On the Road: Manteca, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on April 25, 2007

Unfolding the Map

Sal is working his way down California, which is a long way since it's a long state. You can work your way down California too by clicking on the map to see where we've come (and a little of where we are going)!

Book Quote

"The sun goes down long and red. All the magic names of the valley unrolled -- Manteca..."

On the Road, Chapter 12

Manteca, California

I remember, when I was growing up, that we only had two television stations for the first few years of my life, both out of Eureka, California. Just before I hit my teens, my parents splurged on cable, which gave us a total of about 12 stations, most of them on VHF but at least a couple in the UHF area. These stations opened a whole new world for me, because they were San Francisco stations with new and different programming. I actually saw new cartoons after school like Speed Racer and Kimba the White Lion. I also began to learn about place names around the Bay Area that I hadn't known before. These names were often exotic, like Sausalito, or simply descriptive, like Mill Valley or Stinson Beach. One TV station, advertising its reach with a catchy jingle, threw the name "Manteca" into the mix and that was probably the first time I ever heard of that particular place.

I write this because not just because I wanted to highlight my ignorance of Manteca, but also because the names evoke images that are hard to replace. When Jack Kerouac writes about "all the magic names..." I can identify with that because growing up in rural California in an isolated spot on the coast, these names created some imaginary scenes in my mind. I would have never pictured Manteca as being a simple and small San Joaquin Valley community surrounded by farms. Manteca to me sounded much more exotic and fantastical. The fact that the TV station celebrated its name in a jingle made it that much more likely that it was a special place. I don't mean to imply that it is not special in many ways, but you may see my point, that we often create images where the reality is probably less than the imagination.

Even when traveling as a teen with my family, on our occasional trips to the Bay Area (which were often fraught with tension because my parents weren't comfortable driving in urban areas) the simple act of passing a road sign pointing to some town off the freeway often made me wish that we could take a side trip. Now that I'm an adult, when I drive and notice a sign that seems interesting, I will go there. I remember one memorable trip I made when I was younger where I visited Salt Lick, Kentucky and Pee Pee, Ohio. Who can resist stopping in such places, if only to take a look around and say "Well, that was interesting/uninteresting?" Of course, any place that had some variant of my last name got a visit if I was passing by. It was magical, in a way, and only heightened at sunrise or sunset, when people were either getting up to start a day's work, or going in to have their suppers and settle in for the evening. At those times, passing through such sleepy places often seemed to me like catching them in a private moment and that I should be honored that they let me view them, illuminated almost mysteriously in the first or last rays of the day.

If you want to know more about Manteca

City of Manteca
Manteca Chamber of Commerce
Manteca Convention and Visitors Bureau
Wikipedia: Manteca

Next up: Madera, California

On the Road: Tracy, California

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on April 24, 2007

Unfolding the Map

Sal gets out into rural California. Hard to believe there is such a thing, right, when most of what is transmitted around the country about California involves glamorous LA city life, or crunchy granola San Francisco city life. Surprise! California is much more rural than urban, at least in land space, and if you throw a dart at a map of California you're probably more likely to stick in the general vicinity of a country-music listening redneck than you are a hip-hop loving, clubbing, partying blonde bombshell starlet of the week. So check the map.

Book Quote

"The first was the mad one, with a burly blond kid in a souped-up rod. 'See that toe?' he said as he gunned the heap to eighty and passed everybody on the road. 'Look at it.' It was swathed in bandages. 'I just had it amputated this morning. The bastards wanted me to stay in the hospital. I packed my bag and left. What's a toe?' Yes, indeed, I said to myself, look out now, and I hung on. You never saw a driving fool like that. He made Tracy in no time. Tracy is a railroad town; brakemen eat surly meals in diners by the tracks. Trains howl away across the valley."

On the Road, Chapter 12

Tracy, California

I didn't have an amputated toe, but I drove like that through California once. I was in maybe my second year of college. A friend of mine, John, and I drove down to Walnut Creek where I could visit my sister, who was in the hospital there. On the way back, being youthful, we decided to see how fast we could get back to our hometown. From Walnut Creek, the trip could take about four hours, the last 75 miles or so over winding roads through the coast range to Fort Bragg. We may have been spurred on by a supposed deadline -- John had to be home for dinner or I had to be home for something or other.

So, starting from Walnut Creek, we pushed 90 mph, me driving, while taking the long flat road around the top of the Bay area, then hitting the freeway at highway 101 and heading north. We slowed somewhat through Santa Rosa, but then pushed it again until we got to Cloverdale, where we turned west on CA-128 and drove over to the coast. This was the windy section, but I swear that John, who was driving this part, pushed 60 mph over most of it. We clocked in at 2½ hours, if I remember correctly. Only now when I look back on it am I amazed that we didn't get stopped by a cop, nor did we have a major wreck.

Years later, I learned what Sal is learning while careening with madmen over two-lane highways in rural California. On a month-long trip to Bangladesh, I was driven most everywhere. You can't imagine my thoughts the first time I sat in the back of the vehicle as the driver careened toward a huge truck bearing down on us in the opposite direction. Both blared their horns incessantly and I was certain there would be a head-on. At the last minute, both swerved, still blaring their horns, and passed each other with little room to spare. I was to experience many more moments like that, and learned how to simply go into a Zen-like calm. It is a good day to die, I would say, and simply let it be. Thankfully, I think some sorts of rules of the road that I was not aware of were at work, and I lived.

I don't know anything about Tracy, and I am not even sure if it is still a railroad town. Most likely it isn't, and is a stereotypical sleepy Central Valley farm community, but check out the links below to learn more.

If you want to know more about Tracy:

City of Tracy
Tracy Chamber of Commerce
Tracy Press
Wikipedia: Tracy

Next up: Manteca, California

On the Road: Denver, Colorado

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

Unfolding the Map

You have done it, Littourati! You and Sal Paradise have braved the prairies, the loneliness, the long hours of wondering whether you will get a ride, and have reached Denver. Now you will kick back for a while, enjoy your friends, meet up with Dean Moriarty and have some wild times until the road calls you again. Wonder exactly how far you've come? Click the image!

Book Quote

"I got on that hot road, and off I went in a brand-new car driven by a Denver businessman of about thirty-five. He went seventy. I tingled all over; I counted minutes and subtracted miles. Just ahead, over the rolling wheatfields all golden beneath the distant snows of Estes, I'd be seeing old Denver at last. I pictured myself in a Denver bar that night, with all the gang, and in their eyes I would be strange and ragged and like the Prophet who has walked across the land to bring the dark Word, and the only Word I had was 'Wow!'....and before I knew it we were going over the wholesale fruitmarkets outside Denver; there were smokestacks, smoke, railyards, red-brick buildings, and the distant downtown graystone buildings, and here I was in Denver. He let me off at Larimer Street. I stumbled along with the most wicked grin of joy in the world, among the old bums and beat cowboys of Larimer Street."

On the Road, Chapter 5

Denver, Colorado

Just two weekends ago, I made my first trip to Denver. While I was there, I made sure to stop at Larimer Street to see for myself what Sal/Jack might have seen when he was let off there. I can honestly say that despite the fact that many buildings might be left over from 1947, I'm sure that Denver is very different from when Sal stumbled "among the old bums and beat cowboys of Larimer Street."

On the corner of Larimer and 16th, I think, was an area called Writers Corner. Surely they would make some reference to Jack Kerouac? No, there was nary a mention of any writer, and the whole area was a small urban shopping mall with upscale art shops and tiny cafe style restaurants.

16th Street was most likely also very different from Jack's time through. It had become one, long urban shopping mall almost along its entirety through downtown. There was a Starbucks coffee shop approximately every two blocks, along with other chain-style stores. The few businesses that looked local along the street had to really create a niche for themselves and bring in a lot of customers to be able to afford the rent, it appeared to me. 16th Street and had few recognizable Kerouacian characters, a few "bums," so to speak. These were sitting along the side of the sidewalk, watching the free shuttle bus go back and forth, and mumbling their hellos to passersby over the signs that they held reading "God Bless You." They had to be circumspect, however, because Denver had recently started cracking down on panhandling, and the mounted police riding patrol down the street evidently weren't above arresting panhandlers they deemed too aggressive. When my wife attempted to give a woman in a wheelchair money, she said "wait until later," while warily eyeing the cops as they walked by on horseback.

Though I was not able to get there, I heard that a new building, the Jack Kerouac Lofts, had opened up off downtown at 3100 Huron Street, near the Camargo market where Jack (and Sal) took a job for a few days. Evidently, they do not sit on any site that is specifically known for a historic connection to Kerouac.

While my experience in Denver, unlike Sal's, did not consist of watching a friend romance two girls at once (Dean Moriarty), sitting and talking politics and philosophy (Dean and Carlo Marx on bennies), and doing the bars up and down Colfax Avenue (Sal and all his friends), I did eat great Ethiopian (I bet Jack never tried that) and saw the Body Worlds 2 exhibit where corpses without skin were posed doing activities like soccer and ice skating. Almost worthy of Kerouac, I think!

If you want to learn more about Denver and Kerouac's haunts

City and County of Denver Denver Beat Auto Tour (be sure to see all pages, including Beat Shuttle and Beat Train)
Denver's Beat Poetry Driving Tour (I wish I had seen these tours before I went!)
Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau
Denver Post
Jack Kerouac Lofts Attract Eclectic Mix (Denver Business Journal)
Neal Cassady's Denver
Wikipedia: Denver

Next stop: Central City, Colorado

On the Road: Cheyenne, Wyoming

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on July 18, 2006

Unfolding the Map

Hey, guess what, Littourati? We have exited Nebraska, finally, and are now rolling with Sal Paradise into Cheyenne, Wyoming! Hit the image, get the map!

Book Quote

"As the truck reached the outskirts of Cheyenne, we saw the high red lights of the local radio station, and suddenly we were bucking through a great crowd of people that poured along both sidewalks. 'Hell's bells, it's Wild West Week,' said Slim. Big crowds of businessmen, fat businessmen in boots and ten-gallon hats, with their hefty wives in cowgirl attire, bustled and whooped on the wooden sidewalks of old Cheyenne; farther down were the long stringy boulevard lights of new downtown Cheyenne, but the celebration was focusing on Oldtown. Blank guns went off. The saloons were crowded to the sidewalk. I was amazed, and at the same time I felt it was ridiculous: in my first shot at the West I was seeing to what absurd devices it had fallen to keep its proud tradition."

On the Road: Chapter 4

Cheyenne, Wyoming

Sal enters Cheyenne, sees tradition mingling with commercial at the annual Frontier Days (mistakenly called Wild West Week by Slim), and feels that common mixture of amazement and derision of the spectacle of it all.

On the one hand, I know this feeling. I had the feeling when I first saw the Disneyfication of Times Square. What was once an area renowned for its seediness, it's strip clubs and porn shops, and it's danger is now an area full of bright lights, Mickey and friends, and family friendly business that is way to expensive for most of us ordinary folk to shop there.

On the other hand, I regret that Sal has this feeling, because many communities, especially smaller ones (and I count Cheyenne with it's population of just over 50,000 as a small community) take great pride in their local celebrations. You don't just see this in smaller communities; San Antonio goes all out for Fiesta and New Orleans basically ceases to function each year during the run-up to Mardi Gras. But for smaller communities, a festival like Frontier Days in Wyoming puts them on the map and makes them feel proud. If it weren't for Frontier Days, according to Wikipedia the largest rodeo in the world, we would know a lot less about Cheyenne.

My hometown of Fort Bragg had basically one large festival when I was growing up. Because it was a lumber town, the festival was named Paul Bunyan Days, and it continues to occur each September over Labor Day weekend. Parades, contests (including logging skills), and dances characterized the festivities. Paul Bunyan Days gave the town a chance to get out, let its hair down, have fun, and come together as well as giving tourists the opportunity to see a different side of our town.

Other festivals have now been added to my hometown: The World's Largest Salmon Barbecue and Winesong, to name a couple. My hometown takes pride in these celebrations, and has fun with them. And they also echo the local traditions of logging, fishing and agriculture.

Mardi Gras is another example of a community rallying together around a tradition, handed down year by year. Each year, except for this last one which was the first post-Katrina celebration, Mardi Gras got bigger and bigger. Tourists came for the days of wild abandonment they could experience, but if you are a local, you enjoy the family friendly atmosphere away from the French Quarter, the parades, the food, and the costumes that magically appear each year. Without Mardi Gras, would New Orleans have put such a stamp on our consciousness?

So, if I were traveling with Sal in 1947, I would have told him to let Cheyenne have and enjoy its Frontier Days. It celebrates who the people of Cheyenne are, and in many cases, an idealized version of what they want to be. And for one or two weeks a year, that's just fine. America can go back to being "beat" after the fun is over.

If you are interested in learning more about Cheyenne or Frontier Days

City-Data: Cheyenne
Cheyenne Area Convention and Visitor's Bureau
City of Cheyenne
Wikipedia: Cheyenne
Wyoming Tales and Trails:
Cheyenne Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
Frontier Days
Wikipedia: Frontier Days

Next up: Longmont, Colorado

On the Road: Ogallala, Nebraska

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote: First published on Blogger on July 17, 2006

Unfolding the Map

Wow, this title sure is a mouthful, isn't it? Ogallala. Oh-gah-la-la. Not a very good opening for this post, but let's see what comes of it. As usual, image, click, you're at the map.

Book Quote

"We came suddenly into the town of Ogallala, and here the fellows in the cab called out, 'Pisscall!' and with great good delight....

I had to buy more cigarettes. Gene and the blond boy followed me to stretch their legs. I walked into the least likely place in the world, a kind of lonely Plains soda fountain for the local teenage girls and boys. They were dancing, a few of them, to the music on the jukebox. There was a lull when we came in. Gene and Blondey just stood there, looking at nobody; all they wanted was cigarettes. There were some pretty girls, too. And one of them made eyes at Blondey and he never saw it, and if he had he wouldn't have cared, he was so sad and gone."

On the Road, Chapter 4

Ogallala, Nebraska

The image of the soda fountain catches my eye in this quote. It reminds me of a dream my father once had. The story, which may be more or less factual, has it that my father's original dream was to own a soda shop called The Green Parrot in Fort Bragg, California, where he was born and raised. However, World War II intervened, and he left Fort Bragg to go into the Army. He was eventually stationed in the Pacific, in Saipan, after the initial invasion there. He was a master seargent, and ran a mess hall. Every paycheck, he would send something home home to his dad. His instructions to his father were to put the money in savings. That money was going to be used when he came back home to put a down payment on The Green Parrot, which the owner had promised to sell to him when he got back from the war.

When my father arrived home after the war, he asked his father for the money. His father hemmed, hawed, and then told him to come with him. They wandered about 20 miles out into the forest, on dirty back roads, until they came to a little piece of property consisting of 13 acres of undeveloped, overgrown timberland alongside the Noyo River and straddling both sides of the California Western Railroad tracks. My grandfather had "invested" the money in this piece of property. My father's dream of owning The Green Parrot died, but the property remains in use by my family this day as a sort of rustic, actually primitive, summer resort.

(The Green Parrot does not exist anymore. If you want to see The Green Parrot as it might have looked in the 1940s, you can catch a glimpse of it in the movie Racing With the Moon, starring Sean Penn, Elizabeth McGovern and Nicolas Cage. In fact, my whole damn hometown of Fort Bragg is featured.)

Given that my father died an alcoholic after having worked at a lumber mill all his life, I often wonder what would have happened had he been able to buy The Green Parrot. Would he have been the kindly owner/soda jerk behind the counter, laughing with even as he shook his head at the antics of those damn kids every day? Would I have spent my summers, instead of swimming and sleeping under the stars out in the middle of the redwoods, slinging sodas and malts and sweeping up late nights. Would we have ended up without a business in the 80s, when the chains like Burger King and McDonalds swept into town, or would we have ridden it out and become retro-cool? Would my dad's life have been different, happier?

Or would it have been as Kerouac described the Ogallala soda shop -- a lonely kind of place where kids with nothing to do hang out? Where girls who see the same boys all day are extremely likely to latch on to a couple of homeless drifters looking for nothing more than cigarettes? Would we all just be so "sad and gone," that we just wouldn't care?

If you are interested in learning more about Ogallala or soda fountains and soda shops

City of Ogallala
Visit Ogallala
Wikipedia: Ogallala

Drugstore Museum: Soda Fountains
Wikipedia: soda shop  

Next stop: Cheyenne, Wyoming