I’d like to tell you a small story about some advice I once gave myself, and how I came to give it.
When I was younger, still newly married and working construction as a structural ironworker, I had heard the saying, “Virginia is for lovers.” I believe it is still their motto, so I took my wife, Darla, to Virginia. We had an amazing time. Being from California, we do not have that kind of history all around us. I remember the whole trip fondly, and until fairly recently, it was probably my favorite vacation.
While we were there, we took one of those bus tours up to Washington, D.C. It was close enough, and neither of us had ever seen the capital. On the bus, sitting across from Darla and me, was an older couple. The woman was a nice lady, not especially small, although she looked small sitting next to her husband because he was taller than I was, probably six-one or six-two. He had dirty-blond, or maybe light-brown, hair and a stogie in his mouth. If you do not know what a stogie is, imagine a half-smoked cigar that is no longer lit, being chewed on more than smoked.
I liked them both right away, but the man especially made an impression on me. He had character. I do not mean he was “a character,” as though he were simply funny. I mean he seemed solid in himself, stout in his ways. He asked where I was from and what I did for a living, and I told him I was an ironworker from the Bay Area in California.
That lit him up. He told me he was an electrician from New York City and that he loved ironworkers. When he had worked on skyscrapers, he said he was the only electrician willing to go out on the iron with them before the walls and floors were finished. The other electricians would not do it. You could see the pride all over his face when he talked about it—the laughter, the excitement, the joy of remembering his working days. I had a great time listening to him tell his stories.
Our first stop was Arlington National Cemetery. We walked over toward the Iwo Jima Memorial, and I took a picture of the couple before we went off separately to explore. I still have those pictures. That tells you something about how much this man impressed me in such a short time.
After seeing Arlington, we got back on the bus. I asked the couple how they had liked it, and he said it was wonderful. Then he told me he had never been to Washington, D.C. before. That surprised me. He had lived in New York City, not all that far away, and yet somehow he had never made the trip.
From Arlington, the bus made the short drive toward the Lincoln Memorial. When we arrived, I waited for the older couple to get up before us. People behind us were already on their feet, waiting impatiently. The woman looked at me and said he could not make it off the bus, so we got off without them.
Ten or fifteen minutes earlier, this man had been full of life. He had been laughing, telling stories, proud of the work he had done, and enjoying his first trip to Washington. Now he could not get off the bus.
Washington is an amazing place to visit, and if you ever go, I especially recommend seeing the Korean War Veterans Memorial. It affected me more than I expected. But the ride back to Virginia felt different. The man slept most of the way.
I kept thinking about how badly he had wanted to see Washington, and how close he had always lived to it. He had spent a lifetime saying, in one way or another, that he would get there someday, and someday had finally arrived almost too late.
Back at the hotel, I gave myself some advice.
If there is something I really want to see or do, I am going to try to do it now. I am not going to wait until I am too old to enjoy it.
I have thought about that man many times over the years, and I have tried to keep the promise I made to myself that day. Since then, I have traveled to all but one continent. I have seen places I once only read about. I have done things I would have been very good at postponing.
Now I am getting older myself. Darla sometimes struggles with long walks, and there are things we probably would not attempt today the way we once did.
But she has been on safari.
Albert Jr.
Author of The Nature Within Us
Leave a Reply