Sherrill and I visited more than 60 countries and most of the United States during our 52 years of marriage. This is number 34 of a series about our lives and travels. If you scroll down, you'll come to earlier posts in this series. To start at the beginning of our marriage look at the Archives list in the sidebar and start with May, 2017. Older posts you'll find below that are a previous series about later travels.
Young Sherrill, already exploring the world. Sherrill and I often were asked why we traveled so much. Why did we spend so much time wandering around the world, especially in places that were so different from those we were used to and comfortable in? Sometimes, we just replied, "Why not?" A good answer was more complicated. We knew people who thought that traveling to the places we did risked being contaminated by wrong beliefs. We soon learned that they would never understand or consider our point of view as anything but foolish and dangerous.
"What's the point?" they wanted to know.
So what could we say? That there were few pleasures to compete with the thrill of wandering unfamiliar streets, of discovering villages and towns unlike any back home, of meeting people who looked, dressed, spoke, and believed differently than we did? Or was it that traveling gave us a better perspective, that as we engaged with the world we came to understand that our way wasn't the only way or even the best way? Or, as Hercule Poirot might have said, maybe it was that traveling stretched the little gray cells in our brains?
"What's the point?" they wanted to know.
So what could we say? That there were few pleasures to compete with the thrill of wandering unfamiliar streets, of discovering villages and towns unlike any back home, of meeting people who looked, dressed, spoke, and believed differently than we did? Or was it that traveling gave us a better perspective, that as we engaged with the world we came to understand that our way wasn't the only way or even the best way? Or, as Hercule Poirot might have said, maybe it was that traveling stretched the little gray cells in our brains?
Second generation of Matchbooks from around the world Sherrill and I both grew up moving around as children, so we didn't mind change and were used to surprises in our lives. Maybe that was why we weren't satisfied to burrow down in one place.
About the time I turned twelve, a package came for me in the mail. My Uncle Douglas, who'd spent his adult life traveling around the world, had sent me his collection of matchbooks he'd picked up along the way. They were different from the free ones my father got in bars and markets. Often oversized and brightly colored, they advertised restaurants and hotels in Europe, South America, and the Far East. Sometimes, the matches themselves were colored to make pictures: a peacock flaunting an open tail, a palm-bordered Spanish hotel, a curving bay framed by the sands of a golden beach. Worlds still beyond my grasp, but not my imagination. I covered the walls of my bedroom with huge maps of the world that I drew and colored on great sheets of butcher paper and then penned in the magical name of each foreign place.
My uncle's matchbooks disappeared years ago, but long after, as Sherrill and I traveled, I saved some that I picked up, usually not as nice as his, but colorful and full of memories for us.
Although we didn't know each other yet, Sherrill and I both were aware as kids that some people were lucky enough to fly around the world on airplanes and travel the seas on ships. We both grew up curious, wondering about this planet on which we lived. Our parents taught us, unintentionally no doubt, that although each of us was the hero of his or her own story, we were supporting players in everyone else's. Somehow, we each figured out that most people, including our parents, were just muddling along, trying to survive and be comfortable.
"Is this all there is?" we asked. We both craved something more than that.
About the time I turned twelve, a package came for me in the mail. My Uncle Douglas, who'd spent his adult life traveling around the world, had sent me his collection of matchbooks he'd picked up along the way. They were different from the free ones my father got in bars and markets. Often oversized and brightly colored, they advertised restaurants and hotels in Europe, South America, and the Far East. Sometimes, the matches themselves were colored to make pictures: a peacock flaunting an open tail, a palm-bordered Spanish hotel, a curving bay framed by the sands of a golden beach. Worlds still beyond my grasp, but not my imagination. I covered the walls of my bedroom with huge maps of the world that I drew and colored on great sheets of butcher paper and then penned in the magical name of each foreign place.
My uncle's matchbooks disappeared years ago, but long after, as Sherrill and I traveled, I saved some that I picked up, usually not as nice as his, but colorful and full of memories for us.
Although we didn't know each other yet, Sherrill and I both were aware as kids that some people were lucky enough to fly around the world on airplanes and travel the seas on ships. We both grew up curious, wondering about this planet on which we lived. Our parents taught us, unintentionally no doubt, that although each of us was the hero of his or her own story, we were supporting players in everyone else's. Somehow, we each figured out that most people, including our parents, were just muddling along, trying to survive and be comfortable.
"Is this all there is?" we asked. We both craved something more than that.
Three explorers, for a while, wandering the world together As soon as Sherrill graduated from college, her mother moved from California to Hawaii, leaving Sherrill alone in the apartment they'd shared. After two years in her first job as a librarian in San Jose, Sherrill sailed by herself on the President Cleveland from San Francisco to Honolulu—a modest start into a life of adventure, perhaps, but even then she was not afraid to go places and have new experiences. It still was more than a year before she and I would drive in her little secondhand Corvair from Berkeley to Mexico City and back, getting married at the Cupid Drive-In Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas on the way down.
Maybe some people in the world used funny toilets, ate with their fingers, dressed in their own way, had different ideas about where humanity came from and where it was going, but was that reason to fear or hate them? Or for them to fear or hate us? Sherrill and I soon realized that we shared this urge to get out there and meet these people and see where and how they lived. We traveled because every new experience raised questions, because every answer also was a question in disguise. It was harder, we learned, to be closed-minded if we'd met, eaten with, and talked with people who had grown up with different traditions and viewpoints than our own. We liked that.
Maybe some people in the world used funny toilets, ate with their fingers, dressed in their own way, had different ideas about where humanity came from and where it was going, but was that reason to fear or hate them? Or for them to fear or hate us? Sherrill and I soon realized that we shared this urge to get out there and meet these people and see where and how they lived. We traveled because every new experience raised questions, because every answer also was a question in disguise. It was harder, we learned, to be closed-minded if we'd met, eaten with, and talked with people who had grown up with different traditions and viewpoints than our own. We liked that.
House of Soviets, Kaliningrad, sinking Let me tell you a story. The year was 1988. The Communists were still in power. Sherrill and I were in the city and territory of Kaliningrad, named for one of Stalin's pals. Kaliningrad was separated geographically from the rest of the USSR by parts of Poland and Lithuania, but was important as Russia's Baltic sea port. Much of the old city was destroyed during World War II and replaced with typical Soviet architecture—notably the House of Soviets, a structure of remarkable size and hideousness that had to be abandoned because it began sinking even before it was used. It still stood, precariously, a monstrous shell.
The middle-aged woman showing us around Kaliningrad shuffled gloomily from site to site, giving us the official explanations. Whenever we showed interest or asked questions, she perked up a little. I had just finished reading a paperback edition of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's epic about the Siberian prison camps of the USSR, The Gulag Archipelago.
"Give the book to her," Sherrill whispered to me. I looked at Sherrill and she nodded. "Do it."
As Sherrill and I were saying goodbye, I put the dog-eared book into the guide's hand.
"For you," I said.
"For me?" she cried, clutching the volume, then lowering it discreetly. "Oh my! Solzhenitsyn! For me!"
All works by Solzhenitsyn were forbidden in the Soviet Union, but I hadn't expected such an emotional response—and for an English translation, at that. Almost in tears, the woman hugged us as we boarded the boat that would carry us away. I can still see her, in that shapeless patterned dress, long gray sweater, and down-at-the-heel shoes, holding that hefty paperback as if it were a gilded box filled with rare treasure.
The middle-aged woman showing us around Kaliningrad shuffled gloomily from site to site, giving us the official explanations. Whenever we showed interest or asked questions, she perked up a little. I had just finished reading a paperback edition of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's epic about the Siberian prison camps of the USSR, The Gulag Archipelago.
"Give the book to her," Sherrill whispered to me. I looked at Sherrill and she nodded. "Do it."
As Sherrill and I were saying goodbye, I put the dog-eared book into the guide's hand.
"For you," I said.
"For me?" she cried, clutching the volume, then lowering it discreetly. "Oh my! Solzhenitsyn! For me!"
All works by Solzhenitsyn were forbidden in the Soviet Union, but I hadn't expected such an emotional response—and for an English translation, at that. Almost in tears, the woman hugged us as we boarded the boat that would carry us away. I can still see her, in that shapeless patterned dress, long gray sweater, and down-at-the-heel shoes, holding that hefty paperback as if it were a gilded box filled with rare treasure.
Today, it's hard to imagine a physical book creating that kind of excitement, but words still have power. Sherrill and I grew up with books and have always valued them. When we were still single, working together at the San Jose Public Library, I finished my first novel, a typical novel for a 21 year old, about college life. I needed a clean copy to send to a contest.
"I'll do it," Sherrill told me.
I gave her my manuscript and she did retype the entire book. That was when I realized that she really was interested in me. (Fortunately, that novel was never published, but writing it was a turning point for us in several ways.)
"I'll do it," Sherrill told me.
I gave her my manuscript and she did retype the entire book. That was when I realized that she really was interested in me. (Fortunately, that novel was never published, but writing it was a turning point for us in several ways.)
Still wandering, still in love with new places A few years later, married, we were living in a small apartment in Oakland. It was in that one-bedroom apartment that she encouraged me to take a very important journey: she was willing to support both of us while I wrote short stories and then the book that became my first published novel. That journey has continued all these years with its ups and downs, with great successes and some failures, but always moving ahead, one way or another. For 52 years, we were co-pilots, she encouraging me and supporting me in countless ways. And we kept on traveling, exploring the world all this time, as well.
Years went by, but we were still exploring and still enjoying it Yes, some places felt more congenial to us than others, but we never took a trip that we regretted, never wished that we'd stayed home. Comfort was never the issue for us. It was always the experience. In fact, some of the most difficult places to explore were among our favorites. It was good that we traveled to them when we did, because some of them became battlefields afterwards. Often, we weren't sure what had happened to friends we'd made in those countries torn by conflict and war.
"Aren't you afraid to go to those places?" friends asked us.
The truth was that we never were, not while we were there, only afterwards, for our friends and for the treasures being so thoughtlessly destroyed. In fact, our list of places that we wanted to visit kept growing, an ever-changing kaleidoscope of opportunities. Although we didn't get to all of them, we didn't do too badly during those five decades.
To be continued....
"Aren't you afraid to go to those places?" friends asked us.
The truth was that we never were, not while we were there, only afterwards, for our friends and for the treasures being so thoughtlessly destroyed. In fact, our list of places that we wanted to visit kept growing, an ever-changing kaleidoscope of opportunities. Although we didn't get to all of them, we didn't do too badly during those five decades.
To be continued....
If you enjoy these posts, why not explore the rest of my website, too? Just click on the buttons at the top of the page and discover where they take you—including to several complete short stories and excerpts from my novels. Please pass them on to anybody else you think might enjoy them.
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