Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Stories for the kids

Jess asked me to record some of the stories I tell the kids of my childhood. I thought it was a good idea. For my first story I am inspired by a book I'm listening to on my travels. Part of the book takes place in London, and it brought back memories of the trip I took in 1995 with other high school students to the British Isles and Ireland. It was a groups of about 30. On the first day in London we bought day passes for the Underground, the subway system. After the official tour ended that first day our chaperones gave us time to explore London in groups, as long as we made it back by a certain time. I ended up with a group of about 12 and we headed out to the station to find Wimbledon. There was a big tennis nut in our group, think his name was Jason. As a group of wide eyed American kids we made our way through one of the biggest cities in the world, with no map or knowledge of where we really were going. We got on one line after another, asked Londoners how to get to Wimbledon, before finally realizing it was time to get back to the hotel for dinner. That was no easy task either. We were turned around, took trains heading in the wrong direction, and spent hours trying to figure out how to get back to our group. I think someone finally made a call to the hotel to let our chaperones know what had happened and get help making it back. Our poor chaperones were relieved to hear that we were alright, but not happy we hadn't tried calling earlier. Of course this was many years before cell phones were widely used by everyone. After we made it back to the hotel one of the chaperones hugged us and then sent us to our rooms for the night, while the rest of the group went out for a night in London. This experience probably influenced a choice I made later on that trip. The night before we flew back home, after three weeks of touring, Kevin Onabiyi, a family friend who grew up in London, called my room and told me to get down to the lobby and meet him. I dashed out of the room without shoes or socks on, until a chaperone saw me and questioned where I was going. I explained who Kevin was and was allowed to go meet him for just a few minutes. I met Kevin and Caroline, another Brit who had visited my family in Provo. We talked for a bit, then I invited Kevin to come upstairs and meet more of the group. My roommate Ryan and I chatted with Kevin and Caroline until the wee hours of the night. Kevin really wanted us to go with him to see the real London, but we didn't go. It probably would have been really fun.

1 comment:

Mark said...

Excellent story! Thanks for sharing!