Facing the Unknown

Facing the Unknown--

I would have made a terrible pioneer woman.  Being part of a wagon train that made its way from the Midwest to the Northwest sounds horrible to me.  No air conditioning, no power steering, no cruise control.  No service stations where treats line shelves.  No diet soda waiting in coolers.  No lovely motels with swimming pools and free breakfast.  No clean linens on beds. No Gps.  And this is the short list of no's.

During my life I have made many trips along the route those women traveled.  I remember one trip with my parents and two sisters. We were traveling from Arkansas to Oregon to visit our grandparents.  No air conditioning in the car.  No dvd's to watch or games to play.  Miles and miles and miles of riding.  I well remember the strong arm of the law swinging from the driver to the backseat.  That was a warning of what might happen if we didn't stop whatever we were doing.  I suppose we were arguing about someone being too close-invading our space.  Pushing and shoving them to the right or left.  No one wanted to be in the middle.  A horrid place to be.  Etched into my memory is the moment the car swerved to the right and stopped on the shoulder of the road.  Silence filled the back seat.  We knew trouble was knocking at our door.   We were told to remove ourselves from the car.  We were lined up on the side of the road like convicts being counted before boarding the bus that would take them back to prison.  The guard, that is our father,  then laid down the law.  We were to stop all the nonesense.  Or else.  We assured him we would do better.  Only then were we allowed to climb back into the car.  And the journey began again.   I wonder now how we ever survived that trip.

Between my junior and senior year of high school my grandparents invited me to spend the summer with them.  How to get there was the challenge. They lived in Oregon.  We lived in Arkansas.  It was decided that I would fly out there.  Now, that is the time in history when people dressed in their finest anytime they traveled by plane.  And there were no direct flights.  No cell phones to check for delays.  No jets.  Propeller planes.

I remember seeing the plane at the airport.  That was when everyone could come and be right there at the bottom of the steps to hug goodbye.  I was all brave-until I saw how big the plane was.  Then I became a little frightened.  There was a lay-over in Kansas City.  I was to change planes.  I remember I had an overnight case with me.  It would be necessary to see the ticket agent when we arrived in Kansas City.  Young, inexperienced, a little scared I found my way to the ticket agent.  That person checked my ticket and told me I was not confirmed to Portland.  I was in a panic.  What was I to do?  It was a great lesson in the kindness of strangers.  That person told me to sit down and give them time to figure out what to do.  In no time I had a ticket to Portland.  I spent a wonderful summer with my grandparents before heading back for my last year of high school.

I completed college in three and a half years.  That meant I was ready to join the work force in January of my senior year.  During my student teaching a principal came to visit me. He offered me a job.  It would begin in January.  I had my first teaching position.  At the end of my first semester of teaching, one of my sisters and I made the trip to the Northwest to see our grandparents.  This trip was the trip from hell.

We took a Greyhound bus.  All the way across country from Arkansas to Oregon.  Stopping in every town along the way.  Riding day and night.  Hurrying into diners for breakfast sometimes holding our food in our hands as the bus driver gave us only a little time to purchase food. Same for lunch and dinner.  Riding, riding, riding.  No place to shower.  No time to walk around.  Just riding.

We had to change buses in Denver.  No big deal.  Just get off one and get on another.  No trip to the Northwest is that easy.  There was a bus strike in Denver.  No buses were traveling further West.  What to do!  After much talking with agents, I learned that there was one bus that might leave in a few hours. I was told which one.  We quickly made our way to that bus, secured our seat and waited hoping it would pull out of the lot and onto the open road.  More people came and soon the bus was full.  Then the driver arrived, and we were off.  No doubt that was the worst of the worst trips ever.

When we arrived in Portland, our grandparents had to hold their noses.  They smelled us way before they saw us.  Baths were the only thing we wanted.  Baths and good food.  And a bed.  At the end of our visit with them, I found myself with my first car driving all the way to Los Angeles.  I had never seen a freeway with  four lanes of traffic.  The signage was not nearly as advanced.  Map reading was a must.  After a visit in Los Angeles, we headed east and traveled all the way to Arkansas.  Another first.  This time the car was a little nicer and there were only the two of us.  No backseat full of little girls.  Air conditioning even.

Since those memorable trips, I have made that journey many times.  In cars and trucks.  Mostly on jets.  Lovely jets with bathrooms and food.   Movies.  Air conditioning.  Silver bullets that slice through the air moving us from place to place.  What took days and days now takes hours.  That is if there are no delays.  There was one other memorable trip from here to there.  It was winter.  We were traveling to Oregon once again.  We made it to  Denver.  In Denver we learned there was a storm in the Northwest.  No planes were flying.  Airports were closed.  So we were stranded in the Denver airport for two or three days.  Eventually the airports opened, and we were on our way.

Arriving in Seattle we learned that no planes were flying to Portland.  We would have to take a train.  But, first we had to take a bus to catch the train.  We were bused across Seattle to the train station which by this time was over crowded with people trying to reach their destinations.  An announcement over the loud speaker informed us that there would be a delay as trees and mud slides covered part of the train tracks.  They didn't know when we would be able to board the train.  People did what people do.  They found places to sit on the floor and prepared for the wait.

Eventually we were told we could board the train.  It takes three and a half hours to make the trip from Seattle to Portland.  Usually.  This time took much longer as the train traveled quite slowly watching for debris on the tracks.  Finally we arrived in Portland.  We had been told we would continue our journey to Salem on the train.  In Portland we were told we had to hurry to catch the bus that would take us the rest of our way.  The train tracks were blocked.  So we boarded the bus for the last leg of our journey.

As we neared Salem, the bus driver announced that we would need to call for a cab as the station was closed.  It was very late by this time.  We did that.  The cab was waiting for us.  Thank goodness.  We were only a few miles from our home.  As we made the drive to our condo, the cab driver told us he could only take us so far.  The roads were iced.  We would have to walk the rest of the way.  Really?    He got us as close as he could.  There was a path cleared through the snow and ice leading to our condo.  We carefully made our way down the steep driveway.   We were finally there.

No, I am no pioneer woman.  My trips across country did not require the patience and strength of those who went before.  But I like to think they passed some of their pioneering spirit down to me.  I like to think their ability to overcome obstacles flows through me.  I want to believe that their spirit of adventure lives in my spirit.  That we share the belief that we can take what is put in front of us and make it work.  And if we find ourselves with real challenges,  we can figure out how to survive.

We continue to be pioneers.  Space, planets, deep oceans, technology, medicine.  We walk new pathways.  We open the way for those who will come after us.  Just like those who crossed the plains, we are crossing the unknown.  Making decisions as we go.   Ever increasing our knowledge.

And making spandex available in all sizes.