Blue Highways: Pawcatuck, Connecticut

Unfolding the Map

We cross into Connecticut... the 31st state on the Blue Highways tour.  I have some connection to Connecticut - I used to go there quite a bit to see some friends but I haven't been there in several years now.  I used to go to New York City a lot, and that would bring me to Connecticut.  This post i about how I was intimidated to drive in New York City, until I actually did it.  To see where Pawcatuck sits, follow the freeway to the map.

Book Quote

"When I crossed the Pawcatuck River into Pawcatuck, Connecticut, just up the old Post Road from Wequetequock, I realized I was heading straight into New York City.  I had two choices: drive far inland to bypass it or take the New London-Orient Point ferry to Long Island and cut through the bottom edge of the Apple."

Blue Highways: Part 9, Chapter 6

Mechanic Street in Pawcatuck, Connecticut. Photo by Jennifer and Pat at their Road Trip Memories blog. Click on photo to go to host page.Pawcatuck, Connecticut

It's hard for me to believe, but there was a time when I'd have avoided New York City.

Don't get me wrong.  I understand LHM's reasons for trying to find a way that minimized his exposure to NYC.  After all, Blue Highways states very clearly at the beginning that LHM's purposes is to find the roads less traveled.  He is not, in any sense of the word, a socially anxious person.

He is unlike my parents, for example, who avoided cities if they could help it.  We lived in a rural town with a population of just over 5,000 people.  The biggest city that my parents cared to visit regularly was a town of about 50,000 two hours drive distant, and they only did that for medical reasons or perhaps to do some shopping.  Since the mall was just off the freeway, or in other words easy to get into and easy to get out of, that suited them just fine.  When we did have to go farther, to San Francisco or Oakland for example, that was occasion for anxiety.  I've already written about how horrible it was for them to take a wrong turn or get off on the wrong exit.

I was a little different.  Something in me sought out the challenges of cities.  When I left California at age 22, I went to live in Milwaukee.  Milwaukee was large, about 500,000 people, and it felt like a big city.  Driving in Milwaukee, especially on the freeways, was fun because you had to be aware at all times.  Milwaukee was one of those cities that was built first, and when freeways came around they just threw them into places where they might best fit.  Curves were sharp and one had to watch for exits as they would just sneak up on you and before you knew it, you'd have passed them.  There was even a "bridge to nowhere," that was part of a lakefront freeway that never quite happened.  The freeway crossed the bridge over the harbor area and then, abruptly, ended in the quaint neighborhood of Bay View.

Chicago was Milwaukee times ten.  Miles and miles of freeways seemingly plunked down in the middle and the outskirts of the city.  As I drove through, looking up at the tall buildings, they seemed to almost mock me in my puny car, as if I and the rest of the little ants driving in didn't belong there.  Chicago was always filled with pitfalls.  Exits that one had to watch for on both sides, construction continually happening that blocked exits and made one detour.  Traffic jams that slowed things to a crawl and made a usual half-hour trip past downtown turn into two hours or more.  Aggressive drivers that scared the hell out of the rookie Chicago driver.  Toll booths where you literally tossed coins into a basket and hoped that the little green light flashed on.  Yet I never avoided downtown Chicago.  I could have taken the I-294 loop around the city, but I loved the challenge and I loved the views and therefore I always aimed my vehicle for the heart of downtown.

I never avoided the downtowns of any other city either.  Even if it meant taking less time off my trip, I drove through downtown Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Indianapolis just to see them.  But New York City was a different animal.  I was intimidated by that city.  I had never been there, but just the reputation alone, built up by reputation passed on through books, television, movies and word-of-mouth and other sources had me convinced that one needed to be an expert to drive there.  So it was with great trepidation that I took my first driving trip from Milwaukee to New York.  It seemed simple enough.  I would cross the George Washington Bridge, take the first exit and find a friend's place on the upper West Side just a stone's throw from the bridge.  It was intimidating, but I did it.  When I parked the car, I felt like the member of an exclusive club.  Nobody I had grown up with had ever driven in New York City!

Of course, that's all I did.  And even parking the car was a problem.  The next morning when I got up I was warned that I should check on my car because it was garbage day.  I ran out to find the street empty save for my car, which was adorned with a large ticket and a big red sticker on the the window that declared how my car had impeded that day's city services.  I drove with my scarlet letter to find another parking place and cursed what seemed a huge amount for a ticket.

Being there, however, led me to be courageous enough to drive one of the freeways, at least for a look.  It was intimidating, but doable.  And I got over my fear of driving in New York City.  I must say that I didn't do much penetration of the streets where the taxi-cabs rule.  But, I learned that any city in America is drivable if one pays attention and doesn't take loud horns too seriously.

Today, I like to think I'd drive anything.  My next goal, something I've never tried, is to drive in a foreign country (not including Canada, where I've already driven).  I'd start out with an easy one, where they drive on the right like in the US.  Then, perhaps, I'd try a country like England or Ireland where the traffic moves on the left side of the road.  I must say, I'm probably too intimidated to try driving in a place like Rome, where it seems that it would take years of study to know what the unwritten rules of the road are.  I would have to say the same for India or another developing country metropolis.  There are both written and unwritten rules for driving in those places, but the rules are too convoluted for me to follow and would take being a true native to understand.

But, you never know.

Musical Interlude

I'm going to repeat this song from an earlier post.  I was driving through Chicago and this song, Midnight Oil's Dreamworld, came on WXRT, and it was the perfect song for driving at 65 down the freeway toward the city.

If you want to know more about Pawcatuck

Greater Westerly-Pawcatuck Area Chamber of Commerce
Wikipedia: Pawcatuck

Next up: Mystic, Connecticut

Blue Highways: Westerly, Rhode Island

Unfolding the Map

Westerly, Rhode Island, brings us to questions of bravery and cowardice.  William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) relates a humorous story of a general in a forgotten American rebellion, but we'll explore the theme a little as he prepares to drive into Connecticut.  To locate Westerly (hint: it's in the west of Rhode Island), click here for the map.

Book Quote

"I started down the coast.  If 'down' means southward, and you think of the Atlantic seaboard strking a longitudinal line, you'll be disoriented in Rhode Island and Connecticut as you follow the ocean.  The coastine runs almost due east and west.  Hence the name Westerly, Rhode Island, a town just off the Atlantic and west of everything in the state.

"It was here, so I read, during the Dorr Rebellion in 1842, that General John B. Stedman was charged with maintaining martial law in the town.  At one point, when he thought an attack imminent, he told his troops, 'Boys, when you see the enemy, fire and then run.  And as I am a little lame, I'll run now.'"

Blue Highways: Part 9, Chapter 6

Downtown Westerly, Rhode Island. Photo by Daniel Case and hosted at Wikipedia. Click on photo to go to host page.

Westerly, Rhode Island

I was going to write a little, based on this quote, about how some place names show the history of US westward expansion.  After all, at one point in our history, it is probable that Westerly, Rhode Island, was not only the westernmost point in that state but also the beginning of the frontier.  At one point, perhaps in the westernmost point of Westerly, the owner of the most westerly house in that city could step out their front door, look west and believe if not truly be the edge of European settlement in North America.  But I believe that I've already made comments to that effect in these posts.

No, today I'm going to get something off my chest.  The second part of this post has to do with bravery and cowardice.  That's where I'm going to go today, even if it embarrasses me.

A little framework is needed for LHM's quote.  He mentions the Dorr Rebellion but does not give any context about it.  I know that all you ever really wanted to do was learn about this little known event in Rhode Island and US history, so I'll enlighten you.  Dorr's Rebellion happened in the 1840s in Rhode Island, and it was about voting rights.  I often teach my political science students that only a small part of the electorate was enfranchised in the early years of the United States. Most states only allowed white male property owners the right to vote.  Blacks, Native Americans, poor whites and women were not allowed to participate in the most fundamental right of our democracy.  In Rhode Island, a white man had to own at least $134 worth of property to qualify to vote in elections.  It was the only state by that time to not allow all white men to vote, so by the early 1840s, only 40 percent of white men could participate in the vote.

Thomas Wilson Dorr started an insurrection whose aim was to change the state constitution to allow a greater number of people to vote.  He initially supported the inclusion of black men, but then reneged on that promise.  As a result, black men fought against his rebellion.  The rebellion was unsuccessful in many ways, and Thomas Wilson Dorr was tried for treason and insurrection, found guilty and sentenced to life.  He did succeed in many ways too.  He only served two years in prison, and in 1849 the right to vote in Rhode Island was expanded to all white men.  However, the ordeal broke his health and he died in 1854.

I want to reflect a moment on the part of the quote that LHM finds a little funny, where General Stedman exhorts his troops even as he prepares to flee.  It reminds me of the old joke where the general is getting dressed, and his aide comes in and says that the enemy is mustering.  Get me my white shirt, the general orders, so that my troops will see me on the field and be rallied by my presence.  Then another aide comes in, and says that the enemy has attacked.  Get me my red shirt, orders the general, so that if I'm hit the troops will not see any blood and be inspired by my strength.  A third aide comes in, and gives the news that the line has broken, and that the enemy is fast closing in on the general's position.  Get me my brown pants, the general orders.

Most of us may not have ever faced a situation where we have been in mortal danger from other people.  For those few that have, there is often a split-second decision that has to be made, and the results of that decision could indicate bravery or cowardice depending on what is seen.  Recently, just following the Aurora, Colorado theater shootings, I read a story of one of the survivors.  He and his girlfriend and their small son were at the theater.  When the shooting began, the father jumped over the balcony, leaving behind his small son and girlfriend.  His girlfriend was eventually shot in the leg before the shooter left the scene.  As I read that account, I questioned the father's action.  It appeared from all intents and purposes that he ran instead of defending his family.  I had by that time read of some accounts of heroism.  I had read of another man throwing himself in front of his girlfriend, taking bullets that would have hit her, and who died.  So it was easy for me to condemn the man who ran at first.

But how many of us would have the presence of mind, when the shooting starts, to say "today's my chance to be a hero?"  I ask because I faced situation once, and in my mind at the time my actions were correct, yet in the end I've always felt that I failed.

I was living in Milwaukee in my first year of volunteer service with a group of other volunteers.  We lived in the inner-city, and for a number of months our house had been broken into regularly.  Police finally caught some kids, and my roommate was called to testify in court that he nor any of us had ever granted permission for those individuals to come into our house.

One chilly October evening, a small group of us decided to walk from our house to a bowling alley a few blocks away.  After we had gone a couple of blocks, a car screeched to a stop in front of us and a group of young adult men got out of the car.  One walked right up to my roommate, said "you've been picking on my brother," and hit him across the face.  A melee ensued, as more of our group were attacked.  In the end, my roommate was beaten badly around his face and head, my other roommate suffered a wound to her head which was consistent with a blunt object, another friend was also hit and hurt, and all of us were traumatized.

My initial reaction at this attack was to seek help.  I ran down the street looking for someone.  Around the corner, I knocked on the door where I saw a light.  A woman pulled me in and told me to keep out of sight and they called the police.

Since that time, I have always berated myself because I felt that I abandoned my friends.  Could I have changed the situation by being there?  Maybe or maybe not.  But over time, I've felt more and more like a coward.  Since then, I've always had fantasies of being the guy who knocks the gun out of the potential shooter's hand, or the guy who beats the bully down.  I've never been judged by my friends for my actions that night, at least to my knowledge, and all of my regret is self-imposed.  I know that these fantasies are only my mind hoping to get another chance at redemption.  Yet, in the face of danger, I still live with the fact that I ran at that particular time. 

So, on one level I see the humor in General Stedman's position.  On another level, I've been in his situation, a situation of danger, and I didn't necessarily like the aspect of my nature that came out.  It gives me a little more understanding and compassion for the guy who ran in the theater, even as I still recriminate myself.

Musical Interlude

The tale of "brave" Sir Robin from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

If you want to know more about Westerly

Genealogy Trails: Westerly
Greater Westerly-Pawcatuck Area Chamber of Commerce
Town of Westerly
Visit Westerly
The Westerly Sun (newspaper)
Wikipedia: Westerly

Next up: Pawcatuck, Connecticut

Blue Highways: Newport, Rhode Island

Unfolding the Map

As we pull into Newport, Rhode Island with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM), do you feel a bit of nostalgia?  Do you have some melancholy associated with a place that was, but now feels different?  As I come home again, I feel it keenly, and will share some thoughts with you on the subject.  If you wish to visit the years gone by, you'll only be able to do that in your memories.  But if you want to see where Newport is located, navigate to the map.

Book Quote

"....I went on toward Quonset Point, the homeport of the ship I had been assigned to."

"....At the end of the road, a mile in, the big pier was empty.  Nothing but rusting stanchions and bollards, and weeds along the railroad tracks.  The whole bay stood open and vacant.  The Champ, the Essex, the Wasp used to fill the sky with gray masses of hull, gun, and antennas.  The great carriers were gone, and also tugs, tenders, big naval cranes, helicopters, jets; the shouts and hubbub and confusion of sailors and machines and aircraft, all gone.

"....I had lived and died walking off and on this pier and many times had dreamed of the day I'd come back as a civilian, free of the tyranny of the boatswain's pipe and his curses, free of working in a one-hundred-twenty-five-degree steel box.  I felt cheated.

"Where the hell was the diesel oil of yesteryear?  Where the drawn faces when we left, the cockahoop faces when we returned, the sailors kissing girls and lugging seabags, mahogany statues, brass platters, straw hats, and black velvet paintings of bulls and naked native women; trucks honking, the sailors on duty cursing down from the deck and offering services to the women, the sea wind snapping the flag from the jackstaff, the last smoke blowing grit on us from the tall stacks?...Christ.  I knew you couldn't go home again, but nobody had said anything about not getting back to your old Navy base."

Blue Highways: Part 9, Chapter 5

Downtown Newport, Rhode Island. Photo by Daniel Case and hosted at Wikimedia Commons. Click on photo to go to host page.

Newport, Rhode Island

It's often jarring when you go back to someplace that you frequented after an absence of a number of years.

While my absence from my home town hasn't spanned as many year as LHM's absence from Newport, Rhode Island, it still astounds me every time I go back and something has changed, landmarks have disappeared, and I am left sometimes with a profound sense of loss.

Of course, time moves forward whether we want it or not.  But when one wants to capture something of the past, some marker that reconnects us to previous eras of our lives, and it is no longer there or has changed in some unalterable way, it can be a shock to the psyche.

LHM goes to Newport expecting to see something of the old Navy base out of which he served.  When he gets there, what was once a huge industrial facility for maintaining ships of the fleet, including the big aircraft carriers, is now gone.  All he is left with are the memories of the base and Newport as it once was.  His reaction is one of shock and annoyance: why are there lobster fisherman where there once were the finest of the Navy.  He even references Thomas Wolfe.

It may be that one can't go home again.  I often say now that I'm "going home" to visit my mom, or to see old friends.  In reality, home as it was in Fort Bragg, California has really ceased to exist for me.  The house where I grew up has changed too much.  Gone is the horrible brown carpeting, replaced with a durable wood floor.  My room has become a guest room, with nothing left to mark my years of passage there.  An acre of our big yard, where I used to play football with friends and where I constructed two holes of a six hole golf course, has been sold to the neighbor and now there is a shop and a bunch of his equipment on it.

The lumber mill where my father worked, and where I spent four summers as a worker and a security guard, is gone.  When I drive down Oak Street toward what used to be the main gate, it still shocks me to see the ocean rather than the huge sawmill building that rose higher than any building in the town.  Along the whole of the downtown, in fact, the only thing that separates the town from the sea is a vast tract of silent oceanfront property that once housed mills, drying sheds and what seemed like endless stacks of cut lumber stretching far away north and endless decks of newly cut logs that stretched far away south.  Now, the steam-powered rattle and noise of the mill machinery, the revving motors of the forklifts and carriers, and the signature noon whistle that could be heard all over town are all ghosts on the ocean breeze.

All this is coming back to me now because it is the advent of my 30th high school reunion.  Recently, on the trip home to attend that event, I learned that an old college friend had come out to California for a conference and decided to stay with some friends in the wine country.  We talked a little about old times, but mostly we looked at each other and, at least for me, a certain wistfulness about the time that had passed and the changes in us.  While much change has been good - for him, a debilitating disease in remission, a stable relationship, and a good job in Maine - one still cannot be unaware that time is marching and we've gotten older.

At my high school reunion, as I walked into the room I saw some people who I've kept in semi-regular contact with over the years, either by seeing them when I come home or through media like Facebook.  Despite that, I saw a couple of people that I hadn't seen for those 30 years.  A number of people I didn't recognize through the changes that time and experience had wrought.  A number had trouble remembering my name.  High school seemed to be such a huge part of our lives that it has grown out of proportion to many of our other experiences.  A classmate that I spoke with put it in perspective.  I went to school in a small town and was with most of my classmates all through my school years.  He reminded me that all of my classmates, at the age I now am, were a part of only about a third of my life.  Yet that period, and especially the three years of high school I attended, seem like such a huge thing.  All of the successes, and all of the failures, have been magnified.  All of the slights and praises from classmates, while hidden under the veneer of my adulthood, still rattle around in there if I choose to go back and remember them.  I suspect that a small few of our alumni don't come back to the reunions because of the trauma they faced in high school from an equally small number of cruel classmates.

That's where I would modify Thomas Hardy and LHM.  One can come home again, but sometimes one might not wish to.  Home is in the past, and home can connote much that might be painful to relive.  When I think of what was home to me thirty years ago, it consisted of a dysfunctional family, a tortured and negative sense of self, and a longing for something different.  When I think of what is home now, it consists of a more positive sense of self, many accomplishments, and different family dynamics albeit with echoes of the past.  The nostalgia of the past is often best left as a place to visit, at a time of our choosing, and not as a place to dwell in.

Musical Interlude

The song that best encapsulates the melancholy of the past, at least for me, is Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days.

I'm not sure why, but I get a melancholy homesick feeling when I listen to America's Ventura Highway off of their aptly named Homecoming album.  And I didn't even live in southern California...

If you want to know more about Newport

City of Newport
Discover Newport
Newport's Cliff Walk
Newport Daily News (newspaper)
Newport Mansions
Wikipedia: Newport

Next up: Westerly, Rhode Island

Blue Highways: Fall River, Massachusetts

Unfolding the Map

Fall River, Massachusetts is where William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) tends to get lost.  As we're driving around with him in Ghost Dancing, trying to figure out our bearings, I'll write about how I usually have good directional sense, but how one city in New Mexico seems to confound my sense of place.  If you want to try to make sense of the maze of Fall River, get lost in the map.  The image at right, the black-capped chickadee, is the Massachusetts state bird.  It was drawn by Pearson Scott Foresman and is from Wikimedia Commons.

Book Quote

"Fall River, Massachusetts, is chiefly memorable for me as the factory city I have never driven through without losing the way.  Once there - predictably, inexplicably, and utterly - I am confounded by the knots of concrete.  So, that day, entangled again, it was like old times."

Blue Highways: Part 9, Chapter 5

Downtown Fall River, Massachusetts. Photo by Marc N. Belanger and hosted at Wikimedia Commons. Click on photo to go to host page.

Fall River, Massachusetts

LHM's Fall River is my Santa Fe.

Let me explain that.  I agree with LHM.  There are certain places where the laws of chance do not seem to apply.  I have written about getting lost before, but usually when I've been a place once I don't forget it.  For example, my parents had a little phobia about driving down in the San Francisco Bay Area.  They were rural Northern Californians in a town with, at the time, one stoplight.  Yet every so often we would have to drive south to the Bay Area.  Freeways with multiple on- and offramps were difficult for them to negotiate.  They didn't have many familiar landmarks.  They needed directions to be spelled out for them very minutely.  If they strayed off the beaten path, even getting off the freeway one exit too soon, they were soon completely, hopelessly lost.  Tensions rose in the car when we drove to the Bay Area.  I think that my parents were convinced that if they made a mistake, we all might end up missing or dead.  Nobody breathed normally, or felt safe, until we reached our destination.

In other words, the Bay Area was a maze that they had to negotiate.  As in a maze, one step off the true path could be their undoing, leaving them wandering in an unfamiliar and terrifying terrain that at best would be purgatory, and at worst a horrible hell.  If that meant they had to drive 45 miles an hour to make sure that they didn't miss an exit, so be it.

Fortunately for them, I had a very good memory.  If I had driven the way once, I could remember how to get there again.  They doubted me at first and didn't listen to my suggestions, but eventually they saw I was right and would ask me if they didn't remember themselves.

That ability to remember the way has stood me in good stead over the years, especially when it came to the Bay Area and along the California coast.  I also seemed to have good map memory, so that if I looked at a map and memorized the route on the map, I could usually figure it out with a minimum of hassle on the road.  The road signs were key - if they were missing then all bets were off - but I could still usually figure out the route even if there was a bit of trouble like that.  Of course, it always helped that I had the ocean within sensing distance on the west side of me.

I remember the first time that I really found myself turned around and having trouble figuring out where I was and what direction I should go.  I was, ironically, in a city laid out upon a pretty well-defined grid.  I had just moved to Milwaukee, and I think that without the ocean to orient me I was confused.  Milwaukee's grid runs pretty predictably north-south and east-west.  The north-south streets are all numbered, and Lake Michigan lies on the east side of the city.  But as I stood in a section of the inner-city, looking at street signs, I was briefly lost.  My difficulty may have been attributable to the fact that it was the first time that I ever had lived anywhere outside of California up to that point in my life.  Or, it may have been due to the unease I experienced in living in what was considered a sketchy, if  not dangerous, neighborhood.  But for the first time in my life, I really felt lost, and it seemed that something that defined me, my unerring instinct for direction, had abandoned me.

I recovered, but I was shaken.  I wondered if that was what it felt like to be truly lost?  I think that being lost isn't necessarily a bad thing if one knows that one has resources to find oneself.  But to be hopelessly lost, where one has no resources - THAT is the loneliest feeling in the world.

Now, I'll come back to Santa Fe.  I'm never really lost in Santa Fe.  It's just that I have never understood the city.  It follows no comfortable grid.  There are a couple of main streets that lead into the city from the interstate, but once you get away from those streets, it becomes more difficult to orient yourself.  Roads and streets meander back and forth.  If I lived there, these meandering ways might be fun to explore, but usually I am driving up from Albuquerque and have to be at a place at a certain time.  It has taken me eight years and countless trips for me to be comfortable enough to know my way to the main plaza, to the museums on Museum Hill, and maybe one or two other places.

As LHM says, however, the chance for me to become "predictably, inexplicably and utterly" lost is high.  At least it's not "hopelessly" lost.  In this case, it's simply an annoying lost.  But annoying is bad enough, especially when you're in a very small city and therefore which should be easy to understand and easy to get around.  I've come to think of it as a mental block that I have, and that my self-talk, operating in the background, sabotages me.  Or maybe I just like to complain about Santa Fe and the universe conspiring against me and I doom my chances to know the city streets before I even begin.  All I know is that it's damn frustrating!

Musical Interlude

I found a song entitled Mazes that I liked by a group called Moon Duo.  The lyrics speak of the emotional mazes we often find ourselves in.

Oh, did you know that Fall River is where Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks, and when she saw what she had done she gave her father forty-one?

If you want to know more about Fall River

Battleship Cove
City of Fall River
Fall River Chamber of Commerce
Fall River Herald News (newspaper)
Fall River Historical Society

Next up: Newport, Rhode Island

Blue Highways: Taunton, Massachusetts

Unfolding the Map

Sometimes Murphy's Law hits, and things seem to gang up on you.  William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) touches upon a small example of Murphy's Law as he heads toward Taunton, Massachusetts, that I'll explore and reflect upon in this post.  If you want to avoid pitfalls, get on the right track, and see where Taunton is located, orient yourself at the map.  By the way, the drawing at right is trailing arbutus, the Massachusetts state flower, from Wikimedia Commons.

Book Quote

"Down state 115 southeast toward Taunton.  I had to keep checking route markers for the northwest-bound traffic in order to stay on course.  Rule of the blue road: the highway side to where you've been is better marked than the one to where you're going."

Blue Highways: Part 9, Chapter 4

Downtown Taunton, Massachusetts. Taunton is one of the oldest towns in America. Photo at Menupix.com. Click on photo to go to host page.

Taunton, Massachusetts

A few times in Blue Highways, LHM refers to what I would call Murphy's Laws of the road.  In case you are reading and are not familiar with Murphy's Laws, these are the humorous laws of the universe that seem to conspire against you at every turn.  The main law, simply stated, is that "whatever can go wrong, will go wrong."  Taken at face value, the law is a truism.  Eventually, everything that can go wrong will go wrong.  It is wrong to assume that something will go wrong at any particular time, but to assume that eventually, something will go wrong to me seems to me, at risk of sounding like Mr. Spock, to be a logical probability.

However, we as humans go through fits of believing that the universe can, will and does treat us like crap.  I have had those times where it seems that everything I do, say, touch and attempt just doesn't work.  There are times where I seem to hit my head on every object that is at my head's height at any particular time.  I have gone days when I can't seem to say anything that doesn't offend, hurt or just come off as wrong.  I have slogged through periods when everything I pick up, and then put down simply disappears, as if I have a strange magical power to send the object to a parallel universe where a mirror me, suffering through the opposite of Murphy's Law, is probably wondering where all the junk has come from.

But, what about Murphy's Laws of the road, you might ask.  After all, Blue Highways is a book about the road, and LHM has had times where he believes the universe conspires against him.  When he drove into mountains, he was turned back by snow...in May.  When he needed gas, there wasn't an open gas station for miles and he drove, clenching his buttocks in an attempt to will Ghost Dancing to make it, until he got to a gas station with little more than fumes in the tank.  A fuel line busted in North Dakota, causing a mechanic to tell him the van was about to catch on fire if he didn't get it fixed.  Of course, you might say that these Murphy's Laws only came about because of him - he ignored the snow sign, he could have filled up with gas earlier, and he should have had the fuel line checked.  However, we can also argue that he was operating in imperfect knowledge.  The sign about snow didn't say anything about May.  He was driving in the early 1980s, before the advent of GPS and smart phones that make it easy to know when and where the next 24 hour open gas station is located.  He didn't know that his fuel line was cracked until the precipitous drop on the fuel gauge.  But Michael, you may protest, he was driving on blue highways...the ones where you're more likely to have trouble and find less services.  We can debate all about this, but ultimately, Murphy's Laws seem to depend on our attitude about the world.

For example, the law of the blue highway that he quotes manifests itself in the highly populated Northeast, in a particularly busy area of Massachusetts given its proximity to Boston.  LHM doesn't like the busy highways, and prefers to avoid them.  Therefore, the lack of signage on his side, and the plethora of signage on the other, is probably a product of his own stress level at dealing with the busy roads.  There is probably just as much signage on one side as the other, but he cannot see it.

My Murphy's Laws of the road appear usually because of my own lack of attention.  For example, in a few days I will get a rental car on a trip that I am making.  And I will be willing to wager that the first time I stop for gas, I will pull into a gas station and park by the pumps only to find that the gas tank is not on the left side of the car, as it is on mine, but on the right side of the rental car.  I will be annoyed, then I will get into the car and pull around to align the gas tanks with the pumps.  If I were to put it into Murphy's Laws terms, I would posit the law thus: Whenever one is driving an unfamiliar car, when one stops for gas and pulls up to the pump, the gas tank will be on the opposite side.  However, the "law" occurred simply because I refused to take time to check the location of the gas tank.

Or, here's another:  Whenever one is in a hurry to get someplace, there will be construction or an accident blocking traffic and making one late.  We've all had that happen, correct?  In my case, I usually find that I'm late to begin with, and am simply seeking something to vent my rage at my own lack of attention to time.  That damn traffic, I'll snarl.  Yet if I had left 10-15 minutes earlier, it probably wouldn't have mattered so much.  I might have even missed the accident that was clogging traffic!

The fact is that in my calmer moments, I realize that the universe is not malevolent, nor benevolent for that matter.  The universe just is.  It is easy to rail against it when things are not going our way.  I will probably continue to do so when I feel like fate, chance and luck is taking a piss on me.  In fact, I think that I have raged more against the unfairness of the universe throughout my life than I have thanked it for the good things that have happened to me.  The universe is an easy target, and it cannot answer back.  If all goes well after I rage, well I showed the cosmos.  And if things continue to not go my way, I just provide myself proof that everything is out to get me.

The only thing missing from that equation is me, with all my choices and actions.  That's just too close to home.  I'd rather blame it all on Murphy's Laws.

Musical Interlude

I found this funky early 80s song by Cheri called Murphy's Law.  The lyrics are all about misfortune.

If you want to know more about Taunton

City of Taunton
Old Colony Historical Society
Taunton Daily Gazette (newspaper)
Wikipedia: Taunton

Next up: Fall River, Massachusetts