Antarctica

Antarctica

November 2007

Quark Expeditions

THE ERIN PUB

Bryn Mawr, PA

Spring, 1977

My parents used to drive by this place on a regular basis when I was younger and it always intrigued me.  So now that I am home from college, I decide to venue in and see what the Erin Pub has to offer.  My friend, Beth, comes with me. It is strictly a men’s bar.  There is no written code but it is a known fact that women do not venue into this bar. But we decide to go anyway.  We are feeling adventurous and adamant that no bars are off limit to us now that we are 21. We will only stay for a few beers and then leave.

Conversations momentarily stop as we enter the front door. Scanning the room, I see eyes and heads quickly shift positions as I catch them staring at us. The stench lets us know immediately that this is a raunchy bar.  It lacks atmosphere. The place is poorly lit yet there is some sort of charm to the place.  Maybe it is the name The Erin Pub. I anticipated an authentic Irish bar with lots of wool sweaters and Irish broogs and Celtic music. However, Willie Nelson is blaring on the jukebox. And a dozen men are sitting around, smoking cigarettes and consuming large quantities of beer in silence.

“What will it be ladies”, a friendly bartender asks us.

“What kind of beer do you have on tap”’, I ask.

“Schmidt’s and Shaffer.”

“It doesn’t matter,” we reply arrogantly in unison.

The bartender places a draft in front of us “ The first one is on the house”, he informs us. “Welcome to the Erin Pub,” he smiles and winks at us.

A man approaches us.  He looks to be 60 and he wears a veteran’s pin on his jacket lapel. His eyes are blood shot and his breath is stale. He can barely stand; he is so drunk.

“Ladies if I may offer you a bit of advice, let me tell you that men and women are like salt and pepper, they mix together. Do you understand what I m saying? You come into this bar full of men; the salt and you’re the pepper. So you just might mix with some of us even though you don’t like it. Understand?  It’s only natural. You come into a bar like this and you’re asking for trouble”.  He looks to his friend and nods to him in hopes of getting some for of affirmation. His friend ignores him.

We pretend we don’t understand.  He draws a deep breath and is about to continue when his friend does jumps in.

“Don’t pay no attention to my friend here. He don’t know what he’s talking about, but do you know the definition of an Irish queer?

We shrug our shoulders.

“It’s an Irishman who loves women more than his whiskey.  Ha, ha, ha, get it. Women more that whiskey.”

The old man laughs so hard at his friend’s joke that he loses his grip on the bar and stumbles backwards, falling flat on his back

Bryn Mawr, 1977

A Cup of Coffee in China

A Cup of Coffee in China
Beijing, China
Winter 2012

My hotel in Beijing cost me $20 a night.  It cost me $10 to take a 45 minute taxi ride from the airport.  The bus cost 12 cents to ride and if I had a monthly pass, it would  have only cost a nickel.  I paid $1 to ride a train for an hour. A full meal cost about $3.  But a cup of instant coffee costs $6 to $7.  However, I had breakfast in my hotel every morning for less than $3 and that included all the coffee I wanted.

Marriage Advice from My Mother

On the eve of every wedding in our family, my mother would pull the bride aside and have "the talk".  It was the same for everyone.  She would be a little nervous to start but then she would just blurt out what she had to say, "Have you thought about not having kids.  You know, they aren't all they are cracked up to be.  They are a lot of work.  Why don't you forget about kids and focus on your career.  Be the rich aunt who gets to travel a lot.  You know, you really can't travel when you have kids."

As you can see below, I was the only one took her advice.

Mongolia: The Gobi Desert

We are visiting a family in their ger tent which is going to be disassembled in the next few days so that they can move their sheep closer to water. The air is still and stuffy.  The mother has just cured some meat which now hangs in strips from the beams.  Two children play around the room.  They are bare bottomed.  

The father and grandfather offer us the salty yak milk tea.  My friend, Elaine gives them a package, token gifts from us. The men gratefully grab the cigarettes.  There are coloring books for the children.  The wife takes the hand cranked flashlight and twills the handle so hard that the flashlight slips out of her grip and flies across the room.  

And the grandmother opens up the sewing kit and examines every item.  “This is good stuff.  This is good stuff”, she mumbles to our translator.

A BEER KOOK

When Did I Become a Beer Kook?

Someone recently asked me when did I become a beer kook.  I told him it all started in 1969.  I was in 9^th grade at an all-girls catholic private school right outside Philadelphia. We were having a sleep over in the gym and one classmate smuggled in two beers to the event.  Several of us huddled together in the locker room and clandestinely downed the beers.  I am sure we all only had a few sips each but each of us with honor and pride, and foolishness bragged about how loaded we were.

I’ve been a beer drinker ever since. But I don’t think that is when I became a beer kook.  I think that all started in 1984.  I was at Penn State.  Like everyone else, I was on a healthy diet of Rolling Rock, Molson and Schultz.  And then one day, one of my favorite bars, Zeno's, started this completion called Around the World in 80 Beers.  

The gist of the competition centered round consuming much more expensive beer.  So for those of us who got sucked in to the event, we had to drink 80 different beers from different countries.  We were given a passport and every time I drank a new beer, it was noted in my passport. Once I completed the 80 beer requirement, my name was engraved on a brass plaque which was then nailed up on the wall for everyone to see.  It was a completion of pride and I might add that I am the only one in my group of friends to have competed the challenge.

It was expensive.  When other beers were 50 cents apiece, these beers were $2 and sometimes $3.  That was an outrageous price back then.  And then there was always the problem that new beers were not coming in fast enough for me to find something new.  I think the challenge took me three years and that was probably the time when I became a beer kook.  I never went back to regular beer again.  And I am always interested in trying a new beer.

So now, I finished the challenge and it was time for me to put my name on the wall.  Most people were giving bogus names and nicknames but not me.  I had just finished my doctorate around that same time.  So unabashed and shamelessly, I wrote out Dr. Bridget E. Kelly and that is what was engraved on my plaque.  I remember the bartender saying, “Wow, our first doctor to finish and you finished under my watch.  Thanks.” I nodded in pride and appreciation.

Shortly thereafter, I left Penn State and got a job as a high school principal.  I forgot about my plaque.  Then one day, five years later, a former student come back to high school, just to see me.  “I saw it” he tells me, sort of clandestinely.  I don’t know what he is talking about, “Saw what?” I asked.  “Your name, on the wall at Zeno’s” he whispered.

 “Shit. “ I forgot about that damn thing.  The next weekend, I drive 3 hours to the bar and attempt to take the plaque down with my car keys. The bartender comes over and starts to yell, “Hey, hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”  I tell him that I want my plaque.  He tells me that it isn’t my plaque and I can’t take it down.  He tells me that I am still the only doctor on the wall and my name gets lots of comments.  “The plaque stays”, he tells me adamantly, somewhat rudely.  I tell him the story about my student. And I am sure this will convince him that the plaque has to come down now.

 “Sweet”, he says, “That just makes the story even better.”

The plaque is still up there.  And recently my brother in- law, also a Penn Stater, is back at Zeno’s and he is talking to the young waitress.  “Do you still have the Around the Word in 80 Beers Challenge, he asks her.

“Nay, we haven’t done that for years”, she says.

”Well”, he tells her sort of braggingly, "my sister -in -law is on the wall”.

“I can do you one better” said the waitress, confidently.   She looks him right in the eye and announces, “My high school principal is on the wall.”

My brother-in law can hardly contain himself.  “That’s my sister- in-law.

In unison, they both shout, “Dr. Bridget E. Kelly.”

MY BED

The Most Comfortable Bed in the World

I have the most comfortable  bed in the whole world (that is a fact, I did a small survey).  I have a thick feather bed, an egg crate mattress, a down comforter and two quilts.  I keep the heat down low at night so there is a chill in the air but my body stays nice and warm while my face stays cool.  I am so comfortable; it is an effort every day to get out of bed.  Some days, it is so difficult to get out of bed that I don’t know if it worth it to have the most comfortable bed in the world.

Teaching In China

Teaching In China
Sias University
Henan Provence, China
Spring Semester 2012


During the spring semester of 2-12, I taught at Sias University in Henan, China.  I taught leadership skills to young women who were enrolled in The World Academy for the Future of Women. With a focus on the UN Millennium Goals, these women learned skills to become world leaders.  Below are photos of the people and places I visited in China. But these few photos don't begin to tell the complex stories of China.

I went back to China in November 2015 and again, the experience was life changing.

For stories on my time in China, please visit my blog:   

bridgetkellyinchina.blogspot.com

Lining up for hot water

Miss Sully

Miss Sully

Philadelphia, Pa

1967

Kathy, my sister, has a beautiful voice; more beautiful than most people.  So her high school music teacher recommended to my parents that she take professional lessons.   Miss Sully was found and she begrudgingly agreed to add Kathy to her list of students.  She didn’t want to teach someone so young.  How could someone so young be committed enough to warrant Miss Sully’s muse.  But Kathy had come with strong recommendations.  So Miss Sully finally agreed.

Miss Sully lived in downtown Philadelphia in a brown stone house on Delancy Street. Every Saturday, Kathy and I got up early and put on skirts and sweaters and white gloves and caught the bus at the corner of our street.  Kathy was 14 and I was 11. We were dropped off in front of the Union League on Broad and Chestnut. Departing the bus was hectic.  People were getting on and off.  There was pushing and shoving.  And to add to the confusion, there would always be a group of Hari Krishna monks chanting and dancing right there where the bus stopped. They frighten me in their saffron colors sheets and white chakra marks that looked like pigeon droppings.  As I attempted to keep clear of them, my sister always pushed me in to them.  I would bump them but they were in such a trance that they never noticed me.

We made our way down Delancy Street and up five worn steps to her front door.  Miss Sully greeted us each week.   She was matronly, even though she had never married.  She was always well groomed, in a lovely, feminine dress and a strand of chocker pearls. She lived in a home that had once belonged to her parents.  They are long gone but there are mementos of them and three previous generations everywhere.

She would ask us about school and as I answered her question, she ushered me in to a sitting room.  And off, she and Kathy would go to the practice room across the hallway. Her furniture was not comfortable. I remember sitting upright and stiff in a chair.  Looking around the room, everything was fragile and old. Noting could be touched for fear of breakage.

I would sit and listen as Miss Sully dramatically pounds a note on the piano.  Kathy was to sing at that key. And so I could hear Kathy sing “me-o-me-o-me. Never words, just scales. From time to time I would hear a “good, and again.”  And other times, when Kathy did not reach Miss Sully’s level of perfection, I would hear Miss Sully interrupt her, telling her to try again. And then Miss Sully would demonstrate herself in her old, worn out voice which still has a tint of greatness past.  But her once beautiful voice has eroded with age and use.  But what dominates now is a squeaky voice that sounds as if it needs to be oiled. She no longer sings with a clear, crisp fluid voice but she doesn’t recognize this in herself. And so when she tells Kathy to “sing it like this”, I think to myself, “I hope not”.

And then there would be a silence and the door handle would click and then I knew that the lesson was over.  I would meet them in the hallway and Miss Sully would walk us down the steps and let us out.  Closing the door, she would remind Kathy to practice during the week. “But don’t overdo it.  You do not want to strain your voice.”

And then we would go to lunch. We may not have gone to the same place every week.  But we did go to the Horn and Hardharts on a regular basis.  I loved going to this restaurant. I loved the choices.  Everything was a la carte. I loved being free to pick out whatever I wanted.  I loved the vast array of desserts.  I loved the chocolate milk dispenser. I loved the lunch tray. And l I loved finishing my meal and watching my tray disappear from the conveyor belts to the cleanup crew in the back.

Our routine was the same each week for the next few years, except during for the week before Christmas.  On that Saturday before Christmas, we would ring the bell as usual and Miss Sully would greet us.  But this time, she would invite us in to her parlor on the first floor.  There she would have her sterling silver tea set displayed and waiting for us.  And she would serve us a warm punch in her delicate bone china tea cup.  Sugar cookies would be offered. Now the three of us would sit awkwardly and talk about the excitement of the holiday.  Then after an acceptable amount of time, she would gather up our cups (whether we were finished or not) and place them on a tray. I would be directed to the waiting room and they would go off and sing.

And then to add to the holiday celebration, we would make our way over to Wanamaker’ department store after lunch.  There we would find our way to the big bronze eagle in the middle of the lobby and find a spot in the crowd.  Like everyone else, we would lean backwards and watch the Christmas lights show extravaganza. This show never changed from year to year and it wasn’t really that great. But it was always important for us to watch.  It was a consistent tradition which marked the beginning of the Christmas week.  The show was probably only 15 minutes long.  But after the show was over, like everyone else, we would straighten out our necks and move on.

And then we would do our Christmas shopping.  We would pool our money and buy gifts for our parents. With packages in hand, we would take the bus back home and put our while gloves away for another week.

I don’t remember how many years we did this.  I don’t remember when this all ended. But when I reflect on these outings, I realize this time really shaped my confidence to travel and explore on my own. It gave e me confidence to go to new places.

Christmas Memories

I hate Christmas. 

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I just hate everything about it.  I hate the panic to buy gifts.  I hate the damn Christmas music playing in every store, all day and all night.  I hate the crowds in the stores.  I hate the obligation to buy gifts, send cards, go to parties and to wish every damn person a "Merry Christmas".  I hate hearing people say to me, "I know it isn't politically correct but Merry Christmas, I refuse to save Happy Holidays."  I dread the day after Thanksgiving and am filled with relief on December 26:I made through another damn Christmas season. 

That being said, I have very happy Christmas memories:

1-      Standing at the top of the barracked stairs, waiting for my father, who was downstairs, to give the signal to my mother that everything was in order and we could now charge down.

2-      The disappointment when I looked at that brand new blue bike and said to my parents  , “this is exactly what I wanted” and my mother informing me that  the bike was for my older brother .  But I could have his old bike.

3-      Sugared cereal, in the box that we ate on my parents’ bed.  We couldn’t go downstairs until everyone ate breakfast.  The sugared cereal was an incentive to entice us to eat. So we wolfed down our breakfast with dangerous, chocking speed.

4-      Midnight mass with a church filled with an amber glow and poinsettias and happy families and holy music and incense and lots of altar boys.

5-      New pajamas to celebrate the day.

6-      The tree.  Some years, my father was assigned the task of getting the tree.  He hated the idea of spending money on a tree so he always went for the cheapest, scrawniest tree.  When he returned, his purchase was never met with my mother's approval.  So she would push him aside and go out and get a better, bigger, more expensive tree.  Sometimes to embellish her disappointment in his selection she would take his pathetic tree and tie it on to her big, full, fragrant tree.  He got the point.

7-      Making our tree decoration. One year, my mother set up her own child slave labor factory and had the six of us make hundreds and hundreds of felt Christmas ornaments.  We made trees and gingerbread men and mittens and bells and stars.  The next year, we made cardinals and doves.  And then she never bought another decoration. We had enough.

8-      The big Christmas dinner.  The table would be set with the good china.  The silver was polished.  A crowned prime rib was cooked. My father would stand up and say grace and he gave a speech about our blessings.  He usually began to cry.  But this never shortened his speech. He just stumbles through his words as my mother and some of us smirked at him.  My grandmother, his mother in law, always got up and gave him a kiss for a job well done.

9-      The Chiveros, my parents’ friends who didn’t have children, so they came every December 24 to our house with a present to all of us.  Each of us received our own box of Italian nugget candies.  None of us liked this particular type of candy.  But one year, when they had only given us one box for the entire family, we were being particularly polite and stretched the truth and said we loved this candy.  The next year and for many years later, we all relieved our individual boxes of these expensive, imported candies that tasted like chewy sawdust.

10-   My easy bake oven.  It came with four cake packets.    My mother told me to use these packets judiciary.  But I didn’t listen.  I could hardly contain my excitement.  I baked all four of those packets before lunch. I made all four cakes with the energy of a light bulb. My mother never bought anymore of those packets again so I never baked again.  That was the last time I baked.

11-   My Tammy doll.  Everyone else was getting Barbie dolls.  But I guess, Tammy was a little bit less expensive. She was a little taller than Barbie but not as shapely and she didn’t have the clothing variety that Barbie had.  Bit I liked having a doll that was just a little different.

12-   Troll dolls. One year, my aunt gave us troll dolls with cave man costumes that she made for the dolls.  My doll had bright green hair.

13-   Going to my dad’s office with my sister for the day. During the week between Christmas and New Year’s, we would take turns going to his office with him for the day.  I brought my troll dolls and we played with them while he worked.

14-   Radio City Music Hall and the Waldorf Astoria hotel.  A few years, my parents took all of us to NYC for the weekend and we stayed at the Waldorf.  While they went to a party in the hotel, we stayed locked in our room but we were allowed to call room service and order cokes.  The next day, we would go to the Radio City Music Hall to see the rockets.

15-   Handmade felt stocking, made by my mother.  I thought they were all beautiful.  And each stocking was unique.  I liked mine the best and I still have it.

16-   Lots of Christmas cards from lots of people.  And Christmas Seals stamps.

17-   The Christmas break movies at the Greenhill Theater.  On the Saturday after Christmas, the local movie theatre showed a movie of no interest to anyone for free.  And then they gave everyone a free box of sticky, sweet, fruity hand candies, like that hard ribbon candy you find uneaten in your grandmother’s candy jar.  The theatre was always packed but no one came to watch the movie.  We just came for the candy which we never really liked but it was free so that was enough incentive.

18-   Carol Night in high school.   Everyone in the school participated.  Every grade had to sing one song.  And then the girls with the good voices, like Kathy, got solos.  I never got a solo.

19-   The pressure of giving just the right gift your high school friends.  We all watched not only what we received but how others viewed the gifts we gave.  Was the gift worthy of our friendships?  Did we spend enough?  Was our gift better than others?

20-   Midafternoon, that moment of calm after the opening of the gifts and right before the panic of dinner preparations started.

Viet Nam and Cambodia- June 2005

Viet Nam and Cambodia 

June 2005

I have always been very interested in Viet Nam and the war and all of the mess that went with this war.  For years, I wanted to travel to this country but didn't because of some misguided respect for my uncle who fought in this ugly war.  I didn't want to insult him and so I thought I would wait until he died before I would step on these sad grounds. 

But in March 2005, my dad died suddenly and I just felt as if time was running out and now is the time to go.  So I booked a tour for June, 2005.  I traveled for three weeks thought Viet Nam and Cambodia.  There were five other people traveling with me: two sisters form England, a married couple for Australia and a woman from New Zealand who was recently widowed.

I left on June 23rd, the day after my dad's memorial service in Philadelphia.  We had a funeral in March.  But now, judges from the the federal courthouse, where he was a judge, decided to hold a memorial service in his honor.  The entire court house was shut down for the day and judges, lawyers, politician, friends and family paid tribute to my dad.  The end of the day culminated with the unveiling of a life size portrait of him which now hangs in his courtroom.  The day was magnificent and truly an honor to him and an undeserved honor for us, his children.  

I left my family and headed to the airport for my flight to Ho Chi Ming City, a bustling metropolis of taxis, motorcycles and bicycles.  I met lots of people during this three weeks, all of whom were willing to share their stories of survival after the war. And what amazed me was the fact that so many of these people did not have fathers.  They either never knew their fathers because he was an American soldier just passing through.  Or he had been killed by us or them or someone unknown.  Or, as I heard most often, "I don't know. They come and got him one night."

It was hard to soak in the joy of my father's tribute as I wandered around an entire country of fatherless adults who had no closure on the death of their fathers.