Hells Bells and Chicken Butts, what's the deal!?

Lately, and often, I’ve been told I should write a book about our RV travels. 

My intentions are good, and my ego is very flattered, BUT the words just aren’t there. I can’t find a beginning and the ending hasn’t been lived yet.

 

Even rereading Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charlie” isn’t jump starting my ambition, or acting as a word-wizard catalyst.

Hells Bells and Chicken Butts, what’s the deal!?

Let’s fall back in time to my childhood where I was so landlocked by Nebraska farmland that my vision of an epic journey was 20 miles to grandpa and grandma’s house. 

At about the age of 7 or 8 a fellow classmate introduced me to the Public Library. My life changed forever!  I LOVED to read and I was an excellent reader, well beyond my grade level in reading skills.  Why the heck my parents never mentioned there was a place where you could borrow books for FREE and read and read and read, is beyond me. Although, other than cookbooks, my Mom isn’t a reader and the most I ever saw my Dad read was a True West magazine or newspaper. 

So with that said, I guess we only lead our children in the directions we ourselves are comfortable traveling.

Books took me EVERYWHERE! 

I was effortlessly swinging through the trees in the jungles of Africa with Tarzan and his ape buddies.  I was riding bareback through lush green pastures, clinging tightly to Black Beauty’s long flowing mane.  Bambi and I fled the raging forest fire together and wept at the news that his mother had not escaped!  Nancy Drew depended on ME to help her solve mysteries.  I hung on for dear life as I stood beside Captain Ahab while he battled with the Great White Whale, Moby Dick. 

I could go anywhere and do anything, as long as I had a book in my hands.

 

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d ever travel to the places I read about.  People where I lived didn’t travel any further than the grocery store, grandma’s house or Woolworth's.  It just wasn’t done. 

One more flashback and then I’ll come back to the present. 

It was near Thanksgiving, and I was in 3^rd or 4th grade, when the teacher gave us an assignment to write a paper on what we were thankful for.  I liked to write, so this was a no brainer for me. 

I lied through my teeth and wrote about being thankful for VACATIONS!  Uh, we’d NEVER taken a vacation, or even anything that remotely resembled a vacation.  I went on and on about being thankful for being able to see all the incredible sights, the nifty motels we stayed in and even an entire paragraph on the amazing souvenir shops we stopped at! 

So, the day came to stand in front of the entire class and read our “What I’m Thankful For” paper.  I was so excited because I just knew my paper would be the best!  Classmates would hold their breath, on the edge of their seats, mouths agape and eyes opened wide as I told them about my magnificent VACATIONS, to places only people in books went to.  They’d be in complete awe of my glorious travels!

The first person got up to read their paper, which in my mind would surely be totally boring and inferior to mine.

 

WHAT?! 

They were saying they were thankful for their parents, their home, the food they ate, their grandparents??!!! 

NO!  This couldn’t be!  Is that what the teacher meant, really??!! 

The paper was to be about that kind of drivel?!  (A Charlie Brown UGH! is appropriate here)

I calmed myself with thoughts of, “let’s not get excited yet, wait and listen to the next one.”

Crap!  The 2^nd, the 3^rd, the 4^th, the 5^th were all the same.  Blah, blah, blah … family, home, food, church, all that Thanksgiving type of thankful garbage! 

(Big sigh)  My turn came. 

I read my totally bogus paper as quickly as I could, sat down and felt like the most self-centered child ever born among a roomful of Christian do-gooders who would forever say and do the right things. 

I was the lowest of bottom feeders, not only a liar, but an ungrateful liar.  UGH!  

Could it be that the humiliation was so great, the shame so intense, that even 57 years later my mind can’t be coaxed to share my true travel experiences?

Hmm, life’s a mind game, nothing more, nothing less. 

Perhaps some long overdue Self forgiveness is in order before the words and my brain can do an about-face and talk to each other.

If you’ll excuse me, I’ll sign off now.

I have a Child to comfort.