The view from I-90

Making observations on the people you see while driving across country is fraught with the danger of pretentious first-year-in-college prose. It feels so right and Kerouacian (or even Cometbusian. Actually, I don’t know why I wrote "even" since I like Aaron’s writing better than Jack’s) but that’s only because it’s usually so thread bare as the tires on the trucks of the Oakies who left the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl years.* Salt-of-the-earth, how-do-people-live-like-this, or oh-shit-they’re-gonna-Easy-Rider-us, we’ve all read the narrative. They write themselves as most cliches do.

We stopped in Sioux Falls, South Dakota at the Food Co-op we found on the internet. We needed to replenish our sandwich supplies both because it was cheaper and neither of us could deal with stopping at Perkins twice a day. It was exactly the way a small city Food Co-op should be: a commingling of hippies and punks. The punks were so cute I wanted to take them home and cuddle them. I still feel guilty that I laughed when one of them asked if we had just moved to town from San Francisco. I mean, it could happen…

But we were the walking cliches, in town for a half hour. First stocking up on food and then both yacking on our individual cell phones in the parking lot because it was the first place in 1000 miles we’d gotten reception. (tubyred that’s where I called you from). What a couple of urban assholes!

No, what I feel qualified to write about is the dashboard of the car. And other tourists. And the bad indie rock prof_southbay likes so much. Actually she was very nice to not inflict very much on me. It was, after all, her car. She never made me listen to Interpol, for example, though we did listen to Postal Service. I’m sure it says something deep that these angsty boys name their bands after government agencies. Is it about being so filled with emotions when the world is an unfeeling, faceless bureaucracy? Or just pure lack of imagination? When I start my indie rock band I will call it "Weights and Measures". Feel the awesomeness.

I love driving across the country because it’s empty and relaxing. To be sure, it’s relaxing because I don’t live there. Though I have connections with rural folk through my job, it never really dawned on me that my family has been urban/suburban for all the generations back to people’s homelands. Though I was born in Michigan, my parents were only there a few years between coasts and since we left when I was 2 and a half my only tangible reminder is an "a" I occasionally lose control of while talking. Those formative years really are important I guess.

I don’t want to speak for the Prof, but it was amazing to see her see the old downtowns of small towns for the first time. It made me feel a little like a jaded jerk because I wasn’t feeling the wonder as much. But that stuff is infectious. It wasn’t like we wanted to move to Sheridan, Wyoming but built-to-last, untrendy buildings and a nice café certainly made it a great rest stop. We didn’t get to find out if the "Rainbow Bar" with the neon "Welcome Strangers" was queer or not but maybe next trip.

In rural Wisconsin, where I made us go for the lame-ass cheese replica, the myth of California was still alive, albeit in the confused way that it is for people who don’t know how big California is. The woman behind the hotel desk asked the Prof if she saw a lot of "stars" walking around. I think the answer she got was "not so much". In other places, people were amazed to meet Californians who actually grew up in California.

Outside the Corn Palace, actually inside the "Mad Cow Café", the person in line in front of us asked if the "King City" on my shirt referred to a town in Texas. I told him it was a city in California but a band from San Francisco. He said he lived in SF for a year in the early ‘70s and asked if Nob Hill still a "wild place". I swear he got a little lost in time for a second and was disappointed to hear the answer was "no".

I’m surprised when I see the myth of California living on. But then, having grown up here I’m not sure I really get it either. Sure, I’ve got the inherent smugness of a Californian whose parents moved here, but I long ago stopped trying to get people to move here. In the words of fellow Bay Areans Rancid, who I don’t tend to quote often, "This ain’t no Mecca man, this place is fucked". But it’s still home.



*This hackneyed metaphor was used to drive home the point. The "drive" pun is your bonus treat.