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Category:
Travel
Publisher: AKA-publishing
ISBN-10: 9781942168
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 180
Copyright: 2015
ISBN-13: 9781942168157
Price: $5.99 (eBook)
Travel letters to my oldest daughter about my world travels over a twenty year period.
Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
As a Father's Day gift my oldest daughter Jerilyn, often called Jeril, presented me with a fat three-hole notebook containing the letters and stories I had written her from the time she was 20 until she was 38--from 1977 to 1995. It was one of my dearest Father's Day gifts ever. And it was an especially appropriate gift as she had been an avid reader since childhood and was now a creative librarian who cherished the written word.
I was amazed at how much detail there was in these letters about my adventures around the world. I decided to share the parts of these letters that other travelers, active or armchair, might enjoy. Although I had retired from full-time teaching, I was writing travel books and had continued to write a weekly travel column.
My wife, Carla, and I started traveling with our children when the two oldest, Jerilyn and Debra were quite young. We lived on the East Coast and took the opportunity to explore the battlefields, museums and parks. When we moved back to the Midwest and had two more children, Rosalyn and Stephanie, we continued our travels, first with a tent, and after finding it couldn't hold six comfortably, we bought a travel trailer.
As a psychology professor at an University of Missouri, I had summers off and a flexible schedule allowing some travel. I arranged to take time off to teach abroad for a total of three years spaced apart. I took an additional year off on sabbatical in order to see more of the world. My wife, Carla, was a psychologist in private practice with control over her schedule, which added to our freedom to travel.
In our first year abroad teaching in a graduate program run by Ball State for the Air Force in Europe, we had all four children with us (Jerilyn 16, Debra 14, Rosie 8, and Stephanie 6) so letters were not necessary to keep them up-to-date.
But on our second year assignment in 1977-1978 with the Air Force, only the younger children were with us so regular reports on our experiences to the two older girls became part of the pattern. The reader needs to keep in mind that computers did not exist, often a typewriter was hard to find, and copy machines were rare, so some letters were handwritten and others typed.
Later both of the older girls were stationed for years in Europe, Debra as an army officer and Jerilyn with her army officer husband. Part of the problem in communication was the lack of cheap telephone calls, something the younger generation probably cannot image, so the letters continued.
These detailed reports to my daughters on what was happening continued for eighteen years. I found I had forgotten much of what had happened to me and enjoyed reviewing my adventures in foreign lands and in the United States. Occasionally I will put the age after a daughter's name to keep the reader aware of the passage of time .
In reading the stories you will note that money always seemed to concern me, and some of the numbers I mention sound like very little. But keep in mind how much the dollar has been devalued over the last forty years. Despite my complaints it should be apparent that we were able to take advantage of our travel opportunities to a large portion of the world, some of it even traveling first class.
Living in foreign countries. traveling alone or with various groups, I have had more contact with the locals than the average tourist who is often sheltered from reality. When I retired from full-time teaching in 1995, I began writing occasional stories on my travels with a trauma team into disaster areas for the Columbia Daily Tribune and in 1998 began writing a weekly travel column, Venture Bound. I feel that I moved so easily into the role of travel writer because of the experience I had had writing letters to my family.
In this book I will include an occasional travel story published in the Tribune some years after the trip. These are based on a daily journal I always kept so I could remember what had happened. Often so much occurs in a short time that I would forget important details if I didn't make a record of them shortly after they happened.
Please join me in the following pages as I relive some of my adventures from around the world.
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