North from Ocala

Written by Barbara Lindner Wood, this is an autobiography which reads like an adventure novel. The opening pages tell Barbara's story in Ocala, Florida as an aviatrix and meteorologist just before America enters World War II. She meets her husband, Ben, at Ocala airport's army pilot training school. They marry in Texas, move with their first son to Washington DC and Ben enters the US Foreign Service. This new phase of her life includes stints in The Philippines, Belgium, Vietnam, Cambodia, and London. Her marriage fails and as a lively divorcee in the tumultuous Sixties, Barbara oscillates between Paris, Washington DC and the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. Camping in the back of her customized white Land Rover (illustrated on the book cover), she gallivants all over Europe and Turkey. By the 1980s she is back in the US on a garlic farm she starts in Virginia. During all of these years she encounters celebrities such as Garbo, Nureyev, Henry Moore, Johnny Weismuller, Joe Frazier, Jack and Jackie Kennedy - to mention just a few. Barbara says: "I was fortunate to be often in the right place at the right time. As a free spirit I traveled the world, having tremendous fun."