Generic America

Generic America
by Lewis J. Goldberg, Editor, The Patriotist

March 31, 2004

Last week, I had occasion to travel through Tennessee and North Carolina to pick up a travel trailer that I had purchased on e-Bay. It was exciting to think of taking a road trip to States in which I had never set radials. In the week leading up to the journey I anticipated all the quaint local eateries I might sample on the way [not to mention the flea markets at which I might stop, making me run off-schedule.]

Ticking off mile after mile, I waited for all the Southern-ness and quaint-ness to hit me in the face - yet it never came. I have travelled much on the nation's highways, but somehow I expected different scenery in these occupied Confederate areas. Instead, I was subjected to an endless series of "Food Exits" and "Gas Exits" bearing the same signage to which all Interstate travellers are acquainted. Even the flea markets looked like the owners of all the local dollar stores simply brought a truckload of whatever wouldn't sell in their stores and set it out - cheap, lousy Chinese junk. Where were the local eateries? Where was the local merchandise? Not on the Interstate, that's for sure.

While our system of roads has made it cheap and easy for us to travel from place to place, it has also fostered a 'least common denominator' culture along a five mile swath wherever it runs. We seem to have made it too comfortable to get off the highway, to the point where we can eat in all 50 States without looking at the menu, and we feel a sense of injustice when any store at which we stop can't supply every little thing for which we ask.

Vehicle breakdowns normally spoil a trip, but ironically, I found blessings in mechanical failure. Besides the wonderful gentleman who sold me the trailer, the only encounter with 'real people' I had the whole trip was when my alternator failed. The three-hour layover I had in the middle of Tennessee got me out of the fast-food artery for a little while, where I could interact with the living - even the Body of Christ. The whole experience would have been poorer without the troubles.

Now, I'm all for a free-market economy, and if a man wants to get together the money to open a franchise business on an Interstate highway, and he feels that's the best way to provide for his family, then God bless him. But it does seem that the highways have become conduits of mediocrity, eating away at the distinctives that make the various parts of this land different from their neighbors. But progress, er, progresses, and complaining won't make it stop. I would have liked a real flea market with real American junk, though. ***

Your comments and questions are encouraged. [editor@patriotist.com]

Photo of Lewis Goldberg courtesy of The Patriotist