Can We Talk 2

International Fantasies

         I have wanted to travel all my life but couldn't afford it. My nieces, who are half my age, travel all over the country with kids. Now they're taking the kids out of school for a week in December and going to Jamaica. I should be happy for them. And I don't want to go with them and crash their younger lifestyle or babysit. But I'm so jealous! I should be ashamed.

         I've been to Merriam, Kansas, and north to Montreal and Quebec. I've seen Louisville and Churchill Downs. I've spent time in West Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina, Ohio, Missouri, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Buffalo, even Niagara Falls. And Virginia and DC. I camped in Indiana where the rain flooded my tent. The places I haven't been still call my name.

         I fantasize about Christmas in Paris. I want to roam ancestral grounds in Scotland and the Channel Islands. I'd go anywhere around the Mediterranean, including Tunisia. I have known people from many places, and they always made their home sound enchanting. I read stories about New Zealand or travelers on vacation in Vietnam. I want to see these things for myself. I want to cruise around Alaska and see American Samoa. Of course, I have to see Easter Island and Christmas Island, listening to Jimmy Buffet songs. I'm dying to go to South Dakota and learn Indian history and culture.

         I've led such a sheltered life. I've never been to New York City or Hawaii, or anywhere in Texas. I have been on the Ohio River and spent an afternoon on the Mississippi on a showboat. Some people don't desire to travel much. But some of us have itchy feet without the means to do anything about it. Now I'm so old, I'd have to worry about taking enough medicine and where to find the right kind of doctors wherever I go. At least the younger generation in my family is doing something about wanderlust.