As the fall leaves make their path to the sidewalks of Philadelphia I am finding myself yearning for the free feeling of the gentle ride across America’s highways and byways. In the stead of running off on an impulsive journey across our great land I will make an attempt at entertaining you with a quick essay about being on the road. So let’s shake that dust of your road atlas, speculate whether there is something worth seeing in Kearney and take a trip.

I will start with a bit of family history. When our family first settled it was in Casper Wyoming after a bit of traveling while my pops looked for a job and did some post grad work which I don’t really remember much of, but I am hoping to convince my parents to write some guest posts in the future and perhaps this story will be one. So we settled in Casper, its kind of isolated up there in southeastern Wyo, with the grandparents living in Albuquerque N.M. and Las Vegas NV. Quite often we would pack up the old dodge van in pre dawn light and drive for hours across the high plains of western America. Intermitted with various trips taking my brother to swim meets in places like Rapid City, Bozeman, DuBois and Sheridan, and whilst in transit to such towns one must not pass by places like Little Bighorn, Rushmore, Shoshoni or Devil’s Tower, always good to grab a milkshake or spend the night in local campground. The pinnacle of our American road journeys would be in the summer of 77 after living in Saudi Arabia for three years and Gallup N.M. for about nine months. While I was at summer camp my parents bought a red 72 Chevy pickup with a camper shell, picked me up at camp and the family drove to Alaska. We met the Sells, our old neighbors while living in Saudi, in Seattle and caravanned north, the Sells in a VW campervan and us in the pickup. I guess that being part of a nomadic family one makes friends with the other nomads along the way, one of the best aspects of all these trips was stopping at so and so’s house getting treated to a nice meal and camping out on someone’s floor.

I’ll take a break here to apologize and some gratuitous self-realization. Apologies for wandering so far away from how I intended to write this essay and waxing on about my childhood. As I got lost in writing it becomes so clear to me that 30 years later these experiences are so relevant to my being in the world. No wonder my body yearns for the feel of the road under wheels.

Now that my touching little moment is out of the way, lets get to some details about taking a trip. Whatever the condition of your vehicle take a moment, I know I tend to personalize my vehicles a bit but this four wheeled friend is gonna be your home for a few miles, take a moment to pay some attention to your vehicle give him/her some loving care. Lift the hood and look around maybe a quart of oil, do you have a spare tire, jack, lug wrench and do you know whether the hardware is metric or English? Depending on the quality or trust level of your relationship you might want to invest in a set of tools, and of course a good chunk of bailing wire is essential.

What are your needs? Food, music, clothes and of course a map, you can always pick up things on the way, but if your anything like me once you get rolling stopping for essentials becomes an irritation. Believe it or not packing is something I hate because it requires decision and commitment. Be aware in a worst-case scenario you may be stuck carrying everything you pack or just abandoning your possessions. Take some time to think about your essentials I usually start thinking two to three weeks in advance, then again I think much to much. Lets go already, damn.

Ah-ite we are rolling, hopefully your sitting next to a best friend or lover though nothing wrong with rolling alone, its what I prefer, but make sure your cohort is someone you can get along with because many relationships have been broken on the road. Yes, whomever your sitting next to has chosen to enter this relationship with you and as with all relationships at this point we should set down some guidelines, boundaries perhaps shall we say, rules of the road. Here I will stray to a sidebar, at this point a lot of people, of a certain ilk, might just say, “Oh we should just let our relationship develop organically, you know take it as it comes.” Bullshit! Just like a well-behaved dog is well behaved because it knows its place in the world and what is expected of it, people are no different and as long as both know what to expect of each other we will get along just fine and our trip will be smooth as silk. Not that I’m getting all military here but some loose expectations are always needed. The driver drives, passenger is tasked as navigator and DJ, while all decisions are up for negotiations It is good form as the navigator to have an idea of what direction your headed and kind of where you are on the map, perhaps this requires a compass and I will relent to an I phone or GPS if you’re really that challenged. Anyhow, just saying either running low on gas in the middle of South Dakota or looking for that big ball of string in Nebraska its good for someone to have an idea of direction.

The next rule exists because it was an unwritten law of John O’brien, I only know I broke it because of a disapproving look and shake of the head delivered from Kurt Wunder, John was a master of the road trip and as he passed a few years ago this rule serves as a memorial to the man. The team has reached a decision and we’ve chosen that seedy diner or side of the road truck stop to get some chow. A charming waitress in a pink dress or one missing a tooth or both, menus, table or counter, water, at this point or any preceding it, do not I repeat do not relieve yourself to the bathroom until you have ordered or asked someone to order for you even if it means missing a delightful perusal of the menu, one can usually decide by the look of a place what standard items are available.

That being said, stay tuned for some pics and a list of my favorite American roads.

Cheers

A production company, which is creating a television show in Philadelphia, insisted we use what we in the business call a hot dog saw. Its real name is a Safe Stop saw, it’s a table saw. Excuse me for getting caught up in details here, as I write I’m realizing that perhaps a lot of my readers might not be involved in the trades. A tablesaw is a table with an electrically driven circular saw blade mounted perpendicular to the table, making long consistent parallel cuts in wood and other materials very simple, also a ferocious machine to be treated with the utmost of respect. Since the speculated invention of the tablesaw in the 1890’s many fingers have been traded in exchange for quick and efficient milling of material. Hence today’s essay.

You might take a wander around U tube at this point and watch some Safe Stop videos and you’ll get some idea why its coined a Hot Dog saw. Still I will explain for my own literary exercise. The Safe Stop Saw, invented a few years ago, has a blade which can sense your body’s electrical current, upon sensing said current the saw activates a very powerful spring which drives a chunk of aluminum into the saw blade spinning at around 3400 RPM and releasing the mechanism holding the blade above the table, thus stopping the blade and dropping it out of harm to the user. As could be imagined while not removing or mangling any fingers this action in itself must be quite violent, destroying your saw blade and requiring a replacement brake kit, this could cost anywhere from 800 bucks to 1500(a guess) depending on your taste in blades. Sure you saved your finger, now you gotta tell the boss, yes our fingers are priceless, still just saying.

Something to be aware of about our miraculous new companion because it senses your body’s electrical current anything conducting electricity that you are touching which also touches the blade whilst blade is moving will set our safety plan in action. This changes things a bit; no more plowing through that piece of green oak to make some rustic piece of timber, cutting aluminum, no, the cavalier practice of just ripping through staples or sheet rock screws, which your just to lazy to remove anyway, no, an old shop teacher while telling us never to try this as he would squeeze the slowing blade to a stop with his thumbs unh-unh, be aware that steel tape measure you use to measure from the fence to blade, I don’t know one carp who trusts that scale built to the fence, it conducts your body’s current also, so make sure that blade is stopped before you measure, Plexiglas or acrylic plastic I have no idea but they can carry quite a static charge, definitely no hot dogs.  All in addition to ciphering out how not to waste any of that $300.00 piece of walnut veneer ply and still addressing all ten of your fingers before you push that green button.

While my experience with the tablesaw is not as far reaching as many craftsmen/people my first physical introduction to a saw was around 1989-90 when as a freshman in art school a shop tech taught me how to cut Styrofoam on a 5hp gold and green Powermatic, me and that saw developed quite a relationship over the next 4 years. My understanding of what a saw could do extends back to the mid eighties when my Grandfather removed three of his fingers using a saw in his garage shop. Since my introduction to Goldie my career has been dependent on use of the tablesaw in one way or other. Thanks be to whatever, I still have all my fingers though, I have lost part of a thumb and rip cut about 5/8 of an inch of my right index, shit happens whether out pure stupidity or just plain freak accident. I don’t wish any kind of injury on anyone but sort of feel that my own injuries have prepared me to have a very acute sense of watching out for both the scenario of stupid accident and freak accident both my own and other peoples. Picking a friend’s or coworker’s finger up off the ground is something I don’t want to do as much as I would not like to pick up my own.

Hello Mr. Saw, hello digits ten, check path of material, look around, address fingers again and use one to start that blade spinning and off we go minding fingers, spinning blade and material even after you push that red button with your thigh and still minding that blade and your fingers until the blade stops spinning. Ok, there are many scenarios which emphasize awareness, but come on this one ranks pretty high.

Rumor has it, when the Safe Saw was released sales were mediocre even though the hot dog video in essence proved the safety of the saw. It was not until the creator Stephen F. Gass touched the blade of his saw with his finger on the discovery channel did the saw finally gain the recognition it deserved. When I heard this I think I said, to touch a moving table saw blade is to go against everything I’ve ever believed in. Granted this is still fresh in my mind, but I think it will remain as a moment in which I truly understand what faith is.

Last Friday while working in a theatrical shop I was grabbing a 2X4 from a precariously stacked pallet as a smell wafted past. It was a slight kind of smell of an industrial bakery, you know like white bread, baking. I’m sure it was just a combination of the primed pine and cedar or something or other, but it’s funny how a smell or image, maybe something one says can take you away to another place and time.

Round 1988 or so I started working at a hospital in Minneapolis Minnesota. The Lutheran’s started Fairview Deaconess as a college of nursing in 1888. Through time it was transitioned into a facility for treatment of adolescent chemical abuse, psychological disorders and to provide community medical services. I made the transition from cooking in restaurants to working the night shift at Fairview for a couple of reasons. Previously cooking in a family owned restaurant with an over bearing mother of one of the owners, the mom was also an owner, while her sons marriage, him and his wife also owners, get it, falls apart is a recipe which makes everyone uncomfortable in an already high stress job, One. Two, I wanted to go back to school so I figured what better way than working the night shift, insuring troubled children of the world get a good nights sleep.

11pm to 7:30am, I recently said something about people who move to Alaska, they don’t move there for the conversation, the same could be said about one who works the night shift. I am not saying the people I worked with were boring yet, the job requires watching an empty hall for eight hours and staying awake, that’s a big block of time to occupy your mind with something engaging. Exposure to a group of people who either purposely or incidentally avoided interaction with mainstream society had a bit of influence on my still developing 23 year old outlook on the world.

With all great intentions I enrolled for a full load at Minneapolis Community College, sadly I for one reason or other missed the first day of classes and never really followed through, whoops. Hence, beginning my career as a treatment worker. Eventually, I switched into the world of humans, evenings 3pm-11:30 and interacting with that precious/precocious wonder of the adolescent mind after a year or two I moved to what I call the executive shift 7a-3:30p. Called so because the suits and bosses were around and watching. Eventually I got back to the night shift and started school back at the old MCC. Having to wrangle the paper work to get my earlier foray changed from F’s to just being a drop out. Pre-nursing Composition, Bio, Psych until my biology teacher, don’t remember his name awesome dude though, challenged me to look at pursuing a PhD in the sciences.

I applied to art school the next spring. Four years later planning my graduation, future marriage and starting grad school I whiled away a night shift counting names in a census book, a book that lists names and info for our adolescent clients. Roundabouts 1500 names that I recognized working with and paying attention to. My time at Riverside Medical Center was a minor five years. Small change compared to the staff that have dedicated their lives helping kids to get their shit straight while also operating in the bureaucratic world of hospitals, health insurance and public funding.

Most of these photos where shot by My grandfather James, whom gave me my first camera in 1972. The engineering Photos of the canal were shot by the canal zone photogragher, I’ll dig up his name.

Fritzie at a sending off party for the family. Davenport Iowa area, mid 30s.

My mom on right grandma in background. Presumed to be carnival Panama, Balboa? Late 30s

I think this is the best of Grandfathers pics I’ve seen. Mom and Fritzie swingin’ under the house in Diablo Hts, Panama.

Engineering Photos, notice the pack of 5 ton dump trucks parked in the middle of canal. Yes Mack Trucks, made in Allentown PA. B—-atch

Enewetak, mid late 40s. Grandpa Jim and unknown co worker.

An airfield around Suez Canal, Late 30’s?

I don’t know who this little Zinger is but she sure is cute.

Viva Las Vegas. Fremont St Late 40s early 50s.