The journey of a thousand miles

... began with a single step.

source

My family is celebrating a milestone this week. It's an anniversary of sorts, and if all goes well, I'm planning to include you in the celebration. It's an anniversary forty years in the making.

40 years...

That would take us back to  1974. 

... the year Hammerin' Hank broke Babe Ruth's home run record.

 source

and Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. 

source

 Post- it notes were invented that year too.

And some missing White House tapes contributed to the resignation
of an American president.

Things that make you go hmmmm... 

The speed limit across the nation was lowered to this glacial speed in 1974, too.

Just in time for my parents to pick up stakes 

and take the family on a journey of a thousand miles,

all the way from our home in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts

 to a land flowing with biscuits and honey.

It was a one way adventure.

Yes folks, forty years ago today, my parents packed up the wood paneled station wagon, hitched up the trusty travel trailer, loaded up  four kids and two cats, and headed out to our new home in Georgia.   

It took us three and a half days to make that thousand mile journey.  Sure, we could have done it faster, much, much faster in fact.  In the years that followed, we managed to whittle it down to about 22 hours, 21 if nobody drank coffee. 

Like that was going to happen in our family... 

That trip was longer for a variety of reasons.

For one thing, we were at the mercy of the moving company.  North American Van Lines wasn't scheduled to deliver all the house schtuff  until  August 20th, and Mom and Dad wanted it to arrive before we did.

Chaos control, I imagine.

I did mention the four kids and two cats, right?

And that one of the kids was blond and... me?

Then, of course, there was the other reason for the snail's pace, the one that in retrospect was probably the real one.

Those four kids weren't exactly thrilled about the move, 

Especially this one. She was scared.

I'm pretty sure the cats weren't too happy, either. Somewhere around Virginia, Muffy  tried to make a run for it. She would've made it, too, had Dad not caught her by the scruff of the neck.  I laid aside all plans of my own escape after that and deployed the pout option instead.

It didn't work. Dad just kept driving. Somewhere around South Carolina, I finally decided that we were, indeed, moving to Georgia.

And that we did.

In the heat of the afternoon on August 21st, we finally arrived.  We stopped off at Dad's office, where the secretary offered us a Co-Cola and told us how she had once been crowned Miss Savannah.

I thought she talked kinda  funny.
I'm pretty sure she thought we talked funny, too.

Then we headed to see the new house.  True to plan, all that harvest gold and avocado green schtuff  had arrived and was waiting in its proper rooms. We had about ten minutes to tour the place before we were sent unpacking.

By suppertime, we were completely finished because that's the way the Duchess rolls. We didn't have any food in the house so we celebrated our first night in Georgia with a meal at the Tastee Freez.

Woohoo.

Let's make that one a yee haw instead.

And that, folks, is how Debbie became a Georgia Peach. Not that it happened overnight, of course.  This is the south, after all.  Things move along at a nice, slow drawl around here.  We take our time.  Eventually, though, I not only liked this place but  truly loved it,  and every bit of southern fried Dixie that went along with it, from grits to gravy.

It is home. 

And now, it has been home for forty years. 

40 years....

Don't you think it's time I learned to make sweet tea?

Yeah, I think so too. 

*****
Where were you in '74?