ADAMCZYK: How to hit the road

If you’re raising a kid whose short-term goal involves devouring every book in the “young reader” section of the public library, I’ve got a role model for him or her. Her name is Deborah Williams, and she’s a travel writer, which, I suspect, might make her a role model for some grownups, too.

Yes, she goes places, writes about them and gets paid, and if that’s your idea of excitement, be aware her first claim to fame came as an essay writer in the fourth grade at Lindbergh Elementary School in Kenmore. Loretta Heatley, her teacher back in the “I Like Ike” days, predicted she would become a writer. Williams’ fourth book, “The Erie Canal: Exploring New York’s Great Canals, a Complete Guide,” is a remarkably comprehensive guide to all the towns along the modern-day canal. Published by Countryman Press as part of its “Great Destinations” series, this is the real deal, a serious book densely packed with useful information. The cities, the attractions, the restaurants and accommodations are all here. If the Erie Canal — once a lynchpin in American history and commerce and now a recreational waterway for boaters, walkers, tourists and campers — figures into your life, the book will be a valuable resource.

While the book is a hands-on guide for what to do along the canal and its feeder channels — Buffalo, Waterloo, Watkins Glen, Seneca Falls, Saratoga Springs, name the town and it’s in here — Williams says “the most fascinating part of researching it was the history. It took incredible determination and a can-do spirit” to build it, 1819-1825, and noted it was accomplished without engineers, child labor laws, heavy equipment or OSHA standards. Dangerous and exciting stuff, but it opened non-coastal America, including Buffalo and the Tonawandas, to the world.

A certain can-do spirit is also reflected in Williams. Now living in Colden, she grew up on the Buffalo-Ken-Ton line and got her first job the day after college graduation in 1968 with the sadly missed newspaper the Buffalo Courier-Express, where she did …

“Everything. I worked the night shift on a morning paper, so there were deadlines. General assignment, medical, features, features editor, magazine articles, a travel column called ‘Wanderlust,’ police, courts, everything.”

The Courier had a reputation of feisty little brother as it competed with the better-moneyed and relatively patrician Buffalo Evening News, and if you’ve ever seen black-and-white movies about the loony life of people in the newspaper business, well, that was the Courier.

“Oh, the bizarre people who worked there. Oh, the characters,” Williams recalls. “And the typewriters with keys missing. The paper folded in 1982, and I took off to Africa for a month. I’ve been freelancing ever since.”

Thus began a career in travel writing, the one topic that can guarantee a full house whenever a community education service offers a “how to be a travel writer” class. Everyone who thinks it’s a glamorous job also thinks it’s an easy one.

“People see it as all fun, but what I’m doing is making sure the reader’s vacations go right. Time is a valuable commodity, and a vacation is something you can’t replace. It makes getting research, and getting it right, all the more important.

“It’s not frivolous. When I prefer to be lolling on the beach, I’m checking out other hotels and places to go.”

This reporter’s acumen for what her readers need to know has won her a number of professional awards. One look at the Erie Canal book and you know she’s done her homework.

“It makes you want to research more. Once you’re there, you ask more questions of the people, and the people are the best part of the travel. As a writer you go out and ask a lot of questions, so writing and reporting is the perfect job for me.”

It’s a line of work that has its perks, though. Basketball players can tour the world and see nothing but insides of arenas. Businesspeople often see airports, hotel rooms and offices, but not enough of the cities they visit. Williams gets to discover the best things about a place, the things I should look for when I’m there. Her Erie Canal book includes many remarkable observations; when you can read eight pages on the must-see attractions of the city of Utica, for example, you know there’s some research being done.

“The old Kenmore library on Delaware Road had its children’s section in the basement,” Williams recalls, “and I read virtually every book down there. I’d read in bed, with a flashlight,” and if that describes your child, I suspect he or she is in for a heck of an interesting life.

Ed Adamczyk is a Kenmore resident whose column appears every Friday in the Tonawanda News. Contact him at EdinKenmore@gmail.com.

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