Back to the future, 1987 & then some

This weekend, I unearthed a travel diary from 1987.  It acompanied a criss-crossing of the country made possible – in part – by Delta's 30-day "See America" standby plan.  The diary is filled with the prayers and pleadings of a very-new-in-the-faith Jesus follower who's faith had taken a direct hit hours after the first prayer.

Background
As the last of four kids, I was an odd bird even among my siblings.  My eldest sister, Deedie, passed along a love for classic literature and skepticism.  Mimi, my middle sister, taught me to love people long before they saw their own value and to celebrate birthdays with flair.  Pat, my brother, was my link to the Eskews.  He and I would sit quietly on the roof so we could watch the planes fly into the Stuttgart Airport – we lived in the flight path on a hill overlooking the Neckar Valley.  Pat took me to get my ears pierced – driving all the way to Kansas City from Fort Riley because I really wasn't supposed to and my dad had his hands full.

Pat swam.  I swam.  He climbed over fences.  I climbed over fences.  Pat, Deedie, and Mimi joined R.O.T.C.  I joined Debate, swimming, volleyball, soccer, basketball, National Forensics League, Quill & Scroll, Newspaper, Yearbook, Model United Nations, STUCO, Campus Life, French Club, Blue Jay Ambassadors, Marauder Boosters, and Project Bold.  If an Eskew kid had not blazed a trail through an organization or idea, I was on it.  I also was naturally quite shy and very lonely…broken.  Pat did his best to help me become more than the nothing I felt – even teaching me how to wear make up (don't). 

Then one January evening in Statesboro (1986), as a Georgia Southern College freshman, I panicked and drove towards Dahlonega where the mountains were.   En route, I stumbled upon a revival service (I was lost) and decided to pop in for the entertainment value.  There I was with a pink buzz cut and decidedly un-southern leggings, high-tops, and giant sweater, surrounded by very small town southern "Falwell is all-well" brethren.

And then a genuinely kind woman, MaryAnn, sat down and talked with me.  She felt that God had brought her to this odd little church revival just to meet me.  It wasn't her church, her town, or even her idea to be there, but she felt that I was the reason she had ventured out into that rainy night.  She asked me to meet her family over dinner, offered to pray for me, and gave me hope that I wasn't all alone in the universe.  MaryAnn Morris.  I'll always love her for that.  

Why the Wanderings
That rainy night I called my dad in Ulm, Germany, to tell him about my encounter with what appeared to be the God of the universe and his #1 Son, Jesus.  My dad, ever compassionate, urged me to find someone to sit with me because he had something to tell me. It was too late so I sat alone while he told me that my newlywed brother was dying of a very virulent cancer.  And Pat did die that fall – two days before my sophomore year at GSC – despite many best efforts.

I plunged my grief into three jobs to pay for college, three swim practices to try to earn a scholarship, and 18 – 21 hours of class credit a quarter.  I ate my way through more pounds than I thought possible and dropped the weight quickly…and kept dropping it.  By the end of the year, I was exhausted, even more broken than when I had entered school, and burnt out on class, work, Jesus, and breathing.  

That summer, my dad discovered Delta's "See America Plan"; a 30-day standby ticket that would take me wherever Delta flew.  My dad envisioned that I'd visit one sister in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and the other in Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas. I took him up on his offer to commemorate the first year of Pat's death with a visit to my sisters.  And then I decided to "See America" and the friends from Ulm who had scattered to colleges from sea to shining sea.  

That trip saved my life.  Though I still felt the very odd bird, my friends opened up their homes, quiche recipes, favorite San Francisco spots, Copperas Cove hangouts, Illini hot spots (we saw Dirty Dancing, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner!"), Seattle's Neptune theater, and October wind surfing on Lake Washington.  One of my favorite "creative travel" experiences was when a flight seatmate arranged for another to take me safely into the University of Washington campus.  I can't remember her name, but she had been one of the first female Naval Commanders and she was so sparky.