Found in America

A memory of a road trip

Photo by Leio McLaren on Unsplash

This is a love story.

On a warm September morning (pre GPS), I sat in the kitchen of a Chicago condo and looked carefully at a map of the eastern United States. I was going to drive to Boston, alone, and I wanted to make sure I had memorized what I was supposed to do before I hit the freeway. It seemed pretty clear: drive straight up Washington Boulevard, turn right, get in the left-hand lane to go east on 290, then follow the signs for Indiana

Soon I passed steel mills, a billboard proclaiming, “Gary Works!” and then I headed for US Route 20. I was going to Amish country, in Middlebury. I wanted to buy a quilt. I also wanted to see some back roads, which I hadn’t driven on in years, because I was looking for something. The absence of McDonald’s, you might say. The presence of individuality, of personality.

As soon as I got onto Route 20, I saw the difference. Rather than the interstates’ multi lanes of asphalt, the back roads show you where and how your species lives. There are farmhouses sitting in the middle of protective stands of trees, silos reaching for the sky, barns faded to the soft red of tomato soup. There are small towns where old people sit out on porches and rockers, kids in striped T-shirts tear around corners on bikes, and young mothers proudly push babies in strollers. There are white churches, red brick, elementary schools, stores with names you’ve never seen before, and movie theaters featuring that rarest of things: a single offering.