Return to a Place

… or Re-live an Experience?

By Jeff Salter

Topic: Is there a place that you have traveled to when you were younger that you wish you could visit again?

While discussing this topic (over breakfast) with my wife, she pointed out that returning to a PLACE would not necessarily re-capture the EXPERIENCE with which I’ve associated that place. And that caused me to approach this topic from two different angles.

Place

As I mulled over this topic for several days this week, I came up with only one PLACE that I wish I could re-visit… and I’d want to bring with me my wife, kids, and grandkids. I’d like to return to Thule Air Base – in northwest Greenland, about 900 miles from the North Pole – just so my family could see the landscape, the base, the buildings, etc., where I lived for most of a year (1972-73). I doubt much of it has changed, because it was significantly a product of the Arctic’s inhospitable climate.

Showing my family where I worked, slept, wrote, and existed (in considerable isolation) for those 11 months wouldn’t likely mean all that much to anyone just there for a quick tour. But at least when I refer to my barracks, to the 4683^rd Air Base Group HQ building (where I was assigned), to the chow hall, to the American Forces Radio & Television station (where I also worked) — they’d have a frame of reference.

It was a fairly dismal year, but I made the best of it. Unlike many guys I knew – both American military and Danish civilian – I did NOT mess with the drugs that rather freely / openly circulated. Nor did I drink all that much [compared to many guys I knew, I hardly drank at all!]. I went to movies, played ping pong, worked on jigsaw puzzles that the Catholic Chaplain often had going at the officers’ quarters, wrote lots of letters and poetry, and ate FOUR meals a day.

Yep, the two chaplains shared a vehicle – quite rare on that base – and every evening around 9 p.m. they’d come by our barracks and pick up anyone who was hungry… for what was called “midnight supper.” I guess the serving line may have lasted until midnight, but we were usually out of there by 10 p.m. I know that eating a large 4^th meal so late at night was not particularly HEALTHY… but when you’re stationed inside the Arctic Circle, what else have you got to do?

[I gained about 22 pounds that year — from 140 to 162.]

This is the primary base area. Nearby was “P” Mountain and South Mountain, each of which were radar sites, watching the skies for ICBMs from Soviet Russia.

Experience

So, Thule is the PLACE I’d like to re-visit. Not so much that I have many fond memories of the rather desolate, remote base… but that I truly wish I could SHOW my family what it was like during that year.

But for an EXPERIENCE (from younger years) that I wish I could have again… I think I’d select Disneyland in the spring of 1958. I was in second grade when I went with my family on our first BIG family trip. [My dad had a ministerial conference in San Francisco — he traded his plane ticket for gasoline money and took all five of us from southeast Louisiana in a VW Beetle.] For more on that trip, see the link at the bottom of today’s blog.

But for the purposes of THIS blog, let me say simply that at Disneyland – in the second year it was open, while some of the attractions were still being built – I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Born in Mississippi, having lived in Chicago, Georgia, and Louisiana… I’d never even imagined a place with that much wonderment and entertainment. [And, of course, by then, we’d been watching Disney’s TV show for a couple of years, and had seen various images of Walt’s “magic kingdom”.]

After a few rides with the whole family, my brother (fifth grade) and I were given the free run of the place… and RUN, we did! My favorite attractions were Tom Sawyer’s Island, the Swiss Family Robinson’s tree house, and Peter Pan’s pirate ship. [What was special about Tom Sawyer’s Island was that you’d take a small ferry across a channel to the island. But once there, you could roam around, play on / with the different features, explore, return to the spots you liked best, etc. THEN, when YOU were ready, you could board the ferry for a return to the “mainland”. No particular time limit, that I remember, either!] Other features that I enjoyed were the jungle riverboat cruise, the Captain Nemo submarine ride, and the Matterhorn ride.

I was not yet 7.5 years old when we visited Disneyland – and I certainly comprehend that I can never again return to that physical age – but I remember enough of the wonder and excitement and full-throttle adrenalin… that it’s enjoyable to imagine re-living it.

My Wife’s Two Cents

As we discussed this topic, my wife had little trouble coming up with an experience and a place. She’d like to return to Mammoth Cave with her sister and parents, take the longer tour this time, and also join the overnight canoe trip along the underground stream.

Question:

What about YOU? Is there a PLACE (from your younger years) that you’d like to revisit? Is there a particular EXPERIENCE (that you associated with a particular location) that you wish you could have again?

Drive to Disneyland and Turn Right

[JLS # 606]

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