dangerousmeta!, the original new mexican miscellany, offering eclectic linkage since 1999.

The trip east, longish.

Travelling back to my ‘native’ East Coast is always a bittersweet journey.  I originally left after many years of commuting to New York City, watching my beloved Princeton area become buried under unchecked gleesome development.  When I participated in opposition to the rezoning of a patch of land adjacent to my condominium complex, and the wishes of hundreds of residents were tabled in deference to a single corporate attorney, I gave up on being able to stop or even just preserve the character of the area.  I moved West, and picked Santa Fe ... where the three cultures (Hispanic, Caucasian, Native American) continue to hammer out an uneasy detente, and change happens glacially (compared to the East). 

I do love a road trip. In spite of the overindulgence in tractor-trailers salving our national ‘gotta have it now’ consumer cravings, the joys of the open road still beckon.  I wish that someday I could, like William Least Heat Moon, throw off the demands of scheduling and speed, and traverse the two-lane highways and byways of ‘blue highway’ America.  Unfortunately, most of my travels this time were limited to our nation’s interstates.

The preparation is rather simple, really.  I bought a minivan years ago, having become infatuated with the vehicle during my many A/V gigs around the country.  They hold a lot of gear, you can walk around in them (bent over like a question mark), sleep in them, and they have just enough power to be really great highway vehicles for long distance venturing.  If they just added higher clearance, that would be the perfect vehicle for traversing most of New Mexico (4WD’s advantages are overrated and mostly underused).  Fellow ‘macho’ men and car aficionados think I’m totally off my nut.  The sustainable/energy efficiency crowd will also protest, but I defy any to find a better vehicle for comfortably travelling the high speed American interstate system.  Remove the middle seat, jam the rear seat as far forward as possible.  Stuff the least-needed items on the bottom layer behind the rear seat, putting your overnight gear on top, for easy access.  A full-sized cooler goes behind the driver’s seat, so the passenger can readily access supplies. Other foodstuffs in stiff paper grocery bags sit behind the two front seats.  Pillows, a quilt or two, on the back seat to give the non-driver the opportunity to rest.  A port-a-john is often nice, but a small trash bin, lined with a plastic bag (and sprinkled generously with cat litter) serves for when you just can’t find a rest area (or public bathrooms frighten; see below).  Some other items are necessary for driving in the winter West; emergency gear for a day or so of eating/drinking in crisis, enough clothing or other cover to stay warm without the benefit of a heat source, tire chains (the wire sort), a folding entrenchment shovel, that kind of thing. For modern technological requirements, a cheap power inverter to recharge cellphones, power laptops; this model had a powered USB port that served to charge iPods. A selection of books on tape from the local library (but be warned; turn it off in heavy traffic or dicey driving situations, especially if it’s a brain-twisting whodunit).

We left thus equipped in the aftermath of the first snowstorm of the season, right before the ‘big one’ that dumped more than 30” in our community east of Santa Fe.  The interstates had been rumored to be ‘bad’, but actual driving showed that the state roads (in this case, 285) were awful, the interstates clear and at full speed. Nary a speck of snow was to be seen in the areas the teleweather talking heads were preaching fire, brimstone and mangled carcasses.  Nice career, come to think of it.  Paraphrase the NOAA’s more discursive predictions, make broad declarations that couldn’t be more wrong, come back the next day as if nothing untoward ever happened, have an adoring fan base, and get paid in the six figures. Obviously, I picked the wrong career.

The snow steadily thinned as we headed East across New Mexico.  No real accumulations at Tucumcari, Santa Rosa, San Jon.  Cross into Texas, the storm had manifested as thick ice.  No wonder the Texas State Troopers closed the interstate at the state line! It must have been awful. To their credit, I saw not a single jacknifed tractor-trailer. At least half-inch ice covered the branches of trees at Amarillo.  But within fifty or so miles, the traces of winter were gone, leaving us to blankly ponder the emptiness of the Texas Panhandle undisturbed by weather conditions.

We stayed the night with good friends in Tulsa, Oklahoma… they were kind enough to host us both on our way east, and on the return trip west.  Tulsa is a much nicer town than perhaps the average American would imagine, Oklahoma being the butt of “Okie from Muscogee” stereotyping.  The traffic is mild, the streets clean, the people friendly. Modern big-box development seems to have been handled better than, say, Austin TX.  I like it very much, in spite of the fact every other road seems to require an exact change toll.

The second day was the trip from Tulsa to Indianapolis, passing through St. Louis. Past trips have shown St. Louis and its access to the Mississippi as being a major tractor-trailer hub.  However, in this particular case, travelling just a couple of days before Xmas, we were accompanied by truckers to St. Louis, but after passing by, the numbers dwindled.  Everyone seemed to be arriving, but no Xmas gear was in a hurry to be delivered eastward from that point.  A rare gift, to travel from St. Louis clear to NJ, unescorted by tractor trailers.

The third day was mostly spent on the PA turnpike, a toll road that betrays no evidence of your toll dollars being used to improve the route.  Oh, plenty of construction, but no evidence of anything getting any better.  I would drive along, bouncing in the potholes, yelling, “I want my 16 bucks to go to THAT pothole!!!” “I want my 16 bucks to fix THAT leak in the roof of the tunnel!!!” We were approaching the end of the trip, and I was beginning to get a little testy.  The cu-chunka cu-chunka of rutted old cement, mildly mitigated with disappearing asphalt, didn’t do much to help.  The state of repair of roads really falls off after you pass the Mississippi heading east, whether you’re paying a toll or not; I’d recommend never driving an exotic car through eastern PA or NJ.

During the drive, many curiousities.  I’ll start with bathrooms, something that used to be a non-event during travel:

- Are there any clean public bathrooms left in America? The state of the public bathroom is dreadful. I suppose the plethora of germs is improving our immune function.  We live in a successful, affluent high-tech culture ... but urinate and defecate in the Third World. Some are so awful, I’d tear down and rebuild, rather than ‘clean.’ The Geneva Conventions should have a line item about American public bathrooms as ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’

- The latest craze, hands-free towel dispensers, seem to have a function that allows maintenance personnel to dictate how many inches of towel are dispensed, and the time interval between wave-at-the-detector demands.  In one stop, I got four feet of towel, any time I wanted. I was tempted to come out sporting one as a scarf.  In another, a bare inch and a half, with a five minute wait.  I walked out with dripping hands, to have the liquid freeze before I reached the car.  A good idea, that is failing in implementation.  One problem with the anti-germ concept - everyone uses the exit door handle. 

- Standardize the design – and height – of urinals.  On the east coast, there seems to be a penchant for putting the bottom of the urinal within inches of the floor, the top being lower than your fly. Partial squatting doesn’t encourage the swift emptying of a full bladder, and your muscles shake to maintain the squat after hours of driving.  There used to be the old ‘father-son’ height differentiations, but they seem to be disappearing.  As you traverse further West, you run into a unique style of stainless steel urinal, along the lines of a cow trough repurposed by an origami artist, and screwed proudly on the tiled wall. Multiple males utilizing them, resound like hail on a tin roof ... or merely broadcast the overall health of your prostate to all within the building.

- In Oklahoma, they’ve installed a new-fangled sort of multipurpose sink at rest areas. Basically a hole in a plasticky Corian wallpiece, you shove your hands in (after stooping to reach to the back to set off the sensor). Now, this may be a primeval fear, or this could be a particularly New Mexican reflex, but I balk at shoving my hands in unfamiliar dark holes.  Around NM, practicing this kind of behavior means pissing off rattlers, black widows, and worse.  Girding myself with the knowledge that these overengineered delights were relatively new, and probably not spider-ridden, I shoved my hands in.  No response.  Take a deep breath, shove the hands all the way to the likely germ-infested rear panel, and it dispenses heavily perfumed cold soapy water on your hands, the scent of which nearly knocks you dead.  As your nose burns in offense, the auto-sink seamlessly changes to unadulterated cold water that rinses your hands.  The final step is to dry your hands with freezingly cold air.  I assume cold air encourages less germ growth? Or by giving you a good case of pneumonia, it reduces wear and tear on the equipment at the rest stop? Seeing as how I was already freezing from the cold temps and winds, I made a frank comment to the guy next to me about the frigidity of the air.  He just gave me a contemptuous look and turned away.  Walking outside, I watched him climb into an Oklahoma DOT truck. Erk. In the meantime, everyone else exiting the building smelled like they’d been bodily attacked by Madge wielding her Palmolive dishsoap like a water cannon. 

Considering road food:

- Difficult to find ‘local’ cuisine near an interstate anymore.  The major chains (McD’s, BK, etc.) have run the mom-and-pop eateries into bankruptcy. You can’t find a single diner anymore.  That being said, locals bring some interesting ‘character’ to some of these chains. At a Waffle House in Ohio, fresh farm eggs from down the lane were used instead of the usual mass-produced tasteless gel. A Cracker Barrel in Indiana had a wonderful, 15-log fire in the fireplace roaring on a cold morning on the way back ... and, like life, you always get grits whether you want them or not.

- McD’s is completely generic no matter where you are, excepting the adobe ones in NM.  And, I’m happy to find, in Tulsa, where there’s an original 50’s-ish one on 91st street, sporting old fashioned Rt. 66 neon and a single arch. 

- Panera Bread is a treasure for easy free WiFi as you travel, not to mention their great breads and coffees.  Keep your eyes out, they put them on those exit signs if they’re in the neighborhood.  Log in with the browser first to clear their security; don’t be a cocksure wiseass as I was, trying to access email for a half hour, before reading their brochure on “Using our WiFi.”

General Americana:

- The farms in the Midwest that were so lovingly maintained as I came West just 10 years ago, are getting tatty.  Unpainted, falling down in some cases.  Even the edges of Amish country are degrading.  This lifestyle is under significant threat, and needs to be aided in some fashion.  We lose our farms, we lose America’s soul.  Our farms seem unloved, and it is showing.

- As the farms have degraded, a new beast has appeared in the Midwest landscape:  the insta-church.  Cheap steel corrugated buildings, competing with each other in size and color, often sporting a huge ugly metal cross in the front green sward.  They’re all over the place.  Trading the revered conservative farm philosophy for a cheap gewgaw Christianity?  This subject drove a lot of contemplation as I counted one after another of these hideous monstrosities.  Whereas gothic soars with the angels, steel stultifies.  Are there any new stone churches out there? Does anyone build for the glory of God, or just for the glory of the bottom line? I wonder.  Other ages gave us Michaelangelo’s soaring visions; we’re celebrating the numinous with an Erector set.

- Near Amarillo TX, a sign: “Quality Beef.” Hundreds of cows attempting to keep warm on huge gaseous piles of excrement, waiting to become your next Whopper, Big Mac, etc.  Not a hint of grass to be seen. Unrepentant cruelty, no attempt to hide the horror.  What you see is what you eat. Burp. 

- In Amish western PA, a farmer hitching up his team of draft horses for a day of work.  Beautiful big Belgians, steaming in the morning dew.  Traditional America does still exist, but you really need to keep your eyes open.

- The McMansion.  Or, I should say, McHouse.  A McMansion should be stone, in my opinion.  Wood is not a mansion.  Likewise, my definition of ‘mansion’ includes butlers, maids, chefs and other support personnel [Gone are the days, I suppose, when the rear seat of the Bentley or Rolls was more important than the front, as you were chauffered].  These McHouses are just massively huge, difficult to maintain, expensive to heat, quick to fall down. Predominantly cheap wood construction, perhaps with brick or badly-done stone facings, thousands of square feet that cost billions to heat, no doubt, when extrapolated across all the builders in the nation. Two living rooms (casual and formal), two dining rooms (same), family room, media room ... and more. So much wasted heated space.  You want America to use less oil?  Try pulling the reins on home designs.  Princeton NJ suffers this malady in a very serious form, no restraints on design.  Every time we came upon McHouseitis, no matter which municipality, we noticed significant degradation in infrastructure (miserable roads, worse than the average we encountered, and more) surrounding the developments.  When will communities learn that giving builders free reign

- Elderly drivers of bus-sized RV’s, weaving back and forth across the interstates in high winds.  At rest stops, you realize some can’t even perambulate reliably to the building ... often a very unsteady shuffle ... yet they are allowed to drive a vehicle bigger than a military tank. And tow other vehicles, as well!  Last time I towed a trailer, it required very good spatial coordination and quick reflexes.  Good thing they have American flags on their bumpers, otherwise I might mistake them for anarchic highway terrorists.  Then again, perhaps a better metaphor is Pac-Man: you time your passing maneuvres and accelerate away as fast as possible, much as you would avoiding Inky, Pinky and Blinky.  They will eventually nail someone ... make sure it isn’t you.

Specific to a book-on-tape:

- Mr. Hillerman, “The Wailing Wind” uses the description ‘wry face’ or ‘wry look’ way too often. In every person to person dialog, it’s used at least once ... or so it seemed.  We began anticipating it, to the detriment of suspension of disbelief.  People do, often, twist their mouths in consternation or frown instead.

Vehicular adventures:

- Just off the PA Turnpike, near Neshaminy Mall, my first experience with a newfangled traffic light.  Apparently, to catch your attention, the middle of the red light has a white strobe light bar that flashes at you.  I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do ... stop, or don polyester and dance ‘Saturday Night Fever’ in the crosswalk.  You’ll be unsurprised to know, it completely nukes your night vision. Apologies to that person I almost ran over after the light turned green.  I ‘saw the light’, and couldn’t see much else ... for about fifteen minutes afterwards.

- The only incidents of road rage I encountered on the trip were in the last ten miles of the PA Turnpike before hitting US 1/Neshaminy. Young sports seem to like to overtake at a high rate of speed, and then harass random drivers by acting like they’re going to broadside you. They seemed not to know what to do when I gave them a maniacal Jack Nicholson grin out the window and weave back.  Eventually they’d accelerate off into the horizon, glad to leave that crazy New Mexican behind. I suppose a look of terror is what they wanted.  I left them wanting.

- American Express continues to be accepted at fewer and fewer places, due to their higher fees ... including at filling stations. I’ve used Amex for years to track expenses, without interest rates, so if you’re like me, be aware of this circumstance.

- Stopping at a full-service gas station in NJ, I played tug-of-war with the attendant trying to use my charge card to fill up.  I thought he was some crazed idiot getting in my way at the self-serve pump; turns out I was the crazed idiot.  A way of business once normal, now seems a risk.  He didn’t wash my windows, or shine my rear view mirrors, after that little brouhaha.  I’ve taped the crack in my charge card.

- Shiny macadam.  Smooth, quiet, blinding at night.  Reflects headlights like a mirror. Mix with the popularity of shiny vinyl fences, and you have a perfect whiteout.

Most of my time east was spent in Levittown PA, with a couple of trips to my hometown of Princeton NJ. I would have tried to make contact with some of you favored East-coasters, but time was tight.  We had many family members and close friends to visit. The entire visit was pretty much pre-choreographed. 

I was happy to see that Fedoras in Lawrenceville NJ was still open, and was equipped with WiFi.  More cozy and less populated than the Panera Bread on Nassau Street in Princeton, I highly recommend the place.

One day I took a quick trip down to Longwood Gardens, in Kennett Square PA.  Longwood is like a part of my family; my father was an avid gardener, and we ventured down there virtually every season of every year of my youth.  The Xmas displays now attract unbelievable numbers of people.  I’m sad to say the attention to detail is diminishing, and it too is getting pummelled by popularity and population.  I won’t go back except in an off-season, perhaps in a pouring thunderstorm, in order to enjoy the solitude I so fondly remember. At least Indian Hannah’s mound remains untouched (The last full-blood member of the Lenni Lenape tribe), though it looks like they’ve paved most of the meadow trails (I assume for handicapped access), ruining the character of those solitary and wonderfully grassy walks. Sometimes it seems like we wish to pave the world.  The on-site cafeteria and restaurant are astonishingly good, and I believe use vegetables grown on-site.  Carrots taste like carrots again, not like gooey orange pencil lead.  Don’t miss the afternoon cobbler experiments in summer.  If there’s anything made with mushrooms ... purchase it.  Kennett Square is one of the finest mushroom-growing areas in the country.  I partook of a particularly excellent mushroom soup on this visit.

Also sad to see White Wing Farm, our favorite B&B, right behind Longwood, is closing.  Ed and Wanda are retiring from the B&B business; whether it will return to availability depends on who purchases the grounds ... for $3.8 million.  My best to the DeSetas, who were so wonderful to us over the years.

Princeton.  Oh, my hometown.  At first, it seems largely the same.  Then the changes become clear the more time spent walking around.  You notice that in some spots, two and three lots are being bought, houses levelled, and new McHouses are built.  Princeton High School, once a gothic beauty, has had something akin to a nuclear power plant (once again, cheap and easy steel construction, with huge HVAC) grafted on the back of it.  I was chagrined to find out from friends that the town politicos are actually proud of this abomination, enough to have a ceremony for the opening.  John Witherspoon School has a huge new addition, with not even a bow to the existing architecture.  It seems like completely unhinged thinking, to me. Noone seems to care for tradition.  I saw one house in the Terhune Road area, a new house being built with a recognition of the long colonial history.  But that was one out of hundreds. 

Hulit’s Shoes is still in the same spot downtown; I wonder if Mr. And Mrs. Hulit (my 4th grade teacher, BTW), are still alive.  PJ’s Pancake House still looks as low-rent ... and wonderful ... as ever.  Most of the other small businesses I knew and loved are gone.  The Woodrow Wilson School (known to us kids as “The Yamasaki Building”; Yamasaki also designed a building you all know well ... the twin towers of the WTC) has removed – completely removed – the reflecting pool and fountain in the plaza near Washington Road.  It is now a set of steps leading down to the former fountain/sculpture, populated by disaffected BMXers and skateboarders.  That’s a real piece of history gone; I recall the 60’s hippies taking dips there. The University Chapel seemed much whiter than I remember; perhaps it has had the exterior cleaned. New buildings seem to be popping up all over the place, including a strange looking blue/yellow/glass creation next to the Math Tower.

I paused to say ‘hey’ to Aaron Burr in the Princeton Cemetery.  The Institute for Advanced Study has not changed appreciably, and the Institute Woods have not been developed.  30 Battle Road, one of my family’s old residences, remains as always.

I stopped by my old home on Aiken Avenue.  We sold each side of the duplex for less than $200k; recently each side sold for nearly $600k.  My boyhood home, a million dollar mansion.  Can’t afford to live in the place I grew up in. That, is truly depressing.  The maple on one side is still alive, though very rotten. The groove where I’d hide my young face when playing hide and seek was still there.  The tulip tree my father so carefully grew from a seed is thriving on the other side, beautifully proportional, thick trunk, and is now higher than the house itself.  He would be happy to know that it is growing exactly as he envisioned, and complements the house very nicely. I wonder if the folks on the 15 side have discovered the cache of change I dropped through a hole in the floorboards in the master bedroom.  Very strange feeling, being back in a place where I know every back yard intimately, every crack and line in every sidewalk ... many years on. I thought about knocking, but figured the new owners would get mildly freaked out by a person who knows their house better than they do.

Then again, all of Princeton was my playground.  As it all changes, I can’t help wanting some attention to be paid to how it changes.  As it was in the ‘80’s, change seems to be happening without rhyme or reason.  Perhaps it is simply the maladies of political bureaucracy ... either way, the result is awful.  I’m surprised that the prep culture, so attuned to appearance, is letting it continue.  [Not a single Izod alligator on any houses! Heaven forfend!] I mean, the city has no problems trying to pass off Palmer Square as ‘colonial’, though it’s a thoroughly 20th century creation. They’d never allow a discordantly designed building there.

Every place we stopped, every store we walked in, people sensed we were different.  We smiled!  Everyone around us was, without exception, sullen.  Frowning, closed faces surrounded our experience of the east.  It was amazing what responses a simple ‘thank you’ or ‘please’ would generate.  Perhaps it’s the unremitting grey and brownness of PA/NJ winter, but folks, you need to lighten up.  Seriously.  Everyone looks better when they smile, and the world looks a whole lot better.

I sound most curmudgeonly, I know.  I am not against change; I would just like to see change happen in somewhat logical ways; ways in which the tradition and character of places would be respected.  Santa Fe does it, why can’t Princeton?  Why build modernist ugly buildings in a campus full of beautiful timeless gothic architecture?  Modern icons stick up awry, like a middle finger from a cultured fist.  A shameful demonstration of cheap response to complex requirements. Why not spend those millions, perhaps billions, on stone gothic, showing how we can do it better than the ancients?  Why must McHouses be joist-hangered, so badly built that when you jump up and down in them, the walls bow, plasterboard cracks, and the roof booms like a drum?  Eschew the ubiquitous 2x4, and enjoy the extra strength and insulation of the 2x6.  Why must America have vehicular access to every single monument, building, wilderness? What is the matter with expecting – even encouraging - people to walk?

Quality and responsibility. Common sense. I’d like to see these practiced and not just given lip-service, and more often.  The current measures of affluence and success are false gods.

This trip has changed me irrevocably.  I understand clearly now that I am no longer New Jerseyan, but solidly Western, growing as a New Mexican.  If you’d have given me an Australian Ford with clutched supercharger [“Road Warrior”], I couldn’t have gotten back fast enough.  I missed the clear strong sun and big skies so much, it was a physical pain.  I yearned for the empty spaces of the Llano Estacado.  The air east feels used, breathed by too many noses and mouths. There remains an unspoken, unwritten philosophy of self-reliance here in the West.  I have fully embraced the West’s lifestyle ... and with that comes a new responsibility.  To learn New Mexico as I learned New Jersey; history, culture, society.  I feel the need to honor the local culture and stop putting off learning Spanish & some local native dialects. I must find a way to get involved to perpetuate the traditions and cultures of the area, to prevent the maladies I’ve observed in PA/NJ.  The modern corporate bottom-line mentality is threatening everything I hold dear, and one must engage in all-out warfare to oppose them.  [Only because of our modern Homeland Security mentality, must I ameliorate that statement to clarify that I don’t mean using artillery or fisticuffs to express my opinion.]

The drive back to NM was the same route as the way out.  Once again, our friends in Tulsa kindly put us up for an extra day while we fruitlessly hoped that the sun’s radiant energy might melt more of the snow in our driveway.  We got curious looks purchasing a snow shovel in 60 degree weather in Tulsa, and it was a good thing we did.  I had to dig at least a 100’ trench to the front door. We almost adopted a little Tulsan ‘rescue’ Quaker Parakeet, “Harley”, who still might become a New Mexican if my wife has her way.

We’re home, we’re recovering from the trip, and we’re so happy to be back in the Land of Enchantment.

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