Fate. Divine intervention. Predetermined paths. Karma. Do I believe in any of this? I do not know. I dont think I do, but sometimes you cant help but let your mind wander. Do things happen for a reason? Are we all on this path and what seems like a coincidence is really just something already mapped out for us?
Maybe we are all just supporting cast members in our own version of Sliding Doors. Does it all hinge upon whether or not to catch the train that one fateful day?
I suppose my plot line could be something along the lines of, young boy living in middle America fancies a 60s love song which sets into motion a trip to Saudi Arabia for his daughter nearly 60 years later. I know, but bare with me.
My family has been farming and ranching for generations. My dad, his sisters and my grandparents lived in a small, My dad and his sisters grew up following strict daily chores and surviving on very little money.
probably his two older sisters he was closest to as they were the ones who were paving the path to adolescence and they were the ones whose friends dad could observe. This is probably how he learned the art of being a teenager.
The family had one car and lived about 10 miles away from the closest town, Wamego, Kansas, which at times could feel like 100 miles. So when dads two older sisters wanted to go to a school dance, it meant Granny drove them there, sat in the balcony of the Wamego High School gym and then drove them home after the dance ended.
What does this have to do with a younger brother? He was expected to sit next to Granny waiting for the dance to end so he could then go on about his life. His young mind was able to teeter between bored little brother and anthropologist who was watching all the habits of teenagers in their native setting.
He noted everything: how they dressed, how they asked someone to dance, which ones played it cool and which ones didnt care. He noticed how everyone danced
to all the slow songs filling the gym floor, but not the same for the fast songs. He noticed the scratchy sounds of the little stereo with old style 45s and how the tunes boomed across the gym floor. He took it all in and processed it through a lens of innocent curiosity.
Sitting in the bleachers of that small, rural school gymnasium is where dad was also a consumer of music. Sitting at one of those school dances in the mid 1960s is when dad first heard the song, You Belong to Me by The Duprees. It was a love song that recounted the emotions of someone saying goodbye to their love interest while reminding them they must someday return home after seeing the exotic corners of the world.
The song mapped out adventures such as seeing the pyramids along the Nile, the marketplace in old Algiers or a tropic isle. As this young boy listened, he also started thinking. When most youngsters were thinking of sports or cars, he promised himself he would see all the places mentioned in that song.
for an adult man, now a father, to cash in on the dreams of that bored little brother waiting for his sisters to finish their dance.
Egypt was the first place on the list and it was my first overseas trip. I was 17 years old and was in no way cognitively developed enough to understand the fatefulness of this big adventure.
We left our little and landed in a place so foreign and exciting I could hardly absorb the overload of senses. We arrived with nothing more than a map and a rental car waiting for us. We had no plans, no expectations and no limitations except that we had to return home in a month.
As we left the airport in our rental car and with no plan, the world opened up to me. As each block passed, we realized we were seeing the world. Cairo looked nothing like home and I suppose that was the whole point.
