One of my first life's adventures

The SS African Enterprise sailed from New York in July 1956

Today I talked with Pam Buttner at Travel Beyond, the travel group we will be asking to help us plan our 2012 trip and make our reservations for us.  It was a small beginning.  I have investigated the South African Schools vacation calendar and decided that any time after July 13, 2012 would work well for our trip.  Students would be back in school and vacation destinations would be in less demand for "the locals."

My first greatest adventure – (a blog posted to www.YourHub.com on11 November, 2007)

The defining adventure of my life was almost certainly boarding a ship in New York harbor at the age of 12 years and crossing the Atlantic Ocean to live in South Africa. Without this event much of the following five decades of my life might have been fairly boring.

That 17 day crossing from New York to Cape Town in July 1956, aboard the Farrell Lines - Steamship (SS) African Enterprise, was a pretty big deal for a skinny kid from Gadsden, Alabama. We sometimes read advice columns or hear radio talk show hosts answer questions from concerned mothers. The distraught parent laments that her husband is being transferred out of state and asks what she can do to ease the devastating effect this will have on her young children.   I am amused at these situations. Parents need to know that most kids are, if nothing else, adaptable. Any distress they experience is most often created by their panicked mothers who are worrying needlessly.

When we were 11 years old my twin brother, John, and I were asked by our parents, "How would you like to go live in South Africa for a few years?" It was a rhetorical question of course. The plans had already been made by the grown-ups.

We couldn't wait to tell our 6th Grade Class at C.A. Donehoo Elementary School. I was so excited that I got confused about our destination, telling my teacher we were going to South America.  Soon afterwards, realizing my mistake, I went to her and whispered sheepishly that it was South Africa, not South America that we were moving to. The world can be a confusing place for a 6th Grader.

 

My father risked being ostracized by his extended southern family to which an excursion above the Mason-Dixon Line was something almost inconceivable. "Those damn Yankees" was a phrase I recall hearing often from my early childhood days. But my dad was aware of the opportunity he was being given, a directorship in Goodyear Tire Company at their plant at the southern tip of Africa. He had been given his choice of three assignments; England, Sweden, or South Africa.

He declined England because of the weather, and decided against Sweden because of the weather and the language, and he had spent time there as a trainer before the outbreak of World War II. South Africa would give his twin sons a chance at schooling in English and he would have a chance to do some hunting.

The contract was to be for a 3 year term and we would only be able to come home for vacation after that time. This 3 year term was to be greatly extended.

After the decision was made and became known to family and friends, one of his uncles called and chastised my dad, saying "How could you think of taking your sweet little wife and three little kids to Africa, with all those natives?" His concerns included our one year old baby brother David. 

So after graduating from 6th Grade, I recall busy weeks loading furniture and my mother shopping for clothes and things she was sure we would be deprived of for the next three years. The house was being sold.  Mostly the grown ups handled that stuff while my twin brother and I played, went to Boy Scouts and enjoyed the usual bare footed summer time boy stuff. On an appointed day in mid-June, 1956, we loaded up the Nash Rambler and headed north through Tennessee, skirting the Great Smokey Mountains, and on to Akron, Ohio.

I can't recall how we all fitted in the car. It helped that we didn't have to have a car-seat for baby David. But among the pile of bodies was my 4ft 10inch, 63 year old maternal grandmother, Clara McGraw. 

Talk about an adventurous spirit? Clara McGraw had never owned a car or flown in a plane, preferring to go by train. She was traveling with us to New York and planned to fly back to her home in Birmingham when we boarded the ship for Africa. We spent a week in Akron, where Goodyear Headquarters was located, while Clara visited her son, my uncle Joe and his family, in nearby Youngstown, Ohio. 

Finally the Clampetts were on their way across Pennsylvania to the big city of New York. To a little boy, New York skyscrapers were pretty impressive. We spent about five days at the Taft Hotel. I recall the dark, thickly carpeted hallways and creaky elevators.

The view from our hotel room window was incredible, but I was thoroughly impressed by the door to our room. It opened from inside and out! We could put laundry or shoes to be shined in the door from the inside and during the night housekeeping staff would open it from the outside and return it before we woke up the next morning.  I wanted so badly to have a pair of shoes that needed polishing just so I could use that remarkable feature.

 

We went with my dad to the harbor where he left our car to be loaded aboard the African Enterprise. The ship looked very impressive from dockside and my brother and I watched the huge cranes swinging cargo aboard. We made several excursions on the underground rail, one day even going to Dodgers Stadium to see the Brooklyn Dodgers play the New York Yankees. I guess this was a right of passage for little boys but I don't remember who won or the names of any of the players.

I was getting more and more anxious to get aboard and set sail, but mostly to play in the ship's swimming pool. I figured I would be able to swim all day, every day for the next two weeks.

Detailed memories of those days are elusive. I do recall my mother's shock at store and restaurant prices in New York. Why, a bottle of Coca-cola in the Drug Store was over a dollar, and we couldn't afford a milkshake! The price of a hamburger was outrageous.

Mother couldn't understand how people in New York could afford to eat. Of course Yankees were rude and hard to understand. This was culture shock for my mother but for me it was the first exposure to different people and places. If my mother had concerns about New Yorkers, how would she adjust to the varied peoples, cultures and languages of South Africa? She never really did, but that's another story. 

Grandmother McGraw was due to fly home from Idlewild Airport (later to become John F. Kennedy Memorial) to Birmingham, Alabama. When my dad suggested she go by taxi from the hotel she said no, she would prefer to use the helicopter service!

For someone who had never flown, she decided to opt for a whole new experience. For the remaining 24 years of her life she talked about that helicopter ride. Some years later, at the age of 72 she visited South Africa and while touring an Ostrich farm she rode an ostrich, when few others in the crowd would volunteer. 

The African Enterprise was one of "Two Distinguished Sister Ships" operated by Farrell Lines, offering regular first-class passenger service between New York and South Africa "over the incomparable Fair Weather Route." The Enterprise certainly was no Titanic in size but it was, by 1956 standards, a reasonably large vessel.

Primarily built to haul cargo, it offered seven luxury suites on "A" Deck and 22 suites on "B" Deck: comfortable cabins for about 50 passengers. It was 492 feet long and 65 feet wide. I can't help but compare it with a Holland America Cruise ship we took last year that accommodated 1,848 passengers, 800 crew members, had eleven passenger decks, and was 951 feet long.

We boarded ship with lots of luggage, much of which was disposable diapers (the brand name Playtex rings a bell) for my 15 month old baby brother. My parents optimistically assumed our crates of furniture and our car were safely stowed in one of the ships holes.

These would be unloaded when we arrived in Port Elizabeth, South Africa 19 days later. Containers were not commonly used then and it was interesting to watch the stevedores load odd-sized crates and canvas draped pallets through small holes into the huge below-deck freight areas.

We waved goodbye to the distant Statue of Liberty as tugboats nudged us away into the river and on toward the open Atlantic. It was a hot, humid, late June day and I was disappointed that the swimming pool had not yet been filled. My brother and I explored the ship and played our first game of shuffleboard. I suppose it would be true to say that our adventure had finally begun - in earnest.  

A brochure extolled the ocean vacation experience we were about to have. "In less than two days from New York" it proclaimed, "you will learn first-hand how the "Fair Weather Route" came by its name. Day after day you are greeted with tropical blue skies, a calm sea, warm sunshine.

Day after day for relaxing in a deck chair . . taking an occasional turn at shuffleboard or deck tennis . . enjoying a dip in the outdoor pool," etc., etc. The entertainment highlight of the trip was to be, "your initiation into the "Trusty Order of Shellbacks" as you cross the Equator. It's an experience as unique and unforgettable as your entire vacation will prove to be." On our eight day at sea we would cross the Equator and go through an initiation ceremony.

The sailing wasn't rough, but it wasn't calm either. The swimming pool was pumped full of sea water but we found the slightest ocean swell started the water in the pool sloshing back and forth, breaking against the steep tiled sides and making it difficult for anyone to swim, much more so for a 12 year old with limited swimming skills.

Ships in those days didn't have automatic stabilizers. So much for spending my hoped for days playing in the pool. On one or two days in that first week we experience fairly strong winds and I enjoyed standing against the rail on the foredeck watching the bow of the ship dip into the ocean swells and create great sheets of salt spray across the deck. At times we would see dozens of flying fish shoot out of the water and disappear again. Timed passed too fast.

We crossed the equator on about the 7th July, 1956. A large canopy was stretched across one of the top decks and a throne set up to accommodate King Neptune. In deference to our youth my twin and I were initiated together. Side-by-side we were led, blindfolded, to the foot of the throne and told to get down on our knees. I was terrified.

At one point we had to put a finger into "Nelson's eye" and I felt something squishy and juicy. It turned out to be an overripe tomato. Some sort of gooey food, including soft spaghetti noodles was poured over our heads. After it was over I was relieved that we hadn't been water boarded or anything like that. My vivid boyhood imagination often ran away with me. Mostly it was a funny experience because my dad was dressed as a ridiculous looking pirate and was on the King Neptune team initiating the passengers who were crossing the equator for the first time. We never figured out why he escaped the ritual himself.

Five or six days later we approached the remote island of St. Helena. This volcanic island is one of the most isolated places in the world: the nearest landmass being the west coast of Africa 1,200 miles away. In the 51 years since visiting this tiny British territory I don't recall ever having met anyone else who has been there and I suspect 99.9% of Americans have never heard of it. It is best known as the place to which the self-proclaimed Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

 

As there is no harbor at St. Helena our ship anchored some distance from the only town, Jamestown, and those passengers who chose to tour the island were taken ashore in lighters. This was an incredible fun experience for me and I have very vivid memories of the hours spent in this special, historic place. My dad hired a taxi and guide and we drove along the narrow roads into the interior of the island, visiting Longwood House where Napoleon lived and subsequently died (in 1821). We visited his gravesite although he wasn't actually there. Forty years after his death his body was disinterred and transported back to France. We saw a large tortoise in the grounds of Longwood House which, we were told, had been living 135 years earlier when Napoleon had resided there.

Overlooking Jamestown, in the valley 500 feet below us, we stood at the top of Jacobs Ladder, a shortcut up (or down) the mountainside comprised of 699 steps and 2 inch diameter piping handrails on each side of its concrete steps. Several young boys, probably 14 or 15 years old, offered to show us a fast way down for a little financial incentive.

My dad paid each one a quarter or two. They straddled the steps with their heels on one side and their backs over the other and began to slide down the mountain, picking up speed as they descended. The steps were 900 feet from the top to the main street of Jamestown below. I guess those boys made it to the bottom in less than two minutes. My brother and I took the 699 steps down. I remember my legs being sore for several days afterward. 

For another five days we sailed eastward toward the African continent. Late in the afternoon on day five we felt the engines slow as the sky became overcast. Just before dark I saw the outline of the sunlit Table Mountain through the clouds and later the lights of the city were twinkling ahead of us as we entered Table Bay. It didn't occur to my uneducated boyhood brain at the time but this historic natural harbor had sheltered ships for almost 500 years. 

The following day the family went ashore and took a taxi around the City of Cape Town or Kaapstad as it had been called by the Dutch. It was cloudy and raining so our tour was brief and we didn't attempt to see the main tourist attractions. Over the next 25 years I would return to this most beautiful Cape Peninsula many times. Thirteen years later my bride and I would fly into Cape Town and spend a short honeymoon there before beginning a new job in the area.

My 1956 adventure neared its conclusion as the African Enterprise left Table Bay and rounded the "Cape of Good Hope" heading east into the Indian Ocean. Two days later we ended our voyage in Algoa Bay (now Nelson Mandela Bay) and the city of Port Elizabeth.

Within two weeks we would move to a comfortable house in Uitenhage, 20 miles inland. Adventure number 2 would begin when my twin brother and I put on our school uniforms for the first time and walked a mile to the all boys High School that would educate us for the next 5-1/2 years.

We were two skinny American kids with strong southern accents. The other 500 boys in the school had foreign accents.