“Then one day, when you least expect it, the great adventure finds you.”
When I woke up around nine, it was cloudy. It was still night-time cold. I was glad for my sweatshirt. Some snow still sits on the lawns and the sides of the road. I want it gone.
While I was reading the papers, the clouds disappeared, and the sun reappeared. It’s a bright, shiny day. It is still chilly but warmer than it was. The air hints of spring. The birds are morning noisy. They are announcing the change in seasons.
When I was a kid, I didn’t notice we lived in a duplex in a project of eleven other duplexes. We seldom went away for vacations, too expensive, but we did take day trips. I remember the museums, not so much for the paintings but for the exhibits, like the rooms filled with American Indian or Egyptian artifacts. We went to the drive-in on Saturday nights. On summer weekends, we went to the beach. We lived near the woods with a swamp and wild blueberry bushes. The field to the woods was filled with grasshoppers. At the end of the field near the swamp was a rotten tree. One giant limb was on the ground. It was sometimes a horse and other times a rocket shop. My life was rich and filled with adventures.
The adventures never disappeared even as I grew older. My friends and I were rovers. I remember when we were in high school we used to wander through Harvard Square and around the streets of Boston. We’d go to the airport to watch the planes and ride the subway to get there. Life was fun and mostly interesting.
When I was in college, I took my first plane ride and my second and my third. The first was the best. It was from Boston to Hyannis. The view was spectacular. I saw the ocean and could even see the cresting waves. I loved that ride.
Ghana was the next big adventure. No day was ever commonplace. Even a trip to the market was amazing. Life was filled new sights, smells and tastes. I loved Ghana, still do.
Almost fifteen years ago I retired. I still travel to salve the wanderlust which has always been part of me. My adventures continue. I take rides hoping to find something new. I usually do. I love everyday.
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March 14, 2019 at 1:43 pm
Mostly sunny today but the clouds arrived just as I came home after work. All snow is gone now and I thank the rain for that. Too bad the roads are so muddy instead and it doesn’t look like they will get a chance to dry up at all for the weekend.
Cranes are arriving here now and it does feel like spring has come even if actually will take some time until it actually does but who cares 🙂 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
March 14, 2019 at 7:28 pm
Hi Christer,
There is still snow. Tomorrow should be in the mid-fifties so I hope it will all melt. I guess the next couple of days will be warmer than it has been.
Spring seems just so far away from us. We are always later than the rest of the state in seeing spring arrive. North of us will have leaves while we’ll just have buds. That is the only time I regret living by the ocean.
Have a great day!
March 14, 2019 at 4:01 pm
Hi Kat,
Somehow while growing up I never realized if my parents were wealthy or not. We lived in a three bedroom two bath house with a two car garage. We owned two cars and we went on vacation every summer. We would have been classified as upper middle-class.
When I was in the fourth or fifth grade I had a friend named Ward Hunt. We attended Walnut Hill Elementary School which I still drive by going to and from work. His house was larger and he had almost every toy imaginable at the time. He had an electric train set that came down from the ceiling of the garage and it had every car and several Lionel locomotives while my train set was a simple oval with one locomotive and a few freight cars. It never dawned on me until I was in college that he was a member of one of the country’s wealthiest families, founded by H.L. Hunt of Hunt oil fame. His grandfather discovered and developed the East Texas oil fields in the early 1920s. In the 1950s H.L. was the wealthiest man in the world. Ward dressed like every other boy in the fourth grade. He wore hightop black tennis shoes, Lee Jeans and a tee shirt to school. No one knew that he was any different then the rest of us.
I took my first plane ride in 1953 when we flew from Dallas to NYC to visit the relatives. We flew on a Non Scheduled Airline on a DC-4. The trip took nine hours with a stop in Washington DC. In those days the crew would invite the passengers to visit the flight deck. I got to sit on the pilot’s lap and was hooked on becoming a pilot for a career. The entire flight was a 8,000ft. and you could see all the cars, farms and towns easily. Compared to flying today that trip seemed like it was flown in the stone ages. 🙂
Today is beautiful with clear skies and mild, 65 degree temperatures.
March 14, 2019 at 7:23 pm
Bob,
I never thought anything about where we lived or whether we had money or not. The duplex was comfortable though I would have liked a couple more rooms. Your house would have seemed like a mansion to me. My mother didn’t learn to drive until she was in her late 30’s and living on the cape so we had only one car. The first away vacation was when I was in my teens, and we went to Niagara Falls. On the cape, we had our own house, and I finally got my own room. We became a two car family. We didn’t go on vacations because summer was the big season for my father, the manager of Hood Ice Cream in Hyannis. I didn’t mind. We were living in a tourist’s paradise. When I was in Ghana, my father switched jobs. That was a change in our fortunes. My father made a good deal of money, and he was always generous.
It was chilly all day. The sun came and went.
March 14, 2019 at 9:44 pm
I love to fly. My first flight was to Canada, a big adventure for a 12-year-old.
It was a stormy week which caused some damage. Rain all week and several climate rallies tomorrow. Shall I ask for sun? 😉
March 14, 2019 at 10:38 pm
Birgit,
Though I have been on so many flights, I still get excited to fly, to be going somewhere far away. I especially love flying over cities at night with all the lights twinkling.
We’ll have 50’s through the weekend. Boston will be in the low 60’s. I want warmth!!!~