PHASE 1: (40's & 50's) Let's start with my childhood travels to Philadelphia.  Every summer Great Aunt Hazel and Uncle Bill Stoddart would take me to Philly to visit Fred and Mary Graff.  I always threw up on the way down.  What a heck of a drive before the PA Turnpike was completed.  Mary was Bill's sister.  Don't know if Fred was related to the Frederick Graff that designed the Fairmount Water Works.  Aunt Hazel took me to the City Aquarium (1911-1962) at the Water Works; and would let me swim in the fountain at the nearby Philadelphia Museum of Art.  She would let me do anything I wanted, and buy anything I wanted.  Great Aunt Hazel.  They were Catholics, and took me to SFX church, near the Graff's house on Olive Street, near the Art Museum, and behind 2601.  Their row home looked through a very high wrought iron fence onto the rear of the adjacent Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company building, originally the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company.  They would also take me to the Franklin Institute, and its Fels Planetarium.  After Aunt Hazel and Uncle Bill died, Mom & Dad took me to visit the Graffs in the summers.  I remember one when the Graffs took us to Stone Harbor for a week, and to Scheib Park (later known as Connie Mack Stadium) to see the Philadelphia Athletics (the A's) play.

 

PHASE 2: (60's) My next phase of travel was when I was in the Navy, where I spent about 18 months experiencing quite a few nice countries and cities while assigned to ComCarDiv 4.  My military unit was small, only 18 people who were all pretty good friends, and we traveled around the country surrounding the ports of call, sightseeing when we put into port.  Most of my sea time was in the Atlantic Ocean, but some in the Pacific.

 

In the CARIBBEAN Sea we visited the Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba several times; Port-of-Spain, Trinidad; Port-au-Prince, Haiti where I heard a steel band play in a hanger type building at the Francois Duvalier Airport; the Roosevelt Roads Naval Base in Ceiba, Puerto Rico; and the Dominican Republic.  I spend a good bit of time in the Caribbean, on five ships, USS Shangri-La, USS Roosevelt, USS Forrestal, USS Kitty Hawk, and USS Kenneth D. Bailey.

 

In SOUTH AMERICA we visited Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where we saw Christ The Redeemer on Corcovado, and we saw Sugarloaf (no, I did not ride the cable car, thank you).  We also were in Valparaiso, Chile; and Lima, Peru, where I played a gig at the Lima International Trade Fair.  This three month tour on the USS Kitty Hawk included crossing the Equator ceremonies, and we sailed around Cape Horn.

 

In the MIDDLE EAST OF ASIA we visited Beirut, Lebanon, while aboard the USS Forrestal on a 9 month Med Cruise.  Here I saw the American University, and played a gig on a hotel rooftop bar/club, but can't remember which one.  Very different, the street vendors bargaining, no price on anything, have to negotiate everything... old houses with no windows or doors in stark contrast to a few modern city high rises, goats in the streets, etc...

 

In EUROPE we visited Gibraltar, Portugal; Barcelona, Spain; spent a good bit of time in France seeing Cannes, our port of call, where Bob Hores introduced me to Pablo Picasso on the beach, far out; Golf Juan, Cote d'Azur; Antibes where I played a gig once; Nice where I had lunch at Harry's; Grasse where I visited a French family that befriended me, and I bought some Joy by Jean Pateau, the most expensive in the world at that time; all very beautiful, and would love to go back;  Athens, Greece, where I saw the Acropolis and Parthanon and ate roasted chestnuts from a street vendor; Genoa, Italy where I had the best Spagetti and wine; Naples and Livorno, Italy; and Palermo, Sicily, where the catacombs were the big draw, and we saw Mt. Etna.

 

In the MEDITERRANEAN SEA we visited Rhodes; and Crete; and others, which I don't remember.  I was on watch at the ComCarDiv Four Surface Plotting Station on the Flag Bridge (Admiral's Bridge) on the USS Forrestal when we sailed through the Straits of Gibralter, and I saw the Rock of Gibralter in the British Colony on the Iberian Peninsula.

 

In NORTH AMERICA we visited Acapulco, Mexico; San Diego, California; San Francisco and Alemeda California; Lincoln, Nebraska; New York, New York; Washington, DC; (Andrews, gigs); Norfolk, Virginia; (gigs); Mayport and Jacksonville, Florida.

 

In the 60's I was getting to really like jazz, after hearing Horace Silver at Abart's in DC, and I went to the Village Gate, Top of the Gate, the old Five Spot, Village Vanguard and Birdland before it moved uptown, to hear the JAZZ MASTERS . . . of course in DC I also hit The Bayou, The Hayloft, Rocket Room, The Speakeasy, and I may have accidently wandered into the Mardi Gras.  A lot of these places are no longer there.