Pack a Suitcase and an Old Guitar - Part II
by Peter Mayer

   Here Comes The Sun

The Beverly Hillbillies packed up their things, and scared a couple more wide eyed cab drivers on our way to the Gare Du Nord train station on that Monday morning.  We had reservations on the Eurostar on that Monday, a high speed train that gets you to London in about 3 and ½ hours. That includes 20 minutes of travel through the engineering marvel of the chunnel, the tunnel that connects France and England under the English Channel. I love to drive, there is a small percentage of 10w40 in my blood, but my favorite mode of travel, taking into account our oil thirsty world, is by train. You sit back, relax, listen to music, read a book …..lose your Ipod. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that, I somehow left my precious Ipod, my connection to the musical recorded world, and mini recording machine for new song ideas on that train. Somewhere, in a steamy train station office, some conductor or engineer has got his or her guitar out finishing one or two of my songs. Don’t change my favorite chord in that one! It’s just one of the dangers of being a Beverly Hillbilly, frequent heavy packer traveler.

Arrival at Pancras station in London was a welcome change. We were ready to move on, we were in London, where we all spoke relatively similar languages. We originally had planned to hop on a train and go straight to our hotel in Portsmouth, the Red Lion. It is about an hour from chawton, the final home of Jane Austen, novelist and author of Pride and Prejudice and many other best loved stories of life among the English gentry. Instead we made what seemed to be a good decision to rent a car in London, so as to give us a lot of leeway to travel and hop around where we liked. WRONG. My friends, what followed could have topped any reality show that doesn’t involve bowel movements in terms of personal agony, family infighting, horrific close calls, mortal danger, and it was funny too. After the fact. But, we don’t live after the fact, until after the fact, and as much as I have tried to do time travel when I’m in the thick of it, every attempt at a kind word comes out like Hannibal Lector on a bad day.

As happens in many cases, our rental car agency was not in the train station., but a ten minute walk away. Suggestions at getting in a cab were turned down by yours truly because we needed to be frugal, and, well, we could just use a walk with 473 pounds of luggage through a busy London day with no cell phone and no map. It would be good for  building character. To my surprise my family disagreed. And so began a hot, steamy, muscle wrenching, fuming mad, Samsonite crushing, gypsy caravan toward Hertz rent-a-car that cast me in the role of Tony Robbins yelling encouraging words to the people 20 steps in front me who could have won an oscar for their excellent performance in the role of pretending like they didn’t know me. When the caravan turned right and we realized the neighborhood was getting sketchier, snaking past check cashing spots and strip clubs the heated voices grew and I was about to unleash a Germanic tirade of biblical proportions when someone said; “there it is”. Well it was an Avis, not a hertz, but at that moment Mickey Rooney could have been running through the airport selling a rent a car company specializing in Yugos and I would have bought it.

The sun was shining a little brighter. We filled out the papers and showed our ….ID, oh no….expired license, I forgot. I stood and prayed while the professional but dour British man looked over my Tennessee drivers license. Nothing. No response. Accepted. Whew…..everything’s ok. We got the car. He gave us a map, told us how to head out of the shop, and especially told us how to avoid the high congestion lanes, because, in London if you use them and you have not paid the fee, you can get a big old fine. We loaded the car up and I had a momentary brain crackle, and I forgot which way we were supposed to turn out of the rental agency. I said; “I’m going in to ask directions again”. “No come on, we’ve got a map”, came back the response. “Ah, I don’t know about that”, from me. “How hard can it be to find the highway,” offered Tony Robbins in a new new disguise. “

Oh my Lord, the next hour was one of the most frightening, stressful experiences of my life. I’ve driven a lot in my life, but never left handed, so while Chevy Chase is learning to shift, Ellen is yelling directions…..with no map, but an Avis comic book imitation of one. At one point I hit a curb hard enough to guarantee employment for a quarter of the chiropractors in the Tennesse area for the next year. Add to that traffic circles, which are a really good idea when you know how to navigate them, but turn into amusement park rides when you have Rusty and Audrey (Vacation) in the back yelling at you. We stopped and asked a London bus driver where to go, and he couldn’t tell us!! We finally had a London cab driver take pity on us, bought a better map at a service station that had gas on sale for 7.00 a gallon, and somehow made it out of that city on our way to Portsmouth.

Ah, the adventure of being unprepared. We made it to Portsmouth, a charming, beautiful town that was the home of the British Navy. Many of the bed and breakfasts that our travel agency booked for us do not have an address. So we drove into town hoping we’d just run into the Red Lion. No such luck. We stopped at a garage, where a very friendly Romeo looked in the phone book and said in a heavy British accent; “I don’t see any hotel by that name here in Portsmouth”. We stopped at another hotel in town figuring they might know. They were kind enough to let us get online and by doing so we were able find out that …our B&B was not in Portsmouth at all, but in Fareham, about 25 minutes away. We finally pulled in to the Red Lion at around 11pm, a mere 7 hours past what we had figured. For all the detours, we were happy to be in this old, charming English Inn for the night. Oh, and by the way, I slept on the left side of the bed that night.

The next couple days were spent with a visit to Jane Austen’s home in Chawton, which was great, set in a lovely little town, and Arundel castle in West Sussex that was originally built back in the 11th century. This castle is one of the most awe inspiring structures I’ve ever seen in my life, complete with secret passages, dungeons, and beautiful living quarters for the royalty.

We made our way back to London on day 3 in England. Our second experience negotiating London traffic was a little less excruciating. I to this day do not know how London cabbies find their way around this busy, wagon wheel of a diverse and beautiful city. We stayed in a hotel across from the Kensington Gardens, one of London’s beautiful city parks. In the distance, from our hotel window we could see the Royal Albert Hall, which had a certain significance for me not only for the long lists of musical legends that have performed there, but for the fact that we came close to a chance to see Bryan Wilson there had our travel itinerary been a one day different. Some of our friends from the Jimmy Buffett crew were working that show but we just couldn’t quite pull it off.

No need to cry over spilled ale, the next day we just put our energies into getting to the intersection of Abbey Road and Grove End Road. For any of you who might not know what this means to any lifelong Beatle fan, shame on you! This is the immortal spot where 4 musicians from Liverpool crossed the street, release their last album together, and changed the world in doing so. (with their music that is). We took the train from our hotel to the St. John’s Wood stop. We knew we were on the right track when we saw the Beatle’s caricatures on a coffee shop at the entrance to the station. But, before visiting the historic site we decided to get some lunch. This simple ritual we go through 3 or more times a day throughout our life somehow turned into our second European Vacation world war. I’ll spare you the details, but it was bad enough, that the sky, the thunder, the lightening and a deluge of rain decided to join in and say……you will NEVER make it to Abbey Road. (At least that’s what I felt like at the time.) We sat in a Starbucks, yes they are everywhere, and tried to elevate our mood in the fruits of the Morning Star Café. Sometimes the rain just won’t stop on your schedule, but it will often slow to a drizzle long enough to get a chance to make a break for it. On this excursion I had brought a guitar….through the subway, through the puddles, through the rain and crowded restaurants, but I would have carried the rest of the 473 pounds of our luggage that day as well if I had had to, because nothing, absolutely nothing was going to stop me from getting to Abbey Road and playing a Beatle song to mark the occasion. The drizzle was coming down, as we headed off to our spot. I have to give full credit to my wife Patricia at this point, because she is the family map navigator, and for all the wrong turns we took getting out of London, they were all instantly forgiven in the words; “I think that must be it over there”, as she pointed to a small intersection. I said; “no it can’t be”. Yes it was. Depending on your perspective, you don’t  immediately recognize that spot turned icon back in 1969 when the Beatles shot the photo for the cover of their 12th album and final work together. But it had to be it. Something was wrong though. There were odd people going back and forth across the intersection in weird costumes. I kid you not, there was a woman in a fairy costume, no that’s a man, a portly man was wearing what looked like pajamas with butterfly antennae coming out the top.  They were giggling and cars were honking, but, I was not deterred. Out came the Video camera, I got out the guitar, which complained in slow to tune strings and moisture dulled cedar and rosewood, but it eventually obeyed and came to life with the chiming of a few chords. While I walked cloer to the famed intersection, out of the corner of my eye I saw the rest of my family walk further away, I sensed they were preparing for another fine performance of; “we simply do not know this man”, or better yet, “we know this guy well enough to know that the closer he gets to that weirdo in the pajamas, the closer we call get into something that’s way beyond our control.

I couldn’t resist, I asked them, as they crossed Abbey Rd for the 5th time; “Hey would you all mind singing a song with me?” They glance over at me with a look that could be interpreted as; “we are on an important mission in these pajamas whether you know it or not buddy!” I walked closer and explained that I needed a video to prove that I had been on Abbey Rd, and they could all be stars…” But we’re on a scavenger hunt”, one of them said. “We don’t have time”, the man with the pajamas said. ( I knew he would turn out to be the trouble maker). I responded telling them that this would just take a minute and I was fulfilling one of the absolute dreams of my life short along with finding my first car, a 67 blue, 194 cubic inch, two door, three on the tree, chevy II again, and meeting Paul McCartney. Well, I didn’t say that, but they got the message and proceeded to gather round as I sang blackbird. I got some feable footage of this, and the sound is probably awful, but it was kind of an event. We spent the rest of the time there, taking photos of us trying to get the perfect walking across Abbey Rd position, and checking out the studio (from the outside) and the graffiti left by thousands of loving Beatle fans. We were about ready to leave when I turned and saw the darn crazy people were still there. So….we sang one more song together. It was one that I had thought would work for this occasion.

“There are places I remember
In my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
For lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I’ve loved them all

We’re back in first person, our last day in London, and similarly to Paris, we had more things to see than time to see them. We started at the British museum, where the Rosetta Stone makes its residence. This is a portion of an ancient hieroglyphic tablet with  the same text written in three different languages. Scholars used the stone to decipher ancient Egyptian texts. We moved on to Westminster Abbey, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Abbey one of the most beautiful architectural works I have ever seen. It has been the site of almost all the British monarch’s coronations, and the burial site of many of the kings and queens of English history and poets and philosophers as well. We had only one hour there, given the lateness of the day, but I’ll tell you that it was one of the not-to-be-missed hours of my life. The high point for me was this: Staring at the ceiling-vaulted, 80-100 ft above my head, the ornate alter and beautiful stained glass, I am wishing I could take a few photos. The guards have been very clear from the start; no photos permitted. Suddenly I hear the sound of a choir. High, clear voices echoing through the church. I thought; “Is this it? Am I really going to go out in such dramatic style, angels singing and the like? I think my vision’s blur…” Not quite. A boy’s choir was rehearsing, about 50 ft from me in a gated part of the church, for a concert that night. I couldn’t believe my ears! It was incredible that sound ringing in long tones throughout the church. I couldn’t take photos, but I remembered that my camera has a feature that will record sound, I turned it on and caught a few minutes that I still listen to today.

We finished our day by going by the London bridge and the Tower of London. The London Bridge for the record is not what you’d think it is. It is much more plain than what comes to mind, being; it has gone through several different metamorphoses. The bridge that I have always thought of as the London bridge is the Tower Bridge that is next in line about a ½ mile down the Thames. It is a beautiful drawbridge (see the photo) that was kind enough to show it’s colors as we walked toward it. The Tower of London is an ancient fortress, prison, and palace to many of the who’s who of English history. It is surrounded by a mote, and even had a secret entrance that could be accessed by boat before the shoreline of the Thames was moved a hundred or so feet away from it.

We ate takeout that night. The 4th of July in England is sans the Independence day fireworks that were going on back home in the U.S. (I can’t figure out why they don’t celebrate that holiday in England) We packed our bags for the last country in our 2 and ½ week extravaganza.

To be continued in the next issue

-- Got to page 4 --