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Well. It’s not the Nordic Heritage Museum. And I know too much.I am sorry to say the contract for the restaurant blocked out TWO major exponents of nordic cuisine, as they didn’t already have concerns grossing over $1-odd million. This, after they completed their proposals, stacks of work for small businesses.Meanwhile, the person involved, who I like to respect, actually has no respect for nordic cuisine. Disappointing. I’m especially sorry that the museum has seemingly gone out of its way to lose friends. You should be aware of this.So, instead, let me direct you to the Bjorn Bakery near the Fremont bridge, to Scandinavian Specialties, near the Ballard High School, to the Old Ballard Liquor Company near the ship canal on the other side of the Ballard Bridge and/or hopefully-soon Skol restaurant in downtown Ballard if you’re interested in nordic cuisine.Also, the Swedish Club on Dexter serves Nordic cuisine on Friday evenings, and a member would shoo you in for a visit. The Leif Erikson has lunch during most of the year on MWF, and it’s cosy-cosy-cosy. Often serenaded by an accordionist. Park at the bank or QFC if they don’t have space for you/can’t see anything on the street. And not to forget, the Danish Club has a monthly lunch that DEFINES hygge. A MUST. Call and reserve, and tell them I sent you.Also, for a far more authentic experience of Ballard, walk west toward the locks and go have fish and chips at the totem pole take-out place. And then go take a walk through the Ballard Locks.Again, my apologies. I prefer to be positive.What you missed, when it was the Nordic Heritage Museum:What were actual rooms of nordic emigrees actual possessions by country, actual rooms on the major industries (resource-exploiting fishing, lumbering, mining) that drew nordic peoples to the area, and a display called ‘The Dream of America’ I happily still have the book of, featuring a boardwalk of Old Ballard, a pause-worthy area emulating a warf one was about to alight into steerage on a steamship, and a New York tenement — to be left to push West as soon as one could afford — have become cavernous rooms with wee clusters of artifacts.This doesn’t tell the story well. It’s like looking at sets of collages. Lots of random-looking objects that children today couldn’t place, for the life of them.Things I miss the most:In the fishing room, there was a video on a loop explaining the phenomenon of the AMAZING amount of king crab biomass during the 70s and 80s, how the industry ballooned — and then collapsed (though they didn’t explain the IFQ, International Fishing Quotas, very well. The biomass inexplicably disappeared. The boom-bust cycle REALLY emulates the Gold Rush well, and deserves to be seriously studied.I’m Finnish, and there’s a log sauna outdoors. I loved visiting it at its past location. I longed for the day it would be set up so people could at LEAST walk inside of it, look into it. Most of the world has NO idea how a wood-fired sauna actually works. Now, it’s shoehorned into a slip along the building, and I have no reason to believe anything else will ever happen to it. Someday, it will be moved again, and as many rat-carcasses will be found underneath of it, I’m sure.There were activity things for children to do that were cool: ‘baiting’ in the fishing room, ‘sawing’ in the lumber room, etc. Lost. Disappointing. Nothing hands-on in the new museum.Again, I’m Finnish, and the Finnish room described the community saunas, had photos of them, described how they were the center of the Finnish community. Everyone went to them, whether they were pietist, or ‘red’ communists, or ‘white’ intelligensia/conservatives. They all went, sweated together, and have coffee after. Period. That story isn’t going to be seen or told any more.My late friend Kerttu Kivimaki collected random things she rescued from garage sales, and managed to collect over a dozen beautiful copper water kettles. It was so fun to see them all together. Now, I’m sure they’re expertly curated in the storage next door. My leading reason to be a member is to assure the insurance on the storage is paid.In the Danish room, there were many displays of life like the old country here, in Ballard — which was NOT part of Seattle at the time. Little English could be heard on the streets of Ballard. There was a view into a Danish church, with a minister in black wool, a woman bent over her spool lace project, a table set for a traditional coffee. I loved visiting that. I loved being made to understand by a woman grandmother-age for me that high school women learned how to weave, and sew, AND tat or lace-make — and a typical project was to make an apron (which you maybe didn’t weave the cloth for) and trim it with lace YOU made.These moments are gone, now.The tenement space in the ‘dream of America’ area is a room I liked to stand in. It would have been SO motivating to get on a train, or into carriage, and *leave*. I’m certain my grandparents felt this way.You may not know that the nation’s roof shingles all came from Ballard. Well, now you may never know it, as that’s not part of the museum. The lumbering/timbering room is direly missed by me. Direly. There were lumber camps in very remote places, and there are just a few people now around who grew up in them, just a few books on them. It’s all vanishing, and I’m hopeful that the State Museum in Tacoma may have some interpretive bits on this. Lumber camps, often enough, had one-room schools, and/or children had to travel amazing distances to get to the nearest school. Health care was difficult, too, and the injuries of lumberjacks can be pretty traumatic. And this area was totally dependent on lumbering and timbering: early Boeing planes were wood!!So, what’s there, now?Well, there’s a room/gallery on the various nordic groups.There’s a room/gallery on immigration.As noted, they’re confusing. The nordic countries have a lot of similarities, and a lot of nuances, and a lot of frank differences. What each nationalities’ room-committee displayed was very different, and what’s currently on display bemuses me. The committees aren’t disbanded, just not consulted, it seems.There’s a gallery on the main floor for traveling or impermanent exhibits.But, the one that really gets me, is the vacuous space that’s supposed to be on the Nordic value of toleration and openness. This really pains me.This would especially pain me if I brought my friends and fellow graduate students I studied with. They are Ethiopians, and have since emigrated *here* to the US. They chose to get a car in Finland, despite the significants costs, as they were not willing to subject their children to the discrimination and frank harassment they encountered using the public buses. They were so overwhelmingly kind and hospitable, despite what they encountered.Mind you, he’s a world authority in solar-powered irrigation systems, and his work could change the world as we know it. But all your typical irate racist can see is someone that must be living on government money, sucking it away from needful pensioners and underemployed/unemployed actual-nationals. And this is not uncommon in ANY of the nordic countries.And to ignore it is impossible. Totally impossible.Nordic countries are not Shangri La. OR Vahalla. They are far from perfect.I don’t grasp this space at all, and I don’t know who designed it, who conceived it, why it was considered so important to get this much space, and if these people are actually from a nordic country or spent significant time in one.It frankly embarrasses me.I think of being on a ferry from Sweden to Denmark, and finally seeing actual Greenlanders — the nordic gaze, much akin to a stare, is ok in regional etiquette, and for me, I was staring. And they were, back. I was grasping what I had heard/gathered, in a visceral way. And I totally understood: they were ‘in their place’: sitting somewhere off to the side/where no one else wanted to be, clearly considered lesser.I think of the Roma trio at my friend’s dance hall in Finland, and how everyone gave them a wide berth. I think of the near-altercation I fell into, when I wasn’t moving fast enough for a male gypsy in a crowd, who clearly thought I was a man, and shoved me with my backpack on in front of people. And how those around me froze.And I think of a VERY well meaning young lawyer here, bringing her African refugee client to a church service at the tiny Finnish lutheran church, introducing themselves, and somehow thinking that at coffee hour, they would be approached and offered assistance and aid. I took on the task of setting them straight. That was sad work. Yes, Finns have relief programs in African countries, as well as mission work. No, this does not mean they are exactly welcoming of refugees. This was at least ten years ago.I think of a young, soft-spoken African who found himself on a panel, describing his experience getting educated in a Nordic country, vs the US. He was VERY diplomatic. He said the education experience may have been better, but he greatly preferred to be here.I hope you get the idea.So I have some real difficulties, on the second floor.I think one friend’s fear, that due to the current composition of the museum’s board, the museum could have become the Microsoft Touch Screen Museum of Nordic Culture, has been averted, but other hazards remain.Other bad things have happened.The museum HAD a grand old huge kitchen, as it was a grand old school made during the WPA. Some of us dearly loved it, flaws and all. A dozen-plus people could cheerily work in it, and did, for myriad events. I helped with the Raoul Wallenberg dinner numerous times, the Finns had an annual bazaar there, had their annual Kalevala festival there. Major memorial events were held there, with glorious potlucks and dancing.Now, not so much. No kitchen, and any food has to be from — you guessed it, they guy who has the contract, who the board clearly had in mind for the job from the get-go.So, no more bazaars with baked goods and sandwiches and what not. The Finns moved their annual event to the Swedish Club — which, frankly, could not have happened a decade or so ago, until some people died, I warrant. Nordic cooperation does not mean the nordic long memory has been cauterized.Also, it’s not looking good, at all, for having another Nordic Cuisine Conference there. Where, I don’t know. Maybe between the Leif Erikson Lodge, the Swedish Club, the Danish Club, the Finnish Lutheran Church, we have four possible kitchens we could use, within not too many miles of each other to hold classes/expositions in the future. No idea if anyone else has given this any thought.The first two were fabulous events, sold out, even, but now — well, losing a community kitchen is like losing your heart.Is there a Wallenberg dinner anymore? No idea. One of the best things about the museum. If it’s lost, it’s another real loss. I’d be on the committee to revive it, if somewhere else.And then there’s parking. What parking? Well, that’s the point. Any parking is for significant price, now. You can park and walk several blocks — unless you’re old and frail, or have a lot of stuff to haul in for the cooking conference or bazaar. Which is not the point of the museum anymore, obviously. They are right on a bus route. It’s flat, as it’s along the ship canal. But the holocaust survivors who used to come to the Wallenberg dinner would do well with a bit more accessible parking.There continues to be a library. It’s a closed library. I’m interested in researching labor music, and I may get to that some day. We’ll see. The library has suffered from the typical overwhelm of materials donated, and surely has had to be picky, but I really don’t know how rich their collections are, at this point.The language institute, which teaches some Swedish, but mostly Norwegian and Danish, is still on site, in the adjacent building. The Finns teach elsewhere, at the church, and the Swedes have a remarkable program at the club. The weekly knitting/handwork group is still meeting there. I’m guessing the woodworking group is a thing of the past, but I haven’t inquired. The Swedish Club has a burgeoning weaving group, which the museum would have been fabulous for, as one of their staff is a member of the local weaver’s guild, but clearly that’s not a direction the museum is currently interested in.They have interesting programming, and it’s improved of late: nordic film (though the Swedish Club is more regular and more accessible), the annual chamber music series, other concerts, including pop and folk music. They sponsor with the Seattle Film Festival an annual Nordic film festival, which happens soon, and is expertly programmed.I’m glad there’s new volunteers, as well as new staff. Others have commented on how surreal it is to have very-obviously non-nordic people staffing, and some are attracted to volunteer not because they give a flying fig about nordic anything — it’s just pretty and fun to stand around selling $50 Marimekko items. Oh well.(It pained me to discover the (young) staff member who was administrating the last banquet I volunteered at there had never been involved with a food oriented event in her life. I found myself writing email after, about as much as I have here, explaining how to stage an event, all but writing a handbook for her — and her peers, who seem to be just as naive. I have never gotten any thanks from her. I continue, however, to get awkward looks. Very disappointing.Especially, as there were a dozen mom-age to grandma-age to us volunteers, likely members since before she was born, who, if asked on their weekly visits to volunteer at the museum, would have been OVERJOYED to do a kitchen walk-through with her and brief her on things anyone who’s volunteered at a Campfire spaghetti feed, or a mother-daughter church supper, or a large church funeral buffet would know.May be good, for me to have taken a break for awhile.)I didn’t attend this year’s Tivoli, nor the Julfest, so I can’t speak to them. I’m hopeful. No idea.One friend wrote in one of our local newsletters that the now-lost-to-time museum was like our parent’s house, and the current museum is akin to our children’s house. YES the former was old and dark and had oddities and likely too much. And it could take your entire day to go through, and you’d be packing a lunch to eat as there was no food service. YES the new museum is the opposite end: a blank white box inside, like an unfurnished Nordic apartment, with bemusing tables-top/cabinet-size displays of disembodied objects to parse and make sense of, like items needing to be unpacked and sorted.And as it stands, I could walk through it in an hour, shake my head as I walk back out the door, and head off down toward Golden Gardens to go get a beer at the Elk’s Lodge, and look at the sound, and the Leif Erikson statue at the marina, and think about the amazing, determined, resourceful people who settled this former town, now condo-district called Ballard, who tamed the wilderness, hazard their lives in fishing boats and mines and lumber camps, learned to be Americans, and highly influenced the creation of the egalitarian, can-do-and-will-do nature of this region.I don’t want them to be left out. They are, pretty much, right now, just like we kitchen-denizens.So: awkward, either way, I guess.Hope this helps gain some perspective. When you walk through, think about the LOCAL people.

If possible visit first. Realize you will be moving to a city part way up an Active Volcano. There are tremors often, there can be serious earthquakes any time, a year or 2 after I moved back to the States there was such heavy ash fall that outside at midday it was pitch black. If you speak Spanish already, I would check carefully before buying or signing a long term lease. The difference between the awful earthquake in Haiti, which killed more than 250,000 people, and other earthquakes of similar magnitude in California, Chile, and Japan which killed dozens or hundreds, was building codes.If you live in a state which doesn't have earthquakes, landslides, or volcanos, and don't speak Spanish yet, I would see what resources are available through the California Geological Survey or their Universities generally, watch PBS and NatGeo documentaries about volcanos and earthquakes, and one Nova in particular about the El Oso landslide which seemed very pertinent to me. John McPhee wrote a long essay for the New Yorker which was one of 3 collected into a book called the Control of Nature. He is scathing about developers who build on avalanche tracks and debris fans, and unwitting buyers.None of these things would stop me from moving back there if I didn't have family ties here. I LOVE Quito. They are safety considerations I would take seriously though.As far as the dangers of city life I felt much safer in Quito than I did when I lived in Chicago 30 years ago, and I felt safe in Chicago. Normal big city caution worked fine.Two other factors about where you might want to settle: one thing which bothered me a lot, but almost subliminally, was day length. On the equator the day is 12 hours long every day of the year. That in itself was very wearing. I lived in La Floresta most of the 2 years I was there. It's across from the mountains, so we got full sun. Then the guest household I lived in moved across the valley to a neighborhood on the side of the mountain. We were in the shadow of the mountain by 3 or 4. It made a huge difference. It was also much colder.Another thing to consider about permanent abode is the trade off between altitude and mosquitos. At the time I lived there there were bars but no screens in the windows. We were above most bugs. If you live at 8,500 or 9,000 feet that is almost surely still true. But there is no central heating. Folks have fire places. The rainy season is called winter because it can rain for days. When you are already at 9,000 feet and the rain is coming down from way high above you it brings a lot of cold. An expat american friend of mine remarked bitterly that the farenheit thermometer In Her Kitchen, one morning after the 5th straight day of rain, read 41 degrees. The country is on the metric system. If you want a farenheit thermometer bring one.I got pregnant while I was living there, so it was very nice that I didn't have to take any antimalarials, as many tourists do when they go down off the altitude. I'm not sure what expats do. I have no info about zika. I do know that ecosystems are creeping up the mountains all over the world.In Quito 20 years ago shorts were strictly for tourists. Nobody from Quito wore them in public unless they were going on a picnic at a lower altitude, or something like that. In the rainy season there were days when people wore at least a sweater or a windshell all day. In the rest of the year the climate went through spring, summer and fall once a day. In the early morning people sat on a shady veranda in sweaters, then shirts then by late morning tshirts and shorts while in the yard. In the afternoon the whole procedure went into reverse. Long sleeves or sweaters at supper time, a fall jacket by late evening, two heavy blankets on the bed at night. I personally always wore a t-shirt and long pants, and tied a cotton sweater around my waist even at mid day, and usually found the same sweater ok with a windshell over it well on into the evening. When I was away from home at night I was walking briskly.If you are a normal size, there are marvelous handicraft choices for sweaters and wool vests easily and cheaply available. A lot of them are knitted big enough to sell to tourists. I would use those and just bring a good windshell and maybe a thin cotton sweater from home. I would trade off space in my luggage for an electric heater and good hiking boots, and walking shoes, and binoculars, which would have been prohibitively expensive to buy in Quito. If you are fat or tall or have big feet or are different in any other way consider bringing plenty of clothes and shoes, particularly if you are an american woman who wants dress shoes. I am 5' 8". There is a photo of me in a plaza looking at a puppet show, with a sea of Ecuadorian men around me and my whole head rising above them. For a woman I was enormous. I could have shirts and dresses made, but underwear would have been a problem and if I had wanted a new bra I would have had to find someone who could tailor it. They surely must have someone who makes mastectomy supplies? Things may have changed. When I was there people used to go shopping in Miami. I had spent a couple of months in Mexico about 15 years prior to moving to Quito, so I brought several bluejeans and a ton of underthings along.The parabolic heater my landlady provided was one of my fond memories. Our household also had a totally awesome gas demand water heater in the bathroom. No electric showers for us. I don't have any particular fond memories about heating devices from my life in the States. Our house had a washing machine too! Very exciting. Consult expats.The main heat in my house was fires. Firewood was delivered once a week. The firewood available was eucalyptus and pretty green. We used cera (floor wax) as a fire starter. It came in a one liter bag much longer and skinnier than a liter bag of milk. A liter of wax was good for 3 or 4 fires. Apartment buildings didn't have fireplaces. Probably baseboard electric heaters are the thing. My working class friends just had lots of sweaters and blankets. But if you are looking for a home, or even a guest house, fireplaces are important.Unless things have changed a lot, one thing you will be dealing with is rolling blackouts. The main source of power for the city then was hydroelectricity. At certain seasons there wasn't enough water behind the dam for the generators to run flat out. The blackouts were scheduled in 8 hour shifts, and the rotation was published. There is no problem about refrigeration as long as you don't have to open the freezer much. Lots of folks don't own fridges. They just step around to the corner store in the morning to buy fresh bread or rolls and a liter bag of milk. If I had insulin to keep fresh or whatever I would freeze a few liters of water ahead of time. People who need elevators or oxygen concentrators have a bit more to think about.Depending on why you are moving there, I know there are expats settling in the next valley over from the valley Quito is in. I believe it is cheaper, lower, warmer, and about a 40 minute bus ride from some transit hub. That would also be farther from the Active Volcano. There are actually 2 mountains there. The smaller one is called guagua (pronounced wawa-means baby) Pichincha. I am fairly sure it's the big one that is active. Quito itself is only as wide as its valley, but miles and miles long. So there are a lot of choices.I personally loved La Floresta and would choose it again if I wanted to live in Quito. It was above the place in the valley where colonial Quito divides from the modern business part of downtown. I could easily walk to a cheap bus, or if I wanted to could walk down into the valley to coffee shops and so on. I walked to my language school and I think to the supermarket. But I lived in a part where the valley wall between two foothills had been knocked away. It was beautiful to watch the fog fall down over what IIRC is called la ceja de orillana. Next time I would find a place at least half way up one of those foothills, rather than at the lowest point in the landscape across from the Active Volcano. I hope you are sensing a theme here.If you've already bought or rented then that's that. If not my strong suggestion is to stay in a guest house, not a hotel, for at least a month, and sign up for at least 4 weeks of spanish classes. I tried to do the 7 hours a day plan and found it way too intense. Usually the schools offer 4 hours in the morning, 5 days a week. Maybe it is only 4 days. Anyway that's what I would ask for. I bet you could arrange to have your teacher be your interpreter on the 5th day if you need one. She will be someone you know, who might be willing to go with you while you explore neighborhoods to see where you want to settle. Even if you are fluent there is always something to work on. If you are a novice spanish speaker Quito is great. Quitenos speak slowly relative to other spanish speakers, are somewhat more formal, and finish their words. For that reason, it and Antigua, Guatemala were the top 2 choices for language schools when I was deciding where to go. I picked Quito out of a guidebook, and have never regretted it.Last night I was thinking of getting settled as something like rock climbing. Not that I am necessarily comparing touring South America to a walk in the park. But it came to me that the rule about having 3 firm contact points while you move the 4th could be very useful.The school would be my first contact point. You will be able to make arrangements with them even if you speak no Spanish at all. They can also set you up with a host family or a guest house (casa de huespedes).I would rent from a guest house because the one I lived in before had a steady stream of Europeans through it, many of whom had come to Ecuador a number of times and knew a lot about interesting stuff, and all of whom spoke English. I found it very important to have a place where the strain was off, and made a couple of friends with whom I could cook or whatever and not have to struggle. And, main advantage, the business owners in many of these guest houses are expats themselves. There were lots of expats in Quito running guest houses or tours or similar things when I lived there. Brains to pick!Quora itself is the third. Aside from the contacts you have here, there are folks on the Quora ES side who are native speakers of English, at least one of whom seems to be an American expat who has lived in Quito 20 years.Service opportunities are 4th. What can you do to heal the world? How can you do it in Quito? You may meet very interesting folks where you volunteer.If you have no objection to church I know 2 English language ones. I attended the English Fellowship Church. It started at Southern Baptists and went more conservative from there. I liked it very much although I am not a conservative. I got started there because the hospital I volunteered at had been founded by folks from that church.The other one I know personally is a combined Lutheran and Episcopalian outfit quite near La Floresta. IIRC the Lutheran services in Spanish and German weren't alternating, but the English service was Episcopalian and Lutheran on alternating Sundays, and if there was a 5th sunday in the month there was a combined service. It was main line, not evangelical, and would have been a better fit for me if I hadn't found the other first. They are totally serious about Christianity. Both pastors met with me when I asked for my son to be baptized there, and grilled me for a couple of hours about why I wanted him baptized since I wasn't a Christian myself. (Simple enough. I was moving back to the States, and wanted his father, a deeply convinced practising Catholic, to know that his child was safe. My church didn't do infant baptism.) But I felt that if I had stayed in Quito I could have happily taken my nonChristian self there for years and been perfectly welcome. If you are agnostic but religion doesn't bother you, or if you don't mind worshipping with people of a different faith, these could possibly be other contact points even for nonChristians.It is hard to move to a place where you don't know anyone and don't know the language. That seems totally obvious. Dumb thing to say. Of course it's hard. I think it is worth saying anyhow. Culture shock is real. For me it was most real between month three and month 6. My house was right under the flight path away from the old airport. I had no intention of leaving, but for months I looked up at every plane a few hundred feet above my head and felt very intensely “I could be on you.” Make sure you have 3 points of solid contact and move the 4th. Get your guest house and language thing going so that you aren't alone while you start getting to know the Quorans and expats and Quitenos who will be your way forward there. Even if you are not a person who ever socializes, just having other people around in the background will probably help.There will be unknown unknowns. For instance, Americans normally expect a fridge and stove to be included where they rent an unfurnished apartment. Nope.There will be known unknowns. If you aren't from earthquake country, what do you do on the 8th floor in a pretty strong shake, when everybody reacts and one of the women shouts “Temblor!” and runs? I just stood there, probably with my mouth open, until I noticed that half the people in the room were also just standing there. Then I went back and sat down.One answer I saw in this thread said Make sure you have medical insurance. If you are a traveler, absolutely. If you are staying, talk to expats. When I was there they mostly paid cash. I paid cash when my son was born. At that time it cost 10,000 USD for an uncomplicated delivery in the States. In Quito you have to pay the whole amount up front, so I put down my hundred dollars. I had an uncomplicated delivery, but my son came pretty quickly and I had previously talked with my obstetrician about wishing I could have had him at home. The upshot was that he was born in my private room. Since I hadn't used the delivery room, when I checked out, out of my hundred I got 40 dollars change. This was in sucres, of course.I absolutely would not worry about routine medical or dental care, or eye glasses or anything. If you need specialized meds bring a couple of months worth from home and figure out how you are going to get them before you sign a lease. If you are retiring to Quito be aware that Medicare won't cover you there. Because the public hospitals don't supply drugs or I.V.s, and because there are many more medications available over the counter, pharmacists play a much broader role as consultants than they do in the States. There was always a published schedule of the “farmacia del turno" so people would know whose turn it was to stay open all night.In the 90s I thought the health care at Hospital Vos Andes, the private hospital where I volunteered, was much like health care in a good hospital in the States in the 70s. Doctors told you what to do and expected you to do it more than they do here. Also pain control for minor things might not be what you expect. I saw a traumatologist pull pins or something out of a woman's arm that he had put in weeks prior without either providing lidocaine or telling her to take ibuprofen in advance. He wasn't cutting into her. I can't remember this clearly, but whatever it was was accessible from the surface. She didn't cry out, so it can't have been that bad, but it was clearly rougher than she thought, and she did bitch to me about it later.Check with expats, and find a doctor you feel comfortable with who speaks English well. If you are sick or hurt it will be much simpler and safer that way than if you are also trying to cope with Spanish. I was very grateful to the American nurse midwife I knew from church who stayed with me when I had the baby, and I was fluent by then.Be very wary of the sun. In daylight it is mostly the atmosphere that protects us (you leave Van Allen belts right out of this!). Higher than 8,000 feet, on the Equator, there is a lot less up there to do the protecting, and a lot more radiation coming in, than anyone from a temperate zone would expect. It is easy to sunburn when you don't feel hot. Being cool or cold tends to make people let their guard down. Prescription sunglasses are a good idea if you need glasses. They may be cheaper here. The whole time I was there I wore a hat. I have had a squamous cell lesion removed from my eyebrow anyway, and you can see the outline of my t-shirt neckline 20 years later in the form of age related blemishes. I didn't wear sunscreen. Take warning by me.You have a couple of big advantages now that I didn't. 1) the internet, 2) the fact that Ecuador uses the US dollar. You can very easily check prices, to see if those glasses, or that space heater, will be just as cheap there. You can get books and movies and news from home. I was the last generation for whom that wasn't true. If you have questions about any of that, other Quorans will be able to help. The only thing I know for sure is that when I lived there there was an 8 year wait or an 800 dollar bribe to get a telephone landline. Check whether or not it will be simple and cheap to set up internet in your home.Both the houses I lived in had yards inside the outer walls. Most single family dwellings don't. If people want greenery they go to parks. I don't spend a lot of time in the yard, but over the long haul I found that having that green area mattered a lot.Quito is a wonderful city for people who love flowers. It is often chilly but never freezes, so tropical and temperate plants both grow, and many temperate plants grow at the same time which at home would belong in different seasons. Roses and irises and impatience and hollyhocks and zinnias, and sweet alysum and sedums and marigolds… I don't think pointsettias grow that high, or bougainvillia. They grow in Otavalo. I bet you could grow them against a sunny masonry wall. Even if you don't have a yard it would be a fantastic place for a container garden. There are also humming birds the size of sparrows. I think I have seen in my yard the largest humming bird species in the world.I didn't travel after I knew I was pregnant. I wanted to stay away from mosquitos and near my doctor, and at that time how well the blood for transfusions was screened was a big issue in Ecuador. However I know there are wonderful sites nearby for bird watching, hiking and so on, and Quito is the best place to arrange Galapagos tours. Whenever Quitenos want to get warmed through they go straight down the mountains. You can get to either the coast or the rainforest in a day of travel, or you can fly and get there much faster.An advantage of living maybe 8 hours from the coast is that the seafood coming up the mountain can be incredibly fresh. I ate out a lot. I had a good female friend who worked downtown, and met her every day for the fixed price menu lunch. At that time it cost 1 USD for a plate with a moderate amount of meat or fish, a big serving of starch (sometimes boiled yuca or potatos, mostly rice, with some kind of gravy or sauce), and a cooked vegetable or maybe platanos dorados (fried starchy bananas-dorado means made golden.) There was a postre (desert), and a glass of quaker (kuah ker), a boiled drink made with fruit of some sort and thickened with a little oatmeal, or an aguita. Drinking water should be boiled. Most people do that with herbs, or something like passionfruit or tamarind. Thus, aguita. I heard the price doubled when they went on the dollar. It went up to USD 2 a meal.Food in Quito was not cooked with hot spices. It had fresh hot sauce (aji) on the table, and everybody put what they wanted. I never used any. The food was not too bland for me. Even without hot sauce I found it very tasty. And of course there are restaurants there with cuisine from around the world. Be careful to use picante about food spice. Caliente, which means hot like a hot day, also means hot like sexy. Lunchtime is about when it is here, but supper can be quite late. In the late afternoon many people have coffee and a roll. In one way it is just backward from here. The roll is unsweetened like a dinner roll, and the coffee is intensely sweet.I also ate in various homes, and at seafood restaurants and cafes. I never got sick. The regular tourist rules (avoid salad!) would be good to follow until you know folks there you can ask.I had a missionary friend, a nurse, who kept a 5 gallon bucket in her kitchen, half filled with water and the recommended amount of bleach. She would dunk all fruits and vegetables that couldn't be peeled. She kept the bucket covered and only changed the water every few days. She kept them in the bleach water the least amount of time possible, and rinsed them in water she had boiled. No food I ate in her house ever tasted of bleach to me. I am fairly sure she washed dishes in unboiled city water. That's what we did where I lived. The city actually had water purification, but enough people tapped into it that integrity couldn't be maintained at that time.People with schoolaged kids are in luck. They can break the ice anywhere. If you don't want to homeschool be aware that everyone who can sends their children to private schools. There was at least one in English. Missionary kids were sent to board there from all over South America. The first place I was going to check out if I had stayed that long in Quito would have been the Brazilian school. At that time it cost 100 USD a month. My son's father’s rent was 80. I think there is a lot for kids to do in Quito if their parents look around.All the cultural richness you've seen in guide books and all the rave reviews about any kind of ecotourism you can imagine are perfectly true to the best of my knowledge. But it was also true that when I lived there the city could seem very stodgy, and sometimes people took what seemed like a long long time to get to know. Of course, I was in my late 30s, and my going out club hopping or dancing in bars nights were well behind me. Quitenos are a bit more formal and reserved than others may be. Keep at it. It is well worth while. I very strongly agree with the person from Quito who posted on this thread advice to get out of the expat bubble. I have been saying consult expat this, consult expat that as a way of getting a safe start, but if that is where you stop it will be a shame.That's all I can think of that will help.

Black and WhiteMilwaukeeBorn and raised in a very European community in the Middle West, I was taught to be open-minded, tolerant and to think critically. We were an immigrant community made up from German / Jewish / Catholic / Lutheran / English, most highly skilled, well employed in large manufacturing industries, speaking several languages and being highly educated coming from one the best schools systems in the USA. Milwaukee was 'Leave it to Beaver' country. Times were so much more tranquil then, people were friendly, things were so much more innocent, there was very little crime and neighborhoods raised children. We didn't have all the technology then, no TV and only radio with Edward R Murrow and Gabriel Heater and JC Kaltenborn interspersed between the Long Ranger and Shadow programs; it made life simpler it seems which has changed our life today for the better and also made it worse. Like someone said before, technology has robbed jobs, created laziness, created greed, and has allowed public help for all the wrong reasons. We should be using our technology for good things for our children, like developing wind and solar energy, and cures for diseases and not to increase greed.We only had small handful of blacks in Milwaukee when I lived there as the Great Migration of southern Blacks to the north hadn't hit Milwaukee yet. It was hitting Detroit and Chicago with both good and disastrous results. The heavily industrialized white north needed skilled machinists and such but the blacks were generally uneducated and unskilled field hands and didn't fit in well. This provided opportunities for them to learn and embody themselves into the industrialized culture and advance - some did and some didn't and social dysfunctions and crime went way up and racial segregation found its way to the north.The NavyThen I entered the Navy and was stationed in the south, and found a completely different - hateful, fearful, uneducated - good ole boy society still living in the Confederate culture and fighting the Civil War and racial integration to the death. I found the region was filled with black people, about 30 per cent to 40 percent of the population depending upon the state, all of which were treated horribly; Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia being the worst, as sub human by some, as second class citizens by most. The south was segregated by law with separate public facilities and areas to live in. The police enforced the segregation, the courts supported it and the Ku Klux Klan terrorized those who tried to change things. In the Deep South whites indescribably murdered and lynched blacks and no whites were ever brought to justice for these horrible murders - no arrests and no convictions. Throughout the south there was the black seedy [shanty] section of town and the separate white town house section with street lights being the best. Facilities were separated by race and enforced by the police. Us Northerners though it was just a silly duplication of facilities and an insult to the human condition and southerners were morally bent.On my ship we had lots of black sailors and I liked most of them. I had them in my Fire Control weapons gang, Cousins was my partner in the Main Battle Gun Director, Hawkins was our best 3inch gunner, James was our best street fighter; he bailed me out of plenty of Bar fights across the world. On the ship we got along well but when we went ashore in the south we went to separate sections of town. In Norfolk that meant Granby Street for the whites and Church Street for the blacks. That is why we Yankee sailors went to NYC for weekend liberties, blacks too for the freedom. I never understood the southern institutionalized Jim Crow segregation I saw in the Norfolk area during the 1950s & 1960s. I understand defacto segregation volunteered by cultural choice, like ethnic groups sticking to their own kind, even different social / economic groups doing the same. Whites who objected to segregation would get into trouble with the police for using black facilities as a means of protest; they would be arrested and tossed n jail. . One day I was put off the Norfolk city bus for giving my seat to a very pregnant and in-pain black woman.This segregation was hard for us northerners to understand. We would go to sea for weeks chasing Russian submarines then come back to Norfolk trying to find that elusive femme fatale that must be somewhere nearby looking for a nice good looking young Destroyer sailor man like me. I soon found that not only was she elusive, but was non existent. There weren't those girl meet boy facilities here that were found in the north to meet girls. Hell, we were in segregated and backward Norfolk, and they had signs around town that said "sailors keep off the grass," so where does a sailor go to meet women in a dry and segregated backward place where there are no dance clubs or night clubs and only a few dingy fast food restaurants with lousy Pizza. So, we went to Manhattan for weekend liberty searching for feminine companionship in Times Square - which we found in spades . . . The Big Apple was alive with tens of thousands of all kinds of women, dance clubs and spicy night club adventures.In my early Navy days in Norfolk, when I didn't have a car or a ride for weekend liberty, I would take a Trailways interstate bus to New York City. When the bus stopped for bathroom or food in the South, we left the bus and parted company into separate racial facilities, but when in the North we shared all facilities together. If you were pissed off at Jim Crow and thwarted the segregationist pattern, like entering a "colored" rest room, you could be arrested and put in the local jails, where you would be treated horribly, being crammed into tiny, filthy cells. fed salt without water and sporadically beaten. In the South, the police didn't take kindly to whites who sympathized with the blacks. On one trip I met Mary Thomson, a young pretty Black girl who lived in Manhattan, and we became good friends. She was very smart and had a great personality and I wished I could date her when she visited her parents in Norfolk, but as things are in the South, I knew that was impossible. We could only breathe the fresh air of freedom when we crossed the Mason - Dixon Line.It was totally two different worlds, comparing monolithic Norfolk to an incredibly diverse Manhattan; where the south has lots of guns and say "You' all" and in New York where they have lots of fun and say "Youse guys. Norfolk - as well as the entire south was a dark and dismal region, intolerant, segregated, violent, poor and they lived for Confederate values; where politicians ran on religion, fear and hate and being against the fascist federal government for trying to desegregate the south, hating the communist Martin Luther King and his Civil Rights struggle, and the Yankee liberal north trying to change the south and inspiring all their troubles - again! That was racial integration, they were dead set against it. They like the old ways and understand them, it fitted into their comfort zone.The lynching of Black people in the Southern and Border States became an institutionalized method used by whites to terrorize Blacks and maintain white supremacy. In the South, there was deep-seated and all-pervading hatred and fear of the Negro which led white mobs to turn to lynch law as a means of social control. Lynchings open public murders of individuals suspected of crime conceived and carried out more or less spontaneously by a mob seem to have been an American invention. Most of the lynchings were by hanging or shooting, or both.However, many were of a more hideous nature, burning at the stake, maiming, dismemberment, castration, and other brutal methods of physical torture. Lynching therefore was a cruel combination of racism and sadism, which was utilized primarily to sustain the caste system in the South. Many white people believed that Negroes could only be controlled by fear. To them, lynching was seen as the most effective means of control.The Civil Rights Movement and the escalating war in Vietnam were the two great catalysts for social protest in the sixties. During the 1960s, the civil rights movement changed the lives of African Americans forever. It was a tumultuous time, and things got harder for them before they began to get better, but it was dramatic. Some people began to feel hope that they would someday have equal rights. There was little consensus on how to promote equality on a national level - groups such as the NAACP, CORE, and Dr. Martin Luther King's SCLC, endorsed peaceful methods and believed change could be affected by working around the established system; other groups such as the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, and the Black Nationalist Movement advocated retaliatory violence and a separation of the races.The StruggleOne of the first major events in the sixties was the attack on the Freedom Riders, groups of black and white citizens who rode busses across the south in order to test laws enforcing segregation in public facilities. As they rode across the south, they were met by angry mobs and police brutality, which would beat them severely, sometimes to death. Another event, which happened in 1963, was the killing of Medgar Evers, the field secretary for the NAACP, who was murdered in his driveway. Because of all the beatings of the Freedom Riders and the frustration of blacks wanting their rights, many riots broke out in various cities and states, such as Los Angeles, New Jersey, Chicago and Philadelphia. When these riots broke out in the 1960's, the police would use any methods necessary to exert their power, such as the use of clubs and physical force. Sometimes, when black protesters would try to enter restaurants, stores or any other "White" facilities, they would be sprayed with large fire hoses. The photos of Birmingham in 1963 are evidence of these events.In 1962, President Kennedy dispatched troops to force the University of Mississippi (a state institution) to admit James Meredith, a black student. At the same time, he forbade racial or religious discrimination in federally financed housing. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and President Johnson continued the battle. King convinced President Kennedy and later President Johnson to push for legislation to end discrimination and was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1964. President Johnson prodded Congress into enacting (August 1965) a Voting Rights Act that eliminated all qualifying tests for registration that had as their objective limiting the right to vote to whites.The whole USA was on fire: From 1964 to 1968, more than a hundred American cities were swept by race riots, which included dynamiting, guerrilla warfare, and huge conflagrations, as the anger of the northern black community at its relatively low income, high unemployment, and social exclusion exploded. At this violent expression of hopelessness the northern white community drew back rapidly from its reformist stance on the race issue (the so-called white backlash).During this time, we lived in a Bi Polar world, it was a Cold War, us against the Russians, capitalism vs. communism, and that was our nation's chief concern. Within that battle was embedded the Civil Rights movement, centered on the American South, but it also had vast challenges for northern blacks achieving social acceptance and equal opportunity. Although the roots of the movement go back to the 19th century, it peaked in the 1950s and 1960s along with the (Hippy) counter revolution challenging traditional social mores. Civil Rights workers pursued their goals through legal means, negotiations, petitions, and nonviolent protest demonstrations. The civil rights movement was the largest social movement of the 20th century in the United States. These were violent times, the south was ubiquitous for murders of black people, especially in Mississippi, and whites got away with it. No white jury would convict a white man for killing a black person.For example, Emmet Till was a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago who was brutally beaten, tortured, disfigured, shot, and dumped into the Tallahatchie River. Even though the two white men (J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant) confessed and bragged about the killing, when they were tried, they were acquitted by an all white jury. These kind of activities happened over and over again in the south. Between Civil Rights people getting murdered, there were thousands killed in the south with no recompense from the law. But life in Norfolk was hell too - Whites and blacks were separated by law which was joyfully enforced by the police, most whom I regarded as psychopaths. The city was divided into sections, one for whites the other for blacks. Black people had their own churches, restaurants, taxi cabs, parks, beaches, bathrooms, locker rooms and water fountains.The American Civil Rights Movement in the late 1950s and 1960s represents a pivotal event in world history. The positive changes it brought to voting and civil rights continue to be felt throughout the United States and much of the world. Although this struggle for black equality was fought on hundreds of different "battlefields" throughout the United States, many observers at the time described the state of Mississippi as the most racist and violent. In 1955, Reverend George Lee, vice president of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership and NAACP worker, was shot in the face and killed for urging blacks in the Mississippi Delta to vote.Although eyewitnesses saw a carload of whites drive by and shoot into Lee's automobile, the authorities failed to charge anyone. Governor Hugh White refused requests to send investigators to Belzoni, Mississippi, where the murder occurred.In August 1955, Lamar Smith, sixty-three-year-old farmer and World War II veteran, was shot in cold blood on the crowded courthouse lawn in Brookhaven, Mississippi, for urging blacks to vote. Although the sheriff saw a white man leaving the scene 'with blood all over him' no one admitted to having witnessed the shooting" and "the killer went free.Mississippi's lawmakers, law enforcement officers, public officials, and private citizens worked long and hard to maintain the segregated way of life that had dominated the state since the end of the Civil War in 1865. The method that ensured segregation persisted was the use and threat of violence against people who sought to end it.On September 25, 1961, farmer Herbert Lee was shot and killed in Liberty, Mississippi, by E.H. Hurst, a member of the Mississippi State Legislature. Hurst murdered Lee because of his participation in the voter registration campaign sweeping through southwest Mississippi. Authorities never charged him with the crime. Hurst was acquitted by a coroner's jury, held in a room full of armed white men, the same day as the killing. Hurst never spent a night in jail."NAACP State Director Medgar Evers was gunned down in 1963 in his Jackson driveway by rifle-wielding white Citizens Council member Byron De La Beckwith from Greenwood, Mississippi.In the spring of 1963 two events changed Americans view on Civil Rights. The first was the march in Birmingham in which Dr. King was arrested and he wrote "A letter from a Birmingham Jail. He wrote a letter in response to criticism for ministers in Birmingham Alabama. May 2, 1963 Children of Birmingham Alabama marched on the city and more than 3000 people were arrested. At that time Bull Conner was in charge of the police and fire department in Birmingham. Conner was a raciest of the highest order. He wanted to make an impression to all black people of Birmingham that he was strongly against Civil rights in America. He had dogs bite students and firemen hose down the students in the street. Hundreds of news out lets from around the world filmed this turning event in America. The imagines of what Americans saw on TV and newspapers horrifying people across the nation. People who had been sitting on the fence suddenly realized something had to be done... Before the events in Birmingham a poll was taken asking Americans if Civil rights was an important issue in America only four percent answered yes and after the events in Birmingham 52% of Americans thought Civil rights.Bull Conner had become a game changer. He alone helped the Civil rights movement more than the President of the United States, a future Nobel prize winner, when America saw a man have so much disliked for a race it was time for change. Over 900 people were put in jail. They amount for bail went from $300 per person to $2500. The Civil rights movement did not have any money to pay for the bail of all the people .President Kennedy knew he had to do something. He had gotten word African Americans wereready to march or riot in the streets of the nation. In the first six months of 1963 978 demonstrations took place in 109 cities Kennedy like many other American could no longer straddle the fence .On June 11,1963 President Kennedy made a speech to the nation about civil rights. Kennedy knew once he made the speech his re-election was not going to be easy. He said if he was going to lose re-election he was going down trying to help people. He knew by making this speech he would lose votes in the south. He felt he would lose every state in the south in the next election except Texas.On November 22, 1963 Kennedy was killed in Texas trying to shore up his base in Texas. The day after Kennedy's civil rights speech was given Medgar Evers was killed in Mississippi.The 1963 March on Washington attracted an estimated 250,000 people for a peaceful demonstration to promote Civil Rights and economic equality for African Americans. Participants walked down Constitution and Independence avenues, then - 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed - gathered before the Lincoln Monument for speeches, songs, and prayer. Televised live to an audience of millions, the march provided dramatic moments, most memorably the Rev Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. On August 28 the marchers arrived. By 11 o'clock in the morning, more than 250,000 had gathered by the Washington Monument, where the march was to begin. It was a diverse crowd: black and white, rich and poor, young and old, Hollywood stars and everyday people. Those assembled marched peacefully. But it was a great peaceful day and I loved it!Perhaps the most notable episode of violence came in Freedom Summer of 1964, when civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner left their base in Meridian, Mississippi, to investigate one of a number of church burnings in the eastern part of the state. The Ku Klux Klan had burned Mount Zion Church because the minister had allowed it to be used as a meeting place for civil rights activists. After the three young men had gone into Neshoba County to investigate, they were subsequently stopped and arrested by Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price. After several hours, Price finally released them only to arrest them again shortly after 10 p.m. He then turned the civil rights workers over to his fellow Klansmen. The group took the activists to a remote area, beat them, and then shot them to death. Dittmer suggests that because Schwerner and Goodman were white the federal government responded by establishing an FBI office in Jackson and calling out the Mississippi National Guard and U. S. Navy to help search for the three men. Of course this was the response the Freedom Summer organizers had hoped for when they asked for white volunteers.Life in Norfolk / PortsmouthAfter the Navy, I started my IBM Career in Norfolk as a Customer Engineer on Unit Record Equipment and then on main frames. I soon got a reputation that I could fix anything and maker customers happy and IBM kept sending to more school in upstate New York. They sent me to never ending TAD assignments on the East Coast - especially in Manhattan, Washington, Cape Canaveral and Disney land. I was a Yankee and never supported the Jim Crow segregation throughout the south. I didn't like the conservative politics and evangelical religion that supported it either. I got involved in politics, helped Jack Kennedy win the Tidewater region. I fraternized with the black computer operators at the Naval Base. We kidded around a lot. IBM got called from naval base people that I was a disgrace to the white race because I had black friends, after all, the south is segregated and I should obey that law. I spoke up and said my piece. All this infuriated the Naval Base people and IBM personnel. I was a good engineer but I was IBM's renegade and after seven years we parted ways. I had become a New Yorker with all my lengthy visits there and I wanted to move there.As throughout the South, black and white children grew up apart, lived in different neighborhoods and went to separate schools. U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr., who essentially controlled Virginia politics, vows to stop integration plans in Virginia schools. In Norfolk, the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority (NRHA) under the direction of Mayor Duckworth works to rezone neighborhoods and keep black and white citizens separate. Norfolk, Portsmouth, Richmond and other cities made headlines by openly resisting attempts to integrate schools. The Governor Almond of Virginia called it Massive Resistance. There were a lot of people who didn't want integration. It wasn't that people hated blacks. They didn't know you. Segregation left scars that have lasted generations.Segregation meant black students never had the same quality in schools as whites; they had to catch up to their white peers after decades of second hand books and second-class schools. Back students' tests scores failed to meet federal standards. But blacks could strut better, on July 4 the two high schools marching bands Woodrow Wilson (white) and Norcom (black) - marched down Portsmouth's main drag - High Street. It was the only time I saw solidarity between the races as the whites timidly marched while the blacks strutted their stuff to the cheers of all the onlookers.The stores along Granby in Norfolk and High Street in Portsmouth, specifically, their lunch counters and the city itself were the site of a battle that also played out in dozens of other cities in the South. They were segregated and Blacks were forbidden to sit at 'White only' lunch counters. One time when I was walking into a Bank on High Street in Portsmouth in my IBM outfit, a blue suit with vest and white shirt, there was a demonstration on the sidewalk and inside of the F. W. Woolworth Dime Store by young black people who were doing a sit in at the 'white only' lunch counter. Outside, the blacks had signs around their neck "Remember the Golden Rule' and they were being screamed and spit on by the whites. The police had large fierce dogs that attacked the blacks and me since I was standing there. I never was so ashamed at being a citizen of the United States and vowed to take up the fight for Civil Rights.I joined the Portsmouth Jr. Chamber of Commerce and became quite active. There were many worthwhile causes we participated in. Meetings were held once a month and were accompanied with famous speakers. Being a Military town, many of these speakers were Admirals, but many were local politicians who openly advocated segregation in the face of the Civil Rights movement being conducted at the time. I associated with all the local politicos and military types. I got involved in many projects, like distributing Bubble Gum Machines throughout Portsmouth. The Chamber sponsored the local Miss America beauty pageant, which afforded me the opportunity to participate in several Miss America Pageants as a Judge and organizer. We had a meeting to discuss what we were looking for, young women with poise, looks and talent. So, what I was supposed to do was audition perspective candidates and sends them on. There were several ladies I interviewed and picked, one was black and really had the talent and personality and figure. Then I got chewed out by the organizers - didn't I know that Ms America was for white women only? I was really angry! I had to tell the black girl she didn't qualify for the contest because she was black. I will never get used to southern racism. One time I made speech on an HUD project being considered for downtown Portsmouth on Effingham Street outside the Naval Hospital, which was nothing but shacks inhabited by poor Black people. Whites were against raising this ghetto and replacing it with decent housing because they did not want conditions for Blacks to improve. I was for the project and was threatened with a ride out of town and a beating by the Ku Klux Klan. I invited them to try it now and I was prepared to beat the Holy loving shit out of them on the spot but they declined and left saying they knew where I lived. I started packing my 25 caliber automatic or P38 then.It's a wonder how small little happenings in ones life can endure major changes, but a good example was my learning how to rebuild car engines. I had this old 1948 Plymouth whose engine had conked out and I was going to try to rebuild it, learning as I went. I figured, "What could I lose, the car was junk anyway." I had the head off and was trying to get the pistons out and was over at the local Car Parts dealer getting some tools and asking for advice. Another customer standing there, a Black man, offered some expert advice, in fact he came to my house, but as was the custom for Black people coming to a White person's house, came to the back door. ("What" I thought) I learned that he was a Baptist preacher in Churchland living in a shanty town off of Route 17, which was not too far from my house on Hatton Point Road. I will tell you this that man knew his cars! That was the beginning of a relationship with him where I took him as my mentor in learning about car engine repair. One day I am at his shanty house getting some advice and sitting at his kitchen table having a cup of coffee. He asked me if I could take his teenage daughter to the grocery store to pick up something and I said sure. She got in the front seat and off we went, it was only just around the corner at a shopping center on Route 17 in Churchland. As I pulled onto a highway, a State Trooper pulled us over.With his pot belly and strong Southern Accent, he said, "What are you doing with this Neegra woman in your front seat?" I explained I was taking her to the grocery store. "Boy, don't you know that you never ride a Neegra woman in your front seat, looks like your taking her out, and you know that is illegal in Virginia." "By the way, you talk funny, are you a god-damned Yankee?" This went on and finally he let me go after the girl got in the back seat. Do I have to tell you how I felt?I belonged to the Sweet Haven Baptist church pastored by Reverend Damon Wyatt and what a God-fearing, Bible-toting, sugary-sweet and loving bunch of racists most of them were, including Reverend Wyatt himself who was the worst racist of all, and a Baptist Pastor at that. They were all bible thumping died in the wool segregationists and KKK lovers who hid behind the scriptures for the worst sins man perpetuated on another man. I heard all about all the bad people - Negroes was this, Jews that and the Yankees were worse for trying to desegregate the South, and even the Catholics had special nasty names. Bible thumping - sweet scripture talking bigots, it was a very twisted and hateful society. Again, I paid little attention to all these horrible attitudes, something to live with while down South I reasoned. After all, it seemed they hated everyone not like them. But little did I know then that all this was burning a hole inside me and that it would explode later.My Grandmother was an Eastern Star and my uncle was a Mason. I belonged to the DeMolay during my high school years, was an officer and participated in the Annual Shriner's Circus as a clown. So when my Virginia Dismal Swamp hunts and Chesapeake Bay fishing buddy wanted to sponsor me for the Portsmouth Masons, I said OK. The Freemasons, also known simply as Masons, is a fraternal philanthropic organization with lodges in almost every community of the world. Masons come from every profession and religious background and joining the Masons' benefits' you in many ways. I was investigated and accepted and did my various catechisms to become a Master Member. But my chapter didn't accept blacks, said Black people weren't free born, but were slaves in the USA or had a slave history, so they didn't meet the free born requirement for membership in the Masons. Blacks joined their version of the Masons called the Prince Hall organization. I couldn't believe such stupidity and reminded them that in the ancient world, the whites were slaves to the Greeks and Romans. They didn't know what I was talking about. It was like I was in a different world of full of organized and accepted prejudice. I refused to be part of an organization that discriminated like that.I lived an interesting life; in the south I was active in Civil Rights, went hunting in Dismal Swamp and fished on Chesapeake Bay for six years, went to never ending assignments to Manhattan, Cape Canaveral and Disney Land as an IBM engineer; taught main frames and peripherals, traveled around the USA, went to the March on Washington (1963), was a volunteer Fireman, rebuilt and sold used cars and started writing. During my ten years in Virginia, I was involved in politics, worked for Kennedy in 1960 and the Civil Rights movement, was active in many community and political organizations, and did the normal southern things like having a large gun collection, hunting in Dismal Swamp and fishing on Chesapeake Bay with my own 18-foot power boat. But I didn't like the south, felt way out of place there, the culture was on the other side of the coin for me, being the Bible Belt they didn't represent anything Christ did, instead supported racial segregation, the antics of the Ku Klux Klan to keep it that way, and all kinds of laws to ensure segregation now and segregation forever with any nefarious means possible. The south was a very evil place for me.On April 3, 1968, the day I transferred to Manhattan, Martin Luther King was assassinated. The King assassination riots, also known as the Holy Week Uprising, was a wave of civil disturbance which swept the United States were the greatest wave of social unrest the United States experienced since the Civil War.1967 - Move to New York CityIn NYC I taught Grad School, hung out with the creative types in Greenwich Village, artists and performing arts folks, wrote books, went to Woodstock (1969), traveled the USA, was a National Recruiter hiring hundreds of professionals, managed large engineering and sales / marketing organizations and married Bettie, the love of my life, a black woman from Aliceville, Alabama. I got involved in politics and was elected and or appointed to various positions on the School and Planning Commission Boards.New York, in fact the rest of the country, has always accused Greenwich Village of being a little well . . . different. There is definitely a personality type that inhabits the area. You need to have an open mind and be someone's who's bold and independent and doesn't mind going out of their way to meet people or at first be out of your element. It's great for people who adapt well to new situation, love having their hands full, making connections and have big-time aspirations and want to be able to submerge themselves into their career from the start. We tend not to march to quite the same drummer as most of the rest of the country, which may be why we have attracted the artists, writers, musicians and all the rest of the excessive personifieds to the Village for so many years.1992 - Semi Retirement in Upstate, NYAfter taking an Early Retirement from Digital Equipment Corporation and working in the Manhattan computer industry for thirty years, I worked Route Sales jobs in Upstate New York for thirteen years, my sales territory being the Hudson Valley, Delaware River Valley and Catskill mountains. I sold all kinds of goods and services, from convenient store goods, to gas station products, Sam's club memberships, cruise travel and janitorial services. I had all kinds of customers, small town governments, food and hard goods distributors, all kinds of institutions, schools, and all kinds of small businesses, hotels, bungalow cottage colonies, canoe liveries and resort operations. Bettie and I lived in the Town of Wallkill in the stunningly beautiful Hudson Valley, which itself was full of interstate highways and shopping centers.I have been in Atlanta many times over the last ten years, many visits were business trips with Digital, and some trips lately have been with Bettie to see family and friends. Every time I come, there are new roads and real estate development being completed with new projects getting under way. Atlanta is growing very fast, more than 400,000 people a year move into the area. Atlanta leads the nation with the highest percentage of new homes sold among major market areas at 41% of all sales. The best way to describe Atlanta is to think about this hot-summer region as an ultra modern African nation filled with four million hardworking and very successful American Black people. This is really a Black town, and except for a very few areas to the North and West of Atlanta, there are few Whites here. The Blacks exude a classy and showy countenance as they ride around in their luxury cars and retire to their colonial brick mansions. In New York, many people say, including Blacks I know, that you cannot put a thousand Blacks together without a riot or some kind of police problem. In New York City, Rap concerts generally become violent affairs. Not here in Atlanta where you could put a million Blacks together with no problems what-so-ever. Perhaps it is because most of the Black people in Atlanta are middle class and there is a strong contingent of the upper class too. Political pundits say that most of the Black intelligentsia living in the United States is in Atlanta.The wealth of the Atlanta area is readily observed anywhere you go. Show off "Bling" is perhaps it is a Southern or Black Thing, but most people drive expensive cars and trucks. Ford 'Expeditions,' Lexus, Acura, and Cadillac Seville vehicles are constantly seen everywhere. There seems to be nothing poor about the Atlanta region, real estate and cars look new and well kept up. Fast food is everywhere and most people are over weight. Atlanta is all about flash, newness, growth. Also, the girl watching is as good as that available in Manhattan, or maybe better. On any given day in Atlanta, there must be a million beautiful Nubian Centerfolds walking around the shopping centers and high rise office buildings.But Atlanta is not like multi cultural and funky New York. Atlanta is a 'classy' Black town. Downtown Atlanta is clean, full of parks, old period homes, high rise buildings, and everywhere you go, there seems to be a nice walk-around neighborhood. Buckhead is an old and expensive neighborhood of extremely elegant homes. It looks like Middletown's Highland Avenue or the suburbs of Greenwich, Connecticut. Atlanta reminds me of Boston, one of the most livable big cities I have ever visited. I do not know where the drug sucking, welfare loving, criminal class lives.2005 - Retirement in GeorgiaIn 2005 our taxes went up again (every year about $500) and the winters were killing me. So, finally, for the easy retirement living and needing cheap living Bettie and I moved into the outskirts of the Atlanta metro area. I am glad that we bought a house out in a rural area, away from the Atlanta congestion, but with the huge migration to our area, the peace and tranquility of rural living won't last long. Remember, to make accurate comparisons, housing in Atlanta, Georgia is less than a third the price of Middletown, New York with a fifth of the taxes. Our town of Monroe is very nice and convenient to getting around as it is located at the intersection of multiple highways. Big box stores have all; been built here, a Wal-Mart Super Center, Home Depot, a new Hospital and dozens of Fast Food restaurants, all sorts of commercial activities - everything is here now.I found the people to be nice and southern hospitality is alive and well - on the surface. The traditions of the southeast U.S. are as vast as they are diverse and as beautiful as they are horrendous. These traditions encourage the behavior of some of the most polite and hospitable people on the planet. People that would give you the shirt off of their back while hosting you in their home with a glass of sweet tea in your hand, rich food full of soul in your belly and college football and NASCAR on the TV. The new south is full of northerners who came south for cheaper living. Underneath there is a southern culture that loves itself, fears the outside world and modernity, hold Yankees in loathing (especially New Yorkers) and loves fast food. There are lots of very obese people. Remnants of the old south are still around. I would say it's all about two things, the reverence for the Confederacy and twisted believe systems around the Civil War - it had nothing to do with slavery they say and evangelism still runs the show here. Being a Christian conservative is square one to being elected. The church is where people connect and socialize; they are not used to the diversity of races, religions, ethnic types and different ideals and hang with people like themselves. I would say overall we are very pleased with the move. The south has become a very good destination for living in peace and tranquility. I don't think it is racist anymore and holds to traditional values. Actually, I suspect most blacks are better off in the south than the north and they are moving back by the millions.But the south has great irritations for me. For example, The "War" ain't over, the confederacy lives on and the south will rise again in the Deep South like Alabama and Mississippi is heard often in churches and town halls... They have a world view separate from the rest of the USA. They want to teach "creationism" in the schools and elect ultra conservative politicians who want to make the USA a Christian nation. From the outside it has looked like a gaggle of incompetent evangelical inbreeds at times. I will never accept evangelicals constantly putting their religion into politics. I don't like the constant Confederate reminders, rants against immigrants and critical thinkers and the unrequited love of guns. However, if you wanted to hear me scream like a chicken in the slaughter house you should have heard me rant against New York's social liberals - the free ride for users and abusers paid for by my taxes.I don't socialize with many neighbors (it's not a southern thing) and know even less of them. But it would be considered bad manners for me to drive past a person without making eye contact nod my head & give a little smile. (If you have a hat/cap, tip it a little in acknowledgment). I like this little custom. It seems to keep my little part of the world a bit more friendly & caring.Black vs. White AmericaIt's not good yet! The perception lingers that justice remains far from being color-blind. We had the Trayvon Martin debacle in the national news and I was more than upset with the idiotic NRA gun lobby mentality and white conservative craziness that goes with it and the acquittal of George Zimmerman for what I called an outright murder, but I am a New Yorker where you go to jail for killing someone, but in Florida it's legal and called "Stand Your Ground." In my mind, there is no doubt that a black man will not get fair treatment in many court jurisdictions, and that angers me and I know it inflames black people too. I think there is plenty of legitimate cause for minorities to suspect the system is not fair and being totally altruistic, it's like the system has a warped agenda that favors the connected, rich and white. However, I also think there is plenty of legitimate cause for white fright and flight too. And it isn't just white flight, that's a racial misnomer, no one wants to live around crime, deteriorating schools and rising taxes to pay for heavy duty social programs, especially when they are retired and have limited incomes. People buy homes in neighborhoods with good schools and flee the neighborhoods with bad ones.To be honest with you, I do not understand the condition so many people keep finding themselves in, the un wed mothers, the crime, drugs and poverty. The lack of opportunity and commensurate skills in the rural south and Appalachia makes daily existence rife with people scheming to get on disability for [sic] asthma and other exaggerated excuses, all cooked up by greedy ambulance chasing lawyers and cockeyed judges. Disability has become the standard fare' welfare benefit when unemployment runs out. It's a farce! In these areas, people are poorly educated and not able to secure good jobs there or anywhere else.Even though there are some Rednecks and good-ole-boys sputtering at Civil Rights advances and trying to reenact the 19th century, the whole south is not the big baddy it once was and actually, in many measurements, it's better than the north and many southern cites are good examples of much improved racial relations and economic progress. I firmly believe that we are a decent county albeit there are many outlandish political and religious extremists and racial rabble rousers running about. Yeah, we have our demigods, it seems that in the throws of our vast technology - global economic and 21st century cultural changes that dogmatism is alive and well among certain peoples (and that goes for white and black).I keep thinking this is the USA and we are the land of opportunity and I have seen our capitalistic and rugged individualism culture advance more people to well being than any other country (and I have traveled the world extensively). In the USA all you have to do is move toward the opportunity with an education and wiliness to work. It seems to me that some people just don't try hard enough to improve their condition and seek the easy way out and most often that is a government program or government job. Or they get trapped by teenage pregnancy, drugs and criminal behavior. And I suspect our ever growing government largesse doesn't help the situation but actually hurts, it just seems to farther encourage irrational behavior. And that goes for those at both ends of the spectrum, the needy and self sufficient who both get undeserved and wrong-headed benefits from the government. But maybe I am stupid for not seeing the light . . . being our brother's keeper and all, but in my opinion, working hard, perseverance, and flying right are easier and more fun than going bad and into the pit. And I object paying for people who don't try or behave themselves.Well, here I go, going to raise a storm among the liberal - conservative body politic. I think many of our problems are caused by our political dysfunction in Washington which I chalk up more to republican extremism, and our class dividing social problems which I chalk up more to the democrats, each having gone over board with big government largesse and exasperating the status quo with fire brand rhetoric. It seems pissing each other off is the new normal instead of trying to work through problems. So what is this thing about social problems and the democrats? I think they didn't look critically enough at what I consider to be the main social problem and its collateral damage consequences - and that is an epidemic of unwed mothers. It used to be called illegitimacy but now it is part of the new middleclass normal.After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of the births to American women less than 30 occur outside marriage. According to the most recent government reports, the black female accounts for 73 percent of out-of-wedlock births; 66 percent for Native American women; 53 percent for Hispanic women; 29 percent for white women; and 17 percent for Asian American women. The report says that overwhelmingly, the more educated you are, the more likely you are to marry before having children. About 92 percent of college-educated women are married when they give birth. A wide range of studies suggests that children born and raised in single parent homes tend to do more poorly in school and have greater developmental problems than those raised in two-parent households.From an empirical viewpoint, however, the traditional conservative explanations are no more appealing than their liberal counterparts. These explanations fall into three overlapping categories: the culture of poverty, the scarcity of two-parent black families, and genes which affect every aspect of an organism, from appearance, to thought processes and personality. This is why many members of the same family will have similar likes and dislikes. Some children will have a particular temperament, and family members will say "you're just like your father". This also explains why related children raised by different families will often have likes and dislikes similar to their siblings raised elsewhere even if they never met. The geneticist Dean Hamer had traced belief in God to a specific gene. Actually, the bottom line is you get your genetic makeup from your parents completely. If they don't have it, you can't get it.Blacks are angry because of the incredibly amount of socio-economic disparities between them and other races of people, particularly white people, in the country. It's honestly as simple as that. It's not so much about racial prejudice, and mistreatment, but it's about socio-economic disparity and the seemingly endless effort of people to keep black people down.The real reason there's so much beef between blacks and whites is because of the social lies. Lots of blacks blame racism for things they could've accomplished but didn't. And lots of whites pretend they don't understand how being white still gives them advantages, but the vast majority fully grasp that it does and they lie about it because it's a leg up in a cutthroat competitive society and denying you have something is a good way to keep it.But what I have seen in the USA is more people getting better rather getting worse. However, there is always the poor, they will always be with us as the Bible says, and I would say they exist that way in the USA more for lack of opportunity and not because they are lazy or dumb. There are cultural reasons too but that is for another day of discussion. Let's remember that the poor are made up of both white and black and you ain't scene nothing until you go to a white trailer park full of toxic waste. Every downtrodden area I have been to, and that includes the rural south, Appalachia, and northern inner cities, is laden with crime, drugs, poor schools and few jobs.For example, if a factory went there with jobs instead of welfare, everyone would be better off. If there were high educational standards and good teachers went to the schools instead of those bad ones that couldn't be fired because of tenure, the kids would be better off. Not that we could ever totally remove welfare, but it should be a short term 'helping hand' tool and not developing a 'way of life' habit. In other words, our poverty approach is not what is working and I don't think you can fix all the problems that make an area downtrodden. It's kind of like the Middle East; it will always be what it is because of cultural, geography and the pain it suffered.And lets remember, when an opportunity exists, some people will take it and some won't! And maybe we shouldn't worry so much about them - if that's possible in a western egalitarian oriented society?