07/08: On the Road Again, 3
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
Get Your Kicks, On Route 66
For most of our California Trip we were on Interstate 40, which replaced Route 66 from Oklahoma City to Barstow, California. But, I did not want to bypass totally the famous highway. We got off I-40 a couple of exits before Flagstaff and drove into town on Route 66, and against my wife's better judgment, we stayed at an older motel that predated the interstate, dating back to when Route 66 was the highway to California for much of the country. On the way home we ate supper one night in a diner along old 66 in Barstow, and again the next night ate at the El Rancho Hotel in Gallup. The El Rancho was the hotel for movie stars when filming in northwestern New Mexico, including Ronald Reagan in The Bad Man.
Planned in the 1920s and paved from start to finish during the New Deal, Route 66 linked the rural Midwest and Southwest with Chicago and Los Angeles. History. During the Depression it became the road out of the Dust Bowl for over 200,000 "Okies", refugees from Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas hoping for work in California. Steinbeck, in The Grapes of Wrath, termed it the Mother Road.
Those Okies had not really wanted to uproot themselves, but necessity forced them on the road. In their westward journey they recapitulated the earlier movement of their ancestors. Most immigrants to the New World came because they saw no real alternative. From starving Irish to persecuted Jews to farmers and agricultural workers displaced by changing technology and economics.
My own people lived in the hills of East Tennessee, some moving to Missouri before the Civil War, some after. Small hill farms up in the hollows can support only a limited population; the reality is move or go hungry.
Route 66 itself is now a metaphor for forced relocation. Interstate 40, and Interstate 44 from St. Louis to Oklahoma City, have left only segments of the older highway in place. The motels, diners, tourist attractions on the old road have been bypassed. Many, many have closed, unable to compete with the Motel 6s, 8s, and others along the interstate exits. Those that remain seem on their last legs, often needing some repair, probably to close when something major fails. The economic life of the nation now flows along another artery.
In my first post in this series, I celebrated rootedness and commitment. But, while we can commit to one another in marriage, and keep our family commitments, we sometimes must uproot from our communities and seek opportunity elsewhere.
I thought about these things during the time we spent on the Zuni Reservation in New Mexico (overnight our first night and part of the next day). Reservations mean continuing attachment to people, place, and some of the traditions for those who live on them. But, opportunities are limited, very limited. If reservations were happy places, then a person could accept being poor in order to live among The People. But, the high rates of suicide, drug use, and alcoholism, especially for young men, tell of despair rather than happiness. Perhaps the road out is necessity.
For most of our California Trip we were on Interstate 40, which replaced Route 66 from Oklahoma City to Barstow, California. But, I did not want to bypass totally the famous highway. We got off I-40 a couple of exits before Flagstaff and drove into town on Route 66, and against my wife's better judgment, we stayed at an older motel that predated the interstate, dating back to when Route 66 was the highway to California for much of the country. On the way home we ate supper one night in a diner along old 66 in Barstow, and again the next night ate at the El Rancho Hotel in Gallup. The El Rancho was the hotel for movie stars when filming in northwestern New Mexico, including Ronald Reagan in The Bad Man.
Planned in the 1920s and paved from start to finish during the New Deal, Route 66 linked the rural Midwest and Southwest with Chicago and Los Angeles. History. During the Depression it became the road out of the Dust Bowl for over 200,000 "Okies", refugees from Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas hoping for work in California. Steinbeck, in The Grapes of Wrath, termed it the Mother Road.
Those Okies had not really wanted to uproot themselves, but necessity forced them on the road. In their westward journey they recapitulated the earlier movement of their ancestors. Most immigrants to the New World came because they saw no real alternative. From starving Irish to persecuted Jews to farmers and agricultural workers displaced by changing technology and economics.
My own people lived in the hills of East Tennessee, some moving to Missouri before the Civil War, some after. Small hill farms up in the hollows can support only a limited population; the reality is move or go hungry.
Route 66 itself is now a metaphor for forced relocation. Interstate 40, and Interstate 44 from St. Louis to Oklahoma City, have left only segments of the older highway in place. The motels, diners, tourist attractions on the old road have been bypassed. Many, many have closed, unable to compete with the Motel 6s, 8s, and others along the interstate exits. Those that remain seem on their last legs, often needing some repair, probably to close when something major fails. The economic life of the nation now flows along another artery.
In my first post in this series, I celebrated rootedness and commitment. But, while we can commit to one another in marriage, and keep our family commitments, we sometimes must uproot from our communities and seek opportunity elsewhere.
I thought about these things during the time we spent on the Zuni Reservation in New Mexico (overnight our first night and part of the next day). Reservations mean continuing attachment to people, place, and some of the traditions for those who live on them. But, opportunities are limited, very limited. If reservations were happy places, then a person could accept being poor in order to live among The People. But, the high rates of suicide, drug use, and alcoholism, especially for young men, tell of despair rather than happiness. Perhaps the road out is necessity.
