YES I CAN - book review

Not as much travel as I'd like, but I only know Jon from his TV travel shows and press trips we shared. So, for me - it's all about travel.

    Jon Haggins is a video journalist, one who may be better known today for his GlobeTrotter TV show which airs Sundays at 9 PM EST on Time/Warner Channel 67 or RCN Channel 85 in Manhattan. In fact, that’s how I met him. We’ve traveled together several times, both to Spain and Portugal, working together to get the various stories our editors assigned. During the seemingly endless hours of the “hurry-up-and-wait” such trips often entail, I thought I’d learned a lot about Jon’s life. He is an excellent raconteur, with the hundreds of press trips that have taken him all over the world as fodder for his engaging and too-funny tales. There were many times his antics entertained us all. So, I undertook to read his autobiography for more of the same, but was astonished at how little I knew about the man, my friend, Jon Haggins.

    First of all, he’s black. I know, I know, you’ve already seen the handsome cover photo, but when you know him and see him often, he’s not black, he’s a tall, thin smiling man with a shaved head. That’s how I know him. I was surprised to learn that Jon is of an age to remember segregation in the rural southern town where he was born. I, too, remember traveling through the South with a black friend in the ‘60s, and the curses and epithets hurled in our direction as we walked the streets of the small, too-white towns. The difference is, when I was alone on the street no one bothered me. He couldn’t shed the weight that defined the rest of his life. He’s black.

    As in every aspect of his life, he turned what many would find a detriment into his biggest asset. In fact, he was the first black fashion designer to make it big in New York City. His lines of elegantly unstructured women’s wear made him the darling of the fashion world in the 60’s & 70’s. He was also the first designer to use black models. They appeared in his designs on countless Cosmopolitan, Essence and Vogue covers. His every move, party and flirtation regularly made the gossip columns. Women’s Wear Daily wrote about him constantly. Helen G Brown told him, “Jon dear, you are a superb interviewer thanks to your charm.” Debbie Allen said he, “created the most unique, classic fashions that are still the most beautiful you’ll see on any red carpet.” In the 60s & 70s Jon Haggins was what was happening in the New York rag trade!

    It is the man behind the fashion and TV worlds that I got to know on our trips. The kind and gentle man, sometimes too self-centered, which only helped to make him more endearing in the long run, and sometimes generous to a fault, giving more of himself than one should ask -- all because he’s Jon.

    His loves, marriages and monumental achievements all helped to shape the man I know as an engaging traveling companion. He was always ready to set up a video tripod and record a street festival in Mexico, a stunning sunset in the Canary Islands, or dinner in Barcelona. He taped me at the stove in a cooking class in Spain, I taped him on an Eiffel designed bridge in Gerona, and we both crashed a private party on the island of Madeira. Where ever Jon is, the spirit of fun, of ‘joie de vie’ is intoxicating and contagious, and there’s no telling what will happen before the night ends. That’s just how Jon is, he’s - in one word - ALIVE!

    This is his story. The title reflects his positive attitude, his belief that he can do anything. The pages are filled with his triumphs in spite of, and sometimes because of  the unfortunate events that - to some degree - comprise everyone’s life. Through it all, Jon Haggins accepted nothing less than success - in fashion, television and journalism. To know him is to know that when he says it, it is true: Yes I Can!

Yes I Can
Jon Haggins Memoir
ISBN 978-0-9815076-0-6 $16.95
http://www.globetrottertv.blogspot.com
230 pages including 16 color pages of photos
$16.95 plus $4.00 S&H
Send check to:
Jon Haggins
PO Box 20902
New York City 10023

Richard Frisbie, FOOD Correspondent:

BIO - Richard Frisbie writes culinary travel articles, is a columnist for his local newspapers, and is a regular contributor to the many Hudson Valley, Catskill Mountain and other regional New York publications. Online, he writes frequent articles for EDGE publications, GoNomad and Travel Lady, as well as Gather.
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