Only in the 21st century, with the tools we have to reach across the miles and over the years, would Pastor Jeff Garrison and I enjoy the happy accident of meeting online. We both responded to a post on Quora about memorable train rides; he mentioned the same Jogja to Jakarta run in Indonesia that I wrote about in Overland – which I am now referring to as “my first book.”
What I didn’t glean from his comment was that he had taken that ride 36 years after I did. Jeff is one of the exact people I wanted this story to reach. I hoped it would fall into the hands of people who traveled the route when it was the Hippie Trail, and the ones doing today’s Banana Pancake, and that somehow, we could meet up, compare and contrast.
And now we have. In Jeff’s insightful, in depth and very generous review, (which appears appropriately second in the post) he remarks on those very similarities and differences between his trip and mine; the then-and-now comparisons I was hoping readers would make and I would somehow hear about. Different paths were open to us then, several more countries were open to him now. When we got to the same place in Thailand, I hung a left – went west to Burma. He went right – to Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam, where Americans weren’t allowed.
I came home and went into the media business in Chicago, Jeff became a pastor, book blogger, writer, photographer volunteer firefighter and all-around amazing guy, and from what I read in his bio, there is no way we could ever have connected, zero chance our paths would ever have crossed, if not for the ways we connect.
Even more surprising is the juxtaposition of my book being reviewed in the same post with one by Gov. John Kasich! No WAY! What if Kasich gets a link to that review and scrolls down and sees mine under it? He will know of my existence. Mind-boggling. And through what link? A Presbyterian pastor’s book blog! It’s our America, folks
Thanks to Rev. Dr Jeffrey Garrison, Author of The Pulpit and the Pen