Mar. 27, 2004 - 18:52 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

A period of. . .

I was born and raised with Colorado mountains in my face and the prarie at my back. The sun setting behind those mountains, leaving the afterglow just before dark. Not really noticing the moon until high in the sky.

It was easy for me to know where I was and which way was N.E.W.S., for years it was and is now my very comfortable home on this planet. As a kid I enjoyed traveling with Mom and Dad, what little of it we did during the Depression years. A short trip to the Midwest oil fields in Wyoming to visit friends of the folks with attendant side trips was my first big travel thrill. Then in the late thirties a trip to Carlsbad Caverns, El Paso and Juarez, Mexico stopping to see Grandma on the way home. Those few forays built a craving in me for travel that went unsatisfied, for the most part, for many years. And that was the extent of my travels as a single person.

Big in our early marriage was our first train trip, which was to the Quad Cities on the Mississippi with Heather, we lived there for a time. It was a train trip across the flatlands to our east, but, first trip to a young man was something thrilling.

We had a four wheel bucket of bolts we carefully herded around the nearby countryside. Me, enjoying living in tall corn country where livestock was huge. But in Illinois they weren't called pigs, guess they were too huge for that, they called them swine and seemed no relation to the pigs I saw back home. Of course the Mississippi River was huge to my eyes as was Rock River which joined the Mississippi. Everything green and lush all over during the warm season, bursting with life. Things had turned brown in our home country while things were still green and growing in Illinois and Iowa. Late summer in Colorado the countryside was mostly dried fields that had been harvested with the creeks bordered by Cottonwood trees, not much else was green on the flatlands.

But then, winter would come, cloudy all winter, maybe one pretty snow that could be played in and the rest of the winter cold, icy and dreary.

We came back to Colorado, settled in pretty well. Managed to make one trip to Carlsbad Caverns with our youngest child and weekends in the nearby mountains.

At the age of 29 after years of yearning, what did I see ? I saw the sea or least ways the Gulf Of Mexico and to the east coast to the Atlantic Ocean on a pleasure jaunt. We lived in the Tampa area for ten wonderful years enjoying the semi-tropical world thereabouts. A whole new world for me, it was.

There was still one unfulfilled desire of mine, I almost had a plane ride that was being given to scouters of the area but was called in to work. We came back to Denver with that longed for thing yet not a reality.

Shortly after our return home my life became exciting, first assembly on an escape capsule for military aircraft, then later in the test lab. doing testing that was sometimes hazardous. I enjoyed every minute of it. While there I first had a ride in a plane, an Aero-Commander to the Mesa in Utah. Then came the commercial flights, the first one a thrill and I did get to see the Crater near Winslow, Arizona and just how vast the mountains are that we flew over in Colorado on the way back. But for the most part travel at that altitude was rather boring compared to the low flying of the Aero-Commander. Then came commercial flights to California -- back and forth.

Then a great adventure for me, overseas. Japan & the Philippines, another tour to Viet Nam, the last one to Thailand as a tech rep for the same company. After that I felt pretty well traveled.

But for our fiftieth wedding anniversary the kids saw that we got a Mediterranean cruise. More flying and a steamship through the Med. I guess we saw the usual things, but for me it fulfilled many of my dreams. Stopped in Greece and were bussed to the site of the first Olympic Games where, in my mind's eye I saw the fire lit and the torch bearer start his run to Athens. Standing on the actual grounds, in my day dreams I saw and heard the contests, the thud of running feet echoed in my ears as I stood where the races were held.

Cairo was very interesting, the antiquities and the Great Pyramids had been in my young dreams. Then to Ashdod, Israel, Heather to go with the tour to Jerusalem which had a lot of walking, I held a table at an outdoor establishment, had coffee, later lunch and in the afternoon snacks, read a book and mostly "people watched." It was a thrill also standing on the ground where one of my forebears folks were born and raised. The rest of the cruise was a blast, both on the ground and on the ship. In the dining room Heather and I were table mates to a Scot and his wife, two English ladies, and a sometimes table mate, female of the U.S., sometimes that is if she didn't claim to be seasick. What a riot we had, we weren't especially noisy but our hilarity had people near us craning to see what was going on at our table.

The whole trip was one amazing thing after another for us, I noticed in Athens that the curbstones were marble, wild that. That was as close to actual Europe I ever got, sadly. But for a 73 year old duffer it was great fun.

After I retired we sold our house, moved into an apartment, bought a Saturn and began to go back and forth to Eugene, Oregon to see our daughter her kids and hubby. I made several trips by Amtrak by both routes, one to Sacramento and one on the Pioneer that they had open for a while which went direct to Portland and bussed south to Eugene.

When we drove we directed our own travel, stopped when and where we wanted to, ate when and where we wanted to and thoroughly enjoyed our trips back and forth. Each time remembering being there before and enjoying the whole operation, seeing familiar sights both going and coming.

Then came our auto accident, my recovery and we decided that travel by auto was a bit risky for us, so we confined our selves to trips to and from our near by mountains. I have been, up to this time, able to go without oxygen long enough to fly to Eugene. Daughter meets us at the airport with a tank and I am in tall grass once again.

I guess this is a selfish entry, but I have enjoyed every bit of the memories I have of travel. So, as a traveler I am still in transition, A Period Of . . . . . . . . . .

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