For two years I crisscrossed the globe, meeting the world’s great travel writers. Simon Winchester served me Lapsang souchong tea and homemade lemon tea cake at his farm near Great Barrington, Mass. Bill Bryson trudged through six inches of snow to meet me at a pub, which had a small plaque near our table reading “Bryson’s Booth,” in Hanover, N.H.
Then I found out my father had cancer of the pancreas, and I put my travel plans off. For 26 days, as he lay in his hospital bed for treatments and tests, we reminisced about the adventures we had on family trips in days gone by. We talked about the time in Venezuela when I was 10 and he grabbed my arm just before a huge wave yanked us out to sea, swimming us back to shore with his one free arm; about the suspicious American customs inspector who sifted through the pails of shells my brother and I had brought back home from Portugal; about the leaky kayak that slowly filled with chilly water during a moonlight paddle on San Francisco Bay.
After my father left the hospital, we learned the surgery had failed to contain the cancer. We spent much of that summer sitting in the backyard and watching Giants’ baseball games on TV.
On a fogless August afternoon, he marshaled his dwindling strength for a final trip to the ballpark. That morning Bobby Bonds, the father of Barry Bonds and a star player during the 1970′s, had died of lung cancer. During a moment of memorial silence before the game, tears streamed down my father’s cheeks. A local newspaper photographer took a picture but had no way of knowing that my father wasn’t crying just for Bobby.
By summer’s end my father insisted I get back to work. He knew my deadline was approaching. I told him I’d dedicate the book to him and he shot back: “Then I better live to see it published.”
The day after our family Thanksgiving dinner, I left for England. The morning after interviewing Redmond O’Hanlon in his 19th-century home near Oxford, my wife called and told me my father had had a sudden downturn. I flew home that day not knowing if I’d see him again. But tapping into the same reservoir of strength he had found in Venezuela 30 years earlier, he held on for a final embrace. That night, flanked by his family, my father departed for his final destination.
He hadn’t made it in time to see my book published.
It took me a month or so to resume my work. The first interview after my father died was with Arthur Frommer, whose story of compiling notes for his fellow G.I.’s and then self-publishing “Europe on $5 a Day” was so inspiring that it recharged my enthusiasm for the project. Over the next three months my travels took me from England to Seattle for interviews with Paul Theroux, Peter Matthiessen, Eric Newby, Jonathan Raban and Rick Steves.
To celebrate the book’s publication, I invited several authors profiled in its pages to San Francisco for a panel discussion. Jan Morris flew in from Wales; Tim Cahill came from Montana; and Isabel Allende drove down from Marin County. The event was filmed by Book TV; on a table next to the podium I placed a picture of my father.
Perhaps he did make it after all.
Michael Shapiro is the author of “A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives and Inspiration.”
For two years I crisscrossed the globe, meeting the world’s great travel writers. Simon Winchester served me Lapsang souchong tea and homemade lemon tea cake at his farm near Great Barrington, Mass. Bill Bryson trudged through six inches of snow to meet me at a pub, which had a small plaque near our table reading “Bryson’s Booth,” in Hanover, N.H.
Then I found out my father had cancer of the pancreas, and I put my travel plans off. For 26 days, as he lay in his hospital bed for treatments and tests, we reminisced about the adventures we had on family trips in days gone by. We talked about the time in Venezuela when I was 10 and he grabbed my arm just before a huge wave yanked us out to sea, swimming us back to shore with his one free arm; about the suspicious American customs inspector who sifted through the pails of shells my brother and I had brought back home from Portugal; about the leaky kayak that slowly filled with chilly water during a moonlight paddle on San Francisco Bay.
After my father left the hospital, we learned the surgery had failed to contain the cancer. We spent much of that summer sitting in the backyard and watching Giants’ baseball games on TV.
On a fogless August afternoon, he marshaled his dwindling strength for a final trip to the ballpark. That morning Bobby Bonds, the father of Barry Bonds and a star player during the 1970′s, had died of lung cancer. During a moment of memorial silence before the game, tears streamed down my father’s cheeks. A local newspaper photographer took a picture but had no way of knowing that my father wasn’t crying just for Bobby.
By summer’s end my father insisted I get back to work. He knew my deadline was approaching. I told him I’d dedicate the book to him and he shot back: “Then I better live to see it published.”
The day after our family Thanksgiving dinner, I left for England. The morning after interviewing Redmond O’Hanlon in his 19th-century home near Oxford, my wife called and told me my father had had a sudden downturn. I flew home that day not knowing if I’d see him again. But tapping into the same reservoir of strength he had found in Venezuela 30 years earlier, he held on for a final embrace. That night, flanked by his family, my father departed for his final destination.
He hadn’t made it in time to see my book published.
It took me a month or so to resume my work. The first interview after my father died was with Arthur Frommer, whose story of compiling notes for his fellow G.I.’s and then self-publishing “Europe on $5 a Day” was so inspiring that it recharged my enthusiasm for the project. Over the next three months my travels took me from England to Seattle for interviews with Paul Theroux, Peter Matthiessen, Eric Newby, Jonathan Raban and Rick Steves.
To celebrate the book’s publication, I invited several authors profiled in its pages to San Francisco for a panel discussion. Jan Morris flew in from Wales; Tim Cahill came from Montana; and Isabel Allende drove down from Marin County. The event was filmed by Book TV; on a table next to the podium I placed a picture of my father.
Perhaps he did make it after all.
Michael Shapiro is the author of “A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives and Inspiration.”
Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.
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