Our volcano Haleakala here on Maui may be extinct, but political passions are erupting hot and strong. Tourists lining up for their morning coffee can often be heard vowing to move to a whole other country if that so and so wins the election.
We packed up and hit the road β in our case, for France. We fiched le camp, Jacques. And we never came back to exactly where we left from. After three years, we did come back to America and found new work, new schools, and new friends in a new city. Life itself settled down for us, but those three years in France have made all the difference. Usually as they try to understand how in the world my family moved from Columbus, Georgia, to Cannes, France, they first ask if my 1 father was in the army.
He was not. Nor did he work for an international company or retire early. Although many admire his passion, they wonder about money. How did we afford it? People tend to assume we must have had a lot of money. We did not. Not at all. I try to make that clear, but hardly anyone believes me. They are both right and wrong.
The truth is that we did have enough money to buy our tickets and manage day to day. It is also true that as our old friends know for sure, we did not have what is known as real money.
We certainly did not have accumulated cash reserves to cushion us in the future β or even pay for college. Rather he drew on his total confidence that he could always make money. For him, there was no trick to it at all. He knew that he would always manage. Some succeeded. Others failed. Inevitably our family experienced financial highs and lows, but through 2 it all, my father kept his enthusiasm. For a long time, we also kept all the loot β beach cottage, sailboat, paintings, piano β accumulated during the highs.
