Acer Rubrum to Zyzyphus Jujuba: (Volume I) Essays and Dreams

By Dick Pellek

Volume I of Acer Rubrum to Zyzyphus Jujuba is a melange of selected stories that relate to Essays and Dreams of the chronicler, who most often calls himself the Footloose Forester.

The themes range from various essays that were thought out during the waking state, to favored subjects that emanated from dreams and daydreams.

As a "stream of consciousness" chronicler who disregards the timeline chronology of the stories about people, places, and events, this book was purposely compiled without a table of contents. It should add to the sense of discovery during the reading.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504959179

Dick Pellek

Author Dick Pellek spent five decades on the road—again—during his career as a forester. His interest in tropical and international forestry impelled him to keep notes and copies of records regarding his travels, observations, and experiences in many of the 106 countries and territories he visited or worked in. Volume I of Acer Rubrum to Zyzyphus Jujuba: Essays and Dreams is an attempt to dissociate his opinions and thoughts, including those emanating from dreams, from his stories based primarily on past travels and adventures. Chronicles relating primarily to anecdotes about places and events have been selected for inclusion in Volume II of Acer Rubrum to Zyzyphus Jujuba: Stories and Adventures. Dick Pellek currently resides in Greenbackville, Virginia, with his wife and soul mate of fifty-one years, who is a central figure in many of the chronicles by the author, who prefers to narrate in the third person tense, as the Footloose Forester. Till this day he and his wife are still celebrating their honeymoon.

Book preview

2015 Richard Pelleck. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/10/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-5916-2 (sc)

       978-1-5049-5917-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015920637

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

19248.png

Contents

Legacy Stories Get Remembered Best When They Are Recorded First

Picnic With Baboons

On Ignorance

Not All Modern Hotels Have Modern Architecture And Amenities

On Communications: To Instruct….To Inform….To Entertain

Nightmares and Daydreams of Indonesia

Of Sausages and Snails and Smoked Squids

Planting Trees For Posterity

On Being Frugal

Some Things You Can Make Up

Self-Hypnosis For Well-Being

Self-Hypnosis For Well-Being

Self-Hypnosis For The Music Lover

Some Essentials For Story Tellers

Sunshine Makes Me Happy

The Other Side Of The Coin

Taking The Dreaded Comps

Volcanoes Are Awesome

Virtual Flight Around A Volcano

Whistle Blower Wanna-Be

Who Manages The Managers?

Who Manages The Managers – Part II

We Built It…..We The People

To Fly—With The Paraglider In Your Backpack

Electing the Winner of the Talent Contest

You Ask Too Many Questions

We May Never Meet Again

Why Analyze A Post-It-Note? Why Analyze Anything We Read?

The RT Probe

Underutilized Scientific Equipment in Third World Countries

Sponges That Tastes Good

Who Are Graduates Of The School Of Hard Knocks?

Show Your Friends The Trail With Google Earth

A Story Only One Person Can Tell

Slow Pitch Softball and Some Unanswered Questions

Another Nightmare, Another Confession

Cap And Gown Are Not For Me

Dreams Of Secret Pleasures Always Bring On Smiles

Encroachers vs. Squatters

Geography of the Past

Giving Up Barbershops

Great Books and Film Documentaries

Five Principles To Live By

Five Things That Never Shook Loose From My Core Beliefs

Golf Is Sometimes About Things Other Than Tee To Green

Haunting Memories About Wars Past

Heroes We Have Known

In The Third World

Layman’s Concept of Glacier Movement

Learning The Local Geology Around Netcong, New Jersey

The Lumpers and the Splitters

My Bid Is 8 Spades

Measuring Height Is More Reliable Than Eyeballing

Legacy Of The Land

Mesa Verde, Colorado

Much Of Tikal In Guatemala Is Still Buried

NOBODY LIKES A CRITIC

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

Picking Your Own Tropical Fruit

Re-Learning Geography

Plant Propagation Around The World

Obelisk in Shadow

A Recipe for Becoming a Writer

Seek …And Ye Shall Find

Some Stuff You Just Can’t Make Up

H is for Honduras

Under the WiliWili Tree

WOW & Gee-Whiz Responses Belong in the Toolbox of Inquisitive Observers

When The Fish Are Running

b2_ap3_thumbnail_are you there? b2_ap3_thumbnail_ come in, thumbnail_!

Belly Laughs, Here and There

Drink the Water

Getting Along in Polyglot

Haiti in Tears

Getting The Most Out Of Coconuts

Global Warming…Or Not?

His Diet Could Have Been Better

Hints About How Google Earth Brings The World To Your Computer

Honor A Veteran On Memorial Day

Hunger For Real French Bread

Become Able

Schooling for Life

Novices, Ghost Writers, Editors, and Publishers

Snowless (almost) Kilimanjaro

If I Had 3 Wishes

Another Nightmare, Another Confession

Petty Scams

SWOT Analysis for Project Planning and Evaluation

Hand-Me-Downs

A Nobel Prize For Footloose Forester

In a Debate, Make Distinctions About Opinions, Evidence, Data, Facts and Proof

Growing Things: Make It Happen

Aroma Therapy

Computer Learner Becomes a History Scholar

Bath Time…On the road…again!

DEDICATION TREES

All I Need To Know About Life,

How Do We Know If Are Making An Impression?

Acer rubrum To Zyzyphus jujuba

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams

Chronicles of a Footloose Forester

By Dick Pellek

Legacy Stories Get Remembered Best When They Are Recorded First

When asked by the Co-Founder of LegacyStories.org to compile a list of the legacy stories we had submitted in 2013, some of the regular contributors and visitors to that website may have been taken aback, for various reasons. To some it may have been a non-starter because there may have been too few stories to make up a prioritized list; to others it may have been a challenge that they might not relish because it required them to go beyond their normal modus operandi to make a presumptuous and prioritized list, based upon the writers’ own ranking of relative importance of their contributed stories. It was asking those writers to be the sole judge of the relative merits of their own stories, themselves; and to then assign them to a priority list.

As a person who admits to be self-effacing, it is most distressing to be asked to commit myself in a deliberate exercise in calling for self-promotion when I know that it is the reader, not me, that decides on the merits of my contributed works. Speaking only for myself, I choose to write often and about various things because it is an effective way of recording circumstances about people, places, and events as I have known or interpreted them. Writing, then posting those stories, is my way of sharing with others. If the potential reader chooses to discard the material, it would not be the first time in my life that my correspondence has been ignored or outright rejected. Thus, people like me continue to write in the hopes that not everyone will be indifferent to the content. In the final analysis, we are judged by others; and our own opinions are not fungible.

Over the past few years I have attempted to share some glimpses of my legacy with other members of my family; and in doing so, try to present the material through the eyes of an observer—The Footloose Forester. The observer wants the reader(s) to know that the stories, the places, the people, and the circumstances were real, but the stories are about the observations, not the chronicler who calls himself The Footloose Forester. And he also wants the reader(s) to know that the person writing the Chronicles Of A Footloose Forester was not the Great I Am; nor the Great I Was. The Footloose Forester was just there, on hand to witness the magic of nature in places far and wide, one who had chance encounters with luminaries like John F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela; and is a sensitive soul who was touched with thoughts of death and dying; even among people who were not members of his own family. But such events are time stamped in history and we owe it to somebody to share our and their memories. Somebody has to be the keeper…and willing to share those memories. But don’t expect anyone to tap you on the shoulder and tell you that it is your job to be the legacy writer, and then proceed to tell you how to do it. Everyone alive will leave a legacy; and everyone who passed on…already did.

How do you want to be remembered? What would you share with your grand children before you pass on? If you tell them a story or two, will they listen?…But if you do tell them a story or two, they will remember.

Today you are living the story that tomorrow might be part of your legacy. Let others decide whether your life story was worth telling or repeating; but if you don’t provide the raw material for your legacy, all but a very few famous persons, with the aid of biographers, will have little or nothing that will endure beyond our lifetimes. So, if not you, who? If not now, when?

Thus, very reluctantly, the would-be teller of tales who calls himself The Footloose Forester does fervently hope that interested readers might find something worthwhile in a few of the 65 stories that he posted in 2013. Since he normally writes in the stream of consciousness mode to kick-start his stories, there was never a conscious effort to meet a goal by writing with only certain themes in mind. Nonetheless, a few distinct themes can be deduced in the list below. These, then; are his 2013 personal favorites because they are his personal memories, as follows:

REMEMBERING THE DISTANT PAST

1) My Best Christmas Present, Ever

2) Haunting Memories Of Wars Past

3) Heroes We Have Known

4) Looking Back With Mixed Emotions And Memories

5) Nostalgia Is Easier To Do These Days

6) Regrets

7) We May Never Meet Again

PEOPLE WHO TOUCHED OUR LIVES

1) Duty Roster

2) Escape From Laos

3) Tiger Dao’s Burial

4) These Stones Will Never Wilt

5) Gifts Of Finest Wine

6) France Revisited

REMEMBERING THE WORKING YEARS

1) Fish Bait Or Shark Bait?

2) Working As A Career

3) Sleeping In Graveyards

4) Bath Time…On the road…again!

5) On The Ground…again!

PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY

1) Five Principles To Live By

2) Five Things That Never Shook Loose From My Core Beliefs

Acer rubrum To Zyzyphus jujuba

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams

Chronicles of a Footloose Forester

By Dick Pellek

Picnic With Baboons

In many of the popular game parks and reserves in Africa, the authorities go out of their way to provide amenities for visitors. Quite naturally, a few picnic tables scattered here and there seems to make sense. Unfortunately, having a picnic at a picnic table is usually an unsettling experience. Lots of wild animals like to hang around picnic areas because they know there might be food there. Among the peskiest of critters are the baboons.

Baboons are impertinent moochers, at best. At worst, they snatch the food right out of your hands. If they are not already at the picnic site when you show up, they soon appear; seemingly out of nowhere. They approach close enough to allow you to read their body language, especially the movement of their eyes. And their eyes are always on your food.

It is a mistake to think that you can pacify them by tossing them bits of food. Unknowing tourists who are unfamiliar with African wildlife might think that feeding them up close is a novel gesture, but that makes matters worse. If and when baboons think that they can wrest food from your hands, they just might try. The Footloose Forester has witnessed food-snatching baboons in action, on several occasions. They mean you no harm, but they think nothing of jumping up from the ground and grabbing the food out of your hand. So, forget about putting a picnic lunch on the table when baboons are around.

Not all places where animals abound, such as in national parks and fenced-in game reserves, have troupes of baboons hanging around, but when you spot them, you know that they have spotted you. On one occasion in Nairobi National Park, we decided to eat our lunch under the shade of some tall trees near the bank of a stream. There was a convenient parking area off the main road, a few picnic tables, and one or more trash barrels where refuse could be deposited. But the baboons soon appeared even before we got out of our SUV, so the Footloose Forester announced to our visitors that we would have to eat our lunch in the car. Although there were trees around, the parking area was still in the hot sun and one of our guests starting eating an apple while cracking open the side window, in order to make it cooler. Too late! A baboon that was perched on the roof of the SUV immediately reached in and snatched the apple out of his hand.

ThinkstockPhotos-117918103.tif

A congress of baboons in session

On another occasion, and as we were departing from a small convenience store located on the main road in the semi-desert stretch between Nairobi and Mombasa, a baboon jumped up to snatch a candy bar from an unsuspecting girl who made the mistake of opening it too soon. When the baboon saw it exposed in her hand, he lunged at her and slammed her into the side of the building. Although we had seen a few baboons hanging around in front of the store when we entered, they waited until our young neighbor emerged with a few goodies.

By far the peskiest troupe of baboons that the Footloose Forester remembers was at Lake Naivasha National Park about a hundred miles northwest of Nairobi. There are so many baboons that regularly congregate near the park entrance that nobody needs to be told to stay in your vehicle; and to keep the windows closed. Having a picnic there is out of the question. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the photo above says it all.

Acer rubrum To Zyzyphus jujuba

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams

Chronicles of a Footloose Forester

By Dick Pellek

On Ignorance

This is likely to be the most personal, contentious, insulting, and embarrassing chronicle that the Footloose Forester has ever penned. It is all about my ignorance, your ignorance and the general ignorance that pervades the very air we breathe.

You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects quipped the late humorist Will Rogers. He passed away so long ago that the younger generations may not hear his name anymore; and only lucky oldsters may recall his guileless smile and charm as he stood on stage working his lasso while dissing the establishment and assorted stuffed shirts. He made his point, and thus emboldened the Footloose Forester to brave future criticism when he also included the subject of ignorance into his thoughts and writings. That touchy subject is of course charged with real or implied insult on a personal level that cannot easily be attenuated or rationalized. People get offended rather easily if you say that they are ignorant about this or that; and there seems to be no way for most people to accept the word ignorant without being personally invested in its use.

Dwight David Eisenhower was enough of a fatherly figure in the young eyes of the Footloose Forester to speak about ignorance in a non-damning way; and as then President of the United States, he responded to a reporter that he took daily lessons in economics because he was ignorant. He unabashedly admitted that he was ignorant about economics, having spent his career as a military officer. But Eisenhower went on to say that people should not be ashamed to admit that they are ignorant; because we are all ignorant about some things. Ignorance simply means that you are unaware of something. The word in no way suggests that being ignorant means that you are stupid. So said President Eisenhower. It was a poignant remark and one that the Footloose Forester well remembers as he assesses his own attitudes about people, places and events.

Before he gets into finger pointing about the ignorance of others, the Footloose Forester recalls an embarrassing moment when his boss in Haiti confronted him about a report in which the Footloose Forester discussed the process of technicians from the capital city making field visits to places where they were ignorant of local circumstances and day to day issues. His boss, who was coincidently standing on the very ground at that same field site during a subsequent trip, took the opportunity to blushingly scold the Footloose Forester that it was not necessary to report that he (the boss) was ignorant of the circumstances. Annoyed, insulted and demeaned … was he. The occasion did, however; give the Footloose Forester the opportunity to look him in the eye and state, unwaveringly, that the ignorance factor in the report was all about the ignorance of the Footloose Forester, as visiting technician. It wasn’t a case of a phony rationalization; it was about his approach to observing and assessing circumstances and making that admission as part of his reporting process.

As written in another chronicle, entitled Schooling for Life, his seeking a Masters degree at the University of Florida was a natural extension of his belief that he was woefully unprepared to speak and practice as a forester in the Third World, his choice as a career path. Rather than to project a phony self effacement when he told people he was ignorant, he just reminded them and himself that he and they were entirely ignorant of places they had never been, and of the languages and cultures that were awaiting them there. Tropical Forestry was his personal career quest, and he sought to mitigate his ignorance of the tropics through a course of study. His ignorance of the tropics was almost total at the time, but that was also part of his challenge.

On another occasion when he was giving a presentation at a forestry conference in Bamako, Mali, he let it slip about his relative ignorance regarding a policy or technical matter in Cape Verde. One of the participants then asked if the Footloose Forester had ever worked overseas before. To which he replied, yes; there was Pakistan, and Viet Nam, and Indonesia, and Costa Rica, and Panama, and Honduras, and Trinidad, and Senegal and …. But he was still ignorant. The gentle laughter in the room at the mention of the third of fourth country broke into horse laughs before he got into naming all the African countries. In retrospect, the Footloose Forester always took some delight in mentioning that in one way or another, we should not let our pride in our fancy degrees overshadow our utterly ignorant status as we attempt to cope with international development issues in places where we do not know the languages, the geography, the ecosystems, the politics, or the day-to-day struggles of the people.

Reminding USAID colleagues and other development workers that we are all ignorant to a large degree was one of the personal techniques that the Footloose Forester used openly and often. Most colleagues resented that point of view, and resented the Footloose Forester for the implied insult toward them. It didn’t matter whether or not finger pointing was part of the process. The suggestions of ignorance in the dialogues were always resented, even if they were not always acknowledged. Unfortunately, the Footloose Forester had to risk a certain amount of ire to make his case—that some of his associates were even more ignorant than he himself was. And the teaching and sharing with others certainly had its place in the world of international development, especially among the cadre of USAID functionaries who spent most of their time in offices.

As poor a job as the Footloose Forester probably did dispelling the implied insults concerning the ignorance of others, he could not bring himself to give up the quest to do the best job that he knew how, even if it required potentially alienating his colleagues as he attempted to shed light on the issues. He always said what he believed and let the proverbial cookie crumble as it might.

The ultimate frustration, however; was always reserved for those who practiced willful ignorance. If a person took a stance based on simple, innocent and unadorned ignorance; that was one thing. But when they refused to listen to your point of view, or to ask questions, or to choose options that are not in anyone’s best interests; that amounts to willful ignorance and the scorn of the Footloose Forester. At this stage, it would be better to downplay the remembered episode wherein the Footloose Forester stood helplessly by while a two-person team fresh out of Washington, D.C. toured a research facility in Rwanda. Just a hint of the story, though … neither of the visiting officials from Washington spoke French; neither of them asked a single question of the official monitor of the project (the Footloose Forester) either before, during, or after the field inspection; nor asked any questions addressed to their Rwandan hosts; nor to the accompanying Kenyan monitor who did speak French and had been the official monitor of that project for several previous years…. A clear case of willful ignorance.

Ouch! Just when the Footloose Forester was ready to move on to another topic, a Washington Post newspaper editorial (12 March 2014) reminded him that ignorance really is all around us. Under the caption, Rand Paul’s Ignorance, editorial writer Jennifer Rubin used another variational descriptor of ignorance. The cut and paste excerpt reads like this: I’ve resisted the suggestion that Rand Paul doesn’t know much, if anything, about national security. He is a U.S. senator and has access to the media, Senate staff, administration briefings, outside experts and colleagues. But sometimes ignorance is deliberate. [Underlined for emphasis.] This might be such a case. If so, his problem is not merely one of ideology.

Acer rubrum To Zyzyphus ujube

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams

Chronicles of a Footloose Forester

By Dick Pellek

Not All Modern Hotels Have Modern Architecture And Amenities

One of the minor issues that travelers encounter when they move from city to city and hotel room to hotel room is that blissful period when they step into the bathtub or shower at the end of the day. We may not be thinking at all about taking a bath until just before we actually do it; but few people pass up the opportunity when it is there for the taking.

A refreshing shower at the end of a hot, sticky day is perhaps a more compelling item on the agenda when a summertime work day or travel day is ended, especially when one contemplates the payoff. As the refreshing water splashes onto those overheated surfaces and into those sweaty crevices, the stickiness begins to disappear and our spirits begin to rise. Within a very few minutes we find ourselves being refreshed in mind, as well as in body. Nobody should take the transformation for granted. Virtually everyone feels better afterward, if they take the time to think about it.

The same can be said for taking a hot bath when we come in from the wind and cold of a winter’s day. Hot water helps to raise our body temperature and puts us into a comfort zone that is usually a bit more pleasant than when we entered the bathtub or shower. Again, the bath water refreshes our bodies and our minds, even if we didn’t contemplate those aspects as part of the rationale, or the payoff.

All well and good…..hot baths in a bathtub during the cold of winter; and cool, refreshing showers in the heat of summer…. Are among the small pleasures in life. Nice work if you can get it. But what about those aspects of bathing that are not quite as refreshing as we might assume? The hot bath in winter may not meet our expectations; and the cool shower in the heat of summer may not cool you off for more than a few minutes, or cool you off at all. Little wonder that the Footloose Forester never takes bathing for granted.

Lest anyone accuse the Footloose Forester of being a haughty purveyor of only the most sublime amenities in life, or of being overly critical of pedestrian tastes in society, please note that he approaches the topic of bathing from a very personal viewpoint. His sensitive appreciation for the highs and lows in his past episodes in personal hygiene form the basis of this reflective chronicle.

The Highland Hotel in Kabale, Uganda is one example of a place where travelers may wind up at the end of the day. If you arrive in winter weather, perhaps in July or August, at this small town just south of the Equator and near the border with Rwanda; you may be gratified to know that you will have a pillow where you can rest your head. But having a bath is a different proposition. At the Highland Hotel there are no shower stalls in the rooms; and although there is a bathtub in your modest accommodation, there is no hot water coming out of the faucet. So, when you check in and pay the $14 room rent in advance, they ask you if you want to have a bath. If the answer is yes, the hotel management obliges you with a bucket of hot water, delivered to your room at the approximate time you ask for it. What you do with it is then up to you.

As you stand naked and shivering in the bath tub waiting for the scalding water to cool down to the point that it won’t burn your skin, you contemplate how best to speed up the process of getting cleansed. Efficiently ladling the hot water with a small dipper from a single bucket and mixing it with cold water from the tap; you first splash water on those places with the most dust and griminess. Next you lather up with soap to loosen up any stubborn areas, taking care to have enough hot water to first rinse off the grime, then to rinse off the soap with any water left over. You have to be careful to plan each step with the proper amount of water from the bucket; the pleasant hot water quickly begins to cool and cannot be replaced on short notice. And using cold water from the spigot never seems to be quite as pleasant.

As another example, taking a bath in the rushing water of Silver Creek in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California was never as refreshing as one might imagine. The water was cold—summer or winter. The options were to bathe in cold water while standing near the water’s edge, or to draw enough water from the creek, transport the container a half mile on your back; then heat it in a wash basin inside your trailer house—a dwelling that didn’t have any running water. The trailer house might have been of modern design, but the plumbing fixtures were not operable.

Giving examples of the unexpected travails of taking a bath in rural parts of Africa; or in the high Sierras of California might not seem unusual or unexpected for hunters and other outdoorsmen, but what about in the midst of modern cities and resort areas in Europe? Let’s start with a quaint old hotel in the stylish resort town of Garmisch, Germany.

Although the building itself dates from the 1700s, much like many structures in a Europe that cherishes its historical edifices while retrofitting them with modern conveniences, the Atlas Hotel came up a little short in the plumbing department. Despite the apparent choice of water temperatures as indicated on the shower fixtures, a stranger to the system has to learn quickly that the human body does not relate well to numbers, as the indicator of what is pleasant and what is unpleasant. Perhaps it is better to ignore the choices of 30 ºC, 35 ºC, 45 ºC; etc.; and accept what your skin tells you is a comfortable setting. Relying on a set of numbers ignores the fact that the human body does not relate to those stated numbers. On the one hand, dialing up the higher temperature immediately brings on gushing water that may be too hot for comfort; but, on the other hand; a poor guess at the lower indicated temperature may be equally discomforting. Thus, learning the true comfort zone of shower head settings in hotels across Europe can be a learning experience, one hotel at a time. Stayovers is six hotels in France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland were early chapters in that learning experience.

But the prize for misguided modernity perhaps belongs to Motel One in Salzburg, Austria. Unlike the hundreds of old hotels with justifiable historical pedigrees, Motel One boasts its place in modern times by advertising its green technology campaign of environmental awareness. For example, when it comes to bathroom design and commodities, it prides itself on its functional, space saving and minimalist architecture while conserving on resources such as manufactured soap. The hotel provides a single container of liquid soap that purportedly serves as bath soap, shampoo, and hand soap; all in the same container that is firmly attached in an immovable bracket above the sink. Perhaps the hotel owners want to cut down on the cost of bathroom supplies by offering shampoo and hand soap in one container. Perhaps they want to demonstrate and advertise how resources can be saved by eliminating the packaging and the supply chains of various personal products vendors; whose wares are normally found in hotel bathrooms. Or perhaps they want to eliminate the drain of resources by hotel guests who walk off with the tiny bars of individually wrapped soap and small bottles of shampoo. But they went too far when they installed their single, plastic shower soap/shampoo/hand soap squeeze bottles into immovable brackets above the sink but outside of the shower stall.

Washing your hands while standing at the sink is not a problem; just reach out and squeeze the bottle to drip some soap into your hands. The problem arises when you enter the shower stall; slide one or both of the glass panels closed; and proceed to wet yourself down. Since there is no soap dispenser in the shower stall, you immediately recognize a problem. So—you exit, dripping wet, from the shower stall; squeeze the soap/shampoo container with one hand, while catching a bit of soap in the other hand; return to the confines of the shower stall and lather up to loosen the grime and dried sweat of the day. The temperature gauge-controlled water does its job at flushing away the soapy water after it has accomplished its intended initial purpose when, you discover, that your hand did not contain enough soap to complete the lathering-up job. So—turn off the water to conserve it as good environmentalists should do; open one or both glass panels of the shower stall and squeeze out to retrieve more soap; obtain another handful of soap while dripping wet; and return to the shower stall to continue with the cleansing ritual. Now, turn on the water again and resume where you left off.

If you are anything like the Footloose Forester, you would also like to shampoo your hair, but do it only after you more or less rid yourself of the more noxious enemies and offenders of personal hygiene that have been clinging to you all day. Guess what? The shampoo is outside in that same container above the sink. Although the bathrooms in Motel One are small in response to cost cutting and space saving initiatives inspired by the green revolution, they are not so small that you can just reach out from the shower stall and grab some shampoo from the container. Remember, it takes two hands to squeeze the sturdy plastic bottle and to drip the liquid soap into your free hand; and you can’t accomplish that by reaching out from your shower stall.

Needless to say, a woman may not be able to carry enough soap/shampoo in her hand to completely lather