An Old Traveler's Ways (an Essay)

These nights are a hundred years long for me, perhaps for any old travelers accustomed to being on the road, or in the sky. I lay awake and miserable till that hour every night arrives that I must be put to sleep; and grow older and more rickety waiting through the silent, stone-still hours of the night, forever and a day waiting and waiting, as the clock-strikes each hour, on the hour, to fall to sleep.

This is no life for old seasoned men like me of travel.

It was four years ago now, when I last traveled, when at last it was with something very like joy that I could afford to put the enemy to rest, and get on track again and travel, that year I went to Cape Horn (Chile), and Argentina, and then to Israel, with a new kind of birth of the old warrior spirit in me; it all sprang out of me like I was in the line of battle, back in Vietnam, back in '71.

This kind of thing sounds odd to many, and perhaps impossible to some, to travel at will, I have done it all my life, but there is no surprise in it for me when it comes around, at the time. On the contrary, it is a perfectly natural thing to do, for me.

I have traveled to fifty-six countries. It is-so I feel, quite within the probabilities of most people I know to do this, if indeed, they put heart and soul, and one third of their bank account money into it. And I figured it out early in life, it didn't take a lot of money to travel, I was a modest-salaried person, professional later in my life, it takes some savings that is all, and the act of letting go of those savings, and planning.

I'm from Minnesota, a Midwestern boy. Often times when I travel, have traveled, as to India, or Egypt, or some far-off destination like Iceland, the first hours upon arrival, if not the first full day, my inners get a deep woodsy stillness, it nearly overcomes me: it is a kind of an excitement, strong enough to enable me to mark a destination and go directly to it, as in Egypt, I went right to the Pyramids when I got off the plane. As when I went to Lisbon in 1998 for the World's Fair, within three hours off the plane I was walking the grounds of the Fair. The first time I was in Paris I hardly knew what I was doing, I spent $240-dollars on taxies in 24-hours, back in 1997. I was dazed with excitement, hardly audible the first hours, when directing the taxi to where I wanted to go. My first time in Rome, it was an uncanny kind of excitement; late night smells, dim lights cafes, restaurants; afternoon heat, all rising and pervading.

When you travel alone, everyone seemingly has a reproachful look, shadowy eyes, but it is not really so, people are just people and most folks never did me any harm. Even though a few tried in China, and Greece, and Germany, and Spain and Lisbon.

A Long Monstrous Sleep (1960)

The sun was down some when we reached the fairgrounds, Lamoure and I, it was after five o'clock. We laid there in the grass behind the iron fence, and a building, the building somewhat hiding us, in the cool shade, it had been a hot day, and we had both told our parents we were staying over at each other's home, and taken off to find a new adventure, and so here we were, snug as a bug, in the fairgrounds, camping out, thinking of things, and getting rested for the night, and rather at ease and satisfied.

I could see the sun going down at the other end of the fairgrounds, looking through an opening in the branches and leaves of a nearby tree, while laying on my back, and the moon fading into sight, with its gloomy gray interior.

There were arc lights from the streets that spiffed light through the iron bar fence, and down and across our faces, somewhat breaking up as it bartered its way around the fence's open spaces. And from somewhere came a little breeze. A couple of gray doves, were perched on a branch of a tree nearby, jabbering as if in trying to settle a dispute.

I was potently sluggish, tired and for the most part lazy, and comfortable-I didn't want to move from this spot. Didn't want to get up. Well, after a half hour of this laziness and Lamoure and I talking about this and that eating some beef-jerky and drinking some water from my canteen, Lamoure dozing off, we both thought we hear something, "Perhaps a bum!" I said to him. He stirs some, rouses up and looks about. A moment later, I hear it again, and Lamoure looks down the street some, towards the midway area, we're both smoking Camel cigarettes. He looks at me as if he knows what the matter is now.

"Police!" he said.

Well I knew, no police came into the fairgrounds, it had to be the grounds man I figured.

I could see his white shirt, as I tried to sit upright, to greet him. So I sat there cross-legged and waited. Thinking how it always happens, adults come around once you get comfortable, and spoil your fun. I knew he'd chase us out. But I had a good enough time I figured up to now, and just seeing him coming quicksilver trying to figure out how he was going handle this, that is, to chase us out of here, was worth the wait, I was too tired to run, and I suppose that's what he expected.

So, says I, when he got a few feet in front of me, and Lamoure standing up looking awkward as a jaybird trying to find his nest, "I suppose we got to leave?"

"Yup, but what in tarnation are you doing here in the first place?" He asked, in a rather friendly tone.

I changed to a more humble posture, thinking maybe we're in luck, he'll let us sleep here for the night, so I says, "We're just camping out, and we're not going to disturbed anyone!"

He wasn't very well satisfied with that, and there wasn't any doubt in his face now, we were leaving. And we left.

With our canteen, and jackets, and a blanket, we trekked down alongside, outside, the fairgrounds fence, it must have been a mile, and a few past that, we were per near five miles from home. I was pretty hungry, but it weren't going to do for me to start complaining, neither one of us had any money, just a pack of smokes between us. Then when we got down a ways, by the University Farms, it was pretty late, and we found a carrot garden, and we didn't lose no time, we pulled a half dozen of those carrots from their roots, we went and looked for a place to sit down, found an old log, at the edge of the garden, looked out across the field, the sky looked black as driftwood, the stars twinkling, like little lanterns, then wiped those carrots clean and ate them as if they were T-bone steaks.