Monday, June 21, 2010

Memory Lane

It seems odd to be spending the first day of summer on a charter bus with 82 sixth graders, but that's exactly what I did today. Really, it wasn't all that bad. We took two buses from our school in Arlington, VA and made our to Lewes, DE. It's about a 3 1/2 hour trip that allows the students to see a somewhat, radical change in landscape; one that begins in the urban setting we live in and continues east to the Atlantic coast by way of the small towns and farmland of Maryland and Delaware.

The landscape is familiar to me. I have traveled the very same roads for 48 years now, first as a baby with my family to see relatives on the eastern shore of Maryland. Later it was with friends as we made rowdy road trips to the beaches of the Mid-Atlantic during our late teens and twenties.

Lewes holds other memories since it was the town that friends chose for a summer rental. Even though I never had the money to share in the rental I was welcomed every weekend with whatever money I could scrape together to put toward my share of food or beer.

My phone rang as the bus was making its way back into Virginia at about 6:00pm tonight. Coincidentally, it was a friend who lived near the beach in Delaware years ago, one whose house was often the end destination of those road trips. I had talked with her early this morning and she knew of my field trip for the day. When she asked me how the day was I smiled, "It made me miss you," I replied, "it made me miss everybody and everything from those days."

1 comment:

  1. I loved that house and those weekends! And it was always more fun when you came down. We'd have let you come for no beer money at all.

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