Ridgeley High graduate shares journal of travels

Originally published in Cumberland Times-News on April 15, 2005

Editor’s note: Phil Smith, a 1963 graduate of Ridgeley High School, moved around
the United States until the mid-1990s when he became a consultant in developing
countries. His work has taken him to Kazakhstan, Russia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Currently residing in Moscow, he has kept journals of his travels. This is part of a
series of excerpts from those journals.

The journal begins in winter 2001.

By the time I got to Ridgeley in 1961, it was the sixth place I had lived and the high
school was the sixth school I attended.

Since Ridgeley, I have lived in 44 different homes and apartments in four states and
five countries, been in 31 different businesses (some successful, some average and
some losers), worked in a couple dozen interesting jobs, and traveled to 49 of 50
states plus 22 countries.

Sure I got married to someone from Ridgeley. Kay (Baker) and I were together for
more than 35 years. That ended with a divorce.

Now I’m married again – this time to Marina, a Russian lady from Kyrgyzstan in
Central Asia (only a few hundred miles from the fighting in Afghanistan). We own
an apartment in the center of Moscow.

I have one daughter, Valerie, who has presented me with one grandson and two
granddaughters.

Among other things, I have done some boring work with CPA firms and owned my
accounting and tax practices in Maryland, Maine and California. Real estate
construction, development, management and ownership were in there along the
way. I also worked for a harness and thoroughbred racetrack, and owned a
promotion company where we produced and sold music videos and CDs, and staged
concerts, home shows, boat shows and other exhibitions.

After living in Maine from 1968 to 1980, we moved to California. I got into
mortgage lending and ended up operating a savings bank for five years in the late
’80s. After working for a few more banks, I semi-retired in 1994 but that didn’t last
long. In 1995 I bought two local H&R Block franchises and thought I had my
retirement set up where I could work the first four months each year and play the
rest.

In 1995 I did some volunteer work to help teach bank credit practices and principles
and ac-counting reform in the former Soviet Union. My first trip was to Kyrgyzstan
in Central Asia for a month. No pay but all expenses were covered through a
contract with the United States Ag-ency for International Development (USAID). In
’96, I did three more volunteer assignments in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Then I decided to do some international consulting in ac-counting reform through
contracts with USAID. I sold the Block franchises and moved to Bishkek, the
capital of Kyrgyzstan. Since June 1997 I have worked in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakh-stan,
Russia, Armenia, Montenegro (formerly part of Yugo-slavia), Afghanistan and Iraq.

In ’98, while I was in Bishkek, my appendix burst but I didn’t know it for three days.
By the time I realized it, the ambulance was taking me to the local hospital for an
operation. So they took the appendix (don’t know what they did with it) and I went
through some strange and interesting times over the next several days.

The doctor said he lost me twice on the operating table and again four days later.
Another result of that experience was the change in the way I wanted to live.
Now I am putting together information and plan to write a book of experiences
combined with a bit of practical advice about business and getting along.