Final Approach, Home from Scotland, September 23, 2025

Posted on December 5, 2025 by youngv2015

Final Approach into Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, September 23, 2025

The pilot’s voice comes over the PA, asking passengers and flight attendants to prepare for the final approach.

If I’m reading, I close my book. If I’m resting, I open my eyes. If the window shade is down, I raise it. From the moment of the pilot’s announcement until the wheels touch the runway, and the force from the plane’s thrust-reverse system pushes me back against my seat, I will keep watch out the window.

Out the window I’m met by thick, irregular shaped clouds spattered through the Midwestern skies over Minneapolis-St. Paul and its suburbs. I have a window seat. I always try to have a window seat. Considering I don’t like to be boxed into a space, this is unusual for me. But instead of feeling claustrophobic and trapped, I’m comforted by the world outside the window, even if I’m thousands of feet above the earth. The pilot asks passengers to fasten their seatbelts, stow their trays, and return their seats to an upright position. Flight attendants make their final walks up and down the aisle.

My love of the window seat on a plane began as a young child. I would fly with my father, who had a private pilot’s license. Over the years he owned a series of mostly single-engine airplanes, so every seat had a window. If my mother wasn’t on the plane, and she rarely was, I rode in the front passenger seat. Views surrounded me. Flying north and south across Wisconsin, I was mesmerized by patchworked parcels of land seamed together with ribbons of road. Rivers meandered and lakes nestled in the landscape. Houses and buildings, cows and horses looked like toys left behind by children. And I liked to imagine the cars and trucks had been wound by hand and set upon the roads. Every time I flew with my father and he landed the plane and shut it down, he’d declare, “Cheated death again.”

Our approach into Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is a series of wide turns creating the illusion we are flying in slow motion as we descend through billowy clouds. The plane banks, then banks again. Each turn provides a view of the earth below then a view of the clouds above. I’m transcended. I’m fearless. I don’t worry about the plane falling from the sky. I’m not watching out the window in a hope to divert disaster. I’m watching out the window because I’m enchanted by the most beautiful final approach I think I’ve ever experienced. I’m not worried about the landing. If something goes wrong, I’ve had a seat to a stunning view after a lovely trip to Scotland.

As a child, I knew planes crashed, but I never worried when my father flew his small plane. I took my first commercial flight when I was seventeen, a trip to Europe with other students and chaperones. I don’t remember being afraid. But by the time I was in my early twenties, commercial flying scared me. There was a spate of commercial crashes from the 1970s through the 1980s. And there was the echo of my father’s words, “Cheated death again.”

On one of the plane’s banks, I see a shimmering steel-colored river reflecting the sun and clouds. I wonder if it’s the Mississippi or the Minnesota. In a final crescendo, the sky has become a cobalt blue, and shades of industrial gray dance across the land and river.

In my 20s, 30s, and 40s, I avoided commercial flying. I rarely traveled to see my family because it meant getting on a jet. When I did agree to fly to see my parents or siblings, dread stalked me. In the weeks and days before my flight, I’d wake in the middle of the night certain my plane would crash. My dread inflated like a balloon until I thought it would burst. Then my departure date would arrive, and I’d head to the airport. Caught up in waves of people coming and going, I, too, would become excited to be going somewhere. My fear would dissipate. I’d board the plane, buckle my seatbelt, open a book, and read. When the plane started moving, I’d look out the window. (Most crashes happen on takeoffs and landings.) I’d watch the plane roll down the runway, lift off the ground, and clear its controlled airspace. Then, and only then, I’d return to my book.

As we near the runway cleared for our landing, I know the plane is traveling at speeds faster than I ever drive, but that’s not how it feels from the air. I’m suspended in time and space. I realize I’m not in a hurry to land. I’d like to ask the pilot to go around one more time. I have just returned from Scotland, home to some of the world’s most beautiful scenery. But the views on this final approach rival the scenes of Scotland, not because they are similar, but because they are so different. I’m home. In my Midwestern part of the United States. A land with its own innate and man-made beauty.

By the time I was in my late twenties, my fear of flying spread to small planes like my father flew. After I married and had children, my father would fly his small plane from Arizona to Wisconsin every summer. He’d attend the Experimental Aircraft Association show in Oshkosh, visit friends in southern Wisconsin, then fly into the Bong Airport in Superior. He’d call me from the air, and I’d load my children and dogs into the car and meet him at the airport. I’d help him tie down his plane, a ritual we completed many times when I was young. At some point during his visit, he’d take my boys and me for a flight. At first, I was okay with this, but as each year passed, my fear of flying in a small plane surpassed my fear of flying in commercial jets. I knew the statistics. Small private planes were more dangerous. At least, with my children in the plane, he didn’t say, “Cheated death again.”

The flight attendants have all taken their seats. Our Delta Flight 1127 levels, ready for landing. I don’t experience a moment of panic.

Last February Delta Flight 4819 landed upside down on a runway in Toronto. No one died. My mother, who knew I’d be flying Delta to Scotland, lost no time in phoning to tell me about the inverted landing. “It’s comforting to know, “I replied, “that I’ve chosen an airline whose pilots know how to land a jet upside down.”

Up until our final descent, the jet engines droned quietly. But now just before we land, pilots adjust flaps and slats to increase drag in order to slow the plane even more. A loud rumble fills my ears. The wheels of the plane hit the ground and the spell is broken. The pilots reverse thrust and a deafening roar assaults my ears, and I’m pressed into the back of my seat.

One year, before my father came to visit, I asked my sister to tell him that I didn’t want to go up in his plane anymore. That I couldn’t handle the weeks of anxiety before the flight. My father came and went and never mentioned a plane ride. Later, on another one of his visits, he told me about a friend of his who had flown for years for work and for recreation. “Gary,” Dad said. “can no longer get on a plane, private or commercial.” I stood at my kitchen sink washing dishes, my back to my father. I didn’t turn around. He continued, “Gary said he’s flown for decades without an accident, and he feels he’s used up all his luck.” (Gary felt his time for “cheating death once again” had run out.) I said nothing, and my father said nothing else. I believe he told me this story because he knew I had a fear of flying, and this was his way of saying he understood. One of his occasional moments of empathy.

I still won’t get on a private plane, but I don’t worry about flying commercially, or take offs, or landings any more. My father’s refrain, “cheated death again,” doesn’t play through my head. Perhaps because I’m of a certain age, I’ve come to realize it’s a waste of energy, worrying about something I can’t control. Sometimes the only way to get somewhere is to fly. My mother can’t fly anymore but there are places she’d like to go. Her world has shrunk. Perhaps one day, I won’t be able to fly anymore either, so I’ll go while I can. And instead, I’ll fret about getting stranded in an airport or worse, getting stranded in a plane on the tarmac.

We taxi up to the gate, our plane is an hour late getting in (some mechanical thing in Boston), but I still have plenty of time to catch the airport shuttle for home.

European Tour 101 – Part 5, London

Posted on January 17, 2025 by youngv2015

Lesson Seven: Freedom from the Threat of Violence

London was the last stop on our European trip. We traveled around the city using the London Underground, nicknamed the Tube, and the adorable red double-decker buses, so quintessentially British. Inside the Tube and on the buses, signs were posted warning riders not to touch unattended packages, but to report them to a conductor or bus driver immediately. The conflict between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the British Army had spilled over into England in 1973, and from January through March 1976, six bombs exploded in London. The IRA warned authorities before a bomb went off, so injuries were few and fatalities fewer. Because the IRA and British were negotiating, there were no bombings for the rest of 1976, and our stay in London was free from explosions. However, I didn’t know that when we toured London. Even if I had known, it might not have been much comfort because throughout history truces have been broken.

The warnings didn’t stop people from riding the Tubes or the buses. But it was strange to think I could board a bus, perhaps off to Hyde Park, Harrods, or Trafalgar Square, and be blown up by someone who wanted to make a point, someone who thought of me only as collateral damage. And yet somehow, I felt I would be safe because I was a visitor from a different country who had nothing to do with the conflict between the IRA and the British. At the time, I wondered what it must be like for people to live under the threat of terrorism.

Now, I think about random gun violence in the United States, which has taken many lives. Schools, places of worship, stores, malls, businesses, theaters, nightclubs, restaurants, concerts, parades, neighborhoods, homes, places people expect to be safe have been scenes of bloodshed. When I see a sign that says, “Guns Banned on These Premises,” I think about the don’t-touch-the-unattended-package signs in London. Signs won’t keep us safe from violence or terrorism or war. We need to see each other as fellow travelers in our neighborhoods, our country, and the world.

Learn about people from down the block and from other cultures.

Big Ben and those charming, old-fashioned London cabs, 1976

Going Home

After a month in Europe, we landed at Billy Mitchell Field in Milwaukee. I had a couple of dollars in foreign coins and one U.S. dime in my purse. I had spent the rest of my money and might have spent the dime too, but I needed it to call my parents for a ride home from the airport. After I deposited the dime in the payphone, I was broke, but I was rich with wonderful memories and great experiences.

My love of language and interest in meeting people from other countries continued. When I went to college, I kept studying Spanish, and I made friends with people from Europe, South America, and Asia. We cooked for each other and helped each other with our studies. We went dancing and roller skating. We talked for hours about our lives and dreams. We taught each other swear words and laughed as we cursed in each other’s languages.

The European trip my parents gave me was the best gift: an opportunity for me to grow as a person. I have a scrapbook of mementos and photographs, and occasionally I look at them. I have a Spanish Damascene dinner bell I bought in Madrid and a soft plaid cashmere scarf I bought in London. Occasionally, I ring the dinner bell or wear the scarf. But the best keepsakes are the lessons of kindness, acceptance, and adventure that I have carried with me all these years.

Changing of the Guard, Buckingham Palace, London, 1976

European Tour 101 – Part 4, Paris, City of Light

Posted on January 16, 2025 by youngv2015

[In 1976 when I was seventeen, I traveled to Europe with a group of fellow high school students. I wrote the essay European Tour 101 in 2023. This essay was published in Tales of Travel by the University of Minnesota-Duluth. I’m publishing it to my blog in five parts.]

Lesson Six: Be Alone with Yourself in a Place You’ve Never Been Before

In 1976, I had a lot of freedom in Europe. I can’t imagine high school students today having the freedom we had. We only had a few rules: Be respectful to everyone, be on time for the bus tours, and never go out at night alone. However, during the day when we had time off from tours, we could wander out alone. I did this a bit in all the cities we visited, but in Paris I spent most of my free time on my own, walking miles and miles along city sidewalks and riding the metro to explore different neighborhoods. I didn’t have a word for it when I was seventeen, but now I would say that my introverted self had reached a threshold by the time we had reached Paris.

I listened to musicians busk in the Paris metro, their melodies amplified by the underground walls covered with white subway tile. I bought a bottle of Chanel N°5, my favorite perfume, from a department store that catered to tourists. I walked past bakeries because I didn’t like French pastries.

Arc de Triomphe, 1976. We were in Paris for Bastille Day.

From a local boutique which didn’t cater to tourists, I bought a blue T-shirt even though the clerk was rude when he discovered I couldn’t speak French beyond my greeting of bonjour. I thought if I bought something in the shop, the clerk would see me as a customer and be nice, but he continued to snub me as he took my money, bagged the shirt, and handed it to me. I was angry because I believed I was being respectful by greeting him in French. But now I think about it from his viewpoint: I was just another American showing off my one word of French, someone who couldn’t be bothered to learn the rest of his language.

Almost every day I ate by myself at an Italian restaurant owned by two handsome brothers from Sicily. The brothers were charming, the food outstanding, and the sorbet, served in large Italian lemons, took the sizzle out of the hot Parisian summer. One afternoon I sat in front of the Eiffel Tower next to the Trocadero Fountain, mesmerized by it synchronized spouts of playful water. I saw much of Paris at my own pace – without the need to negotiate with anyone about what to see, or how long to linger, or where to eat.

Enjoy solitude among many.

[Coming soon: European Tour 101 – Part 5, London]

European Tour 101 – Part 3, Austria

Posted on January 13, 2025 by youngv2015

Lesson Five: Serenade Your Tour Guide

Our train left Salzburg in the evening, shortly after nightfall. The station’s platform was written in romantic darkness, punctuated with street lamps. Our Austrian tour guide had come to the station to make sure our travel arrangements were in order and to say goodbye. We were headed to Paris.

I no longer remember the guide’s name. She was a university student, kind and soft spoken, with a gentle smile and a lilting laugh. Warm blue eyes sparkled behind her gold wire-rimmed glasses. She had accompanied us to a salt mine, to museums and art galleries, and to the Alps where the mountain scene for the Sound of Music was filmed. We stayed in Adnet, a farming village, thirty minutes from Salzburg. The small village had a well-lighted, welcoming restaurant, and we ate our evening meals there as one large group. After dinner we sang songs, and one night someone taught us the words to “Edelweiss” from the Sound of Music.

After we boarded the train, our tour guide stood on the platform waving at us. Someone in our group began to sing “Edelweiss.” Spontaneously, voice after voice, the rest of us joined in, and on a warm summer’s night as the train eased its way along the track, we leaned our heads and hands out the windows, and as one rhythmic beating heart, over and over, we sang the words about a small white flower, about meetings and greetings, about remembering and forever.

A view of Adnet, Austria, where we learned the words to “Edelweiss,” 1976

Our guide cried, wiping tears from her cheeks before they could splatter on the concrete beneath her. We sang and waved until we could no longer see her. And as the distance between us grew, one by one our voices drifted off, and we pulled our heads and hands inside the windows, and settled in our seats, bound for Paris, the City of Light.

I sang “Edelweiss” to both of my children when they were babies, and it became my youngest child’s favorite lullaby. After all these years, I remember the gifts we traded with our guide at the station: our song for her — and her tears of delight for us. I wonder if she ever plays the memory in her mind like a scene from an old movie as I still do.

Be spontaneous; express gratitude.

[Coming soon: European Tour 101 – Part 4, Paris]

European Tour 101 – Part 2, Italy

Posted on January 11, 2025 by youngv2015

Lesson Four: Patriotism is Fine, But Ditch It for the Ballet

On July 4, 1976, our tour group was in Rome. Even before I left for Europe, I felt bad about missing America’s Bicentennial birthday bash. When we arrived in Rome, we were given a choice about how we wanted to spend the Fourth of July. We could attend a professional ballet performance or an evening picnic followed by fireworks sponsored by the American Embassy. I chose the picnic and fireworks because if I couldn’t be in the States for the Bicentennial, I could at least be with a group of patriotic Americans eating scrumptious picnic food and watching extravagant fireworks.

It was the worst Fourth of July celebration I ever attended. The food was second-rate, the fireworks were average, and the park was peppered with litter. I grew up inspired by Lady Bird Johnson and the Keep America Beautiful campaign. Every spring and fall my sisters and I pulled our red wagon up and down our road and picked garbage out of the ditches. I yelled at friends who threw litter out of car windows. The inconsiderate Americans who couldn’t put their trash in the garbage can embarrassed me. Before the fireworks even started, I regretted skipping the ballet.

At the time I saw the embassy picnic as a lackluster celebration that didn’t match the significance of two centuries of democracy. In hindsight it strikes me that American democracy has a long history of casting aside many of its citizens, like the discarded rubbish I saw on July 4, 1976, dropped by patriotic Americans who somehow felt entitled to litter someone else’s park. Patriotism isn’t about eating a hotdog or watching fireworks. Patriotism should be about loving a country that embraces equality, justice, and opportunity for all.

Years later my mother-in-law took me to my first ballet, The Nutcracker. I loved everything about it—Tchaikovsky’s music, the graceful dancers, the whimsical costumes, and the enchanted scenery. And again, I regretted missing the ballet in Rome, which I think was Swan Lake.

Always choose the ballet.

[Coming soon: European Tour 101 – Part 3, Austria]

European Tour 101 – Part 1, Spain

Posted on January 9, 2025 by youngv2015

My European scrapbook is filled with ticket stubs, receipts, brochures, maps, postcards, etc.

In the spring of 1976 when I was seventeen, I brought home a brochure from my German class that showcased a thirty-day trip to six European cities in five countries. I had studied high school German for two years and middle and high school Spanish for five years, and Austria and Spain were two of the countries we would visit. I had no illusions about my ability to chat in German or Spanish with the locals, but I longed to visit Europe. I gave the brochure to my mother, who after reading it told me I could go. There was never a discussion of “maybe” or “we’ll see.” The trip cost around $1,400 in 1976, a lot of money for my parents who were on the lower end of the middle-class ladder.

Mother never said it in so many words, but she believed in learning about other cultures. She had encouraged me to study a foreign language. While I was in high school, she signed up to host foreign exchange students for Milwaukee Week. During this time, exchange students from all over Wisconsin spent a week in Milwaukee. I enjoyed meeting the exchange students, learning about their countries, and showing them around my city.

I’m over sixty now, but I remember my only trip to Europe with fondness because it was a good time, it influenced my life in a positive way, and it was educational on many levels. The life lessons I learned in Europe stand out to me because my European experiences are stored in my brain on a thirty-day shelf between two bookends—the touchdown in Madrid on one side and the departure from London four weeks later on the other side. The memories lean on one another, easy to access and tapping one wakes up its neighbor.

Lesson One: Travel without a Hangover

The first lesson I learned was don’t be hungover as a tourist. A pounding headache and an unsure stomach turned out to be poor companions while touring Madrid’s architectural marvels on my second day in Spain. The day before at lunch, I split a small bottle of white wine with a friend, and at supper we split a small bottle of red wine. I never drank in the States because I was seventeen, but in Europe I wasn’t breaking the law, so I decided to embrace the whole experience, which is why I tried white wine at lunch and red at supper. In the evening a group of us went dancing. While disco music and colorful lights pulsated around the nightclub, and we danced with Spanish teenagers, I drank two screwdrivers because that is what my friends were drinking.

The next morning, a chaperone banged on our door, rousting us for breakfast. Startled, I sat upright in a finger’s snap. My head lagged behind, pounding as it tried to keep up with my body. Most of the day I had a throbbing headache. I didn’t throw up but the possibility was a nagging pest. Thousands of miles from home and only seventeen, I decided to experience Europe without hangovers, so if I drank at all, I limited myself to no more than one or two drinks in a day. I carried the lesson back home with me and even after I turned eighteen and could legally drink, I never forgot about my second day in Madrid.

Don’t be hungover in life.

Lesson Two: Even Muscle-Bound Bulls Have Feelings

In Madrid we went to a bullfight. Attendance was optional because even though bullfights were part of the Spanish culture, the pretense of masculinity and bravado they symbolized had begun to dissipate as more people spoke against the cruelty suffered by the bulls. I decided to go because it was a Spanish tradition. I don’t remember if the bull died, but the matador didn’t. The stadium, crouching under the Mediterranean sun, became a cauldron of heat. I didn’t like hot weather, and I was sorry I had come. Why would anyone sit in the scorching sun to watch a choreographed drama between a sidestepping matador dressed like a golden baroque candlestick swirling a red cape and an incensed bull snorting like a diesel engine?

We had been told it was a nuanced battle, steeped in meaning. Clearly, I didn’t get it because that afternoon I decided if the object was to kill the bull, it was a show of pointless machismo. I sympathized with the bull, who unlike the matador or me, had been given no choice about where it wanted to be on that blistering afternoon. I concluded that any competition, legal or not, that humiliated or sacrificed animals in the name of amusement was wrong. But I couldn’t throw stones because I knew Americans had their dog fights and rooster fights and probably other types of fights.

As an adult, while watching cartoons with my children, I discovered Ferdinand the Bull, a Disney animated short that won an Oscar in 1938. Ferdinand wouldn’t fight. He wanted only to smell flowers. He so enraged the bullfighters they simply took him back to his green fields filled with flowers. Ferdinand was a consummate pacifist.

Don’t go to bullfights or dog fights or rooster fights.

Lesson Three: If You Don’t Know the Language, Don’t Insult Those Who Do

Mr. Z., who had been my freshman history teacher came on the trip as a chaperone. He was passionate about history, which I had liked about him. But he had a condescending manner that he dressed up as humor, often unsuccessfully, and that I didn’t like. His manner of off-handed superiority almost got him thrown out of a restaurant in Madrid. Tom and Gene, teachers from a neighboring high school, who were seasoned chaperones, often took us to restaurants that catered to locals instead of tourists. The food was usually excellent and the prices reasonable. But this meant staff at the restaurants rarely spoke proficient English. However, between Tom and Gene, we always had someone who could speak Spanish, Italian, German, or French, someone who could help with the pesetas, liras, shillings, or francs.

At this particular lunch, after listening to Tom speak Spanish with the waiter, Mr. Z., who probably suffered from a bit of insecurity after being shown up by a multi-lingual, seasoned traveler, declared, “It’s easy to speak Spanish. You just add an o or an a to the English word. So, soup is soupa.” Not quite, but no one corrected him. During the lunch, Mr. Z. needed butter for his rolls, but instead of asking Tom to talk to the waiter, he decided to ask the waiter directly. Applying his theory about the simplicity of the Spanish language to the word butter, he waived the waiter over, looked at him, and uttered a word that came out sounding like the Spanish word burro, meaning donkey. The waiter’s face went red, and his words, rapid and angry, crashed like falling rocks, frightening Mr. Z., who at least had the good sense to stop talking and look nervous.

Tom, fluent in Spanish, straightened out the mess. Understanding the arrogant American hadn’t meant to call him a donkey, soothed the waiter a bit, but Mr. Z.’s insult to the Spanish language still rankled him. To Mr. Z.’s credit for the rest of the trip, he didn’t try to speak Spanish or any other foreign language, but he should have known better. He had been to the same pre-trip meetings the rest of us had been to. We had been told that many Europeans looked down on Americans who expected everyone to speak English, yet couldn’t be bothered to learn another language themselves. Perhaps Mr. Z. wanted to soothe his bruised ego, or maybe he wanted to be funny, but either way he failed.

Don’t show off at the expense of other people.

[Coming soon: European Tour 101 – Part 2, Italy]

Something Published: “European Tour 101”

Posted on January 19, 2024 by youngv2015

My essay “European Tour 101” appears in Tales of Travel, a Duluth Publishing Project. This collection of poems, creative nonfiction, and photographs center around the theme: Lessons Learned while Traveling.

The anthology was curated in early 2023 by talented University of Minnesota-Duluth students from a class taught by Professor David Beard, who gave his students the gift of a real-world project.

Participating in this project was fun right from the start. I discovered the call for submissions on a Facebook page. Right away I knew I would write about the month-long trip I took to Europe when I was seventeen years old. I had been itching to write about my European trip because I have fond memories of traveling through six cities, in five countries, in twenty-seven days. But I always wondered where I could submit the essays. My trip was too long ago to be relevant for travel articles. And my European tour wasn’t filled with angst or tragedy or mind-bending revelations that would be worthy of thought-provoking, rousing essays convincing editors to say, We’ve got to publish this!

But the theme: Lessons Learned while Traveling was perfect — proving if a writer is patient, sooner or later her submission mate will arrive. Some of my best memories from my European trip could easily be described as lessons learned.

Fortunately, memory didn’t prove to be a big problem because I have a scrapbook filled with postcards; pamphlets; ticket stubs from museums, trains, subways, and buses; my airline boarding pass; maps; menus; and receipts. Plus, I have lots of photos. I quickly came up with an idea for an essay, but I spent hours writing and revising. I wanted it to be perfect, so perfect that the editors would say, We’ve got to publish this!

I divided my essay into sections: Travel without a Hangover; Even Muscle-Bound Bulls Have Feelings; If You Don’t Know the Language, Don’t Insult Those Who Do; Patriotism is Fine, But Ditch It for the Ballet; Serenade Your Tour Guide; Be Alone with Yourself in a Place You’ve Never Been Before; and Freedom from the Threat of Violence.

I was thrilled when my essay was accepted. My fondest memories about one of the best times in my life would be in print. And out there in the world.

Making it even sweeter, Professor Beard and his students hosted a book lunch for the writers during the spring semester, even though the book wouldn’t be released until December 2023. But college classes change at the semester and the students who worked on Tales of Travel would be off to other classes or perhaps have graduated when the book came out.

Held in a university classroom, it was a wonderful book launch, and there were a couple of copies of the book that we could hold and thumb through. I’m sure each writer looked for their own piece of writing in the book. I know I did. We munched on cupcakes, cookies, and assorted chips, and sipped bottles of water.

Each writer was invited to read for about five minutes. Some of the students had pieces in the anthology, but I think only one or two of them read. When they were called upon, most turned a ghostly white, lowered their eyes, and shook their heads. They were too nervous to read in front of strangers, most of whom were old enough to be their parents or grandparents. But we older folks were nervous too. I could see it in our hesitant walks to the dais. I could hear it in our voices that trembled. I could feel it in our lungs as we reminded ourselves to just breathe. Because young or old, we shared a common wish — that someone would like what we had written.

After the reading, we all gave a collective sigh of relief. It was over, and no one had fainted. We mingled and thanked the professor and the students. When people started to leave, Professor Beard pleaded, “Please, have more food. Take some home with you.” He didn’t want to haul it back to his car.

I’d already had a cupcake, but I grabbed a bag of Fritos, my favorite salty treat. Something to savor on my ride home, along with the rest of the evening.

[Both the hardcover ($29.99) and paperback ($5.99) versions are available on Amazon. Click here: Tales of Travel, a Duluth Publishing Project.]

Writing Near the Lake

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