A Travel Writer Encounters Gargantuan Gators, Irksome
Offspring, Murderous Mayonnaise & True Love
This book is dedicated, wild with pleasure,
to
Finder of lost objects
Farmer’s daughter
Fellow traveler
Effin Older
© 2012 Jules Older. All rights reserved.
Published by
Older Unlimited
www.julesolder.com
Cover design by Anastasia Shepherd
eISBN 978-0-9848580-1-9
Contents
Perusing, Are We?
KIDS ONBOARD
Constitutional
Night[mare] at the Opera
Hippie Bob
Swell
INSIDE TRAVEL WRITING
Scum
Death by Tartar Sauce
I am Shiva, God of Death
Performance Anxiety
SNOWBLIND
Old Dog, New Trick, Sore Back
Mush!
Gobsmacked (1)
It’s Not Easy Being Dude
Catamounted
Heather Hopping, Hurricane Hamish — Ah, the Joys of Skiing Scotland
SEXY TIME
Running Wild in San Francisco
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme? No, not the Scarborough Fair
The Great Male Dance-off
Gobsmacked (2)
Welcome to Motel El Lago
THE BRAVE ONE
What Big Teeth You Have!
I went to the Ferrari rally and they made me ride this lousy Maserati
City Mouse
Home Alone in Puerto Rico
THE GRUMPIE FOODIE
How I Review
Over The Top Cooking
Why I Love Colonel McBurger
I Didn’t Spit
Definer Dishes
Omnivore’s Revenge
ME TALK PRETTY
The Pretty American
French Camp Failure
WOMEN PEE SITTING DOWN. MEN PEE ANYWHERE
A Seat of His Own
Bike Psych
The Guide, The Kokopelli, The Vision Thing
I Didn’t Lie (by Effin Older)
BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS
Arizona and the Ethics of Travel Writing
BEEP
Minority of One
Not On My Watch
LOSER
Loser in Leukerbad
Separated at Birth
Loser
TRAVEL AND TRUE LOVE
Travel and True Love
FREE BONUS!
Title-Tale
I once introduced an earlier book of mine like this:
“A Note from the Author to the Person Reading This Standing Up in the Bookstore”
That was back when there were bookstores. But, now, in the time of All Things Digital, you're checking it out on your Kindle/iPad/Nook/MacBook Pro/GodKnowsWhat, aren't you?
Good. That’s what you're spozed to do with ebooks. Free perusing — along with electronic smiley faces and unexpected inheritances from Nigeria, it’s one of the bonuses of the Digital Age.
So, here's the deal with Death By Tartar Sauce. Most of it’s my strangest, wildest, funniest experiences as a travel writer. With a leetle leeway for humorous exaggeration, all the stories are true. They took place in… oh, man — preparing this book reminds me of how many places I've written about. California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont; Australia, Iceland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Scotland, Virgin Islands. The tales involve kids and sex (weirdly, in that order), food and wine, skiing and snowboarding, crocs and gators, grand opera and extremely fast cars. They're long and short and in-between, and they take place while traveling alone, with family, on a tour, and with other travel writers…including the one who came close to experiencing Death By Tartar Sauce.
Enjoy, fellow travelers. And don’t overdo the sauce.
— Jules
PS. I said most of these tales are funny. That’s because I couldn't resist addressing a few serious issues that, in my humble opinion, don’t get sufficient attention in the travel-writing world. In case you want to skip the issues, I've conveniently placed them together in the section titled, BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS.
Over and out.
As a father, I was forever introducing my twin daughters to fire engines, mud-bog racing, and other things that make loud noises and go fast — let’s call them boy things. Even as wee tykes, they could barely contain their absolute lack of interest.
Me: Say, kids! Will ya look at that Jaguar XKE convertible with the mag wheels and low-profile tires? And just listen to that V-12 engine — pretty sweet, eh?”
Daughter One: Yady dwiver yook pwetty.
Daughter Two: Maybe her a PWINCESS!!!
But if they showed no interest in the subjects that enthralled me, there was one particular subject they greeted with absolute horror. Boats. While I was fascinated with anything nautical, they shared the deeply held belief that to venture even a foot offshore was an invitation to a sharkfest. With them as the fest.
So when I was invited to sail with my family on the Queen Elizabeth 2 in exchange for a series of nightly lectures, I broke the news to my daughters in a carefully preplanned way.
Before picking them up at school, I took the precaution of buying a pair of Snickers bars, their favorite candy, and folding back the wrapper on each bar. In the school playground, I said, “Kids, I’ve got some great news. We’re going on a trip on a big, big ship.”
As they opened their mouths to let out screams of utter dismay, I popped in the candy bars, giving me time to explain just how big the ship really was and how unlikely that it would be consumed by an even bigger shark.
In the end, we didn’t sail on the QE2. But, on a trip to Boston, I gave terror a second chance. “Say, kids, guess where we’re going today?”
Silence. They continued to comb their dolls’ platinum hair.
“OK then, I’ll tell you. We’re going to visit the USS Constitution, one of the greatest warships in the history of the Navy and a histor—”
The sound of their wails drowned out my voice. Even the Barbies were crying.
Still, after a series of bribes, threats and admonitions, there we stood on the deck of Old Ironsides. A young sailor, decked out in a uniform from 1813, was to be our guide.
He handled his duties strictly by the book; that is, he delivered every word in a monotone and at full bore. Like this: “WE ARE NOW STANDING ON THE DECK OF THE USS CONSTITUTION. IT IS THE PRIDE OF THE AMERICAN NAVY. ANY QUESTIONS?”
In addition to their certainty that we were about to sink to the bottom of the shark-infested waters of Boston Harbor (despite my repeated reminders that this floating museum hadn't budged from dockside in their lifetimes), my daughters were now convinced that this strangely dressed man was yelling at them, and would shortly toss them overboard into the shark-infested waters of etc., etc.
They broke into the kind of stereophonic scream that only identical twins can produce without a lot of expensive, high-tech amplifying equipment.
The sailor looked startled but bravely carried on. “THE KEEL OF THE SHIP IS MADE OF SOLID OAK. OAK IS THE ONLY KNOWN WOOD THAT BECOMES HARDER WHEN SOAKED IN SALT WATER. ANY QUESTIONS?”
The phrase “SOAKED IN SALT WATER” accomplished what I had thought impossible. It increased the volume and intensity of my daughters’ cries. Their tears flowed so copiously that I began to wonder if the oak on the deck would also become harder when soaked in salt water.
The others in the tour group glared at me as if I were torturing these innocent children.
At that point, I realized I was. “Excuse me,” I announced, “but I believe this family is about to walk the plank. Girls, good news. We’re heading for dry land. Your sailing days are over.”
What's the point of being a parent if you don’t use it to inflict on your children all the cultural advantages you hated when you were their age?
That’s my adage, and that’s why I use every family trip as an opportunity to enrich my daughters’ lives with things I know they won't appreciate. We live in a town of under 200, so even a trip to Podunk is a cultural adventure. “Oh, look, kids — that’s a McDonalds!”
But it’s on family vacations to the big city where parental cultural hegemony really kicks in. And, as in school or the Army, there's not a darned thing the little ones can do about it.
Or so I thought. But that was before I gave my daughters the ultimate Believe-Me, You'll-Thank-Me-Later cultural experience: opera. In the fabled Sydney Opera House.
Oh, and not just any opera — ”Kids, we got lucky. You're not gonna believe this, but I managed to get us tickets to Madame Butterfly!”
They continued to jump from one hotel-room bed to the other, completely ignoring the tone of false heartiness I was trying so hard to pass off as enthusiasm. My wife threw me a look, which despite its brevity, managed to convey without so much as a misplaced comma, “You lugnut, when are you ever going to learn? If I’ve told you once, I've told you a thousand times — they're too young to be dragged kicking and screaming into high culture.”
But opera tickets are non-refundable. And thus, we found ourselves sitting front and center when the curtain went up. At first, the majesty of it all sent the kids into a dazed, hushed silence. But even majesty wears off, especially when people are singing/screeching very loudly in extremely high voices. And even more especially when, from a strictly visual viewpoint, the romantic leads are so poorly matched.
Madame B. was no slender Asian reed. She was, in fact, a rather large Teutonic type who might be better cast as someone named Brunhilda and more comfortable wearing a horned helmet rather than a kimono. By contrast, the lovestruck Lieutenant — well, here’s how Daughter A (I use the A to protect her identity, which is Amber Older) loudly reacted to him: “Why is that man so little?!”
In a voice that rivaled those onstage, Daughter W (a.k.a. Willow Older) asked, “Is he supposed to be her boyfriend?”
I shushed them both and nodded. In an even louder voice, Daughter A bellowed, “He’s too old for her!”
Matching her decibel for decibel, her sister hollered, “And too small. Way too small. He’s just a teeny-ween —”
My wife and I reached over to silence our progeny, but not before everyone sitting within a 20-seat range did exactly the same. Between my daughters’ critiques and a chorus of “Shhhhh’s,” you could no longer hear the singers.
But as so often happens in these situations, things rapidly got worse. Despite the threat of The Death By A Thousand Shhhh’s from the surrounding seats, plus a rapidly escalating series of parental warnings (“If you don’t behave, we’re leaving right this minute!” “Yeaaa!” “OK, if you say one more word, you're grounded for the rest of the century!” “How long’s a century?”), my progenies’ loud commentary continued unabated throughout the entire first act.
When we made for the exit at intermission, so did most of the people sitting around us.
I never did figure out whether they were leaving because of my daughters… or because they too were only there because someone made them go.
Sure, I wanted to go to San Francisco. Cable cars, Chinatown, Golden Gate… and something more. Daughter Willow had moved to the Haight district, which in my day was the hippie epicenter of the world. What a chance to introduce Willow to her dad’s own, personal history! So I signed us both up for something called the Haight-Ashbury Hippie History Bus Tour.
Along with four 20-year-olds who looked like history students at San Francisco State, Willow and I climbed aboard the bus — the psychedelic VW bus — owned and operated by tour leader, Hippie Bob.
H.B. was in his fifties. He wore a long, graying ponytail and those little, round John Lennon glasses. He had on enough love beads to serve as a flotation device, and he smelled of a familiar herb; maybe it was patchouli. Maybe not.
Just the guy to teach my daughter modern American history.
“Hippies like me came out to the Haight for the Summer of Love,” Hippie Bob began. “We lived in communes in big old houses like the ones on this street.”
“When was the Summer of Love, Bob?” Willow asked.
“In the sixties, man. Definitely in the sixties. And call me Hippie Bob. That’s my handle, you dig?”
Willow looked puzzled. “I, uh, dig, but when in the sixties, Bo — Hippie Bob?”
“I dunno. We weren't all hung up with numbers and dates and stuff back then. If it feels good, do it.”
I piped up, trying to help the history lesson progress. “Wasn’t that 1967, Hippie Bob? And weren't there many famous rock stars and other cultural icons living right here in the Haight?”
“Yeah, ’67. Whatever. What was that second thing?”
“The famous people who lived in the —”
“Right. I was just coming to that. First, there was Janet Joplin, the great Beatnik blues singer from Cleveland. Then, there was—”
I couldn’t let it pass — this was my history on the line. “Uh, Hippie Bob? Don’t you mean Janis Joplin? From Texas? Who was much too young to be a beat—”
“That’s what I said, man. Janet lived in that house right there with her boyfriend, Jefferson Airplane.”
The 20-year-olds were nodding and taking notes. But Willow looked puzzled. “Jefferson Airplane? Wasn’t Jefferson Airplane a —”
“A great, groovy musician,” Hippie Bob answered. “Used to set fire to his guitars in the middle of a show. He fronted a band called Phish.”
I couldn’t resist. “Phish? Hippie Bob, Phish is a band from the nineties, not the sixties.”
H.B. glared at me and pointed a multi-ringed finger at my chest. “Yeah, well that shows how much you know about hippie history, man. Jefferson’s band was the original Phish — Country Joe and the Phish. They were a big protest band in the Summer of Love. Dig it.”
Willow: “What were they protesting, Hippie Bob?”
“Oh, you know, the usual. The rip-off price of cable TV. Animal rights. Commies. That sorta thing.”
“Commies, Hippie Bob?” This guy was destroying American history before my very ears.
“Sure, Commies. Their big hit, “American Woman” was a Commie protest song. They protested the other kind of commies, too.”
Willow scratched her head. “The other kind? What… what other kind of commies were there?”
“Dotcommies! San Francisco’s full of ‘em.”
The rest of the passengers on the bus blithely continued taking notes, now nodding sagely over their newfound knowledge.
The lecture continued: “And over here in this big old house lived a real heavy dude. He invented the geodeisel dome. And his name was Buckmeister Fuller.”
The others, student-like, nodded and noted. Me, I couldn’t face trying to unmangalize one more piece of hippie history. Finally, I grumbled, “OK, Hippie Bob, whatever. You say it’s Buckmeister, it’s Buckmeister. You say it’s a geodeisel dome, that’s what it is. But we've been sitting in this dirty old bus of yours for half an hour, and we’re still right where we started. You haven't even turned on the engine. Don’t you think it’s time to move on?”
Hippie Bob shot me a look of contempt. “Don’t get all hung up over time, man. That’s not the hippie way. That’s not Hippie Bob’s way.”
He smiled a condescending hippie smile. “Besides,” he said, “if we’re gonna get this bus goin’, you guys are gonna have to cough up with some gas money, man.”
“Gas money, Hippie Bob?”
“Hey, man — that’s the hippie way.”
It was my first trip to Miami, to anywhere south of Washington, D.C.
Dad couldn’t come, but Mom and Marc (age 12) and me (going on 15), plus Uncle Speedy and Aunt Shirley and Cousin Mike (11) squeezed into Speedy’s two-door Pontiac hardtop and headed south.
As the temperature rose, our excitement grew. Miami Beach! Palm trees! Arthur Godfrey! And best of all, a week at the fabulous Ocean Swell, a hotel that Uncle Speedy’s travel agent simply couldn’t believe was such a deal.
“Such a deal!” Speedy exclaimed, pounding the steering wheel to emphasise its greatness. “It’s a great resort hotel on the best part of Collins Avenue, and it costs less than half what you'd pay at the San Souci, which is right next door!”
We crossed the bridge into Miami Beach at high noon in high spirits. The sun was blazing, and we had arrived at the Promised Land, palm trees and all.
We passed the brand new Eden Roc. Ahhh!
We passed the nearly new Fontainbleau. Ohhh!
We passed the fanciful towers and Art Deco spires of other Miami Beach hotels as we craned our necks out the Pontiac windows, soaking in the heat, astonished by the glamour, and searching for our final destination, our place in the sun — the Ocean Swell.
All that was left was to drive up to our magnificent hotel, toss our luggage in our magnificent room, perhaps pause long enough to drink in the view, then take a cooling dip in the crystal waters of the Ocean Swell’s magnificent pool. Does it get any better than this?
“Does it get any better than this?” Speedy asked, as we counted down the numbers to 1703 Collins Ave., home of the Ocean Swell.
From the back seat, we kids chanted, “1715, 1711, 1701, 1699, 1695… hey, where's 1703?”
We did a tight U-turn. “1699, 1701, 1711…”
Another U-ee. Speedy pulled up by the curb. There, between 1711 and 1701 stood a building so narrow, so ancient, so nondescript that it almost didn’t exist. A small cardboard sign taped to the dusty front door said, Ocean Swell. Below it, an even smaller sign said, Vacencey.
Our hearts Titanicized.
Together, Mom and Shirley whispered in disbelief, “This can't be the place!”
Uncle Speedy looked dazed. We kids tried to convince ourselves that this was gonna be every bit as good as the Sans Souci — who wanted to stay in a place with a fancy Spanish name, anyway?
Our bravado sputtered when we entered the lobby, decorated in… no, never decorated. It sputtered more when we encountered the shirtless clerk behind the card table/desk, who muttered, “Make it snappy — my shift ends in five minutes.” It sputtered out when we hauled our luggage up four flights to our room. “Elevator’s broke,” said the clerk. “Nuttin works dese days.”
“Still,” said Mom gamely, “this isn't so bad. We’ll go down in the morning and not come home till night. I bet the room is charm —”
By now, Uncle Speedy had enough breath back to open the door. The smell of must and dust made our nostrils twitch like rabbits. The beds were unmade. The single window was coated with grime, but not so coated as to entirely obscure the view — of the blank sidewall of the Sans Souci, three feet away.
Cousin Mike whined, “Do we have to stay in this dump?”
Uncle Speedy looked pale. He nodded.
Aunt Shirley said, “But only tonight. Tomorrow we’ll find something nicer… right, Speedy?”
Uncle Speedy shook his head. He groaned, “I paid for the whole week.”
“Well,” Mom said, “at least we can cool off in the pool.” She tactfully avoided mentioning the room’s lack of air conditioning.
Uncle Speedy’s shoulders sank. “Afraid not,” he murmured. The guy at the card table said there is no pool.”
“No pool? No pool?” Aunt Shirley’s voice broke. Sounding like a soprano on a warped 78, she shrieked, “How can there be no pool? Your travel agent said—”
For the first time since we spotted the hotel, Uncle Speedy brightened. “When I see that guy, the first thing I say is, ‘Such a deal? You think that was a deal? How’s this for a deal!’”
He mimed a jab to the stomach followed by an uppercut.
Cousin Mike piped up. “And what’s the second thing you say, Pop?”
Uncle Speedy actually smiled. “After I finish with him, the second thing I say is… “Does it get any better than this?’”
“Are you kidding? It’s ‘cause we’re scum!”
“That must be it. Otherwise, I can’t for the life of me figure out why more writers don’t become travel writers.”