Category Archives: travel

On endings

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Unlike beginnings, which are plenty scary by themselves, endings are often poignant and solitary. You drive off, you walk away from an airport, you get on a train or bus, you stroll down a street never to come back. A car door slams, you lock the door and turn away. It’s over. We have all been through our share of endings–a job, a school, a friendship, a life–so we all have our anecdotes about moving on, saying goodbye, and picking up the broken pieces so that we can start again. Endings make us wistful and nostalgic because we are not always sure that the new thing ahead of us is better than what is being left behind. We are plagued by our memories which torture us into remembering all of those great moments in the past when we were, at least for a moment, happy. The constant truth is that all things end, no matter how we feel about them. Change is, perhaps, the only constant in most of our lives. As a teacher, students come and students go, and that’s the way it’s always been. As an ex-pat in another country, my friends have come and gone many times, and now are scattered to the four corners of the world. It is hard to stay in touch, and even with different digital media sites, it is still difficult to maintain a real friendship from seven thousand miles away. And when old friends finally make their last trip, it is equally difficult to say goodbye, especially when you have known them for more than fifty years. Yet those fifty years are also a monument to that friendship which has had to endure a lot of stuff, not all good, much of it very good. Mortality is, in the end, about endings, and that is the way it must be–one of those rules nobody breaks.

On endings

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Unlike beginnings, which are plenty scary by themselves, endings are often poignant and solitary. You drive off, you walk away from an airport, you get on a train or bus, you stroll down a street never to come back. A car door slams, you lock the door and turn away. It’s over. We have all been through our share of endings–a job, a school, a friendship, a life–so we all have our anecdotes about moving on, saying goodbye, and picking up the broken pieces so that we can start again. Endings make us wistful and nostalgic because we are not always sure that the new thing ahead of us is better than what is being left behind. We are plagued by our memories which torture us into remembering all of those great moments in the past when we were, at least for a moment, happy. The constant truth is that all things end, no matter how we feel about them. Change is, perhaps, the only constant in most of our lives. As a teacher, students come and students go, and that’s the way it’s always been. As an ex-pat in another country, my friends have come and gone many times, and now are scattered to the four corners of the world. It is hard to stay in touch, and even with different digital media sites, it is still difficult to maintain a real friendship from seven thousand miles away. And when old friends finally make their last trip, it is equally difficult to say goodbye, especially when you have known them for more than fifty years. Yet those fifty years are also a monument to that friendship which has had to endure a lot of stuff, not all good, much of it very good. Mortality is, in the end, about endings, and that is the way it must be–one of those rules nobody breaks.

On the beach

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Over the recent spring break, I went to the beach. The weather was cold and windy, and the afternoon I went down to the beach, I only had to share the view of the Gulf with a bunch of windswept seagulls who didn’t seem overjoyed with life at that moment. The wind blew steadily across the sand, and I could feel tiny grains of it on my face like little needles. My mouth felt gritty and dry. Whitecaps dotted the ocean just off the beach and surf was at times over five feet high. Only a few oddballs like me were keeping the seagulls company. The sky was a leaden gray color, if you call that a color–more of an anti-color if anything. The air was moist, and either there was some spray in the air or there was a little mist falling from that dull sky. Two guys sold firewood from the back of a metal container, but they were as solitary as I was. Random fishermen stood tending their lines, turning their faces from the wind. I looked at my tracks in the sand as if I were the last person on earth. On a day when the beach should have been full of spring breakers, sun, warmth, and sand, it was a lonely, cold place with only the usual suspects–fisherman and seagulls. I felt like a solitary shipwreck survivor who has not only lost his ship, but his way in life as well. The wind blew, a seagull complained, a jeep with some errant young people went buy without making a sound. I left to go look for something to quench my thirst.

On falling down in Chicago

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So, Friday night in downtown Chicago, on Michigan Avenue, I slipped and fell in a puddle of ice water. Now before you all make lots of jokes about how clumsy I am, imagine first the scene and circumstances: it was dark, raining, the temp was around freezing, there was a ton of traffic, and the city of Chicago had not cleaned up its corners. It was hazardous. I slipped on an invisible piece of ice that was camouflaged by bad lighting and lots of water. The good thing was that I did not stick out my hands to break my fall, that bad thing is my left elbow took a beating. My butt landed in a pool of icy water that broke my fall. It all happened in the blink of an eye, and all of sudden I was sodden and soaked and looking up into the Chicago night sky. I suspected I was hurt, but I popped up immediately, much to the horror of those standing over me. After a quick assessment of my graceless return to earth, I realized that although my elbow was really unhappy, the rest of me, though cold and soaked, was probably okay because my derriere gracelessly landed squarely in a puddle of ice water which had curiously reduced and deflected and absorbed the force of the fall. Though my pride was damaged and wet and cold, I decided to continue on to dinner. At the restaurant, they gave me a bag of ice for my elbow along with my risotto. I continue to recuperate. My elbow is bruised but healing, my soaked clothing has been dried, and my pride, well, I decided to leave a bit of that on Michigan Avenue.

On the road (not taken)

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Are you one of the sheep? Or do you march to your own drummer? The road of life as a metaphor is an old one, perhaps the oldest one. How we ever choose the road we take is, I think, a mystery. There is always a lot of pressure–material, social, religious–to pick a road that produces optimum results–make a good living, everyone says. Take classes that will make you eligible for a high income job, a job with lots of social prestige, a job that will ensure a secure future. Though there is nothing unreasonable about this approach to life, chasing the brass ring, this road is often over-traveled by people who are giving little thought to either the road or the destination. The problem with metaphors is that they often over-simplify something that is really rather complex. The road of life is not one continuous asphalt ribbon without exits, potholes, delays, or road construction. The road of life is a bifurcating, complex series of stops, starts, and detours. There are also those who get lost or just drive off the road entirely. There are also all of the two-lane country roads, gravel roads, dead ends, and strange curves which have almost no traffic at all. It’s easier to stay on the freeway with all of the others, straight, obvious, no ambiguities or confusion, but is the superhighway the only pragmatic way to go? Or is pragmatism relevant at all? The road is a problematic metaphor because it is way too ambiguous to be meaningful. Whichever road you might take, pragmatism versus impractical, for example, is a subjective value judgment which has no real explanation. If one chooses to ignore the siren’s call of unbridled consumerism and an insatiable thirst for fame and power, then one decides to not participate in the savage ways of unfettered capitalism and the corporate scenarios that support it. To dedicate time and energy to thinking, contemplation, and philosophy is to seriously over-think the road or to ignore the road altogether. The hard question has to do with long term goals and how those goals impact your decision to follow the pack on the highway or to head out on your own, seeking new paths, going down strange byways, getting off the beaten track. Do you dare to be original, odd, non-conformist, iconoclast, anarchic, or unpredictable? It may not be as easy as you think.

On the road (not taken)

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Are you one of the sheep? Or do you march to your own drummer? The road of life as a metaphor is an old one, perhaps the oldest one. How we ever choose the road we take is, I think, a mystery. There is always a lot of pressure–material, social, religious–to pick a road that produces optimum results–make a good living, everyone says. Take classes that will make you eligible for a high income job, a job with lots of social prestige, a job that will ensure a secure future. Though there is nothing unreasonable about this approach to life, chasing the brass ring, this road is often over-traveled by people who are giving little thought to either the road or the destination. The problem with metaphors is that they often over-simplify something that is really rather complex. The road of life is not one continuous asphalt ribbon without exits, potholes, delays, or road construction. The road of life is a bifurcating, complex series of stops, starts, and detours. There are also those who get lost or just drive off the road entirely. There are also all of the two-lane country roads, gravel roads, dead ends, and strange curves which have almost no traffic at all. It’s easier to stay on the freeway with all of the others, straight, obvious, no ambiguities or confusion, but is the superhighway the only pragmatic way to go? Or is pragmatism relevant at all? The road is a problematic metaphor because it is way too ambiguous to be meaningful. Whichever road you might take, pragmatism versus impractical, for example, is a subjective value judgment which has no real explanation. If one chooses to ignore the siren’s call of unbridled consumerism and an insatiable thirst for fame and power, then one decides to not participate in the savage ways of unfettered capitalism and the corporate scenarios that support it. To dedicate time and energy to thinking, contemplation, and philosophy is to seriously over-think the road or to ignore the road altogether. The hard question has to do with long term goals and how those goals impact your decision to follow the pack on the highway or to head out on your own, seeking new paths, going down strange byways, getting off the beaten track. Do you dare to be original, odd, non-conformist, iconoclast, anarchic, or unpredictable? It may not be as easy as you think.

On leaving Amarillo

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This story is about a miracle–you may decide for yourself, rational empiricist, if it actually was. So after the Texas Medieval Association conference, which was held in Canyon, Texas, this year (2013), was over, I had to head back home to Waco. I had arrived on the high plains of west Texas to give my paper on miracles (interesting coincidence, no?) via the Amarillo airport, so once the last paper was over on Saturday, I hopped in my rental car, and I headed north. After stopping for gas, I dropped the car off at the rental office and headed to the terminal. Once there, I found out that there was bad weather in Dallas, that the 3:30 flight was still waiting to leave (it was 4:30 pm by now), and that the agent did not want me to check in for my flight yet because she didn’t know if it would ever leave at all. The prospects of getting out of Amarillo on this particular Saturday night were somewhere between zero and none. I headed to the airport bar to drown my travel sorrows in a cold beverage. Minutes later, my phone dinged to let me know that my 6:30 pm flight was now leaving at a little past seven–an old story. I ordered another beverage, but decided that since dinner time was looming, I would also buy a burger. I made the order. About five minutes later, my phoned dinged again, and my heart sank–now I would be delayed until tomorrow. Yet, to my great astonishment, I was now bumped up to the ill-fated 3:30 pm flight which was still sitting at the gate like a beached whale. I rushed over to check-in, and the clerk wanted my bag, and she had my ticket in her hand–“Run,” she said, “the flight is leaving in less than ten minutes.” I had inquired as to the availability of seats on that flight earlier, and there were none. Shaking my head at my good fortune, I headed to the bar to pay for my drinks and burger. The burger wasn’t ready yet, so told the waitress to give it away. She shrugged, and I left. There was no one at security except the bored security guards, so I put everything in the bins, the bins on the belt, and stepped into the security scanner machine. No waiting. As I was putting my shoes on, the security guard told me to wait–my food was coming through. A little dumb-struck, I took my food and backpack and headed for the gate. Ginger handed me a new baggage tag receipt, and I got on the plane, which promptly pulled away from the gate and headed for Dallas with me and my burger and fries. How I ever got on that flight with my food can only be termed a miracle. I left before I was even required to be at the airport. I have never been “moved up” without asking for it. Call me crazy, claim that it was just coincidence, but I honestly think God put my return together. I was at the airport early, a seat on a full flight was given to me without asking for it, the server at the bar had the kind foresight and generosity to carry my food to security, and the security agent gave it to me. Well-rested, and well-fed, I arrived in Dallas where my car was waiting for me–I didn’t miss my connection because on this odd trip, I had driven the two hours to the airport. If it were just one thing, I would dismiss it as random, but too many things had to coalesce at once to bring me home safely on Saturday night. Leaving Amarillo was a wonderful lesson in God’s power to give us what we need and perhaps less of what we want.

On leaving Amarillo

Posted on by

This story is about a miracle–you may decide for yourself, rational empiricist, if it actually was. So after the Texas Medieval Association conference, which was held in Canyon, Texas, this year (2013), was over, I had to head back home to Waco. I had arrived on the high plains of west Texas to give my paper on miracles (interesting coincidence, no?) via the Amarillo airport, so once the last paper was over on Saturday, I hopped in my rental car, and I headed north. After stopping for gas, I dropped the car off at the rental office and headed to the terminal. Once there, I found out that there was bad weather in Dallas, that the 3:30 flight was still waiting to leave (it was 4:30 pm by now), and that the agent did not want me to check in for my flight yet because she didn’t know if it would ever leave at all. The prospects of getting out of Amarillo on this particular Saturday night were somewhere between zero and none. I headed to the airport bar to drown my travel sorrows in a cold beverage. Minutes later, my phone dinged to let me know that my 6:30 pm flight was now leaving at a little past seven–an old story. I ordered another beverage, but decided that since dinner time was looming, I would also buy a burger. I made the order. About five minutes later, my phoned dinged again, and my heart sank–now I would be delayed until tomorrow. Yet, to my great astonishment, I was now bumped up to the ill-fated 3:30 pm flight which was still sitting at the gate like a beached whale. I rushed over to check-in, and the clerk wanted my bag, and she had my ticket in her hand–“Run,” she said, “the flight is leaving in less than ten minutes.” I had inquired as to the availability of seats on that flight earlier, and there were none. Shaking my head at my good fortune, I headed to the bar to pay for my drinks and burger. The burger wasn’t ready yet, so told the waitress to give it away. She shrugged, and I left. There was no one at security except the bored security guards, so I put everything in the bins, the bins on the belt, and stepped into the security scanner machine. No waiting. As I was putting my shoes on, the security guard told me to wait–my food was coming through. A little dumb-struck, I took my food and backpack and headed for the gate. Ginger handed me a new baggage tag receipt, and I got on the plane, which promptly pulled away from the gate and headed for Dallas with me and my burger and fries. How I ever got on that flight with my food can only be termed a miracle. I left before I was even required to be at the airport. I have never been “moved up” without asking for it. Call me crazy, claim that it was just coincidence, but I honestly think God put my return together. I was at the airport early, a seat on a full flight was given to me without asking for it, the server at the bar had the kind foresight and generosity to carry my food to security, and the security agent gave it to me. Well-rested, and well-fed, I arrived in Dallas where my car was waiting for me–I didn’t miss my connection because on this odd trip, I had driven the two hours to the airport. If it were just one thing, I would dismiss it as random, but too many things had to coalesce at once to bring me home safely on Saturday night. Leaving Amarillo was a wonderful lesson in God’s power to give us what we need and perhaps less of what we want.