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Welcome to Gilfooleyland
One of the neatest things about Cecil is that he loved to travel, and every other summer or so he would treat us all to a real vacation. That's what this chapter's about. It wasn't always fun (how could it be, with me coming along) but each vacation was amazing to me, and filled my life with a sense of wonder that remains with me to this day. My corny wisecracks and many of my witticisms I inherited by osmosis from my dear "step" father whom I always call dad, or daddy, or Cecil.
Our first family vacation was to Gilfooleyland, a special place that only existed in the stories that Cecil told us at each of our bedsides when we were wee tots. Sometimes we all listened together, then went to our separate beds. I remember to this day watching the amazement on Karen & Connie's faces when a particularly vivid telling of a Gilfooleyland story held them in thrall.
The neatest thing about Gilfooleyland was the way the stories were told, of course, because dad was a very sweet fellow with a soft, heavily New-England accented voice. But the world of fancy that he created was one of simple wonder, for in Gilfooleyland, eveything and everyone went backwards. The only detail I can recall is visualizing a flock of geese flying backward through Gilfooleyland, the vee formation intact, only flying with the open ends first.
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I would like to take these trips in chronological order. Gonna be tough.
We went on three very big family vacations, and many little ones too.
Each of them had something wonderful to say, but the most spiritually memorable to me was our weeklong stay at Yosemite National Park in 1956. It wasn’t just the magnificence of Yosemite’s display which must be the maximum beauty achieved anywhere on earby geological processes anywhere on earth. Okay ... so I haven't seen the Great Rift Valley or an erupting volcano. But Yosemite ain't exactly chopped liver. And it wasn’t the equally enrapturing plant and animal life which could best be described as totally enchanting. Nor was it the novelty of driving our 1954 Chevrolet station wagon through a tunnel in an upright sequoia. As special and memorable as all these qualities are, they were somehow significantly diminished by what loveliness the lowly human can invent. Not the pristine beauty of coming up to a meadow that stretched its green carpet down to the edge of the Merced River. Nor was it the lovely charm of the group of humans gathered on that rich green slope, gathered as if to create the perfect picture postcard scene: an elegant Asian famly, each dressed-to-the-nines formal attire; gathered around a sprawing white linen table cloth laid aon that lawn, serving from brown wicker picnic basket; filling tall crystal classes with white wine poured from bottles that rested in a silver ice bucket. That scene is undoubtedly the most thoroughly charming picture—with humans as the central subject—I have ever gazed upon. The fifty-plus years that have passed from then to now has not diminished the radiance of that moment.
And yet there was something much more small and beautiful that happened that week. As lovely as Yosemite is in its entirety, nothing compared to the tradition of the fire fall. It is the fire fall that colors all of my memories of what nature a walk about nature means to me. And I can recall that beauty at any instant I please. Just today I was enrapture by a vivid yellow flower that had sprouted from a crack in a city side sidewalk.
There is everything to be said about taking the time to admire a flower. Why is there war?
You did not need reservations to camp at Yosemite in 1953. Except for the bizarre tunnel tree that you could drive a car through, there was no traffic, and the only annoying crowds were encountered at Curry Company Concessions.
Beginning early afternoon rangers would set fire to a five foot high pile of bark - redwood, sequoia, pine. By nightfall the flames would cool to embers. The richness and fullness of nature’s quiet song filled every corner of the valley floor. Awestruck and rapt, the powerful prelude generated whispers from the hundreds of people gathered here. The time and place would be right only after the sky had painted over black the sunset’s fragile pigments. And at this perfect time and place, a voice called out from somewhere in the vast, yet intimate valley.
“Let the fire fall.” In echoes the canyon called again and again. “Let the fire fall.”
And when the last echo returned from the canyon walls, the pile of embers was pushed from its cliff-top perch and into the void, which came to live as a glowing, cascading, 1500-foot veil of red-amber lace. A cascading, red-amber veil.
The firefall tradition lasted less than 100 years, ending in the late 1960s. What is it Yogi Berra said? "Nobody goes there any more, it's too crowded."
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To the south of Yosemite, hugging the California-Nevada border, is a tremendous box canyon called King's Canyon National Park. Not my favorite vacation place - it was late-ish in summer, too hot and too dry. Plus I was already jaded having experienced Yosemite at the height of her powers, when spring barely verges on summer; when each one of her falls can be seen running full, all of her foliage green, all of her flowers in bloom.
A mere 400 miles separates a chunk of mountain, its valleys and falls - made indelibly famous by Ansel Adams in black-and-white splendor - and a vast barren place upon which the result of the work of hundreds of America's greatest scientists would be unleashed at our eventual peril.
And from that barren, lifeless Nevada expanse, an echo was born, delivered in moments to the cliff's of King's Canyon.
But I've moved too far ahead, or behind, so we'll return to this Loudest Sound after dealing with another, less special, rendering of noise, color, hue and cry.
Our 1958 cross-country trip found us one day in New York City, and we spent each one of those 24 hours in midtown Manhattan. The first "highlight" was the authentic Chinese dinner served by authentic Chinese people in an authentic Chinese Restaurant that was brought over from China and rebuilt right here in the City, stick-by-pre-Mao-China-stick. This was my first taste of Chinese food. It would be years, no, it would be never, before I learned to appreciate it's flavor.
Now, I've heard tell that, when vacationing in New York, you cannot say the word “dinner” by itself. Always you must first say “dinner” then, immediately, “and-a-show.” Radio City Music Hall was presenting a floor show extravaganza with a Polynesian theme. There was much beating of drums by men in grass skirts, much Polynesian War Chant type stuff, and a curtain ringing finale which may or may not have included the World Famous leg-licking Rockettes.
Tap tap shuffle shuffle kick kick kick. Tap tap shuffle shuffle kick. Tap tap shuffle shuffle kick kick kick. Tap suffle kick shuffle tap.
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Wow. I mean ugh. Peculiar, isn't it: "Ugh" is a common word used by Indians in old western movies and television shows. But Pacific Islanders? They're always saying stuff like "comonawannalaya."
First the hullabaloo, then the feature presentation that paled by comparison. Being that, back then, Radio City Music Hall was equal parts movie house and anything else, we’d be seeing a Road Show Presentation (i.e., limited engagement) of a highly touted, expensive film that could be nothing short of Cinemascopicaly, Stereophonicaly Spectacular. Love Me or Leave Me seemed to have been shy on the "Spectacular" side but it was at the least very big and very loud. James Cagney and Doris Day above-the-title starred in what Variety might have said, "an unspooling" of the ups-and-downs career of the 1920’s singer Ruth Etting - a true-story version of her brief and painful life. I hated it, and can recall only one scene - and the most pathetic one at that (you’ll come up with it; there’s no other real choice). Still, I cried at some point. Doesn't take much for a movie to make me cry at some point. Seven years later, the Ruth Etting Effect will again brush by my life. You'll see.
I remember, mostly, a relentless beating-beating-beating (not beat-beat-beat) of about three hundred and twenty two tom-toms, and a throbbing South Sea Island War Chant sung by a chorus of at lest two million scantily clad people who were decked out in war paint and beads.
And I remember getting out of that place as fast as I could - just in time to throw every speck of the Chinese dinner up into the gutter at the edge of Radio City’s billion-light entry. I do not remember hearing or seeing the all-singing, all-dancing Radio City Music Hall Rockettes. But they were there, somewhere; hidden somehow in the mess.
The whole thing made me sick.
My life time vomiting average is roughly once every twenty years or less.
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Kings Canyon National Park in the Atomic Age
I have looked and thought and looked and sought the information that I feel necessary to finish out The Loudest Sound portion of our Kings Canyon vacation. And as of today, November 7, 2009, I think I've succeeded at last.
It was 1957.
Aside from the dry conditions and the disappointment that this was not Yosemite - not even close - the only thing I really remember about our trip to Kings Canyon is that this where I heard the Loudest Sound I've ever heard, not necessary decibe-lwise but in terms of total effect.
Mom and dad and Karen and Connie slept in our nifty canvas tent. With no rain expected, and no room, really, in the tent, Lainey and I slept under the canopy that served as a kind of covered front porch.
There was not a cloud in the clear blue morning sky when we heard the echo as it slammed against the dead-end canyon wall. We bolted from our cots and into the tent, scared half to death, while the rest of the campground also started this summer day with a start, to put it mildly.
Everyone wondered out loud from whence came that exceptionally loud and forceful "thunderclrap." The consensus was that it was the result of heat lightning, a pretty cool phenomenon in itself, and one that I would experience several times over the course of my travels.
The thunderclap arrived at 5:00 AM. I'm almost positive of that. The sky was in full light but the sun had not risen above the cliff-bound canyon horizon.
Everyone had pretty much been jolted awake simultaneously. Wide awake now, about an hour earlier than when the sun burst into the canyon on normal days. Up. Early. Awake. Excited. Or, to put it more aptly, in a more than somewhat unified state that was more akin to agitation than excitement.
We went about our day which, I believe was our last day in the Canyon. We headed home the next day, stopping at a gas-station-general-store before hitting the highway back toward civilization. The newpaper rack was freshly stocked with the morning edition of the paper: "A Bomb Test Successful" or something like that.
Riddle solved, to a mixture or relief and, for me at least, an equal measure of trepidation and wonderment.
The text below is lifted from the Department of Energy Atomic Test Archives web site:
Operation Plumbbob, conducted between May 28 and October 7, 1957, represented the biggest, longest, and most controversial test series in the history of the Nevada Test Site (NTS).
While most Operation Plumbbob tests contributed to the development of warheads for intercontinental and intermediate range missiles, they also tested air defense and antisubmarine warheads with small yields. Operation Plumbbob had the tallest tower tests to date in the U.S. nuclear testing program, as well as high-altitude balloon tests. One nuclear test involved the largest troop maneuver ever associated with U.S. nuclear testing.
Approximately 18,000 members of the U.S. armed forces participated in exercises Desert Rock VII and VIII during Operation Plumbbob. Their leaders were interested in knowing how the average foot-soldier would stand up, physically and psychologically, to the rigors of the tactical nuclear battlefield.
Studies were conducted of radiation contamination and fallout from a simulated accidental detonation of a weapon; and projects concerning earth motion, blast loading and neutron output were carried out.
Nuclear weapons safety experiments were conducted to study the possibility of a nuclear weapon detonation during an accident.
On July 26, 1957, a safety experiment, "PASCAL-A" was detonated in an unstemmed hole at NTS, becoming the first underground shaft nuclear test. The knowledge gained here would provide data to prevent any nuclear yields in accidents that actually did occur. Weapons were designed so they could not give a nuclear yield even in the event of a plane crash.
The first detonation contained underground, RAINIER, was conducted on September 19, 1957, containing all radioactive products underground, thus producing no fallout. This test of 1.7 kilotons could be detected around the world by seismologists using ordinary seismic instruments
The RAINIER test became the prototype for larger and more powerful underground tests. The test also subjected toughened weapons to the fireball underground.
The tests comprising the 1957 Operation Plumbbob were as follows:
BOLTZMAN, May 28, tower, weapons related, 12 kilotons (kt)
FRANKLIN, June 2, tower, weapons related, 140 tons
LASSEN, June 5, balloon, weapons related, 0.5 tons
WILSON, June 18, balloon, weapons related, 10 kt
PRISCILLA, June 24, balloon, weapons related, 37 kt
COULOMB-A, July 1, surface, safety experiment, zero yield
HOOD, July 5, balloon, weapons related, 74 kt
DIABLO, July 15, tower, weapons related, 17 kt
JOHN, July 19, rocket, weapons effects, about 2 kt
KEPLER, July 24, tower, weapons related, 10 kt
OWENS, July 25, balloon, weapons related, 9.7 kt
PASCAL-A, July 26, shaft, safety experiment, slight yield
STOKES, August 7, balloon, weapons related, 19 kt
SATURN, August 10, tunnel, safety experiment, zero yield
SHASTA, August 18, tower, weapons related, 17 kt
DOPPLER, August 23, balloon, weapons related, 11 kt
PASCAL-B, August 27, shaft, safety experiment, slight yield
FRANKLIN PRIME, August 30, balloon, weapons related, 4.7 kilotons
SMOKY, August 31, tower, weapons related, 44 kt
GALILEO, September 2, tower, weapons related, 11 kt
WHEELER, September 6, balloon, weapons related, 197 tons
COULOMB-B, September 6, surface, safety experiment, 300 tons
LAPLACE, September 8, balloon, weapons related, 1 kt
FIZEAU, September 14, tower, weapons related, 11 kt
NEWTON, September 16, balloon, weapons related, 12 kt
RAINIER, September 19, tunnel, weapons related, 1.7 kt
WHITNEY, September 23, tower, weapons related, 19 kt
CHARLESTON, September 28, balloon, weapons related, 12 kt
MORGAN, October 7, balloon, weapons related, 8 ktTake your pick from any of the italicized late-summer tests. That's the day we heard the loudest sound.
It would be more appropriate to call this section Niagara Falls, but that would be too straightforward. Oh, the falls were wonderful. We didn't ride the Maid Of The Mist, a gee-it-looks-tiny boat that carries passengers practically underneath the pounding water. But we did don raincoats and make our way first through tunnels and then, by way of what seemed to be rather rickety catwalks, finding ourselves looking the falls straight in the eye. Officially, this little adventure is called Niagara Falls "Cave of the Winds" tour on Goat Island.
This tunnel-catwalk affair is vividly brought to life in an extended scene between Joseph Cotten and Marilyn Monroe in 1953's Niagara, in which Rose Loomis (Monroe) is continually menaced by her husband, George (Cotten).
No, I didn't title this section "Niagara Falls" due to any contempt of the place. In fact, I paid more attention to Niagara Falls than anything else, ever, in my life so far. If I had Attention Deficit Disorder as a child, it would be hard to prove judging from the rapt attention I devoted to nature's things, big and small. Mostly big.
We departed the falls and marched on to the next leg of our Big Cross Country Trip of nineteen fifty something.
We stopped for gas in Buffalo or the city of Niagra, whichever is/was the cleanest. I think it was Niagara. Dad was first out and I followed, shoeless but wearing white socks. I ducked as his right hand swooped toward me on that way to what would have been a smack upside my head. Instead of ducking the blow entirely, I managed to slam my head against the corner of the open car door before following orders and getting back in, shoes or no, I was staying in the car.
The warm wet stuff was blood running down my face from the gash in my cabesa. On the emergency room. Four stitches. And a rather quiet ride toward our next stop: New York City. (See
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SECTIONS
Welcome to Gilfooleyland
SOUNDS
VIDEOS
THUMBNAILS
YOSEMITE
way back when,
people were allowed to
drive their cars
through this tree
and many trees
were on display
in a strange kind of
freakshow:
KINGS CANYON
BOMBS AWAY
NIAGARA FALLS
NOW i ASK YOU WHY THE SIGN
Seeing the USA in our Chevrolet
The Grand Canyon
Cedar Rapids Iowa
The Automat
Braintree Five Corners
An Amusement Park Without Rides
Freak Shows
Tiajuana
Side Trips
Pacific Ocean Park
Catalina
The Preacher in the Desert