The Merry-Go-Round (As told to Dr. Freud)

Doc, you probably don't remember when Euclid Beach closed in the fall of '69. It was an amusement park loved by kids and grown-ups alike. Something like that marvelous park you had in Grinzing, with that great ferris wheel. Remember that movie "The Third Man"? It was filmed there.

One of my favorite rides at Euclid Beach was called the American Racing

Derby, a very fast merry-go-round. The horses really raced each other.

We loved it, but as I recall, when it stopped we all came out a little dizzy.

Which takes me to my story.

Leading the Public Affairs team at Tri-C was like that merry-go-round.

You have great fun, Doc, going round and round, but it also had its ups and

downs. Looking back I would say there were more ups than downs. But when the music stopped, it was a real downer.

Some of the most inspiring moments for me were our Monday staff

meetings. The team loved them. Each member had an opportunity to describe their project; be it a celebration, a fund raising campaign, the catalog, television advertising, what have you.

It was an amazing group, including Sandy and Leslie, who I found deep in the bowels of the Tri-C Metro Campus. I had known Sandy from her winning reputation as journalism instructor. Leslie was like her unindentical twin. We found Marcia, of all places, at Mt. Sinai Hospital. I knew she was right for the team when she withstood a withering cross-examination by Ellison in his office.
"We got a gem!" I told Sandy.

Joyce was already on board as fundraiser and levy expert, and her expertise was invaluable. Audrey was rock solid as our administrative assistant, bringing order out of chaos, and Dolores and Joanne were assigned to cover our outposts at the Western and Eastern campuses.

It may sound corny, but we, and others not mentioned, almost instinctively made beautiful music together, and I saw myself as sort of a concert master. Our work brought us great rewards, even at the top, where President Ellison loved parties, making speeches, and raising money touting tax levies. We did that all with great creativity and teamwork. 

We won fifty-two national awards for excellence in nine years, including the national award for best education marketing and public relations project of the year from CASE. (The Council for the Advancement and Support of Education) With the help of the $500 prize, I took members of the team to San Diego to be on hand for the awards ceremony.

Teamwork. Here's one for the books. When the U.S Maritime Academy approached the college for a partnership, Ellison asked us to get the word out. It was a creative challenge. Somehow we thought of one of those huge ore ships that docked on the Cuyahoga. Why not, we asked one another.

“I know the PR guy at the Mather Steamship,” sandy said. And we

were off and running.

At the next staff meeting we mentioned this far out idea. Leslie immediately said, “I'll do the party on the dock.”

“I'll get the NCJW to manage the hosting and the food,” said Joyce. Audrey, bless her heart reminded us that this might cost considerable money. “We'll get it from Ellison,” I promised.

And so the bizarre encounter with the flats, a huge ore carrier, police boats, and balking labor unions, fell into place. It wasn't easy but it worked. Except it turned out to be a freezing day with snow coming in off the lake. A highlight was the dedication of the tech center, where ground was broken by a robot.

I must tip my hat to that team, who still gather annually for a reunion these last 26 years. Love those folks. Geniuses all.

But the downside was grim. The boss had a giant electric temper that belied his sweet smile and gentleness. He would fire people on the spot for being late to a meeting, and the hire them back. He literally got into a fist fight in his office with the superintendent of the Cleveland schools, which we managed to cover up. When someone tipped off the Plain Dealer, they sent a reporter. The operative answer was "what fight"? (today they would say what collusion?) And not a word saw the light of day in the paper.

When Ellison and the president of CSU, had a disagreement in a meeting at CSU, he stripped off his suit coat and his glasses and went after President Waetjen, a one time college football player, he responded in kind. It took the entire group at the meeting to pull them apart. Again, the word was "what fight?" and nobody leaked. Nobody. I thought myself, "A hell of a story.”

I must say, Ellison was a master at playing the good guy. And he truly believed believed that I was doing my job of polishing his image and the image of the college.

That was, until an unpleasant young reporter from the Plain Dealer, don't recall her name, Doctor, started asking some hard questions in a meeting I attended. I could see Ellison’s his face turning red.

“Are you investigating me?” he snarled. “Get out of my office. I don't ever want to see you again!”

He lunged at her as she left. I was stunned. I knew this woman. She was the kind who would do anything for a story; anything to destroy someone's image.

I met with her the next day and got the gist of her story. Ellison had hired the former President of the University of the District of Columbia to come to work at Tri-C full time with a lofty salary, for a special urban studies project. What had been leaked to the PD was that the new hire had been fired in DC, and then charged by a grand jury for stealing valuable property from the president's house. (Also and he came without a job description or a signed application.)

There was no way I could stop the publishing of the story the next morning. Ellison raged.

I did all I could to diminish the flames. The personnel office produced an after-the-fact signed job application and job description, not really kosher, to soften the blow. I arranged a meeting between Ellision and Tom Vail, the publisher and editor of the Plain Dealer. We went to Vail's office. I tried to calm Ellison down by talking about my experiences in WW II with General Patton, telling him how scared I was, but how I pulled myself together and survived. (At that moment I wished I was back in Germany instead of in this hot seat in Cleveland.) But my guy calmed down and walked into Vail's office, sweet as a pussy cat. After a number of exchanges, Vail attempted to assure him that the Plain Dealer has been leading the fight for racial equality. Vail promised to look into the matter of this young reporter. Ellison seemed satisfied and thought he had seen the last of the reporter, but of course he was wrong.

I saw danger down the road.

The next morning at the top of the editorial page was a sizeable editorial: "Seeing Red About Green.” (Green was the DC guy's name.) The boss went into a rage again. It was a fairly mild editorial in my mind, but there was no way of calming the boss.

“Racist bastards!,” he howled.

Dr. Green was a reasonable guy and things settled down when the Grand Jury in Washington found him not guilty on all six counts. This soft spoken academic had gotten himself embroiled in ugly DC politics, and had paid the price. But he survived.

But the PD wasn't through. One more scandal brought us very close to a parting of the ways. It involved the president of the Eastern Campus. She was a bit arrogant and not liked by much the faculty. One day word came downtown that she was in a brawl with the faculty over her thoughtless and stupid habit of parking her Mercedes in a garage built for ambulances and vans dropping off handicapped students. As news guy I saw this as a potential disaster, and I told Ellison at a meeting in his office on a Saturday, that it would probably appear on page one the next morning.

“What should we do? What should we say?”

“Don't do anything,” Ellison said, as we walked out.

"It will give her some humility".

“Yes sir,” I said, and left.

“This is it,” I said to myself.

I called the Eastern Campus pres. at her Gold Coast home in Lakewood, and told her not to say anything to reporters. I learned later that she had spilled the beans herself, calling the Tri-C faculty "a bunch of children."

The next morning, there it was across the bottom of page one: A photo of her and the Mercedes in the handicapped garage. And a side story about a disabled young student in a wheel chair, describing how they had to push him through the snow to get into the building from his parent's van.

It was awful. But I did nothing.

What she did was indefensible. I knew that after nine mostly rewarding years my time was about up. And I was the fall guy.

Or was I?

Tell you next time.

Muckraker No More

After an agonizing weekend of uncertainty, I felt like a drug addict who had decided to flush all the pain pills down the toilet, but at the last minute couldn’t do it. I didn’t realize how addicted I was to being a news guy, and when I got up Monday morning I decided to go back to The Press. I couldn’t shake the habit, much as the sensible side of my brain told me that I was making a mistake, to say nothing of what my lovely wife Grace was telling me.

I had no sincere solid, sensible reason for what I was doing. There must be a name for that, Doc. So I jumped into my Maxima and headed down Chester, rather than Carnegie as I had planned, and arrived at The Press at the usual hour, my brain feeling relieved.

That’s how it felt. I can’t tell you why. That familiar and welcoming building at Ninth and Lakeside, the roar of presses downstairs, the clatter of typewriters. The familiar faces of friends and colleagues. My home away from home?

But when I walked into the city room some of the guys looked at me funny.

”I hear you’ve got a new job!”

”You‘re so damn lucky.”

“It’s pretty grim around here. People are trying to get out any way they can”.

Suddenly the room sort of darkened. I didn’t recognize the faces of the guys in the front office. It was home no more, to coin a phrase. Then rational thinking took over. I grabbed some stuff from the piles on my desk and headed out.

I was a muckraker no more and it felt OK. Suddenly my brain felt comfortable about my venture into a very new and uncertain world. Was all that mental chaos necessary, Dr. Freud? Do you have a theory, Doc? Separation syndrome? The good doctor winked at me as if he thought I was on the right track.

I slept well that night for the first time in weeks, got up at the usual time, showered, dressed in shirt, tie, and jacket, and had my usual breakfast. I kissed my wife Grace goodbye, as we agreed we loved each other with more intensity than the classic telephone “luv ya”.

I headed out the door with a new Land’s End brief case, got in the Maxima and headed for Carnegie and Ontario. I arrived at the new district headquarters of Tri-C where I discovered I had a parking space reserved for me in the “executive” cabinet space.

Whoa, I like that executive stuff! Never been an executive. How should I act? Have the secretaries call me “Sir”? Bring me my morning tea? It was the beginning of a new era of my life, a milestone one, I hoped. I felt good about this place. But it got better. My office was next to the president’s. It was off a bright cheerful lobby where three secretaries greeted me.  

“Good morning, Mr. Weidenthal.”
“Call me Bud,” I replied with great humility.

I had never had a secretary before. I had never had a private office before. And it had a window! (No matter that I overlooked the parking lot. I could keep an eye in my car.)

President Ellison was something else again.

Nolen Ellison was born to an African American father and a Native American mother, in a disadvantaged area of Kansas City, Kansas. He was in junior high when the US Supreme Court was deciding the landmark Brown v. The Topeka Kansas Board of Education case on school desegregation. The high court found the Topeka board guilty and declared that “Separate is not equal in the nation’s schools.” A year later he was enrolled with a handful of blacks in a mostly white high school under court order. He excelled in almost everything, except being comfortable with his schoolmates. No love lost, it could be said.

Upon graduating he was recruited by the University of Kansas in nearby Lawrence, where he again excelled in almost everything, and played basketball on the University’s championship Jayhawks team with Oscar Robertson. He was drafted by The Baltimore Bullets, an NBA team, but decided on pursuing a career in education instead. He earned his masters and doctorate degrees at the University of Texas at Austin, and by the time he was thirty became the youngest college president in the nation at Seattle Community College.

When Ellison was 32 he was invited to come to Cleveland to head the growing network of campuses that was Cuyahoga Community College, aka Tri-C.

He was a big handsome guy, smart and articulate. He had the preacher’s touch and could really turn it on. Even the folks in Brecksville loved him, which paid off big time in the long run.

I knew most of this stuff before I took the job. I had written a background story about him for the Press when he was hired, so I was prepared for almost anything. I wasn’t really surprised at what happened on my first day at my first meeting with him in his office.

He greeted me with a bear hug and a huge smile.

“Great to have you aboard! ” 

He smiled, and then in an instant he turned grim and serious.

“Bud, you gotta help me with John Koral,” he said looking me directly in the eye.

“He doesn’t understand what I’m trying to do. He doesn’t get my vision.”

I agreed to talk with Koral, (the then Tri-C Western Campus President) who I knew from my earlier encounters with the college. But first I had to figure out Ellison’s vision myself. That was not going to be easy.

I told Ellison that I would prepare a one page bulletin each morning outlining the events of that day, as well as some personal background on some of the board members whom I knew rather well. It would give him a head start on the day with an insider’s view.  

As I was leaving the room he said, “Bud, do you know Louis Stokes? How about George Forbes? Louis is a great guy and a good friend of the college, but I wouldn’t trust George Forbes.”

The president looked happy as he waved goodbye, and I knew I had made it. I sensed it was going to be a rocky road ahead, but I was on the inside lane.

My Life As a Muckracker As told to Dr. Freud (part seven)

Funny, Doc., how life goes on even in the worst of times. Like the 60’s, for example. I know, people listened to the news and read their papers, thank goodness! But for our generation who had emerged from the war, we looked ahead to a family, a home, ordinary stuff. Maybe we were in denial. 

DENIAL. Good word, Doc?

The Goff Estate, Bratenahl

For me, getting ahead in my chosen profession and getting married were my priorities, and of course, building a family. I rented a very nice three bedroom cottage on an estate on the shores of Lake Erie in Bratenahl. Our home was the gardener’s cottage of the Goff Estate on nine acres, with a beach and a barbeque.

Frederick Goff had been the president of Cleveland Trust, Mayor of Glenville, and helped to establish the Cleveland Foundation. When he and his wife died, it was directed that his estate be torn down, and the property sold. We lasted about six months in that little slice of paradise. We loved to show it off to baffled out of town friends and relatives. We tried to sell them on the idea that this was typical Cleveland living. It may have worked.

By 1960 it was clear that my wife Grace, was physically unable to bear children. After consulting some top docs in town we decided to adopt. We had purchased a lovely little 1917 house on Coleridge Rd. in Cleveland Heights. It was a wonderful tree lined street of older homes, that began at Lee Rd. and ended at Coventry at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

We went through the adoption process, applying to the Jewish Children’s Bureau. After we passed through the interview questions I met with the director.   

“I think we have the perfect child for you!” he whispered.

And he was right!  But “perfect” was an understatement. The moment we met, we stared into each other's eyes and knew we were soul mates. Our little girl, Susan. Our gift for the sixties.

We still joke today that she was so perfect, she could change her own diaper. If there was ever a poster child for the perfect adoption, Susan was it.

A moment or two about my professional life, Doc. After all, I had to make enough money to send Susan to best the journalism school. I fantasized her as the first female editor of the New York Times. I, of course, was well ahead of my time.

One of the joys of being a journalist in the prime moments of life, Doctor, is that you not only learn about history, but you live it, observe it up close, and write about it as best you can, without malice to one side or the other. It wasn’t easy to do that in those turbulent times.

We were expected to be impartial observers, and to the extent that my restraint allowed me, I kept the faith. That, in my mind, is journalism. In the midst of a war and later the nation and a world in turmoil, I think about that sometimes when I watch FOX or NBC news on TV today.

It was a turn-on, and almost every day was a new adventure. I was often in the right place at the right time. After I was married, I begged off the 5 a.m. shift at the Press, and turned my focus to covering education, cultural development and University Circle, Cleveland’s cultural hub.

Cleveland’s schools, colleges and universities were exploding, so to speak, both figuratively and literally. I had hit the news jackpot. 

The Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education (separate but equal is not equal) had set the stage for upheaval in urban education, first in the south, and then in Boston, and inevitably in Cleveland. The result was a five-year battle in federal court over what the Supreme Court language really meant, and what was going on in Cleveland. The school board, with them attorneys from Squire Sanders fought it every inch of the way, arguing that Cleveland had not intentionally segregated its schools. 

Eventually Federal Judge Frank Battisti, a really tough guy who I never quite figured out, ruled in favor of the NAACP’s claim that Cleveland had violated the edict of the court.

I had researched and prepared a series of articles attempting to explain as simply as I could, how and why the judge could order cross town bussing of thousands of students as a remedy, In hopes that it might calm the reaction. Much understandable frustration followed, but not the brutal battles that were waged in Boston where another judge, had rendered the same remedy. It was done peacefully and perhaps with some positive results. A plus for The Press.

The rape and murder of a Louise Winbigler near Wade Park Lagoon as she walked to Cleveland Orchestra chorus practice, set the stage for enormous change and the creation University Circle Inc. I was on the beat, and the Press led the way in calling for change in that scattered, disconnected array of cultural, musical, and educational organizations. Change that included creating a separate police force, improved lighting, and a plan that would make sense without destroying the surrounding residential areas.       

When students at the Sorbonne University erupted in revolt, in Paris in 1968 I was there. That’s a chapter in itself, Doc. Perhaps I will save for later. I think we are running out of time.

Forgot to mention my coverage of the killings of Kent State students by the National Guard..…the bizarre incidents at Case Western Reserve University, including head bashing on campus by Mayor Stokes’ mounted police. The bombing by student radicals of the Rodin Statue, The Thinker, in front of the art museum, the heavy guns mounted on top of the museum to prevent further incidents, the machine guns mounted on the railroad bridge at the entrance to Little Italy during the Hough and Glenville riots…

Oh yes, there was a war in Vietnam, and Richard Nixon was president.

It was a busy time, Doc. 

Hope you got it all down in your notes.

See ya next week, okay?

My Life As a Muckracker As told to Dr. Freud (part five)

Here's something strange Doctor: To this day I've not been able to figure out how Yugoslavia’s Communist dictator, Marshall Tito, knew I was coming to Zagreb.

Did Russian spies tip him off, or was it that Jewish Rumanian girl with the unshaven legs I met in Zurich? She was nice, and I thought it was a pleasant encounter. She didn't strike me as a commie agent. More on that in a moment.

I was still in distress, when I headed to Zurich on my journalistic adventure into government sponsored social and welfare services, but I managed to put Bette Daneman far back in my mind.

Zurich is, as you know, a magnificent, civilized town. At least it was in those days. The first night in town, I decided it was a good place to relax and stretch, take a shower and wash some clothes.

I wasn't in the room two hours, when I got an urgent call from the front desk.

“The police want to talk to you Mr. Veidenthal. Yes? They say you have clothing hanging on the railing of your balcony. It is against the law, sir! You have a half an hour to remove them, or we will have to evict you.

“Yes sir!”  I said, and promptly obeyed.

Is this Nazi Germany?, I thought. I went out to the balcony, which overlooked the town square, and removed every bit of clothing from the railing, feeling like someone was tracking me from below.

My visit to an enormous Swiss hospital the next day was very impressive. I could not help noticing that the Red Cross was hanging all over. Then I reminded myself that is the Swiss flag. It hangs everywhere. The government hospital was very much what you might expect in a small, homogenous country. The care was superb, and the facility had sustained no damage from the war. They had remained neutral, as the Nazis ravaged Europe.

That night, my encounter with the Rumanian girl came on a trolley as I was riding back from the hospital. I noticed her sitting opposite me, attractive and young, with unshaven legs. Somehow I remember that vividly, after all these years. So Eastern European, I thought. I smiled and she smiled back. I got up and walked toward her, she made room for me, and we talked. I noticed a small Star of David hanging around her neck. Aha, she's one of us, I declared to myself. 

I said “Shalom”. 

She replied, “Shalom”. 

Turned out she was a Holocaust survivor whose family had escaped Rumania during the war. l wanted to know more. It was the germ of a very interesting conversation. When we got to the stop at her hotel she invited me to get off and have a cup of tea. Nothing sinister I assure you, but I did mention my planned visit to Zagreb. Innocent, totally innocent, at the time.

I left Zurich none the worse for wear and headed for Vienna, which was still occupied by troops from the US, England, France and Russia. The Victors, so to speak. Somehow, using my Press credentials, I managed to gain entry to the world meeting of the International Association of Legislators. Lawmakers from everywhere attended, including a senator and several congressmen from Ohio, and notably, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, who I believe had run for president. (Unsuccessfully.)

I jumped on a bus with the lawmakers and their wives for a fun evening at a tavern up in the Vienna Woods. Kefauver as I recall, was really drunk before we got there, and led our bus mates in singing a round of Auld Lang Syne. I thought to myself, if these guys were sober we could declare peace around the world. I was idealistic in those days.

It was a frenzied drunken evening, where absolutely nothing would be solved.

So much for world peace.

From Vienna, a battered prewar plane managed somehow to get me to a small airfield in Zagreb. It was another tiny airport with mostly government military warplanes. This was the heart of the new communist Balkans where Dictator Marshal Tito had assumed control. He ruled with an iron hand, and was not loved by the free world, as he was a puppet of Stalin.

I had come to cover the World Conference for the Welfare of Children. Key participants were, the Dean of the School of Social Work at Case Western Reserve University, and Bell Greve, Director of Health & Welfare for the City of Cleveland. This was to be the first post war conference. Both Bell Greve and the CWRU dean were widely known, Arriving at the airport, I looked around. The horse drawn vehicles, ready to carry us into town, struck me as so primitive.

THE TOSO DABAC ARCHIVES

This was 1955. There were only a few motorized cabs. I was told there was only one gas station in town. I somehow found a “real cab” and headed for my hotel which had been booked for me by an agent back in Cleveland. We pulled up, and before I could gather my things and pay the driver, an attractive woman opened the back door.

"On behalf of Marshal Tito, I welcome you to Zagreb. I have a better place for you," she announced in perfect English, then she hopped into the front seat and instructed the driver in Slovenian. I shouted to the driver to let me out, but it was too late.

I was petrified.

Next: My indoctrination into Communism, Tito and Stalin-style.

My Life As a Muckracker As told to Dr. Freud (part three)

Doc, welcome back. Hope you had a nice Vacation in Miami Beach. You look good. Healthy. Better than Vienna right?! Had a little bout with something. Last week but I'm fine now...

To bring you up to date: I spent about two years chasing cops on the police beat. Auto accidents, fires, and the like, before my time came to move ahead. On the beat I learned a lot about the human condition in Cleveland; the plight of blacks and whites struggling to maintain a decent lives. It wasn't easy in the city, even in those relatively benign days of the 50's. Of course, the raucous 60's were just around the corner. We should have seen that coming, but we didn't. It wasn't a soft touch for the cops either. The police beat experience made me wonder what happens to a good, decent human being when he or she puts on a uniform.

Doc, you probably understand this better than I. Human nature, right? The uniformed guys lose their humanness. Can't change that, Doc. The uniform brings out the feeling of power. Every time I encountered a cop in later years, I tried to deal with them like human beings. It simply didn't and doesn't work. The law is the law. I invariably ended up saying yes "Sir, yes Sir," and they mostly ended up telling me to tell it to a judge.

One night when I first went down to Texas, I was driving in a relatively dark busy road on the way to a religious service in Sun City about ten miles away. After I had made a turn onto a main road, there was the sight of flashing lights the sound of a siren.

“What have I done?,” I thought to myself.

The cop pulled me over, and walked toward the car. Oh good, it was a woman! A young blonde. Not bad looking. I breathed a sigh of relief. I can handle this. But I had sighed too soon. From those beautiful lips she barked,  

“You got a license? You a citizen?! What are you doing down here? Do you know where you are going?”

“I’m going to a religious service at Sun city, and I'm a bit lost Ma’am. Maybe you can help me? By the way I really like your town, the library, the theater...”

“Any drugs in the car? Do you know you were doing 25 in a 40 mile zone?! That's a violation of state law. And you made a wide turn into Williams Drive,” she barked as she poked her flashlight into my face.

“I’ll let it go this time, with a warning. Better not happen again.”

So much for good looking blondes in uniform.

My opportunity to move up from the police beat arrived when Alex Groner, a fine reporter and writer, accepted a job with Time magazine. He had covered the Health and Welfare beat for the Press. Louis Seltzer asked me take over the assignment, a prime job. He was strongly involved in the health and well being of the town's citizens, particularly for the powerless and the disadvantaged. I was told that Health and Welfare was important. The editors weren't socialists, but good journalists. We became the champions of the weak and the powerless, and we were interested in the rapid growth of health care in the city. 

Dr. Crile

Dr. George Crile led the way. He came to the east side where he founded the Cleveland Clinic, initially known as the Crile Clinic. The Press was on top of the story. The paper was also concerned for the care of the elderly and the poor. They were convinced we could do better, and our readers wanted it that way. It was a huge public issue in those days, too.

After I established myself on the beat, the editors agreed to send me on an ambitious five week trip to Europe to take a look at the advanced social systems that were emerging in the West. If they could meet the social needs of their folks why can't we? The question of course, is unanswered to this day. For me it became, with the boss’s permission, much more than a simple journalistic venture.

It was my sentimental return to Europe, only a few years after the war. This time I took the Queen Mary, the stately ocean liner of its time. I had my own bunk, but not much more. I holed up in the lowest class. It must have been fifth class. Four of us shared a so-called room. There was me, another fellow my age from Chicago, who I hung out with, a priest, and a middle aged guy. A group of us from steerage hung together, found a secret passage to First Class and had a ball. There were a number of young single guys and some very lovely British young ladies.

But there was a hooker to this, Doc. These girls were all Brits who had married American soldiers during the war, and were now returning home to visit their families. I, of course, was very careful, not wanting to create an international incident, but not careful enough. To this day I blame it on the guy from Chicago. (And of course the priest, who should have prayed for me.)

I was controlling myself as best I could, because my Cleveland girlfriend, Bette Daneman, was to meet me in London. I forgot to tell you about her, Doc. Bette was a very bright young lady, and head of the Cleveland Junior council on World Affairs, who was studying in Oxford for the summer. We’d planned to travel together on a five week adventure. Innocents abroad, so to speak. I would stay in a hotel on Sloane Square, do my reporting in the London area and then drive up to Oxford and pick her up.

Well, it didn't quite work out that way. Doc. You know, raging hormones.

By pure coincidence Doc, honest, I happened to be innocently walking hand in hand down the gangplank with one of the British gals, and would you believe, standing there among the greeting crowd to surprise me was Bette, with a pained look on her face. Boy, was I surprised. She saw me “walking the plank,” so to speak. I ducked away from the British girl, but it was too late.

Bette never really smiled that day or the next. You understand, don't you Doc? Girls are funny. They're sensitive. It seemed like a wonderful friendship begun in Cleveland, but it was destined for disaster in London.

Can you help me with this one? Can you, Doctor?

Next: Crying in my beer in Asmunhausen, and a dicey encounter with Yugoslavia's Dictator, Tito.