Wall cancer.

That was the evocative phrase that was used to describe a problem facing Curacao‘s oldest buildings, which were made with coral covered by concrete and paint. As it was described to me, the coral leaches salt (and likely other minerals) which corrodes the paint from within, leading to splotches of corrosion, black lace woven by some sort of malign spirit.

It’s a problem here that’s taken seriously — at least in part because the old city of Willemstad is a UNESCO World Heritage site –  and it was this thought that occupied my mind as I toured the hot city, with its gabled Dutch roof lines, painted in bright Caribbean colors.

But what, then, was this?

This is Cinelandia, an abandoned movie theater, and the only Art Deco structure still standing on the island. (Another Art Deco movie theater has already been demolished.) There’s a court struggle now to prevent this theater’s destruction, which looks like it’s going well and I hope succeeds. Although Curacao is not the Caribbean island known for its Art Deco — that’d be Cuba — I can imagine that once restored, the building’s streamlined shape would make a marvelous contrast to it 17th and 18th century Dutch colonial neighbors.

It’s an easy three hour drive to San Luis Obispo from Los Angeles. But that wasn’t always the case. Back in the 1920’s, when Americans were only just discovering the joys of road trips, it was an all day one way road trip with the real adventure beginning at the end of the day when searching for somewhere to stay the night.

With no billboards lining the road touting discounted prices at the local Holiday Inn or Motel 6, travelers had to search for a place to rest their weary bodies. And unless they were willing to fork out for an expensive hotel, they usually ended up pitching a tent at an auto camp or staying in some quirky ’mom and pop’ tourist court.

Then, in 1925, Arthur Heineman came along and built the very first ‘motor hotel’ or ‘mo-tel’ as he originally called it on the edge of Highway.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

Costing $80,000, the world’s first motel had 40 one-story bungalows grouped around a courtyard featuring a swimming pool and a restaurant.

Heineman had planned the Motel Inn to be the first of many motels along the length of the West Coast from San Diego to Seattle but the Great Depression intervened and it turned out to be the only motel he ever built.

This landmark motel still stands but is a mere shadow of its former self.

What does remain, however, highlights a bygone era, when everyone from salesmen to celebrities passed through its doors and stayed for the night.

For Maria Dunn, writing a song begins by “having my antenna up. There’s a moment, a way a story or a phrase touches me I get a chill down my spine, and I’ll say to myself ‘That’s a song.’ It may not come out as a song for a while, but that’s how it begins,” the Alberta based songwriter says

She often finds those sorts of sparks in stories from history. Dunn has written about a mining strike in Cape Breton, a hunger march in Edmonton, the life of a miner in depression era Alberta, the feelings of those left behind after a shooting in Quebec, and the stories people from varied countries who built their lives in the new to them land of Canada. Dunn is herself an immigrant to Canada, “though my situation was very different — I was born in Scotland, and my family emigrated to Canada when I was a baby, and my father had a good job. Still, I think that has helped me understand their feelings, their stories,” she says.

Dunn didn’t start out to be a musician telling these stories in song, though she always loved music, and there was music in her home. “Mum played piano, and I remember dad sitting around campfires singing Johnny Cash songs, Lonnie Donegan songs, things like that, and they were active in their church, they had a band,” she recalled. “I studied classical piano, and I knew I loved music, but I knew I wasn’t going to be a classical pianist. I looked around, I couldn’t see any other sort of musical career than that.” She decided to go for a degree in psychology at the University of Alberta, and looked into music on the side. One of those side roads brought her to the community radio station. She ended up having a show at the station for more than a dozen years, “and that was really my education in all the great songs, that are out there,” she said. Dunn started going to folk clubs in Edmonton, and “getting up there with my guitar and playing traditional music, and country sort of music, and then that gradually turned into writing my own songs.”

A distinctive way Dunn has become involved with her community of Edmonton and the larger communities of Alberta and Canada as a whole is her connection to stories from history and ability to turn them into songs that are both individual and personal. She’s become known for that, and it has brought her work to new audiences. “I love playing folk clubs and festivals,” she said, “ and I’m also often asked to play for labor organizations, or social justice gatherings, where they might have asked me to write a song that distills something about the organization.” Dunn finds that wherever she is playing “the best audience is people who like to listen to stories.”

One of those stories came from, and took her back to, her native Scotland. She had spent some time living and working there when she was younger. “Scotland and my grandparents and my relatives there — they were so important to me as a young person in trying to figure out who I am, where I come from,” she says, and she had written a song inspired by her grandfather’s life in Glasgow, Shoes of a Man [follow the link for a video of Dunn singing Shoes of a Man]. Nearly a decade after she’d first put it on record, Dunn was invited to perform at Celtic Connections in Glasgow, one of Celtic music’s most prestigious festivals, “To be invited to perform at Celtic Connections was a huge thrill, and on top of that to get to sing that song I had written for my grandfather in front of a Glasgow audience — that just meant so much to me,” Dunn recalls.

Dunn’s music is both Celtic and Canadian, and of course, uniquely her own, all aspects which work together in her recording The Peddlar.The title track is an allegory about the costs and the selling of war and war like attitudes; Tell Her I Was Brave Takes a look at the costs of war in a more intimate way. Chavala, Eva, is the life tale of an immigrant to Canada, while You Can’t Take That Away talks of grief and loss and of surviving those things. William McIlroy’s is a remembrance of a well loved uncle, and When Katie Comes a- Callin’ is a celebration of friendship; The Elder Sister is a take on a traditional ballad, while Sailor Song reinvents another traditional idea with a surprising twist. Storytelling is a thread which runs through the music, as is Celtic flavored melody and instrumentation. “My last album, We Were Good People, came out of a residency with a labor group here in Alberta, and the songs were all inspired by that and focused on that subject. When Shannon (Johnson, who produced the record) and I sat down to figure how to get these songs to hang together, we knew there’d have to be a different approach. Since several of the songs came directly from my love for Celtic music — I’ve been listening to it all my life and those melodies are so natural to me — we decided to use that idea to unify the songs.” Johnson is no stranger to Celtic music: with her brothers she’s part of the Juno winning band The McDades.

Dunn tours regularly across North America, and while doing that she’s also been working on a series of songs about women’s work, and issues based of the lives and experiences of women who came from all over the world — or just in from rural Alberta — to work at a clothing factory in Edmonton. “Some were just in from the country, trying to support their families,” Maria Dunn said. “Others came from Italy, and then China, and Vietnam — there’s so much richness there, so many stories. That may turn into an album, too.”

I never take tuk-tuks in Bangkok. Ever. Too much hassle, too much haggling over price, and not exactly the safest vehicle in the world. Taxis are cheaper, safer, air-conditioned, and the final cost of the trip is never a surprise (as long as you remind your driver to turn the meter on if he “happens” to forget, which is rare).

Ironic, then, that the only time I’ve ridden in one since I first visited Bangkok, in 2006, turned out to be one of the most memorable times I’ve ever had here.

It was Friday, the last hurrah of three day’s worth of Songkran festivities, and we’d just met up with a few friends at the Ratchathewi BTS station.

I really don’t feel like doing this after last night’s blowout at Tawandang. I’m tired, and they’re going to be in the mood to drink. Beer sounds awful. Whatever, suck it up. Try to have a good time.

Armed with a few mid-sized waterguns, we planned to stalk the area on foot in search of a few good water fights and a few cold beers, immediately finding both at CoCo Walk’s Retro Bar, located right at the southeast station exit. We exchanged friendly fire with a group of about 10 Thais—they eventually drove us off with repeated bucket dumps of ice water—then refilled our guns from their (warm) water supply and pressed on down Thanon Phaya Thai towards Victory Monument.

The area was quiet, though; way too quiet for Songkran. No music, no dancing in the streets, nobody doing any drive-by soakings from cars or motorbikes. Rather than risk a long, lonely, time-wasting walk, we decided to backtrack and strike out down Soi Phaya Nak, next to the Asia Hotel; surely there’d be plenty of locals out and about back there, plus we could stop at Sweety’s bar, a favorite haunt, for frozen drinks.

Nope. Just a few stragglers celebrating on an otherwise sedate street, and Sweety’s was closed. Fantastic. Where to next? (We preferred to avoid the mobs of people who’d gathered in Silom, and as usual had no designs on going anywhere near Khao San Road.) Our Thai friend Joy and her boyfriend Trevor had an idea: rent a tuk-tuk to whirl us around the city for an hour or so.

Ugh. No, no, no. Maybe we should just bail and let these guys go… is there a way for us to bail, gracefully? Think of an excuse, think of an excuse… shit. Can’t think of one.

My fiancee and I exchanged quick glances, and as any accomplished bailers would do, we waffled. We did our best to seem open to the idea and willing to go along with it, while still remaining noncommittal and ultimately leaving it up to them.

There are no shortage of tuk-tuk drivers in Bangkok, especially in areas heavily trafficked by farang: they can smell you miles away, and sure enough one pulled up as we debated our options. Dressed in a plain grey t-shirt and camoflauge pants, with a thick mustache and long black hair falling past the small of his back, he had the typical “Isaan country-rock” look—the Carabao look—and he practically insisted that we hire him. Joy negotiated in Thai; we pointed out that there was no way five of us would fit in there.

After 5 minutes of hem-hawwing on both points, it was settled: yes, we would somehow fit, and it’d be 300 Baht for 1 hour. He’d take us wherever we wanted to go, and stop whenever we wanted to stop for refreshments since, you know, it’s totally kosher for five people armed with squirt guns, jammed into a tuk-tuk like pieces of a Jenga puzzle, to guzzle beers while searching for and engaging in water fights. Totally cool.

Bad idea. This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy.

Fine. Maybe it’d actually be fun.

We’d pictured ourselves cruising by unsuspecting Thais, squirting them, then escaping before they realized what hit them. In reality, it went more like this: driver sees roadside party, honks to get their attention, pulls up, stops, and we get hosed down, pummeled by buckets and buckets of ice water, and slathered with chalk. Sometimes they surround us and rock the tuk-tuk back and forth (to our driver’s delight). We don’t have a chance to return the favor because we can’t open our eyes long enough to aim our puny guns in their direction before our driver decides we’ve had enough and pulls away. Repeat.

Caught up in the moment, at one of a few 7-11 beer stops (mom, dad, you can stop reading now) I offered our driver a can of Chang. Responsible guy that he is, however, he declined: “No, no, kup-kun-krup. Too strong. Only drink Leo.” Leo beer, that is, which packs a moderate 5.5% ABV punch compared to Chang’s hefty 6.4%. I took the Chang back to the store and traded it for a Leo; by night’s end I believe he sucked down quite a few more. I believe this is called “drinking and driving… within reason”?

Hahahahaha. Oh my God. This is so, so absurd and so dangerous. And so fun! We’re riding around in a death machine on wheels AND feeding the driver beers. Hahahahaha. I can not believe we’re doing this…. shit, there’s water dripping into my Chang. Better pound the rest of this before we get soaked again.

At one point he turned the engine off at a traffic light and hopped out, pointing at the flashing lights on the back of two police motorcycles just ahead. Since he’d been drinking—in fact, there was an open can of Leo next to the steering wheel—for a second I thought he was going to just bust and leave us sitting there… but all he did was wipe the windshield down with his shirt. He didn’t do anything with the beer.

Only in Bangkok.

He was the right man for the job, though. We didn’t have to tell him where to go because he knew where the action was. Without him, there’s no way we would have found a massive locals-only street party somewhere in Banglamphu with live bands and throngs of Thais dancing and singing their asses off while getting constantly watered down from cannons and drive-bys. We joined in and lingered for at least half an hour.

This is overwhelming… one of those things I’m always going to remember. I almost want to cry…. I’m NOT going to cry… shit… fight those tears back! Don’t cry!

We’d been gone for just over 2 hours by the time we were dropped off back at Ratchathewi, but our driver was surprisingly reasonable in asking for “just” 200 Baht for the extra hour; maybe it was the Leo talking. A tidy night’s work for him, and split between the five of us, a reasonable price for wrapping up Songkran with a watery bang. He pointed in the direction of the MBK Shopping Center and said that was where I could find him most days, and I thanked him repeatedly.

Phew… thanks for not getting us killed, dude.

I still don’t take tuk-tuks and don’t recommend you do either. But on Songkran? Well…

Photo Credits:
+ Tuk-tuk photo courtesy Flickr user Rev Stan
+ Songkran photo courtesy Flickr user mikedarnell1974

“Stonewall Jackson ate pancakes on this griddle.”

This was a fitting end to a museum tour that for me was getting a bit too syrupy about the Confederacy; a bit too positive about the revered, upstanding, famously Presbyterian Stonewall.

No one seemed ready to ever acknowledge that, hey, this was a rebellion that failed, and more importantly, the rebels were wrong with regard to a state’s right, or anyone’s right, to allow people to be held as slaves.

But why bother saying anything….we were in the rose-hued Church of Stonewall and there was nothing to do but smile and move on to the next room. Our diminutive 70-something tour guide was not going to change, so I stewed to myself.

The pancake griddle comes in near the end of the standard walk-through of artifacts in the Winchester, Virginia home where Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson lived in 1861-62, as he planned military operations against the Union that ranged up and down the surrounding Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War.

The house was offered to Jackson by Lewis T. Moore, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Fourth Virginia Volunteers and a distant ancestor of actress Mary Tyler Moore. The rooms today contain exhibit cases, period furnishings and memorabilia that belonged to Jackson, his staff or his family members.

In the United States, it is the Civil War’s sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) for the next four years, beginning with the first shots fired on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter and grinding on for four years of agony.

Like many history enthusiasts, I take a great personal interest in the war. I couldn’t put down Michael Shaara’s mesmerizing Gettysburg novel Killer Angels – one late night my exasperated husband got fed up with the light still being on and said, “Look, we need to get some sleep. I’ll tell you how it ends: the North wins!” Further, we both studied the Civil War extensively at the US Naval War College.

It’s magical to feel history come alive, but that day in Winchester when we stood in front of a washstand in the General’s bedroom and the guide said, “Jackson washed his face and combed his hair every morning in front of this mirror,” I started wondering if a shrine with lighted candles was around the next corner, awaiting genuflection.

Wouldn’t it have been great if the Underground Railroad’s Harriet Tubman had somehow materialized amongst the Stonewall ghosts that day, to bring a jolt of reality to the proceedings?  The woman they called Moses didn’t get to spend much time eating pancakes and combing her hair as she shepherded terrified slaves north to freedom from the Confederacy that Jackson represented.

I appreciate Stonewall Jackson’s brilliant military campaign that confounded the Union in the Shenandoah Valley, but I never forget what he was fighting for, and that remains a fatal flaw to me that should be admitted and clearly acknowledged, even in historic houses full of his memories.

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