Accent on Living
IT WAS not so long ago that the young college graduate, bent on seeing the world, either (a) bought a ticket to foreign parts if he had the price, or (b) worked his way, or (c) devised some combination of these methods to fit his needs and capacities. Those who could not afford it, and who did not want to work, simply stayed home. Such was the drab, prosaic way of life in The Twenties. To judge from a fair number of recently published books, today’s would-be globetrotter enjoys a much fatter prospect.
All a man really needs nowadays is the desire. Where shall it be? Sumatra? Middle East? Bengal? “I remember that even in the earliest days of my childhood I had always
dreamed of going to — (Bangkok,
Andorra, Easter Island, Copenhagen, etc., etc.).” It won’t cost a cent, either. He may even find himself possessed of some cash to jingle at the natives and to cover his stopovers at various famous hotels. “I could hardly believe my good fortune, as I was shown to my suite at the Raffles. . .”If he wants to do it up on a big scale, he can bring along some companions, a few relatives, a secretary or two, and a staff of porters, chauffeurs, and professional assistants. The size of Ids entourage is for him to choose, because it’s all free, anyhow.
The adventurer begins with a few simple declarations. He is, he announces, “a scientist.” (This means he was a college major in something or other.) In the interest of science, he proposes to make the arduous journey to Bali, or Norway, or Peshawar. What will he do there?
The safest answer to this question is grasses; our man will collect and study grasses; grasses are a much better bet than buried cities or dinosaur bones. When you get right down to it, there aren’t many places in the world worth seeing where a man couldn’t find grasses of some sort or other. This means that our man has probably taken a couple of botany courses, but with this modest credential he is comfortably in the clear.
As the next step — and because a book will inevitably result from it, we shall refer to our traveler as the author from this point on — the author consults the venerable professor of botany, himself something of a noodle, at Nirvana University. Flattered that anyone should wish to pursue the subject he has taught more or less fruitlessly over the years, the professor writes a smashing endorsement of what becomes thereby an Expedition.
The author is now an accredited Expedition Leader: the Nirvana Botanical Expedition, Everett Doakes, Executive Director. Stationery to this effect follows in short order. It would be equally correct to call the venture the Expedition for the Edification of Everett Doakes, but that title would hardly attract donations, and donations mean the difference between that suite at the Raffles and staying home and going to work.
Transportation, which used to be a formidable hurdle, is perhaps the largest and certainly the easiest of the donations. For transportation, Doakes turns to the Army, the Navy, or the Air Force. “I could see, from his frosty manner, that the General knew little about grasses and cared less. But my enthusiasm must have caught his interest, and he soon thawed when I was able to show him that my studies might some day be necessary to the national security and the armed forces of the United States.” Blight? Rust? Pollens? Mildew? Parasites? Few generals, thinking it over, would care to send American boys out among foreign grasses in a distant land without a pretty fair idea of what they were getting into.
The wisdom of having chosen grasses instead of prehistoric wall paintings or ancient burial practices comes to the fore vigorously at this stage. It would have taken a lot more thawing to convince the General that the eventual security of his command might depend on what the author could find in a Sumerian tomb, provided, also, that he could find the tomb in the first place. But with grasses it all moves briskly. “‘How many in your party? When do you want to start?’ Before I could realize what was happening, the General summoned his aide — the same Colonel who had received me so coldly and who was now all smiles and good humor — and was dictating the orders for my flight.”
The small expedition is preferable for a starter — just Doakes, his wife, and possibly a friend or two. Not so many arrangements are necessary. Nirvana U. may cough up some cash for expenses; perhaps some timorous millionaire will be just as worried as the General was about the future security of the nation and the menace of foreign grasses. As a full-blown expedition leader, Doakes will have plenty of lecture engagements on his return, and these will help him, also, in enlarging the sales of his book.
With several expeditions and books under his belt, Doakes can hang out his shingle as an Institute. Detroit motor manufacturers will hasten to endow him, or rather the Institute, with trucks; oil companies are ready to tender gasoline; weapons, foodstuffs, and special equipment roll in on Doakes. He has to rent a warehouse for it. And nothing will exceed Doakes’s clear-eyed self-satisfaction when he tells us all about it in his next book. The Grand Tour, nowadays, is whatever a man wants to make it.