Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with Melissa Miller (Left) and Lee Lee
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Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with Melissa Miller (left) and Lee Lee 39,000 MILES Written by Melissa Miller My first trip back to Istanbul, a little over forty years since we had left, started in San Francisco, where we had been living since 1975, the longest time we had lived anywhere since 1960, when we left Nashville for India. I was looking forward to returning to Istanbul: excited, thrilled, and a bit apprehensive about going back. I knew it wouldn’t be the same as it had in 1963, but I didn’t care. Istanbul had been a dream, full of history, art, culture and the place I had thought of as home for three years. I had my first date there, my first boyfriend and first kiss! And now I was on a plane, going back to my home, back to memories and feeling very happy about seeing it again. The plane ride was a long thirteen hours non-stop, and the memories of earlier trips all started to come back….. When people used to ask me where I was from, it was always hard to answer or explain about my life overseas. For years after we came home, I never told anyone. So this is my story about that time, from 1960-67 -- all the places we went, lived, saw and experienced. When we left Nashville, I was only ten years old and had only been to Florida for vacation. My sister, two brothers, and my parents and I were not ready for what we encountered and sometimes now, I still find it incredible. My father had lived in Italy during the war, but that had been so long ago. He often talked about the wonderful people in the little villages where he lived, with great affection and memories. And so here we were, getting ready for the greatest adventure of our lives. In 1959, my father was working as a DJ in Nashville, at a local radio station. When some representatives from the US State Department were recruiting candidates to join USIA (United States Information Agency), he was invited to join their program. He accepted and from then on, things would change for us very quickly. He was sent to Washington DC, for testing and extensive training, while our family went through a whirlwind of getting ready to move to New Delhi, India, my father’s first posting overseas! Since he had to leave before Christmas, my grandmother decided to have a family dinner and Thanksgiving at the same time. None of us had any idea how much our lives were going to change, moving from Nashville to a country half way around the world. My mother spent those three months getting us our inoculations, cholera, typhoid, typhus, yellow fever, smallpox vaccinations, calling up pharmacies around the city to see if they could get them for us! Besides that, she had to get a moving company lined up, get us packed, buy three years’ worth of clothes for us, and get us to school, sometimes in the middle of snow storms. She also had to keep a household running until we left for New York. I wish I still had her calendar for those months, each day was packed with so much to take care of. I don’t know to this day how she did it! Before we left Nashville, my sister and two brothers had our moment of fame, especially at school. The nuns at our catholic school began to refer to us as “The Miller Children, the ones going to India” THE NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN also printed an article of our impending move, since my father had worked for the paper. I have to admit, it was fun getting all that attention! March 1960 We were scheduled to leave for New York, where we would board the ship to Europe, the SS Exeter. My mother didn’t want to fly with all of us on a plane -- my sister Melinda, and my brothers, Kurt and Larry. So, instead, we sailed. We left on March 18th, and traveled farther than we had ever gone before. The train trip took overnight, with my mother sitting up all night, as there was only a room for the five of us! When we arrived in New York, it was already dark and very cold. We had 26 pieces of luggage, included were two steamer trunks and two suitcases each. We couldn’t get a cab for what seemed forever, and finally, two cabbies took pity on my family, one told us “you would need a truck for all of this lady” but stopped and picked us up to go to the Lexington Hotel. The lobby was huge, full of people and we were so glad to be inside and warm! My father flew up from Washington the night we arrived, to see us off on the next day. We were all so glad to see him after three months of being apart. He took our mother out to dinner and a night on the town. We ordered dinner and watched TV. 1960 The ship, SS Exeter, was not the size of the huge boats today. I think it probably held about one hundred passengers. The saving grace of sailing across the Atlantic was that there were other children on board, so we wouldn’t be bored. Our cabin, meant for the five of us, was the size of a walk- in closet. My mother was convinced that the travel office at the State Dept. must have made a mistake on putting all of us in one cabin. After my dad checked with the steward, he came back and told us this was it! Two beds, one bunk bed and a crib! Not to mention our suitcases. We were going to be on here for over two weeks. Somehow, we managed and settled in for the voyage. As none of us had ever traveled, except vacations in Florida, this turned out to be quite an adventure. We didn’t know that the North Atlantic was very rough and very cold in March. We didn’t know rough seas could cause seasickness but found out soon enough. About a week into the voyage, the ship hit the edge of a storm and that ship rose up and down in the water, over and over again. Everyone on the ship was sea sick. We were told that going out on deck would help us from feeling so ill, but that wasn’t true. It was worse. The storm caused other problems, such as on the night of a formal dinner where all the women were dressed up very nicely, in evening gowns and heels. That ship hit a wave that sent it straight up and then right back down, causing the guests to get thrown on their rear ends, flying up into the air. All the food on the tables went in the same direction and fell back on the passengers. What a mess! Women in all their finery, covered with dinner, chairs flung from one side of the room to the other. I still remember standing on the steps that lead into the dining area, watching all this happen, and noticed that the little bowl of after-dinner mints went sailing through the air, all of the little pastel candies like a rainbow, falling back down to earth, as if in slow motion. Quite a night, for sure. When we were not being tossed about on the seas, we spent our days aboard playing shuffle board, ring toss (unfortunately, since the seas tended to be choppy, most of the rings ended up in the drink. Makes me wonder how many thousands of rings lie at the bottom of the Atlantic?) We also took promenades around the deck, because there was a sign posted saying if you walked around 100 times, it was a mile. None of us ever did. There were also movies shown in the lounge and food available around the clock. After breakfast, tea was served on the aft of the deck at around 10 am, then lunch, then more tea, then dinner and room service was a phone call away! The other part of sailing was lifeboat drills. This consisted of putting on our life jackets and going up on deck to watch the lifeboats being lowered and told what to do if, god forbid, there was an emergency at sea. My mother always made sure we had our jackets at hand, especially for my youngest brother, Kurt, who was only four years old when we were going to India. The drills always seem to occur just as mom had put Kurt to bed for his nap. Of all the kids, I think Kurt seemed to get the most of that voyage. He was very cute and rambunctious and much of our time was spent chasing after him. We all still talk about that cruise and how much fun we all had. I think that trip wasn’t a lot of fun for Mom, since she spent a lot of it making sure Kurt didn’t get out of the cabin alone. Kurt also had this little trick of how to get out of eating dinner. He told my mother he didn’t feel good and was going to be ill. Worked like a charm every time! He also was very good at escaping from us when we were up on deck. One time we found him dangling on the rail of the ship and managed to pull him back before he fell in! Pretty sneaky for a little four year old.