars to use for their business. There were I believe four or five Rambler Americans that were stored at the Marine motor-pool in Honolulu. The deal was we were supposed to fill out some form, days in advance, if we were going to need one for some official VISTA business and the head honcho would decide priorities. We all had been given these beautiful U.S. GOVERNMENT DRIVER’S LICENSES and GOVERNMENT GAS CREDIT CARDS (can you believe it?)

Well, the next morning,  being the early riser that I was, I headed to the motor-pool where I just took one of the cars without telling anybody. These cars didn’t have a radio so my first stop was a radio store where I bought and installed a Sony stereo tape cassette deck and multiple speakers. Next came the Stones and Zep and all the music that I hadn’t heard for a year in Alaska (because while I had a radio there, reception was incredibly poor and when you have no electricity, a battery is more important for your flashlight than for your radio). 

And that was that. I was now bombing around paradise, exploring this magnificent island, in a car that said U.S. GOVERNMENT  FOR OFFICIAL BUSINESS ONLY with Mick telling me 'ya can’t always get what ya want, but if ya try sometime…..

VISTA, of course, called me in for a lecture. I listened passively while they explained the proper procedures for requisitioning a car and why they needed the cars for their other obligations etc etc. They asked if I understood. I said I did, but after all I'd been through with VISTA I couldn't care less about any of their 'rules' and the next morning I got up, went to the motor-pool, filled the tank and was off. They really didn’t know what to do with me but after the third day they just gave up.The car was mine. Also I have to say that I was doing a good job designing educational materials at the Curriculum Center and I really did need a car occasionally to meet with printers or go to a bindery so maybe the Curriculum Center got involved. All I know was that the car was all mine and now I could go about building my new home in the banana patch.

to be continued

ALOHA

If you’ve read my book ‘SLEETMUTE’ (a couple of bucks on Amazon and other booksellers…with pictures) then you know the following: I had just (1968) graduated from Pratt with a degree in Industrial Design and applied to VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) and stated on the application that I wanted to ‘serve’ in Hawaii (I didn’t use that punctuation of course). I was accepted and assigned, you guessed it, to the very remote, very small, very rough Eskimo village of Sleetmute, Alaska. To my complete surprise, many in my volunteer group wanted to go to Alaska, in fact, for them it was a dream come true. They all saw Alaska, not as a State,but as a religion. The Vista ‘trainers’ were surprised that I had wanted to go to Hawaii, but the US Government being what it was said the best they could do was that, if I stuck out my year in Alaska, and did well, they’d transfer me to Hawaii. It was as good a deal as I was going to get so I agreed.

You’ll have to read the book to see how a Brooklyn Jew survived the winter in the village of Sleetmute, Alaska. Just as a taste, the nearest road was 300 miles away, no electricity, no phones, no streets, no law. If you wanted to eat you had to hunt. My partner got his ribs broken in a drunken misunderstanding and left before the winter set in (and he was known as the ‘friendly’ Vista). 100 Eskimos (about 50 adults and 50 kids) and me. And while we arrived in Sleetmute in the summer, the winter, at more than 50 below zero and dark all day was…well you can read about that…or not..up to you.

You also have to understand that I really had no idea how I was supposed to ‘help’ the Eskimos and the plain truth was if it wasn’t for them helping me survive I would have died. But I tried. And after the winter ‘broke’, Jim Holton, my ‘Area Supervisor’ was gonna fly in to see what I had ‘accomplished’. Now, I was sure that I had done nothing except survive (a big plus as far as I was concerned) but I figured I was doomed. Not only that, he was supposed to stay for a day and when the weather turned bad, no plane, he was with me for a whole week. Oh fuck. I took him around to every cabin and we sat and had tea and ‘talked story’. Still I thought I had really done nothing all year in terms of Vista’s mythical ‘community development’ and when Jim eventually flew off he seemed happy but I just figured that was because he was finally getting out of Sleetmute.

(A note: If you do happen to go on to Amazon’s SLEETMUTE page, 

https://www.amazon.com/Sleetmute-Story-Alaska-Stan-Resnicoff-ebook/dp/B00BQJZP2C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408031379&sr=8-1&keywords=sleetmute#nav-subnav

there’s a review of my book by Jim Holton. How we hooked up decades after Alaska is another tale but he told me stories of some of the other volunteers in my group actually having total mental and physical breakdowns because of the brutal conditions, and I don’t necessarily mean just the weather)

The upshot of all this is that Jim thought I had done a great job (I’m still surprised) but I was truly amazed when they offered me the promotion of Area Supervisor for next year in Alaska if I wanted to stay on. Unbelieveable. But of course I didn’t, I was promised Hawaii and a promise is a promise. Or so I thought.

The next section is from my book:

I’m waiting in my hotel room. A VISTA supervisor, Jack Prebis, is coming over to talk to me about my transfer to Hawaii. Wow! It’s really happening. Jack arrives. We’re sitting on the beds facing each other. “Stan”, he says, “this has nothing to do with you personally…” Every sensory cell in my body is alerted. This probably ONLY has to do with me personally. He continued. “I know VISTA made some promises to you but the reason you can’t go to Hawaii is that we need people there with special talents…they need a photographer, an industrial designer, an…..”  Now when Jack said the words “can’t go to Hawaii” my mind buckled. Jack was not talking to the kid they had sent to Sleetmute a year ago. He was talking to the Eskimo in me. I was mad. Eskimo mad. This was fuckin’ government’s gussach lies, I thought. If I had my gun I might have shot him…just as a warning.  But when he said the reason I wasn’t going was because they needed an ‘industrial designer’, I cracked. I stood up while he was talking. (he stopped). I walked over to my army duffel bag and  began emptying it, like an animal, throwing my possessions all over the room. Jack watched this display in silence. I just had to make sure. It had been a long year after all. Finally I found it – at the bottom. It was the very first thing I had packed because it was the last thing I thought I would ever need in Alaska. My diploma. I opened the little leather folio. I read it. I WAS an industrial designer.

I walked back over to Jack, holding the diploma up in the palm of my hand and held it up for him to read. Then with all the fury in my heart I pushed it hard into his face. Hard. He quickly left the room.

I’m left sitting on the bed fuming but crushed by this turn of events when I hear laughing. Peeking in from the next room was Roger, another Vista Administrator, and he’s actually laughing at this whole scene. I was ready to kill him with my bare hands but he approached me with his palms outstretched to calm me.

“Look – I saw the whole thing and I just gotta tell you a story.” You can imagine that I was in NO mood for a story, but he continued. “Do you know who Ken Kesey is?” I nodded I did. Confused. “Well a couple of years ago Kesey and me worked together at the Oregon State Psychiatric Hospital. We were both orderlies. Ken was there to do research for a book that he was writing called ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’. I was there because I really needed the job. Kesey would secretly change patient’s prescriptions and generally screw things up just to see what would happen. I kept warning him that sooner or later they’d catch him. He just laughed.”

I still had no idea what this story was about or what it had to do with me, but Roger had my interest.

One day Kesey got called into the office. They told him that they knew what he’d been doing and threatened him with jail before they fired him. As they were escorting him out of the building he yells to me, laughing ‘They fired my ass!’ ‘I told you they were gonna get you,’ I said. ‘Oh-yea,’ Kesey says, ‘and by the way they said they wanna see you next.' I got canned too. Just for being Kesey’s friend.  I’m bewildered. Roger looks me straight in the eye and continued. “Look, you’re right about this whole Hawaii thing but it doesn’t matter. You’ve only got one chance to get what you deserve and that’s to sit down, right now, and write the best letter that you’ve ever written, about what’s just happened to you, and send it to everyone important you know”. I was stunned.  Three days. I worked nonstop on the letter for three days. After Sleetmute, words, especially written words, came hard. They looked so permanent. And they were so important. Three days.  I sent it off. To Jack, to his boss, to the heads of VISTA Alaska and VISTA Hawaii, to the Governor of Alaska, the Senators and Representatives of my home state of New York and Alaska and Hawaii and finally to the President of the United States.

Several days went by. Then I got a call from VISTA Headquarters. I remember it well. “Stan! Stan! Good News! We’ve cleared everything up over here and guess what – You’re gonna go to Hawaii! Yea! That’s Great! Just what we all wanted! And hey Stan, just do us one favor OK? Yea..Well.. Uh..Just don’t write any more letters OK"?  “Sure” I said.  

On August 20, 1970 I landed in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was paradise.

 ALOHA To  be continued:

THE TRUE STORY OF YANG & YIN

LEGAL NOTICE

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

PHYSTY

A film by Jimmy Callanan   

So how was I involved with Physty? Here’s the story.

When I first met Michael years earlier he reminded me of Bluto in the Popeye comic strips. He was big, bushy and an ex Vietnam Vet and Navy diver. These are the guys who were SEALS before there were SEALS. He was ‘military’ and perhaps as different from me as possible....except since the war he had devoted his life to stop whaling and to teach people, especially kids about whales, marine life and the oceans.

So all of a sudden we had a lot in common.

Over the years he had seen my museum projects and so one year when he decided to create a marine museum on City Island in New York, he asked me to come up with some ideas for exhibits. City Island in the Bronx was a unique place that, at the time, I don’t imagine most New Yorkers even knew existed. It was a little Island connected to the Bronx by a little bridge and pretty much devoted to boatyards and seafood places. Anyway he bought an old wooden house and started to make it into THE NORTHWIND MUSEUM.

One of the first things he did was to find an old obsolete wooden tugboat in one of the Islands boatyards, bought it and proceeded to take a chainsaw and saw it right in half, from port to starboard. Then he somehow managed to transport the bow half down the main street of City Island to his museum where the plan was to graft it onto the front of the building. These Navy guys can do anything. It turned out great when it was finished.

One day I was trying to think of something creative and interactive to do with those big beautiful brass diving helmets that Michael had and I came up with this idea for fishtanks where the helmets could be attached to openings in the bottom and kids could get their heads inside. Michael came in, saw these drawings, literally ripped them off the wall with pushpins flying everywhere and said....”Let’s go build it!”

The next thing I know we’re standing in some junkyard with Michael buying a giant metal oil tank that he then started to cut and weld and make into the ‘DRY DIVE’ exhibit. It was great.

That’s what was going on when one evening on the nightly news there was a story about a ‘small’ whale that had almost come ashore at Coney Island in Brooklyn. There was some video of a police boat pushing something in the water back out to sea but it was at night and it was hard to actually see anything. The whole story seemed ridiculous. Whales beached themselves in Australia or Chile but not New York City. It was a short story and would have been easily forgotten except over the next couple of days the whale was sighted near shore again. Eventually the Coast Guard had managed to get a rope around its tail and tow it to a small empty marina on Fire Island. The sick baby whale was on the news for the next couple of days as marine vets and others tried to save its life.

The next day when I came to work at the museum I see everybody loading up the trucks with diving tanks and wet suits and everything else. What’s up?, I ask. My friend, co-worker and film maker Jimmy Callanan (that’s Jimmy’s film at the beginning of this story) throws me a windbreaker with NORTHWIND emblazoned across the back and says...."We’re going to check out the whale. Come-on."

I didn’t know it at the time but later Jimmy told me what had happened. It’s important for you to know that a whale coming to shore and being cared for isn’t a haphazard operation. It’s immediately a Federal Issue covered under the Marine Mammals Protection Act. And the Feds don’t fool around. In addition to the Feds and Coast Guard controlling the whole thing the State and Local Police were involved and of course veterinarians with marine experience and members of the Okeanos Ocean Research Foundation who were certified to deal with marine mammal stranding issues. Although Michael, like all of us, had seen the whale on the news and wanted to help, he felt that his presence might be unwanted by the ‘certified’ groups there. He just had a lifetime of experience, not printed credentials. That all changed when that night Dr. Jay Hyman, the lead vet on the scene called Michael and said....”Michael, why aren’t you here?”

So we arrive and there it is. A baby sperm whale. Clicking away. Look, you’ve seen the video so you already know Physty survives but at that moment I knew no such thing. In fact I don’t think I ever heard of a ‘beached’ whale surviving. For me to be this close to a real whale, a sperm whale at that, an animal of legend, and a baby to boot was a unexpected unique experience but I was aware that it might end up being very very sad. 

The whole rescue was an absolutely incredible effort by everyone there but the night Michael swam out, in the dark, to try to feed Physty that medicated squid was magical. I sat on the dock watching. The crowds had all gone home and there was only a few of us around. We had no idea what was happening under the water until Michael’s hand broke the surface with a thumbs-up.

I really had no particular ‘job’ there so I kind of got to be that ‘fly on the wall’ that people always talk about. I busied myself documenting things and collecting artifacts like the hypodermic needle that bent when they tried to take Physty’s blood sample. Depending upon how this turned out, this whole experience could be an interesting exhibit back at the museum and I wanted to be prepared.

Like I’ve said, you’ve seen the video so you know the Physty rescue was successful. However there’s a little part of the story that you haven’t heard before, and it probably started with that ride that Michael got on the back of the whale....

You see, even Michael realized later that that was the wrong thing to do. With Physty’s rapidly improving condition, the last thing the Feds wanted was for the whale to want continued human contact when they try to return it to the open sea. The surprise decision was made to release the whale the next morning. Michael thought this might be premature but it wasn't his decision.

That evening we all stayed in one room at a motel in the area. My job that night, under Michael's direction, was to draw up these plans to show where all the boats were to be stationed in the morning and the course the whale had to follow if it was to make it successfully back to the open ocean. There were a lot of sand bars on which the whale might beach itself on its way to the sea. Nobody thought this would be easy.

The plans that I drew up that night

We, of course, didn't have the benefit of Google Earth at the time but now when I see the path the whale had to negotiate and the many sandbars that there were in its path I would have been even more worried. Here's how it looks from the satellite.

Dawn. We head over to the building where the Feds and Coast Guard were having their final planning session. Michael went in as Jimmy and I waited outside. By the way, I had stayed up all night finishing up the charts and was very tired but I had nothing else to do so it didn’t matter. Or so I thought. Anyway when Michael came out he had this very strange look on his face. 

“What?” I asked.

“They’re putting me in charge of the operation" he answered.

“That’s great.” I said.

“No, you don’t understand.” Michael said. “The military never puts a civilian in charge of an operation. It’s because they’ve decided that if the whale beaches itself on a sandbar again, they are going to run it over with the (Coast Guard) Cutter, drown it, and say that the whale didn’t make it.” 

The people in power had decided that they were not going to repeat another very expensive week like this. It would end today, one way or another.

Michael thought he was being set up and then he said "I’m not going!"

Wow! This day suddenly had taken a big quick ugly turn for the worse. I was stunned. I just said ‘Michael, no matter what, the whale has a better chance with you there than without you.” He looked at me and said “You’re right." He turned around and went back in.

I didn’t have time to figure out what had just happened because right then they all came out and the whole operation began. Everyone was moving. This next part is a bit embarrassing personally but so what. Like I said I was really tired so when Michael told me I’d be piloting the boat he’d be on, I promptly stalled the outboard a couple of times and was immediately replaced. The gate  to the marina was opened and the boats and the whale all headed away. I had expected to be on the big Coast Guard Cutter but it too was already pulling away. I wound up standing on the dock  watching them all move away frustrated, tired and alone. 

I figured we wouldn’t know about the whale for some time so, dejected and exhausted I headed back with the crowd to my car in the parking lot and ran into the last thing I wanted at that moment, the biggest traffic jam ever. The little causeway could’t possibly accommodate all the cars that had come to see the whale released. We sat bumper to bumper inching along when suddenly the radio announcer burst in with the bulletin that Physty the whale had successfully been returned to the open sea and was now on his way ‘home’.

I swear, one by one every horn in every car went off and as I looked around every one was smiling and shouting as kids hung out of their car windows waving and cheering their little heads off.

And just then it seemed that the traffic started to move again and I too was on my way home, laughing out loud, happy as a clam.

EPILOGUE

In the days following Physty’s release Michael got a lot of press including being on a currently hit tv show called ‘That’s Incredible’. I took a couple of days off and on one of those days I got this invitation from the Smithsonian Institution. They had seen my museum projects and they were inviting me to discuss something they thought we might create together. The Smithsonian! I didn’t know it at the time but soon I’d be designing a gallery game for them about marine archeology called ‘Fathom’.

A couple of days later when I showed up at Northwind Michael did something I never would have expected. He apologized to me. He said we should have practiced with the pilot boat before the last morning because that’s what the military does...practice. I really appreciated that but at that moment I was more interested in showing him my letter. He read it and then grasped my shoulders. I think he may have actually picked me off the ground a little. “Stanny, the museum of the country...and they want you! I’m so proud of you." Michael, the ultimate patriot.

So that was that. I went off to Washington D.C. but not before I designed a Physty exhibit for Northwind. Its centerpiece was a full size, tactically accurate model of Physty that we kept wet for everyone to touch. It was built in two parts. If you imagine the floor as the waterline, the head emerged as one section and twelve feet behind it the tail emerged. It was the called ‘Braille Whale'.

I may have wandered a bit off track here but let me tell you this. I had a front row seat to an amazing relationship between a man and a whale. It was based on touch and trust and it was simply beautiful.

So I say here, Bravo! Michael Sandlofer, bravo!”

***************************

Unfortunately, this year Michael passed away. I had a chance to talk with him when he was in the hospital and to tell him again how much I cared for him and how beautiful his work with animals was. I treasured my time with him. He was very complimentary too, telling me how I was always there to whisper some smart idea into his ear but, truth be told, he had more real ‘smarts’ in his little finger than I have in my whole head. Physty was only one of the episodes in Michael’s life. There were many others. The animals have lost a great friend.

But his work goes on. Thru Sharon, his wonderful wife and his daughter his dream of building a sanctuary for wolves in South Carolina continues. They continue to educate people, most of all kids about the truth and value of these misunderstood animals. You should check out their website at www.wolfpackproject.com and please, if you can help support Michael’s vision please do so by contributing to:

The Wolf Pack Project
Trinity Heritage Ranch
2630 Trinity Rd
Lynchburg SC. 2 9 0 8 0

One final thought. Since this episode Physty has been spotted far offshore at various times healthy and swimming strongly. He’s easily identified by those rope scars on his tail. You’ve seen Jimmy’s movie and read my story but if you believe that whales are intelligent creatures that can communicate with each other then you have to believe that Physty, the sperm whale, has one hell off a story to tell, and while he might not know Michael’s name, he sure will never forget him. 

Stan