When I retired, the last thing I wanted to do was go to an airport, let alone think about getting on an airplane. And for five years, I was successful.
Instead, I have spent those years wandering the back roads and small towns of America. Many times I have been driving slowly down a two-lane asphalt road on a sunny morning, to a place I have never been, awed by the world around me, and so grateful that I get to do this. On the back roads of America there is a peace I have not found any other place (except maybe this little cottage on the Molokai channel). I have experienced people, places and things most of you will never know.
Along the way, there have been experiences! I hunkered down on the Oregon Coast for a week-long “Pineapple Express”, then ran southbound ahead of a major snow storm; camped for two weeks on the Padre Island National Seashore until waves were breaking under the Airstream; explored most major Civil War Battlefields and was overwhelmed by Andersonville; drove old Route 66 from the lake to the ocean and one afternoon found myself “standin’ on the corner in Winslow Arizona”; followed the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails from Kansas City to their ends; walked on the ocean floor in the Bay of Fundy; sat on the lonely rocks of the Swiss Air 111 Memorial at Peggy’s Cove looking out at the crash site; had the illegal alien experience of wading the Rio Grande from Mexico to Texas without a passport; camped in the Bakken Oilfield; looked eastward from the easternmost point of the US; spent 2 weeks in the most isolated part of the continental US (Presidio Texas); and camped as a guest of several American farmers who literally feed the world. …and then there was this rainbow in Death Valley…
So I should explain why I spend half my time wandering around America.
This map shows some of the places where I have spent more than a day. Many others are missing because there was no cell phone service to record the event. When I look at it, I can only see the places I haven’t been.
It goes back to 1967 when the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite introduced a short weekly segment, “On the Road with Charles Kuralt“ For almost 30 years Kuralt traveled the country in his RV making 600 reports for CBS about people and places on the back roads of America.
This was the time of Vietnam blood, war protests, race riots (in Detroit and many other cities), and a Crooked President. Kuralt showed us the People’s America, one interesting person and place at a time, all the while insisting that the heart of America was truly good.
“You learn that the country isn’t in flames… and it’s nice to be reminded of that. There are sights in this country, and people in this country to banish any gloom you ever may feel and fill you instead with wonder.”1
–Charles Kuralt
I decided in 1969 that some day I had to visit Kuralt’s America. But I was preoccupied with graduation, my first real job, and my first real money… and a family.
Time passed. I did visit America – sort of – just like many of you. Looking down from 35,000 feet at circles and squares and jumbles of cities and jagged gashes across green plains and white peaks and lazy shimmering snakes through miles of fields, all the time wondering what those places really look like. Fifty years later, I found out. It is more magnificent than I ever imagined.
So today, in spite of ideological idiocy, racial turmoil, abandoned borders, assaults on our republic, belief in crazy unscientific hoaxes, corrupt government – and another Crooked President, you can still find the People’s America. These are people who don’t identify with “influencers”, government run amok, or the “Elite 1%;”2 nor do they want to. The just want to live unmolested by radical ideologies and a hope of retaining The American Dream for their children. I am in awe of them.
Steve Hartman who now carries the On the Road banner for CBS says, “… there is still plenty of awe left in America.”
I can’t document nor share all the stories I hear in my head as I drive. Charles had it easy. He traveled with a cameraman/driver and sound guy. I am just me.
Maybe… when I can no longer travel… maybe… I can recall these times and write a few more stories…
More wisdom from my hero, Charles.
“There are a lot of people who are doing wonderful things, quietly, with no motive of greed, or hostility toward other people, or delusions of superiority.”
“The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.”
“Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.”
–Charles Kuralt
- When Kuralt died at 62, his wife “Petie” living in New York discovered that he had a mistress of 30 years and another family in Montana, where he had built her a home and visited often. You can read more about this kind, creative but flawed man in the Washington Post article from 1998. [↩]
- The “Elite 1%” is broadly defined by the RMG Research as individuals who have graduate degrees (not just graduate studies), family incomes above $150,000 a year, and live in large cities (more than 10,000 people per zip code). However their opinions – no, that’s not right; their core beliefs – are far removed from the Real People I meet; indeed from the large majority of Americans. [↩]