My TARDIS

Doctor Who just celebrated its 60th anniversary. What does that have to do with my life on the road? In a way, absolutely everything.

While most people these days are familiar with the version of the show that restarted in 2005, I discovered it as a kid around 1980 or so. Tom Baker is my Doctor, and was the only Doctor as far as Americans were concerned at the time. There was no internet back then, only our local PBS station. It hooked me with fantastical tales of outer space, aliens, time travel, and a crazy man with curly hair, a big smile, and an impossibly long scarf. I still have the matching scarf my mom made me.

It was quirky, low-budget, and only appealed to a small group of unique fans. It was all about Star Trek and Star Wars back then (both of which I also like). When it came back in 2005, I was thrilled that, while modernized, it was a true continuation of the original series, not a reboot from the ground up like so many stories do these days. (Admittedly, the Battlestar Galactica reboot was better than the original, but that’s generally the exception to the rule). David Tennant soon became my second favorite Doctor, close behind Tom Baker himself. I never thought I’d see the day when Doctor Who was popular and cool, but here we are.

Looking at my life now in the context of a lifelong obsession with Doctor Who, the parallels are uncanny. I travel around in a big box. (If only it was bigger on the inside than on the outside.) I can’t visit other worlds, but I do explore interesting places, and have at least visited the Craters of the Moon, which itself sounds like an episode title. I can’t travel through time, but visiting historic places from Gettysburg to Little Big Horn to Kennedy Space Center is the closest I can get to it. I don’t fight Daleks or save the universe, but I do help out in small ways where I can. A nomadic life of adventure is a fantasy to most people, but it seems perfectly normal to me. It’s my life.