Robert Preston’s America
America is a beautiful thing…
I’m in Clinton, Iowa headed for southern Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and any place else the front tire decides it wants to take me.
Interesting time to be riding into the Bible Belt. The threats and vitriol across the media are things to behold.
Yesterday, 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 (Robert Preston’s America, I didn’t see even one pool hall, no doubt the school bands are great).
I chatted with Peggy, she works at the tourist center in aptly-named Preston Minnesota (trout capital of the state) where she hands out brochures and maps to fisherpeople and motorcyclists. Her parents got married, had three kids, got divorced, got remarried, had two more kids, then got divorced again. Her father was a logger, a carpenter and a farm hand. He remarried after the second divorce and she liked her stepmother. Now divorced herself, Peggy never beat her two kids although her father beat her brother badly when they were growing up and he grew up to be violent and a bully. Her politics are different than mine, you pick that up in the silences, and we didn’t talk about it. She declined when I asked to take her picture.
Bill was smoking a cigarette leaning on the hood of his pickup when I parked in front of my room at the Timbers Motel. He’s a pipe fitter from Houston and missing his lower front teeth. He works on industrial projects across the south. His truck was gone at 6:00 this morning when I walked across the parking lot to Burger King for a cup of coffee.