Getting Gone
You’re looking at a picture of a miracle about to happen --- my family on the eve of our departure for Spain in 1957.
I’m the well-behaved one on the far right. It’s no coincidence that my father is positioned between me and the rest of the family. I’m only five but already possessed of the imagination of Timothy Leary and the morality of a ferret.
We were a young and poor family, so our entire worldly possessions fit into and onto an old Chevy. In a scene straight out of “The Grapes of Wrath,” we traveled from California to Spain with only a timetable and the old man’s dead reckoning.
Given that our departure from the land of the free occurred way before cell phones, computers, and global satellite positioning, it’s a miracle we didn’t end up stranded on an Arctic ice floe.
Nearly 50 years later, the same trip requires another act of God. My wife and I are only going for two weeks, but we’re taking everything we own as well. The difference is that it all has to fit into one checked bag, one carry-on bag, and one personal item each.
“Personal item” sounds like an enema bag, but I checked. It actually refers to a briefcase or a purse.
With less than 12 hours to go before we leave our bedroom looks like Benghazi yard sale. Cameras, underwear, shoes, batteries, books and computer crap cover every spare surface. It’s all stuff I can’t do without.
The kid in the picture went to Spain with the clothes on his back, a pair of holstered cap guns, and a set of plastic binoculars with which to watch for Spain. Mom no doubt packed some other stuff for me, but that was all I was concerned about.
Things have gotten complicated. Try taking a cap gun to Spain now and you’d end up covered in federal marshals. It’s going to be tough, but I’m leaving my pocket knife at home. This is the first trip I won’t be able to defend myself against a hangnail.
In ’57 we drove across America in four days. We’ll fly across it today in four hours. It’s less time but far more aggravation. Of course, those four hours don’t count standing in lines at security checkpoints, boarding gates, and baggage carousels.
There’s also a language barrier. The first time we went to Spain we didn’t worry about being understood. This time I do. I just got off the phone with our hotel in Barcelona. The receptionist there spoke better English than I do. She kept asking me to repeat things.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kirby,” she finally said, clearly a bit frustrated. “I do not understand how a choice of accommodations should beat, as you say, the hell out of anyone.”
I better get back to packing. There’s not much time left to cram all of the wrong things into the right number of bags and get to the airport hours before I really need to be there.
I’m feeling every bit as out of sorts as the kid in the photo. By the time you read this, I’ll be well on my way to Spain. I will have been scolded, ordered to stand in line, disarmed, fined, kept waiting, and threatened by people more powerful than myself.
Cool. It’s going to be just like the first time.
I’m the well-behaved one on the far right. It’s no coincidence that my father is positioned between me and the rest of the family. I’m only five but already possessed of the imagination of Timothy Leary and the morality of a ferret.
We were a young and poor family, so our entire worldly possessions fit into and onto an old Chevy. In a scene straight out of “The Grapes of Wrath,” we traveled from California to Spain with only a timetable and the old man’s dead reckoning.
Given that our departure from the land of the free occurred way before cell phones, computers, and global satellite positioning, it’s a miracle we didn’t end up stranded on an Arctic ice floe.
Nearly 50 years later, the same trip requires another act of God. My wife and I are only going for two weeks, but we’re taking everything we own as well. The difference is that it all has to fit into one checked bag, one carry-on bag, and one personal item each.
“Personal item” sounds like an enema bag, but I checked. It actually refers to a briefcase or a purse.
With less than 12 hours to go before we leave our bedroom looks like Benghazi yard sale. Cameras, underwear, shoes, batteries, books and computer crap cover every spare surface. It’s all stuff I can’t do without.
The kid in the picture went to Spain with the clothes on his back, a pair of holstered cap guns, and a set of plastic binoculars with which to watch for Spain. Mom no doubt packed some other stuff for me, but that was all I was concerned about.
Things have gotten complicated. Try taking a cap gun to Spain now and you’d end up covered in federal marshals. It’s going to be tough, but I’m leaving my pocket knife at home. This is the first trip I won’t be able to defend myself against a hangnail.
In ’57 we drove across America in four days. We’ll fly across it today in four hours. It’s less time but far more aggravation. Of course, those four hours don’t count standing in lines at security checkpoints, boarding gates, and baggage carousels.
There’s also a language barrier. The first time we went to Spain we didn’t worry about being understood. This time I do. I just got off the phone with our hotel in Barcelona. The receptionist there spoke better English than I do. She kept asking me to repeat things.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Kirby,” she finally said, clearly a bit frustrated. “I do not understand how a choice of accommodations should beat, as you say, the hell out of anyone.”
I better get back to packing. There’s not much time left to cram all of the wrong things into the right number of bags and get to the airport hours before I really need to be there.
I’m feeling every bit as out of sorts as the kid in the photo. By the time you read this, I’ll be well on my way to Spain. I will have been scolded, ordered to stand in line, disarmed, fined, kept waiting, and threatened by people more powerful than myself.
Cool. It’s going to be just like the first time.
posted by Robert Kirby @ 2:12 PM |
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