Sim Carter: Past Tense Imperfect

#3, Tripoli, Libya We lived just outside Wheelus Airforce base in the '50s.  That's me on the back of the camel holding onto my big brother, Russell, for dear life. An expanded form of this story was published in the South Bay Reader in Torrance,  California almost thirty years ago when it won an Honorable Mention in a teeny, weeny writing contest. The Boy Who Took Out His Eye We lived in Tripoli when I was five years old, just outside Wheelus Air Force Base in Libya. We weren't military, we weren't even American but my father, formerly with British Intelligence had been hired to infiltrate the PX as a manager and investigate the cause of the store's outstanding financial losses. My dad turned out to be a great manager, in fact, he was responsible for bringing the hula hoop to North Africa, holding a big promotional party with hula hoop demonstrations, clowns, balloons, and lemonade in the parking lot. And he found the embezzler too, a good fri...

Halloween 1995, Batman and me My history is littered with Halloween fails. Before I became a mother the question of what I was going to be for Halloween terrified me. 1958:  Halloween on a blazing hot afternoon in Tripoli, Libya. Age 5 All the military brats from Wheelus Air Force base were going to a Halloween party  in an airplane hangar just outside Tripoli.  Lots of civilian kids—mostly Brits and Yanks—whose parents worked on the base in various capacities were invited which meant my brother and I got to go too.  Our dad, who spoke Arabic fluently and had been with British Intelligence during the war, had something to do with managing the PX on the base. My brother went dressed as a hobo, his cheeks smeared grey by my mother with a piece of burnt cork, while his friend, the older boy who lived next door, dressed up as a woman—a pillow stuck down his sweater shaped into clownish balloon-sized breasts and big red sticky lips. I went as Minnie Mouse i...

Over on Chapter1-Take1, I shared a French-dubbed trailer  for the movie Brooklyn starring Saoirse Ronan. In the film, Ronan’s character, Eilis, emigrates from Ireland onboard an  ocean liner in the 1950’s . That’s how they rolled in those days. Er, that’s how we rolled in those days.   We came to North America on an ocean liner too, sailing across the Atlantic Ocean from Liverpool on the R.M.S. Sylvania in the middle of winter.  It was during the last days of trans-Atlantic ocean crossings; the Sylvania was the final ship built by the Cunard Line before the whole world took to the skies, leaving ocean liners to the pleasure-seekers and cruise-goers. Unlike Brooklyn’s Eilis, who landed at Ellis Island in New York, we landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was February 1960 and I was five. We’d already moved from England, where my brother and I were born, to Libya, then in ’57 to Turkey where my sister was born, and back to Libya. And now we  were leaving...

My dad, on the right.   I woke up this morning thinking about my father. He died 26 years ago today, and since it’s British Isles Friday I thought I’d share a few pix of my very British old man. I also have a question about the old family photo above. I believe it was taken sometime in the 1950’s when we lived in Tripoli, Libya. There is another photograph somewhere of the larger group at what appears to be some sort of professional gathering or meeting, a handful of men and one woman sitting on chairs at either side. My father, ex-British Intelligence, fluent in Arabic, was working for the American government at the  AFEX, the Army & Air Force exchange store at Wheelus Air Force base in Tripoli  at the time. I don’t know the exact nature of his work but while he was investigating some unusually large financial losses he learned that an American he became close friends with turned out to be  embezzling funds. That must have been one helluva an awkward frien...

My big bro Russell and me. Tripoli, Libya 1957-ish I told my first story back in the Beatlemania days  when I was just discovering boys, and mad for McCartney.  I wrote this story about  that   story in 1993, the year my boyo was born and nap time meant writing time for Mommy. We were living by the beach in Redondo, and our small beach town throwaway newspaper published my story that summer.  At some point I took the story within the story out and  published it elsewhere on this blog  but  here's the whole thing, a tweak here, a tweak there but pretty much the way it first appeared in print. DOUBLE VISION   This is the first story I ever told. I told it when I was thirteen years old and went to April's party alone because my best friend Trixie had to stay home sick. If Trixie had been at the party I wouldn't have thought to tell the story at all; in our team Trixie was always the star attraction. I don't know how I g...

Last week’s Ben Ghazi hearing put Tripoli, Libya on the tip of my tongue and the forefront of my mind. Today’s #TBT post is a piece  about the time I spent there as a small child in the 1950’s. It was  first published in 1993 in one of those local freebies, the throwaway newspapers you used to find tossed on your front walkway. And I was thrilled to make it into its pages. That ’s me on the back of the camel,  cowering behind my big brother Russell  The Arab Boy Who Took Out His Eye When I was five years old we lived in Tripoli, Libya just outside Wheelus Air Force Base. We weren't military, we weren't even American but my father, formerly with British Intelligence had been hired to infiltrate the PX as a manager and investigate the cause of the store's outstanding financial losses. My dad was a great manager, in fact he was responsible for bringing the hoola hoop to North Africa, holding a big promotional party with hoola hoop demonstrations, ...

Z Z z z z How do you pronounce the letter "Z"?  If you say Z so that it rhymes with bee, then chances are  you're an American.  But if you say Zed, as in Ed wets  the  bed, then you're most likely from the British Isles or one of the  other  English speaking, probably commonwealth, countries of the world; Australia, New Zealand, Canada. Places where the Queen's portrait hangs on the classroom wall, and peers down at perps in your local constabulary.  Actually I hear Canadians are mixed on the subject of Z, they're so nice and  accommodating  they go both ways.  While there's not a right or wrong way to say it, as those of us who live in America say , the letter is derived from the Greek letter 'zeta' and most other countries pronounce it similarly to the British way. Zéde in French, Zet in German, Zeta in Italian. While the way we say it in the states—Zee, rhyming with bee and oh gee—isn't exactly wrong, it's not right either. It...