When my husband and I travel, we can go for twelve hours without having any conversation beyond “Where do you want to eat?” and “Do you have to pee?” He drives and listens to a book. I read a book and handle kid problems. That being said, should one of us say something outside of our usual conversation, it will probably be the exact thing the other is thinking about.
If I had to chose people to go along, (and I’m assuming these people would converse) I would want people who can tell good stories. (I’m also assuming this a long and otherwise boring car ride, but it is in a comfortable car because my massage therapist cried after my last road trip.)
Another person I might chose would be one of my Classics professors from college. One of them had a voice for radio and could make Latin conjugation sound interesting. He also made Greek and Roman mythology absolutely fascinating. If we were touring the Mediterranean coast, he would be the perfect travel companion. Our college does trips to these areas, but probably by the time I can afford to go this professor will no longer be traveling.
So I’m probably not a very exciting travel companion, but I’m a great listener.
Angela Schroeder
Patricia Kiyono
Elaine Cantrell
Jeff Salter
Joselyn
Tonette Joyce
I imagine you would be a fun traveling companion…you just need someone who doesn’t know what you know to ask the right questions,Joselyn! Maybe we can jump in a car together sometime and we’ll test the theory.If not, well, I can find a story in anything.
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I think my husband is just happy that I don’t complain.
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well, move over, Joselyn. I want to ride with you and your dad. I love listening to the folks of the Greatest Generation. [One of these old guys locally died last month and his widow loaned me his 27 page “autobiography”. Fascinating reading, even though he waited until his early 80s to write it.]
Very cool that your dad had direct interaction with key historical figures.
You brought up two very important distinctions about this topic:
1. whether the means of travel is comfortable or not. Lordy, I could not last more than a few minutes in an uncomfortable seat. An hour each Sunday in a church pew is painful for me.
2. whether the time of travel is spent in silence or with conversation. Hmmmm.
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My dad spent my senior year of high school writing out his war memoirs. He was in his late seventies and bringing up some of the memories was very hard on him. The stories are fascinating to me. He was in the military police and stationed in the Philippines at the end of the war. He was supposed get his unit prepared to travel to Japan with the invasion, but when he arrived in Manilla he learned that the atomic bomb had been dropped and there likely wouldn’t be the ground invasion.
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I can well imagine some wartime experiences would be painful to remember. But I think it’s terrific that he had the inclination and took the effort to write them down for y’all. Those, plus other things he perhaps related orally, leave a wonderful legacy for you and your siblings. And, of course, the following generation.
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I always loved listening to stories from my parents and grandmother. My dad wasn’t very open about his war experiences, but after he died I found an email he’d written to one of his war buddies about the battle in which he’d been wounded. I got cold chills reading it.
But I can also relate to your comfort in traveling alone (other than the driver, who doesn’t HAVE to talk to me except to answer my questions about where we are). I could very easily pass the time with any number of hobbies.
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If you have to travel with someone I would rather travel with people I can enjoy listening to. Family stories/history are always the best.
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