Little Adventures

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Travels

Some summers when I was young, we six kids would be packed into the family station wagon, and off we would go on a vacation with our poor, long suffering parents. We went to Niagara Falls, to the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg, and to the World's Fair in New York. I came away from those early travels a little better acquainted with geography, history and industry, but mostly, I came away impressed with my parents ability to deal with every crisis and unexpected turn of events that cropped up as they shuttled their tribe about the countryside. If David tried to get under the railing for a better look at the falls, Dad's hand grabbed his collar and dragged him back to safety. If Clem and I managed to get stuck on a rocky ledge at Devil's Den, Mom came and hoisted us down. If Pinky was hit by a workman's carelessly thrown saw, Mom dealt with the first aid and Dad had a stern talk with the culprit. To me it seemed my parents were masters of their environment, capable of going anywhere they liked and of enjoying themselves in the process. I longed to have their competence and confidence.

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In 1967 my girlfriend, Bev, and I stayed two months with relatives of hers who lived north of London, near Windsor Castle. These good people made us a part of their everyday life and provided two timid travelers with a much needed home base for our explorations. Each morning, Bev and I would calculate how to ride busses, trains, and the underground to get to the attraction of the day, places like the Tower of London, the British Museum and Carnaby Street. We were both shy and afraid of making mistakes, and we had many an embarrassing mishap, but we kept on trying and never actually died from any of our expeditions into the great city of London. At the end of the day, we would find our way home to Reg and Lil, talk over our adventures, and receive advice on how to do better next time. Then we would eat our dinner of steak and kidney pie, watch a little telly, and then perhaps, Reg would take me to the Wheatsheaf Pub for a pint of bitter and a game of shove ha'penny. At the end of the summer I was very glad to get home to my old familiar environment, but I soon realized that I was looking at that environment differently. I found myself comparing things with their English counterparts… TV versus the telly, bars versus pubs, and hamburgers versus fish and chips. I also discovered, with some surprise, that all those days spent coping with the mysteries of England had made a somewhat more confident person of me. At twenty-two, I was still too immature to make the most of that time abroad, but you’ve got to start somewhere, and this experience laid a foundation of interest in and understanding of the English that has given me much pleasure ever since.

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In 1968 the war was on, and my choices were to run, enlist, or be drafted. I enlisted in the army and soon found myself in Vietnam. I was scared for the first month, scared for the last month, and sure I was going to die for all of the months in between. The army is just as they say… long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of terror. I did my twelve hour stint each day, directing by radio the firing of a battery of 105mm howitzers located 20 miles away, and every once in a while we would get mortared, or sniped at. One strange night one of my guys even managed to point those distant guns back at us, and begin firing them!

I started as a private first class and ended as a technical sergeant in charge of a shift of men doing the work of fire direction. At the end I was more competent and confident than even the green officers I worked for. I well remember getting off a plane at dawn in Tacoma, Washington, and seeing the sunrise light up Mount Rainier as I waited in line for my discharge from the army. From that day to this I have never really worried too much about anything. Luckier than some, I was not badly screwed up by my time in Vietnam, and I still had ambitions and goals at the end of my stint. That awful time also gave me confidence and a devil may care attitude that I think stems from some internal belief that I should have died back then… that I now live on borrowed time. As a girl, my wife Pam lived in Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Germany, and so she has had many more homes than I. Pam and I met in Delaware, and in 1977, after we had been dating a while, we decided to tour Europe together in a rented car. It was a real learning experience, as neither of us knew much about traveling the roads of Europe. It was also a joyous time, as we pulled together to make the most of each new day. If she worried, I had confidence; if I got us lost, through overconfidence, she would find us again on the map. Neither of us were fluent in any of the languages, but Pam's high school French and German, combined with my hand waving, seemed to be all that was required. We got lost in the Loire valley, were stranded for days in Lyon, and fell ill in Florence, but we always made the best of things. We came home with a wealth of shared experiences and great confidence in ourselves as a team. Shortly after our return, I asked Pam to marry me.

Now Pete sits in the back seat during our summer vacations and watches the country roll by, as his confident and competent parents wing it up front.