Jim Loomis grew up in New England, a Boston Red Sox fan. In 1962, two years married and with a 1-year-old son, he decided almost on a whim to move to Honolulu. Two days before he and his family left Hartford, Conn., his high school football coach mentioned that he knew someone in Hawaii and suggested Loomis call him when he got there. That someone was Frank Fasi.

Loomis made the call. Fasi invited him to dinner and introduced him to numerous people. In 1968, Fasi was elected to his first term as Honolulu mayor. Midway through that term, he appointed Loomis to be the director of the Office of Information and Complaint. Loomis headed the office for almost a decade.

After returning to the private sector, Loomis managed the Hawaii Islanders baseball team, worked in public relations and founded an advertising agency. He retired in 1999, moved to Maui in 2000 and became a freelance writer specializing in travel and produced articles, columns and books.

Today, Loomis, 84, is celebrating the publication of his fourth book, “Travel Tales,” which was published in March. For more information, visit his blog at trainsandtravel.com.

“Travel Tales” covers a wide range of subjects — your travel experiences, tips on how to travel safely, recommendations on how to get the most out of traveling, encounters with local politicians, watching the Boston Red Sox in Boston, the New York Giants’ “shot heard round the world” in 1951, and many more. Great idea, but why did you do it that way?

I’m not sure that I have a rational answer. It bothered me. As I was writing it I kept thinking, “That’s gotta go in. That’s gotta go in, but this is supposed to be about travel and how I got here and how Frank (Fasi) helped me get a job.” I wrestled with that for a long time and finally decided to hell with it, I’ll put (the nontravel stories) in there anyway because they’re interesting. My brief encounter with (McDonald’s founder) Ray Kroc was an interesting thing so I put it in. Or the story about Jimmy MacArthur. I’ve wanted to tell that story for years.

What is the first trip you recommend as an introduction to rail travel?

Amtrac’s most scenic ride, which is the California Zephyr running from Chicago to Denver to Salt Lake City ending up in the Bay Area. The second day it spends at least four hours following the Colorado River through a series of canyons going to Denver. It’s a great ride.

You share a great story about (Hawaii politician) Richard Kageyama. Did you ever talk with him about his unusual greeting or his brilliant campaign strategy?

I never did. The story (about his campaign strategy) surfaced in Frank’s office, sitting around talking about, but I did hear him and his greeting. He was a great character.

What is something about Fasi that might surprise people?

Frank loved to play the hard-nosed Marine, and he could do that. He could be very tough, but underneath it he was capable of great kindness and generosity. He was smart as a whip too. There was nothing really subtle about Frank, and I think that was part of his appeal. I admired him a lot, and I owe him a great deal.

Are there trains that are still on your to-do list?

There are a couple of trains in Africa. The Blue Train (in South Africa) is the most famous. … It’s a luxury train. It’s very fancy. It’s very pricey. The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (in Europe) is another one that I have not done and would like to do.

When will you be hitting the rails next?

I’m going to travel across Canada in the fall.

“Travel Tales” by Maui resident Jim Loomis details 50 stories from Loomis’ travels by train, along with other life experiences, recommendations and fascinating anecdotes about Hawaii politicians. The engaging book is available in paperback and for Kindle at Amazon.

For more, go to trainsandtravel.com.

The following are edited excerpts from the book.

Welcome to Beijing

At the beginning of our walking tour, and before arriving at Tiananmen Square, everyone in our group had been given a small radio receiver with an earpiece. Our guide carried a small transmitter and could describe what we were seeing in a normal voice that we could easily hear through this device.

It was in Tiananmen Square, while waiting for a few stragglers in our group to catch up, that I thoughtlessly asked our guide if we happened to be near the actual spot where the young student had stood blocking the tanks during the 1989 protest demonstrations.

A stricken look came over the guide’s face. Finally, after staring off into space for several seconds, he said, with lengthy pauses between words, “Well… you see… China is… a very… special… place.” There followed a very awkward silence for several seconds, then our guide gave me a quick, very intense look and nodded in the direction of a man standing alone 30-40 feet away from our group. Short and appearing to be in his 50s, the man was wearing a backpack and holding an object the size of a brick up to his ear.

The man stood still, staring into space, as our guide rattled off details about the size of this huge expanse and about the buildings surrounding it. Then the man turned and started walking away.

Our guide — obviously still quite agitated — touched his mouth, then nodded in the direction the man had taken, and then touched his ear. That seemed quite clear to me: Our guide was telling me that the man had been electronically eavesdropping in order to hear what our group was being told by our guide.

I can also report that there were literally hundreds of video cameras mounted on metal poles all over the square. Of course, this kind of surveillance around public areas is now common in U.S. cities — Times Square in New York City is one example.

Nevertheless, I could not escape the uncomfortable feeling after this incident — that the primary purpose of those cameras was surveillance, not public safety.

Setting all that aside, however, Tiananmen Square is a must-see for anyone visiting Beijing. It is impressive for its size alone, but overlooking the open expanse are the national museum and the massive building where the government meets. Mao’s huge mausoleum dominates the far end and, of course, there are the usual heroic monuments honoring the workers. And huge crowds.

^

Dream in an Iowa cornfield

Approaching the Field of Dreams down a dusty dirt road from the east, my first glimpse is from the far side of a cornfield. But it’s not just any cornfield. It’s the very cornfield into which the ghost players disappeared after their games. Everything is here, exactly as it appears in the movie: the weathered white farmhouse with the wraparound verandah, the red barns in the background and, of course, the baseball diamond.

It’s late morning on a sunny summer day and there are more than 20 cars in the gravel parking area. Nearby, a dozen or so kids are patiently waiting in line for the chance to step up to the plate and swing at soft pitches being tossed by a man wearing a Red Sox cap.

The Lansing family has owned this farm for a hundred years. Don Lansing, born and raised in Dyersville and the current owner of the property, surveys the activity going on all around him and smiles. “Pretty typical for a summer day,” he says.

Lansing has long since become accustomed to having people around his place most of the time, but he still shakes his head when he talks about the knock on his front door during the winter of 1987 that changed his life.

“There was snow on the ground,” he says. “It was a lady from Dubuque. The Iowa Film Office hired her to look for a farm with a two-story house that would be right for a movie.” …

Once the final decision had been made, things happened fast. The baseball diamond was finished within a matter of days. A crew of carpenters descended on the 100-year-old farmhouse and began remodeling the interior, all under Lansing’s watchful eye. …

Outside there was another problem, one that couldn’t be fixed with a hammer and nails. There was very little rain during that spring and summer in 1988, and by late-May the film’s producers were starting to worry.

“They came to me saying the corn wasn’t tall enough,” Lansing says. “I told them, ‘Well, it’s the drought.’ So we dammed up the stream over there and pumped water on the corn around the outfield until it was tall enough so the actors could go in and out.” He stares out at the cornfield, remembering. “That was a real dry summer.” Then he brightens. “But we’ve had rain every year since.”

The filming was completed on the 15th of August. Almost 18 years later to the day, as we sit and chat on the same porch swing seen in the movie, a man and woman hesitantly approach the white picket fence that separates the house from the baseball field. The man calls out. “Are you Mr. Lansing?”

Lansing gets up off the swing and walks to the edge of the porch. “Yes, I am.”

“I’d just like to thank you for keeping all this going,” the man says. Then he adds, almost sheepishly, “This is my sixth visit here.”

Lansing nods, clearly not surprised. “What keeps you coming back?”

The man pauses, glances at his wife, then shakes his head. “I really don’t know,” he says.