LANCEY,
MELVIN P., ZAGREB,
CROATIA
First
of all, Daryl Colwell; Great job tracking me down. I was shocked to see your
reunion letter arrive. I won't be at the reunion, but hope you all enjoy.
So,
update on the past 40 years? Well, the last several years have been more
eventful than the first 35 or 36 years after graduation. That should make it
easy enough to cover 40 years fairly briefly.
The
week after we graduated from good old AHS I started working for the railroad.
During that time I had 2 kids, both also eventual AHS grads. Actually, my son
had his 20 year reunion this year. Each of my kids now have 2 kids. That would
make me grandpa times 4. The grand kids range in age from 12 to 6. Still hard
to get used to being called grandpa. Grandparents are old people, right??? I
don't feel that old! I feel like I should be 40, not graduated 40 years ago.
Anyway,
I worked for the railroad for a total of 11 1/2 years. During that time, I
decided I didn't want to work for the railroad for the next 40 years, nor live
in Alliance forever. I started driving to Chadron to take college classes while
I worked in the evenings. After a couple years, I had enough credits to apply
for Chiropractic College. I quit the railroad at the end of 1987, moved to
Minneapolis, began my Chiropractic education, and said I had finally moved away
from Alliance permanently. Also along the way, I was married, had the 2 kids,
divorced, married again, and divorced again. The second wife lasted half way
through Chiropractic College.
After
graduating from Northwestern College of Chiropractic in 1991, of course I moved
back to Alliance. Because that is what happens when you say you will never do
something, you do it. I had an opportunity to take over a Chiropractic office
and my kids were still there, so I returned. Alliance was a good place to live
for a while. But, 18 years later, it was well past time to move on. I sold
the business and moved with my fiancée to the Denver area, where I purchased a
Chiropractic practice in Lone Tree.
Here
is where things start getting more interesting. I loved living in
Colorado, but became tired of dealing with insurance companies and some of the
other headaches owning the practice. So, I sold that office 3 years after
moving to Denver, and off we went to the southeastern coast of Florida where my
fiancée grew up. This takes us to the spring of 2012. While in Florida, I
realized it would be a nice enough place to spend the winter. Unfortunately, we
moved there just as summer was kicking in. Florida in the summer, I found, is a
hot, humid, bug infested hell hole. But that's just my opinion. If you like the
95/95, and bugs, it's great. That would be 95 degrees and 95% humidity. By late
summer I was realizing I didn't want to be in Florida. Half the year sucked and
I had spent most of my life wanting to be in Colorado anyway.
Something
I had wanted to do since I was younger was to live in the mountains and ski. So
rather than waiting to see what killed me first, sweating to death or being
eaten by insects, I found a job at a ski area in Colorado working with the ski
patrol. Dream come true! Back to Colorado I went. The fiancée moved back after
ski season, so she got to enjoy Florida for the winter, while I got paid to ski
every day. Not only skiing every day, but getting paid for it! In the meantime,
I lined up a job running a new Chiropractic office that was opening just after
ski season, with no insurance billing stress. This brings us up to the spring
of 2013.
That
summer of 2013, my fiancée decided that I no longer fit into her future plans.
A little bit of a surprise after being together 6 years. I thought the previous
year or 3 had been pretty life changing, with selling 2 businesses, buying 1,
moving to Denver, moving to Florida and back to Denver. Turns out I hadn't seen
anything yet.
In
early 2014 I realized that for the first time in my life, I had no real ties to
anything. My kids were grown and on their own, I had no more fiancée or wife,
and I no longer had a business to worry about. I was 2 weeks’ notice from doing
whatever I wanted. You could say I decided it was time to run away from home.
After looking at different opportunities, I stumbled onto a spa that had just
gotten the contract to operate the spa services on a small fleet of cruise
ships, and they were going to include Chiropractic on some of the larger ships.
Next
thing I knew I was off to a new adventure, working on a cruise ship. Hadn't
even dreamed of such a thing, partly because the job didn't exist before. All
of a sudden I'm on a plane to Australia to get on the ship. After stops in New
Zealand, some French Polynesian and Hawaiian islands, we went to Alaska for the
summer, then back to the south Pacific and Australia. On my second ship, I
spent most of that winter in the Caribbean. Life was good! Until the
cruise line and the spa decided the Chiropractors didn't make them enough
money, so they ended that experiment. It was a great year though. Made friends
from all over the world, met some interesting people, saw a lot of new places,
and had an all-around great time. With that experience over, it was back to
Colorado.
As
usual, Colorado was great. But . . . I was back where I started and still
wanted to run away and do something different. I stayed for almost a year in
Denver, then it was time for a new adventure. After looking at a number of
options in different parts of the world, I found a Chiropractor in Zagreb
Croatia who was looking for some help. This takes us to the end of 2015. I
hopped on a plane just before the New Year and moved to Zagreb for a big taste
of culture shock. A good percentage of you are probably saying; where the hell
is Croatia? The other percentage probably don't care or haven't read this far.
Croatia is across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. One of the great things here is
that so many places are close. Some of the better known countries in the area;
Italy, Austria and Hungary, are all about a 2 hour drive from Zagreb.
When
I first arrived here, I was thinking WTF did I do?!?!!??! I couldn't understand
people, read signs or even labels at the grocery store. I was buying mystery
meat for a while. Funny thing, one of the meat products I bought, I was using
google translate to figure out just what it was. One of the words on the label
translated to smallpox. So I quit using google translate on meat labels. Now, I
really enjoy it here. Definitely a different lifestyle and some things took
getting used to. Still adapting to some things.
I
had the opportunity to fulfill another dream this past winter, skiing in the
Alps. And it was great. Some of the other things I have been fortunate enough
to do over the years; I have run about 15 marathons, or longer races around the
country, including the New York City and Boston Marathons. For a while I was an
active skydiver and jumped at the fair in Hemingford with Duane Dobson the last
few years they had the skydivers. I have a little fear of heights but have
forced myself to bungee jump several times, and while I was working on the ship
had the opportunity to jump off the Sky Tower in Auckland New Zealand. Also on
the ship, I rode what they claim is the world’s longest zip line in Alaska. The
past couple weeks I went paragliding and canyoning in the Alps, and am looking
forward to winter and more skiing already. I always enjoy trying new things. I
guess that is obvious since I am sitting here in a new country with a new
language to learn at age 58. Or I'm crazy, or stupid. Who knows?
My
current plan is to stay here for at least 3 years until I qualify for permanent
residence. Currently, I can see myself being here longer, but as I have found
the past several years . . .you just never know what changes life might throw
your way. As long as things are good and I like it, I will stay. If that
changes, then it will be time for whatever the next chapter brings.
Hope
you are all doing well and life is good. My email address is: chiromel1@gmail.com. If
anybody happens to be coming to this area on vacation, or just wants to say hi,
drop me a note.
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