 Peter Munro in Cwmdunkin Park |
161. Wasabi Pete
He arrived to Cardiff Central in the early evening, his train more than half an hour late. I’ve known Peter for thirty years, but only from the texts he posted in Café Blue, a virtual café where we both hung out. Ms Keogh, my cherished companion, and I finally met him in person during our brief stay in Washington State in July 2011. Peter Munro was coming from Seattle to travel a bit of the European continent, popping over to Wales for eight days to visit me. I wondered if I would recognize him after more than a dozen years. I could not bring an image to my mind’s eye what he might look like now, a dozen years later. In 2011, he was built like a rugby player. I put all my trust in my brain’s neural network to ignite with recognition when I saw him. It did just that, alerting me that there was Peter waiting to pass through the barrier. He had grown older and heavier. He saw me and waved acknowledgement, further confirming this was the friend I was looking for.
Since he was very hungry, after we dropped his gear at the Marriott Hotel, we turned around and I led him to my favorite restaurant, Le Monde, which was around the block. We both ordered the ribeye steak with – and here I had to explain to Peter what took me seven years to discover. When he asked for a baked potato, their automatic response was they didn’t have any, yet in the States, a baked potato is the most typical side with a steak. I explained to Peter that in Britain they called it a jacket potato. It doesn’t come with sour cream, which is what we Yankees would expect, but we found contentment with butter. Dinner was washed down with a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. After dinner, I took Peter back to the hotel because he was exhausted, having started his train journey that morning in Utrecht. So, the first day of eight was concluded.
The next day, we spent the afternoon at the National Museum Cardiff. I learned that Peter has a preference for abstract art and not representational. He spent most of the visit admiring a wood sculpture by Barbara Hepworth, Oval Sculpture. It reminded me of the works of Noguchi.
Afterwards, I took him over to Alexandra Gardens to visit my favorite bench. There we sat together and I asked questions about his career at NOAA, the time he spent on fishing trawlers in the Bering Sea doing research on fish populations.
Let me take a moment to explain how he got the name Wasabi Pete. It occurred during an incident aboard the F/V Fierce Allegiance. Peter, having indulged in consuming the bulk of their supply of Oreo cookies that was meant to last the voyage, unintentionally aroused his fellow crewmates into plotting revenge. Cory Johnson, the spaghetti burner, spent his entire wheel watch the night before in the project. An accomplished prankster, he had hidden away one package of Oreos, well in advance, knowing that it would come down to this. He had carefully taken the wafer off many of the remaining Oreos, hollowed them out with precision, and filled them with wasabi. Peter innocently wondered why the three crew members sitting across the narrow table facing him in the small mess were watching intensely. "You guys are fucking with me," he declared and laughed while enduring a weird prickling from his neck to his forehead. The cook Marcus Strash and Cory guffawed, while Elaina Jorgensen snorted milk out of her nose. Their merriment could not be contained. The name Wasabi Pete was assigned and retained evermore.
We were getting hungry and Peter was keen on trying that iconic British dish, fish and chips. From Alexandra Gardens we took a circuitous route through Bute Park and back into City Centre where I brought him into a traditional pub, the Blue Bell, where I think the fish and chips are best. We both had their fish and chips.
Finishing our meals, we had a second round of pints to further fuel the conversation, a conversation that would continue in my flat over glasses of Welsh Whisky, Aber Falls Single Malt, Sherry Cask. Our inhibition attenuated by the good drink, we read our poems to each other.
The first poem he read, The Pacific Sleeper Shark, was 95 lines long:
| “…Chow
in the galley was a rite we endured. Packed in bunks, curled in fartsacks, we braced for sleep. Whitecaps built house-high through the night. Darkness bore….” |
I read a haiku:
| “a
dog's wagging tail disrupts the cosmos alerts me to happiness” |
The next day, I took Peter to see Cardiff Castle and gave him an abridged tour of the city, showing him where the River Taff used to flow at the end of Quay Street. The river having been moved, its former path became Westgate Street. This was the furthest point ships could sail up river. Here they would dock within sight of Saint John the Baptist Church.
After an early dinner, Peter retreated to his hotel room and I to my flat to do some writing. Meeting up again in the early evening, he joined me to go to the Wales Millennium Centre where the Cardiff Nib Nobs were meeting, a collection of fountain pen aficionados who gather there once a month. After indulging in the admiration of new pens and inks, trying them on paper, we left that group of friends to connect with another group of friends with whom I drink every Friday night. Whenever I introduced him, it was as a retired fish scientist, a poet, and absolutely not a Trumpskyite. Knowing he wasn’t one of Trump’s supporters brought a general relief. Thus ended the third night of Peter’s eight-day visit.
For the fourth day of Peter’s visit, he rented a car from Hertz. Because they didn’t have the car he wanted, they upgraded him, at no extra cost, with a black Mercedes-Benz CLA180. Nice car. Off we went to fulfill Peter the poet’s haj, a pilgrimage to Dylan Thomas’s Boathouse in Laugharne. He would have gone without me, but was quite glad I agreed to accompany him. I had been before and have already rendered my tribute, thankful for Dylan Thomas’s influence. First stop, the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea.
This is where I will end my account. I will leave it for Peter to compose his experience of Laugharne when he is back at his desk in Seattle. I will conclude here under the eaves of a kiosk in Cwndunkin Park, Swansea, drinking coffee. We have paused halfway to Laugharne. I can see the drinking fountain Dylan mentioned in a poem. I can see Peter, sitting alone on a bench in the sun absorbing his surroundings.
The fountain that Dylan Thomas made famous
Mr Bentzman will continue to report here regularly about
the events and concerns of his life. If you've any
comments or suggestions, he would be pleased to hear from you.
You can find his
several books at www.Bentzman.com.
Enshrined
Inside Me, his second collection of
essays, is now available to purchase.
