We are once again sitting on a bus. This time we boarded in London. Can I tell you how excited I was to see London? All my life I had been hearing about London, London, London. It seemed like the center of the world. And now I had been there and I was leaving. But London is a story for later.
We were on a National Express bus bound for Cambridge, going to visit Kate's friend from University. It's not a very long bus trip, only about two hours, and most of that is spent getting out of London. The city is huge! We drove east along the Thames, right through Central London, and I stared out the window at the bridges and the buildings. The bus was getting more and more full as we continued on. I usually sit on the window ledge in buses – because it means I get a better view, and that way we only have to pay for one seat. Eventually an older couple got on the bus. We offered to move so they could sit together, but the woman told me that it was fine. She was talkative, and so we started chatting.
When I get to be an old lady mouse, I want to be just like her. Well, except I don't want to be human, I want to stay a mouse. She had so much energy, had visited so many places, and when she talked had a sparkle in her eye.
“I want to travel until the day I drop,” she told us.
The woman told us that she was from Canada, and she and her husband were visiting their nice in London. Now they were going to Cambridge because the husband had done a Ph. D. at University of Cambridge years ago, and this year was the 800th anniversary of the founding of Cambridge. After asking a few more questions, she told us her life story.
“This was the mid-1950s. I didn't go to university then. Only two women from my class went to university right after high school. Instead I did a secretarial course, and I hated it. Absolutely hated it. I was working in an office and I just couldn't stand it. My sister wasn't so happy either, and one day she suggested that we move to Canada. I said yes immediately. You see, that's because I had already visited the United States.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before Canada I visited the US. This was still the mid-1950s, and I told my family that I was going to visit the United States. Most people would have told me that I was crazy, but my family just let me go. I came over on the Queen Elizabeth, that's a ship. In those days that's how you came to the United States. And I was by myself. At the time that was a most uncommon thing – a woman traveling alone. I was so naive. I think it's because I was so naive that no one took advantage of me. I just assumed that everyone would be so nice and helpful, and indeed they were. I was always so impressed at the kindness of Americans.
Oh, but you want to know where I went! Well, I spent almost a month in New York City with friends of my family. I loved it! New York is amazing! I always thought that I could live there. There's so much theatre, so much music, so much life. I did my traveling by greyhound bus, and you know some of those bus stations aren't in the best part of town, but I never had any problem. From there I went south to Washington DC, and then I toured the American south. Then to Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle, where I had a boyfriend. From there I went to California. I think I'm one of the few people in the world who loves Los Angeles. But I really do. I met someone who was a scenic painter and made sets. I loved it. Sometimes I think that I should have gone into theater or the movies. I loved the scenery. I still go to theater as much as possible. We saw three shows in London and one show right before we left Canada. It was Othello in Canada, and it wasn't so good.
Oh, but I've gotten off track again. Where was I, oh right, California! I visited San Francisco, and then back to Texas. And that's when I realized that I couldn't be a house wife and live in the Texas panhandle for the rest of my life. It was a hard decision because I was so in love, but I knew that I couldn't stay. One of my relations was getting married, and so I took the Queen Elizabeth back to England. And I stayed with my family and was miserable and tried to figure out my life. And that's when my sister suggested that I move to Canada with her.
We spent the first year in Toronto. I joined a play reading group at the YWCA, that's Young Women's Christian Association, which was just amazing. I really do love theater. We met once a week to read plays. So a year later when we moved to Vancouver I joined a group there as well. And that was where I met my husband. He was there that first night I went to the play reading group. And then years later I went to university to study English literature and art history. Maybe I should have gone into the theater, but I didn't.
But it really was that I was so naive. It was such a wonderful experience!”
I sat there with my mouth open. A moment later the lady pleaded tiredness and fell instantly to sleep. Kate and I shared a telepathic look and she immediately began to jot the story down. I had been so naive, but I started traveling with Kate. Kate had been naive, but these days traveling alone as a woman is much more common. Neither of us could imagine traveling alone as a woman nearly 60 years ago, in an age where women were supposed to stay home. A women not at home, and halfway around the world from her home must have been astonishing. And here she was, 60 years later, still traveling, with such vibrant energy and all these wonderful stories. She woke up when we arrived in Cambridge. We wished each other a nice trip, and that was it. The moment we had shared was past, but sealed in my memory forever. We never even learned her name.