T'ain't What It Was

Some of you might think this blob is a promotion for an airline, which it could be –but it is not. It is, however a story about travel. Today was college football season, and we watched Michigan wipe the field with the Huskies of Connecticut. The game, took me back a fe years to a game I attended at Penn State when I was in High School. (I was watching the game with Tracy, whose children all went or are going to Penn State,

It was September and a guy who I worked with during the summer invited me to spend the weekend in State College Pa. My parent, though reluctant to let me do that (I was still in high school), agreed that trust was trust, and if they trusted me it didn’t matter whether I was in Boonton or “Hondrikavah.” (It doesn’t matter how you pronounce it, it isn’t an actual location but merely a place created by my aunts, to make a point about a something being in the middle of nowhere).

The train took eight hours. When I arrived, Jay my friend, drove us to his apartment. It Hadn’t occurred tome that I would be staying alone with him – not in the girls dorm. He thought I was eighteen. This was not the case. (Are you getting the point). Never one to be found out, I did not tell him how old I really was. The lie continued, but I did confess that I was a virgin, terribly innocent, and intended to stay that way. He was annoyed but did understand.

He slept on the couch –or maybe I id. Who can remember? It was so long ago, I almost fell off the dinosauer on the way to the game. Penn State was playing West Point. Did I mention that when I was in high school we would go to West Point for dances and special events. (There were no women at the Point and so they imported us. My friend Joyce Mitcko – who was one year my senior had once gone out with the cousin of a Cadet and somehow she got on the special invitation list.) Anyway, having survived my first night alone in a boy’s apartment, and not paying much attention to anything but that, we arrived at the stadium. (Did I mention that I dated quite a few Cadets). In fact, it wasn’t until the third or forth Cadet, that we walked passed yelled “Hey Iris, are you here with the enemy?” that I realized Jay was not happy about what he perceived, as “a story” fabricated about my sexual innocence. “How is it that you know so many of them?” he said – implying that I had lied about the treasured virginity.

We stayed for the game. He was fuming. And I, having been wrongly accused of being a slut, rooted for West Point and never spoke to him again. That night, I slept on the couch.

As I mentioned – this was quite some time ago. It was a time when you got all dressed up to travel to anywhere – even ‘ Hondrikavah.’ It was a time when you wore white gloves, and a dress, to get on a plane, or train or go to the theater. Travel was glamorous, exciting, and enjoyable. Even an eight hour train trip to the middle of nowhere was fun.

Nothing stays the same. The airlines are thieves. A long train trip is expensive, and usually for large families who got a special rate, are afraid to fly, or who can’t sit comfortably in one airplane seat. And the cost of gas makes driving prohibitively costly. In other words, my attitude about traveling has changed considerably over the years, and I have come to realize, that I do not need to go everywhere I have not been. That being said, and making little sense at all, David is on his way back from Paris and Z got a new big boy bed. We’re just sayin’….Iris

(note, because of an editing error by the editor (editor's note: ME!), this post is a few days delayed from when Michigan won a football game.)