The English language, well perhaps every language though I am most familiar with English, has a tricky way with words, and sentences, when spoken aloud.

Growing up, the emphasis in this sentence, “Where have you been?” seems to have been placed more heavily on the where. As in, explain to me the circumstances around your tardiness or disheveled appearance. 

And years later, the emphasis had often shifted to the last word; more plaintive perhaps and not just an inquiry into your location.

Now among my friends I still use this line of inquiry but the emphasis has again shifted, more towards the middle of the sentence and landing on have. Where have you been? And lately, the answer is, all over.

Growing up, my immediate family lived in Nevada but my cousins were spread across California and Oregon. I remember my grandparents would drive their Oldsmobile up from their home in Southern California towing a small nomad trailer, their trips planned to include several stops over the summer months. 

They would stay for a day or two with us, parked on the street out front of our home, in their little home on wheels. Tiny bathroom, kitchen, a bed that folded down from the seating area around the dining table. I didn’t think a trailer could get much smaller, and it might explain my fascination with the Bambi model of Airstream trailers today; but that small size really packed a punch once it was loaded down. 

I have a cousin who often takes his teardrop trailer out for weekends in the mountains outside Tucson, Arizona. My wife and I aren’t really camping people (let’s not do that again!), but the thought of jumping into my truck and heading out to the first RV park I see still has a grip on me. 

Except…except I’ve seen some of the RV parks that are within driving distance and they leave me, well, concerned. So many people! 

In the late 1980s when my Grandmother learned that I would be settling down here in Virginia permanently, we talked about their life on the road. My grandfather was an avid fisherman and there were always stories of their times parked along the Rogue River in Northern California or motoring out here in the East.

As one might expect, my Dad loved to fish as well. Me? This photo probably shows my best day fishing. Apparently I didn’t take to it quite as well and truthfully, I haven’t had a pole in my hands since the mid 1970s, but look at that cowboy hat! and swagger.

Perhaps the clearest picture I have of that “I’m moving to Virginia” conversation with Grandma is of dogwoods. Who knows when my grandparents would have come out this far. They both had retired when they sold Hilbig’s Pharmacy to my uncle Ralph in the early 1950s. But thirty years later she still had a vivid memory of the dogwood trees in bloom here in Virginia. Those and the redbud trees. And the fishing of course, not the cold water trout they were used to but the bass for sure. 

I can just imagine them pulled up to some nearly-vacant campground, their folding card table and two chairs set out, my grandmother reading one of her paperback novels as she waited for Grandpa to catch something for dinner. Late afternoon, dogwood trees in bloom. Thanks for the memories.

Ralph and Emma Hilbig, about 1950.