Conclusion: Denmark, then Home!

    I will be reading my story, The Summer of  1956, on KUAR 89.1 FM  this Thursday, Oct. 4, at  7 PM. Later. It will then go out on National Public Radio world wide on Tales From the South. This blog is mentioned in my bio on the show, and the last time I read one, I noticed a spike of 51 blog readers in an hour or so, from Singapore, then a week or so later the same thing happened in Japan. I'm anxious to see if it affects the blog read this time. After that, it should be on U Tube awhile. So far, I have had blog readers from 49 countries, Russia and Germany being the most for a foreign country.  For all my readers, a big thank you. I appreciate your time, and your attention, a very valuable thing.
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     My book, Spreading Wing, should be available on Amazon in November or December. The cover will have a pic of Grandpa John Wesley Gillum's family, taken in 1910 at the old Gillum homeplace in Wing.





       Denmark

       We talked to a young man at a gas station. Said he had never seen American money. I showed him some.

      His dream was to come to America, and already had his path laid out. I taught him to say, “Now ya'll come back now, ya' hear?” When we drove off, he was still practicing it.

Our next B&B was nice, but Barbara was immediately intimidated by her huge watchdog. He turned out to be well behaved and quiet. A couple of men came by to repair our TV, and one of them said he had been to America several times, “To help them out with some technical problems.” When we tiptoed out early the next morning, the lady was not up yet. We left her a note.

       We were in close to Copenhagen now, and out plane would fly out in a few days. One Sunday we decided to drive in and walk the city. We made a dry run to the airport first. I was not really clear about the highway mechanics of that big place, and I knew if I did not take the right exit to the airport, one would be destined to drive that long bridge to Sweden once more, at $60 a pop, there and back. I hit the right exit, but I soon went too far, and found myself on a one way lane into the Hire Car Return. I had to back out, jump some barriers, and just generally make an absolute, utter fool of myself to get back out. Well, I knew the right exit well now, but I still passed the car return on our real entry later, and got into a mess too complicated to tell you about. I know most other people just get it right the first time. I'm a smooth world traveler now, why can't I do that? Surely not because I'm a clueless hillbilly.

      We drove into City Centre, and walked most of the day in the drizzling rain. We then backtracked and found our next B&B, but it was too early, so we drove down to the sea and took a walk. Out near the beach, we ran onto small children, playing alone, with nary an adult anywhere about. That was common in my childhood, in Wing, but something one seldom sees in America now.

      Our host spoke three languages, but English was a far distant third. In spite of the fact that she chattered constantly, we actually understood very little. This was the 10^th anniversary of 9/11, and it totally dominated CNN.

We moved on through scattered towns. They were interesting but more of the same, so I won't gripe anymore about their high prices.

     Our last stay was a 100 year old house, up steep stairs in the attic. We needed to repack our suitcases for the fly out, but it was to steep and complicated to carry it all into our attic, so we just packed in the car, in the drizzle. Some things just would not go, so we gave those things to the host.

     We sure hated giving up our cute little diesel VW Polo Car. I would just love to take it home with me. The best I could easily figure, with all those liters and such, it got about 50 MPG.on fuel, and cars about the same size advertised 28 MPG at home. Now, why is that? We all know. It was still pretty, in spite of my hundreds of creative driving moves. The U turn had became a way of life.

      We learned a lot, saw thousands of new sights, and Barbara left behind hundreds, if not thousands, of new friends. But we were not sad to leave behind the $250 hotels, $20 hamburgers, 40 cent squeeze packages of mayonaise at McDonald's, and we were anxious to get back to McDonald's dollar burger at home. As we flew out, we knew we would never see Europe again. We don't backtrack. There's far too much of this world left to see.

     When we got home, we found we were right on budget, thanks to so many creative stays, and eating out of so many grocery stores and peanut butter jars. These wonderful people must be the most honest, trusting, truly civilized people in the world.

      Goodbye, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. You have been good to us in every possible way, except, maybe, at the cash register.