Vacation Memories-The United Nations trip (conclusion)

When the bus rolled out on the last day of my week in New York City I felt a multitude of emotions, the biggest of which was probably apprehension. I was apprehensive because I knew I had only a few days left on my trip and I was dreading leaving the first ever girl who made out with me willingly and having to go back to the cultural backwater that was (and still is) Lee County, VA. But I decided to ignore the apprehension and to try to enjoy the time I had left.

From NYC we headed to Niagara Falls. I can't say I remember the drive up through New York state much because I was spending too much time kissing Cynthia and making jokes with Jeff. The time just flew by and then bam there we were at Niagara Falls. I loved it because I like being around water and because the weather was fantastic, it didn't rain on us the entire trip as I recall. Watching all that water cascade over the cliff was quite a sight, though not quite as big a sight as the sight of a pale blonde headed boy with black horn rimmed glasses stuck in the throes of puppy love chasing after a tall North Carolina gal. I'm pretty sure I didn't let her out of my sight the entire time we were off that bus.

We spent one day on the USA side and the next day they told us we were going to go into Canada and tour around for a day and a half and we'd be spending the night across the border. There was a young gal on the trip with us who was not actually a citizen, she had been born in Korea but she'd been in the US ever since she was an infant, and they said she couldn't cross the border for whatever reason they made up, it struck me as stupid but then again most of what our national governments do strikes me as stupid. Off we went, minus the Korean gal.

The biggest thing I remember about that excursion into Canada was eating at a Canadian Oddfellows lodge. We'd been stopping at lodges all during our trip and the Oddfellows and their wives would have a covered dish supper for us wherever and whenever we stopped. So as usual they met us outside the lodge and they greeted us and invited us in for a covered dish supper and we all obediently followed the grown ups on in. The second I set foot in that lodge something came over me and it was a powerful sense of deja vu. Every step I took up the stairs was familiar to me. I knew I had been there before. I remember knowing exactly how everything was going to look when we finally got upstairs and lo and behold, it looked exactly as I knew it was going to. The whole place was just as I knew it was going to be and I was more than a little freaked out. I remember telling Cynthia that I had been there before and she kind of blew me off, and not in a good way either. The longer we sat there the more familiar things became and the more positive I became that I had been there many times in the past. This incident is one of the reasons that I believe in a form of reincarnation, I'm positive that I was a Canadian Oddfellow who belonged to that lodge or the wife of a member in a previous life. I was really happy when they finally herded us out of there and back onto the bus. I was discombobulated for the rest of that night.

The rest of the trip was uneventful for me, outside of the kissing and handholding that is. I remember seeing Gettysburg and being impressed, I was a huge Civil War buff back then and I drank in the feeling and the scenery of the place while I could. It was a bittersweet time on the trip because I was finally getting to stand and see where history had been made but all the time my mind was telling me that the trip was ending soon and that I'd have to go back to Lee County to live with my crazy aunt and my horrendous cousins.

When the time came and the trip ended with us rolling into a bus station in Roanoke I saw my aunt sitting in her car waiting impatiently and along side her was her youngest son, my cousin Sam. I fought back the tears because in those days it was very not cool to cry over such things as a trip ending and leaving a girl you had grown very fond of. I did hug Cynthia tight and I kissed her so that my aunt and cousin would see me kissing her. We exchanged addresses and we promised that we keep in touch and we'd see each other again some day. As soon as I got in the car and Aunt Rageaholic backed out of the parking lot I knew that'd be the last time I ever saw Cynthia.

I was pretty silent as we drove back to Lee County because I was too busy replaying all the great times I had just had over in my head. I was remembering sightseeing in Washington DC, going to Johns Hopkins to hear a lecture, driving through Philadelphia and eating ice cream near the Liberty Bell, being at the UN, walking the streets of NY unchaperoned, cracking jokes with Jeff, and being with Cynthia. Aunt Rageaholic tried to get me to tell her and Sam about the trip but I clammed up and just looked out the window as we drove those 5 hours back to Jonesville.

Cynthia and I exchanged a few letters and a card or two but after Halloween of that year our communication stopped. I've often wondered what became of her and I hope she has had a good life that's been chock full of people who love her. I hope she met and married a great guy and that she had a fulfilling career and kids and a happy marriage. I'll never forget her, unless I get Alzheimer's, and if that's the case then I'll forget everyone eventually, or what we shared for those few weeks during the summer I went to the United Nations.

My buddy Jeff Tyree and I never kept in touch but he did come back in to my life, kind of, later. It turns out he became a huge pothead and he and my first college roommate, who was from Lynchburg, VA, used to get stoned together all the time. But after my freshman year my pothead roommate never came back to King so I never found out what became of Jeff. I suppose he finally stopped smoking weed and he got his shit together and made something of himself.

(Read part one here and part two is here in case you missed either part.)