Now just guess where I am

Sketchbook comics from my travelling days

It’s been a while since I posted any comics from the early days of my old sketchbook journal, The Drawing Book. Last week I wrote about going to see a Bob Dylan concert in Germany, in 2003. But now we’re going way back to 1998 to pick up the story of my life as a flight attendant based in Calgary.

Back then, I’d work on the flight to Frankfurt, but when we got in, I didn’t always head to the hotel with the rest of the crew. I’d hop on a train and travel two hours south to the town where I’d once lived as an exchange student. It was only a 24-hour layover, but it was long enough to have a good visit!

On this trip, it was December 1998. I knew the German train system in that part of the country pretty well. I had to travel south to Karlsruhe (where I caught a glimpse of the Christmas market), and then switch to a local train that went to my town. I was surprised (and annoyed) to find that, instead of a small romantic train, the local train was now a streetcar - not nearly as romantic (especially if, like me, you’d been up all night. I was getting grouchy!).

(In later years, I came to appreciate those local streetcars a bit more, when my son became quite interested in public transit and trains in general. In case you like comics about public transit, you can check out this whole series my son and I wrote about Calgary’s public transit vehicles for The Sprawl. So, streetcars are ok, I guess. But, I still miss the romance of the old trains.)

Once I got to my old town, I caught up with the host parents I’d lived with back when I was an exchange student. My first host mother gave me her son’s comfy yellow sweater to wear, the one I always borrowed when I lived there! And I talked with my host sister about her upcoming plans to get married! It was like coming home to a town full of caring relatives.

After those short visits, I’d stay over in my town and take the train back to Frankfurt in the morning, in time to meet the crew for the flight home that afternoon. And then I’d finally get a good long sleep!

The next page in The Drawing Book shows me at another destination: the Salad King restaurant in Toronto, where I reflected about some of the least favourite things about my job with the airline…

And here’s one more page that shows me back on the airport bus in Germany. Since I’d started flying, I’d had a few unsuccessful love affairs. It always helped me to write about them in my drawing book, but by this time, lots of my co-workers knew that I had this sketchbook, and they often asked to read it - so I had to be careful about the way I told the story. Of course, this is a classic problem that faces all autobiographical comics makers, but it was kind of a new problem for me, back then. I was used to telling stories without a filter. That’s one of the reasons I still like these old drawing books so much - I wasn’t hiding anything.

Back in Calgary, in my spare time, I was trying to find ways to work in the field I really wanted to work in: not flight attending, but art. I knew someone who ran a drop-in centre for youth in the north of Calgary. They asked if I’d paint a mural there to liven things up, and told me I could paint whatever I wanted. I worked for a few days, covering every inch of space on the walls, and drawing all my friends. I drew the guy I was in love with, sitting with the girlfriend he’d ditched me for, and looking really sad, while my friends laughed at him. I drew myself finding true love with a different guy. I really wonder how long this mural stayed up - it would have been a pretty distracting space to inhabit, with all those weird pictures! But for me, it was a step towards making a living as an artist. I found some old photos of the mural work-in-progress - yeah, kind of wild!

In a funny turn of events, my mom ended up being the person who officiated at the opening ceremony for the space. My mom was a member of the Alberta government back then, but that’s another story (and you can read a bit about it in this comic I wrote for The Sprawl in 2019).

Thanks for tuning in! Wishing you safe travels, good visits with your old friends, and long sleeps when your journeys are over!