A moral tale

In 1963, in my first summer vacation as a student at Oxford, I hitch-hiked with two friends through Europe - Cologne, Munich, Salzburg, Ljubljana, Thessalonika, Athens - got a boat from Piraeus to Haifa, and spent a few weeks in Israel. Much of that time we were at my sister Sue's, who was living in the village of Avichayl, near Natanya; but we also travelled about some, and worked in the banana plantation - getting up at 4.00 or so in the morning to do so - at Tel Katzir, a kibbutz right at the foot of the Golan Heights. The sea journey from Piraeus to Haifa was, if my memory is right, three days and two nights, and Martin, Jim and I travelled deck class. The deal was you brought your own food (and you had no access to any other) and slept on deck. At the age of 19 that was no problem. Except...

Except that none of the three of us brought enough food. I don't remember: some sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs maybe, fruit. But in any case we were starting to feel hungry some time into the second day. And then really hungry. We tried what we could scrounging, and we resolved not to make the same mistake again on the way back. That's what we did - resolved.

And me personally, I resolved something else. I would watch what Martin did in the way of supplying himself with provisions for the return journey, and follow his lead. Why? Because Martin is the kind of guy on whom everything always looks right. He's well-organized, punctual, his arrangements work well, his clothes always fit just so; when he, Jim and I went to the army surplus place to fix ourselves up with kit bags to carry our stuff in, Martin's turned out just the right size for what he had, it fitted snugly on his shoulder, it was ideal. Mine was OK and likewise Jim's, but you could tell: there was more awkwardness about us, we looked more like we were schlepping. Martin, as always, was the model.

So, you get the picture: Martin's plans work out; I'll copy him. Martin, who is not Jewish, discovered matzos while in Israel and he took to them. He decided he would simplify matters and just take a large quantity of matzos, spread with different things: marmite, cheese, apricot jam, peanut butter etc. I, as I have said here before, also have a positive relationship to matzos. So, no problem, I'll do like Martin. And we did.

People, it was a grave mistake. Do you have any idea what it begins to feel like after 36 hours when you have had nothing to eat but... matzos. Never mind the variety of spreads - you would trade what you've got for any other kind of food, and we indeed tried that, but without much success. And we started to get hungry anyway, since we again hadn't brought enough. I particularly remember a bloke from Dublin called Maurice who was in the same boat as us (ha ha!), not having started out with enough food himself. He would stand at the barrier separating us deck class passengers from the regular folks and hold his hand out pleading, 'Food! Food!'

Anyway, we got back to the European mainland still alive and had a bloody good meal. The moral of the story is: use your own judgement. Only matzos - what an idea!