Hey everybody still with me. Thanks to those who respond. I have received two messages about the Winston Churchill quote: “they also serve who only stand and wait.” Brenda Tirrell wrote right back and said that line comes from John Milton’s poem “On His Blindness”. Correct, obviously I did not know that. Brenda did some research and found a reference that Winston Churchill had also said this, probably he knew he was quoting Milton – I was thinking he said this to the British people on the home front during WWII. The other message, from Bill Yick, states.that this quote is from John Bunyon’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Churchill, with his classical education, would have known that too. This must be a much used line in English literature. Does anybody else out there want to offer another source? Does this validate that “there is no new thing under the sun”? Well, that line just came right out of my fingers. Ecclesiastes 1:9. Didn’t an American writer use this phrase?

I am hoping to keep the momentum going here – to record what I can about Henry for the family. The last several days, I’ve been thinking: Newspapers.

Last Sunday, while here in Orlando, I went out and bought the New York Times – for Henry. He loved this paper – “that liberal rag”, as Sal LaRocca says. When we visited Sal and Gerry in New Jersey some years ago, Sal would go out in the early morning before we were up, and buy Henry the New York Times. This was an act of love, as it was most distasteful for Sal to even have the thing in his house! Throughout the years, Henry kept up with this paper as best he could – we bought it every day while on vacation wherever we were. The kids were instructed to always buy the latest paper while in airports during their return trips to the Kingdom. Most drillers returning from the States always brought him the latest papers, especially the New York Times. After we moved to the States we subscribed, but he could not keep up. Those papers were stacked up in the corner of the kitchen, in chronological order, three feet high. We finally found a teacher at Anne’s high school glad to have them for his Knowledge Bowl kids to study. Eventually Henry started reading the Times online, and we bought it only when we traveled.

So, last Sunday, there I was, stuck with this foot thick New York Times. I determined to read it though, in honor of Henry. The aroma of a crisp newspaper fresh off the press seemed to generate Henry’s presence, and within two hours my hands were black with smudged newsprint ink – a mess.

At our first sighting in Vegas, Henry was reading a newspaper while he ate his pancakes at Uncle John’s. Wish I could remember which paper – could have been the Las Vegas Review Journal – but maybe not, he bought a New York paper at every opportunity – since the New York papers covered baseball extensively. Most probably it was the Los Angles Times, as that was a game day, he would have been reading about the Dodgers.

After we were married and settled down to having an address other than the Midland office, (because for awhile we lived in trailers and motels as he field mapped in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, and the Navajo Reservation) we lived in Roswell, and later Hobbs, New Mexico. During those years he subscribed to the Arkansas Gazette, a very fine paper he discovered during his college days.

In Tripoli we subscribed to the Paris Edition of the New York Herald Tribune. My education was founded on that paper, truly the best English language paper of it’s time. This was the era of the Cold War, a time in history I doubt our children can ever really appreciate. Somewhere I read that the Kremlin had a subscription of five or six copies. A staff of translators combed this paper for clues on what was going on in the West. The Art Buchwald column baffled them, as his wildly funny satire did not translate into much sense for them. I loved reading the classifieds – music teachers in Paris advertising, announcing their music “lineage” back to well-known musicians of a hundred years ago – student of so and so, student of so and so, student of – then gave their address. Several teachers traced their training back to the Polish teacher Theodor Leschetizky. I read this so often, that I finally bought his biography, so as to understand just who he was. I had friends who seriously stated that the CIA put clues in the classifieds, for their agents “in the field” in Communist countries. And, that the Kremlin did likewise. I tried to ferret out clues. I saw nothing! Sometimes an ad would be gibberish, and I always wondered – a message to a spy? Or just a misprint? Our subscription was mailed directly from Paris, and arrived somewhat regularly. Henry would come in from the rig expecting those papers to be in a stack, by date, and untouched! He read them in order, no matter how old the news and he did not like reading a crumpled paper. So, I was careful to fold it back, but he could always tell if a copy had been “violated”. One time we were missing an issue, so we bought it at a local bookstore. About two months later the paper arrived, postmarked Paris, but by the additional stamps and cancellation marks we could trace the travels to Rhodesia! Though some miracle of the post, it found it’s way across the African continent to us.

Subscribing worked just fine, until the 1969 revolution and a twenty-seven year old Gaddafi assumed command of Libya. There were some changes, one of which was heavy censoring. Now, the paper arrived later, crumpled, and censored, sometimes with magic marker and sometimes with scissors – on occasion great sections were cut out. Can we imagine how many jobs this created?

There were times when I bought the paper downtown at a little shop. When running errands, I would make the bookstore my last stop, just before noon, to give the censors time to finish. Often would need to sit on the curb and wait, sometimes almost an hour, before being able to buy the marked up and cut up paper.

Eventually the Paris Edition became the International Herald Tribune, and, sadly, lost its local flavor. Still, we were devoted readers. Every time we got on a plane, either coming or going across the Atlantic, most passengers were reading newspapers. There was a bond with those who chose the Tribune over other papers.

Henry was a devoted TIME magazine reader since college. TIME was always nearly three weeks late. We read what was left of it after the censors finished. Henry’s greatest delight was outsmarting the government – he vowed he would always find a way to read everything – sometimes by having Auntie mail a copy in a plain brown wrapper – at great expense, but no matter, it was worth it to him. He finally took to having TWO subscriptions of TIME, one to Tripoli, and one to Auntie’s place in Fort Smith. He would spend the first week of repat reading a year’s worth of magazines – an uncensored TIME, the National Geographic, The New Yorker, the Smithsonian. Also, Baseball Weekly, Sports Illustrated, and another baseball news magazine, what was it?

The Ghibli, “a weekly paper published temporarily on Sundays only” in Tripoli, was a delight. It was about the size of the Arabian Sun. The Ghibli was the most wonderful paper – why didn’t I save every copy? It had an editorial staff of several names, perhaps ten. Voluminous letters to the editor: all kinds of people wrote in about many subjects. Household hints supplied by one Mrs. Mavis Stoningham, “as I was remarking to my husband…”, or, “My wife, Mrs. Mavis Stoningham would like to share her ideas for reusing tea bags…” There were traffic accident reports, and other articles of local interest, but usually with a twist and a certain tongue in cheek flavor. We read this paper, and laughed, and wondered, why don’t we know at least some of these people? Henry did have months in the office from time to time, and eventually became acquainted with an eccentric Englishman, I’ve forgotten his name. He was redheaded, wore a heavy Harris tweed jacket every day of the year, and Clark desert boots. This man made the rounds of the offices and collected the news. We came to understand that he was the Ghibli’s staff of one. He wrote all the copy, every word, including the letters to the editor under so many names. He was owner, publisher, editor, and the staff of ten names. No wonder he could publish that “daily” newspaper only once a week – it was a huge project for one person. Eventually the Ghibli died – the Gaddafi government did not look upon it kindly, and a light went out. This was freedom of the press extinguished. That simple little idea of a paper was squashed by a revolutionary government. A few years later Henry ran across an article in a USA publication, perhaps the Atlantic – someone reminiscing about the Ghibli. This writer maintained his subscription when he moved back to New York City. This lament over the demise of this gem in the publishing world struck a tender chord.

The Aramco Sun was a good company paper, but of course never had the free wheeling spirit of the Ghibli. Reading the Aramco paper, Henry loved to point out the contrast: pictures of company officials presenting awards to employees, and pictures of people who won golf tournaments receiveing their trophies from company officials. In which of the two events do you think the participants were dressed to the nines, often in tuxes?

Tomorrow is Sunday, again. Shall I plunk down another five dollars for the New York Times? We shall see. I miss this guy so much….

Love to all….Bonnie and the Cook Family