Other Writing and Speeches

Travel Writing Workshop - 1985

In addition to her final paper, the following letter to Harleigh’s instructor is included to add context. - Editors

Dear Mrs. Z

Re: Travel Writing Workshop

San Francisco State - Nov. 2 & 3, 1985

Thanks for your postcard. I obtained a catalog from S.F. State and registered. They sent me TWO student body cards! But I'm afraid ONE article is all I can manage at the moment, however!

The enclosed article of about 1000 words may still be too long for newspapers. I seem to have a “pruning problem!" I've hacked away at it and cut out two other episodes which seemed to border on the humorous. Remembering the guidelines about unity of tone I amputated them from the more serious ones that remain. This is in about the seventh draft stage.

I've been studying some 500-word roundups by a regular freelance contributor to the L.A. Times travel section. Fourteen paragraphs of two to four sentences each, first half didactic, second half an ego-trip laundry list of her experiences illustrating her point. She uses the word "I" 23 times -- and gets published regularly! She does have a felicitous turn of phrase quite often. But there isn't much feeling or sharing taking place in such a rapid-fire delivery.

Lisl Dennis in her travel photography book points out the growing segment of “fourth tier" in the travelling public which seeks a return to "experiential travel," and this is the audience I most want to address. I want to share more of the experience and the emotions with readers, to "take them with me."

I have a few questions:

(1) Is it really possible to share enough experience and feeling in less than 1000 words??!!

(2) Should this article be chopped down even further than the three examples given, and if so, which should go?

(3) I dislike having to continually refer to myself, "I, I, I" -- yet since this is personal experience and these things happened to me, I don't know how to avoid it.

(4) You have mentioned the use of "authority" as a guideline for nonfiction. Since this piece is personal experience/travel, I haven't really included an authority. I did give occupations of several people in one of the examples as a sort of validation of the point and indication of the type of people I am involved with.

(a) Will that suffice?

(b) Can one do without the "authority" altogether in a purely personal experience piece?

(5) Have I been too didactic and bossy at the start? I would have a tendency to do so, and I don't want to turn readers off. I tried to tone it down by saying "I have learned..." etc.

(6) Am I "showing," not "telling"? Find it hard to evaluate after looking at it so long.

(7) I don't know what to call a "horse attendant"--he wasn't a stable boy because there was no stable; he wasn't a groom because the horses obviously got no grooming! There must be a word but nothing in Roget's seems quite accurate at this point. He might even have owned one of the horses, but I think it was more likely he worked for the owner.

(8) The episode in Jordan took place before Arabs and the PLO terrorists had antagonized public opinion. I'm worried that references to Arabs and the Jordanian Army might be a turnoff to editors and readers. Do you think this could still "fly" today?

(9) Have used "CLOUDED TRAVEL, SHINING MEMORIES" as a working title, but am undecided. Other possibilities include:

Travel Clouds, Shining Silver Memories

Travel Clouds, Treasured Memories

Travel Cloud? Polish That Silver Lining

Clouded Travel or Sparkling Treasure?

Many thanks. I look forward to the class, your professional critique, and the feedback and reactions of the group.

If I have room in my suitcase (on top of opera clothing!) *I'll try to bring some L.A. Times magazine sections and travel sections for you and the class. Quite a few have stacked up here.

Kindest regards.

Sincerely

Harleigh

Knott

Encl.

*Maybe there's a story in that--glamorous opera gowns by grotty Greyhound bus!

**********

CLOUDED TRAVEL, SHINING MEMORIES

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS FROM A REMARKABLE LIFE

by

Harleigh Thayer Knott

October 21st, 1985

If the cloud of illness or accident starts to cast a pall over a long-anticipated journey, keep an eye out for the sparkle of its silver lining--it could become the sterling highlight of your trip.

During various trips abroad I discovered that some compensating factor arises from mishaps. I learned to enrich my travel experience by focusing on those silver linings instead of grumbling and boring my friends back home with a litany of woes.

One of the woes plaguing the traveller who hurtles from climate to climate, fatigued by jet lag, the common cold can threaten to blight a journey. The weariness and malaise of such sniffles once forced me to forego climbing among all the archaeological excavations of the Hellenistic city Pergamom in Turkey with a Mediterranean cruise group. Discouraged, I sat on the steps of the Temple of Zeus to rest and commune with the ancient gods and ponder ancient history. Instead, contemporary Turkish life headed directly toward me. A colorful group of Turkish women and girls, some in traditional folk costume, some in modern clothes, climbed straight up the hill and arranged themselves and their baskets of food at the other end of the temple.

They removed their tea things from newspaper wrappings and spread them on the steps. One of the girls sang and played a guitar. Wreathed in smiles, they all watched while one of the girls shyly, graciously brought me a glass of sweetened tea and delicate almond cakes.

Moved by this warm hospitality extending across ethnic and language differences, I forgot my respiratory complaints. This wasn't a "tourist thing" — this was real! And so was my cloud's silver lining. I drained tea from a glass in a silver filigree frame; my cup of joy ran over.

I never remember the cold; I never forget the kindness of the Turkish women, the mosaic of colors and patterns of their clothing, the lilt of their folk songs rising up the slopes of the mountain. Their tea had seemed the more refreshing for being served in a glass, their little cakes the daintier for being served in newspaper. Their tea party had become my tea party, and my Turkish delight.

I learned on another trip that an adverse event can lead to ties with strangers from one's own western culture as well. I was eating lunch at an hotel in Potsdam on a hot August day at the start of a British art treasures tour of East Germany. A bee flew in the window and stung me on the arm.

Simultaneously the bee stung my cool, reserved English group into life.

Floods of sympathy, solicitude and tubes of antihistamine ointments poured in on me from all sides.

I became the center of attention for a professor, an architect, a lawyer, an archivist, an author, all sorts of interesting people practically at my feet. My bee sting proved such a great icebreaker that I ceased to notice the pain. It served as a conversation piece as we chronicled my recovery, evaluated the merits of various medications and listened to one another's bee stories.

Conversations progressed from such ephemera to discussions of art history and other deeper aspects of travel. The bee sting was ridiculous, its pain minor and of short duration. It never had a chance to cloud my trip. The whole network of friendships launched in it remain lifelong shining treasures.

At times when I've had no difficulties of my own, I've found that someone else's disaster could cause distress and inconvenience for everyone, yet still add a positive dimension to the trip. Touring the Middle East with a small group before the current rash of wars and terrorism, four of us decided to leave our group at Petra in Jordan for a day in order to cross the “Lawrence of Arabia" country of the Wadi Rhum desert to Aqaba on the coast.

Riding horseback out from the rock-hewn remains of Petra through the long, narrow, steep-walled gorge leading back to our car, I busied myself with my camera. Looking up, aghast, I saw that the elderly man ahead of me had fallen off his horse and lay crumpled and inert on the stony ground. Our other two companions froze, speechless in fear and horror, inept in the face of emergency, inept even in getting on and off horses.

I leapt off my horse and ran over to administer a whiff of smelling salts from my first aid kit to revive him. It was an old-fashioned effort, but the only thing I knew about at the time, and it seemed to work.

Low blood pressure, we later learned, combined with fatigue and a lack of breakfast had caused his collapse. But because of his age we had all feared the worst possible scenarios. I helped him back on his horse and instructed the Arab horse-attendant to hold him on it until we got safely to our car.

I continued my amateur nursing as our frail friend fainted again in the car. Speeding through the desert, we felt alone and helpless.

Suddenly the Beau-Geste silhouette of crenellated mud brick walls at a Jordanian Army outpost came into view, putting new heart and hope into us. Help at hand! The soldiers brought us glasses of sweet Bedouin tea that perked up our "patient" and lifted our spirits. And they passed around chocolate candies, in celebration of the Muslim equivalent of Easter.

This emergency stop rallied us for the remainder our our excursion. Our friend returned to his normal spry state after a good meal and a rest at Aqaba. We returned to our group thankful and happy at the outcome.

The crisis, a frightening black cloud over our trip, had brought us adventure and the warmth of Arab hospitality. The sparkle from this cloud's sterling silver lining shone in the eyes of our recovered elderly friend. And I have to admit I basked a bit in the praise of the passengers who raved to our courier about how "marvelous" I'd been.

The silver lining's sparkle had even shone on me.