I've been reading the saddest book.
It's not the book's fault. It's meant to be a jolly romp, all about holidays and where you can go, how much you're likely to spend, how long you'll be. I picked it up at the Argosy for a nominal sum, not expecting to be brought to tears.
Picture this: a stunning cruise across the ocean, from some coastal US town to wherever you care to go. Nothing fancy; no Cunard prices here. This is holiday on the cheap. This is around the world on a buck a day.
This is Vagabond Voyaging: The Story of Freighter Travel, written by Larry Nixon, press agent, newsman and travel author, he who wrote See Canada Next. Published by Little, Brown & Company.
In 1938.
He published See Canada Next in 1940 and What Will Happen And What To Do When War Comes in 1939. I admit, I'm tempted to seek out that last one. I'd be very interested to see what Nixon had to say to travelers in the Bogart/Casablanca era.
I don't have much information about Larry himself. His name is sometimes given (on Ye Olde Internet) as Laurence A Nixon but I can't help but wonder if that's a typo, since there's a much more famous gent with that name and Vagabond doesn't give him as Laurence anywhere in the text. The copyright's in Larry's name, not Laurence. To my knowledge these are the only three books he ever wrote, though he probably published plenty of articles in magazines and papers.
This one flew off the shelves. My edition is a fourth reprint, November 1938. It first came out in July of that year and was republished three times in 1938 alone.
It probably would have been republished many more times were it not for ... circumstances beyond the author's control.
You hear about girls fresh out of high school who catch a boat across the Pacific to visit their brothers stationed with the Naval Air. You know full well what's going to happen to that brother in short order, but in the book it's all smiles and dances with handsome cadets.
But the story that really got me was the one about the young bride who goes all the way across the waters to meet her Royal Navy beau. "'The Captain gave me a dinner,' years from now she'll tell her guests at tea. Her grandchildren will hear: 'All the passengers were so nice, they gave me presents when I left the boat.' Now you understand the Why of the gifts for the departing guest. You're attending a shower for a bride! She's up to reply, poor girl, she is embarrassed, but happy ... 'And you must all come and visit us in our little home on May Road, the Peak.'"
The Peak in Hong Kong.
Yeah, those grandchildren might be a little theoretical.
It comes to something when you wish you had a time machine to tell a bride to be to be careful about having children in the first year or two of marriage.
People say Americans don't like to travel but, if this book and its four printings in four months is any indication, there was a time when they were incredibly adventurous.
Every single freighter that pulled into an American port kept a half-dozen births or more aside for passengers. That argues insatiable demand. Moreover, it was cheap as chips; round the world on a couple dollars a day. The biggest constraint, as Nixon points out, isn't money but time. It takes weeks or months to cross the ocean in a freighter. But, if you have the time, you can go round the world. Nobody's stopping you.
Money really isn't a constraint, if you're determined. Remember my other bit of book loot from a while back, Head-Hunting in the Solomon Islands? This is exactly what those two kids were doing. They got on a ship headed roughly in the right direction and, when they needed extra cash, they painted a few portraits. They saw it all and paid almost nothing for the privilege.
The people who boarded those ships were willing to go wherever the ship went, because there was no absolute guarantee that a ship bound for Toulouse wouldn't, say, be redirected to an African port on the way. These were jobbing vessels, after all; they went where the cargo was. If that happened and you were on board your options were get off or go to Africa.
They ate what the crew ate. A Japanese ship served Japanese food, and so on. There was no all-day buffet, nor was there separate dining. You ate with the crew. They'll do their best for you, but they won't change their meals just because you're used to whatever they serve in Peoria.
You're traveling on almost nothing. This is an age before passports and what we now think of as international banking. You carry hard currency and letters of credit. You carry letters of introduction to prominent citizens at your proposed destination, so you can prove you are who you say you are.
If you want to, you can just vanish.
Honestly, it's the kind of book that changes your whole perspective. Without it you might be tempted to think that the airplane opened up the world. It did no such thing. The world was already wide open. Moreover, it was open to anyone, regardless of income or class. It was the war that closed down travel, not opportunity.
Do you need this book? No, absolutely not. But if you're a Keeper looking to run a travel scenario set anywhen from the 1900s to the 1940s, this is the kind of resource you'll find useful. It has destinations, costs, travel times, accommodations, plus a decent picture of the kind of thing you'll find when you get wherever it is you're going.
It's worth a trip to the library, put it to you that way.
That's it for this week!
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