Category Archives: Review

Music Review
New York at Night
Willie Nile

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I didn’t actually try to produce a flashback last week but I thought about it. Because I’d pre-ordered the CD, when Willie Nile released World War Willie back in 2016, I got a digital copy before the actual CD arrived. It was early spring and I took a nice walk around the neighborhood with the new music playing in my ears. The walk and the songs both made an impression. A similar situation existed with New York at Night. A digital version became available before the physical version arrived. My World War Willie introductory walkabout was powered by a 2011 vintage iPod. It still works fine but I no longer have any way to maintain its contents. This time I downloaded the music to my phone and set out to enjoy some fine weather and new music.

I’d previously used the phone for some podcasts and music but had not really mastered its operation. I tapped the first track listed; The phone played it to completion then stopped and waited for me to select another. There’s probably some way to get automatic movement between tracks, but a small screen in bright sunlight did not lend itself to figuring that out. So, as each track ended, I stopped walking long enough to tap the next one in the list. The screen size and bright sun also didn’t exactly help an old man’s eyes read each track name. I just tapped each track in the sequence displayed. Back home, I discovered that the list was not in the intended sequence. I’ve not deduced an actual pattern so maybe it really is random.

I quite enjoyed the warm and sunny walk and even stepped inside a store for the first time in several weeks. It was a United Dairy Farmers store where I bought an ice cream cone to help me get home. I also enjoyed the music and noted some tracks I looked forward to hearing again. But I did not feel the same kick and elation as on that 2016 walk. I started this article by saying I had not set out to intentionally reproduce a flashback. That’s technically true, but I think I must have expected one and was disappointed when it didn’t materialize.

Then the CD arrived. It was in the player when I set out on a drive long enough to hear it all. There was no flashback, but the kick was there and the disappointment was not. There’s no real need to dig for an explanation. Many things — and maybe music most of all — strike us differently for no more concrete a reason than it’s a different day. I’ve thought of some reasons for the difference and most have to do with my personal attitude and the fact that driving was less common than walking during the COVID-19 impacted 2020 while the opposite was true in 2016. But I honestly believe that the different sequences also had something to do with it.

The CD opens with “New York is Rockin'” which is, as you might have guessed, a solid rocker. The rockin’ continues through “The Backstreet Slide” and only lets up slightly with “Doors of Paradise” and “Lost and Lonely World”. It pretty much rocks, in fact, all the way through with a couple of exceptions I’ll get to later. Two of those first four CD tracks were among the first four tunes of the scrambled list on my phone but they are in reversed position. “New York is Rockin'” was the fourth song I heard on my walk and “Lost and Lonely World” was the first. The tone that was set was quite different and I think that walk vs. ride and my state of mind are only partly responsible.

Not only is the album heart-pumpingly uptempo, it is heart-warmingly upbeat. At its own heart, it is a love letter to New York City with the city celebrated in both the opening and title tracks. While I’ve often shared that NYC is not one of my favorite places, I very much recognize its concentration of art, culture, and energy, and it has been Willie’s favorite place for a long long time. He certainly captures that energy as well as anyone, and even makes me wish I appreciated the city more. That’s what happens with images like “Barishnikov is puttin’ on his blue suede shoes” and “Pavarotti’s singin’ up at Carnegie Hall” from “New York is Rockin'”.

“Under This Roof”, which I’d heard previously via an online video, is one of the two non-rockers I mentioned earlier. The album was recorded prior to the COVID-19 isolation and well before the ongoing national outrage triggered by the death of a black man in the custody of police in Minneapolis. Its generally lighthearted tone can be seen as a welcome and hopeful distraction and this tune’s message of love and sanctuary even more so. The other softer track features Willie alone at the piano doing a song, “A Little Bit of Love”, that was born in a conversation with his 102-year-old father.

Nile’s current touring (if only he could) band, Johnny Pisano, Matt Hogan, and Jon Weber, anchors the album but there is plenty of help. Perhaps the most notable comes from Jimi K. Bones, who was with Willie when I saw him most recently, and the Eagles’ Steuart Smith. Also notable, in my opinion, is the listing of not only one but two tabla players (Pisano and Frankie Lee). That’s something you don’t see every day.

As I considered the importance of sequencing, I may have discovered a subtle return to the past or I may be imagining it. Back in the heyday of vinyl, the first and last tracks on each side, often called the “four corners”, were considered important. Assuming a split with a half dozen tracks per side, the four corners of New York at Night are the two songs with New York in their titles, “A Little Bit of Love”, and something called “Run Free” which was recorded in 2003. “Run Free” is one of those rock ‘n’ roll anthems that seem perfect for ending a concert — or an album. Are the “four corners” on this album real or imaginary? Betcha know what I think.

Book Review
Headley Inn and Cliff Rock House
Cyndie L. Gerken

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Cyndie Gerken’s third big helping of National Road knowledge was served up a bit more than a year ago, and I have no good excuse, or even enough bad ones, to account for waiting so long to take a look. Of course, once I did, the same accuracy and thoroughness that marked her earlier books were instantly apparent in this one. In 2015, she documented Ohio’s National Road mile markers with Marking the Miles Along the National Road Through Ohio.  In 2018, Taking the Tolls Along the National Road Through Ohio told of the toll gates that operated after the federal government rid itself of the highway by giving it to the states through which it passed. Both books took a deep and wide look at their subjects although that phrase did not occur to me until I was well into the current volume.

Those other books were geographically wide because they involved the whole state of Ohio, and they were also wide in the variety of information they included on their subjects. Depth came from the layers of time and degree of detail covered. Headley… isn’t nearly as wide geographically (The two buildings in the title are barely 300 feet apart.), but it does include the passing road and nearby towns, and the information variety is every bit as wide as in the first two offerings. The detail component of depth is at least equal to that of the earlier books and the time component is considerably greater. The period covered by all three begins at roughly the same time but the story of the two inns has yet to end.

Physically the latest book is much like the others. All are largish paperbacks printed in color. All include a brief overview of the history of the National Road that provides context for the rest of the book. Headley…‘s introduction also includes information on the surrounding area and the role of early roadside inns and taverns.

Both of the book’s subjects appeared almost immediately after the National Road passed by the land they would occupy. The first section of the Cliff Rock House was completed in 1830 and the Headley Inn’s first section in 1833. Other dates have appeared in articles and even on signs but Gerken sorts through the various claims and presents a solid case for these dates. Both structures have been enlarged and modified over the years. Despite their nearness to each other, the inns were constructed and operated independently by two separate families. That has not always been the case although it is again today.

It is generally thought that the Headley Inn initially served as a stagecoach stop while the larger Cliff Rock House catered more to drovers herding sheep and other animals to market. That sort of division was never iron clad, of course, but that kind of thinking does serve to justify the two businesses being so close.

The two periods of glory experienced by the two taverns naturally coincide with the glory days of the passing road. They prospered in the early eighteenth century doing what they were constructed for: serving travelers on the new National Road. Gerken digs deep into public records and family histories to tell the story of this period. Prosperity ended with the coming of the railroad.

Prosperity returned in the early part of the next century when traffic returned to the road out front. This time the customers were carried by automobiles. Alexander Smith, who had built the Cliff Rock House, added the Headley Inn to his holdings in 1857. In 1922, two of his granddaughters opened a restaurant and tearoom in the former stagecoach stop. The old National Road had become part of the National Old Trails Road. Its traffic, and the sisters’ culinary skills, made the tea room a nationally known success. Like they did elsewhere, the interstates of the last half of the twentieth century pulled traffic from the old road and might have ended this second round of glory if the sisters had not already ended it by retiring and closing the restaurant in 1961.

Gerken also uses public records to tell of the tearoom period but they form a much smaller part of the story. There is considerable family documentation available, including photographs, and, more significantly, she has access to quite a bit of living memory of the era. The most important source of that living memory is the son of one of those sisters, Alexander Smith Howard. He not only shared stories that appear throughout the book, he also wrote its foreword.

Living memory provides even more input to the post-tearoom era and here the living memory is sometimes Gerken’s own although it is more often her personal interviews with the short series of owners. The book is heavily illustrated with historical photos, maps, diagrams, newspaper clippings, and more. Modern photos include many taken by the author herself.

For the third time, an era of glory early in a new century is a definite possibility. Major restoration of the Headley Inn was accomplished by Stephen and Bernadine Brown during their 1989 to 2006 ownership. It continued under Alan and Patricia Chaffee until 2015. The current owners, Brian and Carrie Adams, along with their daughter Ashley, have added their own historically sensitive improvements and now operate a bed and breakfast with facilities for weddings and other gatherings. In 2018, Cliff Rock House was purchased by Otto and Sally Luburgh and restoration work is now underway there.

I know that this book’s true value lies in its collection of facts, photos, and carefully researched history. It is unequaled in that regard. Much of its readability, however, comes from the stories that fill the background and cluster around the edges. From the story of the Headly Inn’s original owner verbally abusing federal troops early in the Civil War, and tales of tearoom employees drawing straws to determine who had to brave snakes in the attic to retrieve supplies, to reports of elephants appearing — both expected and not — in front of the inn, there are plenty of human interest style anecdotes to balance the solid and valuable historical facts.

Headley Inn and Cliff Rock House: A Storied History of Two Taverns Along Ohio’s National Road, Cyndie L. Gerken, Independently published, March 20, 2019, 11 x 8.5 inches, 378 pages, ISBN 978-1790228089
Available through Amazon.

Book Review
Overground Railroad
Candacy Taylor

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“This is not a book about the history of road-tripping and black travel”, is the first sentence of the last paragraph of the introduction. That’s something I knew long before I read it. It was something Candacy Taylor said early in the presentation I attended in Indianapolis back in February. It may even have been something she said during another presentation of hers I attended back in 2016. I discovered Taylor the same way she discovered the Green Book. Well, not exactly the same way. She learned of the Green Book while doing research for a Moon Travel Guide on Route 66. I learned of Candacy Taylor as a mere attendee at a conference on the historic road. Research for the book was well underway when Taylor spoke at that conference in Los Angeles but Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America was still a concept. It was a reality when she spoke in Indianapolis, and that’s where I acquired my copy.

Another phrase that caught my ear at the Indianapolis presentation and which I subsequently read in the book is this: “I wasn’t interested in presenting the Green Book as a historic time capsule.” Maybe the reason I noticed the phrase was that, without actually being aware of it, that is exactly how I saw the Green Book. The book, published between 1936 to 1967, identified businesses where Negro travelers were welcome. A too often true assumption was that they were not welcome in any place not listed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not make racial discrimination disappear, but it did make it illegal. By the time I became aware of the book, it had not been published for decades and I figured it had been more or less the same throughout the time it was published. In my mind, the Green Book essentially was a historic time capsule.

The book was no doubt historic, but it was not a sealed capsule. If pressed, I would have known that the book must have grown over the years and that listings and advertisers would have come and gone. Taylor meant much more than that. There were changes in the book’s overall tone that were related to changes in society and vice versa. She uses changes in the Green Book as a timeline to frame changes in the world at large. It isn’t a hard link and the two certainly don’t move in lockstep. Societal changes just aren’t that tidy. But the editions of Victor Green’s book pace the chapters in Taylor’s.

One of the bigger Green Book changes Taylor covers occurred with its return at the end of the Second World War. The guide was not published during the war, and when it returned in 1946 it was bigger and better than ever. Not only was the book enlarged, its tone was changed a bit, too. Serious articles about the situation of blacks in American society appeared along with information, such as a listing of black colleges, not exactly associated with travel. In a chapter based on the 1946 and ’47 editions, Taylor says, “This comprehensive list of colleges elevated the Green Book from a travel guide to a political weapon.”

Another big step came in 1952 when the guide’s name was changed from the Negro Motorist Green Book to the Negro Travelers Green Book. Train travel by blacks had already been included starting in 1950. Travel by airplane and other means would be covered in the future.

In a chapter linked to the 1957 and ’58 editions, Taylor addresses what is almost certainly a big reason she felt the need to stress that, “This is not a book about the history of road-tripping.” The chapter is titled “The Roots of Route 66”, and she uses Route 66 examples to explain why blacks have virtually no nostalgia for the classic American road trip, but the story is essentially the same for every other highway, too. While it’s very much an understatement, the following line does sort of sum up the chapter: “[T]he experience of driving Route 66 was not the same for everyone.”

Overground Railroad is heavily illustrated. Taylor’s research for this project included cataloging and visiting businesses listed in the Green Book, and several of her photographs of sites that remain appear throughout the book. She also includes some personal photos. Numerous historic photos along with reproductions from the Green Book accompany the text. A section in the back of the book lists surviving “Green Book sites” and includes Taylor’s photos of many. It is followed by a section with reproductions of every known Green Book cover other than the very first edition of 1936.

Victor Green hoped that “There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published.” That day came, technically, when the 1964 Civil Rights Act became law. There was just one more Green Book published before it shut down permanently. But reality has never quite matched the technical equality of the Civil Rights Act. The first chapter of Taylor’s book, in which she discusses the risks and difficulties of Negroes driving during the early years of the Green Book, is titled “Driving While Black”. It’s a title that could have come from yesterday’s newspaper. Maybe it did. In her introduction, Taylor asks the standard road trip question, “Are we there yet?” then answers with a whole book that tells of progress but ends up with a solid “No.” It is not, however, a hopeless “No”. The “Author’s Note” near the book’s end talks of the challenge and is followed by a “What We Can Do” list.

Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America, Candacy Taylor, Harry N. Abrams, January 7, 2020, 9.8 x 7 inches, 360 pages, ISBN 978-1419738173
Available through Amazon.

Music Review
Viral Streaming
Various Artists

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This isn’t so much a review of music as a review — and preview — of a situation. For quite some time, the Internet has used the word “viral” as if it owned it. Widely and rapidly shared videos, jokes, and photos are said to have “gone viral”. Now the Internet is helping us deal with something that has gone viral the old fashioned way. The novel coronavirus that causes the disease known as COVID-19 is being widely and rapidly shared and we’re trying to make it stop.

We’re trying to make it stop by practicing social distancing. Some people at the World Health Organization want to use the more accurate “physical distancing” but “social distancing” seems to be pretty entrenched. Even before there were “stay-at-home” and “shelter-in-place” orders, bars and the dining areas of restaurants were closed and the income of people who make their living in them was suddenly interrupted. We are quasi-quarantined and semi-isolated, but thanks to the Internet, it’s a quarantine that is, in ways both good and bad, unlike any that’s come before.

One large group whose income has been interrupted is performing musicians. Major festivals and tours, including the Rolling Stones’ “No Filter Tour”, have been canceled or postponed. Some of the big-name stars have moved to fill a little of the vacuum with online concerts and performances. I understand Willie Nelson took part in an online concert last week. I learned of it too late to watch and sure am sorry. There’s an excerpt here. Neil Young has talked about a series of home shows and has one posted here. It’s unclear to me if that’s from a live stream or when there will be more. I stumbled on and surprised myself by enjoying a live feed from Brad Paisley. I’m sure there are others. I think the big-name home show I enjoyed the most is the one pictured at left. That’s Neil Diamond singing Sweet Caroline with some modified lyrics: “Hands. Washing hands. Reaching out. Don’t touch me, I won’t touch you.” 

Of course, no one is really worried about Mick and Keith missing a few paychecks, and neither of the Neils was looking for a handout. Nor was Willie. He was, however, bringing attention to others on the feed who could use some help. A few rungs down the ladder from the Stones and Willie are a whole bunch of musicians that have managed to derive a livelihood from music. With the venues closed, the income is gone. Many are trying online “concerts” in hopes of pulling in some tips. Even on paying gigs, many would typically have a tip jar out. Now, though, the tips aren’t to augment what might be rather small payments from the venues. They’re the whole shebang.

During the last week, I’ve watched online performances by some Cincinnati musicians who happen to be in my line of sight. The opening picture is of Rob McAllister (Dead Man String Band) who did a show on Saturday. So did Ricky Nye, pictured at right. I watched Ricky live then caught Rob’s archived show on Sunday morning. On Sunday night I watched the folks in the other picture on the right, Serenity Fisher and Michael Ronstadt. These are all people I know so I sort of knew what to expect but there were surprises. Rob played a new only-heard-once song and Serenity broke out the bunny ears.

I also checked out some folks I’d never heard before. Ricky, Serenity, and Michael did their own streaming through their Facebook pages. Rob kicked off a series of live streams from CincyMusic. I took advantage of the series to catch three new-to-me artists. Kyla Mainous was on Monday night. Vusive and Matt Waters were on Tuesday. All three showed a lot of talent. Kyla and Matt are singer-songwriters that I’d welcome the chance to see in person. Vusive produces electronic music which happens to not be something I’m likely to go out of my way for although I appreciate the talent and effort involved.

I really enjoyed the “concerts” and I think the performers had a lot of fun too. Although I didn’t, many took advantage of Facebook’s comment support to request songs or just say hi. It gives the shows something of an intimate and interactive feel. I know there are lots of people in Cincinnati besides musicians whose income has suddenly disappeared and I know that’s true for cities everywhere. The interactive two-way aspect of this streaming means the help can go both ways. Music can be a tremendous benefit in dealing with tough times, and right now there’s a lot of music flowing through the Internet because it’s got nowhere else to go. Some can make music, and some can’t. Some can tip a little, and some can’t. Sometimes the helping hand drops a dollar in a hat and sometimes it strums a guitar.

ADDENDUM 25-Mar-2020 13:00: Not long after this was published, CincyMusic shared news of a ten act live stream planned for tonight starting at 7:30 in addition to the already scheduled stream at 6:00. Check them out here and here.

Movie Review
King Kong
Radio Pictures

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No, I’m not really going to review an eighty-seven-year-old movie that just about everybody has seen multiple times. But I am going to review the experience of seeing it on the big screen for the first time ever. The original King Kong was released on April 7, 1933, so it’s not quite eighty-seven years old but it’s mighty close. My first glimpse — and it wasn’t a whole lot more than that — was sometime in the mid-1950s.

It was on TV, of course, on what was decidedly NOT a big screen. It was probably in 1957 when the movie made its national television debut. The timing likely wasn’t considered “late-night” then and certainly wouldn’t be now, but it was late enough that I had to beg for an exemption to my normal bedtime. Although I was successful, I did not get the exemption’s full benefit. I fell asleep before the movie started, woke up to watch a few scenes through bleary eyes, then dozed off again before the big ending. Today I can’t even remember what portions of the movie I saw. I remember that I saw all of the giant gorilla, not just his face or hand, and I remember it was dark. Seeing Kong in his entirety narrows it down some. The fact that it was dark does not. The entire film was darkened to obscure, reportedly, some of the bloodier scenes and some details of Fay Wray’s femininity. Fay Wray had lots of femininity.

Since then, there have been several viewings that I did manage to stay awake for. Although the screens were considerably larger and clearer than the one parked in our living room sixty-some years ago, all were on a TV. I think the movie became a favorite the instant I actually saw it all. The story was fairly creative but not particularly complex, and the acting was only a few steps removed from the silent film era. Neither was what attracted me to the film. I appreciated its craftsmanship and the window on history it provided. Stop-action animation and rear projection on matte paintings were not invented for King Kong but they had never been used anywhere near to this extent.

The window on history I mentioned exists largely because the movie was made as a window on, if not the future, the leading edge of the present. The film’s exciting finish features the Empire State Building which had just been completed in 1931. It was then the world’s tallest and would hold that title for almost forty years. The armed airplanes that attack the doomed giant were seen as “the most modern of weapons”. Some were models built for the film but some scenes show actual state-of-the-art military planes from a nearby U.S. Naval airfield. From two decades into the twenty-first century, those bi-planes look pretty primitive. Realizing that they represented the most advanced technology of the day definitely helps generate a real appreciation for the film’s special effects created with contemporary tools.

On Sunday, I finally got to see the big guy on the big screen. Fathom Events put together a one day showing at Regal Cinema. Something I’d recently learned was that King Kong was the first movie with a thematic score. This means it was written to coordinate with and enhance on-screen actions rather than just provide some background music. Sunday’s showing included the opening and closing overture which had naturally been cut from every time-constrained TV version I’d ever seen.

The experience was nearly everything I’d hoped it would be. The wall-filling Kong was more frightening than any smaller version I’d seen, and Wray was every bit as alluring as I remembered, and her screams, with an assist from the theater’s sound system, were even louder. That thematic score, which I paid a little more attention to than usual, benefited from the sound system, too. If I ignored the fact that I was sitting in a wide well-padded recliner with NBA sized legroom, I could almost imagine I was watching like it was 1933.

The experience was only “nearly everything I’d hoped” for one reason. In the lead up to Sunday, I’d read a review of the movie which was really a preview of a 2011 screening. It’s here. My anticipation grew when it talked of “seeing it in a packed theater on a big screen with an audience”. I got the big screen but I did not get the packed theater. There were less than twenty people at the 1:00 show. I know that old B&W movies just generally do not draw big crowds but there was more going on here. COVID19, the disease caused by a Coronavirus, was growing. Large gatherings had been banned and the NBA, NCAA, MLB, and other groups had canceled events. In Ohio, schools had already been closed by the governor and within a couple of hours of me leaving the theater, he would close all bars and restaurants. Many museums and other institutions have closed on their own.

That’s why Sunday’s experience was about as far from a packed theater as is possible. Yesterday (Tuesday) the theater itself was closed and so was the Empire State Building observation deck. I’ve only been to the top of the Empire State Building once. It was in the early ’70s when King Kong was no more than forty years old. In a narrow space on an inside wall. there was a heart with the words “King Kong loves Fay Wray”. I’d like to think it’s still there but probably not. 

Book Review
The Other Trail of Tears
Mary Stockwell

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I read this book by accident and belatedly. The accident comes from a spontaneous purchase. The belated reading comes from me not realizing how good it is. I picked the book up back in June of 2018 when I went to hear Mary Stockwell talk on her just-published Unlikely General about my childhood hero, Anthony Wayne. I knew nothing about Stockwell or any other books she had written but bought a copy of The Other Trail of Tears because it sounded kind of interesting and, perhaps more importantly, I was there. Unlikely General worked its way through the stack in a fairly timely manner; It was read and reviewed by November 2018. I let other books move ahead of this one and even loaned it, along with Unlikely General, to a friend to read. When I eventually did start reading The Other Trail of Tears, I quickly put it aside to accommodate two new road-related books. The second attempt went much better and I quickly regretted not diving in sooner. As is too often the case, my preconceptions were wrong. This is another book that was much more than I expected.

Like most people, I am fairly familiar with the forced removal of Native Americans from the southern United States that caused inconceivable suffering and thousands of deaths during the trek west known as The Trail of Tears. Those were the most horrific of the relocations resulting from the Indian Removal Act of 1830 but there were others.

Several reservations once existed in northern Ohio occupied by Shawnee, Wyandot, Seneca, and others. As an Ohioan, I was somewhat aware of these reservations and even knew a little bit about the forced removal of these people. I assumed that Stockwell’s book was filled with details of that removal. Perhaps that assumption and the accompanying assumption that those details would be terribly depressing contributed to my delay in actually reading the book.

My assumptions were not wrong but neither were they complete. The stories of the actual treks to the west are properly told and they are indeed depressing. But they do not fill the book. More pages are used telling of what preceded the removals than on the actual journeys. Stockwell’s coverage of the treaties and trades that resulted in the removal and the people and policies involved is rather detailed and seems complete. There is a lot of history here that I was quite ignorant of.

Though extremely educational, the pre-removal history is also somewhat depressing, and the whole book can fuel that sense of guilt we descendants of European Americans often feel when contemplating the last few centuries of Native American history.

Stockwell doesn’t stoke the guilt or overly stress the sadder aspects of the treks. Although she doesn’t completely hide her sense that Native Americans got a really raw deal, for the most part she sticks to accurately reporting the facts about an undeniably sad period in U.S. history.

The Other Trail of Tears: The Removal of the Ohio Indians, Mary Stockwell, Westholme Publishing, March 18, 2016, 9 x 6 inches, 300 pages, ISBN 978-1594162589
Available through Amazon.

Book Review
After Ike
Michael S. Owen

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There are things that fans of old roads or of transportation history in general falsely assume that everyone knows about. One such item is the continent crossing Motor Transport Corps convoy of 1919. In the summer following the end of the first World War, a group of military personnel and vehicles set off from Washington, DC, to test the nation’s roads all the way to San Francisco. Although he was primarily an observer on the trip, his future accomplishments make Dwight Eisenhower the member of the convoy best-known today. Michael Owen uses the future president’s nickname in naming this telling of his own retracing of the 3,250-mile-long path that some 300 men and 81 vehicles of all shapes and sizes followed a century ago.

As one might expect, Owen mixes lots of information about the military convoy’s trip with the description of his own journey. Much less expected is the fact that he is not one of those long-time fans of old roads or transportation history that I mentioned earlier. As a US Ambassador, he spent considerable time in Africa and Asia. Now retired, he is happily becoming better acquainted with the roads and attractions of his homeland.

On his coast to coast drive, Owen is part researching author and part curious tourist. He often spends multiple days in one place and digs into local history and points of interest. Some of what he finds relates to the convoy and some is simply interesting on its own. A sampling includes a stop at Carnegie-Mellon to talk with a professor about autonomous vehicles and a visit to the Pro Football Hall of Fame which provides an opportunity to talk about Ike’s time as running back at West Point. He visits several museums including the Studebaker museum in South Bend, IN, and the El Dorado County Historical Museum in Placerville, CA. He spends time in small libraries and chatting with locals.

Much of the convoy related information Owen shares comes from journals and official reports written by the participants but local newspaper archives are also used extensively. The motorized convoy was a major event in those early days of the automobile and much attention was focused on its progress. Communities along the route often vied with each other to host the convoy and the dinners, dances, and demonstrations were documented by the local press. More or less typical is the South Bend [Indiana] News-Times report of the convoy’s arrival and departure that included the observation that “…lemonade was given to them in abundance by the Chamber of Commerce.” In Austin, NV, the Reese River Reveille reported that officials “…placed shower baths in the four cells of the jail…” for use by the soldiers.

Some non-convoy related items Owen finds in those old newspapers are used to provide a peek at the world of 1919. A headline from that South Bend News-Times issue reads “Seven Women Take Aeroplane Rides!” From the DeKalb [Illinois] Daily Chronicle, he quotes an article about the convoy’s “3,000,000 candle power searchlight” followed by quotes from an advertisement for the latest Thor Electric Washing Machine. In writing about his modern-day travels, Owen uses signs he sees in a manner similar to the way he uses those period newspaper items. It’s kind of like having a passenger who reads signs aloud; Signs like “Farm fresh eggs! Laid by Happy Chickens”, “Food! Liquor! Wine! Beauty Products!”, and “Gardening for God Brings Peas of Mind”.

Eighteen pages of black and white photos are placed just past the book midpoint. All were taken by the author. Readers familiar with the Lincoln Highway and the modern Lincoln Highway Association will find some familiar places and faces.

The book cover bio says Owen has “driven over the Lincoln Highway several times” but he doesn’t come across as a seasoned road tripper. On one hand, that brings some freshness to the writing. Things like reading aloud signs about eggs bring a sense of sharing the surprises to the reporting. On the other, it may be responsible for allowing a few minor errors to slip in. Early in the book, Owen notes his awareness of “America’s penchant for superlatives: biggest, oldest, first, fastest, best.” He does not list “only” and does pass along a couple of not quite true “only” claims. Qualifying it with the word “purportedly”, he writes that the bust of Lincoln at Wyoming’s Sherman Hill is “…the only statue of Lincoln on the entire Lincoln Highway” and says that the rotary jail in Council Bluffs, IA, “…is the only one of its kind in the US”. Regarding Lincoln statues on the LH, those in Jefferson, IA, and Fremont, NE, come immediately to mind. As for rotating “squirrel cage” jails, the one in Crawfordsville, IN, is not only standing but operational. These errors, and a few others, are not terribly significant but I couldn’t just ignore them.

After Ike is an enjoyable read that delivers an overview of an important event in US transportation history along with a sense of what a modern-day long and leisurely road trip is like. Owen’s fresh eyes and all those signs make it a bit unlike many travelogues.

After Ike: On the Trail of the Century-Old Journey that Changed America, Michael S. Owen, Dog Ear Publishing, LLC, July 22, 2019, 9 x 6 inches, 224 pages, ISBN 978-1457570421
Available through Amazon.

Book Review
Route 36 Ohio to Colorado
Allan McAllister Ferguson

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US-36 is kind of special to me. It is one of just a handful of US highways with an endpoint in my home state and one of just two that pass through my birth county. It’s even more special to Allan Ferguson. He grew up near the route in Illinois, has ancestral connections to the eastern end in Ohio, and currently lives near its western end in Colorado. It has had a role in much of his life from childhood vacations and visits to relatives to business trips and drives between old and new homes as an adult. Not all of his travels between Colorado and Illinois have been on Route 36. Not surprisingly, his early trips back home were on expressways. At some point, he tried US-36 and came to realize three things. The first was that it took no more time than driving the interstates. Between Denver and central Illinois, the US-36 is quite straight and about 100 miles shorter than either I-70 or I-80. Secondly, it was relaxing rather than stressful. The third thing he realized was that the drive was actually interesting and that realization eventually led to this book.

Ferguson stresses that this is “a book about today’s Route 36″ (italics his). He delivers plenty of history and even describes a few older alignments, but the subject of this book is the Route 36 shown on current maps and marked by modern signs. That means there are no turn-by-turn directions that fans of historic routes such as the Lincoln Highway or Route 66 might expect in a guide to a road. And there is another possible expectation that Ferguson intentionally does not meet. There are no lists of restaurants or places to stay. This sort of information is, he points out, ever-changing and available elsewhere.

Today’s US-36 runs through six states in connecting Uhrlichville, Ohio, with Estes Park, Colorado. There is a chapter for each of those states. Following an overview, which provides some history, geography, and geology, a drive through the state is described. Both the chapters and the drives are sequenced east-to-west. The basic organization is by town. Each town entry begins with some common items such as population and a website address. Museums, parks, and libraries are also listed where they exist. Descriptions of various well-researched points of interest, often with photographs, follow.

I know that all sounds rather formulaic, which it probably is, and maybe dry and boring, which it decidedly is not. Good writing makes for easy reading and the quality of Ferguson’s writing makes even this fact-heavy subject matter go down smoothly. In particular, I found the state overviews a very pleasant way to be informed.

A Section II, titled “Background,” follows the guide. A very well-done history of land transportation across the United States, its two chapters divide the story more or less at the appearance of the automobile. This history is not specific to US-36 and reading it is not at all necessary for enjoying a drive along the route. Depending on your own background, it can be a very nice introduction or a very nice review.

Naturally, many of the place names in the guide were familiar to me and I was pleasantly surprised to see a familiar “people name” in there, too. Road fan Jim Grey has documented a number of roads at JimGrey.net. Of course, Ferguson’s interest and recommendation was aimed at Jim’s photo-rich report on US-36 between Indianapolis and the Illinois border. I’ll second Ferguson’s recommendation and add that Jim’s reports on several other old roads — and lots of old cameras — are also worthwhile.

Some of those familiar place names come from the fact that I’ve driven certain bits of Thirty-Six hundreds of times. I have, however, driven the whole thing only once. This book’s east to west order matched the direction of my single full-length pass which made it easy to compare the book with my own memories and journal. I’m glad it wasn’t a competition. I documented very little that Ferguson didn’t, while he identified many points of interest that I missed entirely. I’ll do better next time.

The book has its own website at US36GuideBook.

Route 36: Ohio to Colorado – America’s Heartland Highway, Allan McAllister Ferguson, WFPublishing, August 1, 2019, 10 x 8 inches, 264 pages, ISBN 978-0971032668
Available through Amazon.

Book Review
Tales… from the Dickens Scenes!
The Rainy Day Writers

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This book is unusual and unusually good. The Dickens Scenes of the title are those in Cambridge, Ohio, that starred in this blog’s most recent regular weekly post. There are currently 94 of those scenes and each began life as a sketch by a fellow named Bob Ley. Bob is one of a group of writers, known as The Rainy Day Writers, who help each other practice and improve their craft and occasionally collaborate on projects. Ten of them contributed to Tales… from the Dickens Scenes.

The book’s organization is simple. Each of the scenes is the subject of a two page spread. On the left-hand page is a black and white photo of the scene along with the Bob Ley sketch on which it is based. Text that appears on a sign placed by the scene completes the page. Each sign contains an identifying number and the scenes appear in the book sequenced by those numbers.

The individual photos are not credited but acknowledgments at the front of the book identify Tom Davey and Lindy Thaxton as the photographers. The photos are all quite good and do a nice job of capturing each scene from its best vantage point. Together, the book’s even-numbered (i.e., lefthand) pages make up the sort of catalog often prepared for a museum display. The village really is such a display with the sidewalks of Cambridge forming the museum.

Filling the righthand pages is handled with skill and creativity by The Rainy Day Writers. The text on each page was created for the scene it is associated with. There are works of fiction that imagine a day or a minute in the lives of the figures in the scene, and there are factual essays with subjects such as Victorian England, modern Cambridge, or Charles Dickens himself. Some are thought-provoking, some are educational, many are both. Simply noting the great difference between life in the late nineteenth century and today is thought-provoking and educational.

I’m sure that tailoring a story or an essay to a single page was often a challenge for the writer, but their small size helps make reading them about as non-challenging as it gets. Reading the odd-numbered pages in an easy chair makes sense and so does having the even-numbered pages at hand while walking around downtown Cambridge during the Christmas season. The book is available online but I suggest getting it at the source if possible. At least “while supplies last”, copies sold at the Dickens Victorian Village Welcome Center (647 Wheeling Avenue) have been signed by all ten of the contributing writers plus you can put the book to work as soon as you step through the door.

The first paragraph of this article contains a link to The Rainy Day Writers website. The site contains quite a bit of good information but appears to be less current than the group’s Facebook page.

Tales… from the Dickens Scenes!, The Rainy Day Writers, Independently published, September 21, 2019, 6 x 9 inches, 198 pages, ISBN 978-1691098804
Available through Amazon.

Book Review
A Mythic Obsession
Tom Kupsh

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Sometimes I astound my friends with my knowledge, admittedly quite useless, of unusual and obscure roadside attractions. Othertimes I astound myself with my complete ignorance of a major and fairly well-known piece of public art. A stop on a recent Society for Commercial Archeology bus tour was an occasion of the latter sort. I imagine readers of this review will have thoughts that are similarly divided. Some will wonder just what is that pile of junk and why would anyone put it on the cover of a book. Others will smile with instant and delighted recognition. Ah yes, the Forevertron.

From one perspective, the Forevertron is a 65-foot tall sculpture made of various bits of scrap metal. From another, it is a fantastic device waiting to propel Dr. Evermor “up to the celestial spheres.”  From a third, it is a marvelous project that helped Tom Every deal with the real world. Tom Kupsh covers all three of these perspectives in A Mythic Obsession.

The book contains something of a Tom Every biography. It describes his early attraction to unwanted stuff and what seems to be a natural talent for getting some good out of what other people throw away. It tells about his ups and downs in salvage and professional scavenging and his long-time involvement with Alex Jordan and his House on the Rock. His relationship with Eleanor Gryttenholm, a.k.a., Lady Eleanor, that continues today, having survived both marriage and divorce, is in there too. It’s a life that Kupsh describes as rocky but never dull.

It is Every’s artwork, however, that attracts all the attention and warrants a book. Much of it is big, like the Forevertron, but he has also produced some rather small pieces. The common attributes are whimsey, creativity, and scrap metal. Kupsh describes most if not all of Every’s major works. His descriptions usually include information about when and how the piece was made and sometimes even why. He often tells what the components actually are and where they came from. This is very much the case with the Forevertron and that is something I very much appreciated. The book and the sculptures are a natural pair. At times, while reading the book, I found myself wishing I had read it before visiting the collection so I would have been aware of various details about what I was seeing. On the other hand, I’m kind of glad I had my first look with few preconceptions. I’m thinking that neither sequence is wrong and that whether you start with reading or visiting, you’re going to have to repeat. Seeing the sculptures will raise questions that only the book will answer and the book will fuel curiosity that only a visit will satisfy. I intend to return with book in hand.

The biographical bits are aided by several pictures and there are pictures included of the various pieces of art described. Most are black and white but there is a section of really nice color photos that includes an annotated view of the Forevertron. You can bet on me having that page bookmarked when I next head to Wisconsin.

A Mythic Obsession, Tom Kupsh, Chicago Review Press, June 1, 2008, 6 x 9 inches, 196 pages, ISBN 978-1556527609
Available through Amazon.

I purchased my book onsite from Lady Eleanor. Tom is in a nursing home and rarely gets to the Forevertron these days. Both had inscribed the copies available about nine months previous. I selected one with a fairly lengthy message from Tom even though that message wasn’t quite clear to me at the time. I figured it would become readable when I was sitting still in good lighting. It hasn’t. Among the few phrases I can make out are “80 years” (His 80th birthday was five days earlier.), “I can’t see”, “don’t stop your art”, and “The House on the Rock”. All help from those with better eyesight or insight is appreciated.