I wander America on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, sleep on couches and in fifty-dollar motel rooms, eat at Waffle House and Main Street cafes, and have conversations with people whose politics I might not agree with. These are our stories.
The Robe Shop
I grew up in Del Mar, California, a little beach town just north of San Diego. I was born in 1956 and so was just gaining consciousness in the late sixties, early seventies. The Monkees are on my sound track.
Jimmy Beam
As a young man just out of high school, I rode my thumb across this country. That was 1974.
American Motorcyclist
Bessie Stringfield, a Black woman born in Jamaica in 1911 (or North Carolina in 1912, depending on your source), made repeated solo motorcycle trips across the continental United States.
Broken Michael
Michael went to jail for the first time when he was fourteen. Since then, he’s spent almost five years in detention or jail. The girl he had a crush on when he was a freshman in high school was shot in the face with a shotgun at a house party.
Shattered Patella
Monday, Jane fell and broke her right patella and right arm and I’m home in Minneapolis (for those who don’t know me personally, Jane’s my wonderful wife of 29 years).
Ever Wild
The hair, the tie dye, the dirt and dust, the incense and pot smoke, the tents and sleeping bags, the costumes and clothes (and lack of clothes), the music, the energy, the raw sensuality; it was 1973 and I was just seventeen.
Cody, Justin and Cole Porter
Cole Porter is from Peru, Indiana. Apparently the town is reluctant to celebrate its most notable son because he was gay.
Robert Preston’s America
Southeastern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa were as charismatic as ever, tall corn lapping against pretty farm buildings, rolling hills and gently winding roads with little traffic, well-tended towns with kids in shorts celebrating their last days of freedom, the skies blue and the weather not too hot.
Apologies
Ursula’s a born-again Christian and has those insufferable beliefs. But why wouldn’t she? The Christian right has aggressively courted her and we don’t even talk to her…
Subscribe