7/1/2026 (just to mess with you...January 7, 2026)

So, it's been an amazing 41 years and two months since our C.O.S. (Close Of Service).  Our last few weeks in St. Vincent are blurry now (thankful I recorded the other events). The journal entries ended abruptly and we exited St. Vincent tearful but hopeful for a return.  The return didn't happen.  We even left some items at the cottage in case we returned. The U.S.A.I.D. contract didn't materialize and there wasn't an extension offered to me to get the M.I.U. (Marketing Intelligence Unit) fully up and running with the new PCV. Life quickly moved on.  We did celebrate a last Thanksgiving at the cottage:

Google tells me that Thanksgiving in 1984 was on November 22nd, which meant it was the day before my birthday (a two-fer!) That would have made it just a few days before we C.O.S.'ed.  We were probably VERY busy in that last week.  C.O.S. must have started on November 26th because that is the entry date for St. Lucia on my passport and we left for Miami on December 1st because that is the date on our tickets (yes, I kept them). 

Our C.O.S. was unremarkable.  Just a lot of time sharing and saying goodbye while enjoying a few days at a hotel in Castries.  Predictably, WINLINK failed to honor our flight to Vieux Fort, so we took a taxi, BARELY having enough for the trip ($135.00 EC sticks in my head) to catch the flight to Miami.

LIAT (Leave Island Any Time) took us to Castries but we took Eastern Airlines (no longer in existence) from Vieux Fort back to the U.S.  The cool thing about Eastern, and probably why they eventually went bankrupt, was that they had a 21-day unlimited flying plan which worked well for us because we planned to visit so many family and friends on our way back to Salt Lake City.  The paper tickets made quite a "book" and you can see the itinerary: Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, Norfolk, Atlanta, New York (LGA), Charlotte, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, Salt Lake City...the more astute of you will also notice the return to St. Lucia on the 17th - didn't happen but the reason was because you had to book the roundtrip to get the special fare.  It was $606 U.S. - about $1900 in today's dollar.  I think the Peace Corp gave us an allowance for our return but I don't recall the amount.

That list of cities corresponded to: Seeing Debbie's cousin Greg and wife, seeing our landlady in New York, spending time with family in Chicago, going to see friends Scott and Kathy in Colorado Springs, and then returning home to SLC.  It didn't go quite as we expected.  We were able to check all our luggage through to SLC when we arrived in Miami (try THAT in today's super paranoid air travel industry!) so we were relatively unfettered.  When we got to a very chilly NY, I came down with either a terrible flu or another round of Dengue fever and hardly had time to enjoy the party Mrs. Douyon threw for us.  Deb got sick shortly thereafter while we were in Chicago and we eventually skipped the Denver trip (Sorry, Scott and Kathy!) just so we could be home a couple of days early. After that it's a blur.  Christmas festivities and eventually settling into life as we know it (and have it) today.

The strongest takeaway for me, the lasting part of the Peace Corp experience, is the "dealing with ambiguity" part.  We have been in many situations since where we didn't know what we were in for (parenting comes immediately to mind).  Combining that experience with the assurance that God has our backs makes for a joyful, peaceful existence.  It's not all rainbows and glitter, but the Peace Corps trained us to be engaged and flexible, open and non-judgemental until all the dust had settled.  I can think of plenty of phrases that would fit that result in today's vernacular, but I'll stick with "It's the toughest job I ever learned  to love".

This was written in the last page of the three-ring binder I used for a journal.  I am pretty sure it was the FIRST entry  :-)

BTW...we DID return to St. Vincent, 22 years later in 2006 with our sons, Jonas and Sam.  The cottage had not changed all that much in all those years:

But we had changed: