It might have been sentiment that had me longing to return to San Antonio, Texas for the past twenty seven years. The city plays a memorable role in my career because it was in San Antonio where I reported my very first story for CBS News. It was the annual convention of Barbershop Harmony Society, held right before the 1988 political conventions. I still remember how anchorman Bob Schieffer introduced my story; “Democrats meeting in Atlanta can only hope that their gathering is as harmonious as the one being held in San Antonio this weekend…”, that Bob Schieffer is one clever writer. I was in and out of San Antonio so… Read More…

Bear with me for a moment because at first glance you may not think a post about Sony Pictures and the movie, The Interview is about travel, but it is. It is about the metaphorical journey we take as we try to live together on this planet in spite of our cultural and national differences. Or maybe its about why Amy Pascal, Seth Rogan and the rest ought to travel and listen more and express less. When my son, Antonio was in elementary school, he took responsibility for an act of vandalism in the boys’ restroom. He did not actually do the damage, he told… Read More…

While viewing the fantastic and seemingly-endless Jean Paul Gaultier special exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia in October; my mind traveled back to Puerto Rico. My father’s side of the family is from Borinquin and over the years, I have visited there many times.  Whether the French-born fashion maven and professional pot-stirrer has ever traveled to Puerto Rico, I can’t say. But as I viewed the products of his inventive mind, I was also thinking of the runway show of Puerto Rican fashion designer  Luis Antonio which I had seen the month previous during New York’s Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. Both… Read More…

Some travel is a lot of work, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. Having just returned from a five week round-the-world trip that was ninety percent business and involved a lot of on-the fly booking of transportation and accommodations, I returned home exhausted. Times like this are when I crave the vacation that’s like home; but better. For me, that means a stay in a rambling inn in some unique setting where, unlike at my own house, people take care of my needs and leave me with no decision more difficult than what time to get out of bed in the morning. I started thinking about this… Read More…

The beach was warm and the sea inviting. So I was less than enthusiastic when Jeanroger Dorsainvil and Sala Landemaine, guides with the tour company Touris Lakay, arrived after lunch to take me for a previously scheduled walk to the market. I was staying at Moulin Sur Mer, an 18th Century former sugar plantation turned into a family-friendly resort on Haiti’s Cote des Arcadin about 90 minutes north of north of Port au Prince. “Listen, gents,” I told them, “Earlier, I thought I would be interested in seeing the market, but really the idea of going pales next to the possibility of staying right here.” But Sala was… Read More…

Don’t ask me how, but the more wine I had, the more furious I pedaled until by the end of our 20 mile tour of the vineyards of Healdsburg, California, I think I burned off all the calories consumed at the three wineries I visited, including the salted peanut butter cup  and the double chocolate cake – about which, more later. Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. The Dry Creek Valley about 90 minutes drive north from San Francisco features gentle hills, nothing too strenuous, and there wasn’t much traffic after we made the short trip through town. I was riding with… Read More…

If I had I my way, I never would have met Romeo Farrington and that would have certainly been my loss. His daughter Espree was the one who picked me up from the airport in Nassau, drove me to dinner and then back to my hotel for the night. She explained that her dad was tied up with a wedding but he’d be by to pick me up for my one-day tour of Nassau the following morning. I had other plans. “Just you tell him you’ll be my guide tomorrow, okay?” I asked. The truth is I was enchanted by Espree from the moment we… Read More…

At 56, I am one of the younger Americans with a clear recollection of the day fifty years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The students in Ms. Sherman’s second grade class at Oak Grove Elementary School in Florida were in line waiting to be dismissed for the day when the announcement that the president had been shot came over the public address system. Times were different then. Seven year olds didn’t understand what being shot meant. At least I didn’t. It was immediately apparent, however, that this was devastating news. Ms. Sherman and the other teachers clustered in the hall, shaking their… Read More…

Last week a tow truck pulled up to my house, loaded a 1974 Jensen-Healey sports car on the bed and left. Pulling out of my driveway the autumn leaves swirled a bit before settling back on the street. Seasons come and seasons go and so do cars. The departure of that one was a news-making event in some quarters. My husband Jim wrote about it for The New York Times Wheels blog, which you can read here.  As with most stories, there is more than one side. Here’s mine. The Jensen-Healey was my husband’s first love and an occasional irritant in our 30 year marriage. … Read More…

When my sister Andrea, called me with her great idea for a newspaper column that would show people how to replicate fashionable designer outfits with less expensive alternatives, I was immediately enthusiastic. It was a brilliant idea. So she recruited Candy Barrie, who was at the time a Washington, D.C. fashion consultant, to put together the ensembles we would photograph and we carefully recorded the high end  versus low end prices along with shopping information. The syndicated fashion column, Dress for Less was born. Within a few years Andrea’s idea with Candy’s follow through had become a weekly feature that appeared in newspapers large and… Read More…