Brad Marshall's Notebook

George Bass’s 1974 excavation at Yassi Ada got underway just as Greece staged a coup on Cyprus. Turkey invaded Cyprus in response, and the two countries teetered on the brink of all-out war. 32 of us were living and working with Bass on a tiny rock in the Aegean smack dab on the border between Greece and Turkey.

Every member of a boat’s crew needs to keep their wits about them and do their jobs to survive a hurricane. In 1972 hurricane Agnes roared up the Atlantic seaboard and headed out to sea. I was a cadet aboard SEA’s sail training tall ship Westward in the summer of 1972 when hurricane Agnes swept over us.

Sometimes just stepping outside your door can be the beginning of an unexpected adventure. I had an interesting encounter hitchhiking from Boston to New York.

Harold “Doc” Edgerton is a legend around MIT, as well as among photographers for his invention of the strobe light, and as the ‘E’ in the defense contractor EG&G. He was also my friend and mentor. I’m hardly unique in that regard. Doc mentored many students and he was a friend to all.

There is an island in the Aegean, about sixty miles north of Crete, called Santorini by most people, but called Thira by the Greeks. It had an even older name in antiquity, Strongili, which means round island. There are some who call it Atlantis. Yes, that Atlantis!

In 1971 I lived in Amsterdam aboard a tjalk, a type of traditional Dutch sailing barge. In 1997 I bought a 103 year old tjalk previously owned by Dan Rowan of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-in fame. I dedicated the next year of my life to restoring it. Eventually, a boat owns you more than you own it!

The United States didn’t have diplomatic relations with Algeria in 1973. That made it all the harder for me to get into the country and honor my commitment to work with the first foreign archaeologist allowed into Algeria since their revolution for independence from France. It was a summer when things just kept going from bad to worse.

In the summer of ’96 I rented a villa near Orte, north of Rome. I was accompanied by my dear friend and artist Patricia Forrester. Traveling with Patricia could be exhilarating or exasperating. Usually a bit of both. Always memorable.

When my father was told to get a human skull for medical school, he had no idea how he would do it, until chance intervened.

It was Super Bowl Sunday and I wanted to watch the game! But it wasn’t that easy in an isolated village on the beach in Costa Rica. Still, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

John Wayne was one of my childhood film heroes. Who of my generation could say otherwise? When I had a chance encounter with him, he showed himself to be every bit the man off screen as he was on.

My experience purchasing my first car would never have happened in the USA. The Dutch car dealer set a standard no other car dealership has even come close to since.