blackheads, read maps and guidebooks, put on or discard articles of clothing. If your car possessed cruise control you could just about climb in the back and take a nap. It is certainly quite easy to forget that you are in charge of two tons of speeding metal, and it is only when you start to scatter emergency cones at roadworks sites or a truck honks at you as you drift into its path that you are jolted back to reality and you realize that henceforth you probably shouldn’t leave your seat to search for snack food.
The one thing that can be said is that it leaves you time to think, and to consider questions like why is it that the trees along highways never grow? Some of them must have been there for forty years by now, and yet they are still no more than six feet tall and with only fourteen leaves on them. Is it a particular low-maintenance strain, do you suppose? And here’s another one. Why can’t they make cereal boxes with pouring spouts? Is some guy at General Foods splitting his sides at the thought that every time people pour out a bowl of cornflakes they spill some of it on the floor? And why is that when you clean a sink, no matter how long you let the water run or how much you wipe it with a cloth there’s always a strand of hair and some bits of wet fluff left behind? And just what
do
the Spanish see in flamenco music?
In a forlorn effort to keep from losing my mind, I switched on the radio, but then I remembered that American radio is designed for people who have already lost their minds. The first thing I came across was a commercial for Folger’s Coffee. An announcer said in a confidential whisper, ‘We went to the world famous Napa Valley Restaurant in California and – without telling the customers – servedthem Folger’s instant coffee instead of the restaurant’s usual brand. Then we listened in on hidden microphones.’ There followed an assortment of praise for the coffee along the lines of ‘Hey, this coffee is fantastic!’, ‘I’ve never tasted such rich, full-bodied coffee before!’, ‘This coffee is so good I can hardly stand it!’ and that sort of thing. Then the announcer leapt out and told the diners that it was Folger’s coffee, and they all shared a good laugh – and an important lesson about the benefits of drinking quality instant coffee. I twirled the dial. A voice said, ‘We’ll return to our discussion of maleness in sixty seconds.’ I twirled the dial. The warbling voice of a female country singer intoned:
His hands are tiny
His arms are short
But I lean upon him
For my child support.
I twirled the dial. A voice said, ‘This portion of the news is brought to you by the Airport Barber Shop, Biloxi.’ There was then a commercial for the said barber shop, followed by thirty seconds of news, all of it related to deaths by cars, fires and gunfire in Biloxi in the last twenty-four hours. There was no hint that there might be a wider, yet more violent world beyond the city limits. Then there was another commercial for the Airport Barber Shop, in case you were so monumentally cretinous that you had forgotten about it during the preceding thirty seconds of news. I switched the radio off.
At Litchfield, I left the interstate vowing not to get on again if I could possibly help it, and joined a statehighway, Illinois 127, heading south towards Murphysboro and Carbondale. Almost immediately life became more interesting. There were farms and houses and little towns to look at. I was still going fifty-five miles an hour, but now I seemed to be fairly skimming along. The landscape flashed past, more absorbing than before, more hilly and varied, and the foliage was a darker blur of green. Signs came and went: TEE PEE MINI MART, B-RITE FOOD STORE, BETTY’S BEAUTY BOX, SAV-A-LOT FOOD CENTER, PINCKNEYVILLE COON CLUB, BALD KNOB TRAILER COURT, DAIRY DELITE, ALL U CAN EAT . In between these shrines to dyslexia and free enterprise there were clearings on the hillsides where
The one thing that can be said is that it leaves you time to think, and to consider questions like why is it that the trees along highways never grow? Some of them must have been there for forty years by now, and yet they are still no more than six feet tall and with only fourteen leaves on them. Is it a particular low-maintenance strain, do you suppose? And here’s another one. Why can’t they make cereal boxes with pouring spouts? Is some guy at General Foods splitting his sides at the thought that every time people pour out a bowl of cornflakes they spill some of it on the floor? And why is that when you clean a sink, no matter how long you let the water run or how much you wipe it with a cloth there’s always a strand of hair and some bits of wet fluff left behind? And just what
do
the Spanish see in flamenco music?
In a forlorn effort to keep from losing my mind, I switched on the radio, but then I remembered that American radio is designed for people who have already lost their minds. The first thing I came across was a commercial for Folger’s Coffee. An announcer said in a confidential whisper, ‘We went to the world famous Napa Valley Restaurant in California and – without telling the customers – servedthem Folger’s instant coffee instead of the restaurant’s usual brand. Then we listened in on hidden microphones.’ There followed an assortment of praise for the coffee along the lines of ‘Hey, this coffee is fantastic!’, ‘I’ve never tasted such rich, full-bodied coffee before!’, ‘This coffee is so good I can hardly stand it!’ and that sort of thing. Then the announcer leapt out and told the diners that it was Folger’s coffee, and they all shared a good laugh – and an important lesson about the benefits of drinking quality instant coffee. I twirled the dial. A voice said, ‘We’ll return to our discussion of maleness in sixty seconds.’ I twirled the dial. The warbling voice of a female country singer intoned:
His hands are tiny
His arms are short
But I lean upon him
For my child support.
I twirled the dial. A voice said, ‘This portion of the news is brought to you by the Airport Barber Shop, Biloxi.’ There was then a commercial for the said barber shop, followed by thirty seconds of news, all of it related to deaths by cars, fires and gunfire in Biloxi in the last twenty-four hours. There was no hint that there might be a wider, yet more violent world beyond the city limits. Then there was another commercial for the Airport Barber Shop, in case you were so monumentally cretinous that you had forgotten about it during the preceding thirty seconds of news. I switched the radio off.
At Litchfield, I left the interstate vowing not to get on again if I could possibly help it, and joined a statehighway, Illinois 127, heading south towards Murphysboro and Carbondale. Almost immediately life became more interesting. There were farms and houses and little towns to look at. I was still going fifty-five miles an hour, but now I seemed to be fairly skimming along. The landscape flashed past, more absorbing than before, more hilly and varied, and the foliage was a darker blur of green. Signs came and went: TEE PEE MINI MART, B-RITE FOOD STORE, BETTY’S BEAUTY BOX, SAV-A-LOT FOOD CENTER, PINCKNEYVILLE COON CLUB, BALD KNOB TRAILER COURT, DAIRY DELITE, ALL U CAN EAT . In between these shrines to dyslexia and free enterprise there were clearings on the hillsides where
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