Buying the New Yorker 1986 - page 81

One of the problems with looking for hotels on the internet is the way that you get all of the "helpful travel" sites popping up before you can find the site for the actual hotel. Many of these sites allow you to post your own hotel review, which means that many of them are slathered with the ravings of the sort of cranks that I try to avoid while on vacation. I generally try to ignore them except in cases when the poor reviews seem unanimous.

I suspect from the online reviews that the Brazilian Court was being renovated in or around 2004, and that those renovations were going poorly (as renovations do). The only reason that I mention that is because here in the 1986 ad we see them trumpeting the then recent renovation. It's like we are seeing the circle of life.


Those children are scaring the crap out of me. But not as much as the idea of a camp that advertises in the New Yorker that it is for "Intelligent Children" (read: the parents believe that the children are intelligent). And the slogan "Self-esteem is key to a productive life" is the frighteningest of all. Rest easy, campers of today: Camp Killooleet now seems to look like every other camp. I went to a YMCA camp in Wisconsin. I see little difference. It makes sense that they've gotten all sensible. The parents of today were the campers of this era, they know that all that purposeful self-esteem stuff is a bunch of hooey. Their kids want to run around, do stuff and have fun just like they did.

Well this is definitive. Norman T. Simpson died in 1988. Here's his obit. The headline is "Norman Simpson, 69; Wrote a Guide to Inns."

Here's me not thinking straight. I looked at this ad and thought that there was a place in the Caribbean called "Bicycle St. Kitts." No. You go to St. Kitts and then you can bicycle. Bah. I want to go to "Bicycle St. Kitts." Anyway, Progressive Travels LTD seems to have either shut down or moved (Progressive Travels seems to be an increasingly popular name for a business these days). Here's a site that tells you all about going to St. Kitts and riding a bicycle. If you're willing to settle for that.

I have quite wide feet. My usual method of coping with shoes is to buy normal shoes a couple sizes too big for me. When I ordered my first pair of shoes from Hitchcock, I was amazed at how bizarrely small my feet seemed. It creeped me out. Plus they're expensive. They've been around for more than 50 years, so they might come up some more times. I'm running out of things to say.

The Country Walking Holidays folks seem to still be in business, but they have no website. This article indicates that they are still there at the same address. Write them and get a brochure. I'm not sure if the brochure is all the information you need, or if it's their sales brochure. Only one way to find out.