Going to Europe on my own at 14 was an adventure. Can today’s kids ever feel as far away from home?

The first time I flew on a plane, I was 14 years old. It was my first time going to Europe and my first time anywhere outside the United States other than Canada. But Canada doesn’t really count, does it? Not really, especially back then, when you didn’t even need a passport to drive over the border.

That first time overseas I was alone — kind of. I was playing in an orchestra on a music tour. There were itineraries and things were planned, and there were adults making sure I was present. I was with 85 other high school students, eight counselors, and a director.

I think maybe that’s part of what I’m most thankful for when I think of those summers in Europe. I felt so far away then.

But I wasn’t with my family or my parents. At that age, at least for me, that counted as “alone.”

Roughing it

This was back before we all had smartphones in all our pockets. I couldn’t text my mom and dad every hour, and I couldn’t check my email whenever I wanted. I didn’t even have an email. I could call them, however. And I did, every few days.

Of course, you couldn’t just pick up a pay phone and make an international call. You needed a calling card.

Remember those?

The back was covered with instructions. How to call out of a country, what code to enter calling into a country, and a ton of numbers you had to enter before you even made the call. It was an insanely convoluted system, almost as if it were a test you had to pass. If you accidentally pressed a wrong number, you would have to start all over again.

But this system did work. And it allowed me to check in with Mom and Dad every three or four days, as they requested.

Warm welcome

Every stop of the tour, we would get divided up and stay with different host families — a few kids per household. They would give us a little tour in their broken English (the only language any of us spoke), offer their phone if we wanted to call home, and — if they were really cool — let us have a little wine with dinner.

On our last night, we would play a concert outside in the middle of the town. All the host families would come, sit there in folding chairs, and listen. There was food, sparkling water (then still rare in America), maybe some wine.

The next morning, we would get on the bus and drive to another tiny little town three hours away and do it all again. After four weeks of this it was time to get on a plane and head back home.

I did this every summer in high school. It was a blast, and I learned a lot — both about other people and myself. They were formative experiences for a kid from the Midwest like me, and they set me on a path I’m still on today.

Far and away

Still, I have to wonder if I would ever let my kids do something like that. The thought of sending my son off to Europe at such a young age with people I don’t know gives me serious preemptive anxiety. On the other hand, my parents were good parents and they let me do it. And I survived.

Fortunately, my son won’t be 14 for years, so I have a little time to learn to let go. And if he does go, we’ll have the full spectrum of modern technology keeping us connected, not just some dinky plastic card.

At the same time, I wonder if the end of the calling card didn’t take some of the magic with it. Knowing everything that’s happening with all your friends back home while posting pictures every hour for all of them to see doesn’t quite plunge you into the unknown.

I think maybe that’s part of what I’m most thankful for when I think of those summers in Europe. I felt so far away then — far from Mom and Dad, my school, everyone I knew, and everything familiar. Maybe one of the blessings of having grown up when I grew up was the possibility of that kind of distance. Traveling meant just a little more when you could feel far away.

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Cozy connection

I’m in Europe again, though I have a smartphone and email now. I text my wife all the time, and she sends me pictures of the kids. I FaceTime with them, tell them I can’t wait to see them next week, and send them videos of what it looks like here. I manage business on my phone, write columns like this one one my computer, and continue my work as usual despite being across the ocean in the Europe that used to feel so far away.

I like this new reality quite a bit, but I think I liked the old one too. Distance doesn’t feel so great any more. The world is smaller and everything nearer. Maybe the whimsy of those childhood summers in Europe was simply the whimsy of youth and I’m only feeling all this because now I’m old and without that same wonder. But I’m not sure.

We are in the age of ever-present digital connection, and that’s not changing any time soon. Those final years before the mass adoption of the cell phone were the last gasps of a big, magical world. We didn’t really understand it at the time, but the cell phone, the smartphone, and email marked the end of distance and some kind of world of whimsy.

There’s no good in lamenting the things we can’t change, and there are quite a few advantages to this newer, much smaller world. But whenever I want to remember the old excitement of that wider, wilder world, I recall the feel of a calling card in my hand and smile.