Traveling for a living has its pitfalls, but the people who remain at home can also face some difficult situations.

In the days before cell phones, once I left the house I was often out of contact with Judy for many hours. If an emergency arose, she had to deal with it.

I left the house in New Jersey early one fall morning in the mid-80's and headed for Newark Airport and a trip out to the West Coast. About 30 minutes after I left, the phone rang and Judy answered.

Judy, as she always does, said, "Hi!" A quietly eerie voice at the other end of the line said, "Is your husband home?"

She said, "No. He's not here," and the voice rose and said, "I know he's not there. I'm an escaped prisoner from Rahway Prison and I have him bound and gagged."

Judy knew the infamous prison in Rahway, NJ, was on one of the several routes I took to the airport and her heart began beating very fast. But she didn't want to get into a dialogue with the person on the phone without finding help, so she said, "You have the wrong number" and hung up.

"I figured, if he really had you, he'd call back," Judy told me later.

She then raced to my business phone in the other room and called our neighbor, who she called "Paula Perfect" because she did everything so well. Judy told her about the phone call and the neighbor laughed and said, "Oh, that's been going around."

Judy then called the Westfield police and the officer who answered said, "He must be up to the H's in the phone book. Don't worry. It's just some kook making prank phone calls."

I finally called home from Riverside, CA, around 8 p.m. eastern time and Judy sounded unusually relieved to hear my voice. After hearing about the phone call, I understood her trepidation. From then on, I called home more often during the day, just in case.

On a much lighter note, I once left the house in NJ for a three-week trip to Daytona Beach, FL, as a severe snowstorm bore down on the east coast. Judy tried to talk me into staying home until the storm passed, but I was determined to try to fly out of Newark before the storm hit to make sure I was in Florida to begin my coverage of the Daytona 500.

As luck would have it, I flew out of Newark on the last flight allowed to leave before the airport shut down.

When I called home that evening from Florida, the reception was about as cold as the weather in New Jersey.

"Did the storm hit?" I asked. "Yes!" Judy said, icily.

"Are you and the kids okay?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't we be?" she replied. "I've been outside shoveling for the past two hours and I'm about to go out again. So I'm getting off now."

There was a click and the line went dead and I thought, "Wow! She's really upset."

I had no idea she was planning her revenge.

I had taken a limo to the airport that morning, leaving my car in our garage and Judy's car in the driveway.

Our driveway abutted against our neighbor's driveway, which meant there was no place to throw the snow from in between the houses. You had to carry the snow to the front or the back of the houses to pile it up in the yard.

Judy decided a fitting punishment for me running away before the storm was to pile as much snow as possible in front of the garage so that, when I arrived back home, I would have to shovel to get the car out. I'm sure if there were cell phones back then, she would have sent me a picture of the mountain of snow piled in front of the garage door.

The storm passed and so did Judy's anger. We were back to saying, "I love you" before we hung up and Judy and the kids flew to Daytona the day after the race to spend the next week with me in the warm weather.

We visited Disney World and spent plenty of time by the hotel pool and in the ocean. But, as the time came to leave, Judy, smiling happily, said she had a surprise for me when we got home.

As we flew toward Newark, I caught her glancing toward me with a bit of smirk and wondered what this surprise could possibly be.

When we got to the airport in New Jersey, the weather had turned unseasonably mild. But Judy was sure that huge pile of snow awaited me.

I saw her disappointment when the limo pulled into our driveway and she realized that huge pile of snow was gone, the entire driveway clear and dry.

When we got in the house, she told me, rather ruefully, about the "surprise" I was supposed to have found.

"Oh well," she said. "I probably would have helped you shovel the car out anyway."

There was another trip to Daytona Beach when things didn't work out so well for any of us.

Back in the 80's, the International Motor Sports Association held a sports car race at Daytona International Speedway on Thanksgiving weekend. I was scheduled to cover the race and didn't want to miss Thanksgiving with the family, so I took them along.

It was in the 30's with gray, overcast skies when we left Newark. Sunny skies and unseasonably high temperatures in the 80's greeted us in Daytona. We were all thrilled until we found out the airline had misplaced our luggage.

We were all dressed for winter and sweltering in the Florida heat.

Ever the optimist, I said, "Don't worry. We'll go to a store and buy what we need."

But I forgot it was Thanksgiving Day. Nothing was open but drugstores and the ubiquitous souvenir stores.

We bought toiletries from a drugstore and, much to the delight of the kids, we stopped in one of the souvenir stores and bought tee shirts and shorts. I don't remember the rest, but Judy's new tee short had Chinese characters on it and the word FLORIDA underneath.

She thought that was pretty cool since she had been studying some Chinese writing.

We were invited to a Thanksgiving dinner that evening, hosted by IMSA officials at one of the hotels along the oceanfront. And we were the only people there wearing jeans and tee shirts.

Although I explained about our lost luggage, we wound up sitting at a table by ourselves and pretty much ignored by everyone. It was not exactly the festive Thanksgiving I had hoped for.

The luggage finally showed up the next day and the rest of the trip went smoothly.

The next summer, Judy was wearing her "FLORIDA" tee shirt when she volunteered at a school bake sale. Josie Ho, who was born in China and was the mother of one of Lanni's classmates, was also volunteering.

Josie is now one of Judy's best friends, but they barely knew each other at the time and Josie kept staring at the tee shirt.

Finally, Judy turned to Josie and said, "This doesn't say Florida, does it?"

Josie, who is a very kind woman, smiled and said, "No."

Totally embarrassed, Judy cringed and asked, "What does it say?"

Josie smiled and said, "Ne Va Da!"

They both began to laugh.

The next week, Judy took the tee shirt to a local shop and had them imprint Nevada under Florida. She also had them put a check box next to the name of each state, with a check in the box next to Nevada.

We still have that shirt tucked away in a box of old clothes that Judy doesn't want to get rid of.

We lived in Westfield, NJ, from 1980 to 1996, affording us the opportunity to enjoy the wonders of New York City whenever we had the time or inclination.

Westfield is a qtuiet bedroom community for people who work in the city, just 28 miles from midtown Manhattan and within an hour by car, bus or train.

Although we generally stuck pretty close to home when I wasn't on the road, we did occasionally take advantage of having the big city practically on our doorstep for special occasions and when we entertained out-of-town visitors.

One year, when our kids were in their early teens, Judy and I decided to introduce them to Broadway.

We loved going to plays in the city, although the expense did keep us from doing it as often as we would have liked. And, though we had lived in Westfield for a decade by that time, we had never taken the kids to a Broadway show.

Wednesday is matinee day on Broadway and the kids were on their spring break from school. Both of them were enthusiastic about seeing a show, although there was nothing playing that appealed to all of us.

I suggested we just go into the city and go to the half-price ticket booth in Duffy Square (located near Times Square and right in the heart of the theater district.) and just see what was available. Everyone agreed.

We wound up seeing "I'm Not Rappaport," a dramedy starring Judd Hirsch and Ossie Davis, a pair of very fine actors. The play revolves around two old men sitting on a park bench and talking about their problems. Lots of dialogue, no action.

Judy and I enjoyed it greatly. The young ones didn't, although they were nice about it. They even thanked us for taking them.

We decided to have an early dinner in the city before returning to New Jersey and wound up at a Brazilian restaurant in Midtown owned by a friend from racing. It was a great lunch and it raised everybody's spirits.

As we walked back toward the Port Authority Bus Station, we passed the tickets booth, which had just opened for that night's shows. There was no line and I said to Judy, "Maybe we could find something the kids would enjoy more."

The booth was cash only and we counted up what we had. Considering we already had our return bus tickets, we had just enough cash between us for another round of Broadway tickets.

This time we chose a musical, "Chicago," starring Ann Reinking. It's a good show and everybody enjoyed it.

As we walked toward the bus station following the performance, Tory said, "I wonder how many of the kids in my school can say they went to two Broadway shows in one day?"

I don't know about those kids, but I never had. And I haven't since, either.

A year or so later, Judy's friend Vicki was visiting from Indianapolis with her three young teenage kids.

We decided to take a drive into New York City in our midsize station wagon. We cruised the streets for a while, pointing out some of the sites to Vicki and the kids. Her two boys got the biggest kick out of counting limos and spotting women they were sure were prostitutes (they were) on Eighth Avenue, near the bus terminal and Times Square.

Judy asked if we could show Vicki the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where we had stayed numerous times for NASCAR awards banquets. As we drove toward the hotel on Park Avenue, Judy said, "Pull over by the hotel. I want to show Vicki the lobby and the jewelry store."

Like a good husband, I pulled over in a no parking zone near the corner, away from the hotel doorman, and waited with the five kids, who grew increasingly bored as the ladies did their tour of the Waldorf.

Suddenly, I spotted Judy running toward the car in the road, looking extremely excited. Behind her was a very tall man in some kind of fancy uniform and wearing a tall hat.. He was grinning from ear-to-ear as he walked slowly toward the car.

Judy ran up to the driver's side window and, when I put the window down, she said, "There's a ringmaster and some clowns that need to get to Madison Square Garden for a performance and the cabs won't stop for them because they're in costume. Can we give them a ride?"

I looked over my shoulder at the gaggle of kids behind me and said, "Where would we put them?"

Judy shrugged and said, "We'll figure it out. Okay?"

Again, being the dutiful husband _ and knowing Judy always gets her way _ I said, "Okay."

Judy ran back toward the ringmaster, who signaled behind him and what seemed like a hoard of clowns of all sizes suddenly appeared. It turned out they had been performing at a luncheon honoring the owners of the Barnum & Bailey Circus at the Waldorf and were running late for their afternoon performance at MSG.

I was amazed as Judy directed the seating, with Vicki and the ringmaster in the front seat, next to me, Three full-size clowns in the back seat, with a small clown diving across their laps and Judy climbing into the back of the car, joining the five teenagers stuffed in that compartment.

We got some strange looks as we drove crosstown. And, at one point, the too-heavy car scraped one of the city's awful, uneven roadways and tore off a hanger holding up the muffler, which began to drag noisily, The ringmaster apologized profusely, saying the circus would pay for any damage.

But I just laughed. I knew I was going to get my money's worth out of this story.

Just before we got to MSG, the car was quiet and Judy said, "Are any of you Jewish?"

There was a long, somewhat pregnant pause before one of the clowns from the backseat said, "I am. Why do you ask?"

Judy said, "Next week is Passover. Do you have any place to go for a seder?"

He lit up and said, "That would be great. We're here in the New York area for another couple of weeks."

We got them to Madison Square Garden in plenty of time for their performance and exchanged phone numbers with the Jewish clown, whose name was Scott. Turns out he also taught at the clown school in Sarasota, FL, in the winter and was a very personable guy.

A week later, he joined us for our first-night seder in New Jersey and nearly gave Judy's mom a heart attack.

First, although he was out of costume, he entertained the kids by teaching them how to pretend to walk into doorways, a feat that did not sit well with Mom.

Scott behaved himself until dessert was served.

Judy was in the kitchen when her mom burst into the room and sputtered, "The clown ... the clown."

Judy rushed into the dining room and saw that Scott had taken possession of the big fruit bowl, holding it to his chest and pretending to eat out of it.

I saved the day, saying, "Now Scott, that's not nice. You need to pass the fruit around the table."

He made a face, like he was ashamed and, with great laughter erupting in the room, made a big show of passing the bowl to Lanni, who was sitting next to him.

Judy turned to her mom and said, "See. Crisis averted."

Mom said, "I guess so. He seems like a nice boy."

Later that month, as the circus was performing on Long Island, Scott invited us into the city and gave us a tour of the circus train, where he lived while they toured the country.

We kept in touch for a few years, but that was the last time we saw him.

It was a great adventure - thanks to Judy's kindness and her complete inability to realize you can't fit 10 pounds into a five-pound sack.

One of the most surprising and interesting trips Judy and I have taken came about because of our friendship with a Catholic priest, Father Phillip De Rea.

I met Father Phil, whom Judy often described as "less Saint Thomas Aquinas and more Friar Tuck," when he became the chaplain of the Indy car series.

Phil had grown up in Nazareth, Pa., and had been the parish priest at the church attended by the Andretti family. He and Mario had become friends and he began accompanying the driving star to the races, where Phil quickly saw a need for spiritual guidance.

Judy and I spent many a wonderful evening in Father Phil's company at some amazing restaurants. And we met many of his colleagues and friends, which included a wide array of people from all walks of life.

Phil loved people and people loved him. That made him a natural as a fund raiser for the church and he became very successful at raising money to buy vehicles for missionaries overseas and other big Catholic projects.

He rubbed shoulders with a lot of the racing elite - team owners and officials - and became a friend to just about anybody he met. His lifestyle also led to some apparent jealousy within the Church.

Eventually, it also led to the Church deciding to send him to Rome, purportedly to help reopen a very old church near the Vatican that was overseen by two elderly priests, who really didn't want any help.

Phil could have taken the assignment as a punishment but, instead, he jumped into it with both feet, enjoying the chance to work on his Italian and to meet and help new people. It was also the chance to play host to dozens of visitors, family and friends, showing them the delights of Rome.

I was at home in Wake Forest, NC, one summer day in 2004 when the phone rang. It was Phil calling to ask if Judy and I might be interested in attending a conclave at the Vatican. The meeting was to discuss the problems faced by people who traveled for a living, such as circus and carnival folks, gypsies and such. Phil convinced the powers that be at the Vatican to add racing people to the discussion.

Judy doesn't particularly enjoy foreign travel for a number of reasons. For one thing, she likes to stay close to home. And, not speaking any other language but English, she dislikes not being able to understand what is going on around her in public settings. So I expected a firm no when I brought up the subject of traveling to Rome that December, after the racing season ended.

Instead, Judy shocked me by saying, "Okay, as long as we can go to England on the way."

One of my good friends from auto racing was Dennis Morgan, the editor of the Toronto Star's "Wheels" section and, for years, that paper's auto racing reporter. Dennis was an ex-pat, born in England and emigrated to Canada, where he met and married Angelina, who became Judy's friend.

Along the way, Dennis' elderly "Mum" made annual visits to Canada and sometimes accompanied the Morgans to race weekends, where we all became friends.

"Mum is in a home somewhere near London and, if we can visit her, then yes, we can go to Rome, too," Judy said.

Done!

It was a fabulous trip, with a week in England and ten days in Italy, neither of which we had visited previously.

We did indeed travel by train to the small town outside of London where Mum was living. She was delighted to see both of us, but Judy especially, and made sure that Judy tried her dessert that day, Spotted Dick. It was a sort of very sweet pudding.

While we were in London, we did all the usual touristy things, watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, visiting the Tower of London, attending a performance of "The Mousetrap" on the West End, taking high tea at Harrods Department Store and touring Shakespeare's Globe Theater.

When we took the Globe tour, most of it outside, since the theater is uncovered, it was a cold, rainy December day. As we were finishing, I was looking in the guidebook for somewhere to warm up and saw there was a tea and coffee museum and cafe only a few blocks from the Globe.

It was supposed to be open until 5 p.m. and we got there at 4:30. But, just as we walked up to the door, the lights went off inside. We walked in anyway and asked the young lady behind the counter why they were closing early. She said, "Nobody is here." I said, "We are," and she grudgingly turned the lights back on and charged us the full rate for our visit, despite saying they would close in 20 minutes.

We decided to see the museum rather than sit down for a warm drink. Typically, I walked through rather quickly while Judy strolled, read every sign and took notes.

As I walked back toward the cafe in the front of the museum I saw a tall, distinguished and well-dressed man who I recognized from numerous pictures scattered through the museum as the owner. He looked a little stuffy, but I walked up and introduced myself and he turned out to be very friendly and pleasant.

I told him that Judy was still wandering in the museum and it was hard to get her to move any faster. He said, "That's not a problem. I'll send the girls home and she can take her time. I live upstairs, so I'm in no hurry."

When Judy finally appeared, the gentleman invited us to take tea and scones with him. Absolutely delicious.

After answering numerous questions from Judy about tea and coffee, he excused himself for a moment before coming back with a book on the history of tea and coffee and presenting it to Judy. It turns out, he wrote it.

Another wonderful experience.

Judy also wanted to see one of England's famous hedge mazes. We decided to take a train out to Hampton Court, the onetime home of Henry VIII. It was great fun, with docents dressed up and playing the roles of servants from the time of the infamous king. And the maze was beautiful and challenging.

Another highlight of our visit to England was a trip out to Greenwich to have lunch with longtime AP writer Paul Treauthart and his wife, who also took us on a tour of their village.

Finally, it was on to Rome, where we met up with Father Phil, Lewis, Indy car star Helio Castroneves, his sister Katie and his parents as well as Bob Hills, who was also a chaplain for the Indy car series.

Phil had a friend (of course) who owned a beautiful, new hotel just across the street from the Vatican museum. The family had owned a hotel next door for generations before building the new edifice, which was all marble and granite. From the balcony in our room, we could watch people walking in and out of the museum and see the roofs of the Vatican.

And, of course, it was within walking distance of just about everything in the most historic part of Rome.

The conclave, which was held in a meeting room in the Vatican, was fascinating. We were provided with headphones for translations into English from the various languages being spoken. Helio, one of several speakers on the morning we attended, made an impassioned and impressive speech about faith. It was inspiring.

The rest of the trip was just a lot of fun, most of it arranged by Father Phil, who seemed to know everyone in Rome.

He had set up a private, after-hours tour of the Sistine Chapel, led by the curator of the Vatican Museum. While most visits to the Sistine Chapel are in masses of people, often shoulder to shoulder, as you're pushed through to the exit, there were only about 40 of us in attendance and we had about an hour to absorb the beauties of Michelangelo's incredible work.

At one point, Judy and a nun friend of Phil's that she had become friendly with, were lying on the floor of the chapel, pointing out things to each other from the ceiling art. It was a tremendous privilege.

Phil also arranged an audience with Pope John Paul II for our group. We were actually ushered in a back door of the Vatican Palace, the pope's home. There were no metal detectors or Swiss Guards at that entrance. We were just led in by one of the Pope's priest cadre.

He had been very ill for a while and had just come out of the hospital. As it turned out, he died only weeks after we saw him. But, on this day, the Pope was apparently feeling fine and enjoying life.

He was wheeled in on a rolling throne and placed at the front of the room, facing the 50 or so people that were granted this audience. He made a few remarks of greeting in English and then we were all treated to several acrobatic acts by participants in the conclave.

At one point, one of the acrobats slipped from the grasp of his partners and started to fall before being caught just short of the floor by the other men. All of us, including the Pope, gasped in horror and then clapped happily when the man was saved from injury.

Knowing we would be part of the audience, Judy brought a gift for the Pope - "You don't come to somebody's house without a present."

She had bought some warm, fuzzy socks, noting that elderly people, particularly those who don't feel well, get cold feet. I pooh, poohed the idea that she could give the Pope a gift, saying, "You can't just walk up and hand him a package."

But Phil took care of it. He walked Judy up to the Pope's main emissary, a Cardinal from Asia, and told him Judy had "a gift for His Holiness." When Judy told him what it was, the man beamed and said, "I'll make sure he gets this thoughtful gift."

I like to think that, weeks later, when I watched on TV as the Pope's body was carried through the Vatican to be placed on view, that he was wearing a pair of those socks.

When people, including the Castroneves family, lined up to kiss the Pope's ring, as Jews we decided to simply watch and enjoy the ceremony.

Another image that stays with me is of Judy and Father Phil crossing a crazy, busy street in Rome. The traffic there is outlandish and scary, but Judy tucked up under Phil's arm and the two strolled across the street. She figured who in Rome is going to run over a priest. And she was right as cars brakes to a halt and waited patiently for them to cross.

Phil had also arranged for all of us to take a minibus to Parma, where we were invited to be guests of Dallara, which built cars for the Indy car series. The trip up, through a series of mountain tunnels, was spectacular.

We were guests at the company's Christmas party, put up in the company's luxury hotel and treated to a fabulous dinner at a castle owned by Dallara, where everything that was served was either grown or raised on the property.

The next morning, Judy and I and Lewis visited a nearby factory that made and sold Parmesan cheese. As Lewis and I walked through the store at the front of the factory, we noticed that Judy was nowhere to be seen.

When we walked into the factory, looking for her, we found Judy standing with a group of workers who were laughing and talking in excited Italian as Judy stirred a vat of parmesan with a long paddle. There were hugs galore for her before we left with a huge chunk of parmesan to bring home.

We spent part of the afternoon on the way back to Rome in Florence. where we got to see the 17-foot tall statue of David, carved by Michelangelo, in the Accademia Gallery,. One of the benefits of going to Italy in December is that there are few tourists, so we got to walk in and see the statue with no crowd and no waiting. Who knew it was so big?

Of course we saw most of the major sights in Rome, such as The Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain and many of the spectacular cathedrals. We also visited the synagogue in the Jewish ghetto and attended a Friday night service there. It was a strange feeling having to show our passports to the Carabinieri guards, who brandish machine guns and have watched over the synagogue since a terrorist attack years ago.

Some of the meals we had in Rome also stand out, including one at a restaurant inside an ancient cavern that is the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Rome.

One day, Phil was too busy to join us for lunch, but said to pick any restaurant near the Vatican and just tell them that Padre Fillipo had sent us. We laughed and made jokes about him being the most important man in Rome.

Then we found a restaurant, sat down at a table and told the maitre de that we were friends of Padre Fillipo. He lit up and said, "Ah, Amici (friends) of the Padre. We will take care of you."

The food was great and the bill had the appropriate Padre Fillipo discount.

The trip was spectacular and, even this many years later, it brings warm memories, particularly of Father Phil, who passed away several years ago. He was a special  man and a great friend.