I started taking road trips before I was old enough to do so. It’s been an urge – don’t know why.
Could it be due to having to memorize this poem at an early age?
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Perhaps hearing this #1 song at a very early age
The wayward wind is a restless wind
A restless wind that yearns to wander
And he was born the next of kin
The next of kin to the wayward wind
In a lonely shack by a railroad track
He spent his younger days
And I guess the sound of the outward-bound
Made him a slave to his wand’rin ways
And the wayward wind is a restless wind
A restless wind that yearns to wander
And he was born the next of kin
The next of kin to the wayward wind
Oh I met him there in a border town
He vowed we’d never part
Though he tried his best to settle down
I’m now alone with a broken heart
And the wayward wind is a restless wind
A restless wind that yearns to wander
And he was born the next of kin
The next of kin to the wayward wind
The next of kin to the wayward wind
Cause and effect: I suspect I was born with itchy feet and these poems – and others – spoke to that already inside more than causing creation.
Although considered “successful” in my professional field, the longest continuous employment I had was 5 years to the day.
Itchy feet indeed: I’ve lived and worked in 15 states. Regrets? Nope – I did and saw things when I could than most who had a “career” and waited too long. Retirement age has its drawbacks.
Most of these trips weren’t “documented”; some were – such as it was – only in travel logs and exist simply as notes related to gas stops. The documents – pictures mostly – of those trips that were recorded are now faded, undated, and mixed together in a couple of tupperware totes – no way to properly organize them by “trip”. It wasn’t until I picked up a digital camera that these journeys were “documented” – mostly by date stamps.
One trip in particular I wish I had been able to record … but that was so long ago.
But a few are notable and worthy of including herein.
