Driving is the one of the ultimate expressions of freedom available to us, don't you think? No other form of travel -- air, rail or ship -- affords us the same degree of autonomy. And when driving is coupled with a seemingly endless stretch of road before us, it really conveys a sense of exploration and adventure. The beauty of it is that the adventure is relatively risk-free; unlike, say, the adventure of hiking throught he Amazon rainforest, or trekking across the Antarctic.
What I don't quite understand -- and this may very well be due to my low tolerance for the bohemian lifestyle -- is how one can travel across the country with no income and little reserve cash. Driving is expensive. Restaurants, hotels, gasoline ... and the threat of one's car breaking down looms constantly. (Although back in the 1950's the automobile was a considerably less sophisticated machine than it is now. Back then, virtually any "shade tree mechanic" could fix most problems. Today? It takes a special tool just to check the oil.)
One of the things I discovered during this trip across the United States is that this is a strikingly diverse and beautiful country. In the three days I traveled, I drove from the mountains of western North Carolina, across the rolling hills of western Tennessee, over the incredibly flat plains of eastern Arkansas (which produces lots of rice, I determined), down into the vast stretches of Texas, across the high plateau regions of west Texas and New Mexico, and finally down into the Sonoran desert of southeastern Arizona. God truly has blessed this nation. It's a shame we don't feel the gratitude we should.
I came no where near Route 66. There really is such a road. It is not a super-highway like our other "Interstate" roads (that's where the "I" comes from in highway names like I-40, I-95, I-75, I-30 and I-10). Route 66 was a road constructed prior to the Interstate system, and it stretched from the east coast all the way to the west. The book "On the Road" was published in 1957, and was likely written in 1955 or 1956. The act of Congress that initiated the construction of the Interstate system was from about that time frame. So it's likely that Kerouac didn't have access to any freeways as we know them today.
Notes: One can still see residual from the pre-freeway days ... motels dotted along what are now just roads, but off the freeway path. Typically those motels are not of the chain variety, and often are quite run down. I often think about the people who stay in those motels, and the people who operate them. There's a story there, though I don't have the energy to persue it. Also, interesting fact: the Interstate System in the United States was advocated by President Eisenhower, and he shrouded the whole thing in "national defense" terminology to insure its passage. In hindsight, it was a brilliant strategic move -- few things have contributed more to the economic development of this country than our super-highway system. Ironically, such a construction project would be virtually impossible today -- too many special interest groups would decry the cost, the environmental impact, the "discrimination" of both running a freeway near some area and, simultaneously, the discrimination of not running the freeway near some area.
All in all, I am grateful to the Lord God Almighty for shepherding me and my automobile across 2000+ miles and delivering me safely home.
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Change of subject. I was listening to a tape series called "Jesus Among Other Gods," by Ravi Zacharia, and he used a piece of logic to attempt to dispel the idea that all religions are equally true. His logic went, if I recall correctly:
If all religions are equally true, then it can be said that a religion that professed those religions to be false would also be true. That then renders the original religions simultaneously true and false at the same time.My question is this: what's your take on that logical construct? Does it hold up? Or is there a hole in it somewhere?
Note: I'm reminded of a Star Trek episode (the original series -- still the best) where the crew from the Enterprise is a planet populated by Harcourt Fenton Mudd and his androids. All the androids were gorgeous 1960's go-go girl beauties, and carried number tags around their necks. One male android existed: Norman, tag number 1. The female androids had the capacity for basic problem resolution, but required help from Norman for more complex problems. One of the strategies employed by Kirk and Spock was to overwhelm Norman by presenting the female androids with a series of complex and contradictory things. Spock: "You are like a beautiful flower that smells very bad." The thing that finally made Norman overheat was the logical construction offered by Kirk: "Listen very carefully, Norman: everything I say is a lie." Norman then tried to piece together the circular nature of that: "If everything you say is a lie, then what you just said is a lie, which means everything you say must be true ... "
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