West Out My Window

“My West Windows”

Filling our car windshield with a west-moving view of the United States? That dream! When Americans gained the ability to drive- and to build their own answer to the automobile, the self-made car men of old, building muscle cars to righteous freedom-now, the promises of a casteless system called. Now with wheels, you could make another part of the continental U.S. your next.

Home, this point in our story, is wagon-like. We begin our journey, passing my family’s house, remarking on a friend who lives behind a mud moat-hidden driveway off a country road. He believed in what we did as musicians; it made Steve and Claudia very happy, anyone wanted to make their own songs, and he latched onto a good one, “Dear Future,” and asked especially to record that. I’m glad we got at least the one try.

Active pathways to career progression, as it were, different ways of living, these were all offered as illusions in these years. Creativity found its way through us, one way or the other, and whenever free of worry, through the salvation of our own jobs out of our own homes on our own schedule, and all the times before that boon, many cool ideas were explored. Difficulty in developing: this was the very challenge facing the friends I knew who were parents, and the emergent identity of our communities, and developing creative projects to take out into the wilderness, like music tours, national comic books, a cartoon, a computer game driven by stories written as many choices to follow all around a haunted manor, even a documentary about continuing these pursuits over times of little glory; all in all, I still had to try the rest of my patience, four years after another illusion provided by promised long term unemployment benefits, cut down in winter by the new Congress, had placed me in a Waffle House uniform. That Waffle House is on the same highway we took out of town. There was no more visiting. We wanted to make Metropolis at night fall.



Home, now, is whatever is packed into the four -by-eight Uhaul trailer, and the 2004 Saturn Vue. Not so much a rocket ship, again, as a covered wagon. We drove about half our average speed, tops, along the curves leading up from downtown Summerville into 117. We drive past the place where we went out to cover and write the Tiny Homes story for V3 Magazine. We recognized the adventure scale of the mountain pass. Not relaxing, so much, but temptingly beautiful. I imagined my Grand Dad and his brothers and sisters, coming over here to the highway side to see the world from these Appalachian Trail foothills. I always found more mystery and romance in the Georgia land north of Rome, but never lived there myself. We drove steadily in the four o’clock hour across the Alabama Line. I thought of the creek where people in the Tiny Homes community might paddle and drift, crossing this line. Right now, this is our Tiny Home. We’ve homestead in Boulder.

We pondered: what makes one town, population 556- not ‘blow up’ as big as, say, Rome, 35,600? What makes you leave one town, be it five hundred, like the one Paw Paw left, or five hundred thousand, like St. Louis and Kansas City and Denver along our way? What makes the number of people stay small, some places, and what makes people, anywhere, decide they feel a ‘home’ call for them in some other city? Desperation? Something to do?

There probably were not five hundred people there when Grandpa, his four siblings, was it, and mother and father lived there. Still along those roads between Menlo and Lyrely you can find scenes untouched by five decades of human progression, buildings first hammered together over a century before. We ate some delicious fried green tomatoes served by a cute waitress, greens for me, too, and a cheeseburger for Marc, as I wondered what it’d be like to pursue romance from a location like this. But that was during the assignment- I remember how different Armuchee felt as we drove back into it after a day away in the mountains. I would’ve loved to go on writing assignments every week. I was glad to need a Moe’s Monday off for it. No contest.

He composed the driest and clearest prose possible. Grandpa’s hobby his last years was dedicated to study of the past, the lineage and the people they knew. The people more often than not could be found as names with a little, if any, dry detail, but I can’t deny he clearly found escape from grandmother’s Alzheimer’s, that long two decades of sliding out of ability to care for herself, imagining old times. Her living absence haunted our country home always. Your life is a lot different with your Grandmother involved, you know? I remember Christmas visits to Uncle Harold Gene and Aunt Vivian’s house. First I recall, Mom’s Grandma was alive, in a trailer in their back yard, before what became soy fields. She liked how my Dad would come watch Rasslin’ with her, on visits to the farm with Mom. I am happy we got together for those holidays, when the brothers and sisters were living. I could indulge two hours of writing of those visits. So, I’d come along these roads, or along some divergent, parallel choice outside Lyrely, where you pick up the highway further north, but we almost certainly were driven by Dad on 117. But really, I liked how well the family generally got along on road trips. Our family today, no exception.

I can’t help feeling close to my Dad’s spirit, on these drives. I am glad I became a good driver for him, and for me, and for the lady co-piloting with phone directions to check off the miles between the four highway turns between us and I-24 up to Nashville.

I remember hearing about ‘Adairsville’ in the early direction discussions, where Mom and Dad tried the routes suggested by Paw Paw. All I really got was a picture of another country town, always pine trees, in reality, the one hosting Alpine School in the days my Grandfather White was a school boy. And a word association that evoked the corner box illustration on each month’s Daredevil comic book. I had maybe ever seen even one in real life. Back then, every single comic book delivered such an impact of information collection, I’ve successfully recovered my childhood from around these and other natural pleasures, too.

Then, we pass the metal knight- we had not planned to stop, we’d planned to spend about six hours driving- but he was on the left facing west. Then, individually-colored store fronts stand out on either side of the highway, as you go through the tourist heart of Mentone, Alabama, west of the fields where Roy William White grew up. The 1960s Flower Power aesthetic, charmingly alive on the Alabama line; how could I not think of Janet and Gill visiting there, and memories their happy journey evoked for me? This was one place cool to take a date. This was a way sign for us, what belonged in our new way. Yes, there had been Trump signs in and around town, privately, and that would be a thread all the way to the upside-down distress-style flight of the American flag on the corner by the Deer’s Trail gas station. But that just goes to show, how normal it is to be part of that craziness, in the region given to us both to begin life.

I surprise us both, adjusting to the open highway back over the corner of the state back across Georgia and quickly then, Tennessee. We were on our third state, less than two hours after we finally dropped off our key with Candace. From here the journey resumed its westward characterization. I pause now to watch the gentle snow joining the first coating to stick since our arrival, lying on the banks and parking lots here east of the Flatirons. I have to lean up to see the mountains at 9 AM, because there’s a fog-like snow cloud shroud that makes the entire skyline, gray. The striking image, then, is the snow along the pine needles. A sight like this, where we left on day one, would be a wonder. The needles have all the snow cover they could hold- frozen now, as it’s still probably twelve F at most, which is nearly negative that, Celsius!

My west window, now, has the first of five mountains where I think we will find a lot of adventure, and we will become very healthy here in the city by their side. The mountain passes, there in Tennessee, seem cleaved by dynamite and careful chiseling, though these highways likely did begin where water ran downward. Even our lives, another humble passage of water to another place of less resistance. Lazy water. I asked how the phone charge looked, as I digested the first road snacks- all pastry, Goldfish, things you needn’t refrigerate- I’d shared with my love. Then, could she put on “Steel Wheels”? I hadn’t listened, I realized, since I was still a high schooler! One play through the album took me to the heart of Tennessee, across some bridges of notable size across a river landscape. I thought of our nephews and niece who had lived up this way, the visit to see DJ, the one camping trip where he sadly couldn’t join us, but, we were all together, the biggest group of the family for the last time, really, including cousin Heather and Eric/ Sara. I drew the creek there at the campsite, where Row and her sisters played. I see Colorado whiteness now, and wonder when I will first draw its wild places? Jeremy Justice had asked what were the ten haulin’ ass Rolling Stones tracks for driving, and along with the classic rock staples, I volunteered two numbers off ‘Steel Wheels.’ It was nice to make contact with those memories, as I effortlessly remember so many of the lyrics I’d once read inside my cassette. That was me and my friends, marching band that year, ’89, jamming out on the bus. .I enjoyed the quiet times, too, which set up the circumstances making a visit to a Love’s truckstop like a trip to the Varsity. She helped me realize we’d left our vitamins behind.

All my ill-temperedness was over, no longer would I sweat the small stuff, as so much of my subconscious energy had gone to converting me from a Roman to roaming. “Roman to Roaming.” We hoped we could find vitamins in a mart that size. I looked at the map on the way to our first bathroom, and realized how far I’d driven away now from my Mom.

I soon joined her, picking out hot dogs at a social distance. Man, they were good! The promise they might be delicious, the thought of the different kinds, was in a way more satisfying than my chili dogs were, but hers were exactly what she wanted. We enjoyed them out in the parking lot.

She watched at least two occasions where someone took money and then worked out, surely, a drug deal.

All business as usual, with a Mom and little girl going inside, too. That place was about 70% masked, maybe two dozen people in our time there. I’d written on Facebook about some neighbor walking his dog in the Redmond Chase parking lot, wondering for a moment if he might’ve become a friend. On the road, you don’t have that illusion at all, which is kind of better, as it is true, you will not see the vast majority of the people you are meeting, again. Whether they worked in the store, frequented it, or lived in the far-away, rich-looking hermitages of people in south Tennessee, you'd remain forever after, barring viral transmission, far apart, more likely a memory of the traveler.

I left the South happy, playing "Get Out the Mad House"- "Hold On To Your Hat"- my way of living it this one day. We'd talked about the social madhouse so much, and now, we were feeling a growing sense of ease. We're leaving behind expectations of who we're supposed to be, says the Marc Kane. Covid probably eliminated beforehand any thought of a four or five day trip, enjoying these cities. How nice, to have looked in on Nashville, but we had no plan to unpack and unhitch.

If you were simply on vacation driving, you could rest day one near Nashville, and day two, near St. Louis; but navigating the innards of those cities is a challenge its own, which we intended to generally bypass. The longest parts of the trip, for me, were usually whenever we were in some kind of city limits. You could go to Kansas City for day three, and I can’t-say-where on the line between Kansas and Colorado, but further west, for sure, than Hayes, you go somewhere out-of-the-way and chill, before the excitement of the drive into Boulder! Yes, it would’ve been lovely to arrive there by 4 PM, on any day. Even topping eighty across western Kansas, however, couldn’t put us in shot before that last challenging wave of fatigue hits during a rush hour, on the elevated highways outside Denver! Now there, even, might have been a great Day Four stop, to come to Boulder on Day Five, totally relaxed, safe, sound, and able to unload and return the Uhaul by 6!



> Yes. That would’ve been nice.

Three days? Nasty.



But this reduced the coronavirus risk, and despite the hitch hick-up, we’d had the trailer by sunset on Monday, and Mama followed my nervous drive back to make her single ever visit to our Redmond Chase Apartment. It was just as well, because there wouldn’t be any more memories made there. The resolve matched the brutality of the task, but it was all made of free will in the face of adversity. The sights of Nature seen in a single day would’ve taken aback a traveler, a century past. But after we took a chance finding an exit with gas by passing along the edge of town, we figured our way back in the I-24 direction. I was still nervous, but she had more distance inside the gas station than I had, she said, by the pumps, so, good. Word of advice: alert your bank, espcially if you're on a long-term trip or permanent move, so your zip code will match your billing address.

Now, every time we re-assured ourselves of the right direction, there was a renewal of forward intent. Every time you’re sure you’ve taken the right exit ramp is a small, personal human victory, in a day and age where a trip like this is largely taken for granted as possible. Utterly sober the whole way, I remember being in a good mood again as we pressed on through state four, Kentucky, but I really wanted Kentucky to simply end. Dark miles of pastures and woods, I felt the wear of each passing vehicle now, and of passing each vehicle, which at least offered an adrenaline shot. Fight-or-flight, reawakens, as you try and roar down an highway, safely, re-assuring yourself with estimates then, finding Paducah is still indeed some ways south of Metropolis. It’s getting late, for a day that began with a couple or so hours’ teaching, a forty-five minute phone call, my last lapsing upon our foam mattress we’d leave, lots of packing into the trailer (begun by a third the night before). I only wish we’d gotten somewhere early enough for me to seriously go get the big container of her MK Jades out of the Uhaul, that night and the next. Hard to say what besides bringing that big guy up into the Saturn with the cats would’ve saved it, though. I didn’t mean to live our lives so recklessly as to cost her plants their lives. They were sacrificed to last-minute expediency, so the guitars stayed in the Saturn and came in with us at night. At least once, though, I brought the one box of plants. That box, which stayed in the back of the car the whole time? Still living.

I’m sorry I don’t have the most interesting parts of the conversation then, but we didn’t find our Super 8 until a quarter to eleven, I believe, Central Time, but even if it was quarter to ten, eight hours mostly spent driving, now. This was a preview how B.S. the average rate is represented in Google Direction time estimates! I think an hour came from roads I didn’t intend, usually related to stops and starts, definitely including those, but clearly this first quarter of our journey kept us out later and in more frigid temps than I’d planned. My grouchiest couple of moments the whole trip were probably muddled away somewhere entering a Super 8, though I was otherwise just glad to be in off the road. Next: I'm Here To Destroy Superman!