The Center of America (we made it!)

The heat and sun gave no sign of letting up, and everyone was warning me not to drive to St. Louis in the late afternoon. You’ll be heading right into the sun, they said. And the days are longer up here than in Florida this time of year. The sun doesn’t even go down until after 9.

So Jubilee and I were up at daybreak on Tuesday to begin the last leg of our journey. Once we got through the morning rush hour into Louisville and across the Ohio River to Southern Indiana, things improved considerably. It was still cool and I64 from Louisville to St. Louis has to be one of the best rides in the country. Not much traffic, lush and scenic as it follows the river. I didn’t have to roll down the windows until about 9AM, and was finally able to listen to some of the music I had brought along. This was the way to do a road trip!

As we crossed into Southern Illinois, the land opened up more to large fields of corn and grasses. And we had to roll the windows down. As we neared St. Louis, things got a little hairy (and hot). When we were about 9 ½ miles east of St. Louis I could see, across the fields the river, the city and the great arch – gateway to the West. It was impressive.

Somehow we made our way across the Mississippi River, and through St. Louis. At one point we crossed the Missouri River, which looks pretty impressive as well. These great rivers are mysterious to me.

And somehow, without one wrong turn, we found our way out to this funky little place called “New Town”, which really is in the middle of a corn field. So far, I haven’t ventured out much (it’s hotter than Florida here), but I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say as I begin to explore.

For now, I’m just glad to be here.

[I only have access to the Internet when I carry my laptop 2 blocks down the street to a free WiFi area. I may keep it that way, because it is somehow free-ing (and quieter) to not be “connected” all the time.]

Bardstown

[This is the house that I grew up in. 413 North 2nd Street, Bardstown KY. It used to be white (not grey). ]

Jubilee and I headed north from Knoxville on Sunday morning. It was raining and that made the driving without air-conditioning tolerable.

The mist rose off the mountains of Northern Tennessee like a light smoke. We passed several quaint and colorful Fireworks stands and I wish that I had had the patience and presence of mind to take some photos. But I was afraid to stop. Because of the heat, I wanted to take advantage of the cooling rain while it lasted. I also saw a couple of large (huge) white crosses on the side of the highway that felt very “in-your-face” and scary. Klu-Klux-Klannish.

When I was a child and we traveled out of the state of Kentucky, my father would make somewhat of a production when we returned, stopping the car at the state line so that we could get out and kiss the ground. I always seem to remember this when I see the “Welcome to Kentucky” sign.

The land of Kentucky feels familiar to me. The summer vegetation. The rock exposed in the hillsides. The hay rolled in the fields. The blue and white wildflowers on the sides of the road. Kentucky evokes memories of my childhood and loved ones who have died.

By the time I got to Lexington, I no longer needed to consult, and be confused by, my Google directions. Thankgod – Google wanted to route me on the winding and narrow road that we used more than 40 years ago, before the opening of the Bluegrass Parkway.

My excursion to Bardstown was really to see two people: my Aunt Nora and my Aunt Louise.

Aunt Nora is 96 years old, my father’s sister, and my last living relative from the generation before me. Though she is in a nursing home, unable to walk or see, her mind is still sharp as ever. I’ve always known a special ease being with Aunt Nora – we share a similar temperament and understand each other. For one thing, we’re both insomniacs. I loved finding again that familiar humor and honesty with her.

This is Aunt Nora.

Aunt Louise was married to my father’s brother, Harry, and is 94 years old. She still lives in her home on 3rd Street, which was built in 1850.

Aunt Louise is sort of a 2nd mother to me. Her children (my cousins) were about the same age as my sister and I, and we were all raised together. Her mind is all there, and then some. She is among the most creative and intelligent persons that I’ve known, telling fascinating stories of how life was in the 30’s and 40’s and when we were children, remembering every detail and weaving together both memories and an accurate accounting of how-things-are/were. She told me about a time when she was watching me at the swimming pool – I must have been about 3 years old – and how I was afraid to put my head under water. She could remember the color and style of my bathing suit and how I sat and looked at the water for a long, long time, undeterred by the encouragement (and taunting) of my older and braver cousins. Finally, in my own time, I ventured off the side of the pool, went under the water, and came up exultant!

My Aunt Louise is also the master of being able to not worry and let life take care of her. My favorite thing that I remember her saying, after a big dinner is: “Oh, let’s not worry about the dishes, let’s have dessert!”

Being in Bardstown also brings with it other adventures.

For one thing, I am never “anonymous” in this town. Even after having been away for 40 years, someone always recognizes me. This time, while I was eating lunch at the nursing home with Aunt Nora, Aunt Louise, and Aunt Grace (Aunt Louise’s sister), a woman comes up to me, looks right at me, and says “Do we know each other?”. My gosh. I knew that it had to be someone that I had gone to school with it. And I guessed right – Linda Boone, my First Communion partner in 1957 when we were 7 years old. And now we are 57!

I went to school with the many of the same kids from Kindergarten to graduation from High School. That breeds a kind of familiarity, bondedness and recognition that never goes away.

[This is St. Joseph Church – Proto Cathedral – with St. Joseph School the other side of it. I was baptized, first communioned, confirmed, and married in this church. Both of my parents were buried from this church. Most all of my childhood and schooling centered around this church.]

My cousin, Sidney, still lives in Bardstown. If we were playing monopoly, Sidney would win. He and his wife, Brenda, have made of very successful living buying and running local businesses – mostly liquor stores, but also a gas station and store on a major interstate. Sidney’s lifestyle reminds me of the way my father made his way. He knows people all over the county, and though he “works” all the time, he also seems to always be free to do what he pleases.

Anyway, he asked me if I would drive his mother’s car to a man in the country who was going to work on it. I would be following him in his pick up truck to somewhere “deep” in the back country, he said. That turned out to be a most enjoyable ride off the beaten track through tobacco fields, tunnels and lovely hillsides. On the way back we stopped at “Brenda’s store” for ice cream.

[Brenda’s Store.]

Friends along the way

These are my friends Carolyn, Reed, and Hal, with dogs Kipper and Wishbone.

Carolyn and I met in 1980 when we both worked at a place called Micro-Circuit Engineering. She later married Dr. Hal and I was the matron of honor at their wedding. And then Reed was born.

They live in Knoxville and I only see them every few years. Reed doesn’t even remember the last time I visited.

Their home is a colorful menagerie of dogs, cats, rabbits, fish, and birds – all lovingly cared for. There are books everywhere, ham radios, musical scores, English teapots, robots. Fortunately, Carolyn is a Martha-Stewart style neat-nick who keeps everything clean and organized.

So when I stay with them I feel surrounded by their interests and love.

Carolyn made me a proper English breakfast of poached egg with toast, fresh local blackberries, lemon curd – and tea, of course.

When I was leaving, trying to organize my stuff for taking to the car, Hal - who has so many interests beyond his medical practice - told me that he didn’t need to be organized, Carolyn did that for him.

The world is blessed with the Carolyns of the world, and I am very lucky to have one for a friend.

The hole we fell into in Knoxville and the angels disguised as tattooed rednecks who got us out

How did we fall into that hole? I’d say it was a combination of the heat and our determination to get to Knoxville. Seriously, I never even saw the hole.

The plan was to get up early and drive during the cool morning hours to Knoxville, which I figured was about 4 ½ hours north. We had friends in Knoxville who were going to take care of us.

But I didn’t wake up until 7:30 and we didn’t get on the road until 8:30. From 8:30-9:30 it was still cool. This was a full sun day, no cloud cover at all, and things started heating up around 10. I found myself driving in the far right lane just to catch the shade still being cast by the roadway trees. By noon we couldn’t take it anymore. We had made it to Tennessee, though, and were somewhere north of Chattanooga. I saw a sign, “Blue Springs”, and that sounded cool.

Taking an unknown exit off an interstate is risky. You never know what you’ll find. I had seen a sign for a National Forest and a Red Clay Park, and thought that might a good place to hang out during the heat of the day. But the girl at the local Hardees said that they were far away and I would be better of just going to the playground of the Blue Spring School, which was just down the road.

I found the school and playground, which was deserted on this full sun-hot day. But there was a bench and a tree, and maybe a little breeze, so Jubilee and I began to hang out.

Shortly we noticed across the field a little cabin, and what looked to be a little creek. Two men were sitting in front of the cabin, whittling wooden sticks. Just out of boredom or something (the enticement of a cool water creek?), we walked over to investigate. The older man was somewhat friendly, but the younger one just glared at me. (He kept trying to look me in the eye, but I wouldn’t look back at him.) Then I noticed the name “Coon Club” on the front of the cabin, and realized that I was trespassing on some kind of men’s only club. (But what kind of men’s club would be that close to a school?)

Anyway, by the time we got back to our schoolyard bench it seemed that the breeze under the tree was not much better than the air blowing through the car, so Jubilee and I set out for the highway again. We were only about 60 miles or so south of Knoxville, and that was as far as we had to go. Surely we could make it.

We were doing OK. Hot, but ok. Carolyn knew we were coming, I had my directions for how to get to their house. Don’t ever trust the directions from Google Map. Repeatedly I have run into conflicting directions where I have to make a choice. Like, “take I640 West, toward Lexington” … but when I get to the place, 640West goes one way, and “toward Lexington” goes the other.

I knew I had made a wrong turn and took the first exit so that I could call Carolyn and get some directions. I needed some shade. I was in an industrial area and saw an abandoned car wash. The perfect place to make my call. I never even saw the hole. I only saw the shade.

I knew the car was stuck, so I got out and called Carolyn. She called her husband Hal. Said that Hal had a truck and could get some friends and come over later to get the car, but in the meantime she would come and pick me up. I was at the corner of Rudy and Haskill.

And then a very interesting thing happened.

There was a big black man across the street. He came over and said “I knew somebody was going to do that – I just been waiting for it to happen!” I told him that I had friends who were coming to help me. He said, don’t worry about your car, I’ll keep an eye on it.

Then the first guy with tattoos came by and got out and he and the black guy looked and the situation and said that they could probably get a board and get the car out. So they start working on it.

Hal shows up on his motorcycle about then, so now I have 3 men working on the problem.

And then, out of nowhere, a pickup truck with 2 tattooed rednecks shows up, the rednecks hop out, put a strap around the back of my car, and just pull it out. All in about 2 minutes. And then they were gone. I didn’t even have time to say thank you.

Within 10 minutes of my falling into that hole, I was out and on my way. I couldn’t believe it.

I will never, ever bad mouth rednecks in pickups again.

From there, I followed Hal on his motorcycle to his lovely air-conditioned home.

180410 – or the beginning of the Road Trip from Hell

These photos are of the house and backyard “paradise” as Jubilee and I left, around 7:30AM Friday morning.

The odometer of my 1992 Toyota Camry read 180410. But it didn’t work for several months, so the car probably has more like 190,000 miles or more on it. One thing is for sure: this car will never see Florida again.

Around 9:30, just as I was beginning to enjoy the wild flatlands of central Florida and settle in for the long drive, the A/C stopped working. After trying every trick I knew to get it to start, I tried to talk myself into it. I can do this, I thought. Prisoners live without A/C in Florida. Heck, what about all the indigenous peoples who live in equatorial lands. They do fine without A/C. I thought about the therapeutic benefits of heat. People spend lots of money for saunas, and steam rooms. There’s even an infra-red sauna that supposedly kills cancer cells. Who needs chemo, just drive without A/C.

But by noon, I knew that I couldn’t do it. The inside of the car was well over 100 degrees, and the fan was blowing even hotter air. With both windows down, and trucks whizzing past us on both sides, Jubilee and I were fried, mentally and physically.

John directed us to a Car dealership place in Lake City, a town in northern Florida. Yes, they could fix it, they said. Jubilee and I waited in the very air-conditioned waiting room. I met some fine people from this neck of the woods. One woman lived in a house on the Suwannee River that she had bought for $5000. Another man had grown up near Miami, but couldn’t take the traffic and crowds and moved to Northern Florida. We all talked about how we seemed to have somehow gotten along without air-conditioning 30-40 years ago.

Four and a half hours, and $105 later, they told me that they couldn’t fix it. Something wrong with the compressor, but they didn’t know what it was. By now it was 4:30, and Jubilee and I set out again onto the highway. (Jubilee has to be carried and forced back into the car.)


Within a half and hour, though, we crossed the line into Georgia, and a blessed rain began to fall. Everything cooled down. We could do this, as long as we stayed off the road during the heat of the day! I was getting tired, but determined that I was going to drive as long and as far I could into the night. Maybe we could even make it all the way to Knoxville!

As we approached Macon, the sky darkened, the lighting became surreal, and we headed on into one wicked thunderstorm. The kind where the only thing you have to guide you on the road are the tail lights of the car in front if you, if you’re lucky enough to see them.

I was frazzled. Jubilee and I stayed at the first flea bag motel we could find. We were still 65 miles south of Atlanta, and the room was only $31 for the night. It was fine.

I don’t know if it is because I am older now, or because I don’t quite trust my car (I seriously wonder if it will start again every time I turn it off), but something about this road trip is making me somewhat anxious. The overwhelming heat doesn’t help.

I am beginning to think that it will be a major miracle if we make it to the Center of America.