As part of the business of our moving into a “Retirement Condo Community” (It is mid-April 2012 as I write this) we have been taking inventory of the tangible “driftwood” that has piled up on the shores of our  lives over the years and disposing of  things that were once useful or significant but are now trivial or useless.  While going through a dusty cardboard box labeled “Memorabilia,” brushing aside a few mummified brown spiders and hoping I didn’t encounter a live one, I came across a letter written on now-yellowed paper dated March 6, 1967.

In the spring of 1967 my wife and I had been married a little over ten years and had given the world four bright and healthy children.  When I began teaching in the fall of 1957 I had set a career goal:  “Within 10 years I will be the band director of a high school with at least a thousand students and have a band of 100 or more kids.”  I reached that goal in the fall of 1966 when I began my duties as band director of the Haysville Campus High School in suburban Wichita KS.  I was 34 years old.  My personality being what it was and as it had been affected by a growing alcoholism; I found myself feeling the sentiments singer Peggy Lee expressed so passionately in her song, “Is That All There Is?” (If you’ve never heard that song you owe it to yourself to “Google” those words and read them.)  Their essence is repeated several times in a refrain with these words:

Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is

In this state of mind, while reading the Sunday paper one day I came across a classified ad telling me that Trans-World Airlines (TWA) wanted to hire a band director for the “American School” in Saudi Arabia.  Hmm, Saudi Arabia. . . mysterious ladies in veils, swarthy men wearing flowing robes, the sounds of an Arabian market, the smell and taste of strong coffee in dark café’s. . .     Yes, I had read “Arabian Nights” and enjoyed playing and listening to the music of Rimsky Korsakov’s exotically enticing “Scheherazade.”  I had been seduced.

It took all of 30 seconds after reading that ad for my romanticism to kick into turbocharged overdrive. Saudi Arabia!  Escape from the humdrum!  Life can once again be an adventure.  I knew what I had to do. 

The following morning during my “planning period,” I pulled out my resume, cranked nice clean paper into my IBM Selectric and prepared an application for TWA that glowed.  My wife, ever the epitome of the biblical “Ruth,” didn’t express any objection.  Actually in this case I believe she was somewhat excited at the prospects.  Within 48 hours after reading that classified ad my application was on the way to a “Mr. Fergus,” who had been identified as the Personnel Director I should contact at TWA headquarters in Kansas City.

My skill in application-making paid off.  Within a few days there came a letter from TWA Headquarters.  Mr. Fergus allowed as how he was impressed by my qualifications and wanted both my wife and I to come to his office for an interview.  Enclosed in the envelope were two round trip tickets from Wichita to Kansas City.  Alakazam!  Not a flying carpet but one of those new-fangled “jet” airplanes, a Boeing 727, would whisk us to our appointment with destiny. 

“Flying,” in 1967, was still an upper-class way to travel.  Jimmy Carter’s “deregulation” had not yet created the “Third World” kind of  torment we endure today in those aluminum tubes.  I had flown in DC-3’s that were equipped with military seating (web “lawn chair” affairs) while in the Army, but neither my wife nor I had ever had ever enjoyed the lushness that was air travel of that day.  (Gentlemen wore suits.  Most ladies wore hats and gloves, seats were ample and soft and passengers were “spoiled’ by “Playboy-Bunny” class unmarried young females who were called “Stewardesses.”)  All of that luxury did nothing to dispel the fear my wife felt as she strapped her attractive derriere into one of the seats.  As the pilot applied takeoff power to those wonderful jet engines we were pushed back into our seats.  For the next several minutes Anne clutched my hand so powerfully that my fingers were “falling asleep.”  The flight took little more than a half an hour.  We took off, we climbed, we soared at some altitude just long enough for our gorgeous stewardesses to ply us with drinks and then it was time to descend into the old downtown Kansas City airport.

We were met at the terminal by a TWA limousine which whisked us across the airport to that airline’s headquarters building.  Inside the building we were led to the Personnel Director’s office where “Mr.Fergus” greeted us warmly.  After a few warm-up pleasantries he had someone take Anne somewhere while he interviewed me.  I remember nothing of that interview but I obviously impressed him, for after I spent an hour or so with him he asked someone to “Bring Mrs. Carriker” in so that he could talk with both of us.  When Anne arrived he told her that he was rather impressed with “her husband” but that it was important that the wives of candidates know what they were getting into. 

He went on to tell us about life for Americans in Saudi Arabia.  We learned that when we were walking in public my wife would be expected to walk three paces behind –not alongside- me.  Coca Cola was a forbidden beverage in Saudi Arabia because that company was controlled by Jews.  Alcohol was absolutely forbidden and in no case would my wife EVER be allowed to drive a car!  That was Saudi Arabia in1967.  Then he began asking Anne some questions. .  One of the more interesting questions he asked her was: “What would you do if you suddenly had a million dollars?”  She responded brilliantly.  I could almost smell the Arabian marketplace and taste that strong Arabian coffee as we sat in Mr. Fergus’ office.

Until . . . .  He asked Anne, “And what do YOU teach?”   I knew what her answer would be and I knew what it would mean:  My fantasy came crashing down and lay in shambles at my feet.  Ali Baba disappeared.  Exotic dancers faded into oblivion.  There would be no camel rides, no afternoons in dark coffee houses.  No pungent smelling marketplaces.  Mr. Fergus looked as crestfallen as I did.  After a few moments of silence he explained that TWA could not hire husband/wife “teams” unless both of them taught in the American school.  There was simply nothing for a "housewife wife" to do when kids were in school and hubby was working.   He had assumed that we both taught and apologized profusely for having not checked that before inviting us for an interview.  As a “consolation prize” he treated us to a nice dinner before it was time for us to board our flight home. 

Our short parabolic flight home was made mostly in silence with both of us digesting what had happened and how we felt about it.  We were both disappointed but Anne, of course, had to deal with her unnecessary feelings of guilt for having been the stumbling block which ended one of her husband’s fantasy adventures.  As for me, I was trying to be gallant and accepting but I must admit that my narcissistic nature made that difficult for me.

The “real” consolation prize came a few weeks later.   Our interview had been in April or May, 1967.  On June 5^th, 1967 all hell broke loose in the Middle East as Israel launched a proactive war against her Arab neighbors in which conflict she humiliated some awesome Arabic forces aligned against her.  It came to be called “The Six Day War.” 

I never heard, nor have I learned since what happened to the Saudi Arabian “American” school as a consequence of that conflict.  I don’t know that I want to know.  In my mind my not being chosen as its band director was another instance of “Ralph,” my personal guardian angel, looking out for me.