Bedding down the Bedouins

Today, the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda and the Colonel begin their fourth year aboard Eegeebeegee, our promised land at the northern end of southern nowhere. This is a momentous event; the occasion appropriate for uplifting speeches, orchestral music, grand fireworks, flowery parades, and rest from labor to reflect on the wilderness wandering that preceded arrival here at their lives' culminating point.

There's a tight budget, so the Colonel will mutter and hum while traipsing from chore to chore and try to remember who he is when he stops to take a breather.

Marking three years living in the same location may not seem like anything special to you, gentle readers. But, for the Colonel and his long-suffering bride, the average interval between moves, the majority on orders from Uncle Sam, was well south of two years. Many "homes" held our eclectic collection of sturdy furniture for mere months. The comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda and the Colonel's fathers were career Air Force men. By the time Miss Brenda consented to joining households with the Colonel, at the tender ages of 19 and 20, respectively, they each had nearly a score of "permanent" addresses under their belts. The next thirty years easily doubled that number.

At every stop and start in that nomadic life, "Some day..." began the refrain.

Some day, we'll have our place in the country.

Some day, we'll put down roots.

Some day, we'll get to see blooms on the roses we plant.

Some day, we'll buy furniture without worrying about how it will hold up in a cross-country move.

Some day, we'll make friends to whom we won't have to say goodbye in six months.

Some day, we'll wake up in the middle of the night and not have to figure out where we are.

Some day is today.

Except that the Colonel, with ever-diminishing mental faculties, still wakes up thinking he is somewhere else.