Come join me in exploring some offbeat places. Descend with me into a catacomb in Plaermo where 8,000 bodies, dressed in their finest, await to be the first to welcome Christ's return or the underground city of Seattle that for years had been forgotten.
The book has seven sections: the honored dead has seven stories including Andersonville Prison packs emotinal punch; History from a different angle has 10 stories including, Former bordello still titilates the populace; Seven Novelty Places includes Trails at Old Bailey are lessons in law and order; Some family matters includes Close quaters test family ties; Getting personal had Sailing on the Tall Ships; Exploring the foreign scene includes Trips to the Twilight Zone and the mysterious includes visits to 10 cities ghost tours.
Excerpt
In contrst to the much larger World War II monument, the Korean War monument brings that conflict's memory alive by giving us the sense that real people suffered and died in teh war. The chief sculptor, Frank Gaylord, who served in World War II, has given us 19 stainless-steel servicemen on patrol walking across a field of scrubby juniper bushes. representing various ethnic groups in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, they carry a variety of weapons--M-1 carbines, M-14 rifles and a BAR--and one man carries the radio. They are ready for action in a dangerous situation. Their faces are wary and straqined--the faces of men who have seen death and destruction. Heavy ponchos tha appear to be blowing the wind protect them fromthe fierce weather of Korea.
Professional Reviews
Where Has Anderson Been?
By Aarik Danielsen
Sunday, March 13, 2011, Columbia Daily Tribune
Upon presenting his first-ever travel article to the Tribune, Wayne Anderson was met with a breathless question from an editor, duly impressed with his work: “Where have you been?”
Anderson has, in a very real yet wholly other sense, been answering the same question for 13 years, writing a weekly travel column for the Tribune, telling local readers where he has been and taking them along on trips to locations exotic and enlightening, majestic and mysterious, 500 or 600 words at a time. Speaking to his whereabouts in a new medium, Anderson recently published his first anthology, “Offbeat Travel: Exploring the unexpected and mysterious” (AKA-Publishing), a set of 54 columns that represent his most far-out, way-out journeys.
The book is evocative and explanatory. As Anderson has exhaustively explored the United States and visited 64 countries, “Offbeat Travel” takes readers from the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Italy, to Seattle’s underground pathways, a confederate Georgia prison camp to the caves of India, even to the Twilight Zone and back. It features ghost tours, travel tips, dispatches from Civil War- and civil rights-related locales and moving anecdotes about how our journeys can intersect; for example, the tale of how Anderson and his wife learn the fate of historical characters they’ve assumed on a voyage to a Titanic exhibition is somber and suspenseful.
Anderson’s unique ability to capture emotional and historical detail is reflected here and is certainly a significant reason for his loyal following of local readers. Many of Anderson’s faithful fans are older and have long since given up on cross-country or continental adventures, he said recently. Thus, he plays an important role in their illumination and exercise of imagination. “What they say to me, when they talk to me, is ‘You do my traveling for me,’ ” he said.
After writing hundreds of articles for the Tribune, Anderson simply knew the time was right for a book when the right part of his brain activated and decided he was. “That part of my brain said, ‘You’ve got to do this,’ ” he noted. “This is right, this is ready.”
The natural effusive, educational tone to Anderson’s work is a function of both his methodical note-taking and eye for interesting places to pause. No matter how fatigued he might be after a long day of sojourning and sightseeing, he, without fail, makes detailed entries each night on which he builds later, longer articles. Anderson gives readers an insight into that process in his new book with an entry titled “Keeping a Travel Journal.” His wife — and often his co-writer — Carla, serves as a companion and editor, helping him further process the experiences they have shared.
Anderson identified “Unearthing Palermo,” the first episode in the book, as one of his favorites, and it truly is one of the most resonant tales therein. Any travelogue that begins, “The upright, fully dressed bodies came as a shock to me … in Palermo the bodies are there in all their decaying glory: 8,000 of them,” certainly qualifies as a memorable one. Going on, Anderson describes how these catacombs, commonly referred to as the “Museum of Death,” house perfectly preserved, eerily lifelike “bodies dressed in their personal best,” appearing to stare at passersby “from sunken eyes embedded in parchment skin.”
“The drying process has left the skin on the faces but has pulled them into horrifying expressions of terror and pain,” he continued. “Many seemed to be screaming — a massive silent scream.” Despite these terrible, terrific images, the piece is more a meditation on life, spirituality and historic practice than an ode to the macabre.
Another piece that really struck me was “Gumshoes and Trick Shoes: Spy Museum Amuses,” an entry inspired by Washington, D.C.’s International Spy Museum, a location I desperately wanted to visit but failed to get to during a capital summer several years ago. As Anderson describes the space, the fascinating gadgets and interactive experiences within, he’s essentially doing my traveling for me.
As far as the reflexive journey between the book and other readers is concerned, Anderson already has done the going — he now hopes readers come to the work with a subtle sense of awe, the same he experiences as he reads other travel writers, and a quiet hopefulness, musing on “what a wonderful world we have where there’s all of these things to see and do,” he said. “Offbeat Travel” is available via online booksellers like Amazon.com and can be found locally at Barnes and Noble. Want to know more about where Anderson has been? You can access his work on the Tribune’s website, of course, at www.columbiatribune.com and his personal website, www.venturebound.net.
Reach Aarik Danielsen at 573-815-1731 or e-mail ajdanielsen@columbiatribune.com.
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