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Entries in William Least-Heat Moon (63)

Wednesday
Jun162010

Littourati News: Blue Highways photo essay

I was tipped off by a reader that a photographer named Ed Ailor is writing a book where he retraces William Least-Heat Moon's journey.  CNN reported this on its website, and you can see a few images from the book here:

Blue Highways Revisited by Ed Ailor

Tuesday
Jun152010

Blue Highways: Shelbyville, Kentucky

Click on Thumbnail for MapUnfolding the Map

After a tough day's drive, we'll stop with William Least-Heat Moon (LHM) in Shelbyville to get a bite to eat and spend the night.  We'll see a little of Kentucky in the process and reflect on the meaning of a job and work.  Click on the thumbnail to your left to see where Shelbyville is, and the path we've taken.

Book Quote

"At Shelbyville I stopped for supper and the night.  Just outside of town and surrounded by cattle and pastures was Claudia Sanders Dinner House....

"....A man, in a suit of sharp creases, and his wife, her jacket lying as straight as an accountant's left margin, suggested I join them....

"'What do you do?' the husband asked.

"I told my lie, turned it to a joke...

"He said, 'I notice that you use work and job interchangeably.  Oughten to do that.  A job's what you force yourself to pay attention to for money.  With work, you don't have to force yourself....You know what my work is?  You know what I pay attention to?  Covering my tracks.  Pretending, covering my tracks, and getting through another day....'

"'....There's no damn future whatsoever in what I do, and I don't mean built-in obsolescence.  What I do begins and stops each day.  There's no convergence between what I know and what I do.  And even less with what I want to know.'"

Blue Highways: Part 1, Chapter 5


Shelbyville, Kentucky

Shelbyville, Kentucky

LHM spends a bit of time on Shelbyville, which encompasses the end of Part 1, Chapter 5 and goes through Chapter 6.  He writes about spending time at the Claudia Sanders Dinner House, which still exists by the way, and is a restaurant started by the wife of Colonel Sanders of chicken fame.  While there's only one Claudia Sanders diner, and you have to go to Shelbyville to partake of its menu, you can find Kentucky Fried Chicken everywhere.  Claudia Sanders Dinner House and KFC is an interesting contrast between restaurants, one that is very local and specific to the community in which it is situated, and something that I've railed on before, the sameness one finds in cuisine around the the country because of the fast food chains.  And they were born in the same household!

He also walks the streets of Shelbyville, and speaks to some men exposing a log cabin under siding.  He muses on how they are uncovering the past in smells and the feel of the wood while they build and work, and how he envies them.  In Chapter 7, he devotes most of the chapter to Smitty's Trading Post, a roadside stop farther down the highway.  And being of a certain generation, one cannot forget that Shelbyville is Springfield's neighboring town and archrival in The Simpsons.

But I chose to focus on the exchange I highlight above, because it's something that has been on my mind quite a bit lately.  Why, you might ask?  Let me give you the story.  If you've read my About Me page, you know that I am a PhD in Political Science.  I got a bachelor's in English a long time ago, and moved to Milwaukee where after volunteer work, I lived without much direction and worked in non-profit organizations.  It was service that was needed, but it didn't give me much financial security - no retirement and no major benefits most of the time.

After I got married, I moved to San Antonio, worked for another non-profit (at least I had health benefits) but again, no retirement.  During this time I went back to school and got a Masters in International Relations.  I enjoyed the subject a lot, and jumped when I was recruited by the University of New Orleans to go for a PhD.  At UNO, I threw myself into my studies and spent a lot of time helping my fellow graduate students.  I loved the academic atmosphere.  Unfortunately, I didn't spend a lot of time trying to publish papers.  Perhaps it wasn't pressed on me hard enough that publishing as a graduate student would help me immeasurably, or perhaps I didn't listen.  I got my PhD, and went onto the job market just as the worst recession in decades hit.  Universities cut their budgets, making less jobs for more PhDs, and without publications under my belt I was low man on the totem pole.

By this time, I was living in Albuquerque, and I was offered a one-year teaching position at Texas Tech, which I accepted.  In academia, these types of jobs do not get one's "foot in the door."  You can be the best teacher in the world, but publications are what matter most.  I enjoy teaching, love it really, but I was separated by a five hour drive from my wife, and I was lonely.  So I jumped at a job opportunity back in Albuquerque, even though it was in medicine and outside my field, and came back home.

I am now in a job that I am overqualified for.  I am not using my PhD, except when I can get the occasional adjunct teaching gig.  I have a job, which like the man LHM's passage says, I must pay attention to for the money.  There are aspects about it I like, such as working with people, but it's not  teaching about the dynamics between countries or the politics of development in third world countries.  On the other hand, if I were to find my true "work," I would have to adhere to academic conventions.  I would have to put more effort into research and publications, which would probably take away from the teaching that I love to do.  In the Political Science publication world, only about 10% of submissions get published.  Those publications are read by a small number of people.  So, my entire academic employment future is decided by a small group of people who review manuscripts and grind axes if their books aren't cited in my articles, and then read by a small group of people and critiqued and chopped up and commented on and lambasted.

My wife once interviewed a marketing PhD who explained the absurdity of it all.  He said that to get ahead, he has to write articles that if published, will be read by a small number of people in a very narrow discipline.  Yet that's what advances his promotion.  On the other hand, he could write a column or article for BusinessWeek that gets read by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dedicated readers, and that will do nothing for his professional career.  That's crazy.

So, I languish right now.  I go to my job, I make my money and I wonder if I even have the stamina, should I make it through the grueling academic job application process (I did 85 in 2008, got 5 interviews which last 2-3 days, and one offer by a small 2 year college in Wisconsin that wasn't worth my wife quitting her job for), if I will have the wherewithal to endure 5 more years of trying to get published so that I can get tenure.  I'm not sure it's worth it.  At least I have a job right now, unlike many others in our economy.  So for the time being, I must live with "no convergence between what I know and what I do," and dream of the day that educating the paying students in America's colleges and universities is put back in its place as those institutions' primary mission.  To paraphrase the man LHM quotes, perhaps when America outgrows academia, we'll begin to have something.

If you want to know more about Shelbyville

City of Shelbyville
Claudia Sanders Dinner House
Colonel Harland Sanders (founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken)
Sentinel News (newspaper)
ShelbyvilleKY.com
The Simpsons: Shelbyville
Unusual Kentucky: Smitty's Trading Post
Wikipedia: Shelbyville

Up next:  Frankfort, Kentucky

 

 

Saturday
Jun122010

Blue Highways: La Grange, Kentucky

Click on Thumbnail for MapUnfolding the Map

On past Louisville, and into the Bluegrass Country.  We are following the road that William Least-Heat Moon followed on his trip around the country.  Take a look where we are by clicking on the map to the right.

Book Quote

"...and went into Pewee Valley and on to La Grange, where seven daily Louisville and Nashville freight trains ran right down Main Street."

Blue Highways: Part 1, Chapter 5


Freight train rumbles through downtown La Grange, Kentucky

La Grange, Kentucky

I love the picture above that shows the freight train traveling down a main street in La Grange.  I was one of those kids that really liked trains.  Today, when I see a train, I want to experience it by being close when it roars by.

I grew up with trains.  Our property in Northern California is split right down the middle by the California Western Railroad, which runs from Fort Bragg to Willits.  It was originally built to accommodate the logging trains that would bring logs to the large mill that was once in our town, and then transport the lumber back to the Northwestern Pacific Railroad in Willits where it would go on to other places.  I grew up in the summers watching the freight and passenger trains come through our property.  People on the passenger trains took pictures of us as they went by, and sometimes the conductor threw candies and Cracker Jacks to us from the train.  The freight train would usually pass by at about 7 pm, usually with two engines, sometimes one, and we'd count the cars all the way to the caboose.  At about 3 am, the freight train would come back through, and because our property was a summer property and was only improved by a cabin, we slept outside.  I still remember the whine and roar of the engines and the shaft of light from the big main light on the train as it rounded the bend onto our property, and through my sleepy eyes how huge it looked as it towered over me as it went by.  The roar of the engines gave way to the clacking of the rail cars going past, and then the red light of the caboose and occasionally, a drunk railroad man in the caboose singing or shouting as it went past - the red light swaying as the train disappeared into the trees - followed moments later by the mournful sound of the train's whistle echoing down the valley in the darkness.  Eventually, all would be still again, and I'd drift back off to sleep.

A year ago, I was making weekend drives between Lubbock, Texas and Albuquerque.  I taught at Texas Tech during the week, and came back to my wife on weekends.  Over half of the trip was along railroad lines. Between Fort Sumner and Clovis, New Mexico was the busiest one, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, and I was always traveling past huge freight trains coming and going.  I always hoped to time one where I could pull off the road at an out of the way crossing, and watch the train come screaming past, but I could never get it quite right.  Once, along this stretch of track, I saw what looked like to be a waterfall in the darkness.  I can't quite describe it, but it was beautiful.  As I came closer, I realized that it was a freight train, and a cascade of sparks was flying out from underneath the length of the train.  It was incredible.  It didn't dawn on me until later that the train was probably making an emergency stop, and the sparks were because the wheels were locked up on the tracks as the train slowed.

Perhaps if I were a kid growing up in La Grange, I would become used to the trains on the Main Street.  I suppose that people living there put up with it.  After all, frequent trains will stop traffic, and if you're trying to get anywhere, you probably have to add to your time the possibility that a train will hold you up.  William Least-Heat Moon said that up to seven trains a day went through La Grange, but I've read that today, it could be up to sixteen.  That might create some delays for the townsfolk.  But as a kid growing up, trains were a wonder to me.  Big, powerful, and moving places that I could only dream about.  I'd hate to lose my continuing wonder of them.

The Louisville and Nashville line that runs through La Grange was one of America's most successful railroads.  I first heard of it in a song by Michelle Shocked back in the eighties that spoke of dying coal towns left high and dry when "the L&N don't stop here any more."  That struck a chord in me.  Though a summer passenger train runs the line through my property in Northern California, the closure of our lumber mill means that no more freight trains come rumbling through at night.  To me, it's a loss.  I envy La Grange it's freight trains.

If you want to know more about La Grange

Aint no Haint (a blog entry about growing up near La Grange)
City of La Grange Visitor Information
Discover La Grange
Oldham County Historical Society
Wikipedia: La Grange
Wikipedia: Louisville and Nashville Railroad
Youtube:  Freight train "street running" down La Grange street
YouTube: Johnny Cash sings The L&N Don't Stop Here Any More

Next up:  Shelbyville, Kentucky

Thursday
Jun102010

Blue Highways: Louisville, Kentucky

Click on the Thumbnail for MapUnfolding the Map

Crossing the Ohio River and whipping around Louisville, we drive with William Least-Heat Moon into the bourbon and horse country of Kentucky.  Maybe we'll order a mint julep and sit out on the porch, or maybe we'll just drive onward.  Check out the map by clicking on the thumbnail.

Book Quote

"I took the nearest Ohio River bridge at Louisville and whipped around the city..."

Blue Highways: Part 1, Chapter 5

 

Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky

I've never been to Louisville, though that's no surprise since there are a lot of places that I've never been.  I don't know much about Louisville except for the Kentucky Derby, the Louisville Cardinals basketball team (especially in their heyday when they were one of the top seeds I loved to hate in the NCAA Tournament), and the Louisville Slugger bat.

My connection to Louisville got a lot closer recently when one of my friends, Patrick, got married to a law school colleague, Jillian, just after both finished their law degrees at LSU.  After a short stint in Lexington, Kentucky, where Jillian is from, they moved to Louisville where Patrick is employed in a law firm.  Their wedding was an interesting mix of New Orleans, where I met Patrick and which is a city that both of them love, and Kentucky.  In other words, food served at the wedding had a distinct New Orleans flair, but the drinks and the overall vibe were all Kentucky.

(An aside here.  I gave the best man speech at Patrick's wedding, where I called him a true hero.  Patrick was a New Orleans city employee who was assigned to the Superdome during Katrina, and endured all the hardships and horrors of being there until he was evacuated with other residents to Houston.  As far as I'm concerned, any person who endured the Superdome, from whatever walk of life, is a hero, but Patrick had responsibilities and he took them seriously.  He helped the sick and wounded, he helped find food and medicine, and he helped evacuate people.  He had to make decisions that might mean life or death, and he often deprived himself to help others.  He suffered from, and for all I know still suffers from, post-traumatic stress disorder due to his experiences there.  Such experiences might jade any person, but Patrick still has one of the most generous hearts that I know.  I will always admire him.  Louisville, you got a good man.)

One interesting pre-wedding activity was a visit to the Woodford Reserve distillery in near Lexington, a subsidiary of the Brown-Forman Corporation.  I had never appreciated whiskey that much.  My father was an inveterate drinker, and his favorite was Early Times whiskey.  I was surprised to find that Early Times is made by the Brown-Forman Corporation, which is headquartered in Louisville, and is the official whiskey for the Kentucky Derby Mint Julep.  I just remember it not tasting all that great - though I probably haven't sipped any since I was a teenager - and it is full of bad memories associated with my father's alcoholism.  Years after my father died, my mother or my sister would still occasionally come across a half-full Early Times bottle that he had stashed somewhere out in the barn or in the back of a closet.

However, the visit to the Woodford Distillery made me appreciate Kentucky bourbon.  I had been a fan of Irish whiskey after my wife turned me on to it.  I remember, early in our dating, when I ordered a Scotch and soda.  "What are you drinking Scotch for?" she asked dismissively.  After she turned me on to the Irish, I really never went back, though I am now developing a taste for the occasional Scotch thanks to some friends who like it.  But I never thought American liquor could be that good.  But Woodford changed that.  I liked its taste, especially straight.  My wife, who always bragged that Irish whiskey was triple distilled, unlike the demon Scotch, was surprised to learn that much of the craft of making bourbon at Woodford was derived from Irish techniques and that Woodford bourbon is also triple distilled.  I ended up drinking a lot of it that weekend, and we bought some that comes out on special occasions.  We used it to toast the memory of a recent friend that died, and who would have appreciated the gesture.

I'm not sure what my point is here, other than that a corporation in Louisville may be connected with a whiskey that brings up bad memories of my father, but now a bourbon by the same company is also connected with great memories of the beginning of a lasting love and marriage, and Louisville is now the home of a good friend and his lovely new wife.  My antipathy toward the Louisville Cardinals has diminished over time, and I always like catching the "most exciting two minutes in sports" when the horses take the track at Churchill Downs for the Run for the Roses.  So, Louisville, you've come a long way in my estimation, and you may see me traversing your streets and sampling your wares sometime.

If you want to know more about Louisville

Consuming Louisville (blog)
I Heart My City (Louisville) by Michelle Ray
Leo Weekly (alternative newspaper)
Louisville.com
Louisville Courier-Journal (newspaper)
Louisville Hot Bytes (blog)
Louisville Travel Site
Metromix Louisville
'Ville Voice Eats (blog)
Wikipedia:  Kentucky Derby
Wikipedia:  Louisville

Next up: La Grange, Kentucky

Tuesday
Jun082010

Blue Highways: Corydon, Indiana

Click on Thumbnail for MapUnfolding the Map

William Least-Heat Moon wants to put the miles between him and his troubles, and we're going along with him like a fly in his van riding shotgun.  For a reference point on our journey, click on the thumbnail to get to the interactive map.

Book Quote

"...through the old statehouse town of Corydon, I drove to get the miles between me and home.  Daniel Boone moved on at the sight of smoke from a new neighbor's chimney; I was moving from the sight of my own.  Although the past may not repeat itself, it does rhyme, Mark Twain said.  As soon as my worries became only the old immediate worries of the road - When's the rain going to stop?  Who can you trust to fix a waterpump around here?  Where's the best pie in town? - then I would slow down."

Blue Highways: Part 1, Chapter 5


Marker commemorating Indiana's first capitol at Corydon. Photo by Kathy and her Buckethead H., on http://travel.gather.com. Click on photo to go to site.

Corydon, Indiana

The quote above cites one of my favorite authors, Mark Twain.  The idea that the past does not repeat itself, but rhymes, appeals to me on so many levels.  I've faced this in many aspects of my life.  You hear the phrases "the more things change, the more they stay the same," or "we are doomed to repeat our mistakes."  I think that these phrases touch on part of Mark Twain's idea.  For me, when it seems that I finally get a handle on things, especially those situations that really set off negative reactions or times of self-despair or even self-destructiveness, I go through a learning process.  I think to myself okay, I know how to handle these situations in the future and I will never go down that road again.  But other situations come up that bring on the same negative consequences in my life.  The situations seem different, but once you peel through layers of disguise, connections begin to reveal themselves.  Only after I've gone through the whole damn process again do I realize that indeed, I was just relearning what I already learned.  It can be very frustrating and maddening, but after the fact, I realize that Twain's rhymes were there if I'd only recognized them.

I don't know about any of you, but I have some of the spirit of moving on when one has the "sight of the smoke of a neighbor's chimney."  I am an introvert, and am often uncomfortable around large groups of people.  In addition, I grew up in a small town, and it's taken about twenty years for me to get used to living in cities.  My wife despairs of me sometimes, because she loves to take advantage of cities and I, if left to my own devices, usually don't do the things that cities offer best - live music, theater, restaurants and other activities.  Were I living in Daniel Boone's time,  I might have done what he did and moved on when people got too near.  But I'd probably come back from time to time, because I like people.  As did Daniel Boone, who was largely responsible for settling Kentucky and served in the politics of the state in his later life.

Don't we often do that, whether or not we live in a city, or on a remote ranch somewhere?  Humans seem driven by the need for people, and companionship, but also a need for our own space.  This causes some interesting clashes, especially in our society where the old frontiers defined by seemingly limitless geography have given way to the new frontiers defined by how far we can go in the electronic, virtual world.  People immerse themselves in computer activities, such as I do in this blog.  It's a solitary thing that divorces us from the reality around us.  A young man plays World of Warcraft and doesn't talk to another live human for weeks.  A woman builds an avatar and disappears into Second Life.  Yet even as they divorce from reality, they seek community in these places.  Facebook is the most popular social networking site on the internet, with millions of people seeking companionship in their Facebook friends.  World of Warcraft is interactive gaming with others, all solitary, sitting at their computers and connected to each other in the game.  We don't often hear of the Daniel Boone's of this frontier, though some have decided to chuck it all and go "off the grid."  We tend to think of them as a little crazy.

I don't know whether this aspect of our society is bad or good.  I think the lack of real community is a negative, but you can't help but admire the new and innovative ways people are finding each other.  Someone like William Least-Heat Moon, even as he drives to put the miles between him and home and the problems he is running from, can't help but pass through towns like Corydon, reminders that the world exists and that we can always plug back into true reality when and if we must.

Ho about a little information about Corydon?  It was the second capitol of the territory of Indiana, and the first state capitol.  It was also the site of the only Civil War battle in Indiana.  For those of us into 70s television, the town was the birthplace of James Best, better known as Roscoe P. Coltrane, sheriff in the Dukes of Hazzard (the original TV series).  The town is also known for its festivals and town activities.  So, there's a bunch of reasons to stop there!

If you want to know more about Corydon

The Civil War and Corydon
Corydon Democrat (newspaper)
Corydon, Indiana (PDF from Center for Minority Health at University of Pittsburgh)
Historic Cordyon
History of African-Americans in Corydon
Wikipedia: Corydon
Wikipedia:  Images of Corydon

Next up: Louisville, Kentucky