More from Out West, circa 1977 (XXXI-YAT)

"And away we go, like a herd of turtles!" -Dad Gleck

"The Deviled Ham Chronicles", part two

Continuing with our trip diary from July 1977, we left our no-phone, no-pool, no-pet, but otherwise dandy ol' Kayenta, Arizona Holiday Inn room, and resumed our journey. Our next stop: Four Corners National Monument. It was neat seeing four states coming together in a single spot. The monument itself is an elevated slab of concrete, with a survey marker embedded which marks the exact spot. It's not on the main drag; one has to turn off the highway northward onto a county road. It's about a mile or so away.

And yes, there's a picture of me, on all fours, so I could have one appendage in each of the states. Hardly original, but at age 12 I felt like I was so witty.

Or something which rhymes with that word.

Back on the main slab, we crossed into Colorado, and wound our way back into Utah. We found ourselves on U.S. Highway 666 (why this number was allowed by the National Highway Administration is beyond me!). A stop at Arches National Park was pretty cool, if not the deviled ham sammich consumed therein. We picked up I-15 at Provo, and drove through Salt Lake City at rush hour. Joy.

Night #5: Ogden, Utah. I think it was another Holiday Inn, but I'm not certain. Now that I think about it, perhaps it was a Best Western. Whichever it was, or wasn't, it had a helluva pool. I guess I shouldn't say "hell" -- we're in Utah now. Let me rephrase it:
Gosh! That was one flippin' great swimming pool. But what the fruit was up with the all the klieg lights? Oh, silly me, that's the reflection from the Osmonds' toothy smiles.

Night #6: Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Wagon Wheel Village Motel. Did I mention it too had a black & white television? Rustic, log cabin style living. Yeah, boy.

Eh, at least the telly didn't have a coin box attached to it.

One very notable event occurred this evening: it was the big NYC blackout of July 13, 1977. I remember this because it caused all the network affiliates to lose their feeds. The TV stations all had to think fast and rack up a fill program. Back in those (good ol') days, when infomercials were verboten, said "fill program" would likely be something watchable. The station we had on plugged in an episode of the game show Break the Bank. Too bad we weren't close enough to Flyspeck .... *sigh* Those people didn't lose network television, y'know.

The next day we spent touring Grand Teton and Yellowstone parks. And, at a picnic table somewhere, it was yet another can's worth of Diablus Spamibus between slices of Home Pride Butter-Top Bread. ("we add the butter, and let it bake riiiight in")

It was very, very late in the afternoon when we left the Yellowstone area. We stopped in Cody for supper on the run: Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was another 80 mile drive to our next destination ... I ate my three-piece finger-lickin' good box meal as we continued through the Wyoming darkness. Which looks little different from Wyoming daytime. To say, there's not a flippin' thing to look at. (gotta say "flippin" -- Utah isn't that far away)

Night #7: We arrived at Thermopolis, Wyoming about 9:00. Don't remember the name of the motel, but - like back in Gallup - it was old and beginning to show its age.

I was so ready to get the hell out of Wyoming ... it makes I-16 look fun and exciting. Our next state was "colorful Colorado."

Night #8: Estes Park, Colorado. Hobby Horse Motel. Had a really big area in the back, complete with a playground and pond. And geese. One of them decided he didn't like this Talmadge person, and began chasing me all over creation.

I hate geese.

Mom left her nightgown in the room. That much I remember, too.

After a wonderful drive through Rocky Mountain National Park (even thinking about it today, it feels strange to see patches of ice in the middle of July!), we meandered our way back to I-70 to go eastbound. Through Denver and toward Kansas. We turned off of 70 at Oakley to go southbound on US-83 toward Garden City. Our destination was Dodge City -- Festus, Miz Kitty and Matt D. himself, I'm sure.

We'd turned back eastward at Garden City, and were no more than 10 miles out of town when, suddenly, BANG!!-thumpthumpthumpthump.... The left rear tire shed half of its rubber along the hot asphalt of U.S. Highway 50. Nice. Dad got out and put the spare on the car.

Then we backtracked into Garden City, where - lucky for us - there was a Sears store, with auto service building out front. And it was still open.

After a new tar was procured for our Grand Safari Truckster, we resumed our trek toward the wilds of Dodge City.

Once we got the hell into Dodge, we ran smack into a major problem. There was a convention of some sort going on, and most of the motels were booked solid. Was this Karma from Dad's leadfooted passing of that poor family back outside of Kayenta?

Night #9...#9...#9...: One motel had a room available, and it was called The Bel-Air. A simple Google shows it still in business. I remember it being small, and brother is it small -- nine (9) rooms.

It still puzzles me how Dad badmouths Motel 6 after experiencing The Bel-Air Motel. It wouldn't be as bad as Bob's Motel. Yeah, Bob's Motel. It's in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and we stayed there one night during our Trip Up North in 1979. Anyhoo, the Bel-Air was nasty. Very, very nasty. As in, the carpet was more animated than a "Tom & Jerry" cartoon. It was the first time I'd ever seen so many cockroaches in my life. Yes, it was that bad.

Y'know, I've never seen vermin in any Motel 6 where I've stayed.

After that experience, we shook the roach eggs out of our hair and embarked on a tour of Dodge City. I found it lukewarm; this was mostly Dad's thing, him being a big fan of westerns, and all. (If Marshal Dillon were real, HE would've done something about the bugs in that motel)

After a lunch of Underwood deviled ham, Wonder bread and Lay's Potato Chips, with Shasta Cola (*cringe*) to wash it all down, we were back on the road.

Night #10: Fort Smith, Arkansas. In a fit of hysteria and lapsed reason, Dad -- get this -- made a reservation. We had a room waiting for us at the Holiday Inn. Strangely enough, it was located on I-540 .... very out of character for my Dad, I have to say. He hated and hates going one mile out of the way for anything while on a trip. He has no appreciation for anything historical, offbeat or anything ... unless it has something to do with John Wayne, the Old West, or "The War Of Northern Aggression." So why he left I-40 (which skirts Fort Smith to the north) is a mystery to me. Certainly there were motels along I-40 ... I mean, it's not exactly an abandoned two-lane!

Well, we checked into the Holiday Inn. It was a second-floor room, and not a "down-and-out'er." We opened the door, and the smell just about knocked Mom clear over the walkway in a backward flip toward the parking lot below.

It was m-o-l-d-y ... and the water stains on the ceiling told the story. Swiss cheese roof. Aye-yi-yi.

Fortunately, we got another (and better) room in that motel, but that experience was a brutal wake-up call: Kemmons Wilson's great creation was beginning to show the ravages of age. Many of the first-generation Holiday Inns had clearly jumped the shark, and with increased corporate control of the chain, and less hands-on by Kemmons, quality control was going into the toilet. The late '70s marked the decline of Holiday Inn as an institution. Too many properties were allowed to deteriorate without any real accountability.

(That's why I love Drury Inn so much -- no franchising, and that family wisely knows what happens when you sell your good name for untold fortunes and explosive growth)

After we ate supper, Mom picked up one of Holiday Inn's 'comment cards.' In 1977, they used the (ironic) slogan "The best surprise is no surprise." Mom began writing, "Well, you sure surprised us!" She mailed the postcard after we got back home.

Unbelievably, we actually ate a real lunch on our last day of traveling. No deviled ham. We stopped outside of Little Rock at a Minute Man - a now-defunct hamburger chain ("When you're hungry, it only takes a Minute Man"). And............

Night #11 -- back home to the salt mine of Tupelo, People's Aryan Republic of Mississippi. Vacation time's over, back on your heads.

*********
One important lesson I learned, both from this trip, and the Canada vacation two years later, was the wisdom of making reservations. While you give up a bit of spontaneity, there's the peace of mind that comes with knowing 1) where you'll be staying that evening, and 2) that you'll have a room waiting.

4,000 Bel-Air cockroaches can't argue with that logic.

Ciao for niao.

--Talmadge "Backseat Turtle" Gleck

Irrational lampooned vacation

Two posts down, I referred to our stay at Motel 6 in El Paso, Texas. It was part of a big family trip in the Summer of 1977. In family lore, it's come to be known as "The Trip Out West." I was 12, and my brother was 8.

Said trip was quite the adventure. It was taken in a 1974 Pontiac Grand Safari station wagon, yellow, with - yes - faux wood grain side panels ... our own Wagon Queen Family Truckster! Clamshell style back gate (with power glass), AM/FM radio with the infamous GM in-windshield antenna (read: piss-poor reception), and power windows. Oh, yeah, and - standard equipment on a typical Degenerate Motors vehicle - an oil leak. ("Where's the drip?", I can hear Dad saying)

We picnic'ed at roadside parks for lunch, and every day it was the same golldurned thing: Potato chips and deviled-ham sandwiches. Every golldurned day. And since that trip, I cannot even stand the look, sight or smell of deviled ham. I revile the stuff. I'm feeling queasy just thinking about it, I tell you.

More than three decades later, I can still remember the exact route we took, where we spent each night, and - in most cases - the name of the motel.

We left Tupelo, Mississippi some time in the afternoon, and headed up US-78 toward Memphis, then I-40 into Arkansas. It was already dark as we left Little Rock, and picked up I-30 toward The Big-Ass State That's Like A Whole 'Nuther Country.

Night #1: The Sands Motel in Dallas, Texas. Outside, I sat on the grassy knoll while my brother Zaprudy ran the Super-8 movie camera. Mom and Dad came along in their Grand Safari Truckster. Mom was wearing a pink dress with pillbox hat, and Dad ....

Never mind, that's getting a little too morbid. And does that look like Jack Ruby's ghost coming over here to pistol-whip me?

I'd better hurry up and grab my textbooks from this "depository" before they run out of the one for my Antisocial Studies class.

ANYway........

Night #2: After a long haul across Texas (borrrrrrr-innng!), we found ourselves in El Paso, and the tiny confines of our Motel 6 room, coin-op TV and all. The next morning saw us doing a tour of Juarez, Mexico.

Night #3: Gallup, New Mexico. I do not remember the name of the motel, but what I do recall was that it was an older property, a tad bit run down, there was a Texaco station out front, and it was on the left side of the road. The interstate ended on each side of town; Gallup had yet to be bypassed. What I didn't know at the time was that the Gleck family was staying in a gen-ewe-ine Route 66 Motel. Ever the crazed road geek, even then, I had no idea the magnitude of roadside history we were part of. In 1977, US-66 was still a real highway (it would be decommissioned in 1985).

Night #4: Kayenta, Arizona. After a fun-filled day exploring Meteor Crater, and experiencing the Grand Canyon, we were heading toward Four Corners -- the only spot in the U.S. where four states meet. It was getting dark, and we were on a two-lane desert road, the kind where you can see the town damn near 20 miles away before you actually reach it.

There weren't many lodging options in the northeast corner of Arizona, and we had no reservations of any kind. Dad was rocketing along the highway, and passed another car that was slow-pokin' along at a leisurely 80 MPH. This becomes important in a minute.

As we got toward Kayenta, we noticed that there wasn't much to this settlement. It was a small junction in the road, with a collection of houses, stores ... and a certain motel. We could see the Holiday Inn "Great Sign" miles away -- THIS, FRIENDS, IS WHY HOLIDAY INN WAS STOOOOPID TO GET RID OF THAT THING!! It was a beacon. Dad began rejoicing! That pulsating Great Sign was functioning as it should: a siren call of the roadside.

Dad pulled in and got out to see if any rooms were available. There was one. And only one. "But the phone doesn't work", the clerk told him. Dad replied just as I would have had such a scenario presented itself to me: "I DON'T CARE!"

As Dad walked out with the key ("she said give it to me, and I'll unlock the door" -er, um, anyway), the car we'd passed earlier pulled into the breezeway right beside us.

Sorry, no room at the inn.

Kayenta was a weird one -- it looked like a tiny place, no bigger than 1,000 people ... but by golly they had their own Holiday Inn!

Had there been no vacancy, we'd have been on the road for at least another two hours -- Durango, Colorado was the next evidence of civilization. And we would've missed the opportunity to see the Four Corners monument the next morning.

The room was good, the TV worked (if memory serves, it could pick up just one channel), the Holiday Inn restaurant didn't disappoint, and then we all slept nicely.

* to be continued *

Mr. Bodett didn't kill the lady ... it was his mother.

Motel 6. Budget lodging chain. Perennial punchline. So named because, upon its founding in the early '60s, all rooms went for $6.00 a night. Logical enough, yes?

The first time I'd ever stayed in a Motel 6 was during our family trip out west in July of 1977. It was in El Paso, Texas, and by then inflation had caught up with the 6'ers: rooms now went for $8.95 a night ($10.95 double). No credit cards or checks of any kind were honored, either. Cash only.

The above scans are from the 1977 Motel 6 directory, a copy of which I procured while here.

The two things I remember the most about the room were the TV and the "Magic Fingers" box on the middle table, next to the phone.

By the '70s, nearly all motels offered color TVs without extra charge. Never mind that the color on those sets boggled the mind -- we're talking purples where reds should be, oranges where you'd expect a nice yellow shade. I remember seeing a magazine advert for Motel 6 in the late '70s, lampooning the off-kilter nature of the lowly, abused motel color TV. Motel 6 had a novel solution to this problem, too: they didn't have color sets. As late as 1980, Motel 6 had BLACK & WHITE televisions in all of their rooms.

But wait, there's more. Mounted to the side of these B/W Admirals was a coin box. And that's why Motel 6 could get away with charging such a low nightly rate. You had to pay to watch the TV (I seem to recall it being 25 cents per half-hour), and unless you wanted to miss the first minutes of The Bob Newhart Show, you had to feed 'er another quarter before the end of Mary Tyler Moore. Dad was not a happy camper.

Dad parted with a 25-cent piece, and the TV sprang to life. It was tuned to a station from across the border, and suddenly another language filled our teeny-tiny Bodett Boudoir. I looked up, and saw a commercial for Kent Cigarettes. Obviously, one could still advertise coffin-nails on TV stations in meh-he-coh.

I had a quarter on my person, but I was more fixated on the Magic Fingers machine. I wanted to make that bed shake, rattle and roll like two people screwing each other silly as if they were hyperactive weasels in a Cuisinart. But I wanted my brother off the bed before I did that. I might be from Alabama, but I ain't that perverted.

I dropped a quarter into the box, anxiously awaiting a fate that would soon befall Clark & Ellen Griswold. The quarter dropped. I heard a hollow *clunk!*, as if it were a piggy bank. That thing had no freakin' innards! So I had to eat my Arby's roast beef sandwich (yes, I remember what we had that night) on a static mattress with more lumps than Wile E. Coyote after an ACME product backfired.

Here's a picture from the next morning, as we were about to make a side trip into Juarez, Mexico (bought a wooden chess set down there, which I still have ... in a box somewhere ...). I'm the one on the right.

Amazingly enough, Motel 6 locations had swimming pools. Although I'm surprised they didn't have coin boxes, either. I think you had to pay 25 cents if you wanted to pee in the pool -- very astute bidness folk these Motel 6 innkeepers, they wanted to cash in on the "pay toilet" craze. How dare you circumvent the regular bathroom rate??

Yes, Motel 6. After that experience, Dad refused to go near another one. 31 years later, you can't drag him within two statute miles of a Motel 6 property! It took me awhile myself, but I eventually gave it another chance. In 1990. By then, the TV was color, and there was actually more than one set of towels in the bathroom. Motel 6, indeed, is spartan -- which is the whole point, anyway. When I'm traveling alone, I'm an incredible cheapskate about lodging. I ask of nothing from a motel except a clean bed, a clean shower and a clean set of towels.

I must say that I haven't had a bad experience at a Motel 6 in my adult life. And it should be noted that most of 'em are company-owned. Meaning, no corner-cutting by a staff seemingly more interested in brewin' another container of curry than making sure their paying guests are comfortable and happy.

*********
So, what got me thinking about Motel 6? It was an old e-mail which I found this evening. It's called "Top 10 failed slogans for MOTEL 6" .... (my favorite is #5). Here we go:

10) Because you deserve better than the backseat of a car

9) As seen on "COPS"

8) If we'd known you were staying all night, we'd have changed the sheets.

7) We left off the "9" but you know it's there.

6) Sure you could stay at a nicer place, but then you wouldn't have money for the hooker.

5) We'll leave the Lysol for ya.

4) Not just for nooners any more.

3) It's hookerific!!

2) Blurring the line between stains and avant-garde sheet art since 1962

And the number one failed slogan for Motel 6?

1) We put the "HO" in hotel.


Ciao for niao.

--Talmadge "Light done burned out" Gleck

Route 301: Episode 1

A QUEEN FARTIN' PRODUCTION! STARRING TALMADGE GLECK AS "BUZZ", AND SERAPHIM GLECK AS "LIZZ", TWO COMMON FOLK TRAVERSING "THE OTHER MOTHER ROAD" IN A VINYL-TOP '67 AMC AMBASSADOR, GETTING INTO ALL SORTS OF ADVENTURES AND TRYING TO OUTWIT THEIR ARCH-NEMESIS, DEPUTY EARL OF LUDOWICI.

TONIGHT'S EPISODE: "LOBSTER TALES"!! ..... BROUGHT TO YOU BY SUPER-CHARGED AND SUPER-LEADED GOOD GULF "NO-NOX" GASOLINE. IF THIS GAS HAD ANY MORE LEAD IN IT, IT'D BE FROM CHINA! PREMIUM-PRICED AT 35 CENTS A GALLON, TOO. ONLY AT YOUR GULF DEALER!
= = = = = = = = =
The town: Allendale, South Carolina. One of many towns bisected by "Old 301", food and lodging meccas along a thriving "short cut to Florida." The passage of the Interstate Highway Act in 1956 spelled eventual downfall for most small burgs like Allendale which soon would become bypassed when the interstate highways were to be finished. Some towns had the fortune of being along the planned routing of these new highways. Alas, the same could not be said for motels and many restaurants in places like Allendale, Bamberg, Sylvania and Glennville. Their days were numbered.

Some towns were cut off as quickly as the late '50s, and began to wither on the vine into the 1960s. Fortunately for 301 (if more inconvenient for travelers who wanted to get to point-B quicker), the completion of I-95 through South Carolina and Georgia was late in coming. Allendale, et al, therefore had a lot more borrowed time, as the last link of 95 wasn't opened until 1978!

Shall we take a nice siesta?
If you were a truck driver, and used 301 as your route to points southward, I'm sure you found the "Interstate Truck Terminal" outside Allendale as an appealing place to have a bite to eat, maybe a refreshing shower, and a tank of Pure "Super Energee" Diesel for your 18-wheeler:
Above is the aptly-named Interstate truck stop, pictured in a 1963 Pure Oil directory. Nowadays, it doesn't look so good:
So, what killed this truck stop? What a profoundly sad irony, eh?

Just like up the road a piece in Santee, the town of Allendale is another "Radiator Springs" overflowing with decaying reminders of an earlier time. It used to have its own Holiday Inn. And the town was home to a certain orange-roofed roadside icon:
In 2006, here's how it looked:
Simple Simon and Pieman have both moved on.

* * * * * * * * *
Now, you might've been passing through Allendale around mealtime, and found yourself captivated by the really cool neon sign outside of this restaurant:
Approved by AAA and recommended by Duncan Hines back in those salad days, the Lobster House provided a good seafood experience as a prelude to what the traveler would find in even greater abundance in Florida.

And today?
The sign, though weatherbeaten, remains. And although it looked to be closed the day we passed through town, the Lobster House appears to still be in operation, if various online references are any indication (including one "motorcycle club" which meets here).
Note to self: find out for sure ... and if The Lobster House is still in business, it would make for a nice day trip and lunch one Saturday. If so, then it'll be worth the drive, because if the food isn't good, it wouldn't be supported by the only remaining clientele base: the LOCALS.

Greetings from the old highway. Having a great time, wish it all were still here.

Ciao for niao.

--Talmadge "Retro Wayfarer" Gleck

1962 A.D., Paradise Restaurant

For the benefit of anyone who might have half a curiosity about the picture I'm currently using for the title graphic, it's the abandoned Paradise Restaurant ... located in south Screven County, Georgia at the intersection of Georgia 17 and U.S. 301. It's one of many, many such empty and decaying relics along what used to be a thriving East coast arterial. And Highway 301, dearfolk, was just as busy and robust as a certain over-commercialized Chicago-to-L.A. corridor we're all familiar with.

Well, here's the above picture (which I took in the Spring of 2006) "in the clear", as we in the radio bidness like to say:
The Paradise is located in a pecan grove (and that's pronounced "PEE-can"), adjacent to a motel which also shares this name. In its prime, both served as an oasis of sorts along 301 between the cities of Sylvania and Statesboro. Evidently, this was the second building to house this eatery. Plenty of old, linen postcards abound on the 'net which show the original structure. I'd been looking in vain for one that showed this building. Lo and behold, I finally found one:
It's postmarked 1962. Okay, so it still had the old sign. Don't you just love that orange and teal color scheme?? And those hanging light fixtures visible through the plate-glass windows.

Yeah, yeah, it's these times when I wish I was 52 instead of 42. To have been able to experience a lot more of real Americana first-hand.

Okay, here's the deal: if Seraphim and I win Powerball, we're gonna buy this place and return it to her beautiful original space-age grandeur. That neon sign out front, by gollydurn, is gonna have every last tube restored, and it will again flash a siren call along US-301's roadside.

All this time, I've been bitching and moaning about the lack of a good artery-constrictin' Friday night fried seafood buffet around here. Well, I'd make one happen.

There might not be as many Florida-bound tourists along this two-lane blacktop, however we'll bring 'em in from Statesboro, Millen, Sylvania, Newington, Springfield, Waynesboro .... if you build it, they will come. I have to know I'm not the only one craving a good Friday night seafood spread.

The Paradise will come back to life. And it will become highly-renowned for its cakes, pastries and other baked goods. I happen to know somebody who tinkers a little with cake-makin' on the side. I share a bed with her.

And, in the event Nettiemac wants to join us, we'll offer The Paradise Tiki Room in the back.

It doesn't hurt to dream. It really doesn't.

"And so, my friends, we'll say goodnight,
for time has claimed his prize,
but tonight can always last,
as long as we keep alive,
the mem'ries of Paradise"
--Dennis DeYoung, Styx

Ciao for niao.

--Talmadge "Recommended by Duncan Hines" Gleck

Traces of roads, long ago

Last week, during my Birmingham junket (or, to be more precise, east Walker County), I made a daylong trip over to the tortured wilds of Tupelo, Miss., and from there I went over to Madison, Ala. before dropping southward back to the motel. I called this trip "the triangle", as my path kinda resembled one.

With a new and better camera, I wanted to take some improved shots of what I previously had in low-fi digital form. I also longed to take a nice, leisurely joyride ... so that's what I did.

As much as I love making roadtrips with Luvuhmylife Seraphim, I just as much enjoy making the occasional trip by myself. Driving and reflecting. Or "D&R" for short.

It was one for the surreal book, that's for sure. From Tupelo to Madison on the same day. That's like visiting Satan and then going immediately upstairs to break bread with Yahweh.

Yes, Satan. Because only the Devil would've caused an awesome roast beef sandwich to become nearly extinct. Tupelo is home to one of the few remaining Danver's locations.

*********
Tupelo, Mississippi is also the headquarters for the Natchez Trace Parkway, a two-lane 'national parkway' of some 443 miles. Or thereabouts. (Amazingly enough, the other NPS roadway - the Blue Ridge Parkway - is longer than "The Trace"; I only learned this fact the other day!!)

The Natchez Trace visitor center is located north of the city nearby where the parkway intersects with Miss. 145 (a/k/a Old US 45). During my years in Tupelo, this roadway was as much a part of the area's culture as a certain jelly doughnut-swilling favorite son. Plenty of memories arose from the Chickasaw Village site, along the parkway ... there's a cool hiking and "interpretive nature" trail, with plenty of trees. And that's where I learned how Tupelo got its name.

I hadn't done very much traveling of this parkway through my driving years. At least until last week. After leaving Tupelo -- and still wolfing down the last of my Danver's booty -- I drove north on Miss. 145 and picked up the Trace, heading northeastward toward Alabama, where I'd get off on US-72 going east toward Tuscumbia, Decatur and Madison.

When I was little, I found the NTP to be a mite boring. Nothing but trees to look at. As much fun for a roadgeek as watching paint dry.

At age 42, it was different. After, ohhhhh, a handful of miles, I quickly found my groove on the Trace. It's a long National Park ... complete with the brown guide signs, in distinctive "clarendon" font, a speed limit of 50 MPH, and trucks and commercial vehicles of any kind are verboten from traveling the parkway. Billboards are also contraband. Ditto for any roadside commerce. It's a 'limited access' roadway, with overpasses and access ramps to get to and from "civilian" roads.

The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 100% commercial-free zone. It's a nice alternative to the clutter, hustle and bustle of interstates and regular highways. The speed limit might be lower, but you're enjoying the slower pace.

The radio was tuned to AM 580 out of Tupelo, WELO. The Music of Your Life. Sinatra, Clooney and other 'pop standards' made a splendid soundtrack. And being a weekday, I damn near had this roadway to myself. I don't think I saw more than half a dozen cars.

I loved it. And I was so disappointed when I reached US-72, where I had to exit the parkway. I almost changed my plans and kept northward to the Trace's north terminus outside of Nashville.

Even such roadside drama as state lines are incredibly subdued on the Natchez Trace. No big green "Welcome To Alabama The Beautiful ... Bob Riley, Governor", or gigantic signs screaming "Mississippi Welcomes You." Here it's just a simple "Entering [state]."

In the above picture, I'm straddling the line. I'm Alasippi-ing. Or is that Missi-bama?

The dominant motif along the parkway is the arrowhead. It's the shape used for all the historical marker approaches, and for the entrance signs for the various pull-offs.

One should not press their luck while driving this slab -- speeding on this, or any NPS roadway, is a Federal offense. Me, I set the cruise control for exactly 50 M.P.H. and just enjoyed the ride.

And I found out something really cool:

Driving at that rate of speed does wonders for the ol' gas mileage! Check out the 'trip computer' -- when is the last time anyone achieved 30 MPG in a friggin SUV??!!

Seriously, I filled up in Tupelo and the needle didn't budge from "F" until I was past the Alabama line.

I realized something else, too.

The Natchez Trace Parkway is a thoroughfare maintained by government interests, without any commercial traffic, businesses, billboards or anything resembling the conduct of free enterprise.

In addition to its purpose honoring an early pioneer trail, the Trace also serves as an alternative route to get from Tupelo to Nashville or to Jackson.

It's very low-key. It's dignified. It's scenic. It's full of substance in a world where other highways are cluttered and bottlenecked eyesores.

I dare say the Natchez Trace Parkway is the Public Radio of highways.

And I so much want to drive this thing from beginning to end. Seraphim and I shall do just that one of these days.

Isn't it nice to know that roads like this exist?

Ciao for niao.

--Talmadge "Proud to have his tax dollars funding it" Gleck

Musings from the Warrior River Motel

LYNN'S PARK, Alabama — For starters, it’s kinda ironic that I’m writing this blog entry on a laptop while immersed in nostalgia ... ranging from the kind of music I’ve been listening to (mainly pop standards / middle-of-the-road), to all I’ve been doing today - visiting some amazing people and seeing some old sights, right down to the classic motel where I’m staying. The Warrior River Motel is a 1955-vintage property on US 78 nearby Jasper in east Walker County, Alabama.

It’s a spartan room which definitely shows its age. The bathroom fixtures are the original 1955 beauties, right down to the faucet handles. There’s still a hole where the original “third tap” used to be ... from which you could draw “circulating ice water”, an amenity advertised on the WRM’s original neon sign. The sign was discarded some time in the ‘80s in favor of a more sedate, backlit roadside herald. But the ice water, I’m certain, stopped circulating long before that.

The shower is the size of a phone booth. There’s no wireless internet here. (I’m typing this in WordPerfect to paste into the blog tomorrow when I’m at a wi-fi spot and can access the ‘net). And the TV gets fewer than 20 channels ... heck, it doesn’t even have what my son used to call “color codes” — the A/V inputs one sees nowadays on most sets.

Am I complaining? Hell, no!! First of all, the rooms are a nicely economical $29.00 a night. Second, I’m enjoying this “technology holiday” (he says as he types on a freakin’ LAPTOP!!) The bathroom is decked out in beautiful shiny 1955-vintage black and white tile. And, like a wistful cherry atop a nostalgic sundae, the floor pattern is identical to the upstairs bathroom at my late grandparents’ house in Homewood. Identical, at least, in tile pattern; theirs was a purplish blue and white while it’s black and white here at the WRM. Who cares ... my eyes just “discarded color information” (lordy, I’ve been using waaaay too much “PhotoShop”!) and enjoyed looking downward as if it were an unassuming mouvement d'bowel taken anywhere between potty-training age (ca. 1967-68) and 2002.

Last night I saw a sight that pretty much set the tone for this entire trip: the Homewood star. It hangs over a hill overlooking “the curve” in downtown Homewood. It’s right next to Sike’s Shoes, where all my early childhood Buster Browns came from. It’s another great memory of my growing up years, memories of Christmastime visits to Birmingham. And I was looking at it again, as beautiful in 2006 as it was in 1971. In a world where everything is changing, and not always for the better, seeing things like lit stars unchanged from 35+ years ago is to my nostalgic heart as beautiful a sight as my wife.

I got to the motel, and checked into Room 11 – the same place I’ve laid my head on two of my three previous visits here. Then I went into Jasper to find some supper ... ah, more retro for Mr. Gleck: I went back-back-back to Jack-Jack-Jack’s for more-more-more. Never mind that “big bacon” was NOT on the 1968 Jack’s menu, I had one. Although were it 1968, I would’ve gone for a Fish-On-Bun and a thick vanilla shake. Then hurried back to the motel along two-lane 78, where I could catch the 10:00 news on channel 6 on the Admiral B/W telly. Joe Langston, Harry Mabry and Pat Gray giving me more info in 15 minutes than most so-called anchors today could give me in 60 with color.

I sit here listening to music on an MP3 player and typing on a laptop computer ... while at the same time imagining if these Warrior River Motel walls could talk. Wondering about all the conversations taking place in this room 20, 30, 40, even 50 years ago. The travelers my grandparents’ age. Wondering where their travels were taking them. Wondering if they had a good meal next door to the motel, where Saxon’s (an Alabama-based candy store/restaurant chain similar in feel to Stuckey’s) had a store. At 41, I’m barely old enough to be riding over the old iron bridge across the Mulberry branch of the Black Warrior River to be greeted by that tall candy cane sign Saxon’s used for most of its locations. And looking over to see the dignified, sprawling one-story Warrior River Motel.

Yes, Virginia, there’s a reason I love staying here. The bridge was replaced about five years ago. Saxon’s, long gone, is an empty junk-filled building. But the WRM — God bless all 25 of her $29.00 rooms — is still hanging in, offering an inexpensive room to anyone open-minded enough to dispense with the crazy notions of wireless internet, in-room coffee, 57 channels (nothin’ on), and a “Hampton Bed.”

A clean and decently comfortable bed, although too big without my Seraphim next to me, clean towels and a clean - if old - room. Clean is the operative word here, friends. I like it. Very much.

*********

Yesterday I also made a side trip to Cordova, located about 7 miles off highway 78. It’s a town of amazing size (roughly 2,500) considering not a single U.S. or state route goes through it. Just three county roads visit Cordova, period. I also find it surprising that a lot of folks still live here because downtown Cordova is the most depressing sight I think I’ve ever seen. Six blocks of near-total emptiness. There’s a high school (Blue Devils) and a couple of convenience stores on her outskirts. Downtown there’s a meat-and-three café hugging the hill where the old Frisco railroad still passes through, and a small Piggly Wiggly operates on Cordova’s commercial perimeter. That’s it, folks.

The most heartbreaking thing I see is an empty storefront for the old Western Auto store, for many years a staple in every small town (there’s still one in my domicile of Rincon, Ga.). The backlit white sign with faded red letters remains. My mind wonders how many toy displays once graced its two front windows, Cordova kids entranced by all their potential booty and counting the days until Christmas.

There was probably even a Ford and a Chevy dealership once upon a time, too. Every small town had ‘em.

Were I five years younger ... or, like my younger brother, not really observant of roadside ephemera, Cordova today wouldn’t faze me. Alas, I’m older. And observant. Very, very observant. I remember the 1970s, when Cordova was still a thriving little Mayberry-like hamlet. Several traffic lights, too — the OOOLD style, without yellow! Just red and green. That’s what I remember the most about old Cordova.

While pondering this civic void, I cannot let go of a profound thought: that of Cordova being a metaphor for all that is dying around me. The aunts and uncles who used to be big presences in my life are, one by one, all dying off. I have no grandparents left. I have one aunt on my Mom’s side who still lives in Birmingham, and – like the café – hangs in stubbornly. But all that’s left ... a meaningless Dollar General located several miles outside the heart of Cordova, and two convenience stores ... I compare with what’s left of my family: a lot of cousins, most of who - I have to say - I have little contact with, and have never been terribly close to.

My Mom and Dad and brother? That’s easy. They’re the four-lane US 78, speeding through seven miles to the north, completely oblivious to any nostalgic value of a small town. "65 MPH, and y’better have a bladder as big as mine because we ain’t stoppin’ till Memphis!"

Where the hell am I going with this?? I don’t know. It’s now 10:00 Central time, and this is when my various mental states come at one another in a high-stakes game of ‘chicken.’ I enjoy the mental defragging these solo visits provide. The day I spent today with a friend of mine from nearby Dora, yet another ghost town in Walker County. However, as I sit here, the nostalgic locusts are swarming amidst this 1955 motel room. The free-range my mind is given comes back with all sorts of memories and remembrances. I miss so many things. I miss all the sights and sounds and smells and stores and roadsides of my childhood so much now. Can I go back to Cordova and look at a two-color traffic light again, after walking the aisles of Western Auto with Big John? Just for an hour? Please?

I also miss the arms of Seraphim. She doesn’t accompany me on these trips partly because, honestly, she’d be bored. She knows it and I know it. Plus, I sometimes enjoy flying solo. Sometimes. Even the best marriages need that ‘alone time.’ The difference, of course, is 10 years ago I would dread the end of the solo time because that would mean returning to the cold and distant arms of Josiebelle. Tuesday I’ll be returning to Rincon, and fully ready to share my space again. And Seraphim’s arms will be as warm as Main Street in Cordova, circa 1973.

Oh well, it’s time for bed, and dreams. Maybe I can go back to these places tonight. The sandman, Big John and Western Auto await.........

Ciao for niao.

–Talmadge “County Road 22” Gleck

For whom we pay tolls

Day #2 in Pittsburgh, Pa. Talmadge almost gets lost, eats a middling lunch, and scores a handful of vinyl reckids.

But first, let's back up to day #1. After dropping off Seraphim at her Wilton Cake Summit, I was on my own to create all sorts of mirth, mayhem and moral breakdown in Allegheny County. What did I do? I went back to the hotel and took a small nap. Yeah, boy.

After waking up, I called a friend of mine who works in radio here. She used to be my boss, and is the lady who rescued me from a cesspool known as Troy, Alabama. For that noble deed, she will forever have a place in my professional heart. I love Deb. SHE is the reason I was able to create a new life for myself, marry Seraphim, and leave an ugly past behind.

Well, anyhoo, she and I made plans for the three of us to have dinner. Which then left me free and clear 'till 530, when I'd have to be back to fetch the missus.

What to do? Good thing I did my homework. I fired up the Sonata, and took a small roadtrip to a nearby town, Greensburg, which had a specimen of a restaurant chain I truly miss. The fried chicken at this Old Country Buffet was good as it ever was. OCB's fried chicken just might be my favorite ever. And best of all, they were having a lunch special: $5.99 ... and that also includes drink!

I can't bitch.

To get to Greensburg from Monroeville involved taking The Pennsylvania Turnpike. Traversing the portion to get me there would set me back all of $1.25 ..... okay, no big thing. I entered the 'pike (I just love those big green signs they have at the entrance!!), thinking this was just another toll road, such as the Florida Turnpike or "Georgia 400" in Atlanta.

Boy, was I wrong. Where do I start? Narrow medians, narrow shoulders, crazy curves, and, after the middle interchange on my route (which I later found was the west terminus of the original route), a couple of beautiful overpasses. These were o-l-d suckers, a single archway over the road, without a center support. Many of the roadsides had curbs, too. Holy crap, this was like a timewarp.

The "service plaza" I passed, a Mickey D's and Sunoco gas station, was housed in the original stone structure ... originally built to house the restaurant contracted to operate all the service plazas along the turnpike: Howard Johnson's. As I passed it, my mind's eye morphed the building into its original orange roof, small palladium, and ESSO gas pumps out front. Those were the times I wish I were driving a '55 Studebaker and listening to Arthur Godfrey on the radio, as I pull in for a pit stop -- some HoJo's for the tummy and a 29-cent-a-gallon tiger for the tank.

After eating said $5.99 lunch, I returned to the room, where I fired up the laptop and immediately began Google'ing for historical info on the Pa. Turnpike. What I found out just blew my mind: I was driving on a portion of the first ever "superhighway" to be built in the United States. The Greensburg to Harrisburg section of the turnpike opened in ... 1940! Can you believe that? Somehow the idea of listening to Jack Benny, Inner Sanctum, or Edward R. Murrow's news reports from London while speeding on a proto-interstate at 70+ MPH just seems a bit too weird to ponder. But folks did.

And the other portion of the turnpike, that which I can look to my left and see right this very moment? That's the newest section to open. It was completed in 1951.

I still cannot get those overpasses out of my mind, though.

Anyhoo, Deb came over to the hotel that night, and we had supper at the adjoining Outback Steakhouse. The company couldn't be beat. The conversation was wonderful. The food, alas, was a bit middling. Oh well...

*********

Today, I started looking for something a little less 'weird' than old highways: the ever-lovin' used record store! I found two ... one of them in a little suburb called Squirrel Hill, where I got more than a little turned around a couple of times. Not lost, just ... turned around. I found my beaten path, and headed back toward Monroeville. Had lunch today at A&W just down the way from the room. A&W, in case you may not be aware, stands for (A)mburgers (&) (W)oot Beer.

The burger? See "middling" comment above. I've had worse, but I've had much better. Sharing space with this A&W was a Long John Silver's. Ecch. Their fish is much like you'd have imagined Captain Hook's Fish-N-Chips (of Fast Times fame) to taste. Heck, it makes Captain D's look like a fine seafood restaurant.

Annnnnnnnnnnnyway, supper tonight saw Seraphim and me heading back to Greensburg and the Old Country Buffet, where I ate fried chicken, and my wife had a great salad (she's a fan of the OCB salad bar -- so eating there isn't a big burden for her to bear, unlike rolling tape on the Turnpike, capturing some of that great '40s roadside motif, heh heh).

As I sit here thinking about all this history, a big thought occurs to me. Today is September 30 ... my grandfather's birthday. Big John would have been 90 today. Suddenly my fun nostalgic mood becomes dark and melancholy. These are the times I so wish my grandfather were here, so I could ask him if he'd ever traveled any part of the Pa. Turnpike (it wouldn't have surprised me; the man loved roadtrips and took many in his day), and if so what it was like.

I'm so glad I could've traveled such an old, historic road on his birthday.

Right now I'd give anything short of my wife or son to go back to 1955 and enjoy all that glory in its prime. Or at least to have traveled that roadway much later with Big John.

*********

All in all, a nice time so far. Tomorrow is our last day up here, and while Seraphim is wrapping up her seminar, I'll be Deb's guest as she takes me on a tour of Pittsburgh. Promises to be fun.
As soon as possible after 530, we'll be bound back for the wilds of coastal Georgia, stopping for the night in West Virginia (the fifth time we'll have entered the state), before getting home late Monday.

Good night, and Happy Birthday, Big John. You look great up there.

Ciao for niao.

--Talmadge "Exact Change" Gleck

...and here's YOUR credit card, little lady.

Found while looking through my old gas station road map collection for information about a long-gone roadside chain:
SKELLY was the name of a regional gasoline brand which marketed in the Midwest states (I vaguely remember seeing some in Missouri and Arkansas once upon a time). Like most other "earl" companies, Skelly also had its own credit card program, which it pitched on the back of their road maps (oh, for the days when gas stations gave those things out for free).

[Side thought: I wonder if Skelly had a grudge against Michigan and Ohio ... they seem to be missing from the U.S. image above.]

Skelly, though, had to be different. Unlike Shell, Texaco, Chevron, et petrolius al, Skelly issued not just one credit card. No, siree. Our Fine Skelsters had two of 'em up their corporate sleeve! First was their "regular" card, but evidently that one was available only upon proof of a functioning penis.

But what if you weren't talliwackily equipped? Fear not, Miz Running-On-Empty! Should this have been the case, Skelly would bestow the other card on you. It was called, as you can see above, the Ladies' Credit Card. It even appeared in a faux-elegant script style font, too. How ... feminine?

My question is, WHY? Were the Skelly people sexist little oinks? Or were they forerunners of the current-day Southern Baptist Convention ("Women, be graciously submissive to your husbands.") Heck, it makes me wonder if Skelly didn't also issue a Skelly Colored Peoples' Card back in the '50s? "Honored only if The Man lets you use it."

What if a lady drove over the ding-ding hose out front in her '71 Plymouth Fury Station Wagon, the attendant came out and pumped 15 gallons of Skelly Premium into her car, and - upon time to settle up - she whipped out .... the REGULAR Skelly card? *GASP!!!*

Would the entire gas station fall more silent than an E.F. Hutton commercial? Whispers aplenty --- "she used a MAN'S card." "What a dyke." "What kind of man is her husband? He oughta set her straight!" "How DARE she?" "Next thing you know, the dame's gonna want to vote."

I wonder if the interest rate was higher or lower on the Ladies' Credit Card? (Probably higher. Much higher. This was the early '70s, after all. I don't think women were even allowed to be out after 5:00 p.m. yet) Did all the bills go to the Family Patriarch to scrutinize?

"Hey, June, explain this one - $4.72 on March 4th. Almost FIVE DOLLARS!!"
"Ward, I let The Beaver, Larry and Whitey each have a Coke when I stopped for gas."
"Not on the Ladies' Credit Card. Don't let that happen again, you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Now go put on your pearls and chiffon dress and fix me some supper."

"Gee, Dad, you were a little hard on the Mom, weren't you?"
"SHUT UP, Wally."

*********

"DONALD! My very own Skelly Ladies' Credit Card."
"Yes, Ann. Now don't go gassing up in one place."
"I promise, Donald. I don't even own a car."

*********

"Aw, cheez, Edit' ... stifle yourself and go get gas in the '62 Dart."
"But Ah-chee ... you have the Skelly card."
"Why can't she have a card of her own, Archie??"
"Because women can't handle real credit cards, Meathead!"
"THAT'S NOT TRUE, DADDY!!!"
"Now little girl, you give the dames real cards, then it doesn't stop there. Next, they'll be voting for McGovern. Burning their bras. Practicing lesbianism, witchcraft and leaving their husbands. All because they couldn't take their Ladies' Credit Card and stay in the kitchen."

*********

Today, on The 700 Club ... Pat Robertson traces the downfall of American civilization to the day Skelly discontinued the Ladies' Credit Card. It was the reason Skelly disappeared from the roadside. And it's the reason women have become 'uppity.'

*********

In all seriousness, I have a feeling my best friend, soulmate and sweet wifely one Seraphim would gladly accept a "Ladies' Credit Card" if it would mean she could gas up at 1972 prices. 12 gallons to fill up the Element at 32.9¢ a gallon .... $3.94! If only!

Ciao for niao.

--Talmadge "Don't forget my S&H Green Stamps and candy box with fill-up!" Gleck