What’s the best way to meet new people while traveling?
The best way to meet new people, whether traveling or at home, is at the coffee shop. Over the years, I have met numerous people, both customers and employees, at the coffee shop. Being introverted, I don’t necessarily seek people out. I’m not one to go out of my way to meet people. So it has to be the perfect setting. The coffee shop is the perfect setting for many activities and endeavors; meeting people is one of them.
Last August, I spent 10 days in Hazard, Kentucky on a work-related assignment. For someone who watched “The Dukes of Hazzard” growing up — and wondering if there really were a real-life Hazard somewhere — this was a treat for me. Hazard is situated in far-eastern Kentucky, well-removed from the large cities and urban areas. For that reason, it didn’t remind me of home, because home for me is the Nashville Metro Area. But it did remind me of where I grew up in West Tennessee, in a small town (like Hazard) that is quite some distance from even the nearest large city. The only real difference is that eastern Kentucky is much hillier than West Tennessee. Otherwise, the similarities are numerous: small towns separated by vast expanses of rural areas, simple country people, numerous small churches, modest homes surrounded by several acres of land, low cost-of-living, a dearth of medical facilities, a slow pace of life. I grew quite fond of the place in 10 short days and left with a sense of nostalgia. If ever given the opportunity again, I’d certainly go back.
“The money you give away while you’re alive is worth twice what you leave when you die.”
“The greatest gift a parent can leave a child is that parent’s own independence.”
“Like gigantic geysers spouting molten rock instead of water, volcanoes work and rest, and we have no sure means of knowing whether they are dead when still, or only sleeping.”
“You will embark on a fair sea, and at times there will be fair weather and foul. Never lose courage, Safe harbor awaits you in the end.”
“Luxury, I think, is the total fulfillment of all five senses at once.”
“I am fortunate. I have my heart in two places, so wherever I am, I am content.”
“Happiness is making the most of what you have, and riches is making the most of what you’ve got.”
“Thousand-mile journeys begin with the first step.”
This is not a straightforward question to answer. In terms of actual mileage, my longest trip took place across the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve flown across the Atlantic eight times (New York to Rome, for example, or Philadelphia to Napoli). In terms of time, my single longest trip was a little over 19 hours in the form of a train ride from Napoli to Paris (just over 1,000 miles). But there are also road trips I’ve taken with the family that spanned two or more days. For example, during the summer of 2007, we took a week to travel westward, from Nashville to St. Louis, then on to Colorado Springs, then back to Nashville via a different route. So I guess it all depends on how we define “the longest trip.”
My favorite cartoon character from childhood is Bugs Bunny. Admittedly, I don’t watch cartoons anymore. (Perhaps I should?) But as a child in the 1970s, cartoons were a staple on Saturday mornings, and the Loony Tunes show was the centerpiece. The star of Loony Tunes was always Bugs Bunny. In fact, I’d refer to the Loony Tunes program as “The Bugs Bunny Show,” even though there were plenty of other animated characters that were featured (Elmer Fudd, Donald Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam, the Tasmanian Devil, Sylvester and Tweety, etc.) I loved the way Bugs Bunny was always so demure and low-key, yet always outsmarted everyone, laying traps and coming out on top. My favorite Bugs Bunny cartoon was called “Long-Haired Hare” and featured Bugs as the maestro Leopold, but there are plenty of roles that stand out for me, as well. (“Rabbit of Seville” was another. Years later, when I listened to the opera “Barber of Seville” for the first time, I immediately associated it with the cartoon I had seen as a child.)
“Grammar is like the air: someone higher up might try to set rules for using it, but people won’t necessarily follow them.”
“Once it has taken root in your heart, hatred is the most difficult thing in the world to shake off.”
“If the fear won’t go, you’ll have to do it afraid.”
“Love who you were sent to love.”
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
“None of us can count on a life lived in perfect health and vitality. In the end, it seems what we have in common, what might actually define our lives, are times of weakness and vulnerability, dependence, disability and frailty. Perhaps the most vulnerable version of myself is the real me: Perhaps the world seen by those dimmed lights is the real world.”
“…it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explains not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs which think themselves new; and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young-like.”
“It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature.”
I’ve been on one blind date in my life. It took place on August 2, 1991. I was 21 and had just gotten out of the Navy, and was about to start college. So I was definitely not looking for a relationship at the time. But my first cousin and his then-girlfriend (long since married) set me up with her best friend. We were both sort of quite that evening. My cousin and I went out for pizza and we all met at my cousin’s girlfriend’s home — she still lived with her parents at the time — and we all watched a movie after dinner, then went out for frozen yogurt. But I was intrigued by this quiet girl. (She was only 18 at the time.) So I waited for a moment alone and then asked her for a second date. The second date led to a third, and, well, we’ve been married for 32 years now.
I have never accepted the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I do believe he was part of conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy. I have no idea the breadth or the identities of the conspiracists; does anyone? But I do believe Oswald was part of something much larger.
I graduated high school 38 years ago. Some of it I remember quite well, other parts (most parts, actually) were rather forgettable. American history during my senior year was perhaps the best, most useful component of all my schooling. Learning how to write a research paper in English class that same year was another useful skill. But I recall with particular fondness learning how to fill out a Form 1040EZ in economics, which I took for one semester (spring, I believe) during the 11th grade. Later that year, I landed my first job, and early the next year, I put that knowledge to use. It was one of the most useful things I learned during all my schooling from K-12. I wish schools taught more of that.
I group up the child of a Methodist minister, and because of that, my family moved several times before I graduated high school. More or less every three years we would dig up whatever roots we had planted and head for another town, another church, another school. The older I got, the more difficult this became for me. I knew that was my father’s calling, and that moving at regular intervals came with the territory, but part of me resented the nomad-like existence that we endured. I can’t say I had a bad childhood. Overall, the memories of my younger years are good ones. But as an adult, I vowed I would never move my family around like that. My geographic stability definitely hurt in terms of promotion potential where I am employed, but I wouldn’t do anything differently. My wife and I have lived in the Nashville area since 1995. We bought our present home in 1999 when our son was not yet two years of age. It’s the only family home he has ever known.
I drove to work earlier today, which is nothing remarkable. I do it all the time. It normally takes me 13-15 minutes to make the 7-mile drive, although today I took a detour so I could stop by the library (dropped off two, picked up one). Indeed, the daily commute is normally a mundane endeavor. It may be so for you, too. But have you ever really paid attention to the things going on around you? Here’s are today’s highlights:
(Soundtrack: most of the album “Once upon a Time” by Simple Minds)
A thunderstorm had just passed over the area, and there was still some lingering rain, so my windshield wipers were on intermittent. At any rate, I didn’t need my sunglasses.
A jaywalker carrying a backpack briefly held up traffic.
Today was the first day of early voting for the August primaries. The library is a polling place, so there was the usual smorgasbord of political signs stuck in the ground.
An ambulance managed to weave its way across a busy intersection.
I got stopped at a railroad crossing to let the WeGo commuter train go through. They are painted purple and silver. I don’t much like those trains, but I supposed the ones who use them feel differently. This one was westbound, headed toward Nashville.
A car with a Washington license plate was in the lane next to mine right before I pulled into Starbucks. You don’t see many Washington license plates in Tennessee.
My shoes being wet from the rain, I slid on the floor after entering Starbucks, but didn’t fall. (That would have been quite the scene.) They had my favorite — Caffè Verona. I ordered a venti, then topped it off with plenty of cream.
Back on the road, a purple WeGo bus was in the left-turn lane, also headed toward Nashville.
The rain stopped before I arrived at work. There was even a patch of blue sky up ahead.
If I could be an animal for a week, I’d be a house cat. A house cat can cop an attitude, be aloof or a downright snob and still be considered adorable. I could easily fill that role.
Something that I am learning as I get older is the fallacy in the assertion we sometimes make that “I had no choice.” That’s a cop-out. We always have a choice. In fact, making the very claim “I had no choice” implies that you did, in fact, have a choice. Sometimes the choice is clear and easy to make. That’s how we prefer life to be. But sometimes the options aren’t so clear-cut. Maybe all you have in front of you is a bad option and an even worse option. Or perhaps you get to choose between expediency and doing what’s right. And then there are choices that result in disappointing one person versus disappointing another person. Either way, you do have a choice. So don’t try to convince others (or yourself) that you had no choice.
It’s easy. Yoda for Emperor.
“Shared joy is double joy. Shared sorrow is half sorrow.”
“…the ability to conform governs success in the educational scene.”
“The easiest thing in the world to be is what you are, what you feel. The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be.”
“We are all functioning at a small fraction of our capacity to live fully in its total meaning of loving, caring, creating and adventuring. Consequently, the actualizing of our potential can become the most exciting adventure of our lifetimes.”
“A total immersion in life offers the best classroom for learning to love.”
“We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist. And forever will recreate each other.”
“It is the weak who are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.”
“…grief is really love without anywhere to go…”
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
“Like all other living creatures, I am the descendant of survivors, so the fear in my head is the voice of my ancestors whispering their accumulated wisdom.”
“…the past is long, and the future is short.”
“…once, on a dark afternoon in summer at the waning end of the year of the slowing, two kids knelt down together on the cold ground. We dipped our fingers in the wet cement, and we wrote the truest, simplest things we knew—our names, the date, and these words: We were here.”
“Beauty is beyond good and evil. Good people are also attracted to beauty…”
“Were writers who embodied and illuminated their times eventually condemned by the more enlightened future they themselves helped bring into being?”
“There is but one step from triumph to downfall. I have seen, in the most significant of circumstances, that some little thing always decides great events.”
The past several months I have come to appreciate all the more the importance of human connections. Whether it’s with a spouse or a child or a sibling or parent, a co-worker or friend or acquaintance or someone you just met, there is no replacement for human connectedness. And this comes from an introvert who requires an abundance of personal time and solitude. Admittedly, I come a small family, I’ve been married for nearly 32 years to my wife, we have just one child, and my circle of friends is tiny. But even I value the people in my life to the utmost, and as I grow older, I value human connections all the more.
I’m not sure what has triggered this realization. Perhaps it is the increasing ubiquity of A.I., which makes it more difficult to ascertain what is real and what is just a mirage. Indeed, I value more and more the things that are real. In a world that can be cold and unforgiving, a world that can easily make a person feel anonymous and ordinary, it’s a wonderful feeling to hear someone say, “It’s good to hear your voice.”
So, at the risk of sounding sanctimonious, I’m in the process of casting aside judgements and stereotypes. I’m trying to see others not by their differences from me, but by our commonalities. I mean, if we look hard enough, we can find something we have in common with just about anyone. There are many ways I could classify the year 2026 — it’s already nearly half over, believe it or not — but the way I’ll classify it here is “2026: the year of personal connections.”
Bonsai Mary has a blog post containing “21 Truths About Your Body After 60 That Nobody Warns You About” that initially caught my attention and it was definitely a worthwhile read. I haven’t yet made it to 60; I’ll be 57 on my next birthday, but some of the aspects of aging she discusses I am already having to confront. Aging well is something I think about often — not just aging, but aging well. Not only am I deliberate about aging well for my own sake, but I also want to set a good example for others. If this is something you think about, too, then try giving her blog post a read.
I’m an introvert, so I am naturally anathema to public speaking (and being the center of attention in general). As an adolescent, I had an almost debilitating fear of, say, recitations in front of class. But this started to abate somewhat by the time I entered high school. Still, when I was in the Navy, I’d get “stage fright” whenever it was my turn to give a briefing to a group of individuals. I don’t know if my nervousness ever showed, but inside I’d be a quivering mess. Now, I’m 56 years old. Several times a year I give presentations to crowds of people, and it no longer bothers me. In fact, I actually enjoy public speaking to some extent. I’ve gotten good at it. So I guess you could say I’ve overcome my fear of public speaking by…speaking publicly.
It took 66 years to go from the Wright brothers’ first flight to putting a man on the moon. That was in 1969 — the year I was born. In the 57 years since that time, we’ve gone no farther. Sure, we have continued to explore space using unmanned craft. The space shuttle program has come and gone. The private sector has gotten on board with space travel. And we recently sent a space crew around the moon for the first time in decades. I genuinely believe we will someday send a space crew to Mars. It may or may not happen during my lifetime, but I’d love to see it. I’m still amazed we can send an airplane full of passengers across an ocean in just a few hours with a 99.999% chance of it arriving safely on the other side. It’s still mind-boggling to me that we sent a crew to the moon during the year of my birth. So the idea of a human being stepping foot on another planet seems literally other-worldly. Yet I do believe it’s going to happen. Whether or not I’ll be around to share the excitement is another matter.
With an unlimited budget for 24 hours, I believe I’d fly first class from Nashville to somewhere in Italy (Rome, probably), book a room in a 5-star hotel, enjoy dinner in a Michelin-starred restaurant, order whatever I wanted, and drink a $500 bottle of wine. Then I’d hire a carriage ride and enjoy whatever remained of my evening. Realistic? No. But it sure is fun to think about.
