Dreams really can come true. As you likely know, yesterday was Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is all about stories for me. Thanksgiving means dreams, too.
Thanksgiving has been part of my “Retirement in Portugal Story” since 1979. If retiring overseas is a dream for you I think you might enjoy this story. So, settle in, dear readers, and read on, or should I say dream on.
Woodruff family meals include stories. My parents encouraged conversation at meals—it was their way to get my brothers and me to slow down, stop gulping our food, and connect. Stories at the dinner table always accomplished their objective and my parents were gifted in asking us about our day to get the sharing started.
Thanksgiving in the Woodruff family when I was young was a meal on steroids, which offered ample time for many stories. We lived outside of New York City until I was halfway through grade school. Bundling up and watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was an annual tradition shared with our aunt who lived in the city followed by a feast with lots of stories shared around the table.
When 1979 rolled around, I was single and working in hotel/resort marketing and management. Thanksgiving was just as important to my 30-something adult as it was to me as a child. My annual Thanksgiving dinners included friends enjoying the parade on TV and feasting on a huge turkey.
But 1979 was a different animal all together. I had been invited by the State Department to travel to Portugal on a hospitality industry trade mission. We were booked on a red-eye flight to Lisbon that left New York at the end of Thanksgiving Day.
I traveled to Manhattan the day before Thanksgiving. I settled into the hotel our family always used in the theatre district—the Wentworth. I left my suitcase on the bed and rushed to the box office of the Uris Theatre to buy a last-minute ticket to Sweeney Todd. Success, I scored a house seat for a wonderful experience—Angela Lansbury’s Mrs. Lovett.
Still humming about meat pies filled with “a little priest” the next morning, I stored my suitcase with the Wentworth’s bell staff and joined the crowds waiting for the start of the parade.
It was warm-ish for New York in November, and a little fog was lifting. Perfect weather for the parade. I couldn’t wait for the snoopy balloon. I was experiencing Thanksgiving live in New York, something I hadn’t done since I was seven. Despite the warm weather, there were chestnut vendors scattered along the parade route. Every piece of nostalgia was in place.
I was a very happy fella as I took a cab to JFK Airport, which I was still calling Idlewild Airport—old habits die slowly for me. The beginning of this trip had worked out well.
At this point in the story, gentle readers, I need to admit that I did not want to go to Portugal. I had never been to Portugal. It was the worst time of the year to be away from my job at the resort. This was when outstanding contracts had to be finalized before customers got swept up with the holidays and the start of a new year. I did not want to be away from the office for the first two weeks of December. No way.
I was told that I had to go. According to the VP of Operations for our management company, we could not tell the State Department that I wasn’t going on the trip. No way.
After a fun overnight in Manhattan I now felt I was being delivered to the gallows. A trip to Portugal that could create a nightmare for my job back in the States. I settled into the plane and tried to sleep as we flew to Lisbon.
I woke as the plane descended to Lisbon on a sunny Friday morning. I was greeted at the airport by a Portuguese host and guided via limo from the airport to the Tivoli Hotel on Avenida de Liberdade.
I recall the morning sunlight was magical. Colors were intense. The air was warm, the pace was gentle, the weather reminded me of spring, not November.
I suddenly felt I was in Manhattan in the 50’s, when I was a little boy. The calçada sidewalks seemed to glisten in the light. There were flower vendors, fruit stands, and roasted chestnut vendors. Poof! The dread about being away from my office disappeared. I was in Portugal and I liked everything I saw.
The following two-and-a-half weeks were an experience of a lifetime. The members of our small trade mission bonded with our Portuguese hosts. Friendships developed, stories were shared, correspondence continued for years after, photographs and postcards were exchanged.
We visited the Algarve. We dined. We wined. We laughed. We cried. We listened. We talked, and talked, and talked. We walked, and walked, and walked. The best ingredients for stories for the rest of my life.
At our last banquet everybody shared farewell remarks. Glasses of wine were raised, and toasts were delivered to the success of our time together. I stood up to thank my new friends. Tears filled my eyes and I blurted, “This isn’t goodbye, because I plan to retire to Portugal. I will return.”
My Portugal Thanksgiving story has been shared at Thanksgiving dinners through the years. My dad believed that anything we say out loud will eventually happen. “The universe listens,” he would say. Forty years later, I made good on my promise to retire in Portugal.
Portugal is indeed everything I hoped for in 1979. Perhaps it could be for you, too.
So remember, dear readers, share your dreams out loud. Give voice to ideas, hopes, and fantasies. Tell strangers, family, friends. Do it at Thanksgiving dinners, at lunches, at breakfasts…
And who knows, you’ll might just be saying as we do, “A vida é boa—life is good.”
Sincerely,
Joch Woodruff
Portugal Circle Liaison
