Taking the kids on the train to NYC

(717 words)

We’re four hours into an eight-hour train ride to New York City and I’m once again reminded of the late John Clouse, for years The Guinness World Record holder for World’s Most Traveled Man.

He’d been to something like 364 of the world’s 365 countries, islands and territories.

For me, he was the World’s Most Entertaining Story Source. 

Anytime an editor would summon me with an assignment about something exotic, I knew to call John, a six-times married-and-divorced WWII Battle of Bulge veteran and the most beguiling storyteller I’ve ever known.

I think of John — he died about 12 years ago — anytime I board a train, something I used to do twice a year, and something he told me he reveled in.

“I’ve ridden everything with legs or wheels,” he said, “and nothing beats the train.”

That declaration may surprise you Type A sorts who are aware of Amtrak’s sometimes casual notion of punctual scheduling.

It’s not as bad as it used to be, but the passenger trains were once notoriously late, often for hours at a time.

I remember doing my typical train gush to a friend and he said he once took the train from Latrobe to Chicago when an inexplicable breakdown occurred.

“I spent three hours,” he said, “staring at the same cow’s ass.”

I still defend rail riding even though I was once the incredulous victim of a still-hard-to-believe eight-hour foul-up.

It was in the late ’90s, pre-cell phone days. I waited eight hours on the Latrobe platform for a train to take me to Manhattan. 

Do you know how much time you spend staring west down miles of track hoping you’ll spy the beaming headlight of an east-bound train?

About 7 hours and 57 minutes.

Every couple hours I’d dash away to a payphone to check on progress. And every time, the Amtrak rep said, “It could be a while or it could be 15 minutes. Better hold tight.”

When the 8:20 a.m. locomotive finally dawdled in at 3:30 p.m., I was furious and got on the train expecting a riot. But there was none. All were serene.

I asked a fellow passenger about the absence of uproar.

“Oh, everyone is angry when they board,” he said, “but then they find out the good news: They’re givin’ away free chicken up front!”

Woo! Hoo!

I learned two things that day: there will never be such a thing as “train rage” and that the only thing better than buying a bucket of the Colonel’s secret recipe is getting to eat it for free as you watch the Pennsylvania countryside roll on by.

“I’ve ridden everything with wheels or legs and nothing beats the train.”

Oh, how I miss being able to call that man. We never met and one of my life’s regrets is I never ventured out to Evansville to join him for one of his legendary Happy Hours.

I can’t mention him without telling my favorite John Clouse story.

Playboy magazine in 2001 was doing a series of “What’s it like to …” stories and wanted to know if I knew anyone who’d ever dined on testicles. Why they thought I’d be the perfect writer to sink my teeth into this topic is a matter about which I’d rather not speculate.

I called John right away and asked if he’d ever eaten testicles. He confirmed my wisdom in calling him by answering, “What kind?”

Anything unusual?

“Well, I once dined on some elephant balls. It was in a restaurant in Berlin that was serving ‘Elephant Soup Burundi.’ And, no, they didn’t come in a really big bowl.”

It’s a great train story and that’s what I love most about riding the train. Every train ride is a conversation incubator.

We talk to strangers, to staffers, seatmates and we lavish talk on our loved ones.

I’m so pleased my daughters are enjoying the sublime novelty of a great American train ride and just hope the sometimes quirky mechanics of the train don’t bestow on them the unwelcome opportunity to study for a couple of hours the same cow’s ass.

Because right now we’re having a ball.

And, no, not the kind that comes in a really big bowl.

Related …

On bored Amtrak

We all love New York

A sad, sexy story on rhino horns

(646 words)

Todays’ example of man’s madness — and I mean man exclusively — is the plight of the endangered rhinoceros.

South African gamesmen are in broad daylight legally removing rhino horns to prevent poachers from illegally removing them past dusk.

They tranquilize the rhinos from above, land, and then with a chainsaw hack off the animal’s most notable feature. They then apply purple disinfectant and revive the great beast.

They say this is necessary because poachers skip the surgical formalities. They just kill the rhino, take its horn and sell it on the Vietnamese black market where each one goes for $150,000.

Rhino horn powder in Southeast Asia is prized in the delusional belief it contains therapeutic properties and, yup, enhances male virility.

None of the stories says how these men process the stuff. Do they take it as a pill? Dip a pinch like snuff?

If the directions say to sprinkle some on your pecker and then give the organ a vigorous stroking I think someone’s being swindled.

Removing the horn of a rhino wouldn’t be the most severe example of a man elevating the importance of his penis over the welfare of a sweet innocent.

That would be marriage.

I’m kidding!

No right-minded man would ever put lustful thoughts of selfish pleasure above the interests of his marital partner. Or so I was told in Sunday school.

No, I’m talking about the culinary castration of Loxodonta Africana, the African elephant.

I learned of this back in 2000 when Maxim magazine asked me to contribute to one of those routine round-up stories about living through unusual events. These included: What’s it like to survive a plane crash? To be struck by lightning? To walk on the moon?

Another was what’s it like to eat testicles. More commonly known as mountain oysters, the dish is made from pig, bull or sheep testicles.

I was lucky in that I was friends with John Clouse, the six-times married Evansville, Indiana, attorney who Guinness had for years listed as the world’s most traveled man.

A veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, he’d vowed if he ever survived that carnage he’d live an entirely original life.

I loved him. He died about six years ago.

I’d call him whenever I’d get an assignment about unusual human experiences because I knew he’d knock the ball out of the park — and that metaphor’s entirely accidental.

When I asked if he’d ever eaten testicles, he responded with a question of his own: 

“What kind?”

Something unusual.

“I had some elephant balls once,” he said. “Will that do?”

Please, go on.

“It was in a restaurant in Berlin back in 1968. The special was Elephant soup Burundi. The waiter explained it was made from elephant testicles. And, no, it didn’t come in a really, really big bowl.”

He said it had a robust tangy taste, but expressed disappointment that it didn’t turbo-charge his sex drive. Yeah, he’d screwed some angry German babe that night, he said, but it was just a garden variety boink.

You know what makes me good and horny?

Being alone in a dimly lit room with a naked woman who looks at me and says, “Oh, what the hell.”

I remember word-for-word my euphoric response the first time I heard that surrender. I said …

“Let’s get married!”

And we’ve lived happily ever after. 

They say the rhino feels no pain from the horn removal, only a confusion I imagine is exponentially more acute than what I feel those mornings I wake up hungover and unable to find my wallet.

And I have to imagine it hurts when other bully rhinos taunt, “Well, lookee here! If it isn’t old purple nose!”

It’s just so cruel.

And it’s ironic that the only way some men can feel more horny is by making one magnificent animal less so.

Related …

Cecil the Lion & my ever-diminishing regard for dentists

Human hunting to curb gun violence

Binge reading my blog in the tree stand

John Clouse & Edward Snowden

In India, trains & elephants share tracks; what could go wrong?

A day for real mourning; RIP Angelo Cammarata

(880 words)

Yesterday was a great day. I spoke before 250 members of the Pennsylvania Librarians Association and it couldn’t have gone better. It was a true home run. I’ve never enjoyed a longer and more raucous ovation.

Honest, some were in tears and all laughed. They loved me and my message. It was a big payday, too, with speaker’s fee and more than $600 in book sales.

But that’s a topic for another day.

Today is a day for mourning.

If you think I’m talking about the Pirates loss, man, you’re missing the big picture.

Angelo Cammarata is dead.

He was 101.

He was, oh, so much more.

He was one of the two most memorable and beloved — and lovable — men I’ve ever known.

Both are in the Guinness Book of World Records for vastly different reasons.

And someday I’m going to see if I belong in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the reporter who’s friendly with most people who are in the Guinness Book of World Records.

I’ve always sought out the company of interesting people and tried to learn how they chose to live.

That’s how I became friends with Ange and John Clouse.

Having been to all but two of the world’s countries, islands and territories, Clouse was the world’s most traveled man. A decorated combat veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, Clouse swore if he ever got out of the Ardennes intact he was going live an entirely original life.

He did just that.

He was maybe the most swashbuckling storyteller I’ve ever known. Absolutely hilarious. He was married and divorced six times. 

Cammarata was married to the same woman, the late Marietta, for more than 70 years and became world famous for rarely leaving the same building.

He is in the Guinness book for being the world’s longest serving bartender. He poured his first beer at his father’s old North Side tavern at midnight on April 7, 1933, the exact moment killjoy Prohibition in Pennsylvania was repealed.

I believe the Greatest Generation would have been worthy of being deemed the Greatest Generation if the only men in the Greatest Generation were Clouse and Cammarata.

It’s a pity Clouse never traveled to West View. These two men that seemed to have so little in common would have reveled in one another’s company.

I’ve never met two people with more genuine warmth and affection for their fellow man. It’s a joyful exuberance for the innate humanity that flickers within every human struggler.

Clouse discovered it by going all over the world. Cammarata by letting the world come to him.

I guess the best story I have about him is from 2006 when I was teaching narrative non-fiction at Point Park University and had Ange come in to be the final exam.

I was all about getting students to learn everything they could about a subject by asking incisive questions.

He was 97. I told him to simply answer their questions.

I introduced him by saying, “This is Angelo Cammarata. He is your final exam.”

The students went through about 15 minutes of increasingly frustrated questions — Where do you live? What do you do? — all the answers to which made this uncommon man seem increasingly common.

Then one exasperated student finally blurted out, “What makes you so special?”

That’s when he told them about being recognized by Guinness. 

He told them about the friendships he’s enjoyed, the family to whom he was devoted, the importance of persistence, and why he felt sad for people who choose to be pessimists.

He talked about how he’d made it a part of his daily routine to drive a cherished old friend to and from the bar because he knew how much Cammarata’s camaraderie meant to the old man — and to him.

He talked about all the customers he’d served, the spirits he’d lifted, the marriages he’d saved, the suicides he’d prevented.

How, he was asked, did he find the words for these humble heroics?

“Didn’t need to. Most people who are having trouble don’t need advice. They just need someone who’ll listen.”

He did this all with a gentle manner and smile so warm and engaging he made Fred Rogers look like a sourpuss.

Later, me and the whole class went back with him to the bar where this famous gent poured us all beers.

It was funny, I’d spent 12 weeks trying to teach them how to succeed as writers, but in two breezy hours he taught them all they’d ever need to know about how to succeed as people.

One of the perfunctory questions I often ask subjects is about the best years of their lives. Many respond with “college,” or “When the kids were young,” or some other slim sampling of our portion.

Ange forever endeared himself to me when I asked him that question and he thoughtfully said, “I think they were the years from between when I was 35 and 80. Those were just really great years.”

Talk about seeing the big picture.

So pardon me if I’m not all weepy about my beloved Pirates getting bumped from the playoffs.

On this day, I don’t feel like any sort of loser.

I'm one of life's real winners.

I was friends with Angelo Cammarata.

Related . . .

When taverns usurp church; a bartender retires

A beloved — and legendary — bartender turns 100

A great fan; a better man (Steelers honor Ange)

I’m seeking a 25-year-old friend

The future of Edward Snowden

The future of Edward Snowden

(731 words)

As Edward Snowden begins his third week as the world’s least interesting most wanted man many are still thinking about secret courts, potential asylums and on-going threats to privacy.

Me, I’m thinking about a deceased Evansville, Indiana, attorney named John Clouse. He died in 2008 at the age of 82.

Married and divorced seven times, Clouse to me was the brightest and most fascinating man I’ve ever known. He fought the Battle of the Bulge and spent the rest of his life living up to the self-made promise if he survived the carnage he’d live an entirely original life.

He became the world’s most traveled man. That’s how I made his acquaintance.

I was doing stories for National Enquirer in 1994 when I read that he’d been to 344 of the 345 of the world’s countries, islands and territories. I knew “World’s Greatest Globetrotter!” was a cinch Enquirer story and I was right.

What I didn’t know was over the next 10 years, Clouse would become my go-to guy anytime I needed an interesting anecdote for any offbeat story. 

When Maxim asked me in 1999 to do a story on what it’s like to eat testicles, I figured I’d call Clouse and ask if he’d ever eaten any.

His question back to me: “What kind?”

An adventurous gourmand, he’d dined on about six or seven testicular varietals. Anything outlandish, I asked.

“Well, I ate some elephant ball soup once -- and, no, it didn’t come in a really, really big bowl.”

And he proceeded to tell me about the night in Berlin in 1968 he enjoyed a warm bowl of what was called Elephant Soup Burundi.

See? He was just the most relentlessly entertaining man I’ve ever known. My next book should be about him. Hell, my next four books should be about him. 

Declining his many invitations to come meet him for a drink in Evansville is one of my greatest regrets. I mean it.

I did a story -- actually a Q&A (not the Q&A) -- about him for Playboy in 2005 that allowed me to pose 20 questions about some of his greatest hits. You know, favorite city? Best meal? Loveliest women? Here’s a link.

But Snowden’s escapade had me thinking of one question I recalled from a previous conversation: Favorite disgruntled hijacker story?

He said: “I used to run into these old hijackers in Cuba back in the ‘70s. Everyone of them thought they’d arrive in Havana and become kings. Well, that would last about a day. I met one guy and he said a day after he’d arrived they handed him a machete and put him to work chopping sugar cane under the blazing sun. After a few weeks of that, he’d run away, get caught and sent back. He told me a dozen stories and every single one of them ended with  ‘. . . and then it was back to chopping that 'goldanged' cane.’”

(I'm substituting 'goldanged' for what the erstwhile hijacker really said so as not to offend any NSA readers who might be of a prissy bent.)

Anyway, I think that’s sort of what’s in store for Snowden.

Maybe I’m suffering from almost 12 years of post-9/11 outrage fatigue, but I can’t muster even mild pique that the NSA is using the same investigatory techniques young singles deploy before agreeing to a blind date.

Personally, I like the thought of NSA minions sitting around reading my blog -- and it helps to think of them as actual minions like the ones from the “Despicable Me” movies (we saw and loved the sequel this weekend, by the way).

The idea of privacy in land of ubiquitous smart phones, social media and street corner surveillance cameras just strikes me as doily quaint. And I like the idea of these tools being used to thwart terrorist attacks.

I guess the best advice to those furious about the deconstruction of these once monumental walls comes from another old spy, Austin Powers, who used to wisely council, “Oh, behave!”

I feel bad for Snowden. Like those old hijackers marooned in Cuba, he thought he was going to be hailed a hero.

He’ll likely never to see America as a free man again and I bet he’ll live out his life wondering if there was a less sensational way for him to express legitimate concerns.

And I’ll bet he’ll have  a lot of time to think about it.

I imagine Venezuela right now has a bumper crop of sugar cane that needs tending.

Related . . .

“All Are Bored!” Why I prefer trains

Bonding over spy sex scandals

On bored Amtrak

ABOARD AMTRAK’S THE PENNYSLVANIA -- I love having the opportunity to slug a story of mine with a dateline.

“Dateline” is an old-fashioned journalism term for the all-caps story tag that used to include the date along with the place where the story was filed. It’s also the name of a new-fashioned investigate show where they resort to questionable tactics the likes of which old-fashioned journalists often disapprove.

The cool thing about a dateline that starts with “ABOARD . . .” is it makes it seem like I’m some kind of dashing war correspondent.

If you think that couldn’t be further from the truth, you’re mistaken.

I am a war correspondent.

I’m covering a war on boredom.

We are about six hours into an 8-hour trip through tedium clear to Philadelphia. Right now tedium is near Lancaster.

The girls out of childish habit say they are bored.

They are lying. They are fully alive.

They’ve just never been confronted with an opportunity to revel in the joyful boredom only a long train ride can bestow.

“I’ve ridden everything with either legs or wheels and nothing beats the train.”

That’s what an old friend of mine, John Clouse, once told me before he died. He was not lying. And that man was fully alive.

He was for years listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s Most Traveled Man. I wrote maybe a dozen stories about him for everything from National Enquirer to Playboy because this veteran of the Battle of the Bulge was one of the most gregarious and entertaining men I’ve ever known.

The idea of watching 4 to 6 hours of television a day as a way to banish boredom was anathema to him.

The girls haven’t been bored once today. Rather they’ve been challenged to avoid boredom.

We arrived at the convenient Amtrak station in Latrobe about 30 minutes prior to the train’s scheduled 8:11 a.m. departure. There were about 20 people, three-quarters of them passengers, waiting.

“Is it ever going to get here?” said Josie, 10, cueing Lucy, 5, to commence the same whine.

They were confusing boredom with a moment that absolutely crackles with excitement: standing at a train station and waiting to hear a distant whistle.

At 8:10, a man who was probably steeped in boredom said, “See, it’s late,” an instant prior to hearing the whistle and seeing the headlight coming ‘round the bend.

It was right on time.

It’s a mechanical marvel that something so big, so loud and so muscular as a locomotive can seem so welcoming when you step inside of it.

“All aboard!”

Taking a train on vacation is like taking a vacation from the hassles of taking a vacation.

You can nap, you can read, you can talk, you can anticipate.

I told Lucy we were going to Philadelphia, birthplace of America. She asked if we’d get to see the hospital where it was born.

I never feel any of the apprehensions I feel on an airplane. If the engine on a train gives out, we just roll to a gentle stop.

The girls are beginning to think of the train like it’s a rolling prison and they are beginning to embrace the novelty of it.

Because it is boring and boring in our distraction-mad world is becoming a precious commodity.

Our nearly 8 hour trip will be maybe an hour too long. Maybe not.

The girls are still pressing their little noses up against the windows and waving at the smiling people at the crossings. They’ve spent the hours reading, playing cards and cuddling with us when the air conditioning got too efficient.

We ate in our seats the lunches we brought from the only fast-food restaurant that allowed us to continue the track theme of the day: Subway.

The girls are eager to get to Philadlephia, but have really enjoyed the trip and will be looking forward to the return ride, which will be maybe two hours too long. Maybe not.

I know now we’re embedding a memory that will have them loving the train the way Val and I do.

“All aboard!” is the phrase most associated with train travel.

Maybe it should be “All are bored!”

It’d be an excellent way to increase ridership.

"All are bored!" Why I prefer trains

The way folk hero Steven Slater quit his job almost makes me wish I had one.

I think it’s healthy these days anytime a disgruntled worker decides to express his or her dissatisfaction without resorting to gunplay.

Shouting a few tart profanities into the intercom, grabbing a beer on the way out and bounding down the inflatable sliding board seems like a perfectly reasonable release in a world where petty rudeness often prevails.

In fact, work place violence could be reduced to near zero, I’m sure, if every office included a giant inflatable escape hatch right next to a big cooler of beer.

If the justice system was interested in justice, Slater would be free and there would be a bounty on the head of the gal who lit his fuse. She is symptomatic of the problems with our worst run industry, the airlines.

Who enjoys flying? Nobody.

I for years have promoted fun ways to make flying better and safer. 

These include things like encouraging seatmates to hold hands; having someone wearing a nun costume aboard every flight; and letting passengers quiz the pilots before takeoff to gauge their states of mind.

I like the idea, too, of having polka music played throughout each flight. It’s impossible to be troubled or tense when a really good oompa band starts cranking up the tubas and clarinets.

But the one I thought of when Slater, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the bouncy “Johnny” character from “Airplane!,” involves turning each flight into a reality game show.

Flight attendants would divide the passengers into two groups. The groups would then ask each other a rapid-fire series of questions to determine who on board is the biggest jerk.

This entertaining in-flight diversion would do wonders for air travel. Everyone’s behavior would have to improve dramatically because the losers would be given parachutes and shoves.

Whenever I hear of something like this Slater incident, I’m always reminded that you never hear of cases of train rage.

“I’ve ridden everything with legs or wheels and nothing beats a train.”

Those were some words of wisdom from my friend, the late John Clouse. He was for years the world’s most traveled man, according to Guinness. He’d been to 343 of the world’s 345 islands, countries or territories.

I love taking the train and have done it dozens of times, mostly to New York City where thanks to reasonable prices in the bar car I’ve never drawn a sober breath.

Really, having a drink on a train as the countryside rolls along will always be among my favorite travel memories. The spacious seats all recline and are the perfect place to spend hours reading or napping.

And the people who travel by train are a much more relaxed breed than frequent fliers. They’re rumpled, happy to engage in conversation, and don’t have that business-like tension crackling off all the big shots on airplanes.

I think it’s because trains are among the last places in the world where you’re at boredom’s mercy. You can’t make the train go faster and you can’t do anything if the train is late or simply comes to a stop for hours -- and that happens all the time. 

I’ll never forget the time my train from Latrobe to Penn Station was seven hours late.

Seven hours!

I just stood there on the unattended platform all by myself. I’d call Amtrak for updates and they’d say, “Well, it could be there in 30 minutes. You’d better just wait there.”

When it finally got there, I got on board expecting passengers in revolt. Yes, I expected train rage.

Instead, I got chicken.

There was no anger, no outrage. I asked a fellow passenger why the place was not in a state of revolt.

“Well, people get on and they’re pretty angry, but most of them understand that these things happen with Amtrak,” he said. “And, hey, they’re giving away free chicken up front!”

It was true. Amtrak sprang for KFC dinners for all the passengers.

Until today, I’d always thought the word “locomotive” had Spanish etymology, with “loco” used to describe the crazy motion of our early trains.

Wrong. It’s a Latin word meaning “from a place.”

Well, that spoils a tidy ending for me. I had been wanting to write that now all the locomotion happens on jet airliners.

So instead of something profound or witty on the Slater situation gripping the country, I’m left with one conclusion.

The colonel makes a damn tasty bird.