"& Dirgo, Craig - Dirk Pitt - Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cussler Clive)

An Interview with Clive Cussler

CRAIG DIRGO: Let's talk about your early life for a moment.

CLIVE CUSSLER: I was born in Aurora, Illinois, on July 15, 1931, at 2:00A.M a habit I kept later in life when closing bars. I was the onlychild of Eric and Amy Cussler. My mother liked the name Clive, since itcame from a well-known British movie actor of the time, Clive Brook. Mymiddle name was Eric after my father. I'd like to think they never hadanother child because they thought it was highly unlikely they'd dobetter, but the truth of the matter was that many families had only onechild in those days simply because they couldn't afford to raise more.

It was the depths of the Depression, and Dad was only making eighteendollars a week. He workedout a deal with the baby doctor, paying him fifty cents a week againstthe twenty-five-dollar fee for my delivery. After one payment, thekindly old doctor told Dad to forget it, saying facetiously that hewould make it up on a rich widow patient from Chicago. Thus, I onlycost fifty cents to come into the world.

CRAIG DIRGO: Tell us about your parents.

CLIVE CUSSLER: My mother, the former Amy Hunnewell, was a beautifuldark-haired lady whose ancestors came to America from England in 1650and settled in Boston. She was born in 1901 in St. Joseph, Missouri.

Her father worked for the railroad and later retired to run a fishinglodge and a saloon in Minnesota, wisely selling the latter just twoweeks before Prohibition was voted in. Mom was vivacious and humorousand always teasing Dad and me. She also had a creative side that wasnever fully nurtured but was passed along to her son. She often told ofgoing to a carnival when she was sixteen with her bevy of girlfriendsand paying twenty-five cents to a Gypsy lady to tell their fortunes. Theobvious question among young girls was: Who will I marry? The Gypsyfortune-teller told Mom she would have a famous daughter. A near misson that one. As for her husband, the Gypsy said he was tall, dark andin the Army, wearing a gray uniform.

Mom and her friends laughed at the revelation.

America had just entered World War I, and they all knew that theAmerican doughboys, as soldiers were called then, wore khaki uniforms.

Little did Mom know that her future tall and dark husband was born andraised in Germany and was serving in the Kaiser's army on the WesternFront. And, oh yes, the Germans wore gray uniforms.

My dad, Eric Cussler, had a tough life when he was young. His fatherwas abusive and didn't want his young son under his feet, so he shippedhim off to military academy when he was only eleven years old. When Dadturned sixteen, he served in an infantry brigade as a sergeant, fightingin the trenches on the Western Front. After a leave home, he waspromoted to lieutenant and ordered to a hell hole called Verdun.

On the march back to the front, British aircraft strafed his column, andhe was hit by a bullet in the knee. In the hospital, he developedgangrene and came within an inch of dying. He owed his life to acaptured British surgeon who took a personal interest in Dad due to hisyoung age.

Because his knee was irreparably damaged and Dad would always walk witha stiff leg, the British surgeon ingeniously operated and slightly bentthe frozen knee so that Dad's limp would not be nearly as pronounced asChester's in Gunsmoke. Dad recovered and after the war worked in a bankbefore attending Heidelberg University, where he received a degree inaccountancy. While working in the bank, he made a small but tidy nestegg on the European stock market.

CRAIG DIRGO: How did he come to America?

CLIVE CUSSLER: One of his two sisters had come to America and married.

He decided to leave Germany and come across, too. He was almost deniedentry into the country when an immigration official considered Dad apotential welfare case because of the injured leg. After a six-day stayat Ellis Island, where he conned his way into the country by claiming tobe a piano player, a job where the injured leg would have no effect, hetook a train to hissister's farm in Illinois, where he worked in the fields while helearned English. The following. year, he moved to Chicago during theRoaring Twenties and experienced exciting times, driving a StutzBearcat, making gin in a bathtub, seeing Al Capone on the courthousesteps, finding gangsters' bullet riddled bodies in the street andfinally meeting my mother.

CRAIG DIRGO: Wasn't your mother in Minnesota?

CLYVE CUSSLER: Mom was living in Minneapolis, and while visiting afriend in Chicago, they decided to go dancing. Dad and Mom alwaysclaimed they were introduced by mutual friends. It wasn't until theywere in their seventies that the truth came out. It seems they actuallymet when Dad asked her to dance at the Trianon Ballroom to the music ofTed "Is Everybody Happy" Lewis. So it could be said that Dad picked Momup. This was in 1929. They were married on June 10, 1930, and had me alittle over a year later.

As usual, my timing was bad, and I arrived on the same day Dad was laidoff his job along with a hundred other workers at Durabilt Steel, acompany that made steel cabinets. He moved my mother and me toMinneapolis, where we lived with her parents.

My grandfather was making good money working as an engineer on therailroad. Dad finally found a job as a traveling auditor for a companycalled Jewel Tea that sold coffee and related supplies door-to-door.

We moved around the country, living in Terre Haute, Indiana; Louisville,Kentucky; and then back to Minneapolis, where I started in kindergarten.

CRAIG DIRGO: What happened next?

CLIVE CUSSLER: During the winter of 1937, I came down with pneumonia andnearly passed on to the great beyond. Those were the days beforeantibiotics, and I lived in an oxygen tent for six days before finallyshowing signs of improvement. As I began feeling better, the hospitalmoved an old derelict into the bed next to mine. The police had foundhim half frozen in an alley. Old Charlie was a neat guy. He taught mecard games and told stories no six-year-old should have heard in thedays before TV and R-rated movies. One morning, when the nurse cameinto the room to check on me, I nodded over at Old Charlie and asked whyhe had turned blue. She gasped, whipped the curtain around Charlie'sbed, and within minutes he was whisked out of the room covered by asheet. When Dad found out an old drunk had died in the bed next to hislittle sonny boy, he damn near tore the hospital down to its foundation.Boy, was he mad!

Against doctor's orders, he and Mom carried me to their little apartmentso I could enjoy Christmas at home. They had sacrificed their smallsavings to buy me a Lionel electric train complete with a tunnel, a fortwith wooden soldiers and a little switchman who came out of a tiny houseto swing his lantern when the train went past.

About this time, Dad was offered a promotion within the company thatcalled for a transfer to Chicago. At the same time, there was also anopening in the Los Angeles office if he remained at his present salarylevel. It was the dead of winter in Minnesota, the snow was piled eightfeet high around our apartment and his sickly son looked like deathwarmed over. He never thought twice. Within the week, we were allin our 1937 black Ford Victoria and headed for sunny SouthernCalifornia. Dad drove straight south to Texas to get out of the snowand cold as quickly as possible and caught old Highway 66 west into theGolden State.