On the Road Again: Dispatches from a Traveling Writer

Since the March 6 release of my book about Winston Churchill’s unlikely journey to Fulton, Missouri in March 1946–Our Supreme Task–I’ve been busier than usual on the lecture circuit, not to mention with newspaper, radio and (gulp!) TV interviews. Now, we're not talking J.K. Rowling's schedule here (or, more's the pity, her royalties) but a fine publicist + the continued fascination in all things Churchill + the local history angle = a few new and formative experiences. And a few terrifying ones.

The first stop was the Big Apple, where I’d never set foot before Saturday, March 3. Fortunately a lifelong friend has lived there for seven years, and proved an informed and gracious host. Within five hours of landing at La Guardia, he’d whisked me to the Met, put up with my sensory overload at Strand Book Store–where I could have happily squandered a year’s wages–and taken me back in time at the Café Sabarsky, with its wood paneling, grand piano and the best chocolat chaud this side of Vienna. Over the next two days, we consumed more spicy, rich Indian food and its buddy, Kingsfisher lager, than I had in the previous two months, and burned it off by traversing Brooklyn, the Garment District and the East Village.

Then the heat was really on. Any time you have to set three alarms it’s gotta be early, and the 4:15 a.m. EST wakeup call on Tuesday, March 6 (the day after the anniversary of Churchill’s "Iron Curtain" speech, which I explore in my book) was certainly that. The chilly morning air and a vacuumed down double espresso shocked the sleep out of me, and my publicist and I walked from the edge of a still-dormant Times Square to the Fox & Friends studio on 6th Avenue, where the following occurred:

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