Future Think or Seat of Pants?

I booked our air tickets through Expedia two months and 29 days ahead of our departure date. Soon I will go online to find a room in one of the Paris hostels, and Mary and I will plan the rest of the trip. This future thinking is far different from how we did it in 1961.

We left from Newport, California, on September 22,driving Mary’s father’s old car across the country because we felt we needed to see America before seeing Europe. Our arrival, on October 6, in Washington D.C. was just five days after Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's 34-year old home run record, and five days after President Kennedy, as a result of the Berlin Crisis, mobilized the Indiana Air National Guard, to go to Chambley Air Base in France. Construction of the Berlin Wall had begun on August 13.

It was a great ride. Once we had seen everything we wanted to along Route 66, D.C., Boston and New York, we weren’t ready to go back to California. Passing the NYC Icelandic Airlines office one day, we went inside and bought tickets to Scotland with an open-ended return.

The day before we left, we went to Radio City Music Hall and saw "Breakfast at Tiffany's" with Audrey Hepburn. In my favorite scene, she sits out on the fire escape with her guitar singing "Moon River," echoing the wistful, somewhat scared way we were feeling about leaving America and going into the unknown.

We had both worked all summer, living cheaply and saving every extra penny. Mary held down a couple of jobs, including one as a bar maid, while I worked graveyard sorting checks for the Bank of America. The Bank was several miles uphill in Santa Monica. Since I had sold my black Ford convertible to an ex-boyfriend, I rode my bike up the hill every night and coasted back down every morning.

It’s not much different for me now. Between us, my husband and I have two smallish pensions, having used up a couple of retirement accounts and inheritances on things like houses and travel.

Here’s how I am paying for my part of the trip: I Substitute Teach at the local high school. The kids are great and the pay is $120 a day if I am called in. Also, I have written a book, a Young Adult historical novel that will be a best seller if I ever find an agent who loves it enough to sell it to a publisher. And I do calligraphic art and sometimes get paid for it. The one shown was finished this morning. I didn't know how to turn it around. Oopsy.