Last Easter I went out to California, where I tried to see my friend and former student Brad Nelson playing minor league baseball. Unfortunately Brad was injured shortly before the trip. While I had a good visit, in terms of baseball I basically just saw Brad sit on the bench. After officially recovering from his surgery (I phrase it that way, because the full recovery typically takes a year), Brad had been promoted to the Huntsville Stars in the AA Southern League. I decided that after finishing my work teaching summer classes at Iowa Lakes Community College, I'd go down to Alabama to see him actually play. In the process I made an enjoyable road trip where almost everything had some sort of baseball theme.
I left home about 6:45 this morning, and stopped briefly at McDonalds for breakfast. Then I headed east along highway 18 to Clear Lake. It used to be four lanes all through that town. Now, for much of the way, they've painted the same surface so it's just two extra-wide lanes, with a turn lane in the middle. That congested traffic a bit, especially since I hit it right at rush hour. I got through okay, though, and then continued on Avenue of the Saints past Mason City and Charles City.
I turned east at Nashua and made my way past the Little Brown Church as strains of the old song went through my head. Then I continued east through Fredericksburg and the rugged hills of northeast Iowa until finally I came to Marquette.
My destination this morning was Effigy Mounds National Monument, the first point of interest I'd see on this trip. I've been to Effigy Mounds countless times, dating back to when I was a child and we stopped there on the way to Aunt Alaire's home in Wisconsin. As much as I've been there, though, I never tire of seeing it. Without question it's one of the most spectacularly beautiful places in the Midwest, and to my eye one of the nicest anywhere.
The "official" purpose of the monument is to preserve pre-Columbian Indian burial mounds, most of which are in the shape of various animals (the "effigies" that give the park its name). For me, as for most visitors, though, the mounds themselves are secondary. The real point of visiting Effigy Mounds is the lovely hike through native forest and up the riverside cliffs. The trail is steep and rugged, but that just adds to the sense of accomplishment when you reach the gorgeous views of the mighty Mississippi. Even though the woods were buzzing with mosquitoes today, it still didn't spoil the hike. I had a lovely morning work-out and a wonderful start to the trip.
I even got just a taste of the baseball theme that would pervade this vacation. Those mounds that aren't shaped like birds or bears tend to have simple bar or cone shapes. At one point a cone and a bar were placed together in a form that looked remarkably like the shape of a baseball bat-probably not what the ancient Indians had in mind, but interesting nonetheless.
A friend of mine collects postcards, and I made a point of stopping by the gift shop to see if there was anything interesting I could get for her. There wasn't, but some of the other customers there did provide an interesting diversion. A couple about my age was in there, with a bratty little boy who wanted to buy everything in the store. That in itself wouldn't have been unusual. What stood out was that the kid kept referring to the man as "Grandpa". There was no way the man was any older than me (indeed I'd have guessed him a few years younger), and while I am getting older, I really don't see myself as "grandpa" age yet. Then again, I do recall going to my ten-year high school reunion and seeing one woman bring her granddaughter to that event. [This woman] had her first child in seventh grade (and--obviously--so did her daughter). I suppose it would be possible for someone my age to be a grandparent even with the children born at somewhat more "normal" times of life, but I'd still think they must have started pretty young.
I drove up to Waukon and stopped for gas at a Casey's there. I also bought some breadsticks and marinara sauce, which was my lunch for the day. Then I drove on to Margaret's, and we had a nice chat through the afternoon.
Margaret had arranged for us to meet her friend Marlene for dinner in Decorah. We ate at a small restaurant associated with the Norwegian museum there. Most of their menu tends toward Nordic fare, though I can't say any of us had anything terribly adventurous. I had steak, a tasty salad, with a berry-covered pastry (krumkake) for dessert.
After dinner we drove north to Lanesboro, Minnesota. Margaret is a high-level patron of a small professional theatre there, and that provides her with unlimited tickets to the shows. Lanesboro is about an hour north of Decorah. The drive is not one I care to do in winter, but it's lovely on a summer evening. Today we admired countless wildflowers that carpeted the ditches all through northern Iowa and southern Minnesota.
The play we saw was called Other People's Money, a fascinating show. While it was written in the early '90s, it was only too timely today. Basically it was a play about greed. It centered around the unfriendly takeover of an old rust-belt factory by an investor who just wanted to sell off the assets and close the company. In the backwards world of stock market ethics (or lack thereof), it wasn't always clear who the good guys and the bad guys were. The play was a comedy, yet I left the theatre sad. It really is sad just how much of "real-world" business revolves around greed.
On our way back to Decorah we stopped briefly at a Kwik Trip store in Harmony, Minnesota. Just past there four different police cars had stopped a single pick-up truck. I don't know what the driver was wanted for, but it must have been something big. We made it back to Margaret's and stayed up talking until the wee hours.
Our destination today was Beloit, the town on the Illinois/Wisconsin border where Brad Nelson spent most of last season. The Beloit Snappers were honoring Brad's many accomplishments last year with a bobble head doll giveaway. Brad actually was the subject of two bobble head dolls this summer. The High Desert Mavericks in California also immortalized him in shaking ceramic. It would have cost a small fortune to make yet another trip to California just for a bobble head, but Beloit was a more reasonable alternative.
Unfortunately, the dolls were a limited edition of only 500. While the Snappers don't usually draw a lot of fans, weekend afternoons tend to have bigger crowds than normal. What's more, any giveaway--let alone one featuring one of the top players the team has had--is likely to go over big in Beloit. Margaret and I had looked at the map, and budgeted time so we should be able to get there right when the gates opened at noon-an hour before the anticipated start.
We were both up early, but we dawdled for quite a while chatting over coffee. We left around 9:00, which was seemed about right to get us to our destination at noon. We headed eastward to Waukon and back past Effigy Mounds, stopping for a bathroom break and bite of breakfast at Hardees in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. That stop seemed to take forever, as they seemed to cook everything fresh-one item at a time. We then got caught in heavy traffic in Madison, and it soon became clear it would be well after 12:30 when we got to Beloit. I held out little hope that we'd actually get those coveted dolls and resigned myself to just watching a game I didn't much care about.
We sped down I-39 at a bit more than the posted limit and exited onto Shopiere Road in Beloit. The route to the stadium was very familiar from last year, and I was pleased to see that the parking lot was not particularly full. As I grabbed the tickets to make a mad rush for the gate, I noticed that I had remembered the start time wrong. The game was actually scheduled for 2pm, not 1:00. I thought we were late, but in fact the gates hadn't even opened yet. You can imagine the relief as both Margaret and I slowed from a sprint to a brisk walk.
While we were early, it was a good thing we were. We joined a line that stretched back from the entrance the whole length of the stadium. There probably weren't 500 people in the line yet, but there were easily 300. While Margaret saved our place, I walked ahead to make sure this was a line to enter, rather than a line for tickets. Well ahead in line I saw Brad's parents ... and sister. I chatted for a while, and ... we had a good visit.
* * * * *
The gates opened promptly at 1:00, and we made our way forward. When we got to the entrance, we were presented not with a bobble head doll, but with a certificate and an apology letter. It seems that the company the Snappers had contracted to make the dolls went bankrupt, and at the last minute the promotions people in Wisconsin had to negotiate with a new producer. The dolls were being made in China, but wouldn't actually be available until late September. In some ways that was good; now I wouldn't have to lug a highly fragile piece of ceramic all over the country with me. The problem, though, was that patrons were supposed to redeem their certificates in person at the Snappers offices. I really didn't want to drive all the way back to Wisconsin just to get a bobbling Brad.
* * * * *
By the time I'm writing this (mostly in October), I have received my "bobblin' Brad". Beloit's doll is cute, but having seen photos of the High Desert version online, I must say they did a better job of reproducing his likeness in California. The doll stands about 71/2 tall, with well over a third of that being the spring-mounted head. Most bobblehead dolls don't really look a lot like the people they depict, and this is certainly no exception. The body is certainly not Brad's, but that of a much smaller guy. Even in high school Brad was not as thin as the body they gave him on this doll. The head has some of Brad's features, but others are pretty much generic. Most prominent on the head is an enormous grin. Brad does tend to flash a grin frequently, but having it planted permanently on his face is a bit odd.
We had a lot of time to kill before the game began, and Pohlman Field isn't exactly the world's most interesting ballpark. Margaret and I checked out the gift shop, which hadn't changed much since last season. I already had more than my share of Snappers souvenirs, so I didn't drop a dime there. I did buy a hot dog and some nachos from the concession stand, noticing in the process that there was a change there. They used to have condiment dispensers that you turned to get a stream of minced onion or relish. Those frequently clogged and were broken more than they worked. Now they'd sensibly replaced them with dishes of the various condiments you could spoon on your hot dog.
There are no truly bad seats at Pohlman Field, but ours were just about the best. They were right behind home plate and in the very first row. I'd never sat in exactly that location before, since last year I generally sat by first base where Brad was playing. The only bad thing about the seats was watching the whole game through the screen they have to catch foul balls.
Two college girls came around before the game, trying to line up people to play the between innings games. They asked if I'd be interested in playing what they merely called "a promotional game". Generally preferring not to embarrass myself, I asked them just what it would involve. They obviously didn't want to tell me, but they implied it was some sort of sports trivia and that somehow blowing horns was involved. The description made it sound like I'd more than likely be embarrassing myself if I accepted, so I declined. The girls were really quite persistent and tried a couple more times to get me to say yes. In the end though, they left me alone.
This was Little League Day in Beloit, and a host of different teams paraded onto the field before the game. Between them and their parents, the park was as full as I'd ever seen it. There were easily over 3,000 in attendance, most of whom didn't have certificates for bobble heads.
The National Anthem was one of the more interesting renditions I've heard. A woman dressed far more formally than I'd expect at a baseball game played a trumpet solo that was really quite moving. It certainly beat the bad country music or the overly-emoted classical versions I've most often heard in ballparks.
It was interesting to see a few of the same players who were Brad's teammates last year still playing in Beloit. That's actually not a good thing from the players' point of view. Brad, who is younger than most of them, was now playing two levels higher in the minor leagues. Chances are most of the guys who were still in Beloit would never play at a higher level. They were still familiar faces, though, and I rooted for them strongly when they batted.
I probably paid the most attention to the guy who replaced Brad at first base, Prince Fielder. Prince was the Brewers' top draft pick last year (Brad was a fourth-round selection), and as the son of big league all-star Cecil Fielder, he's easily the top prospect in the organization. Prince definitely hits well, but he's got a ways to go to catch up with Brad defensively. ... I well aware that my opinion is prejudiced, but I really wasn't terribly impressed with Fielder. He has been tearing things up at the plate, though, and I'd certainly not be upset if both he and Brad made it to "the show".
The game was really pretty dull, and when it started raining around the time of the seventh inning stretch, Margaret and I decided to leave. There was certainly nothing to keep either of us around for the final out. We had an uneventful drive back through Madison and on to Prairie du Chien. We stopped for dinner at a place called Huckleberry's in PDC, a cavernous restaurant with a country décor that seemed to serve every kind of food known to man. I passed on the truck stop version of foreign dishes and opted instead for an omelette. Then I drove into the sunset as we made our way back to Margaret's.
* * * * *
I left Margaret's right at 6:30am and headed uphill from her valley into a bank of fog. I made my way down the string of county roads that leads to Waukon, panicking a little each time I reached a fogbound intersection. Margaret lives on a gravel road, so I stopped at a carwash in Waukon to rinse off the dust and grime. I also bought gas at Kwik Trip and had a ham, egg, and cheese biscuit at Hardees (a special for only $.99). I followed a very scenic county road south to Monona, made my way east to McGregor, and then followed the Great River Road along the Mississippi cliffs south to Guttenberg. I don't think I'd ever driven this particular stretch of the river road before, and even with the fog it really was lovely.
* * * * *
My baseball diversion today was "Field of Dreams," the filming site of the movie of that name. I've actually never seen the film, but I was familiar with the story. Since the baseball diamond carved out of corn is just a few miles northeast of Dyersville, I figured I might as well see what made it one of Iowa's most-visited tourist attractions.
Strangely, the Field of Dreams is located on two different families' farms. Most of the infield and the old Victorian home that appeared in the movie lie to the east, while left field, center field, and the second base/shortstop area are to the west. There are two separate entrances to the site--one on each family's property--and each family operates its own baseball-themed gift shop. Both of the sites even provide complementary balls, gloves, and bats; but you can only use them in the part of the field that is in that family's property.
A foggy morning was probably the ideal time to see the Field of Dreams. The place had a sort of mystical quality that was really kind of cool. It's a full-size adult field, complete with lights and wooden bleachers, but instead of an outfield fence the whole place is lined with rows of corn. I don't know that I'll rush back to Dyersville, but it was fascinating to see the place once.
After leaving Dyersville, I was on four-lane highways the rest of the day. I followed highway 20 east to Dubuque and then took US 61 south past John's home in Maquoketa and on to Davenport. I crossed the Mississippi on the I-80 bridge and then stopped for a break at the Illinois welcome center. Though it's high up on the cliffs, the view from the welcome center isn't anything special. The river is narrow at this point, and what you mostly look out at is suburban sprawl.
I picked up a few brochures at the welcome center. Most interesting was a guide to prairie wildflowers. While it was geared to Illinois, the vegetation it described covers most of the Midwest. I've been really pleased the past few years that the highway authorities have chosen to let more and more of those wildflowers grow instead of mowing all the ditches. With those flowers, the prairie can be quite scenic. Without them, it's deadly dull.
Unfortunately, most of the ditches on the interstates in Illinois are mowed. There are a few scenic forest areas along I-74, but mostly I saw overly dry fields. I had a fairly dull drive past Peoria and Bloomington. I stopped briefly in LeRoy for gas and then turned south at Champaign on the even duller Interstate 57.
I awakened from my drowsiness at Effingham where I hit construction. Effingham is located at the junction of I-57 and I-70, and both interstates run together for a few miles through the town. I-57 doesn't move all that much traffic, but I-70 is very busy all across the country. Here, exactly where the two came together, the road was narrowed to just one lane in each direction. Topping that off, there was an accident up ahead that brought everything to a dead stop. It's only six miles from one end of Effingham to the other, but it took more than half an hour to get through town.
Almost everywhere it goes, I-70 is the border between north and south. There's almost nowhere where that border is more pronounced than in Illinois. While northern Illinois is the epitome of the Midwest, southern Illinois reaches far into Dixie. I-57 starts at the Day Ryan Expressway in Chicago, but south of I-70 you're a lot closer to Memphis--both in distance and culture. The signs south of Effingham gave the distance to Nashville and Atlanta, neither of which was really that far away. Even more noteworthy is the change in scenery. All of Illinois is pancake flat, but north of Effingham I had seen little other than farmland. South of I-70 the farms abruptly ended, and I saw forest and swamps the rest of the day.
About an hour and a half south of Effingham I turned onto my last interstate of the day, I-24. This odd little interstate starts in the middle of nowhere in southern Illinois, cuts a corner of Kentucky, and then becomes a major highway in Tennessee, where it's the road from Nashville to Atlanta and Florida. The Illinois end is certainly not a major highway. I was nearly the only car on the road as I wound through the coal mining hills of "Little Egypt". While I wouldn't have wanted to have been stranded on the shoulder here, it was a beautiful drive.
In the late afternoon I made it to Metropolis, a small town on the Ohio River at the extreme southern end of Illinois. I exited onto US 45 and followed the old road into town. For about four miles I wound through a pleasant suburban area then next to a state park at the edge of the city proper. Just inside the city limits I stopped briefly beside Big John, a supermarket with an enormous statue of its namesake out front. The book Roadside America identifies this as one of the things to see in southern Illinois (which tells you something about southern Illinois, if you think about it), and I must say I found it worth snapping a photo.
I drove on into downtown Metropolis, a gorgeous collection of nineteenth century buildings that mostly stand empty. The focal point is in front of the Massac County Courthouse, where they have established Superman Square. You see, Metropolis' principal claim to fame is that it has proclaimed itself to be the Man of Steel's hometown. Never mind that Superman was actually from "Smallville" and that the "real" Metropolis on film was the Los Angeles skyline. Someone back around 1970 noticed that this town happened to have a marketable name, and the rest is history. There's really not much to see-but, then again, thy managed to draw me, didn't they.
At the center of Superman Square is a painted bronze statue that rather disappointingly is quite a bit smaller than Big John. It stands on a nice pedestal in front of the courthouse, not unlike the smiling Lenins they used to have in Russia. The block to the north is filled with appropriately tacky gift shops-which represent just about the last remaining commerce in downtown Metropolis. I snapped another photo and did one of the gift shops, and about ten minutes later I was heading back to I-24.
I crossed the Ohio and took the first exit inside Kentucky. Just past the cigarette outlets and fireworks stands was a seedy truckstop. Behind that, grayed by the fumes of forty years of semis, was a very strange Comfort Inn that would be my home fort the night. A large woman with a bit too much Southern hospitality in her voice for my taste greeted me and gave me my room key. The room was on the second floor, right next to a stairwell and overlooking a dumpster. It was one of the largest motel rooms I've ever been in, but there was practically no furniture in it--just lots and lots of empty space. ... For all the space the room had, the bathroom was miniscule. Indeed, the door could not open fully because the tub blocked its path. On the plus side, there was a massaging showerhead and the room had a coffee maker and an enormous refrigerator (nearly as large as the one in my apartment), where I chilled some juice I brought along. Even if I return to Paducah, I probably won't be back to this particular motel. Fortunately, it was one of the cheapest Comfort Inns in the country, so I didn't feel I was being ripped off.
After settling into the room I spent about an hour just driving around Paducah. This is one of those places with a funny name I've always wanted to go to. Now that I was here, I figured I might as well see what there was to see. Honestly, there's not much. Having grown up near Burlington, Paducah looked very familiar. It's an old, old river town that saw its best days a century ago. There are lovely old mansions and there are weathered mobile homes, often literally on adjacent lots. Some of the factories have been closed for decades, while others merely look like they're on their last legs. The "nice" business on the fringes mostly dates to he '60s and is definitely showing its age. They've tried to revitalize downtown with a new convention center, but most of the buildings that aren't boarded up serve as second hand stores and storefront churches. I know this description makes the place sound horrible. Really that's not true at all. Paducah struck me as safe and pleasant and probably a very nice place to live--again, just like Burlington. It's just obviously gone through a lot of hard times, and it looks like it's got a lot more hard times to come.
I bought gas at a Pilot truck stop and then had dinner at the Huddle House. While apparently it's actually older than its competitor, Huddle House comes across as a replica of the ubiquitous Southern chain Waffle House. Huddle is actually just slightly more upscale. They have some actual tables and chairs, and they throw a few decorative flowers around here and there. They have those same huge square letters on their sign, though--but at Huddle House they're red and green instead of the black and yellow you see at Waffle House. The name Huddle House made me think of warming around a fire, but apparently that's not the image I was supposed to have at all. According to the back of their menu the name comes from a football huddle. Back before the age of sports bars, they used the name to market this chain of glorified diners to the "after the game" crowd.
The menu at Huddle House is absolutely identical to Waffle House, right down to cheese and eggs and hash browns "all the way". One or the other should probably sue its competitor for a variety of infringements. I had a ham and cheese sandwich, chili, and hash browns with cheese and ham chunks. I didn't think the food was as good as I had eaten at Waffle House, but it was perfectly adequate. I'd also imagine that, like Waffle House, it might vary a lot by location or time of day.
After dinner I went back to my strange motel room, watched a bit of TV, and just relaxed. This had been quite a long trip, but it really was an enjoyable day.
I got up around 6:30, showered, and had a stale bagel in the motel lobby. I left about 7:00 and slowly made my way through suburban Paducah. It shocked me to see school buses running-not just one or two, but what was obviously the district's whole fleet. I'd find out later that Paducah, like most of the South, started school this week. I thought our mid-August starting date was early, and being in school on August 5 seems just downright absurd to me.
The state of Kentucky is less than 50 miles wide at this point, so it didn't take long to make my way down US 45 and the Purchase Parkway (an un-numbered expressway that rather obviously used to be a tollroad) to the Tennessee border. There wasn't much noteworthy about the trip; mostly I remember it being busy with rush hour traffic going to factories that seemed to be located out in the middle of nowhere in the country.
I've been to Tennessee a number of times now, but I can't say I like it much better with experience. One thing that's hard to get past as a visitor is the state's horrible road network. Another is the settlement pattern, that makes it seem like the whole state is urban--even in the most remote farmland and fields. It's about 120 miles across Tennessee on US 45, and I basically drove down a suburban street the whole way. There are few places where the development is really dense (really the only place is in Jackson, which is a true city), but you're never more than a hundred yards or so from the next home or business. I literally could not tell where one town ended and the next began. I really hate places like that. Being a Midwesterner with New England roots, to me town should be town and country should be country. This half-and-half stuff is for the birds.
Things couldn't have changed more abruptly at the Mississippi line. I was welcomed to the Magnolia state by a few miles of truly rural forest and a lovely limited access four-lane highway. I've always been amazed that the poorest state in America has some of the best roads. I don't know how they do it, but we could all take lessons.
The hotel bagel was less than filling, so I stopped at a Waffle House in Corinth, Mississippi for breakfast. I had a wonderful breakfast (perfectly cooked ham and eggs, with "chunked and covered" hash browns and outstanding coffee), but the experience was fascinating. ... I got the feeling they were expecting the health inspector or a visit from the home office. All the employees seemed to be walking on eggshells, and they were overly nice to any unfamiliar customers (e.g.: me). ...
After breakfast I set off east on US 72, another lovely four-lane through the forest. Before long I crossed into Tishimingo County, a place I remember hearing about in graduate school. One of my professors had come from the county seat of Iuka (eye-YOO-kuh), and he repeatedly described the place as remote beyond belief. It's quite likely that in the era he was there it was truly remote. This is quite near the "red neck hills" of Alabama that I described in my journal from grad school a decade ago. Without the four-lane and the accompanying influx of cross-country traffic, extreme northeast Mississippi would probably be very isolated indeed. It's far from urban even today. The terrain is very rugged, much more the Appalachian foothills than the Mississippi delta. The woods are dense and dark in he way that only Southern forests seem to be. The towns are few and far between, and when the highway passes one, all you really see is a convenience store or two. Even Iuka has only 3100 people, barely enough to support a Wal-Mart. There aren't a lot of billboards, and those that do line the road advertise services for visiting hunters. The road moves a lot of traffic, though. This is the shortest route from Memphis to Atlanta, and the truckers never waste a mile. It reminded me a lot of the trans-Canada cutting through the Canadian Shield in northern Ontario, with lines of semis making their way through rugged woods.
Things flattened out a bit at the Alabama line, but the road became significantly worse. It was still four lanes, but it looked as if it hadn't been maintained in decades. This region of northwest Alabama is called "the Shoals". According to Dictionary.com (I wonder what it cost them to get that domain name), "shoal" comes from old English and is related to the word "shallow". Basically the word means "sandbar". My bet is that the shoals marked the extent of navigation on the Tennessee River, which flows through here. There are any number of shallow streams in the area, though, many of them choked with sandbars--so I suppose the name is fitting. It's a bit flatter here than in the neighboring area of Mississippi, and the vegetation is scrubbier. No one is likely to call the region beautiful, but it is attractive in a rustic sort of way.
I stopped for gas at a very rustic gas station in the middle of nowhere near Barton, Alabama. Then I drove east a ways further and turned off into the town of Tuscumbia. Tuscumbia looks exactly like an old Southern town should look. The place is immaculately kept, with stately homes on enormous lots along tree-lined streets. Downtown has traded "real" businesses for dance studios and brokerage houses, but it is still active and well kept. The center of town is a classic courthouse square that looks like it belongs in an old movie. Tuscumbia comes across as refined an elegant, quite a contrast from the surrounding rural area.
My purpose for stopping in Tuscumbia was to see Ivy Green, the home of Helen Keller. Until I started planning for this trip, I hadn't known that Keller was from Alabama. She was; in fact she is the subject of the Alabama state quarter. Her childhood home still stands on part of what appears to have once been a farm at the north end of Tuscumbia. I basically toured the house twice. First I saw things on my own, then a second time with a syrupy daughter of the Confederacy guiding me around. The house itself is really nothing much. It's a small and simple Victorian with minimal but authentic furnishings. A family with young children was visiting when I was, and the children remarked at just how simple everything was. I'm sure it would be startling for someone who grew up with videogames and computers to see a home without electric lights--not that lighting would matter to a blind person, of course.
Much more interesting than the house itself was the grounds. The center of everything is the famous well where Anne Sullivan, the so-called "miracle worker", made her breakthrough by teaching Keller to associate the feeling of flowing water with the letters of the manual alphabet that spelled W - A - T - E - R. It's just an old country well, but it was fascinating to see. We also saw Sullivan's residence, an out building that may well have been slave quarters in antebellum times (though we weren't told its history). As with most of the things I'd see on this trip, it wasn't something I'd detour to see again, but it was fascinating to visit once.
I headed northeast from Ivy Green past the Helen Keller Memorial Hospital and through a modern suburban area in neighboring Muscle Shoals, another of those oddly-named places I've always noticed on the map. Unlike most of the South's suburban strips, which can be very seedy, this was remarkably well kept. I stopped to browse at a Dollar General Store, where I was the only customer. I made an impulse purchase when I saw 12-inch box fans for sale. I bought a fan that size at a Walgreen's store in Iowa City back when I was in college, and it was one of the best purchases I ever made. It's the perfect size to fit in a double-hung window, and it moves a lot of air around without feeling like a hurricane. After a decade and a half of good service, the Walgreen's fan gave up the ghost. For years I'd been looking for a replacement, but nobody seemed to sell them. All the box fans were huge, the sort of thing you'd set on the floor, while small fans invariably had bases and usually rotated; simple window fans seemed a thing of the past. They had them at Dollar General, though, and I snapped up two. They're not as well made as the old Walgreen's fan (what is these days?), but they serve the same purpose.
I was running low on cash, so I stopped at an ATM in Muscle Shoals. It was ultra-modern, offering far more services than simple banking. After a bit of contemplation, though, I managed to figure out how to use its most simple features, and I left with a few more bucks in my pocket.
I followed highway 72 eastward through a semi-urban stretch that reminded me of the never-ending towns in Tennessee. Things became truly urban at Decatur, where the highway cut straight through the city and crossed the vast Tennessee River on an enormously high bridge. The bridge was made in sections, with metal connectors between them. Many of those connectors were bent out of alignment, and some of actually bumped on the bottom of my car as I drove across the bridge.
(CONTINUED)
The background music on this page is the classic saga " '39" by Queen, which tells of a somewhat longer journey than this one.