First Trip Back in Thirty Years.

Since 2023, I’ve been researching the Canal Zone almost every day. Treaties. Legal classifications. Pre-canal history going back to Spanish colonial trade routes. Town by town, I’ve built out where people lived, worshipped, went to school. Over 200 pieces of content have come out of that research. First on Facebook and Instagram, now on Substack and in CZD Review.

What I haven’t done is walk most of those streets. And the last time I truly walked some, was in the 80s. I did return in ‘95 for a few day visit.

Home, and I still can’t explain why

I grew up a military dependent nomad. North Carolina, Germany, Washington State, New York, Idaho, California. None of those were home. The Canal Zone was.

I can’t fully explain it. It wasn’t just the jungle, or the ocean, or the fruit growing on the trees, or the rhythm of rainy season into the dry summer. It was the community, but looking back, I only got a sliver of it. I was a kid, then a teenager, in Quarry Heights, at Balboa Elementary, at Curundu Junior High, and at Balboa High School. I knew my streets and some places beyond. I didn’t know the whole Zone.