Final clues and a mystery to amuse.

First, a final clue to the where's-Don-Ray-going-next mystery (Mystery #2): By the way, I didn't mean to throw you off by all of the clues that begin with the letter "C". The country I'm about to visit does not begin with a "C" and does not include a letter "C" in it. Today I let them poke me in the arm so that I will be protected while I'm there. I got shots for tetanus diphtheria, typhoid, meningitis and yellow fever. Plus, I got some pills for malaria, but not the ones with quinine (the mosquitoes there are resistant to quinine). I also picked up some water purification pills and some insect repellent. The visit to the clinic cost me $369.08. If they had wanted to rip me off, they would have charged me an additional $49.92. And believe it or not, that's your final clue. Good luck.


Mystery #3 involves the photographs you see here. The winner of the quiz will be the first person who can tell me the city I was in when I took these pictures. That's all -- just the name of the city were I shot these pictures (for my visually impaired readers, the pictures are of older-looking store signs that read: Zweck's Jewelry, Model Clothing Company, Carousel Salon of Beauty and Hotel Continental or Continental Hotel, depending upon which side you view).


Regarding my next journey, I'll be gone from May 18th until June 12th. I'm making a two-day stop along the way to conduct an on-camera interview with a woman who
lives outside of London. It's for a documentary I'm working on. You'll hear more about that one later. You can send your guesses to me at donray@donray.com.


On the home front, when I return, I'm moving my family back down to the neighborhood I grew up in. I'll still be using my little house there as an office, but the family house will be just two doors down.


It'll be cramped for a while, but being there will open up many opportunities for my son, David (Da Hai), and my wife, Xiao Mei. David will start 11th grade in an award-winning school district and both of them will be able to look for better-paying jobs and more convenient colleges if that's what they choose to do.

The solution to Mystery #1: The photograph was of one of the old fluoroscope machines that used to be parked in shoe stores. The customers put his or her feet in slots at the bottom and were then able to view the bones in their feet and see if the shoes they were trying on were correct. And, of course, the shoe salesman and the customer's mother could also get a glimpse through the other viewfinders. By the mid-'50s, the realization that all of that radiation wasn't good for folks led to end of the line for the foot x-ray machines. I was never able to experience the view because I was too short to reach the viewers.

This topic brings to mind another quiz for you -- but an unoffical quiz. What do my married sister Nancy, my former wife Diana, and my current wife Xiao Mei have in common that would make a punster happy? Just promise me you won't pelt me with hate emails when I give you the silly answer.