Sept. 5, 2007 - Trip's beginning dominated by a travel experience I dub as "The Transit Through Hell."  Tauck having booked us to fly from Tampa to Chicago, thence to Heathrow, we set off and got to Chicago all right, but the takeoff to Heathrow was delayed and when we arrived we were incarcerated in tortuous and torturous lines which caused us to miss our connection.  These lines, coupled with the fatigue of 26 hours without sleep made it even more important that when we finally made it to Ferihegy Airport in Budapest the first person we encountered was Smiling Frank Crews.  Frank took us in tow and we got to the Intercontinental Hotel in Budapest, there to find early arrivals Ann and Jim Sidford.

Sept. 7, 2007 - First dinner with the class was truly enjoyable.  Maybe I was tired, but when I got in with those men I didn't notice.  There is a comfort in being with people who, even if you didn't know them in college, have still lived through the same time as you and have shared what you've experienced.  Incandescent conversation at our table was carried by Nancy and Herbert Kaufmann, Carol Ann and Dave Fulmer, Pat and Peter Horne, and Rogers Woolston, who hypnotized me with his account of acting as engineer, designer, and general contractor for his summer home on a Maine lake.

Sept. 8, 2007 - Breakfast at the Intercontinental Hotel was sumptuous.  Everything a man on a diet could want but not be allowed was there.  Can see right away that I won't be able to hold to the diet, in particular since it requires that I eat nothing after eight p.m. and my classmates, sophisticated as they are, are still completing the pre-dinner lubrication at that hour.

  Being sated of international travel by this time, in large part because of the many successful mini-reunions sponsored by our class, I now look at the sightseeing process as a charade laden with hyperbole and designed to give the credulous tourist stories to tell, never mind whether accurate, which will make listeners envious and motivate the women to put pressure to travel on men who have now seen it all and would rather stay home and watch the ballgame.  We saw today the Pest part of Budapest, flat and with more modern buildings than found in Buda.

  Another great dinner, great because I got the chance to sit next to Ann Sidford, who is intelligent and articulate and brings to a political discussion experience with Washington which I can not hope to match.  My ignorance, however, did not keep me from pontificating, as is my wont.  On the way back to the room, the hotel band was playing "All of Me" in lindy tempo.  I took Janet out there and we danced well, Janet in particular at age seventy-five forcing the men watching to put their hats in their laps.

Sept. 9, 2007 - Buda, older hence closer to the medieval, hillier hence curvier, more enjoyable than Pest.  Female guide who was decorative enough to remind the old men that they were carrying cameras.  Good lunch and conversation with Judy and Rich Thompson, both very sharp and with good senses of humor.  Learned that because the Danube was so high, we had to go by coach to Wien.  Our last trip here, with Vantage, we had to go to Wien by coach because the Danube was too low.

Sept. 10, 2007 - Was glad to get to Bratislava, capital of what used to be the -slovakia in Czechoslovakia.  Country has over five million inhabitants, four hundred thousand

of which live in Bratislava, a mixture of the old and new, the new being quite modern and including a pedestrian shopping mall.

  Great lunch with Betty Lou Frye, former music teacher at Whitesboro (NY) High in Utica, and husband Dick, 1955, now a barrister who except for a shoulder injury was arguably the best all-around athlete in our class.  (Today's title goes, of course, to Seward Norton Jacobi, still playing hardball at age seventy-three.)  At Whitesboro High, Dick was coached by his father in football, basketball, and baseball, and had he not had the shoulder injury he would have had the skills to play all three sports at Princeton.  Interesting sidelight in the conversation was that Betty Lou and Dick's children got five years of Russian at Whitesboro High.

Sept. 11, 2007 - My mother always said that comparisons are odious, so perhaps I shouldn't say that Budapest, renowned as a wonderful city, can not compare to Wien with its imposing buildings and gardens.  On our tour, we had some of the usual travel patter about the places we visited and also some important history (let's not forget that the Turks were stopped at the gates of Vienna; otherwise, Europe lay before them for the taking).

  Schloss Schoenbrunn was pretty boring, a tour of selected rooms in a castle which with its gold trim was obviously modeled after Versailles but couldn't pull it off.

We did, however, pass by the iron bed from which Emperor Franz Josef rose every morning at four to plunge into work which immersed him until time for bed at nine p.m.  Leader of one of history's great dynasties for forty-eight years, married to a beautiful teenager who as empress held herself away from him, father to Crown Prince Rudolph who killed himself.  Money and power does not automatically bring happiness.

  The private Imperial "Viennese evening at the Palais Palavincelli was sensational.  The room in which we ate, tastefully adorned with intricate, hand worked gold leaf, had once been a performance venue for both Beethoven and Mozart.  While we munched through various gourmet comestibles, we were entertained by a string trio, a young woman and young man who performed ballet figures, a soprano almost as pretty as Suzie Wright in her prime (inside joke for Joe Quarles) but with a much better voice.

Sept. 12, 2007 - Visited the Albertina Museum in Wien, choosing the Kaiser and Sissi (the Empress) apartments.  Quickly tiring of porcelain and silverware, I told Janet that I would go ahead, carelessly forgetting to arrange a meeting place.  The ritual which formed life under Franz Josef was stultifying.  The necessity to transport on trips the requisite silver and table ware, the long meal tables where the centerpieces were spread out down the middle of the table so as to make it impossible to converse with the person across from you, thus limiting a man to the lady on his left or right, the luxury and ease provided by the servants and by extension those whose taxes paid for their salaries and the luxuries they dispensed, all of this makes me uneasy, for no one needs to have all this, especially when "all this" means that many others have far less.  Orwell's "Animal Farm" is here relevant: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

  Having finished with the exhibits, time well spent , in particular with the Ecclesiastes' observation: "There is nothing new under the sun" underscoring the connection between Sissi and the latter-day Princess Diana, I went outside to wait for Janet but, since I hadn't arranged a meeting place, she didn't show up.  We connected eventually.

Sept. 13, 2007 - This has been my favorite day on the trip.  First, I chose a yellow Audiovox which meant that we drew a cute, (not young, but still with vivacity and attractive red hair) guide who gave us the usual about Duernstein's "rich, historical past" and left us on the main street of this very small and charming town, thanking us for our attention.  (She had no trouble getting mine.)  Might mention that the significance of the Audiovox was that whatever color you chose, you got the guide who matched up with the color.

  Customary on these trips are wine-tastings, supposed to entrance the tourists with the prospect of some exotic taste which will lead them to purchase a bottle or two.  We passed this up and instead started exploring, with the result that we ended up climbing toward the fortress in which Richard the Lionhearted had been held captive during the Third Crusade.  (Our guide, incidentally, had exploded one of the travel agency myths that Blondel, Richard's faithful servant, had discovered the whereabouts of his master by singing outside the dungeon the first stanza of one of Richard's favorite songs and hearing from within the second stanza of the song.

  On our previous visit to Duernstein, led by Vantage, this myth had been played up heavily.)  In the cool weather, we climbed ever upward, clambering over stones

and actual steps, of which there were many, believing all the time that we were almost at the top only to learn again and again that there was more and more to climb.

  All the way up, I was thinking that we would be the only '55ers to make the climb.  Could not have been more wrong.  First man I saw was Dick Dillon.  Then came Judy and Rich Thompson, then Wilhelm Shafer with his two artificial knees and two artificial hips.  There were others, names unfortunately forgotten, but I do remember Ann (despite her bad knees) and Jim Sidford climbing up as we were on the way down.  (Jim's take on his accomplishment was: "If Perkins can do it, we certainly can.")

  We reached the summit to be rewarded by a panorama des malerischen Wachautals and a chance to inspect the very dungeon in which Richard was held for a kingly ransom by an Austrian duke outraged by some slight he attributed to the unfortunate Richard.  (Seen one dungeon, you've seen 'em all.)  Lunch was with Kaye and Don Boothman, always a pleasure.  Told them about my cousin Dick Perkins' listing of the campus of the former Northfield School and about the $150,000 finder's fee he is offering to anyone who goes through me with a prospect who actually ends up buying.  Kaye is still active in real estate and seemed to know someone who might have some interest.

  Dinner with another delightful and stimulating group, these being Judy and Rich Thompson's friends from their Air Force experience Maureen and Jim Taylor, Roger and Caroline Moseley (Roger told us of how he had once used a hand drill made for wood to release blood from the skull of an emergency room patient.), and Tony and Ann Spaeth, who were married after knowing each other for six weeks.  Talk about a man who had mastered the art of sweeping women off their feet.

Sept. 14, 2007 - Two hour bus ride from Linz to Salzburg was uncomfortable and interminable, but the time in Salzburg was enjoyable.  Guide Amalie took us to the Mirabell Gardens, colorful and effectively laid out, and told us that every year enough money is spent on replacing the flowers as would be spent on purchasing a residence.  Amazing fact, and a budget which could make any of us a succcessful gardener.

  Luncheon in das Elefanten Hotel.  Elefanten were scarce, so we ate instead with Mike's wife Peggy Lee and Kauf, who was as usual authoritative and coruscating.  Dodie Mapes went with Janet and me to Mozart's Geburtshaus, which has some interesting information on how the Mozart family lived (as cheaply as possible), how Leopold der Vater tried to use his children as meal tickets (reminiscent of some of today's tennis parents), how they dressed (well enough to be acceptable to their audiences), how they cleansed themselves (water not much used, lots of rubbing of skin and application of perfume).  Dinner with Lucky and Lynne Callen.  Lucky was our sweetswinging lefthand hitting freshman third baseman who left Princeton and played in junior and senior year at Trinity, Lynne an enthusiastic tennis and paddle player.  Great time was had by all.

Sept. 15, 2007 - Breakfasted with Mike and Peggy Lee.  Afterward took only mildly interesting walk around Passau, after which we lunched with Nancy and Kauf, Dave and Carol Ann Fulmer.  In the evening, at the Captain's Reception, I cornered Frank F. Mountcastle, Jr. and with the permission of the staff pianist assumed the piano bench and belted out a rendition of "Sweet Lovin' Mama" with Janet and Mountie asisting on the vocal.

Sept. 16, 2007 - Disembarkation Day, so we left the M. S. Swiss Diamond and boarded our bus, the Mozart Bus.  Drove into Regensburg for our tour with a guide who said his name was "Herman the German."  His German-English was adequate to the occasion, but exhibited the tendency to pronounce the English "th" as "ss" or "z" as in:  "Vee are now going to zee casseedral."  After tour ended, a pleasant cup of hot chocolate al fresco with the Kaufmanns before a very enjoyable stroll under a cloudless blue sky across die steinerne Bruecke to the departure stop for the bus.  Dottie Howell, empathetic toward an obviously ravenous man on a diet, gave me before we started across the bridge a Kleinwurst mit Sauerkraut belegtes Brot, das sehr geschmeckt hat.  Auf der anderen Seite der Bruecke habe ich mir in deutscher

Uebersetzung den Roman "Partner" von John Grisham gekauft, dann auch noch einen kleinen Schmuck aus Glas fuer die Janet gekauft, ihr Sternzeichen - Pisces.

Bus ride was actually okay, made pleasant by the propinquity of Mounty.  What a great delight is he, low key, appreciative, warm, ready to laugh.   

  Drew Room 348 in The Marriott Prague Hotel, a great room with kingsize bed.  Seven p.m. dinner in The Bohemian Room. Ended up at a table with four physicians - Mike and Peggy Lee, Dick and Sue Dillon, Bob and Francis Amick, Roger and Caroline Mosely, an array of talent which had me wondering for the umpteenth time how I got into Princeton and, more amazingly, got out.

Sept. 17, 2007 - Pleasant breakfast at a table for four with Rich and Judy Thompson.  Rich explained to me his six-hour operation in which he had a stent inserted which essentially renders the abdominal aorta extraneous, all blood traveling through a PC tube held open by stents.  Our morning tour was guided by a most attractive blonde, slim and probably in her mid-forties.  On this tour, we betrod the market sqare, Wenceslas Square, and Franz Kafka Square, but the name of the squares were not nearly so important as the beauty of the buildings surrounding them.  What tasteful use of gold!  What elegant ornamentation of facades, truly a tour de force to be appreciated by architectural guru Scott McVay.  I may be overwhelmed by the nearness of the experience, but Prague seems to me at this writing to be more beautiful than New York, Venice, London, Paris, Athens, Budapest Rome, Istanbul, Florence and wherever else we've been.  Visited the Communist Museum and saw the film "The Velvet Revolution," which I found to be a typical documentary - unbalanced, but of course satisfying to its audience.

  Lunch with Wilhelm Shafer at a restaurant in the Opera House.  Good time.  Janet and Bill both graduated from Withrow High School and those two Cincinnatians love to play off me.  Bill thinks I'm a vulgarian and can't believe I was able to marry a grand lady like Janet and Janet loves to play the role of the great lady incredulous at the rawness of her husband.

  Great nap and slept so soundly that I considered staying in bed until morning.  Glad I reconsidered, for the visit to Nelahozeves Castle was something special.  Castle itself was the right size, with one hundred rooms not overbearing.  We were met in the courtyard by young men bearing on silver trays an array of libations - water, wine, champagne, orange juice - and, after a suitable period for lubrication, the usual clamor intrinsic to any Class of 1955 gathering was stilled by the announcement that the castle's owner, William Lobkowicz (member of the erstwhile Bohemian royal family and a descendant of the former king of Bohemia) was going to address us.  This man, who in the 1960's had emigrated to Boston and graduated from Harvard, spoke flawless American.  His recount of his family's  return in the early 1990's to the Prague area and their eventual recovery of family property confiscated by the Communists was dramatic and satisfying.  Though all titles were technically abolished way back in 1918,  I want nevertheless to refer to Mr. Lobkowicz as Prince William and applaud his well-delivered speech.

  Following was musical entertainment.  Can not praise enough Don Boothman for his creativity, articulate remarks, and singing, which was supported by the 1955 Trio of Bob Amick, Roger Moseley, and Wilhelm Shafer.  Missing unfortunately was the glorious tenor of my deceased former roommate Ray Fitzsimmons.  Dinner, served after a short tour of the castle, was of a par with other dinners on the tour, that is to say gourmet food served at a pace which to this writer, a habitué of buffets in the Tampa area, found torturously protracted.  We sat with Steve and Kaye McNamara, Reynolds and Janet Gordon, Rich and Jill Hespos.  Conversation, which had the potential to flare into partisan division, mercifully avoided for the most part American politics.