Lincoln Highwayman

When my computer up and crashed I lost all of the Lincoln Highway photos that I had on the hard drive. Fortunately, I’d uploaded a goodly number to a site called dropbox. You see, my cousin had volunteered to make a video of my trip. I figured that using Dropbox was a good way to let him access them.Well it turned out that he had trouble downloading them from Dropbox. No matter, I was able to get them downloaded and delivered to him while I was in New York a few weeks ago. I have photos of the twelve states I passed through.  I don’t have all the photos I took of the California Coast, though.  :(

When I get a chance,  I may post a few of the photos I took and never shared on the blog before.

I’m also at work on an article about my trip, although I don’t know yet what form it will take- ’cause I tend to figure things out through the doing of them.

Funny how things that don’t work out sometimes work out in an altogether different way. Driving home through the southwest after my Lincoln Highway trip was over and done with I stopped off at a convenience store in Tucson.  I was intending to meet up with John Rueckert, a follower of this blog, whom I’ve known for years. John ended up missing me somehow and because he had a business appointment he called to apologize and continued on his way.

Well, I didn’t meet up with John.  While I would’ve liked to have seen him things worked out okay because I instead  made the acquaintance of a couple named Paul and Marcia who were American expatriates living in rural Mexico. Paul was an executive at General Motors when one day he decided he’d had enough.

Paul told me how he’d spent all his money but he had no regrets about it. We talked about Henry David Thoreau, about rural Mexico, about how Paul was happy driving a twenty something year old Chevy Blazer.

Paul and Marcia were kind enough to invite me down to their home in Mexico.  I am reminded of this, because a few weeks ago Marcia renewed the invitation.

Who knows but maybe I’ll make it down there one day.

Or moe accurately the outline for my Lincoln Highway book.

Now that I’m finally back at work on the Lincoln Highway book. My desk is piled with sheets of white paper representing a baker’s dozen’s worth of false starts and I’m trying to find my way again back to the right road.

On the wall in front of me, I’ve got an outline with a gazillion and one sticky notes. I’ve never had much luck with outlines. If I make them at all, I usually end up throwing them out. Since this is non-fiction I figured this would be different. We’ll see, I guess.

My friend, the writer Gwen Mintz, told me once that she needed to know the end of a story before she could write the beginning.

I don’t think I’ve ever written a story before where I knew for sure what the ending was. I usually have a vague idea, but that’s about it.

In the past I’ve heeded the novelists E.L. Doctorow’s advice that it was like driving at night in the fog: “You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way,” Doctorow said.

Back when I was on The Lincoln Highway, passing through Bourbon, Indiana on the 1928 Route, I ran into a fellow who handed me a business card that read: “All who wander are not lost.” The quote comes from J.R.R. Tolkien. I know ’cause I looked it up.

When I met this man I was heading East on the 1928 Route because I’d run smack clear into a bridge that was out for repair. I took that as a sign to do a bit of backtracking and I connected with the 1913 Route that’s a lot more serpentine.

Later on, in Merrillville, Indiana I fell into conversation with two women whom I met at a Dunkin’ Donuts. They told me I was in Medicine Land, where the local Indians would spill no blood, and they gave me directions to the local section of the Lincoln Highway in Schererville.

Sometimes, you gotta go backward to go forward.

Now I’m off to make my way through the fog. If only I can find where the road begins, I figure I’ll be okay.