"SEE"-ZE THE WORLD THAT BELONGS TO YOU

FOREWORD

Traveling to new and different places has always been exciting for me!   As a boy whose father was employed in the oil fields of the United States, moving-about was a distinct necessity.  I learned early in life that the world, even as I knew it then, was a big and interesting place, despite the fact that it only covered a limited number of states.  Whether the towns and villages were just down the road, over the next hill, or several hundreds of miles away, all were found to be surprising upon entering their unfamiliar boundaries.

Besides moving around as a child and experiencing a variety of places, I was lucky enough, or maybe it was fate, to have an outstanding teaching nun in my seventh and eight grades who wielded a special long-lasting influence on my life.  This nun had been superbly trained in geography, as well as in all the other rudiments pertinent to those grades. But she positively excelled in her knowledge, love, and presentation of the world and its peoples.  Her stories and descriptions of both near and faraway places would take my breath! The wonders of the nearby and distant world that she described, both ancient and modern, with its cities and peoples, seemed boundless.  At once, these places began “calling” to me and continued beckoning ever more strongly as I grew older.  Despite my teacher’s lack of a personal opportunity to cross an ocean, she had already “visited and explored” those far away places, in great detail, using a virtual reality of her own. 

My own subsequent extensive travels, which I will briefly describe herein, actually begin in World War II, continuing during the early part of my adult life, including work-related travel, family travel, and eventually, retirement travel.  My introduction to more limited domestic travel in my childhood, fortified by my teacher’s impressive shared-knowledge of homeland and foreign travel, are mentioned to reveal the source of the catalyst that was responsible for my itching feet and a determination to “see”-ze the big waiting world out there.  In a way, didn’t it also belong to me?  Haven’t you and I inherited it as members of the human race?  Shouldn’t we see it and enjoy it as much as possible? 

My purpose in writing this book is to encourage travel, a dimension in life that is like no other.

It is to my late father and late teacher, therefore, that I dedicate this book.  Would that I could present each of them with a copy!