In 1993, my partner and I climbed into my Ford Escort to go on a “backroads” trip across the country, inspired in part by William Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways: A Journey into America. That book followed the author along literal roads less travelled and featured his conversations with people outside of the usual American gaze. "What does it mean to be an American?" was a guiding question for his trip, and ours.
Along the way, my car’s air conditioning crapped out, so we were able to experience America in all its summertime sensory glory: sticky and buggy. And also, this was before cell phones and GPS, so getting lost was very possible. In fact, getting lost was kind of the point.
Most kids today will never know what it’s like to be lost. Their connection to their location is constant, and if for some reason their GPS isn’t working, they can always call their mom. In fact, their mom is probably tracking them right now, following their every move from afar with a Stalk My Grownup Baby app. Hint to young adults: Are you not in your dorm room tonight? Your mom knows this!
But back in the day, maps were paper and hard to read. Sometimes you’d go right instead of left or miss the turn. And you’d find yourself at the most amazing place, a place that felt like it was waiting for you to find it. Of course, that was also the moment that the car would start making weird noises, and your paper map would suggest that you were 10 miles from the nearest anything. You wished you had a way to call your mom, but you didn’t see a pay phone. And besides, you didn’t have a quarter to make the call. Your mom was probably out celebrating her empty nest anyway, not sitting around at home waiting to solve your problem.
One of the best parts about our trip in 1993 was stopping at just about every roadside historical marker. If you want to go beyond textbook broad-sweep history, spend a little time in the middle of nowhere! You’ll see towns that rose and vanished because of the railroad, groups that pushed others out, and you’ll see how those others fought back. The names of towns and rivers speak all about migration and aspiration.
However, lest we get caught up in the glory of purple mountains majesty and amber waves of grain, it’s important to remember that those historical markers are political storytelling. For the Midlife Crisis Bingo square, Buckle Up, I want to talk about How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith.
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| Category Description: Sometimes the way forward involves crossing difficult terrain. Read a book that challenges you, or makes you look something difficult in the eye, or asks you to do hard work. |
The author asks the reader to consider the public history around slavery. He visits several sites that feature that story: some plantations, a prison, a New York City history tour, a cemetery, a local Juneteenth celebration, and a site of capture and departure of enslaved people before they were placed on ships to America. Each site offers a slightly different purpose – for instance, “to commemorate,” or “to give voice,” or even, “to make people uncomfortable.” The book leaves the reader with a set of questions about public history. First, in the face of limited historical evidence, how certain do the creators of the sites have to be to make what they say "true?" Second, what are the consequences of foregrounding some narratives (or objects or locations) over others? And third, how central should slavery be in American history and storytelling? Since the publication of Smith’s book, that final question has anchored all sorts of messy conversations on our political stage, leading to the likely possibility that some communities might not even put this book on their library shelves.
I don’t think that Smith would consider his work to be a “road trip” book, but I immediately thought about myself as a consumer of American history on my long-ago journey. I’m also struck by the fact it feels like our country’s air conditioner has broken. Things are sticky and buggy, and Smith wants us to lean into the heat.
Writing this post sent me on a deep dive into my old photo albums (remember when you took pictures and had to wait to see them until you took your film into the drugstore to be developed?). I stumbled upon this unlabeled picture from our trip through the South in 2000.
I’m sure we just drove by it, snapped a photo, and said, “Weird!” After all, there was no smart phone in my pocket to quickly name and explain and situate every curious thing on demand. But all these years later, I do have a smart phone, and Smith’s book has made me wonder what this site was and why I am filled with unease.
Turns out that Wigwam Village No. 2 was built in 1937 in Kentucky to serve people on “automobile vacations.” Eleanor Roosevelt gave it some publicity in a newspaper column, and now it is on the National Register of Historic Places. The tents are not actually wigwams, but no one said that this venue was on the National Register of ACCURATE Historic Places, did they?* The website claims that the motel is “an enduring testament to a time past,” with all the comforts of home (WiFi, cable TV, coffee pots, a swimming pool, and “plenty of hot water”).
I seem to recall that things didn’t go so well for the Cherokee people in Kentucky. One of the online reviews (one star out of five!) says, “The place was dirty and damaged, the bed linens had tears and stains.” At first, I misread that as tears of grief, like the kind one might cry on a violent, forced exodus. But no, this historical site must be telling a different story altogether. It occurs to me, uncomfortably, that what we are giving “enduring testament” to with this National Historic Register designation is twentieth century white people’s travel culture, where the land is yours to explore, and your comfort is the most important thing. It’s a memorial to the American road trip, just like the one I was on.
Well, crap.
History is messy and hard and full of dragons. We have a lot of work to do.
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| This is a random dragon we found in Cullman, Alabama. It's at the Ave Maria Grotto, which is a four acre miniature city built by a really bored monk in the 1950s. It features 125 replicas of holy places, and also this dragon. The lesson? Keep at it with your weird hobby. |
*The National Archives and Records Association has placed a "Potentially Harmful Content" warning on its webpage about Wigwam Village No.2. Does that help? Hurt? Add texture? Do nothing?
