Jun 20, 2020

Saturday, 20 June, Chapter Four, “The Big Trip,” 1975-1976 >>>>> >A Teacher’s Journey from Southern Methodist University to North Minneapolis: Foundations for Overhaul of the Minneapolis Public Schools< >>>>> A Memoir >>>>> Gary Marvin Davison


There is something magical about crossing into and stepping foot in another country. 


 

Even now, having thus stepped many times, the joy and wonder of viewing different license plates, highway signs, languages, and cultural markers conveyed on billboards and shop placards never fades.

 

For Barbara and me, this was our first foray into Canada.  As Southwesterners, we had both been to Mexico, many times over borders such as El Paso-Juarez, Laredo-Nuevo Laredo, and Brownsville-Matamoros;  and in my case a natal family trip through the core of the country that included Monterey, San Luis Potosi, Mexico City, and Acapulco. 

 

But we had never been to Canada.  Our visit was short but memorable:

 

We drove through the Ontario countryside to Toronto, where we paused to roam a big provincial fair that just happened to be taking place.  I remember being especially impressed with a big-screen documentary focused on the magnificence of water, “earth’s greatest cleaning agent.”  Yeah, I thought, soap and detergent ain’t nothin’ without water.  We proceeded eastward, skirting Montreal for a drive into rural Quebec.  Barbara was able to cobble up some of her high school French when we stopped at a cafe in the town of St. Georges for lunch, driving thence for our first look at Niagara Falls.  The spectacular sight did not disappoint, but rather enlivened images held of the fabled falls from many sources featuring this natural wonder as a backdrop for the seemingly perfect honeymoon. 

 

Barbara and I crossed over the border in very early September 1975.  We had timed our arrival for a multi-week New England sojourn, the crowning event of which would be a look at the region’s storied autumnal foliage.  Once in upstate New York, we visited the Kodak plant and museum and the Remington Museum of Western Art in Rochester.  We camped in the Catskills at a spot where I took out my iron skillet and fried my first chicken since embarking on the Big Trip;  a charcoal fire heated the skillet and then roasted a panoply of vegetables and potatoes.

 

We entered New England at the New York-Vermont border, toured the capital of Montpelier, then  proceeded to the New Hampshire capital of Concord, where we took a long time to understand that a very nice respondent to our question as to the whereabouts of a high school replied that “Can-kad High School” was just a few blocks away.  We had throughout the trip a routine of taking a daily run whenever possible on the track of a local high school.  In this case, Barbara and I were halfway to the high school of reference when we realized that “Can-kad” was “Concord” in the local dialect.

 

In New Hampshire, we also visited New Haven for a perusal of Princeton University and a look at the Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain homestead.  On to Maine, we rumbled around the capital and capitol of Augusta, took a mystical ride through gentle mountains from which moose peered at us from foggy bluffs, and headed to southern shores replete with scenes of fishers going about their vocational routines and also in our Moby Dick visions saw whalers from centuries past exercising their own professional preparations.

 

I had become a fan in recent years of Neil Young, so that his line, “Twenty-Four and there’s so much more” was a perfect musical backdrop to my birthday of like numeration,” celebrated magically and with delicious delight at a town within the stunning Acadia National Park, where we dined on the ultimate regional delicacy:  lobster.  Barbara and I counted the visit to this park one of the best on a trip of so many  stunning natural landmarks: 

 

Acadia is a land where legend and history mingle coherently and at this park present a complete education of vital ecosystems where ocean and river and forest and field coalesce and support one another,

 

as if instructing humanity to the do the same.

 

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