Thrills of a Lifetime

By Jack Dold

This "Autobiography" is a random list of hundreds of events, adventures, experiences, and thrills of a life that has taken me to all of the U.S. States and Canadian provinces and to more than 110 of the world's countries. Perhaps a few of them will strike a chord of recognition from readers and they can join me in these "thrills".

No list that I could write would even top the greatest thrill of my life-the gift of my incredible family of Mary, Nancy and Annie and their beautiful children, who have filled my life with love and Joy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665531832

Jack Dold

In the course of my 81 years, I have seen a great deal of the world. From my early years in Berkeley, through education at Saint Mary's High, Saint Mary's College, and U.C.L.A., I have been blessed with experiences that have far exceeded my dreams. The lessons learned from my teaching days at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland provided the base for almost forty years in the travel business. And both of those careers have given me the inspiration for my retirement work as an author.

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© 2021 Jack Dold. 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 07/26/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3184-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3182-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3183-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021914444

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

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Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

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.

Contents

Thrills Of A Lifetime

Joining with Mary, July 6, 1963

The birth of Nancy

The birth of Annie

The arrivals of Kasey and Josh, Emma and Jack

Dad remarrying, expanding our family

First grade at Saint Augustine’s

Playing in a game with Bill Russell at Live Oak Park

Being named Dean of Boys at Bishop O’Dowd

My first plane ride, TWA to St. Louis with St. Mary’s basketball

Being in the Western Regionals in basketball, 1959

Receiving the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship

Giving the valedictory at Saint Mary’s College

Buying our first house—677 Jennie Court

The despair of my first night in Boston, 1974

Founding American Field Studies

Hiring Marion Bergman

Running our first field study to Plymouth

Moving the family to 8 Bayview Avenue in Plymouth

Working with Jim Deetz on Plimoth Plantation role playing

Going cod jigging with Conn Holmes on the Georges Banks

Dinner at a wheat beer brewery in Hamburg

Seeing the ancient Roman camp circles at Masada

Looking at the old city of Jerusalem from the King David Hotel

A flamenco in Seville

Running the Teachers’ Institute in London

Flying into the North Cape in Norway

Reindeer sleigh ride in Lapland

Machu Pichu

Driving the Dempster Highway into the Klondike

Twenty-seven BearTrek tours with Mac Laetsch

Dancing to Les Brown and his Band of Renown at the Hollywood Palladium

A week exploring beautiful Bali

Watching 4th of July fireworks from our widow’s walk

Driving the Top of the World Highway in Yukon-Alaska

Driving Alcan Highway with Mary and Nancy in our VW bug

Seeing three bull elephants with Kilimanjaro in the background

Watching a cheetah track an antelope

In a primitive community in Sumatra

Watching Larry Bird at the Boston Garden

Leer Jet flight over Angel Falls in Venezuela

Building our house in Green Valley

The Brophy Family

Wandering through Singapore’s incredible bird park

Staying at the Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island

Standing under the huge towers in Kuala Lumpur

Deb and Patrick’s backyard barbecue wedding

Knowing Father Paul Waldie, OMI

Around Manhattan on the Circle Line boats

Visiting Tikal and Yaxha in Guatemala, and Copan in Honduras

Seeing Chichen Itza and Uxmal in the Yucatan

Watching a hay farm passed down from father to son

First view of the terracotta army in Xi’an

Taking the family to Vietnam

Sending up prayer fire balloon in Kangle Garden, Hainan

Watching Mary eat steak tartare at the Bayerische Hof Hotel, Frankfurt

Seeing the Great Wall of China

Singing In Műnchen Steht ein Hofbräuhaus at the Hofbräuhaus

The 25th Anniversary For the Sons in Retirement

Visiting Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania

Wandering through the ruins of Pompey

Bumping into a rhino at Lake Naivasha

Boating to Mayan villages on Lake Atitlan

With Vince Resh in the mountains of China

Seeing the Parthenon for the first time

Taking a bus group from Turkey to Greece

Discovering the House on the Rock

Cajun adventures in the Louisiana bayous

Driving the Oregon Trail

Waterfalls!

Getting out of Zimbabwe

Visiting Afikim Kibbutz in the Galilee

Dinner at the Romantik Hotel Ritter in Heidelberg

Sheet lightning in Plymouth

New England with historian Bob Middlekauff

The incredible New England fall foliage on a special year

Walking the streets of ancient Ephesus

Seeing Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania

Gambling, very little, in Monte Carlo

Building a tree house for the kids

Experiencing Jambo Bwana in Kenya with Peter Methara

Leading a Cal bird watch tour in Costa Rica

Singing with the Platters in Branson

The experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Walking Nancy and Annie down the aisle

Seeing Mary, cancer free and elegant, walk in for Annie’s wedding

Iguazu Falls, boating beneath the falls

Transfiguration Church on Kishi

Victoria Falls in Zambia-Zimbabwe, at the Livingstone Hotel

High mass in St. Matthias in Budapest

Writing Rocky Mountain Goat Chicken on the Rocky Mountaineer train

Visiting the panda reserve in Wolong

Winter evenings with Ted Spaulding at his Inn

Four nights in Epernay’s great champagne houses

Visiting a Masai village

Drinking port in Porto

Memories of Berkeley

4-wheeling in the Arabian desert

A pub crawl in Belfast

Touring St. Petersburg for a day with Michael the Cabdriver

Getting our first tour with Cal Alumni

Spitting cobra, fer de lance, nacondas, boas, vipers and boomslang

Schweinehaxen with Dad in Sachsenhausen

Knowing Art Quinn, a true soul mate

Posing with Marx, Lenin, Putin and Nicholas II, Red Square, Moscow

Nature boating in the canals of Tortuguero, Costa Rica

Hiking from Tuolumne to Yosemite Valley with the Boy Scouts

First Broadway Play---Hello Dolly

Watching Mount Diablo from our deck at sunset, with a gin and tonic

First cruise ever—Caribbean with the family on the Sun Princess

Fireworks welcome at the Jasper Park Lodge

Peapod boat ride down Shenong Stream to the Yangtze

Discovering Charleston and Savannah

Our huge charter with the SIRS through the Panama Canal

SIR charter to Alaska on Holland America

Touring Tanzania with Martin Hearst

Seeing the Taj Mahal from our balcony at the Oberoi Amarvilas Hotel

Seeing the Himalayas from Shimla

Mary’s clambake for her 40th in Plymouth

Hosting dinners for New ngland travel groups

Bargaining for carvings with Solomon at the Equator Shop, Kenya

An iceberg in the harbor of Twillingate

Sacher Torts with Mom and Dad in Vienna

Helicoptering over Fort Prince of Wales in Hudson’s Bay

Escaping from the blizzard in Buffalo with the Mark Twain group

Driving Route 66 from beginning to end

Kasey and Brandon’s wedding

Traveling with Bill and Betty Geritz

Touring the Age of the Pilgrims with Sandra Jack

Riding with my girls on motor scooters in Bermuda

Crashing with Cole in Yuma

Running my first mile with Joe Vanni

Exploring the Island of Cyprus

Riding the Concorde from London to New York

Cruising through the Main Canal from Rhine to Danube

The Flåm railroad

Taking Cajun girls through New York

Covered wagon ride at Chimney Rock

Finishing The Wall at Nancy and Marty’s farm in Eureka

Standing on the edge of thousands of Breeding gannets in Percé

Seeing the Cape of Good Hope

Walking clockwise

Riding the Devil’s Nose train in Ecuador

Dinner with the drivers in Kenya

The Galapagos Islands with all the incredible birds and animals

Oldest multi-cell fossil on earth—560 million years old Bonavista, Newfoundland

High speed motor taxi through Bangkok

The first time seeing a puffin

Our massive yard sale in Plymouth

A day atop the Acoma Pueblo

Tasting wine in South Africa that tasted like cat’s pee

Seeing the statues on Easter Island

Incredible ruins of Angkor Wat and other Siem Reap Temples

New Years at the Concert Hall in Beijing

Don Giovanni at the Vienna Opera House

History by Longfellow

My first Screech-in in Newfoundland

Adding 200 new birds to my life list in Guatemala

Watching Annie as Rachel Eaton at Plimoth Plantation

Taking Green Valley neighbors to China

Finally meeting Sister Madonna

Pitcairn Island

Gambei dinner in Outer Mongolia with Walter, Chris and friends

New Years at Lake Louise

Seeing the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland

Taking the Maid of the Mist to Niagara Falls

Listening to a Cree grandfather talk about hunting with his kids

Bringing Entertainment to Reno

Riding an elephant in the Chang Mai jungle

Walking across the bridge over the River Quai

Enjoying a Gaelic claddagh at the Inverary Inn in Baddeck, Nova Scotia

Finishing my first novel, Crosshairs Seeing it in print

Annie’s 21st birthday at Ernie’s in San Francisco

Wandering around tiny St. Pierre & Miquelon

Cruising for a week on the upper Amazon in Peru

Crossing the Equator

Maligne Canyon ice crawl with the family in Jasper

Seeing Jackass Penguins in South Africa

Running the Bay to Breakers

Riding the Bullet Train to Hiroshima

Boating on a lake filled with hippos

Rubbing a sphinx on Capri to welcome Kasey

Rubbing a stone in Hagia Sophia to welcome Josh

Rubbing Buddha’s stomach in Borobudur

Witches and Dick Trask at the Rebecca Nurse House

Holding a panda in Chongqing zoo

Shangri-La, in Yunnan Province

Driving the road to Shimla

Annie’s plays at the Priscilla Beach Theater

Reading the Volksbund in an Amish home

Dinner at the Mount Kenya Safari Club

Seeing Bryce Canyon at sunrise

Going to the Grand Ole Opry

Visiting Troy

Drinking Bud with Tom and Tres Regan

Aunt Alma greeting us in New Perlican, atop a huge boulder

Taking the cog railroad on Mt. Washington

Seeing the geology of Newfoundland with Doris Sloan

Traveling with Cherokee Bill

Sporting an Afro in the ‘70s

Three flat tires on the Lincoln Highway

Cowboy poetry

The Cole Maneuver

The Snow Train

Gambling with the Golden Bears

Driving through Monument Valley

Seeing Dredge #4 in the KIondike

The Green Flash on the Pacific Ocean

Fertilizing the lawn in Plymouth

A sunset dinner in Labrador

The first sight of Neuschwanstein Castle

Bob, Bart, George and Joe

Watching Bob score 32 in the TOC, the record for many years

Four friends: Me, Cole, George and Chuck

Ballet at the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg

Shanghai Circus, Moscow Circus and the Cirque du Soleil

Lunch on the St. Lawrence with Claude de Foy

The Ark and Treetops

Boris and Eva

Drinking a Guinness at the brewery in Dublin

White-water rafting with the O’Dowd boys

Watching Mary defeat cancer, twice

Twilight on the canals in Venice

Organizing Bob Hagler’s testimonial dinner

The Aurora Borealis on the Alaska Highway

Wildlife zoo at Saint Felicien, Lac-Sainte-Jean

Riding in a Cree power canoe in Moosonee, James Bay

Watching an elephant family in Botswana, seeing a stampede

Mary’s amazing seasonal house decorations

Eating Botany Bugs with Mark Swan in Adelaide, Australia

Visiting Shipton-in-Shropshire, home of Mayflower’s Jasper Moore

Reading Daffodils in Wordsworth’s Lake Country

Swimming with sharks in Mo’ore’a

The faces of Mao, Lenin and Ho Chi Min

A bagpipe welcome to Cape Breton Island

Seeing the Great Mosque of Cordoba

Dinner at the Club 19

Wandering through Kotor in Montenegro

Watching the respect given to Dad at United Automotive

Drinking scotch and studying Arabic with Tony Chiappe

Noel Guay, sculptor at Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, Quebec

Exploring the caves of Gibraltar

Walking through Bogside in Londonderry

A day of sushi with Eddie Lau at the Tokyo Fish Market

Walking through the Stone Forest near Kunming, China

Watching Nancy get her Masters in Nutrition from Loma Linda University

Reception in Delhi with Mr. Hamid Ansari, the Vice President of India

All the memorials on the Washington Mall

Watching Josh in the air on his dirt bike

Louise Cash singing Carmen on a Boston street corner

Meeting Jefferson Davis at the White House of the Confederacy

Sarah Parsons leading a tour of Savannah

Thousands of Scarlet Ibises at Caroni Swamp in Trinidad

Watching Nancy, Annie, Kasey and Josh graduate from College

Harry Downey in Mission Carmel with his dog Don Gaspar de Portola

Seeing Papillon’s shack on Devil’s Island, Guiana

Muezzins calling to prayer in twilight Istanbul

Slovenia, Austria, Italy—a three-country day

Buying a nativity set in Oman

Driving the Saint Gotthard Tunnel from Switzerland to Italy

Enjoying almost 400 National Parks and Monuments

Cruising through the Suez Canal and Red Sea

Exploring the Moorish cities of Granada and Cordoba

Drinking Rauchbier in Bamberg

Chile to Argentina across the lakes

Golden Moments with grandkids

Reliving the story of the bull dancers in Crete

Creating the Yellow Brick Road at home

Floating on the Dead Sea with Cole and Marcia

Following Don Procaccini through Robert Adam houses of England

Watching Maryann Buxton run the Boston Marathon

Reception in the Royal Palace, Bhutan

Buying a six-pack with George Castille in a bayou town

First sighting of a Yellow-bellied sapsucker

Watching the chaos of a travel circle in Saigon

First visit to China in 2000, with Vicky and Walter

The Rose Red City of Petra

Walled cities

Visiting all ten provinces of Canada and their three territories

Field Study Civil War dinner with inmates at Richmond Penitentiary

Passing through the Panama Canal on the bridge of Crown Odyssey

Seeing The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare’s Old Globe in London

Dinner and show at the Sucrerie de la Montagne, Quebec

Two weeks in Ohio, on purpose

Cruising the Yangtze River and through the locks of Three Gorges Dam

Watching Mel Kranke entertain the world

Josh and his top in Nicaragua

Visiting Panmunjom and the Freedom Bridge in Korea

Wine reception at Hennell Silver, London, with Sir Percy Hennell

A week in Oberammergau

Bob Hirst talking Mark Twain

Midnight Sun in Bodꝋ, Norway

Driving the Lewis and Clark Trail—five times

Dinner at the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, New York

Walk through Muir Woods with Kasey and Josh

Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland

Nature walk at Bob Jones Reserve with Emma and Jack

Chateau Frontenac to Empress— Across Canada in CP Hotels

Seeing four quetzals in Costa Rica rainforest

Sleeping on a tatami in a traditional Japanese hotel

Reading Cremation of Sam McGee at Lake Laberge

A tour of Art Driedger’s back yard in Blue Bell, PA

John Cusack trying to sing "Alouette" in Quebec

Dusk at Thingvelir, Iceland, parliament site of the Vikings

Palmares, Costa Rica—fiesta!

Walking through the narrow alleys of Jaffa

Seeing a California condor in the Grand Canyon

Mary’s annual Christmas party

Changing of the Guard around the world

Mornings with the old men in the park, Guilin

Driving around Israel with a soldier in our VW

Coaching at Bishop O’Dowd

Taking the steam train from Darjeeling

Hamburger and fries at McDonald’s, in Moscow, Beijing, Paris, Berlin

Cats!

Seeing walruses during the midnight sun in Nome

Fireworks from Walter at New Year in Yangshou

Hearing a "Fado" in Lisbon

Watching Mary’s 20-year quilt grow and grow

Playing croquet at the Jekyll Island Club

A weekend at the Bohemian Grove with Jim

Cruising on the Li River

Island hopping in the Caribbean with a float plane

Paul McCartney concert at Cal

Meeting Howard Schaff in a buffalo herd

Walking the boardwalk to Western Brook Pond, Newfoundland, with a moose

Lunch with the Miao Minority people in Hainan

25 years of Eureka 4th of July celebrations

Parasailing in Puerto Vallarta

Windstar cruise in the Caribbean

With Charles Markwick and family in Copenhagen

Dad’s 90th birthday at Chanterelle in Napa

Walking through the Roman Forum and Colosseum

Encountering a giant spider monkey with Jim in Manaus, Brazil

The Rio Alba steakhouse in Buenos Aires

Steel band concert in Port of Spain, Trinidad

Driving the Skeena Highway from Prince Rupert to Prince George

Walking the Way of the Cross in Jerusalem

Two nights in Spain’s spectacular city of Ronda

Grappa tour of Italy in the bar at the hotel in Alba

Following Mark Twain through Hawaii

Visiting the travertine terraces of Pamukkale, Turkey

Punting on the Cam

Being a guest lecturer at Annie’s class in Phoenix

Driving the mountain roads of Bhutan

A weekend in Monterey with Josh

Tasting of Masi Amarone by Signore Masi himself

Chartering a cruise through the Erie Canal

The Orthodox monasteries of Meteora, Greece

Giant smoker competition in Paducah, Kentucky

Shopping in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul

Incredible landscapes of Jiuzhaigou National Park

Zhangjiajie

Driving the Natchez Trace

Tea ceremonies in Hangzhou, Darjeeling, and Taipei

Taking The Road to Hana

Riding a bicycle rickshaw through a Beijing Hutong

Kasey, with her perfect form Josh with his natural form

Coming down Highway 1 from Point Arena in a lumber truck

Sleeping on the sidewalk in Athens, Georgia

Driving through the Balkan countries

Watching an archery contest in Bhutan

Black granite war memorial walls in Seoul and Washington DC

Riding a hot-air balloon over the Masai Mara

Zulu chief in Swaziland

Private gardens of Suzhou with Professor Zhan Yongwei

Honeycreepers at the Asa Wright Nature Center, Trinidad

Crossing a street in China

Birdwatching in the backyard of the Paton home in Patagonia, Arizona

Driving the incredible road over Brenner Pass between Austria and Italy

Visiting Borobudur in Java

Brian and Deb—adding a son and daughter

Seeing the Sistine Chapel without a crowd

Mary trying to feed elephants in Thailand

Arranging the first ever international flight from Sacramento Airport

Discovering Harry Walker’s history with Cousin Grace

$200 lunch buffet at the Burj al Arab in Dubai

Driving the Amalfi Coast road

Adding Walter to our family

Writing letters to Annie and Kasey in college

Beginning my journal

Introducing Dad to his mother’s home in Luxemburg

Taking a boat to the ruins of Eirik the Red’s farm in Greenland

Children’s Museum in Shanghai

Lunch in a private park on the edge of the Grand Canyon

50th Anniversary party in Eureka

Grieg concert at his home in Bergen, Norway

Taking the River Explorer on the last cruise up the Missouri River

Riding on the Hurtigruten, the Coastal Steamer, Norway

Opium ceremony in Rajasthan

Seeing blue whales in Húsavík, Iceland

Walking through beautiful Butchart Gardens in Victoria

Riding the train through the Chunnel, from London to Paris

The Gates of the Mountains

Going through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin

Publication of my tenth book in 2020

Birding at Iguazu Falls with David Somay

Long-tail boat in Bangkok

Drinking beer with rickshaw drivers in Jogjakarta

Learning how to bargain in Chinese

Taking a bus atop First Mesa at the Hopi Reservation

Seeing thousands of birds at Lake Myvatn, Iceland

Exploring Fengdu, China’s City of the Dead

Meeting with the mayor of Hamburg, Germany

70th birthday golf with Jim at Spanish Bay

Seeing William Clark’s autograph on Pompey’s Pillar in Montana

Family reunions: New Hampshire; Eureka, Nevada; Outer Banks, North Carolina; British Columbia

Taking the Orient Express to Vienna

Exploring the underground cities of Cappadocia, Turkey

Buying a rug in Kusadasi

4th of July fireworks on the Columbia River

Visiting Nazareth and Bethlehem

Crossing the Dardanelles in a violent storm

Taking a donkey ride at Santorini

Gustav Vigeland’s sculptures in Frogner Park, Oslo

Giving the funeral oration Don Madson’s memorial

Dinner at five Premier Cru wineries in Bordeaux

Incredible SWE dinner at the Hermitage Corton, Burgundy

Buying a bird kite from a vendor on Tiananmen Square

Viewing Viking ships in Oslo and Copenhagen

Driving the Lincoln Highway from Times Square to Lincoln Park, San Francisco

New Year with the family in Lake Louise, Santa Fe Phoenix, Beijing, Yangshou, Hainan, DaNang Tortuguero, Lake Atitlan, Monterey, Lake Tahoe, Eureka

Finding friends in a tiny world

Finding all of my coffee shop friends in my old age

Having a completely loving family

THRILLS OF A LIFETIME

I guess you could call this an autobiography. It is certainly not a normal one, that proceeds in chronological order and includes all sorts of things that could be classified as ordinary. I have a friend who wrote an autobiography. It wasn’t until page 79 that I found out where he was born and when. By that time I had almost thrown the book away, figuring that maybe he had been hatched.

I don’t think I ever say when I was born in the body of this book. It was February 24, 1940, making me a war baby. And I was born in Berkeley, California and lived on Woolsey Street in South Berkeley, almost in Oakland, but even then no one wanted to admit that. I was the second of five kids, born to Herman and Theolinda Dold. Bob was the oldest, three years older than me, and Janet and Tom came immediately after, spaced a year apart. My younger sister, Linda, was born ten days before our mother died in 1945. We were almost too young to realize what that meant, and what it would mean to us.

At age 10, I moved to North Berkeley, to a lovely home on El Dorado Avenue. A few years later, Dad remarried, a beautiful woman named Roberta, whom everyone called Bobbie, and we happily called Mom. I acquired a new sister and brother, Linda Jo and Clayton, and now we were a family of seven kids. It wasn’t long before that number increased radically, with the births of four beautiful siblings: Elaine, Ed, Tim and Carolyn. Eleven kids! That became a talking point for us for the rest of our lives. We were so spread out in age that Bob taught Clayton at Saint Mary’s High, and I taught the last four at Bishop O’Dowd High. My Dad, we figured out once, had teenagers in the ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, and they had kids in high school for 27 straight years.

That early life had a great impression on me. We had to start working at a young age, not because we were ever hungry, but because if we wanted to be stylish in the ‘50s, we had to buy for ourselves some of those pegged pants and Billy Eckstein shirts, and blue suede shoes. And we had to pay for the movies (25-cents!), or new bikes. Stuff like that. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rolling in dough either. And in working we were just following the example of Dad, who worked hard all his life and instilled us with the same ethic.

One of my strongest memories in North Berkeley where Dad’s toughness shone through, was the time we decided to put in a basketball court in our back yard. Bob was really good in basketball and Tom and I played too. But that yard was behind the house on a steep hill. Dad ordered a truck of ready-mix concrete. He built a 50-foot chute from a window in the garage to the area where we were building a terracing wall. He had them dump the concrete into the garage, where Mom and Bob and I were standing in boots shoveling that mud through the window and down the chute to Dad and Tom. It took all day, and we had to add water constantly to keep that goo from going solid on us. But we built our wall! All it took was a lot of hard work and a mental toughness on all of our parts, inspired by Dad, not to ever give up on a job. I have always treasured that gift from him.

One thing we had growing up, and always have had, was a very, very loving family, not just ours, but the whole greater family. Dad had moved out from South Dakota in the ‘30s, escaping the Depression and Dust Bowl. In a few years, most of his brothers and sisters joined him and Mom in California. He had nine brothers and two sisters who lived to maturity. And they were all Catholics, which meant that we had a ton of cousins, running and biking all over Berkeley. They were largely our social life in grammar school. All of us were at home in the houses of any of our uncles and aunts. That generation gave all of us kids strength and direction and love of family. I worked summers with Dad, and my uncles Ben and Larry. All of the Dolds were cut from the same cloth.

I think that Bob was the first Dold ever to go to college, when he accepted a basketball scholarship to Saint Mary’s College. In doing that, he established the path for all of us. Most of the new Herman and Bobbie Dold family would be college grads, and we would pass that on to our own children and eventually to our grandchildren. How time has flown!

It is now still early in 2021, and all of the world is struggling with the consequences of the corona virus. Most of that world has been shut up for over a year, and everyone is attempting to find a way to function within the rules. We are not all successful.

I was looking for a project because Dad gave me the constant need for a project. I decided to make a list of the exciting things that have happened to me in my life. It started as an innocuous thing, but the more that list expanded, the more I came to realize just how blessed I have been in my life. I think it hit home the most when I read a list of the candidates for New Wonders of the World, and I realized that I have been to 18 of the 20 listed.

I have had three very different careers. They started after graduate school at U.C.L.A. when I became a teacher, and eventually a Dean of Boys at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland. That took up the first eleven years. In 1974, I entered the travel business, which my brother-in-law, George, had started as a moon-light job in the early ‘70s. I quit teaching and moved to Plymouth, Massachusetts where I founded American Field Studies. Ten years later, we returned to California to run Golden Gate Tours with George. That lasted twenty-five years and got me to well over a hundred countries, and all of states and Canadian provinces. And all sorts of thrills. I had the job in the travel business that everyone dreams about. I explored a place, found the restaurants, hotels and sites and wrote the tours. And very often I led those tours once they were written. And for almost thirty years I kept a detailed journal, of events, travel experiences and thrills.

And finally, in 2010, Mary was diagnosed with 4th stage cancer, so I retired from the travel business to be with her. Happily she is now cancer-free. In my retirement I did something I always wanted to do—I started writing books. And here we are with what is going to be my eleventh book.

That’s it! That’s my concession to a normal autobiography. Now it is on with the Thrills of a Lifetime, more than I could ever have hoped for, and maybe far more than I could ever imagine. I will warn you, they are in no sort of order, either in time or topic. They are listed as I thought of them, and they were a joy for me to describe. I hope they are enjoyable to read.

Joining with Mary, July 6, 1963

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It all started with that event and that date, fifty-seven years ago. We never really thought about much back then. I was 23 and Mary was 21 and we got married. It was what all of our friends did. You got out of college, hopefully found a job somewhere, and you got married. The amazing thing about us and our friends is, nearly everyone I went to Saint Mary’s with did the same thing, got married right away, and all but two of them are still married to the same woman. I have always called it Happy Days, a little slice in time when everything clicked the way it was supposed to click. For us, and most of my friends, it worked.

I will always believe that the combination of attitudes and beliefs that Mary and I shared is the reason for our success. When I was at Bishop O’Dowd, she was by and large at home raising Nancy, who was born two years after we were married. In those days, I made almost nothing, but whatever I made, it was enough to support our family and let Mary stay home and be a mother. To be honest, we never thought much about it.

When I told her that I wanted to quit teaching, she just asked me what I was going to do. And a few months later, when I told her I thought we should move to New England and start a travel company, she almost agreed without a question. And when I did in fact fly to Boston, she couldn’t come because she was pregnant with Annie, and she never voiced a complaint of any sort. And when I was at my wits end wondering if I had made a mistake, she gave me the suggestion that saved our business and allowed it to live long enough to prosper.

Since we started traveling and seeing the world, I have often asked her, Mare, did you ever in your life think that you would actually be walking down the street and look up to see the Parthenon? Or the Great Wall of China? Or the Taj Mahal? I have asked her questions like that so much that it became a cliché. And every time, her answer was, I never expected anything.

I never expected to see the Parthenon, or the Great Wall of China, or the Taj Mahal, or the Sistine Chapel either. But I dreamed of it. And the fact that all of that came true in our lives is simply incredible. Mary never expected those things, but she has most certainly enjoyed seeing the world. Oh, she thought that the Trevi Fountain was too small and maybe England was too rainy or India too hot, but she has soaked up our world and simply added it to her memories, without bragging and without any fuss.

To this day she still has few expectations. Her one rule is, if I am going to a place she has not been, she wants to go along. One year I was in Guatemala four times. Once was plenty for her. Been there; done that is almost a philosophy. The fact is, Mary has let me lead the life I dreamed of when I was a kid. She has let me pile up all of these Thrills of a Lifetime, and she has shared them with me, either in person or vicariously. If she had objected to my many crazy ideas, or got mad when I was away too much, I would not have done what I did, and we, together, would not have experienced what we have. We, and our family, our daughters, sons-in-law, and grandkids, would be so much poorer in spirit and experience. It all started 57 years ago. And it’s all Mary’s fault.

* * * * *

The birth of Nancy

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We were such kids! Mary didn’t even know she was in labor. And I didn’t have a clue about anything. We had been married almost two years, and for those of us from the ‘50s, that meant it was time to have a child. There were no classes for prospective parents in those days. Why, when you had your friends to tell you how things worked? Of course, when they were explaining it all to you, they were seven months pregnant themselves with a cigarette in their lips and a cocktail in their hands.

All day long Mary complained about having a stomach ache. Several times I called Doctor Aitkin, who had delivered Mary in his younger days, and several times I was told to just wait a while.

Finally, I got tired of waiting and we decided to drive to Alta Bates Hospital. Mary was admitted and everyone immediately flew into action. She was almost fully dilated and about to pop. She was whisked off and I was sent to the expectant fathers’ waiting room.

I walked in to find six or seven men in a room so full of smoke you couldn’t see across it. Some of them looked like they had slept in there several days. No one looked up because I was coming through the wrong door as far as they were concerned. So I took my seat and prepared to wait.

Twenty minutes later a different door opened and every guy in the room except me jumped to his feet. The nurse walked over to me and said, Mr. Dold, you have a beautiful daughter!

The room burst out in a flood of curses.

What the hell are you talking about? He just got here!

I followed the nurse out, thankful to have escaped with my life. And there was Mary, holding our tiny little girl who would become a brilliant light in our lives, our Nancy.

I remember calling my Dad right away.

Congratulations, Dad, I said, you are now a father.

There was silence.

I’ve already been one, eleven times, Jack, he laughed. Am I now a grandfather?

Yes, for the very first time. Nancy would be his first of twenty-eight.

* * * * *

The birth of Annie

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Annie was a Gift from the Lord. Not that Nancy wasn’t, but Annie was a pure gift, totally unexpected, seemingly impossible. We had just about given up on having another child. Mary had gone through a string of miscarriages and it was almost ten years since Nancy came into our lives. And then I had my appendix out!

I was in downtown Berkeley one day and got a bad stomach ache. I called Frank LaPorte, the basketball coach at Bishop O’Dowd, who had had appendicitis and I asked him what it felt like. I decided I needed my appendix out and went over to Alta Bates Hospital and told them so. They more or less laughed at me, but finally admitted me and checked me out. To their shock, I was right. They asked who my doctor was and I told them I didn’t have one, that they should find one for me. I was wheeled off to surgery.

When I woke up there was an old guy smiling down at me—Doctor Stewart Kimball, a plain old GP, who happened to be there the day my appendix needed him.

It’s not often we get persons walking in and ordering an operation, he said.

We became friends. One day he was giving me a re-check and I mentioned that Mary and I were unable to have another child and we badly wanted one. He asked if he could check us out and we readily agreed.

Some months later, we got a call around 10:00 at night. It was Doctor Kimball.

I was reading this article that talked about miscarriages. I have a pill for you. I don’t know which one should take it, so both of you take it for a month and call me and tell me you’re pregnant.

That is exactly what happened. Doctor Kimball got so excited I accused him of being the father.

Our friend, Auntie Ag, had given Mary a bottle of wine.

When you are pregnant again, we break this one open, she told Mary.

About four months later, when we were sure Mary was pregnant, we took that bottle over to Ag and told her to open it up. It took her a few seconds to realize what we were telling her, but she went positively ballistic and jumped up and down all over the place.

It was right at that time that I had quit at Bishop O’Dowd and had to move back east. Doctor Kimball didn’t want Mary to travel so she agreed to stay back in California and I moved to Plymouth, Massachusetts. Three months later, I caught a plane back, just in time for Annie to come into this world. And what a gift she was!

This time I had more than a 20-minute wait. I only remember that a CD of the Stylistics kept playing all of their songs, over and over again.

* * * * *

The arrivals of Kasey and

Josh, Emma and Jack

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I think I was more nervous when Nancy and Annie went into delivery than when Mary did. I am certain that was true when Kasey was born. I was an absolute nervous wreck. My little baby was going to have a baby!

I was not around for the births of either Kasey or Josh, but Mary was. Kasey was born in Rancho Cucamonga, at the hospital where Nancy was working. Mary went down to be with her. What I heard was that when Nancy was in labor, Mary and Marty went to In-N-Out Burgers for dinner and that Nancy smelled the hamburgers on them and never forgave them.

With them or not, the utter joy of becoming a grandfather was extraordinary. Until you reach that status, no one can explain the feeling to you. It is so special it defies words.

Josh was born in Elko, Nevada. Nancy had driven the 110 miles from their farm and had Josh on demand. I remember thinking in one of my least lucid moments that I didn’t know if I could love a little boy as much as a little girl, because to that point I had two daughters and one granddaughter. Are you kidding?

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Anne followed the same exact pattern. I remember when she and Erik got married, I talked with her and told her that you don’t always get pregnant when you want to, that she had to be patient.

Bull shit, Dad, she told me. I’m getting pregnant and that’s it.

Nine months and an hour later she delivered our beautiful Emma.

Fifteen months later she called me.

Dad, is fifteen months too soon to have another baby?

You’re pregnant again? Hell no! That’s wonderful.

And along came Jack, a massive honor to have that little guy named after me. And he is a genuine Jack, not a John-Jack like me that has to explain his nickname all his life.

And I can’t ever forget Clay(ton), our step-grandson. I always remove the step, because Clay has adopted us as Papa and Grammy. He is just as special in every way, the midway stepping stone between Kasey-Josh and Emma-Jack. He is now a sophomore in high school living in Phoenix. I wish we saw him more, because his interests run really in the same tracks as mine and I want to talk to him more.

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How can you explain grandkids? You occupy a part of their lives that has no responsibilities except to love and be loved. Is there anything better than walking into a room and hearing, Papa, Grammy! and seeing a blur of a little one come flying into your arms?"

No.

* * * * *

Dad remarrying, expanding our family

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I will never, ever forget the day that Mom died. I remember almost nothing of her in life, but that day in August, 1945, with all of our uncles and aunts in the house on Woolsey Street in Berkeley is etched forever in my memory. I can remember Uncles Gene and Vince telling Bob and me that we had to be big, to grow up fast. I was five; Bob was eight. We did.

For seven years Aunt Cecilia took care of us five kids and Dad. She was really the mother I remember. We didn’t know that she was only 17 when she started with us. But the day came when she decided to marry and went off with John Beltramo. That was almost a harder day than when Mom died.

What followed was a nightmare, a string of four live-in housekeepers. They were mean, bad cooks, alcoholics, and incompetent, but they were all that Dad could find. One actually died in the house.

And then, in 1952, he met Roberta (Bobbie) Hill and our lives changed fundamentally. Our family grew from five kids to seven as Linda Jo and Clayton fit perfectly into our age sequence. For the first time in my memory, we were a family.

It took nothing for our Stepmom to become simply our Mom. She took over the running of our house and our family. She made us take baths or showers more than once a week. She could cook! She brought life into a family that had almost lost it. And we loved her. Best of all, she brought Dad back to life. Before we could realize it, we were a family of eleven kids, with Elaine, Eddie, Tim and Carolyn adding virtually a new generation.

* * * * *

First grade at Saint Augustine’s

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I don’t remember very much of my early years. Maybe the trauma of Mom dying blotted things out. I suppose that’s possible. I definitely remember that day. Bob and I woke to a house full of people and two of our uncles told us that we were going to have to grow up fast.

My way of growing up fast as it turns out is that they put me in school a year early. I guess they just didn’t know what else to do with me. I vividly remember tagging along after Bob, my big brother, who was in the third grade. And I was petrified. It seems to me that during the first week they had some sort of playhouse or initiation that scared me until I was totally in tears. All I can remember, besides the tears, is Bob consoling me. He may have told me to grow up! Bob remained my rock during all those years in grammar school. His friends were my friends even though they were so much older. When you are six, three years is half your lifetime.

I do remember lots of those first five years after starting school when we lived on Woolsey Street. We wandered freely all over Berkeley. Bob taught me to ride a bike by putting me on one and pushing me down a hill.

If you want to stop, ride into a hedge.

And he taught me to swim by pushing me into the swimming pool at Berkeley High.

Big brothers were usually the instructors in those days.

* * * * *

Playing in a game with Bill

Russell at Live Oak Park

I can’t say I really played in a game with Bill Russell, but I was on the same court when the game was played. Bill Russell was the most dominant basketball player in America in 1955-57. His USF team with K.C. Jones and Jerry Mullins, Gene Brown, Hal Perry et al, were undefeated in 1955-56 and ended up winning 55 straight games.

And still they came and played in the summer league at Live Oak Park in Berkeley where Bob and I practically lived. That summer, the league came down to a championship game between the USF team and the team from Cal. Bob was on the Cal team because they wanted him to go to Cal. On the day of the game, they were a man short, so Bob volunteered me to join them. I was terrified, but he had taught me you never back down to competition. I actually got into the game. One play I remember, I got the ball on a fast break and went in for a layup. The backboard was almost nailed to the metal post, and when I jumped I threw up the ball and braced myself for the collision. Of course I missed the shot. If I had made it I would have bragged about it forever. Later in the game, K.C. Jones went in on the same type of layup. Without flinching, he laid the ball in and hit hat steel pole full-speed. It’s the difference between boys and men. One of them.

* * * * *

Being named Dean of Boys

at Bishop O’Dowd

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When the diocesan priests left Bishop O’Dowd, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) took over the administration of the school. They only had a few priests, so they needed to hire a layman as Dean of Boys. I applied for the job, as did a few of the older teachers. I was chosen and happily took on the job without really knowing what it entailed. Frankly, I had no idea that the Dean of Boys would effectively be running the school.

It was the best job in the school, maybe the best job in teaching. As Dean I interacted with just about every boy in the school. And there was a dozen problems daily that had to be solved or ignored or put off. I think it was the best possible training I could have gotten at such a young age. It was 1967 and I was 27 years old. The year of The Summer of Love as it turned out. Suddenly I was a major factor in the lives of hundreds of people and I loved it. I came to operate on a couple of principles: that at least 50% of the problems boys get into are caused by adults—by parents having a hard time, or teachers who are inconsistent, or sometimes, just plain incompetent. If I heard a boy complain that it wasn’t fair, I stopped to think about it. And often I found the boy was right. I came to walk a tightrope between the students and the faculty. I eased a lot of boys through tough times and I am very proud of it. The second rule was that common sense could solve almost all of the problems. I still use that one.

Today I have dozens of those boys as friends on FaceBook and in some cases, many have become lifelong friends. Teaching was essential in my life, and being Dean of Boys is a constant source of pride.

* * * * *

My first plane ride, TWA to St. Louis

with St. Mary’s basketball

It shouldn’t have been such a big deal but it was. It was my first road trip with the Saint Mary’s basketball team in 1959. We flew on TWA to Saint Louis. What an incredible experience! I remember it was a Friday and we all had some sort of beef dish before we realized that if the plane crashed we were all going to fry in hell. I think that made it more exciting. I remember the exhilaration of being pushed back in my seat at take-off, and the fear as we approached the landing in Saint Louis. And then the pure excitement when we landed and were again safe on the ground. I remember saying to one of the guys, That is the only way to travel. I want to do more of it. Who could have guessed that I