When the Army assigned
me to the Fort Lewis School Command, I was pleased to find out that I would be
working alongside civilians.
One of the civilians,
Ada Miller, was married to a retired Air Force officer. The Millers often
invited soldiers from the School Command to come to their house to
socialize. They knew what a pleasure it was for soldiers to get away from
the barracks and be in a home atmosphere.
I always accepted the
Millers’ invitations. My favorite thing about their house was a giant
world map that took up one entire wall of their kitchen. There were a lot
of pins in the map, marking the places where the Millers had either lived or
visited.
I saw a pin in
Reykjavik and got excited. “You have been to Iceland!” “Yes,”
said the Millers, “Our plane refueled there.”
I was shocked. These
nice people who invited soldiers to their home were cheats! How could
they say that they have been in Iceland if all they did was sit on a plane
while it was refueled?
I keep a list of
countries. Not refueling countries, but countries where I have spent
time.
Years ago, I met some
friends in a restaurant in Zomba, Malawi.
The restaurant was at the top of a hill and there was a one-way road
leading to the restaurant. The road was
one way up the hill from 6:00 to 6:59 and one way down the hill from 7:00 to
7:59, and so on. You had to plan your
journey to the restaurant carefully.
At dinner, my friends’
nine-year-old son challenged me. He wrote out a list of countries he had
been in. I wrote out my list and came up with 33. The kid came up
with 28. He was downcast. So, I proceeded to make out a different
list: a list of countries I had been in when I was nine years old. There
were 2 countries on this list --- the USA and Canada, and I didn’t remember any
of the trip to Canada because I was an infant at the time. The kid felt
better.
My next step in
counting countries came when the woman sitting next to me in the waiting room
of the Johannesburg Airport told me about the Century Club. If you have visited
100 countries, you qualify to become a member. Her husband was a
journalist and had been inducted into the club.
My list has now grown to
51, and I had forgotten about the Century Club until last week, when I stumbled
across it on the Internet.
Their website has a
list of 321 countries. Since there are
194 countries in the U.N., it is obvious that the Century Club is generous in
its definition of a country: for example, they don’t list the United Kingdom –
they list Scotland, Wales, England, and Ulster separately. That ups my count to 53.
Wait! Look! At
the top of the website, they say you can count a country even if you were there
just for a plane fuel stop!
So, my list grows by
added Haiti, where I was herded into the airport gift shop while the plane
refueled. And I can add the Cape Verde
Islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where the plane refueled at 3 in
the morning and I drowsily stood at the airport terminal door listening to the
sound of waves crashing on the beaches near the runway.
Of course, if it is OK
to count a country even if it was just a plane fuel stop, then I need to revise
my opinion of the Millers. They weren’t
cheats. They really were nice people.
- . - .- . - . - .
In a 3-minute YouTube video, "Moderate Fighter" explains why he wants to qualify for the Travelers Century Club (but not for the Drinkers Century Club, which you join when you drink one hundred shots of alcohol in one hundred minutes):
- . - .- . - . - .
NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath. Price = $11. You can purchase a copy at http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com
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