Part Two

Certainly no traveller views an airport as a destination, but rather a necessity. Some do make one feel more comfortable than others . . . Tucson and El Paso for their sense of place and adjacent car rental pick-up . . . Honolulu with its open-air tropical mood are some good examples.

Germany's Frankfurt airport unfortunately is not among them. It somehow always gives the impression a sizeable portion of the city is in the chaotic process of being evacuated through there, and not in an orderly fashion. We long ago got used to seeing tanks near the runway and guards with machine pistols patrolling the terminal. And that was many years before 9/11.

Airport security is not new. En route to Zimbabwe via Nairobi and Johannesburg in the mid-1980s, armoured tanks led our Lufthansa plane down the Kenya runway.

Hard to believe that sort of security has been part of travellers' lives for all those years, but one gets used to it. Local political problems, not widely publicised then, were necessitating such protection from terrorists longer than a lot of people remember. And unless one actually visited those areas, it was never widely publicised.

My TWA flight from Nice, France to New York in April 1974 detoured to Lisbon to pick up passengers fleeing Portugal's coup by a military junta. Tanks and soldiers with red carnations in their rifle barrels were everywhere at Lisbon's airport, and those boarding carried red carnations symbolising a bloodless coup.

In today's world we can expect such security to increase, not decrease. But that doesn't mean an airport has to seem like a perpetual construction site and much of its security personnel in need of some public relations training like Frankfurt.

Now that a bomb threat against it was uncovered in recent months, it will probably be worse than ever.

As great fans of British Columbia and its extraordinary scenery, we look forward to many encore visits there in future. With a Winter Olympics in its future, so do a lot of other travellers.

Although counter staff were helpful at Vancouver's airport after our May Alaska cruise, it was there we met the really most unpleasant security man of this or any other year.

The Asian-Canadian in charge of seeing all items were properly placed on the conveyor taking them through X-ray was so totally lacking in civility, he acted like a miserable gulag prison guard or block captain in China or a vintage Iron Curtain country.

Certainly, some supervisor should have seen his open hostility towards passengers who were in turn acting politely obedient and well-mannered.

So we were not surprised to see a really horrendous sequence shown on television recently recording the death of a 40-year-old Polish man arriving at Vancouver airport to join his mother, who lived in Canada.

The visitor spoke no English, had been detained many hours and when he got understandably restless was stun-gunned by a member of security. A tourist videod the ghastly scene showing him being stunned over and over again.

The Polish man was pinned to the ground, a knee jammed against his neck and constantly stunned until he died on the spot. It was horrible to watch and was being hushed up until the passsenger's video appeared.

The television report claimed there have been 18 deaths in that city from tasers. If that's true, it's great publicity for its Winter Olympics.

During your holiday gatherings, reminiscences about the past year have probably included talking travel. Planning family reunions, organising trips with children and grandchildren obviously takes on new challengers in an era of uncertain economics.

But there are some good vacation-planning strategies that can ease costs. Signing on to a special group package tour offered by a local travel agent can be one of them.

Because they're buying in volume, your travel agents can get a better group rate than you can individually. They're able to put together a package, whether cruise- or land-based, for less than you can independently.

For those who don't enjoy the challenge of taking off on their own, such group tours have the added bonus of travelling with people of similar interests and having any problems solved by accompanying guides.

But that doesn't mean travellers who like to take off on their own should be discouraged about that style of exploring. Just keep tuned in to world affairs and pay attention to what's going on around the globe so you don't unexpectedly stumble into a danger zone.

Yes, prices at some big city hotels may cost as much as your air fare. But there are an endless number of wonderful places to visit that remain comfortably priced.

Sadly, every year sees the death of some celebrity familiar to us in some special way. Perhaps a film star whose movies impressed us . . . such as Deborah Kerr in The King And I or Glenn Ford in so many memorable westerns such as the original 3:10 To Yuma. Both were as interesting to interview as to watch.

Interviewing so many stars in connection with our Movie Fan's Travel Guide column certainly was . . . and is . . . an eye-opener. Some people remain down-to-earth after achieving celebrity status, but we all know too many who let that publicity go to their head and begin believing their own press releases. There were delightful exceptions, such as John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck and Bob Evans, but others one hoped to never encounter again.

Bob Evans isn't a household name in Bermuda, but the man who made his fortune selling sausage and associated products in America and opened a chain of restaurants was definitely one of a kind. The world would be a better place if there were more like him.

I first met Bob on an assignment covering the area where he lived on the Ohio-West Virginia border. Folksy and friendly, he soon became a family friend.

Bob started his road to riches selling home-made pork sausages from the back of his pick-up truck. While his success rapidly escalated, as did his financial status, Bob's ego never did.

He so reminded me of James Michener whom I'd had the good fortune to meet on a number of occasions. Both were such modest, unpretentious, unique people. Not a phoney bone in their bodies. And we all know how few of those celebrities are out there.

Dining with Michener on a transatlantic QEII crossing and enjoying Bob's company were very similar. One unforgettable visit to Bob's Ohio farm included an evening at a West Virginia moonshiner's mountain-top cabin, after I promised to keep his name and location secret.

There, local mountain people of all ages, from children to aged grandmothers, clog danced to lively fiddle music. And some drank modest samples of what they called "tea", the local word for moonshine.

Except for me, who walked around holding it, certain I'd be poisoned. I'd never encountered true moonshine before and was apprehensive.

Turns out the moonshiner was considered so superior at what he did, he'd been considered for a federal position after Prohibition ended, except he'd had a felony conviction which disqualified him. Another time it might be paddling a canoe down a local river near Bob's vast acreage, or chatting in the barn while he cleaned a horse's hoof with his much-used pocket knife. I even became involved in his work to save western wild horses.

When he came to Chicago after a trip to London, Bob arrived with three deerstalker hats for my mother, my brother Jim and myself.

He even temporarily abandoned the traditional western hat and string tie seen in his ads long enough to wear one himself. He'd long admired the ones Jim wears. Bermuda happily got through the year without a major hurricane. We weren't so lucky. It wasn't a hurricane but a tornado warning that suddenly erupted out of nowhere.

What struck minutes later wasn't a tornado, but what weathermen called a fierce straight-line down-burst of 90 mph winds.

More than 630,000 homes were without power, some in our area for six days. Luckily, we have a generator. Thousands of giant trees along our North Shore came down, many on homes and cars.

We have two impressive 100-year-old ash trees, 150 feet tall. My mother had said they were already very large when she was a child.

As the sky blackened and our giant evergreens whipped back and forth, we heard an enormous sound like part of the house tearing off.

It was the ash closest to the house, split in the centre but standing remarkably upright. For two days, eerie splitting sounds continued and our arbourist said he felt confident it would not hit our coach house or any of the antique buggies, wagons or sleigh directly under it, impossible to move.

And with only inches to spare, the giant finally broke and fell very slowly, missing everything by only inches. It hung dangerously suspended for days, while crews worked feverishly elsewhere to save damaged houses. It took five men all day to cut it up.

Other houses had as many as seven giant elm, maple and ash trees come down, crashing on to homes and destroying cars.

One hates to lose such a treasured tree, but it could have been far worse. And, happily, there is an already sizeable oak next to it and some giant Norway spruce.

Next morning, we decided to venture forth to see the devastation and attend an estate sale on the grounds of Indian Hill Country Club.

The estate owner had been a prosecutor at the Nuremburg Trials, interviewed Goring and had a unique collection.

Hundreds of trees down everywhere made getting to his house a challenge. There was no electricity, water in their basement, but somehow 50 other determined collectors also managed to make it through.