Romanticizing the Interstate
Published in Marietta Daily Journal July 16, 2017
In the early sixties there was a
radio and television ad jingle that haunted me daily: “See the U.S.A. in your
Chevrolet.” It was a positive haunt that
fed my love for the open road. No doubt General
Motors knew the Interstate Highway System was imminent, so they timed their
jingle accordingly.
My wife doesn’t enjoy the hum or the
clap-clap of the interstate highway, but I do.
To me it’s music, history, and the sound of progress. It’s true that you can’t experience America
from the interstates, but you can certainly ponder America and the American
spirit as you belt your way toward your destination.
Road trips on the interstate always
drive my thoughts to four people: a president, a teacher, a general, and a
surveyor. The president was the face of
an era of good feeling in the late fifties.
The teacher was a historian extraordinaire who made sure students
connected the textbook to current events.
The general was just a name until I got to know his grandson, and the
surveyor was a quiet, 30-something survey crew chief, Andy, who led a small
pack of college kids across a fifty-mile wooded path that would become a
section of Interstate 20 in Mississippi.
President Eisenhower promoted the idea
of a national “superhighway” network partially as a national defense system. Impressed by the German autobahn while
serving as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in WWII, Eisenhower foresaw the
possible need of a good road system for times of war in America, should that
time ever come to our shores. In 1956
Eisenhower signed the law that authorized the Interstate Highway System.
During my 1960-61 school year at
Forest (MS) High School, Margaret Richardson held forth on all things
historical. Always connecting the past
to the present and arguing that the past is not over yet, she – the second of
my four interstate heroes – told us about the third, General Lucius Clay. Clay
was not yet in our American history textbook, so Richardson explained his
orchestration of the Berlin Airlift. She
also informed us that Clay had been charged by Eisenhower to head the panel
that would study and advise him on implementation of the interstate system.
Richardson proudly added, “You need
to know about General Clay. He’s a
Southerner.” Thirty years later I would
be privileged to meet the general’s grandson, Marietta attorney and then state
senator Chuck Clay. On two or three
occasions I have told the senator how the interstates make me think of his
grandfather, all because of an astute high school teacher.
I never knew Andy’s last name, but
that didn’t diminish his influence on me and the other college kids on his
survey crew. As summer employees of the
Mississippi Highway Department, we were primarily stake drivers.
An exemplary supervisor, Andy had a
poetic side. One day during lunch in the
tick and chigger-infested woods, Andy remarked, “Well, the government conceived
this superhighway, and the engineers will birth it, but us surveyors are
preparing the delivery room.”
Prepare we did. With stakes and markers in hand, we would
wait for Andy to peer through his tri-pod and then yell, “Cut” or “Fill.” Marking one or the other on the stake and
driving it into the ground, we thereby provided directions for the earthmoving
equipment operators to do their part in birthing an idea whose time had come.
Nobody today, except those who
remember pre-interstate America, can appreciate Andy’s colorful analogy. For many, the interstate is the bane of their
existence. For metro Atlantans, the word
conjures images of the three interstates that converge on and clog our state’s
capital city.
But hopefully, come vacation time,
we view the interstates differently.
Admittedly, they are a mixed blessing.
They connect us and disconnect us, speed us up and slow us down, bring
us together and scatter us abroad.
Still, they remind me that the American pioneer spirit has always been
to “head out” and reach for better things.
The
four people who flit across my brain whenever I travel on interstates all
understood the American spirit. It is a
spirit born not of restlessness per se, but of a desire to explore and risk. Traveling on is the American Way. The highest value of hitting the road was
summed up by poet T.S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end
of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the
first time.”
So happy summer travels! Back home you’ll love home more. And be grateful for a president, a general,
and a boo-coodle of “us surveyors” and engineers who helped make a dream a
reality.
Roger
Hines
7/12/17
No comments:
Post a Comment