Betty MacDonald's tracks and Vive la France

  VIVE    LA    FRANCE 

Betty MacDonald fan club fans,

thank you for Letizia Mancino's article. 

I enjoyed it very much.

Letizia Mancino's essay reminded me that I have never followed all of Betty MacDonald's tracks.

I have seen the Egg and I Road, but I wouldn't know which of the farm houses on it was hers. 
I don't think it exists anymore.

I also have been to Vashon Island for a garden tour (yes, Bainbridge and Vashon have lovely well-kept houses and gardens), but I never went to the house where Betty MacDonald had lived.
I also don't know which hotel the parents of Monica Sone owned. 
I will have to find out and go and see it. 

I found it funny that Letizia Mancino thought that Seattle has steeper hills than San Francisco. I have never slipped and fallen on the hills in Seattle, but I once took a bad fall in San Francisco when we were living in California. Eveyone passing by just stared and made comments, but no one helped me up. 

My purse had opened and the contents were spread all around me. I had to painfully get up, gather up my belongings and hobble back to the beauty salon on Knob Hill to recover myself. I had fallen so hard that I found a hole in the knee of my pants.
 
About those geoducks (pronounced "goo-eee"), I have never tried them, but then like Letizia, I enjoy salmon better. I don't like shellfish; I heard they are not good for you---too much cholesterol, and at certain times of the year they can be poisonous.

Since Letizia made her trip to Seattle in August, I am not surprised to find that she couldn't believe what she had heard about all the rain we get. August is about the only time that we have a couple of weeks of sunshine and no rain, so she got the wrong impression. Everything here is so green because we average about 80 inches of rain annually.

No, Seattle is not the beautiful city it was when Betty was alive. Neither is San Francisco, no place is. Every city I go to in this land seems to always have construction road blocks and cranes, etc. and over-development, and more traffic, even in this economy. People will always keep building into the voids, and here in America everyone loves the freedom a personal car gives.

About the Olympic Mountains west of the Hood Canal, and even Mt. Rainer on this side of the big Hood Canal, yes, they are far away, but are so huge that on a clear day they look like they are just a few miles away and not over 100 miles away. There hardly is any snow on the Olympics, and it has started to snow on the Cascade Range that divide this state, but not like before and not like our Eastern states. However, the winter is very cold, in the 20s and 30s farenheit most days now.

I don't know what hotel Letizia stayed in---right by a 16 lane highway? Probably not too far from the airport. We avoid those freeways. We take the ferry to Seattle, then hire a taxi to take us places. She also could have taken a bus tour - GrayLine--- and maybe the driver would have known about the places Betty and Monica lived, etc. We plan to do that one of these days to get to know the city better.

Oh, I also loved Letizia's website called Art for Cats. There is one painting that I would love to have a print of---Color Cat II. My sister has a kitten that looks just like that. Letizia's art is so wonderful, so colorful, makes me almost want to take out my paints again.

Best wishes,
 
Emilie 

Vita Magica

Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald forum  

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )

Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University 

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel 

Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
  
Betty MacDonald fan club items 

Betty MacDonald fan club items  - comments

Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I 

Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund 

Betty MacDonald fan club fans,

we share a very special gift by beloved and very popular Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honor member Letizia Mancino.

We know you'll enjoy it as much as we do.

Thanks a Million, dear Letizia Mancino.

You are an outstanding writer and artist.

We are so proud and happy to have you with us.

Letizia writes: One should not underestimate Wolfgang Hampel’s talent in speedily mobilizing Betty MacDonald’s friends.

We agree. Thank you so much dear Wolfgang Hampel for doing this. You founded Betty MacDonald Fan Club with four members.

Now we have members in 40 countries around the world. A dream came true.

Mary Holmes did an excellent job in translating this great story. 

Thank you so much dear Mary Holmes. 

We are really very grateful.

All the best to Letizia, Wolfgang and Mary and to all Betty MacDonald Fan Club fans from all over the world!

Lenard 

Vita Magica

Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald forum  

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )

Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University 

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel 

Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
  
Betty MacDonald fan club items 

Betty MacDonald fan club items  - comments

Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I 

Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund 
 



Following in Betty’s footsteps in Seattle:

or some small talk with Betty

Copyright 2011/2015 by Letizia Mancino
All rights reserved
translated by Mary Holmes


We were going to Canada in the summer. “When we are in Edmonton”, I said to Christoph Cremer, “let’s make a quick trip to Seattle”. And that’s how it happened. At Edmonton Airport we climbed into a plane and two hours later we landed in the city where Betty had lived. I was so happy to be in Seattle at last and to be able to trace Betty’s tracks!

Wolfgang Hampel had told Betty’s friends about our arrival.
They were happy to plan a small marathon through the town and it’s surroundings with us. We only had a few days free. One should not underestimate Wolfgang’s talent in speedily mobilizing Betty’s friends, even though it was holiday time. E-mails flew backwards and forwards between Heidelberg and Seattle, and soon a well prepared itinerary was ready for us. Shortly before my departure Wolfgang handed me several parcels, presents for Betty MacDonald's friends. I rushed to pack the heavy gifts in my luggage but because of the extra weight had to throw out a pair of pajamas!

After we had landed we took a taxi to the Hotel in downtown Seattle. I was so curious to see everything. I turned my head in all directions like one of the hungry hens from Betty’s farm searching for food! Fortunately it was quite a short journey otherwise I would have lost my head like a loose screw!
Our hotel room was on the 22nd floor and looked directly out onto the 16-lane highway. There might have been even more than 16 but it made me too giddy to count! It was like a glimpse of hell! “And is this Seattle?” I asked myself. I was horrified! The cars racing by were enough to drive one mad. The traffic roared by day and night.
We immediately contacted Betty MacDonald's friends and let them know we had arrived and they confirmed the times when we should see them.

On the next morning I planned my first excursion tracing Betty’s tracks. I spread out the map of Seattle. “Oh dear” I realized “the Olympic Peninsula is much too far away for me to get there.”
Betty nodded to me! “Very difficult, Letizia, without a car.”

“But I so much wanted to see your chicken farm”

“My chickens are no longer there and you can admire the mountains from a distance”

But I wanted to go there. I left the hotel and walked to the waterfront where the State Ferry terminal is. Mamma mia, the streets in Seattle are so steep! I couldn’t prevent my feet from running down the hill. Why hadn’t I asked for brakes to be fixed on my shoes? I looked at the drivers. How incredibly good they must be to accelerate away from the red traffic lights. The people were walking uphill towards me as briskly as agile salmon. Good heavens, these Americans! I tried to keep my balance. The force of gravity is relentless. I grasped hold of objects where I could and staggered down.
In Canada a friend had warned me that in Seattle I would see a lot of people with crutches.

Betty laughed. “ It’s not surprising, Letizia, walking salmon don’t fall directly into the soft mouth of a bear!”
“ Betty, stop making these gruesome remarks. We are not in Firlands!”

I went further. Like a small deranged ant at the foot of a palace monster I came to a tunnel. The noise was unbearable. On the motorway, “The Alaskan Way Viaduct”, cars, busses and trucks were driving at the speed of light right over my head. They puffed out their poisonous gas into the open balconies and cultivated terraces of the luxurious sky- scrapers without a thought in the world. America! You are crazy!
“Betty, are all people in Seattle deaf? Or is it perhaps a privilege for wealthy people to be able to enjoy having cars so near to their eyes and noses to save them from boredom?”

“When the fog democratically allows everything to disappear into nothing, it makes a bit of a change, Letizia”

“ Your irony is incorrigible, Betty, but tell me, Seattle is meant to be a beautiful city, But where?”
I had at last reached the State Ferry terminal.

“No Madam, the ferry for Vashon Island doesn’t start from here,” one of the men in the ticket office tells me. ”Take a buss and go to the ferry terminal in West Seattle.”
Betty explained to me “The island lies in Puget Sound and not in Elliott Bay! It is opposite the airport. You must have seen it when you were landing!”
“Betty, when I am landing I shut my eyes and pray!”

It’s time for lunch. The weather is beautiful and warm. Who said to me that it always rains here?
“Sure to be some envious man who wanted to frighten you away from coming to Seattle. The city is really beautiful, you’ll see. Stay by the waterfront, choose the best restaurant with a view of Elliott Bay and enjoy it.”
“Thank you Betty!”
I find a table on the terrace of “Elliott’s Oyster House”. The view of the island is wonderful. It lies quietly in the sun like a green fleecy cushion on the blue water.
Betty plays with my words:
“Vashon Island is a big cushion, even bigger than Bainbridge which you see in front of your eyes, Letizia. The islands look similar. They have well kept houses and beautiful gardens”.

I relax during this introduction, “Bainbridge” you are Vashon Island, and order a mineral water.

“At one time the hotel belonging to the parents of Monica Sone stood on the waterfront.”
“Oh, of your friend Kimi!” Unfortunately I forget to ask Betty exactly where it was.

My mind wanders and I think of my mountain hike back to the hotel! “Why is there no donkey for tourists?” Betty laughs:

“I’m sure you can walk back to the hotel. “Letizia can do everything.””

“Yes, Betty, I am my own donkey!”
But I don’t remember that San Francisco is so steep. It doesn’t matter, I sit and wait. The waiter comes and brings me the menu. I almost fall off my chair!
“ What, you have geoduck on the menu! I have to try it” (I confess I hate the look of geoduck meat. Betty’s recipe with the pieces made me feel quite sick – I must try Betty’s favourite dish!)
“Proof that you love me!” said Betty enthusiastically “ Isn’t the way to the heart through the stomach?”

I order the geoduck. The waiter looks at me. He would have liked to recommend oysters.
“Geoduck no good for you!”
Had he perhaps read my deepest thoughts? Fate! Then no geoduck. “No good for me.”
“Neither geoduck nor tuberculosis in Seattle” whispered Betty in my ear!
“Oh Betty, my best friend, you take such good care of me!”

I order salmon with salad.

“Which salmon? Those that swim in water or those that run through Seattle?”

“Betty, I believe you want me to have a taste of your black humour.”

“Enjoy it then, Letizia.”
During lunch we talked about tuberculosis, and that quite spoilt our appetite.
“Have you read my book “The Plague and I”?”

“Oh Betty, I’ve started to read it twice but both times I felt so sad I had to stop again!”

“But why?” asked Betty “Nearly everybody has tuberculosis! I recovered very quickly and put on 20 pounds! There was no talk of me wasting away! What did you think of my jokes in the book?”

“Those would have been a good reason for choosing another sanitorium. I would have been afraid of becoming a victim of your humour! You would have certainly given me a nickname! You always thought up such amusing names!” Betty laughed.

“You’re right. I would have called you “Roman nose”. I would have said to Urbi and Orbi “ Early this morning “Roman nose” was brought here. She speaks broken English, doesn’t eat geoduck but she does love cats.”

“Oh Betty, I would have felt so ashamed to cough. To cough in your presence, how embarrassing! You would have talked about how I coughed, how many coughs!”

“It depends on that “how”, Letizia!”

“Please, leave Goethe quotations out of it. You have certainly learnt from the Indians how to differentiate between noises. It’s incredible how you can distinguish between so many sorts of cough! At least 10!”

“So few?”

”And also your descriptions of the patients and the nurses were pitiless. An artistic revenge! The smallest pimple on their face didn’t escape your notice! Amazing.”

“ I was also pitiless to myself. Don’t forget my irony against myself!”

Betty was silent. She was thinking about Kimi, the “Princess” from Japan! No, she had only written good things about her best friend, Monica Sone, in her book “The Plague and I”. A deep friendship had started in the hospital. The pearl that developed from the illness.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Betty, that an unknown seed can make its way into a mollusk in the sea and develop into a beautiful jewel?” Betty is paying attention.

“Betty, the friendship between you and Monica reminds me of Goethe’s poem “Gingo-Biloba”. You must know it?” Betty nods and I begin to recite it:


The leaf of this Eastern tree
Which has been entrusted to my garden
Offers a feast of secret significance,
For the edification of the initiate.

Is it one living thing.
That has become divided within itself?
Are these two who have chosen each other,
So that we know them as one?

The friendship with Monica is like the wonderful gingo-biloba leaf, the tree from the east. Betty was touched. There was a deep feeling of trust between us.
“Our friendship never broke up, partly because she was in distress, endangered by the deadly illness. We understood and supplemented each other. We were like one lung with two lobes, one from the east and one from the west!”
“A beautiful picture, Betty. You were like two red gingo-biloba leaves!”

Betty was sad and said ” Monica, although Japanese, before she really knew me felt she was also an American. But she was interned in America, Letizia, during the second world war. Isn’t that terrible?”

“Betty, I never knew her personally. I have only seen her on a video, but what dignity in her face, and she speaks and moves so gracefully!”

“Fate could not change her”

“Yes, Betty, like the gingo-biloba tree in Hiroshima. It was the only tree that blossomed again after the atom bomb!”

The bill came and I paid at once. In America one is urged away from the table when one has finished eating. If one wants to go on chatting one has to order something else.
“That’s why all those people gossiping at the tables are so fat!” Betty remarks. “Haven’t you seen how many massively obese people walk around in the streets of America. Like dustbins that have never been emptied!” With this typically unsentimental remark Betty ended our conversation.

Ciao! I so enjoyed the talk; the humour, the irony and the empathy. I waved to her and now I too felt like moving! I take a lovely walk along the waterfront.

Now I am back in Heidelberg and when I think about how Betty’s “Princessin” left this world on September 5th and that in August I was speaking about her with Betty in Seattle I feel very sad. The readers who knew her well (we feel that every author and hero of a book is nearer to us than our fleeting neighbours next door) yes we, who thought of her as immortal, cannot believe that even she would die after 92 years. How unforeseen and unexpected that her death should come four days after her birthday on September 1th. On September 5th I was on my way to Turkey, once again in seventh heaven, looking back on the unforgettable days in Seattle. I was flying from west to east towards the rising sun.



 
 

Betty MacDonald, Anybody can do anything and Vive la France

  VIVE    LA    FRANCE 

 
    Mary Bard Jensen and Betty MacDonald

Claire Dederer, Author of Poser : My Life In Twenty-Three Yoga Poses
lives in Seattle and writes about books and culture for the New York Times, Vogue, Newsday, and many other publications.

Dear Betty MacDonald fan club fans,

I knew of the Betty MacDonald Fan Club but didn't know its activities were so extensive.

That's wonderful.

I checked in with the magazine and they said please feel free to reprint or repost.

I will keep you updated if I do any more pieces on Betty.

Thanks so much for all you are doing!

All the best,

Claire Dederer


Second Read — January / February 2011 Her Great Depression

Re-reading Betty MacDonald’s Anybody Can Do Anything, on the Northwest’s bust years

By Claire Dederer

From the time I was nine or ten, I carried a spiral-bound Mead notebook with me at all times. I wanted to be a writer, felt I probably already was a writer, and feared I would never be a writer. I was constantly looking for clues that would tell me that someone like me, someone from Seattle, someone who was a girl, someone who was no one, might be able to write a book. A book that got published.

I was always on the lookout for a message, something that would tell me that this thing could be done. I realize now that what I was looking for was an influence. Influence is a message about what is possible, sent by book from one writer to another. Different writers are looking for different messages. As a child, the message I sought was simple: This place is worth writing about.

Just as I was a nobody, Seattle at that time was a non-place in literature. This was the 1970s. There were few nationally published authors from Seattle. Whenever I encountered any writing at all about the Northwest, I fell upon it gratefully. I was happy to read anything that had blackberries and Puget Sound and Douglas firs and the names of the streets downtown. I read Richard Brautigan stories; Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion, though I didn’t even pretend to enjoy it; collections of columns by crabby old Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspapermen of the 1950s; poems by Carolyn Kizer. I read Tom Robbins and was embarrassed by the sex. I read Mary McCarthy’s first memoir, but she seemed to hate the place.

And, eventually, I read Betty MacDonald. She had been there all along, on my own shelves, in the form of her familiar, tattered Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books. Then, browsing my mother’s shelves one summer afternoon, I came upon a grown-up book by MacDonald: Anybody Can Do Anything.

I had seen it before but assumed it belonged to the dreary crop of self-help books that had mushroomed on my mother’s shelves over the past few years. Bored enough, I picked it up—and found therein an enchanted world. Enchanted because it was exactly real. Anybody Can Do Anything is Betty MacDonald’s story of how she and her family weathered the Depression in an old wood-frame house (not unlike my family’s) in the University District (just a mile or two from where I lived). And though my historical circumstances were very different from hers, our shared geography was enough to make me feel that I was seeing my life reflected in her pages.

It’s funny to think of a time when Betty MacDonald’s books were new to me. Over the years I would come to know them the way I knew houses in my own neighborhood—with a casual intimacy. MacDonald began writing toward the end of her short life, in the 1940s, when she had found happiness with her second husband on their blackberry-ridden acreage on Vashon Island in Puget Sound. Her first book was The Egg and I, set in the 1920s. This chronicle of MacDonald’s life on an Olympic Peninsula chicken farm with her first husband would become her most famous book, make her a fortune, and form the basis of a wildly successful 1947 film. This, putting aside her books for children, was followed by The Plague and I, a surprisingly entertaining account of her stint in a tuberculosis sanitarium just north of Seattle. How she created a ripping yarn out of lying in bed for a year is one of life’s mysteries. Next came Anybody Can Do Anything, which I held in my hands. Finally she wrote Onions in the Stew, about life on Vashon Island, which came in 1955, just three years before she succumbed to cancer at the age of forty-nine.

But it was Anybody Can Do Anything, with its Seattle locale and its scrappy, cheerful message of survival, which spoke most directly to me.

As the book opens and the Depression begins, MacDonald has been living on the chicken farm in damp exile from her real life in Seattle. Married at twenty, she had followed her husband to the Olympic Peninsula so he could live his agrarian dream. Now she has reached her breaking point with the rain, the chickens, the monomaniacal husband, the whole affair. “Finally in March, 1931, after four years of this,” she recounts, “I wrote to my family and told them that I hated chickens, I was lonely and I seemed to have married the wrong man.” She snatches up her little daughters and makes her long, rainy, difficult way back to the city by foot, bus, and ferry.

There she and her girls are folded happily back into her large family’s bosom. Her mother’s “eight-room brown-shingled house in the University district was just a modest dwelling in a respectable neighborhood, near good schools and adequate for an ordinary family. To me that night, and always, that shabby house with its broad welcoming porch, dark woodwork, cluttered dining-room plate rail, large fragrant kitchen, easy book-filled firelit living room, four elastic bedrooms…represents the ultimate in charm, warmth and luxury.”

The book describes life in that teeming, cozy household with her mother, her three sisters, her brother, and her two little girls, plus whoever else might be sleeping over in one of those elastic bedrooms. It also details the literally dozens of weird and none-too-wonderful jobs that MacDonald held throughout the Depression: hapless secretary to businessmen of every stripe, fur-coat model, photo retoucher, rabbit rancher, firewood stealer, Christmas tree decorator, baby sitter, receptionist to a gangster.

The author jumps from job to job, with whole industries blowing up behind her as she leaves, like Tom Cruise running from an exploding warehouse. She’s hustled along in the ever-shrinking job market by her sister Mary, who considers herself an “executive thinker.”

Mary has a job ready for Betty as soon as she gets off the bus from the egg farm, never mind that Betty is utterly unqualified. Mary won’t hear of such talk. She is quick to admonish her sister: “There are plenty of jobs but the trouble with most people, and I know because I’m always getting jobs for my friends, is that they stay home with the covers pulled up over their heads waiting for some employer to come creeping in looking for them.”

The truth of this statement is disproved throughout the book. There were certainly not plenty of jobs. The portrait of Depression-era Seattle that emerges is definitively—though quietly—desperate. But on my first read, I hardly clocked the despair. I just thrilled to the evocation of my home, captured in such throwaway phrases as, “There was nothing in sight but wet pavement and wet sky.” MacDonald describes places that still existed, that I myself knew—the I. Magnin’s at the corner of Sixth and Pine, the palatial movie theater named the Neptune. Here she is on the Pike Place Market:

The Public Market, about three blocks long, crowded and smelling deliciously of baking bread, roasting peanuts, coffee, fresh fish and bananas, blazed with the orange, reds, yellows and greens of fresh succulent fruits and vegetables. From the hundreds of farmer’s stalls that lined both sides of the street and extended clear through the block on the east side, Italians, Greeks, Norwegians, Finns, Danes, Japanese and Germans offered their wares. The Italians were the most voluble but the Japanese had the most beautiful vegetables.

Such descriptions caused a strange firing in my brain. I was accustomed to imagining locations from books; there was a deep pleasure in having that necessity for once removed. Even the food they ate was the food we ate. For special treats, MacDonald tells of buying Dungeness crabs and Olympia oysters, just as my family did.

I saw, illustrated perfectly, and in the cold light of nonfiction, the possibility that Seattle might be the setting for a book. I would not be struck so thoroughly by the possibility of a true Northwest literature until I started reading Raymond Carver in the mid-1980s. 

My mother told me that Betty MacDonald had died in the 1950s, but that her niece lived in our very own neighborhood. I walked by the house, gazing at it with a true feeling of awe: the niece of an author lived therein! Of course I knew authors were real people. But Betty MacDonald was more than real; she was tangible. She was prima facie evidence that the materials I had at hand—those trees, that rain—were enough.

Other writers came and went; Betty MacDonald was among those who endured for me. This was because she was funny. No, that’s not quite right. Though I didn’t have the language for it when I first read her, Betty MacDonald was comic. As I became a writer myself, I studied her, trying to figure out just how she did it.

She wrote long, ridiculous set pieces about her various jobs. She wrote hilarious portraits of her bosses, who in her hands become one long parade of human oddity. She wrote fondly of her family’s eccentricities. But above all, she wrote with unflagging self-abasement. Her books twanged with the idea that one’s own ridiculousness was comedy enough. A good example of her rueful tone:
Until I started to night school, my life was one long sweep of mediocrity. While my family and friends were enjoying the distinction of being labeled the prettiest, most popular, best dancer, fastest runner, highest diver, longest breath-holder-under-water, best tennis player, most fearless, owner of the highest arches, tiniest, wittiest, most efficient, one with the most allergies or highest salaried, I had to learn to adjust to remarks such as, “My, Mary has the most beautiful red hair I’ve ever seen, it’s just like burnished copper and so silky and curly—oh yes, Betty has hair too, hasn’t she? I guess it’s being so coarse is what makes it look so thick.”

It almost goes without saying that she distinguishes herself in night school by being the absolute worst student in every class.
MacDonald was master of the comic memoirist’s first art: self-deprecation. Other types of memoirists value lyricism, or shock tactics. Comic memoirists are utterly dependent on knowing that they themselves are the silliest people in any given room.
I know whereof I speak—I am this year publishing a memoir about my own very, very ordinary life. Memoirists like me are writing what author Lorraine Adams has called “nobody” memoirs. As she said in a 2002 piece in the Washington Monthly, such memoirists are “neither generals, statesmen, celebrities, nor their kin.”
How, then, to proceed? You’re nobody. You want to write a memoir. Your first order of business is to let readers know that you know that they know you’re a nobody. So you must imply your unimportance as quickly as possible, and never, ever stop. By means of that simple dynamic, the memoirist makes a friend rather than an enemy of her reader.

In Anybody Can Do Anything, MacDonald fails again and again. It’s an entire book about failure: her own, and the economy’s. It’s also about persisting in the face of one’s own admitted shortcomings. What she wants is a job commensurate with her skills, which she presents as nil: “I wanted some sort of very steady job with a salary, and duties mediocre enough to be congruent with my mediocre ability. I had in mind sort of a combination janitress, slow typist and file clerk.” 

Finally, she washes up safely on the sandbar of government work, taking a job at the Seattle branch of the National Recovery Administration, the New Deal agency started in 1933 and charged with organizing businesses under new fair-trade codes. There she felt right at home, surrounded by federal-level incompetence: “There were thousands of us who didn’t know what we were doing but were all doing it in ten copies.”
MacDonald is rarely remembered for her wry tone. When she’s remembered at all, she is preceded not by her own reputation, but that of the big-screen version of The Egg and I, starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray, which is pretty nearly unwatchable. In the film, Ma and Pa Kettle—neighbors who are fondly, if broadly, drawn in the book—have been turned into tobacco-spitting, raccoon-roasting caricatures. And the public loved them. On the movie poster, the faces of these two crackers loom huge; Colbert and MacMurray cower tinily in the corner. Ma and Pa Kettle proved so popular that nine more films were made about them and their fictional fifteen children, and Betty MacDonald lost all hope of being taken seriously as a writer.

Many years after all of this, I was having dinner with a British writer who had undertaken to write about the Northwest. “You have to be careful about using too much humor, otherwise you end up sounding like Betty MacDonald: housewife humor,” he said, finishing in scathing (if posh) tones. MacDonald has been trapped in this role of domestic lightweight. But her writing, with its quiet irreverence, has more in common with, say, Calvin Trillin or Laurie Colwin, than it does with a mid-century housewife humorist like Erma Bombeck. (Though, really, what’s so bad about Erma Bombeck?)

What MacDonald models in her writing is actually very freeing—self-deprecation as a kind of passport to the ordinary. With it, you can take your reader into the most mundane details of your life, and they will often go.

I teach adult writing students. When we work on memoir, they want to write pieces about what they’ve achieved. About their good marriages. About their sterling qualities. “Nobody wants to hear about that except your mother!” I tell them. Which is never very popular. Even so, I try to explain the Betty MacDonald principle to them: what people want to see in the memoir are reflections of their own failures and smallnesses. If you can show readers that you have those same failures, those same smallnesses, and make them laugh about it, they will love you. Or at least like you. Or at least accept you as a fellow nobody.

These simple things would be enough for me: a story of Seattle; a tale told with self-deprecating humor. But what MacDonald achieves in Anybody Can Do Anything is something more than that: a finely observed journalistic record of her time.
The ridiculous set pieces, the fond portraits of her family, and what New York Times critic Bosley Crowther called the “earthy tang” of her writing do not seem like indicators of a work of serious journalism. But MacDonald is getting down on paper what she sees happening all across Seattle, and ultimately providing us with a rough draft of history. The details of home and work life accrue, anecdotes pile up, and suddenly the reader has a real sense of daily existence in the West during the 1930s. This is a cheerful, unassuming way of documenting a socially and economically turbulent period. But it’s documentation nonetheless.

Take, for example, MacDonald’s account of one of her earliest jobs. This chapter encapsulates the uneasiness of the early part of the Depression, eerily suggestive of the economic tenterhooks we’ve been on since 2007. She’s been summarily fired from her first job as executive secretary to a miner, so the ever-resourceful Mary has found her a job at her own office, where she works for a lumber magnate. When Betty protests that she hasn’t any of the qualifications the lumberman is looking for in a secretary, Mary tells her not to fret. “‘You thought you couldn’t learn mining,’ Mary told me when she installed me as her assistant in the office across the street. ‘There’s nothing to lumber, it’s just a matter of being able to divide everything by twelve.’?”

As she makes her way to work each morning, MacDonald is nervous but glad of the work: “Now I grew more and more conscious of the aimlessness and sadness of the people on the streets, of the Space for Rent signs, marking the sudden death of businesses, that had sprung up over the city like white crosses on the battlefield and I lifted myself up each morning timidly and with dread.”
Her employer’s business is clearly failing, but MacDonald feels she shouldn’t leave her boss, Mr. Chalmers, in the lurch. She intends to stay until the end. “And I did,” we read, “in spite of Mr. Chalmers’ telling me many times that the Depression was all my fault, the direct result of inferior people like me wearing silk stockings and thinking they were as good as people like him.” Again, this blame-the-victim language recalls some of the rhetoric of today’s subprime mortgage crisis. But despite the boss’s efforts to draw a sociological line in the sand, he too is laid low by the economic downturn, and the chapter comes to an abrupt end: “Lumber was over.”

The author and her family soon lose their phone service, their electricity, their heat. Being Betty MacDonald, she makes it all sound rather jolly. She tells of endless bowls of vegetable soup eaten by candlelight. And when she complains about being broke, she does it with typical good humor: “There is no getting around the fact that being poor takes getting used to. You have to adjust to the fact that it’s no longer a question of what you eat but if you eat.”
But sometimes the details tell the story that the tone masks. When the heat and the electricity have been turned off, the family relies upon old Christmas candles for light and firewood for heat: “When we ran out of fireplace wood, Mary unearthed a bucksaw and marched us all down to a city park two blocks away, where we took turns sawing up fallen logs.” Here, despite the characteristic pluck, you feel straits getting uncomfortably dire.
This isn’t an overlay of social commentary sitting awkwardly atop a narrative. Instead, such commentary is tightly knitted to MacDonald’s own experience. When she notices that “[e]very day found a little better class of people selling apples on street corners,” she’s not making an idle observation—she’s wondering if she’s next.

When I came to write my own memoir, I was telling a small, personal story about being a mom at the turn of the millennium. I wanted to link the story to larger cultural forces I had observed, to what I saw as a kind of generational obsession with perfect parenting. In Betty MacDonald’s writing, I once again found just the model I needed. It was possible to connect the larger story around me to my own small story, without pretending to be definitive or historical. In fact, the more I focused on the details of my own very particular experience, the more I could give a feeling of the culture that I swam in.

The message that Betty Macdonald sent me, through this book, is one of sufficiency: Your small life is enough. Other writers might be looking for a message that will feed their huge ambitions. From books, they learn how far they might go with their own writing. For me, the question has always been: How close to home might I stay?

MacDonald’s qualities as a writer—the focus on the very local, the self-deprecating humor, the careful and personal observation of social changes—are modest qualities. They inspire through their very humility. The homely, says Betty MacDonald, is more than enough. This was the message I needed to hear. There’s a clue, of course, right there in the title. It’s been telling me since I was a girl, right up through the time I became a writer myself: Anybody can do anything. Even this. Even you.

Such lack of pretension doesn’t necessarily come with great rewards. There are no monuments to Betty MacDonald. No endowed chairs, no scholarships, not even a public library conference room named after her. But in the shallow green bowl of Chimacum Valley, a two-lane road leads to the chicken farm where MacDonald lived for four tough years. It’s been renamed “The Egg and I Road.” It veers west from Route 19, cutting through farmland before heading up a hill into some evergreens. It’s nothing special. It’s just ordinary. It’s just a county road.


Vita Magica

Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald forum  

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University 

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel 

Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
  
Betty MacDonald fan club items 

Betty MacDonald fan club items  - comments

Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund 

Betty MacDonald, Seattle and Vive la France

Linde Lund shared Art People Gallery's photo.

Paris je t'aime

www.bettymacdonaldfanclub.blogspot.com/

Art People Gallery

Yesterday at 4:46am 

Deepest sorrow for beautiful Paris and all her people, for all the innocent lives lost, for our world changed forever

Like   Comment   Share

You, Bartho Alexandre Alexandre, Duncan Ferguson, Umberto Putzu and 8 others like this.

Comments

Christina Marie Jensen My mind still is having trouble comprehending ...

Unlike · Reply · 1 · 8 hrs

Betty MacDonald fan club fans,


we got so many mails regarding Letizia Mancino's unique Betty MacDonald Essay.

Thanks a lot. 


Janet:

Thank you so much for Letizia Mancino's great Betty MacDonald essay- very clever the way she wove Betty into her Seattle visit.

I'm sure she was disappointed with our city, much different from Betty's description in her book, except that the harbor is still there, and many of the same buildings, but now too many tall buildings. 

There are still beautiful parks and lovely views in the city. We still have lovely Mt. Rainier smiling down on us when it is clear weather, and beautiful Puget Sound.

Blessings,
Janet

Stig:

Dear Janet, thank you so much for your mail.

Letizia Mancino was not disappointed with Seattle.
Just the opposite. 
She enjoyed her stay very much.

I visited Seattle a year ago. I was delighted. A fascinating place and I'll come back soon.
 
Of course Seattle has changed a lot since Betty MacDonald described the town in her books.

In my mind Seattle is really a great town and I met so many wonderful personalities.
 
Janet, you can be very proud living in a town like this.

Thank you so much Letizia.


I totally agree with Linde Lund and Betty MacDonald fan club fans from all over the world:


  VIVE    LA    FRANCE 


Yours,

Stig 

Vita Magica

Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald forum  

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )

Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University 

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel 

Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
  
Betty MacDonald fan club items 

Betty MacDonald fan club items  - comments

Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I 

Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund 

Betty MacDonald fan club fans,

we share a very special gift by beloved and very popular Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honor member Letizia Mancino.

We know you'll enjoy it as much as we do.

Thanks a Million, dear Letizia Mancino.

You are an outstanding writer and artist.

We are so proud and happy to have you with us.

Letizia writes: One should not underestimate Wolfgang Hampel’s talent in speedily mobilizing Betty MacDonald’s friends.

We agree. Thank you so much dear Wolfgang Hampel for doing this. You founded Betty MacDonald Fan Club with four members.

Now we have members in 40 countries around the world. A dream came true.

Mary Holmes did an excellent job in translating this great story. 

Thank you so much dear Mary Holmes. 

We are really very grateful.

All the best to Letizia, Wolfgang and Mary and to all Betty MacDonald Fan Club fans from all over the world!

Lenard 

Vita Magica

Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald forum  

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )

Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University 

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel 

Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
  
Betty MacDonald fan club items 

Betty MacDonald fan club items  - comments

Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I 

Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund 
 



Following in Betty’s footsteps in Seattle:

or some small talk with Betty

Copyright 2011/2015 by Letizia Mancino
All rights reserved
translated by Mary Holmes


We were going to Canada in the summer. “When we are in Edmonton”, I said to Christoph Cremer, “let’s make a quick trip to Seattle”. And that’s how it happened. At Edmonton Airport we climbed into a plane and two hours later we landed in the city where Betty had lived. I was so happy to be in Seattle at last and to be able to trace Betty’s tracks!

Wolfgang Hampel had told Betty’s friends about our arrival.
They were happy to plan a small marathon through the town and it’s surroundings with us. We only had a few days free. One should not underestimate Wolfgang’s talent in speedily mobilizing Betty’s friends, even though it was holiday time. E-mails flew backwards and forwards between Heidelberg and Seattle, and soon a well prepared itinerary was ready for us. Shortly before my departure Wolfgang handed me several parcels, presents for Betty MacDonald's friends. I rushed to pack the heavy gifts in my luggage but because of the extra weight had to throw out a pair of pajamas!

After we had landed we took a taxi to the Hotel in downtown Seattle. I was so curious to see everything. I turned my head in all directions like one of the hungry hens from Betty’s farm searching for food! Fortunately it was quite a short journey otherwise I would have lost my head like a loose screw!
Our hotel room was on the 22nd floor and looked directly out onto the 16-lane highway. There might have been even more than 16 but it made me too giddy to count! It was like a glimpse of hell! “And is this Seattle?” I asked myself. I was horrified! The cars racing by were enough to drive one mad. The traffic roared by day and night.
We immediately contacted Betty MacDonald's friends and let them know we had arrived and they confirmed the times when we should see them.

On the next morning I planned my first excursion tracing Betty’s tracks. I spread out the map of Seattle. “Oh dear” I realized “the Olympic Peninsula is much too far away for me to get there.”
Betty nodded to me! “Very difficult, Letizia, without a car.”

“But I so much wanted to see your chicken farm”

“My chickens are no longer there and you can admire the mountains from a distance”

But I wanted to go there. I left the hotel and walked to the waterfront where the State Ferry terminal is. Mamma mia, the streets in Seattle are so steep! I couldn’t prevent my feet from running down the hill. Why hadn’t I asked for brakes to be fixed on my shoes? I looked at the drivers. How incredibly good they must be to accelerate away from the red traffic lights. The people were walking uphill towards me as briskly as agile salmon. Good heavens, these Americans! I tried to keep my balance. The force of gravity is relentless. I grasped hold of objects where I could and staggered down.
In Canada a friend had warned me that in Seattle I would see a lot of people with crutches.

Betty laughed. “ It’s not surprising, Letizia, walking salmon don’t fall directly into the soft mouth of a bear!”
“ Betty, stop making these gruesome remarks. We are not in Firlands!”

I went further. Like a small deranged ant at the foot of a palace monster I came to a tunnel. The noise was unbearable. On the motorway, “The Alaskan Way Viaduct”, cars, busses and trucks were driving at the speed of light right over my head. They puffed out their poisonous gas into the open balconies and cultivated terraces of the luxurious sky- scrapers without a thought in the world. America! You are crazy!
“Betty, are all people in Seattle deaf? Or is it perhaps a privilege for wealthy people to be able to enjoy having cars so near to their eyes and noses to save them from boredom?”

“When the fog democratically allows everything to disappear into nothing, it makes a bit of a change, Letizia”

“ Your irony is incorrigible, Betty, but tell me, Seattle is meant to be a beautiful city, But where?”
I had at last reached the State Ferry terminal.

“No Madam, the ferry for Vashon Island doesn’t start from here,” one of the men in the ticket office tells me. ”Take a buss and go to the ferry terminal in West Seattle.”
Betty explained to me “The island lies in Puget Sound and not in Elliott Bay! It is opposite the airport. You must have seen it when you were landing!”
“Betty, when I am landing I shut my eyes and pray!”

It’s time for lunch. The weather is beautiful and warm. Who said to me that it always rains here?
“Sure to be some envious man who wanted to frighten you away from coming to Seattle. The city is really beautiful, you’ll see. Stay by the waterfront, choose the best restaurant with a view of Elliott Bay and enjoy it.”
“Thank you Betty!”
I find a table on the terrace of “Elliott’s Oyster House”. The view of the island is wonderful. It lies quietly in the sun like a green fleecy cushion on the blue water.
Betty plays with my words:
“Vashon Island is a big cushion, even bigger than Bainbridge which you see in front of your eyes, Letizia. The islands look similar. They have well kept houses and beautiful gardens”.

I relax during this introduction, “Bainbridge” you are Vashon Island, and order a mineral water.

“At one time the hotel belonging to the parents of Monica Sone stood on the waterfront.”
“Oh, of your friend Kimi!” Unfortunately I forget to ask Betty exactly where it was.

My mind wanders and I think of my mountain hike back to the hotel! “Why is there no donkey for tourists?” Betty laughs:

“I’m sure you can walk back to the hotel. “Letizia can do everything.””

“Yes, Betty, I am my own donkey!”
But I don’t remember that San Francisco is so steep. It doesn’t matter, I sit and wait. The waiter comes and brings me the menu. I almost fall off my chair!
“ What, you have geoduck on the menu! I have to try it” (I confess I hate the look of geoduck meat. Betty’s recipe with the pieces made me feel quite sick – I must try Betty’s favourite dish!)
“Proof that you love me!” said Betty enthusiastically “ Isn’t the way to the heart through the stomach?”

I order the geoduck. The waiter looks at me. He would have liked to recommend oysters.
“Geoduck no good for you!”
Had he perhaps read my deepest thoughts? Fate! Then no geoduck. “No good for me.”
“Neither geoduck nor tuberculosis in Seattle” whispered Betty in my ear!
“Oh Betty, my best friend, you take such good care of me!”

I order salmon with salad.

“Which salmon? Those that swim in water or those that run through Seattle?”

“Betty, I believe you want me to have a taste of your black humour.”

“Enjoy it then, Letizia.”
During lunch we talked about tuberculosis, and that quite spoilt our appetite.
“Have you read my book “The Plague and I”?”

“Oh Betty, I’ve started to read it twice but both times I felt so sad I had to stop again!”

“But why?” asked Betty “Nearly everybody has tuberculosis! I recovered very quickly and put on 20 pounds! There was no talk of me wasting away! What did you think of my jokes in the book?”

“Those would have been a good reason for choosing another sanitorium. I would have been afraid of becoming a victim of your humour! You would have certainly given me a nickname! You always thought up such amusing names!” Betty laughed.

“You’re right. I would have called you “Roman nose”. I would have said to Urbi and Orbi “ Early this morning “Roman nose” was brought here. She speaks broken English, doesn’t eat geoduck but she does love cats.”

“Oh Betty, I would have felt so ashamed to cough. To cough in your presence, how embarrassing! You would have talked about how I coughed, how many coughs!”

“It depends on that “how”, Letizia!”

“Please, leave Goethe quotations out of it. You have certainly learnt from the Indians how to differentiate between noises. It’s incredible how you can distinguish between so many sorts of cough! At least 10!”

“So few?”

”And also your descriptions of the patients and the nurses were pitiless. An artistic revenge! The smallest pimple on their face didn’t escape your notice! Amazing.”

“ I was also pitiless to myself. Don’t forget my irony against myself!”

Betty was silent. She was thinking about Kimi, the “Princess” from Japan! No, she had only written good things about her best friend, Monica Sone, in her book “The Plague and I”. A deep friendship had started in the hospital. The pearl that developed from the illness.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Betty, that an unknown seed can make its way into a mollusk in the sea and develop into a beautiful jewel?” Betty is paying attention.

“Betty, the friendship between you and Monica reminds me of Goethe’s poem “Gingo-Biloba”. You must know it?” Betty nods and I begin to recite it:


The leaf of this Eastern tree
Which has been entrusted to my garden
Offers a feast of secret significance,
For the edification of the initiate.

Is it one living thing.
That has become divided within itself?
Are these two who have chosen each other,
So that we know them as one?

The friendship with Monica is like the wonderful gingo-biloba leaf, the tree from the east. Betty was touched. There was a deep feeling of trust between us.
“Our friendship never broke up, partly because she was in distress, endangered by the deadly illness. We understood and supplemented each other. We were like one lung with two lobes, one from the east and one from the west!”
“A beautiful picture, Betty. You were like two red gingo-biloba leaves!”

Betty was sad and said ” Monica, although Japanese, before she really knew me felt she was also an American. But she was interned in America, Letizia, during the second world war. Isn’t that terrible?”

“Betty, I never knew her personally. I have only seen her on a video, but what dignity in her face, and she speaks and moves so gracefully!”

“Fate could not change her”

“Yes, Betty, like the gingo-biloba tree in Hiroshima. It was the only tree that blossomed again after the atom bomb!”

The bill came and I paid at once. In America one is urged away from the table when one has finished eating. If one wants to go on chatting one has to order something else.
“That’s why all those people gossiping at the tables are so fat!” Betty remarks. “Haven’t you seen how many massively obese people walk around in the streets of America. Like dustbins that have never been emptied!” With this typically unsentimental remark Betty ended our conversation.

Ciao! I so enjoyed the talk; the humour, the irony and the empathy. I waved to her and now I too felt like moving! I take a lovely walk along the waterfront.

Now I am back in Heidelberg and when I think about how Betty’s “Princessin” left this world on September 5th and that in August I was speaking about her with Betty in Seattle I feel very sad. The readers who knew her well (we feel that every author and hero of a book is nearer to us than our fleeting neighbours next door) yes we, who thought of her as immortal, cannot believe that even she would die after 92 years. How unforeseen and unexpected that her death should come four days after her birthday on September 1th. On September 5th I was on my way to Turkey, once again in seventh heaven, looking back on the unforgettable days in Seattle. I was flying from west to east towards the rising sun.


 
 

Betty MacDonald and Vive la France

Linde Lund

10 hrs 

Vive la France!

We are with you in our thoughts.

www.bettymacdonaldfanclub.blogspot.com/

Paris attacks: World turns blue, white, red for France

www.cnn.com|By Rachel Rodriguez, CNN

Betty MacDonald and a wonderful experience in Seattle

Betty MacDonald fan club fans,

artist and writer Letizia Mancino's great Betty MacDonald essay is such a gift for so many Betty MacDonald fans in 5 continents.

We are very happy and grateful to present Letizia Mancino's delightful contribution for our german speaking Betty MacDonald Fan Club fans.

Read and enjoy.

Thanks a Million dear Letizia Mancino

We can't wait to read more of Letizia's great literature.

Take care,

Michael 





Vita Magica

Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald forum  

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )

Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University 

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel 

Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
  
Betty MacDonald fan club items 

Betty MacDonald fan club items  - comments

Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I 

Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund 
 
Auf Betty MacDonalds Spuren nach Seattle - oder ein kleiner Small Talk mit Betty MacDonald

Copyright 2011/2015 by Letizia Mancino
translated by Mary Holmes  


All rights reserved

Wenn wir im Sommer in Edmonton, Kanada, sein werden, sagte ich zu Christoph Cremer, dann machen wir einen Katzensprung nach Seattle! So war es.

Wir stiegen in Edmonton Airport in ein Flugzeug ein und landeten nach zwei Stunden in der Stadt, wo Betty gelebt hatte. Ich war so froh, endlich Seattle zu sehen, und auf Bettys Spuren zu gehen!

Wolfgang Hampel hatte Bettys alte Freunde in Seattle über unsere Ankunft informiert. Sie waren freudig bereit, mit uns einen kleinen Marathon durch Stadt und Umgebung zu organisieren. Wir hatten nämlich nur wenige Tage zur Verfügung. Wolfgangs Fähigkeit, Menschen schnell sogar in der Ferienzeit zu mobilisieren, ist nicht zu unterschätzen! Zwischen Heidelberg und Seattle wurden E- mails ausgetauscht, und bald war ein ausgereiftes Programm für uns geplant. Kurz vor meiner Abreise überreichte er mir auch Geschenke für die Freunde. Es gelang mir in aller Eile, die schweren Gaben in den Koffer noch einzupacken, doch musste aus meinem Gepäck- wegen Übergewicht - ein Schlafanzug rausfliegen!

Nach der Landung in Seattle fuhren wir mit dem Taxi zum Hotel in der Downtown. Aus Neugier drehte ich meinen Kopf in alle Richtungen, wie ein hungriges Huhn aus Betty`s Farm auf Nahrungssuche! Zum Glück war die Strecke kurz genug, sonst hätte ich ihn wie eine lockere Schraube verloren! Unser Hotelzimmer war im 22. Stock und blickte direkt auf den Highway mit 16 Spuren- sie waren sogar mehr, aber es wurde mir zu schwindelig! Es war ein höllischer Blick! Und dies ist Seattle? fragte ich mich. Ich war entsetzt! Die Raserei machte mich rasend: Der Verkehr rauschte und brauste Tag und Nacht.

Am nächsten Morgen plante ich allein meinen ersten Ausflug auf Betty`s Spuren. Ich breitete die „Seattle tourmap“ aus: Ach, stellte ich fest, die Olympic Peninsula ist viel zu weit für mich! Betty nickte mir zu! Sehr umständlich, Letizia, ohne Wagen.
Ich hätte Deine Hühnerfarm so gern gesehen!
Meine Hühner sind weg und die Berge kannst du aus der Ferne bewundern!

Mamma mia, wie steil sind die Straßen von Seattle! Ich rannte nach unten, ohne es zu wollen! Warum habe ich keine Bremsen an den Schuhen montieren lassen? Ich schaute die Autofahrer an: Wie verdammt gut, dachte ich, müssen sie sein, wenn sie an den roten Ampeln wieder Gas geben! Mir entgegen aufwärts- liefen die Fußgänger schnell wie flinke Lachse! Donnerwetter, diese Amerikaner! Ich versuchte, mein Gleichgewicht zu halten - die Gravitationskraft ist unerbittlich - hielt mich an Gegenständen fest und stieg hinunter. In Kanada hatte mich ein Bekannter davor gewarnt, ich würde in Seattle sehr viele Menschen mit Krücken sehen!
Betty lachte: Kein Wunder, Letizia, Lachs-Fußgänger fallen nicht direkt in das weiche Maul eines Bärs!
Betty, hör mal auf mit deinen gruseligen Bemerkungen! Wir sind nicht im Fichtenheim!
Ich ging weiter. Wie eine kleine verwirrte Ameise am Fuß von Palast- Ungeheuern kam ich zu einer Unterführung.Der Lärm war unerträglich: Gerade über meinem Kopf fuhren auf der Autobahn “ Alaskan Way Viaduct“ Autos, Busse und Trucks in Lichtgeschwindigkeit. Ihre giftigen Abgase pusten sie unbekümmert in die offenen Loggien und begrünten Terrassen der luxuriösen Wolkenkratzer. Amerika! Du bist crazy!
Betty, sind alle Menschen taub in Seattle oder ist es vielleicht ein Privileg für Wealthy-Leute, gegen Langweile Autos so nah vor Nase und Augen zu genießen?
Wenn der Nebel demokratisch alles in das Nichts verschwinden lässt, ist das doch eine kleine Abwechselung, Letizia!!
Deine Ironie, Betty, ist unverbesserlich, aber sag mir, Seattle soll eine wunderschöne Stadt sein, aber wo?
Ich bin endlich am State Ferry Terminal angekommen.
No Madam, die Fähre für die Insel Vashon startet nicht von hier, sagte mir einer am ticket office. Nehmen sie einen Bus und fahren sie zu der Anliegerstelle bei West Seattle.
Betty erklärte mir: Die Insel liegt am Puget Sound und nicht in der Elliott Bay! Sie ist gegenüber dem Airport! Bei der Landung muss du sie gesehen haben!
Betty, bei der Landung mache ich die Augen zu und bete!

Es ist Zeit für das Mittagessen. Das Wetter ist herrlich und warm. Wer sagte mir, es würde hier immer regnen?
Sicher ein neidischer Kerl, der dich von Seattle abschrecken will. Die Stadt ist wirklich schön, du wirst es sehen. Bleibe an der Waterfront, wähle das beste Restaurant mit Blick auf die Elliott Bay und genieße es.
Danke, Betty! Ich nehme Platz auf der Terrasse.
Der Blick auf die Inseln ist herrlich: Sie liegen in der Sonne ruhig wie grüne flauschige Kissen auf dem blauen Wasser.
Betty spielt auch mit meinen Worten: Vashon Island ist ein großes Kissen, noch größer als Bainbridge, die du vor deinen Augen siehst, Letizia! Die Inseln sehen auch sehr ähnlich aus. Sie haben gepflegte Häuser und entzückende Gärten.

An der Waterfront stand einmal das Hotel von den Eltern von Monica Sone!
Ah, von Deiner Freundin, Kimi! Leider vergesse ich, Betty zu fragen: Wo genau? Ich bin zerstreut und denke an meine Bergtour zum Hotel! Warum gibt es keine Esel für Touristen? -Betty lacht: Du schaffst es bestimmt zum Hotel zurück zu laufen: „Letizia kann alles“.
Ja, Betty, ich bin „mein“ Esel! Ich konnte mich aber nicht daran erinnern, dass auch San Francisco so steil gebaut ist. Egal, ich sitze. Der Kellner kommt und bringt mir die Speisekarte: Ich falle fast vom Stuhl! Was, sie bieten hier Geoduck an! Ich muss es unbedingt essen! (Ich gestehe, ich hasse den Tierbrei- schon Betty`s Rezept mit der Zertrümmerung hat mir Ekel verursacht)
Ein Beweis, dass du mich liebst, sagte Betty begeistert zu mir! Geht nicht die Liebe durch den Magen? Ich bestellte Geoduck. Der Kellner schaute mich an: Er will mir Austern empfehlen. - Geoduck: No god for you! Hat er vielleicht meine tiefsten Gedanken gelesen? Schicksal! Dann kein Geoduck. No good for me. Weder Geoduck noch Schwindsucht in Seattle, flüsterte Betty mir ins Ohr!
Ach Betty, beste Freundin, du bist so nachsichtig mit mir! Ich bestelle Feldsalat mit Lachsstücken. Welche Lachse? die die im Wasser schwimmen, oder die durch Seattle rennen? Betty, ich glaube, du willst, dass ich deinen schwarzen Humor koste.
Dann guten Appetit, Letizia! Beim Mittagessen unterhielten wir uns über die Schwindsucht, und das war gerade nicht appetitanregend!
Hast du mein Buch „The Plague and I“ schon gelesen?
Ach, Betty, eigentlich habe ich das Buch zweimal angefangen, zu lesen und zweimal die Lektüre unterbrochen. Ich wurde immer so traurig!
Warum? fragte Betty: Turberkolose hatte fast jeder! Ich bin ziemlich bald gesund geworden und habe 20 Pfund zugenommen! Von Schwinden war keine Rede! Und wie findest du meine Witze im Buch?
Gerade das, antwortete ich, hätte mich veranlasst, ein anderes Sanatorium zu wählen. Ich hätte Angst gehabt, auch Opfer von Deinem Humor zu werden! Ich hätte sicherlich von Dir einen Spitzennamen bekommen! Du hast immer so komische Namen erfunden!
Betty lacht! Stimmt! Ich hätte dich „Römischenase genannt. Ich hätte den Leute „ Urbi et Orbi“ erzählt: „Heute früh ist in Fichtenheim Römischenase eingeliefert worden. Sie spricht ein gebrochenes Englisch, isst kein Geoduck, aber sie liebt Katzen“.
Ach, Betty, ich hätte mich auch geschämt, zu husten! Husten in deiner Anwesenheit? Wie peinlich! Du hättest erzählt, wie ich huste, wie viel huste!
Auf das „wie“ kommt es an, Letizia!
Bitte, lass Goethe Zitate weg! Geräusche zu unterscheiden, hast du sicher von den Indianern gelernt! Unglaublich, wie viele verschiedenen Hustensorten Du unterscheiden kannst! Mindestens 10!
Nur so wenig?
Und Deine Beschreibung der Patienten und Krankenschwestern war auch erbarmungslos: Eine künstlerische Rache! Nicht mal der kleinste Pickel auf der Haut ist deinem scharfen Blick entgangen! Sagenhaft.
Erbarmungslos war ich auch gegen mich selbst! Vergesse nicht meine Selbstironie!
Betty schweigt. Sie denkt an Kimi, die „Prinzessin“ aus Japan! Nein über Monica Sone, die beste Freundin, hat sie nur Gutes im Buch „The Plague and I“ geschrieben! Eine rührende Freundschaft, die im Sanatorium entstanden war: Die Perle, die aus der Krankheit gewachsen war.
Ist es nicht wunderbar, Betty, dass eine Muschel im Meer aus der Überwindung eines fremden Korns, das in sie eingedrungen ist, ein Juwel in ihrem Leib entwickelt?
Betty schaute mich an.
Betty, die Freundschaft zwischen Dir und Monica erinnert mich an Goethes Gedicht Ginkgo- Biloba. Du kennst es sicher! Betty nickte mir zu. Ich begann es zu rezitieren:

Dieses Baum`s Blatt,
der von Osten Meinem Garten anvertraut,
Giebt geheimen Sinn zu kosten,
Wie`s den wissenden erbaut.
Ist es Ein lebendig Wesen?
Das sich in sich selbst getrennt,
Sind es zwey?
Die sich erlesen,
daß man sie als eines kennt?

Die Freundschaft mit Monica ist wie das wunderbare Blatt des Gingo-Biloba, des Baumes aus dem Osten.
Betty war bewegt.
Es war ein tiefes Vertrauen zwischen uns. Sie zerreisst nie, gerade weil sie in der Not, in der Gefahr einer tödlichen Krankheit entstanden ist. Wir haben uns verstanden und ergänzt: Wir waren wie eine Lunge mit zwei Flügeln, eine von Westen und eine vom Osten!
Ein schönes Bild! Betty! Ihr wart wie zwei rote Gingo-Biloba Blätter!
Betty wurde traurig und sagte: Auch wenn Monica, die Japanerin, vor der Bekanntschaft mit mir dachte, sie sei auch eine Amerikanerin. Doch sie wurde in Amerika interniert, Letizia, während des Zweiten Welt Krieges mit Japan, ist es nicht furchtbar?
Betty, ich habe sie nicht persönlich kennen gelernt, ich habe nur eine Videoaufnahme mit ihr gesehen, aber welche Würde in ihrem Gesicht, welche vornehme Haltung in der Sprache und in den Bewegungen! Das Schicksal konnte Monica nicht verändern!
Ja, Betty, auch der Gingo-Biloba in Hiroshima hat nach der Atombombe als einziger Baum wieder geblüht!

Die Rechnung kam und ich bezahlte schnell. In Amerika wird man vom Tisch vertrieben, wenn das Essen verspeist ist. Wenn man weiter plaudern will, muss man wieder etwas bestellen.
Darum werden die großen Schwätzer am Tisch so fett! Sagte Betty!
Hast du nicht gesehen, wie viele unglaubliche riesige fleischige Mülltonnen in Amerika auf Strassen spazieren gehen und nie geleert werden!
Mit diesem typischen unsentimentalischen Satz endete Betty das Gespräch.
Ciao, Meisterin der Wechselbädergespräche, ich winkte ihr zu und wollte auch mich ein bisschen bewegen!

An der Waterfront war es noch so schön, zwei Schritte zu machen! Wenn ich nun wieder in Heidelberg daran denke, dass Bettys japanische Prinzessin am 5. September diese Welt verlassen hat und ich noch im August in Seattle mit Betty über sie sprach, werde ich auch sehr traurig.

Die Leser, die sie gut kannten (jeder Autor und Protagonist eines Buches ist uns näher als der flüchtige Nachbar im Haus), ja wir, die sie als unsterblich empfunden haben, können nicht glauben, dass sie auch mit 92 Jahren sterben würde. Wie unvermutet und überraschend kam ihr Tod nur 4 Tage nach ihrem Geburtstag am 5. September. Gerade am 5. September war ich auf dem Weg in die Türkei, wieder himmelsnah, rückschauend auf die unvergesslichen Tage in Seattle. Ich flog von Westen nach Osten, wo die Sonne aufgeht.