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Following My Father: San Francisco

Second Year of College

By Caroni LombardPublished 3 years ago 29 min read
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While I was not still following my parents, and not living with them, there are two more years I want to tell you about when I still attended City College.

Isn't it interesting that I can remember my early life year by year, but after that years merge together in my memory. I recall phases, decades, but generally not individual years.

Abdul returned from Pakistan at the end of summer. He was unable to find a suitable marriage match for his younger sister.

The day finally came when he was to arrive at SFO. At the gate, when people started to come off the plane, it seemed an unbearably long time before I spotted Abdul. Then suddenly, my wait was finally over!

We collected his baggage, and lugged it onto the moving walkway to the parking garage. On the way to his apartment, we couldn't wait to get there and make love.

Before Abdul returned, I cleaned his apartment thoroughly. One evening when we sat down for dinner, Abdul thanked me for cleaning the floor.

This took me aback, and I paused while I figured out that he was not thanking me for my actual cleaning of the floor, which he didn't notice, but was referring to my long black skirt's having swept along the floor. The exchange left me feeling dismayed.

Over time, I worked up to taking 18 units a semester from the 12 I started with. Among my courses was shorthand. I figured it might help me find a better paying job in the future -- one that paid more than the $3 an hour I made at the Oxford Hotel.

As I had when Dad enrolled me at a business school for a typing class, I felt exceedingly bored. Plus, I was terrible at it; I just could not make all those squiggly symbols fast enough to keep up with the teacher's dictation.

Shorthand is still used by journalists and court reporters, who have to reach a pace of 100 words per minute. Some executive secretaries and personal assistants use it, as well.

I thought the art had disappeared. It has died off a lot. According to a blogger cited in an article in BBC News, "The art of shorthand doesn't just have one foot in the grave, it has the other planted firmly on a banana peel."

But, most of my courses were interesting to me. I enjoyed gaining more fluency in speaking German. I took a German literature class, as well. I took a course in multicultural literature. And, I loved anthropology.

Now, German literature has some strange imagery! At least, one writer did -- I can't remember his name. He used the imagery of rain as God's peeing on us. Eeew!

In multicultural literature, we read the Bhagvad Gita, a Hindu scripture that follows a dialogue between Krishna, an avatar of the god Vishnu, and the Pandava prince Arjuna. Arjuna faces a moral dilemma in relation to a religious war that will bring harm to his family. Krishna counsels him to act selflessly. This advice later inspired Mahatma Ghandi.

We read some Chinese literature, as well as that from other cultures.

My anthropology teacher was a young woman, and excellent. She made the course fascinating. She talked about our ethnocentrism, which we needed to fight against; instead, we should learn to appreciate and not judge other cultures. Each culture is the way it is because it works, she said.

We read The Forest People by Colin Turnbull. He lived among the Mbuti pygmies in the Congo for three years, and wrote about his personal experience with them. Such precious beings.

They have an egalitarian society. Men and women are valued equally. The only leaders are those men who are good hunters, and they keep their status while the hunt is happening. They are valued, but not treated differently than anyone else.

The pygmies are flexible people, who do not set rigid time limits. They seem to a happy people, who sing in rich contrapuntal melodies in rituals and while doing daily chores.

Their lives are centered around the forest, although there are other groups who live in swamps. They sometimes call the forest "mother" or "father," and regard it as the great protector. They believe that if bad things happen, like deaths of important tribe members, the forest must be asleep, so they engage in a ritual to wake it up called molimo.

Molimo is also the name of a trumpet they play during the ritual. It can be made of wood or bamboo, even a drainpipe. The important thing is the sound, which is an eerie mixture of trumpet and human voice.

In one regard, the pygmies are not egalitarian, and it pertains to the molimo: the horn is hidden from females, and only men attend the ritual.

There are still pygmies in the Congo, although some are enslaved by the Bantu. Many other threats exist, including deforestation, civil unrest, and gold mining.

The pygmies experience racial and cultural prejudice, even genocide. How can man be so cruel and inhumane at times?

Another of my courses was philosophy, which turned me off to the subject. The teacher gave dry lectures about dry philosophers. We were required to read (and lug around) a huge, heavy tome by David Hume. That is the only thing I remember about Hume or about the class!

Why couldn't the teacher have picked more relevant and easier to understand philosophers, like Walt Whitman, Rene Descartes, and Aristotle and Socrates?

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A funny thing happened one morning when I headed to school on Highway 101 from Abdul's apartment in Bernal Heights. Driving along, a man honked at me, pulled alongside, and pointed to my roof. When I got to school my coffee cup was up there!

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I was and always have been sensitive to my surroundings. If they are not esthetically pleasing, it disturbs me, and puts me on edge. One example of this is that whenever I drove along the freeway to the Oxford Hotel, in the distance was a huge abandoned building. Seeing it was unavoidable. The building was covered in bold graffiti, and occupied by homeless people. It made me shudder to know that some people had to live that way.

In those days, the prevailing attitude toward people who were homeless asserted they were either drunks or drug addicts. If those people used drugs and drank too much, it was their own fault they lived that way.

Sadly, the stigma and discrimination toward those with no home persists. Many people still feel little compassion for homeless people.

I think there are two main reasons for this: one, the emotional distance defends them against the thought that a person's life might become so out of control; and ignorance of the dynamics of addiction and mental illness.

Addiction does cause people's lives to be out of control. It causes changes in the brain that impede functioning, shifts in behavior and personality, and influence one's ability to quit using.

To stop using takes treatment, in most cases. Some addicts can quit by only going to AA or NA meetings, but they are rare.

Major mental illness, and for that reason are unable to function well, and their lives easily spin out of control.

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That fall, Khaliq's wife, Parveen, and their three adorable little boys, Azhar, Athar, and Ashar arrived. Khaliq had picked up a little English; Parveen spoke a little, too. They both picked it up quite easily.

Parveen had a round face, and a sweet and cheerful disposition. I loved her melodious voice.

Abdul rented them a tiny apartment in back of the building that was reachable through the garage. It was one large room, a small kitchen, and a bathroom.

When I visited Parveen, she served me strong tea with milk and sugar, and butter cookies from a round blue tin. Sometimes I took her to the market or shopping for clothes for the boys.

I loaned her my sewing machine and took her to a big discount fabric store on the top floor of a building on Mission Street, so she could make clothes for the family.

When Abdul and I drove with them, from the back seat came Azhar's three-year-old patter. When I asked Abdul what he said, he laughed and shrugged.

I loved the way Abdul and Parveen and Khaliq got such a kick out of the boys. In my family, it was not nearly as evident that my parents enjoyed us.

I realize I forgot to talk in my previous post about when Khaliq came from Pakistan. For some reason, he landed in Vancouver, not San Francisco. Abdul and I went up to fetch him.

We stayed in a motel downtown. Abdul rented the only car available at Hertz, an old VW Bug.

One night as I drove the car through dark streets on the other side of town, I made a left turn at an intersection. Not long after, a police car pulled me over. The cop told me I made an illegal left turn. He said there was a sign at the intersection prohibiting them.

I insisted he explain. The sign, he said, showed a diagonal red line cutting through a circle with a black arrow indicating a left turn.

Well, I had never seen any signs like that in California, and argued that I should not get a ticket. He gave me one, anyway.

Man, I resented that. It was the only moving violation I ever got to this day. When I got back to California, I wrote the court a letter, but it was to no avail. I had to pay the $18 ticket.

I did not like Vancouver. I found the downtown unfriendly, uninteresting, and cold. I hadn't realized that Canadians of that time (I don't know about now) regarded Pakistanis and East Indians the way prejudiced people here regard blacks.

Their attitudes stemmed from when the British colonized India. Later, when I was in London, there was the same kind of prejudice.

To make matters worse, when we got to the airport and went through customs, they refused to let me through because I was born in Canada and had nothing to show I was a US citizen!

Actually, at that point I had dual citizenship, as I had yet to declare my US citizenship.

After a long hassle, I was finally let through.

This wouldn't be the last time I would meet with a problem getting out of a country I really wanted to leave. But that's for another story.

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Abdul and I bought season tickets to the symphony. We had good discounts given our statuses as faculty and student.

On Thursday nights, we drove to the parking lot under Civic Center Plaza, then walked in the misty fog to Davies Symphony Hall on Van Ness along with crowds of other people.

We mounted the wide cement staircase, entered the brass doors, and climbed the stairs to the second tier of the balcony. We squeezed in front of other symphony lovers to get to our seats.

Abdul and I held hands as we listened rapturously to the music. The conductor was Seiji Ozawa, an energetic Japanese man with long, thick hair that moved as he led the orchestra.

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We celebrated Christmas at Sylvia and Bill's house. The way these gatherings went is that Mom and Dad bought the turkey and ham, and Sylvia cooked them.

Sylvia and Bill's large table was set with bone china place settings and serving dishes, elegant wine glasses and water glasses, and lovely silverware on a white linen tablecloth. Crystal candle holders and a centerpiece graced the center of the table.

After dinner we gathered in a circle in the living room and took turns opening presents. We oohed and aahed at each person's gift. The rotation was repeated until all gifts had been opened.

A disconcerting thing started that year. Bill stared longingly at me throughout the celebration. Naturally, this made me extremely uncomfortable. And, I worried for Bill that others would notice.

Sharon and Bill started having marital difficulties as soon as they moved to Danville, if not before. Bill tried everything to assuage Sharon when she complained, but she persisted in her negative assessment of him.

Truth was, in my opinion, Sharon was the problem. For one thing, much of it was related to her depression -- internalized and projected anger. She was particularly difficult to live with due to her agoraphobia and tendency to blame others for her problems.

Agoraphobia puts a lot of strain on people around the person, especially those in the immediate family. One has to accommodate the person's fears and need for help.

Bill got the brunt of it, but my nieces and I encountered problems, too. I already mentioned driving Sharon back and forth to the city, and how she did not consider her children's experience as they sat in the back seat while she bad mouthed Bill.

Another issue with agoraphobic people is their need to control everything. If you have ever lived with a controlling person, you understand what it is like. It is especially hard on children, whose self esteem and development of autonomy is affected. When children always have to accommodate a controlling parent, too much of their energy and focus has to be used up coping.

Granted, Sharon had a very hard time during that period. She did engage in therapy and in reading the literature in order to understand her condition. She worked hard, but took a long time for her to get over her agoraphobia and depression.

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On Fridays after dinner, usually at Tia Margarita's, Abdul and I often met friends or family to do something. We tried dancing at the bars along Clement Street in the Richmond, but the music was so godawful loud and the places so godawful crowded , we didn't stay long.

Once in a while we had dinner at a steakhouse in Ghirardelli Square. Oh man, did the smell of steak that permeated the misty night work up our appetites!

Ghirardelli Square, of course, is named after the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory. It is a huge brick commercial complex located on North Point Street across from the Maritime Museum. To walk up to the main plaza, you climb a flight of steps. The plaza is huge and bordered by shops and restaurants.

In the shops we marveled at the large, fanciful fabric kites, the unusual jewelry, cards, stationery, gifts, and wines, many from the Napa Valley. We bought chunks of milk chocolate from the Ghirardelli shop.

Ghirardelli Square is a converted woolen factory that "Domingo" Ghirardelli took over in 1889. In the early 1960s Ghirardelli Chocolate's manufacturing moved to Marin County. A group of San Franciscans feared that the factory would be torn down, so they bought it and opened the square in 1964.

When I was a kid my family drove by the square many times in our station wagon on our way to my sister Winnie's opera singing recitals. She took lessons from a retired opera singer named Mrs. Torey. This was before the square was converted. The chocolate wafting out smelled so appetizing and wonderful!

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After an evening spent downtown with my family, we usually all went to Bimbo's on Van Ness.

Bimbo's was famous for their hamburgers. We ordered the fat, juicy burgers, French fries, and hot fudge sundaes, my favorite.

In those days our conversations were cheerful and fun. Bill had a great sense of humor, as did Dad. They told jokes, something I have never been able to do.

I miss those days when my parents were alive and the family was together and close. Since then there have been periods of estrangement from Sharon, as there is now. All of us live in places far away from one another. Winnie won't talk on the phone due to her hearing loss, or use computers, so I haven't talked to her for years. We write letters, but it is not the same.

Dad's death changed our family dynamics, and each of us was coping with our own life events. My niece Joyce, for example, had a psychotic break during her first year at San Francisco State. She felt angry and alienated from her mother, and came to me for help and support.

Sharon and Bill went through a conflictual divorce just prior to Joyce's illness. She felt estranged and angry at her father, too.

Throughout her terrible illness, Joyce went through periods when she stopped her medication and became paranoid and hostile, sometimes suicidal. It wasn't until I was doing an internship that I began to learn about major mental health disorders. Prior to that I made a lot of mistakes with Joyce.

If you have ever had a relative whose become psychotic, you know how difficult it is.

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Sometimes on weekends we met a couple Abdul knew. He met the woman at City College when she was a student. She was a tall, gorgeous, blond Swedish woman. Her boyfriend was a tall, dark-haired Swedish-American guy.

When they became engaged, we took them for lunch at a seafood restaurant over the water in Sausalito. Later, we went with them to the Heath stoneware outlet, where they picked out their dish set. They were nice enough, but, as with other of Abdul's friends, I found it difficult to know what to say. They all seemed so sophisticated and accomplished compared to me, I felt intimidated and barely spoke a word.

I definitely went through a shy period during my relationship with Abdul. The only times I freely expressed myself was him or with my friends or my family.

Even now I tend to be reserved. I understand that other people often experience quiet people as aloof, even disinterested or judgmental. I make every effort to let others know that I feel friendly and open and interested. And I try to engage them in conversation if I can.

Most people in public look so blank, even unhappy. This has bothered me since I was a kid. On trips I looked out the car window as we drove along the freeway. While passing cars it upset me to see the drivers look so serious and unhappy.

One effect of the self-absorption of people in public is that they don't acknowledge most other people's existence. At City College I felt the impact of this when people I was previously introduced to failed to recognize me. I began to wonder if I were invisible. Not a good feeling.

My self esteem suffered during my childhood, which accounted for some of my shyness. One afternoon as I sat in the student union, a journalist with a camera approached and asked if he could interview me. I just shook my head no.

I would have loved to be interviewed and asked my opinion about something. I would have loved to have my picture in the paper. In that case, I made myself invisible.

Now I view it as my civic responsibility to smile kindly at people. I smile especially broadly at children. Most children do not smile back anymore, but look at me blankly. I imagine it has to do with parents warning them that strangers might be dangerous. And/or maybe it's a reflection of the alienation that now plagues our country.

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When we went to North Beach to meet friends, or my family for dinner at the Basque Hotel, we often drove by the Condor on Broadway. The Condor was famous for being the topless bar that featured Carol Doda. She was a woman with extraordinarily large breasts, and did not mind flaunting them. She became very successful.

Carol Doda

Now, I had issues with breasts, as you know if you read about my childhood. My mother was large-breasted, and my parents were very proud of the fact. After my sisters left home, Dad started fondling Mom's breasts as she walked around making breakfast in the nude.

My sister Winnie was enamored of the early sixties' style of pointy bras. She became large-breasted herself. Could it have been the bra? Ha!

I, on the other hand, was small-breasted until after I had my son in my late twenties. I felt self-conscious about it, even though I would not have wanted to carry around those heavy things. But, they were such a social-sanctioned ideal that it was difficult to be small-breasted.

Other men I'd been involved with seemed to find me perfectly sexy with my small breasts. One night I discovered that Abdul was evidently not. As we lay on his king size bed in the nude, he said, "You have the smallest breasts I have ever seen."

"Well, thanks a lot," I said, and got up.

I think that was the only insult I experienced from Abdul.

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The Native American movement for rights began in San Francisco Bay in 1969 when a group called Indians of All Tribes (IOTA) sailed wooden boats to Alcatraz. They occupied the island for a month demanding that Alcatraz be returned to them.

The Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1869 ordered that federal lands that were out-of-use be returned to the Indians who once occupied them. Alcatraz was declared surplus federal property in 1964, as it was no longer used as a penitentiary.

Native American protests became common in San Francisco in those days. More power to them.

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On rare sunny and hot weekends, Abdul and I sunbathed on the roof of his building while he graded and I studied. All through college and grad school I studied whenever possible, and got good grades as a result.

Well, I did not get great grades in a few subjects. Until I took poetry for English 1B, I thought I liked poetry, but when it came to the discipline of iambic pentameter, and so on, it turned me off.

Sometimes we took advantage of good weather to go on family picnics. We went to Tilden Park in the hills of Berkeley or attended Sunday concerts at Stern Grove

We often joined my parents on the roof of the Golden Gateway, where there was a lawn. After we ate, Dad sat on a bench while Mom and we sat on the lawn to sunbath and talk. I, of course, took my textbooks with me, but often fell asleep in the luxurious sun.

I don't know where I found the time to crochet. I even made myself a bathing suit! There's a picture of me wearing it on that rooftop.

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Another favorite family excursion was to the Palace of the Legion of Honor. It stands on a headland on the west end of the city. It is a gorgeous building that was completed in 1924 and opened on Armistice Day.

In 1915 Alma Spreckels, the wife of the sugar magnate Adolph, persuaded her husband to build the museum after seeing a replica of the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur in Paris at the Panama Pacific International Exposition.

The Palace displays an astonishing collection of art, including ancient works from Egypt, the Near East, Greece, and Rome. These include sculptures, figurines, vessels, jewelry, and carved reliefs.

At the Palace is also displayed European art, mostly French, including Auguste Rodin's sculptures and casts of them. The Thinker stands outside in the Court of Honor.

Inside the Palace are displayed works by El Greco, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Boucher, David, Tiepolo, Gainsborough and many of the Impressionists and post-Impressionists—Degas, Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Seurat, Cézanne, van Gogh and others.

Many of the rooms are lavish, complete with gilded features.

The Salon Dore

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That year Sharon developed agoraphobia. She also started treatment for weight loss at a clinic near Stonestown. She couldn't drive, especially across the Bay Bridge, so I consented to picking her up twice a week.

I drove to Danville, about 35 miles away once I drove through the city, picked up Sharon and my nieces, and took her to her appointment that was way back across town near Stonestown. It distressed me no end that as Joyce and Deanna sat in the backseat, Sharon talked about all her perceived problems with their dad.

Joyce and Deanna had become quiet children. Sharon did not treat them very well in those days, something they confided in me about later. Once in a while, I looked over my shoulder and smiled at them.

The same thing happened on the way back to Danville. There we ate dinner and I stayed overnight, sleeping on a twin bed in a funny little room that lay down a flight of steps between the living room and the hall.

Leaving early, I took along a scrambled egg sandwich and a cup of coffee, and hoped to make it to an early class.

It's hard to believe I kept a schedule like that. Between school, work, studying, spending time with Abdul and my family, folk dancing, and driving Sharon back and forth to Danville, I don't know how I did it.

________________

In Parkmerced, I became concerned about Winnie. Since leaving John, she seemed to be awfully depressed. I could see her as she left the house for work; as she walked, she looked hunched over as she gazed at the sidewalk.

Sylvia and Winnie started therapy at St Mary's Medical Center. It was recommended by Sylvia's psychiatrist that we attend family therapy. We met in a large room and sat in a circle. The two therapists asked pointed questions having to do with family relationships.

Unused to therapy, I felt exceedingly uncomfortable. Mom answered in a defensive, superficial manner. The discussion seemed to point at dynamic involving Mom and Dad. When I was asked to comment, I burst out, "I don't want to hate my parents!"

Dad, who always hated psychiatrists, was hostile. He sat with his arms crossed, and refused to answer questions. We knew that family therapy was not going to work.

________________

Abdul and I visited a friend of his from Case Western who lived with his wife at a private school way out Highway 89 that heads north from the Truckee area in the Sierras.

Rustic cabins were set around a grassy square. Their cabin was two-story with a couple of small bedrooms upstairs.

They had gutted the living area for remodeling. It left a strange space, with beams standing along a line in the middle.

It was cold in that uninsulated place when we visited them in the winter. We rushed through getting undressed at night and dressed in the morning.

On the way home I became annoyed at how Abdul took his foot off the gas pedal, then put it back on as we drove along the highway. It caused the car to slow down, then speed up, slow down, speed up.

I said nothing, as I did not want to provoke a fight. When Abdul and I had an argument it often escalated into yelling. I wasn't fond of arguing, as I am not now.

One night we went to a party in his friend's apartment near the UC Medical Center. The building was perched on a steep street. The car was parked perpendicularly to the sidewalk at a slant.

On the way out we got into an argument. I refused to get in the car. Abdul got so angry, he said, "You move me to violence!"

I got in the car and he let the door slam shut with the force of the hill. That's the most violent argument we ever had. Abdul never would hurt me physically. None of my boyfriends or husbands ever did. That's one thing I would never put up with.

________________

Sometimes I accompanied Abdul when he had to get his car serviced. City life can be so inconvenient. He took it to a garage on Mission Street, way downtown.

The reason I'm telling you this is that I want to talk about the one thing I really did not like about Abdul.

When he dealt with service people, whether they be mechanics or servers in restaurants, he was often rude. The norm in my family, and the way I felt was right, was to treat people with kindness and respect.

When Abdul was curt and inconsiderate -- strange, because ordinarily he was gracious -- it distressed and embarrassed me. I felt like saying to the person, "Excuse my boyfriend. I don't know why he's treating you that way, but know that I don't like it."

A couple of years later I came to understand a bit more about Abdul's attitude when I traveled to Pakistan. Even middle class people have servants there. While the servants are usually treated kindly, they are not regarded as equals. People often treat them in a patronizing manner.

Perhaps some of it originated in India before partition. Maybe the Muslims took on attitudes found in Hindu society where people are divided into castes. Lower castes are looked down upon.

In Pakistan, there was the feeling that people with whiter skin were more attractive, and perhaps superior to, those with darker skin tones. Servants most often had darker skin tones. The discrimination in relation to skin color may harken back to prejudices found in India's caste system. It would be interesting to study the subject.

Isn't it curious how dark-skinned people are so often the target of discrimination? Where did that come from originally, I wonder.

________________

That summer Abdul took me on a trip back east. Our first stop was Lancaster, Pennsylvania to visit his friends. The Geisselmans sponsored Abdul when he first came to the US. He was very grateful for their help in adapting to our culture, so different from his own.

I learned firsthand how different life was in Pakistan a year later. I will talk about that in another story.

The Geisselmans lived in a large Colonial house in an upscale neighborhood. The couple lived with the wife's mother, their teenage son, and a college-age daughter.

The Geisselmans had us sleep in separate bedrooms. I guess our sleeping together when we were not married offended their Christian values. That night Abdul woke me up to have me join him. I snuck from my perfect, frilly bedroom to another where Abdul slept. I worried all night about the Geisselmans discovering us, despite Abdul's reassurances that they would not.

They took us on a tour of the nearby Amish community. The countryside, with its rolling hills, quaint farms, bright green fields, and horse-drawn buggies was just enchanting.

We went to an Amish fair that was held in a large, open tent. Long tables set in rows held wondrous foods, such as scrapple, Dutch cabbage rolls, chicken corn soup, and butter noodles.

Scrapple is made of scraps of meat, such as pork, that is stewed with cornmeal, then shaped into loaves. The loaves are sliced and fried.

Shoofly pie is a traditional, sweet, and rich dessert. Here are the ingredients from a recipe in the 1896 cookbook Housekeeper's Scrapbook: flour, sugar, dark brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, unsalted butter, molasses, water, baking soda, and a pie crust.

The strongly molasses-flavored filling is overlaid by a crumb topping.

________________

One night the Geisselmans also took us to a towel outlet. Tables were piled high with folded towel sets, many of which had different designs than we could find in California. Abdul and I bought a set with raised paisley designs.

From Lancaster we drove in our rental car to Rochester, New York. Abdul's friend from Pakistan was finishing up his medical training. He lived in a small basement apartment with a row of windows along the top of the wall.

His girlfriend was a tall blond woman who was friendly and outgoing. She worked in the medical profession, as well.

The heat in Rochester was oppressive. The high humidity under overcast skies combined to make it a depressing environment for me. I was glad when we left and traveled to Ithaca, where another of Abdul's Pakistani friends taught at Cornell University.

Cornell's campus is gorgeous. Brick buildings are scattered around green lawns. Bebe Lake and Fall Creek run along the property. The Cornell Botanical Gardens are nearby.

Cornell University

From Ithaca we traveled to Albany to visit another of Abdul's friends who taught engineering at the University of Albany. He and his wife lived in a split level house in a quiet neighborhood near the campus.

Like all the Pakistani families I met, they were gracious hosts, offering us tea and an assortment of spicy foods.

From Albany we headed to Lake Champlain. On the way, I talked to a girl from Canada who was swimming in the same motel pool. When she learned I was from the states, she said, "Aren't you afraid to live there? It is so dangerous with all the guns."

She should see it now.

We took a boat up to the lake along the long, narrow extension that's more like a river. The boat sailed past gorgeous green forests.

Lake Champlain is huge! It is 107 miles long, 14 miles at its widest point, and 400 feet deep.

Lake Champlain has six lighthouses. Lake Champlain Bridge is 2,200 feet long.

It would make a great vacation destination because of its natural beauty, many things to do, and all its history. Fort Ticonderoga is there. It was built by the French between 1755 and 1757 as an outpost during the French and Indian War. Later, it was used during conflicts between Great Britain and France, and in our Revolutionary War.

Another feature that sounds wonderful is Ausable Chasm. It is a two-mile gorge that is over 10 million years old. There are caves to explore, waterfalls to hike to, mountain biking trails, rafting, and many more things to see and do.

Ausable Chasm

We headed to Niagara Falls after Lake Champlain. That was really something! The roar of those beautiful waterfalls is quite deafening.

It's exciting (and wet!) to don big yellow slickers and hats and take an elevator down to a viewing area under the falls.

We returned to San Francisco a week before school started. I was glad for once for the cool weather!

The next year, and the last one I will talk about in this story, held a lot of excitement, adventure, and sorrow.

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About the Creator

Caroni Lombard

As a child my family moved often. In my story, I share that experience; what it was like and how we coped.

But my story is not just for those who share my experience of growing up in a highly mobile family. It's for anyone who's human.

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