Vacation memories (The United Nations trip-part 1)

That's me and Cynthia Holloway at Niagara Falls in 1977 or '78, I honestly can't remember the exact year any more. This photo is from a trip I won as a result of winning an essay contest. I was the southwest Virginia winner of the "What the United Nations Means to Me" essay contest that was sponsored by the Oddfellows and Rebekkah lodges of America.

I wrote some dopey essay extolling the UN and how it was going to bring peace to the world in my lifetime. While the UN does some great stuff, UNICEF, UNESCO, and other things as well, it's fallen far short of the hopes I had for it while I was still a pimply horn dog teenager. There were about four or five of us in my high school that wrote essays and I was shocked to learn that I won. I was even more shocked to find out that what I won was an all expense paid trip to the United Nations in New York City. I was over the moon excited and I was even more pumped when I found out that not only was I going to go to the Big Apple for a week, I was also going to spend three days in Washington DC sightseeing and go through Baltimore and Philadelphia on our way to NYC. I also found out that after my week in NYC was up our bus tour of pimply way too smart for our own good horn dog group of teenagers was going to go to Niagara Falls and then on our way back home we were going to stop in and tour Gettysburg. I was wild with excitement because I was going to see the places I had read and dreamed of for years. And best of all I was going on my own, that is to say no family was going with me. I was ecstatic to be escaping my asshole cousins, my domineering, crazy, rageaholic aunt, and the small hick town I was living in.

The trip started out kind of odd, I had to hook up with the tour in Roanoke, VA which was about three hours northeast of where we lived at the time. In order to save a few bucks and to make sure I got to the Oddfellows lodge in Roanoke on time Aunt Rageaholic drove me up the night before I was supposed to join the tour and we stayed in the home of some people we knew who used to live in Lee county, the Colliers. To say Bill Collier was a strange man is an understatement. He was an oddball from the word go who seemed to take an instant dislike to me from the instant he laid eyes on me, and his dislike seemed to grow more every time our paths crossed later in my life. I was convinced that he would make sure we did not get out of his wretched house in time for me to make the bus but thank goodness my fears were never realized because I woke up at the butt crack of dawn and I insisted that my nut bag aunt take me to the Oddfellows lodge right then. After she had a cup of coffee and after old Bill Collier gave me the stink eye for about 20 minutes we finally left and she dropped me at the lodge.

To be honest I was petrified at having to meet all new people but I was also glad that I was going to be doing it without any of my family around, which meant that I could be myself without having to worry about them making fun of me, mocking me, or snitching on me for having opinions and tastes different than the ones Aunt Rageaholic tried to shove on us. I kept quiet as I met some of the people I would be traveling for the next few weeks but I noticed a striking girl with a pretty smile and a nice demeanor from Elizabeth City, NC and I kind of gravitated to her. I was far too shy to make a pass at her but I think I did flash her a goofy smile and I let her see me reading Robert Graves I, Claudius, I was hoping she'd be impressed at how smart I was.

While I was dreaming about smooching the girl with the honey accent and the pretty smile, a funny looking guy from Lynchburg sat next to me. He cracked a lame joke and told me his name was Jeff Tyree. I instantly liked him and we began joking around and an instant friendship was born. We became fast friends for the duration of the trip. When they finally herded us onto the bus he and I sat together and I told him I liked the girl from North Carolina but that I was too shy to do anything about it. He said to hang tight and he'd figure out a way for me to meet to her.

Somewhere near Washington DC our bus stopped and a gaggle of girls from Maryland and northern Virginia joined our group. Jeff instantly took a liking to one of them, a pretty young brunette by the name of Heidi who hailed from Silver Spring, Maryland. We could tell she came from a rich family but she was as nice as she was pretty and Jeff made his plans to be her "trip boyfriend."

He and I roomed together that night in Washington, as we would through out the trip. In Washington we got to see some of the Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington monument, the FBI HQ, we took a tour of the Treasury building, and much more. And more importantly Jeff managed to hook up with Heidi (and by hook up with I don't mean have sex, I mean sit next to, hold hands with, and kiss on, innocent teenage stuff) and he got Heidi to buddy up with the gal from NC, Cynthia Holloway.

After a few action packed days in our nations capital we began our march to NYC. Through some convoluted machinations I ended up sitting next to Cynthia and I even managed to talk to her. Whatever I said worked, it must have been my non stop cheesy jokes and inane patter because it surely wasn't my looks as you can tell from the photo above, and we hit it off. I nearly died when she said I could hold her hand and kiss her. I felt like the biggest stud in the world by the time we got to NYC a few days later, I was on top of the world.

To be continued...