Golden Days in Italy

  POSITANO After a good night's sleep and some coffee (cappuccino; I wasn't feeling native enough to try the expresso), we developed a game plan for our free day in Positano. (The plan for arriving a day before the tour to deal with jet lag and to explore the city on our own is one I'd recommend for any transoceanic traveler.) The weather appeared to be a little iffy, but we had come a long way and waited many years to see this place. So we grabbed our little folding umbrellas and light rain jackets and forged ahead bravely. From the vantage point outside our room we could see that the city and those around it did indeed cling to the sides of cliffs and that the beach and parts of the city were basically straight down. I quickly realized that all of that planning I had done for walking and those distances and times for walking were utterly useless.  The streets in Positano are not only steep; they're very narrow with few sidewalks (several of which are merely white line...

  CROSSING THE POND The long flight didn't scare us because, as I mentioned earlier, we have flown to Australia and New Zealand.  Flights from the Western US to either require double the time that flying across the Atlantic to Europe takes. Nevertheless, flying was one of those things that could make or break the trip. Would our flights be on time and not cost us a connection?  Would our bags make it?  We chose to fly out of Atlanta, which is a 4:30 drive for us, plus we lose an hour entering the Eastern Time Zone. Additionally, to get the business class flights we wanted on the days we needed to travel, we had "hopscotch" itineraries, i.e. , Atlanta to DC to  Paris to Naples going over and Rome to Amsterdam to NYC to Atlanta returning.  We flew Delta domestically and Air France internationally to Italy and returned via KLM and again Delta in the US.  (As you might know or expect, Delta, Air France, and KLM are partner airlines.) Everything clicked on ...

 A MERE HALF CENTURY LATER Susan and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary this spring.  We had begun dating in the spring of 1972, were engaged about 6 months later, and got married about 6 months after that.  She was a senior at Mississippi State, and I was on the staff for that academic year with plans to pursue my doctorate the following year. For our honeymoon Susan wanted to go somewhere exotic and romantic, a plan which sadly didn't fit my meager checkbook.  We settled on spending a few days with Mickey & Minnie at Disney World, which had been open almost a year, then driving over to St. Petersburg Beach for a few more days. We said that one day we'd take that honeymoon trip we had dreamed of. But first came graduate school and 2 1/2 years in married student housing at the University of Florida, followed by life as a young professional in higher education (translated as rewarding in ways other than financially ) and family life with children, houses, c...