Spring Break 1971

The next set of posts are heading in a very different direction – geographically and otherwise.   There are many good things about being the last arrival in a family of three daughters (she was allowed to do what???) but one especially lucky break was that I was still at home when my parents were ready and able to venture out of the continental United States.

Although I’m sure I was occasionally a surly teenager,  we had wonderful times on my high school spring break trips from 1970 to 1973.  We hit the major European cities and even did a driving tour of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.  Mom was the scribe, jotting notes at every stop and collecting brochures, postcards and every manner of written material.  After each trip, she would come home and spend hours carefully putting together the travel journals – stapling everything in each volume for keeps.  The woman was a committed stapler.

Starting tomorrow and for the next two weeks, I am going to transcribe and post her travel journal of 1971. Exactly forty years to the day after our experiences, you will read about it.   But only if you choose!  I won’t inundate you with email updates (although I can’t promise Posterous won’t regain its notification functionality.) I can’t even promise any fabulous pictures (it was before Mom’s pre-fancy camera phase) although there is one charming one of me with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Did anyone (especially me) really wear skirts that short?

Admittedly, this will have limited audience appeal but several recent events prompted my decision.

Mom’s handwriting is not the easiest to read and, when daughter #2 pointed that out – “I can’t read Grandma’s handwriting!” – I realized that, 100 years from now (when no one even writes anymore), someone might say the same thing and toss out her lovingly prepared manuscripts.   Secondly, out of our 1971 travel party of eight,  there are just four of us left.   Recently, we were together  — sadly and only briefly — but the trip was brought vividly back to life. And I thought – what better way to honor that time than to transcribe Mom’s labor of love and enjoy it all again?  And one-day-at-a-time is very “do-able.”

Come along if you like – London, Paris, and Rome await!