We got the above image in the morning digital traffic. It represents the near conclusion of a series of tales that stream back most of a century. Christine, the superb lay-out and format Queen at Open Book Design to fold some old pictures as a bold and dynamic cover for the new release.

Note the footwear on Mimi and Vic’s images, which is prescribed when walking the sacred precinct of the Schwedegon Temple in Rangoon- now known as “Yangon” in a state once called “Burma,” now “Myanmar.”

It is a curious book that accounts for a life in transit. It starts as a product of Mom and Dad’s ife in the Auto Age that followed the Second World War. Dad scrambled through the Pratt Institute school of industrial design. While there, he met an intelligent and attractive young Ohio woman who had decamped the river valley for a position with an old professor working in the Chrysler Building in Manhattan.

It was quite an adventure, as was the prospect of a job designing the post-war speeding world.

So, this volume commences with a trip across America, from the Motor City in Detroit to the bluffs above the vast Pacific in California. It was performed in a sleek vehicle he helped design and made faous with the characteristic ‘dip’ on the roofline that enabled significant savings on the sedan and wagon models: the 1959
Rambler Ambassador Station Wagon.

That adventure is folded into others that accounted for visits to all the fifty states, the circumference of the globe and 40-odd independent nations. The most memorable trips are recounted for in general evolution of travel over the years. “Official Travel” is what we called it, and it was fun to look back at the details of how it all unfolded.

Had it not been paid for from the public purse, we are confident we could have done it all with better and more comprehensive organization, but it was all unintentional and surprising at each turn. Accidental, in fact. But it turns out that is the way the whole thing played out and it was grand fun to see it unfold again.

You can imagine the writer’s Section was agog with the potential product almost ready for rlease. We thought we were done with this phase, having provided some 213 pages of manuscript and the details of trips around the globe. It included some of the great Hotels of some of the former Empires in states now known as “Pariahs.” Diplomacy was part of it, which is to say being nice to people around the world who in fact were not particularly nice.

Those venues included North Korea, Vietnam and others that wrapped themselves in the business of Congress and Foggy Bottom. They were grand fun.

We noted the bullet line above the title, which was “A Year in the Life of a Naval Intelligence Officer.” We will have to write back to Christine and request a change to “multiple years,” but otherwise we are delighted with her product, amalgamated from old pictures we took and thoughts that have almost dirfted away..

We have been plowing through the proofs on the interior workings of the book. You may
This is a big morning. Christine runs a small publishing company with whom I have collaborated on the last two-thirds of the Literary Trifecta- “Last Cruise” and “Voyage to the Crossroads” are the ones Christine pulled together in our joint endeavor.

“Voyage” was a product of an old family promise to my Uncle, who in turn had promised his buddy Ed, who had been drafted to serve as the last Executive Officer of the Last Battleship. Ed was part of the scientific analysis team sent to Japan to examine the status of their wartime industry and technology when a new project assumed priority: determining the effects of the atom-weapons on the great steel ships that had fought the Pacific war. Detailed notes were kept and it is a rollicking story of attempting to operate a great warship and then blowing it to pieces.

The information and adventure captured in the notes was “classified” at the time, and the participants were unable to publish or disseminate the story until the Clinton Administration, by which time the participants had run out of their time on this planet.

Here is the old advertising for what came before:

These form a casual approach to the history of the Cold War, told partly as bookends from Admiral “Mac” Showers who was there at the start and our circle of Salts who helped to close it out.

“Traveling Music” fills in some of the details of the places and people along the way. The nature of the writing business means that by the time readers first get to see the new product, all the work on it has been completed. It is therefore “Old News” here and “New Product” for you. We are already some 70-pages into the next product, which is an attempt to depict the events of this chaotic year that contains the longest General Election cycle in American history, leading to an election that some say may not be required.

We will see about that. But one thing we are confident about is that the resolution of this chapter will have some surprises. And unlike travel of an Official nature, we are all going to contribute to paying the tab!

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com