If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? That is a question I have asked myself for the past seventy years, and I still don’t have an answer other than right where I live now.
There is something about living where you were born that seems to establish a tap root that is hard to pull up. All my life, I have traveled to places that I thought were better than where I live. It all began when my wife Barbara and I were on our honeymoon. First of all, the honeymoon was our very first trip away from home. Our destination was Florida. We loved the Florida weather along the Atlantic Ocean. What we didn’t like about Florida were the yearly hurricanes. The following year we ventured to California via Volks Wagon Bug. The smog in the Los Angeles area discouraged us from moving there, although I did go on a job interview with an airplane manufacturing company. One look at their engineering department turned me off. It was a giant room the size of two WalMarts back to back with rows and rows of drafting tables staffed by white shirted engineers designing parts. Up to that point in time, I yearned to live in LA and work for an engineering firm. The sight of that room caused my brain to lose the idea of working there forever.
On our way northward from LA, I aimed the Bug toward San Francisco, playing Tony Bennett’s latest hit song,
I Left My Heart In San Francisco
Song by
The loveliness of Paris seems somehow sadly gay
The glory that was Rome is of another day
I’ve been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan
I’m going home to my city by the Bay
I left my heart in San Francisco
High on a hill, it calls to me
To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars
The morning fog may chill the air, I don’t care
My love waits there in San Francisco
Above the blue and windy sea
When I come home to you, San Francisco
Your golden sun will shine for me
When I come home to you, San Francisco
Your golden sun will shine for me
We never stepped into San Francisco to see what everyone was singing about. Our itinerary was closing, and we had to move. However, the Bug topped out at 65 mph and needed to be goosed on the uphill segments, which were numerous. My last great vision was of Lake Tahoe before we called it quits in Reno, Nevada. Crossing Nevada was joyless. Just straight roads with endless hills between barren mountains.
As a young family, we enjoyed visiting Michigan, especially along the western coast of Lake Michigan, and we spent many weekends visiting my parents on their farm. We could have lived there, except that the winters are as brutal as those in Illinois. After many trips to the western states, we changed direction and headed east toward the Atlantic Ocean. The one thing I noticed is an abundance of dark green forests and lots of hills. What I didn’t experience is a driving force to want to live in the highly populated eastern part of our country.
After my son moved his family to Texas, I got to tour his state more extensively. The central part of Texas, with its hills and lakes, is beautiful and could convince me to live there.
We decided to treat ourselves on our anniversary by visiting Hawaii. There is no doubt, I could live there on any of the islands, but the Big Island was where I’d want to settle, even though we had the most fun on Maui.
Later, Barbara and I began traveling to Europe. Our first tour was to Britain, which consists of England, Scotland, and Wales. Those places are nice to visit, but they are not for me. My work took me to Germany several times, and I fell in love with the countryside and the small villages scattered throughout the country. I studied German in high school and could speak a few words, but the language would prohibit me from living there. On one of those business trips, my boss planned a visit to our factory in Avenzano, Italy. We spent all of twenty-four hours there, and I fell in love with place.
Throughout my travels, I have never been able to decide where to live next. Each time we visited somewhere, it was during an ideal time. For instance, we saw Hawaii during the summer, but never during the rainy season. The same held for Singapore. Canada is great during the summer months, but it is snowy and cold for the rest of the year. Iv’e never been to Alaska so I can only guess that living in six months of darkness would make me go crazy.
The choices of where to live are endless, and there is always a downside to every place I have ever considered to become my home. And I have always decided that I have a little bit of everything I have seen in the world, so why not just stay here in Illinois.
In conclusion, I have decided that at my age, the next place I want to live is Heaven.
Filed under: Biography, family, Travel, Warm and Fuzzy | Tagged: Heaven | 2 Comments »
