I will call him Barry, despite his real name actually being Barry.
At crack of dawn, Barry parks his pick-up truck in our driveway and then decamps to the nearby woods. There he sits in a blind that he had constructed last summer. He waits for his prey of choice, which is deer, which he hopes to shoot with a crossbow. Barry has been repeating this activity day after day, typically all morning and into the afternoon, for the past six weeks. Has he bagged a deer yet? We think the answer is no. He would have shared such news.
Most days we don’t see Barry himself, just the truck, which is a mud-gray Nissan Frontier. When we do see Barry, he is dressed in camo. We have an expansive driveway; his visits are not a problem. And the woods are spacious enough.
My wife knows Barry from the local agricultural community. He often gives us fresh vegetables in exchange for used wood shavings from our chicken coop, which he uses for fertilizer. Barry is a retired carpenter; he lives with his wife. Perhaps hunting is his way to get out of the house.
Alas, I cannot keep writing about Barry. I neither know nor can imagine much more about him. Egotistical so-and-so that I am, this essay is going to be mostly about myself. I just got back home from a road trip that I want to write about.
I have always framed my life story in terms of journeys, which is limiting, because so many journeys are artificial. Or so I think.
This recent trip began in my living room, where my wife and I agreed on a specific new car to purchase—a Dodge Hornet Plug-in Hybrid, thank you very much—for sale by Avis, the rentacar people, in Pompano Beach, Florida. I spend the next few days going places, first to the Providence airport, then Jet Blue to Florida and the car dealership, and then the long drive northward on the Interstate Highway System and various auxiliaries, like the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut.* I enjoyed the trip, I have a few stories to tell from it, but now I am ensconced in the same living room where it all began. Apart from acquiring the new car, I might have gained more personal benefit from spending four days in the woods with a crossbow, watching for non-existent deer and being one with woodsy nature instead of modern technology.
Over phone and email my wife and I had been dealing with an Avis salesman named Horace, as I shall name him. On my arrival, Horace greets me like a lost relative. He looks about 30 years old, with slicked black hair and a body that has seen the inside of a gymnasium.
“Want anything to drink? We’ve got coffee, bottled water…” He lets that trail. Was he worried that I’d ask for a Coke, or a cocktail?
“Water’s great. Thanks.”
I am not a frequent patron of car dealerships, so I am not wise in their ways. I had thought that, after inspecting the vehicle and the test drive, I would hand over the money, sign some papers, and be out the door. But no, Horace has various hoops for me to jump through, including verification of insurance and a few pitches for upsells I don’t want, plus a lot of small talk. He peppers me with get-to-know-you questions, and before too long (because I’m in an agreeable mood) I’m telling him about educational publishing, ski resorts, dinner plans, baseball stadiums, my route back home, etc. etc. Horace is eager to hear it all and responds in kind. He claims he studied from Miller/Levine Biology, but probably not an edition I edited. He’s visited Camden Yards in his hometown of Baltimore but is upset about renovations that spoiled the sightlines. He and his family just love it down here in Florida, and he says now is the time to invest in real estate in Pompano Beach.
Why are we having this conversation? I don’t know. I already have agreed to buy the car, and the numbers on the bank check in my hand will not magically increase. Maybe Horace is starved for company. I appear to be the only customer today.
After I comment on a mini-golf set-up, Horace says that if I sink the putt he’ll give me 20 dollars. The model fairway isn’t easy, with an approach that’s long and thin, and then a small hill up to the hole. Nine times out of ten, I’m not making this putt. But for whatever reason, I do. Horace is beside himself. He reaches into his wallet to find no twenty-dollar bills, so he delivers the payout to my wife’s account on Venmo.
My one last duty is to open a confetti cannon. Horace prompts me to show excitement as he takes a cell-phone movie. With a twist and a pop, out shoot tiny pretend hundred-dollar bills.
“You’re just loving your new Dodge, am I right?!” asks Horace.
“You sure are!” and I give him a happy fist bump.
Finally, I drive away in my new car. It’s really a newly-purchased used car, but it’s as close to new as I’ve come in my many years of vehicle-purchasing.
I notice the check-engine light is lit on the dashboard. But I’m not going back to complain about it.
—
At first, my wife was adamant about avoiding states with oppressive, mean-spirited governments—the “red states”, in modern jargon—but she listened to my arguments against this approach. My reasons are 1) these places are home to plenty of liberal and good-hearted people who deserve our support, and 2) the proper strategy is to patronize progressive businesses, wherever they are, and avoid the nasty ones as much as possible.
So, to her and myself, I vowed to stay true to my words on this trip. The vow includes avoiding chain restaurants, including Starbucks.
In Pompano, after some research, I find Foxtail Coffee, which claims to purchase “ethically sourced beans” and sponsors a program called Coffee for a Cause, which supports community projects. I purchase a bag to take home and a cup for the drive. The coffee proves quite tasty.
In St. Augustine, I visit the Liberal Crunchy Farmers’ Market. That’s not its name, but it certainly could be. I can feel the good vibes seeping out the line-up of products, which include essential oils, handmade soaps, CBD gummies, and at one booth only, fresh fruits and vegetables. I buy a jar of locally-harvested honey.
In Jacksonville, I stop at MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art, housed in a four-story building downtown. It’s Sunday, so free parking is available on the street. On exhibit are mostly local artists, including lots of teenagers and college students. The art is inspiring. My favorite is a painting of cows grazing on a strip of grass by a freeway gas station. In the background are various billboards and other signs of urbanity. I’m not sure what message it communicates, but the message reaches me all the same.
Of course, I am still buying gasoline. The car battery has a range of about 30 miles, making it useful for taking the boy to and from school, but not for road trips like this one. Every gasoline purchase is a violation of my oath to support causes I believe in, but that’s a topic for another essay. I’m enjoying myself too much.
The Dodge Hornet, 2024 edition, is a wonderful car that few people seem to know about or recognize. The design has an Italian influence, thanks to Alfa Romeo, and it shows on the dashboard—lots of white dials with red highlights, and bright white numbers that display the speed. The seat meets my back and rear end in ways that suggest the it was designed for me personally. The engine is silent when it starts or idles, and then revs up effortlessly when so commanded. I know that I’m driving on I-95, but I feel like Mario Andretti.
The interface on the computer screen is logical but new to me, and I spend my free time figuring out a thing or two. Eventually I direct it to hack into my phone, allowing me to listen to Pandora stations and look at highway maps as I drive. But some glitches arise.
Ring, ring. A call is arriving from my brother Peter. I answer it.
“Hello, Peter,” I say. “Greetings from my new car!”
Conversation continues. Eventually, I ask Peter why he called me.
“Um, I didn’t,” he says. “You called me, didn’t you?”
Uh, well, not intentionally. Maybe the Hornet decided I needed to boast about my purchase, and it selected Peter as the recipient. Hey, good choice!
In Greensboro, North Carolina, I pull into the local Dodge dealership to have the check-engine light addressed. The man there is extremely nice and helpful. They’re booked, but have an opening at 11 AM. Would I like a complementary Lyft ride to someplace in the neighborhood? They have free wifi and coffee, so I camp out in the waiting room. I do my publishing work while only minimally disturbed from the television, its volume on low.
By noon or so, the tech has resolved the problem.** Something to do with the electric charger that I’m not using yet, plus the headlight has moisture trapped inside that is causing no real problems but should be replaced. He doesn’t have the part, but it can wait till I get home. No payment required; everything is under warranty.
As I drive away, I note the absence of the check-engine light. Woo-hoo!
The previous evening, around the dinner hour, I exit the freeway and drive through the town of Walterboro, South Carolina. The town looks like nowhere on the map, so I’m surprised at how much it has to offer: a nature preserve, an active downtown, several local restaurants. I choose an establishment called “Fish and Wings”, in part because it appears casual and in part because the name assures me of the menu.
For the next half hour, I enjoy both my food (fried catfish and cole slaw) and the company. The staff and patrons are black and white, young and old, and seemingly on good terms with one another.
“Hey Vera,” says one of the customers, a heavy-set woman wearing a jacket that advertises a hospital. “How come you haven’t set the clock back yet?”
“Oh, I’ll get to it,” says Vera from behind the counter.
“You got the clocks right at St. Vincent?” I ask her.
“Darned right we do,” she says.
“I ain’t no hospital,” says Vera.
The conversation continues. I am enjoying my fried catfish, a dish not common in New England.
I think there’s hope for America.
—
For my concluding paragraphs, I will be relating my travel experiences to those of Barry the Hunter, a character whom I do not want to slight or forget. I am worried that my points will be pretentious, one of the worst judgments that writing may suffer. So here goes nuttin’.
I have never hunted a wild animal on land, but I have gone fishing, which I have always enjoyed. It’s wonderful to sit in a boat with rod and reel in hand, watching the water in front of you, waiting for the big moment when a fish takes the bait and you reel it in. Nevertheless, I can’t imagine fishing for hours on end, day after day, for weeks on end. Even my most dedicated fishing trips have included a shoreline lunch, sometimes at a nice restaurant.
But driving a vehicle down the highway, especially through the relative calm and emptiness of rural America–it’s a contemplative experience that I have embraced. Yes, you’re moving, but not in relationship to the car around you, and the rural countryside and freeway signage are repetitive enough to suggest a certain stillness.
What did I contemplate on my recent trip? It’s difficult to remember, and even more difficult to write about. But it’s a pleasure–an absolute pleasure–to immerse oneself in an experience that has nothing to do with earning money, managing one’s household, or fuming over national politics and other disgraces. Just a spankin’ great car, a well-kept roadbed, and many miles ahead. Until we get home, which is where ultimately we need to be.
I pulled into the driveway around midnight. The dog barked from upstairs, and my wife came down to greet me. She was very pleased, I think mostly with the Hornet, but maybe a bit with me as well.
* For the unaware, the Merritt Parkway is a freeway through southeast Connecticut, popular among commuters to and from Manhattan. I’m not sure how it qualifies as a park, but the roadside is lined with trees and commercialism is kept to a minimum. The main advantage of the Merritt (along with its good friend, the Hutchinson River Parkway in New York) is that trucks are prohibited. Nevertheless, all roadways in the northeast are prone to excess traffic and delays. Comes with the territory.
I’ve often stopped at the Stamford exit for a bite to eat or a cup of coffee. But this time, I whizzed right by, with barely a wave of my hand to any unaware observers. If that makes any sense. Which it doesn’t.
**Car guys are not mechanics anymore; they’re technicians. Fine with me.
