1975

In June of 1975 my dad left our home in New Jersey for his new job in Saudi Arabia. The plan was for him to get settled in and then the rest of the family would move overseas to join him in October. It was the summer between 7th and 8th grade for me, and moving seemed too far away to worry about. My mom, on the other hand, had a lot to worry about. She had to pack everything we wanted to ship over, (with a 3000 pound limit), get rid of the rest, sell the house, and the car, and pack up the three of us kids, our dog, two cats, and the stuff we would need until our shipment arrived three months later, all of which had to be transported to the airport and checked first on a flight to London and then on to Dhahran.

Wow. Until I wrote that paragraph, I never fully considered the magnitude of what my mother pulled off. 

Here's what I remember about that summer. Despite being ridiculously busy, my mom must have also been feeling a little flush, because my dad's new job paid a lot more than the old one. For example, after our usual summer trip to visit family in suburban DC, she packed us into the station wagon and headed south instead of north. The four of us went to Williamsburg, stayed in a hotel, and visited Busch Gardens, Colonial Williamsburg, and Jamestown. It was a summer vacation the likes of which we'd never had before, including dinner at the King's Arms Inn in the historic section of Williamsburg. None of the three of us had ever been to such a nice restaurant. 

I also remember Mom being a little less frugal when shopping that summer. Of course we had to have enough clothes to last us an entire school year, but there also seemed to be a few more treats at the grocery store, too, and maybe a bit more cash in her wallet than we were used to seeing. There were a few bumps, of course, like the time when she decided we shouldn't bring our dog, and we cried and begged and offered our own money, and so she figured out a way to make it work. And despite everything she had to do, I remember my mom being generally upbeat and excited about the move, and so that's how I felt most of the time, too.

The shape of that summer was change and opportunity, and the promise of transformation from the provincial to the worldly, all under the safe guidance of my mother's steady hand.