Blog 51 – On Foot in the US of A …Ms Paige Turner tells an intentional fib on each blog – guess it and you will get two free tickets to Jan Moran Neil’s Book Launch of ‘Blackberry Promises’.
I crossed sixteen States with verrucas and cracked heels. It’s okay Miss Tea Tree Oil has my feet in hand and it’s not catching.
Mr Justin Case and I arrived in New York on the 9/11 anniversary. When we arrived at the Ground Zero subway we just followed the footfalls of three firemen who were making their way to the annual ceremony and I wondered silently at their untold stories. Some passers-by held tears in their eyes and some held sunflowers in their hands. There was an uncanny stillness and I scraped and bruised my right foot on one of the iron railings. Firemen and feet were to become running themes in our three week visit.
I left my oldest and favourite black sandals somewhere in Washington; on an Amtrak train or under a queen sized bed. Maybe they had walked enough miles but I grieved for them. They had taken me on so many miles and were deprived of an awfully big adventure across this politically powerful country.
Someone once told me to turn left for Chicago and go with someone you love. It was probably on my first visit to New York in the seventies and if we were leaving to head back to Montreal then ‘making a left’ was probably the right geography. I spent my life thinking that Chicago was the ‘Moscow’ of my life: some place I had to get to. But the person I love said he’s never ‘got’ Chicago and invariably it’s the next stop in life which proves to be ‘the one’. And so it was.
Denver is a mile high. A free day and I was able to put my feet up and wash my knickers there. Frankie Valli and his Four Seasons happened to be performing in Denver for ‘one night’ only. What luck – or does luck really exist and are we destined to make certain calls in life? Anyhow, Mr Justin Case had booked.
Lucky for me that I was wearing shorts on the next leg of our journey as bag pulls take place at dawn. Having washed my knickers in Denver I packed them all the night before and spent the leg to Grand Junction knickerless. It was in the Rocky Mountains that firemen came into play. We were ‘lucky’ enough to have two on our tour and to have an ex-fireman for a coach driver. Half way up the Rockies I confessed to our driver that I have a fear of heights and am rather unsteady on my feet in high places. He looked at me and very slowly (he was from Phoenix, Arizona) said, “Yeah … and …from …here …on …in …there…are …no …guard …rails.”
But we had three firemen and four nurses on the coach so I consoled myself with this thought as everyone saw the Rockies and I saw my feet.
The Grand Canyon was pretty much a similar experience.
By the time we got to LA my verrucas and cracked heels were healing and I was understanding why the Pacific coast was still the Gold Rush destination. The tour guide said that John Wayne was six feet five and that no-one had smaller feet than he had. If anyone could place their feet in his ‘walk of fame’ shoes on Hollywood Boulevard then she would give them 50 points. It’s my claim to fame.
I love to make tracks and see them but nothing beats the ‘happy accident’ of meeting the natives: the young Washington couple who picked up our dinner bill, the Frisco tram drivers who found Mr Justin Case’s wallet and said all they wanted in return was my telephone number (ha ha), the man who offered us cookies on Amtrak and whose idea for a play is as grand as America: souls with untold stories. What a wonderful world.
Tuesday and Thursday Creative Ink for Writers’ classes now full with waiting lists.
Three places left on Wednesdays.
Well done to Elizabeth Davey – Creative Inker and Dear John finalist – who came second in the Rhyme & Reason ‘Seasons’ competition.
Dear John, Dear Anyone … Premiere tickets now sold out. DVDs – £5
Book Launch – Blackberry Promises by Jan Moran Neil – Thursday 15th November – The Fitzwilliams Centre, Beaconsfield. Noon. Free Entry.
Last bi-month’s intentional fib – TS Eliot wrote ‘Life – what a cauchemar’ – not Jean Paul Sartre. No-one ‘got’ it.