Images From a Wandering Mind

My mind wanders as much as the rest of me, or maybe even more. Sometimes it slips away to a pink morning in Dar es Salaam when it is supposed to be following the evening news. Sometimes it retreats to the somber battlegrounds of Gettysburg, when it should be advancing on a deadline.

My mind dredges up travel memories as if they were baubles that had lodged in the dark folds of a jewel chest--out of sight, but within reach, if I just take the time to retrieve them.

Travel books send my mind packing, and I often follow suit. A recent tempter was entitled: “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee.” It is a lusty cookbook of recipes used by bed and breakfast inns of those Great Lakes neighbors, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

“Wake Up” was written by Laura Zahn, a spunky young woman from St. Paul who savors both breakfast and travel. She also has written guides to historic B&Bs; and country inns in both states. They’re called “Room at the Inn.”

When I open her books I do smell the coffee--just as I used to smell a musty old manor each time I read the Nancy Drew mystery, “The Ghost of Blackwood Hall.”

My grandmother insisted that what I smelled was the dank odor of the book itself, since I left it in the back yard during a drenching Oklahoma storm.

Zahn’s breakfast recipes remind me of a news story that outlined the courtship of hoteliers Leona and Harry Helmsley and their rendezvous at a French restaurant in New York City.

“They dined there regularly in the warm light of scones and chandeliers,” the story said. I had never realized that sconces could sound so tasty with the drop of a “c.”

And scones remind me of a fine brunch at the Eton Buttery by the River Thames, just across an iron footbridge from Windsor Castle. Eton lads rush by, wearing their gray tail coats; castle guides scurry toward St. George’s Chapel wielding black umbrellas that also serve as pointers.

There goes my wandering mind.

When it rains, a hair dryer is handy. I met a California scientist who told me that he never leaves for even an overnight conference without his high-powered, compact dryer. But his hair is not the primary concern.

“In some humid climates I would never get my laundry dry without a hair dryer,” he said.

It was beginning to rain near the cathedral in Caracas when a native woman approached a pal of mine.

She looked at him imploringly and pushed her infant into his arms. Suddenly, he remembered that he had put his wallet in his hip pocket after his last purchase; he slapped at his rear. The pocket was already unbuttoned, but the wallet was still there.

Two boys fled into the crowd. The woman and baby were gone when he turned. An old ruse that almost worked. My red-faced friend moved his wallet to an inside pocket.

A favorite bathroom in Florence is tucked away in an unlikely place, even for Italy.

As you climb the broad marble stair toward Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel in the church of San Lorenzo, there is a small sign on the left: “W.C.” Part of the banister and wall pushes in, like a secret panel. Beyond are stone steps leading to restrooms that are modern, clean and well-lighted. They seem incongruous in this vast tomb of Renaissance wonders.

A favorite quote in a guidebook of yesteryear is from the erudite “Murray’s Handbook to Greece,” which was published in Britain in 1884.

The book offers the following reassurance to 19th-Century travelers to Athens: “Any Englishman having the usual knowledge of ancient Greek will be able to read the Athenian papers with ease.”

And that reminds me of a favorite line overheard in a Ft. Worth bar. A Texas cowman pounded his fist and shouted to a companion: “I’m eruditer than you are.”

The mind wanders and is boggled.