Maryland Trip and Role Playing Games by Ruth Paget

Maryland Trip and Role Playing Games by Ruth Paget 

One year after Thanksgiving, my husband Laurent and I set out for Fort Meade outside Baltimore, Maryland for one of his business trips. 

I knew from American history class in high school that Baltimore, Maryland was important for the defense of Washington, D.C. Baltimore sits opposite Washington, D.C. over the Potomac River. If ships sail up the Potomac to attack D.C., cannons from the highlands of Baltimore could fire on invaders below. 

Maryland is still a key player in the nation’s defense. The U.S. Naval Academy is in Annapolis. The National Security Agency is also located in Maryland, but is hard to find. 

I had no plans to visit Washington, D.C., since I was a Close-Up program participant in high school and had studied government in a weekly club with a year-end trip to Washington, D.C. for a series of workshops and presentations devoted to governing the United States. 

I still felt like a Close-Up participant despite being almost sixty. I had also worked for several years as a youth services librarian and felt as if I had reverted to eighteen years of age. Specifically, I wanted to see if I could come up with any ideas of how to get more money into the economy and banks with a role playing game. 

I thought of ways to reduce the nation’s debt on the 5-hour trip to Baltimore from Los Angeles. The game and some of the solutions I thought of for the nation’s debt crisis follow: 

Game: Reducing Nation’s Debt Background: For each $1 deposited in the bank, the bank only has .05 cents in the vaults to cover it due to bad loans. 

Watch the film It’s a Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart to know why this is a very bad situation. 

Adults are deeply in debt with credit card companies stopping to raise credit limits despite credit scores. 

Young people have money, but not too much. 

Role: You are the Treasury Secretary whom the President has asked to get money into the economy and banks quickly before year-end. 

Mission: Get money into the economy to make federal payroll every two weeks. 

Possible Problem Solutions: 

1 – Lower the percentage of money taken on coin counting machines to 5%, so coins in jars go back into the economy. 

People accumulate coins in regions where tourism is a major industry. Getting outstanding coins into the economy avoids expenses related to minting new ones, especially expenses for mining ore. 

2 – Set up Recycling Centers for Plastic, Aluminum, and glass 

Make recycling a win-win situation with people who bring in these items being paid to do so in the form of refunded deposits. Money can be used for junior college tuition, bus fare, or car maintenance funds. 

3 - Set up Christmas Savings Clubs at Banks 

When I was growing up in Detroit, banks advertised these clubs and said you could deposit $50 a month to have $600 at Christmas for gifts or meals. 

4 – Set up Layette Savings Funds to buy baby furniture and clothing for newborns 

$2,000 can buy the basics. This fund can be used for emergency car repairs, too. 

5 – Set up Car Maintenance Funds 

$2,000 to $3,000 in the bank will make it easy to do transmission fluid changes and buy new tires. 

6 – Set up an Emergency Rent or Mortgage Fund for two years 

Multiply your monthly rent or mortgage by 24 months to set the amount you need to save to have a basic safety net. 

7 – Set up a Trousseau Fund This is a fund for a layette plus wedding dress and/or tuxedo. 

The amount will vary depending on what kind of dress or tuxedo you would like. 

8 – Set up a Vacation Savings Fund 

Find out what hotels, rental cars, and meals will cost you in advance of your vacation and save for the basic amount. 

Divide that amount by 12 and make monthly deposits towards it. It is easier to buy souvenirs when you know the major expenses are covered. 

9 – Buy relatively inexpensive print items for Christmas 

These items include: 

-paper cocktail napkins and regular napkins made from recycled paper with festive patterns

-art posters 

-note cards

 -stationery 

-greeting cards 

-lithographs 

-cocktail napkins

-holiday napkins

-doilies

-wrapping paper 

-art books of varying price levels 

-origami paper

-origami guidebooks

10 – Set up a dream car down payment fund 

11 – Sell Kitchen Items 

-cookware 

-placemats 

-napkins 

-tablecloths for kitchen and patio 

-holiday decoration items 

-cookbooks 

Check bookbub.com for cookbook deals on e-readers.  Many deals between .99 and 2.99.

12 – Sell Comic Books and Graphic Novels 

13 – Sell Paper Products for the Home 

-toilet paper 

-tissues 

-paper towels 

14 - Promote Junior College Enrollment

15 -Buy clothes

You can usually enroll immediately into a junior college without waiting a year as you do for a university.  Junior colleges might also want to think about offering online courses to expand the number of students who can enroll at a college locally and outside the state at non-resident fees.

I was trying to think of items to sell that were already in stock, so sales tax could be immediately collected. A perfect game I thought would have 20 items listed to get money in the economy fast, but the plane landed. I would get back to the game another day. 

Laurent and I were headed out to a hotel near Ellicott City, Maryland. We went to Costco and got deli salads, cocktail shrimp, muffins, and cookies. 

Costco was near a shopping center with a Pizza Due (managed by a UChicago graduate I found out), Carrabba’s (my favorite place for seafood pasta), and a Barnes and Noble bookstore. 

We headed out to Pizza Due for dinner. We met the manager and ordered iceberg lettuce quarters with blue cheese – honey – and walnut dressing followed by an Italian sausage and cheese, deep-dish pizza. I loved this combination as a student at the University of Chicago as I endured icy winters and memorizing art history slides. We planned our weekend outings to travel and see friends over dinner. 

Over the five weeks we were there, we also accumulated the following gifts for our daughter Florence Paget, who was working at an investment bank at the time: 

-a Liberty Bell replica from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 

-a Harry Potter Tic-Tac-Toe Game 

-Three books by Charles Whelan that we bought at Barnes and Noble: Naked Statistics, Naked Economics, and Naked Money 

I worked on creating war games that future presidents or military officers could use. I wanted to make games that you could work on individually or play around a card table or dining room table. The games I worked on include: 

-Novgorod - about the battle on frozen Lake Peipus in Russia 

-Tagalog - about restoring friendly diplomatic relations with the Philippines 

-Hangul - about the problems involved in unifying the Korean Peninsula 

-Bento - about the possible role of Japanese lunch in winning a war against Russia 

When we flew home to Monterey, I felt I had done a good job playing defense in my own little way, too. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks (Japan) and Teen in China

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Click for Laurent Paget's Book

Ruth Paget Photo

Alabama Trip by Ruth Paget

Alabama Trip by Ruth Paget 

On a trip to Maxwell Air Force Base outside Montgomery, Alabama’s capital, my husband Laurent and I retraced some of the literal steps taken to launch the Civil Rights Movement in 1965. We bought groceries and, then, set out for Selma with the destination of Montgomery. 

The Selma to Montgomery March of 1965 had as its objective an end to voter discrimination. The March achieved its objective with the passage of the Voting Rights Act. However, all along the 54-mile long highway from Selma to Montgomery there were “Beware of Dog” signs. Marchers in 1965 had to deal with police dogs, so these signs are disturbing. 

Perhaps the signs indicated that racism was still alive and well, because the economy was still not providing living wages to many people who were competing for jobs. The Maxwell Air Force assignment was a short one with a trip to visit my family in Atlanta, Georgia in between. 

I was proofing my book Marrying France and was planning to edit and proof Virginia Mom, because I wanted to record where descendants of James River Plantation slaves outside Williamsburg could find slave ledgers. 

The day before leaving we drove into Montgomery to go to the Aviatior Bar and visit the Alabama Riverfront. Laurent said you had to go through the old slave market to get to the park. 

I said I did not want to go and sat in the car. I did not want anyone to walk through the slave markets, especially children. But, they were an intact historical record of what a slave market looked like, so maybe historians could deal with this issue. 

A saxophone player appeared and started playing. I think musicians in the South look for “white-guilt people” and start busking for money. Laurent came back and gave him some. 

As we were entering the Aviator Bar, I noticed a building with a huge pink bordello bathtub on its roof.

“I guess that’s an advertisement for where the nearest brothel to the capital is,” I told Laurent. Sexism was alive in Montgomery, too. I ordered Shrimp Creole and counted my shrimp when the waiter brought my dish to me. 

I signaled the waiter and said, “I hate to count, but I only got 11 shrimp not 12 in the Shrimp Creole I ordered.” 

The waiter counted and said he would be right back. The twelfth shrimp was a monster gambas shrimp presented on folded over white linen napkin. 

The Shrimp Creole was delicious, and I liked the multiracial wait staff and patrons of the bar. I wondered if Coleman Young, the one-time mayor of my hometown of Detroit, Michigan ate at the Aviator Bar when he was studying to be a pilot at Tuskegee, east of Montgomery. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks (Japan) and Teen in China

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Click for Laurent Paget's Book

Ruth Paget Photo

Pennsylvania Vacations by Ruth Paget

Pennsylvania Vacations by Ruth Paget 

When my husband Laurent joined the United States Navy, his first duty station was Norfolk, Virginia. The Navy packed our household goods and sent them off as we packed clothes and books. We strapped Florence in the back seat and set off for Virginia, the Old Dominion State, with Florence singing to pop music on the radio. 

Getting to Virginia from Wisconsin required a lot of cross-country driving. Laurent and I took turns at the wheel. I drove in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio while Laurent drove through Chicago, part of Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The drive into Breezewood, Pennsylvania in the dark and up and down mountains resembled a roller coaster ride. 

The landscape around the freeway had begun to get mountainous east of Cleveland. The grass was so green it reminded me of Ireland. The homes in Pennsylvania have very high roofs with chimneys on either end of the roof. The homes are symmetrical and are nicely landscaped.

We woke up to fresh morning air in the mountains. We read in our hotel literature that the Gettysburg Battlefield was just sixty miles away from Breezewood. 

We set out for the famous battlefield on U.S. Highway 30 for a jaunt through the mountains on a country road. The first thing we noticed were the runaway truck ramps on the downside of mountain grades. Those ramps made us very careful about the speed and control of our car. Along the way, we admired how people in Pennsylvania tended to their spring gardens with tulips and daffodils popping up everywhere. Gardening is very much an East Coast and European pastime. 

When we arrived at Gettysburg, we did the auto tour. Most of the commemorative plaques that we read around the Battlefield were conciliatory towards the South, saying that the Southern soldiers were courageous. There is a huge monument with General Robert E. Lee on top of it for Virginian soldiers. In typical European fashion, Laurent knew all about the importance of Gettysburg and said it broke the morale of the South. Pickett’s Charge and Cupp’s Hill were especially important engagements. 

I did not think I would see Pennsylvania again, but thirty years later, Laurent and I were driving to Philadelphia as a weekend trip from a work trip in Maryland.  Our mission in Philadelphia was to buy our daughter Florence a Liberty Bell replica souvenir as a gift. 

We found parking near Independence Hall. I stayed in the car to avoid possible tickets or towing. I looked around at the brick houses and thought of Laurie Halse Anderson’s book Fever 1793 about a plague in Philadelphia that year. (This is a young adult book that I read as a youth services librarian prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.) I thought about that book a lot in Germany when the whole base was dealing with how to identify the cause and cure of Ebola. 

As I sat in the car, I tried to pick out the house that was best protected against plague. The one I liked had a basement opening onto the street for coal, a door which was three steps off the ground, and had a gated area for garbage that could be shoveled out or washed down depending on the season. I would also make sure to have a house with a foyer where people could exchange outside shoes for slippers to keep down tracking in germs from outside. 

Laurent came back with the Liberty Bell souvenir and said we would have to go back through Delaware, so we could tour downtown. 

We both yelled, “Cool!” when we saw the steps of the art museum where Oscar winner Sylvester Stallone ran as his Rocky Balboa boxer character.  Laurent, the film buff, was happy.

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks (Japan) and Teen in China

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Click for Laurent Paget's Book

Ruth Paget Photo

Florida Vacations by Ruth Paget

Florida Vacations by Ruth Paget 

When I was pregnant with my daughter Florence in Paris (France), I went to a cocktail party for the new American Consul General and sipped orange juice, which was available at an American cocktail party. While I was chatting, there was a tombola (US East Coast-speak for a raffle) for a pair of airplane tickets to Florida. The Consul General called my name, and I was the giddy recipient of the tickets. 

I was thrilled at the idea of leaving cold, rainy Paris in December for warm Miami. My husband Laurent could not believe I won the tickets when I returned home. We decided to spend New Year’s in the U.S. and asked our bosses for vacation time. Our bosses duly noted that prize winnings have to be reported on taxes and gave us leave. 

Terrorism briefly crossed my mind as the U.S. was to aid Kuwait in its fight against Iraq and was building an international alliance to do just that. Sunshine and orange juice, though, chased any negative thoughts from my mine. I could hardly wait to go.

The trip from Paris seemed endless. Once we had taken off, the captain announced that one of the engine’s generators was not working. The plane, therefore, had to be rerouted in order to be sixty minutes away from an airport at any one time. The new route took us over Northern Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, and Canada’s Arctic North. The clear skies over Greenland made it possible to see icebergs.

I spent two hours glued to my window while looking at the white scene below with pointy islands of ice floating in the water. I remembered a book I had read in high school called Kabloona by Gontran de Poncins, who had lived with the Inuit of Northern Canada. He wrote about how he began to distinguish different kinds of snow and the color white just as the Inuit did among his many observations of life in Arctic Canada.

I had plenty of time to think, because we arrived late in Atlanta. We missed our connecting flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We arrived at our hotel by 9 pm after sleeping from Atlanta to Miami in first class on the plane. We were starved the next day and ate one of the hugest breakfasts I had ever eaten – two eggs, two sausage links, two pieces of bacon, a buttermilk biscuit with gravy for me, and home fries. Next, I ate three buttermilk pancakes and drank half a carafe of orange juice.

We waddled out of the restaurant and drove up along the coast to Palm Beach in our rental car. As we passed George Bush Boulevard and mansions with palm trees in the front yard, I thought the American Dream had worked well for these homeowners. The warm sun felt great. We drove with the windows down and let the warm, sultry breeze flow through the car.

We returned to the hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping off jetlag. We ate dinner at Bennigan’s and talked about eating brunch at Bennigan’s in Chicago when we lived there and watching football as we ate.

The next day, we went to Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. I was not expecting much out of the trip except long lines. I was pleasantly surprised. We went to Tom Sawyer’s Island, rode on the Thunder Mountain Roller Coaster, and all sorts of other non-jarring rides for the pregnant lady, including the world famous spinning teacups in Fantasyland. My favorite ride was through the Haunted Mansion. Disney made interesting use of holography in this ride, but I will not reveal the surprise on this blog. 

To celebrate 1991, we ate another huge breakfast and came back to the room to watch the Cotton Bowl (Texas versus Miami – winner) and the Orange Bowl (Colorado – winner versus Notre Dame). We slept some more and went to see the movie Havana. It felt so good to feel the night breeze as we left the film.

Finally, we had a non-holiday to visit Miami. We visited the Vizcaya Estate built by industrialist James Deering in the nineteenth century. Vizcaya looks much older than the nineteenth century period it was built in, though. Deering had the mansion built around a gate and a room he had purchased in Europe. The mansion’s location on the oceanfront is what makes the place spectacular. The ship-shaped breakfront on the oceans adds to the charm. The lush, waterfront gardens invited touring. 

You could no longer take a gondola ride through them and there was trash in the canals. We went to the Seaquarium after that. I bought a book of games to play with children in the car in the gift shop. 

I wanted to try Cuban food, so we ate at Don Pepe near our hotel on Commercial Road. I like the beans, rice, and fried plantains. I forgot what my main dish was, but I could make a meal out of fried plantains.

The next day at Epcot Center, we ate at the restaurant and sat right next to the aquarium window. We ate and watched swordfish, turtles, stingrays, and schools of fish go by. The country pavilions at Epcot were most interesting for shopping, but I did like the Chinese one for a film about the Guiling Mountains and the gondola ride through the Mexican one that summed up Mexican history. 

After Epcot day, we went back to Miami for a trolley car tour that lasted 90 minutes. The tour took us back to Vizcaya and the Seaquarium to start and, then, went through Coconut Grove and Coral Gables. We learned that in Coral Gables you have only sixteen minutes to keep your garage door open and that they have neighborhood controls to maintain community standards. 

We drove by the outdoor domino park in Little Havana and learned that the players never lose concentration even for a honking trolley.

The day before we left, we went to Miami Beach. Laurent swam and I read. When Laurent got out of the water, we went to a bar and played pool before going back to Don Pepe’s for dinner. 

Years later, I was able to see the devastation that hurricanes can wreak on beautiful Florida as Laurent and I went through Panama City on Florida’s panhandle after Hurricane Michael had come through and sheared off the tops of the palm trees. Destin, a richer community just a few miles down the road, had escaped the hurricane unscathed. 

I am not sure if I will travel to Florida again, but I am thankful for the tombola tickets for a youthful adventure. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks (Japan) and Marrying France

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Click for Laurent Paget's Book

Ruth Paget Photo

Eating Baja Fish and Shrimp Tacos from Mexico by Ruth Paget

Eating Baja Fish and Shrimp Tacos from Baja, Mexico by Ruth Paget

 

I ate Baja Fish tacos when I was a youngster in Tijuana, Mexico with my mom and cousin Carol while my mother was on a convention with the International Typographical Union in San Diego, California. 

We were eating in a Mexican restaurant wincing on super sweet Coca-Cola made with pure cane sugar.

My tired, feminist mom kept repeating, “No, Ruth. We are not going to see bullfighting here.” 

There were posters of toreodors in gold costumes on the walls that made me keep pestering my mom.

I was going to find out that misbehaving kids have to get back on the bus for San Diego and not visit Tijuana at all. After eating, we took the next bus back to San Diego. 

My mother did not want to rent a car and drive in Mexico, so we took the locals’ mode of transportation. People were getting on the bus with crowing roosters. I thought that was cool and pointed my finger at the birds. 

My mother was not impressed and said, “Mind your own business.” 

That bus ride is the last I have seen of Mexico. I have discovered in California where I live now that wealthy people go the Baja in the 21st century for beaches, medical tourism (plastic surgery and/or abortions), and street food especially fish tacos. 

In Marina (California), my family goes out for fish and shrimp tacos at Las Cazuelas Restaurant on Del Monte Avenue. They have always done take-out, so I think they are coping with Covid-19 measures pretty well, especially with delivery being offered by several companies in our area. 

What makes Baja fish and shrimp tacos so special? The tang they get from being made with pickled cabbage and onions along with Serrano chile cream. 

There is a good recipe for Baja fish tacos in The Best Mexican Recipes by America’s Test Kitchen. For the creamy Serrano chile mayonnaise, check out Californian Marge Poore’s 1000 Mexican Recipes. 

For the ingredients, residents of Monterey County California might want to try looking for them at the Santa Fe Supermarkets in Seaside and Salinas. Santa Fe is a Mexican chain with subsidiaries in the United States. Both supermarkets in Seaside and Salinas have large parking lots. 

No matter how you obtain Baja fish or shrimp tacos, enjoy eating them. 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks (Japan) and Teen in China

Click for Ruth Paget's Books

Click for Laurent Paget's Book

Ruth Paget Photo