Page 137 - Adobe Photoshop PDF

locusts were still swarming. After two days, all the trees in town were
stripped bare of leaves. Only oleanders (whose leaves are poisonous)
were left unhurt. It was an awe-inspiring experience. Before the locusts
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were told that they later cooked them in oil and ate them. What an over-
whelming experience an invasion of locusts must have been to farmers
in the Middle East.

Our only source of ice cream was that produced by the company.
However, Jean found a way of letting their vanilla ice cream become
barely soft enough to work with and she would mix in maraschino cher-
ries and chocolate chips. The kids and I loved it. When Jean would serve
such ice cream to guests, they would immediately ask how she was able
to obtain such ice cream at the commissary. The process was a bit tricky
because the ice cream could not be melted, just softened somewhat, and
then had to be refrozen after the new ingredients had been added. In
any case, we appreciated her ingenuity and her ice cream was a general
favorite.

I have mentioned that all the houses were centrally air con-
ditioned from chilled water circulating in underground pipes to each
house. This necessitated the simple air conditioning unit fan running
constantly for about ten months in a year. We enjoyed the quiet when
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ditioner. Because our homes were all air conditioned, we were not un-
comfortable. When I drove to Dhahran to meetings, I tried to park the
car so that the steering wheel was shaded. If you weren’t careful about
that when you tried to drive home about 5:00 or 5:30 at night, the steer-
ing wheel was so hot that it was painful to touch. Aramco automobiles
in those days were not air-conditioned.
At night, Jean and I would often go for short walks around Dhah-
ran. Occasionally, we would attend a movie. Janet was highly respon-
sible and could manage the little girls. Accordingly, whenever we left
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who sets a good example for her younger brother and sisters.

Most families in the Aramco camps employed a “houseboy.”

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