The boomerang effect

Jody O: "Guess what? Wizner wrote a book!"
Me: "Huh? Dang. I'm the guy who wrote the Homecoming Talent Show!"

Franz Wisner, a guy I knew fairly well in high school (we were in between classmates and true friends) has written a book about traveling. Well, to be more precise, he's written a book about what happened when he was left at the alter and took his honeymoon with his somewhat estranged brother. The two-week trip to Costa Rica turned into something like two years of around-the-world adventures.

He popped up today on the Today Show, looking a bit shell-shocked in front of Matt Lauer but nevertheless exhibiting the glib positiveness and Cheshire smile I remember so well from Davis Senior High School. (You can see video here if you scroll down to "More Today Show Video" and click 7 of 11.) And while I'm sure the book is a good one--it's generated considerable press and been optioned as a movie--what struck me is how a person from the past can enter your life in a context completely relevant and even prescient.

Not that I would ever have wished to have my engagement broken off five days before the big event; I am blissfully happy and ridiculously fortunate to married. What's interesting to me is how a guy seemingly born to be slick and successful in business and politics (remember the Popular Table) decided to chuck the rat race and head out with little more than a backpack and vague discontent. Even better, by following his instincts, applying some elbow grease and working his contacts, he's managed to find his bliss, so to speak. Pretty wonderful stuff. I wish it for all of us.

Check out "Honeymoon With My Brother." There are good things to be pulled from the whole deal.