Way back then, I sat down alone for a ‘Down Under’ Thanksgiving dinner. Thirteen hours before the family ate in Carolina. Fifteen hours before the relatives in Texas ate and then played dominoes while an uncle slipped out to his car to get a little ‘sweetning.’ An International Dateline made my early meal possible. Business partners in Sydney, Australia arranged my dining reservation. Some four decades ago, but remembering this Thanksgiving I ate turkey, dressing,
Category: Travel
Buffaloed
We watched the evening eruption of Old Faithful geyser. The next morning the three of us drove the road that goes through Yellowstone National Park. I drove, Margaret rode shotgun and Brandy, our 12-year-old standard poodle, sat in the back seat. A few miles outside the park headquarters, the car ahead suddenly stopped. I braked. Then we saw the herd of bison that commandeered the asphalt. I counted over a dozen. The herd split and
Old Man’s Yangtze
News in 2020 that heavy rains in central China were flooding the Yangtze River reminded me of our trip to China, year 2000. Four years after I retired as a Chapel Hill professor, Margaret and I booked a two-week excursion that included a five-day cruise up a not-so-lazy river. The Yangtze is filled with commercial boats of different sizes supplying river cities. Halfway between Wuhan and Chongqing (yes, other old-timers ‘Chungking’) we went ashore, then took
Ethel Merman
The Elam’s son played quarterback. The Kelly’s son was the fullback. We were near New York City because our boys were playing in the Thanksgiving week Thomas Edison Bowl. You probably never heard of that November Bowl game matching pee-wee football players, top age limit 13 years. We hadn’t either until our Durham, North Carolina Elks were invited to play in East Orange, New Jersey. The Carolina boys were quartered in the homes of their
Woman Driver
We bought a 1973 Volvo Station Wagon in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Paid $14,000. But received a $2,000 rebate because we contracted to take delivery in Sweden during the summer months I wasn’t teaching. The rebate bought airplane tickets to Gothenburg and back from Paris, where we would leave the wagon to ship to Norfolk, Virginia. If these prices sound low in 2020, remember the ’73 Reagan dollar overseas bought one hundred drachmas in
Christmas in Hopetown
How do you celebrate Christmas Day in Hopetown, a Bahamian paradise among the Abaco Islands? You bring your sloop Makaleka alongside the city pier and moor. Margaret ties green ribbons on the starboard shroud. Donna ties red ribbons on the port side shroud. We go ashore. The children gather in the schoolyard. Santa comes. He drives a golf cart. His beard doesn’t reach to his Bermuda short pants. He “ho..ho..hos” and gives the children ice cream.
Are We There Yet?
“Took six hours,” Jenny told me, to drive with her eight-year-old son Trent from Indiana to Tennessee to see the relatives. “How did you keep him entertained?” I asked. She answered that Trent spent most of the trip talking and reading on his iPhone. “Jenny, ever hear of the Burma Shave signs alongside the highway?” Of course, she hadn’t. The funny signs disappeared in the 1960s. I remembered that Mom had to devise new games to
Chatterbox Falls
If you are willing to shoot the Malibu Rapids in my sailboat, drop an anchor off the bow, row the dinghy ashore and carry a stern line ashore you lash to a tree, and can go to sleep with the sound of water rushing all night, then I’ll sign you on to crew on a voyage to one of the world’s prettiest places: Chatterbox Falls Princess Louisa Inlet British Columbia, Canada Or
Single Engine
“If you have time to spare, go by air.” Said often by we licensed, single-engine, non-instrument rated private pilots. Storms, fog, darkness, repair frequently made us wait our one-engine, four person plane on the ground. Six decades later, I remembered that old saying because we had waited nine hours to board, for the second time, an airline flight from DFW to Indianapolis. The first morning boarding lasted 30 minutes. Then the pilot