The One, Last, Great Hurrah

By Madeline C. Lanshe

“We are the real Paines,” Jackie Paine declared. “We spell it with an ‘i’.” Just like Painesville, Ohio, right around the corner from Advanced RV, where Jackie and her husband, Bill, flew to from Dallas, where they live in an independent senior living village. What brought them to the Midwest was the purchase of their third ARV, Detour.

A year ago, Jackie and Bill sold back their van, Kiss, to ARV, because they thought their traveling days were over. They were having trouble getting around, and decided it was time to finally stop being on the move. “I’ve been spending years traveling around visiting everybody,” Bill said. “I was going to stay in Dallas. If they wanted to see me, they were going to have to come to see me in Texas, because I wasn’t going to leave the Dallas city limits.”

But that attitude changed during a conversation over coffee. Bill and Jackie agreed it would be great to have an ARV and be back on the road. But they were too old for that, or so they’d said. Bill just had his birthday in November, turning 90. “Then we decided, why not? Let’s just do it. We may enjoy a day of it, we may enjoy a year of it,” Bill said. About a week later, they were on a plane headed for Ohio.

They described their senior village and how wonderful it was to live independently, with nursing or memory care if needed. They’ve made lots of friends. They love the view from their apartment, where they can see a pond with ducks and other waterfowl. There is a wide variety of classes, from pottery to woodworking to sewing to theater, but none of that appealed to them. According to Bill and Jackie, they didn’t want to just sit around and wait to die.

Bill and Jackie have seven children. They each had three before they were married, then one together. They even have a few greatgrandchildren now, who also live in Dallas, while several of their children still live in Mississippi, where the family’s from originally.

How did their children react when they heard their parents, just a decade shy of a century, were buying another RV and traveling the country again?

“I’m sure you heard the explosion up here,” Bill laughed. “All of them got to talking, telling us, y’all are crazy.”

But Bill and Jackie reassured their children that it’s not going to be like past travels, where they had a destination and a time frame. No more driving at 95 mph for Bill. They aren’t going to have a schedule. If they get tired, they’ll just pull over and rest or spend the night.

“That’s the advantage of one of these,” Bill said, referring to the RVs.

“And the restroom,” Jackie agreed enthusiastically.

In no time, the children were on board, probably not so surprised by their parents’ itch for traveling. Growing up, Bill and Jackie took the family on trips often and consistently. They thought it would hold the kids together, visiting places and making good memories, whether it was just a Saturday afternoon trip to a park or campground, or several weeks going out into the Rockies.

It seems their plan to bond the children through travel and adventure was a rather good one. Over 50 years ago, before the couple was married, they took the six children to Vicksburg, Mississippi. It was the first trip together with all eight of them. They stopped at a park with a river and an overlook. Bill and Jackie were looking at the river and talking, and when they looked over at the kids, they were running around, playing, and getting along. It was the first time they felt like, maybe this’ll work.

Neither of them said anything to each other at that moment, but years later, after they were married, it was brought up, and they discovered they both had the same feeling that day, that maybe there might be a possibility here.

Besides traveling for the sake of their children and making, even to this day, a yearly vacation to the beach with the entire family, Bill and Jackie have reasons of their own for loving to hit the road. It’s the scenery, the view on the road wherever they go, meeting new people, seeing old friends, and constantly learning.

“I’ve always liked to go and get out,” Bill said. “Get out and go to different places.”

One year, when the children ranged in age from 11-15, they went to Mount Mitchell, North Carolina. It was closing time when they started to make their way back to the van. There were different paths leading to the parking lot. Two of their girls and one of their boys took a different path. Unbeknownst to any of them, it wound them far from the parking lot, and into the valley. Park rangers came by and Bill and Jackie said three of their kids were missing. Seemingly not too concerned, the rangers said,

“They’ll come back.”

Bill went to find them, and he blew on a horn that they’d taken with them, but the forest just soaked up the sound. The rangers were right, however, because just as it got dark, the three children arrived at the van.

They drove up from there to the Blue Ridge Mountains. After putting the kids to sleep, Bill recalled that Jackie started making, for her first time, a cheesecake, in the little kitchen of their van.

When they parked, it was around 2 o’clock in the morning. They peeked outside, and there were stars everywhere. It was like looking up at the heavens. They woke their children, not wanting them to miss the awesome sight, and as one family, they gazed up at the magnificent sky.

Now, Bill and Jackie have the opportunity to leave their peaceful village in Dallas and again witness what magic the world has to offer.

“This is the One, Last, Great Hurrah,” Bill said. “May last a week, may last a year. Could last ten years.”

“We really have totally been blessed all 50 years,” Jackie said.

“This is not the trip I signed up for,” Bill added, referring to more than just the start of their newest adventure. “But it’s been much better than I would’ve expected.”