Share your first time with Travis McGee.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Travis McGee, my first time.
Someone came in the store the other day to look at the John D. MacDonald shrine. (I can't think of any other author I'd rather have a shrine for than John D.) I thought of the first time I met Travis McGee. It was in 1971. My wife and I had taken the Choy Lee down the Gulf Coast on a little holiday. We pulled into a slip at Cabbage Key for the night. A young couple on the boat in the next slip struck up a conversation. We talked about the usual things you talk about with strangers in the next sli -- the weather, itinerary, our boats, and so forth. Then the conversation turned to books. "You read any Travis McGee?" the skipper wanted to know. I shook my head and told him I'd never heard of him. He raised his index finger to suggest he'd be right back and disappeared below deck. In a moment, he emerged with a paperback book in his hand. "Enjoy," he said. I stayed up and read it that night. After that I was hooked. Had to find all that had been written before. Had to have each new one as they came out."
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3 comments:
Did you know that there was a Travis McGee TV movie staring Sam Elliot. I missed it too, but your Blog got me looking into John D MacDonald.
I even discovered this interesting story on www.IMDB.com
There actually is a slip at Bahia Mar, in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, F-18, known to all Travis fans as HIS slip for the Busted Flush ( his beloved houseboat)... It sits empty in Ft. Lauderdale, a memorial to a man who touched so many lives, yet never was.If you are ever in the area, check it out. With the price of large boat slips in the area, it is a fit testimony to the power of the written words of John D. McDonald, and his ability to make you believe that Travis will come floating by with a sexy white gleaming smile in deepwater tan smile for us all.
McGee Fans will also enjoy:
http://home.earthlink.net/~rufener/
Thanks, Captain. I visited Bahia Mar years ago and saw slip F-18. There was a brass plate on the piling marking it as McGee's home. Someone came to the store recently and told me new owners had reorganized the marina and done away with F-18. Instead there's a large monument to MacDonald and McGee now.
I've never read John D. MacDonald, but a friend told me this, and I thought it would shed some light on the subject:
"I really liked the first book I read by John D. MacDonald -- it was called The Deep Blue Goodbye. I read it partially on a Florida beach and partially in a Florida condominium, imagining I owned my own houseboat the whole time.
I tried to read another of his books not long after that (A Tan and Sandy Silence), but I found it to be too similar to the first story to hold my interest; a hint of recurrent plot formulation cut the thread. But I think MacDonald's a fun, quick read that inspired many of today's most influential, modern detective-story writers."
--Carl, in Atlanta
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