Willie Nelson, eat your heart out

Singer Willie Nelson, whose trademark concert song is “On the Road Again,” has nothing on Sandy Bee Lynn and husband Glenn Lynn who, fittingly, are musicians in the Cuyahoga Falls New Horizons Band.

BJ Reference Library retiree, who later put in about 15 years at the Orrville and Wadsworth public libraries and lives in Doylestown, and Glenn are headed for Canada after stops in Madison, Wisconsin, Minot, North Dakota, Eau Claire, Wisconsin and Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

Madison was the first day of their trip, and covered 573 miles.

Glenn temporarily a Mountie

In Eau Claire Sandy and Glenn saw 4½ miles of sunflowers planted by a widower to honor his wife, killed by cancer. He sells the seeds and gives money to charity.

Why stop at Fergus Falls? Sandy’s nonchalant response: “Not much. Seemed like a logical place to stop. It's pretty.”

Fergis Falls has 13,138 people. The Falls were discovered in 1856 by Scottish trapper Joe Whitford, who was killed in 1862 in a Sioux uprising. He named them after his boss, James Fergus, who never set eyes on the place.

Cruising, as on a large ship, also is in their travel history.

This is a lot of traveling for a great-grandmother who narrowly survived an auto accident in 2010 that resulted in intestinal surgery, fractures in her left hand, spine and right foot. The drunk who hit her is in the Ohio Penitentiary.

 

Sandy plays viola and Glenn plays the saxophone in the New Horizons band. They’ve been married almost three decades. They honeymooned on a ski trip to Austria.

Sandy’s father, Henry Fuller, parachuted into France on D-Day. He was among 126 survivors of the 792 who jumped with the 502^nd on The Longest Day. There’s an exhibit about Henry, a letter carrier in the U.S. Postal Service for more than 30 years, in the MAPS (Military Aircraft Preservation Museum) just off Akron/Canton Airport.  

Sandy and siblings Ron and Timothy, who attends Sandy's concerts often, lived on North Hill for 10 years, till she was 14.

Sandy retired from Ol’ Blue Walls after 18 years, then worked at the Orrville Public Library before winding up her librarian career at the Wadsworth Public Library in 2008.

Thursday, Aug. 27 they were in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. Then on to Calgary, the airport Paula and I used before we enjoyed Banff and the elk, where Glenn donned a Canadian Mounties cap ... sort of.

Today, Sandy and Glenn are leaving Canada to return to their Doylestown home. Ah, but the memories will follow them forever. And what tales they'll have to tell to their fellow New Horizons Band members!