Travels the Bradley Way
From 6-11-14
Where I grew up in the Exposition Mill Village very few people had cars, and everywhere we went we had to walk. As you can imagine, my world was fairly limited to the mill village, & everywhere we went we had to walk or take the streetcar, but that cost a dime. (My family didn't have a car until near my 16th Birthday. (The exception would be when the village baseball or softball team would travel by company truck and I got to ride with them.) What a treat to see my dad play 1st base and then we would sing all the way back home to the village. My world changed one Christmas when Santa brought me a bicycle. Boy, was it special with the white side wall tires, a light for night driving, and bell to warn anyone that got in the way. Instead of being limited in my travels by my feet, I could now travel to areas I had never been. I felt free, and I was excited to see what was out there. The early problem I was that I was too short for the tall bike so I had to find a big rock to stand on in order to get up on the bicycle. I know this is where my wanderlust started. (Even today when a plane goes over or I hear a train whistle, I always wonder where it is going.) The end of the line street car barn was near us so one day I decided I would command a streetcar and go where the tracks would take me, but thankfully I couldn't find the contraption which made it go. The only other trip I tried to make was when our village baseball team was going to play a doubleheader in Chattanooga and I knew that the streetcar line ended at the Chattahooche so I talked a friend into walking the streetcar tracks to see the games. After a full day of walking we were very tired, disappointed & concerned when a guy at a service station explained to us that the Chattahooche River is not where Chattanooga was located. I still don't remember how we got home, but I remember my "fanny" stinging for a week. When Jan and I started dating one our favorite places to go was the airport where they would have a plane to come in every hour or so. After I had been coaching for 30 years, Brenda provided us with a magic carpet when she became a Delta Flight Attendant. I told Jan we were going to quit teaching/coaching and take advantage of the opportunity to travel. As always she was concerned about the money (in fact she told me recently if I die first she would bring with her any money that we had left.). She wants to spend her money, but she wants me to save my money in case she needs it. We had a couple of great years which are well chronicled on our web site. We had 5 free tickets each & we could also go anywhere as long as Brenda was with us, and if anyone told me they were on a trip with her you could be assured they would write a "good letter" (even if I had to write it for them) as it gave us another free trip. We became so spoiled that if we couldn't get in First Class we would wait on the next plane. Brenda went on to a new challenge, so we lost our wings, and I went back to working with young people. About four years later The Lord sent us another magic carpet when our son, Bill, went to work with American Airlines. He told us he was only going to be a flight attendant for a couple of years, as he wanted to teach and coach like his twin brother, Bob, and his daddy. We thought he might get over that so I left my job to pursue another love called traveling and seeing the world. Bill could sign a bunch of tickets and we could go where we wanted to go. We did things that are hard to believe, especially as tough as air travel is now. Space won't let me tell all, but we reached the point where one day our son Brad said,"Dad you are going to wear Mom out." Jan must have been concerned when I came up with a brilliant idea when flying home from London. I had the idea of catching a Korean Air flight in Chicago and going to the Olympics even though I didn't have any tickets or a place to stay. It's a good thing Jan went on to Washington to visit the grand kids as she would not have been a happy camper with our stopover in Tokyo. I couldn't get out of Tokyo that night and I had never heard of closing an airport so when they told me to leave I refused. In broken English the security officer said they would lock me in a room with a guard, but they would open up the airport in the morning and I could be on my way. After Jan heard about this trip she didn't utter a word on my weekend trip to go jogging in Mauri, Hawaii. Or when I told her I was going to Russia for a few days, or the day I told her I was going to fly to San Juan for some black bean soup. Every Christmas she would let me make a 3-day trip to Austria to tramp around in the snow. but the day I told her about a trip I wanted to make to New Zealand for 4 hours she was not happy. I had to explain to her on my stopover in Honolulu I would have time to go swimming at another famous beach. As she seemed to relax a little I told her I would need to go to Las Vegas to rest up. On our last trip from London I wrote Bill a letter that said,"If someone can enjoy these wings more than I, I'd love to meet him." Bill quit and has been a very successful teacher and coach for a long while. Some of our trips are detailed a little more on "Travels the Bradley way."
