A picture is worth a thousand words, right? For me it is worth a thousand memories too. I discovered my thousand word treasure a few weeks ago while moving furniture. The sticker in this picture was on a bed slat from a bedroom suit first belonging to my great-grandmother and then to my brother. One day soon I will proudly set up the beds for my own little boys. The sticker is a relic from a move we made while I was growing up. It’s either from our move to Germany or our move to Tulsa, from Germany. Either way, the thousand words came pouring in.
When I was twelve my mom and Charles were married and soon after, we moved to Germany (can you think of anything worse than taking on two teenagers-my brother was 15 and I 13-and moving them and their mom overseas!). I had never been in an airplane before, much less to another country. I’ll never forget the day we left Mississippi and headed to New York (our first stop). Charles knew I was nervous so he sat next to me. He explained things like how a plane flies (he is a pilot), what the barf bag is for and other useful information. So, as we checked the emergency safety card and plotted our escape from the plane, (just in case) the plane took off and we were safely on our way to New York (I tease about that but to this day I still plot my escape each time I fly).
The next three years were full of adventures, learning and growing. Whether it was going on a bus tour to Paris with my brother and scaring the tour guide half out of her wits when we decided to go exploring on our own, or the time my brother and I took a bus to Heathrow airport from the base in England where we were staying for a few weeks, and then a train into London and a man on the train sketched my portrait- my brother teased me all over London about that!-those three short years hold so many treasures! (Sorry Leanne for the run-on sentence and fragments, she is Grammar Queen is case you don’t know.) Speaking of Leanne, once Leanne, David, Chuck and I took a tour to Italy. We had no idea how expensive Italy is and we ran out of money. My mom had sent emergency money but that was soon gone. Instead of window shopping for expensive shoes in Florence, as the other tour participants were doing, we were window shopping the pizza! We were really glad to get back to Germany so we could eat :) There's also the time we (mom, Charles, Leanne, David, Chuck and I) went to Austria in our Toyota van. Charles would have made a great race car driver and was taking those small mountain roads at breakneck speed. All I heard across Austria was Leanne in the seat behind me, praying! Another gem is good old city bus number 18 that would take you from downtown Wiesbaden to our neighborhood, to Sonneberg stop which was right down the street from our house. “memories, all alone in the moon light…” (haha)
I had the opportunity to return to Wiesbaden in 2002 and everything was different of course. Most of the Americans were gone and what was still there was much more protected, due to 9/11. I was glad to go back to compare the memories to reality. All in all, it’s a time I hold dear and I just wanted to share a little of it.
When I was twelve my mom and Charles were married and soon after, we moved to Germany (can you think of anything worse than taking on two teenagers-my brother was 15 and I 13-and moving them and their mom overseas!). I had never been in an airplane before, much less to another country. I’ll never forget the day we left Mississippi and headed to New York (our first stop). Charles knew I was nervous so he sat next to me. He explained things like how a plane flies (he is a pilot), what the barf bag is for and other useful information. So, as we checked the emergency safety card and plotted our escape from the plane, (just in case) the plane took off and we were safely on our way to New York (I tease about that but to this day I still plot my escape each time I fly).
The next three years were full of adventures, learning and growing. Whether it was going on a bus tour to Paris with my brother and scaring the tour guide half out of her wits when we decided to go exploring on our own, or the time my brother and I took a bus to Heathrow airport from the base in England where we were staying for a few weeks, and then a train into London and a man on the train sketched my portrait- my brother teased me all over London about that!-those three short years hold so many treasures! (Sorry Leanne for the run-on sentence and fragments, she is Grammar Queen is case you don’t know.) Speaking of Leanne, once Leanne, David, Chuck and I took a tour to Italy. We had no idea how expensive Italy is and we ran out of money. My mom had sent emergency money but that was soon gone. Instead of window shopping for expensive shoes in Florence, as the other tour participants were doing, we were window shopping the pizza! We were really glad to get back to Germany so we could eat :) There's also the time we (mom, Charles, Leanne, David, Chuck and I) went to Austria in our Toyota van. Charles would have made a great race car driver and was taking those small mountain roads at breakneck speed. All I heard across Austria was Leanne in the seat behind me, praying! Another gem is good old city bus number 18 that would take you from downtown Wiesbaden to our neighborhood, to Sonneberg stop which was right down the street from our house. “memories, all alone in the moon light…” (haha)
I had the opportunity to return to Wiesbaden in 2002 and everything was different of course. Most of the Americans were gone and what was still there was much more protected, due to 9/11. I was glad to go back to compare the memories to reality. All in all, it’s a time I hold dear and I just wanted to share a little of it.
1 comment:
That is awesome and so encouraging to me. Sounds like a better place to live than Doha. We certainly can't travel easily here. Always involves a plane :) BUT I look forward to the memories we'll make across the world :) Great post and awesome picture. So cool you have that bed!
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