WATERS OF THE WORLD

The Black Sea. Was the water really black or was that just some name everybody agreed to before I was born? And what about the Red Sea... well, you get it. These were the conundrums of my 9 year-old mind. I figured that someday the only way I'd know for sure was to see for myself. And if it really was black I'd get a sample and start a collection of waters of the world. From all kinds of exotic places. The Nile. The Amazon.That sounded good to me at the time and then I forgot about it for fifty years or so.

I should mention that in one of those years I actually did get to the Black Sea. It seemed dark but not black, and I briefly remembered my childhood plan. Very briefly.

Everything changed when I was working in my garage one day in 2007. I was listening to the radio when  'Surfin' USA' by the Beach Boys came on. I must have heard the song thousands of times (even hearing it when it was a new release), but then the lyrics came to:

Haggerties and Swamies

Pacific Palisades

San Onofre and Sunset

Redondo Beach L.A.
All over La Jolla
At Waimea Bay...

Redondo Beach! I could start my water 'collection' right here in this 'exotic' place. Yes. And even better, I could make a small surfboard with the waters from all the sites mentioned in the song. So I did.

SURFIN' USA

My friend Eric and I even went around to the local sites mentioned and collected water samples but later
we figured it would be better if who ever wound up with this would have to fill 'em themselves. 

I also built a blue board:

And then I thought it would be great to have small individual boards for water from famous surf breaks from all over the world:

Malibu

                                                                          Zombies

                                                                         Manhattan

Narabeen

Teahupo'o

Haggerties

Redondo Beach

                                                                        Waikiki

These were harder mainly because the wood 'rings' that held the tubes had to be from the same plank as the board so they aligned visually.

By this time it made no sense to leave out a set for the oceans of the world:

And they're great for a reason: The Great Lakes:

And finally, the water that I always wanted to personally collect:

     LOCH NESS

                                                                

                                                                EPILOGUE


Maybe some people are disappointed that there is no water from Loch Ness in my piece. Well, I guess I am too. When I made this work many years ago I imagined myself on the foggy bank of that fabled loch with my test tube in hand smiling from ear to ear. But as happens with many plans, life got in the way. I got a lot older, my health isn’t what it used to be, this pandemic isn’t helping any and frankly other things became more important.

So while it might not be me who fills up this tube, whoever acquires this piece is getting more than a little box. It’s a challenge. And in an age where many people spend their lives staring at screens, a trip to the Scottish highlands will be worth its weight in gold.

 

There’s more of my work here:

INSTAGRAM:  StanRes
WEBSITE: www.stanresnicoff.com
BLOG: www.PleaseStanBy.blogspot.com
FACEBOOK: Stan Resnicoff

E-Mail: SResnicoff@aol.com

STANLEY, THE SEAL OF APPROVAL

Originally published as a paperback by Random House, Eric and I made this flash movie which, among other things, was selected to be shown at Pratt's Alumni Day last year. 

The book is still available at Amazon at: 
https://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Seal-Approval-Stan-Resnicoff-ebook/dp/B011ZCU93Y/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1479671362&sr=8-3&keywords=STan+Resnicoff

       MY TO-DO LIST

Copyright © 1997  Stan Resnicoff All Rights Reserved

I’ve got a big agenda,
Of the things I wanna do
And I know I won’t be able
To see all of them through
So listen very carefully
To everything I say
‘Cause here is my list of the things
I wanna do today

I’ll have a conversation
With the dolphins in the sea
I’ll tell them everything I know
They’ll do the same for me
And I’ll learn all their secrets
And find out just what’s true
And the day after today maybe
I’ll tell it all to you

I’ll photograph the wildlife
In the Amazonian Basin
Then round-up all my good friends
For a little NASCAR racin’
I’ll sharpen all my pencils
And e-mail every pal
Then go out for a little swim
Thru the Panama Canal

Then I wanna chase a rainbow
And find out where it ends
And throw a giant party 
For my very special friends
And learn to speak a language
That I never spoke before 
And hit a grand-slam homer 
And win the final score

I want to ride a raging river
Shoot the rapids, that’d be fun
Then I want to give a hundred dollars out
To each and every one
I want to carve my initials in the clouds
And paint the entire sky
I might not get to all these things
But at least I’m gonna try

I’ll climb a giant mountain
In the Himalayan Range
Then toss around some papers
At the New York Stock Exchange
I’ll clean up all the rivers
And straighten my sock drawer
And with the time that I’ve got left
I know what I’ll use that for

I wanna feed the hungry
With turkey and desert
And take away all of their pain
And take away what hurts
And turn their heads up to the sun
And set everyone free
And win the Nobel Prize today for 
Peace and Poetry.

THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM PRE-VISIT KITS  1976

The Archeology Backpack

Here's what my exhibit looked like in Moscow in 1992. It was in the Designers Union Building which was right on famous Pushkin Square. This was still before capitalism had completely taken over their economic system and soon the biggest MacDonald's in the world would be built across the street.

All my English descriptions were translated into Russian

Before the internet, this was the first glimpse of American design for some . Admittedly it's not any representative 
cross-section, still it's the eclectic work of one first-generation American with a Russian surname...and somehow it represents the freedoms we enjoy.


My museum projects as well as toy and art ideas were included.

Yuri Skokov, head of the Designer's Union explains my work

The BarBEARian

The Brooklyn Museum Archeology Backpack was a big hit.

'Purposeful Writing' Game from the Hawaii Curriculum Center

Me with 'Leon Neon'

The BarBEARian with Hussein Abbo's wonderful drawings

The show was written up in their Design Magazine

LEON NEON

1986

     So if you got to this page from Facebook you've already seen this clip. It's from a very funny 'TRIBUTE PAGE' (If you can believe it) that a guy named Matt created to my 1986 Mattel toy...LEON NEON. There's a link later in this blog to his LEON NEON page.

Just so you get a quick idea of how this all worked.: In 1985 my job was to come up with some creative ideas and try to make prototypes any way I could to test and evaluate. Then I'd make a presentation and if the idea was good enough it would be 'taken-over' by engineering and marketing and it'd be out of my hands. I'd go on to other new ideas. Sometimes I'd see bits and pieces, prototype boxes or what have you when I'm walked  thru the building but really I'm out of the loop until one Saturday morning I'm lying in bed watching cartoons when this BLASTS across my tv screen.

I didn't even know they were making a commercial. It was my first Mattel product and it's on TV. How cool is that. 


It started with this new group I was now in...NBC (New Business Concepts). I thought it would be cool for kids to have something like neon for kids to be able to make themselves.

I gathered that the running joke in the toy business was that you added the glow-in-the-dark feature when product line was on it's last legs. That's one way to think about it but what if you made the glow-in-the-dark THE MAIN feature So my idea was a KID-NEON (I called it that), a 'wire-like toy that any kid could manipulate creatively and see glow. In the biz that's considered an activity toy.

But I had no idea if this could be made, and at what cost and if anybody would even be interested. So I showed my idea to Susannah who sent me down to meet Wally Shapiro, a chemist in Mattel's Chem Lab. A Chem Lab. All this was new to me. Whereas back in New York nobody was ever happy to see you if you needed them to do something, Wally was both a pleasure and a treasure to work with. He reminded me about co-extrusion and suggested we start with an already available electrical wire since their industrial coverings would help us satisfy the wire safety requirements. He sent me off to shop and experiment. I bought and bent many different wires, imagining them surrounded with a layer of glow-in-the-dark soft plastic. I got the wire I liked best from a small hardware store in Long Beach. I gave my wire samples to Wally and a week or so later he's calling me to come down to the Chem Lab and when I do here are these fantastic industrial cardboard reels full of different color and wire KID NEONS. These are like some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. 

About this time I realized that the name KID-NEON came out sounding too much like KIDNEY-ON and I changed the name to LEON NEON. It really didn't matter what I called it because Mattel had a special group that came up with all the toy names. 

I might have mentioned that our group shared a building with Mattel's A-V group so one day, after practicing all night to get the bending and the timing right, I asked my pal Clark Dugger to leave a camera and lights (and a footswitch) rolling on me while everyone went to lunch. I sat in the empty studio and I think it only took me a half-dozen takes until I got this. 

 

And finally the 'PRESENTATION' day. Here's where all the people who'll decide on the fate of your toy will decide on the fate of your toy. And here's where, my friend the reader (you) are going to have to use your imagination. The fact is that Mattel's locked-down cameras at that time (1986) weren't good enough to let you see the 'glowing' part of the action so you'll just have to take my word for it. Also the sounds from the audience should give you a clue as to how it all went. Anyway as the lights went out an 'invisible' black curtain blocked the audience from seeing three 'dancers' (designers on our team) sneak in behind it. The center dancers body and arms were totally covered in LEON-NEON, but the two outer dancers only had one hand each covered with LEON-NEON.  When the black curtain dropped the writhing three dancers appeared to be a single lit-up person (that's the first scream) and then, as the music continues, the hands very slowly move farther away from the body than humanly possible (the second outburst). You'll just have to imagine (but it did look cool!)

So it was accepted, taken out of my hands and put thru the Mattel machine that made it into a real product line ready for the whole American enterprise system.

Lord, my product even appeared on the back of boxes of Kellogg's Corn Pops. And it don't get much better than that in this U.S.of A! Better believe it!

Oh, by the way the naming group couldn't come up with a better name than LEON-NEON (and they tried) so LEON-NEON it was AND because it was an extrusion (meaning little hand labor), they could and did make it here in America. And since theyb were making it here, somebody from Engineering called me up and wanted to know where the hardware store was where I bought the electrical wire I used.

It made the back end of the toy 'TOP TEN' one month. It wasn't a big deal at Mattel. It was just a novelty item and lasted one year. But still the best, most creative and honest review can only be found at Matt's X-ENTERTAINMENT page here: 

http://www.x-entertainment.com/messages/628.html

I wasn't sure this was meant for me but it ws laying around so I took it. It's the in-store point-of-purchase display. I couldn't believe this stuff even existed for LEON-NEON.

And finally, because you never know where this stuff leads you, Mattel gets this letter from a Veternarian asking for samples and info on LEON-NEON because it seems to make good emergency splints for small animals. His letter took it's time getting to me but rest assured his cup runneth over.

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MATTEL & ME

Where to begin? There’s a lot more to this story than I’ll have time for here but if I ever want to get to my point let’s start: Back in the 1980’s the President of Mattel, Ray Wagner set up a small group of creative types as a ‘think tank’ or what would later be known as an incubator. These were his words to our little group at our first meeting.

“I want you to confuse the company!

What I mean is this," he continued. “We already have very talented design groups in place to service and grow our existing core brands like Barbie, Hot Wheels and Masters, so if you come up with ideas that fit into their brands, you’re definitely NOT doing your job. What I want to hear is marketing saying This is a great idea.... but what do WE do with it?’ I’ll take it from there. Maybe we’ll form a new division, or maybe we’ll license the idea to someone else.

And think of your mission as ‘fun’, not just ‘toys’. Grow our business. Your group won’t have rules or schedules, and maybe other design groups will be a little jealous of your freedoms, but your group will always report directly to me so your ideas will definitely be heard.” It was more than exciting to be one of those young designers listening to this. It was amazing.

This was a fantastic mandate until about three months later when, in some kind of disagreement with the Board of Directors Ray was fired (and immediately hired by Hasbro). The new president was what we called a ‘bean counter’ who came from finance and his mantra was ‘Back to Basics’. For Mattel, basics were dolls and (hot) wheels and so now the LAST thing the company wanted was to ‘be confused’. Shit.

Anyway, the head of our group, Susannah Rosenthal was able to walk that fine line that gave the company the kind of products they wanted while still allowing us the freedom to explore new and exciting ideas: the future of fun.

Some of those ideas the company actually produced like the Nintendo Power Glove (the first
commercial ‘gesture’ controller and Captain Power, a toy that interacted with regular broadcast television. But Mattel saw these products, not as new directions in play, but more as one-time novelties. Behind our closed doors geniuses like Rich Gold, Novak, Caleb Chung, Dave Hampton, Jeff Corsiglia and others had actually created a working Virtual Reality System and were exploring robotics and the first drones (remember this was about thirty years ago). Nevertheless in the then current corporate wisdom our group was unneeded and disbanded.  We were all let go.

(A small footnote: The following year or so Caleb and Dave came up with a little product called           'Furby’ that became, and still is, a phenomenon, only now for Hasbro)

But that’s all just a precursor to what I want to talk about. One of the most amazing designers in the group was Jurgis Sapkus. He took the little wheel-lo toy that many of us played with as a kid

and from it conceived MagnaMan (code name”MAGOO). As you’ll see in the following video it was part construction set, part physical video game and part racing set. Here’s the actual 1986 Mattel presentation:

Jurgis’ first demo was controlled thru the track. Our summer intern from MIT, Eric Frische, added a remote control giving the player wireless individual control of his (or her) little robotic characters. Beyond being a 3-D buildable Pac-Man, the gaming possibilities were endless.

In our presentations we had the opportunity to also include what marketing called a ‘sizzle’ film showing the coolest features of the product. With Clark Dugger and our great Audio Visual Dept I made this video. I may have gone a bit too far interpreting the word 'sizzle'.

In any event the presentation was a ‘wow’. Our group’s job was to show ‘proof of concept’ and develop something to show kids for testing. You have to understand that we were limited to using off-the shelf components (not custom chips) which made our little prototype  robots heavier and slower than they would be in an actual product. In fact, our Engineering group later made a ‘real’ production version of Magoo and the little robots were smaller, more colorful and zipped up and down that track really fast!

Magoo tested really well with kids. Of course it would, it was so cool. So what do you think happened to it. Nothing. Mattel just decided that it was too expensive or it just didn’t fit into their marketing plans. I’ll never know. The simple fact is that this was a fantastic toy that will never see the light of day.

We’re getting close to my point. I’m still on the list of approved designers who can submit ideas to Mattel on their portal. So here’s what I did. I showed them the videos, making sure I told them this was already their product, their ‘intellectual property'. I made no personal claim to it. I just wanted to bring it to their attention because probably none of the current staff even knew of its existence. I wondered whether this was a product that Mattel might reconsider, but if not, I offered two options. The first was that they license it to some company that might have the desire to market and produce it and the second was that they let Jurgis and I put the video and story up on Kickstarter and see if we could raise the money to develop and sell the product. Of course we’d be willing to work out any financial  or strategic arrangements Mattel deemed appropriate.

Never have I gotten such a quick response from any company. No. Just No. No reason.

I’ve been to Mattel and listened to all the buzzwords about being disruptive and taking chances etc. etc. Here I was offering them a no risk opportunity to cash in on intellectual property they already owned. No risk, all reward. And thinking about this product (exactly) thirty years later makes my head explode with ideas. Sure, now you’d probably use your cell phone to control the games and the Maker movement would probably be designing new trick-tracks to augment their custom layouts and 'characters'.  If I was Mattel maybe I’d have a meeting with Lionel, a company that has conceptually run out of track. I read where the average age of their Railroad Club member was something like 60. This might be their digital future, with royalties to Mattel.

But it's not my call. Not at all.  I just think it’s a crime to let a beautiful piece of intellectual property (and fun) lie fallow. Ray would have understood.

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 ! 

.