EPILOGUE
CURTAIN CALL
On the evening of December 2, 1980, a small crowd gathered in the Jean Delacour Auditorium of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County to see a free presentation about an old-time explorer named Aloha Baker. In the minutes before 7:00 p.m., children were clowning impatiently in their seats while parents glanced at the black-and-white photos in the program.
As the lights dimmed, a woman in her seventies strode across the stage, dressed in khaki pants, a white shirt, and a tailored military style vest. In a clear voice that carried the hint of an English accent, the woman asked if there were any travellers in the audience. A few hands shot up and the lady asked them where they had travelled and how they gotten there — mostly cars on highways, trains, or planes. She had travelled this way too, she said, but before there were highways or airlines. She began painting a picture of a world before television, ballpoint pens, self-winding watches, bubble gum, or canned beer. It was a time when electricity was not yet universal, when cars and airplanes were novel. And when the lady’s movie started, Ms. Baker began narrating, with humour and vivid descriptions, a world like nothing anyone had seen before.
There were scenes of tiny cars scaling great mountains and crossing vast deserts. One car was parked on the back of the Sphinx, another drove along the Great Wall of China. There were images of war and pristine jungles, of exotic women and African tribes, and again and again, shots of a young and beautiful adventurer. The rapt audience listened to Ms. Baker describe how, during a search for missing explorers in the Amazon jungle, she had crashed a plane and befriended a tribe of Bororo Indians. The tales were so spectacular that, had it not been for the film footage, they would have been difficult to believe.
For more than an hour her audience sat spellbound. As the film ended and the lights came up, Ms. Baker said that although the technology has changed, the world itself is pretty much the same. People are people, with the same needs and dreams as they ever had. She challenged her listeners to approach their world with curiosity and wonder. Travel, she said, is the best education and the best way to promote peace. Despite our differences, whether primitive or civilized, we need to find a way to share our planet in peace. “Go with your hat in your hand and wherever you are they will treat you as a guest.”1 After thanking her audience she placed her hands together, bowed slightly, and left the stage. The applause was long and heartfelt.