Does JBH Wonders Wander too Much???
“I’ve been everywhere man, I’ve been everywhere…” (Johnny Cash).
Well I have not been everywhere but I’ve been to many different places over the years. This thought came to me recently and the need arose for me to write about it.
First, this will not be a flowery treatise concerning my travels and the things that I have seen. I just wanted to document briefly the places where my life travels have led me and anything else notable or interesting perhaps.
My first travel adventure was leaving home for college. College was eighty miles from home. I was seventeen at the time. My family made a big deal out of it and my Mother cried when we said goodbye.
The second travel adventure (after completing college) was leaving home to serve in the Navy. My family made a big deal out of it and my Mother cried when we said goodbye. We were listening to John Denver sing “Leaving on a Jet Plane” during the drive to the airport. I think that was a mistake.
During my four year stint in the Navy, I traveled to Chicago Illinois, Memphis Tennessee, San Diego California, Hawaii, Singapore, The Philippines, Hong Kong, Japan, and Viet Nam.
When I was discharged from the Navy, I traveled from California to Ohio with my brother and his wife in a Chevy Nova pulling a U-Haul trailer. No one cried when I left the West coast. I felt sad to leave but some folks perhaps rejoiced at my leaving.
I flew back to the West coast some years later to California for a vacation. I took a train up the coast to visit an old Navy pal in Sacramento. On the way back East, I stopped to visit my parents in Arizona as they had moved there after Dad lost his job in Ohio. Mother cried when we said goodbye.
My brother moved his family to Connecticut after finishing his stint in the Navy. Well actually, he had already moved to Connecticut and was working. My brother left me to load up a large moving van with all of his household possessions including his wife and three children and bring it all to him. So I drove this moving van up the East coast and stayed in Connecticut for a while before taking an airplane back home.
I’ve made several business trips to New York, Nevada, Michigan, Chicago, South Carolina, and Kentucky during my working career. I don’t know if these count or not since it was “work” and very short-term trips. Mom was not aware of most of these trips so she did not cry. My wife at the time maybe cried the first time that I left, but after returning safely a few times, it was just another days work and no big deal.
So after being “laid off” from my career occupation (read, the ‘ole fogy was terminated), out of necessity I purchased a motor home in which currently serves as my humble abode. Since then, I now live in my native state of Ohio from Spring to Autumn but travel to Southern Texas and stay there during the cold Winter months of the mid-west. My Mother cried the first time that I left her home after living in my RV parked in her driveway for a Summer.
Being a salt-of-the-earth country boy, I never planned to travel so much and never felt the want to. But life occurrences have made me a traveler to some degree and it has been educational and enjoyable for the most part.
Traveling is now an occasional necessity for me at this point in my life but I need roots and feel that someday I will have them before getting too old and feeble.
“I’ve been Wandering Early and Late,
From New York City to the Golden Gate,
And it Don’t look like I’ll ever stop my Wandering,
”I’ve Been in the Army, I’ve Worked on a Farm,
And all I’ve got to show is the Muscle in my arm,
And it Don’t look like I’ll ever stop my Wandering,
(James Taylor)
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