The whole time I was there, I couldn’t help but think about
my family and my Dad, who traveled to the UK often for his job with Boeing, who
had a partnership with a company there that made airplane components. I remember Mom packing his suitcase with
socks, underwear, and toiletries while he packed documents into his black
leather, monogrammed briefcase until it bulged.
I remember walking him to the gate in the North terminal, which you
could still do back then, and waving goodbye sadly. Two weeks later we would be back at the
airport – this time in the area outside customs. From the waiting area, you could, by
escalator, get to another floor with windows that overlooked the customs area
and my sister and I would ride up there and watch the milling floor below us
for my father. When we saw his
distinctive, lanky, suit-jacketed frame, we would race back down the escalator
to our patient mother.
At home, he would throw his big suitcase down on the bed
where we perched excitedly, knowing he would have magical gifts from that
faraway place buried amongst his shirts and socks. And he did.
My father always took time during what I’m sure were busy and
work-filled trips to search out special things for his family. China teacups and pretty household things for
mom, and fun things for us like English comics, books, purses, and once, for
me, a Paddington Bear stationery set that I never used up because I treasured
it so much. He started my life-long
practice of always bringing gifts back from trips for the people I love –
something that seems entirely natural to me.
Quite often, the British company would send workers to the
US and I remember my parents hosting them often at our house – breaking out the
nice dishes and the French onion dip.
They often brought us special After Eight dinner mints, which you
couldn’t get here back then, and which were a huge treat. We got to know a few of them very well,
exchanging Christmas cards and wedding announcements – including one family
with two daughters our ages that relocated here for a year, with whom we became
friends.
My mother went with him once, on a business trip, when we
were maybe seven and nine, leaving us with my best friend’s family, and
returning with the exciting whiff of a foreign land. And, finally, we all went as a family, when I
was eleven and my sister was thirteen.
It was a trip I remember well, mostly for all the forced walking they
made us do – to landmarks and sights – with not much in the way of lunch. My mother always averred that after the huge
English breakfasts, “we wouldn’t possibly need anything until dinner.” Which
was not true. I remember cramped B and
B’s, the London Museum, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and even the beauty of
Cornwall. So it wasn’t all bad and
memories from it have stayed with me and enhanced my Anglophilia.
So I couldn’t help but think of my mother and father as I
walked the streets and travelled through the Tube, and viewed the Crown Jewels
– as we had also done. I know back then
I yearned to be grown up and mature, doing my own thing and being a (beautiful
and accomplished) seasoned traveler. It
felt good to come back as that mature (I hope), somewhat attractive traveler,
and make some new memories as an adult.
Not to rewrite the old ones because, as I have said, some are very good,
but to add to them from an older, wiser perspective. It felt good to be back in that place to
which I have had so many ties for so long.
And when I went to see Dad after we got back, and sat beside him and
told him where we had been and what we had been doing and reminded him of our
trip as a young family – I hope he heard and understood, and remembered those
good things with me.
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