Father, Son and the Pennine Way

One morning in early June, I woke up in Troutbeck, England -- near Windermere lake in the Lake District.  I had hiked there from Grasmere the day before, in beautiful early summer weather, and had eaten a great dinner at The Mortal Man pub.  My hike through Westmorland had just two more days to go.

But hark!  Was that rain I now heard outside my window?  Not just rain, a downpour.  It rained all through breakfast, it rained and soaked through my windbreaker within minutes of my stepping out the door.  It rained all day -- I mean it poured -- as I walked the fifteen miles to my next night's stop in Kendal.  The raindrops pounded on my phone screen, changing the page as I tried to consult a map.  In fact, the phone finally slipped from my cold fingers, fell to the ground, and suffered a serious screen fracture.

But my 15-mile hike was on level ground.  Where the designated path now passed through rain-drenched bogs, I cheated and followed roads.  Half way to Kendal, I stopped at a café for a perfectly nice lunch.  It was a wet day, but not a debilitating day.  But it gave me some appreciation for Mark Richards's sufferings as described in his humorous and moving account of a novice's introduction to hiking, Father, Son, and the Pennine Way (2016).

The Pennine Way has been described as the oldest official hiking trail -- and one of the toughest -- in England.  It runs 268 miles up the spine of England from northern Derbyshire to a point just across the Scottish border. 

Mark's hiking background?  Unimpressive.   His age was 61, and he weighed 232 pounds before he began training.   He had walked his dog four miles along the beach.  But his youngest son Alex was 17, soon bound for university and, Mark feared, a less close relationship with his father.  Therefore, in February, with some trepidation he nervously asked Alex the question:

"Do you want to come for a walk with me?"

"With Pepper?  I'm busy ..."

"No, not with the dog.  Further than that.  The Pennine Way.  5 days: 80 miles.  In the summer holidays."  ...

Alex looks at me.  He shrugs.  "Sure," he says.  "Why not?"

Fortunately, they were not attempting the entire Pennine Way path.  They hiked from Malham in North Yorkshire north to Dufton in Cumbria (historically in Westmorland) (just 3.7 miles from Appleby, where I began my own Westmorland hike).  But they were averaging over 16 miles per day.  Their last day was their longest, at 23.77 miles.  I may have hiked 23 miles in one day, but I can't remember when.  By comparison, on my hike through Westmorland in 2017, I was averaging just 12 miles per day, with little elevation gain.

Mark makes quite a point of the climbs involved in their hike.  The elevation gains don't seem particularly impressive, by American standards, but some of them -- notably their first day climb up Pen y Ghent -- do seem steep.  And Mark obviously suffered from a certain amount of acrophobia, as well as a bum knee.

But it wasn't just the daily mileage and the elevation gains that made their hike impressive.  Overlying those little difficulties was the fact that -- in August -- it rained constantly every day.  And when it wasn't raining, they were wading through thick fog.  I recall how demoralizing just one day of hiking in torrential rains was for me in 2017.

The author emphasizes that his book is not a guide to the Pennines (although it contains some interesting information for potential hikers), and is not aimed at experienced hikers.  Besides being a travel guide, it is at least as much a love story between a father and his teenaged son.  Alex was experienced with hiking as part of England's Duke of Edinburgh awards program, and he often found himself rolling his eyes at his father's blunders.  But the mutual affection between the two was obvious.  You don't survive in good spirits five days of exhausting hiking, being wet, losing your way, sinking into bogs, and falling to the ground and breaking your fingers -- without killing each other -- in the absence of mutual respect and affection.

I had all the respect in the world for the father -- a newbie who had bittem off almost more than he could chew.  But I also admired Alex, who maintained his sense of humor throughout -- and who willingly admitted his own mistake the one time he was seriously wrong about directions.  Their conversations while hiking were humorous and intelligent.  They made great hiking companions.  As Mark concludes:

Because he's like me in so many ways, he understood that the walk wasn't just about walking.  He understood it was an internal journey for me as much as an external journey; that talking to Custard-and-Ice-Cream, breakfast at Tan Hill and saying 'thank you' as we walked down from High Cup Nick was every bit as important as reaching Dufton.

And he was funny.  We kept each other amused.  We were pals.  He stole my  joke, but I'll forgive him that.

Would he do it again?  No, he says.

It was a one-off.  I don't want to spoil the memories.  As long as I live I want to keep the image of Alex walking up the hill into Dufton and the setting sun.

But two years later, after Alex had completed his A-levels and his first year at the University of Edinburgh, they paired up again for the final portion of the Pennine Way, from Dufton to the Scottish border.  Another hundred miles.  There's a book, of course.  I may have to read it.

Trains in the Time of Covid

So, casting aside my doubts, with Pfizer as my shield and my credit card as my sword, I plunged once more into interstate travel, leaving behind the security of my self-isolation at home.  

In other words, yes, as previously announced, I traveled by train this past weekend from Seattle to San Francisco.  What's train travel like today, while Covid-19 still stalks the land?

Pretty good, actually.

First of all, despite increased travel as the result of increased vaccination, my train was quite uncrowded.  While the three sleeper cars seemed to be fairly full, my impression was that the coaches had plenty of room. 

The most noticeable difference from pre-pandemic days was the meal service.  And I can speak only for those of us in the sleepers, for whom, as always, meals are included in the price of the ticket.  Coach passengers were able to purchase food in a Café car (no cash accepted, cards only).

Shortly after departure from Seattle at 9:45 a.m., an attendant came by each room taking orders for lunch.  A menu, provided in each room, offered a number of interesting choices.  I ordered chicken fettuccini (photo above), with a glass of Chardonnay (the first alcoholic beverage of the trip was free).  A green salad, and a roll with butter were included.  I chose a vanilla pudding for dessert.  I had the option of having the meal brought to my room, or eating in the diner.  I ate lunch in my room, but decided it would be more fun for my subsequent meals to eat in the diner.  

The lunch was quite good.  Because of the pandemic, meals are heated but not prepared in the diner.  But these were not frozen meals from a supermarket.  I suspect they had been put together in a restaurant -- the ingredients tasted fresh and nicely-cooked, and the meal was served hot.

My order was later taken for dinner.  This time, I asked for a 7 p.m. sitting in the diner, which was available.  At 7, I walked into the diner, and was told to choose my own table.  I found that every other table was closed off, for safe distancing purposes.  The tables lacked the linen table cloths and napkins of a traditional train dining car -- in appearance, it was more like being seated at Denny's.

The biggest change from "normal" was that, as a single diner, I was not seated at a table with three other guests.  Each party, whether a party of one or a party of four, was seated at a separate table.  The meal was waiting for me, and was served promptly.  (I had braised beef served in a wine sauce, with polenta and broccoli, and a glass of Cabernet.)   

Breakfast the next morning was more casual.  I was facing an 8 o'clock arrival in Emeryville (where an Amtrak bus awaited, to carry San Francisco-bound passengers across the Bay), and so I wandered into the dining car at an early hour, and seated myself at an empty table.  The diner offered a cheese omelet, but I (like most diners around me) chose something lighter -- orange juice, oatmeal, and a blueberry muffin.  And, of course, coffee!

I've always been a bit ambivalent about the traditional dining experience on trains.  With one or more fellow travelers, the traditional service is great.  But traveling alone, I've usually felt somewhat awkward sitting with three strangers at a table -- especially if the three strangers are traveling together.  On the other hand, I generally have had very enjoyable conversations with my table mates, once the initial ice was broken.  I conclude that folks who ride trains are pretty likable people -- whether retired or students or any age in between.  They have interesting back stories, and are usually curious enough about me to permit good mealtime conversations.

On the other hand, the pandemic is the pandemic, and Amtrak has done the best it could to make the dining experience enjoyable.  I understand that Amtrak is experimenting on some shorter routes with eliminating the dining car and serving all sleeping car passengers in their rooms.  DON'T DO IT, AMTRAK!   There's nothing like sitting at a table, dividing your attention between your table mates and the amazing things flying past you outside the window.  I suspect most train passengers have chosen the train neither for its speed nor for its economy -- airlines are both faster and cheaper -- but for the experience.  I certainly do.

I was on the train for about 22 hours.  I was never bored.  I brought books on my Kindle to pass the time.  I hardly looked at them.  I was staring out the window with fascination -- staring at everything from the scenic, snow-covered beauty of the Cascades, to the farm country of the Sacramento river valley, to the sad colonies of tented homeless people often lining the tracks from Portland to Eugene.

A cross section of today's America.  An experience well worth 22 hours of my time.    I could happily have extended my ride by another 22 hours. 

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P.S. -- The train arrived in Emeryville exactly on schedule!

"Good morning, America, how are you?"

 

A little over twelve hours until I depart Seattle's King Street Station on the Coast Starlight.  I probably wouldn't be as excited if it didn't represent an end to fifteen months of being confined to quarters, as it were.  Travel, yes!  Trains, yes!  Freedom, yes!

This photo shows the Coast Starlight passing Mount Shasta in northern California.  Unfortunately, it will be the wee hours of Sunday morning when we roar down this stretch of track.  But that's ok.  Plenty of daytime scenery earlier, crossing the Cascades during the three-hour stretch from Eugene to Chemult.  And the entire Willamette valley south of Portland is certainly scenic, in a different, valley-like way.

I'll be back from my mini-vacation (micro-vacation?) Sunday night.  Hopefully, with fresh material to discuss on this blog -- I've been a lazy idler this past week.

Cold-blooded murder

Castor and Pollux, my now ten-month-old black cats, are so cute and cuddly and loving that I tend to forget one important fact.

Cats are predators.

All five of my previous cats, over the many years that I had them, occasionally brought a mouse or small bird, dead or alive, inside the house for my inspection and approbation.  I gritted my teeth each time, and learned to live with it.  But, in contrast with my earlier cats, my Gemini boys are wild, crazy teenagers (in cat years).  The night is full of game.    And they love to hunt.

They have developed a habit of sleeping all day and staying out all night.  I feel like a human parent who sees his teenaged sons only at mealtime.

My cats don't hunt because they're hungry, of course.  Domestic cats rarely do.  They hunt for sport, with the same stomach-turning joy as does Jared Kushner -- the jerk who stands proudly, grinning at the camera over a dead elephant.  Over the past few weeks, they've brought me two tiny birds -- one dead, the other dying -- and a tiny rabbit so small that I mistook it at first for a large mouse.

These were just warm-up exercises.  This morning I woke up with Castor working over a struggling robin beside my bed.  The robin was still alive, barely, and I took him outside to an out-of-the-way, brushy area of my back yard.  I knew he wouldn't live, but I figured that I should at least give him a chance.  A couple of hours later, Castor returned with the now dead robin and deposited it triumphantly on the living room floor.

I discovered not only feathers beside my bed, but in great profusion in the guest bedroom, where my brave Castor had apparently attempted to administer the coup de grace before bringing his trophy to my bedside.  I got even with the cats (Pollux was actually innocent of this particular outrage) by dragging out the vacuum -- the very sight of which caused them to dash for the cat door.

A final curious incident to wrap up this depressing story.  I later heard a crow cawing its head off in front of the house.  I went outside and discovered Castor sitting in the yard, looking unconcerned, and the crow frantically yelling at him from the top of a tree.  I led Castor inside, and the cawing stopped immediately.  I later discovered a huge mound of robin feathers, directly under the crow's tree.  The protracted murder itself had happened hours earlier, but apparently had begun with an attack at this very spot.  

The crow, acting as prosecutor or district attorney, had discovered the scene of the crime, and was shouting "J'accuse!" at Castor -- demanding the cat's confession and punishment.  

Castor shrugged.  "I couldn't help it," he muttered.  "It's my nature." 

Trip to nowhere

On January 21, 2020, I flew back to Seattle from Burbank Airport in California.  I had been visiting my brother and his family in Oxnard, together with a night's visit with an old friend in La Habra.  It was the last time I've been outside the State of Washington.  

In fact -- aside from August's five-hour round-trip drive north to Newhalem, to take possession of two kittens, it was the last time I've been outside the Seattle city limits.

Me!  The restless traveler!  The world-roaming fool!  Such have been the horrors of the pandemic -- horrors from my parochial perspective, at least.

Next week that changes.  It changes in a way that would be very odd for anyone, anyone but me.  Because I've done the same thing before.  Other times, when the urge to go somewhere, anywhere, has overridden my sense of rationality, not to mention my sense of financial probity.

Oh, no! -- the more astute of you exclaim.  You're not doing it again?

Yup.  The train trip to nowhere.

On Saturday, April 24, I'll leave Seattle on Amtrak's Coast Starlight at 9:45 a.m.  After a transfer at Emeryville to an Amtrak-provided bus ride across the Bay, I'll arrive in San Francisco at 9:05 a.m. on Sunday.  I'll fly out of SFO on Alaska Airlines at 3:35 p.m., arriving back at Sea-Tac at 5:40 p.m.

That would give me about five hours in San Francisco before I need to reach the airport.  Assuming -- never an easy assumption -- that the train arrives on schedule.  My nephew and his wife live in San Francisco, and, together with a couple of their friends, we plan to have lunch together.  

Contingent, again, on Amtrak's not hauling in four hours late, as it's been known to do.  It's not Amtrak's fault -- it's at the mercy of the private railroads that own the rails and call the shots.

In any event, I'll be away from home (cheers!) and ensconced for 24 hours in a roomette (more cheers!), and will feel much happier upon my return.  As will my two cats, who will have been left alone overnight for the first time since they took up residence in my household.

Then I can start making plans for my next trip.  A trip not to nowhere, but to somewhere.

Charley

The steamroller painting sits upstairs, on the floor of my guest room, leaning against a wall.  Not on display.  I'm not sure how long it's been there, or why I put it there.  But there it sits.  

I've glanced at it occasionally, absent-mindedly, as I walked by, but today I looked at it carefully.  It's actually a rather revolting painting, a brutal painting of a piece of heavy equipment.  In the background is a non-descript maintenance building at my university. 

Of course, there's a story behind the painting.

The painter was my roommate.  Charley.  Charley and I roomed together for one quarter only, the first quarter of my sophomore year.  Freshmen were, for the most part, all housed in freshman dormitories, with other freshmen.  Once past the freshman year, we were thrown in with members of other classes -- whether in fraternities, eating clubs, or dorms .

I was a shy introvert.  My freshman roommate had been a bit more social, but also an introvert.  He was an engineering student, but also a lover of classical music.  We got along fine.

Rooming with Charley as a sophomore was a different experience.  Charley's primary interests were drinking (often in our room), and accompanying his own singing on the guitar (badly).  I think of good old Charley whenever I hear someone sing "House of the Rising Sun."  It goes without saying that Charley was a slob, and that our room was a mess.  He was a year ahead of me, and clearly regarded me as something of a nuisance.  His friends would drop by frequently before dinner for a "cocktail hour" -- a euphemism. My presence at my desk was ignored.

I rebelled finally when one night, about midnight, he woke me up and said his "girl friend" wanted to spend the night with him -- would I mind going somewhere else?  He did take my refusal philosophically, with quiet resignation.

We were not ideal roommates.   It was the same quarter during which I was undergoing a religious conversion.  Like many young people with newly developed interests in religion, I was a bit Manichean in my instincts.  I saw things in terms of black and white.  Worse, I saw people in terms of good or bad, worthwhile or worthless.

Despite our unsuitability as roommates, I regret not having gotten to know Charley better.  We would never have been buddies, but he wasn't worthless.

Charley, admittedly, was crude and vulgar.  At age 20, many young guys are crude and vulgar, and I, for my part, was unnecessarily prim and prudish.  Despite his lack of gentility, however, and an apparently limited amount of artistic talent,  Charley had bravely enrolled in a painting class that quarter.  He had a growing stack of completed canvases on his side of the room.  

Total barbarians don't paint, badly or otherwise.

He had a painting of a young woman, presumably his girlfriend, that he worked on all quarter.  Her countenance changed radically from week to week, depending -- I gather -- on how their relationship was developing.  Sometimes, she looked almost attractive.  Other times, demonic.

But wait, there's more.  He also was entranced by medieval Japanese poetry.  In translation, of course.  He would read bits of it to me and ask me, "Isn't that cool?"  He was reading medieval Japanese poetry because he was taking a class in medieval Japanese poetry, but doesn't even his choice of class say something good about him?  And he wasn't just showing up for class to get a grade.  He dug it.  Something in medieval Japanese poetry appealed to his soul.  Yes, he had a soul.   

But I couldn't see the artist in him, or the (possible) poet.  I couldn't see past the booze and the odd hours and the cussing.  Charley didn't stick around beyond the first quarter.  Looking back, I don't really blame him.  He  offered me a choice of his paintings as a farewell present.  No, not the young woman, he sighed, but any of the other ones.

I chose the steamroller.

After we broke for Christmas, I never heard from him again.  He left the entire dorm, not just my room.  But he didn't leave the university.  I looked him up in the alumni directory just today.  He graduated on schedule.  He's still alive, and living in Las Vegas.

Toward the end of our quarter together, Charley talked to me about his family.  He had two younger siblings.  Somewhat wistfully, he recalled that when they were young, his dad would call the three kids "Mairzy Doats," and "Dozy Doats," and "Liddle Lamzy Divey."  

He was Mairzy Doats.  While telling me the story, he sounded like he sometimes wished he were still Mairzy Doats.  At the time, I found it hard to imagine Charley as Mairzy Doats, but that's how I now like to remember him.  

America and Iran: A History

I suspect that any average American who visits Iran for the first time is impressed by the friendliness, openness, and sense of humor of the average Iranian.  Our own press has prepared us to encounter a closed, hostile society, something along the lines of Soviet Russia.  Despite the hostility of our respective governments, however, Americans and Iranians tend to enjoy each other's company.

How did it all go so wrong diplomatically?

Iranian-born writer John Ghazvinian -- who earned his Ph.D. from Oxford, and who writes for a number of influential American magazines -- has tried to answer that question in his recently-published book,  America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present (2021).

Ghazvinian begins the heart of his study with the appearance of Protestant missionaries in northwestern Iran in the 1830s, and gives a detailed account of the generally high esteem in which America and Americans were held for many years.  Iran was a weak power, under continuing pressure from both Russia and Britain for favors and "capitulations" -- similar to the demands made by the colonial powers on China.  America appeared to be an idealistic new power with little interest in or ambitions toward  Iran.  Iran hoped that a close friendship with America would help avoid partition of their country between the two large European powers.

The subsequent story has been sad and increasingly tragic.

America's fall from grace dates most memorably from 1953 when, under pressure from Britain and its Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the CIA joined in undermining the popular and liberal government of Mohammad Mossadegh.  I have a vague memory of this episode from my childhood.  I was under the impression -- an impression fostered by the CIA -- that Mossadegh was a Communist.  He wasn't.  From Ghazvinian's description, he was in fact the very sort of democratically-supported ruler that America purported to support in every nation.  Except when oil was involved.  

Because the Mossadegh government had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian assets in Iran.

Americans have forgotten that episode, and how it restored to absolute power the Pahlavi Shah.  Iranians never have.

The Shah ruled -- increasingly despotically -- as a firm American ally until 1979, when he was overthrown by a popular revolution, backed by devout Muslims, Western-oriented liberals, and extreme left-wing radicals.  Since that date, Iran has become an Islamic Republic, with government functions divided between an elected president and a religious ruler (the ayatollah).  

In the last half of his book, Ghazvinian describes in detail the times since 1979 that our two countries have come close to resolving their differences.  Each time, the attempt failed because of conservative and religious opponents in Iran, Republican and conservative and/or hawkish Democratic opponents in America, and the strong diplomatic efforts of Israel (and to a lesser degree, and with different motivation, Sunni Arab states) to avoid any successful reconciliation between the two.

If Iran has been willing to forget that America supported Iraq's Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran from 1980-88 -- a war that devastated Iran and cost it about a quarter million deaths -- America can surely forget that an Iranian mob held 52 Americans hostage in 1979.  

The book is long and complex, but Ghazvinian is a good writer, and writes in a colloquial, non-academic style.  The book is aimed at the average reader, although it will no doubt be of interest to academic readers as well.

Budapest 1999

Transcribing my 1999 travel journal from Prague last week was so much fun that I'm jumping ahead and now giving you Budapest.  I'm being self-indulgent (and avoiding composing an original essay), so feel free to skip reading this post, and await my next exercise in actual creative writing.

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Thursday, September 16 -- 8:45 p.m.
Budapest

Sitting in the basement bar, having a beer, at what certainly is the strangest hotel I've stayed at on this trip.  But let's start at the beginning.

***

Up this morning [in Vienna] and took the subway to the Westbahnhof to catch my 8:30 train.  Arrived in Budapest about 11:30 and found what I suppose was the official accommodations desk.  A single man stuck back in a niche of the station in an area he shared with loud rock music and several young black guys playing arcade games.  (Keleti station seemed sort of shabby in general.)

He called several hotels that were booked up, and finally sent me out here.  Only $35/night for a small room with a shower, including breakfast.  Had to go one subway stop, and then transfer to a trolley bus that went on forever out into the sticks.  Recall that Hungarian is not an Indo-European language.  Outside a very limited tourist area, virtually nothing is translated into English.  I had only the names of the two streets at whose corner I was supposed to get off the bus.  I'm amazed and extremely proud of myself that I actually made it here!  It's a residential area, similar to a suburban area at home.  Coming back to the hotel just a few minutes ago, the air was warm and fragrant with flowers and filled with the loud chirping of crickets.  Many fairly elaborate single family dwellings.  At least, I'm seeing a part of Budapest that few tourists do, I'm sure.  School was just letting out on my first trip out here from the train station, and it all seemed very domestic and un-touristy with kids getting on and off the bus, kidding around together in a way indistinguishable from home except for that bizarre language they were speaking.

After settling in, I quickly retraced my steps and ended up downtown at Deák Ter -- the center of the subway system and, I presume, the city.  I didn't like Budapest at all, at first -- it was confusing, traffic was heavy, and nothing was in English.

I've changed my mind.

I knew I was weakening when I finally reached the Danube (the "Duna") and looked across to the castle hill on the Buda side.  Not just a castle, but a whole complex of buildings high in the air.  I walked across the Chain Bridge and up to the castle.  Prowled around the walls and through all the beautiful baroque streets, many lined with horse chestnuts just reaching their falling-nut stage.

Actually, much of Budapest reminds me of Paris.  The trees, the autumn air (the same time of year that I first saw Paris), the heavy 19th century style of the buildings on the Pest side of the river.  The views of the river and skyline from the hill are unforgettable.

I re-crossed to Pest and wandered all around the central area, getting continually lost despite consultations with the map I had purchased.  Had beers at a couple of outdoor cafés. I decided to come back to the hotel about 7:30, when it was still light, so I could use landmarks to find my way home.  But it was dark anyway by the time I got on the tram -- and I still made it ok.  We are the 12th stop from the subway station -- so long as I count and don't get distracted, and assuming the bus actually stops at each stop, I'll be fine. 

I'm still all alone in the bar.  A boy who seemed to be about 14 came in, smoked a cigarette, waited a bit longer, and left in disgust.  The barmaid seems to have disappeared.  The beer, by the way, is Steffl Bier, an Austrian brand.

Tomorrow, I'll either do an examination of churches and museums, having got a feeling for the area today, or visit the Danube Bend by boat.

Friday, September 17 -- 3:30 p.m.
St. Stephen's Basilica, Budapest

Just wandered in and am sitting under the enormous central dome of the cathedral.  High baroque style -- ornate but dignified.  Exterior is covered with scaffolding and sheeting where it's being scoured to its original white.

The apse has a very large second dome over the high altar.  A statue of either Christ or St. Stephen stands under a pillared canopy holding in his hand the Hungarian (two cross pieces) cross.

Basic color is dark red marble, which is used on all the walls and pilasters.  The dome itself is a lighter pink and the apse dome, topped by a glass oculus, is all in gold with various angelic figures done in pastels.  A very impressive church, with great dignity.  Easy to forget that this was the cathedral church of Cardinal Mindzenty, who was imprisoned for so many years in the 1950s by the Communists.

Friday, September 17 -- 9:50 p.m.
Budapest

Two rolls for breakfast, and a pot of absymal coffee.  Needed plenty of milk to make it palatable.  I'll try tea tomorrow.

Made my now familiar pilgrimage by bus and subway to Deák Ter.  Spent some time locating the stop where the airport bus leaves Sunday.  My timing is going to have to be fairly precise to make my plane on time.

I then walked back across the Chain Bridge, and wandered all around the Palace on the castle hill.  The Palace, which stands out so clearly from the river below and from Pest, now houses the National Gallery of Art, as well as several other national museums.  Wandered around the castle hill some more, passed through the Vienna Gate, and hiked back across the bridge.

Saturday, September 18 -- 9:50 a.m.
Budapest

Sitting at the Anna Café in Kristof Ter, one of my favorite sitting haunts.  I'm planning to go to Szentendre, up the Danube, this morning.  I originally planned to go by boat at 9 a.m., but it was overcast when I woke up and a boat trip didn't sound too attractive.  I'm going by regional transit instead, but may come back by boat if the timing works out.

Yesterday, I followed a tour route suggested in my Lonely Planet guidebook, and took the subway out to the City Park.  Walked around watching kids playing basketball, and saw the incredible agglomeration of architectural styles in the Vajdahunyad Castle, now occupied by the Agricultural Museum -- looked like Count Dracula's castle, and indeed the most dramatic portion of the structure was Transylvanian in inspiration.  Came back to the Opera by subway, then walked down the October 6 utca (avenue), its buildings still pock-marked from Soviet shelling in 1956.  At the end of the avenue was the Soviet memorial commemorating the city's liberation by the Russians in World War II, sited ironically directly in front of the American embassy.

Near dinner time, I hiked up to the Citadel on the Buda side of the city and stayed up at the top until the lights came on across the city.  Very spectacular, and I couldn't resist taking several time exposures that I knew were doomed from the start.  I really need a tripod, but I carry enough baggage around with me as it is.

Came on back down the hill in the near-dark, and re-crossed the Erzsébet Bridge -- which also afforded great views of the Buda side with the Palace and Matthias Church looming over the city, glowing with artificial light in the dying twilight.

Saturday, September 18 -- 1:15 p.m.
Szentendre, Hungary

I am just finishing an excellent lunch of Hungarian stew (sort of braised beef) on dumplings which are cut up in small pieces like a form of pasta.  Sitting on the terrace of the Vendéglo restaurant, overlooking the central square with an ornate "plague cross" in the center.  Café was quite full when I sat down, but is now thinning out.  On the far corner of the square (I'm sort of at the apex of an isosceles triangle, if that helps!) is a typical Hungarian parish church, with an onion bulb, short conical steeple, and ornate cross on top.

I am overwhelmed by charm.  Szentendre is obviously Carmel for those who can't get to California, but with a Middle European rather than Spanish colonial motif.  There definitely are things for sale here, and much more English in use than I saw in most of Budapest.  My guide book says that tour buses disgorge regularly here -- thankfully, "the season" appears to be past.

Sunday, September 19 -- 10:40 a.m.
En route to London

I ended up spending all day in Szentendre.  I walked around after lunch, out onto the highway.  When I returned, a German language band was playing in the town square.  The leader was the conductor, a comedian of sorts, and a  pretty good singer.  The music was mainly Austrian and German folk tunes, but the group swung into "Hello Dolly" at one point, with the singer doing a remarkably good, gravelly-voiced, unaccented imitation of Louis Armstrong.  The band occasionally broke into a chant and took another slug from the beer mugs they kept at their feet.

I bought Mother the only present of the trip, a stuffed hausfrau she can add to her bear collection.  It was 1680 forints, or around $8.00 -- something similar might be around $30 at home.

I spent enough of the day listening to band music that I decided not to return by HEV, as I had come, but to take the Málev river boat back to Budapest.  It was coming down from Visegrád, on the Danube Bend, and we filled it to capacity at Szentendre.

In fact, we had overflow that had to wait for another boat.  Today was mostly overcast, with occasional sun breaks.  But it still was an enjoyable two hour ride back to the city.  Passed a number of nice vacation homes on one island, where we stopped to pick up a passenger and her baby, and passed a number of joggers, walkers and bicyclists on Margaret Island -- all of which is a park.

Talked to a couple of girls who were students at NYU, living the past month in Budapest.  They will be studying in the city until Christmas.  They are math majors, and Hungary apparently is famous for its mathematicians.  One of the girls was from Madras, India, and had been a student in the U.S. for two years before coming to Budapest.

Hated to tear myself away from nocturnal Budapest.  I kept returning to the Danube and gazing at the illuminated buildings glowing like a fairy land on the hill across the river -- and wondering, of  course, if this was the last time I would ever see Budapest.

I keep allowing what one might call "an elegiac mood" to creep into this stupid journal! 

Last night, as though to celebrate my departure after two weeks of near-perfect weather, we had wild thunder and lightning, and pouring rain.

Up at 5:15 a.m., standing at the bus stop, waiting in the rain-scented morning air for my #77 trolley bus, light just touching the sky.  Dogs barking in the distance, roosters crowing, an occasional early-Sunday pedestrian walking by briskly.

Hungary.  I think I want to return.

Life in a leisure society

In Athens, slaves did most of the real work.  Citizens had ample leisure to socialize, philosophize, engage in politics, and participate in their city-state's direct democracy.  That, at least, is our romantic picture of the ancient Greeks, based at least in part on what we know of their history.

Twenty-five centuries or so later, we seem to be approaching the point where all the real work may be done by machines.  Machines (including computers) -- our new slaves.  We aren't there yet, but the handwriting is on the wall.  We'll still need human doctors and scientists and computer experts.  But not so much factory workers -- "real workers"  -- the sort of labor that the Labor Movement was developed to protect.

I'm no economist.  But it's always seemed to me that ultimately our economy will largely run itself on a day to day basis, and that our Gross Domestic Product will be divorced from human labor.  I would think that this development would be considered a boon to mankind.  A New Athens.  But even broaching the subject for theoretical discussion with friends seems to arouse anger -- an anger emanating from fear.

A fear of what?  I'm not sure, but I suspect a fear flowing from a belief that humans depend on daily work to give their lives meaning.  A religious few may rely on the declaration in Genesis:

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

But most, I think, harbor a concern that for modern men (and many women), getting up in the morning and going to work, and returning home at night, provides a needed structure to their lives.  And I sympathize.  Not only doctors and lawyers and engineers are proud of their work.  While in college, I worked summers in mills where men were proud of their ability to support their families, and to do so by hard physical labor.

My feeling -- not systematically worked out, I admit -- is that when our country's GDP no longer depends on human labor, all citizens, rather than only the large corporations which own the factories, should benefit.  I've often suggested that the government should guarantee that every citizen receive, in one way or another, basic food, housing, and clothing.  Not because of his skill or his hard work, but because he is a human being, because he is a citizen, and because our technology will be able to provide those benefits.

This goal may not yet be attainable.  But when  the machines take over day to day production, it will be.  The alternative would be a tiny, wealthy minority of capitalists (i.e., owners of the machines) and specialists (i.e., tweakers of the machines, developers of new machines, and other highly educated professionals), and a vast majority of homeless, starving peons.  A national society ultimately satisfying to no one, including the tiny rich minority.  

But what about my friends' fears for the emotional well-being of "the masses."  Will their days be miserable and boring, an endless grayness such as many have felt during the pandemic? 

Will they be happy?  Will they feel fulfilled?  Will the idle life of an Athenian citizen satisfy the average guy today?

My mind returns to this issue because of a short opinion piece in this week's Economist magazine.  The anonymous business columnist "Bartleby" suggests that total unemployment is bad for mental health, leading to depression, anxiety, and reduced self-esteem.  I think of the demoralized unemployed in England, especially a few decades ago, living in featureless "projects."   But if total unemployment is bad, will we need to find forty hours of paid occupation for every adult?  How much work is needed to avoid mental health problems?  Bartleby cites a Cambridge University study that concludes that just one eight-hour day of work per week is sufficient to give workers a normal sense of well-being.

The threshold for good mental health was just one day a week -- after that, it seemed to make little difference to individuals' well-being if they worked eight hours or 48 hours a week.  The boost from working clearly comes from the feeling of purpose, from the social status it creates and from the camaraderie of colleagues engaged in the same tasks.

I think my plan for universal minimal housing, nutrition, and clothing for every citizen, regardless of employment or unemployment, is flexible enough to adapt to these findings.  Our nation has tasks that need accomplishing that are unattractive to private enterprise.  I look around and immediately think of litter to be picked up.  We could re-activate the C.C.C. and the W.P.A. of the New Deal, making work in these organizations a condition for receiving the normal benefits to which all citizens will be entitled.  

Eight hours a week of required work would not be a burden on citizens of any age.  On the contrary, if Bartleby is to be believed, it would provide citizens with a sense of purpose, and a sense of fellowship with fellow workers.  Maybe like Boy Scouts for adults, minus the merit badges.

A sense of purpose and pride from picking up litter?   Yes, I think so.  I point to author David Sedaris who -- if his books are to be believed -- spends hours each day voluntarily picking up litter along the roadside in his adopted English county of West Sussex.

Granted, Sedaris is a comic writer as well as obsessive-compulsive, but I think those of us who are neither can at least contemplate feeling pride in seeing our efforts result in a clean roadside near our home.  Even an Athenian supported by slave labor might have found satisfaction in getting his hands dirty for a few hours a week, knowing that he was working to improve the polis.   

My thoughts may be incoherent and rambling (even ludicrous?), but the underlying problem of an excessive number of unneeded laborers -- a problem even now, but one that will be greater in the future -- is a problem we need to think about.  And better earlier than later..