I turned 41 ½ today. What? You think I’m too old to count half-birthdays? I’ll be the judge of that. My grandmother used to say she was 39 years old – and she kept saying it until she was in her late 80s. She figured 39 was a nice pleasant age. Besides, age is a state of mind.
Regarding states, though, I’ve actually been stuck at 49 for quite some time. I’ve visited each of the Lower 48 at least two or three times, some of them much more often. And I spent a memorable spring break week in Hawaii half a lifetime ago. So, of course, that leaves Alaska, which is tops on my to-do list. An RV journey there is supposed to be spectacular. I just have to find the time.
Still, 49 states… most of them several times. That’s not too shabby. You would think I’d seen just about all there is to see. But I haven’t even come close. The stuff I haven’t seen still far outnumbers the stuff I have.
To illustrate what I mean, I’ll pick a single state as an example. Let’s consider Texas:
I’ve explored Space Center Houston. I’ve toured the Alamo and strolled along the Riverwalk in San Antonio. I’ve visited the infamous Texas School Book Depository in Dallas (now sight of the Sixth Floor Museum, dedicated to the life and death of JFK). I’ve seen the Ballpark in Arlington. I’ve explored the Texas Hill Country. I’ve cruised through Austin, Amarillo and Abilene. I’ve been to Odessa and El Paso and Waco. I’ve stopped in towns named Fort Stockton and Kerrville and Comfort.
But here’s what I haven’t done:
I haven’t explored Wichita Falls or Lubbock or Galveston or Corpus Christi. I haven’t been to Paris, Texas. I haven’t seen Big Bend National Park or Guadalupe Mountains National Park or Galveston Bay or South Padre Island or Odessa Meteor Crater or the Caverns of Sonora.
I haven’t visited the Cadillac Ranch outside of Amarillo or Texas Motor Speedway outside of Fort Worth or the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. In Waco, I didn’t get to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. In San Antonio, I didn’t make it to SeaWorld . I haven’t explored the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum in Houston or the El Paso Holocaust Museum or the Museum of the Gulf Coast in Port Arthur.
My point is this: You never run out of places to visit – ever, anywhere in America. I could easily have made the same claim by focusing on Oregon or Virginia or South Dakota. So while I may have literally reached the place that you see in the photo below (in southern California), I’ll never really get there.
Posted: February 25, 2010 3:07 PM | Posted By:
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A few months ago, I wrote about the dozen or so people out there roaming around with the exact same first and last name as mine. I related it to towns that share a name and discussed how places that sound similar can offer completely distinct experiences.
Certainly, you can’t judge something by name alone. Again, to return to my narcissistic tendencies, consider my first name. Maybe it’s just my paranoia, but it seems like every time I turn on some B movie, the unlikeable character (i.e. the jerk bully or ex-boyfriend) is always named Brad. Seriously, it’s uncanny.
I don’t want some B-movie buffoon named after me. I want a town.
I know what you’re thinking. What arrogance! Who does he think he is? But that’s just it. There are a great many American communities named after relative nobodies. In fact, if you’re too well-known, you’re probably out of luck.
As far as I know, there isn’t a single town named after, say, John Quincy Adams or Alexander Graham Bell. But William Epperson Justice? Yep. I’ve been to Justice, West Virginia (it happens to be populated primarily by direct descendants of the infamous Hatfields and McCoys). What did ol’ Epp Justice do? Well, he simply cleared out some land in an Appalachian hollow.
All you really have to do to lend your name to a town is be in the right place at the right time.
The Texas community of Ben Arnold was named after a three-year-old who traveled on the first train to arrive in town. Another community in Houston County (Abe, Texas) was named after an early postmaster. In California, there is town called Lee Vining. It turns out that Lee was a rather unlucky fellow who bled to death in Nevada when he accidentally shot himself in the groin. Really, I’m not making that up.
I mean, if that’s all it takes, my name could grace a bunch of places. How about that curve along Georgia’s Chattahoochee River where I tipped my canoe moments after shoving off. Or how about that section of rural New York where my misplaced wallet eventually fell off the top of my car. Or maybe that stretch of country road in Oregon where I accidentally started driving with the RV’s slideout extended.
Brad, Oregon. I like the sound of it.
There are hundreds of similar examples out there – from Arnold (Minnesota) to Zachary (Louisiana). Okay, sure. It’s not easy to get your name on a town these days – what with the demise of the American frontier and all. But think of the lasting glory. How many hundreds of millions of Americans have existed? And the names of only a tiny percentage grace the most basic element of U.S. civilization. So think about that the next time you snicker through Ralph, Arkansas.
Meanwhile, I continue to be flummoxed by pop culture’s disdain for my name. Now, even my mother-in-law is in on it. Each December, she gives us a themed calendar to hang in our kitchen. A couple of years ago, the theme was The Hobbit. Last year, it was a calendar about the world’s magnificent castles.
This year? Modern art. And here’s what I found in April:
Posted: January 25, 2010 9:03 PM | Posted By:
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We are the United States of Media Markets.
One of the things I enjoy while RVing across America is the opportunity to enjoy the local news. Watching a local newscast can provide insight into the interests, scope and sensibility of an area, but it also reveals something even more basic – like the name of the area itself. Travel enough (and watch enough TV along the way), and you discover that America can be divided into dozens of regional designations.
I’m not talking about the Rust Belt or the Bible Belt or New England or the Rockies or the Heartland. I’m talking about mini-regions, each trumpeted by TV news promos in an effort to reckon their viewing market:
“Your choice for news in the Borderlands!”
Or… “Kentuckiana’s number one news team!”
Kentuckiana is a good example of the combo method of self-designation. Louisville, right on the border of Indiana, is the major market there. But there are plenty more like that. Shreveport, for example, is situated close to where Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas meet, so they refer to the region as Ark-La-Tex. Where the sparsely-populated corners of Idaho, Oregon and Nevada come together, it’s I.O.N. Country. That slice of land dangling into the Atlantic Ocean, just below Delaware is the Delmarva (Delaware-Maryland-Virginia) Peninsula. Sometimes there are too many states involved, making the combo method impossible. For instance, the corners of Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas comprise the Four States area (which is not to be confused with the meeting of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico – the Four Corners area).
Often, these media market designations are simply informational. The Albany-Schenectady area is the Capital Region. El Paso is the focus of the Borderlands. San Francisco dominates the Bay Area. But I like the ones that have a bit of a metaphorical tint to them. For instance, although my section of seaside California is known simply as the Central Coast, Florida’s central coast is called the Treasure Coast. The twenty-two-county area around Abilene, Texas, is Big Country. San Jose is the epicenter of California’s Silicon Valley. South Dakota consists of Kota Territory (west) and the Sioux Empire (east). Norfolk, Newport and Virginia Beach constitute Hampton Roads.
So I’m tempted to print and sell a map dividing the country into these media markets – entities like the Hill Country (Texas), the Bluegrass (Kentucky), the Ozarks (Missouri-Arkansas), and the North Woods (northern Minnesota and Wisconsin). Then again, folks have enough trouble remembering the 50 states…
Here’s a photo of me waiting to do a TV interview in Casper, Wyoming, which (best I can tell) is part of an area known as… Wyoming:
Posted: January 15, 2010 9:38 PM | Posted By:
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