LEARNING TO TRAVEL - 28 NOVEMBER, 2022
Travel is one of those “natural learning” things, like walking, talking, being potty trained, or reading… they simply run away (wobble away) at high speed as if frantically looking for some way out… we are forced to be ever vigilant or harness them, leash them like a dog or pet iguana. Things are always better over there… let's go see.
I was one of those “runners” who struck terror in the heart of adults as I catapulted myself unexpectedly off to some far away destination, I also was one of those chatty kids that never shut up with the questions, and story telling about my life (family arguments, secrets and taboo coments), no one was spared, bus drivers, drunks, hobo’s, cops or repairmen or the “quiet places” like libraries, church, funerals… after all, there is a “lot” to talk about.
My Godmother was out of her mind when she gave me a Tricycle for my third birthday…being an “advanced” kid living inner city with miles of sidewalks available, a runner, chatty, and having never met a stranger, (did I mention I was an accomplished Illusionist at age three ? I could disappear at will, and not be found for hours.
The mixed ethnic neighborhood ment that as I confronted dog walkers, gardeners, home owners, and people at bus stops, grocery stores and sitting in allies I was traveling to Prague, Malta, Trieste, le havre, reykjavik, or lisbon and earning foreign languages, names and places… but, everytime, when I would get home, none of the room full of people ever cared about what I learned,or what countries I had been to.
I met sea captains, maids, nurses, cookie and cake bakers, musicians, mechanics, and dancers, hat makers, and seamstresses, taxi drivers, cops, rabbis, and lots of old people, they would break out maps written in funny languages to show me things, and tell me stories about “back home”, show me photographs, and cry a lot.
After Kindergarten we moved out to the suburbs, and my two shoebox map collection was my rainy day hobby, my grandfathers Blaupunkt trans-oceanic radio had all of my map names on a big round dial, and I spent hours listening to gibberish that I did not understand, and music that was (I believed) from outer space.
From2 wheel bicycle to getting a drivers license the distance was always calling, like the dog who wanders off new scent to new scent until he is lost, I pedaled and drove to distant places that I could never admit to, by going “just one more mile (or block)” at a time… joining the navy untied all of the restraints, then, a million-mile club airline traveling work career finished the job… I now was a fully unmoored “traveler”.
Of the many Bernoulli effects I dealt with in Engineering, his statistical principle showing a more or less predictable ratio between the number of random trials of an event and its end occurrences (the law of averages), finally got me… after my fourth major Airline incident in four consecutive lights, I quit flying.
I entered a concept of travel that is best described as “reverse travel”... introverted travel, or somesuch.
By being stationary, travel came to me in the form of foreign business, contacts, people, and products,
my having been “there” now validated my being “here”. My awareness, familiarity, and experience from years of traveling were valuable coinage now being spent in reverse.
No, I never did quit traveling… I now just stay surface tied to auto-rail-boat and my reverse travel mode, where I vicariously travel through my clients. I still disappear and go missing, get lost chattering incessantly to strangers, and wander off to see what’s over there, I just no longer fly.
Learning to travel is one of those “natural learning” things, like walking, talking, being potty trained, or reading.
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