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Opinion An Independent Attitude Bumpy road metaphor for country There is nothing like a road trip to give you a fresh perspective and provide a little education beyond the isolated world of Amarillo.
When I was growing up, road trips from native New Orleans to faraway places were the highlight of the year. Summer usually found us traveling for two or three weeks, mainly by car, although my first memory of a trip was by air to Vermont. That flight was on a Delta Airlines DC-3 — I remember to this day climbing the plane's sloping floor. We headed for Atlanta from what was then Moisant Field in the western exurbs of the Crescent City. Then, much as today, if you went to Heaven or Hell, on Delta you went through Atlanta. The trip took us through LaGuardia in New York and on to Montpelier, Vt. I don't remember much beyond getting on the plane in New Orleans, but the smell of freshly mown hay still conjures the rolling Green Mountains. My best-remembered trips, though, were the ones in 1955 in the Mercury station wagon with factory air conditioning. The longest, in distance, was from New Orleans to San Francisco, where one of my mother's friends, who lived there, sneaked us into the Hungry i to hear Bob Newhart and the Gateway Singers. One of the other memorable trips was to Durango, Colo., in 1957, when we stayed at El Rancho Encantado, a long-gone dude ranch. In those days, the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge was still the Denver & Rio Grande Western and you could flag it down to ride in the baggage car. A conductor came through to sell tickets and give you free coffee. Of course, times have changed. Gas back then was in the range of $0.25 to $0.32 per gallon and the highways were two lanes that wound through the heart of America's towns. Tours with mile-a-minute average speed were an exception and phenomenal. Now, the land is crisscrossed with interstate highways and on our recent trip from Amarillo to Nashville, even with a side trip to Hot Springs, Ark., we averaged 68 mph. Thank God for cruise control. The majority of the trip was on Interstate 40, the super-slab that, in parts, replaces the famous Route 66. Past the flatlands of the Texas Panhandle and the sprawl of Oklahoma City were the undulations of eastern Oklahoma, the beauty of the hills, forests and valleys of Arkansas and the rolling Appalachian foothills of Nashville and middle Tennessee. Nashville, which bills itself as Music City, is at once the homogenized urban center of the Volunteer state and a beautiful city with a rich history. It is clear, however, that this time of the year, the tourism season, it focuses on the music industry instead of the wonderful history, government and outdoors — golf, canoeing or hiking. But not all on this trip was inspirational. Nashville celebrated the Fourth of July with a concert and fireworks show downtown at its Cumberland River Park and one of the local commercial TV stations carried the show. But the local Public Broadcasting Service's station ran wall-to-wall country "Jamboree" and nowhere in the Microtel's meager satellite offerings could I find the premier Fourth of July show — the Boston Pops from the Esplanade of the Charles River. Part of my disappointment arose because, despite Nashville's portfolio as a music capital, the blasting fireworks, although allegedly choreographed, drowned out the orchestra. I expected better. Then, there was the travel. The main street of America is falling apart. Sections of the interstate, especially in Oklahoma, were bone-rattling — beat up and neglected road hammered by the tonnage of truck traffic. At the height of the summer construction and travel season, few delays arose because of road work. Any research would show that the condition of I-40 is not that different from the other infrastructure and the lack of delays for reconditioning is emblematic of the difficulties the United States faces. The local media — mainly the television news along the route — were mostly "feel-good" stories, perhaps swayed by the fact that the Independence Day holiday fell during this trip. But there was one constant, whether it was the national news feeds or the local coverage: gas prices. We arrived in Nashville in late June with fuel at $3.98, but had bought gas along the three-day trip east for as low as $3.80. As we left Nashville, we found fuel at $4.10. I returned from the trip refreshed by breaking from routine, by seeing interesting places and by spending time with parts of my beloved family. But I also returned with a sense of foreboding. America is in trouble, folks. Nothing brings that home more than traveling and seeing it first hand. George Schwarz: Editor and publisher of the Amarillo Independent. george@amarilloindy.com E-mail
comments about this story Posted: July 10, 2008
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