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How Green Was My Father: A Sort of Travel Diary
Mystery and thriller writer David Dodge's first travel book. It details his move from San Francisco to Guatemala, right after World War II. After traversing the American Southwest, he enters Mexico from Laredo and journeys down to Mexico City along the Pan American highway. It is there, really, that frustrations build and roadblocks emerge before he can eventually make his way across the border from Mexico into Guatemala.
- GenresTravel
217 pages, hardcover
First published January 1, 1947
35 people want to read
About the author
David Dodge
89 books28 followersDavid Francis Dodge (August 18, 1910 – August 1974) was an author of mystery/thriller novels and humorous travel books. His first book was published in 1941. His fiction is characterized by tight plotting, brisk dialogue, memorable and well-defined characters, and (often) exotic locations. His travel writing documented the (mis)adventures of the Dodge family (David, his wife Elva, and daughter Kendal) as they roamed around the world. Practical advice and information for the traveler on a budget are sprinkled liberally throughout the books.
David Dodge was born in Berkeley, California, the youngest child of George Andrew Dodge, a San Francisco architect, and Maude Ellingwood Bennett Dodge. Following George's death in an automobile accident, Maude "Monnie" Dodge moved the family (David and his three older sisters, Kathryn, Frances, and Marian) to Southern California, where David attended Lincoln High School in Los Angeles but did not graduate.
After leaving school, he worked as a bank messenger, a marine fireman, a stevedore, and a night watchman. In 1934, he went to work for the San Francisco accounting firm of McLaren, Goode & Company, becoming a Certified Public Accountant in 1937. On July 17, 1936, he was married to Elva Keith, a former Macmillan Company editorial representative, and their only daughter, Kendal, was born in 1940. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve, emerging three years later with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
David Dodge's first experience as a writer came through his involvement with the Macondray Lane Players, a group of amateur playwrights, producers, and actors whose goal was to create a theater purely for pleasure. The group was founded by George Henry Burkhardt (Dodge's brother-in-law) and performed exclusively at Macondria, a little theater located in the basement of Burkhardt's house at 56 Macondray Lane on San Francisco's Russian Hill. His publishing career began in 1936 when he won First Prize in the Northern California Drama Association's Third Annual One Act Play Tournament. The prize-winning play, "A Certain Man Had Two Sons," was subsequently published by the Banner Play Bureau, of San Francisco. Another Dodge play, "Christmas Eve at the Mermaid," co-written by Loyall McLaren (his boss at McLaren, Goode & Co.), was performed as the Bohemian Club's Christmas play of 1940, and again in 1959. In 1961, the Grabhorn Press published the play in a volume entitled Shakespeare in Bohemia.
His career as a writer really began, however, when he made a bet with his wife that he could write a better mystery novel than the ones they were reading during a rainy family vacation. He drew on his professional experience as a CPA and wrote his first novel, Death and Taxes, featuring San Francisco tax expert and reluctant detective James "Whit" Whitney. It was published by Macmillan in 1941 and he won five dollars from Elva. Three more Whitney novels soon followed: Shear the Black Sheep (Macmillan, 1942), Bullets for the Bridegroom (Macmillan, 1944) and It Ain't Hay (Simon & Schuster, 1946), in which Whit tangles with marijuana smugglers. With its subject matter and extremely evocative cover art on both the first edition dust jacket and the paperback reprint, this book remains one of Dodge's most collectible titles.
Upon his release from active duty by the Navy in 1945, Dodge left San Francisco and set out for Guatemala by car with his wife and daughter, beginning his second career as a travel writer. The Dodge family's misadventures on the road through Mexico are hilariously documented in How Green Was My Father (Simon & Schuster, 1947). His Latin American experiences also produced a second series character, expatriate private investigator and tough-guy adventurer Al Colby, who first appears in The Long Escape (Random House, 1948).
Two more well-received Colby books appeared in 1949 and 1950, but with the publication of To Catch a Thief in 1952, Dodge abandoned series ch
David Dodge was born in Berkeley, California, the youngest child of George Andrew Dodge, a San Francisco architect, and Maude Ellingwood Bennett Dodge. Following George's death in an automobile accident, Maude "Monnie" Dodge moved the family (David and his three older sisters, Kathryn, Frances, and Marian) to Southern California, where David attended Lincoln High School in Los Angeles but did not graduate.
After leaving school, he worked as a bank messenger, a marine fireman, a stevedore, and a night watchman. In 1934, he went to work for the San Francisco accounting firm of McLaren, Goode & Company, becoming a Certified Public Accountant in 1937. On July 17, 1936, he was married to Elva Keith, a former Macmillan Company editorial representative, and their only daughter, Kendal, was born in 1940. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve, emerging three years later with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
David Dodge's first experience as a writer came through his involvement with the Macondray Lane Players, a group of amateur playwrights, producers, and actors whose goal was to create a theater purely for pleasure. The group was founded by George Henry Burkhardt (Dodge's brother-in-law) and performed exclusively at Macondria, a little theater located in the basement of Burkhardt's house at 56 Macondray Lane on San Francisco's Russian Hill. His publishing career began in 1936 when he won First Prize in the Northern California Drama Association's Third Annual One Act Play Tournament. The prize-winning play, "A Certain Man Had Two Sons," was subsequently published by the Banner Play Bureau, of San Francisco. Another Dodge play, "Christmas Eve at the Mermaid," co-written by Loyall McLaren (his boss at McLaren, Goode & Co.), was performed as the Bohemian Club's Christmas play of 1940, and again in 1959. In 1961, the Grabhorn Press published the play in a volume entitled Shakespeare in Bohemia.
His career as a writer really began, however, when he made a bet with his wife that he could write a better mystery novel than the ones they were reading during a rainy family vacation. He drew on his professional experience as a CPA and wrote his first novel, Death and Taxes, featuring San Francisco tax expert and reluctant detective James "Whit" Whitney. It was published by Macmillan in 1941 and he won five dollars from Elva. Three more Whitney novels soon followed: Shear the Black Sheep (Macmillan, 1942), Bullets for the Bridegroom (Macmillan, 1944) and It Ain't Hay (Simon & Schuster, 1946), in which Whit tangles with marijuana smugglers. With its subject matter and extremely evocative cover art on both the first edition dust jacket and the paperback reprint, this book remains one of Dodge's most collectible titles.
Upon his release from active duty by the Navy in 1945, Dodge left San Francisco and set out for Guatemala by car with his wife and daughter, beginning his second career as a travel writer. The Dodge family's misadventures on the road through Mexico are hilariously documented in How Green Was My Father (Simon & Schuster, 1947). His Latin American experiences also produced a second series character, expatriate private investigator and tough-guy adventurer Al Colby, who first appears in The Long Escape (Random House, 1948).
Two more well-received Colby books appeared in 1949 and 1950, but with the publication of To Catch a Thief in 1952, Dodge abandoned series ch
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 22, 2025
This was a fun read. Back in the 1940s and 50s the author was quite well-known as a writer of crime/mystery novels, but in his real life he spent many years living in and travelling around Latin America. This book is the first of two that relate the first of his journeys, a road trip made in 1946 from San Francisco to Guatemala City, through Mexico. Dodge makes the trip with his wife and their five-year-old daughter, and it’s retold in humorous style. The book is out of print today but I managed to find a reasonably priced copy online.
Initially I thought the book’s title was a pun on How Green was My Valley, but the author says he took the title from a billboard in Mexico City advertising a movie comedy, Que Verde Era Mi Padre. Apparently in colloquial Mexican Spanish in the 1940s, to describe a man as “green” was to say that he was a skirt-chaser. The author however uses the word in the colloquial English sense of someone who is inexperienced, unprepared for what he is about to encounter. That theme is the basis for the book, in which the author describes how he gradually adapts to life in countries which, in 1946, did not always offer the same conveniences as the author was used to – at least not outside the main cities.
Dodge has a good turn of phrase and taken as a whole this book is pretty funny. Probably my favourite sections were those where he described learning to drive a la Mexicana, which “scared the whey out of me until I got used to it.” I also enjoyed his struggles with colloquial Spanish, very different from what was in his phrasebook. We all need some light relief from time to time and if you’re in the mood for that then this book will deliver. I’m pretty sure anyone who reads this would finish it with a smile on their face.
The book ends with the author’s arrival in Guatemala City (his wife and daughter had flown in from Mexico City and he made the second half of the road trip by himself). Their adventures continue with a second book, How Lost was My Weekend. I’ve ordered a copy!
Initially I thought the book’s title was a pun on How Green was My Valley, but the author says he took the title from a billboard in Mexico City advertising a movie comedy, Que Verde Era Mi Padre. Apparently in colloquial Mexican Spanish in the 1940s, to describe a man as “green” was to say that he was a skirt-chaser. The author however uses the word in the colloquial English sense of someone who is inexperienced, unprepared for what he is about to encounter. That theme is the basis for the book, in which the author describes how he gradually adapts to life in countries which, in 1946, did not always offer the same conveniences as the author was used to – at least not outside the main cities.
Dodge has a good turn of phrase and taken as a whole this book is pretty funny. Probably my favourite sections were those where he described learning to drive a la Mexicana, which “scared the whey out of me until I got used to it.” I also enjoyed his struggles with colloquial Spanish, very different from what was in his phrasebook. We all need some light relief from time to time and if you’re in the mood for that then this book will deliver. I’m pretty sure anyone who reads this would finish it with a smile on their face.
The book ends with the author’s arrival in Guatemala City (his wife and daughter had flown in from Mexico City and he made the second half of the road trip by himself). Their adventures continue with a second book, How Lost was My Weekend. I’ve ordered a copy!
January 10, 2023
I had just finished reading Peter W. Rainier's remarkable memoirs, Green Fire, when David Dodge's How Green Was My Father arrived in my post office box. Rare it is to read back to back two such wonderful and captivating autobiographical accounts of Americans abroad. Rainier's story is one of pure adventure. Dodge's on the other hand is lighthearted, comic, and fun.
David Dodge decided to move his family from San Francisco to Guatemala in 1945, right after World War II. He sold off everything and put all the belongings that remained, including his wife and five year old daughter, into a pre war Chevrolet and headed off into the unknown. As can well be imagined going from San Francisco, across the United States, through Mexico and into Guatemala was bound to produce physical pitfalls as well as legal and logistical delays. What is so pleasurable about How Green is the manner in which Dodge faced everything. There isn't a hint of bitterness or anger. Frustration and fear, yes. But in every case, his worries dissipate and stereotypes dissolve when he meets up with Mexican and Guatemalan officials, hotel managers, freight handlers, railroad men, pilots, and everyday people willing to help him and his family out and get them on their way. Today, I suppose, we often talk of people punching down or punching up to create humor. Dodge doesn't do any of that. If he does anything at all, it's throw punches at himself. He and his misunderstandings are almost always the bane of his troubles. So he always puts the comic traget back onto his own shoulders. It works out well. You emerge from this book liking Dodge and the people he encounters all the more than when you first encounter them.
What a time it must have been to take on such an adventure. Postwar American prosperity wasn't yet underway, but Americans sure had a sense of privilege that was often very real. Dodge and his family never rely on it. They are humble in encountering new people and new ways of living. That, in essence, probably describes why Dodge and his wife were able to spend their postwar years living abroad as expats so successfully. No "ugly Americans" here. If anything, it's "innocents abroad" at times. I can't wait to read the next installment, now on order, How Lost Was My Weekend: A Greenhorn in Guatemala.
David Dodge decided to move his family from San Francisco to Guatemala in 1945, right after World War II. He sold off everything and put all the belongings that remained, including his wife and five year old daughter, into a pre war Chevrolet and headed off into the unknown. As can well be imagined going from San Francisco, across the United States, through Mexico and into Guatemala was bound to produce physical pitfalls as well as legal and logistical delays. What is so pleasurable about How Green is the manner in which Dodge faced everything. There isn't a hint of bitterness or anger. Frustration and fear, yes. But in every case, his worries dissipate and stereotypes dissolve when he meets up with Mexican and Guatemalan officials, hotel managers, freight handlers, railroad men, pilots, and everyday people willing to help him and his family out and get them on their way. Today, I suppose, we often talk of people punching down or punching up to create humor. Dodge doesn't do any of that. If he does anything at all, it's throw punches at himself. He and his misunderstandings are almost always the bane of his troubles. So he always puts the comic traget back onto his own shoulders. It works out well. You emerge from this book liking Dodge and the people he encounters all the more than when you first encounter them.
What a time it must have been to take on such an adventure. Postwar American prosperity wasn't yet underway, but Americans sure had a sense of privilege that was often very real. Dodge and his family never rely on it. They are humble in encountering new people and new ways of living. That, in essence, probably describes why Dodge and his wife were able to spend their postwar years living abroad as expats so successfully. No "ugly Americans" here. If anything, it's "innocents abroad" at times. I can't wait to read the next installment, now on order, How Lost Was My Weekend: A Greenhorn in Guatemala.
March 1, 2018
How do you get from San Francisco to Guatemala by car in the 1950's? Drive through Mexico - same as today. What happens when you find out the highway to Guatemala is unfinished halfway through your journey? Read on and find out.
A tale from a time before credit cards, or cell phones, or reliable electricity or consistent gasoline availability; you'll be shocked at how much is different and laugh at how much is the same.
A tale from a time before credit cards, or cell phones, or reliable electricity or consistent gasoline availability; you'll be shocked at how much is different and laugh at how much is the same.
September 7, 2012
Very entertaining and funny book about the author's young family trying to make it from San Francisco to Guatemala by car in the 1940s. It's a quick read and allows you to peek at an old Mexico and a sleepy Guatemala. How Green Was My Father is mostly set in Mexico; I'm looking forward to reading more about the author's misadventures in Guatemala in How lost was my weekend: A greenhorn in Guatemala.
October 7, 2025
This is a lighthearted rendition of a road trip undertaken in 1946 by the author, his wife and daughter, from San Francisco, California to Guatemala City, Guatemala. It's written in an easy-to-read, over-the-top comedic style that is reminiscent of the screwball comedy films of the 1940s. As the author is unfamiliar with Latin American customs and unable to converse in Spanish, the trip becomes an adventure as soon as the family crosses the border at Laredo, Texas. Their drive to Mexico City is sprinkled with an array of familiar touristic mishaps and misunderstandings. Once in the capital, they learn that sections of the Panamerican highway in southern Mexico have not yet been constructed and that driving south is out of the question. There is an alternative - that the car can be shipped by rail from Vera Cruz to Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala. This leads to a different kind of adventure, frustration with bureaucracy, finagling with railroad employees and some help from an unexpected quarter. In the aftermath, wife and daughter take a plane to Guatemala City and the author flies to Tapachula to find his car. From there, he embarks on a solo trip on rough roads through the Guatemalan highlands, during the rainy season. It’s easy to imagine the things that might go wrong on this stretch and some of them do. There are more mishaps, a cultural immersion of sorts and in the end, a safe arrival in Guatemala City.
This is a light and mildly humorous read, in which the author is often at the mercy of the elements, road conditions, local customs, or local authorities. Yet, he is never critical or condescending towards the locals and never attempts to impose his will as the all-knowing, superior Northerner. In keeping with the book’s light mood, most of the Latinos he encounters are friendly, respectful, resourceful and willing to help a gringo in need. It's a semi-fictitious, fun read - there are no bad guys here. 4 stars
This is a light and mildly humorous read, in which the author is often at the mercy of the elements, road conditions, local customs, or local authorities. Yet, he is never critical or condescending towards the locals and never attempts to impose his will as the all-knowing, superior Northerner. In keeping with the book’s light mood, most of the Latinos he encounters are friendly, respectful, resourceful and willing to help a gringo in need. It's a semi-fictitious, fun read - there are no bad guys here. 4 stars
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews