ALL IN ON ADVENTURE

by Shanon Weaver

So when she says, “To me, my life isn’t that interesting,” one has to wonder what qualifies.

Born in Greenville, South Carolina, in 1944, Barbara moved to Lansing, Michigan, at 11. After her mother died during her senior year, she moved to El Paso to live with her brother, who was stationed at Fort Bliss. There, she met her first husband. They married, had three children, and divorced after 16 years. In 1981, Barbara married Roy Barton, a military man.

A year later, Roy retired from the military and took a contract in Saudi Arabia. Barbara and her two younger children joined him in Jeddah in 1984. The move became a 15-year chapter of work and travel she could hardly have imagined before that first flight.

The Bartons lived on an American residential compound with other company employees and their families. Villas came fully-furnished, right down to the drink coasters. Most families were there through the husbands’ contracts, and Barbara was one of the few women with a job. At the American school, she moved from accounts payable to registrar, a position she held for about 14 years.

Life changed during the first Gulf War. Restrictions on expatriate women tightened, and Barbara had to wear a black abaya and sometimes cover her head with a scarf. Yet those years also brought remarkable beauty: drives along Jeddah’s Corniche, snorkeling in the Red Sea, and school ski trips to Switzerland. Barbara traveled widely through Europe with her daughter; Germany remains her favorite.

Saudi Arabia also introduced Barbara to another constant: poker. It began as an occasional girls’ night on the compound. As contracts ended and players moved away, the remaining women asked to join the men’s regular game in an empty villa. “They said, ‘Absolutely,’” Barbara recalls. “That’s how we actually learned how to play poker.” Eventually, she was playing three times a week.

When the Bartons left Saudi Arabia in 1999, they bought an RV and traveled the country. Barbara worked four more years before retiring, then spent summers in Colorado. Saturday-night poker there introduced her to friends from Plano. After Roy died and Barbara sold the RV, she found herself in Arlington. Her Plano friends kept inviting her to their games. Two weeks in, one called about a game that afternoon. Barbara went. “I was addicted,” she says.

COVID put quite the damper on poker games and other social gatherings. When they eventually resumed, Barbara met Jay Garrison at a friend’s poker game. Celebration readers may remember Jay from his September 2024 feature, “Jay Garrison & His Wonderful Works of Whimsy”. Together about five years, they have been married for three. Jay had traveled little before they met, but that changed. Their first Celebration trip was to Branson, and they were hooked. Since then, they have visited the Caribbean, Niagara Falls, Italy, and Alaska and ridden the Rocky Mountaineer. A wedding took them to Iceland, followed almost immediately by Italy. Some years require extra luggage.

Barbara dreams of Australia and New Zealand, and regrets missing a Kenyan safari her friends called their favorite trip. Still, she knows how fortunate she has been. The woman who once took others to the airport without ever boarding a plane eventually accumulated more miles than most travelers could count.

Her advice to other seniors is as direct as a good poker bet. “You can keep yourself as busy as you want or as bored as you want to be,” she says. “I think that helps keep you younger. Traveling with a group like Celebration makes traveling fun, not work.”

Barbara may insist her life is not especially interesting, but the evidence is stacked against her. She took the first flight, crossed the world, sat down at the table, and kept saying yes. And after all these years, she still appears to be holding the winning hand.

From Saudi Arabia to the poker tables of Plano, Barbara Barton has made a life of going where the next good hand leads.