Land of Oz

Early one evening when I was about seven I walked into the kitchen where my father was sitting at the table alone, eating his dinner before he had to leave for work.

He looked up from his plate and said:  “You should know — when you’re 14 we are moving to Australia.  Better start studying up on it.”

Now this was news to me.  Being the earnest young man I was, I went immediately to our bookcase and pulled out the “A” volume of our World Book Encyclopedia.  I bet I read the entry about Australia thirty times.

From that day on I read everything I could about Australia.  I scanned newspapers and magazines for stories.  I checked out books from the school library. I searched our stack of National Geographics for every scrap of information.

Other boys my age read all they could about the Orioles and the Colts.  I read about Kangaroos and Koalas.

I’m not sure how old I was when I figured out we weren’t going to be moving anywhere.  Memorial Stadium in Baltimore was about as far as my father was comfortable traveling from the Eastern Shore.

Still, my childhood fascination with the Land Down Under has served me well over the years.

In the 1980s and 90s I had the opportunity to travel to Australia about a half dozen times for business and pleasure. I made a lot of friends, got into a little trouble and always loved the time I spent there.

I was eager to return.

It had been seventeen years since I last set foot in Sydney, a city I fell in love with at first sight.  I was eager to show it to my wife and kids — too eager perhaps. I had built expectations so high no place on earth could meet them.

Yet Sydney did.

My friend John had invited us to stay with him and his family in neighborhood near the South Head of Sydney Harbor.  We couldn’t have had better hosts.

John led us on coastal walks, showing us the spot where the First Fleet landed one minute and the site of one of Australia’s most notorious crimes the next.

His storytelling was surpassed only by the views.

It’s funny, the twists and turns of life.

I have no idea why my father told me we were moving to Australia.  He said it one time, then never mentioned it again.

I don’t know why I took him so seriously, why I wore out the “Australia” entry in our World Book Encyclopedia.

I do know that twenty years after my father’s off-handed comment, I met and became friends with dozens of Australians.  Those lasting friendships make our visit here even more meaningful for me.

But that’s life, isn’t it?

A chain of events, carrying us forward, one coincidence to the next, until finally we arrive at the place where we are supposed to be.