`What I’m really attracted to are people who are rooted to their places,” says Peter Jenkins, who in the past 20 years has traveled and written about most of America and China and the people he has met along the way.
Jenkins’ just-released “Along the Edge of America” (Rutledge Hill Press; $19.95) is as much about people as it is about the Gulf Coast from the Florida Keys to the Gulf of Mexico. He traveled by boat between January 1991 and late-fall 1992, and prior to that spent about a year in choosing the boat and learning what he needed to know about navigating it. On occasion during the trip he docked the boat and went home, and at times he had different members of his family join him for short visits.
“The places that I like to search out are places where the people are really rooted to their environment, whether it’s small-town North Carolina or Alabama or whether it’s base camp at Mt. Everest in Tibet where you have the Tibetan yak herders and sheep herders who are tremendously rooted to the Himalayas. Or whether it’s the people in the Keys that I met who are totally connected to the ocean and the moods of the ocean. I don’t really like it when I’m in a place that’s real new, where there isn’t a real sense of history and place. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the way a lot of people feel.”
Jenkins says he doesn’t know what he’ll find, as far as the people are concerned, until he actually gets to the place. “I just wander,” he says. “I say the word wander to people and they just kind of shake their head–like what does that mean? Because most of us don’t have time to wander. Our lives are pretty full and scheduled.
“But I just wander. I pick an area–for my latest book I picked the Gulf Coast–and I have a somewhat specific structure. I wasn’t going to take a left and head to Cuba and I wasn’t going to leave the boat and get on a motorcycle and just head all the way to Canada. But within my limitation, I just sort of wandered. And when I found places that intrigued me, they ended up being places where the people were rooted to their environment.”
Jenkins says he can always find the right kind of people to fill his books, though he didn’t think, at first, that he’d be able to find them in Florida. “We all, I think, suffer from preconceptions,” he says. “When I thought of Florida I thought of the commercials on television, of theme parks, of stuffed rubber alligators sold at stands. I was sort of thinking I was just going to grin and bear it through Florida, hoping I’d come up with something. But actually half of the book was taken up by Florida, because it was a discovery to find 150 to 175 miles of jungle-like coastline where you could sort of feel like you’re in the Amazon, up above Tampa, in the big bend of Florida.”
It was here that Jenkins, who says he runs into people in the most improbable ways, met up with an ex-marijuana smuggler who had been rehabilitated and now is writing computer programs that are used by the FBI and the CIA.
“A lot of times I might have one connection in a place,” says Jenkins, “and it builds from there. With the ex-smuggler it was my brother-in-law who knew him. Often the connection is not the person I end up writing about.”
The ordinary traveler, of course, doesn’t have the time Jenkins has to settle into a place for a few months and find the most interesting people with the best stories to tell. Still, he says, you can do it, too, even on short trips.
“My wife and I and some of our younger kids who still want to be around us just take off. We just drive the back roads and stop and strike up conversations with people. We’re really interested in going to auctions, so we leave early in the morning, start driving, and get a local weekly paper and see if we see any auctions, and then go to one. We just make adventures of that and we get to talking to people.”
Jenkins admits that one advantage to his kind of travel, when he’s writing a book, is that he travels alone. “When you’re vulnerable,” he says, “you tend to reach out to people more. And I’m not the world’s most gregarious person, either. I’m pretty shy. It’s not easy for me to do this. I sometimes have to force myself to do it, but then great things happen.”
Jenkins says he always tells people he’s writing a book when he’s talking to them. “On this trip a lot of people thought I was a government agent–I’m taking pictures and I’ve got this tape machine. So I would quickly pull out a book and show them what I do.
“But when you live with somebody for several months, they forget. They learn to trust me and I have never had anybody that I’ve written about that felt like I’ve abused their trust. A lot of them have revealed more to me than were in the books and that I would never put in the books because it would be embarrassing to them. It might sell more, but I just wouldn’t do that.”
Some people are bolder when they’re with another person, Jenkins says, so don’t rule out meeting people just because you have a traveling companion. “Strike up conversations with people anywhere,” he says. `Have some idea what you’d like to see in the area and ask for directions. You have to start asking questions and then, based on the response, adjust your conversation from there.”
“Some of the most interesting experiences come from doing things that are the opposite of what you’re accustomed to. I remember when I was walking across America for my first book, I would go into some of these little former school houses in Appalachia on Friday nights when I heard bluegrass music coming from inside. I’d go inside and they’d be having a square dance. I was a hard-core, rock and roll, Woodstock-type kid. Initially, I thought it was absurd, but I’d go in there and start dancing with people and have a great time.”
Jenkins says he’s felt safe most of the time on his trips but, since he travels alone, there have been moments of danger. One occurred during his most recent trip when he was alone on his boat in the Gulf and two men attempted a hijack. “One of the really terrifying things about being on the water,” he says, “is that it’s not like if your car breaks down and you can at least stand on the side of the road. If your boat sinks you’re just floating there like a bobbing snack for some shark.
“When you’re in a potentially life-and-death situation, it calls upon all that you’re capable of. This was the first time I actually had to take action against somebody, which I hesitate to do unless it’s absolutely necessary. But I really felt it was necessary at that moment and I had to knock out and push him overboard, because they seemed like the kind of people who would not think anything of killing a person.”
Jenkins says travel has taught him that the simple things in life are often the most profound pleasures. “Like sitting on the porch of someone’s house, overlooking a little valley in Tennessee or something. Or the simple pleasure of being on the boat with my son and watching five or six mother porpoise teach their little babies how to catch mullet.”
The essence of travel, Jenkins says, is that you separate yourself from your everyday world, in which we can all become complacent. “When you travel and meet other people you become more aware of who you are.”
Another lesson Jenkins has gained from his travels is patience, which has made it possible for him to go where he wants to and discover the things he wants to, he says.
“So often we’re met with `No, you can’t do this.’ There are so many controls that keep us staying in one place. And we do live in a state where we’re so much afraid of each other. And this is absurd. Sure, there are some bad people out there, but what are we talking about? The people who commit the crimes in our society are probably not even one percent, and yet they get all this inordinate amount of attention. Then you begin to think it’s everywhere.
“I think my books have been so popular with so many people because they give people the inspiration to get out. It’s the willingness to take a chance. I’m not saying throw away all caution to the wind; I’m just saying give people a chance. And, remember, the trip doesn’t have to be planned. Just get in the car and go.”
