On the Road: Davenport, Iowa

Click on the Thumbail to get MapNote:  Originally published on Blogger on June 13, 2006.

Unfolding the Map

Today's blog really hits the heartland as Sal crosses the Mississippi, and I reflect on the big muddy. As always, you are free to click on the image, oh Littourati, to see the updated map!

Book Quote

"My first ride was a dynamite truck with a red flag...Along about three in the afternoon, after an apple pie and ice cream in a roadside stand, a woman stopped for me in a little coupe. ...But she was a middle-aged woman...and wanted somebody to help her drive to Iowa...and, though I'm not much of a driver, drove clear through the rest of Illinois to Davenport, Iowa, via Rock Island. And here for the first time, I saw my beloved Mississippi River, dry in the summer haze, low water, with its big rank smell that smells like the raw body of America itself because it washes it up. Rock Island - railroad tracks, shacks, small downtown section; and over the bridge to Davenport, same kind of town, all smelling of sawdust in the warm midwest sun."

On the Road: Chapter 3

Davenport and the Mississippi

I'm not going to dwell much on Davenport, because I've really never been there so I won't know what I'm talking about. I have, however, seen the Mississippi. I've been lucky enough to see it in five places, and unlucky enough to not have seen it in a sixth.

The first time I saw the Mississippi, I crossed over it in that bus to Wyoming up in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. My recollection is hazy, but I don't remember it as being that big up there, since you are getting close to the headwaters, but as a young child we all knew the name of the Mississippi even if we couldn't spell the damn thing and therefore it was an important moment in my life. My second time seeing the the river was crossing over it by car in La Crosse, Wisconsin as I headed out to a retreat, a gathering, of the volunteer program I was a part of in Milwaukee. I remember a bigger river, with a barge or two tied up along the side, but I also have a vivid recollection of the main sight in La Crosse, the world's largest six pack of beer!

The third time I saw the river was in St. Louis, where the river really gets big and packs a punch because the Missouri River joins it just on the north side of the city. I almost personally experienced its power that time. I was up in the magnificent St. Louis Arch with a friend and had parked my car on a parking lot the literally sloped down into the river. Little did I know it was the beginning of the Mississippi floods. From the top I noticed that a few cars that had been dry before had their tires in the water and people were rushing up to get their cars out. By the time I got out of the arch and down to my car, its tires were in the water and the spaces where those other cars had been were completely submerged!

The fourth time I saw the Mississippi, I was in Quincy, Illinois and I also went across the river to Hannibal, Missouri to see Mark Twain's boyhood hometown. If any writer is synonymous with the Mississippi, it is Mark Twain, who lived on it, worked on it, and set what may be the greatest American novel, Huckleberry Finn, on and around it.

The fifth time I saw the Mississippi was when I lived in New Orleans. There was always something magical about taking the ferry from Algiers back into the downtown. The current was so strong at that huge sweeping curve in the river that the ferry would often labor upstream, allowing us to drift back to the downtown ferry terminal. Occasionally we would have to dodge a big freighter coming through. One night Megan, EB and I watched the biggest ship we had ever seen, towering some 10 stories over us, silently slip by and disappear under and past the Crescent City Connection bridge and on up the river. EB and Megan tried to chase it, but even as silent as it seemed, it was moving faster than they could run.

The sixth time I didn't see the Mississippi was up in the Delta country, where the blues was born. It was always something that we meant to do. We were going to drive up the river to the blues country, to Natchez or some other area. And we never did.

The river is an amazing thing. It has a life of its own, as Mark Twain will tell you, despite the fact that the Army Corps of Engineers and others have tried to tame it. It empties a continent, like a giant artery, pumping life AND waste down it's length and into the Gulf. It has contributed mightily to our culture and music. A legendary story from the Mississippi concerns the great cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, who evidently heard from the shore the amazing trumpet playing of Louis Armstrong on a riverboat in the Mississippi, and decided to take up the trumpet. "The raw body of America itself." Jack Kerouac and Sal describe it well.

For more information on Davenport or the Mississippi

City of Davenport
Downtown Davenport
E-Podunk: Davenport
Wikipedia: Davenport

Mark Twain's "Life on the Mississippi" Online
Mark Twain's Mississippi River 
Songs of the Mississippi River
Wikipedia: Mississippi River

Next up: Iowa City and Des Moines, Iowa

On the Road: Joliet, Illinois

Click on the Thumbnail for the Map

Note:  First published on Blogger on June 13, 2006

Unfolding the Map

In this post, Sal's hitchhiking begins in earnest, and we will look at some reflections it stirs in yours truly. So stick your thumb out and get ready to catch a ride across the plains with Sal Paradise. As usual, click on the image to get the updated map!

Book Quote

"...I took a bus to Joliet, Illinois, went by the Joliet pen, stationed myself just outside town after a walk through its leafy rickety streets behind, and pointed my way."

On the Road: Chapter 3

Joliet, Illinois

After a false start back in New York, Sal finds himself standing on the the side of the road, his thumb pointing the way west. I'm sure that Sal would have preferred to do this long before, and not have spent most of his $50 on a bus ticket to Chicago, but a lot of times one has to ease into something new.

Hitchhiking, of course was a lot more common in 1947 than it is now. I'm not sure about the statistics of hitchhiking, and how much crime occurs to the unwary motorist who decides to pick up a hitchhiker or the unwary hitchhiker who jumps in a car with a psychopath, but the way it was always explained to me, if I ever picked up a hitchhiker I would end up being slowly dismembered somewhere in a dirty warehouse or an out of the way collapsing barn. If I ever hitchhiked, I would meet the same fate. Nobody would ever find me, and my fate would become another horrible story that parents would use to scare their driving-age children out of ever thinking of picking up a hitchhiker, or scare their kids out of ever thinking of hitchhiking.

Okay, so now I've tried to look up hitchhiking and statistics, and I can't find any, and from various posts on various groups, I see that other people haven't found any either.

The sad thing is that these types of stories make me pass people by, without picking them up. It seems to be a double edged sword on both sides of the road. How many drivers might that perfectly nice but somewhat scary looking hairy guy on the side of the road see pass by before he gets a ride? How many hitchhikers might the motorist who has a seat or two for room in the back of his or her car pass by? Who might I meet if I just took the time to pull over and open a friendly door when I see someone by the side of the road? What new relationships might open up as a result. I'll never know because I'm sure (thanks society!) that the ONE time I do I will pick up a psycho and I'll end up as cat food somewhere.

But in 1947, crime didn't seem to be a problem. Today, hitchhiking is much less common, and urban legend and the wider availability of cars probably has a lot to do with it. Back in 1947, I'm sure that a lot of people didn't pick up hitchhikers, but it seems that many more people did than today. You had a lot of people who didn't have cars and didn't have a lot of money to travel, and hit the road with their thumb out, and they got rides! Just follow along with these posts and see how many people picked up Sal, often because they needed an extra driver. They don't even know if he can drive (and because he's from New York and doesn't have to rely on a car that much, he fully admits that he's not a good driver!). They don't know him from Adam, but he gets rides and even some responsibility in the process! And since this trip is based on a trip Jack Kerouac took himself, it is not necessarily all fiction -- Jack himself hitchhiked across the country and neither he nor the motorists he rides with seem to have much of a problem with it.

So where does this leave us? I don't know if I'll pick up a hitchhiker, especially if they are male, seem to need a bath/shave/haircut and I have a feeling that deodorant has never touched their body. I just have too many common misconceptions running around in my brain that are really hard for me to let go. But I would love to see some statistics about hitchhiking and crime. And I would love to know what drives people today to get out on the road and stand for long periods, waiting for that ride even though they know that most motorists will scream on by. I think it is the same motivation that Jack and his alter-ego Sal Paradise both have -- the call of the open road and the new vistas ahead, and the hope that America is still a land that believes in helping out its fellow citizens get to where they need to go.

For more information on Joliet and hitchhiking:

Can Hitchhiking Save the Country? (interview on Alternet)
DigiHitch
Hitchhiking Tips
What Killed Hitchhiking? (on MSNBC.com)

City of Joliet
Joliet Penitentiary
Wikipedia: Joliet

Next up: Mississippi River and Davenport, Iowa

On the Road: Chicago

Click on Thumbnail for MapNote:  First published on Blogger on June 10, 2006.

Unfolding the Map

In this post, Sal gets to Chicago. I'll reflect on Chicago mostly and whatever else comes to mind. As usual, click the image at left to get to the updated map.

Book Quote

"I arrived in Chi quite early in the morning.... I dug Chicago after a good day's sleep. The wind from Lake Michigan, bop at the Loop, long walks around South Halsted and North Clark, and one long walk after midnight into the jungles, where a cruising car followed me as a suspicious character.... The fellows at the Loop blew, but with a tired air, because bop was somewhere between its Charlie Parker ornithology period and another period that began with Miles Davis. And as I sat there listening to that sound of the night which bop has come to represent for all of us, I thought of all my friends from one end of the country to the other and how they were really all in the same backyard doing something so frantic and rushing about. And for the first time in my life, the following afternoon, I went into the West."

On the Road: Chapter 3

Chicago

The first time I ever saw Chicago, it was from the air. What a lucky way to see it! I had flown into O'Hare from California on the first flight I ever took. I transferred to a small plane run by Air Wisconsin -- I later learned it was commonly called "Scare Wisconsin" -- and the small, 10 passenger or so prop plane took off. We flew up and over the city, straight past the shore and out over Lake Michigan, on our way to Benton Harbor, Michigan. Seeing the city from the air was magnificent. I had never seen a city so huge, with so many buildings that were that tall. Unfortunately, I don't remember picking the Sears Tower out of the bunch, but I do remember the John Hancock building off to the left side, the side I was sitting on.

When I next saw Chicago, it was on the trip from Benton Harbor to Milwaukee, my new home, by car. However, we took the loop around the city, not the freeway through, and it sat on the horizon, a bunch of tall buildings framed only by my imagination. Later that year, I made my first trip to Chicago, but didn't see much of it. I was headed down for a party and had visions of getting lucky with a young lady I thought highly of. Alas, that didn't happen.

When I finally got to know Chicago better, I liked it immensely. New York likes to consider itself a tough and gritty place, and I suppose it is in various sections. Chicago just seemed to be tough and gritty place all around, even within the Loop. It's where the beef of the heartland hits the china of the chic urban landscape. Don't get me wrong -- Chicago has everything you could want in a city. If you want to be a hip highrise dweller in a condo overlooking Lakeshore Drive, you can. And if you want to live on the Southside, eat polish sausage (that's pronounced sassage) and get in evening fights in the bars, you can do that too. But you have to be willing to brave brutal winters, ungodly hot summers, and perpetual highway construction. Those things, and the Chicago Bears, bring everyone together. Chicagoans will bitch about their city but they will defend their Chicago against outsiders at a drop of a hat.

Sal wanders around this landscape, most likely after arriving at Union Station or in that general area, which was probably even more tough and gritty in 1947. He makes mention of bop and jazz, which is interesting because I consider Chicago more of a blues city than a jazz city though it has both. The blues, as in those electric blues that developed out of the influx of all the Delta bluesmen riding the rails into Chicago looking for a place to live and places to play their music.

My sister Pauline's friend (and hopeful "more than that"), Ernest, just moved to Chicago to take a job at the Apple store (he's one of the Apple genius's). I don't know if he'll delve much into the gritty Chicago, but it always lurks there just below the surface. Literally. There is a pub on Lower Wacker Drive, the multilevel street that runs through the heart of Chicago's Loop, called the Billy Goat Tavern. On Lower Wacker, it exists in almost perpetual twilight. The tavern is famous for a couple of reasons. First, it was THE place, and may still be, for Chicago journalists to hang out and rub elbows with the politicians and other glitterati of the Chicago scene. Second, it was the inspiration for John Belushi's repeating sketch on Saturday Night Live, Cheezborger, Cheezborger, No Coke, Pepsi. It is the only place I've ever been that served Schlitz Dark on tap. In fact, before I went there, I didn't even know there was a Schlitz Dark. It is an easy place to spend an hour and find that you've spent six. Perhaps Sal looked into that subsurface Chicago. I'm sure Jack Kerouac did.

If you want to know more about Chicago and the jazz and blues of the times:

Billy Goat Tavern
Bop Jazz
Chicago Loop
City of Chicago.org
Schlitz Dark
Wikipedia: Chicago blues
Wikipedia: Schlitz Beer
Wikipedia: Union Station

Next Stop: Joliet, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa

On the Road: Ashtabula, Ohio

Click the Thumbnail for the Map

Note:  Originally posted on Blogger on June 10, 2006

Unfolding the Map

Sal never actually stops in Ashtabula, just like he never actually "stopped" at the Holland Tunnel. But he mentions it, and it is our first stop outside the New York area. And as usual, Littourati, his passage will be used to spark new reflections. As always, click the image to the right to get to the updated map.

Book Quote

"It was an ordinary bus trip with crying babies and hot sun, and countryfolk getting on at one Penn town after another, till we got on the plain of Ohio and really rolled, up by Ashtabula and straight across Indiana in the night."

On the Road, Chapter 3

Ashtabula

The first time I ever heard of Ashtabula was on an old TV show. Maybe it was that 1970s sitcom set in Mel's Diner with Flo, the wisecracking waitress -- was that show called "Alice?" Maybe not, because Flo usually said "Kiss my grits!" Anyway, somebody said "You can kiss my Ashtabula!" I hadn't really thought about it since then.

What gets me thinking are a couple things that Sal says in this sentence. First, he says that it was an "ordinary" bus trip. I imagine that for many of us today, bus trips are anything but ordinary. We are part of the car culture, and if we can't take a car cheap air travel is available, and the bus seems to be reserved for down & outs who don't own or can't afford a car for some reason, and who come into town off the bus looking disheveled and like they could use a good shower. Bus stations, especially in big cities, are seen as being a bit seedy, with the type of people that one shouldn't necessarily associate with on a normal basis. However, bus trips were pretty normal in 1947. Nobody but the most wealthy could afford a plane flight and traveling by plane was a fabulous affair, with food served on good china with linen. Travel by train was very popular, but not the cheapest, and again was considered to be a chic and fancy style of travel. But if you just wanted to get somewhere, no frills attached, kind of like we use Southwest today, the bus was the way to go. It was ordinary, and lots and lots of people did it.

The second thing is his description of the what the "ordinary" trip is like. "Crying babies" and hot sun and countryfolk getting on and off. Regardless of the time period, I'm pretty sure that things have not changed much in long distance bus travel. I remember my first really long bus trip, on par with Sal's. I was asked to be in a wedding in Wyoming in the mid 1980s. I was living in Milwaukee at the time, and I did not have enough money to afford a plane ticket. My bus left Milwaukee early, and after a bit of a layover in Minneapolis, we headed out west across the plains of North Dakota. I had never seen such flat country in my entire life. People got on and off at various places, some of whom I was happy to be sharing a bus with, some of whom I wasn't. I remember cigarette smoke, the smell of alcohol on people's breath. I remember trying to sleep in the uncomfortable seats in the night. We stopped at various local stops. On the way back, I remember one mother, who looked a little distressed, getting on with her crying children. The children cried and cried for a long time. When another rider who was trying to sleep said "Shhhhhh," the woman turned around and snarled, "Don't you 'shhhhh' my fucking kid!"

I had one friend while I was in Milwaukee, Charles, who saved travel money by taking the bus. He took the bus so often that he could exactly imitate the announcements at the Greyhound station. He was very good at it, and always made us laugh with his "Now leaving for South Bend, and all points east: Fort Wayne, Cleveland, Ashtabula, Scranton..." etc. Today in Albuquerque, where I live, I see the busses leaving from little dinky stations toward points in Mexico. Our Greyhound station was just moved into swanky new quarters, where it will soon develop the seediness that befits its reputation. (The old station will probably be developed into something "swanky.") The bus seems to catch America at its most real: a little weatherbeaten, even down and out, but always moving.

If You Want to Know More About Ashtabula and Bus Travel

City of Ashtabula
Wikipedia: Ashtabula
History of Bus Service
Greyhound
Greyound Story #1: Doing the Dirty Dog in Winter
Greyhound Story #2: Straddling the Dog

Next up: Chicago

On the Road: The Holland Tunnel

Click on thumbnail for mapNote:  Originally posted on Blogger on June 7, 2006

Unfolding the Map

This is the first post dealing with a place that Kerouac mentions, but does not have his lead character stop at. The Holland Tunnel is one of the connectors between Manhattan and New Jersey. As usual, to see the progression of the map you can click on the image at left.

Book Quote

"'Besides,' said the man,'there's no traffic passes through 6. If you want to go to Chicago you'd do better going across the Holland Tunnel in New York and head for Pittsburgh,' and I knew he was right."

On the Road: Chapter 2

The Holland Tunnel

I was really tempted to speculate before I put this point on the map. My original question concerned where would Sal have started before he went through the Holland Tunnel? I know 1990s New York, pre-September 11, and most buses out of town would probably leave from the Port Authority. But I wasn't sure about 1947. Then I thought that Penn Station might be the place where buses came and went, but again I couldn't be sure. Sal mentions the Holland Tunnel in quoting some advice another person told him and seems to agree. He also comes back into Manhattan, so I was okay with assuming that a bus that he took went through the Holland Tunnel.

It had to have been tough to chew on for Sal, coming back into Manhattan after a seemingly false start. However, the tunnel is a great metaphor -- I'm sure you can think of all the possibilities. Birth, passage, new vistas, a fresh start, a dark place before the light, new discoveries and so on. I have always been fascinated with tunnels, and a little afraid of them too. When I was growing up in Northern California, just outside of town was a train tunnel that we occasionally passed through. I was scared to death of being caught in the tunnel when the train came through, even though many of my friends who had experienced it called it a rush. The problem with the tunnel was that to be missed by the train, you needed to squeeze yourself into little hollows between the timbers that held up the sides of the tunnel. It was not an experience that I wanted. The first time I rode BART from San Francisco to Oakland across the bay, I actually feared that an earthquake would occur while I was in the tunnel, causing catastrophic collapse and my premature death.

My fears aside, there is nothing more wondrous than going through a tunnel, especially one that you've never been through, and emerging from the darkness on other side and seeing something new. I imagine that as Sal caught that bus, and went through that tunnel, that he realized that he was finally on his way and that despite his false start, he was finally beginning his trip in earnest.

If You Want to Know More About the Holland Tunnel

Holland Tunnel
Holland Tunnel in History
Holland Tunnel Movie (a guy takes his bike through)
Wikipedia: Holland Tunnel
Wonders of the World Databank: Holland Tunnel