MEMORIALS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

May 20, 2013
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Memorial Day is a week away, so in honor of the men and woman who gave their lives in service of their country, I’m going to highlight some of the nation’s more unusual memorials. It has been estimated that more than 1.3 million Americans have lost their lives during too many wars, and more than 1.5 million have been wounded. So here are ten lesser known memorials, each commemorating a different armed conflict:

Revolutionary War: Prison Ship Martyrs Monument – Brooklyn, New York.

Historians estimate that roughly 7,000 men fell in battle during the War for Independence. But nearly twice as many men and boys perished amid awful conditions aboard prisoner-of-war ships, many of them anchored alongside Brooklyn. Only one in ten are believed to have survived captivity. In 1908, a 148-foot-tall Doric column was constructed in their honor at Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park.

War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans Memorial – Chalmette, Louisiana.

The final land battle of the war was fought AFTER a peace treaty had been signed. Unfortunately, the news hadn’t reached the armies. Some 2,000 British soldiers and a handful of U.S. soldiers perished. Today, a 70-foot-tall memorial looks over the site of the battlefield.

Mexican-American War: Army of Occupation Monument – Corpus Christi, Texas.

In Old Bayview Cemetery on the edge of downtown Corpus Christi, a simple granite marker honors the 69 members of General (and future president) Zachary Taylor’s “Army of Occupation” who died there over an eight-month span in 1845-46. It was erected by the Descendants of Mexican War Veterans (yep, there is such an organization) in 2004.

U.S. Civil War: The Treue der Union Monument – Comfort, Texas.

Erected in 1866, it means “Loyalty to the Union,” and it is dedicated to 35 Germans settlers who died at the Battle of Nueces on August 10, 1862. Well, actually the settlers were attacked by Confederates forces as they headed for Mexico, their long-term plan being to join the Union army.

Spanish-American War: Jacob Weisenberger statue – Yakima Washington.

Interestingly, a number of memorials to the conflict in Cuba are located in Washington state. Cannons from the Battle of Manila Bay can be found in the city of Shoreline, for instance, and a memorial to volunteer solders sits on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. But Yakima’s is a bronze statue of the commander of the First Battalion, which included Company E from North Yakima.

World War I: Littlefield Fountain – Austin, Texas.

Built in 1933 with money from a trust established by Major George W. Littlefield, it is a memorial for University of Texas students and alumni who died in what was then called The Great War. A Latin inscription upon it is translated as: “A short life hath been given by Nature unto man; but the remembrance of a life laid down in a good cause endureth forever.”

World War II: Pennsylvania World War II Memorial – Philadelphia.

More than 1,300 Pennsylvania Railroad employees lost their lives during the second World War. Their sacrifice is memorialized by a 39-foot-tall monument – most of it consisting of a bronze sculpture titled Angel of the Resurrection – on the main concourse of the 30th Street Station in Philly. On its black-granite base, all 1,307 names are inscribed in alphabetical order.

Korean War: Minnesota Korean War Memorial – St. Paul, Minnesota.

At the State Capitol Mall, a rather haunting sculpture shows a weary, young soldier approaching an archway and said to be “looking for his lost comrades.” The cut-out of the arch is in the shape of another soldier, representing the men who didn’t come home.

Vietnam War: Heck Park – Monroe, Michigan.

Norman Heck, Jr. was killed while serving in Vietnam. Today, Heck Park includes a pink granite memorial to all who served, a black granite memorial to all who served and died, and another to the one Monroe County soldier who is still missing in action. Sidewalks connect Captain Heck’s memorial to the others. There’s even a UH-1M Huey sitting atop a 30-foot pedestal.

Persian Gulf War: Desert Shield-Desert Storm Monument – Evansville, Indiana.

Ten years ago, the city erected what was believed to be the first modern war memorial depicting a woman in combat. Located across from the Civic Center Complex on Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, it shows two soldiers in full combat gear – a male solder resting a rifle at his side and a female solder pulling a gas mask from her face.

So if ever you have the opportunity, visit one of these places. Memorials are meant to preserve memories.

MOTHER ROAD

May 15, 2013
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Continuing my Mother’s Day theme from last week, how about some insight into the Mother Road. I offer 66 fascinating facts about Route 66:

Route 66 was commissioned by the U.S. government on November 11, 1926, the aim being to connect America’s small towns with its big cities.

The road ran from Chicago to Los Angeles.

Old Route 66 originally began at Michigan Avenue and Jackson Boulevard.

After the 1933 World’s Fair the terminus was moved to Lake Shore Drive at the entrance to Grant Park.

The road ended at the Santa Monica pier.

In “Grapes of Wrath,” novelist John Steinbeck described it (enduringly) as “The Mother Road.”

Henry Fonda starred in the film version of Steinbeck’s masterpiece about the travels and travails of the Joad family.

Oklahoma Highways Commissioner Cyrus Avery is considered the father of the “Mother Road.”

Avery was criticized by some because the road meandered a bit in order to go through his hometown of Tulsa.

It ran past a service station and restaurant that he owned.

The new highway collected many bits and pieces of existing road.

At the time, only 800 miles of Route 66 were paved.

It was until 1938 that it was paved from end to end.

Along with “The Mother Road,” it is known as “The Main Street of America” and “The Will Rogers Highway.”

“Get Your Kicks on Route 66” was written by Bobby Stroup.

Nat King Cole made it a hit in 1946.

The song has also been covered by the Rolling Stones.

Robin Williams and his co-stars sang their version at the end of the movie “RV.”

Cities mentioned in the song? Chicago, St. Louis, Joplin, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Gallup, Flagstaff, Winona, Kingman, San Bernardino, L.A.

The song says Route 66 is “more than two thousand miles all the way.”

Route 66 was 2,448 miles long.

It crossed eight states and three time zones.

The eight states are Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Only 12.8 miles of the Mother Road passed through Kansas.

The section of Route 66 that was transported to the Smithsonian Institute was from Oklahoma.

Oklahoma boasted more Route 66 miles than any other state.

As a publicity stunt in 1928, promoters staged a footrace that covered all 2,448 miles of Route 66 plus more.

Kitsch was king along the Mother Road.

At the Launching Pad diner in Wilmington, Illinois, a helmeted giant holds a rocket ship.

Funks Grove Pure Maple Syrup in Shirley, Illinois, still sells “maple sirup.”

The Dixie Travel Plaza in McLean, Illinois, has been a truck stop since 1928.

The original Philips 66 gas station was in McLean, Texas.

The Cozy Dog Drive-in still deep fried hotdogs in Springfield, Illinois.

Don’t call it a corndog.

Ted Drewes Frozen Custard in St. Louis still sells mouth-watering “concrete” shakes.

Meramec Caverns (near Stanton, Missouri) was opened to public tours in 1935.

Dances used to be held in the cave system’s large entrance cavern.

Lodging accommodations known as “motels” were spawned by the road’s popularity.

Part of the now-demolished Coral Court Motel in Marlborough, Missouri, was transported to the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis.

One of the surviving Wigwam Motels is in Holbrook, Arizona.

The road passed through Commerce, Oklahoma, hometown of Mickey Mantle.

The road was said to be haunted by the “spooklights” (bouncing bright balls of white fire) in Devil’s Promenade, Oklahoma.

The apparition was first said to be seen by the Quapaw Indians.

A fiberglass blue whale stands guard in Catoosa, Oklahoma.

You can host wedding receptions in the round barn in Arcadia, Oklahoma.

Elvis Presley liked to spend the night at the Best Western Trade Winds Motel in Clinton, Oklahoma.

He preferred Room 215.

For an extra fee, you can stay in that room, too.

Clinton is now home to the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum.

There are also Route 66 museums in Pontiac, Illinois; Elk City, Oklahoma; Santa Rosa, New Mexico; Kingman, Arizona; Barstow, California; and Rancho Cucamonga, California.

In San Bernardino, California, you can visit the first ever McDonalds Restaurant, which is also home to a Route 66 Museum.

The geo-mathematical center of Route 66 is in Adrian, Texas. Or Vega, Texas. Depends who you ask.

Because of a change in alignment of the road in 1937, there is an intersection in Albuquerque (Central Avenue and 4th Street) where Route 66 crosses itself.

There is a Mother Road Theatre Company in Albuquerque.

The only national park that Route 66 passes through is Petrified National Park.

You can live out the Eagles song “Take It Easy” at Standin’ on the Corner Park in Winslow, Arizona.

Arizona contains the largest unbroken stretch of Old Route 66 – 158 miles from west of Ash Fork to the California border.

“Route 66” was also the title of a 116-episode TV series from 1960-64.

The traveling vehicle of choice in the TV show was a Corvette.

The Corvette was baby blue, but the show was broadcast in black-and-white.

The TV show was rarely filmed near the actual Route 66.

Much of Route 66 was replaced by interstate highways – I-55, I-44, I-40, I-15 and I-10.

The last original Route 66 sign was removed from Chicago in 1977.

Route 66 was decertified as a highway on June 27, 1985.

That was the last year it could be found on official maps.

More than 80 percent of the road is still drivable.

WHERE’S MOM?

May 10, 2013
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I figure this story is timely, given that Mother’s Day is approaching:

Actor Jeff Daniels, the star of The Purple Rose of Cairo, Terms of Endearment, and Good Night, and Good Luck, also happens to be an accomplished musician-songwriter who plays frequent gigs. Sometimes he ends his set by picking his guitar while relating a story that he calls the “Recreational Vehicle Where’d My Wife Go Blues.”

He always begins the song diary by saying, tongue only slightly in cheek, “I don’t think you can call yourself a real American until you’ve climbed behind the wheel of a recreational vehicle.” Daniels goes on to tell a tale about the first time (in the 1990s) that he, his wife and their then-young children rented an RV. Their mission: A trip from Michigan to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

They chose a 28-foot Jayco, a “palace on wheels,” he explains, which they filled with “enough snacks to feed the state of Ohio, not to mention parkas and mittens and scarves and gloves.”

“Honey,” he said to his wife, “it’s July.’”

The story revolves around the second day of the trip, the day on which they made a detour to fill up the gas tank at a truck stop in Erie, Pennsylvania. Daniels topped off the tank, got behind the wheel and drove off – only to hear his son say, minutes later, “Where’s mom?”

Having been left behind while carrying two bags of snacks from the convenience store, she decided to commandeer a ride from a young man driving a Ford Taurus (she had left her cell phone in the RV). “Follow that Jayco!” she told him. So the man did, while slipping in a CD of a priest deconstructing the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer.

Turns out he was a theology major on his way back to Princeton. “How lucky was she,” deadpans Daniels.

At the same time, of course, Daniels and his kids went back to find her at the truck stop. So they found themselves going in separate directions on the Interstate “like two ships passing in the night.” The RV arrived at the truck stop. She wasn’t there. Eventually, they managed to contact each other and meet up at a rest stop 35 miles up the road.

Needless to say, his wife wasn’t happy. For thirty minutes, while their kid stifled laughter, she gave an account of her side of the ordeal, finishing off her story by telling her husband that the casting of Dumb and Dumber was entirely appropriate.

But what I like most about the story is a line at the end. “In Cooperstown,” says Daniels, “we were the only family to see every exhibit holding hands.”

Sure, maybe it was because nobody wanted to be left behind. That’s why the audience laughs. But I like to think that by the time they made it to Cooperstown, the spirit of the RV experience had taken hold. So I hear the story as a whimsical tale of quality family time, put to music. After all, Daniels still drives an RV.

THE BIG WELL

May 4, 2013
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Last June, as Amy and I cruised through the Kansas flatlands, a billboard beckoned us to stop and see “the world’s largest hand-dug well.” We snickered. It sounded like so much hyperbole from the Heartland. It seemed like an attempt, surely futile, to woo passersby who otherwise wouldn’t have given this particular place in the Plains – a town known as Greensburg – a second thought. We figured it was something akin to the World’s Second-Biggest Ball of Twine.

So we figured we had to stop there.

But it was envisioned as a tongue-in-cheek detour. We weren’t quite mocking it perhaps, but we were darn close. We had fallen prey to that disease that afflicts so many travelers – and in particular, so many folks who wave off any possibility of partaking in the RV experience. It’s a disease with many names – cynicism, elitism, geocentrism, inflexibility. The primary symptoms include being too focused on a destination to enjoy a journey, frequent use of the term “flyover spaces,” and utter disdain for anything located in such spaces.

Kansas? It’s the butt of jokes for a lot of people I know who live on the coasts. The World’s Largest Hand-Dug Well? Their response would be: See? That’s all Kansas can offer.

But you know what? Amid a summer journey that included everything from Graceland to Grand Canyon, the Big Well – as they call it – proved to be one of the highlights. I swear it’s the truth. And this is mainly because it was so totally unexpected.

As we veered off the highway into town, I kept thinking: Greensburg, why does that sound so familiar? And Amy kept thinking: Why does basically every building in town seem nearly brand new? And then we arrived at The Big Well Museum & Visitor Center, and it all became clear.

On the night of May 4, 2007 – six years ago today – a tornado leveled Greensburg. The twister was nearly two miles wide, with winds in excess of 200 miles per hour. It was a direct hit. Some 95 percent of the homes and businesses in the town were destroyed. Eleven people died. Hundreds of people lost nearly everything they owned. Imagine that: Not having even a photo album full of memories to help you through the trauma.

But here’s how they reacted in Greensburg: “Although this storm was devastating to our community, we are presented with an incredible opportunity to show the world our strength and to create a new future for those who will live here. We are rebuilding stronger, better, greener, and we are a model for rural America.”

It turns out that our stop in Greensburg – which we envisioned as a quick turnoff to get a glimpse of what we figured was an over-touted hole in the ground – turned out to be a lesson in humility and fortitude and community.

The Big Well was a pioneering engineering marvel in its day – 109 feet deep and 32 feet in diameter. Farmers, cowboys and transients used shovels and picks and pulleys and ropes to create it in 1887. It served as a source of water for the city until 1932. When the tornado arrived, the building constructed over the well was destroyed, along with its water tower. Only the well remained.

But only a few weeks before our arrival, the new museum was unveiled – and it’s now so much, well, more than a well.

There is the well, of course. Five years ago, it was designated by the Kansas governor as one of the state’s “8 Wonders.” Nowadays, you can descend a spiral staircase almost to the bottom, which is actually a pretty cool experience (literally, it’s cold down there).

But the museum also features exhibits on the history of Greensburg, the tornado’s devastation (which completely altered that history) and the rebuilding of the town (which is a textbook case of rewriting history on your own terms).

The tornado exhibits dominate. There’s a pile of twister-strewn refuse behind glass, a bird’s-eye photo of the devastation, exhibits on everything from tornado myths to local heroes to weather reports in the minutes leading up to the devastation. All of it is housed in a lovely piece of architecture with a circular, spiral motif, as if approximating the shape of a twister.

But really, the museum is a monument to a town’s refusal to die. More than that, it tells the story of how this hamlet in the Heartland has chosen to define a moment, rather than letting a tragic moment kill a town. Much like Greensburg turned fallen trees into furniture and interior trim, the residents turned a tragedy into an opportunity.

You see, the residents of Greensburg decided to rebuild their community sustainably, re-imagining it as a model green town for the future. Kansas State University student worked on a semester-long project to design affordable, sustainable residences. A chain of demonstration eco-homes were designed – buildings of different sizes, prices and energy efficiency features. Local high school students started a Green Club, spearheading recycling efforts and representing the town at conferences across the country.

Greensburg’s future now includes a vision of eco-tourism. Yes, right in the middle of Kansas.

Lesson learned.

ROAD ROYALTY #31

April 30, 2013
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I can reflect on this photo from last summer’s cross-country RV jaunt in two ways – one physical, and one that might be described as metaphysical.

First, the physical – a practical observation: Our 25 1/2-foot Winnebago Via fit snugly into a rather normal-sized parking spot. How’s that for convenient? And that’s how we felt all summer, whether in campgrounds or parking lots or gas stations. Or, of course, along the open road. During the rest of the year, I often drive a minivan. This one felt just as easy to drive.

But the unseen aspects of the photo are also relevant. We’re parked at a visitor center, having just crossed a bridge over the Colorado River. Just steps away, you can walk onto the bridge and watch as groups of rafters float down the river beneath you. You can marvel at the dichotomy of the great waterway – serene but relentless – as it carves its path through Arizona. You can look up, too, at the Vermillion Cliffs – multicolored monoliths standing guard over the desert. And then you can set off again along a ribbon of road winding its way toward Grand Canyon, where the wonder is even exponentially more awe inspiring.

I guess that’s what I mean when I often tell people that driving a house on wheels, with the endless series of remarkable landscapes filling its big windshield, is like watching a movie of America. And anytime you want, like this little respite at the Colorado River, you can stop the film and enter the scene.

It sure gives another meaning to moving pictures.