The Traveler

                             The Traveler




     When I first met Linda she had just turned seventeen, she was not only the most beautiful girl in the world she was also widely traveled. Her father in the mid 1950's worked for a defense contractor charged with some of the work on the ICBM missile silos that were put in place all over the country as a deterrent to the ones the Russians were installing over their country side , Dad worked in supply.
      The company relocated the family all over the west from job to job and when they did Dad was given per- diem for each member of the family to cover food and expenses, he also received an allowance for the miles he would have to drive to the next job and he was given travel time to get there. Bear in mind that in the mid 1950's the hi-way system in this country was severely lacking in good roads, in fact if the road was two lanes wide and paved it was considered a major hi-way. About this time President Eisenhower had approved the construction of the interstate system but that was going to be several years away, in fact while driving to Tennessee on our honeymoon in 1967, Linda and I were on and off of parts of the interstate all thru Georgia and Tennessee.
     So to give you an idea of the difficulties, from Atlanta to Nashville is about 300 miles and takes about four hours to drive, you take interstate 75 north out of Atlanta to Chattanooga where you get on interstate 24 west to Nashville, simple. Back in the 1950's this was probably an overnight trip as you passed thru every town, city or wide spot in the road while circumnavigating mountains, rivers and deep valleys. Oh! and don't forget the slower speeds and no passing zones.
     Getting back to the story, Linda's Dad decided this would be an opportunity to see some of the country. When plotting his course to his next job going a direct route was out of the question, Linda told me that they were headed to Denver on one trip and wound up going into Mexico three times to get there.
     Over the course of the next few years they lived in California, Colorado, Idaho, Washington state and Arizona to name the few I can remember.
     Linda and Eileen were in and out of schools as many as three times in a year but the big thing was that Dad made sure they saw everything of any importance that might be within a hundred miles of where they were. They saw old Tombstone in Arizona, Pikes Peak in Colorado and Crater Lake in Washington. While passing thru Jackson Hole in Wyoming Linda fell into an open manhole and injured her leg, Dad never one to pass up an opportunity threatened to sue the city and settled for fifty dollars, Linda said he didn't share it with her.
     They traveled around in a pickup truck with a truck mounted camper on the bed, Linda and Eileen would lay own the bed over the cab and watch landscape as it passed by. Often Dad would pull off to the side of the road and camp by a stream, Dad would catch fish they cooked over an open fire while the girls would play in the water.
      Dad had promised Linda that they would move back to Florida when she started high school and he kept his promise and that's where I came in.
     When we were dating and planning our future Linda would tell me the stories of her travels and how she wanted to show me all of the wonderful sights, we made plans to visit all of the places she had seen and more. We were going to camp by mountain streams and drink the clean clear waters. Our vacations were planned out for the next tens years or so but then life got in the way, our priorities changed and then changed again. Every time we saved a little money something broke and had to be fixed or replaced, as I said - life got in the way.
     Recently I opened a drawer or dug into an old box and came across a few pieces of paper, one was a printout of names from her high school alumni, another was a page from a letter from one of her cousins or aunts, it gave information on some graves for her great grandparents. The last piece of paper was a small page torn from an old notebook about 4 1/2 in. x 6 1/2 in.. The paper was water stained, yellowed and faded and had notations in several colors of ink.
     The notations were the month, year and the address of every place Linda lived over the years since we were married, there were twenty five addresses. Looking back over the list it seemed we didn't stay in one place very long although we did live in our first house for four years, we rented a house in Sacramento, Ca. for five years and we lived in Auburn ,GA. for almost fifteen years and next month will make ten years in this house in Winder, Ga. still there are a lot of addresses for forty seven years of marriage.
     We never did get to see the Grand Tetons or the bears of Yellowstone but Linda did show me the Pacific Ocean, the Rockies Mtns. and the Grand Canyon to mention a few places and we did take short trips to Gatlinburg, the Mammoth Caves and one year we went to Akron ,Ohio. We also saw Disneyland, Disneyworld, Sea World in Ca. and Fl.. My work took me to places all over the country and I saw many sights that Linda had talked about including Alaska which was one place she wanted to go.
     Linda used to complain that when we went on a trip I drove like a bat out of hell to get to our destination and in doing so I passed up a lot of great places to stop and see. She was right, that was the way I was then always in a hurry, it was many years before I learned to slow down and enjoy the view. The last fifteen years or so we took several spur of the moment trips to destinations we pulled out of the thin air and we took hours to arrive.
     I look back over the list of addresses and can't help but wonder what Linda had to put up with being married to me, she rarely complained and no matter where we were she made us a good home filled with memories. I wonder how many other women would have been willing to uproot themselves every few months to chase a dream that always seemed to be just over the horizon.
     She was truly my better half and more than I deserved.