End Bag

By Robert N. Jenkins

Travel writing is an art, and Bob Jenkins is an artist. He is a veteran of the decades when Americans greeted each Sunday morning with a newspaper account from valued journalists who traveled the world. End Bag is a fine collection of some of Jenkins' best. --David G. Molyneaux, editor, TheTravelMavens.com, former travel editor, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Follow in the footsteps of Bob Jenkins, an exceptional travel writer, to explore a palace, or a Picasso in Spain, the wilds of the Chilean Lake Country or the club scene in Las Vegas. Armchair travelers with a passion for history will appreciate this superb sampler of memorable stories. --Marybeth Bond, National Geographic author

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It began with an abbreviated phone call from his managing editor, and for the next 19 years, Robert N. Jenkins was the first fulltime travel editor of the Tampa Bay (formerly, St. Petersburg) Times. But first, he had to get a passport.

His reporting and editing earned eight awards from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation's Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition. And by the time he stepped away from that assignment -- after filling up two passports -- Jenkins had been to the Soviet Union, Brazil, Hong Kong, Egypt, Costa Rica, Denmark, Thailand, Mexico, Hungary, Norway, Bermuda, Singapore, the Czech Republic, the Caribbean, countless states and repeatedly to Canada and the United Kingdom.

He also had sailed on about five dozen ships to write about – from crossing the Atlantic on the fabled Queen Elizabeth II to sailing between Bahamian islands on a freighter to standing alongside the pilot as he directed a small ship through the Panama Canal.

Among his memories:

- He was lucky enough to not only fly on the Concorde but also to be strapped into the cockpit's jump seat for the landing at Dulles International Airport.

- He read a book under the light of the midnight sun as his Hurtigruten coastal steamer crossed the Arctic Circle one summer night off Norway.

- Being asked, by a young woman in Brazil, when the United States would be invading, because "We have the natural resources you want.''

- In the Soviet Union, being startled when the headmistress of a school for the children of Communist Party members began to cry as she asked her American visitors to not "kill my children'' with our nuclear missiles.

- And he got so drunk in a restaurant in Russia that he passed out in a men's room stall. When he came to, the restaurant was empty: The only other person was the cloak-room attendant, leaning against the wall by Jenkins' windbreaker, his arms folded.

In this illustrated anthology, End Bag, Jenkins has selected more than a dozen of his articles. They take readers through the contradictions of Cairo and those of the former Soviet Union. Articles bring to life the somber history of the killing fields of what is now Gettysburg National Military Park, but also the cornpone tour of the Jack Daniels Distillery.

He offers readers the chance to compare two similarly named but disparate regions: the Lake District of Chile and the Lake District of England. Accompany the author as he fishes in the morning mist of an Arkansas river, and as he chugs along Mexico's happy-go-lucky Tequila Express, with its mariachi band and free-flowing liquor.

Stride with him beyond the velvet ropes of Las Vegas after dark – and meet a 42-year-old, Russian-born stripper or watch elfin Celine Dion during her lavish show.

Wander the "village you want to lick'' – the Technicolor Burano, in the lagoon a few miles from the tourist crush of Venice. Or meet the gentle "Newfies'' – natives of ruggedly beautiful Newfoundland whose own government hardly cares for the province.

Get to know one of the world's great storytellers, Hans Christian Andersen, who never found love and thus termed his personal life "a torment''....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert N. Jenkins
• Release date: Jun 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301534852

Robert N. Jenkins

Robert N. Jenkins, a native of Washington, D.C., earned a B.A. in journalism at Michigan State University and after working "up North'' for four years, he moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., where he still lives. In a 39-year career at the Tampa Bay (formerly St. Petersburg) Times, he served as editor of national news, state news, features and, for 19 years, was the travel editor. His work in that job won 8 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition awards. Since taking a buyout, Bob has been a freelance writer. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Toronto Star, San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, various AAA magazines, CruiseCritic.com, USAToday.com -- and in his former paper.

Book preview

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END BAG

Travel Stories by

Robert N. Jenkins

~~~

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Robert N. Jenkins. All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

CHAPTER ONE Deep History

-- Gettysburg: What they did here

-- Appreciating layer upon layer of Spain

-- Dogma vies with memories, shortages in the Soviet Union

-- Standing against the sand, for millennia

-- His life was hardly the thing of fairy tales

CHAPTER TWO Colorful Palettes

-- Loudly colored houses and dainty needlework

-- Take a plane, a bus and a boat to reach the stuff of daydreams

-- A part of Canada, but really, never close to it

CHAPTER THREE People and Adventures

-- When less is so much more, at sea

-- You can't drink to that

-- A band, floor show, history lesson, train ride – and drinks, too? Climb aboard

-- A lake district idyll

-- A glimpse of the glitz

-- Fishing in the mist: Anything with fins and gills can be fun

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

The articles you’ll find in this anthology originally appeared in the former St. Petersburg Times, now the Tampa Bay Times. I was fortunate to work for one of America’s best newspapers for more than 39 years—surrounded by a newsroom culture that encouraged and rewarded initiative, creativity and integrity. The paper has kindly allowed me to re-print these articles.

This book is actually a family project: My son Mike assembled paper tchotchkes I brought back from trips to create the marvelous cover. My son Ryan prodded me to select articles to reprint, made the final choices for inclusion and then handled the formatting. And my wife Dianne encouraged me to undertake this project—and more importantly, she reared our sons while I was away from our home way too much.

Prologue

"BJ, phone for you. It’s Foley.’’

Having then been at the St. Petersburg Times for 18 years and in charge of 16 reporters and photographers in the county seat bureau, I wondered what the managing editor wanted. He was a casual friend, but not in my daily chain of calls to other editors about our news report.

Beejers!’’ said the wonderfully ebullient Mike Foley. I’ve got a new job for you. Come downtown and let’s talk.’’

Surprised, I started to reply, "Mike, give me a hint…’’

You’re going to have money to buy freelance articles,’’ he interrupted, and you’re going to have money to travel on. When can you get here?’’

And that’s how I became the Times’ first full-time travel editor. When I started in 1987, I didn’t have a passport. Not so shocking—the vast majority of Americans still do not have one.

But by the time I stepped away from that assignment after more than 18 years, I had been to the Soviet Union, Brazil, Hong Kong, Egypt, Costa Rica, Denmark, most of western Europe, Thailand, Mexico, Hungary, Norway, Bermuda, Singapore, the Czech Republic, several Caribbean islands, countless states and repeatedly to Canada and the United Kingdom.

I also had sailed on about five dozen ships to write about—from crossing the Atlantic on the fabled Queen Elizabeth II to sailing between Bahamian islands on a freighter to standing alongside the pilot as he directed a small ship through the Panama Canal.

Among the special memories:

<> I was lucky enough to not only fly on the Concorde but also to be strapped into the cockpit’s jump seat for the landing at Dulles International Airport.

<> I read a book under the light of the midnight sun as I crossed the Arctic Circle one summer night off Norway.

<> Unknowingly—because I couldn’t fit my eyeglasses into a swim mask—I paddled within a few inches of a moray eel.

<> And I got so drunk in a restaurant in Russia that I passed out in a men’s room stall. When I came to, the restaurant was empty: The only other person was the cloak-room attendant, leaning against the wall by my windbreaker, his arms folded, staring at me.

In the following pages are memories of some of these, other, places. I always went with a sense of curiosity. I always found some answers.

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In 1988, I spent more than a week in Alaska, including days aboard a large cabin cruiser in its first season as a commercial cruise ship. It was so small -- the passengers slept in villages each night -- that we could nose up against glaciers, as seen in this photo, rather than having to stand off hundreds of yards as do most cruise ships.

Now, about this book’s title: Taped to the back of my computer is an old-style paper luggage tag, the type that was tied to the handle of a suitcase, with an elasticized string to note the bag’s destination. My computer-decoration is printed END BAG, and it is from British Airways; handwriting, not a bar code, notes the flight number and destination, New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

I found this tag tied to one of my suitcases many years ago. Its implied message was that my suitcase had been the last one being placed aboard, so the ground crew could close the cargo hatch.

For me, it’s a unique souvenir of nearly a quarter-century of leaving my comfort zone to discover the world so I could report on it. The following articles are some of those reports.

CHAPTER ONE

Deep History

Gettysburg: What they did here

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The loose wall of rocks and the statues indicate the farthest that Rebel soldiers reached on July 3, 1863, the last, awful, day of Gettysburg. This line is commonly termed "the high-water mark of the Confederacy.’’

GETTYSBURG, Penn.—Before it happened—the overwhelming violence, the cacophony of the guns, the screams of thousands of wounded men and of thousands of wounded horses, the shouts of encouragement and of defiance—before all this, the sum of it could not have been imagined.

Now, it can only be imagined, for 138 years have passed, and now warfare destroys in other ways.

But in the first three days of July 1863 there was,