Edinburgh…We didn’t spend too long there, but the time we spent there was memorable. We met other International Travelers. We saw the historic sites, including the castle. We saw some of the the nightlife of the city and enjoyed beautiful weather while we were there. I think it was in Edinburgh I first began to really feel the freedom of becoming an adult. (I was only 17 at the time!)

My sometimes overprotective brother gave me permission to go out on the town with an Australian fellow we’d met at our hostel. I can’t remember the man’s name and I can only guess that he was in his early twenties. At the time he seemed very much older and I kind of thought my brother had gone loopy. In any case, I had a good time with him. I think we maybe went to one bar, opted out of any nightclubs, and then spent the rest of the time walking through town while we talked. I very vividly recall debating about ‘the right to keep and bear arms’. He was vehemently against the public having guns, and even against law enforcement using guns. I argued the opposite (as one might expect of a girl who had been competing in rifle matches for years).

In contrast, there was the night in Edinburgh I went out with my brother. He decided it was his mission to teach me what college life would be like, so he got me drunk at every opportunity that summer. Edinburgh was no exception. Screwdrivers. I drank screwdrivers all night long because none of the pubs or bars we went in to had the ingredients to make anything else! Walking back to the hostel that night, my brother seemed to think it was hilarious to reach over and push me over with the tip of his finger. Yes, that’s how easy it was to make me stumble!

In Edinburgh, I bought my first Nina Simone cassette tape. I sat in our rental car, which was parked on the street in front of our hostel, and I listened over and over to that tape. I love her song “Feeling Good”!

My memories of the castle and historic monuments in Edinburgh are fuzzy. But the experiences I had there stand out in my mind. Someday, I’d like to go back and see the castle and such again so that I can remember them better. But I’m glad my trip to Britain wasn’t all dry history!

Choosing a place to write about for “D” should have been easy. I’ve lived in a number of places that start with “D”. I considered writing about Daytona, with the roaring race cars I remember from when I was 3 or 4. I considered writing about Delray, but decided that was too much like writing about Boca Raton. The one that popped into my head first and stayed there, though, was Defiance.

I had never heard of this small town in Northwest Ohio until I met the man who would become my husband. He grew up there; not quite a native but close enough. When I moved there in the early months of 1998, I was charmed by the small, rural town. The downtown has quaint shops and restaurants to wander. There are parks, which are great for the kids. The library is an architectural treasure and the land on which it sits is historically significant and beautiful. There are towering trees which provide shade, lilac bushes that scent the air each spring, and broad rivers which define the landscape of the downtown. Many of the homes are quite old and beautiful, with lovely gardens and lawns to admire. All of this can be seen by walking, too, since the sidewalks make it possible to stroll all over the place without competing with car traffic.

The people that live there have long memories and long histories. Even as the landscape of the town has changed through the years (it’s changed quite a bit even since I first lived there) the people remember how it used to be. More than once I felt totally lost when asking for directions since the landmarks used were often for places and stores that no longer existed.

I remember walking into the library to get my library card. (I rarely move to a new place without doing this first thing, since I’m so addicted to reading.) It was shortly after I got married and I was still trying out my new last name. The librarian, an older woman, looked at the name I’d written and looked at me. “Which of the boys did you marry, then?” she asked. I blinked at her, totally confused that she seemed to know my husband. Her words confirmed this as she recalled watching my husband and his brother come into the library as children, and talked about how my in-laws were now her neighbors. I had this scenario happen more than once as I settled into life in the small town. It was a new experience for me and I found it charming.

If you like to travel to new places via book or video, check out ‘The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio’. It was originally a book, but it’s also been made a movie. The movie wasn’t actually shot in Defiance, but it gives a fair feel for the town, even now. Reading the book was a tour through some of the history of the town, and I loved being able to look at the 1950′s pictures in the book and recognize places in town.

I moved to Defiance, OH in ‘defiance’ of my parents’ strongest recommendations. (Did I mention I abruptly withdrew from college and moved West with a man I had met on the internet? That went over really well at the time.) Six years later, I left Defiance of two minds: one was happy to be leaving the small town to go to a bigger town that had more options and the other was sad to leave the small town with it’s charm, history and personality.

A month after I graduated from High School, my brother and I traveled to the United Kingdom. We stayed there for five weeks and toured through England, Scotland and Wales (not necessarily in that order). I was 17 years old and my brother was 21. I had just graduated high school, he had just graduated college. The trip was a gift from our maternal grandparents. It was a sort of Heritage trip, a chance to learn more about where our family came from. (And I profusely thank them both for the incredible gift they gave us. It was amazing for me!)

Caernarfon is in Wales, in the far Northeastern corner overlooking the sea that stretches to Ireland. It is sometimes spelled Caernarvon, in an anglicized version that is not used so much these days. The history of this area goes back to Roman times – when there was a fort called Segontium not far from the present day castle of Caernarfon.

The castle in the pictures is one that was built by Edward I in the 13th century. It was made to impress, to awe, to convince the people of Wales of England’s right to be in their country. It did impress and it was awe inspiring, at least for this American girl who had all sorts of fantastical and romantic dreams of Britain.

That’s pronounced BOH-cuh RUH-tone, by the way, for all of you Northerners who like to give it harsh, short vowel sounds.

Boca Raton is known these days for being home and playground for the rich and the famous, with beautiful golf courses and huge homes.

I know it differently, though. I remember it as the gathering point for our large family. Both of my parents spent years there as children, and I spent many hours there as a child. My memories of Boca include the neighborhood my dad grew up in, the beaches, and the school my grandmother taught in for years and years. I remember the mural of a Spanish Mission that my grandparents had painted on the wall of their dining room (such a sad day when we heard that the new owner had painted over that mural ) and the fairy tale mural my grandmother had on the walls of her classroom at school (perhaps why I love the story of Sleeping Beauty so much?).

I remember spending the night at my grandparents’ house with half a dozen cousins, being woken up with the sunrise in the morning, and told to get swimsuits on. We’d pick oranges off of the orange tree beside the house and squeeze the juice into a thermos. We’d all pile into the car, and drive to the coffee shop. We’d get donuts to go, and then on to the beach. Within minutes of leaving the house, we’d be there! Watching the sun come up over the ocean, the waves crashing the shore, as we ate our breakfast of fresh-squeezed orange juice and donuts, liberally sprinkled with sand. We’d splash into the waves and stand in the sparkling clear water, watching the tiny yellow school of fish curiously nibbling at our knees.

At Red Reef Park, I’ve explored the reef, with all its various forms of life. I’ve seen man-o’-war and jellyfish dotting the seaweed that came in withe tide. I’ve watched a nest of sea turtles hatch and make its way to the ocean. I’ve spent hours walking the coastline with my grandparents searching for beautiful seashells.

Boca, to me, has nothing to do with the rich and famous. Boca, to me, is a town filled with many happy childhood memories.

Antietam.

Cornfields are what I remember most about Antietam from my first visit. Looking out at the National Battlefield today, you might never guess the devastation that the Civil War’s “bloodiest single day of battle” inflicted on this quiet area. Lodged amidst the cornfields now are monuments, statues, and cannons that honor and remember the men that died there.

I used to have to cross over Antietam Creek in order to get to my college from home. Every time I drove over it (or more likely, was driven over it) a single sentence echoed eerily in my head: “The creek ran red with the blood of the fallen and wounded.”

The college I went to was right across the Potomac River from Sharpsburg (which is the town closest to the Antietam Battlefields). The area was overflowing with Civil War memories, ghosts and lore. It’s probably one of the things liked best about going to school there. There was such a sense of history. That long memory of the residents did lead to some odd myths and legends though.

One night, my freshman year, I went for a drive with a couple of people I knew. We were going to Antietam to experiment with a myth. The story goes that if you drive to this spot on a road I can only remember as “Bloody Lane” and put your car in neutral, your car will move UP a hill by itself. Supposedly, it’s being pushed by soldier-ghosts. So, we did as instructed, putting the car into neutral, and waited. We watched the cornfields on either side of the road, jittery in anticipation. And the car did move, but maybe we were on an incline we couldn’t detect. It wasn’t dramatic.

Until the guy driving the car let out a shout and said, “Did you see that?” “No, what?” My friend and I replied. “There was a guy out there. No, two. One was helping another across the road behind the car!” We craned our heads to look, thinking he was hallucinating or something. We didn’t see a thing.

He drove us away from there pretty quickly, acting genuinely spooked. After he’d calmed down, he started driving slowly back to school. On the way he described the men he’d seen. The sounded suspiciously like Confederate soldiers. My friend and I offered up suggestions: maybe they were re-enactors out late in the fields? Maybe he just hadn’t seen them clearly? Maybe he’d mistaken some trees waving in the wind for men?

He continued to swear that he’d seen ghosts out there. I never drove to “Bloody Lane” to try that again. Too many natives of the area told stories of the Civil War ghosts haunting the area. Much as I like history and areas steeped in it, I can live without the ghost stories!

The images shown in this post were found at The Clip Art Site.