Joel Stratte-McClure first walked into my life at the local Barnes & Noble Booksellers, and now he goes to bed with me. Wait, let me explain.
Joel Stratte-McClure first walked into my life at the local
Barnes & Noble Booksellers, and now he goes to bed with me.
Wait, let me explain.
Stratte-McClure is a hometown product, a Shasta High School grad
who did time at Stanford and Columbia universities. He loves to
read, write, walk and talk, not always in that order. His latest
gig is a fun-filled book titled "The Idiot and the Odyssey." That's
what I take to bed.
Among Stratte-McClure's favorite pastimes is the healthful art of
walking. It's what this book is all about, circumambulating the
Mediterranean Sea. A narrative by a world-renowned journalist, this
one holds my interest and my humor. Yes, I'm still reading my way
through it, and laughing along the way.
My original plan was to finish the book before sharing any of this
adventure, but I just couldn't keep it a secret any longer. After
all, the tome is more than 350 pages in length and that could take
me until Christmas. You need to get started well before that. Right
from the start, this amounts to great reading whether you graze
word to word or gulp the pages fast.
I can't vouch for today's standards, but when I was shuffling
through Shasta High back in the 1950s, some teachers required their
students to read two famous classics: "The Iliad" and "The
Odyssey," written by a Greek named Homer. These epic poems relate
to the era of the eighth and ninth centuries B.C., including the
Trojan War and the siege of Troy. They chronicle heroic quests and
sweeping journeys that have held readers in suspense for
centuries.
A love for walking and the enchantment of the Mediterranean Sea
aside, there are other reasons behind this book. A spiritual
bottoming-out and a recent divorce, to name but two, have led to
this journal of a wayfaring mind in a Mediterranean setting. The
author is no stranger to this region having lived in Paris and
raised a family in the south of France.
So, with the fresh idea of hoofing it completely around the
Mediterranean seaboard, he set forth from Antibes, France, on a New
Year's Day, wrapped in the comfort that only comes with familiarity
in the lay of the land and flow of the language. If that wasn't
enough, there was always the reassurance that a tale like this had
yet to be told in modern terms. He calls it the MedTrek.
This is no solitary trek, at least not always. Bardot is by his
side much of the way. Not Brigitte, the French film star of lasting
fame and classic beauty. In this case, Bardot is the author's aging
yellow Labrador retriever, a faithful pal born on the French
Riviera more than a decade earlier. And there is Delphyne, a
Franco-American acquaintance who loves to walk only when she wants
to. And there are other characters randomly provided by the
journey.
Alas, this is as far as I have read. Feel free to close your eyes
as we're at Le Cap d'Agde on the coast of France - the world's
largest nudist colony. With 40,000 naturists during July and
August, this naked city comes complete with shopping malls, grocery
stores, banks, cops, doctors, theaters, restaurants and more. It's
just another coastal town, only without clothes.
Enough with nudity, allow me to slip on my reading glasses and
turn the page; the 4,400 kilometer walk around the Mediterranean
has barely begun, and you're on your own. For now, copies of
Stratte-McClure's book are only available on the Internet at
Amazon.com.
Bon voyage.
Contact Tom Dunlap at 245-9055 or at tomscolumn@sbcglobal.net.
