The Glory Road
America recently celebrated the 66th anniversary of Route 66. This old “two laner” stretched from Chicago to California, threading its way across eight states and three time zones. Steinbeck called it “The Mother Road,” and it was also dubbed “Main Street USA” because it went right smack through so many towns. To the Okies who hightailed it out of the dustbowl, it was known as “The Glory Road” that would lead to the good life out west.
I first hit the pavement of “66” in 1940 as my family fled the dreary coal mining life of Tennessee and headed for the alluring gold country of California. We hooked up with the mother road somewhere in Oklahoma. I don’t remember anything of that trip, as I spent most of the time bundled up in my mother’s lap, but my Tennessee uncle, Henderson Chadwell, says it wasn’t hard to stay on the trail. “You only had to point the car west and then follow all the baloney skins and bread wrappers.”
Some seventeen years later, I was one of the many North Parkers who travelled Main Street USA from California to Chicago’s Foster and Kedzie. I don’t think any of us at that time realized that our route was such a part of American folklore. To us, it was endless pavement and town after town after town. Later, in English classes with Linnea Sandgren, P. J. Larson, and C. Hobart Edgren, I learned that Route 66 was the America of Edgar Lee Masters, Sinclair Lewis, Thornton Wilder, Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, and Will Rogers. It was a road that we North Parkers shared with drifters, truckers, vagabonds, romantics, and jackrabbits. A guy named Bobby Troup wrote a song about it in 1946 called “Get Your Kicks on Route 66.” It was recorded by Nat King Cole and became one of his most requested hits. This road lived and breathed!
Unfortunately, today’s North Parkers can’t experience the drama of old 66. They will be either at 30,000 feet or on the Interstates: I-10 from Los Angeles to San Bernardino, I-15 from San Bernardino to Barstow, I-40 from Barstow to Oklahoma City, I-44 from Oklahoma City to St. Louis, and I- 55 from St. Louis to Chicago. The route is now fast-paced and no longer free. The old highway has faded into the distance, and that is pretty sad. The Nehi soda pops have been replaced by Evian bottled water, those greasy hamburgers have given way to Trail Mix, and the sweaty waitresses with pencils stuck in their hair have been moved out by fast-food folks with earphones and voice mikes.
To all the old North Parkers who had the good fortune to travel this ribbon of highway, it will always be miles of lonely road, Burma Shave signs, steamy diners, and neon signs. It will still be the music of Elvis, Patti Page, the Platters, Connie Francis, and Hank Williams squawking on the car radio. Those towns along 66 will never be forgotten either — like Needles, Flagstaff, Gallup, Albuquerque, Tucumcari, Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Joplin, Springfield, and all the little places that didn’t get their names on the map but sold you a coke for a nickel and gas for 22 cents a gallon.
Old “66” will always be there to remind me of sleepless nights, “drive-away cars,” rain, snow, hot winds, tumbleweeds, and morning mouth. Most of all, it took me from Tennessee to a new life in California; and then it connected me to Old Main and my lifelong friends like your Pietisten editor, the Judge, Alms, Pudge, E. Gus, Meeomie, Uncle Louie, C.P., Woo-Woo, Ivar, Yank, Maggie, Maggie Pete, Betty Jane, Corinne, Queen Julie, the Bear, Deps, Mac, Beak, the Roadrunner, Bibbs, Bun, Wart, Prong, Pope, Puey, Zeno, K.O., Bakes, Germ, Nykie, Treddie, Nawls, Goobs, Upper Epidermis, Louise, M.O., Aspergrass, and all the others who will forever be etched in my memory. It led me to where there was light, and indeed it was “the glory road.”