Stories from my life
Return to Nijubashi Bridge Nijubashi Bridge, Tokyo Japan February 1954. Mom, sister Dawn and I boarded the General E.D. Patrick troop ship in San Francisco and headed to Yokohama, Japan where we rendezvoused with my father, Sgt. E.F. Curtis. I was only three years old and these are the earliest [...]
One Last Dance Senior year of high school 1968--69. Finally, I was reaching the end of school. I hated school, so many dull, uninteresting subjects. As my books slid into my locker on the first day, I noticed someone next to me doing the same. My heart skipped a beat when I [...]
Don't Eat the Spicy Sichuan Fish! Photo Credit: NPR.org Delicious? I would call it aphrodisiac quality cuisine. What could possibly be wrong with that? Glad you asked. These powerful little peppercorns can numb your mouth by placing just one or two kernels on your tongue. It’s a wonderful effect. I even drop one [...]
FIFTY FLOORS OF FEAR photo credit: Four Seasons New York One step up a ladder makes my palms sweat. Imagine my near-heart-attack when I stepped onto a scaffolding on the side of the Four Seasons Hotel in New York City: Fifty Floors off the ground. I was filming [...]
KDFM Walnut Creek California As a teenager I had a transistor radio glued to my ear. I passionately wanted to be an announcer on a radio station. It wasn’t easy to break into the broadcasting business in 1968, but when you want something bad enough, you find a way. My friend Bill [...]
The frantic clown streamed out of the Ringling Brothers - Barnum and Bailey big top at Baraboo, Wisconsin. His over-sized shoes flip-flopped across the pavement as he ran toward us screaming “Dr. Bob! Dr. Bob!!” We thought something had happened inside the tent and a doctor was urgently needed.
Puppy Love Revisited (names were changed to protect the guilty) I was 11, she was much older, at 12. Nicole, her younger brother, Randy, my sister, and dumb, fat Victor would walk up the block to the old, abandoned cemetery and read the headstones. Most were from the 1800s or early [...]
They Called Him "Prince" Three Personal Prince Tales The First Tale I was 14 in the summer of 1965. My parents had joined the little theater group “Pleasant Hill Playmakers.” To my dismay, the troupe decided that a summer production of ‘Snow White’ would be the perfect way to give hordes of out-of-school adolescents [...]
I Met My Honey at the White House Not “THE” White House. This White House is the name of a small village in rural Guangdong Province, China; population 200. The Chinese name is “Baiqi” (buy chee). Two days earlier, my friends treated me to lunch at a farmhouse restaurant near the village. On the [...]
I Dug a Hole to China! by Marc Curtis ©2017 MarcCurtis.com What 6-year-old boy hasn’t grabbed his shovel and started digging? Everyone was doing it in the 1950s. Mom always said, “Eat everything on your plate. There are starving kids in China!” It became our solemn duty to dig that hole so we could [...]