Books Worth Reading
In 1955, Mom began dating Alan Maury Razovsky — a second-generation immigrant Lithuanian Jew, born 1914 in St. Louis MO, more recently from Dallas, Texas, an electrical engineer at TVA where Mom worked.
** Flashback ** There were twelve Jews at UTexas Austin in 1935, where AMR got his engineering degree.
One of them ended up working in the New York City financial district — World Bank, or maybe Agency for International Development.
Continue reading “Camera Familia — Chapter 2”
Signalman Benjamin Franklin Dyer, United States Navy, the South Pacific, circa 1944.
I have Frank Dyer’s semaphore flag, his father’s shotgun, a war trophy Japanese rifle, an engineering handbook printed in 1934.
But I never knew my natural father. He died in July 1950 when I was five months old, heart stopped by a stray current traveling between an electric stove and a washing machine, in our kitchen on Mountain View Circle in Flintstone Georgia, far from the battlefield.
Continue reading “Camera Familia — Chapter 1”
An evocative adventure/love story from the author of The Illusion of Gravity.
In 1966 Manila, an American teenager courts a CIA recruit several years his senior. It’s a mismatch, a scandal. When she ships out, it’s over. Maybe.
An uncommon spin on the coming-of-age theme, informed by the author’s upbringing in mid-century Asia. Mature content, Young Adult appropriate. Value-positive, about good character as a strategy for creating a successful life. An immersive journey to a time and place now gone forever.
All my titles are #kindleunlimited.
Featured Image by Tumisu from Pixabay
Life in the Philippines. World travel. Mid-century. For context, see my essays, starting with https://johndyerwrites.com/2022/08/19/one-to-nine-1-john-dyer-writes/
Life in the Philippines. World travel. Mid-century. For context, see my essays, starting with https://johndyerwrites.com/2022/08/19/one-to-nine-1-john-dyer-writes/
Dad passed away in 1999, so there's no indexing this. Please comment if you recognize people or places.
For context, see my essays about the expat life, starting with https://johndyerwrites.com/2022/08/19/one-to-nine-1-john-dyer-writes/
For context, see my essays about the expat life, starting with https://johndyerwrites.com/2022/08/19/one-to-nine-1-john-dyer-writes/
Manila, Philippines. Circa 1958. A year before this photo was taken, Mom took me to visit a friend who lived in an apartment near downtown Manila. I had never been in an apartment before. I didn’t even know such things existed.
The lady had a dachshund named Gretchen. I had never seen a Dachshund before.
Gretchen knew a trick. The owner balanced a cookie on the dog’s nose. The dog stood still. The owner said, “Okay.” The dog flipped the cookie into the air, and ate it. I had no idea dogs could learn tricks.
Gretchen had a litter of puppies. I had never seen puppies before.
Can you believe it? I was seven! Anyway, we took one home, and someone in the family, probably Mom, named her Hildegard. We called her Hildy. Years later, Mom claimed the dog’s name was actually Brunhilda. It was Hildegard. These were important events for me. I remember everything about it.
One day, Hildy had puppies. I had no idea how that happened, but I got to pick one for us to keep. I named him Mercury. We called him Mergy.
These were standard Dachshunds. Mergy weighed about twenty pounds as an adult. See the photo, Mergy and me, circa 1965.
It never occurred to anyone to teach these dogs tricks, but they did have a behavior. They hunted rats, big old Chinese Brown Rats, about a third their size. They’d bag them early in the morning, after Lucina got up, and stack the bodies on the front porch. Dad would come out for the newspaper to find Hildy and Mergy guarding their catch, waiting to be praised.
Technically, Mergy was my first pet, and I’ll always remember him that way — but both dogs slept with Lucina, so they probably thought they were hers.
At the time, I had no idea that was an option.
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Manila, Philippines. Circa 1958. I remember very little about my enlistment in the Philippine Cub Scouts, but there’s no refuting photographic evidence — I was in it. There was a guidebook, tasks to accomplish, skills to acquire. We must have gone on outings. I appear to have made acquaintances. I don’t recall any unpleasant moments.
The goal of the organization was to build virtue, self-reliance, good citizenship. As far as I know, it worked.
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Botocan, Philippines. Circa 1957. The life we imagine for ourselves is not necessarily the best life for everyone, but ideas will spread, and people will make choices. Filipinos valued their culture, but postwar Western nations had a lot to offer.
Population was expanding. Cities were growing. Modernization outward was essential, if for no other reason than to increase crop yields. In the provinces, traditional ways would eventually be displaced.
Thankfully, we were there in time to witness that which came before. In the photo, a man smiles at the camera, apparently serene, living in the moment. At arm’s length, a water buffalo, a cart, a harvest. I suspect he knew, as all of us should, that the most important things in life are usually right there, at arm’s length.
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