Some final reflections on my California-to-Georgia-and-back drive: I love Americans propensity for naming every ditch, gully, rivulet, lane, and dirt track in the nation. With every name, of course, comes a story; I would love to know who coined the moniker Jot-Em-Down Road, and why. Worst street name: Stink Creek Road. Runner-up: Sore Finger Road. Happy to report that I did not come across a Stink Finger Road. The best billboard was for a BBQ restaurant in Georgia – “A cow, a pig, and a chicken walked into a bar-b-cue joint. The end.” Contrary to all previous experience, it actually is possible to get sick of Cheetoes. The jury is still out on Bugles. UPDATE: ditto Bugles. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is possible to get an amazing meal at a restaurant with an empty parking lot. Blacks and whites in the South remain utterly segregated, at least outside the cities. In the small towns where I spent time there were black sections and white sections, immediately next to each other but easily identifiable. The races interact over a sales counter or with a polite gesture in a parking lot, but genuine social interaction seems nonexistent. Neither side seems keen to change the status quo. Sitting in a rocker on the porch spinning yarns is a practice which remains alive and well in the South. Every incident becomes a story with its own arc; set-up, conflict, climax, resolution. I love the specificity – the countrified names, the make and model of vehicles involved, the dates, the weather, the coincidences and juxtapositions that occur when things go wrong in a place where everyone has at least a passing acquaintance with each other. The pleasure of a tale well-told seems to ease, or perhaps mask, what is often a heart-breaking situation. Despite the illnesses and accidents and often spectacularly unique faux-pas that form the core of these stories there is no self-pity in the telling. Indeed, half the point seems to come in making us laugh at ourselves. I found out that during his brief stint in the Air Force in the 1950’s my Uncle Jim spent significant time sitting behind a nuclear missile launch console somewhere in Colorado. Hard to imagine that kindly good ol’ boy being responsible for taking out the entire population of Novosibirsk. Despite years of using the cruise control on my cars it wasn’t until this trip that I finally figured out how the “Resume” button works. I reveled in Texas’ 80 mph speed limit, and fumed at Alabama’s usurious 55 mph limit on the interstate, which has nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with revenue enhancement. I was responsible for the demise of countless bugs, including what must have been a quite zaftig June bug, which I could actually see coming from a distance and which hit my windshield like a water balloon. There were some scary moments: A blowout on a semi in the lane next to me launched a tire tread past my passenger window. If I had been on a motorcycle directly behind it I would have been necklaced. Another blowout on the wheel of a trailer-home being towed behind a pickup started the trailer whipsawing. The driver did a nice job of wrangling the trailer onto the shoulder without incident. Had a big dog in traffic lanes in the pitch-black midnight of New Mexico zigged instead of zagged my grill would have ended his confusion in dreadful fashion. Instead he sauntered onto the median, postponing what I can only imagine was his inevitable sad end. And most notably, I took a short but brainless journey the wrong way on an access road while sunset-gazing in Texas. That moment when one realizes one’s navigational head is ensconced firmly up one’s GPS backside has a way of focusing the attention on one’s personal failings. For the next hundred miles or two. There was a tower sign looming above me at the Shell station in hardscrabble and windswept Midland, Texas, groaning and creaking in a way that convinced me I needed to fill up and get out of there before I found my face on the cover of the next days Reporter-Telegram. There are still a lot of people named Ida and Hector and Cloris – time-worn, but gracious and efficient – who don polyester every evening and work the overnight shift, serving pro-forma burgers and shiny fried eggs to tired travelers. These good people resist every temptation -- every invitation -- to make what must be a similar amount of money on the dole. I like to think that they remain willing to demonstrate to someone – their kids, themselves – that their first obligations is to take care of themselves, even at minimum wage plus $1.87 per customer. These are the folks who the wallahs in Manhattan and the salons of DC look down upon, the denizens of “flyover country” who cannot explain what a credit default swap or a bicameral legislature may be, but who know what work is and why it is done. To echo William Buckley, I would put my fate in the hands of one thousand Denny’s employees before I would the faculty of Harvard University. And my final impression; as beautiful as the east coast is, I am a western guy. Green is pretty, but yellow, purple, and blue stir my soul. I’m awed by the West’s vast horizons, the 360 degree landscapes of mountains and plains and weather. I love land and air and space, and, always, the stars. I admire the self-sufficient people who live in simple houses surrounded by thousands of open acres. The thirty unbroken miles of fencing I see in one glimpse makes me think of the lives lived by the people who planted those posts. I envy the linemen who spent their working lives building the massive metal towers that carry the high-capacity electrical wires over the horizon. I love to watch distant landforms emerge from the haze, revealing their secrets as I draw near. As beautiful as lakes and rivers are everywhere, they are made more special in the West by their scarcity. The vast scale doesn’t make me feel diminished, it makes me more aware of my place. Its ruggedness makes me feel my vulnerability, but also awakens my gratitude for the comforts I enjoy. Its very barrenness makes me feel more alive.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 20:37:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015