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| Breakfast in Agriento on the way to Monte Cassino! |
Last
day in Agriento, memories of trip around the world breakfast on our way to
Monte Cassino
Sitting
by the pool on our last day in Agriento, Mom continued her story about the Trip
around the world in 1961. A highlight of
the trip was her stop at the Oriental Hotel Bangkok.
Everyone travels their own way. She told us about hers.
“The
next stop after Thai Land, we went on to New Delhi,” she recalled. “The International Conference of Churches
meeting was there. The hotel was full. And
our travel agent was not in touch. So they found me a home to live in. And the
people that I was staying with were not used to doing this. I had a room to myself, with a mattress in
it, with no separate shower.” Mom was
miserable, she explained. “I was not comfortable being there. After several days there, New Delhi to Agra,
which is where the Taj Mahal is. You have to see the Taj Mahal by the
light. And from there to Jypra. They usually had a red ford. And then I could move back into the hotel. It
was a huge contrast.”
So
where did you go on the trip around the world.
I
started out with a lady who didn’t want to travel by herself and who knew
mother’s cousin in Tokyo. We flew first
to San Francisco. And from San Francisco to Hawaii. And Hawaii to Tokyo for
three weeks. Mothers friend ran Coke Far
East. They decided I needed contact lenses.
Hard not soft. I could not manage them.
I didn’t want to. They thought I should show myself off. There I was this eligible young lady in glasses.
And
a guy tried to make passes at me in the hotel in Delhi.
It
was more than I was prepared for. I was
leaving the next day.
And
he did send me a letter somewhere to meet up with me.
He
wanted me to give him courage to get a divorce.
I’ve
heard that one before.
For
somebody from Columbia Georgia that was a little more than I was ready for.
After
Tokyo where did you go?
We
did a lot of sightseeing.
We
went down to Kyoto where they had the most wonderful temples, the zen temple
that was all pebbles. But I could see
the rhythm of the raking and the patterns.
Back
to Tokyo to visit the big Shinto gates.
Talking
for 15 minutes, plans for the day started.
Lets
finish the trip later, Mom suggested. And we made plans for our day. We’d
finish the conversations about the Trip around the World and the Ladies Trip to
Europe 1957 later on.
For
today, we had to get to Rome, with one stop in Monte Cassino, two hours north,
90 minutes south of Rome.
Atop
a hill looking down, we drove up the abbey around curve after curve up the
mountain.
When
we finally made it, it felt like we were looking down at the world from.
The
ageless Abbey at Monte Cassino has seen a lot since the 6th century,
enduring invasions, earthquakes and wars.
Over
the years, its faced its own challenges, destroyed by the Lombards in 577,
sacked in 833, crumbling after an earthquake in 1349, and bombed by the allies
on the 15th of April, 1944.
But
essentially, the space was used as a sanctuary for immigrants and refugees from
the war.
“Monte
Cassino happened to be on the firing line between two armies: this place of
prayer and study which had become in these exceptional circumstances a peaceful
shelter for hundreds of defenseless civilians, in only three hours was reduced
to a heap of debris under which many of the refugees met their death,” noted
the pamphlet I bought at the abbey.
“The
Germans were not even using the place,” I asked one of the men at the majestic
old abbey on top of a mountain.
“No,”
he shook his head. “But that’s Guerra.”
People
don’t resent the US for doing it, at least not publicly.
The
celestial space feels like a monument to power.
In the museum shop they have a postcard of the last pope, the one who
was a member of the Hitler Youth as a kid, who said the sex abuse victims were
queer and had it coming, who used to summer here.
Between
the inquisition and the child abuse scandal and the church’s opposition to
family planning, its hard to feel that much sympathy for the old space or the
church it represents.
Still,
it felt odd, even melancholy being there, thinking about the past and the
present.
The
church felt ominous noted the teenager, who has rejected Christianity
altogether.
Looking
at what the church says to women and homosexuals, its not hard to see the bad.
Mom
and I are more ambivalent.
I
try to see the good and the bad, noted Mom.
I
love the old Abbey. But I’m weary of the
Church’s misuse of power.
MONTE
CASSINO ABBEY ORDERED DESTROYED
Cassino, Italy · February 15,
1944
On this date in 1944 Gen. Harold Alexander, commander-in-chief of all Allied forces in the Mediterranean Theater, ordered the aerial bombing of the historic Benedictine abbey towering over the town of Cassino on the banks of the Rapido (Gari) River in Italy. Earlier in January British, American, and French troops had made a series of attacks on the main German defenses in mainland Italy, the Gustav Line—this around the town of Cassino (red line on map below). Sometimes called the First Battle of Cassino, these attacks produced only limited gains. The bombing of the iconic fortress-like abbey, which Alexander wrongly thought was being used by the Germans as an observation post, was part of a broader effort by soldiers from ten Allied nations and territories to break through the German lines and open one of only two roads connecting southern Italy, in Allied hands, and German-held Rome. Monte Cassino’s destruction, Alexander admitted later, was “necessary more for the effect it would have on the morale of the attackers than for purely material reasons.” Surprisingly, a full day passed before the initial air strike by 229 heavy and medium bombers, dropping 1,150 tons of high explosives and incendiary bombs on the abbey, was followed up by attacks on the ground. By then the Germans had time to convert the ruins and the thick-walled foundations of the monastery into an impregnable stronghold from which they could direct artillery fire against anyone sent against them. More air and ground assaults would take place before the Allies, after suffering approximately 55,000 casualties (the Germans incurred at least 20,000 casualties), were able to raise their flag an improvised Polish regimental flag—over the rubble of the abbey on May 18, 1944, as well as over 30 wounded soldiers left by their comrades as the Germans abandoned the western half of the Gustav Line for new defensive positions along the Adolf Hitler Line (green line on map).
On this date in 1944 Gen. Harold Alexander, commander-in-chief of all Allied forces in the Mediterranean Theater, ordered the aerial bombing of the historic Benedictine abbey towering over the town of Cassino on the banks of the Rapido (Gari) River in Italy. Earlier in January British, American, and French troops had made a series of attacks on the main German defenses in mainland Italy, the Gustav Line—this around the town of Cassino (red line on map below). Sometimes called the First Battle of Cassino, these attacks produced only limited gains. The bombing of the iconic fortress-like abbey, which Alexander wrongly thought was being used by the Germans as an observation post, was part of a broader effort by soldiers from ten Allied nations and territories to break through the German lines and open one of only two roads connecting southern Italy, in Allied hands, and German-held Rome. Monte Cassino’s destruction, Alexander admitted later, was “necessary more for the effect it would have on the morale of the attackers than for purely material reasons.” Surprisingly, a full day passed before the initial air strike by 229 heavy and medium bombers, dropping 1,150 tons of high explosives and incendiary bombs on the abbey, was followed up by attacks on the ground. By then the Germans had time to convert the ruins and the thick-walled foundations of the monastery into an impregnable stronghold from which they could direct artillery fire against anyone sent against them. More air and ground assaults would take place before the Allies, after suffering approximately 55,000 casualties (the Germans incurred at least 20,000 casualties), were able to raise their flag an improvised Polish regimental flag—over the rubble of the abbey on May 18, 1944, as well as over 30 wounded soldiers left by their comrades as the Germans abandoned the western half of the Gustav Line for new defensive positions along the Adolf Hitler Line (green line on map).
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