WILD CHANCE LETTER
Today on going.com I was offered a round trip ticket to Amsterdam from Asheville for $550. Since dropping Rome I had been looking for an adventure to fill the time while Sue Coke was staying in my apartment. My first thought was to repeat the field trip I took six years ago when Susie and Kathe were visiting Germany. I would circle the Southeast in my Honda CRV, staying in state parks at a senior discount and sleeping in the reclined passenger seat, every bit as confortable as the recliner I sleep on in my apartment. I would spend several days in Edisto, at the ocean, walking on the beach.
But when this round trip to Amsterdam popped up, I suddenly wondered if maybe my neice Henny in Haarlem might be going on vacation for two weeks allowing me to stay in her house so I immediately wrote to her.
It was a wild idea, a nutty idea, something that only a crazed octogenarian with no shame would propose and think he could get away with.
As is everyone with a family and work that needs to be done and is not retired and sponging off other people, me, she was busy. But she didn’t seem horrified by my letter, the second half of which had made a lot more sense because I had invited her and Eva, her sister, to come visit me and to stay in my apartment for two weeks whenever they could come. So I am glad I wrote to her. But this was my fourth try to go somewhere exotic in November and I was finally resigned, even looking forward to, staying here at my son’s house in North Asheville.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 