by Kelly Babcock

Okay, I admit it. I'm getting old. Well, I'm getting older, my dad is old. But I'm getting to the point where I remember things fondly from my past, and when I tell younger souls about them they give me a quizzical look.
One of those things that I talk of fondly is the summer excursions I used to go on. Everyone knows about school bus trips, I experienced them during my education as well. And they were always more fun than just going to school. But they did not hold a candle to the summer excursions laid on by the Women's Institute of Kemble.
Why? I don't know. Perhaps it was because there would be no test the next day. Perhaps it was the amazing site of an entire village locking its doors and walking to the community centre in Sunday clothes on a Tuesday morning in early July to board a rumbling coach bus. Perhaps it was the fact that my grandparents were there with their friends. Perhaps it was the oddness of it. Perhaps it was ...
Well, who knows. But there was no thing like it in my short and sheltered life. And now that I'm older I have to say that there has been nothing like it in my less sheltered and often exciting life.
Nothing like it, except it.
I read with interest the poster you see accompanying this article, and I have to confess, I immediately got that same feeling I remember from those old days in my pretty little village.
The Friends of the Library is an organization that I would offer to suggest fits the description of a community group in that they have come together to benefit their community because they care.
And a bus trip to a place that is at once familiar in that it is part of our country and our province and yet is exotic in that it is not right outside our door and has sights and sounds and smells and experiences to offer that we would not find here at home is exactly the kind of thing that a community group should offer to any and all.
And here at the Hub, we are excited about this. It may be that not all of us can go, but we cannot find among our members anyone who isn't wanting to join the excursion. In fact, our publisher has already committed her presence and is looking forward to spending time with readers and friends who would like to participate in this outing.
And if this Arts Editor can shake loose the time required, he is so on that bus. I imagine that I'll hear the quiet voices of my grandparents in seats just up ahead of me, discussing what they are heading for on the way or what they saw as we return. But I won't look for them, I'll just listen. The illusion will be enough to bring back the adventure.
And there it is. The word I was looking for earlier. If I had to answer the question "Why was a summer excursion so amazing and fun?" now, I would tell you in that one word. Adventure. It's an adventure that you can have for less than the cost of a tank of gas, and the devotion of a day. A damned good deal if you ask me. And you'll get to experience a little piece of the adventure I experienced as a child in another time. A time that I thought was long gone, but now seems like it could be not really all that long ago.