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I'm c j will More Wilson More me an m o hr Moved to Panama in October of 66 had to leave in June of 1968 due to a family emergency. Um did not want to go to the canal. Did not wanna move. But then at that age, nobody does.

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But then when I got there, I didn't want to come home Are back to the States Because panels home a melting pot far greater than the United States The canal itself with the shipping trade and the movement of the ships the world had never seen anything like it and never will.

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The fact that everybody was respectful of everybody It didn't matter what your skin color Waas you are who your character waas friendship You could be missing. You can be lost contact with somebody for over 30 years and pick up like it was yesterday. My two sons were raised with if you asked him.

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Do you want rice with dinner? They'll reply. No sticky race because rice was made with chicken broth down there. And I recently got the witness my youngest one getting the gallon of milk out of the refrigerator and he shook it just like I did. Because Mindy Dairy you had to shake the milk when you went to use it because it had separated when that really sticks out is being treated to a tour of the U.

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S s friends shipped from France by the captain because we were down there and they hadn't had many people come see. I mean, I was blessed. I've got to see the Q e one and the United States the first go round before any of the second ships were made and be able to go on board.

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Um, it was just an awesome place to live and be sad because Panama was the last place I felt like I was truly own. Yeah, I'm gonna burst into tears. It is home. I wasn't born there, but I was blessed to live there. How blessed. I waas that my mothers first husband that got killed in World War Two had gone through the canal and left a memory with her that she wanted to go there when my dad had a chance to go.

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So it waas very powerful the people, the way of life. We lived in a harder in a small, like utopia. It was colony like I mean, you had the rules, you had to follow him. But yet we had the best of times and fun. And because of the canal, I learned.

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So I learned from my high school home Economics teacher. I now make a living doing that. Go on a trip there, but don't take a cruise there. Go immerse yourself in the culture, you know, Go visit the islands. Go visit to Boga. Go visit the kuna Indians take a dugout wooden canoe dugout right out to the Sam Blessed Islands It's nothing.

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And if if they think rainforest here is anything The rain forest was there and I was there during numb. So the four bases where are with my back backyard e ni even have shells from things and different stuff My BFF, who I met in 66 who to this day we talked at least 45 times a week.

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We had a 30 year gap. Her father made sure that I got to go into the interior at that time and do things because he chaperoned her wherever she went. When she went to a cousin's birthday party. I was invited to go. I knew nobody spoke very little Spanish and had a blast of a lifetime.

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He made sure I was treated properly, respectfully and danced. It was awesome.