Packing and Shipping

After our family was reestablished in Belize, I returned to Sarasota alone to pack up things to be shipped, to clean our rental house, and to reclaim our Beagle Pedro from the vet.

From letter dated November 6, 1960

Dad, bless his heart, let me stampede him by a series of cables and special-delivery letters into driving all the way from Michigan to Miami to meet me. He arrived with his car jammed full of things I might need in Belize. From Miami, he drove me back to Sarasota and stayed to help me. It was pretty hectic, of course, with dozens of errands from one end of town to another most of the day and packing at night.

Packing is a dismal business, but having Dad’s help and companionship made it a pleasant time. This was the first long visit we’ve had in years with no one else around and we both enjoyed it. I had planned to give him some home cooking for a change, but he preferred to take me out noon and evening to save me the work…which was pretty luxurious, I must admit.

There are still lots of things I can’t get in Belize; I had to buy those things first so that I could include them in my trunks and boxes as I packed. Once I had most of my shopping out of the way, I went through one or two rooms a day, moving everything to be packed into the living room and leaving the room fairly well cleaned for the final time.

By evening, the living-room floor and tables would be piled so high with stuff that there was barely a narrow aisle to walk through and Dad would be shaking his head and muttering, “You can’t do it. You’ll have to let the packers do it.” By the time we finished our evening’s TV shows, all but a few stray items would be packed; the cartons would be sealed, labeled, listed, and stacked neatly along a wall. Every night it was a new miracle to Dad.

Packing never bothered me; it was the cleaning out that was trouble. With all the nice cartons I had and all the proper packing materials, the packing itself amounted to little more than something to occupy my hands while I watched TV and talked to Dad. We had a wonderful visit together and I loved every minute of it.

Dad and I had been told that we could get a cage for Pedro from the airline I would be flying from Miami to Belize, but the airline, TAN, was obdurate about having none. Dad designed a wood and hardware-cloth traveling box and had it built.

I learned that to fly from Sarasota to Miami would involve two changes of aircraft and endless problems with the dog, so at my practical father’s suggestion, I applied for a rental car. National had a beautiful convertible that they had to return to Miami, so they offered me a good rate to drive it down. We took off with the top down, the radio playing, and Pedro ensconced in his cage in the back seat, where he spent the trip blithely scattering cedar chips over the interior.

Somehow I found the Miami airport in a blinding rain storm and was able to discharge dog and luggage, return the car, and check into the airport hotel, where I had made reservations for Pedro and me. The front desk clerk was remarkably affable in greeting us. His true feelings became apparent when I realized that he had given us an entire floor to ourselves.

The next day Pedro was returned reluctantly to his cage and delivered to TAN. I stood on the tarmac with him until he was loaded into the cargo hold. As we took off, I could hear the baying of my Beagle above the roar of the engines.

Let me tell you about the maddening part of shipping my stuff down here. I worked everything out on the Sarasota end with no trouble. The same two enormous, capable packers from the moving company who had come when I vacated our Sarasota home returned and took everything, stored certain things, and delivered the rest to the warehouse in Tampa. Bucher’s agent there, who had handled his work when the late Golden Duchess was sailing, took care of all the paperwork and saw that everything got onto the Belize Trader to be brought down here. Bucher had arranged with the owner of that boat to carry the things for a set figure, a perfectly valid one.

As it happened, Bucher was in Mexico on business when the boat got into Belize. And that shifty character presented Bucher’s partner, Buzz Bradley, with a bill for three times what he had agreed to ship the things for…apparently assuming that Buzz and I would not know enough to see what he was doing.

We refused to accept the bill, and the man got mad and said he wouldn’t even unload the things…that we would have to do it ourselves. That is simply ridiculous and Buzz told him so and forced him to unload them and put them in the Customs warehouse. The man tried several times before he sailed to talk Buzz into paying the full bill, and finally left town before Bucher got home.

Bucher was furious, of course, and at first thought that he could get the things released. Both the local agent for the Belize Trader and the whole crowd at Customs were completely on our side, thinking it was a shabby trick. But it turned out that the scamp had put the things in bond so the only way to get them was to pay the entire bill or wait for his return to Belize.

So, for two and a half weeks, my possesions have been sitting in the Queen’s Bonded Warehouse while I think about all the things I want and need so badly in this house…principal among them the lovely one-year-old refrigerator that Dad bought for me to replace the one I have now, which won’t make ice and which swarms with cockroaches.

I understand the boat is due back tonight or tomorrow and Bucher will see the owner and get it worked out. The bill is outrageous…over a thousand dollars. I could have had everything sent down air freight for less than half that amount and had it within a few days of the time I packed it up.

I told Bucher I was going to make it my dedicated purpose to spread the story…without any trimmings…as far as possible among people I know in Belize. He just laughed and said I didn’t have to bother, that their own agent and Customs men already had spread it farther, faster, and more colorfully than I ever could do.

I’ve been sort of living in limbo, hoping daily that we could get our things released and that I could start fixing the house up. I’ve done a little painting, sewing, etc., in the mean time, but haven’t been able to get too excited about anything. This all will be settled soon; I’ll have my things; and I’ll forget the inconvenience soon enough. It gives me one more gem of a situation to file away for telling about later.