The road to Indianapolis from Chicago (IN-9) cut through a sea of firm-standing corn stalks, and for hours I saw nothing but walls of cultivation interrupted by farmhouses and islands of clover.

Northern Indiana is lucky enough to be part of both the Rust Belt and the Corn Belt, with much of the economy embedded in steel, corn, soy and beef. Meanwhile the southern half of the state is well known for large coal and limestone mines, as featured in the sweet 1979 movie Breaking Away:

(Four townies coming of age in Bloomington, Indiana form a bicycle team to take on superjerky college kids in a big race. The superjerks call all the townies “cutters,” a derogatory name for people who cut limestone, so the four townies, including a bitter but very buff Dennis Quaid, reclaim their dignity and make the insult their team name.) What I didn’t know is that the Cutters still totally compete in the Mens Little 500 race every year! And they continue to rock it.

Thanks to low business taxes, at-will employment laws and low union membership, much of the rest of the state’s economy relies on popular industries like pharmaceuticals, insurance, automobile or rubber manufacturing, and chemical production.

Even knowing this, when I finally saw multi-story buildings poke above the corn-crusted horizon, it felt like I’d reached Emerald City.

The fact that I was most likely approaching the headquarters for WellPoint, Eli Lilly and OneAmerica rather than jewelled towers filled with purple horses and magical spas didn’t seem to matter.

Even without considering that kindly staff at the Marriott, something about this city has always smacked of the mystical for me. It’s the largest city in the U.S. not located on a body of water, the second most-populated state capital in the country, and host of the crowning event of the second most popular sport in the United States. But then its nicknames are I-Need-A-Nap-Olis, IndiaNoPlace, and Nap Town. It’s almost like Indianapolis is just trying to hide its real appeal with nerdy glasses and a low ponytail. 

The first Indianapolis miracle this time around came in the form of a room at a downtown hotel for very nearly half price.  (Thanks triple A!)

The Indianapolis Crowne Plaza is actually a converted old train station, and inside you can choose to stay in a renovated jazz-musician-themed ACTUAL train car.  Even better, scattered throughout the hotel are plaster statues of classic figures from the 20s and 30s, frozen in time:  sailor getting off the train, man getting his shoes shined, woman in elaborate dress holding parasol.

I was assigned to the Cole Porter traincar, which ROCKED, stuffed with framed records, old newspapers on the walls, and obviously pictures of Cole everywhere.  Cole Porter wrote the musical Kiss Me Kate (which I’m sure you’ll agree will forever be overshadowed by another far superior Taming of the Shrew adaptation).  He also wrote pretty much every other amazing, classic song you’ve ever hummed to yourself while feeling jaunty:

Night & Day (Kevin Kline and John Barrowman)

Under My Skin (Frank Sinatra)

Let’s Do It (Eartha Kitt)

Don’t Fence Me In (Isto)

The first clip is from the movie De-Lovely, about Cole Porter’s crazy life.  Born in Indiana, Cole went to Yale, where he wrote no less than THREE HUNDRED songs.  He then started at Harvard Law but transferred to the School of Music after just a year.  After school he moved to Paris, wandered Europe during the World War I, married a socialite despite rumors of his homosexuality, and came back to America to write a string of blockbuster Broadway musicals.  Along with his professional ups and downs, the following decades saw Cole continue to struggle with his sexuality and his marriage, and an accident crushed his leg, eventually leading to an amputation.  Would he be comforted to know that an unused traincar in Indianapolis has a small brass plaque on the door bearing his name?  It would at least be cool if he could know that 74 years after the song was premiered, a kid in Brooklyn videotaped himself barefoot in the park belting out Don’t Fence Me In.

Tune in for Indianapolis Part 2!  In which we explore the secret service, traveling Philly bands, German food, and beer cups as big as my head.

I’ve taken a month-long hiatus to settle up some things, but I’m back! There are plenty more stories, we’re barely halfway across the country.

After a late night in Louisville, I woke up to the sweet mumblings of the lunch crowd hitting Hooters below my motel window. “Seems kind of early for chicken wings…” I thought as I stretched reluctantly towards the edge of the bed and blinked in what I assumed to be the morning light. I was gathering up a mini shampoo and inspecting an in-room coffee maker when the phone rang.

“Hello! This is the front desk, I was just calling to tell you that check out is at 11am. Will you be staying another night with us?”

“Oh! Thanks for telling me, I assumed it would be noon, but that’s not a problem, I’ll be- OH. Shhhhhhwow. It’s 1:30.”

“Yes.”

“Wow. Well ok! Um, ha! I guess you kind of want me out of here pretty soon? Sorry!”

“Yes. Check IN will begin at 3 so we really needed you to be out long before 2. Thanks and have a great day!”

I hung up the phone and sleepily considered myself in the mirror for a moment. I eyed the shampoo longingly, looked quickly at the clock, then froze with my body facing the shower and my eyes surveying the belongings I had strewn across the room that now needed to be packed.

Ten seconds passed before I admitted defeat through whispered curses and ran around stuffing things in a plastic bag. Wearing the shirt I slept in and wrinkled cut-offs, I stumbled down to the front desk and managed to get out of there by 1:47pm. It was as I was sitting on the back of my car drinking miraculously still-available free coffee and eating from a lukewarm can of tuna that I realized I kind of had a date that night in Chicago.

A couple guys I went to college with were now sharing an apartment in Chicago, and I had planned on staying with them for a few nights. I had further planned on having dinner with one of them- the one I used to date- that night upon arrival in the city. Unwilling to consider the wisdom behind deciding (first) to crash at an ex-boyfriend’s place and (second) to schedule a dinner date with him, I adjusted the headband concealing my three-day-old hair and put on more deoderant before getting in the car.

One more cup of coffee, several more whispered curses and two hours later I found myself in a Marriott parking lot in Indianapolis. It was 4pm, dinner was scheduled for 8pm and I was three hours away from Chicago. My date had just called and we’d decided on a really nice restaurant for dinner. I tried weakly to suggest somewhere cheaper, but when he offered to pay I offered a, “What? Oh no, you don’t have to do – well, that’s really so nice, wow, thank you, I can’t wait,” followed by an inevitable internal struggle related to feminism, followed by an equally inevitable series of rationalizations related to pay gaps and institutionalized sexism.

A valet jogged over to inform me that only guests checking in could park where I was, so I grabbed my purse and said, “Well perfect! That’s what I’m doing!” before heading purposefully into the lobby of a really nice hotel.

Looking and smelling very much like a drifter with a 100-page anti-establishment manifesto in my backpack, I walked up to the front desk to execute the only plan I’d come up with to try to look presentable by 8pm.

“Hi, do you know of a hair place, or, like, a salon or something where I could wash my hair? Like a blowout or something? Maybe in the hotel?”

The woman I was talking to looked questioningly at me, then turned to her coworker, who’d been listening. They both tried to understand what I was saying when finally a woman from the other side broke in and said, “Actually… Ok, you just need your hair washed?”

“Yes, exactly, it’s just, I’m travelling, and I have this thing tonight, but I didn’t have time to shower, and I just-”

Leaning in, she interrupted me quickly and said, “Listen, if you’re quick, I can give you a key to a changing room on the 4th floor. Guests almost never use it, it’s all staff, would that be ok?”

Restraining myself, I pounded my hand on the marble counter and nodded giddily, mumbling gratitudes as she coded the key. I ran back out to my car and grabbed a clean dress and a straightening iron before walking coolly by the valets again exclaiming, “Um, I’ll be, I’ll be right back.”

The shower was glorious, the fancy towels felt like cherub hugs, and the shampoo and lotion made the whole place smell of vanilla and sage. I was sitting on a velvety stool in front of the vanity combing my hair and blissfully examining Marriott’s many fine changing room amenities when a woman in black pants and a polo shirt stormed in and stopped abruptly when she saw me.

“Oh, um, hi, how’s your day been,” she said, waiting for my response.

“Welllll…. almost over now thank god!” I blurted without considering my options. “You?”

“OH my god,” she said slamming down her duffel bag having clearly decided that I was an employee. “So I just went in to give this guy a massage, he says he’s from Africa and/or Europe or whatever and I like lay out the table and HE says, ‘How much?’ and I’m like didn’t they tell you over the phone and he says, ‘Yes, and then I- oh, I- can I have a minute?’ and he’s like IN his towel…”

“No… I refuse to try to imagine what he’s doing right now.”

“Um EXACTLY!” she yelled, smiling. “I don’t know WHAT he thinks is about to happen here but I swear to god… this is not ok. I WILL send Joe up there.”

By the time I got back downstairs, I smelled like fresh muffins, my hair had emerged from homeless and was approaching silky, and I had three new stories about foreign businessmen propositioning masseuses to share over dinner.

When I thanked the women at the front desk, they complemented my shoes and cooed knowingly about the importance of nice hair when seeing former boyfriends or husbands, the valets got the door for me and wished me a safe drive, and as I rolled north and Indianapolis quickly disappeared from my rearview mirror, I wondered if the whole experience had been a dream. Even in the hospitality industry, it’s rare to find a group of people who will so thoroughly rally around a stranger’s cause, especially when the stranger is smelly and the cause is vanity.

Fortunately it was all real, and even though the restaurant in Chicago lost our reservation and we ended up going back to his apartment for pizza, beer and baseball, I still felt really good about my shoes, really thankful for being able to pretend that I showered every day, and really eager to return to Indianapolis the following week to see what else the city could offer me.

Below is a video of last year’s year’s inaugural event:

]]> http://ithinkitllbefine.wordpress.com/2008/08/09/art-or-martial-art-pass-the-hot-glue-and-well-see/feed/ 0 ithinkitllbefine http://ithinkitllbefine.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/accident-maryland/ http://ithinkitllbefine.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/accident-maryland/#comments Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:47:38 +0000 ithinkitllbefine http://ithinkitllbefine.wordpress.com/?p=115 Continue reading →]]>

I originally thought this town was in Pennsylvania, but no, it turns out that for about half an hour I was actually in Maryland.  But for that sign, I would never have known!

The town of Accident caught my attention for obvious reasons.  It has a current population of about 353 and a total area of 0.5 square miles.

To give some perspective, the population density of Manhattan is about 35,300 people per 0.5 square mile.  That means that there are almost exactly 100 times more people in any given space in Manhattan than there are in Accident, Maryland.

Rather than TWO people in the Accident Bakery, imagine two HUNDRED.  Rather than FIVE people on the sidewalk: five HUNDRED.

vs.

The weather said it was going to rain a little further south that night, so I decided I didn’t need a car wash, but, not wanting to miss out on Accident, I headed straight for the laundromat.

Having never driven across the country before, my planning for this trip would have to be described as experimental.  Would it be cold anywhere?  Would I need to bring a small saucepan?  Would there ever be an appropriate occasion for high heels?  How much would I read on a regular basis?  (Answers: very, no, not really, not as much as you’d think.)

While I made decisions about books and knick knacks admittedly blindly, I thought for sure my clothing choices wouldn’t be too far off.  I’d been to camp, I’d packed for long trips, I figured I had a handle on some things.

Despite some very thoughtful packing, however, by three weeks in I had a nearly untouched duffel bag full of clothes, shoes, belts and bags in the trunk, all of my sandals were mixed together on the floor behind the passenger seat, and everything I wore came out of a plastic bag of about six items: cut offs, skirt, dress, tank top, t shirt, hoodie, the only items I’m willing to carry in and out of motels with me every day.  As I dumped my plastic bag into one of the washers I thought about my mispacking and decided I could qualify it as an accident.

Oxford English Dictionary traces the root of the word “accident” to mean “anything that happens.”  Broken down more specifically to:

• An occurrence, incident, event
• Anything that happens without foresight or expectation
• An unfortunate event, a disaster, a mishap

I’d classify mispacking as a mishap.  Potentially an unfortunate event, but it’s too soon to tell.

What kind of accident led to the naming of Accident, Maryland?  Your average occurrence?  Or maybe a disaster?  Well, it could be either.  Some say a man named Brooke Beall “happened upon the land by chance” and named it accordingly.  In this scenario, the town is really more of a “happy accident”.

In Flowery Vale: A History of Accident, Maryland, local teacher Mary Miller Strauss describes a different potential history of the naming:

In 1774, Lord Baltimore, Proprietor of the Maryland Colony, opened his lands “westward of Fort Cumberland” for settlement.  Among the speculators who hastened to western Maryland with their surveyors to secure choice tracts of land were Brooke Beall and William Deakins, Jr., both of Prince George’s County.

William Deakins and his brother Francis had warrants for several tracts, and on April 14, 1774, they surveyed a fine tract of 682 acres between the branches of Bear Creek, including an old Indian camp ground on the trail to Braddock’s Road.

But when the survey was completed, Brooke Beall and his party appeared on the scene and Beall claimed that he had selected the same tract for his survey, calling attention to his axe marks on the trees to prove his claim.  Deakins replied that it appeared that they had selected the same land “by accident”.  Since he and Beall were friends and land was abundant, [Deakins] proposed that Beall take over his survey already made.  To this Beall agreed.

John Hanson, Jr., Deputy County Surveyor, made out the survey to Beall, and they named the tract Accident.

I think that account tells the story more of a mishap.

A third account traces the name to 1750:

King George II of England paid off a debt to George Deakins by giving him 600 acres of land in western Maryland.  Mr. Deakins sent out two parties of engineers – each without knowledge of the other – to find and survey the best land in that section of Maryland.  When the engineers returned, they discovered, much to their surprise, that they had each marked the same oak tree as a starting poing and then marked off the same 600 acres.  Mr. Deakins considered it safe to choose this land and had it patented as “The Accident Tract.”

Either way, the town really got its start between 1786 and 1800, when, depending on the history you trust, it was either divvied up and given to military officers who fought in the Revolutionary War, or it was settled by James and Pricilla Drane who tried and failed to grow tobacco on it.  Maybe both histories are correct.  Or maybe one is wrong by accident!

I lost a sock in the laundromat and left my window open in the rain all before reaching city limits, but I can hardly blame that on the spirit of the town.  In truth, I probably increased Accident’s accident vulnerability rather than the other way around.  Accident worked out pretty well for me, actually.  I had an unforeseen chance to do some laundry, I avoided an unfortunate afternoon driving in the rain, and I unexpectedly learned an important lesson about the foggy indefinition of American historical record.

Some of the roadside signs, like the one above, are older and anchored on the walls and rooftops of barns or other buildings.  As you can see from the barn, one important draw for the caverns is their purported use as a “Jesse James Hideout” back in the days of armed train robberies.

Other signs advertised the Meramec Caverns Restaurant, the Meramec Caverns Motel, the Meramec Caverns canoe and raft rentals, the Meramec Caverns boat tours, the Meramec Caverns free parking lot and the Meramec Caverns campsites.

Each sign and reference and attraction gave me a new reason to pull off of the highway, so when the sun began to set just as I approached the Stanton, MO exit, I decided immediately to pull a sharp right and pray for a vacancy at the Meramec Caverns Motel.

I drove through a short stretch of national park before the narrow road opened up into a giant parking lot filled with school buses and canoe trailers.  On my right was a turn off up a small hill to the motel and on my left were a smattering of campsites, RVs and pick-up trucks blasting music and having barbecues.  

Above the overcast parking lot a blob of dark clouds began to swirl and expand, and a lot of cars began to pull nervously out.  It seemed we might soon be facing a hurricane-tornado-electric storm scenario, so I figured I should get down into the caves stat.  I drove up the hill to the motel first and had no problem checking in.  The older woman behind the desk chatted with me about my travels and, winking through her granny glasses, told me, “Now I don’t want you to worry sweetheart, we’ve got security here all night so there won’t be any problems now.  Take care baby.”

Feeling more nervous about my stay at the Meramec Motel than I’d been before that statement, I jogged through the drizzle across the parking lot to try to make the last tour of the day.  It turned out I had about 20 minutes to kill so I wandered around in the gift shop for a while.

Despite the excessive number of museums, truck stops, gift shops and souvenir stores I’ve been to in the past couple months, I don’t feel out of line characterizing the Meramec Caverns Gift Shop as the most insane place I’ve been to.

Most items had nothing to do with either the caverns, Jesse James, the surrounding area, or any time periods discussed on the tour.  There were a huge number of items for the home, like this sailboat sign, even though the only body of water near Meramec Caverns is a river, and there’s no sailing on it, only canoeing.

Since there is canoeing, maybe this sign is a little more relevant:

Maybe.  Then again none of these seem to say anything about the caverns themselves, so we should check out that stuff probably.

And finally, my genre-defying favorite:

Throughout it all, a nervous bat hung from the ceiling trying to blend in.

When our tour was finally called, I went to the back of the visitor’s center towards the entrance of the caves.  Our tour group consisted of a family of five that had just gone swimming and were still wearing their suits, a man in his late thirties in a trucker hat, and me.  Our guide was a young rail of a man who gave us a full force tour performance, complete with long pauses for laughter as his jokes echoed awkwardly over the heads of our small group.

Our first stop was an old shack that used to be used my moonshiners.  Curators of the caves found the shack in a nearby hillside and transplanted it into the cave’s entrance. 

Adding a lifesize moonshiner for ambiance.

Next we saw the “Ballroom,” a giant open area in the caves where residents used to hold square dances or perform plays, now used mostly for gospel performances, Easter sermons and the Caveman Classic Bodybuilding Contest.

Musty smelling red and white folding chairs lined the “room” and a disco ball hung from the “ceiling.”  We all nodded solemnly as our guide explained the process for renting out the space and then moved further into the darkness.  

Next up was a drafty spot where someone named Art Linkletter sent a couple to “honeymoon” in the 1950s as part of a show called “People Are Funny.”  After staying there in caveman outfits for 10 days, they were sent to Hawaii for being good sports.

As we wound through the lower levels of the cave we saw some really cool stuff: caverns, stalagmites, stalactites, etc.

The three little girls on the tour all tried to take pictures of the darkness without flash (so as not to disturb the bats… shudder), their damp mother joylessly grilled the tour guide asking whether the government had come in yet to make sure everything was being preserved properly, and me and the thirtysomething man decided together which rock formations were the coolest and scientifically tested the sturdiness of the railings along the path.

———————————

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Along the way — – — — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – – —- — —————————————————————————————————————————

Along the way we saw one of the biggest stalagmites (or maybe it was a stalactite?) in the the world, which from certain angles just looks like Jabba the Hutt.  

———–

———–

We also saw a site where they filmed an episode of Lassie:

Along the path you could actually see a couple wheel marks from where they were rolling equipment around for the filming, which is pretty cool.

Another crowd pleaser was the history of Jesse James’ gang, told to us next to a lifesize representation of one of their heists:

Legend has it that in the 1870s Jesse and his gang would hide guns, loot and horses in the cave and ended up hiding in the caves themselves for three days straight after the Gads Hill Train Robbery (during which the James-Younger gang allegedly checked all the train passengers’ hands to make sure they weren’t robbing any working men).  An excited Sheriff thought he’d caught them when he staked out the entrance, but the ever-ingenious Jesse found another way out.

A similar statue marks the entrance to the visitors center:

Our final stop was a rock formation called “The Stage Curtain” because it looks like a stage, complete with curtain, orchestra pit and balcony.

Our guide told us to grab a seat on some wet mesh benches, so the mother of three grumpily wrapped her towel tighter around her as her kids scattered and me and the other loner found seats higher in the stands.  We knew we were nearing the end of our long, chilly walkabout, but none of us knew what our guide was talking about as he prepared us for a “finale performance” on the “stage,” which we knew to be an immobile piece of stone.  As the lights dimmed and the orchestra music began to swell, I realized this might be a good time to get out my camera.

The lights were done live by our tour guide at his podium (at certain points you can here him frantically pushing buttons and pulling levers) and God Bless America was sung by Kate Smith, although a friend suggested it sounds a lot like Ethel Merman, and I think I have to agree.

Ethel Merman

————

Kate Smith (with Dean Martin and a little bit of Lucille Ball)

By the time the tour was over, the rain had stopped and the sun was down, so I strolled through the campsites up the hill back to my motel and went to bed.  At about 10:30pm I heard a man arguing loudly with his wife a few rooms down from me.  Unfortunately that’s not an irregular event in the world of cheap motels, so when I heard the security guard knocking on their door I rolled over and went to sleep.  I was awakened circa 11:30pm by yelling outside in the other direction.  The woman’s voice was different now and sounded like the older woman who had checked me in earlier in the evening.  The man’s low, angry mumbles were the same though.  I couldn’t here what he was saying, but the conversation seemed to go like this:

Mumbling Man: ::mumble MUMBLE mumble::

Loud Old Lady: Oh so you’re gonna use THAT word?  Why are you gonna go and use THAT word?!  

Mumbling Man: ::mumble mumble::

Loud Old Lady: OK WELL FINE IF YOU’RE GONNA US THAT F***ING WORD MOTHERF***ER THAN WE’LL F***ING USE IT.  YOU CAN GET THE F*** OUT OF HERE MOTHERF***ER JUST GET BACK IN YOUR MOTHERF***ING CAR AND TURN THE F***AROUND OUT OF HERE MOTHERF***ER

Mumbling Man: ::mumble::

Loud Old Lady: YEAH THAT’S F***ING RIGHT MOTHERF***ER GET THE F*** OUT OF HERE.

And scene.

The next morning I went to the office to check out and she was still working.  ”Have a good sleep sweetie? Are you gonna go on the steamboat ride today maybe?”

“Good morning, um, well maybe, I haven’t decid-”

“Oh you’ve got to, baby, it’s the perfect morning for it.  Don’t forget to grab some coffee from the restaurant, now take care honey and drive safe now.”

They were all born, or at some time lived, in an eight-county stretch of Kentucky split down the middle by US 23.  I think Loretta Lynn (shown above with Conway Twitty) was probably pretty surprised when Kentucky came to her 10 years ago or so and said they were going to designate that stretch of road the “Country Music Highway” and line it with huge kitschy truck stops, tiny museums and shops selling guitar-shaped rearview mirror air fresheners.

I’m not sure what I expected from the Country Music Highway, but it wasn’t this.  Not to say that I was disappointed!  Not at all, just that the highway defies easy categorization. Let’s take it from the top.

Ashland, KY

Following a sleepless night in a dirty, disturbing Charleston, WV hotel with a misleading name, I loaded up on free coffee at sunrise and rolled west towards the Kentucky border and the start of my country music odyssey: Ashland.

As I approached the Ohio River, the landscape along the side of the road began changing.  Where West Virginia was all rolling hills and plush greenery generously sprinkled with velvety wildflowers, Kentucky was all thick, jaggedly cut layers of reddish-gray rock topped with straw-like flower bushes towering over short scrappy grass.  The Kentucky countryside clearly did not take to road building without a fight.

When I finally crossed the border I was in sleepy high spirits, so I sped eagerly through one of the Technicolor bridges over the river and pulled right into the Starbucks across the street.  With an overstuffed bag hanging from one elbow, a change-spewing broken wallet in one hand and sunglasses clutched sweatily in the other, I stumbled up to the counter and, in the interest of speed and caffeine content, ordered a double shot of espresso.

The barista smiled and shouted over his shoulder, “Sean.  Doppio.”  He looked down as he rung me up.  “So.  Youuuu are not from around here, are you.”

“No….” I smiled nervously.  “Why, is it obvious?”

“Believe it or not, double espresso is not a very common order around here.”

I apologized for no reason and probably blushed, feeling like a snob from the Northeast before another barista came over and shoved the one talking to me, saying, “Shut up Steve, whatever, I love espresso, don’t listen to him.”

“No! No, I’m not making fun, it’s just- right?  Sean?  Not many people order a doppio from around here right?” he said, jumping back to avoid another shove.  “Angela’s attacking me- but right?”

“YEAH.  BUT THAT’S GOOD,” Sean shouted from the drive thru window.

“Espresso?” I asked, no longer really a part of the conversation.

“No,” said the first barista.  “He means it’s good to not be from around here.”

Coal Country

I downed the coffee and hit the road, first passing the Paramount Arts Center on my right.

Originally built as a silent movie theater in 1931, it’s since served as a famous country music venue, and had a starring role in the video for Billy Ray Cyrus’ Achy Breaky Heart:

Beautiful.

From here I headed further south on US 23 and passed some huge coal fields on the way.  The eastern area of Kentucky is home to some of the most productive coal fields in the country.  West Virginia actually mines even more coal, but I passed through West Virginian coal country at night, so I mostly missed it.  Here’s the thing though:  according to some statistics from 2000 or so, West Virginia has almost 19,000 coal miners to Kentucky’s 13,000 and pays out $1.2 billion in annual wages to Kentucky’s $720 million.  BUT.  Coal mining in West Virginia’s coal-producing counties only accounts for 6% of total employment and 10% of total earnings.  Coal mining in Kentucky’s coal-producing counties, on the other hand, accounts for almost 14% of total employment and almost 19% of total earnings.  These numbers don’t even take into account jobs and businesses that are highly dependent on coal mining or miners.  Kentucky Coal Education argues that three jobs are created for every one coal miner job.

As time has gone by, mining has gotten more and more aggressive and environmentally destructive.  Even Southern Republicans are horrified.  Apparently at this point some companies are just, you know, blowing up the Appalachian mountains to scoop out what’s inside.  Nobody is pleased by this.

My understanding of coal mining comes mostly from terrifying cave-in stories and, of course, Coal Miner’s Daughter.  Which brings us to my major interest in this strip of black and dusty Appalachia:

Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn is one tough lady.  If you haven’t seen the movie yet, go watch it now.  Remember that part when she makes pie with salt instead of sugar?  Hilarious!

My quest for Butcher Hollow took me first to the “entrance” to the Country Music Highway, a huge truck stop elaborately decorated on the outside and infused with historical items, like famous outfits once worn by Patty Loveless, glittery cowboy hats and colorful country-music-themed merchandise.

From here I drove down the road blasting local country radio until I hit the Country Music Highway Museum, where I skipped the expensive museum admission and instead enjoyed the gift shop (an entire wall dedicated to Hannah Montana!) and the ballroom (hand painted portraits of the area’s biggest stars hanging near the ceiling like high school basketball championship banners!).

After signing the guest book, I laid out a map and figured out my ultimate destination: Van Lear, KY.  I wound around a lot of empty two-lane highways and narrow backroads and several times missed the small blue signs pointing me to “Loretta Lynn Birthplace.”

The roads in Van Lear were only JUST wide enough for one car at a time, the grades were steep, and the buildings were small.

I parked in front of the Post Office and wandered up the hill to the Van Lear Historical Society, where there were supposed to be tours of Butcher Hollow.

The Historical Society appeared to be closed, potentially abandoned, but when I peeked into the window I saw a sign saying tours could be arranged through Icky’s.

I wondered what Icky’s could be, so I circled the building looking for any clues. In the southeastern corner of the building I found Icky’s:

But it was also closed.  Discouraged, I wandered the dirt paths throughout town and didn’t see a single person – or a single clue that Loretta Lynn had ever been there – the entire afternoon.  I suspect I got lost.

But really, what could I have expected.  Butcher Hollow isn’t Dollywood, and it never will be.  Wandering Van Lear was actually a perfect conclusion to the Country Music Highway experience.  The area wants to provide an authentic journey to the past, but it can’t quite deliver.  Aware of this, it instead, or simultaneously, tries to entertain travelers with ridiculousness, but its kitsch factor never quite hits the necessary sillyness levels.  So the whole drive you’re caught somewhere between Graceland and Colonial Williamsburg.  Or between Area 51 and Las Vegas.  Something.  I’m just mad I didn’t get a chance to see any performances.

Even though I didn’t get to meet Loretta or see the dance hall where she met her husband, I still think the trip was worthwhile.   I got a button with her picture on it and a new appreciation for the remoteness of Butcher Hollow, so really my major Country Music Highway goals were all met.

]]> http://ithinkitllbefine.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/us-23-country-music-highway/feed/ 1 ithinkitllbefine http://ithinkitllbefine.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/searching-for-west-virginia/ http://ithinkitllbefine.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/searching-for-west-virginia/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:26:39 +0000 ithinkitllbefine http://ithinkitllbefine.wordpress.com/?p=105 Continue reading →]]> Along with discussing driving, weather, bike clubs and The View at the Hermitage, we also talked a little bit about West Virginia.  The bikers were just passing through on their way north for Memorial Day weekend, so none of us had really spent any significant amount of time in the state before.  One woman asked a question that I think a lot people in the United States might ask about West Virginia: “I mean, we’re driving through these little towns, there are like two streets, I don’t see any companies or anything- what do these people do??”

I found three examples (four if you count “run the Hermitage Inn”) that provide an interesting, and possibly surprising, cross section.

What do people DO in West Virginia?

Activity 1:  Hang out in national parks beneath unbelievably blue skies and picturesque mountainsides.

While some American teens might flirt out of car windows in front of the Dairy Queen or blast Nickelback while driving slowly down main street, this scene in eastern West Virginia has been transplanted to more natural surroundings.  I was passing a little rest area in the park when I heard the unmistakable whine of “Rock Star” calling me through the trees.  Compelled to follow, I turned in to find a completely full parking lot.  At first I thought it was one big family reunion or party, but after awkwardly hanging on the outskirts of different groups and eavesdropping for a while, I realized this was not the case.  One side of the parking lot held teens leaning on cars trying to impress each other, another end had younger kids skateboarding badly, down by the water was a young couple holding their water-winged toddler’s hands as she waded suspiciously into the creek, and up by the picnic tables there were three different families having cookouts.

I sidled up to one group by the picnic tables, and they ended up showing me one of the rest area’s main attractions.  Feeling shy about asking to take video, I decided instead to record them in secret:

Ethically questionable?  Yes.  The song was “Slewfoot” by The Half Bad Bluegrass Band.

Activity 2: Golf, make wine, and work maybe two days a week.

The man who owns the West-Whitehill Winery was my Week 3 New Friend of the Week.  (What ever happened to those weekly recaps anyway?)  An update on the West-Whitehill Winery story is that I had the four bottles of wine that I bought in a box in my car until I recently realized, “You know, now that I think about it, that car gets pretty hot, and I’m pretty sure that’s not very good for wine.”  Basically, I’ve been boiling my West Virginian wine on a daily basis for the past few weeks, so I’ll let you know when I find out what that does to a nice white.

Activity 3: Unlock the secrets of the universe.

I was driving on an otherwise long-empty road through West Virginia’s mountains, when my radio began to fuzz out, and my cell phone lost all service.  I tried changing the station to get music back, but everything was static.  It was then that I rounded a corner and suddenly came face to face with a massive, creepy steel structure trying to fade nonchalantly into the hillsides and wildflowers surrounding it.

(Not my photo, but this person’s pictures were so cool.  And check it out – this is where I am now!)

Awkward, right?  What are you doing there satellite dish?  I can see you, you’re not fooling anyone, and you’ve made me really nervous.  I followed the road until it brought me to the Green Bank Radio Astronomy Observatory.

It turns out that giant thing is the largest fully steerable radio telescope in the world.  Just, you know, plopped in the hillsides of West Virginia, much as you might expect.  In case the scale hasn’t come off in the picture, here are the facts about the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope:

Apparently the GBT is so sensitive that cell phone signals, AM and FM radio waves, digital cameras and even someone using a microwave miles away can distort its readings.  That’s why they’ve designated the entire area a “radio quiet zone” and shut down all the signals they can control.  Even modern day car engines are a problem, so to get around the massive observatory campus, resident scientists use these ragged baby blue diesel vehicles. (Some look like hearses?)

These days the GBT and its smaller fellow telescopes are making all kinds of great discoveries about things like pulsars in star clusters, water in lunar craters and cold sugar in space.

EVEN BETTER: The Green Bank observatory was originally set up as part of the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute, so while none of the telescopes are conducting work for SETI anymore, this means that at some point in our history there were a group of scientists huddled in the mountains of West Virginia driving baby blue hearses around and keeping an eye out day and night for signs of alien life.

Figuring that most people would try to hit the beach on Memorial Day Weekend, I decided to head for the mountains and avoid the crowds and traffic.  From Pennsylvania, my best bet looked like Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, home to Spruce Knob, the highest peak in West Virginia, and, not surprisingly, also home to Seneca Rocks.  Seneca Rocks is a crazy set of Rock formations that seem to shoot up from the hillside (beautiful photo courtesy of Ronald Hilton):

There’s also a great legend attached to them:

The Betrothal of Snow Bird, Princess of the Seneca Indians

The only daughter of chief Bald Eagle and his wife, White Rock, was Snow Bird, the most beautiful of all the maidens of the Senecas….  When the day arrived to choose a mate, seven young warriors, all suitors for the hand of the Seneca princess, assembled in an open space and arranged themselves in a semi-circle facing the mighty rocks…. [Princess Snow Bird] lifted her hand and silence fell upon the assembled.

“As a little girl, I watched yonder rocks push their rugged summits into the heavens, and many times I longed to be able to climb to their topmost crags.  There have I spent the happiest, the most enjoyable days of my life.  Of all the Seneca Indians, I am the only one who has accomplished the feat.  One day, about a moon past, I decided upon a contest, a trial of bravery and endurance.  You will soon engage in this contest, and to the successful one of you, I will give my hand, my heart and my life.”

Princess Snow Bird set out on the journey, followed by the seven braves.  Upward they climbed, the sure-footed maiden always leading.  As the climb became more and more difficult, five of the seven turned back…  The two that remained followed closely in the footsteps of the maiden.  Finally, with renewed determination, they set out on the last and most dangerous stretch of the journey, the maiden as always in the lead.  At last she reached the summit and turned to look for her most persistent suitor.  He was only a few feet below her.  In this moment of waiting, his foot slipped on the ledge of the rock.  The maiden hesitated for a fraction of a second [and then] with the alertness and strength of her young arms, she caught the falling brave and drew him to safety and to herself.  Long they sat together talking of their future, and then as darkness approached, the two lovers descended by the trail at the rear of the gigantic rocks, … and the great chief conferred upon his newfound son-in-law the authority to become his successor as chief of the tribe.

In addition to the Seneca Rocks themselves, there are other similar formations all over the area, they just jump out at you as you round corners.

Knowing that I’d be spending the next day wandering the park, my goal was to reach Petersburg, WV for the night.  Petersburg turned out to be squished right in the middle of a mountain range, though, which made for a couple hours of pitch black, nerve-wracking twisty roads up and down mountain-sides.  There was no barrier separating the road from the valley, and I’m sure if it had been daytime I’d probably have been too nervous to drive.  When I got into Petersburg, population 2700, I right away found the Hermitage Motor Inn, which had a vacancy that I snapped up.

Built sometime before 1841 (before West Virginia was even a state!), the inn served as a private home until it was seized during the Civil War to house Federal Troops.

Since then, the inn has been known alternatively as the Cunningham Hotel and the Taylor House, and in 1904 two (possibly drunk?) guests found some paint and in the middle of the night repainted the sign to say “The Hermitage,” which they thought had a more high-falutin’ sound to it.

The Hermitage was gorgeous inside, and after weeks of sleeping mostly in whatever Motel 6 I could find, I flipped for the wood panel interior.

As I drifted off to sleep, I watched a local broadcast show about a West Virginian couple that travels around the country in cowboy boots.  I immediately began dreaming that I was driving down a road with a blindfold on that I couldn’t take off because my hands were stuck to the wheel.  Unable to see anything and feeling an increasing sense of impending danger, I then realized there was something growling at me from the darkness.  A monster?  Bears?  The growling got louder and louder until it was a full on ROAR and I shot up in bed, very awake and a bit sweaty.  I established that it was just a nightmare, but then I realized I could still. hear. roaring.  Sleepily disoriented and a little terrified, I peeked out the window and saw about 10 motorcyclists situating themselves below my window and talking loudly.  Feeling relieved and silly, I crashed back into bed and passed out.

The next morning I stumbled into the office for a complimentary breakfast and found four middle aged ladies decked out in studded leather and denim chatting over mini muffins.  I grabbed my standard complimentary breakfast (three tiny styrofoam cups of coffee, one apple and a bowl of fruit loops), and sat down at their table, uninvited as always.  Soon a very tall middle aged man dressed completely in light colored denim joined us and we all bonded over the upsetting drive we had to take the night before.

“I mean, I was in a car and I was pretty nervous, so I don’t even know how you all made that drive,” I said.

“Oh it was a blast if you know what you’re doing, but if you’re a newbie, the signs alone will scare the crap out of you.”

“Are you talking about-”

“Yeah, she did ok though.  Those signs are the scariest part if you don’t know what you’re doing.  I don’t even believe them, no way it was that much of a grade.”

“Oh sure, but it’ll scare you enough to wipe out for no reason.”

“See, that’s why it takes so long to join my club,” added the man.  “We ride two by two, so you gotta know that the guy next to you is gonna sacrifice himself before he lets his own mistake wipe you out.  That’s why I ride with Scorpion, we can tell if something’s up with each other just with a look.”

“That’s the way I feel riding with John.  Even the first time we met I just instinctively trusted him riding next to me, I usually don’t feel that,” said one woman with dark curly hair.  “And you know he’s going to be calling all day whining that he can’t come, that’s what you get though if you’re gonna be gettin knee surgery you know!  Poor baby, he’ll be back out soon.”

“Is there a long initiation period?” I asked.

“Well we don’t do any of that,” said the same woman.  “We don’t do any of that ‘trial period’ or anything like a lot of the mens clubs, we just make newbies write an article for our newsletter about their first ride with us,” she laughed.  “Hey y’all, we’re taking off at 9:30 exactly, you better get ready.”

The rest of the bikers left, and she and I stayed at the table sipping coffee and trying to wake up.  She walked over to the TV, which had ESPN on and started flipping around.  “Do you know what any of the channels are up here?  Isn’t The View on about now?” she asked.  We tried to figure it out together when a slender woman in a white jean jacket wandered in and stood for a couple seconds before saying, “Hey there, um, good morning!”

“Oh hey sweetie, how you doin this morning, feeling all right?”

“Oh yeah.  That drive last night was crazy though, all those hills and turns, it was rough, huh.”

“Oh sure, sure, I think they were just trying to scare us all with all those signs, you feeling good today?  You all ready to go soon?”

“Oh yeah, yeah.  Think we’ll have a lot of traffic?”

They made small talk about weather highway congestion and then headed out to the bikes.  While a short-haired woman checked in with the newbie and made sure everyone else was set to go, the curly haired woman, the Princess Snow Bird of middle aged bikers, headed to the front of the driveway to lead the group.

Inspired, I drove the rest of the day with my windows down, reveled in the bug carnage beginning to collect on my windshield, and considered buying a fox tail to hang from my rear view mirror.

]]> http://ithinkitllbefine.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/hermitage-inn-hogs-n-honeys-in-west-virginia/feed/ 3 ithinkitllbefine Terrain map of West Virginia http://ithinkitllbefine.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/in-honor-of-clydesdales-beechwood-aging-and-souvenirs/ http://ithinkitllbefine.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/in-honor-of-clydesdales-beechwood-aging-and-souvenirs/#comments Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:20:49 +0000 ithinkitllbefine http://ithinkitllbefine.wordpress.com/?p=102 Continue reading →]]> According to all the papers last Thursday, Belgian-Brazilian beer company InBev just “launched an unsolicited bid to acquire Anheuser-Busch Cos. for $46.4 billion.” The two companies would combine to create the largest beer company in the world with more than 300 brands and $36 billion in annual sales. Big news right?! The day before this announcement, I was lucky enough to find myself in St. Louis on an hour and a half tour of the Anheuser-Busch brewery, and over the next few days I watched the local news fallout. (Picture shots of stacks of Bud and Bud Light 30-packs next to 6-packs of bottled beer with foreign sounding names – “Stella Ar-what??  Never heard of it!”)

At first, it seemed to me that the general St. Louis populace was unimpressed by the potential deal. A bartender I tried to talk to was far more interested in discussing the text message exchange that led to his recent breakup than in going over the details of what a merger would mean for the city. (Apparently the girlfriend refused to answer her phone and would only reply via text. Also she is 20 years old to his 26. She’s really young, so she likes to go out and party with her friends a lot, which is totally cool, you know?  But then when he wants to go out and party with his boys without her, it’s, like, this whole big issue.  SIGH.  Women.)

Unfortunately, since I took the brewery tour the day before the announcement, I couldn’t get any inside viewpoints either. Our guides didn’t leak any news or accidentally allude to the coming fracas as they led us on our overly long, ad-laden walkabout of the largest beer brewery in the U.S.

Barley Cleaning House!

Control Room!

Mash Tanks! (kinda Willy Wonka-ish?)

Two things made the heat and conversations about barley worthwhile. Wait. Four things:

1. Telling my dad about the natural Beechwood Aging process, which I haven’t done yet but look forward to.
2. Clydesdales. Did you know Anheuser-Busch seriously owns a huge herd of them? I thought it was just a gimmick, and, I mean, it is. But also they really do own a ton of them.
3. Two free beers at the end of the tour. Score!
4. The other tourists, including an older German couple who answered all the tour guide’s rhetorical questions and STOLE a Beechwood chip, a young beer lover who mimed cutting a hole in and drinking from a nearby pipeline of Bud, and, of course, an array of insane small children.

Where to begin with the small children! There was the doughy dark haired 4 year old who danced and spoke throughout the entire tour, throwing her arms up and shouting “Monkeeeeeey!” as our sweaty guide tried to get through a joke about hops. There was also the frizzy blond 5 year old who crawled into my lap and firmly grasped a piece of my hair while her parents were folding her stroller. There was the 7 year old kid with sunglasses who spent three full minutes picking a wedgie and inexplicably had a green magic marker Hitler mustache drawn on his upper lip.

My favorite was that boy’s older sister, who was maybe 9 or 10 and stood next to me on a long series of escalator rides as she experimented with different standing positions. Naturally she saw herself as miles more mature than the rest of the sub-four-feet crew and as such looked the part with a chin-length bob, tan jean shorts and a fanny pack. I spent many a family vacation under the age of 10 dressed similarly and doing similar nervous escalator experiments. The best part of her look was a recently purchased lime green hat with a rhinestone image of the Gateway Arch on the front. Completely in love with her choice and her enthusiasm for travel, I couldn’t help but think, “Why buy that hat? Will you really wear it back in Chicago or Kansas City or wherever?”  I was then suddenly reminded of a certain family trip hat that I myself purchased at about this same age.

On my first trip to see a Broadway musical, I begged my parents to buy me a black Broadway baseball hat with that frowny-face/smiley-face drama mask symbol embroidered on the front in gold and purple thread.  They tried to make me realize that, since I wasn’t given to wearing baseball hats anyway, I wasn’t likely to wear a Broadway themed hat very often.  I proved them SO wrong by wearing the hat, backwards of course, every single day of summer camp that year.

By the 7th week it got pretty sweaty, so I decided to soak it in a sinkful of water for a day or so.  My counselor, who, you know, coincidentally also used to wear a backwards hat a lot, saw it in the sink and yelled out into our cabin, “Umm… whoever’s hat this is in the sink, they’re ruining the brim by soaking it like that.  Just… so they know.”  Oh well.

So maybe travel merchandise isn’t as big of a rip-off as I’ve been assuming?  It gives you a tangible thing to help you remember a trip and kind of identify or distill what it meant to you maybe?  On the other hand.  Around the same age as the Broadway hat, my parents took me to Chautauqua, NY, an idyllic little vacation town on the edge of Lake Chautauqua in the Southwestern corner of New York state.

I immediately romanticized the place, and I wanted to get a T-shirt to remember it.  I got one that was probably two sizes too small (it was the style?) and I never never once wore it.  Even up until this trip, though, I would come across it sometimes in my closet and think, “Oh, Chautauqua!  I loved Chautauqua.”  So when I got a chance to return there a couple weeks ago, I had HIGH expectations.  My first stop was a huge bar where I hoped to befriend some locals, since vacation season hadn’t really started yet.  Unfortunately when I walked in, I realized I was the only woman in the entire, two story complex.  Gay bar?  I considered it, but I’m pretty sure not.  Exuding a nervousness common to young women traveling alone, I tried to ignore some stares and find the bathroom, which turned out to be a small room with a toilet separated from the bar by a vinyl flowered shower curtain.  Chautauqua!  Full of magic and romance.

Luckily, I walked out to the water a little later just as five kids pulled up their hoods and wandered out onto a dock for a while, which actually did make for a pretty magical scene.

After they left, I went out too and looked around.

I didn’t recognize a single thing from when I’d come there with my parents, but it was still pretty beautiful. I stuck my toes in the 50 degree water for a minute and then continued on my way out of town.

So the trip didn’t quite live up to my gray baby T’s expectations, but I think it was still worthwhile.

Now returning to St. Louis.  As a result of the big business news, I stuck around for three days longer than I’d originally planned so that I could go to a “Save Anheuser-Busch” rally that I decided I couldn’t miss.  In the days leading up to the rally, I got to know St. Louis pretty well, but more on that later.

Save Anheuser-Busch!

The rally was organized by SaveAB.com and held at the Al Hrabosky bar across from Busch stadium on Saturday, June 14 two hours before the Cardinals faced the Phillies.  There was a tent, there was a DJ, there were speeches (one by Al Hrabosky himself!), there were stickers, signs and giveaways.  The crowd completely tapped the bar’s significant supply of Bud Light, and very soon only bottles were available.

Before the rally, I really didn’t understand what the big deal about the buyout was, but now to be honest, I kind of get it.  For example, the company is still technically run by a Busch descendant, President and CEO August A. Busch IV.  Kind of cool?  Anyways.  The rally ended with some “HELL NO, BUD WON’T GO” chanting and a march to the stadium, where the Cardinals beat the Phillies based mostly, in my opinion, on a bad final call.  But it was really their day, not Philadelphia’s, so I can’t muster up too much bitterness.

All in all, it’s been a very exciting week for St. Louis, and I’ll definitely be watching to see how the InBev vs. AB battle ends.  And as far as souvenirs go, I am definitely holding onto my SaveAB T-shirt, even if I never wear it.

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