Day Two

2009-06-18T02:12:00.000-07:00

Ernie Bilko, I feel your pain

Just outside Fort Leonard Wood

There are a few rare treats in life I think everyone should experience at least once. An incredible French meal that takes you four hours to eat, three bottles of wine to wash down, and six months to pay for.

A chance to drive a car so fast and expensive, that once you get over 125MPH. you just hope if you crash it you die on impact because you don’t want to spend the rest of your sorry life paying for it.

I think we should all get at least one night of awesome sex with someone about ten times more beautiful than ourselves, and just by way of rare treats, I think every person on this rock ought to spend one Saturday night in a motel just outside the gates of a major military installation.

Rare. Treat. Actually neither.

The place is lousy with 20 year-old skinheads who keep calling me sir and opening doors for me, but once upon a time I remember every weekend we would rent the nearest motel room off the base, chip in for a keg, and hope that someone got us back for Monday muster. A change of the guard I guess. I feel very old all of a sudden.

When we did this ten years ago, we sort of had a plan of how we wanted to travel the Mother Road. We had not plenty, but just enough time to get it done well.

This time, it’s like trying to take a sip of water out of a fire hose. We are going too fast, too far.

We lit through Missouri like someone was chasing us. Managed to stop at Shady Jack’s, or at least what used to be Shady Jack’s. It’s a ruins now, and between you me and the fence pole, it made me a little teary to see that place. Jack Larrison was a good guy, who ran a good solid establishment. He spent almost half his life with a gun stuffed in one back pocket, and a badge in the other, working undercover. I hear he is in St, Louis now.

There are only 13 miles of old 66 in Kansas, and the one place we wanted to interview someone blew us off quite rudely.

Next stop was just north of Tulsa, in a little town called Catoosa, home of the Blue Whale. (And no fellow believers, I’m not talking about Carlos Zambrano)

It’s this funky little swimming hole, with a big concrete blue whale as its centerpiece, I have heard conflicting stories about whether it was an engagement or wedding present from this fella to his intended, and this far in I don’t really care. It’s big, blue, made out of concrete, looks like a whale. If you don’t like it, just get the hell out of my face because I think you were raised wrong.

I have been down 66 a few times, and every time I hit this place I do the exact same thing. I go skipping like a little schoolgirl right to the tale of the whale, go climbing up the ladder, and plop my old butt right down on the diving platform and fire one up. There is always this split second where I want to just stand up and swan dive straight in, but I get over it.

Next stop was just outside of OKC, in Arcadia, to meet with writers/photographers Jim Ross and Shellee Graham. I would hope you already know all about them, but if not, I’ll give you the quick view.

Here’s everything you need to know about Jim Ross at this point.

He likes to give you this “Aw shucks I just like old maps” routine, but truth be told he is probably one of the most learned scholars on Route 66 in the nation, especially on anything to do with Oklahoma. He’s a decorated vet, and an honorable man. We have had our differences of opinion over the years as far as politics go, but have always found a way to agree to disagree about things. He’s the sort of fella that, were you to get your Irish up a little too much, and get into a fight, would sit there and figure you can just go ahead and chew what you bit off, but the second the other guy’s pal jumped up to double team, he would have him on the ground in two seconds, and quite kindly advise him to let us work it out ourselves. I am very honored to call him a friend.

Here’s everything you need to know about Shellee Graham at this point.

She has written a very cool book about the Coral Court Motel, just on the outskirts of Saint Louis, done a book of postcards about the same, and just helped produce a pretty damned neat documentary about the Coral Court as well. Take one third Lucille Ball, add one third Eudora Welty, fill the rest with Tabasco sauce. That’s Shellee. Our interview this trip I believe is the first time I haven’t hit on her in one way or the other, When she sets her mind to it, she can stick her big toe right straight in her mouth, and that’s something I can’t think about much if I want to get any work done later.

Right after Arcadia, is OKC and a place I was worried about going to, because I knew I didn’t have the stomach for it anymore. Jim has been there more than me, and it is very important to him. So we went.

Last time I was here, it was a few parked bulldozers, and a lot of Oklahoma red clay. This time, it was a lot of chairs.

There is a big black gate as you walk in, and I swear I felt like I had entered the depths of frickin hell as I passed though. There is one little bit of crowd control wait your turn stuff there, but then you walk in and see the chairs.

I lost it.

Like the guy who is too chicken to ride the roller coaster, I walked right back out, lit a smoke, and went across the street and sat in front of the statue of Jesus that was in our book, on the site of the Catholic church that was destroyed. I pulled my knees up in front of me, hell if I was on my side it would be considered the fetal position, and I started crying.

I looked up at that statue, Jesus with his face in his hand, the quote underneath, the shortest verse in the Bible. “And Jesus Wept’
I swear I looked right at that thing with tears running down my face, and said two words

“Fuck You”

I have never been so angry with God in my life. I could understand the death of my parents, I can understand the deaths of others that were very close to me, but I will never ever understand the lunacy of someone who could blow up a day care center. The last time we were there I lost it too, because the little shoe tied into the fence was the same one my baby girl was wearing on the day Jim and I lit out the first time.

I sat there crying in front of that damned statue for I don’t know how long, Jim came and got me after a while.

You can think whatever you want of me after that confession. I have got to the stage in my life where I could care less.

There are things in this life that hit you like a baseball bat, and either they take out your brain, your heart, or your knees,

It just depends how tall the guy is that is that is swinging the bat.

ts

Route 66 Ten Years Later: Day 1

2009-06-14T19:18:00.000-07:00

Day One:

The comma is important.

This one is different in so many ways. Ten years ago I rousted Jim out of bed and said lets go, this time I was the roustee, albeit an hour or so later. When we left the first time, it was a nice sunny morning, this time it was pouring rain. I blame both God and Jim, and while I’ll be riding shotgun with both of them, I only have faith in one to block a sucker punch. Maxim Mea Culpa

My life has become encapsulated in so many ways. Being a fella who made his bones driving all over the country and writing about it, I have shrunk into some mook who drives no further than the nearest little league game or Girl Scout meeting, and whose biggest worry seems to be how long he can let the dog crap pile up in the back yard.

Things change.

I was talking with Jim a month or so back about absolutely nothing and the subject of Route 66 came up. I reminded him that it would be ten years since we took that first ride, and Lord how things have changed since then. There was a silence on the other end, and he said;

“We ought to do it again”

“Yeah right” I answered.

“No” he insisted, “We HAVE to do it again!”

Long story short, we are.

We left, well; I think this is day two. Neither of us has had more that two hours sleep a night between driving, interviewing, eating, editing, bitching about editing software and falling slat on our faces until it’s time to go back jack, do it again.

It was pouring rain when we left Chicago headed south and west. Got down south of Joliet and all of a sudden the sun broke through the clouds, and as Wodehouse said, “birds twittered in the sky, and hope dawned once more.”

At the Polka-Dot in Wilmington, we connected with the Illinois Route 66 Association’s annual Fun Run. One group leaves from Chicago bound for the land of Budweiser, another bunch of bunch of well meaning Cardinal fans leave St. Louis full well knowing they ain’t getting past Springfield before an angry mob of people in blue hats with a C on them turn em back around.

At the Polka Dot, Jim said he was going to take a spin with this lady in a 57 T Bird, I said fine, and off they went. I know it was early and all, but I am suspect of anyone who would give me the keys to some honk-ass Swedespeed with tens of thousands of dollars of Hi-Def camera equipment in it. I trust that guy with my life, he trusts me with his new tripod. As falls Wichita, so falls Wichita Falls.

I caught up with them in Gardiner, and we soldiered on. His smoking in the car policy sucks. There’s probably more of yesterday’s lunch wafting out them pointy fucking sideburns of his than my ashes, but we’ll just both believe we’re staying together for the sake of the new camera. After it’s grown, it can decide who it wants to live with.

We have the best GPS unit in the world, with every inch of Route 66 pre-programmed on board, and from the amount of time Jim spends mashing the buttons and cursing, I would guess GPS stands for “generally pretty sure.” The voice is an English woman that sounds exactly like Diana Rigg, and every time it says “turn left in 100 feet” I see Emma Peel in a leather cat suit and knee high boots and I pretty much black out and start swerving into shit.

We are hauling ass. We are hauling your ass, your mama’s ass, your cousin’s ass, and that dude who bought you a beer one’s ass. We have broken speed limits in every single county in Illinois, Missouri, and Oklahoma. If they ever make a movie of this, I think I should be played by Jerry Reed, assuming he is still alive. If he isn’t, the resemblance should be perfect.

We have set an impossible deadline for this project, but seem to be meeting it. Jim has the worst of it, because he has to come back and cut and edit the video. Mostly I just carry his stuff.

It’s hard for me to describe this trip aptly, because it is happening so fast, and we are both doing it on about two hours sleep a night.

We had a wonderful day today, speedballing through Missouri, and into Oklahoma, to an interview with two of the best writers/photographers and all around authorities about Route 66 you’ll ever meet. I’m gonna have to tell you about it later, because I am dead tired, Jim is complaining I keep typing too loud.

We were trying to come up with a concept, a through-line for this whole thing, and I guess what it is all about is not so much just Route 66, but the very spirit of a road trip. Not the mileage, but the friends made and maintained. Not about the last time you saw something or somewhere, but how both have changed in the last ten years. It all about people, and change.

Lives.

Changing.

Lives,changing.

The comma is important.

ts