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MISSIVES FROM THE FIELD

PART ONE

The entertainment quality on cruises is certainly going up. This little 650-passenger ship has the best entertainment we've come across. I'm sure one of the reasons is that people notice, and get cranky if it doesn't lease them.

We heard another take on it yesterday from an old vaudville singer/comedian, who is still great. His younger days were in Vegas, back in the days of the mob and the Rat Pack.

He played the lounges and opening acts for the stars in the ballrooms. He still lives in Vegas, along with many more of the old lounge acts. He says none of them can work there any longer, because everythig is rock and rap.

He says the only place they can get work anymore is on cruise ships, performing for old people like us who fondly remember the old Vegas. He says the old entertainers in Vegas still stick together. They call themselves the Mouse Pack.

The number of scholarly lectures available is also new to us. We had a few on our trip around Cape Horn, but we have at least two a day -- from a historian, an anthropologist, a retired admiral, an expert on Japanese culture, a wildlife expert and a lawyer. If we miss one, they are replayed on TV the next day. The TV also plays WWII documentaries and movies. Needless to say, we arrive at each port of call thoroughly briefed so we can appreciate wat we're seeing.

Our only complaint, so far, is that we missed Friday becuse of the International Dateline. They say they'll give it back to us on the way home, but we'll be on an airplane and definitely won't want any added time. Oh well, every day out here is TGIF, anyway.

We cross the equator tomorrow. I signed up to be a pollywog, since we've only crossed by air and that doesn't count. They only initiate those who are willing, anymore. Jeanette thinks that is a very good idea.

MISSIVES FROM THE FIELD - PART TWO

GUADALCANAL -- Jeanette did beautifully trudging thru the 100-degree heat and 100% humidity of this island's jungles today.

But then she heard the shopping was good. And what else can a girl do? She bargained with the best for treasure from the natives -- and came away with some gangas.

We were a little worried because of the stories we'd heard -- even from the cruise line. Princess wouldn't schedule any tours here because they weren't willing to make any guarantees. So some of us chartered a rickety, old van to take us to the U.S. Memorial,

Bloody Ridge and the cultural center (with shopping). It started out easy enough. There were lots of natives at the first stop with their stuff spread out on the ground. So we made some purchases. This was near the airport, which was what all the fighting was about, back in '42. They showed us Bloody Ridge from there. That's where the Japanese had retreated and attacked us from every night. So the Marines decided to go up and wipe them out. It looked like an easy trek, down a valley and up a manicured, grassy hill.

But looks can be deceiving, as Jeanette once told me. That grass was 6 feet high and razor sharp. And the land was marshy. It took the Marines six months to get up there -- and sometimes we figured that's how long it would take us. At times, we gave up all hope of ever seeing the Pacific Princess again. But we made it there and back. And of course, there were natives up there, who told us they walk into town every day.

Jeanette trained for this adventure by going to the laundry room yesterday. After two hours, she was back, looking about the way she looked after a day in the jungle today. Her elbows were a little bruised, but she'd jockeyed for position with the best and muscled her stuff into the washer and dryer. It's only a buck for each, but Jeanette says to keep my underwear clean from now on.

In only 10 more days, I can start throwing it away each night.

We're headed up "The Slot," an inside passage the Japanese used, toward New Guinea.

Love, kisses and clean underwear to all.

MISSIVES FROM THE FIELD - PART THREE

Thanks to those who sent the newsy items. We enjoyed them tremendously. Had no idea there is so much sleeping-around going on. One further request: please hold pictures, forwarded material and jokes until we get home on the 29th -- unless, of course, they are pictures of the sleeping-around. On second thought, I can visualize most of you without your clothes. Please don't send those -- ever.

I'm paying about 35 cents a minute to connect with the ship's wireless. That's less than the 50- cents a minute to use their computers in the Internet Cafe, but the downloading speed is very slow, the satellites are often out of range and I can only buy time in increments of 30 minutes.

Their system is rather user-unfriendly but I can get my columns emailed, so it's really a godsend.

We're just now entering the outer islands of Rabaul Harbor in Papua New Guinea, where the

Japnese fleet hung out -- similar to our use of Majuro in the Marshall Islands. There are supposed to be native dancers to meet us, as they did at Guadalcanal. Jan, Jeanette says she only hopes their loin cloths are as skimpy as they were at Guadalcanal. A woman standing near us at the time felt compelled to share the information that she was using a telephoto lens to take pictures only of thighs. Some people do like dark meat.

Had some excitement yesterday afternoon when the bridge spotted something in the water that looked like a life preserver or small life raft. The captain turned the ship around and went back to take a look. By that time, about 10 minutes or so, an Australian navy jet dove on us and pretty soon a prop job came along. It was comforting to know how quickly help can arrive, but kinda eerie considering all the war footage we've been watching about what was happening right here "in the Slot" 60 years ago.

Wow! This huge harbor is surrounded by volcanoes, some of them active. One of them just belched a tremendous plume of smoke that I can watch while typing. This is amazing. There are natives on the beach at the base of the smoking volcano waving and singing a welcome song to us. Gotta go.

LATE AFTERNOON: Made it thru another day of touring the jungle. New Guinea prettier. Still mostly poverty, but middle-class homes noticeable. Most of them have WWII material decorating their yards. Shell casings of all sizes line driveways and sidewalks. Looks like a lot of live ammunition lying around too.

The central part of Rabaul has not recovered from the 1994 eruption of a volcano in that area.

But life and business goes on. Roads haven't been repaved. Still covered in several inches of ash. Away from downtown are some nice roads, buildings and homes. This is the second largest island in the world (next to Greenland). Papua New Guinea is the formerly British part.

This province is called New Britain. Gained independence in 1975. Some civil unrest. Ships can't always stop here. Australia has just put out a tourist warning for Indonesia, next door.

It's Saturday, so children line the roads waving and saying "alloo" in a very melodic manner.

That little volcano has continued belching all day, but by far the most spectacular was this morning as ship passed by. It was as if CofC had flipped a switch for us.

Pictures of Jeanette at local mall to follow. Some great gangas on masks and effigies. I'm pretty sure these folks are head hunters in real life. They surely look like it. This evening we start back north on our slow boat to China.

MISSIVES FROM THE FIELD - PART FOUR

Well, we just booked another cruise -- for April 2007 (Capetown to Singapore) 25 days. And we'll do extensions on each end. We'll be on same ship, which is one they use for their connoisseur cruises -- the ones that go to weird places. It's hard to believe, just by looking, that there are more normal people in this world than weirdoes, but they can't sell out a 3,000-passenger ship for the itineraries we like.

We kinda like the smaller ones like this 650-passenger. No lines, but just as many services. And our room is great for the money.

We brought the max luggage allowed and we still have a few empty drawers. The room is a little bigger than the mini-suites we had on the Mexican Riviera cruise and feels even bigger than that. The food is better than one would expect from a British ship.

That's because the food service is run by Italians. So far, we've had ground beef enchiladas, mousaka, Sloppy Joe's, beef Bourgogne and beef Stroganoff. Unfortunately, it all tastes like lasagna, but that's better than Shepard's pie and boiled cabbage.

Sorry, Tomaso.

The desserts haven't been too great either. They did have tiramisu for one of the formal nights, which was better than Lino's. But almost no chocolate. Stay away from this ship, John. Essentially, their desserts taste like lasagna, too. Thank goodness, we like lasagna, especially with a dash of Tabasco.

Guess I wasn't clear enough about the capsized life raft we saw. There was no one clinging to it ( above the water, at least), so our captain and the Australian Navy pilots quickly determined it wasn't worth their time. Sorry for leaving you with a cliffhanger.

We're now back north of the equator where the water goes down the drain correctly and people drive on the correct side of the road. It will soon be better tanning weather, too. Tonight's show is Shake, Rattle and Roll, so we wish the Glitter Critters were here. Tomorrow, we are in Guam from 8 to 8. It's the first American port, for which our government will punish us with a full customs check. Did I tell you that on Midway, which has only 40 people, all of whom work for US Fish and Wildlife, they required picture IDs to get back on the ship. Guess they were worried one of those 40 might stow away.

MISSIVES FROM THE FIELD - PART FIVE

As I write this, we are looking off our balcony at Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. We have been cruising around the island for three hours with excellent narration on our room TV. I'm sending pictures of Suribachi and the landing beaches. You may be able to see a small white dot on top of Suribachi. That's where the flag was. It is no longer there because, after incurring more casualties taking the island than did the Japanese, we gave it back.

Somehow, we were extremely fortunate that almost all the view has been from our side of the ship, so we've been able to sit in our cool room or out on our balcony. I had our favorite bartender send up some big, fancy iced coffee drinks at 7:30, when the sail-around of Iwo started. I mixed Bloody Mary's and Harvey Wallbangers a little later, so we were in good shape the entire time. I even sent a picture to document that.

We had an interesting cultural experience right after we sent our last email. Princess had some "cultural" dancers come onboard to do a show. It turned out to be Hawaiian dancers (complete with coconut shells) dancing to hula music, with wild Polynesian gyrations and French can-can squealing thru the whole show.

I thought it was very entertaining, but our guess is that it had nothing to do with the native

Chomorro culture on Guam. Hawaiians would have been aghast. And even the polynesians would at least have thought it a little odd. We figure they were dancers from a local hotel doing a show choreographed in New York. One number strongly reminded us of the Frilly Baca

Dancers performing Jarabe Tapatillo. And most everyone on the ship likely thought it was the real thing.

Saipan, the next day was more great shopping without the over-the-top security of Guam. It was a very tourist-friendly island and they are most appreciative of American WWII vets.

The boat-building competition ended with 3 entries. Our Erection Committee would have put any of them to shame. Jeanette signed us up for still another cruise. This one leaves NY Eve out of Ft. Lauderdale for 14 days on a bunch of islands we have never hit before.

We bought a very interesting DVD from one of the lecturers on the ship called Thunder Over Tinian, telling the story of how the Seabees built the airfields and the 1,000 B-29s that took off every night. Gives heavy mention to the Los Alamos scientists and the 509th Composite Group that dropped the Bombs. After the war, that group was stationed in Roswell at Walker AFB -- until Roswellians chose not to vote for Clinton P. Anderson, one year.

MISSIVES FROM THE FIELD - PART SIX

Jeanette did some serious good for the Guamanian economy, today. There wasn't much time but she's a fast shopper.

They're closing out the shipbuilding contest today. And no one has entered. Evidently that's the first time in the history of this ship.

Wish Richard were here. The rules are that it has to float and has to be made out of materials gathered on the ship. We have enough empty beer cans to float a barge.

It is especially unfortunate that this ship full of vets can't come up with a boat. The U.S. military has a great tradition of being able to build anything and to maintain our equipment so much better than our enemies. The Corps of Engineers and Sea Bees carry that a step further. The Japanese Army didn't have a construction battalion, so couldn't get things done nearly as quickly.

The story of the Marianas in WWII is the story of Seabees and B-29s. Guam, Saipan, and especially Tinian, were of extreme importance because they were in range of the new superfortresses, the B-29, which could carry 20,000 pounds of bombs to Japan, and also could carry atomic bombs. The invasions of the three islands were easier than Guadalcanal, Iwo or Okinawa, but still tough. With the fighting still underway, the Seabees began clearing land and building runways on a 24/7 basis, while still being shot at. The Marines and Air Corps loved them.

By the end of the war, 1,000 B-29s were being launched in about an hour's period from the four runways at North Field on Tinian.

Btw, the Tinnie-Ann Trading Post on Cerrillos and St. Francis, got its name from the Los Alamos guys working on Tinian. And that's how most of the vets on this ship pronounce Tinian.

Anyway, the Seabee spirit reminds me of our UFO (United Framers Organization) from our float-building days -- and when we got older, the Erection Committee, that built our portal, shade and steps at the Eldorado and built the prize-winning floats for the Roswell UFO festivals. The CB motto even reminds me of our guys: "The difficult, we can do quickly. The impossible takes a little longer. Because we have done so much, with so little, for so long, we can do anything, with nothing, forever."

Love, kisses

MISSIVES FROM THE FIELD - PART SEVEN

Nagasaki is beautiful and charming. We had no idea. Reminds us of San Francisco. It's just as foggy, even hillier and has cable cars. When Japan closed its doors to the world in 1641, because too many people were becoming Christians, this was the one place allowed to interact with the West -- and then, only if they promised not to talk about religion. This meant most of the interaction was with the Dutch, who didn't take their religion very seriously anyway.

So Nagasaki is the most Westernized of Japanese cities. But that doesn't mean they don't try to protect their culture in every way possible. They are proud of being the most colorful city in Japan. But except for some splashes of color here and there, everything is still black, white or silver. We were wondering why we can now only buy a refrigerator in one of those colors. Guess we have our answer.

Went to ground zero. Reminded us much of Trinity Site, in terms of size and amount of depression in the earth. Fat Man, which we dropped on them, was the bomb our govt dropped on NM first because they weren't sure the gadget would work. It's called the hypocenter here. They have an atomic museum with many relics from nearby schools and churches.

Oddly, they had no relics from the huge Mitsubitchi munitions factory, which was at ground zero. Can you imagine the bang an ammunition plant would make when hit by an atomic bomb? No wonder it didn't leave anything to display in the museum. It was a heavy dose of propaganda. The war started in 1943, for no apparent reason. The US decided to make an atomic bomb and drop it on Hiroshima to prove it worked. But remember, they'd already dropped it on us three weeks earlier. And it worked very well.

Other than that, however, everything was delightful. Fireboats spraying water met us in the harbor. Music was played at many points along our way through the narrow harbor. Miss Nagasaki met the ship and welcomed us to the city. Musicians and dancers came aboard later to entertain and preschool children on the dock bid us farewell, banging on drums, gongs and symbols and carrying a long dragon.

Okinawa wasn't much to write home about -- so I won't.

Shopping has been somewhat limited, but Jeanette has managed. Nothing near the docks and little time on tours. But in the little time allotted, Jeanette has conducted kamikaze attacks worthy of anyone's army. Be sure to stay up with the "official" word at www.commonsensesantafe.com Click on Inside the Capitol.

Love, kisses

MISSIVES FROM THE FIELD - PART EIGHT

The Great Wall was The Greatest. Tienemen Square was the biggest. The Forbidden City was the unbearably hottest. But

Jeanette discovered that the gift shop was not Forbidden. Now China has to learn to do something about its horrible pollution, its aggressive beggars and its dingy slums before it hosts the 2008 Olympics.

I know, we told you five years ago after visiting Greece that Athens would never be ready to host the 2004 Olympics. They did it, but by the skin of their teeth. China will finish its stadium in time. It is driving the price of cement up worldwide. On our tours outside of Beijing, we almost got run over by huge rickety trucks carrying sacks of cement piled twice as high as their sideboards and held on perilously by ropes.

The Great Wall is strung along hilltops some distance outside Beijing, but the sky was just as brown there as it was downtown. In fact, everything within hundreds of miles of Beijing was dirty and heavily overcast. Our ship's foghorn blew all night before we sailed toward Beijing. Much of that was through Bohai Bay. Soon after dawn, I went out on our balcony to check for our Ultra oil wells, but visibility was almost zero. I could tell that the water was brown, however. Those wells must be stirring up an awful lot of dirt.

The temperature had fallen from 110 degrees the day before we arrived to the high 80s the three days we were there, but the humidity and pollution still made it oppressive. The asthmatics had it rough. I can't imagine how the marathoners will reach the finish line in 2008. We also toured to the Summer Palace on a lake outside of town that was built because the 1,999.5 rooms of the Forbidden City were too hot for Chinese emperors in the summer. It wasn't much better, but the Dragon Lady, mother of The Last Emperor liked it so well, she stayed in it most of the year.

In case you saw the movie, our guide, who works for the government, of course, said it was pretty, but for accuracy, we should read the book he wrote about his life. But since the Last Emperor was a prisoner of Red China when he wrote the book, it seems rather likely that he had a lot of help writing it. Comunism doesn't seem to be working much better there than it has anywhere else. They have made some creative improvemments, but when everyone in the country is a government worker, with a guaranteed income, it's a little difficult to create much incentive.

As we said before, the Great Wall was The Greatest. It was built along the hilltops of very rugged country. I had pictured rolling hills in my mind, but these were steep and high. Anyone not living in the Rockies would call them mountains. It was amazing to gaze out and see it going up and down the hills as far as one could see. Admittedly that wasn't far, but the route to get there traveled approximately parallel to the wall for awhile. The visitors' center is up a slope that got us close enough to the wall that it wasn't much of a climb to get to the top. Then one can walk or run in either direction for who knows how far. Certainly not I.

I had to get to the gift shop to watch as my credit card got very warm going through the machines. It is safe to say that weveral of you may receive gifts fro China at some point in the future. Interestingly, our guides never warned us about the obnoxious beggars, who also receive a monthly income, but are right in your face shouting, "GIVE ME DOLLARS." I'm sure they're an embarrassent. Also interesting is that stores won't accept American money, but the beggars evidently prefer it.

The guides, however, did warn us about the "hello people," who also get in your face with items they want to sell for a dollar. They say hello to get your attention and then shove someting at you saying "dolla, dolla, dolla." Once you get over them violating your personal space, which most foreigners do anyway, these folks have some very good deals -- and obviously they accept American money. Jeanette and I have run into these people in several Second World countries and have learned to carry a fistful of dollar bills.

For some reason the tour guides, and therefore the government, don't like them -- likely because they are independent operators and underselling government stores, which have pretty good prices theselves. We received some very subtle hints that our young tour guides weren't completely sold on communism, but they had to be extremely careful.

On the final day, we drove past a building with a big sign saying "Romance Club." Everyone stopped the guide's talk on ancient history to ask about it. She seemed surprised and said Romance is a popular line of clothing, but that this was an expensive social club for business and professional people. She than asked why we were so interested in it. When we told her, she said, "You Americans think about sex a lot, don't you." She was familiar with "romantic" but had never associated it with romance.

From our reading of the Chinese, they aren't a romantic people. Their marriages were arranged until recently. Our primary guide, who was newly married said what women look for in a husband was honesty and a willingness to work hard in their job and help some around the house. Couples are not allowed to be alone before marriage. The government gives them a DVD about sex after they have filled out all the forms for a marriage license. Babies aren't permitted during the first four years of marriage, and then only one. If a woman gets pregnant again, she must get an abortion.

Women go to live with their husbands's family for the rest of their lives and only see their families on holidays. Moving out of town is frowned upon by the government and the culture. Marriages and babies must be approved by the employer, which is a government agency. If a baby is approved, maternity leave is generous, before and after birth. There's no problem with childcare since everyone lives with their families.

There doesn't appear to be much love in the Chinese culture. Respect is much more important.

Love and respect, J&J

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