COMING OF AGE - Historic Rt 66

It was that time of my life when I was searching and wandering looking for something, what it was I don’t know. Even to this day when I’m old and grey I think about those days, I smile a little, I cry a little, I even wish I could relive them a little, just for a little while. But I can write about them and remember.

After JFK was shot and before Bobby was killed there was a time around 1965 when our innocence turned from “Leave it to Beaver” to “Route 66”, from “Father Knows Best” to “Have Gun ‘Will Travel”. We became the children of the 60’s. The first time I went to California me and some friends drove from Detroit to Los Angeles down the old Route 66. I-40 was just being staged and the interstates were not yet in existence.

The time was right the weather was good and we were young. We headed out I-94 from Detroit to Chicago where we picked up US-66 then all we had to do was follow the Lyrics of the Rolling Stones 1964 version of “Get Your Kicks On Route 66”. St. Louis, Joplin, Oklahoma City looks oh so pretty, Amarillo, and Gallup New Mexico, Flagstaff Arizona don’t forget Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino, it was an easy drive of about 2800 miles to L.A.

We had to drive through every town and go through the main street. We saw America before it got lost in the mind numbing bands of super highways Where you stop at rest stops and not towns. Back in the 20’s and 30’s the road was meant to take you down main street so all the businesses would have a chance to get that extra business that was starting to grow from the travelers. And it was a great convenience for the travelers for lunch and diner and all the many needs that crop up while on the road.

We were Jack Kerouac and the Merry Pranksters of our day, we were “on the road”. Each city or town was completely new for all of us we were hungry for new experiences and new people and new scenery. Once we crossed the Mississippi we were out west, the land of Coors beer. Being city boys we looked a lot different from the locals at that time in Oklahoma and Texas, you know long hair and facial hair. When we got to Amarillo we stopped for gas and wanted to get a drink of water from the water fountain provided for the customers out front. Going for a drink I was told that the water for “you boys” is out back. In the Back of the station was a remnant of segregation a fountain with a sign over it that said “coloreds” a real shock for a 1960’s northern “boy”. I realized what it was to be discriminated against! That had never happened to me before. Also in Amarillo was the 72oz steak restaurant where you could get it free if you could finish it. But after the water fountain event we decided that Texas did not look kindly on northerners and even though I knew I could eat that steak it might not be a wise thing to do, so we headed out.

We were really in the west now, Indians and teepees, red rocks and mountains! In the Midwest there are no mountains. The wide open spaces, cacti, desert, cattle & cowboys, all new all exiting. We’d all come to look for America, we’d found a few of its many faces.

Driving from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon lo and behold there were two guys hitch hiking that looked awful familiar. Two of our school friends 2000 miles from home ran into us and we continued on to their campsite in the Canyon and proceeded to L.A. together.

I think the most impressive things we saw on our journey were the mountains and the Grand Canyon. These sights don’t exist east of the Mississippi only in films and photos. The wonders of nature seems to overshadow all else. We had not just crossed the country we had crossed the line between our old lives and our new and different ones that were just beginning. After all this was the revolution of the 60’s, the end of the old Route US 66 and the new Interstate 40, for better or worse we went headlong into it.

Now some 46 years later I look back and yearn for that time again. Those times of unspoiled innocence and fresh new ideas. The foolishness of youth and the guts to do things we can only imagine now. That was the beginning of the rest of our lives. Now our lives are disjointed like the old Route 66, broken into pieces that really don’t connect anymore but we still have the memories. Those glorious memories. My twenty year old daughter once said to me after a few old stories “Dad, I wish I had been born in your generation, so much happened!” …. Yes, I remember.