Speaking of the newspaper, I published a number of wonderful leads in my 19 years as the travel editor. The acclaimed sailor and author Webb Chiles once sent me a story about famous burial sites in the South Pacific that began: "Solzhenitsyn says we do not spend enough time in cemeteries. Only a Russian would think that eternity is not enough time."
But perhaps the best lead came in a story about Chicago by the Canadian writer Don Gillmor: "Few cities make me feel like Frank Sinatra. Not the literal Sinatra, hoarse and bloated, eating eggs, as Kitty Kelley described, from the naked stomach of a prostitute – most cities make me feel that way. But the mythical, Songs-for-Swinging-Lovers Sinatra, jacket slung over one shoulder, fedora cocked to the side, a man unburdened."
Great travel story leads followed Sinatran optimism out the newsroom door.
