Trip Plans

Cesky Krumlav, 2008

"I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list."
Susan Sonntag

Planning a trip is almost as much fun as going on one.
I call it Tripping Out.

Opening Doors

Vienna Doors, 2008

Doors were opening for me in 1969, and at the same time I realized some people were living behind iron curtains. Budapest was one of those places.

Train Travel

Are you on the right track?
All Aboard is a post about losing my way.

Paris Souvenirs

We're searching for history on this trip.
Read a post about how we gather history.

Book Bag

Tabor, Czech Republic, 2008

Travel ideal: sitting in a cafe, watching a foreign world go by while reading a book that takes place in that very locale. Book It is a post I wrote with ways to find just the right book. You'll have to find the cafe.

Are You Listening?

Just saying hi! Click this link to hear a story we overheard!

Pack Your Bags

Paris, 1982

I'm on the road, but click here for a post I wrote about packing.

Traveling Shoes

Joseph Farrelly, 1926

The best time to get away is when you start looking like your passport picture!

I'm off to Europe for a couple of weeks. We're doing some research in France and Poland and I'll have a bunch of new stories and insights when I get back. In the meantime, I've scheduled some posts for the days I'm gone, with links from my olden days of blogging. (You might even see your old comments.) Since I didn't even recognize the posts, they'll probably seem new to you, too. Take care!

"A trip is what you take when you can't take any more of what you've been taking."
...Adeline Ainsworth

Check out Searching for Ghosts.

A Big Girl Now

She just turned five.

Said euphorically: I'm so glad I'm five. I've always wanted to be five. I can't tell if I'm taller. This dress still fit me yesterday. Then I was four. Now I'm five. I love to be five! Hey...can I play with that?

Mom: No, that's just for little kids.

Said dismally: Oh--I wish I was still a little kid!

Secrets of a Happy Marriage

The Stars of Our Marriage
1969-2008

"There are many things, I'm sure," she said, "without which we could not live...
But love is the only one I can think of."

Some secrets for staying in love, so you never have to live without it:

1. Recall why you fell in love in the first place.
   
2. Count your together blessings, together.
3. Tell private jokes, and laugh often.
4. Think about the problems you used to have and how you solved them together.
5. Anticipate doing something you both love to do.
6. Watch your favorite old movie.
7. Take a long drive and listen to the music of your olden days.
8. Pray for each other.
   
9. Decide that unity is more important than being right.
10. Remember that love is not something you get, it's something you do.

Art by Warren Davis

My marriage is 39 years old today,
and I count my lucky stars!

Roots Phenomenon

Where are your roots?

After Alex Haley published the book Roots, he said, "My hope is that Roots will start a ground swell of longing for people everywhere to go digging for their own roots, to discover a heritage to make them proud..."

My husband Dee is a gardener who digs for roots on family trees. He plows through crumbling letters, diaries written in fading pencil, disintegrating scrapbooks, and boxes from under somebody's bed. He interviews grandfathers, uncles and second-cousins searching for specifics to illuminate the life-style and character of a family.

The roots he's excavating now are in Poland. Armed with names, dates and locations we're leaving this week to gather history in the Malopolska region near Cracow, close to Ukraine and Slovakia. I've studied a lot of maps and learned some new geography while preparing for this trip. It's a part of Europe we're totally unfamiliar with, and the language is a complete mystery, but we've got our shovels and we're ready to dig.

We're also doing some research in France. It's funny: this week I drove through the neighborhood where I grew up. Forty years ago I went to the grand opening of a shopping mall that is now being demolished and rebuilt because it's so old. Yet we fully expect to find and photograph a tiny bakery established in France over two hundred years ago. A farmhouse in Poland may have survived the Communists and two world wars--we're hoping, anyway.

Although we've burrowed around other family trees, we haven't done much digging on our own roots. (A paying client takes precedence.) But as I get older I feel a yearning to know my history. Referring to someone famous, a reporter said, "He's from an old family," as if the rest of us just popped up from nowhere in recent generations. We each descend from "an old family" with heroines, rogues, villains and champions, and tales of tragedy and valor that could encourage us.

Dee has noticed that every family has a self-appointed historian with a passion for keeping the records and photographs. Alex Haley discovered oral historians called griots in Africa. He said, "They are men trained from boyhood to memorize, preserve and recite the centuries-old histories of villages, clans, families, and heroes. Some are keepers of family stories so long that they can talk for three days without ever repeating themselves."

Who is your family's griot? Do you know who to call for information about your ancestors? Have you written something for your kids and grandkids? Where are the photos of your grandparents? Which family legend intrigues you?

The last sentence in the Old Testament talks about the Roots phenomenon. In Malachi 4:6 it says, "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers..."

Has your heart been turned toward your roots?

Life Lessons of a Forty-Niner

Magazine Cover, Unknown

Today I start my 60th year. I'm a 1949-er, born in the first half of the last century...how old does that sound?? Having just spent some time with a newborn baby, I realize I've acquired awesome skills, knowledge and wisdom over these many years. I wouldn't want to start over!

Think about what you've learned in life while I count the blessings of being 59.

I can:

1. Feel a sense of peace
   
2. Identify hundreds of individual voices
3. Crawl (that takes coordination!), roll, balance and walk
   
4. Distinguish colors and hues (think of all the shades of green in the woods)
   
5. Follow a sound to it's source
6. Identify emotions in other people
7. Differentiate numbers, letters, symbols
8. Know when something is upside down
9. Perceive danger
10. Appreciate lovely scents
11. Feel the mood of the crowd
    
12. Anticipate cold
    
13. Steel myself for pain
14. Wait for food
    
15. Smell fire
16. Read
17. Entertain myself with my thoughts
18. Plan ahead to accomplish tasks
    
19. Organize my surroundings
    
20. Drive to a new address
    
21. Feed myself without getting it in my hair
    
22. Clean up a kitchen quickly
    
23. Follow directions
    
24. Wait without having a tantrum
25. Sense a need for quiet
26. Make unpleasant phone calls
27. Talk to strangers
28. Create a pleasant atmosphere
29. Face a crisis
30. Eat something that looks yukky
31. Smile when I've been insulted
32. Hold my head up when I'm embarrassed
33. Tackle a job I don't know how to do
34. Look calm when my knees are shaking
35. Pretend I'm having a good time
36. Say no to someone asking for a favor
37. Turn on the computer
38. Understand why old people rant about changes in the world
    
39. Remember why young people think they invented the world
40. Recall the poetic lyrics to classic songs
41. Watch black and white movies without whining
    
42. Wait out a bad mood
43. Accept a compliment
44. Expect respect
45. Laugh at irreverence
46. Put financial problems in perspective
47. Love others with no expectations
48. Let my kids make decisions
    
49. Follow a football game
50. Value another opinion
51. Discern when a person is genuine
52. Choose which traditions I'll follow
53. Trust my intuition
54. Appreciate old friends, even if I never see them
    
55. Pray with total faith that I'm heard
56. Accept that I'm not always right
57. Not try to top everyone's story
58. Tell the difference between Coke, Diet Coke and Pepsi
59. Cry for joy
    

Knowing how to do something is an accomplishment. Doing it at the right time is a different thing. For that I'll need a few more birthdays!

Make a list of the things you've learned in life. Then cheer yourself on.

Go Forty-niners!!

What I'd Give Pete

Pete 1980

♬ "If I had a million dollars (if I had a million dollars...") ♬

I'd give Pete some cool stuff for his birthday:

1. A bright red porsche.
2. A year's Eurailpass for two.
3. A ranch in Canada.
4. An acre of garden.
5. An old VW bus.
6. A lot of old VW bus parts.
7. A garage.
8. A million tiny computer pieces.
9. Recycling bins scattered across the valley.
10. A saxaphone.

"I don't have a million dollars...
"I don't have a million dollars...
"I don't have a million do-ol-lars...
"But I'm RICH!"

Cause for my 30th birthday I got Pete!

Before You Grow Up

Art by Eulalie, 1953

Important things to do before you turn 5:

1. Taste dirt.
2. Suck on a wet, warm washcloth while you're in the tub.
3. Eat sand.
4. Twirl around until you fall down.
5. Roll down a hill.

Don't you know exactly what a wet washcloth tastes like? Have you sucked on one lately?  I figure we get a lot of our experience before we know better.  Go babies!

(What did you learn long ago that you still remember?)

Did You Hear?

Baby Benji is home and doing well! 

 Oma and Opa checked him out and he's absolutely perfect!

(No worries, anymore.)