WEEK 1 - 1% of a 99% True Story

The only way to catch up on my blog is to nutshell this mug, so, here goes, jibberish from my journey in no particular order...

There is corn in every direction, and huge green trees beyond the corn. A cell tower and a bridge make there way beside Blondie and I, and leave soon thereafter. 'Blondie' is my kickass black Ford. I'm heading through Ohio looking at everything but the road. Hi Toledo, bye Toledo. Hi Lake Erie. You really are eerie; dark and calm and fearless. I eat my lunch on the black sunny shore aside a giant solar powered windmill which spins in silence. It's as tall as a redwood, and seems to be an old friend from another life. I know I will never forget this moment so long as I live. On deck, Cleveland; The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is sadly lame, but street dogs dressed in yellow kraut and purple onions rock like Eddie Van Halen 1984! (Side note: Dude! when I'm doing something wrong tell me I'm doing something wrong! Don't put me to sleep like it's the last two minutes of fucking yoga. This shit is serious! I'm referring to the sound my car makes when you mistakenly leave the headlights on. It sounds like a fucking soft breeze raining feathers, and I don't even realize what's going on! C'mon Ford! Think annoyingly obnoxious when you want to get someone's attention.) Roadside corn $2.50, organic zukes $1, handful of cherries "FREE". I consider stopping to ask what the F a zuke is, but then I remember I'm a world traveler and that shit ain't cool. I look it up on my Blackberry and find out it's a God damn dog biscuit. I then consider going back to again ask what the F a zuke is. I'm briefly in Erie, PA where I pass a family standing beneath an old white dirty porch, holding hands and saying a prayer. I wonder for a second if their dog is praying for a zuke. Down the road, or somewhere behind me is the town of Verona, the city of Cezenovia, Chittenango, Morrisville, DeRyter, and about 423 towns ending in 'ville, my personal favorite being painesville, which I dodged. I stare at the rusted barbed wire that's fencing off a herd of cows for about a mile, and then remember to look back at the road. I do this same thing through the entire state of New Hampshire. I see an old truck kicking up a trail of dust on a dirt road beside my back road and I wonder if my Grandfather (who I never met) would be proud of me. I've heard many times that he and I were similar. I think he would hi-fucking-five me, bear hug me, scruff my hair, and tell me, "Well done m'boy! Well done!" ....swamp land. Montezuma Wildlife Refuge. The site of old Eerie Canal Loch. A road that takes me through peaks and valleys, and to a beautiful lake in NY called Skaneateles (pronounced SkinnyAtlas). A cow. Another cow. A group of cows laying down. Cows drinking from a trough. Black cows. White cows. Black and white cows. Brown cows. Calico cows. A cheeseburger in Woodstock.

Quite possibly the highlight thus far was a three minute conversation I had with a 6 y.o. girl on the back roads of NY, a girl who I'm sure to marry in another 20 years or so. I pulled off in Morrisville to take a picture of an old sign that read Morrissville Motor Lodge, which was a business that looked to fix tractors and heavy machinery. Before I could take the photo, a scrubby little muppet of a person appeared right at my window and took up the entire frame. She was maybe 7 years old, and began talking before I even saw her. "Are you lookin' for my Grandpa? He's in the office. My Dad's out hunting, he won't be back for a while, what are you doing here, why is your camera blue, I have a dog, look at my scabs, are you funny......and on, and on, and on.....why is there a window on your roof, it might rain tomorrow,....." about 3 minutes later she finally ran out of breath and tackled said dog, again asking, "what are you doing here," I returned with, "I'm taking a picture of your Grandfather's sign." She politely moved aside and let me take my photo. She was barefoot and covered in matted band-aids, her hands and feet looked like she bathed in earth and oil, and she wore striped colorful pants that were left in the dryer too long, and a colorful girls shirt that did nothing but add to her tomboyishness. She had scraggly thin blond hair, and inquisitive beady black eyes, and wanted nothing more than the answers to every last thing known to mankind. Our meeting was very brief and it actually broke my heart that I could not stay and talk to her. I was sadly a strange man who pulled off the road to take a picture, and she was a young child alone in the front field, yes, this was tragic. In my world I would have spent the afternoon there telling her about ships and dark seas, planes and stars, lands as hot as apple pie and people who live among ice, far beyond the life of her Grandfather's shop. That said, I know this type of person, and I take comfort in having no doubt the day will come when she gets beyond the roads of Morrissville, and beyond the state of New York, and beyond the ocean of the Atlantic, a million miles from her childhood field, which will remain in her mind more vividly than anything else she will ever know. She is from the world, not Morrissville, and soon enough she will figure that out.

Pay toll 1 dollar. The Seneca river. No U turns, although I've made about 100. Moss and rust. Fresh fudge one mile. Iced coffee between my legs. Railroad tracks. Houses lean in every direction. Pink baby pool. Weedsport Rural Cemetary. Boys drive lawnmowers. Everybody drives lawn mowers. I dive over the west river, waive hello to a state trooper (we are both on our cell phones), Whitehaven road waives goodbye, so does a windmill. Fantasy Island Summer Park. Cat tails and muck, purplpe flowers, blue bridge, rainbow bridge, pay toll 1 dollar, Coca-Cola factory, half of a barn, black squirrels (that's new). Pulled over outside of Amherst, laid on the grass and thought about life. Colorful yellow and red insects rain on my windshield. Hey look!, a deer! Pay toll fifteen cents. At Dunkin Donuts an employee sees the photo of my Father in my wallet and says we look alike, and "That's God's gift", I agree, but I'm talking about donuts. Because I'm a tweaking fiend I do the worst most degrading act imaginable about 3 hours later, "Umm, excuse me, can you tell me if there's a Starbucks around here?" Corn. Silos. A big rig says Doritos. Next service 29 miles. Entering Ashtabula county. There is a hallway of flickering trees as far as the eye can see, my windows are down, the sunroof is open, there are 3 clouds and NWA's Straight Outta Compton is blazing beyond my car for a hundred miles. I think the wildlife appreciates me. Tall grass rolls beside me like my hand in the wind. There are wildflowers shaking and they look happy to be alive, as I pass a sign directing me to Chautauqua Lake. Buffalo is "An All American City." Niagara Falls clears my mind of everything, and I stare at it until dark. I wake up the following morning a little depressed, but I can't figure out why? I pull over somewhere, not even sure what state I'm in, and lay on the hood of my hot black Trans Am, maybe it's a Ford Focus, I can't remember. I can remember a Chuck Klosterman quote from Killing Yourself To Live that went something like this; "Life would improve if I crashed into a caribou." I begin laughing, my laugh grows, I feel like I might cry, not sure if it's from happiness or sadness, which ultimately are exactly the same once you add time, and the jury is in, I am once again happy, alone, smiling at the world. I get back into Blondie, turn the volume up a good two twists past the maximum, and sing Kings of Leon at the top of my lungs as my hot black Trans Am burns out onto the blacktop of America.

Lastly, about an hour ago I ordered an iced coffee in a cafe in Portland, Maine, where I planned to write this blog entry. Once I sat down here and began writing, I thought of something new, but there's no sense in overriding Darwin on this one....to be continued.

This sums up, in a nutshell, about 1% of my past week.