PROMISED LAND

WHEN I JOINED AIR REPAIR, MY FIRST JOB WAS TO BUILD MOD-ules using drawings. Rumors were doing the rounds then that manufacturing processes such as ours were illegal. However, I was given the reassurance by the management that we were undertaking proper work for Boeing and other airline customers.
Not that there was room for questions as one could spot the presence of Boeing employees constantly in the building. As soon as the assignments were completed, the parts were delivered to the nearby Boeing warehouses.
The man in charge of the module-making was the VP of the company Patrick Kelly. He never showed up to work till noon but worked very late. Kelly was the one who always told us where to deliver these modules. These orders began to dry up till Air Repair was no longer making them.

In a few months, Kelly left Air Repair and started his own company Comprehensive Engineering. We came to know that the Boeing orders were being undertaken by Kelly's company.
Air Repair went into damage control mode and hired an engineer from Boeing named Bob Trimble as the vice president. Bob was a very nice guy, quite reasonable and level-headed. It was a good place to work and learn the business. Those days, I was still living in the Cedar Street apartment. Every morning I drove to Renton Field for work and normally never got back till evening.
I worked an average of 10 hours or more a day. I would continue working with this company for another decade. Sure, my employer demanded a lot but I had nothing else to do except work.
It was steady work, but I was learning the business inside out, though at that time I never nurtured any plans for starting on my own. By that time, I had also developed quite a strong friend circle with most weekends being marked by get-togethers, where we played cards.
It was quite an active group, with most of them in their thirties, I being by far the youngest. There were five families, the most memorable of the lot being C S Abraham who lived in Kent. We called him Kent Abraham. Little did I know then that I would also wing up setting house in Kent, though I am pretty sure nobody ever called me Kent Titus, though many would refer to me as Seattle Titus much later on in life.
Abraham was a school teacher, who taught special education in the Kent School District. He had graduated in Theology in India before coming to US for higher studies in 1954. He lived in different cities before he got married.
He used to live in El Paso Texas and he and his wife decided to come to the Seattle area because he had a friend who moved to Seattle. Grace had just finished college when she married Abraham.

She was the youngest in the family and was reluctant to leave her parents.
When she came here she had to make many adjustments and make new friends. Their children had typical Kerala names, Anil and Anila. Grace was a good cook and always invited me to eat with them since she knew that I would otherwise eat from outside. She was also a good singer.
Another friend was P K Abraham, a lawyer who worked for the city administration. We called him either Lawyer Abraham or Seattle Abraham. Both his father and brother were priests in the Jacobite Orthodox Church in Kottayam, Kerala.
Quite relevant to the story, but something I did not give much weight to then was the fact that his wife Molly was a long-distance runner along with her husband Abraham. They used to run around the Green Lake every day. One day I decided to beat them at their own game.
I was many years their junior and so expected to easily outrun them. I started in a sprint but after a mile, I got really tired. I was not a runner and not used to running like this. So I started to walk when Molly and Abraham caught up with me.
I started running again but as we approached the finishing point Molly gathered speed and beat me by at least 50 feet. Abraham finished ahead of her. I later learned that Abraham was the ath-letics champion at the Madras Christian College for four years. Abraham and Molly would pull my leg for many years about the day I challenged them for a run!
With John, Abraham, Mathew and Thomas being the most common names, invariably there was a third Abraham in the group. He was known as Bobby. He had completed his engineering degree and came to the US for his master's degree from Stanford

University. He worked for the Warehouse Company in a good position as director of planning.
There was another young couple that lived in Seattle, quite near the University of Washington, Prince and Sibil Zachariah. Prince's father too was a priest in the Orthodox Church.
He was a Cor-Episcopa, an exalted position in the Eastern Orthodox Church, not unlike a Suffragan Bishop of medieval times with jurisdictional powers over the people.
Prince had just completed his first PhD and was working on his second PhD. He was also a professor at the university. Sibil had less cerebral pursuits, having played field hockey for college and district.
Then there was Ravi Nathan, originally from Thiruvalla who had come to the US for higher studies. After graduation, he got a very good job with Boeing. Later he decided to take his PhD which took a long time coming. Ravi was a nice man but quite short-tempered.
He did not get along with his professor and that led to the delayed completion of his doctorate. He used to live with his friend Linda in the university area. That more or less completed our circle of friends.
All of us got together every weekend to play cards. We played a game called fifty-six where we used two decks of cards with 12 cards in every suit. It is a game that requires lots of concentration and endless memory.
We normally started playing after dinner and played on till 2 am or so. It was a source of great relaxation and sometimes a trigger for many arguments. I am not sure whether I would have survived my early days in the US minus these get-togethers.
Those days, the local newspapers used to carry announcements whenever merchant ships came calling at the Seattle port. If it was an Indian ship we would all go as a group to board the ship. There were no securities issues.

We could walk into the ship without any questions being asked. Those were cargo ships, not container ships. They would take about two weeks to load and unload their cargo.
The main reason we went aboard those ships was that most of the engineers were from Kerala. Naturally, they were thrilled to see fellow Keralites in the distant shores of Seattle. On our side, we had reason to be particularly glad because they had good cooks on the ship and they made great food.
After what was nothing short of a sumptuous feast, as served on special occasions back home, we played cards all night. We made scores of friends over the years by visiting several ships. Some the engineers were under 21 but wanted to go to taverns and drink. I told them that it is illegal to do so. Somehow they didn't care. There were strip clubs they wanted to visit.
One time, a young engineer under 21 from the ship was in a tavern drinking. I saw cops walking in and knew they would ask for identification. If he were to get caught he would be in serious trouble. So I opened the side window and pushed him out and told him to stay out.
About five minutes later he started straggling through the front door, heading directly to the spot where the cops were standing. I quickly ran up to the front put him back in the car and took him back to the ship.
Kent Abraham and Seattle Abraham were very avid campers and fishermen. Every summer they camped out a lot in various state and national parks everywhere.
I was invited to go with them most of the time. One summer we decided to camp at Fish Lake near Wenatchee, Washington. Kent Abraham had a camper and Seattle Abraham had a tent. Besides myself, Prince and Sibil were also there.

Coming from a fairly traditional background, it was decided that men would sleep in the tent and ladies in the camper. There were some showers and bathrooms. If one wanted to take a warm shower, a 10-cent coin had to be inserted into the slot. That would keep the hot shower on for about five minutes.
Between Prince and myself, we had only one dime with us. So we
both decided to take the shower together. When we told the rest they had a big laugh. Prince and I used to wear spectacles with high-pow-ered lenses. We both were legally blind and hence required eyeglasses. There were a lot of pretty young girls camping in that area. We used to watch avidly as in the morning these girls walked by the lake, right in front of our campsite. I suspect the ladies in our group were a little jealous.
That night they came to the tent and took away our eyeglasses while we were sleeping. The next morning as these girls were walking by, Prince and I were busy searching for our glasses. As these girls walked past us, we could hear our ladies break out in giggles from the nearby camper.
We were able to catch fish which made for a good dinner that
night. All of us went to the seashore with a scooper net. As the
waves crashed down on the shore, some of us held the net down and scooped up the stray fish that came ashore.
We managed to scoop a few dozen of them. They tasted excellent when fried and they were very high in Omega 3. We also camped at the beach overnight.
I, along with the Abrahams, also dug for clams which require some preparation after you catch them. You can expect a lot of sand in its stomach. You want to make sure you catch them live and put them in a bucket with corn meal. As they eat corn meal, the sand in the stomach gets replaced with corn meal. Otherwise, you will end up eating sand.

Coming from a fairly traditional background, it was decided that men would sleep in the tent and ladies in the camper. There were some showers and bathrooms. If one wanted to take a warm shower, a 10-cent coin had to be inserted into the slot. That would keep the hot shower on for about five minutes.
Between Prince and myself, we had only one dime with us. So we both decided to take the shower together. When we told the rest they had a big laugh. Prince and I used to wear spectacles with high-pow-ered lenses. We both were legally blind and hence required eyeglasses. There were a lot of pretty young girls camping in that area. We used to watch avidly as in the morning these girls walked by the lake, right in front of our campsite. I suspect the ladies in our group were a little jealous.
That night they came to the tent and took away our eyeglasses while we were sleeping. The next morning as these girls were walking by, Prince and I were busy searching for our glasses. As these girls walked past us, we could hear our ladies break out in giggles from the nearby camper.
We were able to catch fish which made for a good dinner that night. All of us went to the seashore with a scooper net. As the waves crashed down on the shore, some of us held the net down and scooped up the stray fish that came ashore.
We managed to scoop a few dozen of them. They tasted excellent when fried and they were very high in Omega 3. We also camped at the beach overnight.
I, along with the Abrahams, also dug for clams which require some preparation after you catch them. You can expect a lot of sand in its stomach. You want to make sure you catch them live and put them in a bucket with corn meal. As they eat corn meal, the sand in the stomach gets replaced with corn meal. Otherwise, you will end up eating sand.

Another of our pastimes was going to Hood Canal to hunt for oysters. They are eaten raw after being put on a fire for a limited period.
The oysters are still alive when you suck them in from the shell.
The first time I ever tasted oyster, I thought it was awful. Soon, I learned to enjoy it and it turned into a favorite delicacy for me.
The importance of being a part of this friend circle was I began settling into a new way of life. It was quite different from what I had been accustomed to in Kerala, but ironically, this new American way of life was taught to me by a bunch of Keralites.

Read More: https://www.emalayalee.com/writer/313