Our hotel room is modern and very comfortable, adapters for devices, lots of towels! As with so many large chain hotels, it features lots of wasted space and not much personality. And it most surely beats sleeping on a bench in the park. (Spoken as one grateful for plain creature comforts!) On a bus, IContinueContinue reading “Lyndie’s Journal, Part 3: In Budapest”
Category Archives: Travel
Lyndie’s Journal, Part 2: Pushers and Helpers
Before I forget, a couple of memorable airport wheelchair “pushers”: One a 30-ish very chatty, very friendly man from Thailand, who cheerfully proclaimed all the possibilities of fraternal love between strangers in airports and in the street and between nations. No more wars! He kept it up quite tirelessly, clear to the other side (itContinueContinue reading “Lyndie’s Journal, Part 2: Pushers and Helpers”
Lyndie’s Journal, Part 1: Departure and Arrival
March 17, 2025 Budapest HungaryA day of wonders, preceded by the usual long night of flight, cramped like pretzels, (with pleasant seatmates) across half a planet in basic economy class, and a tiny, magical airplane inching across the screen in front of me, to encourage and tantalize … Ah , we’ve floated past Iceland! TheContinueContinue reading “Lyndie’s Journal, Part 1: Departure and Arrival”
Home: Safe, Sound and Silent
Lyndie reached home yesterday. Now, no doubt, she is resting in the quiet and the comfort of familiar surroundings. I gave her a hug at her building entrance and said a quick farewell. She was tired and not yet entirely well. I was gratified that she had been able to go, and relieved at herContinueContinue reading “Home: Safe, Sound and Silent”
Lyndie in Budapest: A Glorious Awakening
As an American abroad, she had worried about finding hostility. But she was “warmed, blessed” by her encounters.
7. Abandoned Penniless in Europe: A Dream Come True?
To appreciate the next episode, it helps to recall who Lyndie always was: An outrageous woman (if not yet “older”). She and Cal left the New York tenement with their toddler daughter and returned to California. Cal got jobs in construction, but there was never regular employment, let alone a career. After 4 years there,ContinueContinue reading “7. Abandoned Penniless in Europe: A Dream Come True?”
6. The Tenement Year
A few years later, newly married to her high school sweetheart and with an infant in tow, Lyndie took off on her next great road trip. They were “escaping” from Stanford University, where her husband had learned that college was not for him, and from what she calls an “over-controlling family.” Carroll (“Cal”) Duff wasContinueContinue reading “6. The Tenement Year”
5. Skylights and Bombs, Nudes and Murders
Bit by bit, in emails, Lyndie shares fragments of the “every-which-way jumble of recollection” that suddenly floods in unbidden, “in full Technicolor,” after I have asked about something else. “Do you know I can draw or describe every detail of the rental house on 26th St. we lived in till 1945? The upstairs bath had green walls,ContinueContinue reading “5. Skylights and Bombs, Nudes and Murders”
4. Of Alice and the Angels
Sometime after Lyndie’s disappointing cruise, she and I took a road trip together from Wyoming to Texas. I would visit my grandchildren. She would have an opportunity — perhaps her last — to see her blind friend again. That was the first time I saw Lyndie up close and personal with others. I saw thatContinueContinue reading “4. Of Alice and the Angels”
3. What Went Wrong
From here, you can either read the history in an account Lyndie wrote herself, or watch the two short videos below, in which she describes what happened to her and her companion. In the first video below, she tells about the start of the journey — a distressing passage from airplanes, to a hotel, toContinueContinue reading “3. What Went Wrong”
Lyndie's Journey 