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By Dr. Bruce T. Marshall
August 29, 2010
Readings:
This morning I would like to share a passion of mine: the road. The
call of the highway. The open road has been a potent symbol for
Americans, and that has been expressed by our writers and our poets.
To get us into the mood, a few readings:
From Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman
AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing.
Strong and content, I travel the open road.
The earth—that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are;
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.
You road I enter upon and look around! I believe you are not all
that is here;
I believe that much unseen is also here.
Moving forward in time, we find similar sentiments expressed in the
classic, On the Road by Jack Kerouac
With the coming of Dean Moriarty, began the part of my life you
could call my life on the road. Before that I’d often dreamed of
going West to see the country, always vaguely planning and never
taking off. Dean is the perfect guy for the road because he was
actually born on the road, when his parents were passing through
Salt Lake City in 1926, in a Jalopy on their way to Los Angeles....
I was a young writer, and I wanted to take off.
Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions,
everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to
me.
Finally, Lewis Carol in Alice in Wonderland.
One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a
tree.
“Which road do I take?“ she asked.
”Where do you want to go?” was his response.
“I don’t know,” Alice answered
“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”
Sermon:
Most of us have spent time this summer on interstate highways. Maybe
close to home—I-95, the Beltway, I-270, I-66—or maybe far away. Now,
on the one hand, the interstate highway experience is boring, even
when traffic is moving. That tedium has to do with the sameness of
the journey, mile after mile looking much like the others. But in
that sameness is a remarkable achievement, linking this vast and
varied land together in a uniform system of highways.
It wasn’t always this way. Just over 50 years ago, travel on
American highways was a considerable challenge. We had a patchwork
system of roads, strung together by a few long-distant routes with
legendary numbers: US 30—also known as the Lincoln Highway, US
40—the National Road, Route 66, US 1. These roads linked cities and
towns by going right through the center of them, which could be
quaint in a small town, but dreadful in a city. Before the 1950s,
when the Interstates came into being, ancient Rome had a better
system of roads than we did.
There’s a story behind the creation of the Interstates. This
morning, I’d like to tell that story, illustrated by some photos.
And I’d like to insert that story into the context of another theme:
the romance of the road for Americans. That is, the sense that we
are called to take to the road, that there is something holy to be
found there. As Walt Whitman expressed it,
“You road I enter upon and look around! I believe you are not all
that is here; I believe that much unseen is also here.”
That is, the sense that we not only can get places by taking to the
road, we also might find love and God.
● ● ●
The first American federally financed interstate road ran right
through Maryland. It’s still here, in one form or another. This road
was authorized by Congress during the administration of Thomas
Jefferson—in 1806—and it was an ambitious dream: to connect the
Eastern states to the developing territories to the west. The start
was Cumberland, Maryland, where it connected with an
already-existing toll road running between Baltimore and Cumberland.
It was to head northwest, up to Pittsburgh and Wheeling, west across
Ohio, and Indiana, and Illinois to Missouri—and then on west to
points beyond.
This road was to be planned and paid for by the federal government.
Up to this point, roads had been the province of the states. This
proposal generated considerable opposition from the states because
their interests were different than those of the federal government.
The states needed roads to connect their cities with each other, to
promote commerce and communications among their people. But the
purpose of this new road was different. It was to link the eastern
states with the territories of the west. It was to make it easier
for those settled in the East to move west. The states feared that
this new road would depopulate the eastern states, make it easier
for their best and their brightest to leave.
The federal government was trying to address a different problem: it
controlled a vast territory with poor communications, particularly
after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 had doubled the size of the new
nation. The concern was that the various parts of the nation would
form more of a regional than a national identity. And so they would
likely break off—secede—forming a collection of independent and
potentially hostile political entities. As, for example, in Europe
where the countries always seemed to be more or less at war with
each other.
So it was essential that the new nation find ways to get its
citizens back and forth, travel freely, establishing links of
family, of association, of commerce that knitted the sections of
this nation into a whole. This new road would be a step in that
direction, and it became known as the National Road.
Building a road in that era was incredibly difficult, particularly
of the quality that was envisioned. Standards called for a 66-foot
wide right-of-way cut through often dense forests. The surface was
to be as smooth as possible, given the materials then available,
with a surface of small broken rocks built upon a foundation of
gradually larger stones. After being authorized in 1806,
construction on the National Road proceeded in fits and starts,
often stalling through lack of funding, political in-fighting and
because of the engineering challenges it presented.
And actually, the National Road was never finished, at least in the
form originally envisioned. It was supposed to reach St. Louis, at
least. But by 1852—46 years after being authorized by Congress—the
road had made it only as far as Vandalia, Illinois, then the capital
of that state and 100 miles short of its goal. At that point, the
National Road was abandoned because it was felt that interstate
roads had no future. Canals were more efficient at moving people and
cargo than roads. And railroads were more efficient than canals.
Roads were fine for short trips but for long journeys, roads were
obsolete.
● ● ●
Let’s move ahead 104 years, from 1852 to 1956. June 29th, 1956. On
this day, something happened that would change the nation, that
would affect the lives of all of us, but just about no one noticed.
The place was a hospital room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
where President Dwight D. Eisenhower was hospitalized, after having
experienced stomach pains. The work of the nation had to go on and
so a bill that Congress had passed was brought for his signature.
This bill was called the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. No news
photographers were present when President Eisenhower signed the
bill, no senators or congressmen crowded around. Yet this bill
established the Interstate Highway System, which in turn has created
everyday life as we know it today: where we live, where we work, the
areas in the nation that would prosper and those that wouldn’t. The
growth of the suburbs, the decimation of the inner cities, the
creation of shopping malls, chain stores and restaurants—all were
effects of the Interstate Highways.
This project was massive. In order to build the interstate highway
system, highway authorities acquired land equivalent to the size of
the state of Delaware and moved enough earth to cover Connecticut
knee-deep in dirt. The concrete that went into its construction
would have been enough to build a sidewalk to the moon--and
back--and back to the moon again--home again--and then once more to
the moon--and finally returning to the earth. That’s six sidewalks
to the moon. The resulting system of highways is currently listed as
46,508 miles. There are 55,500 bridges, 104 tunnels, 14,750
interchanges and zero traffic lights. Astronauts circling the earth
report that among the few human structures that can be identified
from outer space is the Interstate Highway System. Another structure
that can be seen from outer space is the Great Wall of China which
expresses an era in that nation as the Interstates have come to
symbolize ours.
President Eisenhower was a Republican with a distrust of big
government. So it is perhaps ironic that he presided over the
biggest public works project in the history of the nation—far more
than Roosevelt’s New Deal would have attempted. But Eisenhower had a
personal commitment to improving the nation’s highways, based on an
experience from many years before.
Let’s go back to July 7, 1919. Officials gathered near the south
lawn of the White House for a kickoff ceremony marking the beginning
of an adventure. The US War Department was sponsoring a convoy of
trucks and other military vehicles that would make its way from
Washington D.C. to San Francisco—3,239 miles across the continent.
This was to be the largest motorized military convoy ever assembled:
81 vehicles carrying 37 officers and 258 enlisted men. This
photograph shows the ceremony at the beginning of what was called by
the press at the time, a “motor truck train.” The convoy was
partially a test of the army’s motorized vehicles, partially a
public relations ploy to show off the modern equipment the military
had at its command. It was also an experiment. Nobody knew if it was
possible for this “motor truck train” to make it all the way across
the country.
During the ceremony Secretary of War, Newton Baker stated that this
was “the beginning of a new era” and unveiled a temporary marker
which designated the starting point of the convoy. Later that marker
was replaced by a permanent monument, the Zero Milestone: intended
as the point from which all road distances in the United States
would be measured.
Among the officers taking this journey was a young lieutenant
colonel, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ike was at the time considering
leaving the military. He served as commander of a tank battalion
headquartered in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which had missed seeing
action in World War I—by the time orders came to ship out to Europe,
Germany had surrendered. Eisenhower was disappointed at missing the
war and envisioned a dull future for himself as a bureaucrat. When
this convoy was proposed, he saw it as an opportunity to get away
from his desk and go on an adventure. He signed on, he later
admitted, as a lark.
Also as a challenge: between 1852 when construction on the National
Road had stalled and 1919, the American road system had not changed
a whole lot. There were 2½ million miles of road throughout the
nation, but only 7% of these roads were in any way improved—that is,
graded and/or surfaced with gravel or brick. The remaining 93% of
the roads were just plain dirt. And they often didn’t really go
anywhere. The roads hadn’t been planned; they had sort of happened,
spreading out from existing communities, sometimes connecting to
another town, sometimes just ending. There were parts of this
coast-to-coast trip for which there weren’t even maps.
The convey started out well enough, making its way from its
Washington DC starting point and then proceeding to the Lincoln
Highway, which brought the convoy to Chicago. That first leg of the
journey was 906 miles—it took them 16 days. There were delays.
Vehicles sometimes broke down, bringing the caravan to a halt. And
since the roads were of uneven quality, a heavy rain could stall the
whole procession. Other delays were caused by the excitement this
trip generated. People all along the route came out to gawk and
cheer as the “truck train” rumbled by. Evenings, the convoy halted
and camped out in a town along the route. A community fortunate
enough to be the site of an overnight stay turned out in numbers,
cooking meals for the soldiers and mounting programs with band
concerts and speeches followed by dances and parties lasting well
into the night. There were so many consecutive social evenings that
soldiers begged to be allowed to skip some of them—to spend an
occasional quiet evening in their tents before an early bedtime.
By the standards of the day, the journey from the nation’s capital
to Chicago was reasonably smooth. West of Chicago, though, was a
different story. Here we have a photo with Lt. Eisenhower’s
handwriting on it, “Lucky to get on road like this.” When they
weren’t so lucky, the men were forced to employ more primitive
methods to move the vehicles. And when they reached the deserts of
the west, the roads sometimes disappeared altogether.
It took this convoy 46 days to get from Chicago to San Francisco;
the entire journey took 62 days in all, traveling at an average rate
of 6 miles per hour. By the time they reached the west coast, the
men were exhausted and numb from the journey. Dwight Eisenhower, an
easy-going young man with a penchant for practical jokes, was
nevertheless chastened by the hardships of this journey. He came
away knowing first-hand that the nation needed better roads.
Change did not come quickly, however. Throughout the 20s and 30s, a
system of national highways was developed, but these soon became
congested—Americans were putting more vehicles on the roads than the
roads could handle.
The first four-lane limited access highway in the nation? (Anybody
know?) The Pennsylvania Turnpike. Today, driving the Pennsylvania
Turnpike can be an ordeal—truckers routinely vote it the worst
highway in America. But when the first 160 mile segment opened on
October 1, 1940, the Pennsylvania Turnpike was a marvel—touted as
the eighth wonder of the world.
On October 6th—the first Sunday on which Turnpike opened—traffic
backed up for miles to get on. During the first two weeks, 10,000
cars a day drove the route. The Pennsylvania Turnpike was not just a
means to get somewhere; it was a destination in itself. Families
would picnic in the median for the thrill of watching the cars rush
by.
A man who drove the Pennsylvania Turnpike as a teenager—just after
it opened—later remembered the experience. He wrote:
I was 16 years old in Oct. 1940 and had just gotten my first
driver's license. My Dad, who happened to be blind, wanted the
experience of riding on the "new turnpike".
We struggled through eastbound from Ohio through Pittsburgh and
finally to the turnpike. I was driving my Dad's 1940 DeSoto. When we
hit the turnpike it was "a new world" of driving!
I recall that at that time THERE WERE NO SPEED LIMITS on the
turnpike. You could drive as fast as the old family sedan would go.
I distinctly remember quite a number of "family sedans" sitting on
the side on the road smoking and steaming or with tire troubles
because a lot of guys "wanted to see what the old bus would do".
World War II offered another impetus for developing a modern highway
system. The Germans had created a system of limited access
highways—the Autobahn—upon which troops and military vehicles could
be transported efficiently. Furthermore, then General Eisenhower
noted that these highways were more resistant to enemy attack than
other forms of transportation, such as, trains. Bombing a rail line
could halt all the trains running on it, perhaps for weeks before
repairs could be made. But a bombed highway could be repaired or
by-passed with relative ease.
So when General Eisenhower became President Eisenhower, he promoted
a modern efficient system of highways: the Interstate Highway
System. later named in his honor.
● ● ●
That’s how we got the interstates. What about love and God?
The Interstates have brought us good roads, safe roads, roads that
take us quickly to most places we want to go. They also have brought
an increased uniformity to our land. The things we see from the road
are more and more the same. But despite this, the open road still
calls us with a promise that it holds secrets, something deeper than
might be immediately apparent. As Jack Kerouac put it,
“I was a young writer, and I wanted to take off. Somewhere along the
line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along
the line the pearl would be handed to me.”
“The road,” he said, “is life.”
Maybe you’ve had the feeling of coming alive as you take to the
road. It was that sense of the romance of the highway that led Amy
and me to embark upon a project, starting over ten years ago. We
created a company that produces audio programs offering an account
of the region you travel through on specific interstates. We
approached the highway as a kind of museum without walls, a museum
of this nation. Our commentaries were like the labels we find in a
museum describing the exhibits. Except that we were viewing these
exhibits not inside a building designated for that purpose but from
our vehicles as we drove by. We called our company the Museum of the
Open Road. A few days after deciding upon that name, Amy woke in the
morning and said, “Do you realize the acronym of Museum of the Open
Road? It’s MOTOR.” Seemed like a sign from God.
So what were secrets we discovered while taking to the road. Well,
just a few examples. We learned that what we see from the road, we
find bits and pieces of the stories of each region of the country.
Like, for example, here’s a barn. Could be anywhere. Actually, no,
it couldn’t be anywhere because it’s a specific kind of barn, called
a Pennsylvania barn. We took the picture of this barn while
traveling the Pennsylvania turnpike.
This barn here is different from the previous one. And this one is
different from the other two.
Those three barns have stories to tell, stories of their origins,
stories of the people who settled specific regions of the nation.
This Pennsylvania Barn has certain specific features. The top story
overhangs the bottom—originally farm animals would have been housed
beneath the overhang. Hay and feed would have been stored on the top
floor and dropped through an opening into the animals’ quarters. The
main entrance would have been on the other side with an earthen ramp
built up to provide direct access to the second floor. I say “would
have” because this barn does not appear to be used any more, at
least for its original purposes. It stands alone out there along the
highway.
This style of barn was built by farmers of German heritage, many of
whom settled in Pennsylvania. You can also find Pennsylvania barns
in Ohio because Pennsylvanians of German descent moved west to
central Ohio, but not to northern Ohio. Those who settled northern
Ohio came from a different part of the country, and they built barns
like those they knew. This is called an English barn. We find it in
New England and in northeast Ohio, which was settled by New
Englanders because it was originally part of Connecticut. These New
Englanders not only created barns like they knew from back home;
they also created towns like those they knew from back home. Like
here we have a typical New England village picture: the town green
with its Congregational or even Unitarian church. Except that this
is not New England; it’s Twinsburg, Ohio.
This barn is another one from Ohio, with yet a different history.
It’s in southern Ohio: a tobacco barn. What’s tobacco doing in
southern Ohio? Probably because it grows well. But there’s another
reason. Southern Ohio was once part of Virginia, claimed by
Virginia. Virginia gave up its claims on Ohio territory after the
American revolution as part of a deal. Much of the American
revolution was fought by the Virginia militia. But by the time the
revolution ended, Virginia was broke. It had no money to pay its
militia. So they worked out a deal in which soldiers were paid not
in cash but in land—land in Ohio that was part of what was called
the Virginia Military District. Southern Ohio was settled by
Virginians who brought what they knew to this new land, such as,
growing tobacco. To this day, there is a distinct Southern feeling
to sections of Ohio: the accents, the pace of life, the religion.
While we’re on barns, here’s another one. The Mail Pouch barns. This
is one of the last painted by the legendary Mail Pouch
painter—Harley Warrick. Harley Warrick painted over 20,000 barns:
spring, summer, fall & winter—with this Mail Pouch ad. Sometimes, he
admitted, it got mighty cold up there on the ladder, and the paint
would get kind of sticky. But no matter, he said, you add some
turpentine to the paint and some Seagram’s to the painter, and it
all works out fine.
Each one of these was painted free hand. He’d start with the “E” in
Chew and then paint around that E. It wasn’t easy. He said that the
first 1,000 barns he painted were kind of rough, but after that he
got the hang of it.
What happened to the Museum of the Open Road? Well, it’s still
around, sort of. We produced 17 programs that are sold online by two
companies, one in Australia, one in Holland. But Amy and I have
basically put the project on the shelf. It occurred to us that we
were going to have to earn a living—love and God go only so far when
you’ve got four kids to get through college.
We had also grossly underestimated the amount of work it would take
to produce these programs. The National Road was abandoned after 46
years. It would have taken us far longer than 46 years to complete
our vision, which was programs for all the interstates in the
country.
Nevertheless, we still feel the call of the open road.
What I’d like to leave with you this morning is encouragement—when
you take to the open road—to pay attention. Today a lot of people
spend their travel time doing something to distract themselves from
the journey. They’re on the phone, or texting, or maybe they’re
listening to a CD or a book on tape, or even watching DVDs. That’s
all fine; there’s a place for each. But sometimes too, look up. See
what’s out there in this amazing country.
You might make some discoveries. Maybe like Jack Kerouac suggested:
“girls, visions, everything.”
You might even find God.
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