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Show TRAVEL Mother! Think about the best times you've ever had; if they happened on the spur of the moment, then you'll wantto join this Stop Pain Instantly famous authorin the adventure of travel by surprise! Promote Rapid Healing of Your Child's Cuts, Scrapes CAMPHO-PHENIQUE is best for your child's cuts, scrapes, minor burnsbecause its anesthetic action stops pain instantly, soothes, cools. CAMPHO- ~ PHENIQUE penetrates deep to combatinfection, to help cuts heal from under|. meath... Nature’s way. Also CAMPHO-PHENIQUE forms a barrier Kills ALL Germs That CauseInfection (Lene The Fun of an VERYTHING we touch or eat ordonowadaysseems to be prefabricated or predigested or preprogrammed. So little is left to chance that we usually know in advance how things are going to feel or taste or look. If we don’t know, we can be sure that someone else has experienced them before us and guaranteed them satisfactory. The miasing ingredient: the excitementof finding out for ourselves. A prime example is the packaged travel tours in which every minute is planned in advance. I deplore them. The “fun” is about as sparkling as a strip of computer tape. By contrast, I once wenton a trip with no plans and very little money— and I've never had a better time. I did things no travel agent would ever dream of, and I saw some things which I still don’t believe. In doing so, I contracted no diseases, not even a bad cold. It is a method of travel I heartily endorse—with the single reservation that you have to be young,have lots of time, and be unaccompanied by children. You must be free to do what you want to do spontaneously. 1 took the trip after I was graduated from college. With a youth I shall call John N. Thorne Jr., I decided to take a last vacation before settling down as a wage earner. We each had a fixed sum and six weeks over which to make it last. So we squeezed into the third-class cabin of an ocean liner and set off for France. In Paris, we found we could rent a Ford that was to be returned in Nice two weeks later. So we signed the papers and set off in a southerly direction. Ourfirst night out of Paris pointing out things I recognized.) When replied that I’d never. been near Luxembourg,Thorne said “Let's go!” So we promptly started out. Luxembourg, when we got there, was unrewarding—but going and coming were memorable. On the way up, we ate our breadand-cheese-and-wine lunch in what turned out to be a World War I bunker near Verdun. We were then on the brink of World War II, and on the way south again we saw the living image of Adolf Hitler carrying a briefcase and being chased by a mob through the streets of Strasbourg. A waiter explained that he was a local merry-andrew who liked to impersonate Hitler, but he managed to enrage the citizens as much as if he'd been the real thing. They nearly killed him. We never got closer than that to the real thing because my father [Robert Benchley, the humorist} was known as, among other things, an anti-Nazi. It was deemed wise for me not to go into Germany. All we could do was have lunch on the French bank of the Rhine and throw our empty wine bottles at a passing German border patrol. These things could have happened to any foot-loose tourists, but what happened later is, I believe, unique in the annals of international confusion. I was of two minds aboutit then, but looking back now, I’m glad there was no travel agent or guide to protect or warn me. Aswe drove south along the Rhine toward Switzerland, Thorne suggested we take a day or so off from driving and do little walking. “I know just theplace,” I replied. “A town called Grindelwald, past Interlaken. There are woods nearby where we can walk.” We went to a hotel I had stayed at before, and in my precise school German I asked the clerk where the best walking paths were. (Atleast, that’s what I tried to say; in view of what happened, it may have lost something in the translation.) The clerk said a man would be around later who could tell us just what we wanted. To sum it up, we found ourselves, at 6 a.m., equipped with knapeacks, climbing boots, ropes, and crampons following our guides to the foot of the Wetterhorn. T'll say one thing for it—it was a walk. We walked until three that afternoon, then, staggering with exhaustion, we fell into a small hut at ~ the rim of the snow line, and the guides made ushottea and putfleecelined shoes on our throbbing feet. At three the next morning we were up and climbing so as to get to the summit (altitude, 12,149) and off it again before the sun softened the snow andinvited avalanches. By then, of course, it was obvious that whatever I’d thought I’d said had been was spent in Chartres, where the thing to do is see the cathedral. Several_busloads-of tourists came and went while Thorne andI sat bemused at a café in the square and watched the sunset color the ancient spire. A day or so later, Thorne happened to unfold the map from the top and see Luxembourg. “Have you ever been to Luxembourg?”he asked. (I had visited Europe before with my parents and was irritating him by 10 Family Weekly, June 4, 1967 ; yi , John Thorne, left, and Nathaniel Benchley, second from left, are tired but triumphant after climbing the Wetterhorn. With them are their two guides. ft eee |