Max silently reads his book Ecotopia resisting my attempts to turn him into an audio book. Krakauer’s heady and not so upbeat audio book Missoula on rape can only be listened to in small doses. We’ve already listened to all the CDs we picked up from the library including the Doors, nirvana and Coldplay. So I encourage my mom to continue her travel blog. Her bandaged finger protecting a cut tendon and exposed nerve from a defective garbage can prevents her from writing so I will have to take mental dictation.
We pick up in March of 1959 on her honeymoon to the key west. They drove down the west coast of Florida. Stopped in the Everglades to fish. From key west they drove back up the east coast and stopped in to see aunt Harriet, a long since lost relative from my bio dad’s side of the family. Harriet had a house in Detroit and one in West palm Beach. That is as much detail as I could get from this long ago memory.
She lived in Augusta Georgia in 1960. That is were I was born. One of her neighbors, also in the army, invited her over for dinner. The neighbor then proceeded to charge her $3 for the tacos. So much for southern hospitality all though she didn’t think the neighbor was actually from the south.
The story picks up in1962. She flies with me to Izmir turkey for another deployment. She says I was a wild child on the plane ride over the Atlantic. At one point she retrieved me from first class where I was sitting with some kind of prince. We landed in Switzerland which means I’ve been there. I did not know this. When she saw Slaughtered cows hanging from hooks without refrigeration on the streets attended by women in black burkas, she thought she would not be able to live in this scary place. As they drove into the city, things became more civilized and normal.
She wanted a Christmas tree. Someone cut off the top of their tree and sold it to her. She brought the tree indoors which apparently was considered very strange. A small group of kids knocked on the door. She couldn’t understand them but figured out that they wanted to see the tree in the house. The kids started teaching her Turkish pointing to things around the house. Another older group came later as the rumors spread of the lady that put the tree in the house.
The most frightening event that occurred while their was a hefty sewer rat that popped up out of the toilet. We all traveled to Istanbul by car so I have been there also. I have no memory of any of these event. My brother Bruce was born in Izmir and held dual citizenship until the age of 18.laz
My mom tired of the telling and I don’t think I would have remembered any more details. The rest of the drive was spent driving I’m my usual aggressive manner while max continued to read and my mom slept or stared lazily out the window except those times I could see her tense up as s weaved through semi’s on the left and slow moving cars on the right