Birthday Serenades

8/14/2019 Birthday Serenades

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/birthday-serenades 1/48

A Grist of Millers Tales

Five new, possibly amusing, divertissements presented by J. R. Miller,

Moline High, Mt. SAC, U LaVerne, CSULA, UCLA, SIUE, USMC,Anglophile, Bibliophile, Judoka, Liberal, Music Lover, Semanticist,Unitarian, Zen Student, Zionist, and bon vivant.

The Only $99 Only Store finds a young fellow toiling at Uncle Haggis(Mc)Miller’s thrrrifty luxury boutique. If he could only franchise it!

Please Help Find has an MFA selling objets d’art in a Los Angeles Airportshop. You may find a fortune in paintings he sold before realizing their ultimate monetary value!

The Carrier Incident is the first of three glances at Cornel (Tug) Miller’sadventures. As part of the Marine Corps gunnery and security of an aircraftcarrier he helped it along the final 1000 meters. Memorialized by a news

photo he has a few modest comments to add to the record in this tall tale.

Mission Imperceptible happened after Tug’s retirement when a former president of the United States had need of a reliable one-of-a-kindrenaissance man to prevent an international embarrassment. You probablysaw it. It was televised. But you didn’t know it was happening.

The No Splash Zone finds Tug in deep retirement, called upon by a smallreligious college to provide some assistance to their swim coach. ChanningCollege has perhaps three swimmers who can compete at the Olympic levelif they can fine tune their platform dives a skosh. If you are not acompetitive diver please skip this story lest you accidentally divulge thesecret to someone who could give it our foreign competitors or even worse,to the terrorists.

One of his adventures in 1988 at the Seoul Olympics where an altercation

developed with the local judges in the boxing venue has been suppressedfrom this collection in the interest of better international relations.

Original stories by Jerry Miller, [email protected]



The Only $99 Only Store(Thrrrifty Luxury!!!)

Wouldn’t it be nice if all deserving motherless boys couldhave rich aunts like eccentric, fun loving, generous Auntie Mame?I had some sweet aunts in my time who were eccentric, fun loving,generous, but impecunious.

Rich uncles are in a different league entirely. I suspect theyonly look to nephews as cheap labor for their enterprises. They

think they are doing us a favor to let us see how money gets madewhile being careful to ensure that we don’t make it at their expense.

If I have started this little memoir of family history withnegative ingratitude, that was not my intention. I was only tryingto sum up some personal experiences which may or may not be theway of things in the outside world.

There were several uncles on both sides of my family but theone who had enough lucre, a small fortune, to rightly be called a‘rich uncle’ was the one who changed his name to HaggisMcMiller and opened The Only $99 Only Store (ThrrriftyLuxury!!!) The parenthesis and three exclamation points were partof his store logo along with the extra two r’s in Thrrrifty.

It opened in Santa Monica which is adjacent to BeverlyHills, Brentwood, BelAir, Westwood, and Venice, so the shop hada potentially enormous base of affluent shoppers along withreasonable rent and available parking. If you are already thinkingof copying his inspirational upscale boutique please remember toscout the location, rents, and parking carefully. Location, location,

2



location.

Uncle was a widower and he had no children. He had twoother nephews besides me but they lived back in the Midwest and

never had any communication with him. I couldn’t help dreamingthat his fortune might fall into my hands some day. It seemed to bemy only hope of escaping a life of quiet desperation. I have no

particular skills for any well paying jobs, no network connectionsin high places and only a two year community college Associate of Arts degree.

I was fresh out of Santa Monica College and looking for

work when he opened the shop and suggested I might like to makesome money assisting his first merchandizing endeavor. The smallfortune I spoke of was inherited from his recently deceased wife.At first I was enthusiastic but he wanted me to work two hours

before opening the store, and then two hours after closing the storeand then going home the eight hours in between.

His plan was to be open from 10 AM to 6 PM Mondays

through Saturdays and I was to freshen the store and restock theshelves two hours before opening in the mornings, and sweep andtidy two hours after closing. No non-relative would take suchwork in my humble opinion. It kills the complete day, ruins amorning and ruins an evening. For four hours of minimum wage?I don’t claim to be very bright or farsighted. I learned the hardway.

Uncle Haggis let his sideburns grow down his cheeks into

mutton chops, I believe they are called. He donned full Scottishregalia, with cap, kilt, belt, dirk, sporran, and socks with flash. He

positioned his cash register and high legged captains chair in fullview of the window shoppers who had to be intrigued by hiswindow sign in neon: The Only $99 Only Store. (ThrrriftyLuxury!!!)

3



Uncle Haggis in a kilt resembled George Clooney in a kiltand I assure you many lady window shoppers looked him over more than once. I do not believe anyone could pass by without

being intrigued by merchandise in the window that was ONLY $99ONLY. They could see the proprietor was on deck to attend their queries. The only word for it was magnetism.

By the way I know that you know that ‘haggis’ is a Scottishdish. I hesitate to call it ‘meat or food’ but it passes for dinner upthere in the highlands. Uncle said that use of it as a first name wasdeliberate in order to attract attention, just as Toys R Us uses the

backwards R. For many decades a similar psychological ploy has been used by roadside fruits and veggies stands with misspellingsto attract motorists who cannot resist pulling over to admonish themerchants on their spelling, and then end up buying somecomestibles.

“It’s to get the buyers attention, lad,” Uncle Haggis told mewhen I asked why he changed his name from Roderick. He

explained that he didn’t go to court to do it legally. He justregistered and published the fictitious ‘Doing Business As.’

He stocked his shop with items of costume jewelry, clothing,fine art and sculptures, exotic furniture, bedding, small appliances,electric gadgets and gizmos that could rightfully look likeexpensive gifts. Everything in the store was $99. He also wentafter famous label items that prestigious stores wished todiscontinue at salvage prices from my Uncle.

His first window design was a golf promotion and includedthe St. Andrew flag (silk with gold fringe, also on sale for $99),towels and golf shirts in sets. His opening inventory includedsome golf accessories such as a $99 putter, faux gold tees, and

beautiful enlarged color photos of famous golfers on famous

4



courses for one’s den.

Uncle was not known within the family as a humorousindividual. His greeting cards were always sentimental and he

rarely told any kind of anecdotes when attending dinners or picniclunches with us. Come to think of it, though, in watching

professional wrestling on television he often commented that hisfavorite grappler from the past was Rowdy Roddy Piper. Rowdy(could his given name also be Roderick?) had an impeccableserious persona but we always felt he was laughing up his sleeve atthe audience. I suspected that his rage was phony whenever someone would insult his kilt and question his manhood. It was a

carefully staged trap to increase interest in the ensuing grudgematch.

One of Uncle’s rare anecdotes told of watching Dan Ackroydon Saturday Night Live playing a kilted waiter in a Scottishrestaurant insisting that his patrons will enjoy their thistle salad.When the customers cannot find anything edible on the menu hestill presents them with a check even though no food and drink was

ordered. The waiter insisted the customer had incurred an expenseto the establishment because printed forms such as the pad of tabscost money. They had to pay the tab for the tab. He didn’t smileor laugh when telling it, but why did he remember it if it didn’tamuse him?

The Grand Opening first day there were still deliveriesarriving so Uncle was there at 8 but after that I was the only personthere from 8 to 10. In case he might be late he reminded me that

all items were $99 only, and that included the sales tax and giftwrapping. I did not anticipate that aspect of a sale. The shopwould absorb the sales tax and wrap? Wow, what a deal acustomer would have! All the wrapping was a tartan pattern andthe slick looking shopping bags were tartan as well. Uncle saideventually we would special order the shopping bags with our

5



name on it: The Only $99 Only Store (Thrrrifty Luxury!!!).

Uncle Haggis had some potted flowers and indoor plantsdelivered that first day such as those given to new shopkeepers by

their friends and neighbors. They had elegant ribbons and balloonssaying “Grand Opening!” “Congratulations!” and “Good Luck!”He had bought them for himself and had negotiated the prices oneach splashy color basket so they could be sold for $99 to add tohis profits. Advertising and inventory combined! You mustadmire his genius!

That opening day Uncle showed up wearing English Leather

aftershave. I have since bought some for myself. Over the yearsI’ve avoided wearing flowery deodorants just as I’ve alwaysavoided shirts with messages. I’ve been tempted at times to

purchase a T-shirt for example that might say, ‘Not perfect, but soclose it is scary.’ It just seems like a way of attracting attention tooneself, and my style has been to always keep my head down. ButEnglish Leather has a manly scent and I used it every day as he didto lend atmosphere for the shop. Too much information? Pardon

again.

In the mornings I had to wear a white shirt with tartan necktieso he could keep me in the store if there were multiple customersearly on. We both learned to wrap the merchandise if it was to be agift. We put them in shopping bags if they were for personal use.We put tartan ribbons to suggest gift wrapping on chairs, paintingsor other large items regardless if it was to be a gift or not. After thefirst month we were so successful that he put me on full time and

hired professional cleaners to spruce up the shop each night.

One time I was present when a customer tried to get the bestof Uncle Haggis. It was a man about his age and he said, “I’ll giveyou $99 for the kilt you are wearing.” Uncle didn’t even blink. Hestarted unbuckling the leather belt and said, “Aye, the kilt is $99,

6



but ye have to take the whole set, $99 for the belt, $99 for the cap,$99 for the thistle brooch--.” By this time the customer hadretreated out the door. I looked to see if Uncle was smiling andcould not see, but he probably was.

His tastes were eclectic. There were a few funky antiquesthat could pass as store decorations and again that was my uncle’sforesight. If anyone asked, we would sell them for $99 as if theywere inventory and make a nice profit, or they could go on beingstore ambiance. His goal was to turn over inventory every week or so to keep shoppers interested in browsing.

There were times when we’d hide some of the slow moversin the back room and bring them out again after two months had

passed. This time, in case anyone remembered seeing them theyhad sign saying Chinese Auction. The first day was 98 dollars, thesecond day was $97 and so on until it sold. This kept bargainshoppers on their toes. If they wanted it, and waited too long,someone else would carry it out the door. Tension kept some

browsers interested.

He added CDs and books in sets. The first one was SergeiRachmaninoff himself playing his Rhapsody and Concertos fromrecordings made in the 1930s plus a biography book about thecomposer and a small bust suitable for placing near one’s piano inone’s home. The set was $99. There were other sets with other composers but only one would be featured at a time and Rocky’sset was the first. No, the CDs for Mozart, Beethoven, andTchaikovsky were not recorded by the composers themselves. I

asked. I learned.

In my opinion many of the shoppers on L.A.’s west sideshopped in order to feel good about themselves, always looking for elegance by borrowing on some else’s taste. Uncle delivered taste.I’m pretty sure customers enjoyed telling stories about how they

7



had discovered this quaint boutique with an authentic Scotsman ina kilt peddling darling items.

Less clear was our reputation as a place to find gifts.

Eventually everyone would know that a gift wrapped in our signature paper or bag had cost the buyer $99. Was that a good or

bad thing? For example, if a gift had been purchased for a friend’s birthday, a newlywed, a retiree, the store’s imprimatur wrapping paper would have a certain cachet. Wow! They cared enough tospend $99! But on the other hand, when the elite receive a presentfor Only $99 Only, would they take offense at Thrrrifty Luxury?

Hopefully, their inbred ignorance of the actual costs involvedwould insulate us from such contempt. I remember once whilestanding in line at a Sunday buffet brunch on Kona I told mycousin that the price for a plate of lettuce alone was worth theadmission fare. A snooty lady next to me looked aghast just likethe snooty lady in the Marx Brothers films as if to say, ‘Goodheavens, I’m standing next to a person who knows the price of food!’

Catering to the rich is chancy, though, and Uncle wanted tolure new non-wealthy customers with items they assumed were

beyond their reach, and yet here they were for ONLY $99 ONLY!For example, a copper and brass diving helmet. I’ve alwayswanted one of those and looked at them in sea side shops wherethey were always $400 or more. His were smaller replicas but justas shiny and interesting. I had never intended to wear the divinghelmet under sea water anyway.

Uncle was also seeking to reach a third group of shoppers.He wanted the buyers to assume they were actually saving largesums of money by pampering themselves with non-necessities. Icould imagine a shopper telling her mate that an identical jacketwas $800 at Neiman-Marcus, but she had managed to steal it for a

8



mere $99 at this Scottish thrift shop. She should be rewarded for such perspicacity, can’t you imagine? Perhaps the cash differenceshe had saved her loving provider: $800 plus tax less $99 total

price. Fair is fair.

Yes, we went through a full year of selling gifts. It was myfirst experience in working 52 weeks with only Sundays off, novacation. I started to broach the subject with Uncle, but he cut meoff with a raise. He doubled my salary. Hooray, I’m makingdouble minimum wage! I’m in the big time. I started studyingautomobile ads and looking around for other necessities for ayoung man about town.

The window displays were our pride. The decorators wereart students from the college getting school credits as well as a fewdollars. Uncle’s genius again! Uncle Haggis told them VincentMinnelli got started that way and that impressed local students whohad ideas about graduating from retail window displays toHollywood film sets, and eventually film directors in the MinnelliMGM musicals mold.

No use boring you with all the special sales themes. Therewere more than anyone cares to know. Remember Secretary’sDay? Well, now it is called Professional Assistants Day, and youmay have seen our window special with that reminder sign for

persons who employed Professional Assistants and did not think agreeting card or a bouquet of flowers was sufficient to mollify their factotum.

The windows were artistic splendors and it is a shame theywere short lived. In a perfect world we might have boxed themaway to be displayed again and again, but it was not to be in thisworld at this time. We were on the verge of hiring more help,looking for a larger place to relocate, looking into franchising theconcept, when my own personal disaster came along.

9



Uncle started taking time off from the shop leaving me tocope with sales on many days. Well, no selling was involved. Allthe customers knew the price and knew who they were shopping

for, so it was usually just a matter of ringing up the sale. He added$5 an hour to my salary for the hours he was away. That seemedfair but I could see he was losing interest in the shop.

Cherchez la femme! N’est ce pas? Remember how I said helooked much like George Clooney in a kilt? Well, many of thewell to do ladies seemed to agree. He was having daytime dates,long lunches, if you catch my drift. I could never count on him

being in the store at any particular time. I therefore could not planany time off for myself. It was a treadmill with no on/off button. Iwas prudently salting a few dollars away but they were very, veryfew.

We were about to plan a two year anniversary concept whenhe broke the news to me. He was going to Lake Tahoe to marry acertain widow with means, and it would be up to me to liquidate

the inventory, cancel the lease, et cetera because she did not wanther friends to know he was a tradesman. As a matter of fact, theywould be relocating to the Bellevue area on Lake Washington,across from Seattle. Her old friends on the West Side had been her husband’s friends and she wanted to start life again fresh and near her own family and relatives.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I’d been studying, planning,hoping to take over the business but this was too soon. I had not

enough capital or experience. And he wasn’t really a tradesman.He had been a salesman before he opened the shop but thatamounted to the same thing to this class conscious lady.

He thanked me for being so loyal and hard working. Asseverance pay he said I could keep the proceeds of the clearance

10



sale minus the actual cost of the items, in other words - the mark up after I liquidated the stock.

We had about a hundred items for $99 and the mark up was

at least $20 on each, so that would be twenty C-notes, huh? Weended the meeting with me giving him my check for 100 times $79

just to make it easy. I had to forget about buying a car. He promised to hold the check for five months to allow me to liquidatethe inventory to make the check good. Very thoughtful of him.

I moved the inventory to my garage and opened an accounton eBay and found some places like Craig’s List to advertise.

That’s when I found out it costs something like $20 on each sale just for packing and shipping these luxury gift items that are harder to peddle without the gimmicks Uncle had used.

Over at the college we were taught that Nietzsche said,‘blows that do not kill us, make us stronger.’ Still, I can’t helpwishing that I could have had an Auntie Mame instead of an UncleHaggis. As the poet Bobby Burns once observed, ‘The best laid

plans o’ mice and men, oft gang awry.’ Aye, but I only wanted awee fortune!

11



PLEASE HELP FINDPRICELESS FROMAGIER NUDE

It is possible that you unknowingly possess a fine art piece that museums across the planet would liquidate their endowments to

purchase. This ‘fiction’ story is offered to jog memories and

stimulate searches:

First, the term ‘priceless Fromagier’ was not coined until the present year by me, your humble servant and purveyor of fine art.Therefore the name would not be known to you whether you

possess an MFA degree or not. Six of his nudes are known to exist but not one is available for public view. Those six were sold over a period of years at a little gallery at Los Angeles InternationalAirport. The buyers/owners remain unknown. Presumably theymay be found anywhere in the world.

Second, none of the paintings from my little shop sold for more than $1,500. Therefore the Magnificent Six would not have

received the respect and place of honor they now deserve due tomy recent discovery.

It was the demise of Jacques Fromagier that led to thisinquiry. Therefore even if what I’m suggesting turns out to be puredelusional smoke you can be sure the value on his paintings has

just doubled. That bit of news alone might persuade you to check around your domicile’s storage areas, i.e. garage, closets, attics.

You may be thinking ‘I never purchased an oil painting in anairport so I won‘t waste time looking around.’ True, but somerelative who travels a lot through LAX could have gifted it to your household. Possibly your son, brother, or neighbor has a littlesanctum sanctorum, a room with a wet bar and a billiards table, agentleman’s den. Have you checked the artist’s name on any nudes

12



you glimpsed at public places? Have you screened all their décor?

All that aside, finding one will not guarantee you a fortune.It is a bit more complicated than that. The Fromagier paintings

sold separately may have been overpriced, but two together would be valued at considerably more than $15,000 each, and if three are brought together today you will be the envy of your state lotterywinners. If four are recovered, it will be the most astounding findsince petroleum was discovered under middle-eastern sands. Idon’t dare dream that five or even all six can be recovered.Regardless of what you may be thinking, I am in full possession of my faculties.

Two Fromagier paintings side by side create synergy. Weshould find new words for synergy that is exponential, the more

pieces that contribute to the mass. I’m reminded of Victor Borge’sinflationary language. Spinning his example we could say threefusions are synerthree, and four makes synerforte (the ‘-te’ issilent) and fusion of five makes synerfive. I could go on but I’mnot interested in that at the moment and neither are you. I have a

vague suspicion that atomic physicists have already covered thenomenclature for critical mass necessary for the big bucks or big bangs.

Let’s return to the Jacques Fromagier nudes. Suppose VanGogh’s Starry Night had been cut to pieces (he was realitychallenged, you know!) and just one of the stars with its circles of extreme whites, orange-yellows that he palette knifed onto canvaswas stretched, framed and sold in our lifetime. Remember, the

entire painting was shunned in his lifetime! Would anyone dreamthat the fragment was valuable? I doubt if anyone would pay morethan three francs and two centimes just for that spot of color for awall. But if all the pieces were discovered and gathered together so the whole could be appreciated, well excuse me, the mind

boggles.

13



“Oh! The stars are just like our sun, only up closer, and thesky is full of their dazzling brilliance and they are moving instrange orbits!”

Well, they didn’t have movies, radio, television or manyother diversions back in the 1880s.

Another example of pieces of masterpieces that would not beso famous if we took just the mantle (mantilla? wimple?) of theMona Lisa, the broach on the sister in Grant Wood’s AmericanGothic, just the pearl earring on Vermeer’s servant girl -- no I’m

wandering too far a field. I suggest we both calm down and have acup of tea and resume this monograph in a quieter frame of mind.The tea in my cup will be ® Constant Comment (product

placement fee pending.) ****

Fine, I needed that. My thoughts during our tea break wandered around Picasso’s Guernica as another example of piecesthat separately might not appear to be avant garde. However that

particular scene is too extreme to be deciphered from fragments.And it was deliberately without color lest it be too inflammatory.Let’s leave it be.

My next thought regarded separate pieces of the very familiar Last Supper by Leonardo, but that would not be possible. It’s afaded fragile fresco on a wall! Again we are digressing from the

point of this ‘fiction’ story. Let’s hasten back to the actual paintings by unknown impecunious maestro genius Jacques

Fromagier.

The paintings in my little shop were mostly by local artistsand they ran mostly to local scenery. In essence, many of themwere oversized postcard souvenirs. Fromagier’s work stood outfrom the usual still lifes and celebrity portraits. Well, of course

14



they would, but I hasten to assure you they were extremely pureand tasteful, more spiritual than the Sistine Chapel itself. But still,extremely sensual if you have a mind for it.

I should have acknowledged his talent and encouraged himmore but I only saw his work one at a time with long intervals

between. It was obvious that he had training and aptitude, but hehad no interest in providing a variety of paintings on a variety of subjects. So far as I know, I am the only gallery owner he ever sold to. And the only paintings he ever brought to the marketplacewere nudes of the same lovely model. I would like to imagine thathe has other paintings elsewhere but there has been no evidence

from my sources in the art world.

Fromagier lived in Venice not far from L.A. Airport. Hecould have sold his works on Melrose or in Beverly Hills or SantaMonica had he taken them north on his bicycle, but I suspect hedid not want the paintings exhibited here in Los Angeles County.If you think about it, as I have, selling them to travelers almostguarantees they will become personal items or souvenirs in far

away homes. Jacques may not have wanted his model to find outher beauty was on shameless display in some public building or museum.

The first painting he brought reminded me of many of theVenus paintings by Titian, Velasquez, and Caravaggio. I assumedhe was an art student using the old masters as a guide to getstarted. The second painting arrived long after the first one sold,and it appeared to be pretty much the very same picture. The third

one came when the first two were just memories. I’m trying toexplain why I never saw the synergy potential; I never saw themtogether. Fourth, fifth, and sixth paintings came in and then outthe door. No time for me to study them closely.

There are probably a lot of lonely men traveling around the

15



world that would impulsively relate to the decorative balm of his paintings. The artist portrayed an innocent sophistication similar in style to Jack’s charcoal sketch of Rose on the Titanic.

It was after I saw an exhibit by David Hockney with hismontage of instant photos that I became aware in retrospect of thedifferences in the Fromagiers. The photographs of each paintingwe sold were kept in a file at my shop. I wondered if they could be

put together in some way that would suggest focus and movementthe way David Hockney educated our eyes.

Thanks to Hockney’s example I noticed that even identical

photos are not really identical because each one differs slightly infocal point, lighting, distance or parameters. What I had taken for identical paintings now presented subtle changes. When I put thesnapshots on the table, in the order they passed through my hands,I found a story about supreme infatuation and adoration, followed

by true love, then came passionate love, mature love, lost love, andfinally bitter memories of love.

When I asked Fromagier how he drew so well he repliedthat he used the tedious grid technique and it took immenseconcentration and patience. He could only do it when enthusedwith the subject. Why would he then make at least six tedious

paintings that are almost identical?

I believe Jacques was the exact opposite emotionally of VanGogh! Instead of flamboyant use of the palette knife, Jacques usedthe finest sable brushes and pen tips available and made his

refinements on each canvas so subtle the viewer could overlook them entirely -- thinking that they are identical paintings. Hedefies us to find the differences! He challenges us, whereasVincent’s art was unmistakably ‘in your face!’

Why would Jacques work so hard at this subject and then sell

16



them for a few paltry dollars, and why to a gallery at an airport?My belief is that he worked out his passions as well as frustrationswith his model through that ecstatic agony of drawing her as hesaw her at the time, yet always true to her beauty. He wanted the

world to see what he had seen. Every man knows about the ‘wait-until-I-tell-the-guys syndrome.’

Even if he would never become famous in his own lifetime(and as it happened, it was true) for his art, his talent and hisexistence via his signature on his work would still be immortalsomewhere in the world. His model and his paintings would liveforever in human consciousness.

I don’t believe I’ve described his technique. That is becauseI have never seen anything like it. The backgrounds appear to befrom normal oil paints, but may in fact include some acrylics

because the colors are not straight off mixed from the tubes.Possibly he had some chemistry class at college and experimentedwith oil additives for color.

At this point who can say? I just say it was different. The painting began in pen and ink in cartune with the oils/pigmentslayered much the same way as pioneered by Vermeer andCaravaggio. I therefore credit Fromagier with resurrecting some je ne sais quoi from those artists using his audacious talent.

When I say ‘priceless masterpiece’ all the requisites are there.Artist pushing the envelope on technique, startling subject matter,decorative beyond belief, soothing to contemplate in the

background, and since there can never be any new ones, the priceis dependent on the marketplace.

Time Out! I’ve just read what I wrote in the seven paragraphs above and I am appalled, stunned and remorseful. Itsounds like a Warhol fan describing his six Bardots, eight

17



Marilyns, ten Jackies, twelve Elizabeth Taylors. What I’ve been praising equates to a prosaic and superficial pop art movement.My credibility now rests on such slippery ground. I find myself doubting the immortality of the Fromagier Nudes and I was the

one who wrote the book!

I should have remembered that art is in the eye of the beholder. I’m neither an artist nor a writer; just a salesman sellingsizzle. Very well, I won’t insult your intelligence any further withadjectives that can only be discerned with your own eyes.

Or, maybe just one more insult. The subtle differences do not

make them masterpieces. It’s only when we take those subtledifferences from each of the six, and then behold the uncanny

proportions of the human body in its perfection such as many people found in Venus in the Giant Clamshell, or in the sculptedVenus de Milo. I remember a cartoon in Playboy some years agoof two archeologists uncovering two marble arms. One has a handwith a bent finger indicating ‘c’mere sport’. The other hand isholding up two fingers as it to indicate ‘only two drachmas!’

(sigh) Sorry!

If you study any painting, any sculpture, anywhere longenough, you may come to believe the artist left it too soon; thatthe artist approached perfection except for the tiniest little detailexcept for – what?

In portraits such as the Fromagier Nudes the slightest ‘beautymark’ shall we call it, gets erased in the next painting. The

slightest eyebrow arch gets improved in the next painting. Theslightest finger or toe defect gets improved in the next painting.That’s what I meant about the necessity of seeing all to appreciatethe first.

Even that sounds lame as I look back over this paragraph.

18



You must experience it for yourself to understand it. OK, I didn’twant to have to say this, but think about Mona Lisa’s smile for justa moment. What if Leonardo made a subsequent portrait and thesmile was just a tiny bit different. What if he had preceded Goya

and painted La Giaconda nude on a couch, huh? Then what if hemade six copies pretty much the same? Are we on the same pagenow?

So within my head I imagined six copies of the Mona Lisaface on six Naked Maja bodies but with radical improvement instronger colors, newer lighting techniques, and realistic surfacetextures. Around his masterpiece ladies there were rococo details

in pieces of jewelry, the setting, the couch, and the draperies thatno one would ever appreciate because their eyes could not be takenfrom the woman. His detail touches were an extravagant waste of time. It was as though they were in the painting strictly to pleasethe model portrayed therein, giving her luxury, jewels and finery inthat dimension that the artist could never give to her in our dimension.

I mean, just consider that charcoal drawing by Leonardo of Kate Winslet wearing the Heart of the Ocean around her neck. Itwas a blue-glass movie prop, but in our six missing paintings, the

props must have been copied from some realistic source.

That’s just a tiny intriguing point to ponder. They were therelooking the same from the first to the last painting. How the devildid he manage that? A brother who was a night guard at Tiffany’son Rodeo Drive?

From what we can see in the Fromagier photos his model’sface conveys six different attitudes and the body languagereinforces le difference. Now can you grasp my excitement?

I believe it is possible that somewhere out there is a seventh

19



painting of indescribably haunting mystery, a painting that mightsuggest a pregnancy by the color in her cheeks or slight bulge inthe stomach or finger placement. After that buildup the seventhmight suggest loss of the pregnancy with wetter eyes, less full

breasts. I don’t know. It’s a mystery to me too.

If a seventh painting exists I hope it surfaces. It wouldvindicate this fiction. Even without seeing it I predict thatFromagier’s Seventh will stand alone without comparisons. Itwould make perfect sense for the artist to cap a series with a piece

de resistance? Quel formidable! Maybe he kept it for himself!But where? I did not learn of his death until the trail to his studio

apartment had grown cold. I looked.

It was my intention to wind up this fiction story suggestingcreation of a clearing house for leads. A call for an ad hoccommittee set up for investigations into the whereabouts of any of the Lost Six or the Possible Seventh. In addition to my hope for fame and glory in bringing his masterpieces to humanity, I alsohoped that a generous discerning committee of patrons might

award me a small finders fee fortune. Sure. That’s going tohappen.

After a third cup of soothing tea I changed my mind.Fromagier has just died. Do we really need to discover a newgenius celebrity to impute our own fantasies upon? Let him restin peace for a little while at least. He deserves posthumous fame,

but it can wait. With time and luck other persons sensitive togreatness may discover him and call attention to the beauty he

shared with us with loftier praise and analysis. When that momentarrives please remember that you read it here first! His discoverer c’est moi! Also remember it wasn’t me, it was W. Shakespeare’sPuck who said, “What fools these mortals be!”

20



Adventures of Tug Miller The Carrier Incident

He’s gone now but his exploits and reputation will live aslong as there are marines and their descendents. He was your grandfather.

You’ve seen the magazine cover that we had framed andhung in the living room. That’s your Gramps, Cornelius “Tugboat”Miller, more popularly known affectionately as “Tug.” He was astandout hero in an age of heroes. That was a time when the word

meant something. Today everybody is a hero. I blame BetteMidler and her song “The Wind Beneath My Wings” also knownas “Did You Ever Know That You’re My Hero?”

Gramps got his nickname back in 1949 when he and hisfellow marines were returning from World War II and the JapaneseOccupation period. As you can see in the picture my dad looked alot like Burt Lancaster. I’m sure that magazine cover went right

over most people’s heads if they didn’t read the story. They wouldhave thought it was Lancaster and a promo poster for a new film.

Dad had some mannerisms that also reminded me of thatgreat actor. He had the same way of speaking, with that terrificwinning smile showing his magnificent teeth, many of the samegestures, and his confident way of walking and talking. He lookedas athletic as Burt Lancaster the former star of Jim Thorpe--AllAmerican, Trapeze, Apache, the Crimson Pirate and other action

films.

Mom said she first met him when he passed by her on thesidewalk, walking on his hands. I tried it a couple times and couldonly go a few inches before losing my equilibrium. It takes a lot of

practice as well as balance and muscle.

21



It was such a Tom Sawyer kind of stunt I had to believe it. Inthose days my family lived upriver from Hannibal on theMississippi where Mark Twain immortalized young Tom and

Huck. Our house was on a hill overlooking the river in a goodsized city called Moline. We fished the river sometimes for perchand carp, but mostly caught gar. So far as I know gar isn’t edible.They have alligator type beaks. We always threw them back.

In those days a hundred miles was the equivalent of athousand miles of today’s interstates. Peoria was about eightymiles away but it might as well be on the other side of the world.

Nobody we knew had ever been there.

Your gramps grew up in a little village downriver known for its fabulous watermelons. People from three states used to drive ahundred miles for those juicy, tasty melons. It was prime farmingcountry so gramps walked (he says he actually enjoyed running)about seven miles to the county operated elementary school everyweekday, even during the bitterest blizzard. Don’t think my

mother didn’t remind us of that when she drove us to the schoolabout ten blocks from our house whenever there was a warmdrizzle.

All my life I was never able to outrun Dad and after I packedon a few pounds (via mother’s genes) we never even tried it again-- abandoning our annual tests of strength and fitness on birthdays.At one time I could do five pull-ups, and that was my limit buthe’d just go on and on. He told stories about how in the marines

the sergeants would say ‘hit the deck and give me fifty. Thatmeant fifty perfect pushups; not the kind girls do with their kneesstaying on the deck. No, we did them with perfect toes andfingertips’.

Later in life I got to Japan and when I donned a judo-gi at a

22



dojo I would weasel out of demonstrating the throws, saying that Ihad studied sumo wrestling instead. My cover story was, ‘I wasthe sumo champion of five counties. No one could ever best meexcept for one person. That person was my sister, and she was not

eligible for competitions at the county fairs.’

That wasn’t true, but I was going for laughs to reduce tension between me and the other fellows wearing judo-gi. They didn’tlaugh. I suspect their sense of humor is different from ours. Andyet they believe strongly in self deprecation. Mothers over thererefer to their ‘pig of a son’ or ‘my useless-in-the-kitchen daughter.’

It is true that up to age 10 or 11 we did put on wrestlingmatches in our back yard but I always won because she was a girland I was older, stronger, bigger and taller. I was even rougher onmy younger brother, poor kid. There was one time when he yelled‘catch me’ and I turned to see him hit the ground as I hadn’t been

paying attention to him at that moment. I still remember how he blubbered and accused me, “you---shoulda---caught---me!”

But I didn’t mean to blow my own horn here; just sort of wandered off topic. Sorry. Wasted your time.

I think I was starting to tell about his nickname. He hadseveral, of course, but Tug was the one that stayed with him after he became a Cover Boy. The picture was taken by a professionalnews photographer who was on the pier to greet a navy carrier

bringing some stragglers from World War II in the Pacific who hadstayed on to ensure the peace. The cameraman’s jaw dropped

when he saw my father swimming up to the pier with a giant cablewrapped around his neck, hauling the carrier behind him.

The carrier had run out of steam just after it passed throughthe Golden Gate Bridge and was listing to one side, driftinghelplessly backwards. You may have seen similar photos of Jack

23



LaLanne pulling a boat to or from Alcatraz Island. The water in the bay is always cold and running out to sea, so they think no escapeefrom the Alcatraz prison ever made it to shore. Jack was a popular TV fitness guru back then. This was similar to LaLanne’s feat but

on a larger scale.

In the magazine article the photog says the swimmer’s facewas down mostly in the water, doing an Australian crawl takingmassive snatches of water in his powerful paws. As he got withinshouting distance the photog urged him to “look up!” so my dadswitched to the breast stroke with his head up showing how he wasstraining hard on the taut cable.

It won a Pulitzer Prize for photo journalism that year. We arenot the only people who had it framed and displayed. Many of them ended up in Legion halls or bars where marines congregate.Dad was asked to autograph many of them. He would sign ‘Keepon tuggin’, Sgt. Miller.’ That would have been San Francisco

before 1950. Just maybe that’s where the ‘Keep on Truckin’ phrase came from, with a little spin by R. Crumb.

The photo was just so perfect with the bay water in theforeground, Tug’s grim face showing exhausted exertion, and thecarrier looming behind him with the cable clearly shown tautlyfrom the deck up there on the superstructure to a knot around hisneck. He was wearing a USMC T-shirt and regulation skivvydrawers.

Mom had some of the news photos in a scrapbook and three

of the captions that I remember the papers used were: The Greekshad Hercules! We got Miller! Why use a tugboat when you’ve gotMiller on board? Sgt. Miller Doing the Yo Ho Heave Ho, Huh!

This was the 50s long before 60s and 70s dances like theTwist or the Swim or the Hustle were invented. If it had happened

24



in that era I’m sure there would have been a popular dance, The YoHo Heave Ho, Huh! In celebrity or heroics, timing is everything,

being in the right place at the right time, and in the presence of some media types.

When the carrier was tied down, the sailors and marinesdressed in their dress whites and dress blues came streaming off tomeet their loved ones on the dock. My dad lay there in hisskivvies gasping for breath and unable to stand erect. Severalnewsreels and still photos show many of his uniformed comradessaluting his prostrate body as they ran past. You can’t see them inthe photo Mom chose to enlarge and frame. She chose it because

it’s the best one showing his face. There were dozens of other news photos printed showing the carrier and a dot in the water

pulling a line of some kind.

When my mother heard Dad’s name bandied about, astributes to the heroic marine sergeant who pulled the ship the lastthousand yards, she ran around until she found him laying there onthe dock. She kneeled and he gasped, “I could use a little mouth to

mouth, honeybunch.” He usually called her honeybunch aroundthe house.

He told her, “Everyone on board was really stoked on gettingoff on time. We could have drifted, waited for a tugboat, waitedfor a fuel tanker, but I don’t think there was anyone on board whowanted to wait. And you know I was anxious to get to you,honeybunch.”

Astonishingly there is not one single photograph in existenceof their long kiss as they described it. Photogs had plenty of time,

but no. Maybe they were all too respectful or too awed to recordthat moment. I like to think of it as similar to the kiss BurtLancaster and Deborah Kerr made famous on a Hawaiian beach inthe film ‘From Here to Eternity.’

25



Later, when pressed he’d say: I got the glory because a photographer noticed a way to win a Pulitzer Prize with a once in alifetime shot. Fine, I didn’t say anything at the time to kill the

news story. Far be it from me to rain on anybody’s parade. Butfor the kids let’s tell them it wasn’t a super carrier like the Lincolnwith dozens of jet fighters and bombers. It was the old SmedleyButler. It was the smallest of all the carriers, and it only ferriedhelicopters and fleet marines to assault some beaches on theislands. There were just a few of those copter carriers. The ThetisBay was another one that I served on.

The Smedley Butler wasn’t even built as a carrier; it wasconverted from a supply ship just for that actual purpose. Alsowhen you look up the tonnage, remember that water is slippery,and you can pull a lot more across water than you can on dry landor rail.

Among our family he added a footnote that he was ashamedto tell the world, but insisted we need to know. Unnoticed by all it

seems that at least ten marines who had nobody to meet got noshare of the glory. They had dived in behind the carrier and it wastheir kicking and pushing that propelled the Butler that finaldistance. When they finished they just laid quietly on the beachunder the pier resting up. And that’s the way it is in the service.Some things get noticed and others don’t.

Tug didn’t know about it for a year or two. By then it wastoo late to set the story straight. It wasn’t a story anymore. You try

it sometime. Go in or call a reporter and say, “you know that --well, you should also know that --.” Their eyes will glaze over or you’ll find their phone put on indefinite hold.

Well, that’s the story, kids. Any questions? No? OK, yougot one? No, your gramps never met The Silver Surfer to compare

26



exploits. Nope. Gramps has never pulled entire moons, asteroids,and never even corrected a planet’s orbit. However he did meetSpiderman a few years ago. Unexpectedly Spidey hogtied him anddropped him off at the Old Veterans Home as if to underscore that

he should retire and take life easy. And Gramps, dear old Tugboat,never tried any more tests of strength or courage.

When Tug Miller passed away in lieu of a funeral song someof his friends performed a cadence chant:

I don’t know but I’ve been toldThat Tugboat Miller was really old.

When he gets to those pearly gatesHe’s gonna open it for his mates.He’s gonna say let’s all go inSt. Peter’s gonna have a great big grin.

There were some saltier verses but you get the idea.

27



Adventures of Tug Miller Mission Imperceptible

As one of the writers chosen to publish the memoirs andexploits of Sgt. Tug Miller, USMC, it pains me to throw one of themost interesting chapters into File 86 unedited, and unread. It is

painful to me because I was a witness to this particular event andyet completely oblivious at the time. My research has made me

blush at my naivete.

At the time it happened there was a cold war between the

USA and the USSR. Well, the actual date was during the thaw, butstill the cold war was the excuse for the suppression of the story atthe time.

Today the true amazing story would not even cause a rippleof interest. Most of the main characters are now deceased,including Tug Miller, himself. Even so, this story must never seethe light of day. Too many apple carts would be overturned, too

many worms let out of the can, too many recorded music residualswould be cancelled and restitution demanded.

It was in 1994, and concerned the ex-president of the UnitedStates, George Herbert Walker Bush, aka Old Number 41. Youmay remember him as the one who vomited on the Japanese PrimeMinister, Kiichi Miyazawa. Another very good reason to suppressthis chapter in Tug’s biography is because Bush has not publishedhis memoirs as of this date, and he should possess first claim on

the story.

Sadly, I have tried to ascertain the status of the Dodger Stadium event with his people. Sadly they have written back suggesting that it never happened. The old story goes: if it wasn’ttelevised, it never happened. So it appears I’m not divulging

28



reality, I’m pushing smoke. So be it.

Actually, it was televised. Therein lies the riddle wrapped inan enigma. I’m not sure that’s an accurate sentence but I’ve

always wanted to use it, and since this tale is going into oblivion,unseen by human eyes, I used this paragraph to get it out of mysystem.

The Marine Corps Band plays for many presidentialfunctions in D.C. and other venues. After Sgt. Cornel (Tug) Miller was retired he was approached by their concertmaster to appear ina special program. They wanted him to sing a new song honoring

the Recon Marines, because he had been an important part inestablishing their glory. I think the music was written by LeonardBernstein to words by our poet laureate back there in the 80s or 90s. Fact checking is no longer important since this chapter isstrictly off the record.

In any case, it took place during George H.W. Bush’s term of office. Evidently the song and the sergeant’s voice resonated with

the old man and he remembered Tug from that event. He and Barbhad tickets for the Three Tenors Concert at Dodger Stadium. Sodid Tug and most of Hollywood royalty.

It was a day or two before the event. I think a Thursday andthe concert was a Saturday evening. (note to self, check theconcert date and calendar) Two limousines pulled up to Tug’shouse in Oceanside around 10:00 AM. Tug told me this wasn’t thefirst time that VIPs had arrived unannounced so he wasn’t

disconcerted when he looked out from his kitchen window and sawtheir approach.

He had completed his morning five mile run (he was taking iteasy in his later years) and showered but was still in his robe,

preparing a healthy brunch. When he answered the door he found

29



Bush along with three secret service types, and other types fanningout around the house and grounds.

Bush told Miller that he remembered him from the concert

for the Recon Marines and he was there to recruit him for another singing gig. Tug demurred. He said, “I’m no singer, at least not

professionally.” He invited the former president and his entourageinto the living room, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

After the obligatory exchange of pleasantries, Bush came tothe point. “We couldn’t have a professional singer, because the jobI’ve come to offer you is strictly off the record. It’s a one time gig

that no one must ever suspect. As former head of the CIA I’ve hada look at your file and you have all the talent we need for this

particularly sensitive assignment.”

Bush continued selling his proposal with “You sang at partiesfor JFK and Jackie in Europe. You even modified both the tuneand the words to the Bernstein tribute for the Marine Corps. Youhave the ego, the moxie and the pipes.”

Tug Miller still insisted that his talent was unworthy of anymajor event. He replied, “You may have heard that I’ve beendoing a Pavarotti imitation at beer busts and retirement partiesaround Pendleton. It’s true I enjoy singing for people but it‘s onlyfor fun. No serious stuff.”

Bush’s eyes widened at hearing the name ‘Pavarotti.’ “Youmay be psychic, Tug. That might explain a lot about your career

if…um… well, that’s what we’re here to recruit you for. As youmust know, Pavarotti is appearing tomorrow evening at Dodger Stadium along with Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras.”

“I’ve got tickets,” Tug replied.

30



“Who hasn’t?” the former leader of the free world answered.“But here’s the thing. Pavarotti has got a hold of some bad lasagnaor something. Even if he’s fully recovered by tomorrow night hisvoice won’t be worth a nickel. The vomiting will have knocked

out his larynx for a few days.”

“I’m not following you, sir,” Tug answered politely.

“We want you to impersonate the famous heavy Italian singer at Dodger Stadium.”

“Oh, no way! That’s completely impossible! I could never –

pull – that -- off.” The last four words were spoken with pauses between them, as if Tug Miller was turning the idea over in hismind.

“You don’t understand the situation, Tug, if I may call youTug. Feel like I’ve known you a long time.”

“I can see how there’s a lot of prestige, money, and honor

involved. But some other solution will have to be found,” Tuganswered.

“Prestige, yes. Money, yes. But the key to this is mostlyabout honor. A lot of places around the world don’t hold the Statesin cultural esteem, you know. We may be rich and powerful butwe are still hicks in their eyes.”

“I understand that.”

“So, if Italy sends their greatest tenor over here and he getsfood poisoned, and the concert doesn’t happen, it reinforces thatnegative view of us.”

There was a long pause. Miller’s mind was racing. Bush

31



was waiting for his consent.

“I still don’t see how it would be possible,” Tug offered.

Bush countered with, “Read my lips. It’s possible.”

Tug was silent.

“We’re both retired, son, but if I were still commander inchief and you were still on active duty I would order you to do itfor the good of our foreign relations, our status, and to put someclass on our side as a counterweight to all the Russian ballets and

opera and stuff.”

Tug did not audibly reply but he pushed his shoulders back asif he had reached a decision against his will.

“The only ones who would ever know are you, me, Carreras,Domingo, Mehta and a handful of trustworthy technicians. It’s anoutdoor stadium at night. Even the sharpest opera glasses

wouldn’t betray you if we do the disguise well. The concert hasalready been performed once, so you could study the tapes andlearn all the body language, gestures and words.”

“Oh, I know the words,” Tug replied. I have the originalconcert on VHS. I studied it for those imitations I’ve been doinglocally.”

“Then it’s just a matter of getting the tuxedo and makeup to

perfection. It looks like we need to shave your hairline to makeway for the wig, mustache, and beard. You’re lucky to have such agreat head of hair at your age.”

“What about Pavarotti? Is he on board with this caper?”

32



“Actually, he’s heavily sedated. We think that if we keep himthat way, he’ll wake up Sunday morning believing that he wasthere the night before. If you think about it, you’d be doing him atremendous personal favor.”

“I’d need a voice coach, to get my tonsils up to speed,” Tugsaid.

“You’ll have the best. Placido and Jose. They both pledgedto coach you and to take over if your voice should crack at anytime.”

Tug mused for another moment and then said, “It’s an oldtrick, but it just might work!”

So that’s what happened. The Three Tenors at Dodger Stadium came off without a hitch. Their prestige grew evengreater, they performed again and again, and a dozen imitatorscame forward to bask in their success. The Ten Tenors, Three Mo’Tenors, the Three Countertenors, The Three Sopranos, The Three

Cantors, The Three Irish Tenors, The Chinese Tenors---. I sawthe Three Scottish Tenors on PBS in concert. That was a favoriteof mine.

Miller and all the others maintained the secret. Pavarotti probably never knew. But just because nobody ever knew does notmean that nobody ever has suspicions.

Tug gave his tickets to the Dodger Stadium concert to friends

without explanation. They were stunned that he had decided not togo see it.

The tailor who did the amazing tuxedo job on Tug, wearingheavy prosthetics, probably suspected some kind of animpersonation, but without the wig and facial hair would not have

33



known it was for Pavarotti. The secret service gave themPavarotti’s tux to copy with Tug’s measurements.

And the people who did the hair pieces must have done many

similar jobs for the many Pavarotti imitators. That wouldn’tnecessarily mean they could detect their own work on a man atnight on a stage in Chavez Ravine even if they were watching it.

As I was gathering other material about Tug Miller for his biography, I just happened to mention casually that he would have been able, given his many talents, to impersonate people and become a Mission Impossible agent for the CIA if he hadn’t been

too busy as a Recon Marine instructor. He hinted that he hadindeed performed a secret mission for our nation’s honor whenasked by a presidential envoy, never mentioning the former

president himself.

The conversation then turned to a recording by Mario Lanzathat he had on his turntable at the moment. Tug said that Lanzahad turned down a chance to sing at Lucky Luciano’s birthday

party and had then mysteriously died soon after. I replied that Ialways thought Lanza had the better voice for American audiences.His enunciation and the warm quality of his tones have never beenequaled, in my humble opinion or should I write ‘IMHO.’

Tug nodded agreement. “Mario Lanza was my inspiration totake voice lessons. He was amazing. He was the only person whocould play the life story of Caruso.”

He turned up the volume on his stereo system and we lightedcigars, poured ourselves a little scotch, and enjoyed the sound of Lanza.

So how did I come to discover the truth? I happened to havea VHS made from that 1994 concert and watched it more than

34



once. At least two times, for sure, Pavarotti looks into the videocamera and winks. I know that wink. Miller used it unconsciouslyseveral times when telling about his exploits. I then scanned other concert film of Pavarotti. At no time, no how, did he ever wink

into the camera. From there I went looking for more clues, which Ishall not reveal here, because there would be no point, since this isgoing straight into the special round file.

I went back to Tug and told him that I, an outsider, hadguessed his secret. That he had impersonated Pavarotti at Dodger Stadium.

He replied, “Then go ahead a guess how I happened to bethere on stage,” and he hung up.

So, that’s what I’ve done here. I’ve imagined the motorcadeto his house and his conversation with the former president after noting George. H.W. Bush in the concert film with that faint smileon his face. Come to think of it, he always had that faint smile, somy guess had no true inspiration, just a faux inspiration.

When Tug Miller died there was some talk about a VikingBurial at Sea, visible from his house and from a nearby chapeloverlooking the Pacific. You know: they hold the ceremony atdusk, put the body into a little sail boat, push it out with the tide,and then shoot fire arrows at it. Hopefully the sail will still be

burning as it gets further and further from shore and the night getsdarker and darker and finally the boat starts to sink.

Tug was from Scots-Irish ancestry, and there was somediscussion among his friends whether Vikings had settled innorthern Britannia and whether his ancestors would then behonored in that manner of greeting his soul. They never did getnecessary permissions although I’m sure exceptions could have

been made for an exceptional man.

35



Instead a special ensemble from the Marine Corps Band, a brace of bagpipers in kilts, and an ad hoc chorus performed at hisfuneral in Oceanside. Their first number was a cadence song: I

don’t know but I’ve been told, Tugboat Miller was mighty old …and there were several verses that discretion compels me tosuppress in the name of propriety even though this chapter is notgoing to be published no way, no how, no time. Huh-uh.

36





on board to show we can win some medals if we wanted to.

That’s how we got behind the effort to train some of our bestcollege divers into ‘no splash’ divers. It was a hard sell among the

swim team, coaches, and athletic administrators. We haddominated the competition among the nation’s small colleges andthere were two or three of our swimmers that we thought had ashot at making the Olympic Diving Team if we could find just theright coach to solve the ‘no splash’ conundrum.

The college athletic director, Windmill Walker was promotedto overall Athletic Director due to the outstanding record his

swimmers achieved. He hired me as the new swim instructor based on my water polo career at Claremont Men’s College. I hadno paid coaching experience.

If someone invented a time machine that could take some of his swimmers back to compete in certain Olympics 1900-1928they might return with a dozen gold medals. Of course they wouldnot have taken advantage of such a possibility because that would

have been too ostentatious. Besides, who is to say those old timeswimmers could not have matched the present day swimmers if they had been challenged to further exertion by the newcompetition? I regret even bringing the subject up.

Walker chose me as his replacement after great consideration.From the outset it looked like he would second guess everydecision I made for a year or two because he did not want the teamhe had built to decline in quality. It began with his suggestion that

I track down a certain military swimming icon named Tug Miller.I countered with a ‘then why didn’t you recruit him for the vacantswim coach job?’

“We are a small college,” said Windmill. “We can’t affordthe best.”

38



“Thank you, Mr. Tact,” I replied with a new potentialnickname for my boss.

“And besides,” he went on, “he’s long been retired. Hemight be a hundred years old for all we know. His name is

practically invisible these days in Swimming World. What weneed is just a hint from him, perhaps, some secret to no splashdiving.

When I was a lifeguard at San Clemente all the swimmers atCamp Pendleton thought he could jump from the deck of a ship

forty feet high into a harbor wearing a 50 pound back pack and notmake a sound. No ploop. No sound. His demonstrations had only

been at night so no one remembered if he had any special footwear or headgear. If he did it wasn’t noticeable. But he did know howto enter the water without a sound.”

I jotted down several steps that might lead to obtaining thesecret of No Splash. I prepared a decision tree to pursue various

directions of inquiry. First, find this Tug Miller, or anyone he had been close to, and pump them for the secret of No Splash. If thatwas a dead-end, consult someone in our science department to testheadgear or footgear that might reduce splash. If the pole vaulterscan switch poles to fiberglass, high jumpers can switch from leg upover the bar to back of the neck over the bar a la Fosbury, thendivers should have room to vary their athletic dress from Speedosto a helmet or footwear.

Next I planned to run some tests on straight perpendicular entering versus oblique angled turns immediately on penetratingthe water. Inquire about coating the surface first with something,some invisible chemical. Test whether temperature plays any partin water flexibility. Are the molecules stickier if they were near zero Celsius?

39



Then there’s the matter of acquiring special underwater filmsof the most successful divers of the past. There could be some clueas to what happens in slow motion when they hit the water and

almost immediately emerge back to the surface. Is there someconnection that they might not even be aware of as to how theymove instantly after penetration? I also wanted to acquireunderwater films of four limbed animals such as otters to studyhow they splash and resurface.

At my next meeting with Windmill Walker my presentationincluded a step by step, neatly typed, double spaced list of the

possible variables in splashing water. In addition I prepared asummary report on what I had learned since first getting theassignment of solving No Splash technique. I had not expected tosee many others present, however. Walker had called a meeting of everyone at the college who wished success to the three divingstudents we had pinned some hopes on. There were some

prosperous looking people among them, possibly generous alumni.

“So, who is this Tugboat Miller?” they queried.

I replied with a brief biographical sketch. “He had been withthe old Navy Frogmen and their Underwater Demolition Teams(UDTs); he then switched to the Recon Marines back in the 1950s.All of this was long before the Navy SEALS became the gloryunits in Special Ops.

The swim instructors at Camp Pendleton remembered the

name but had never met Tug Miller. They said his most famousassignment before he retired was finding a way for our Recon

people to jump into a harbor or river from a ship’s deck withoutmaking a sound. It was called Stealth Diving among thecognoscenti.

40



Tug had a habit of always coming through on even the mostdifficult assignment. If no one else could do it, he could do it. Hecould even do it when it could not be done. Actually the marineshave an appropriate cliché. The difficult is done immediately, the

impossible takes a little longer.” And that was the jist of mysecond meeting on the topic.

At that point I hadn’t even learned Miller’s phone number, if he was still around or if he was now a Lifeguard at God’s Resortfor Retired Warriors or -- well, there’s no need to go into theologyhere. I promised to have a more definitive report for them within aweek about the feasibility of finding a training method that would

help our swimmers.

Thank God for the Internet. They have people finders andfor a few dollars a person can find their old acquaintances.Unfortunately they do not recognize nicknames and I did not knowthen that his given name was Cornelius. That information cameafter I obtained from Camp Pendleton staff a list of a half dozenformer marines that had served with him. I first located them in

people finders and ascertained the name his mama had given him.

To make a long story short, yes, I came up with his phonenumber; he was still around. I phoned him, told him I wasworking for a college diving team and of course he was interestedin helping us train the Olympic athletes. When I mentioned theStealth Diving program, he got quiet for a moment and said,

“There was never any such thing.”

He hung up before I could sputter what my sources were for believing it had involved him.

The next day at my office at the college I received a call fromTug. He indirectly cautioned me on using Special Ops language

41





“Coach Miller?” he asked. I nodded. He then went on to saythat he had a message from someone who couldn’t come in person.The young lady got into his SUV and sat silently. He handed me a

sealed envelope that had been scotch-taped securely and theninitialed all over that would have betrayed any tampering. After Isigned for the envelope he drove off with the young lady.

Back at my office I took out a pair of scissors to cut throughthe tapes to a typed note. It wasn’t signed but there was a snapshotof another Asian woman in a one piece generic swimsuit. It said:“This to introduce Corporal Kim from the San Clemente

Lifeguards at Pendleton. She’d like to have lunch with youtomorrow with some information you requested regarding extremeswim training.” It was the best offer I’d had all day.

It was obviously from Tug Miller. He wanted to be helpful but on his own terms. Did not want anyone else listening.

The note instructed me to meet a generic civilian in the

parking lot at 11 AM and be prepared to stay away from thecollege for three hours. The password to identify myself to thatcivilian would be “I’ve got the string.” I cleared that time withWindmill Walker.

Next morning I considered whether or not to use manlydeodorant. The pool chlorine usually keeps me smelling tolerable

but for an important meeting with a major babe…I finally decidedto be myself. It was a business meeting after all.

At 10:55 I headed over to the parking lot. At 11 AM ageneric car entered and cruised the perimeter. As it approached methe driver, a clean-cut young man with a military haircut rolleddown his window and looking straight at me said, “I’ve got the yo-yo.” How nice for you, I thought. Then my excellent brain

43



triggered the appropriate response. “I’ve got the string.”

“You must be Coach Miller,” the young man said. “I’mCoach Miller”, I replied. I was a little puzzled because there was

no attractive young lady in the automobile.

“Get in,” the guy snapped and I complied, going around totake the shotgun seat. We drove at least twenty miles getting inand off the freeway and eventually got off the 5 freeway atParamount and drove south for another three miles or so. Westopped at Marisa’s, an authentic Mexican establishment that I hadheard of. The guy said, “Lisa’s waiting inside for you.” He stayed

in the parking lot behind the wheel of his car.

On entering the young lady smiled from a booth facing thedoor. She had a basket of chips and a dish of salsa. She said, “Youmust be Coach Miller.” I said, “affirmative, ma’am. Is that salsamild, medium, or hot?”

“Hot, of course,” she replied. I sat across from her and we

made polite chit-chat for ten minutes waiting for our food order.Whenever I asked a personal question, Lisa, if that was her realname, dodged it, often pretending not to hear or not to understand.Finally I got the message. She was not there to meet me withanything except another sealed envelope from the man. Just toshow her I knew how to play the game the next time she asked aninane question about my background, not really interested in theanswer, I said, “Well, I could tell you that, but then I’d have to killyou.” That broke the ice with Lisa. When she was certain no one

in the restaurant was watching closely she pushed the small sealedenvelope over to my side of the table.

As we both stood up to exit the excellent Mexican foodestablishment I said, “when will I see you again?” She said, “itmight be fun. My sister said you are very attractive. Still, we’d

44



have to wait until the man says the heat is off.” Hm.

The driver was waiting for me and Lisa got into her own car.It was another thirty minutes getting back to the Channing campus.

In my office I used scissors again. The man had typed: “Don’tever say the words Stealth Diving out loud ever again. I wassupposed to teach it and I never did. After demonstrating it a fewtimes I decided to retire without sharing the secret. Our ability tokeep secrets in this country is non-existent. If I had divulged theresults of my research, the enemy would have it before it couldreach our Recon Marines training routines. Better if both sides arein the dark.”

Tug Miller then continued about how he had Olympic wishesin his younger days, and how something always came along thatdemanded his attention and duty. He didn’t want to divulge a lifelong secret if the person profiting from his knowledge didn’t havethe rest of the equipment for the medal. The note said, “call thisnumber from a pay phone at exactly 2 PM.” I waited until theexact moment and placed the call from a booth in the rec room.

When we connected he said, “The secret for the medal wasfor swimmers who pretty much already qualified but needed thetiniest of edges for insurance.”

I almost freaked thinking he was about to say the word‘steroids’ and I would have blurted it out, but in my head I couldnot connect muscle enhancement with command over water to notsplash. From that I began to think maybe his secret was a prayer to

Jesus to make the water remain flat as a human body plowedthrough it. It seemed a good time to explain to him that we wereUnitarians.

I semi-interrupted his discourse with the phrase “We are aUnitarian founded school, many of the swimmers and I are

45



Unitarians,” but he just replied, “Who isn’t?”

Somehow we had reversed our roles. He was eager to brief me and I was almost avoiding learning something that could

become a burden to me or anyone that became privy to a statesecret.

He regressed back to the idea of security. “Do you know our most vulnerable areas for terrorist infiltration? Airports? No, wehave 25 per cent of them secure. Sea ports, less than 5 per cent of sea ports secured. And who have we outsourced those ports to?The United Arab Republics. Can you believe it? Inconceivably

we did! And what was I to teach? Carry a load of equipment fromaboard a ship onto dry land via a completely quiet dive into thewater. Bypass the sensors or guards walking on piers!”

He was getting wound up. I could almost picture his facegetting redhot. My best acquired skill might be listening. I learnedthat at an early age. Actually, now that I think about it, I was 22years old and it was from a college class in police science called

General Semantics 101. Police are supposed to sort out factualevidence from fanciful stories the perpetrators or innocentwitnesses like to tell. We learned Cow One is not Cow Two, andThe Map Is Not the Territory. Good old S. I. Hayakawa and CountAlfred Korzybski.

This has not made me popular among b.s. artists and forgiveme for diverting some of Tugboat Miller’s colorful stories awayfrom this narrative. They were much more entertaining than my

quest for a clue to helping my students participate in Olympicmedals. Not that I doubted his veracity in the least. No. Not adoubt in my mind. It’s only that science and truth requireverification and there is no way of doing either within the

parameters of our conversation.

46



Finally he said, “I wrote down my secret for you to take back to your swim team. Nobody in the world knows this secret for entering water without letting it splash as nature intended, exceptme, and I’m not going to be around much longer. I trust that your

students are fine citizens and won’t be eager to share thisknowledge widely. Encourage them to be selfish with it. Maybe,

just give it to one of the best of them.”

“Surely you’ll want some remuneration or recognition,” Isuggested.

“No way, no how, and don’t call me Shirley,” he replied.

OK, it’s an old, old joke but he’s an old, old man. He said,go back to the parking lot again, and your driver will hand youanother envelope. I did as instructed. What he handed me lookedlike about one folded page inside the usual scotch tapedcontraption. I thought that at the very least there would be somediagrams or drawings of some kind, some calculations,mathematical formulas, something. But no, there were just some

English sentences on paper.

Five weeks later I received the news that Heaven hadrecruited Tugboat Miller for its Lifeguard Corps. He’ll be assignedto rescuing earthbound fair maidens and giving them mouth tomouth resuscitation invisibly, or what some might callmiraculously, postponing their premature transitions. Perhaps the

job title of Guardian Angel might apply.

Therefore by the power vested in me I’m going to take achance and reveal the secret here for anyone who cares to emulateTugboat Miller’s feat. In my opinion Miller was overly cautiousabout this secret. It can only be utilized by world class Olympicdivers and I can’t believe anyone with that much class would ever

become a terrorist agent. Therefore I am going to empower any

47



swim athlete who needs to know the secret, with an admonishmentthat it must only be used for good and never for evil purposes,

please.

The note said: With your head down extend your openhands, palms together, as far in front of your body as possible andtwirl them clockwise just as they enter the water, creating a vortexor a whirlpool effect. The whirlpool then allows your body toenter the surrounding water below its surface so there is no splash.As your feet arrive at the surface level they need to twirlcounterclockwise. This reverses and neutralizes the vortex byrotating in the opposite direction restoring the surface water as it

was before you arrived. No splash, no sound. Naturally, exacttiming is required so it will take some practice.

Original stories by Jerry Miller, [email protected]

Documents

Birthday Serenades