The night after we arrived in Paris we tested our French. We went to the movies and saw a comedy played broadly by Fernandel (Fernand Joseph Désiré Contandin). He spoke with an enormous cigar in his mouth and mumbled his lines. We couldn’t understand a word, let alone his regional accent. The audience roared with Read More
Alfredo Antonini had arranged a three-month stay for my family in a villa on the Bay of Naples, complete with a view of Capri, Vesuvius and the harbor. In the course of my work we had visited Europe several times. After a week as tourists on the Amalfi Coast we decided to move to Italy. Read More
As a returning veteran I was entitled to four more college years at government expense. I didn’t take the gift seriously until I heard the same educational benefits could be extended to aviation. I could learn to fly—at government expense. Because my eyes were so poor, I couldn’t become an airline pilot, but I could Read More
The Army and I divorced at Fort Dix, New Jersey. I checked into a Herald Square hotel and immediately went to a man’s store to get clothing any color but khaki. Anything but the faintest resemblance to Government Issue, GI. Ten million other discharged soldiers had abandoned the obligatory military colors. White, blue, grey, patterned Read More