On the Road: Grand Island, Nebraska

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on July 6, 2006

Unfolding the Map

As always, you may click the image at right to get yourself to the map, which is keeping track of Sal's (our) progress across America!

Book Quote

"...another cowboy, this one six feet tall in a modest half-gallon hat, called us over and wanted to know if either one of us could drive....His wife was at Grand Island, and he wanted us to drive one of the cars there, where she'd take over....Of course Eddie could drive, and he had a license and I didn't. Eddie drove alone, the cowboy and myself following, and no sooner were we out of town than Eddie started to ball that jack ninety miles and hour out of sheer exuberance. 'Damn me, what's that boy doing!' the cowboy shouted....

"We stopped along the road for a bite to eat....and Eddie and I sat down in a kind of homemade diner...and here came this rawhide oldtimer Nebraska farmer with a bunch of other boys into the diner....He came booming into the diner, calling Maw's name, and she made the sweetest cherry pie in Nebraska, and I had some with a mountainous scoop of ice cream on top. I wished I knew his whole raw life and what the hell he'd been doing all these years besides laughing and yelling like that. Whooee, I told my soul, and the cowboy came back and off we went to Grand Island."

On the Road: Chapter 3

Grand Island, Nebraska

A couple of things come to mind in reading this excerpt from On the Road. First is the sheer exhiliration of being on the open road. I have a love-hate relationship with car trips. The hate part comes in two flavors: I hate getting ready for car trips, and I hate packing things up after a car trip. I usually love the act of being in a car trip.

I remember at home, when I was growing up, there was something intangible about car trips. I remember that there was even a smell that I associated with car trips -- I would be helping to put things in the car, or I would be around the car, and it just smelled different. I can't describe the smell, other than it was sort of sharp and metallic, but I only smelled it just within an hour before we left somewhere.

By car trip, I mean any extended trip anywhere. Not just a trip into town to the store, but a trip where we actually went out of town, and we spent more than one-half hour in the car.

There was something about being on the open road, about the new sights, about other cars moving past us at fast or slower speeds, that just captivated me. Of course, I also had a tendency to get violently carsick on roads that had sharp turns, so I also had unpleasant memories of car trips as well. But mostly, my memories were great. I always had a great gift of recall, so if I had been somewhere once, I could usually direct my parents back to it (when they would actually listen to me). I was captivated by freeway systems, how in the cities they bent back and around each other as onramps and offramps wound around, and I loved bridges, especially the Golden Gate and the Richmond-San Rafael bridge that looked like a big roller-coaster.

As an adult, I still find myself captivated by car trips, especially over new territory that I haven't traversed before, or for a while. I also find that it's easy to do what Eddie (in the quote) did. On a recent trip from El Paso to the Guadalupe Mountains in west Texas, we were literally "balling that jack" at 90 for a good half hour before I noticed. We were so caught up in the scenery and the endless vistas that the speed just escaped our attention.

Of course, I have said it before in this blog and I'll say it again. Finding a good local food place, with the emphasis on good, is a treasure in itself. We usually take a chance. Sometimes we get unlucky, like our last car trip down to Mountainair, New Mexico, where we stopped in a local cafe only to find the food greasy, spicy, and despite that, relatively tasteless. At other times, we hit the jackpot and find a great eatery and even hints of an adventure. A year ago, we stopped in Pietown, New Mexico, after a weekend camping trip in the Gila Wilderness and had a great meal when the managers of the place decided that they would stay open a few extra minutes with us. Not only did we get the meal, we got pie and we got the very interesting story of the couple that managed the place. We usually don't find that mixture of luck, adventure and mystery in McDonalds or Burger King, and therefore, we don't stop there often.

If you want to know more about Grand Island

City of Grand Island
Grand Island Chamber of Commerce
Grand Island Convention and Visitors Bureau
Grand Island Independent
Wikipedia: Grand Island

Next up: Shelton, Nebraska

On the Road: Omaha, Nebraska

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote:  First published on Blogger on June 29, 2006

Unfolding the Map

Sal reaches Omaha by bus, and is ready to start thumbing again. You, dear Littourati, can click on the image for the updated map if you wish.

Book Quote

"Then Omaha, and, by God, the first cowboy I saw, walking along the bleak walls of the wholesale meat warehouses in a ten-gallon hat and Texas boots, looked like any beat character of the brickwall dawns of the East except for the getup. We got off the bus and walked clear up the hill, the long hill formed over the milleniums by the mighty Missouri, alongside of which Omaha is built, and got out to the country and stuck our thumbs out."

On the Road:  Chapter 3

Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha brings to mind an Indian, but not just any Indian. This Indian stared stoically in profile at the end of a television program that I watched every Sunday when I was growing up. The show was Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, and I used to be captivated by the exploits of Marlin Perkins and his trusty sidekick Jim. With Perkins' voice narrating, almost quavering on the edge of old age, he and Jim, or more usually Jim, would find some fearsome jungle critter, tag it, and send it on its way, usually not without some sort of drama. If there was any wrestling to be done, Jim usually tackled the creature, holding it down while the sedative was administered or the tag applied. I remember that it used to come on right before the Wonderful World of Disney, and I liked it better than the other animal show, the name of which I can't even remember.

Omaha also brings to mind Omaha Steaks, which my mother happens to supply us with every few months or so. I'll come home, and big styrofoam chest will be sitting on the porch, inside of which is the remnants of dry ice, and frozen steaks, or pork, or ham, or burgers, and sometimes even a chocolate cake.

I suppose in Sal's mind, Omaha is the beginning of the real West, which he announces by pointing out the first cowboy he sees. Here, a number of American icons come together -- the Missouri River which winds across almost the entire Western half of the country, Sal's cowboy, the beginning of the open plains, and the name itself from an American Indian tribe. However, at the middle of the 20th century, the myth of the old West is rapidly fading. Where once 50 years before Omaha was truly on the edge of the wilderness, if not smack dab in the middle of it, by the time Sal comes through it it is a small city. Later on, Sal will briefly describe some Indians he sees, and his description of the "beat" cowboy gives an indication that the polish has worn off of what was once a new, untamed frontier. To Kerouac, "beat" meant many things according to John Clellon Holmes, author of "The Philosophy of the Beat Generation." (1958) It could mean a world-weariness, but it could also mean an emptiness of the sort which made one tired of the conventions and ready for new experiences. Here, in describing the cowboy, I take it to mean that he meant the former, a worn-out cowboy, fifty years too late and out of his element in a town that once would have belonged to him and others like him, wandering the streets like an anachronism.

To Sal, however, the plains beckon, and in his own beatness, the plains are a metaphor. They are wide open and seemingly unending, where new possibilities and experiences lie just beyond the horizon. In that sense, maybe Omaha still did lie on the edge of a new frontier in 1947, less physical and more of the mind, but still tangible and realizable.

To learn more about Omaha and the Missouri River

City of Omaha
Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau
Omaha World-Herald Mutual of Omaha
Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom
Wikipedia: Omaha

Coalition to Protect the Missouri River
Missouri National Recreation River
Wikipedia: Missouri River

Next Up:  Grand Island, Nebraska

On the Road: Council Bluffs, Iowa

Click on Thumbnail for Map

Note:  Originally published on Blogger on June 28, 2006

Unfolding the Map

I'm going to wax eloquent on suburbs, today, Littourati. Make yourself get a drink, make yourself comfortable, sit back and click on the image if you wish to see the updated cartographic record of our journey.

Book Quote

"We arrived at Council Bluffs at dawn; I looked out. All winter I'd been reading of the great wagon parties that held council there before hitting the Oregon and Santa Fe trails; and of course now it was only cute suburban cottages of one damn kind and another, all laid out in the dismal gray dawn."

On the Road: Chapter 3

Council Bluffs, Iowa

I've never been to Council Bluffs. About the only thing I know about Council Bluffs is this description in On the Road, and the fact that Council Bluffs shares a roller derby team with Omaha. Yes, that's right. Roller derby, that girl-on-girl full contact sport on skates that you may remember from the 70s. It has exploded in popularity in the past 2-3 years. Council Bluffs has the "Rolling Thunder Derby Dames," which also represents Omaha.  (Editor's note:  As of 2010, it appears the Rolling Thunder Derby Dames are no more.)

But I digress. My topic is suburbs. I wonder if Jack was aware that 1947 was around the time of the explosion of suburban America? As returning GIs came home and began looking for places to live, the crowding of the cities was inevitable unless something else was available. Suburbs were the answer, with affordable housing away from the sprawl, traffic and dangers associated with the big cities, family friendly but still within commuting distance to workcenters in the city centers.

I've lived in a number of cities now: Milwaukee, San Antonio, New Orleans and now Albuquerque. In each area, I did not live in the suburbs but within the city limits. In each, my experience of the suburbs has been different and I find myself torn as to how I feel about them. One thing I don't like about the suburbs is my perception of their "sameness." It is as if the suburbs choose to remain in an America untouched by diversity. Houses tend to have the same overall look, more so if they are built en masse by a developer. Here in Albuquerque, many people live in Rio Rancho, which is growing at a pace that one day may make it the largest municipality in terms of population in the state, but on my few trips out there, I have visceral feelings about streets laid out with houses that have the same general design, the same garage facing the street. I once asked a friend, who was driving with me out there, "Why were we so afraid of communism?" I meant it! We were told we'd have no choices, and that we would be forced into uniformity under communism. In driving through a development in Rio Rancho, I decided we didn't need communism to get what we feared. And we accept it!

In New Orleans, Metaire is the suburb to the west. Many people go to Metaire because it offers cheap apartments and chain stores and eateries. As a result, the business district of Metaire, and many other suburbs that I've seen, consists of the same bland chains. Sure, a Target is good, and a Burger King is good. But block after block of big box stores and 10 McDonalds within a five mile strip? And the aesthetics of these strips -- they are built for traffic, not pedestrians. Stores and chains are set back behind big parking lots as traffic zooms on by. You can go to any suburban area and find the same exact thing. Once again, the uniform sameness we once so feared.

In San Antonio, we reached a point where people began to flee the suburbs. The city continued to grow outward and outward, to a point where now people are concerned about the land needed to recharge San Antonio's aquifer, which is being paved over at a dizzying rate and does not allow the water to soak into the earth. People actually flee outward, trying to escape those strips and chains, hoping to find Nirvana at the edge of the wilderness. Instead, as more and more of them go there, they find the strips and the chains follow them.

I like living either in the city, or in the country. The in-between is not for me. The cities offer me variety, diversity, and excitement. The country provides me with rest, relaxation, and quiet. The gray area of the suburb does not give me any solace, but makes me feel uneasy. I think that Jack (and Sal) perhaps had this visceral reaction as well, being city boys, but didn't quite realize that within a few short years, the suburb would be the rule, not the exception.

If you want to learn more about Council Bluffs or suburbia

Council Bluffs: Iowa's Leading Edge
The Daily NonPareil: Council Bluffs Newspaper Online
Wikipedia: Council Bluffs

Levittown: The Prototype Suburb
National Geographic: The New Suburb?
YouTube: Music video - Subdivisions by Rush
Wikipedia: suburb

Next up: Omaha, Nebraska

On the Road: Stuart, Iowa

Click on the Thumbnail for Map

Note:  Originally published on Blogger on June 25, 2006

Unfolding the Map

Time to discuss small towns, and the fact that sometimes you just have to break down and take the bus. As usual, click on the image to go to the updated map.

Book Quote

"We stood in front of the railroad-ticket shack in Stuart, waiting for the westbound traffic till the sun went down, a good five hours, dawdling away the time...I decided to spend a buck on beer; we went to an old saloon in Stuart and had a few...We got back on the road in the darkness, and of course nobody stopped and nobody came by much. That went on till three o'clock in the morning. We spent some time trying to sleep on the bench at the railroad ticket office, but the telegraph clicked all night and we couldn't sleep...so when the Omaha bus came through just before dawn we hopped on it and joined the sleeping passengers...."

On the Road: Chapter 3

Stuart, Iowa

I'm a little at a loss as to what to write about for this point in Sal's journey. I already wrote about waiting for a ride while on the west coast of Ireland. I've written about bus journeys and my experience with that.

Perhaps I can write a little about small-town America. Sal is from the big city, or at least close to the big city. When he lived with his aunt in Paterson, New Jersey, he indicates that he spent a lot of time in New York. Thus, he's really a big town man.

I can imagine that alighting from cars and buses into small towns where the sidewalks roll up at dark was quite different for him. New York, as the song goes, is the city that never sleeps. But small towns sleep all the time. They sleep at night, and even during the day many of them seem to be dozing in somnabulent bliss, waiting for either something exciting or for night to fall so they could once again drift off into a kind of dream.

I grew up in a small town in Northern California, and in the days before it became a major tourist destination for Bay Area folks, it was very quiet. Only a few people were on the street at any one time. What kind of exciting thing was needed to wake our town out of its stupor? Outsiders were one thing. The sight of a couple of unknown guys hanging around on Main Street all day waiting for a ride would have engendered discussion and comment. Later, as hippies became more common in my hometown, people around town became more blasé about such sights. But I can imagine that in the late 1940s, in Stuart, Iowa, the sight of Sal and his newfound Irish companion lounging around town with their New York accents probably brought them notice from many people. These same people would probably have talked about them, but not with them, watching but avoiding them until eventually they slipped away and the town could go back to dozing or sleeping.

Don't get me wrong. Small towns are anything but dead. Behind the scenes, small towns are hotbeds of activity. If the National Security Agency really wants to spy on all Americans, as one side of the current debate argues, then they should really tap the small town gossips, who keep eyes on everything and really do know everyone's business. One thing I've learned in growing up in a small towns is that they have their deep, dark secrets and structures of society that outsiders will find it hard to learn and penetrate. But even if small towns are very good at keeping their secrets from outsiders, within them there are very few secrets: Mr. Johnson knows that Mrs. Smith is an alcoholic, and Miss Jones knows that Mr. Johnson is sleeping with Miss Thomas behind his wife's back. These facts will be common knowledge that nobody talks about, until a blow-up occurs, it becomes very public for a day, and then all goes back to normal.

It is no secret why many of the 50's horror films were set in small towns. They were inscrutable, dark and somewhat menacing places, difficult for city dwellers to understand, where anything, even an alien invasion or an attack of some sort of terrible monster, could happen. Is it any wonder after 5 hours or more in town and no ride available, Sal and his friend grab the bus?

If you want to know more about Stuart, Iowa

Stuart Chamber of Commerce
Stuart, Iowa
Stuart Region: Adair County
Wikipedia: Stuart, Iowa

Next up: Council Bluffs, Iowa

On the Road: Adel, Iowa

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote:  Originally posted on Blogger on June 23, 2006

Unfolding the Map

I've been a little tardy, Littourati! A couple of crises with some friends and a lot of work this week have kept me from getting out these newest posts. I apologize. Click on the image to see the updated Google map.

Book Quote

"A guy with a kind of toolshack on wheels, a truck full of tools that he drove standing up like a modern milkman, gave me a ride up the long hill, where I immediately got a ride from a farmer and his son heading out for Adel in Iowa. In this town, under a big elm tree near a gas station, I made the acquaintance of another hitchiker, a typical New Yorker, an Irishman who'd been driving a truck for the post office most of his work years and was now headed for a girl in Denver and a new life."

On the Road: Chapter 3

Adel, Iowa

I love the all too tiny description of the guy Sal gets a ride with. I suppose that one complaint I have about the book, which isn't that much of a complaint, is that Sal really doesn't say much about these small-town characters that he meets. I wonder if it is because, despite his stated interest in America, that he really isn't interested in them?

I would be questioning why this guy had such a truck. What are the tools for? Is he a plumber, an electrical worker, an auto mechanic, a farm machinery mechanic? Where is he going and what is he doing? It kind of frustrates me that Sal doesn't ask these types of questions. Of course, that could be just where he's at. Sal is very interested, as we'll see later, in the hard drinkers, the hobos, the people who are interesting and "beat." Perhaps the ordinary does not entice him. However, these little snippets are fascinating to speculate about.

Who of us doesn't know the guy with the toolshack on wheels? I think that it is possible that every town, like Adel, had one of them. Picture the guy as slightly eccentric, maybe with a strange feature, like a missing finger or strange tick at the side of his mouth or one eye just a little crossed or pop-eyed that has a fascinating or disturbing story behind it. I grew up in a small town, and it was not uncommon to see every male who had a pickup truck carrying a number of tools (including a chainsaw). But the guy who built a shack on the bed of his pickup when I was growing up was the guy who lived just outside of society, somewhere in the woods, was probably a hippie growing some weed, and only came into town once a month to stock up on supplies.

Even where I live now, in the city of Albuquerque, there's a guy that I usually see riding his bike past my house. He has wild curly hair and a graying beard, and he usually waves hi at me though he never speaks. But when I see him driving, he is driving one of those "toolshacks on wheels," a painstaking little A-frame built carefully on the bed of his 1970s era pickup. What's his story? Why is he living in the city and not off the grid somewhere?

These are some stories that I think Sal missed in his hurry to get to the coast and in his desire to meet "interesting" characters in his definition. Because ultimately, his friends don't seem to be as interesting to me because they all do the same thing, philosophize and drink and philosophize some more. These little glimpses into the oddities of American life that Sal passes over, as seen in Adel, might have turned out to be as interesting or even more so than he imagined.

For more information about Adel, Iowa

Adel city website
Dallas County, Iowa
Wikipedia: Adel

I SO wanted to find a picture of a toolshack on wheels, but I couldn't. Sorry!

Next up: Stuart, Iowa