INTO THE HEATWAVE
Some people drive away from a heat wave. We drove into the heart of it. A week’s road trip – mother and son -- Washington to Texas. We made a mid-way stop in Nashville. The trip was always hot, temps rarely under 100 and once or twice as high as 112 - but it was also always interesting. I love America’s open road. There’s so much to see, hear, experience and, of course, eat. Road food is no diet but it would be a crime to count calories within 50 yards of a dry ribs place in Memphis or a Filete Cantinflas in Texas. It’s that simple.
Best of all, it’s healthy to get out of Washington. The city, the official city especially, is so into itself and alternately guilt-ridden or letting itself off the hook for bad manners, bad leadership, bad decisions. The power base (elected officials, media, lobbyists) inhabit a cocoon of each others’ voices, and that’s the disconnect. In the midst of the debt-ceiling crisis I attended a dinner of Democrats, a few hundred of them, many members of the House and Senate and other big names in the party, and the speeches (and there are always speeches) barely touched on the crisis happening just outside the auditorium where we feasted on catered food and good wine, as if the mess was not happening. Like, “if we don’t talk about the sky won’t fall.” I laughed to myself but it wasn’t funny.
Out on the American open road the sound track is sometimes akin to beaming in voices from alien planets. My rental car had satellite radio, enabling me to switch between outer space, I mean the mainstream (CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews), and the local terrestrial stations. You have to search hard to find those stations that aren’t overrun with syndicated conservative rant, such as Rush Limbaugh, who spews and sputters, near ready to implode from the frustration of his self-proclaimed wisdom.
Authentic, regional local radio is quieter. People are talking – about themselves, to each other -- about fear, honest frustration and anger toward Washington, and telling personal stories. The husband who lost his job a while ago and now the wife has lost hers. Or they can’t refinance the mortgage. Or, they are living almost entirely on credit cards. Health care. Education. Retirement funds, college tuition? Is anyone in charge? Do they care about us out there?
Outside the car windows, beautiful America rolled by.
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Ahh...sounds like a fun and exciting trip. Good food, nice hotels. Makes it that much more fun. Thanks for pointing out all the cool (oxymoron-ish statement being it has been hotter than the hinges of hell for you) places of interest.
Posted by: Steve D. | 08/08/2011 at 09:57 AM