Traveling the Open Road-Once An American Dream That May Be Fast Disappearing
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I ride a motorcycle. Some day soon you’re going to wish you did too — that’s if you enjoy driving. Perhaps you don’t love cars and driving as much as I do, but the culture of the open road was very much part of the American dream in those golden years of the 20th century I can remember.
The car culture from Tom Joad’s Oklahoma odyssey to Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty On the Road — to Tod and Buzz on Route 66. From American graffiti to The Dukes of Hazzard, It was all about cars and freedom and seeing the USA in your Chevrolet ( of Ford, or Chrysler) while discovering life. There was Jim Bronson on his Harley Sportster and Robert Pirsig too. Cars, diners, drive-in restaurants and movies, cruising on the boulevard and across those wide open spaces — road houses and lonesome taverns and taking the kids on a ride with the top down in the Summer air or to the movies on a balmy night.
The moribund American Car Culture is something that still seems to resonate abroad because so many of those high prices we see for mid-century cars are set by overseas buyers, while at home? Well here it’s not about adventure, not about the sublime skills of the expert driver, it’s about fear, it’s about safety, it’s about the Internet and sharing with your friends as you cruise along in your self-driving, speed limit safety car. It’s coming. We already have cars that will use the brakes when it feels it’s necessary, will watch the mirrors for you, park for you, navigate for you.
It’s coming and perhaps sooner than you thought. Those cars we prefer in our passionate rejection of anything American and our pathetic search for hipness are made by companies who tell us their main thrust is not to build things that are “ultimate” but that will allow the incompetent and the lazy to get from one place to another — not faster, not in style, not to find life or wisdom or freedom or to go wherever the road goes, but to be safe and to avoid having to learn any skill at all other than the Internet and the Telephone. Nothing that gets in the way of texting and tweeting and playing with your device while life goes by. America was opening up and looking outwards once upon a time: my time. Now the opposite seems to be true.
Fortunately I can still get away and forget, I can still roll along between the rows of trees, through farm country and lake country on a big, American bike that needs constant skill and attention and care to operate. I can roll with the wind in my face and gurgle of the engine in my ears and nothing else. I’m afraid I may be of the last generation to do so and worse, the last one to want to, once everything has to be automatic. Will there be an America left to discover unless it’s through Google and Facebook and Twitter and all the rest? Will the risk of driving your car be acceptable, permitted, tolerated?
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My hubby loves his motorcycle. Goes on long trips several times a year with his “gang.” Always comes back refreshed. I support all things bike.
I call it Cycletherapy and it works.
And now there’s something better?
Now that you mention it…no 🙂
After a couple hours in the hot Florida sun with the heat from the pavement and the heat from the engine of a Harley, there is nothing that could beat a very cold beer.
Wandering off the grid never became possible for me. Seems I’ve always been married, but I settle for shorter rides and since I don’t think when I ride, time really doesn’t mean the same thing. Still the dream never dies. Yes, tavern to tavern cruising is a common event, but I don’t drink any more. Food is another thing.
I love those tiki hut restaurants we have in Florida and it seems most bikers do!
I spent a lot of time in those tiki huts, back in the day when there was nothing better than a cold beer.
I always wanted a Harley, but I’m not handy, and care nothing about repairing mechanical stuff. Secondly in my younger years, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to resist stopping in every tavern between point a and b for a cold beer or two while on a road trip. If a long trip that could be disastrous. As a result I never bought a Harley, and bought a Boston Whaler instead 🙂
And a Boston Whaler could not be a disaster? Mike, you know a guy that was on the faculty at UA that had a sailboat that actually sailed out of Key West, got lost and was rescued by a cruise ship in the Dry Tortuga’s. I do not know exactly where that is but apparently he didn’t either but it was close enough to the Bermuda Triangle that I was wishing it had kept him.
The Dry Tortuga’s is where Fort Jefferson is located, the civil war prison and fort where Dr. Mudd was held captive. It’s about 30 miles south of Key West and is a beautiful place. As to my Boston Whaler, you are right, although I knew places where there was little to no boat traffic, and I was always careful.
And it’s not in that silly Bermuda Triangle. Sure, boats are dangerous but managing the risk through skill and preparation is part of the enjoyment – just as it is with motorcycles. And of course Whalers don’t sink!
That’s what they say! Unsinkable. Then again they said that about the Titanic.
Nice post Glenn. I rode a motorcycle for years. Both my own and, for while, for the City of Tuscaloosa, Alabama as a traffic cop. I once took a trip to Florida on a Honda Nighthawk 550. It was a bit small for the trip but we made out just fine. That was about 20 years ago and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere so I stopped whenever and where ever I wanted to stop. I guess if one has never just turned loose of of home and just wandered off the grid they would not understand the freedom it makes you feel. It seems that I never take those rides in a car but now that you mention it I might just do that again before long.