Bill Shirley wasn’t certain he wanted to travel again, especially to favorite haunts, now that his wife, Roberta, had passed away.
“I knew I’d be seeing everything through her eyes, saying she’d love to see this or that. I was afraid I’d sound like a broken record,” he said recently.
And maybe he did.
After 65 years of marriage, that’s to be expected.
Roberta died in 2022 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s.
But Bill, at age 85, got his bag out in mid-August and ventured to Austria and Germany, along with his daughter, Susan Massey of Mount Vernon, Ill., and Jim and Karen Gilpin of Iola.
The trip whetted his appetite for more.
“It was great,” he said. “I’m hoping to take my grandson, Josh, and his family next summer.”
“I’m the type that if I like something, I want to do it again. Why not?”
He figures he’s been to the region at least a dozen times. “Every time I go, I feel more and more comfortable.”
The trip included visits to Munich, Vienna and Garmisch in Bavaria. They toured castles and opera houses. Attended orchestral concerts. Drank beer and delighted in the fare.
Bill navigated the cities’ cobblestones streets with the help of Jim, who pushed him in a wheelchair.
“He was a godsend,” Bill said.
On his visit to the Register, Bill sported a T-shirt from the town of Garmisch.
“I bought three of them,” he said, noting the group’s luggage had been lost in transit.
