I had an uncle whom I still remember as a sort of prophet. He had the beard and the fiery eyes and, like most prophets, he was considered slightly mad. A geek before his time, as early as the 1970s he hauled a “portable” computer — a rectangular slab the size of a large suitcase — to and from his no-doubt-thankless job connected to the EPA in Louisiana.
And well before then, what had truly made everyone shake their heads, was his opposition to Eisenhower’s Federal highway project in 1956.
“We all thought he was crazy,” I’ve been told.
American southerners across the political spectrum were likely to be enthusiastic about any effort at improving roads — which tended to be underfunded and badly maintained in poorer states like Mississippi, Alabama, etc. My uncle, however, could not be moved on the subject. This project, he said, would benefit mainly the highway, fossil-fuel and automotive lobbies and would result in even greater dependence on cars & trucks, more pollution. It would be far better to invest in a good rail system and public transit.
As usual, he was right. Trains were uncermoniously dumped as a pleasant and efficient option for cross-country travel, replaced by broad, bland, interstate highways that can make even extended journeys thuddingly monotonous.
And yes, I mean “dumped” rather than died out naturally. A railway historian at a lecture I attended described how, sometime in the sixties, entire carloads of railway passengers were told in mid-journey that passenger service had been discontinued, and they’d have to get out at the next stop and fend for themselves. The future for trains was strictly freight, no matter how much people liked using them.
I love road trips — but they aren’t really road trips unless you get off those pale interstates and explore. If they’re only by way of the major highways they are mere exercises in getting from point A to point Z using what feels like a long, white concrete tunnel with much the same view no matter what state or region you pass through.
Pam Troy 