In The Beginning

It wasn't until after I was asked to write about country music in the 1990s that I reflected back at how much I enjoyed writing at a younger age. What will always bother me is why it wasn't something that became a vocation rather than just an avocation.

When I was in fifth grade, my father (who then worked for Trans World Airlines) decided to take me, along with my sister who was in third grade and my mother to Europe for two weeks. My teachers, Mrs. Larson and Mrs. Jackson, only asked that I take my "new" math and spelling to keep up with those and that I did a presentation when we returned.

What a lucky child I was to have parents that were so involved with their children's studies. While gone mother provided me with a journal and together we wrote in it every day we were on the trip. Dad took 8mm home movies and when we returned spliced the reels together as well as made a presentation board of all the monies of the different countries. Together my parents went to school with me and we told the story of our family trip. It might be appropriate to add, even if it dates me, that it was a luxury for a family in those days to get to go to Europe.

Here is my journal and then a bit about the places we journied to back then.

My Trip to Europe - October 1965

We left for New York in the afternoon. We were going to Switzerland but the flight was canceled so we went to Paris. On the airplane to Paris we got a big delicious meal.

October 21 - When we got to Paris at 7:00 am we rented a car and drove to the Hotel Claud Bernard. That day we saw the Eiffel Tower and the L'Arc de Triomphe. That we ate some long sticks of bread walking down the street. Later we ate in a tiny restaurant in Paris.

October 22 - That morning we had our first breakfast in Paris. It consisted of bread, jam and tea. We also shopped in Paris that day. We then headed for Switzerland. That night we stayed in the Hotel de la Fontain. We ate a big dinner of chicken. The town is named Auxerre.

(REALTRAVELADVENTURES.COM - On our third day our tour was through beautiful agriculture hillsides to the little town of Vézelay with the Roman Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene on top of the hill. Here Medieval crusaders from three places converged before setting out for campaigns on Jerusalem. Since ancient times the crypt of the cathedral has been a shrine for the ashes and finger bone reliquary of Mary Magdalene.
Pope Eugene II started the crusades in 1090. St. Bernard 1146 preached the Second Crusade here and Richard Lionhearted and King Philippe Auguste of France started the Third Crusade from here.
Today Vézelay is still a religious mecca, now claimed by Magdalene cultists and new age seekers. Many artists have made studios in the old brothels, which served weary pilgrims before they embarked on the Crusades and now display galleries of silk screens, oils, ceramics, and fiber arts. A wonderful place to select prized remembrances of our trip! Many of these buildings contain Roman vaulted cellars, some of which are converted to lovely restaurants and bars. )

October 23 - We left Auxerre for Geneva, Switzerland.

As we were coming down the mountains we could see the sun shining on the snow capped Alps. In Geneva we stayed at a good hotel de L'Ancre. We also saw Lake Geneva.

October 24 - We window shopped in Lusanne then we went on towards Bern. Before we got to Bern we found a new modern hotel called the Gusthof (hotel) Bahnhof. We stayed there that night. We bowled and ate by ourselves in a dining room. The meal consisted of pork chops, potatoes, cauliflower and carrots.

October 25 - The next morning we drove 12 km or 7 miles to Bern and ate breakfast. We had planned to shop but found out the stores didn't open until 2:00. So we drove towards Zurich. That night we stayed at the Hotel Tellsplatte near Zug. We stayed there and walked down a path to the Lake. It was a pretty stroll. We had very good service there. We also saw the snow capped mountains.

Hotel Tellsplatte (www.tellsplate.ch) has not changed alot since almost forty years ago. What a beautiful place. The hotel you will see at the back of this photo from their website. You cross the road to a building (which was much smaller) that at that time was a postal station and gift shop. The path you see took you to Lake Lucerne and where you will see below an open air chapel tht faced the lake which has a story of its own. (below)

Another few (back toward the small town of Zug where we shopped). It shows a good view of the beautiful lake framed by the mountains. The views were spectacular.

From their site this photo shows a guest looking out much as my mother and I did. Our rooms were situated at the end of an upper floor. Mom and dad had the room to the right and my sister and I had the room right across the hall. It was late in the season and the hotel was virtually empty. There was a wicker balcony right out a small door at the end of the hall and this is exactly the view.

The rooms looked much the same. The big open windows allowed for the vistas to surround you. Each morning we went down to the restaurant where they reserved a table for us that was immediately laden with beautiful fresh pastries, fresh butter and homemade jams and jellies. It was always accompanied by hot tea and coffee.

The legend - (from the hotel website)

At the end of the 13th century the sheriffs of Habsburg tyrannized and subdued the people who lived in the area that we today call Switzerland. The most cruel of them all was Gessler who used extremely humiliating methods. At a time he had placed his hat - decorated with peacock feathers - on a pole at the market-place of Altdorf and announced that every man who passed the market-place should fall down on his knees as a sign of appreciation and reverence.
On the rock near our hotel, where Tell miraculously managed to free himself, a chapel was built in later years. This chapel is still open today.

One day William Tell - a hunter and farmer from the nearby valley of Schächen - passed the market-place with his son without paying attention to the hat. Gessler had him arrested immediately and told him that his only chance to stay alive was if he could hit the apple that Gessler had placed on the head of his son - with a cross-bow. Tell's arrow hit the apple and, when Gessler saw that Tell had prepared a second arrow, he asked why. Tell replied that it was intended for Gessler if he had hit his son instead of the apple.

October 26 - We drove towards Zurich. That night we stayed at a hotel on a hill. We walked to the train station and road a tram to downtown Zurich. We ate there too.

October 27 - We drove up to Basil, Switzerland our last stop in Switzerland. We road through Germany on the autoban. That night we stayed in a little town 20 km away from Metz, France.

October 28 - We went to Luxembourg where there is very pretty scenery. Later we drove through Belgium where there was alot of pine forests. That night we stayed in Dunkerque, France. From our hotel we could see the remains of a old church where it had been bombed.

(from Wikipedia: Luxembourg is one of the smallest countries in Europe, and ranked 175th in size of all the 194 independent countries of the world; the country is about 2,586 square kilometres (998 sq mi) in size, and measures 82 km (51 miles) long and 57 km (35 miles) wide. To the east, Luxembourg borders the German Bundesländer of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, and, to the south, it borders the French région of Lorraine. The Grand Duchy borders the Belgian Walloon Region, in particular the latter's provinces of Luxembourg and Liège, more in particular the German-speaking Community of Belgium, to the west and to the north respectively.)

October 29 - We drove to Calais, France where we turned our car in and took a boat to Folkstone, England. We then took a train to London. We stayed that night at a place where mother and father stayed one time the Lynton Hotel. We took a double decker bus to Picadilly Circus. Then when we got back to the hotel we watched English T.V.

October 30 - We got up and ate breakfast then a taxi took us around Buckingham Palace then to the airport.

(Mom and Dad had brought us on a previous trip dolls from England - a guard from Buckingham Palace and an English Bobby (Policeman). Years later we always got a kick (as a family) out of the song, "England Swings" by Roger Miller (see at the end))

Flight 771 we left 12:30 from London to Chicago - flying time 8 hours and 57 minutes at a altitude of 35,000 feet (at this altitude outside temp is about 50 below zero). We will pass over Belfast, Ireland and in about 45 minutes after take off later we will pass over Greenland. We had a big meal. We also saw a movie.

We got to Chicago in 8 or 9 hours. We took a plane to Kansas City. In the Kansas City airport we saw some barbecue chips. They looked so good after eating foreign food.

In addition I had to keep a page on each country - their dress, food, homes, cars, scenery. highways and streets, places we saw and the people.

Some interesting observations of a fifth grader -

France - Vezalay - an old Medieval city with the largest church in France and said that Mary Magdelene was buried there. Dunkerque - an old city rebuilt because of the bombing there (during WWII)

Switzerland - their homes are attached to the barns, the girls wear aprons over their dresses, scenery has very pretty mountains, lakes and countryside

Germany - four lane highways called autobans

Luxembourg (in my mother's handwriting - one of the smallest European countries)

Belgium - Brussels, a busy place more cars and people running around than in Paris

Great Britain - drive on opposite side of the street than we do

In the back of my book it was evident my sister and I must have been playing school. Mother also had a list of small trinkets to take back to our best friends, our relatives and teachers as well as items we purchased to bring back.

ENGLAND SWINGS

words and music by Roger Miller

England swings like a pendulum do

Bobbies on bicycles, two by two

Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben

The rosy red cheeks of the little children

Now, if you huff and puff and you fin'lly save enough

Money up to take your family on a trip across the sea

Take a tip before you take your trip

Let me tell you where to go

Go to England, oh

England swings like a pendulum do

Bobbies on bicycles, two by two

Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben

The rosy red cheeks of the little children

Mama's old pajamas and your papa's mustache,

Falling out the window sill, frolic in the grass,

Tryin' to mock the way they talk, fun but all in vain,

Gaping at the dapper men with derby hats and canes.

England swings like a pendulum do

Bobbies on bicycles, two by two

Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben

The rosy red cheeks of the little children

England swings like a pendulum do

Bobbies on bicycles, two by two

Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben

The rosy red cheeks of the little children