Lumpini Park, Bangkok, and a Restaurant Review

Publishing this one a little late

Found it in the drafts section and realized I never hit print

To say we have enjoyed our time in Bangkok would be an understatement. We lived here for a year in 1976 and enjoyed it then and have enjoyed being here again even though things are very different, same, familiar, fun, challenging, and oh so interesting and exciting.

Lumpini Park is very near our hotel (which apparently caters to Tiawanese Chinese). We spent some time at the park one afternoon. It was hot. That describes every afternoon by the way.  

One of the park's famous old landmarks -a clock tower - near the east entrance.

This rock was across the street from the clock tower, we sat on it — I think I mentioned it was hot, then noticed that the rock was worn smooth on top compared to the rough side. Lots of people have been sitting on this rock through history- it is a nice view and it has been hot here for a long time.

Another of the famous residents of Lumpini — a komodo dragon or monitor lizard. We only saw the small ones apparently.

King Rama VI founded the park in 1926, before the sky train in the background or the modern buildings. 1976 was before those things too.

Inside of the sky train.  Patt in the immediate foreground.  Immediate!

The reason the sky train and subway, which we also used, is so crowded. Road traffic is somewhat congested. I think Bangkok is famous for being congested. Look it up. Bangkok and London routinely rank #1 or #2 each year in tourism, expect London is crowded too, going to check that out soon.

Note the orange vest on the motor cycle driver in the middle of the traffic. He is actually a motor cycle taxi. I used them a couple of times. Once for a rather long trip and rode right down the middle just like that. Yes, I was thinking perhaps this is not such a good idea.

The sky train is really quite nice and once we figured it out it was easy to use and we used it a lot to get around town.

The city streets are such fun to walk down and they present opportunities to separate yourself from your money for some real good deals. I still did not buy a Rolex watch, but did see a genuine Rolls Royce in one of the upscale shopping centers on the third floor where there were a couple of small auto show rooms — you know the Italian sports car types. Nothing as cheap as a Mercedes.

And we went to this restaurant THREE times it was so good. Sticky rice, larp, som tom, sweet/spicy sausage, and grilled spice chicken.  Below are fellow diners. Note the comfortable seating arrangements and high end tables.

The larp chef.  He has a good view of the street and those who walk by can see him cooking and be tempted into the restaurant. We were!

The owner's son and floor manager with Patt. He made sure we had "bia Sing, yen di di" (Singha Beer very cold).  I had noticed an old woman Patt identified as looking like him sitting at the back corner with a money box. Each evening when we left I went back and spoke to her. We became friends. Well sort of.

Don't you think she looks like him?  She always smiled at me but they did not give us a price break or  free beer that I know of.  We did get very cold beer, good service and my oh my,  if we could bring this restaurant to downtown Raleigh, we could charge $40 - $50 for what we paid about $12 for including two large beers.

We leave for RDU in the early morning on Delta, been gone a long time, looking forward to getting home and seeing folks again, 

had fun and looking forward to getting back to Asia real soon.

Graham - some off the memories of days of yore: Part III, and that's it for now.

Looking at the Alamance County court house from North Main and Harden Street intersection (the biggest intersection in town).  Carey's house is down Harden on the right about 3 blocks and we grew up at what is now 620 East Harden, used to be Route #3, Graham, or Chapel Hill Road, or Hwy 54— all those addresses used to get mail to our house.  

Anyway, I digress. We for years coming home from Graham Elementary rode our bicycles right down the middle of the road — Main didn't have a left turn lane then, but there were three lanes with the middle lane - seldom used - as a truck parking lane.  

In the middle of the block on the left side— photo taken from the middle of the road - was and still is the Graham Cinema.  Doors used to be recessed a bit and the black double doors to the left over the silver kick plate used to be a single door that lead to the balcony and was marked "colored".  That was one of the few places in town that I recall so indicated.

We didn't go to the movies often.  Occasionally we would go to a big time movie in Greensboro or Raleigh that would never make it to Graham.  Big movies I recall seeing were the re-release of Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, and Ben Hur.  The first two I think we went to Raleigh to see and the later to Greensboro.  I do recall seeing a couple of cowboy movies here and even a monster movie one time.

Almost directly across from the theater was Wrike Drug building. Dad's first office was on the second floor, the two windows on the right side of the sign. His desk was at 90 degrees to the window so he could look north out the window up the street. To get to his office a patient had to go up steep steps to the left of the drug store.  The windows to the left of the sign were for his partner Dr. H.   We never did figure out how Dad knew we were riding down the middle of the street.

Going into Wrike Drug was a ritual too.  It had a traditional soda fountain and one of my big dilemmas was whether to buy a cherry coke or regular coke.  Regular was only a nickel but adding a taste of cherry made is 6 cents and that meant breaking a dime into pennies or using two nickels.  An additional penny was a big deal to a boy who collected bottles along the highway for the two cents return deposit you got when you returned a soda bottle to a store.

Going collecting bottles along 54 in front of our house was a big deal for the Eric Charles Mark and I.  We would get a wagon or two and go up and down the highway looking in the ditch for bottles.  At 2 cents each we could make nearly a dollar on a good outing.

Dad's practice was a general practice, that included lots of obstetrics — delivering babies.  There was a time when I imagine he delivered several babies a week.  — He was a county doctor, made house calls and took us boy with him on those calls occasionally.  Those made for some memorable trips.

The northwest corner of court square in this corner was what we called Riverside Cafe - not its real name but a wonderful country food cafeteria/restaurant long closed that we all enjoyed - well not so much Mom.

and looking north from South Main at the Pine Street intersection — coming from the interstate - you can see why when you told someone you were from Graham they may respond "oh the town with the courthouse in the middle of the road".

and further down Pine Street towards home was GHS or the high school we went to until integration and Mark went to Central. The water tower is in what was the football practice field.

The entrance, now with fancy cover for what is now the middle school. I imagine the school is still small - between 4-500 students.  Back in the day we had good football teams (the Red Devils) and Charles was on the team — even in the newspaper too.

A block or two behind the high school on McGee Street is the Coumingy Center where clubs like Rotary met.  Kelly and Beth live on McGee Street a couple of houses down from the Center now.  This place  was a very important part of Dad's community life.  He was president at least one year and came to lunch here nearly every Thursday for Rotary that I can remember. Back in the day the building was surrounded by trees and did not appear so open.

On Saturday nights there were live band dances here during the late 50's - the 60's.  Had some local and regional bands, some of which became somewhat regionally famous. They played what is now known as beach music, rock and roll, and pop music.  I usually stood on the edges of the crowd and do not remember dancing more than just a few times.

Between the Community Center and the high school was the high school football field and baseball stadium.  Used to have what I thought were high wooden seating around the infield for our minor league baseball team.  We did go to games to see the Alamance Indians - Class A of the Cleveland Indians.

The field is now a community park field and is named for Tom Zachary who was our next door neighbor.  We liked him very much. Tom was a famous baseball pitcher who won lots of games.  He especially liked Eric. Later I was a pall barer at  his wife Etta's funeral.

and across the street from the high school is the town cemetery.  Graham has a municipal cemetery for some reason and the many of the individual churches do not.  I rode my bike through it and as usual saw another interesting tombstone.  Most of the big monuments are for textile families.

and a block or two up the street toward the court house in that brick building under the tree on Elm Street is Dad's second office.  In 1967 or so after I had left home, Dad left the office over Wrike Drug to practice on his own.  The building is now joined to others in a strip office complex but at the time it was just a single small building approached by a sidewalk.

and across the street is Mark's office. He has a "Family Practice" that is what Dad's practice became - Family Medicine.  I think Dad was one of the original or initial Family Practitioners.

Still on memory lane: Graham Part 2

Little hard to tell, but that is Albright Ave, first place I remember living, second actual place that I lived in Graham.  Eric and Barb's house is there on the left. The hill is actually quite steep and a memory I have is of the young adults and teens sledding down the hill at great speeds when it snowed. Another is of leaves burning in the fall. There were a number and still are a few very large oak trees along the street. The leaves would be raked into large piles and burned in the fall. It smelled quite good and I still like the smell though seldom have the chance to burn as burning leaves is no longer considered appropriate.

We lived here on Albright Ave until the summer I was six and started school that fall. We lived in the left side of the duplex until Mom and Dad bought out the other side and we lived in both units. One evening there was a fire in the attic and great confusion of fire trucks smoke and firemen and such.  No great damage but lots of excitement. The trees are gone, grass is in its place, the car on the left would have fallen down a steep slope towards a creek in the back.  I think the building is the same color.

The right side of the Albright Ave House and Nannie and Lee Henderson's house. They absolutely loved me. I mean spoiled me. Thought I was the most wonderful baby in the world. All this I did not know, of course, but did know that being in that house was great for me. I could escape the younger brothers, parents, and be just me.

"Grandee Lee" was retired I guess and did part time accounting (taxes) and had ledgers and such. I sat in a chair and tried to copy papers. Nannie and I drank coffee (or rather milk and some coffee in the kitchen and I explored the BIG upstairs where someone named Haywood used to live. We still have Grandee Lee's chair that Nannie game me after he died when I was about 8. The first person close to me to ever die that I really remember dying.

This house was across the street and down a couple of houses and not so much fun to enter. The piano teacher that we all studied under?  perhaps a better term would be went to piano lessons with.  Virginia, Aunt Julia and Uncle Eli lived here. On my piano lesson day cooked cabbage or saurkraut was on the menu and Virginia the teacher smelled like Ivory soap. The metronome ticked and the half hour would never end. And heaven forbid- "don't you run down that hill again either or I'll tell your Dad."  Mom and Dad wasted some serious money in this house.

And on Pine Street below is the basement apartment that I lived in when times were truly good. It was just the three of us - Mom, Dad and me. I have no memory of this place, Mom pointed it out to me.

First United Methodist Church at the corner of Albright and North Main. Eric and Barb, Kelly and Beth were married in there. It was built after I left home so my memories are more of the special occasions and services then of regular church. In addition to the weddings mentioned above it also was where Mom's and Dad's funerals were held.

Now this building below is where I went to church, remember watching flies walk across my arm or leg - entertainment was weak and service was interminable. In the summer the windows would be open and we sat towards the front on the right. Prime territory for the errant fly to entertain.  Mr. Whitehead was the preacher for about 100 years or so.  I liked him.  He was followed by Mr. Watson, I also liked him.  He was preacher when I was in high school and I don't think I chased as many flies in church then.

Also had some great times with MYF and Boy Scouts here. Ran down those halls bunches of times. Slid around the corners on the slick tile floors. You ought to see what I could do with a food cart when MYF served meals to Methodist Men or some other organization as a fund raiser. I flat out loved pushing food carts- fast, had some food cart races!

And those steps and that stone wall used to be quite high. Jumped off the wall a few hundred times waiting on Mom, Dad or car pool to pick me and brothers up.

Looking south down North Main Street toward the court house. In the distance on the right is the First Baptist Church. They were conservative even for then and we sorta knew it even then, I think.  

And west of the Court House one block is the Presbyterian Church. Mark and Vickie were married there. In Graham most people we knew belonged to one of those three churches, sure there were a few other smaller churches around but these three got the most. Now we had heard of Jews in the Bible, did not know any and we did not know any Catholics in Graham until the C twins (Henry and Tony) moved to town when I was in the 8th grade. Henry became one of my best buddies in high school and we spent a lot of time together, at our house and around town.

This was the mill across the street from the Presbyterian Church. As I mentioned Graham was a mill town — defined by the times of the three work shifts, names of the type of workers employed at the lines, and of course the mill whistles announcing shift changes. All that remains now are a few of the buildings.

and a little more to come in part III