By Jim Hunt for the News and Journal
Each time I get ready for an overseas trip, I remember back to my youth and
accompanying my parents to the Benedum Airport. We would often drive out to see the
planes taking off and I would crane my neck to see the door to a plane open and the
passengers walk down the steps to the tarmac. And when the plane was loading the
passengers for the next flight, I would look at each one and wonder what adventure they
were undertaking. Some would wear business suits and others would be in t-shirts and
shorts, but each one would get a once over from me as I wondered if I would ever be on
one of those flights.
Fast forward sixty years and I have spent a considerable amount of time flying
throughout the country and the world on various business trips and other adventures.
When someone will see me out, they frequently mention my travels and say how they
envy my adventurous lifestyle. Sometimes they say that they always wanted to travel
but things got in the way. I owe a lot to my parents, who instilled in me the desire to see
the world and not let things get in the way.
When I talk to high school classes about some of my trips, I encourage them to apply
and get a passport. They will sometimes look at me quizzically and say they aren’t
planning any trips, so why would you invest in a passport. I tell them that a passport is a
magical document and that when you get one, the opportunities to travel will magically
appear and the next thing you know, you are walking down the jetway, headed for
distant shores. It happened for me, when I applied for a passport, within six months I
had an opportunity to travel to Minsk in Belorussia for a youth conference with ninety-
nine other Americans. The trip was for three weeks, and it only cost around three-
hundred dollars. My magic passport worked!
After that initial trip, opportunities seemed to pop up out of nowhere. A trip to the
Ukraine, attending the 1980 Olympics in Moscow to working on Habitat builds in Poland
and Hungary. They were not always in first-class hotels, and I was sometimes crammed
into the rear seats of an aging airliner, chugging over the ocean. When I was an officer
with the National League of Cities, I attended meetings in South Korea, China, Turkey,
Morocco, South Africa and several other countries. I once asked the director of the
National League of Cities, why he kept sending me on these trips. He said that when I
represented the National League of Cities at these meetings, I never complained when
things went wrong or when I had to adjust my schedule at the last minute.
Travel can be difficult and often things don’t go as planned, but with a magic passport in
hand, you can see things that others only read about. And often the “mistakes” are
opportunities for adventure. The education you receive through travel cannot be
duplicated at the finest colleges or universities. As division and political unrest affect
many areas of the world, seeing the land and meeting the people can give you insight
beyond any library or YouTube video.
I’m heading out soon for a trip to London, England and as I tuck my magic passport into
my pocket, I recognize how lucky I have been to see a world and meet people of
different races, religions, cultures, and lifestyles. A magic passport, indeed!