by H H "Hub" Brown  

Recently some of my grandchildren and their relations decided to take a vacation as American Airlines had a special offer. My grandson Ron Raczkowski paid my fare with his Frequent Flyers Miles. He works for a firm that has headquarters in London, so he flies back and forth a lot. His sister, Karen, and friend and me, Ron's brother, Rob, was supposed to go with us, but an emergency arose and he was unable to go.

 We had to fly to Chicago to head for London. Brother Bob said we had to go there to get a running start to cross the ocean, but it must be because Syracuse Airport isn't equipped for international flights. We left at about 8:00 in the evening of the 4th, landed in Heathrow, London, about six hours later. 

 I suppose because London is such an ancient city and wasn't really designed for automobiles most travel is by taxi, bus, train, underground, or motorcycle. A cab driver told us when motorbikes weave through traffic they are supposed to go 10 miles per hour. This is called white lining and isn't allowed in lots of cities, but in London they go zipping through those usually wet streets like there's no tomorrow. But, we saw only one accident, a bus and a motorbike.

 We stayed at a Thistle Hotel. I think there's about ten of them in London. My room was facing a bridge across the Thames River, so if I had nothing else to do, I could sit and watch traffic and pedestrians, of which there are many. 

 The weather was similar to ours, but in the public places you would see people dressed in much heavier clothing than we would wear here sitting at the tables drinking hot drinks. If the street was closed to autos, there was apt to be some kind of an entertainer, a juggler with a fast patter who would get volunteers from the crowd and then put them through some embarrassing situation, or some people on a flatbed truck getting people to join in sing-a-longs.

 I wish I could remember all the history that we heard as we visited different famous buildings. We followed a Beefeater around in our tour of the Tower of London. He seemed to revel in the cruelties that had been performed on certain members of the Royalty. I remember his saying, "In this room Sir Charles so and so was incarcerated so many years and was finally beheaded. He died shortly after!" He would recite nursery rhymes and then relate the history that had inspired them.

 Each guest was given a voucher which was supposed to be handed in for a continental breakfast, but it seemed that most of the guests had three kinds of meat, beans, and tomatoes besides their toast and tea or coffee. Some one of our crowd would sit me down and ask what I wanted to eat. I decided I would stick near to my usual breakfast - cereal, toast, yogurt, and lots of fruit. 

 After breakfast, someone always had a certain tour or museum or cathedral trip we should see or take. It seems the city has built so many places that are very interesting. I think we only had two really sunny days. But, when there's a mist or light rain, Ron says that's what they call liquid sunshine. 

 Because I wasn't good on my feet, Ron got a wheelchair from the hotel and he or Karen or Bob or his brother or Ron's girlfriend would push me around on the rough streets which was quite a job. 

 I was very impressed with Harrods store which I think occupied five floors of an entire city block, and of St. Paul's Cathedral which the Germans bombed. The largest bomb went through to the cellar floor but didn't explode. They hauled it to a swampy place and detonated it.