Friends & Neighbors: David Chance

By Lara Hayes

They call him “The Traveling Man,” and with good reason.

David Chance has visited every state in the country at least twice and 40 states five times.

Chance, now 72, was bitten by the traveling bug while serving in the U.S. Air Force from 1955 to 1963. Prior to enlisting, he had been to four states. At discharge, the number had increased to 39. He also spent two years in Japan.

A Dalton native, Chance followed in his brother Duane’s footsteps and joined the military at age 20. He was initially assigned to Greenville, S.C., as an airman first class and worked in the body and paint shop. After three months, he received orders to go to Korea. However, once he got to Japan, the military canceled his orders and had him stay there.

“Japan was like going into an upside down world,” said Chance. “They do everything backwards.”

Once he became acclimated to the country, Chance began taking every opportunity he could to see as much as possible. If base operations had a plane heading to or near where an airman wanted to go, he could fly free if space was available. Chance used the perk to travel to a base outside Hiroshima to visit a friend from Dalton who was stationed as a Marine there.

“It’s hard to imagine what Hiroshima looks like. You would think there’d be nothing there, but it was built back up,” he said. “There are no tall buildings. It was about 13 years after the bombing.”

While in Japan, Chance visited two Navy bases, two Army bases and 14 Air Force bases.

Following his stint in the Pacific, Chance was assigned to Duluth, Minn., where he found the weather brutal.

“I saw 30 degrees below with 40 mile per hour winds,” he said. “How do you dress for weather like that? I never got used to the cold.”

The first time Chance was able to take leave, he headed south and went straight to the beach — Panama City, Fla. After a few days of relaxation and thawing, he hitchhiked to Dalton.

“I had my uniform on, so people would stop and pick me up. Back then they would,” said Chance. “Now I wouldn’t attempt to pick a military person up, because you don’t know what they are.”

After re-enlisting for six years, he was sent to Selma, Ala., then went to Fairbanks, Alaska. On the way to Fairbanks, he stopped to see several friends along the route.

“That’s what I would do. When I knew people, I’d stop and visit on my way to my next assignment,” Chance said.

He also took some time to see the World’s Fair in Seattle and the spectacle of the Space Needle, two days after it opened.

When Chance finally made it to Fairbanks, he once again encountered cold. Only this time, it was strange.

“Cold in Alaska is a different kind of cold than anyplace I’ve ever been. In the wintertime I’d be outside working and have a long-sleeved shirt on and no jacket in 20 degree weather,” he said. “I’m cold natured, but up there I wasn’t cold. There’s no wind.”

A year later, Chance was offered early discharge from the Air Force, which he gladly agreed to. He returned to Georgia and after a while began traveling in earnest with friends. Since that time, he says he’s driven in all 50 states and traveled all interstate highways, visited 45 state capitols, seen more than 100 covered bridges, visited the five Great Lakes — fishing in three of them — and traveled part of the Oregon Trail and Route 66.

His favorite places include Vermont in the summer, New Hampshire, upstate New York and driving into Albuquerque, N.M., at night.

“I tell everybody it’s the prettiest place I’ve ever seen,” said Chance.

Up next is a trip to Branson, Mo., with his wife, Hazel. He also hopes to go on a cruise through the Inner Pass in Alaska next year.

Chance says he doesn’t need a map when it comes time to hit the road. He has it memorized.

“I’m known as a ‘walking road map.’ You can name any major city in the U.S. and I can tell you what highway runs through it,” he said.