Part 16: This is what I’m thinking about as we speed by Lincoln, Nebraska with its sort-of classical looking capitol building with domed tower, and its PhDs leaning into classroom corners with growing cobwebs and head towards Kearney. And I have faint stirrings of regret for this first marriage to …
PART 15 As we re-enter I-80 in Omaha the detritus of American culture piles up fast and furious. “Donate your pop cans to the new Library” “Unwanted Pregnancy?” (On a black and white billboard, a close-up of a youngish woman looking into the camera with a slightly quizzical look.) …
Part 14 We detour onto I-35 south toward St. Louis. Cheryl scrambles for the map. About twenty miles later is our exit which Cheryl has ingeniously figured out in time for us to take. Route 92 runs parallel with I-80, our ribbboned home away from home. It is …
Part 13 NEWS ALERT: America is officially in decline. Here at the end of 2010, the recession is starting to take on the hue of something bigger, even bigger than a Depression—the collapse of Empire. Glenn Beck would have you believe that it is a moral failing, the United States …
Original Nauvoo Temple Sunstone Part 12 Further along, near Mitchellville, two, three, four other cars are off the road, flipped on their sides, or…one other again on its roof. This time, however, yellow police tape girdles them indicating, we assume, that they have been cleared of their occupants. We creep …
That night we find shelter at an EconoLodge in West Liberty, Iowa. No movie tonight. We are locked onto the Weather Channel, another niche channel that on any other night would, like ESPN 2 through 345, register as more cable media segmentation to the point of lunacy. (Give me that …
PART 10 ALERT TO THE CROSS-COUNTRY TRAVELER IN LATE 2010—there are no Starbucks along I-80. Nor is National Public Radio available except in mere sputterings, especially through the Paleozoic-era standard issue radio in a Toyota Corolla rented through Thrifty Rental Cars. What I wouldn’t give right now for an Americano. …
PART 9: We’re taking our Cleveland detour for Joe. But I also realize that being the third day now that I’m wearing the same cardigan, admittedly over one of the new T-shirts Cheryl has bought me and Joe, that I am indeed in need of respite. The sky is clear …
Part 8 It was in Pennsylvania, I realize, when I seemed to wake up on this cross-country trip. It started the night before in Clinton County as Cheryl settled in to a nap, the man-boy fell into his bio on Lennon, and I fell into a trance of sorts as …
[This essay was written by my wife Cheryl and me shortly after the terrorist attacks on New York City in September 2001] On September 11, when a catastrophic event rocked our New York, we little survivors in our little lives seemed to set our course in curious unison. Our destination? …
