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October 11th
Waking up in Madison, WI to the musical intonations of Wigs’ alarm,
we said our goodbyes to Adam’s friend Megan and thanked her
for being our tour guide. We quickly revved up Harvey and got
on the road to La Crosse, WI. Our first stop was a nursing
home to follow around Miss La Crosse/Oktoberfest, Elisabeth Brusek. Now,
when I think of Oktoberfest, I conjure images of German heritage, lederhosen,
and gigantic pitchers of beer. What would ensue in the next
couple of hours proved to alter these perceptions.
We plugged in Joe Magellan, our GPS navigation friend and crucial
member of our project, to take us to Altera Nursing Home, where we
were supposed to meet and follow around Miss Oktoberfest. Missing
her by 10 minutes, we learned that she would be visiting several
more homes that day. But having no idea where our Elisabeth
was heading, we called every nursing home in the area asking if she
was going to make an appearance. Wigs tracked her down and
we began a hot pursuit of the motorcade that she was a part of. We
found her while she was inside Hillview Nursing Home, but lost her
on the way out of the parking lot due to poor communication and “bad
transition time”—a term we have coined to describe our
plaguing inability to move quickly from one thing to another. For
example, we’ll arrive in a town after a long drive and then
proceed to stay in the car for thirty minutes pacing, cleaning, chatting
or just plainly wasting time despite the fact that we need get out
and meet somebody somewhere.
After a few phone calls and some sly detective work, we finally
found Miss Oktoberfest and her colorful following as they were arriving
at another home. I grabbed the video camera and the three of
us trailed the group inside.
For the past seven days known as fest week, the Grenadiers and the
Royal Family members had been touring the area and making appearances
at nursing homes, schools, and other public arenas. Women were
adorned in the customary dirndls, men in lederhosen. They
danced and sang and spread the jovial charm of Oktoberfest. The
Royal Family, made up of a Festmaster and Frau, Mrs. “O” and
her husband, and Miss La Crosse/Oktoberfest, is escorted by the rest
of the Grenadiers.
Inside the nursing home, the traveling Oktoberfest contingent belted
out traditional German tunes as well as a few notable American ones
such as She’ll be Coming ‘Round the Mountain. Most
of the elderly residents appeared thoroughly entertained, tapping
their feet and clapping and their hands in unison, and they were
especially excited by an Oktoberfest rendition of Happy Birthday for
two of the elderly residents. I felt a little awkward carrying
around the camera amongst the crowd, especially because I had not
been introduced to the residents or even to Miss Oktoberfest and
her crew.
We finally met outside the hall and made plans to get together at
the fairgrounds for the interview. Once again, we had trouble
finding our destination, but along our errant path we came upon the
mighty Mississippi River, which meandered alongside the city of La
Crosse. It was the first time I had ever seen up close this
body of water that I had read about in the works of Mark Twain and
it was almost intimidating to be on its banks. Not having
the luxury to stay long, we questioned a few locals, and eventually
made it to the festival grounds. For the most part it looked
like a traditional fair except for the Bavarian style buildings spread
around the area. There was live music going on, so we headed
into the Oktoberfest headquarters to escape the noise.
Inside, we chatted with some of the members and learned more about
what Oktoberfest was really about. It is basically a social
organization committed to community service and promoting an annual
festival—a far cry from the beer soaked scene that I had imagined.
To join the corps, “Grenadiers must be married and have shown
past involvement in the community,” among other factors. After
a few minutes, we sat down with our subject at a large wooden table
on the second floor of the building overlooking the festival grounds.
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On our drive to La Crosse, I have to admit that we were discussing
how Miss Oktoberfest would look. I had no idea what to expect. We
came to a consensus that she probably would be a large girl with
a penchant for consuming alcohol and eating bratwurst. Instead
of a beauty/talent Pageant, I pictured twenty girls downing pitchers
of beer and the first one to finish would be crowned Miss Oktoberfest.
Elisabeth shattered these preconceived notions. She is a petite
5’1” with striking blue eyes, dirty blond hair, and an
absolutely infectious smile. Growing up in New Prague, a town
of 4,000 people forty-five minutes southwest of Minneapolis, Elizabeth
is ambitious, driven, and clearly intelligent. She talked about
how she battled against eleven other women in the area to become
Miss Oktoberfest, which is a local delegation of the Miss America
Pageant. No longer purely about looks, these contests are
largely about talent, presentation, and oration. Today, the
swimsuit portion weighs only one tenth of the total judging criteria.
Before the contest, Elisabeth was required to come up with a platform
that she would champion for during her reign. She decided to
focus on eating disorder awareness. When she was in high school,
Elisabeth developed a terrible case of anorexia, a disease she battled
for over two years. During the interview, she candidly discussed
how the disease took over her life and almost ended it prematurely. If
not for the help of her mom and her faith in God, she said that she
could not have overcome it. So for the next year, she will
act as coordinator for national eating disorder society and will
volunteer at local teenage organizations.
During her battle, she visited a psychologist and became very interested
in the subject. At Western Wisconsin after overcoming the disease,
she majored in clinical psychology and graduated in December 2004. She
is now looking to go to grad school and wants to someday do research
into eating disorders to help out girls going through what she had. She
sees the ironic connection between her platform on eating disorders
and the contest itself and, in away, that is why she is pursuing
it.
In the end, I learned a lot from the Grenadiers and their Miss Oktoberfest.
. One of the greatest aspects of this trip so far has been
illuminating preconceived ideas. First off, I did not know
that Miss America was more than a beauty pageant. Second, sure,
beer and partying is an integral part of Oktoberfest, but so is the
responsibility that goes along with being part of the Grenadier corps
(doing community service, going to year-round meetings, educating
the public, and participating in multiple parades to name a few). Third,
our Miss Oktoberfest doesn’t drink beer; she drinks Mike’s
Hard Cranberry Lemonade (as we learned later that night when we caught
up with Elisabeth, her boyfriend Cory, and her twin sister Amy at
the festival grounds). In addition, Elisabeth doesn’t
eat the traditional bratwurst because she is a vegetarian.
When most people suffer horrible experiences like Elisabeth did
with anorexia, they are happy that they have persevered and want
to move on from that place in their life. Several times during
our interaction, she said that everything happens for a reason. She
feels that she went through her personal struggle so that she can
help other teenage girls. And she is dedicating her life to so. She
even feels lucky.
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We left the festival grounds, Wigs and I traveling
towards the river, Adam to nap in the RV. The sun was falling slowly upon the
old Mississippi that separated Wisconsin on and Minnesota. Upriver,
the water split; one branch snaking itself through a heavily forested
hillside; the other towards a smoking factory. I was riveted
standing there, taking in the scene. Two men in a Boston Whaler
slowly crept towards the dock where we were standing and I had to
ask them if they wouldn’t mind taking us out on the river for
a few minutes to see the sunset/take pictures. At the time,
I was a little surprised. But, in retrospect, it is not that
hard to believe given that these instances were becoming commonplace
on our journey.
 
These two men, who turned out to be brothers on their annual trip
together, kindly ferried Wigs and I upriver to catch the final rays
of sunlight on this cool autumn evening. We chatted about photography,
their children, our generation, and America. Following our gorgeous
excursion, we made our way back to Harvey, talked our way into the
local hotel, showered in the pool locker room, got a bunch of really
weird looks from the hotel guests in the pool, made TV dinners, and
then Adam and I met up with Miss Oktoberfest, her boyfriend, and
sister.
We talked closely and loudly, trying to hear each other over the
familiar sounds of the local cover band that was playing on this
final night of Oktoberfest. They played hit after cheesy hit
and I felt as though we were at some wedding. As our secondary
interview with Elisabeth was coming to a close, Molly Hatchet, a
washed up eighties band, came on as the main act. Their entrance
was precipitated by an arena rock rendition of some dark operatic
string orchestra that slowly crescendoed until they appeared sleeveless,
long-haired, and exuberant as ever. This past summer Adam and
I, along with our friends Lucas and Michael, joked about how we should
start a band called the Self Calls. Our first album would be Greatest
Hits: Volume I and every song would be numbered 1. On
this evening, Adam joked about how our concert entrance would be
similar to that of Molly Hatchet.
We then met up with Wigs, who had made another crazy connection. Days
earlier, He had called the Mall of America to see if we could film
there. The woman, Jenny Mans, whom he talked to was very nice
and set everything up for us. As we were on our way through
Wisconsin, she called and suggested we stay with her younger sister
Sarah, a senior at UW-La Crosse. So we met up with her and
her group of friends at the Molly Hatchet concert and then proceeded
into town. Sarah and her guy friends, Keaton and Cory, were
incredible hosts; the kind of people that instantly become friends
with you and truly care whether you have a good time. It felt
so normal walking around town with them, almost like we were back
at home. I guess maybe it was the Midwest charm that we had
so appreciated these past few days.
As we lay down in Harvey, the three of us thought about how amazing
this night had been. Until four days ago, we had no idea who
Sarah was. A phone call, a few visits to our website, and a
family tie now connected us. She didn’t have to show
us around and take us out with her friends, but she was sweet enough
to do so. If only the world worked that way—where people
are accepting to strangers, to differences, to novel ideas. I
fell asleep with a slight grin on my face, knowing it had been a
great day in America.
October 6th
“And his ‘criminality’ was not something that
sulked and sneered; it was a wild yea-saying overburst of American
joy; it was Western, the west wind, an ode from the Plains, something
new, long prophesized, long a-coming (he only stole cars for joy
rides).”—Jack Kerouac, On The Road (I’m
reading it now)
The sun rose this morning on Acadia National Park. An hour
or so later its rays shown upon Harvey perched on a small hill in
the Michigan City Campground in Northwestern Indiana. Not much
to note about this day of rest until the afternoon (we all did some
work on the project, exercised, showered, cleaned up Harvey).
After dropping Adam off to watch his beloved Red Sox get clobbered
by the other Sox, we headed to Indiana Dunes National Park, the only
of its kind in the state. As Ben, Wigs, and I drove along route
12, we noticed a huge cylindrically shaped cement structure. Water
cascaded down its walls, hitting a platform, falling again ten or
so feet to another one below. This continued down the cement
mass. We had never seen anything like this. It seemed
to be a power plant of some sort, the water either serving as a cooling
mechanism or maybe it was some byproduct. To quench our curiosity,
we pulled over to question the first man we saw on the side of the
road. Ben asked. He responded, “Umm, that over
there is an oak tree.” We laughed and then specified
what type of plant we were inquiring about. It turned out to be coal
and natural gas.
We continued down the road a short ways, pulling off at Mt. Baldy. The
park road led us a few hundred yards off the main thoroughfare, but
it could have been miles, even thousands of them. The parked
lot was nestled in a small thick forest, whose canopy projected an
ever-changing network of shadows and sunlight. Stepping my
foot on the pavement, I felt sand grinding into my feet and then
looked up to see a mountain of it rising from the other side of the
parking lot. We grabbed our cameras, then raced up this astonishing
mound of sand. The path was roughly twenty feet wide, almost
graded perfectly, but steeply upwards. It was both a physical
and mental endeavor, as I derided myself each heart-pumping step
of the way about how out of shape I had become. Looking ahead,
all you could see was the deep blue of a cloudless sky. The
apparent summit was more of a finish line, requiring a last push
to the ultimate crest.
The view was surreal. We were in Indiana, standing atop a mountain
of sand, a panoramic view before us. We could have been in
the Sahara Desert of Africa, but several hundred feet below lay the
shoreline of Lake Michigan, extending across our view for miles. We
could have been walking through the windswept dunes of South Carolina,
but in the distance the same factory that we had recently discovered
jutted out from the horizon. We could have been lying under
the shady cover of a cottonwood grove in the plains of Nebraska,
but behind us stood the tall timbers of the hardwood forest. This
place, this juxtaposition of sand, cottonwood groves, dune grasses,
water, and factories was absolutely breathtaking – inharmonious,
yet fitting at the same time.
The three of us traversed and explored this natural playground. Soon
after our arrival, I suggested we try biking down this sloping, sandy
hillside to the water below. My two compatriots confirmed my
proposition and I ran back to the RV to grab the bike and the video
camera to document this idiocy. My first attempt was a bit
of a buzzkill: The sand was too soft to generate any speed and I
spent much of my time falling, catching myself, balancing, and then
treading my way down. Wigs’ route down the hill proved
more fruitful as he gathered more speed in a steeper and harder section
of the slope. Near the end of his journey, where the wind had
created an abrupt change in the sand’s consistency, Wigs’ lost
control, front wheel turning perpendicular, body flying over the
handle-bars. He stood up laughing, and I was glad that everything
was okay.
While I was taking pictures and footage of the area, Ben was busy
meeting our new friends, Shyla and Tom, a couple hailing from Minneapolis. Their
conversation was spurred by Ben wanting a photograph, most likely
because they looked unique. Both 26-years-old, Shyla and Tom
are self-admittedly Punk Rockers through and through. Covered
in tattoos, piercings, and black, they appear to be part of a counter
culture and, in a large part, they are. They both have ten gauge
hoop earrings, expanding their lower ear to roughly the size of a
quarter. At some point in their lives, the each had almost every
part of their body pierced. Shyla’s tattoos include Captain
Beefy Tits, a rotund female pirate accompanied by a treasure map
and ship, a Hawaiian bamboo forest, Eve taking a bite of the apple
with a caption saying “eat and enjoy”, and a marionette
wearing a Jamaican dress breaking free from her strings. Tom
is adorned with a Chinese tattoo that translates to “rebel,” a
coyote in a desert scene, the words “I like juice”, and
directional arrows all across his forearm.
Shayla owns her own piercing shop. Tom is a musician and part
owner of the Hard Times Café, a Mecca for the Punk Rocking
crowd in Minneapolis. They were fascinating people, wholly
honest and completely in touch with themselves.
Because I was focused on taking pictures and jumping in the lake,
I was sort of in and out of the initial conversation, but Ben and
Wigs spoke with them for over an hour on top of Mt. Baldy. They
conversed about competition versus collaboration, underground subcultures,
MTV, fulfilling careers, and love to name a few themes. They
spoke of being castigated in their youth, riding on freight trains,
and getting in fights. I was there for talks of happiness,
family, and magic in the world. Shyla, who was adopted, felt
loved by her family. Tom, on the other hand, felt little connection
to his family back in Boston. Noticing this irony, Tom believed
that a family was something that needed to be cultivated and heartfelt. Accordingly,
he has created a family of friends that understands him in his new
home of Minneapolis.
When they first met, Shyla was going through a tough time in her
life and she asked Tom whether he believed in magic in the world. He
affirmed, and she “was like hell yeah, I like this guy.” Tom
told us, “You only see the magic in the world when you make
yourself aware. If you spend your whole life going to work,
going to a bar, and then going home to bed, you’ll never see
the magic. But you if you are out there meeting new people,
exploring new places, and doing new things, the magic comes a lot
easier.”
We chatted and explored and biked again and swam and lost track
of time. Pretty soon, the sun had fallen below the horizon
and dusk came quickly. Shyla and Tom proposed dinner and we
all happily agreed. Heading back down to the RV, Ben and I
agreed that we had one of the best experiences of the trip.
Matey’s was the restaurant of choice in Michigan City. The
food was mediocre, but the conversation was intriguing. Our
new friends expounded on the details of piercing and tattoos, topics
that the four of us new little about. They spoke again of being
alienated all of their life. Tom told us about how he got in
a fight almost every day of his teenage days. Not officially
trained, his fighting style was a form of Kung Fu and he used his
wiliness to his advantage. His most important attribute, however,
was his ability to take multiple punches to the skull and not even
flinch. He claims to be a great fighter, not because he wants
to be or because he is a tough guy, but because he has been threatened
and made fun of all his life. He has learned to fight to protect
himself from those that don’t understand him.
Tom has always been a bit of a rebel and he stands up for what he
believes in. I asked him if he had ever been seriously injured in
a fight and he told me the following story. When he was twenty-two-years-old,
he and some friends went to protest the Primary Debate of 2000 between
Bush and Gore at UMass – Boston. Their reason: Ralph
Nader was repeatedly denied access to the debate despite having the
legitimate credentials to be there. To protest this denial
of the first amendment, this staunch affirmation of a two-party system
in our political arena, Tom and his friends decided to block off
an exit from the debate. Not long after, the Boston police
armed with mace and night-sticks began to push the group back. Tensions
escalated quickly and Tom noticed one of his female friends being
beaten by one of the cops. He fought the cop off of her, only
to be slammed to the ground by two others. These cops beat
him with their night-sticks with enough force to break his shoulder
and several ribs.
Eventually fighting free, Tom fled down the street. Aching and bemused,
sitting on a street corner not far from the scene, he was approached
by a reporter for a local paper. He told her everything: about
the protest, the police brutality, his injuries. The next day
Tom read in the paper “that a young man was running from the
cops, fell, and injured his shoulder.” From that point
forward, Tom claims, he has always been jaded about media in our
country.
Four years later, it seems this Punk Rocker’s insurrectionary
fire has simmered a bit exemplified by his distaste for the “rebel” tattoo
that covers his arm.
On a road trip of their own, Shyla and Tom were traveling back from
Philadelphia, where they were dropping a friend off. They
were planning on stopping by the area for a short jaunt to the dunes,
but like us they followed where the wind took them. They liked
our company and we liked theirs, but Shyla had work the following
day and they had quite a drive ahead of them, so they needed to depart. We
said our goodbyes and they drove off into the night.
**Here are links to pictures from the day:
LANDSCAPES
PEOPLE
October 1st
We awoke at Wigs’ second cousin Kevin’s house at John
Carroll University near Shaker Heights, Ohio. It was probably
one of the top-5 worst nights of sleep I’ve ever had. Some
sources of interruption included, but were not limited to the carbon-monoxide
alarm, Wigs’ late arrival home, a girl that was stalking him
by continually knocking on our door through the night, a party inside
the house, cops breaking up said party, cops in the morning issuing
a summons, and guys talking in the morning. Upon gaining consciousness,
Wigs and I decided to bike around the area. I am really happy
that we brought the bikes along because they have proven to be a
great way to see places we visit as well as providing solutions to
parking problems in cities (drop two of us off at destination, find
parking spot outside congested city, bike to meet other two).
After grabbing a bight to eat at an Internet café and updating
the website, we headed back to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which
is a must stop if you are ever in the area. It is an incredible
museum that you could easily spend a whole day perusing. A
few notable things in the museum: Britney Spears’ Oops,
I Did It Again schoolgirl outfit; September 24, 1970 letter
from Florida Probation and Parole Commission to Admiral Morrison
about Jim exposing himself; actual “Wall” from 1990
Pink Floyd Berlin concert; a letter from Charles Manson asking for
a subscription to Rolling Stone as due compensation for
using him in an article, signed with a swastika; live concert footage
of Hendrix shown in a theater; 500 best songs of Rock and Roll interactive
jukebox; left-handed guitar that Hendrix (who plays a right-handed
guitar lefty) gave to right-handed Graham Nash to give him idea how
he plays.
Later that day, I asked the guys which group/artist had the most
lasting legacy on Rock and Roll and why. Adam chose, “the
Beatles because they continually set the frontier of rock music.” Wigs
said, “John Lennon because he cultivated a passionate following
of dreamers.” Ben opted for “Bob Dylan because
he moved a generation with his words alone. His lyrics are
like poetry.” While I agree with my friend Ben, I have
to say Jimmy Hendrix because he expanded everybody’s notion
on how a guitar could be played and began a course of distorted and
psychedelic rock that has continued until today.
Following our second visit to the rock museum, we headed next-door
to Science Museum to see the Nascar Imax, narrated by Keifer Sutherland. A
few notable facts/moments in movie:
- In case we felt dizzy or nauseous,
we were advised, “just
close your eyes and when you wake up you should feel just fine.”
- NASCAR
is America’s most popular spectator sport
- It apparently started
because Bootleggers wanted to race each other
- The more cars in a pack,
the faster they can drive. I had previously understood the concept
of drafting, but I didn’t know that
the more cars you have drafting the faster the entire pack can
go. Pretty cool huh?
- A bumber sticker that said, “Jesus Christ
is my idol, Dale Earnhart is my #1
- The importance of sponsorship
on the sport
We then had a team conference and decided to drive up to Detroit. This
was an absolutely gorgeous drive as the sun was setting on the golden
wheat fields. For the first time, we were out of the familiar. It
finally seemed like we were in the Midwest. The sun had set
as Harvey rolled into Detroit and we needed to find a place to park. There
was a Red Wings game going on and we decided to look for parking
around the stadium, which was right in the middle of town.
Now, parking an RV in a city is quite a chore given that we stand
either 12’ or 12’9” depending on whether we listen
to the Medford, LI Cruise America dealer or the warning on the sun
visor inside. Regardless, it doesn’t fit in any traditional
parking lots and is virtually impossible to parallel park. We
found a rooftop garage that advertised 7’, but looked significantly
higher. Someone confirmed that we could fit and I maneuvered
the RV through the entrance and onto the spiraling ramp. It
was dark and somewhat sketchy, but we crossed our fingers and locked
our doors. The panoramic view of the city was worth it.
We then went to dinner at Jacoby’s, a small, but vivacious
restaurant in downtown Detroit. It was owned by a very nice
old man, who popped his collar and totally altered my notion of why
kids our age do so. We all got hit on by our middle-aged waitress,
whose bubbly personality lit up the room and whose etched face exemplified
a hard working life. Here are some of her memorable quotes: “Will
you be my Christmas present this year?” or “Will you
guys get drunk so that I can take advantage of you” or “Do
you mind if I sit on your lap?”
 
As Adam watched the Sox beat the Yankees in a close one, Ben and
I waited outside on the street. Within minutes we were approached
by three different beggars, the most charismatic being the elderly
Papa Smurf. Apparently “very well known in the area,” he
was born in Birmingham, AL, but moved to Detroit in his late teens
and has lived there ever since. Subtly referring to the racial
disparity in the NHL, Papa Smurf noted, “I even follow the
Red Wings.”
The group then split up, Adam and Wigs heading back to the RV via
Detroit’s People Mover, which was the cities elevated monorail
system. Griz and I decided to check out the town. We walked
through Greek section of Detroit, which is filled with Greek stores,
shops, strip clubs, and one very large casino. Upon venturing
into the casino, Ben and I decided it was too smoky and dimly lit
for our liking. The casino saddened me because it seems like
a lot of people are intent on making money to get by, but really
end up just throwing it away. It is crazy how casinos create
an almost surreal atmosphere. I felt like I was being hypnotized
into feeding them money: There are no clocks to induce a timeless
state. The chiming and clinking of the slot machines provide
a constant ringing in your ears, rhythmically reminding you to reach
into your pockets. The architecture is designed to make it
practically impossible to leave unless you can rappel down from the
escalator that only takes you up, and not down to the floor where
you can exit.
After a couple of hours of experiencing the Greektown section of
Detroit, Griz and I were picked up by the other guys and headed to
East Lansing, MI around midnight. We drove off into the Michigan
night with Adam at the helm of Harvey, me as first mate, the rest
of the crew sleeping in the back. Arriving at Michigan State
around 2am, we were psyched to be there and looking forward to the
day ahead. Two hours, fourteen parking lots, one local cop,
one traffic cop, seventeen drunk kids later, we finally found a place
to dock Harvey for the night. Our two friends oblivious to
this fact, Adam and I climbed into bed, vehemently hating Michigan
State and thinking sweet thoughts for their rival Michigan in the
impending game.
September 27th
I am going to start this blog at the stroke of midnight. The
setting: Uncle Tony’s Bar in Binghamton, NY, stuck in the middle
of the state, miles from Pennsylvania, years from prosperity. The
story of Binghamton is a sad one. From what I have gathered
from locals, the city was booming years ago: IBM and Endicott-Johnson
Shoe Corporation had successful plants that brought in thousands
of jobs. In the years to come, both companies decided to move
their plants overseas, leaving Binghamton jobless and downtrodden. The
city reeks of abandonment, the streets empty, many windows boarded
up. The parking attendant at the local American Hockey League
game spoke of waterfront improvements being made, but these changes
were not discernible from the outside.
After our initial parking job in a back alley by the river, we decided
to move Harvey directly in front of Tony’s, where Adam and
Ben were watching the Sunday games. It seemed as though this
bar was one of the most popular spots in town, and having Harvey
parked outside definitely attracted attention. When looking
out of the bar, the view of the street was no longer, as Harvey’s
side encompassed the whole window front. If we wanted to we
could have done a long jump from the second step of the RV and landed
in Tony’s to await a cold beer. Wigs’ tried, but
he is a little clumsy sometimes and slipped and fell on the slick
second step. He landed on his face in between a group of women exiting
the bar.*
As I left Harvey after grabbing my camera, there was a group of
men three strong loitering around the vehicle. I had noticed
them inside as they peered quizzically at us while we sat in the
bar circled together, eyes glued to our computers. But they
had left, apparently chasing after a group of women. Now these
men saw the same strangers, who were having a business meeting in
a bar, exiting Harvey, and it was obvious that they were wondering
what the hell we were doing there. After informing them about the
aspirations of our project, they seemed interested in chatting. Two
of the men were outside of our age range. Max, 19, was not.
I followed these men in the bar, sat down, and listened. It
was a very invigorating experience for me because it was exactly
what I wanted out of this project. I was chatting with totally
random strangers, who were real Americans from places and backgrounds
that I have only read about and never experienced. The older
man in the posse, 42, grew up in the ghetto of Brooklyn and from
what I could pick up in our short conversation was homeless when
he arrived in Binghamton two weeks earlier. Max’s working-class
family decided to help him out and gave him a place to stay. The
other man, 34, was a friend from the area.
It is incredible what you can learn from just sitting down and talking
with complete strangers. They spoke of love, poverty, wealth,
and America. They were often in agreement and seemed absolutely
sure about their beliefs. To them, our generation was soft,
babied, spoon-fed. There was no cohesiveness, no agreement
on beliefs, nothing we rallied upon as an age group. We worried
too much about trivial issues and rarely looked beyond ourselves. They
were fed up with our government and thought that our personal lives
were being invaded upon. Were they unique? Probably not,
but they were passionate and interesting and real.
Our conversation was cut short around 12:30 because the guys wanted
to get on the road in order to make progress to Pittsburgh. As
we readied to leave, Wiggins hopped up the steps of the RV with a
slight smirk on his face. He said, “I just went to double
check we hadn’t left anything in the bar and you won’t
believe what the bartender told me…Heiny, those guys that
you were talking to left the bar without paying.” I didn’t
really know what to make of it. I guess part of me thought that it
was a mistake and—because they were all excited after being
in front of a camera and told they were going to be put on a website—that
they accidentally forgot to pay. Earlier in the night, their
sly glances and initial entrance made me worry about leaving my computer
next to them. Then, after conversing, I felt like we had become
friendly, connecting on some level. I guess I learned that
things are not always as they seem, that people enjoy being in front
of a camera, and that in order to know somebody you must spend more
than thirty minutes with them.
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So, I hopped in the drivers seat with Ben at my side, our two compatriots
working at the table behind. A few observations from the drive:
Eddie Vedder is hard to understand, but fun to sing along to. The
louder you blast the music, the better you sound. Playing a song
more than once in a row is a road-tripping faux paus, but hard to
avoid, especially with Ben as DJ.
Another observation is that we have already become accustomed to
personifying Harvey the RV. Right now he is slightly injured
(broken table arm, AC unit that pees whn rained upon among other
small wounds) and is desperately in need of a bathroom (the “Blackwater” gauge
on our control panel shines bright red, which I guess means stop
feeding me). As Whitey wrote, we have also begun to call our
GPS Navigator Sally. Maybe we have done this in order to give
Hank, our cardboard friend some company. Maybe we are lonely
and want more friends. Maybe the RV makes us delirious sometimes
and we have idiotic conversations. Who knows.
----------------------------------
I will now give you
the rest of day’s
synopsis a la Rules
of Attraction: Drive two hours through Scranton and
Wilkes Barre, pullover at rest stop, go to the bathroom, sleep
next to thirty-nine tractor trailers on the side of the interstate,
Adam wakes up and starts driving to Pittsburgh, Ben takes over,
Wigs to follow, arrive in Pittsburg, attempt to tour Heinz factory,
get rejected because Heinz was bought by Del Monte Foods and since
relocated, walk across steel bridge, take pictures, grab lunch
at local deli, take footage of Pittsburgh, upload website, drive
through city looking for Pitt campus, eventually find it, convince
parking attendant that because we are shooting a documentary we
should be able to play basketball at the student rec center, start
our two on two rivalry, lose first game to a questionable call,
win second game, shower in locker room, forget the soap in the
shower, drive to West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV, grab
eats at local sports restaurant, meet up with Ben’s third
cousins, a guy and a girl, initially think that they are dating
because Ben only told us that we were meeting a girl cousin, park
RV at girl cousin’s apt, poop, sleep.
Four days from now, I’ll be back.
*This
didn’t really happen, but it would have been funny
if it did
September 24th
 
On September 22nd, 2005, we awoke in the parking lot of Scully Fahey
Field, dazed and slightly confused. For four years, Adam, Ben
and I had committed ourselves to playing lacrosse on this field (and
attending Dartmouth College). It was strange to wake up there:
no longer a college athlete (and no longer a student). As
I traversed campus later, it was fun to rekindle the myriad memories,
some distant and some still vibrantly alive. In the end, it
was great to see familiar faces and places, but the road was calling
us—it was time to move on.
After running some errands, we finally hit the road around 3:30pm,
heading for Boston, me at the wheel. Thinking I was taking
the familiar drive home, I decided to head across the river to I-91
(for those of you who don’t know the area, this is a more circuitous
route to Boston). It was not until later that we realized that my
mistake was a godsend — one goal of our project is to drive
through every state in the lower 48. So by taking 1-91, we
drove through Vermont thereby avoiding a much longer sidetrack on
our way home.
A quick note about driving Harvey the RV (yes, I have given in to
the name): you soon realize that you are not in a car. The front-cab
of the vehicle actually makes you think you are—that is, until
you look upward and see the bed protruding over the hood; or until
you round a curve on a dirt road in Maine and the back portion of
your 30-foot-long vehicle scrapes a rock because it can’t negotiate
the turn; or until you drive for three seconds to hear the wonderful
cacophony of dishes banging against each other in the kitchen cabinet;
or until you stop too quickly and every book that you had spent ten
minutes arranging flies out and hits you on the head.
We eventually found our route and it was smooth sailing to our next
destination. The drive across New Hampshire was gorgeous, the
quiet undulations of the road carrying us across the valleys and
hills of the White Mountains. The vibrant green of summer was
slowly turning to hues of yellow and red. There were other
signs of fall: the cool, crisp air, the prematurely setting sun.
Our first stop in Boston was at Wigs’ apartment to pick up
the Maxtor storage units for the documentary. The one hundred and
seventy pounds of external drives now stand guard around our master
bedroom. From there, we headed to the Boston College campus,
parked Harvey next to the football stadium, and went to the dining
hall for some food. Upon returning to our vehicle, we ventured
into the darkened Alumni Stadium for an impromptu game of football,
which was cut short by a an injury to Adam’s left big toe as
a result of a questionable tackle by Ben. Needless to say,
throwing around and kicking field goals in a huge, dark, historic
football field is something you all should try.
 
Trying to meet up with friends at Mary Ann’s, a local bar,
we parked Harvey in a random parking lot, squeezed between a CVS,
a T-stop, and some apartment buildings. We conducted a very
spontaneous profile of a CVS employee named David Romulus, who besides
having a pretty cool name is one of the most optimistic pessimists
we’ve ever met. It sounds weird, but you’ll see.
 
After being threatened for cutting the line at the nearby bar and
subsequently getting rejected because our 47-year-old-looking friend
Steve didn’t have back-up for his New York ID, we decided to
bring our friends onto the RV to chat for a few hours until our hectic
schedule and lack of sleep overcame us.
Ok, that’s all for today. I’ll be back. |
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