On this Thanksgiving Day in 2021, I am thinking of a long-ago November when I was traveling by ferry between Corfu, Greece and Brindisi, Italy. In November of 1970, my friends Cecelia, Jill, and I been traveling for nearly three months when we decided to go to Greece. Our Eurarail Passes were good there, but not in Yugoslavia through which we would have to pass to get to Greece. We decided to hitchhike from the Italy/Yugoslavia border to the Yugoslavia/Greece one. What an adventure that was! Careening around mountain curves in rickety old trucks, sitting on one another’s laps, passing through towns where the major mode of transportation was donkey-drawn carts, and spending one night in a hotel where the sound of mice running across the floors kept me wide awake.
But we made it to Thessaloniki where we boarded a train to
Athens. When we arrived, I realized that
I was almost out of money. My friends
had more, and so, we decided to part ways.
I spent only one night in Athens and then decided to hitchhike to Corfu
where I could catch a ferry to Italy and again use my Eurarail Pass.
I managed to get the rides I needed and made it safely to
Corfu; however, the rides were not without difficulties as two of the men who
picked me up had different ideas than I did for what we would do together. My last ride was with two kind men in their
old truck who chastised me for hitch hiking and warned me to be very careful—all
by way of sign language since they didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak
Greek.
In Corfu, I determined how much money I needed for the ferry
ticket and how much I had left for a hotel room. It wasn’t enough. I showed the hotel owner how many Greek drachma I had. After some back and forth,
again through sign language, he showed me to a maid’s closet, where he was
willing to place a cot. That is where I
slept that night.
In the morning, I used the last of my Greek currency to
buy a ferry ticket and a package of cookies, then boarded the ferry for the nine-hour
trip across the Ionian Sea. The crossing
was rough, and I spent most of it bent over a toilet in the dirty women’s
bathroom. In the afternoon, I made my
way to the deck. As I was leaning over
the railing looking pretty green, a woman approached and initiated a
conversation.
“It looks like you are having a rough time. I saw you in the bathroom earlier. Are you OK?” she asked.
“Not really, but I’m managing.” I replied gamely.
“Have you eaten anything?”
“Only a few cookies,” I confessed. “I’m out of money.”
We probably had some conversation about being Americans and
exchanged basic personal information.
“Do you know that today is Thanksgiving in the states?” she
asked.
I had had no idea.
“When I was in Brindisi before,” she continued, “I met some
guys stationed there in the Air Force.
They said that if I was in Brindisi for Thanksgiving, I could join them
for dinner. That’s why I’m traveling today.
Why don’t you come with me? I’m sure
they wouldn’t mind.”
What a blessing this turned out to be! I not only went to Thanksgiving dinner with
this kind woman, but the men who shared their feast with us, invited me to stay
at their house until it was time for my flight home. I accepted readily and spent several nights there. As I recall, there were four or five men
living in this off-base house. One of
them gave me his bedroom, as he was on night duty that week. They cooked for me, entertained me, and kept
me safe.
I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal more
than I did that one in Brindisi. And I’ve
never forgotten the kindness of those strangers—the woman on the boat or the
men who fed and cared for me.
On this Thanksgiving Day, when I am again traveling on a
boat, I give thanks for the abundant blessings I have been given throughout my
life. I am so thankful for the family I
grew up in, for the extended family I continue to love and cherish, for my
husband Scott, for having had a challenging and fulfilling career, for health,
for the funds that allow me to travel the world, and for the beauty that
surrounds me everywhere. Blessings
abound. Life is good.
