As told by Susan at Russ’s wake and edited by Kathy

Russ was 22 and an undergrad at the University of Oregon when he first ran for the State House of Representatives. He was next-to-the-youngest person ever elected to the legislature and loved every moment of it. Whenever we had a chance to talk, like when he was home from Juneau for hearings or the legislature was out of session, he always wanted to talk about legislation, the important things that needed doing and the wonderful time he was having. And telling me that I should run for the House, and that I would love it.

I was a working mother of a 3-year-old and knew that few women were elected at that time, and I was pretty sure no mother of a 3-year-old had served. I listened patiently and explained why I thought it was both impractical and impossible. But he persisted and finally convinced me and in his second term He said he would help me with a campaign, and so would our dad, and he eventually convinced me that it was doable, so on the last day of filing I put in my name for a House seat. That afternoon, I went home and saw my name in the newspaper for having filed, but not Russ’s. I called him to tell him of the paper’s error, but he said he’d decided to go back to school and finish up his BA. He said there were a few courses he had not taken, but ‘you’ll do fine’ he said, ‘and since I don’t have my own campaign to run, I’ll have time to work on yours!’

Well, he was true to his word and I was elected, and I did love it. I became a Committee Chair, and that legislative experience impacted my career for rest of my life.

Ten years later, Russ and Nancy Harvey had driven to Boston, and Russ, with his decade of legislative leadership experience, had been accepted at the Kennedy School at Harvard. When he came back to Alaska for spring break, he told me he felt I was missing an opportunity and should apply to the Kennedy School.

By this time, I had 2 kids and was pregnant with a 3^rd.  While I’d had some political and legislative experience, I knew it didn’t compare to Russ’s. I didn’t believe I would be accepted. And I knew I certainly didn’t have the time it would take to put together an application for graduate school at Harvard. I said it was out of the question. But he insisted, and he said he would take care of the application.

I finally said ‘OK’ and thought it would get him out of my hair. So, Catherine was born, and between my work and a newborn and Conor and Timmy, I only thought about Harvard when Russ needed information for my application or a signature for something. The summer passed. I forgot about it altogether. In late August Russ happened to be at Gramma ‘Del’s when I came by, and he was all in a tizzy. Had I heard anything yet from Harvard? No, for Pete’s sake, I said, it’s August! What are you talking about?

Russ jumped up and grabbed the phone and called the K school. He raised hell with the poor person who answered the phone, yelling about classes starting in a few weeks and the school’s failure to notify a working mother of 3 of her acceptance status. That poor person excused herself to go get an answer, and about 20 minutes later returned to say a letter of acceptance had been written but not mailed yet.  I was in. I was in shock.

Russ started barking orders: ‘Pack as much stuff as you can in your car…Nancy’s parents will drive it down to Boston for you. They’ll leave Wednesday. I’ll get them a reservation on the ferry…You’ll need to get time off from work, find a place in Boston – don’t worry, I’ll find you one… you’ll need medical records for the kids, and school records — we’ll have to enroll the boys in school down there…”. And somehow that all happened, and in less than two weeks the kids and I were living in Needham Massachusetts. And I learned that someone else I knew had been accepted at the Kennedy school: Nancy Harvey, and what a wonderful year we had together at Harvard.

As told by Catherine at Russ’s wake and edited by Kathy

I didn’t get to spend as much time with Russ as I would have liked to, and of course, he was always open-armed, and he loved me like I was one of his own kids. One year, 1995, I came down to Boston for some reason and I was staying with the whole Meekins clan, and Cameron, you were about 2. And we were driving in you guy’s Suburban and some Sarah McLaughlin song comes on and you started howling. You hated it. And Russ says, “This kid loves music. I tell you what. This kid is going to be a musician. He knows so much about music already. I mean he knows what he likes and what he doesn’t like. I mean, this kid is going to be a musician.”

I don’t know if Russ willed that to be true or, you know, had a sixth sense, but he sure put his money on the right horse, Cam. I just remember riding around in that Suburban. I don’t even remember where we were going but I remember “He’s going to be a musician!”

(Today, Cam is famous rap artist.)

These stories capture short incidents that don’t amount to full-blown stories, but are still repeated in the family 

On vacation when Elissa and Gregor were young, I let them get a treat out of a vending machine. When they returned they were very excited and started bouncing on the bed. I asked them what they got. Gregor got Reese’s Peanut butter cup and Elissa answered excitedly, “I got Fancy Amose.”  Of course, she meant Famous Amos Cookies, but her error made me laugh so hard tears came to my eyes. And even the thought of the occasion today makes me smile.

As told by Kyle and Cameron at Russ’s wake, edited by Kathy

Kyle: One time I was playing golf with my dad and he was applying sunscreen to his arms because he had finally gone to a skin doctor who told him he needed to start using it. He swung the club on his next shot, the club flew out of his hands and he just screamed, “God damn sunscreen! I’d rather have cancer!” And then the next minute, it was just, “Hey, hand me a ball,” as if nothing else had happened. I believe at that moment that he would rather have had skin cancer than have that club fly out of his hands.

Cameron: Russ was the most intelligent person I’ve ever known, the most generous person and the most memorable and certainly most loud person I’ve ever known. One time we were driving home from playing golf and something sad was playing on the radio. As we drove down the road with the top down and he slammed the radio button and said, “I don’t want to listen to sad music. Music is supposed to make you happy. I can’t stand sad music. I HATE sad music.” And then two seconds later he asked me what we wanted to do for lunch in a completely different tone.

As told by Tessa at Russ’s wake and edited by Kathy

When I was probably – I couldn’t have been older than 8 or 9 – and I had a strong desire to do a 20-mile charity walk. I demanded that we participate and of course, Russ was behind me all the way and helped me sign up different sponsors. He really was so great at making it special. He, of course walked by my side. We got to about mile seven and, you know, I’m a 9-year-old, so that’s a lot of steps for me and at that point he just had to carry me. So, he proceeded to carry me on his shoulders for the remaining miles but never protesting and I think that really sums him up. In my eyes, he was just so generous and so supportive with all of his children. Whatever passions they had, whatever they wanted to do, Russ supported them with his full heart. I think he did that not only for his kids but for so many people he encountered.

As told by Gregor, edited by Kathy

you guys know that I moved out to the East Coast in 2004 and it started with just a summer. After school got out, I was going to come out for the summer and had first started by talking to Nick and then to Kyle and then talking to Russ. And they were all, you know, “Yeah, come on out.” And “We’ll get you a job.” Well, you know: “It will be fun. We’ve got room in the house and everybody’s here.”

So, I was pretty hyped up when I got there, and it was pretty much non-stop action with Russ and all of you and all the sports events. Russ took us to games and all sorts of other activities. As it settled down, Russ told me, “I’ve got a job for you. I need a personal assistant.” I thought, OK, this sounds good. So, he starts describing the job. “I just need help with some things, odd jobs and tasks, and things.” Alright, no problem, Russ. So, I wrote down some of the assignments Russ gave me that I think you’ll find humorous. I certainly did. And this is by no means an exhaustive list.

One of the assignments was to procure a foosball table and an air hockey table and to make sure they were arcade quality. “I don’t want a piece of junk,” he said. “I want the real air hockey table that you get at the arcade. I want the real one.”

So, I found this place in Natick or somewhere that had this showroom of pool tables and arcade games. I went there and found a couple of different machines for sale. These things weren’t cheap. I called Russ and asked, “Which one do you want to get, Russ?” And he says, “I don’t know. Just get the best one that they have!” So, I got the best one that they had. There was almost an identical story with a stereo system.

Russ just wanted to beef up the stereo system they had in the front room. So, I went to one of these stereo shops. You can spend $1000 or you can spend $50,000. So, I found some system and asked Russ how much he wanted to spend. He said, “Get something good, really good.” So, I got it and had it installed.

You might have heard about Russ going to Foxwoods (Casino). He went to Foxwoods a lot and he had this VIP status and sort of hotline that he could call and make reservations. So, instead of calling the hotline, he would call me and tell me what he wanted, and I would call the hotline. So, I was Russ’s ‘concierge Foxwoods’. He would call me up and say, “Can you get me a reservation for Thursday night, and then we might want to stay Friday night. I’m not sure. See what they have. I want a corner suite…” etc. I would write this all down and make all the reservations for him.

There was another time when he told me that his car needed an oil change – the BMW Z8. He said to drive down to Framingham or Natick where there is a BMW dealership. I was really surprised that he wanted me to take, you know, the Z, because it’s a very expensive car. So, I get in and drive it down there. I didn’t have a reservation or an appointment or anything. He said, “You don’t need an appointment. As soon as you get there, they will just roll out the red carpet for you.”

So, I take it down there and the guy says, “It doesn’t need an oil change. It only has 1,000 miles since the last oil change.” So, I call Russ to tell him it doesn’t need an oil change and he says, “Yeah, I know. I just wanted you to take it for a drive.” So that was the kind of guy that he was. He barely knew me, really, at this point and let me to take the car.

Some of the other assignments – and by the way, I was getting paid for this. He had a standing order on a couple of things. One was to make sure we were stocked up on Grey Goose. Another one was cigars. At the time, there was a place that if you talked to the right guy, they had Cuban cigars. That was an adventure and a story in and of itself, but they did have Cuban Cigars if you talked to the right guy. The other was to make sure that the hot tub was in tip-top shape at all times.

[Kyle: So, Gregor and I would kind of destroy things and then Russ would pay Gregor to fix them.]

Well, in fact, on my list here is one of the examples of that. We had broken a window and then one of my assignments was to fix the window that Kyle and I had broken. So that was something I was paid to do.

At one point I was going grocery shopping getting stuff for all of us and Russ said, “Get a whole bunch of paper towels. I don’t ever want to run out of paper towels ever again.” And then he added that he thought paper towels were one of the best inventions of the twentieth century. So, I got a whole lot of paper towels, as many that could fit in the car.

So, I’m 22 and Cameron was 12 and Russ decided that all of this work was maybe a little burdensome for me, so he informed me that he had hired Cameron as my assistant. I was Russ’s assistant and Cameron was my assistant. I thought this was great because this was overwhelming, you know, the paper towels, the Z8 oil change, this was really becoming overwhelming. So, Cam was tagging along with me. We’d drive around and buy chemicals for the hot tub and cigars…

[Cam: not to mention he would let you drive the M5 as the company car.]

Yeah, that was the working vehicle, the BMW M5. So, Russ wanted to get the driveway repaved and I was thinking this was a good task to outsource to Cameron. So, I told Cam, We need to get the driveway repaved. Can you take care of this?”

[Cam: I was 12. I was 12.]

At 12 years old he found a place, called the people, and got the driveway repaved. We had been out of town and when we pulled up we saw that driveway was repaved. Russ was more excited than anyone about a repaved driveway! It was the most incredible thing he had ever seen. I wondered, who are these people that would talk to a 12-year-old on the phone and do a $5,000 driveway repaving? But he did it.

{Cam: Shoutout to Bev Laqua Paving, by the way, for paving my dad’s driveway.]

So, these are just a few funny stories. But the moral of the story is, here was Russ and like the stories that Deder and Conor told, he was just finding a way to help me out. He was just creating these jobs and finding a way to give me money and make it fun along the way. There are many, many stories like that, but I’m just eternally grateful for not just these fun times but for the good advice he gave me. He encouraged me to get my MBA. I don’t know if I would have done that. I was kind of on the fence. And you look back and you’re just so glad that you took the plunge on these things and did them because Russ would always say, “When it comes to education, you’ve got it forever. No one can ever take that away from you. That’s something you can never lose.” He was really big on that. So those are a few of the stories I wanted to share.

As told by Susan at Russ’s wake and edited by Kathy

July 9,  1953 was a beautiful, warm summer day. I was 6 ½ years old, Barb was 5, Russ 4, and I think Kathy was about 2. Gramma ‘Del gathered us up to go down the street so she could visit with her friend Rose Palmquist. Mom took Kathy with her into the house to visit with Mrs. Palmquist and sent the three of us out to play in the backyard with Michael Palmquist.

Now Michael was about 10 years old, and we kids knew him to be the neighborhood bully. He had built a treehouse in the back yard, which to us was kind of high and scary, and he asked us to climb up into the treehouse. When we got up there, he pulled out a knife, and told us we were going to have to jump to get down. We refused, and he insisted, and the argument continued until we saw something strange falling out of the skies. It couldn’t be snow – this was July, after all — and it really didn’t quite look like snow, but it had us all mystified and more than a little freaked out. 

As we stared and worried about what was falling from the skies, little Russ took quietly started down the ladder before Michael could catch him. He ran across the yard, into the house and told Mom about the knife. She came running out to the yard, and I can’t remember quite what she said, but when she saw what was coming from the skies, she gathered us up and we all hurried home.

It turns out the mysterious stuff falling from the skies was volcanic ash from Mt. Spurr across the Inlet, and by noon, it was dark as midnight. By the next day, the ash was 6 inches deep all over town, and the worst ashfall in Anchorage history. I’m not likely to forget that volcano. And I will never forget little Russ, as hero, scrambling down that ladder to get help.

It all started on the DC Metro… (well, kind of).

One Saturday morning, Moira decided to make a SINGLE exception to her rule of never using public transportation (why Metro when you can walk?) and went to visit her friend, Severin, for brunch in Arlington. Though just three metro stops away, Moira considers anywhere in Virginia to be another planet, and this was her one – and only – trip to the Commonwealth.

 After a wonderful brunch, she walked back to the Courthouse metro station to wait for a train to take her back to the District. While waiting, and staring absent-mindedly at a Metro map, another train arrived coming from the other direction. Passengers disembarked, but one of those passengers stopped as he was walking by her, and stood looking at her for a few moments. When Moira realized she was being watched, she turned and asked, “Do I know you?”

 At this moment, Greg, who had been fervently trying to figure out why he recognized Moira, came out of his dazed state, and said, “Yes… I think so?”

Moira reflected for a moment on whether or not she recognized this man, decided that she did not, but simultaneously decided he was VERY cute and extremely well dressed, so she pursued the conversation. Greg asked many questions to try to discern how they might know each other, but to no avail. They did not, it transpired, know each other at all.

 Moira, not wanting to let this cute guy go without at least finding out his name, extended her hand and said, “Well, I’m Moira, and it’s nice to meet you.”

And that’s when Greg had the worst moment of his life. Because he realized, on hearing her name, that this was a girl he had “met” on OkCupid several months ago. They had exchanged cute, flirty messages, and even scheduled a date! And eight minutes before the date was set to happen, with Greg sitting at the tea shop ready to meet his future wife… she canceled. And never rescheduled, despite several attempts on Greg’s part to do so.

 Greg was mortified that he had just made conversation with this woman, who, in his mind, clearly didn’t want anything to do with him, hurriedly introduced himself and said that they had exchanged messages on OkCupid a while back, and then left to let Moira catch her oncoming train.

 Beffudled, Moira went back through her old messages, and lo and behold, there he was! A cute guy, with erudite and witty messages, whom she had booked a date with and then canceled at the last minute! What was she thinking?! Now she had met him and knew what she was missing! Immediately she messaged him to ask for a reschedule.

But it was not to be. By then, Greg was seeing someone else, and they were ships passing in the night. They still met up for a platonic cup of tea, during which Moira fell head over heels for him, but knew that nothing would come of it, and tried to move on.

Then, many months later, Greg called Moira to ask if she would still be interested in getting a drink. She said of course, and they went out together a few times, but their dates seemed to lack chemistry, and ultimately fizzled. Alas, it seemed that they were not going to make it after all.

Eight months in the making, Greg and Moira had their “official” first date later that week in June, and both knew then that they had found their perfect match. When Greg kissed Moira while walking home down 14th Street, she knew it was her last first kiss

Armen’s Story as recorded by Kathy

Getting Out

When I was 15 my friends and I would occasionally visit the French, U.S. and other Western embassies in my home town of Aleppo, Syria. They all had fantastic pictures of life in their country – young men not much older than myself with their own apartment, driving their own car with a beautiful girlfriend by their side. I easily decided I wanted to experience those things for myself. But travel outside of Syria was restricted for most people – except for priests. So I paid a visit to the Archbishop and told him I wanted to be a priest.

Technically, I belonged to the Armenian Orthodox Church, which is protestant, but since I attended a French Jesuit School. I figured that would work. There was just one thing I hadn’t counted on. Although I got excellent grades at that school, I had a reputation for questioning the authority of the priests who were swift to whack you on the hand with a rod for any transgression and I sure didn’t like going to mass every morning at 7. These behaviors apparently are not what the Church looks for in its priests.

Nevertheless, the archbishop and I chatted for a while but then he said that he thought I could ‘better serve my community as a civilian.”

A few years went by and I set on another plan. I would get permission to leave Syria by going to school in my cultural homeland, Armenian, which at that time was part of the Soviet Union. The educational attache to the Soviet Union, a man named Kerkin, was located in Aleppo so I went to see him. He explained that there were quotas, and I would need references from people that the Ambassador knows, especially Armenian Communists and that I should come back next year.  But I couldn’t wait that long.

At that time – the mid 1960s – Arab countries including Syria were frequently at war with Israel. Any man 18 years or older who was not attending school was subject to the military draft. So I registered with the School of Law in Beirut, Lebanon. I was getting antsy and had now set my sights on going to America even though the Syrians had burned down the U.S. embassy following the ’67 war and the U.S. had severed diplomatic ties with Syria.

One day several policemen came to my parents’ house. They pounded on the door and when I answered one of them asked, “Are you Armen Kevrekian?”

“No,” I lied, “He’s in Beirut. “I’m his brother, Krikor.” The policeman persisted. “Show me your ID,” he demanded. Again I lied, “I don’t have it here; I left it at my house.”

My class at the Karin Yeppe Armenian College

The policeman looked me over and glared at me as he tried to determine if I was being truthful. I tried to appear calm and not reveal my nervousness. If they didn’t buy my story, they could haul me away right then.

“Tell your brother Armen that he is to report to the military in one week and if he doesn’t report, we’ll be back to get him,” the policeman threatened. As I closed the door I let our a sigh of relief and then ran to my room to get my suitcase. I always kept it half-packed in anticipation of a the visit that had just occurred. I added a few more items, ran to the train station and caught the next train to Beirut where there was a U.S. embassy. I was now determined to get to America. In addition to the fabulous lifestyle everyone lived there, I had heard it described as the land of plenty – with abundant food and so much money, you could just pick it up on the street. This was the place for me, but to get there I knew I’d need help from someone who wasn’t as easily fooled as that Syrian policeman.

I immediately went to the U.S. embassy and requested a meeting to obtain a U.S. entry visa. Meanwhile, I applied and was accepted at the University of Perugia, Italy, and after a two  week wait, I obtained an exit visa to leave Syria that had stamped in bold letters, “authorized to go only to Italy.” I didn’t know how to get around that, but I knew I’d figure something out.

In those days I could speak only the most rudimentary English, so when I finally met with a U.S. diplomat at the embassy, I needed an interpreter. The woman interviewed me for what amounted to only about 10 minutes with all the translation that was required and then abruptly denied my request for a U.S. student visa.

“Why?” I asked.(That much English I knew.)

She said she thought I intended to move permanently to the U.S. and not just go there to attend school. I was devastated. I tried to change her mind, but between the interpretation and her resolve, she wouldn’t hear it.

As I left the building, my disappointment was so apparent that the doorman asked me what was the matter. When I told him my request for a visa to the U.S. had been denied he said he said getting a visa was “very easy” and he knew just what I should do.

He advised me to come back with documents from my family showing that my family owned property (my dad owned a cotton plantation) and businesses (my brother Levon had an import business) in Syria as proof of my reason to return. Levon even bought insurance guaranteeing my return. (The fact that it was good for only three months was strategically not mentioned in my application.) My friend John Arslanian, who was already in Eugene, Oregon, helped me get accepted to Lane Community College and I included that documentation as proof of my intention to go to school in the U.S.

It worked! The embassy issued me a 4-1 Visa to attend school in the U.S. And, I was relieved to find out, the U.S. didn’t care about the “to Italy only” restriction stamped on my exit visa.

When my friend Zareh Marashlian learned I had gotten a visa he urged me to wait for him so we could go to America together. He was still in Aleppo and it took several months to get his documentation, but in late September 1969, seven years after I first started my quest to leave Syria, I was really going. I bought tickets to fly to Eugene, Oregon, and all of my family and friends gathered at my sister, Aznieve’s house in Beirut for a big send-off party. One attendee was a woman from Sudan who could see the future in your tea leaves.

I was nervous, of course, and scared, but determined to go. So, when my sister asked the Sudan woman to read my tea leaves, I was eager to know what lie ahead. We chatted as we drank the tea and when I had finished, she peered for several long minutes into the cup. When she looked up at me without moving her head, as if she was looking over invisible spectacles perched on the end of her nose, I got a bad feeling.

“You’re road is blocked,” she proclaimed, sitting up and swinging her arms wide as if wiping out all of the planning and effort I had invested in this quest. Looking me in the eye, she said, “You are not going.”

I looked her straight in the face and said, “I have the ticket already.”

Getting There

Finally, I was on my way. My friend Zareh got his paperwork, too, and we flew from Beirut to Sophia, Bulgaria. We decided to take a tour of the city during our five-hour layover there. Zareh stood in the long line to get an in-transit visa that would allow him to exit the airport, but I didn’t have the patience for that and just sneaked out.

We took a cab to the University of Sophia and when we got out to look around, Zareh asked the cabby to wait for us. Zareh had $600-$700 with him, but I had just $100 and was nervous about spending my meager stake on a cab but didn’t say anything. But when Zareh suggested that we pick up a couple of girls, that was too much.

“Just where are you going to take those girls?” I asked. That brought  him to  his senses and we headed back to the airport.

With the in-transit visa stamped in his passport, Zareh easily reentered the airport, but since I didn’t have one, the guard thought I was a doing something illegal, and wouldn’t let me back in.  The Sudan woman’s words came back to me, “You’re not going.” Was this the roadblock she had seen n my tea leaves?

“Are you going?” Zareh called out to me. “I”m not going if you’re not going,” he said.Zareh shared my coming to America adventure.

I was more determined than ever that I was going and suggested the guard count how many people got off the plane and how many were waiting to re-board. The count was one short and he let me in. Next stop: Paris.

We were excited to be going to Paris, but when we got there, the guard would not let us leave the airport without an entry visa; there were no in-transit visas for the “City of Light”. We were escorted to a hotel inside the airport and told to stay there until our flight the next day. There was just one problem. The hotel was booked. When the guard pressed the matter, the clerk said they did have one room available. “Fine, give them that one,” the guard said. It turned out to be the strangest room I had ever seen.

It was a huge room with just one enormous bed located right in the middle – a round bed. The bathroom was also very large and it had a bathtub large enough for two – maybe three people.

“What kind of room is this?” I wondered out loud.

“It’s the honeymoon suite,” the guard answered.

The next morning Zareh and I were enjoying a “petit dejeuner” when an airport clerk approached us and told us that the captain wanted to speak to us. Zareh quickly responded, “We are eating now; the captain can wait.” He told the clerk to wait for us away from our table and to my surprise, she did.

This seemed like another roadblock and we wondered what the captain could possibly want to talk to us about. Did they know I didn’t have permission to go to Paris? Were they going to send us back to Beirut, or worse, Syria?.

When we had finished eating, we summoned the clerk who took led us to an airline representative (not the captain as she had said), but an intimidating figure nonetheless. When he told us we had a big problem, my heart sank. I was so close to getting to America – just one more flight. I just couldn’t be turned back now.

“What’s the problem?” I asked in French?

“Your bags are overweight, he said.  “You need to pay $150 in additional fees.”

THAT’S what this was about? I thought. Overweight bags?! I couldn’t believe it; but with only about $100 to my name, I certainly couldn’t pay the fee. And time was getting late, now. We could see our gate down the concourse and all of the other passengers had already boarded. I threw open my bag and Zareh followed my lead. We started throwing clothing out of the bag onto the floor.

“Now, you weigh,” I said to the guard and I closed my bag. The guard looked at me as if I was crazy and said, “OK; put the clothes back in. But don’t do this again.”

We quickly  threw all of our belongings back into our bags and ran down the concourse to our gate.”

“Vous êtes tous les deux fous!” (You are both fools), the guard yelled after us.

He wasn’t the first person to call my venture foolish. And i was as determined as ever now that he wouldn’t be the last one to be wrong. But there was just one small hurdle to surmount.

Welcome to America

When we landed in New York, we were shepherded to customs where the agent gave me a stern look and asked, “Do you have any drugs?”

“No,” I answered as confidently as I could, although my stomach was doing flip-flops.

“Do you have any marijuana?” he asked.

“No,” I said again. I may have been new to the country but I knew better than carrying anything illegal, let alone admitting I was doing so.

“Welcome to America,” he said, handing me my passport. I passed through the gate and thought, “Finally, finally, I had reached my goal. I was in America.

Zareh and I went outside and looked around. There were buses and cars and trucks driving everywhere.

“Let’s get a car a drive to Oregon,” Zareh suggested. “We can come back in a couple of hours for our bags.”

“I don’t think we should do that,” I responded, although I had no concept of how far New York was from Oregon.

On the flight to Portland we met a man by the name of Lee Huntsaker who was also going to Eugene. He said he had a car in Portland and could drive us to Eugene. We accepted his offer, turned in our Portland to Eugene flight and were reimbursed the $17 cost. (Those were the days.) Mr. Huntsaker drove us right to my friend John Arslanian’s door. John invited several Armenian and Arab friends over and we had a big celebration. It was Sept. 16, 1969.

The next  morning I got up before everyone else and went for a walk. Being careful not to get lost, I made note of the buildings and noticed something strange. They were all made our of wood. “How dangerous,” I thought. Homes in the Middle East were made of stone so they wouldn’t burn.

As I walked along I noticed walnuts and apples that had fallen off the street trees and picked some up to eat. Outside of a bar called Mac’s Tavern, there were coins on the sidewalk and picked them up, too.

“Everything they said about America was true,” I thought. It truly was the land of plenty with abundant, free food and money lining the streets. I was more sure now than I had been since I was 15 that leaving Syria was the right thing for me to do.