David Michael Burrow

University of Southern Mississippi (Part 9--Conclusion)

SUNDAY, AUGUST 10, 1992
Hattiesburg, Mississippi -- Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Sunday we left Hattiesburg for good. We headed west to beautiful Bogalusa, Louisiana, which I saw in a book described as "America's worst small city". (The same book listed Hattiesburg sixth among the best small cities in America, so I wouldn't get too excited about any claim it made.) Parts of Bogalusa are quite nice, but overall it is rather a dump. From Hattiesburg people go there to buy liquor and tobacco, which are taxed at a much lower rate in Louisiana than in Mississippi. I bought gas at a convenience store in Bogalusa, and we set off west again.

We paused again at the Audubon Historic Park near St. Francisvile. ... I wrote about it after my first trip southward ... and ... it's still quite interesting.

Our destination tonight was Baton Rouge, which to my mind deserves the title of America's worst city. We entered Baton Rouge from the north, heading down the Mississippi past miles and miles of chemical plans. There are few things uglier than a refinery, and when you see the stuff they spew into the air and imagine all the toxics that end up in the river, you realize what a high price we pay for our modern lifestyle.

Having said that, I must confess that the part of Baton Rouge we stayed in was mostly pleasant. We stayed at a Quality Inn at the very east edge of the city, in a new suburban development. The motel was quite nice, and we had a delicious Italian dinner at a nice restaurant down the street. Margaret needed to do laundry, and she was pleased that there were facilities (i.e.: one machine that was constantly busy) on one of the balconies of the motel.

We did get a reminder, though, that this was one of America's poorest cities. Because the washer was so busy, Margaret was doing laundry well into the evening. After it got late, we went up to the balcony to check on things one more time. We were shocked to find a homeless family camped out by the vending machines under the balcony. There were two parents and two children, and they were obviously planning on staying at the motel (but not in a room) for the night. As we walked by the mother hushed her children and huddled them close together. I tried not to stare at them, but it was hard not to. They had two trash bags that I assume contained everything they owned. After all the violence I read about in Baton Rouge the last time I stayed there, I'd imagine this suburban motel might be a comparatively safe place for homeless people, but it's certainly sad that they have to stay there.

MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 1992
Baton Rouge, Louisiana -- Houston, Texas

I got up relatively early this morning, and the homeless family was gone when I went out. We had an interesting breakfast at the motel bar--definitely more of a bar than a restaurant. Then we set off westward from Baton Rouge. We crossed the Atchafalaya Swamp on a 40-mile-long causeway that runs between Baton Rouge and Lafayette (LAUGH-fee-YET). ...

I pulled off the road at Jennings, Louisiana--to get gas, food, and money. It turned out to be quite a lengthy stop. Gas was easy; I pulled into a ... convenience store and filled up with no problem. Money was another matter. I drove around and around, trying to find a cash machine. I saw bank after bank, but no one had an automatic teller. Finally, on some obscure side street, I found a drive-through cash machine at the Jefferson Davis Savings Bank. ... I then stopped at a Mr. Chef restaurant for some lunch, and I ended up waiting in line for nearly fifteen minutes before I got a sandwich and onion rings. To make things worse, just as I was pulling back onto I-10, I saw a shopping center with a cash machine--right off the interstate.

We drove westward toward Lake Charles, which prides itself on being the "chemical capital of America"--a rather dubious honor, if you ask me. It was a mess to drive through, but I must say it seems like a pleasant little city. From there it was a short drive on to the Texas border. We were driving in two cars (Margaret and Vicki in one; I and all my stuff in another), and we agreed to catch up with each other at the Texas welcome center just across the border.

Texas is a big state. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. It's huge, and they're proud of it. Just after you cross the boder, there's a distance sign:

Orange..........3 miles
Beaumont.......26 miles
El Paso.......881 miles

Fortunately we weren't going to El Paso. Our destination was Houston, or more precisely Clear Lake, Texas, home of NASA's Johnson Space Center. We got very good directions from the welcome center and set off on our way.

You realize just how cheap land must be in Texas when you see just how far Houston sprawls. The city has no less than three beltways, each further out than the other. On Interstate 10, the six-lane begins around Exit 806, and it doesn't end until Exit 740. The area stretches out even more north to south.

We drove through some scruffy suburbs until we got to Exit 781, which is "Beltway 8", officially named (but never called) the Sam Houston Parkway. This is the second of the three beltways. It's a six-lane highway that keeps switching between toll and free and limited and non-limited access. We went south for about twn miles ... until we came to Interstate 45, the "Houston-Gulf Freeway" which connects Houston and Galveston. While those two cities are technically separate, it's solid suburb for the 35 miles between them. It was rush hour when we got to I-45, and it was totally packed. The locals probably thought that it was good that traffic moved quite quickly; for me driving fast on a busy interstate is downright scary--it was worse than Minneapolis [which is just about my least favorite place to drive].

We drove south for about twelve miles to Exit 25, where we got off at Highway 1 and the town of Webster. This is the classic suburban strip. There's a major mall (with nothing much in it), a K-Mart and attached stores, a host of convenience stores, several restaurants and bars (although, rather oddly, very little fast food), and some motels. We snuck through a crack next to the K-Mart parking lot to enter the Motel 6, our destination for the night.

This was not your typical Motel 6. It had obviously been some other kind of motel before, and Motel 6 bought it out. We had big rooms, with lots of extra furniture you don't normally find in cheap motels. It was also the only Motel 6 I've ever been to that had tubs as well as showers. It charged those typically low Motel 6 prices, though, and that was the point.

We had supper at a Waffle House next to the motel (that chain is everywhere in the South), did some shopping at K-Mart, and turned in relatively early.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1992
NASA

We started out today with breakdast at the same Waffle House--it is a twenty-four hour place. Then we set off down highway 1 toward NASA. When we got there and parked, Vicki phoned a former student of hers who now worked there. She arranged for him to meet us later in the day and give us a private tour including things we couldn't otherwise see.

1992 was the right year to visit NASA. They were just putting the finishing touches on a new space theme park across the street, and when it was completed tourists wouldn't be able to tour the actual facilities. We did see the real thing, and with Vicki's connections we saw even more than the typical tourists.

The Johnson Space Center is located on what used to be an auxiliary campus of Rice University. The government rents the land and buildings from Rice, but today all the square, white 60ish buildings look more like a community college than anything else. The grounds are beautifully landscaped, with lovely trees, gardens, ponds, and fountains all over the place. Near the visitors' parking area they have what is called "Rocket Park", with displays of various rockets used in the history of space exploration. There's a really nice visitors' center, with intersting and informative exhibits, as well as rather dull films.

I think the highlight of the visit for me was Mission Control. While we were told this would be eliminated when the theme park was open, we were among the last tourists who actually got to tour the actual Mission Control headquarters. It's interesting that the place has been declared a National Historic Site, so it has to be preserved the way it looked when we first went to the moon. They still have those bulky green computer consoles that were state-of-the-art in the sixties. They've been re-fited with truly state-of-the-art workings (mostly manufactured abroad), but they've kept the external appearance the same.

We also went to the laboratory building where they have moon rocks on display. I think the building intrigued me almost as much as the moon rocks. It, too, looked like it hadn't changed in thirty years. It reminded me of the lab buildings my father used to work in when I was a kid.

We had lunch at a cafeteria on the NASA campus, and eventually we met up with Vicki's student and his wife. They seemed delighted to see all of us, although they'd never met anyone but Vicki before. They gave us special passes that we clipped to our clothes that would admit us to areas that would otherwise be off limits. I must say it's kind of fun walking through those doors that have special code numbers to unlock and just opening up a rope and going right into the roped-off area. I can't say we saw a whole lot in the private areas that was really all that interesting. It was basically just a bunch of people working. I suppose if I were a Russian spy I might have found their work interesting, but as it was I was more impressed by just being allowed to go into all the "top secret" places.

NASA employs thousands of people. I wondered at first how they could keep so busy at times when there weren't missions in progress, but that question did get answered as we went around on the private tour. A big part of the Houston facility is designing and improving space equipment. Vicki's student is an engineer who works in plastics, designing things to be used in space. (That's a gross over-simplification of his job, and he'd probably be annoyed by the description--but that's the way my dumb mind understood it.) Other people keep track of all those hundreds of communications satellites that are up there all the time. Still others are planning future space missions or going over the reams of data collected every minute from past space missions. I must say pretty much everyone we saw seemed to be working hard; it's not like there was a lot of government money being wasted.

Vicki's friend left us at the far end of the NASA campus. As we were walking back towad the visitors' center, we noticed an interesting sight. In the back of one of the lab buildings is what looks like a small mobile home park, with a bunch of satellite dishes at the side. What it is in reality is the place all the network news people do their work whenever something important happens here. Three trailers are labeled for the three big networks, and there are others that I assume print journalists and other reporters use. There's a scruffy little bathroom off to the side. It looks like it was built to be temporary, and it's probably been there since the moon landing. I must say it was amusing to think I might be sitting where Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather once sat.

We had dinner at an elegant ethnic restaurant--a strange combination that was mostly Italian, Chinese, and Mexican. ... Then we settled into our motel rooms for the night. I watched the news in Spanish (this is Texas, after all), and then went off to sleep.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1992
Houston, Texas -- Texarkana, Arkansas

This was mostly a day of driving. ... I followed highway 1 east past NASA again, which was a mistake. I got thoroughly lost (which is unusual for me) and ended up going the wrong way on Interstate 10. I stopped for breakfast to re-orient myself ... and eventually got going the right way. I exited again at beltway 8, but I headed north this time for what seemed like forever, past mile after mile after mile of endless wood ranch houses and tacky mobile home parks. ...

Finally I came to U.S. 59, a four-lane highway that leads northeast from Houston. It's weird that for most of the way it's basically a four-lane street; that is, there's no median--just four lanes of asphalt side by side. Fortunately there was next to no traffic, so it wasn't any problem to drive. ...

What can I say about eastern Texas? Well, there's not much to say. A lot of people would probably say it was boring, but I liked the mostly open countryside here a lot better than the endless forest tunnels in Mississippi. It's gently rolling hills with a combination of farmland (lots of soybeans), ranchland, and stretches of forest. The big problem is the humidity. Texas heat is pure hell, and without air conditioning in my car, I was thoroughly soaked by the time I reached Texarkana.

* * * * *

We had dinner tonight at a lovely Mexican place just across the interstate from our motel. (Across the interstate is trickier than you thinki.) It looked like nothing from the outside (hideous pink stucco), but they had some of the best Mexican food I've ever tasted. Then we went back to the motel and settled in for the night.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 1992
Texarkana, Arkansas -- Columbia, Missouri

This was an incredibly long day of driving.

We got up early, and from the moment we set out across Arkansas, we knew we were in Bill Clinton country. Clinton (who was a candidate then, but is--of course--now the President) is a native of Hope, Arkansas, and he started out as a lawyer in Texarkana. Every little town around here is proud of their native son. We saw several billboards that appeared to be put up by local people (as opposed to campaign committees) supporting Clinton, and the town of Hope proudly proclaimed them on their watertower.

We stopped for breakfast at a McDonalds in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. This is hill country (to be honest, pretty much all of Arkansas is hill country). I-40 is a true work of engineering ..., and the town streets go up and down and cuve left and right with no order whatsoever. I mention all this because McDonalds stood out because its parking lot wasn't level. It just sort of followed the contour of the land, and you parked at very questionable angles.

* * * * *

[Past Little Rock] Highway 67 is something else again. It's a limited access highway, ... but my is it awful. It was obviously built decades ago in cement sections. They tarred the joints, but things have settled to where the tar doesn't seem to do anything. You get a different kind of jolt every time you hit a new section--which is every few feet. There's no shoulder, and the exits seem to be about 10 feet long. ... There's about 70 miles of this awful "expressway", and I think all of us were thankful to get onto a curvy, asphalt two-lane after that.

It's heavily settled all along U.S. 67, and it's ugly, dirt-poor housing. I passed mile after mile of ratty mobile homes and tumble-down houses. There's a bit of farmland mixed in between it all, but it's very scruffy. The only thing I remember hearing about this area was on "60 Minutes" years ago. Apparently one of the biggest toxic waste storage sites in America is located around here, and it's been leaking out and polluting the water all over the area. It's sad to think, but it always seems to be the poor who suffer with things like that. You never hear about toxic waste in exclusive suburbs.

* * * * *

The group of us had arranged to meet at a rest area in West Plains, Missouri. I got there and parked, but it seemed to take the longest time for Margaret and Vicki to show up. Just as I started to really worry, they arrived. It turned out they had stopped for lunch ..., while I had pretty much skipped lunch for the day.

* * * * *

The Ozarks are lovely, really. Someday I'd love to go back and spend some time hiking among all those lush rolling hills. Unfortunately, we were trying to make time, and while highway 63 is probably the most direct route across Missouri, by evening I was starting to curse every curve.

* * * * *

FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 1992
Columbia, Missouri -- Algona, Iowa

Margaret and I parted company today, even though we both went the same basic direction all morning. I left Columbia and continued northward on highway 63, toward Moberly and Macon, where I stopped to buy gas at a Conoco station that looked as if it were built in the '30s (and hadn't been renovated since). ... I paid the bill at a cash register that looked like the old adding machine my grandfather had. Then I used the hideous restroom (that looked like it hadn't been cleaned since the '30s) and went on my way.

I drove through Kirksville on the business route. While I'm not sure I ever went through there before, Kirksville brings back childhood memories for me. The television station in "the heartland of America" is KTVO, Channel 3, with the twin homes of Kirksville and Ottumwa. Missouri is a border state, and Kirksville, as much as anywhere, marks the end of the south and the beginning of the Midwest. (I could say that about Columbia or Jeff. City, but then Moberly and Macon are Southern again.) While the natives talk worse than they do in Mississippi, Kirksville looks like a Midwestern town. The only thing that gives away its border location is the typically Southern "square" at the center of town--a feature you'll find in every town in southern Iowa, too. It's hard to say what makes Kirksville look the way it does, but I think the main thing is that it's a well kept, clean community. I never really thought of it in such terms before, but neat lawns and proper gardens really are a trademark of the Midwest. So is building maintenance. When things wear out in he Midwest, we either fix them or tear them down. When we tear them down, we dispose of the rubble. The South, by contrast, is a land of scraggly yards, peeling paint, broken signs, and unfinished construction projects.

Another thing--talk all you want about "Southern hospitality". If you ask me, the cradle of friendliness is right here in mid-America. I stopped at a Hardees in Kirksville, and the woman at the counter was friendly--not sappy or artificial--just honestly nice. In the South service people are at best either indifferent or sarcastic. At worst they are downright gruff, as if serving you were a big imposition on them. Part of that comes from the fact that many of the service workers in the Midwest are teenagers or old people who want to do those jobs; in the South pretty much all the service sector is staffed by working-aged adults who have to do those jobs. I think a lot of it really does have to do with the culture, though.

As I kept on driving, I couldn't help but notice that I myself was in a much better mood today than I was yesterday. That said, let me give Missouri its due. It is without question one of the most beautiful states in America. It's no place for fast, frantic driving (My day once said "the whole durn state is hills!"), but it's really lovely. I grew up in southern Iowa, which looks a lot like much of Missouri. ... I felt very much at home as I was driving through the rolling hills this morning. I think the combination of tidy fields, lined with little patches of forest or fast-flowing streams, and knit by country roads that no one would expect to go straight, is really breathtaking.

It was late morning when I crossed into Iowa. ... I stopped at Paul & Nancy's, where I lied and told them I'd already had lunch. (Actually, I pretty much skipped lunch today.) After a brief visit, I ... made the last leg of my journey home. ... It was a whirlwind summer, and the start of another whirlwind year.

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