Learning to Adventure from Daddy

by Laura Hedgecock 

I was born with Fernweh, an ache to explore faraway places. It’s in my DNA; both of my parents had it. It was my dad, however, who taught us to pack adventure into our explorations.  

Like my mother, I’d bask in the preparations for travel. I’d research, map out itineraries, and pack well in advance. For Daddy, however, the best part of travel was the adventure—the experiences you couldn’t plan for. 

Mother and Father in Alaska.

In 1985, I was interning in Germany when Daddy was due to come over on a business trip. Since I was stressed about making a move from Köln (Cologne) to Homburg-Saar, Daddy decided we would make the move together and he would take care of the details. 

What he meant by that was that he’d leave the details to take care of themselves. 

He rented a BMW with a manual transmission. His plan was to teach me how to drive a shift as he took in the beauty along the winding road that followed the Rhine River. It would be cheaper, he said, than replacing the clutch in a car he owned if my “learning” didn’t go well. In my mind, he rented a red convertible, but I’m honestly not sure if I’m coloring the memory. 

He’d laugh and say, “Way to go kid!” when I wasn’t able to find a gear.

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My Father's Syria

by Claudette Sutton

Growing up in a suburb of Washington, D.C., I knew only bits and pieces of my dad’s life in the years before he became my dad.

I knew that both sides of our family came from an orthodox Jewish community in Syria (we ate delicacies like fried kibbehs, stuffed grape leaves and baba ghanoush, long before these foods hit the mainstream, and men sang Arabic songs at the Passover seder).

I knew that my father’s family had lived in Turkey for a few years when he was little (he once gave me the Turkish answer to a crossword puzzle clue).

I knew that he had lived in Shanghai as a young man (he taught us how to use chopsticks).

But I never knew how these bits came together in a story. For Mike Sutton, oldest son of a Syrian textile merchant, the job of getting to America, obtaining citizenship, finding a wife, starting a business and supporting a family pushed his past to the background.

Then one day several years ago, Dad asked me if I would help him “put [his] story on paper.” That simple, straightforward request set off a multi-year journey of discovery. In our very first interview, I blurted out, “Dad! Do you realize how interesting this is? This is our family treasure.”

My father—modest, soft-spoken, quintessentially pragmatic—had no idea. He was just living his life.

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Inside Jamaica’s Blue Mountains: A Stranger in their Midst

by Laura Albritton 

The ancient Land Rover banged through another pothole as the rain poured onto the muddy, treacherous road. “We’re almost there,” my husband shouted encouragingly. I nodded, and clutched the door handle even tighter. Our little baby, carsick, had already thrown up twice. Driving from Kingston up 4000 feet into Jamaica’s Blue Mountains, with precipitous drops just steps away, frightened me into speechlessness. When the vehicle’s tires slipped at a hairpin turn, I silently begged God to keep us safe.

Blue Mountains, Jamaica by Nick Sherman via Flickr CCL

At last we crunched up a bumpy driveway to Whitfield Hall, a centuries-old Blue Mountain coffee farm surrounded by giant eucalyptus trees. I unsnapped our child from her car seat and hurried after my husband Zickie. Outside in a covered breezeway under a kerosene lamp, a large Jamaican woman in a red headscarf held out her arms. “Miss Lynette!” Zickie bellowed, his stream of patois making her burst into belly laughs. I shivered with the baby as they embraced. Lynette Harriott was the matriarch who kept my in-laws’ 18th century guesthouse running, just as her mother Cynthia once did. This was the first time I’d met her, on my very first trip to the island.

Finally, she turned to inspect me, the new American wife. Her mahogany-colored eyes moved swiftly from my muddied running shoes to my blond hair. “Laura,” she said formally. I shifted the baby to my hip as I moved in to give Lynette a hug. She responded stiffly. “It’s nice to meet you,” I began, telling her how much I’d heard about her. Lynette ignored this, and reached for our baby.

“Likkle Iris,” she cooed, now smiling again. Other farm workers crowded around to see the baby, the long awaited grandchild of Mr. John and Miss Maureen. “Bright-eyed white lady,” an old man named Vinnie called her. Everyone laughed. I might as well have been invisible.

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Can Anyone Go Home Again?

story and photos by Richard Rossner

Life is slippery. Just when I think have it in my grasp, it slithers away like an eel. It twists, writhes and slips from my grip, leaving me empty-handed. And feeling empty in many ways.

That’s when I ache for some place of intense safety and familiarity to regroup.

The house where I grew up as it looks today.

Johnny Mercer wrote, “Any place I hang my hat is home.” I wonder about people who are that comfortable.  Frank Sinatra…George Clooney…the Dalai Lama (if he had a hat). They exude such ease with everything.  

I’m not on that list. I’m on the list of people who never feel at home. And I’m not talking about a geographical place. I’m talking about feeling at home in life.

Sure, I’ve accomplished some wonderful things, but it’s all been hit or miss with no mastery. In quiet moments I’m haunted by my sense of ineptitude at navigating something that seems so simple for others.

I recently had the chance to return to my state of origin. No, not the womb as a zygote. New Jersey.  

First, I went to the town where I was born. It’s been in an economic slide for decades. Sweet memories I knew of bright Christmas lights gaily strung down the main thoroughfare; the heady smell of popcorn and candy wafting through the glorious department store; summers of big-leafed trees and fat, fuzzy caterpillars; the sweet breezes off the Raritan Bay – they’re gone. Downtown is all bargain discount stores now. The place looks like a dump. 

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A Life Of Travel: Three Gifts from My Father

by Dan Sapone

I’ve often been asked, “How did you become so interested in travel? Where did you get your curiosity for the world?”

I trace my excitement for travel to three life-altering gifts from my father. 

 

A World Globe: The big picture

One Christmas morning when I was young enough to have written a letter to Santa Claus, I found a world globe under the tree. It wasn’t a surprise, because my letter asked for a “revolving globe.” It was more than a foot high and rotated on a tilted axis — just as I had expected. But as I lay on the floor examining the different-colored shapes, some surprises emerged.

I asked my dad, “Where are we?” Since the Christmas before, when I got my first big-boy bicycle, I decided that my hometown was huge. I could ride my bike for half an hour and not even get to 18th Street. So, I was surprised when my dad said, “Our town is so small you can’t even see it.” When he showed me that our town was half an inch from San Francisco and three inches from Disneyland, I was stunned.

I looked back at my globe with new respect and suddenly I was full of questions: “Where are the New York Yankees?” “Where does President Eisenhower live?” Then my dad opened my eyes to a new subject: “Let me show you where my father came from." To my amazement, he turned my globe to the other side and pointed to an orange shape that looked like a boot. “Italy, Reggio Calabria, down here near the toe.” I looked at the ‘boot,’ back up at him, then down at the ‘toe.’ I remember wanting to ask more questions, but I didn’t know what to ask.

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The Doors (And Not The Ones You Think)

by Richard Rossner

“There’s a disturbance in the Force.”  - Obi-Wan Kenobi 

My uncle died today.  As soon as I heard the news, I felt the depth of Obi-Wan’s statement.  It’s been happening a lot lately.  My mother died last June.   

The disturbance I feel is that small hole…the emptiness…the gap that a person leaves behind when they finish their life’s journey and head for the next adventure in the Hereafter. It seems like a selfish thing, but I didn’t even have to talk to them; I just liked knowing that my uncle and mom were here.  My maneuverings in the world somehow felt safer knowing that we were sharing space, air, the daily happenings…everything.  But the death of someone I love sensitizes me to the rip in the fabric of life.

Even though I believe in the concept of “spirit” and that it survives bodily death, it doesn’t make the loss any easier for me.

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