FRED KOLOUCH

Dan,

Here's some sketchy memories of being in Siem Reap (spelling throughout may be faulty).  The year was 1970 Maybe as late as 72 perhaps?  (in 1969-70 I spent 13 1/2 months traveling around the entire globe--I didn't go everywhere but I came pretty close. I'm pretty sure I flew from Singapore to Siem Reap, perhaps with a plane change in the Pnom Pen.  I got an inexpensive room in an almost empty high end hotel.In the morning I rented a bicycle which I had for the next 4 or 5 days.  Daily I covered a lot of ground and visited most of the noted temples.  The French who had ben doing restorations had recently returned to France, but they let it all pretty magnificent.. The paths were all easily navigable by bike. I often saw friendly children playing in the temples, and inevitably the central chamber of temples featured newly lit candles.,though apart from the children one saw no one. I only saw other tourists in the main most famous temple. There was way more than enough to occupy me for 4 or 5 full days.

A minor river flows down the main thoroughfare of Siem Reap and I was befriended by a Cambodian student and we had cokes together on several days of engaging conversations which I have surely completely forgotten. Montezuma's revenge didn't touch me until I was out of the country,in a hotel room in Bangkok.

It was decades before I discovered that Sihanouk was deposed shortly before or after I flew from Siem Reap to Thailand. I learned only later that I was probably still in Cambodia when we started the carpet bombing in the North.

Years later I was on a Dartmouth Travel trip to Viet Nam with '64-clasmates who had fought in that war. I was one of only three in the group who had not served.  I could not begin to depict the complexity of that trip for me, and I was very very glad to have done it, and still glad to have experienced Angkor and Siem Reap in what were probably its final days before the war inevitably widened.

Fred Kolouch '64, still traveling! 

 SHOOTING STAR

Was walking alone

Minding my P's and Q's

Not even thinking

About an offer I'd refuse

There was no moon,

But Venus was shining bright

Then I got hit

By a shooting star last night

It came from outer space

and exploded in my face

It knocked me off my feet

I felt a burning heat

I watched shadows disappear

And everything get bright,

When I got hit

By a shooting star last night

.

I just went out

For a walk around the block,

Now my life has turned around

By a big electric shock.

I didn't know

I was whistling in the dark;

I didn't know

The shift was still in park.

So I'm'cause I got hit

By a shooting star last night.

lyric by Fred Kolouch '64  giving in

without a fight

***

Use your imagination to complete the story

Here is the jumping- off paragraph:

The day after Joan flew to California for her annual month-long visit with the grandbabies, her treasured dog Honey disappeared.  John knew that she placed her dog on the same podium as her grandchildren. He had to find the dog. The next day he took Honey’s photo to Staples and taped 50 posters to neighborhood signs and telephone poles  offering a $100 reward for the dog’s return. By Day Six, he had raised the amount to $500. The call came mid-morning:

“My name is Kat. I have your dog. We need to talk.”

Any ending is permissible EXCEPT that you cannot have Kat bring the dog home, collect the reward, and leave.

When Joan left for California she moved a freshman from one of the Wigwams who had written a moving faux news page concerning the funeral of Marcus Aurelius, into her off-campus home. This coed, which she hated to be called, had been introduced to the dog successfully, so it all seemed almost pre-arranged. Little did Joan know what lay on the road ahead. Let's call the coed Danya.  It seems that every time she called she announced that Lucretia was doing splendidly and had hit it off with yet another highly pedegreed male boxer. Much further down the line Joan received a FEDEX to be at the airport on the coming Wednesday to receive the first child of Lucrezia and Brutus. The royal vet had announced the birth in the coliseum itself.  This is when she asked Joan whether the "royal offspring" should remain in Joan's now rather sad apartment, or stay in the royal palace.  That seems not really a choice since the Emperor's son has taken a liking to the new prince dog.  
Joan, by the way, has accepted a position in a junior college in Nevada.  The pay is almost negligable but she will cover the gap with a position as a waitress (they do very well there!) in the Roman Banquet Dining Hall. 

news article by Fred Kolouch,