Travels in the Gone World

By John Schnick

A TRUE-LIFE JOURNEY INTO THE HEART OF THE WORLD

Filled with good humor, adventure, and a love for life, this travellogue will take you to many beautiful points around the globe and cause you to fall in love with those places-as this couple did.

John and Josie made it a life-long habit to visit

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Schnick
• Release date: Jun 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798218231293

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

[graphic: suitcase w/ travel stickers]

An Artist and a Fashion Designer Walk into a Bar. . .

When Josie and I got married on a California beach, we had three goals:

To have children

To make a fortune

To see the world

I was a moderately successful advertising artist, with a job that paid the bills, and included a medical plan. Josie had worked various jobs, from waitress in a gay bar, sales clerk in a fabric store, to selling art supplies. She then became the sewing room manager at a small North Beach fashion house, and finally we started a silk screen printing business together, called Squeegee.

In the 1970s, most medical insurance covered neither pregnancy nor childbirth, and my plan at the ad agency was no exception. We needed to make some extra money to pay for the birth of our first child. Unfortunately, at the time, silkscreen inks were toxic with solvents, lead, and other substances. Exposure to these chemicals could be dangerous to a child in the womb.

When Josie worked in the garage of our little rented bungalow, she wore a full chemical warfare gas mask, a smock over her round pregnant belly as she pulled the ink-laden squeegee across the silk stencil. We supplied custom printed shopping bags and fabrics to fashion designers and boutiques in San Francisco.

Like any other first-time mother, Josie’s nesting instincts kicked into high gear. She became a dynamo at making baby clothes. These weren’t just ordinary baby clothes in pastel colors, but bright folk-inspired fashions for children. Of course she made ‘way more clothes than our expected newborn could wear in a year, and set about selling the surplus outfits on consignment at various baby boutiques in San Francisco and the Bay Area.

The rest, as they say, is history. A sales rep from LA informed Josie that she wanted to represent her line. While our new baby Molly was still an infant, another young mom, Anna Sala, with whom Josie had worked at a fabric store, agreed to go into business as her partner. Instead of shaking hands on the deal, the young businesswomen nursed each other’s babies. The new company was called Sweet Potatoes.

In the beginning, Anna’s husband André and I supported our wives as they put all their profits back into Sweet Potatoes. Within a few years, the two fashion executives were earning much more than their respective combined husbands’ salaries.

The fashion business is a world-wide industry, and international travel was part of the deal. This was great! At first, their business trips were within the US, but soon, along with a third partner Ginny Holmes, they were regularly flying to places like London, Paris, Milan, Helsinki, Tokyo, Bangkok, Shanghai, and New Delhi. André took care of his and Anna’s kids, and I watched Josie’s and my growing brood.

The years rolled by, and soon I was able to tag along and amuse myself while Josie was touring garment factories. We were able to take our kids along, and turn a trip to France into a working vacation. This book is an account of those adventures in a world before the Covid19 pandemic put the brakes on the freedom to travel. The people we’ve met have become our family, and the far-flung places our home.

CHAPTER ONE

[graphic: suitcase w/ travel stickers]

Honeymoon Hotel

After our wedding, Josie and I boarded a Boeing 707 at the San Francisco Airport. We sat directly behind Susy and Ed, my new in-laws. Their seats were in the last row of the smoking section, and ours were in the first row of the non-smoking section. About 15 minutes after takeoff, the jet airliner leveled off at 30,000 feet, a chime came over the public address speakers, and the No Smoking light blinked off. Almost immediately, you could hear the clicks of cigarette lighters across the smoking section, and thin wisps of smoke began to rise from the seats ahead of my bride and me.

Josie’s mother Susy fumbled in her purse and fished out a pack of Salems, and her gold-plated lighter. Soon she was happily puffing away as we awaited the drinks cart, being pushed down the aisle by a stewardess. This was long before men were hired as cabin attendants. When the cart arrived Ed ordered a Scotch on the rocks, Susy asked for a Tab, with light Bacardi rum

Josie and I both ordered Scotch, and we all settled down for a few hours. Ed and Susy resumed their game of Gin Rummy that had been going on for the thirty years of their marriage. By this time, Susy was ahead by several thousand points. Susy keeping score in a tiny memo book that lived in her purse.

Josie was reading a Vogue magazine the size of the San Francisco telephone directory, and I had a paperback copy of The Tin Drum by Gunther Grass. Miles of majestic purple mountains and amber waves of grain passed beneath my porthole for hours.

When the jetliner taxied to the gate at the futuristic Trans World Airlines terminal, I was amazed at how my circumstances had changed since my last visit. Eight years before, in 1969, I had hitchhiked to Manhattan with five dollars in my pocket. The news ticker above Times Square showed -6º. I had squeezed through a gap in a chain-link fence, and slept in a drafty construction shed. The next morning, I had painted on a gallery wall of the Whitney Museum. Instead of being arrested, I was given a ten-dollar bill to go away: just a crusty, street kid with ragged clothes and long greasy hair.

Standing at the arrival gate stood a young man in a dark suit; Ed walked over to him and shook his hand.

Susie, Ed, Josie, and I pointed out our suitcases as they appeared on the carousel, and Tommy stacked them on a luggage cart. Susy, Josie, and I sat in the broad back seat of the limousine and Ed sat in front as Tommy drove us across bridges and boroughs to Susy and Ed’s home on Byram Shore Road in Greenwich Connecticut.

The next afternoon, Josie’s folks held a luncheon in their back yard to introduce the newlyweds to friends, relatives, and some business associates. I don’t remember much about the catered food, but I do remember that Scotch, beer, and wine flowed freely. An executive from Ed’s manufacturing corporation handed me an envelope containing $100 bills, as did some of the neighbors and relatives. After my years as a homeless vagabond, this was a pleasant surprise.

The next door neighbor, a former Ziegfield Girl, was holding court at one of the garden tables: I’ve been to London, Paris, and Rome, but I’ve never been to Brooklyn she proclaimed with a laugh.

I loved the casual and generous attitude of these East Coast sophisticates, but wondered, is there really a place in this world for me? It was going to be fun to find out.

CHAPTER TWO

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Ad Hack

Another world I was entering about that time was the world of advertising. When I wasn’t on my honeymoon, I worked in a boutique ad agency in Emeryville, just across the bay from San Francisco. McGuinness & Wade produced advertising, collateral, and packaging for various local and national companies. I mostly designed junk food packaging and print ads. McGuinness & Wade was not the glamorous, Madison Avenue type of advertising agency; it was more of a quiet backwater of the industry, specializing in graphic design.

Charlie McGuinness and Mickey Wade courted the clients, and I worked under an art director and a production manager. I shared the bullpen with several other artists, each with a drawing board, art supply tabouret, and drafting stool in an open-topped cubicle. Whenever a new, single female started work in the agency, the AD and PM would plot (and even place bets) on who would be the first to nail her.

Charlie and Mickey, both married men, knew a woman who would entertain prospective clients for drinks, dinner, and copulation. The water cooler scuttlebutt had it that Charlie had met Ms. Green at a swinger’s party at The Edgewater West motel out by the Oakland Airport. These were the days of sexual freedom, open marriage, and group sex, but before the AIDS epidemic. Sometimes, when the secretary/receptionist was away from the front desk, the phone rang.

McGuinness & Wade, I said.

Hello, came a sultry voice, low and drawn out. "This is Ms. Green. May I speak to Charles McGuinness, please?

One day Charlie told Cynthia, the secretary, to set up a date with Ms. Green and a client, a purveyor of turkey products from the San Joaquin Valley. This was too much for Cynthia, who quit her job and stormed out of the office. Another secretary was quickly hired, who was glad to go along with pandering to the client’s vices.

The other artists in the bullpen were recent graduates from art colleges, and were ambitious to succeed in their first advertising jobs. Occasionally, five or six of us would go out for drinks on a Friday afternoon. Once we went to a bar across the bay bridge, in San Francisco. The place was a fern bar called Ripple and seemed to be an ad man hangout. Besides having the first PacMan game any of us had ever seen, Ripple also had a very unusual men’s bathroom.

On my first visit, after I had finished my Scotch and soda, I excused myself, and went to the men’s room. When I stepped up to a urinal, at eye level a color television lit up, and disco music boomed from a speaker. On the screen, a topless dancer shimmied and shook to the beat. After a moment or two, the dancer leaned toward the viewer, then said in a husky voice, if you shake it more than twice, it means you love me. I thought this was hilarious, if a trifle disturbing.

After washing my hands, I hurried back to the table, a foolish smile on my face.

What’s so funny? asked Susan, a dark-haired designer with a lively sense of humor.

There are strip-tease movies playing in the men’s room I answered.

No! said Susan in disbelief. There’s nothing like that in the ladies room.

That’s not fair said Mara, an illustrator. I want to see too.

Our group stood and trooped into the gents room, carrying our drinks, ice cubes clinking as we walked. Once inside, Susan walked up to a urinal, and took a long draw from the straw of her Tequila Sunrise. Mara stood at the next porcelain wall sculpture, sipping her Piña Colada. On cue, the video screens lit up. We couldn’t help but laugh at the cheerful lewdness of the toilet entertainment. When a couple of men in suits came into the room looking impatient to pee, our party cleared out, and left them to their business.

At the time, I was morbidly repelled by some of the louche behavior rampant in the advertising industry, but I liked the work itself, and as a contented husband to Josie, I tried my best to avoid the moral quicksand. Charlie and Mickey not only played fast and loose with their marriages, but it turned out they were also cooking the books of their company.

At least I thought it was their company. After I had worked a couple of years at McGuinness & Wade, I came up the stairs early one Monday morning. A beefy, white-mustached man in a suit was flipping through the file drawers at the receptionist’s desk, removing some of the folders, and adding them to a pasteboard box on the carpet.

Who are you? I asked, startled.

I’m Albert Fallon, he said, glaring at me over his reading glasses. I own this Company. Who are you?

It turned out that Charlie and Mickey had been billing some large accounts, (such as the turkey products client) as MW Associates, but not as McGuinness & Wade. Albert Fallon owned the big printing plant downstairs, and he also owned the ad agency. Charlie and Mickey were his employees, or had been until today. I would never see Mickey or Charlie again, nor the production manager and art director. I now had seniority in the art department.

I would, however see more of Al Fallon in the next few years. After sending the embezzlers packing, he had soured on the advertising business, but still needed commercial art for the millions of dollars worth of packaging his companies printed and laminated every year. I was suddenly in charge of providing design and art for three packaging plants, in Emeryville, Chicago, and Atlanta. I would be able to travel to the other offices and hire and train other artists. I would also get to pitch some big clients, such as Coca-Cola, Frito Lay, and so forth.

This was great! In the twenty-five years I worked for Consolidated Packaging, I met with advertising agencies, rice farmers, and manufacturers. I designed portable exhibits, flew into strange cities, rented a car, and manned the trade show booth. My frequent flyer accounts began to earn free tickets. Traveling for business soon made me an experienced and independent traveler.

My wife Josie also traveled, for her children’s fashion business. Although my trips would take me around the United States, Josie’s took her around the world. As we grew older and more experienced, Josie and I became a good team. We realized the world was ours.

CHAPTER THREE

[graphic: suitcase w/ travel stickers]

Deep France

Susannah, my four year old daughter had had enough. The sultry heat of Paris in late June made her red in the face. She crie and pulled her hand away away from mine as we crossed Rue de Rivoli . We had spent the morning walking around the Right Bank, searching fruitlessly for a legendary toy store, Au Nain Bleu . When my little girl refused to eat at the café where we had stopped for lunch, I knew I had to get her back to our hotel room, which, unfortunately, was a bridge, an island, and another bridge away, across the Seine , on the Left Bank.

I waved my arm to flag down a taxi. Susannah held on to the lamp post, leaning over with dry heaves. A cab driver, just pulling over, took one look at the sick child and didn’t stop. The next taxi did the same. Then a young man in a suit walked up to me.

"Entrez, S’il vous Plait he said to me, pointing into a recessed doorway. I complied, towing my child with me. As soon as we were out of sight from the street, he flagged down the next taxi. When it stopped, he opened the back door and motioned to me: entrez, s’il vous plait" he said. Susannah and I dived into the auto, and the Samaritan closed the door behind us.

The cab driver glared at me in the rear-view mirror. He knew he’d been had. I quickly blurted out the address of our hotel, on rue de Vaugirard. Susannah stuck her head out the back-seat window and dry-heaved. The driver exhaled sharply through his flared nostrils: Humph He glanced over his left shoulder, popped the clutch, and with the squeal of a tire we were into the streaming traffic.

Susannah looked miserable, her blonde curls stuck to the side of her face, her fists jammed into the deep pockets of her pinafore, a black scowl on her face. I started to worry about heat stroke.

That morning, back at the hotel, Susannah had looked so adorable in her Petite Bateau frock, a demi-baguette in the deep left pocket, plastic bottle of Evian in the right. After a day of plodding the baking pavement, the bread had been fed to the pigeons in the park, and the water had been drunk.

The disgruntled cabbie wasted no time, and we zipped across a bridge, then the Île de la Cité, then another bridge. We were deposited in front of the hotel, on the hot, bright sidewalk. Fortunately the elevator was in the lobby, with the door open. We rode up to the fourth floor landing. There was a flight of stairs to the fifth floor garret, and the maid’s room we had rented. This would be be called the sixth floor back in the States.

I tried to pick Susannah up, and carry her, But she shrugged me off, and resolutely clomped up the squeaky wooden steps. I unlocked the door and we were inside. I had left the dormer windows open that morning, and the curtains billowed in the breeze against the slanted ceiling. The air was cool up here, high above the shimmering pavements down below. The contrast with street level could not have been greater. I found a fresh bottle of Vittel, and soon Susannah was sitting in front of the little black and white television, happily watching a French cartoon adventure, and sipping the cool water.

The Good Samaritan in the gray suit had not hesitated to help when he’d seen our plight. He acted, and solved my problem easily and quickly. I hadn’t even had time to thank him.

I wondered, Would that have happened in New York?

While Susannah watched cartoons, I heard footsteps on the narrow staircase leading to our rooftop garret. When I opened the door, Josie and our older daughter, Molly,