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Written by Russell Johnson
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A few years ago I took a night before the night before Christmas helicopter ride to where the spirits are high and the air is thin, Mt. Everest. This is a short excerpt from "Gone Astray" an audio book of my stories distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange on iTunes and on CD.
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Written by Russ Johnson
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Stories, photos & video by Russ Johnson
Talk about a holiday escape. A few years ago I flew from the real Bethlehem, in the Middle East, to Brazil's Bethlehem, a town called Belem at the mouth of the Amazon where after some Christmas shopping at a rather funky, politically-incorrect market, I began a jungly yuletide cruise. Have a look at a Flash video and some pictures.
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Written by Russell Johnson
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Heidelberg Castle ©Russell Johnson
I’m sure, if you are over 18 you have spent some holiday season away from home. A few years ago I flew to Frankfurt, Germany the day before US Thanksgiving for a 1/2 hour business meeting. The meeting was a bust and alone, in a terrible mood, on a bone-chilling afternoon I boarded a train for Heidelberg, where the Student Prince was alive and quite drunk.
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Written by Russell Johnson
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Story & Photography, Russell Johnson
The celebrities in Rockefeller Plaza are quite a distance away. They are next to the giant Christmas tree on the plaza, waiting for it to light up. We are stuck in a line, a block away, playing cat and mouse with New York's finest who are half-heartedly trying to get us to move on. My wife has become quite a star herself.leading the nearby mob in a chorus of "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer."
One guy yelled "shaddup! I hate dat song."
The tree lit up, everybody cheered, we moved away with the mass into one of New York's biggest weekends. We went in search of Santa. |
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Written by Russell Johnson & Pat Meier-Johnson
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Where do you go to find a spirited Christmas celebration? Give me Fiji any day. As the temperature teases the freezing tick on the thermometer and our cat Moritz stalks the house, looking for non-existant pools of light, my mind floats on the trade winds to Fiji sunshine. I am a great fan of Fiji. I courted my wife on a cruise of Fiji's islands in 1997, but ten years earlier I went there to do a documentary for American Public Radio and NPR that was supposed to have been a Christmas special featuring Fiji's magnificent a capella choirs, but ended up as a rather strange tale of island politics: two coups d'etat, me being suspected of being CIA, a strange encounter with a drunken German arms dealer.
The program was an hour long but here is a 16 minute updated version, a major part of which features the music of the islands ranging from a Fijian drinking song to familiar Christmas carols sung in Fijian. I would guess that there are few Fijians who cannot sing...magnificently. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and joy during this holiday season.
PS: We are offering a CD of the music alone in our online store. |
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