C.I.A. Brat

By Ken Albertsen

Tells the true story of a boy, from birth to age 22, who changed schools 11 times, located in five countries, employing four languages. Dad was a career CIA man who had segued from OSS after WWII. Mom was not-so-typical housewife of the 50's and 60's who, among other odd things, tried getting her three boys hooked on cigarettes before their teen years. Musical influences affected the boy showcased in the memoir, at many junctures in his life. He started gigging on blues guitar in smoky blues clubs before the age of 17. Recorded with a band of Spanish Gypsies, and later fronted a six piece R&B band - gigging all over the Wash. DC region. That band had a 3-piece horn section and half the songs were originals. The reference to 'drugs' in the subtitle pertains to the mind-altering drugs which most youngsters dealt with in those heady times. Drugs can be used to 'get kicks' for sure, but the CIA story delves deeper, and articulates how some drugs can enhance spiritual explorations.
The 'C.I.A. Brat' book includes a dedication, primarily to young black and brown folks, and here’s the gist of why: Young people of color grow up thinking white kids who grow up in well-off neighborhoods have all sorts of advantages over them. Granted, on average, white kids in comfortable suburbs have more money behind them, but money is only one slice of the pie of life. There are more important things in life than how much a person is worth in dollars, or how impressive the gifts are on birthdays and Christmas. Family get-togethers with genuine camaraderie counts for more than money, as does nurturing and kindness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ken Albertsen
• Release date: Mar 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781879338210

Ken Albertsen

Ken is a .westward-moving guy. Started out in Denmark in 1952, then westward to Washington DC three years later. At age 22, Ken moved westward to northern California where he farmsteaded for 25 years. Then westward again at age age 47 to farmstead in northern Thailand. 20 years hence, and Ken is like whirled peas (world peace) leaving Thailand and landing on his feet, but where? Ken has over a dozen books showcased online - on as many topics, ranging from Tibetan Buddhism (Life Story of Milarepa) to diet (Fasting for Health and Highness), to history (Hong Kong, What if ....?) with a couple of sci-fi stories thrown in for good measure (Robon Take-Over and Mastodons on Mars). Additionally, Ken has written a novel (Lali's Passage), a humorous book (Buddha, Jesus and the Hippie), plus two memoirs. One is his auto-bio from age zero to 22 (C.I.A. Brat) and the most recent was written after serving time in a Thai prison on false charges (1 Pill = 28 Years). Ken will next release his first children's book titled: "Mabalo's Balloon." plus a crossword puzzle book and a dictionary of idioms. Ken has narrated two audio books, the latest: Himalayan Adventures features readings from the diaries of seven great explorers of the Himalayan region, five of whom did their explorations during the 19th century. Adventure1.com.

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C.I.A. Brat

Written by Ken Albertsen

ISBN 9781879338210

Copyright 2014 by Adventure1 Publications, Chiang Rai, Thailand

This ebook is available for the person who purchased it. This ebook should not be copied or re-sold or given away to others. Exception: small portions of this book may be quoted in other venues, if it's in regard to reviews or within a teaching context. If you would like to share this book with others, please arrange for the purchase additional copies, accordingly. Thank you for respecting the work of this author. Carpenters, lawyers, accountants and chefs get paid for the hours they devote to their professions, ....so too should authors. It is hoped you enjoy this book. Reviews are appreciated, thanks.

Chapter 1. Entering

Chapter 2. Virginia

Chapter 3. England

Chapter 4. Rome

Chapter 5. Leaving like a Tree

Chapter 6. Walter

Chapter 7. Acid

Chapter 8. DC Al Coda

Chapter 9. Influences

Chapter 10. Driving The CIA While Drunk

Chapter 11. Back-Country

Preamble

Nobody ever told me, 'Go west, young man,' but that's what happened. I started off in Denmark, was then taken west to Washington D.C. At age 22, when the text for this memoir wraps up, I was again heading west - to California. After a quarter century there, it was west again – to Southeast Asia. Naturally, there were zig-zags along the way. Some zigs took me east, some zags had me going west again. Up until age 22, I had changed schools 11 times within 5 countries. There were sheltered elitist times as well as 'down in the dumps' times – some triumphs and some low points, such as spending a drug-addled night in jail.

If this intro was crafted like a 'movie trailer,' it would go on for 40 paragraphs shouting the highlights of each of the 40 most dramatic stories herein. There would be women screaming, bullets flying, and people running from giant fireballs. But alas, I'm not a movie promoter, so drawn-out over-hype is not my forte.

Auto-biographies are usually the realm of famous folks so, you may ask, what's a non-famous person doing – writing one? I'll take a stab at addressing that. For starters, most people, whether famous or not, have some profoundly sad event in their formative years. It might be; death in the family, rape, beatings, drug problems, break-ups, or some grave disease. Therefore, most biographies swirl around that unfortunate occurrence, and it therefore become the lodestone for the entire biography. Although similar such challenges took place in my formative years, there was fortunately no sole profound event which defined my boyhood. On second thought, having an emotionally shipwrecked mother might fit that role.

America doesn't reward spiritual insight. There are awards and accolades, certificates and commemorations for a million different achievements, but where does spiritual attainment fit in? Nada. It doesn't. The average westerner, when hearing a phrase like 'spiritual achievement,' might attribute it to one or more religious icons from centuries ago. Or, if pressed to name a contemporary, might mention The Pope or a kindly church pastor. Indeed, even a mention of one's personal spiritual insight is considered 'gauche' or egotistical. Modern folks are busy enough with heaps of other priorities, such as; making money, burnishing their vanity, or obtaining electronic gizmos. Spiritual endeavors take a back seat in the public domain, if they figure at all.

Drug taking is nearly as primal, and as entwined with human evolution as sex. The true stories that follow attempt to shed light, not only on drug-taking during the hippie era, but how certain drugs can be conducive to a person's spiritual development. Society, via drug-enforcement laws, lumps recreational drugs into two convenient categories: One category comprises the sole recreational drug which is legal, available, and tolerated everywhere: alcoholic drinks. The other category encompasses all other recreational drugs. They're all illegal, deemed deadly, addictive and criminal-making. The latter part of the following memoir does more than touch upon this topic, it endeavors to shed reasonable light upon recreational drugs.

If you wanted to regulate swimming, would you seek solutions from people who had never been immersed in water? That's essentially what society asks from legislators and enforcers, in regard to laws which criminalize drug use. Hemp, for example, is an herb that couldn't get a person stoned if she smoked a barrel-full. Yet, our sage leaders would throw people in jail for having a few seeds of the stuff.

All the tales herein are true. No names have been altered to protect the innocent. Indeed, because I've lost touch with nearly everyone with whom I had early adventures with, this text is partially a call-out to re-connect. Or, as Paul Simon alluded to in his song 'Kodachrome,' recollections of people we've known and lost touch with, are sometimes better left to memory. I've seen some 'later' pics of friends from 'way back', and must confess; some still look vibrant and endearing. They look like they still got their mojo workin.'

Dedication

This book is dedication primarily to young black and brown folks, and here’s why: Young people of color grow up thinking white kids who grow up in well-off neighborhoods have all sorts of advantages over them. Granted, on average, white kids in comfortable suburbs have more money behind them, but money is only one slice of the pie of life. There are more important things in life than how much a person is worth in dollars, or how impressive the gifts are on birthdays and Christmas. Though my parents were well-to-do, and I was spoiled with gifts/toys growing up, there were also gaping drawbacks.

The times when my family felt like a chummy family were as few as I can count on

both hands. I would look around at other family interactions, and sometimes feel a bit jealous of how well they were all getting along. I’d see genuine laughter, chiding, joking and comraderie - which was lacking in my family dynamic. This was also a time (1950’s 1960’s) of the ‘nuclear family’ which indicated a small family which was an entity unto itself. No raucus barbecues with dozens of relatives, which one would expect from an extended family of color. I never even met my cousins, even though they resided about 160 miles away.

Don’t get me wrong, I had fun times growing up, as evidenced in the following stories. The point I’m trying to make here is directed towards young folks of color who may think that well-off kids in the suburbs have all the advantages, and kids in poorer neighborhoods always have the short end of the stick. Not so. All youngsters have challenges growing up, but money is not the defining element. Well-off kids can suffer psychological drawbacks as much as kids from any other social strata. Money can’t buy family cohesiveness or joy.

Chapter 1. Entering

Clean up this room! the woman shouted, lips flared, teeth bared and gritted. A moment later, before her 6 year old son could bring himself to rise up from sitting on the bed, she declared, If you prefer to live in a pig sty, then go ahead, ...have it your way.

My mom’s arm quickly swept across the top of the clothes dresser, instantly splaying all items onto the floor, breaking, among other things; a lamp with its bulb and shade, plus several plastic models. The delicate models were WWII fighter planes, with insignia, and a cardinal bird, painted red, all meticulously constructed, along with decals carefully applied.

The infraction which led to my mother’s tantrum? Leaving some socks and clothes on the floor. Her destruction was not an isolated incident. It happened several times, always punctuated by her yelling above my tearful protestations. At least thrice, she emptied out all the drawers of the dresser, angrily strewing clothes to all corners of the bedroom.

Not surprisingly, an emotionally shipwrecked mom can affect strong influences on her brood. It had the unintentioned effect of compelling me to turn off to her - from an early age. In response to the first few of my mother’s tantrums, I responded with tears and anger. That was the response she wanted.

Yet, after several upheavals, I adapted better ways to deal with it. Sure, the anger still seethed, but along with that came inurement. I was developing an emotional callous to her harangues.

Way back then, I could have been cowed by her avarice, but instead I resisted. Fortunately, my father was in the picture. His character was the diametric opposite of his wife's. Where she was driven by vindictiveness, he was guided by fair mindedness. Decades later, I realized that my mother’s outrageous behavior was also a component in me being drawn to Buddhism, whose core attribute is non-attachment. Having my precious possessions destroyed right in front of me by this raging person, was life molding.

Several concepts sprouted in my mind. I learned that anger and rage were bad, like poisons for the mind. I also learned that rage is, to a large extent, self-perpetuating. In other words, no one is forcing that rage to churn in that individual.

Like the alcoholic who pours drink down her throat, rage is largely something that's self-fueled. Those sorts of emotional outbursts were the beginnings of my learning about the attributes of non-attachment to possessions. Later in life, such lessons would expand to include non-attachment to emotional states. The seeds of non-attachment had been planted. Thanks mom.

In her carefree ‘salad days,’ during the 1940's, mother had been freelancing as an artist in Hollywood. The aspiring actress would frequent restaurants where movie stars hung out. Without prior permission, d'Arcy would commence a quick caricature of one or another personage, using high quality pastel crayons on a pad of paper. Showing such minute-made portraits to guests would inevitably spark lively conversations, and a few much-appreciated dollars. Caricature portraits could also spark acquaintances. There’s one story where actor Jimmy Stewart took pretty young d'Arcy with him on a wild fling to Lake Tahoe. It might be intriguing to claim I popped out into the world 9 months later, but it's doubtful the Stewart family would find humor in that.

After gallivanting around Hollywood, d'Arcy married a rich jeweler who took her to the Bahamas. It soon became evident that the jeweler could not sire babies. D’Arcy went to consult a doctor to see what could be done to remedy that. The doctor promptly inserted a solution, and duly impregnated his patient. A few weeks later, when d'Arcy excitedly declared to her husband, Dear, guess what? You thought you couldn’t make children, but surprise, you can: I’m pregnant!

Her husband, the jeweler, responded with a divorce. Baby boy Ron entered the world, months later.

D'Arcy and her baby boy went to hang out with the 'well-to-do' at the Hamptons, upstate New York. There, she fortuitously met the man who would become her second husband. Roughly nine months after that, while honeymooning in the Virgin Islands, I popped out: son #2 for mom, son #1 for dad. By that time, dad had graciously adopted his wife’s ready-made 3 year old son. At age 45, he had two sons.

Dad was blond and Nordic. There are respective baby photos of my paternal grandfather, my father, and me - if you put the black & white photos side by side, you could be excused for assuming they were triplets.

Strange as it sounds, that was a factor in why my mother would sometimes fly into a rage, with me as the butt of her acrimony. As with most married women, she was often dissatisfied. More often than not, she felt unloved, unappreciated, and/or her sex life wasn’t fulfilling. She would tape Playboy centerfolds to the inside of the folding doors on dad's clothes closet – deigning to stiffen dad's resolve.

She needed someone to unload her frustrations upon. Because my father was away at his job, or not sufficiently responsive when on the scene, mother would dump frustrations on me. Why? Because I was like a clone of my dad, like a mini-him. More than once, when I was around five, my mother would point her finger at me and state with all the angered conviction of a frustrated housewife; you know you’re your father’s favorite son.

I didn’t know how to field that. From her seething anger, I thought I was supposed to feel awful, as that’s what she seemed to want me to feel. Yet, from the words, I felt OK. So, to not further anger my mother, I responded sheepishly, but inwardly I felt good on hearing that.

Of my father’s three sons, I was the only one who was the fruit of his loins. If there was favoritism, it didn’t show, as dad was as fair-minded as a judge which, incidentally, was the profession of his Danish father.

My given name was Kenneth, but in this memoir I'm referred to as Kim, which is the nickname my parents gave me. The way they tell it is: while mom was pregnant, both parents read Rudyard Kipling's book, 'Kim', and that's where they got the idea for my nickname. Like the Johnny Cash song, 'A Boy Named Sue' (written by comedian, Martin Mull), a boy with a girl's name has obvious added challenges. Actually, there are a few males named 'Kim,' but there's no doubt they heard the same childhood taunt as I did: why do you have a girl's name? It's the type of thing some boys and girls with names like Jean or Leslie or Jackie, had to deal with while growing up. Partly for that reason, I learned to never ridicule a person's name.

The first time I got tipsy from alcohol was at one of my parents' cocktail parties. All the adults were in the living room doing what adults do at cocktail parties; talking, posturing and laughing loudly. At five years, I was sitting on a table where the empty glasses wound up. Each shallow glass had a stuffed olive in it and, without thinking, I ate the olives. A bit later, a friend of my mother’s, Adele, came over and saw I was tipsy. She put one and one together and broke into loud laughter while announcing to the party-goers, Hey everyone, look, little Kim is drunk!

Even though both my parents drank alcoholic drinks each evening, they weren’t alcoholics. Similarly, though I drank alcoholic drinks on and off until my early 20‘s, I’ve never had a problem with drinking, other than being drunk several times.

When our five member family sat together at dinner, dad would often pour each of his boys a small glass of half wine, half water. He did this from the time we boys were able to sit at the table without high chairs. That acclimatization, plus the factor that we all had European roots, contributed to the fact that neither my parents, nor their boys, ever had drinking problems.

It may sound racist to say so, but native folks who have no cultural tradition of drinking fermented sugar drinks are more prone, on average, to problems with alcohol. When it comes to other types of drugs, well, that’s a different story.

Drug use started in the womb during the months my mother was carrying me. Those were heady times for her. She had recently met and married a handsome Danish-American diplomat. They were in love and, after conceiving me in the Virgin Islands, went to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he was appointed First Secretary at the US embassy.

Though dad didn’t share stories of his work with his sons when we were young, he did elicit one tidbit, years later. While assigned to the US diplomatic Corps in Copenhagen, the first-ever defection by a MIG fighter pilot took place. The Soviet pilot decided, correctly, that if he went full throttle in a bee line for a landing strip in Denmark, he could break free from his USSR controllers. This was at the beginning of the Cold War and during the Korean War, when Soviet and US jet fighters were skirmishing daily in Asia. You can imagine what a great prize it was for the US and Europeans to get their hands on a fully functional MIG fighter plane, plus a pilot who was glad to divulge all he knew. Dad was the first American at the landing site and he escorted the pilot from the field. From that moment on, Soviet military planes were not allowed to fly solo. If a plane diverted from a flight plan, the other pilot was required to shoot it down.

Less than ten years earlier, dad had been actively assisting the ‘Danish underground’ during WWII. One successful assignment was to assist underground Danes in blowing up a commandeered corner restaurant used exclusively by Nazi brass for meetings. He may have done other clandestine things, but he was tight-lipped about them. Right after the war, dad received a ‘White Cross’ decoration for heroism in a ceremony hosted by the King of Denmark. So, when stationed in Copenhagen a few years later, he and his newlywed wife essentially had a ‘Key to the City.' There were parties and balls nearly every night. Champagne flowed like water. Cigarettes were considered chic, as movie stars were always seen with them. Little me, as an embryo and fetus, had no choice in the matter. I was along for the ride. The bit of life-giving placenta between the mother’s and baby’s body doesn’t discern between nutrition and drugs. It all gets passed along to the baby swimming in amniotic fluid. In sum, I was tipsy from day one.

While being born, so I’m told, a flight of white birds flew over the skylight in the delivery room. Perhaps that explains why I’ve been flighty ever since. As a baby, my parents wisely assigned a nurse to me. Her name was Bergeeta, a lovely young Danish woman. I had a photo of her where she’s smiling on the verge of laughing. I am so glad she was hired to take care of me. I can imagine my mother going out to fancy diplomatic parties, getting drunk and coming back in early morning hours, waking her baby and shoving a nipple into its mouth. I assume the martini, champagne and nicotine flavored milk was good, but I have no recollection.

I do, however, have a slight memory of one of those times. My mother must have been lactating, and while at a party, started feeling some pain associated with needing to nurse, in order to relieve the pain. Bergeeta, being the good babysitter that she was, surely bottle fed me and had put me to bed by the late hour my parents returned home. The memory was a frustrated mother trying to get me to suck on her erect nipple, angrily thrust in the little baby’s mouth. No doubt, I was crying and it wouldn’t be outlandish to suspect mom was concurrently chastising Bergeeta for feeding me prior. That episode could have been titled; Attack by the Angry Nipple.

Westward from Denmark to Maryland

The family came to America when I was two and a half. Dad got a large white rental house on Glenbrook Drive near Washington DC. With its spacious lawn and big trees, it was the ideal place for jumping onto leaf piles in autumn, as soon as they were raked together. There was a rainy day, when I wandered off to merrily stroll nude in the flooded gutters alongside the suburban street. A neighbor woman found me and kindly walked me home. There was laughter all around when the neighbor exclaimed to my mom, all this time I thought you had a daughter because of the child’s long blond curls, but now it’s plain, it’s a boy.

Another episode, this time a sunny day, my mom and I were in the backyard having a picnic. I put an end of a carrot stick in my mouth and then began to howl in pain. A yellow jacket bee had been on the end of the carrot and quickly did what any bee would do when put in a mouth: it stung. Mom laughed hardily while putting miserable me in her bed to convalesce.

One day, my buddy and I decided we’d pick some lovely flowers and give them to my mom. Big mistake. The flowers were her prize tulips which she had received from her mother who resided in her native Holland. My friend and I, around four years apiece, got chewed out royally that afternoon. Another time, I ventured out alone over to the neighbor’s. He had the amazing name, Poopy Dicker. That day he was entertaining at his swimming pool with beautiful women all around. Poopy was middle-aged and the women were probably in their twenties, but to me they were large and old. One bikini-clad lady took a liking to the little boy with the blond curls, and kept cuddling me. I don’t know if it was making Poopy jealous, but the jokes were flying fast and furious. One of Poopy's witticisms came out something like, you got such big jugs, why don't you give the kid some milk.

Dad had a jaguar car, which oozed luxury. One favorite thing, was for the entire family; mom, dad, me and older brother Ron (Derek was in the incubator at that time), go for a drive. I would stand on the back seat and face the rear window diagonally. It was the best place to sing songs. The acoustics were such that my small voice would reverberate in the back window area. I purposefully kept my voice soft because I didn’t particularly want anyone hearing me sing. One day, I looked back to the front of the car and asked if anyone could hear me. All three smiled and simultaneously said, yes. That was about the time when Ron, who was late in coming around to speak, said his first words, see car down there?

Then there was the feather. Every night at that time, while going to bed, I liked to have a feather. I would manipulate its tip just under my nose. Apparently, it helped me to get to sleep. More than a few times, if there was no feather at hand, I’d lie in bed, and shout where’s my feather?! Mom, dad and big brother would scramble around the house looking for it. I would stay in bed and continue shouting my demand until the darned feather was brought to me. What a spoiled brat I must have been at times.

Dad then bought his first house. Valued at $13,000, it was located a few miles from the prior house on Glenbrook road. The newer house was on Brite drive. It was near Radnor elementary school which I would attend. It was also near two enormous water holding tanks which I would summit a few years later.

One sunny day, as my dad and I were standing in the front yard, two little girls happened to walk by. It was just after he had gently rebuked me for turning on the car radio to listen to songs. The engine was off, You’ll run down the battery.

The girls were my age and, as this was a couple of weeks before school started, this was our first encounter. When they saw me, they stopped and asked about the new boy. I was painfully shy so I just stood there without saying anything. My dad perked up and stepped forward to introduce me. It was one of the few times I can recall him being unabashedly joyful. He was not, by nature, morose, but instead was often even-keeled, conservative, and not prone to being effusive with emotions. In a nutshell, the polar opposite of mom. Yet, on this occasion, he was clearly charmed by the two five-year-old girls with blond tresses who took the time to inquire about the new boy in town.

My younger brother Derek entered the world in May 1956. I recall when he was brought home for his first time. I was standing alongside my father. It was just him, the baby lying in the crib, and me. After a few moments of wordlessly staring at the baby's dark curls, my father spoke without humor, Sure doesn’t look like me, does it.

As all kids are apt to do, I entertained myself at times. I’ve always preferred to be outdoors and thankfully TV was not a big lure, and computer games would not be invented for twenty years. There was bamboo growing alongside a fallow side of the house, perfect for making spears. There was also a long wooden ladder with dowel steps. When sitting flat on the ground, it made a fine raft for floating down an exotic river somewhere in the remote wilds of Africa. I became adept at spearing large fish and crocs.

One Saturday morning, while sleeping in at my 2nd floor room, I heard a sharp click, as something smooth and cool entered my mouth. I took it out to look at it, thinking it might be a tooth. Then I heard one of my buddies calling my name from the yard, 15 feet below my window, Kim, Kim, come out to play.

It turned out, my pint-size buddy had taken some small blond smooth pebbles from the driveway to use to rouse me from my slumber. My bedroom window had crank-opening glass panels. One of his pebbles had surreptitiously banked against the panel, and vectored directly into my mouth.

Another very different occurrence with my mouth, in the same bed: One night, as my parents were having one of their many cocktail parties, I went to bed early. Awhile later, my mom came in to check on me. She was woozy on liquor, and I could smell her breath. She kneeled down and put her mouth on mine, and then stuck her tongue in there too. In a split second, I pulled away, and said ‘’eeuuw.’ That was the first and last time she ever tried something like that with me.

Around that time, the family went on a drive to Vermont. The only memory worth noting on that trip was: I nearly died. Ron would tell the story of how he and I were jogging down a dirt road after a rain. Within moments we found ourselves in a mud pit. Ron called it 'quicksand' but I question whether there was tropical-type quicksand in a northern region like Vermont. Ron who was older and stronger was able to get out. Seeing me up to my neck and