Down John’s Road: The Beginning |
| John R. Olson | Monday, 26 September, 2011 |
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In his book Down John's Road, journalist John R. Olson recreates John Steinbeck’s iconic 1960 Travels With Charley journey in a GMC pick-up truck and Wolverine camper. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
In 2009, writer John Olson stared into his mortality and started driving down Steinbeck's long road. Like Steinbeck, John Olson set out out in a GMC truck and Wolverine truck camper. Both men took eleven weeks on a trek obsessed with circling the United States. John R. Olson: Down John’s Road Excerpts - The Beginning "Not all those who wander, are lost."
John Steinbeck rescued me. In October 2008, a financial calamity, fed by live-beyond-your-means Americans, greedy investment banks, and inattentive regulators strangled my dreams. Retired as a journalist, I had planned to buy an RV, hug the centerline and see America. But when my modest portfolio tanked by one-third and gas zoomed to $4.40 a gallon, the open road was visible only in Sunday newspaper travel sections. Then, the rescue. From his iconic best selling 1962 book Travels with Charley – replete with a dignified French Standard poodle, new GMC pickup truck, and a tendency to get lost surrounded by maps, John Steinbeck wrapped my dreams anew. It took a ribbon 12,000 miles long. On September 23, 1960, Steinbeck began an eleven-week journey through thirty-four states. Almost five decades later, I decided to reprise his journey. I decided to beg, borrow, or steal a GMC pickup truck; put a camper on back and head out, disdaining Interstates, chain hotels and fast food. At shotgun, would be Zorro, my trusty Black Labrador Retriever. Neither of our bladders lasts beyond two hours and Zorro didn’t quibble over radio stations as long as two meals a day arrived on time. The search for a camper began. From Travels with Charley, I learned Steinbeck’s rig had been built by Wolverine Campers in Gladwin, Michigan. At the time, GMC had a marketing venture with Wolverine. One could buy a GMC truck with a camper already attached.
Above: In May 2009, Olson (in truck) takes delivery of “Gabilan” from Howard Smith Sr. (right) and Jr. (left).
Immediately, I called. Company President Howard Smith Sr. answered. “Wolverine.” “Is this Wolverine Campers in Gladwin, Michigan?” “Sure is.” “Are you the company that built John Steinbeck’s camper for Travels with Charley back in the late 1950s?” “That’s us. I think there is a picture on the wall around here somewhere.” “Well, get ready to build another one.” “Be glad to.” From January to June 2009, Smith, his son Howard Jr., and a sub-committee of children, grandchildren and two aging Wolverine employees, Stan and Ernie, hand-built my camper. Inside, it mimicked how John Steinbeck described his own camper five decades before: My camper would have a shower, a decided advantage over Steinbeck’s. He had to stop every few days at a motel/hotel to become presentable for church on Sunday. Next up was the truck. My car salesman son found a nearly new 2008 GMC Sierra 2500 pick-up truck in Georgia. In late May 2009, the truck and camper were matched up in Michigan and I took a quick 2,000 mile journey west on U.S. Route 2 to my Pacific Northwest home. Maps and atlases became allies as I plotted Steinbeck’s trip. Though no map of Steinbeck’s 1960 route is known to exist, it can be recreated by painstaking reading of Travels with Charley. A mutual friend put me in touch with John Steinbeck’s sole surviving son, Thomas, who told me his father would have embraced modern technology on his journey. He would have loved laptops. GPS? Absolutely. But, he hated phones. To him, they were a last resort, a necessary evil. John Steinbeck traveled weighted down in 1960. In 2009, I insisted on traveling lite. If it was aboard, it would be used. No what ifs, no redundancies. Emergency equipment would be minimal. As Steinbeck left Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York in September 1960, his truck camper truly sag-ged. He had so much gear aboard, his unit became a rolling testament to the Craftsman aisle at Sears & Roebuck. Minimal me cobbled together a small toolbox, even tinier first-aid kit, and called it a day. By late August, everything was aboard, but not one item more. My intention was to cook nightly. But Food Channel camera crews would have found scant evidence I cooked at all. Four boxes of Hamburger Helper left with me. Two returned. I lost 20 pounds on my trip.
Above: Before departure, neighbor girl Maggie, helps John and Lisa Olson with camper “naming rights.”
I named my rig Gabilan after the horse in the Steinbeck classic The Red Pony. Steinbeck’s rig was named Rocinante - after the horse in Don Quixote. One question remained. Would my Black Labrador Retriever Zorro make the jaunt? Zorro is not the refined travel partner Charley was. Bluntly, Zorro is high maintenance. He yelps or employs a half-dozen other canine yips inside a vehicle. I remember the very moment I decided. A mile-long bridge over Puget Sound’s Hood Canal had recently reopened. I took Zorro on one last training mission to test his nerves and mine. Halfway across the bridge, which floats over a deep natural fjord, Zorro panicked. He jumped into my lap, his furry frame completely blocking my vision. “That’s it, Zorro. You’re not going along.” He had lost his shot at literary fame.
**** At 7:00 a.m., September 1, 2009, I kissed my pretty wife, petted my dog, and drove east of my comfortable life, skirting my Norwegian fishing village of Poulsbo, Washington. My route would put me on a ferry within minutes. Not a small, dozen-car boat such as Steinbeck took from Sag Harbor to Shelter Island, Long Island. Waiting dockside for me was the hulking Washington State Ferry MV Spokane capable of carrying 2,000 passengers. Forging through Edmonds to Everett, Washington on I-5, I clocked Interstate miles I wanted earnestly to avoid. Monotonous overhead signs, concrete overpasses, and bland fast food disinterested me. After a quick passage through Idaho the next day, Montana offered the B-towns: Butte, Bozeman, and Billings. A series of off-beat encounters began. I dubbed them Midnights at Walmart and they occurred repeatedly from coast-to-coast.
Above: The first of Olson’s “Midnight at Walmart” adventures began with Dan and Tiffany in Billings, Montana.
While parking at Walmart in Billings around midnight, a couple drove up in a 1984 Ford Econoline van as I leveled my rig with orange, drive-on blocks. Dan and Tiffany questioned my blocks. I questioned them. “What are the blocks for?” Dan asked. “They keep the rig level. The fridge, stove, and all the water systems love level ground.” “They look cool.” “Thanks. What are you guys doing here this late at night? Where do you guys live?” “Here,” said Dan, pointing to the van. I offered them breakfast if they returned for an 8:00 a.m. interview. “Sure,” they said. By 2:00 a.m., they were back. The free breakfast offer had worked its charm. We talked the next morning in my camper over Egg McMuffins. They ate. Fast. Furiously fast. Egg bits and biscuit crumbs flew. They married in October 2008, two weeks after meeting. Dan earned gas money catching feral cats and stray dogs for various animal protection groups. “No one else has the guts to do it but me. They think I’m crazy.” Dan had a new plan. “I’m going to Missoula. I was thinking about going back East, but that is a lot of gas. I’ve got an aunt in Missoula. We don’t want to live on the streets or in a van anymore. They have a nice (homeless) shelter there and we’re going to see if we can live in it.” The corpulent couple consented to a photo. The inside of their van was heaped with shabby mattresses, clothes, and pulp fiction paperbacks. Evidence of their Walmart spree was everywhere; cases of Top Ramen. We said goodbyes. As they were leaving, Dan, then Tiffany, tossed popcorn on the pavement next to their van. Annoyed, I walked over to scoop it up and disgustedly found it wasn’t popcorn. It was yesterday’s Top Ramen. They vanished in a van with 400,000 miles on it. I think of them often.
****
Above: Alice, North Dakota. Steinbeck had a picnic in 1960 and Alice Cooper was given the key to the city in 2006.
Heading east, the goal was Alice, North Dakota. Population: 50. John Steinbeck wrote about a picnic lunch in Alice back in 1960 near the Maple River. Alice nestles on a flat, agricultural plain. No stoplight. No stores. No neon-lit gas stations. Not even a U.S. Post Office. Churches looked unattended. One building had cars out front. It was a flat-roofed building like a 1960s schoolhouse. A sign proclaimed: Nu-Tech Seed Company, North Dakota’s Undisputed Round-up Ready, Soybean Yield Leader. Inside was company rep Dan Lund – also the tall and personable mayor of Alice. “I’m the chief cook and bottle washer and roller upper of sidewalks.” “How long have you been mayor?” “I suppose not quite twenty years.” In his day job as the Regional Sales Manager for Nu-Tech, Lund has “seven or so” employees. “Does that make you the leading employer in town?” “That makes us the only employer in town,” he quipped. Soybeans and corn only go so far as a literature topic. The mayor sensed my waning hopes of finding one noteworthy story about Alice. After I thanked him for his time and turned to leave, he played his ace card. “Well, we do have one sort of claim to fame. About five years ago, we gave Alice Cooper the key to the city.” “You mean, the Alice Cooper? The rocker, the one who goes crazy on stage?” “We found out Alice was going to play Fargo, North Dakota. It was Mother’s Day weekend. May 14, 2006.” “There was a guy on the city council that was a big Alice Cooper fan. He sent him an e-mail. Three months later he got in touch.” “Cooper said, ‘Yah, shoot. That’d be cool.’ So he came into Fargo on Saturday and he didn’t play until Monday. He came out on Sunday afternoon. We had some bands out here, so we made a full day of it. Shoot, we had a couple thousand people.” Sure enough, you can still find footage of Alice Cooper’s 2006 visit on YouTube. Cooper, known for his stage presence, threw the Alice crowd a few one-liners. Alice Cooper put Alice, North Dakota on the map. “It must have been a slow news day,” Lund said. “I got called by the AP. We got letters and e-mails from around the world. It made a paper in Norway. There was a kid working with the North Dakota Wheat Commission in Egypt. And he walks out and picks up his paper and there I was shaking hands with Alice Cooper.” I shook Lund’s hand and drove off. Suddenly, the mayor began waving wildly. Great, I thought, he’s got another good story. No such luck. My collapsible steps attached to my truck camper were hanging off my tailgate and dragging noisily on the only road out of Alice, North Dakota. I was making sparks as I got out of Dodge.
****
Above: The iconic American writer Sinclair Lewis was born in this house in Sauk Centre, Minnesota.
In my big GMC truck on the Steinbeck road, I crossed Minnesota into my home state of Wisconsin - surrounded by kingdoms of tassel-topped corn. I have found no state where farmers are prouder of their acreage. Freshly mowed lawns preened with straight lines and grids as if created by a Major League Baseball groundskeeper. Flower beds bloomed in weed-free bliss. Evidence of the state’s love affair with the Green Bay Packers was everywhere.
Above: The 45th parallel invisibly pierces Cadott, Wisconsin, halfway between the North Pole and Equator.
**** In mid-September, I was part of a niece’s al fresco western wedding in Waupaca, Wisconsin. Groomsmen wore work boots and western gear. Along rows of chairs were flowers stuffed into cowboy boots. A horse-drawn wagon delivered the bride. The wedding rings came by pony. The pastor - a rough-hewn parson - spoke plainly, if not forcefully, about Samson and Delilah. After the nuptials, guests were herded to a large shed for a Wisconsin hootenanny. Beer flowed. The bride tossed flowers, the groom his wife’s garter. The DJ played Kenny Chesney music well into the night. Roll Out The Barrel - eternally a hit tune in Wisconsin - came after sunset. Attendees wrote advice to the newlyweds on small cards. I read a few out loud: “Always eat a bowl of popcorn every week together.” “Birth control is for losers.” “Never let the sun go down on your anger.” “Keep the Lord in your marriage.” “The woman or bride is always right,” or a counterpart, “Hey groom, do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?” It was a wedding to remember as I slept that night in my truck camper.
**** From Seattle to Chicago, I had only flirted with Spokane, the Twin Cities, and Milwaukee. Chicago’s big shoulders and bigger freeways could not be avoided. One morning I awoke in a suburb to planes flaring in and out of O’Hare International Airport. I slipped onto Chicago’s Illinois Tollway in my big GMC rig. The Ambassador East Hotel was my goal - Steinbeck stopped there on his 1960 trip. Soon I was in the Gold Coast of North Chicago. Tight streets, embroidered with taxis, moving vans, delivery trucks, and postal vehicles. Finding the Ambassador East proved easy, but a parking spot was an illusion. My plan was to park, laze in the famous Pump Room, drink coffee, snag pastries, and head to Indiana.
Above: Outside the swanky Ambassador East Hotel – John Steinbeck’s favorite Chicago stopover.
Driving laps around the Ambassador East, the elegant doorman stared at the rig. When Steinbeck pulled up in 1960, in his GMC truck and camper, he jauntily flipped the keys to the doorman and said he’d be back in a week. I simply could not find a place to park and finally, pulled squarely in front of the snazzy hotel. The snappy, curious concierge approached. “Can I help you sir?” he said, pulling at wrist-high white gloves. “One photo. That’s all I want. It’s important to me.” “Surely sir. No problem.” He took my digital photo as I leaned I leaned against my gleaming black truck camper. “Nice rig,” a man in business suit said. As I skirted Gary and Hammond, Indiana, three weeks and a day on the road, a milestone appeared: my first Greyhound bus. Surely Steinbeck saw more in 1960.
Above: Leon Beaubien with his 1955 Massey Harris tractor at the Hillsdale, Michigan County Fair.
Above: The “mechanical mastodons” of a Combine Demo Derby at the Hillsdale, Michigan County Fair.
In southern Michigan, I was off to Americana itself - a county fair. The midway offered hand-rolled pretzels, hand-dipped corn dogs, hand-made onion rings, cheese on a stick, mozzarella fingers, giant breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches, sausage (Polish or Italian) and chips. To finish the culinary parade was deep-fried ice cream. There was enough cholesterol at that Hillsdale County fair to float an aircraft carrier. The fair’s last act was a “Combine Demolition Derby." The grandstand was packed with gawkers paying eight dollars to see rigs destroy each other instead of rows of maize and grain. Sparks flew, dirt spewed and kids screamed as announcers egged on the metal mayhem. A puny John Deere combine, no beauty to look at, played the waiting game, squirting and darting as bigger rigs devoured each other. The little John Deere won the trophy as the crowd roared. My trip was one-third over and many adventures had already happened - but nothing to compare to the ones that awaited.
John R. Olson is a retired newspaper editor living on Puget Sound. Down John’s Road is his first book. Buy it at www.amazon.com or via his website at www.downjohnsroad.com. |
